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It’s a beautiful day.
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and there haven’t been any catastrophes in the past week, which is a new record. The previous record was 13.2 hours.
It’s almost perfect.
Almost.
It would be perfect, if it weren’t for the fact that Oyakata-sama is late to a Hashira meeting.
Oyakata-sama is never late.
Not in rain or snow or even when Amane was hospitalized for a severe case of appendicitis and they all told him it was okay to reschedule, because Amane told him if he didn’t go to the meeting she was divorcing him and taking the kids. Not even that one time he somehow caught pneumonia, the flu, and bronchitis all at the same time and then got hit by a truck.
And it’s not like his health is an issue. At least, it shouldn’t be. The family curse that has plagued the Ubuyashikis for centuries has seemingly skipped over Oyakata-sama for some reason. So, unless it had suddenly made an appearance, that’s not an issue here.
So for him to be late? For him to be eight minutes late?
Every Hashira is tense.
Kyoujurou can feel it. It radiates off the others like heat off summer pavement, shimmering and oppressive. He has always been sensitive to the emotional states of those around him - it’s part of what makes him such an effective leader in the field, the ability to read his comrades and adjust accordingly - but right now he doesn’t need any special sensitivity. It’s obvious.
Giyuu is silent. This is not unusual. Giyuu is always silent, a man of so few words that Kyoujurou sometimes wonders if he’s secretly conserving them for some grand speech he plans to deliver on his deathbed. But this is a different kind of silence. This is the silence of a man who has gone so still that he might as well be a statue. His breathing is almost imperceptible. His eyes are fixed on a spot on the opposite wall. He hasn’t moved once in the past eight minutes, and Kyoujurou has been counting.
Shinobu is smiling. This is also not unusual. Shinobu is always smiling, her expression fixed in that pleasant, gentle curve that newcomers mistake for kindness and veterans recognize as the smile of someone who has fantasized about poisoning approximately ninety percent of the people she’s ever met. But there is a particular sharpness to it today. A certain edge. The kind of sharpness that means she is contemplating creative applications of her very potent poisons - applications that would make war criminals blush and seasoned torturers take notes.
Gyoumei is praying. Actually praying, not just mumbling the way he sometimes does when he’s thinking deeply about something. His enormous hands are wrapped around his prayer beads, and Kyoujurou can hear the wood creaking under the pressure. Gyoumei is the strongest among them in terms of pure physical strength - a fact that he demonstrates approximately never because he prefers to let his weapon do the talking - and if he is gripping his beads hard enough to make them audibly protest, that is a bad sign.
Tengen keeps glancing at the door. He’s trying to be subtle about it - turning his head slightly, shifting his weight, pretending to adjust his grip on his flamboyant weapons - but his eyes keep darting, over and over, like he’s expecting something terrible to burst through at any moment. Tengen does not do subtle. Tengen’s entire personality is the opposite of subtle. So the fact that he’s trying to be subtle is, in itself, a bad sign.
Obanai’s snake, Kaburamaru, has coiled so tightly around his master’s neck that Kyoujurou worries the poor creature might be cutting off circulation. Obanai himself is sitting rigidly upright, his bandaged face unreadable as always, but his hands - his hands are twisting in his haori, a nervous gesture that Kyoujurou has only seen a handful of times before. Each of those times preceded something deeply unpleasant.
Mitsuri is gripping her own knees. Hard enough that her knuckles are white. Hard enough that Kyoujurou can see the redness already building under her skin, the beginning of what will almost certainly be spectacular bruises. She is not crying - Mitsuri does not cry easily, despite her reputation for emotionality - but her lower lip is caught between her teeth, and her eyes are very, very wide.
Sanemi has his hand on his sword.
Sanemi.
Sanemi, who usually sprawls across the floor during meetings like a disgruntled cat who has been forced to attend a family gathering. Sanemi, who has been known to fall asleep mid-meeting and snore loud enough to drown out Obanai’s commentary. Sanemi, who once responded to Oyakata-sama’s gentle request that he please refrain from sharpening his blade at the table by sharpening it more aggressively and making direct eye contact the entire time.
Sanemi is sitting ramrod straight, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword, his knuckles white, his jaw clenched so tight that Kyoujurou can see the muscles jumping in his temples.
Even Muichirou is tense.
Muichirou.
If Muichirou is tense, then shit is well and truly fucked.
Muichirou is fourteen years old. Muichirou has the emotional affect of a particularly serene piece of driftwood. Muichirou once watched Sanemi and Obanai get into a screaming match that devolved into actual physical violence - fists and feet and furniture being thrown - and had simply commented, "That seems inefficient," before going back to staring at a moth on the wall. He had not blinked. He had not flinched. He had not even seemed interested.
Muichirou does not get tense. He doesn’t get anything, really, except sword forms and the occasional moment of profound disassociation that concerns everyone deeply but that they have all collectively agreed not to address because addressing it seems to make it worse.
But right now, his shoulders are up around his ears. His eyes keep darting to the door, quick and sharp, like a rabbit watching for foxes. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides.
Finally, finally, at 7:10, a full 10 minutes past when the meeting was supposed to start, Oyakata-sama enters the room.
He looks... huh.
Oyakata-sama - the man who has accepted tea from people who later tried to assassinate him, the man who once walked into a meeting actively on fire, the man who mediated a physical fight between Sanemi and Tengen with one word and three pots of tea - looks frazzled.
His hair is mussed, like he’d been running his hands through it. His haori is slightly askew. His obi is slightly off-center. He looks for all the world like a man who has just discovered something incredibly inconvenient about his favorite child. Which, in this case, is definitely Giyuu. Everyone knows. Everyone understands. Giyuu is all their favorites. Giyuu is a very likable person, once you get past the general off-putting aura he gives off.
He’s just... a little strange. He’s blunt and to-the-point and a little rude sometimes and he has the social skills of a particularly stressed house cat.
They’re all a little strange.
“Children,” Oyakata-sama says. His voice is very, very slightly tight. For Oyakata-sama, this is practically a full mental breakdown. “My beautiful, wonderful, darling, dear-to-me children whom I would both kill and die for.”
Kyoujurou’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. This is not the usual opening. It’s usually, ‘children’, or ‘my dear children’, or ‘my dear Hashira’, or ‘my darlings’, or, once, memorably, ‘Sanemi, please put the wakizashi down’. Sanemi had, with great reluctance, put the wakizashi down.
“Why,” Oyakata-sama continues. “Did I get an email from Kokushibou thanking me for ‘raising my children to be so polite’?”
Kyoujurou’s eyebrows climb higher. Around him, the other Hashira make similar expressions of surprise. Gyoumei stops muttering prayers. Tengen’s jaw drops, which is not an expression that he usually makes. Mitsuri starts tugging at her braids. Sanemi sits even more ramrod straight, somehow. Obanai starts twisting his hands into his haori. Shinobu’s smile drops completely. Muichirou’s eyebrows furrow slightly.
Giyuu’s lips press together, his eyebrows knitting together slightly.
That’s not surprise.
That’s... something else. Kyoujurou knows that face. That combination of, ‘oh, kami, I thought that was a strange dream’ and ‘oh, kami, I fucked up’ and a little bit of internal screaming.
They’ve all worn that face at one point or another.
Kyoujurou had worn it when he’d had to break the news that the person who own that little bakery, Koyuki’s, they all like - the one with the really good apple turnover and peach preserves - and also Kyoujurou’s on-again off-again fling/situationship (as Tengen put it once or twice or many times) is actually Akaza, Upper Moon Three.
Mitsuri had worn it when she’d told them her short-term girlfriend - two months, which definitely isn’t long - that was teaching her how to play a koto and buying her generous amounts of jewelry was Nakime, Biwa Demon and the woman that presides over the Infinity Castle.
Obanai had worn it when he’d told them the instructor of that pottery class he’d signed up for - under Oyakata-sama’s threat of enforced six-month leave if he didn’t ‘get a damn hobby’ - was Gyokko, and also that Gyokko had been complimenting his bone structure for three weeks. He’d said it with such a wondrous tone, like he’d never been complimented in his life before then, that Kyoujurou’s heart had broken a little.
Shinobu had worn it when she’d announced that she’d tracked the anonymous donor who’d completely paid for the Butterfly Mansion’s upgrades - renovations, equipment, everything, to the tune of approximately ten million yen - back to the Eternal Paradise Faith Cult, which is, you know, Douma’s cult. Shinobu has tried to kill him thirty-seven times. She has succeeded approximately three times, and each time, Douma had later regenerated and sent her apology flowers for literally getting blood on her hands. This was before the donation thing.
Sanemi had worn it when he’d told them that the ‘weird guy with the spiky hair that follows him around’ is actually Urogi, one of Hantengu’s emotional clones. The happiness one, actually, which nobody had thought about too hard, because Hantengu’s clones have a habit of following people who often feel the emotion they represent. Which is also why nobody thinks too hard about the fact Sekido follows Tanjirou around a lot.
Tengen had worn it when he’d informed them that the ‘really interesting Oiran re-enactor and her brother that follows her around all the time’ were actually Daki and Gyuutarou. They had then proceeded to start loitering outside the Corps’ office building, waiting for Tengen to get off patrols, so they can drag him and his wives to fancy restaurants that they have no business being in.
Gyoumei had worn that face when he’d found out that the ‘nice young man’ that regularly asks for meditation advise because he ‘just can’t focus, no matter how hard he tries’ is actually Zouhakuten, and that he’d actually implemented some of Gyoumei’s advise in his daily life outside of fights.
Hell, even Muichirou has worn it, when he’d told them that he’d looked into who funds the orphanage he lives at - because, unfortunately, he is 14 years old and, in fact, an orphan, and he refuses to let any of them gain legal custody over him - for a school project, and found out it was Kibutsuji fucking Muzan - the literal King of Demons and the reason a good half of those kids are orphans - himself.
Everyone had assumed Giyuu had too much sense to get entangled in something like that. Giyuu has been a Hashira for eight years, which is five full years longer than even Gyoumei has been a slayer at all. He’s never once failed a mission, never once gotten grievously injured, and never once had to call for backup. He’s leagues above the rest of them, even if he severely downplays his abilities to the new recruits.
And now Giyuu is making that face at the wood grain of the meeting table.
Everyone else slowly notices what Kyoujurou has as well, and they all turn to Giyuu with various expressions of, ‘oh no’.
The only consolation at this point is that Giyuu is a sex-repulsed asexual, so it’s not like any sex has happened. Not like with Kyoujurou and Akaza, bother before and after Kyoujurou figured out who he really way. Not like Mitsuri and Nakime. Not like Snamei and Urogi.
Kyoujurou knows this because Shinobu had once jokingly propositioned Giyuu at a New Year’s party a couple years back and Giyuu had responded, politely but firmly, that he found sex to be personally repulsive and that he had no intention of ever doing anything with anyone.
“That,” Giyuu starts. Stops. Finishes, quietly, “Is my fault, Oyakata-sama.”
Oyakata-sama takes a deep breath. Takes another. Crosses the room to his usual position at the front. Says, very gently, “Giyuu, my boy, nearest and dearest to my heart, I’m going to need a better explanation than that.”
Giyuu refuses to look up. Says, still addressing the table, “It was after the rose thing last week. I’d gone to a bar. I had only intended to get a drink or two and then come back.”
Ah.
That.
Giyuu doesn’t usually refer to demons as ‘things’, but this one had especially upset him. It had been this demon with a rose-based Blood Art. Giyuu had volunteered to supervise what was supposed to be a simple mission, because the usual supervisor was sick and it was in Giyuu’s usual territory anyway. It had been a squadron of fifteen. A learning moment for most, really.
The intelligence had said the demon was fairly low-level. The intelligence had been wrong. Only one of the juniors had actually died because Giyuu cut the demon down so quickly, but Giyuu always gets upset when the juniors he’s supervising die. He has a whole photo board in his living room in his apartment. There are photos of each junior, with their names, birthdays, dates of their last missions, and how old they were when they died on the back.
Kyoujurou has seen it before. He’d been so moved he’d started his own.
“There was this guy,” Giyuu continues. “He introduced himself as Michikatsu. He offered to get me a bottle of wine because I ‘seemed upset’ and I was already three glasses of sake in, so I said yes. He asked me about my sword, because he was, quote, ‘curious about the techniques the Corps uses for forging’, and I told him I didn’t know shit about the current techniques because only the swordsmiths get to know that, but I did know they used to use Kamakura-period techniques until about fifty years ago because they’re old-fashioned that way. We ended up talking about the difference in forging techniques during the Nanboku-chou Southern and Northern court period for three hours.”
That does sound like Giyuu.
The Water Hashira has always been quiet, reserved, difficult to draw into conversation. But get him talking about something he's genuinely interested in - swords, certain types of traditional craftsmanship, salmon, daikon, sushi, vegetarian ramen (for some reason) - and he becomes almost animated. Kyoujurou has seen it happen a couple times. Not often, because Giyuu is very closed off, but still.
“He bought a second bottle of wine and really good sushi,” Giyuu continues. He still hasn’t looked up. “He told me he had a couple swords at his apartment he thought I’d like, and offered to let me come see them. I said yes, because I was very drunk at that point. He had a genuine Muramasa sword. I got to hold the genuine Muramasa sword. I got to hold three other swords, too. I think he had something like fifteen or twenty very antique swords. I didn’t think anything of it because I also collect them. I assumed he just had a lot of time and money on his hands. I thanked him for letting me hold the swords because I knew how valuable they were. He gave me his phone number and told me I could text him and come back at any time to hold them again.”
There’s silence for a long moment. The whole explanation is very Giyuu. He’d gotten drunk over a junior’s death. He’d met someone that had the same passion for swords has him. He’d gone back to that person’s house because they had antique swords they wanted to show him. He’d gotten to hold said antique swords.
“How did you not realize he was Kokushibou, Tomioka-san?” Shinobu asks. “It tends to be obvious when the person talking to you is an Upper Moon. They all have this certain aura.”
Giyuu still doesn’t look up as he says, “He had a normal number of eyes for once. And, again, I was very drunk, so I wasn’t paying much attention to auras.”
...For once?
“For once,” Sanemi repeats. “He had a normal number of eyes for once. Has he approached you before this?”
“Twice,” Giyuu says, finally looking up. There’s an embarrassed flush to his normally-pale face. “I attempted to stab him both times. He left. I suppose the human disguise was his attempt to get around the stabbing attempts.”
“Which worked out for him after all,” Shinobu says.
Giyuu’s phone pings. He does not look away from Shinobu. He does, however, reach over, open the window next to him, pull his phone out of his pocket, and chuck said phone out of said window. Distantly, they can all hear it crack against the concrete sidewalk eighty floors below them. He then proceeds to close the window like nothing happened.
...Okay then.
“Did he do anything else?” Oyakata-sama asks. Okay, apparently they’re ignoring that. “Did he do - or try - anything? Anything at all?”
“No,” Giyuu says.
“He bought you wine and sushi and let you hold four of his antique swords and nothing else?” Sanemi asks, a note of disbelief in his voice. “No moves, no attempts, no, ‘do you want to see my other sword’?”
“Sanemi,” Oyakata-sama says mildly. “Don’t be crass.”
“It’s a valid question” Tengen points out.
Giyuu considers this. Says, “He told me he sees me fight on the news sometimes, when I have to go on missions in more public areas. That the way I move is beautiful.”
Another beat of silence.
“Well,” Oyakata-sama says. “That’s that, I guess. Giyuu, I’m glad you made a friend.”
“He isn’t my-” Giyuu starts, frowning a little.
“I am glad,” Oyakata-sama says, slightly louder. “That you made a friend, Giyuu.”
“He’s not my friend!” Giyuu protests. “He’s-he’s-”
“He bought you wine and sushi,” Tengen points out. “He talked to you about sword forging techniques for three hours. He invited you to his apartment and let you hold four antique swords. He gave you his number so you could come back and hold them again. If that’s not at the very least an attempt at friendship, then I’m not married, Giyuu-san.”
Giyuu’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Closes again.
Eventually, he manages to get out, “Why would he want to be friends with me?”
There it is. There's the Giyuu they all know. The self-deprecation. The genuine bewilderment that anyone could possibly like him. The complete and total inability to recognize that he is, in fact, a deeply likable person once you get past the walls he's built around himself.
“I mean,” Kyoujurou says. “The rest of us are kind of taken already.”
“Don’t phrase it like that,” Sanemi grouches.
“And,” Shinobu says, picking up where Kyoujurou left off. “I think you’re the only one that would actually want to talk about forging techniques for that long, Tomioka-san. Of course he’d be more interested in you than the rest of us.”
“Don’t phrase it like that,” Sanemi says again.
“And you’re the only one that’s never publicly acknowledged friends,” Mitsuri says. “You’ve talked about ‘acquaintances’ and ‘colleagues’, but not ‘friends’. He might think you’re lonely without someone else.”
“Do not phrase it like that,” Sanemi snaps. “You guys are making it sound like he has a fucking crush on our Tomioka or some shit.”
The possessive makes everyone pause.
Our Tomioka.
Not the Tomioka.
Not Tomioka-san.
Not even Giyuu-san.
Our Tomioka.
Kyoujurou files that away for later consideration.
Then he moves on, because they have more important things to be talking about here.
“Moving on,” Oyakata-sama says. “I would like to discuss what we actually met to discuss now. Giyuu, we will be circling back to this later in private. Including why you felt the need to throw your phone out the window. In the meantime, Kyoujurou, has Akaza been doing anything different in recent times?”
“Ah,” Kyoujurou says. “No, Oyakata-sama. He’s still running the bakery.”
“Excellent,” Oyakata-sama says. “And, regarding your patrol route…”
The meeting settles into something resembling normal after that.
Kyoujurou makes a mental note to get more detail from Giyuu later. For now, he has patrol routes to talk about.