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When he was young, his sister—before the blood, the screams, the death—had promised him that, should he find his soulmate, whoever they were, they would be kind. “If they’re meant for you, Giyuu,” she had said, hands lost in the laundry tub, “then they will be. You attract kindness. You are kind.”
Tsutako had explained to him, when her words had first appeared, the concept of a soulmate. Of two people so perfect for each other that they were branded with the first words they said to one another. She told him that there was a soulmate waiting for him out there; that the first words they said to him would burn themselves into his skin, forever imprinted there: a mark, a brand, proof that they were meant to be.
The words that wrap themselves around his right calf are not kind. They had been spat at him with heat and venom and even now, hours after the incident, Giyuu can feel animosity radiating from them.
If Shinazugawa Sanemi is anything, it is not kind. Neither are the words, “The fuck are you looking at, Water Boy?” permanently embedded on Giyuu’s skin, a stark reminder of their initial meeting—Shinazugawa’s introduction to all of the Hashira’s as the new Wind Hashira.
Giyuu had not been impressed. He’s even less impressed now that he knows he and Sanemi are bound together by some unknown hand in the universe.
When Tsutako had told him about soulmates, she had gushed about love. Happiness. Kindness. Giyuu wonders idly if there is such a thing as soulmates bound by hate, because he thinks that might be what he and Shinazugawa are meant to be, given the idea percolating in the back of his mind.
With only the noise of rustling clothing filling the room, he covers his calf back up.
He knows he has the upper hand in this soulmate situation: he hadn’t said anything back to Shinazugawa when the venom had been spewed, mask of indifference carefully on his face even as he felt the words carving themselves into his skin. The bond, such as it is, is incomplete. Shinazugawa is none the wiser concerning Giyuu’s . . . situation.
Giyuu’s already decided, by the time the fabric of his clothes has settled over the words, that if he has to live with the words Water Boy seared on his skin for the rest of his life, Shinazugawa is going to have to live with something equally horrific.
He already has a reputation as the Water Hashira as being reserved. It wasn’t hard to earn it, his innate disposition of distrust mixed with the trauma of the lifestyle they live making his reservation seem acceptable.
He just leans into a little more, whenever Shinazugawa is around, never opening his mouth, never offering up suggestions, never saying a word. He resigns himself to silence, mostly out of spite.
He knows Tsutako would be disappointed in him.
Kind, she had called him when he was a child. But that kindness had started to rot when she had died, and the rest of it withered away when he lived through the Final Selection and Sabito did not.
Sabito.
At one point, Giyuu had hoped his soulmate had been him. That they would speak to each other one day and the words would just appear—a delayed reaction, like the universe had forgotten about them and get around to pairing them up, eventually.
Giyuu has a firm belief that Sabito is exactly who it should have been. Sabito had been kind. They had understood each other, come from similar backgrounds, had similar interests and values.
Instead, the marks never showed up, Sabito had died a horrible, ugly death, and Giyuu was stuck with horrible, ugly words from a horrible, ugly person.
Shinobu notices, of course.
She seems to notice everything that goes on within the Hashira themselves, no matter how hard any of them try to hide anything. She has a nose for blackmail, even though she swears she minds her own business and ‘accidentally’ discovers things.
Not that Giyuu’s certain she can blackmail him with this; his bond is incomplete, the other end of it dangling into the ether of the universe until he says anything, no real proof anywhere that Shinazugawa Sanemi is truly the other half of his soul.
“Why are you not speaking around the new Wind Hashira?” she asks, drawing him aside after the end of the latest meeting. None of the other Hashira are near enough to interact, let alone hear.
Giyuu keeps his face blank, not even blinking, before he says, “I’m not sure what you mean.” There’s no way he can let anyone onto what he plans to do, the pound of flesh he’s going to extract eventually, or someone will surely try and stop him.
He can’t afford to have anyone stop him.
“Giyuu,” she says shortly, his name a cut off word in her voice. “He’s been with us two months and you haven’t said a single word to him. You’ve barely acknowledged him. I am aware you don’t want to be here, let alone be a proper Hashira, but you’ve never let that stop you from being semi-cordial with the others.”
To her credit, she doesn’t ask what sets Shinazugawa Sanemi apart from the others.
However, Giyuu gets the feeling that from the glint in her eyes, she might already know.
Six months to the day that Shinazugawa Sanemi has marked him forever, Ubuyashiki sends the two of them out after a demon. Not a suspected Lower Moon, or a suspected Upper Moon, just a demon that’s been causing a good deal of havoc out in the countryside that needs to be taken care of, quickly.
Giyuu says nothing, biting his tongue. He was given marching orders from his commander, and he isn’t about to defy them.
Shinazugawa, on the other hand, complains. Loudly.
“This is a waste of time,” he repeats for what must be the eighth time since they left. Giyuu knows he isn’t talking directly to him, because Shinazugawa hasn’t said a direct word to him since he left the words Water Boy on his skin all those months ago. “Of resources. We’re Hashira! We have better things to do than wander around in the countryside looking for a single demon. We should be going after Muzan, or one of the Moons at the very least.”
Giyuu doesn’t bother to wonder why his comrade is so comfortable ranting about his displeasure at their orders; he’d made his displeasure clear before they left, and he’d made his displeasure about several other things clear in other Hashira meetings. Not afraid to speak his mind, this one.
But Giyuu isn’t sure how much more of Shinazugawa’s refrains he can take before he breaks and opens his mouth and ruins his own plans.
“And of course, Ubuyashiki couldn’t send me with one of the good Hashira,” Shinazugawa continues, oblivious to Giyuu’s thoughts. “Fuck no. He had to send me with the mute one.”
Giyuu almost—almost—stumbles and Shinazugawa continues his rant.
Mute? he thinks. He thinks I’m mute? Which, he supposes, made a bit of sense when he put a bit of thought into it.
Well.
He can, of course, use this to his advantage. If Shinazugawa thought he was mute, there was no way he was going to try and make Giyuu talk to him.
Which means Giyuu has all the time in the world to come up with the worst, most horrific thing to sear into his skin.
There are several hitches to slaying the demon.
The first one is, though they may be out in the country, there is a rural village nearby that the demon seems to have chosen to be its nesting ground.
The second one is, it seems to like to use children as human shields.
The demon itself is humanoid in shape, though its limbs are far too long for its body, teeth too big for its mouth. It towers over Shinazugawa and Giyuu both, and though the limbs look too brittle to hold any real power behind them, each blow they avoid destroying parts of the village.
Unfortunate collateral.
Giyuu has never seen Shinazugawa fight; though he uses the Wind breathing technique, he fights like a demon himself, headlong and with no regard for his own safety. He does, however, save several of the children that the demon attempts to use for a shield, getting somewhat injured in the process.
And proceeds to get furious when Giyuu lands the finishing blow, severing the demon’s head from its shoulders.
The fury doesn’t last as long as Giyuu thought it would, however, especially once the children Shinazugawa saved rush him to thank him, causing the other Hashira to become somewhat flustered, as though he isn’t used to being thanked for his actions.
As he stands and watches, Giyuu notices that there’s more than just demon blood on Shinazugawa; he isn’t sure when the other man was hit, exactly, but he hasn’t complained about it yet.
Giyuu hadn’t been paying close attention to him in the heat of the battle, but there was only a handful of times when he could have been hit, and they all involved the children.
Perhaps, just maybe, Shinazugawa Sanemi isn’t as bad as Giyuu had been introduced to think.
Ubuyashiki pulls him off to the side for tea half a day after their return and debrief, where Sanemi, of course, had spoken the entire time and vastly underplayed Giyuu’s role in the whole ordeal. Of course, Giyuu doesn’t open his mouth to give himself more credit, not only because he doesn’t find it worth it, but also because the time just isn’t right.
Giyuu’s on his guard the moment he realizes he is the only Hashira that Ubuyashiki invited for tea this day, having never been alone with the Commander of the Corps. He hides his hesitancy under a fine layer of composure, raising his tea cup to his mouth and taking a delicate sip.
That’s the moment Ubuyashiki chooses to speak, stating, “I understand you’re mute now, Giyuu. Can you tell me when this happened?”
An oxymoron and a call out if he’s ever heard one; he sets his cup down with a gentle clink, only somewhat chastised, but doesn’t answer his commander because there is no good answer. Why waste breath on words that don’t matter?
After a beat, Ubuyashiki gives him a kind smile. “I understand your hesitancy to speak around others, especially when you haven’t known them for long. But I had hoped that six months would be enough. And when it wasn’t, I had hoped that the face of danger would tip you over the edge. I see now that it hasn’t. Please inform me why it wasn’t enough.”
“Because he’s a dick.”
To his credit, Ubuyashiki only huffs out a quiet breath that Giyuu thinks might be a laugh.
“Shinazugawa has his attitude quirks, certainly,” he cedes, hiding half a smile behind a sip of tea. “However, I do still need the two of you to work together. And that means talking to each other occasionally.”
“I can’t. It goes against my morals.”
An eyebrow rises, gentle, amused. There’s a speck of admonishment in Ubuyashiki’s voice when he says, “Giyuu.”
Giyuu chooses to chew on his tongue as he thinks for a moment. Ubuyashiki has a tongue like a cage; nothing passes from his mouth that passes his ears, unless it’s of dire importance. Life or death.
“We’re soulmates.”
The scars around the patriarch's eyes widen in surprise, but he tamps down on it quickly, as though he hadn’t meant to let his composure slip so much. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”
“He doesn’t know. He called me Water Boy.”
There is a reason Ubuyashiki is so respected: he puts what little information Giyuu gives him together in the blink of an eye.
“Oh,” his commander says, mouth curling into a smile. “I knew you were capable of anger, Giyuu, but I didn’t think you were capable of revenge.”
The thing is, Giyuu thinks a few weeks later as he still turns his private meeting with Ubuyashiki over in his mind, he doesn’t think he’s really out for revenge.
Not anymore, at least.
At this point, when he lets Shinazugawa know that the two of them are soulmates, he just wants to start out on even footing. And to him, that requires something just as bad as what’s on his skin going onto the other man’s.
But just because Giyuu isn’t willing to speak with him doesn’t mean they can’t be friends. Friendly? Friend-adjacent?
He can at least make an effort. What’s the worst that could happen?
Giyuu almost breaks several times in his quest to befriend Shinazugawa Sanemi.
They’re not among his proudest moments.
But they’re also not going to change his mind: if he has to live with his words, then Sanemi is going to live with something awful, even if Giyuu doesn’t truly mean it, in the end. Fair is fair, after all, and if they are well and truly soulmates, then Sanemi will understand the why of it all when Giyuu finally speaks up.
He just has to figure out what to say first, is all. It’s been eight months, and he still has no idea what he’s going to say when the time is right. Part of him wants a pre-calculated, well thought out barb. Another part of him tells him not to stress too much about it, because the right words will come to him at precisely the right time.
He’s never been too fond of the ‘whatever happens, happens’ approach to things.
But still: he tries to get closer to Sanemi, and Sanemi, it seems, couldn’t care less. It’s only with Kamado Tanjirou’s help that he makes it anywhere, and even then, his traitorous mouth wants to open of its own accord and betray every step of progress he’s made since day once.
He would rather not think about the Infinity Castle.
About Muzan.
About what happened, who they lost, and the stretch of his life that once yawned before him, suddenly seeming all that much shorter.
But in the darkness of the fight, among the death and the blood and the screams, there had been one single moment that made him cling to life, made him fight just a little harder. He had been weaponless, searching for something to defend himself with, when Sanemi had thrown him a lifeline.
Giyuu’s fingers hadn’t been cooperating well. Sanemi, bloody and battered, had aimed as well as he could, given the circumstances, with instructions that Giyuu, “not space out or you’ll get yourself killed.”
His grip on the nichirin blade had become steel, after that, but it didn’t change the fact that he had nearly dropped it when it had first come into his blood-slicked hands, more from the aim of the one throwing it than from environmental factors.
Giyuu knows, seconds after the blade is in his hands, exactly what he’s going to say to Sanemi if they both survive this.
He also knows that he’s going to regret everything if they don’t.
They lay him down, heavily bandaged and missing an arm, next to a next to a very bandaged, very bloody, very much alive Sanemi once the sun rises. Every inch of his body screams for the sweet release of death or, at the very least, a nap, but Giyuu’s not about to succumb to either urge just yet.
There’s unfinished business he has to attend to, nearly a year in the making.
Sanemi doesn’t turn to look at him as he sits, eyes focused on the purple-pink sky above him. The wounded and the dead are still being accounted for, but Giyuu is well aware of the loss of Genya. How hard it’s already hit Sanemi, and how much harder it’s going to hit once it well and truly sinks in.
Giyuu nudges one of what he hopes is a less bruised part of Sanemi’s nearest leg with his foot—the one that’s attached to his marked leg.
At the touch of his foot, Sanemi’s eyes lazily open and roll to the side, spotting Giyuu immediately. Sanemi reaches out and heavily lays his hand on whatever part of Giyuu he can reach, which happens to be his hip, and says, “Hey.”
And Giyuu—
Giyuu strikes.
“Your aim is shit.”
The hand on his hip, moments ago a comforting weight, turns into a claw as Sanemi digs his fingers in, body seizing up in shock and rage.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” Sanemi howls, nearly loud enough to wake the dead, struggling to lever himself into a sitting position at the same time, likely so he can fight Giyuu. “You—”
Giyuu keeps his face placid, but can’t help but notice the way his words are spreading themselves out on Sanemi’s rib cage, partially hidden under a mound of linen bandages. His chest warms at the sight.
“Lie back down or you’ll pop a stitch,” he orders the other remaining Hashira.
Sanemi looks like he’s going to kill him or die trying.
One of the Kakushi comes and sedates them both before he can do either.
It’s a week before he’s allowed to see Sanemi once they both wake from comas, months later, the healers of the Butterfly estate giving him stern rules about how much he’s supposed to heal, and how well they want Sanemi to be before Giyuu goes and spikes his blood pressure some more.
In the end, he sneaks out of his room and slips into Sanemi’s in the early hours of the morning, well before any of the Kakushi make their rounds.
Sanemi is already wide awake and frowning at the sight of him, only a little less worse for wear than when Giyuu saw him last.
“You had better have a great fucking explanation,” Sanemi snaps immediately at the sight of him.
“You called me Water Boy,” Giyuu says, making his way over to the chair next to the bed Sanemi occupies; he might be in slightly better shape than Sanemi, but that doesn't mean he can stand for too long on his own.
Sanemi glares at him the whole way, grinding his teeth as he thinks. “When?”
“When we first met.” Giyuu reaches down and pulls up the thin fabric of the clothing the Kakushi made him change into upon his arrival at the Estate, revealing his pale calf. Sanemi’s words there are vibrant yet, stark against the pale of his skin, a reminder that he lived. That he's going to live.
They both are.
Sanemi’s eyes trace the words that are embedded there, disbelief growing on his face. “No,” he says, once he’s read the words three times, “I didn’t—I wouldn’t—I would know. I would have felt something.” Then he narrows his eyes, looking up at Giyuu’s face. “You waited almost a year to say anything back to me because I called you Water Boy?”
He doesn’t speak, the answer clear enough to him on Sanemi’s skin.
Sanemi looks at him, calculating for a long stretch of time before he finally says, “Sounds like some shit I would have done, if I had the patience. Maybe we are made for each other.”