nocakeanywhere

[nocakeanywhere]

Guys what im not even a sukuna fan. What is this doki doki in my chest

needy asshole

bonus:

[nocakeanywhere]

needy asshole

bonus:

[nocakeanywhere]

Sanemi trying to get your attention ༅

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You sat on the engawa, legs swinging as you read, completely immersed in your book.

Sanemi stood a few feet away, arms crossed, scowling hard at absolutely nothing. He’d cleared his throat twice. Loudly. Even slammed the sliding door a little harder than necessary when he walked outside.

Nothing.

You didn’t even glance up.

He walked past you. Once. Then again. Then a third time, each lap with just a little more dramatic stomping.

Still nothing.

Finally, he stopped right behind you, hands on his hips like he was preparing for battle.

“You just gonna ignore me all day, or what?” he barked, voice sharp.

You blinked, glancing up at him over the edge of your book. “...I didn’t realize you wanted attention. Did you need something?”

He froze. Then turned his face away so you couldn’t see the way his ears turned pink.

“I didn’t say I needed anything,” he muttered, gruff. “Just… you’ve been sitting here all damn day. Thought maybe you wanted company.”

You stared at him for a beat, then smiled.“Sanemi,” you said sweetly, scooting over and patting the space beside you, “you could’ve just said you missed me.”

“Tch,” he grumbled, but sat down anyway, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.

And when you leaned into him just a little, he didn’t pull away.

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[nocakeanywhere]

Lethargy

Where Sanemi tries to carry her to bed but unexpected touches make it very, very difficult.

OR

Sanemi is an idiot when it comes to physical contact, especially when her lips keep brushing his skin (very, very, very mildly suggestive)

-

Gray clouds blanket the sky like a heavy omen, its dreary weight leaving little light to brighten the noon. Rhythmic drops accompany Sanemi's motions as he finishes up cleaning the dishes in the kitchen.

He had just finished a meal with Yoshida, partaking in warm soup and a pleasant meal to suit the weather. And, as per usual—which was a strange notion to Sanemi that there was now a usual—he had gathered the dishes and gruffly insisted that Yoshida go about her tasks without bothering him. Of course, he reasoned, it seemed only right that he should do his part as a guest of her estate.

Over the months of sporadically visiting the Yoshida estate between his travels, he had found himself taking on tasks he deemed only appropriate as a gesture of gratitude for allowing his unexpected and unannounced stays. Taking the dishes, airing out the futons, fixing the roof, hell, he even learned how to organize the stacks of medicinal herbs and chemicals Yoshida used to treat her patients. It was all very unusual to Sanemi, to keep coming back to one place and even settling into a sort of routine. A domesticity, even. One he never thought to entertain during his days in the Corps, and certainly one he didn't think he could muster again after the death of his siblings.

What was even stranger is that, gradually, the things he's been doing in the estate started to feel less like obligatory tasks. The feeling of steadiness and predictability of mundane tasks was one he unknowingly relished, the emotion a stark contrast to the entire identity of anger and spontaneity he's constructed for himself. Yet here he was, times away from the final battle, enjoying how the water felt in his hands and how shimmered slightly under the dim light. Perhaps, it was so, that there was a different sense of contentment when there was a certain person at his side, asking him to open a container, reach on higher shelves, or taste the food. It incurred strange feelings in Sanemi, this domesticity he's developed with Yoshida.

The feeling that would twinge in his chest at the slight brightening of her face when she tastes his food, the way she's started to linger more closely when they cook together in the kitchen, or in her gentle touches and lucid gaze when she talks to him. Even now, as he wipes his hands, her small smile flashes in his mind and he quickly shakes his head with a groan. Seriously, he couldn't understand what he was feeling.

And so, with an exasperated huff, Sanemi walks out of the kitchen, a walking emotional chaos and confused fool, heading towards Yoshida's study just to check on her. Was it any of his business what she's doing right now? Absolutely not. Why does he care? No fucking clue. But his feet continued to stride like a detached body part, powered by indescribable feelings and a frustrated Sanemi.

He reaches Yoshida's study silently, stopping shortly before the open entrance and peeking inside. A brief panic overcomes him as he takes in Yoshida's slumped figure only to realize that she was resting on her arms and breathing deeply. Sanemi enters the room tentatively as to not wake her and notices how her desk was cluttered with papers, notes, and medical records. He figured she must have been noting down her current patient's information before she unknowingly fell asleep. Admittedly, he had never seen her slack off on her duties as a doctor, and Sanemi respected her for that. She was quick in her work and efficient in her tasks, yet she maintained a composure and patience he could never fathom how. And so, it was certainly a strange sight to see her sleeping in the middle of her tasks.

Sanemi notes how she had buried her head in her arms and how she doesn't stir even at the creaks of floorboards as he enters. A sliver of worry creeps up to Sanemi despite the rising and falling of her chest.

He approaches her desk quietly and takes in the mess, a frustrated sigh escaping him as he roughly ruffles his hair in annoyance. He doesn't know why he sighs nor why he's so annoyed. And he certainly doesn't know why he's bookmarking each page she's left open on her books and stacking them together neatly on the side, or why he's putting away the brushes and inkstones she's used, grumbling all while about the mess. Nevertheless, here he is, acting like some husband to her, cleaning up her mess, and worrying, and, gods, the thought of that made Sanemi's stomach flip.

Once he's done acting like a not-husband, Sanemi momentarily stares at Yoshida's figure before tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder to very gently shake her. And the gentleness in how he touches her unnerves Sanemi, the action a jarring opposite of how he sees himself. He bends down slightly so he could look at her properly when she turns her head just to check on her.

"Yoshida." He shakes her again, and she stirs this time. A low hum escapes her as she turns her head in her arms, her loose hair curtaining her face. Like a spectator to his own body, Sanemi watches how he gently tucks her hair behind her ear to get a view of her face with a sobering apall. Who the hell is this guy?!

"C'mon, idiot," he urges, softly, hand still lingering on her hair. "Let's get you to bed."

Yoshida only looks back at him silently through sleepy eyes, and Sanemi notes how her gaze looks a little...unfocused. He bends down lower to get a clearer view of her face, now noticing the bags under her eyes and the exhaustion in its depths. She must have been working herself to the bone again during the time he was gone, especially with her apprentice being currently away. Sanemi's brows furrow in concern as he places a hand on her forehead, relieved that it wasn't unusually warm or anything.

He feels up the rest of her face just to confirm and Yoshida, in turn, responds with a small whimper and turns her head back in her arms.

Sanemi's eyebrow twitches in annoyance. "Oh, hell no."

He goes behind her and pulls Yoshida's chair backwards, forcing her to carry her weight and sit up. Another whine escapes Yoshida and she turns to lightly glare at Sanemi who only looks back with an unamused expression.

"C'mon." He sighs before unceremoniously scooping her up from her chair and earning a yelp from Yoshida. Sanemi adjusts her hold on her as he carries her bridal style, effortlessly shifting her weight properly so she's more comfortable. Sanemi, on the other hand, is anything but. It helped that Yoshida didn't resist being carried but, instead, much to Sanemi distress, she also decided to melt into him and lean her weight as he carries her.

Now, Sanemi's carried plenty of people before, rescuing victims, taking away villagers, all done in an effortless manner constrained by ruthless efficiency and practicality. That, of course, includes women. Women his age, even. Yet not once has he felt as conscious of them as he does now with Yoshida in his arms. The way her body fits snugly against his, how close their skins are to touching, and how his hands tingled warmly despite being able to lift her with little effort. His stomach flips once again and his heartbeat resounds a bit more loudly in his ears.

Yoshida doesn't appear to be bothered or fazed by Sanemi's turmoil even as he took a breath, more shaky than he would have liked, to steady himself...emotionally. So he continues forward, walking out of the study while trying to keep Yoshida steady. Nonetheless, the rocking movement must have bothered Yoshida since as soon as he walks out, she slowly wraps her arms around Sanemi's neck in a loose embrace and languidly settles her head on the crook of his neck.

Goddamn it.

He feels his breath hitch at how he could feel her breath against his skin. So, so close, the warmth seeping into him and burning brighter than it should. So much so that he feels the strange warmth creeping up his face and the queasiness in his stomach intensifying. But he doesn't make a move to pull her away and damn it, he doesn't know why. Well, for one, it's certainly strange that Yoshida is initiating all this contact when her usual composure does so only by necessity of her profession. The sudden shift perturbes him slightly, but decides to blam it on the exhaustion. For another, Sanemi just couldn't bother to dwell on whatever emotions he's dealing with right now.

He's never liked physical contact, found it unnecessary or ill motivated most times. Frankly, with his appearance, it was a luxury to expect touches beyond the necessary and driven by survival. Yet here he is acting like some damn adolescent over some measly touches. Fucking hell, something's always going wrong with him whenever he's with Yoshida. Even now, as he walks the hallway in the gloomy afternoon of spring, the warmth of her breath at his neck sends shivers down his spine for reasons he would rather not ponder. In fact, from how closely she has embraced him, he could feel her lips grazing his skin every second. The slight chap in her lips, the way it parts when it grazes him, and the way it presses on him when she shifts lightly in her position. The cruelty of such unknowing brushes and intimacy is felt by Sanemi alone, in his agony and turmoil as he finds it harder to breathe with every step closer to her room. So close, yet so far. It feels like an eternity to Sanemi, having to deal with the constant shiver and tightening in his core with every contact.

Mercifully, he reaches Yoshida's room and shifts her entire weight on one arm as his other slides open her door. With a grimace, he realizes that he still has to lay out the futon.

"Oi," he looks at her and bounces her lightly in his arm. "Stand up on your own."

His command is only met with a whine and Yoshida tightens her embrace on him and nuzzles deeper into his neck.

Sanemi just freezes. Even as the warmth in his face grows and even spreads to all the wrong places. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

If the touches earlier were a tentative teasing, now a determined onslaught presses onto his neck like a damn curse. Her lips now press harder onto his skin and slowly trails up his neck, stopping at the tender parts below his jaw before moving back down. Perhaps they can't be considered kisses, not when it's merely brushing on him repeatedly, but damn it, he doesn't want it to stop.

At this point, Sanemi Shinazugawa's breathing has become labored, heavier, panting as he unconsciously tilts his head to give more access to her lips, and Yoshida's silent answer moves closer to the bob in his throat. As she presses onto that tender part beside his adam's apple, he could feel her lips part more from having moved from one place to another, and even just the feeling of her lips slightly opening has his imagination running haywire.

Yes, he could feel it already, the way her lips would close around his skin, lightly sucking on it and perhaps teasingly running her tongue over-

The deep moan that escapes his mouth shocks him like a thousand thunderbolts. Fucking hell, is this how he finds out his neck is sensitive as hell?

He quickly shifts Yoshida away from him and glares at her like the unreasonable fool he is. His glare is only met with a confused and muddled expression as her flushed face looks at him through lethargic eyes. Some foolish and very much unacknowledged part of Sanemi trills at the thought that perhaps she was just as flustered as he was and that maybe he does have an effect on her.

She's fucking tired, you idiot.

His logic startles him from whatever delusion he's having, and guilt washes over him as he realizes he was just standing there like an idiot when he should have gone and put her to bed and not acting like some raging, hormonal fool. And it's at this point that he realizes that perhaps Yoshida acts affectionately when she's reached total exhaustion, like a sleepwalking habit maybe. And an unexpected relief washes over Sanemi at him being here instead of some rando on the streets she was treating. It's a dangerous prospect, and the thought of Yoshida doing this with another man makes Sanemi's brow twitch unknowingly and causes a pang in his chest he couldn't name.

To avoid his spiral of thoughts, Sanemi puts her down gently and Yoshida, thank the gods, lets go of him without protest this time. She stays in place and watches Sanemi silently as he enters her room and grabs the futon, blankets, and pillows to lay it out. Once he's done, before he could even call out Yoshida, she wordlessly approaches him and plops down ungracefully on top of the blankets.

Sanemi lets out a huff in disbelief and shakes her lightly, hoping she hasn't immediately fallen asleep. "Atleast get under the covers, idiot."

When she doesn't stir, he heaves another sigh and gently moves her over to tuck her in properly. The peaceful look on her face confirms that she has, in fact, fallen asleep as soon as she hit the bed. After making sure she's comfortable and well, he finally leaves her room and breathes a long, long exhale.

Finally left by his lonesome, his mind immediately replays everything that happened in the few minutes he was with Yoshida. Damn it, is he really this pathetic? Regret and embarrassment settle on him as he recalls the spiralling thoughts he had. He roughly tousles his hair in frustration. Is he even allowed to feel like this? She's Genya's benefactor, for goodness' sake. She deserves more respect than what he just showed, damn it. Sure, he's never engaged in an intimate relationship with a woman before, having always found it burdensome. He saw pleasure as something that could open his weakest moment to his enemies and so, avoided it in favor of staving off his desires. Perhaps that was why now, with the threat of the demons gone, it had finally revealed itself, bearing its fangs like a beast hiding in the dark. And it just had to be Yoshida that it first pounced on. But no, it wasn't an occurrence that could have happened with any woman he'd come across. No, it was Yoshida who he had shown enough of himself where he could let his guard down around and perhaps have even started to care for her. But Sanemi isn't one to dwell on his emotions so he stops there, stops at that thought and leaves it at that.

And so, with a frown and his signature glare on his face, Sanemi Shinazugawa storms off like the idiot he is.

-

Yes, I hc that Sanemi's a virgin cuz guys...i genuinely think he hated any form of vulnerability he could show and that includes the high from having sex. Also, i think Sanemi respects women a lot which was rooted in his admiration for his mother from having put up with his father, but he doesn't show it in conventional ways cuz he's an impolite idiot. So, yeah, that also extends to respecting women in sexual aspects and not treating them like objects for satisfaction. Naturally, he absolutely hates it when women are mistreated. Sure, he dislikes certain personalities on women, but I also read from a post somewhere and yes I hc it now too that Sanemi likes gentle mannered women that sort of reminds him of his mother's touch (not in a weird way calm down).

[nocakeanywhere]

just kya’ed reading the recent story omg… i know this is more of a sanemi x oc blog but do we get a glimpse of how genya and yoshida interacted before he died?🥺

YESSS!!! OMGOSH IVE BEEN WANTING TO DO THAT!! (well i knew i did then i forgot). We gotta give Genya cutie patootie some screentime man. Itll be interesting to explore his character since I havent done that as much.

[nocakeanywhere]

Hello my friend! I just came across your account so I wanted to say that I love your stories and everything! I also wanted to know if you are doing any stories requests or anything?✨💖🥳🍧🦋🏝️✨

Woww hi! Im so glad to hear you love it!! Also, YES. GIVE ME REQUESTS. IVE BEEN SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL CUZ I DONT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT AHSHVDEVJDBSKSJJW *gnawing at my bars of creative enclosure*

But yes, I would greatly appreciate that and also know that I love you for reading my stories🥺

p.s. id appreciate it if u keep the requests sfw. My superpowers cant handle anything beyond that😔(if it's just mildly suggestive i can still do it i hope)

[nocakeanywhere]

Kissing Your Scars

-

Where a sleepless night leads to a conversation and some kisses (?)

OR

Where Sanemi kisses her scars and she kisses his (guys it's in the title)(i giggled writing this fic)

-

Sanemi Shinazugawa walks back from the kitchen of the Yoshida estate. He had just finished quenching his parched throat from the open mouthed breaths he found himself doing to will himself to sleep. Sleep had always seemed to elude him, especially back in his demon slaying days. Rest was a luxury he found too burdensome and too peaceful. He didn't like that. Tranquility wasn't a feeling he wanted to have. It was vulnerable. It was weak...it was human. And feeling like a human while slaying monsters atop his comrades' corpses was a bitter emotion he didn't like dwelling on. And so he avoids sleep. Deludes himself to think he doesn't need it. Not need the flashing images of deaths each blink. Each darkness of vision somehow morphes into gruesome images of twisted limbs and mangled torsos.

So Sanemi Shinazugawa didn't like sleeping. Didn't like being pulled into an inescapable nightmare. This uncontrollable phenomenon his body forces on him as if in atonement for his wrongdoings. So he avoids this rest. This luxury only the innocent can pleasure in. He found himself to have no right for it.

And that was how his eyes came to look like shit. Those veiny, throbbing eyeballs that looked like his brain was pushing it out of its sockets. That was the lack of sleep. And perhaps the constant adrenaline he willingly pumped into his blood. Because, damn it to hell if he started feeling his emotions.

Tonight, months after the existence of demons no longer held sway, Sanemi suffers from his habits of fear and cowardice. He couldn't close his eyes, couldn't relax himself, couldn't just rest. Admittedly, he had come some ways from his suffocated shell of a man. He had discovered people, the remnants of the goodness in humanity, and, most of all, he gradually started to find himself once again. Yet that journey still came with the shackles of his past. This damnable toxic habit he had created for himself to survive each day. And, tonight, he finds himself reverting.

Strangely, though, over the past few weeks, he hadn't found himself reverting as often as he had the first month after the final battle. Perhaps it had to do with the presence of a certain doctor. The woman who had told him of stories of Genya he had hoped to hear from hsi brother himself had he survived. The woman who had taken care of Genya and treated him like her own little brother. Yoshida Tsuna. The one who Sanemi couldn't seem to turn his eye from. The one who understood Sanemi's pain, yet didn't show pity. She just stayed beside him. And that was enough for Sanemi.

Even as he travelled through different places, even as he met different people and learned more than he ever thought he could, he found himself coming back to this quaint estate. An estate that housed its patients with compassion and care. The estate that welcomed Sanemi warmly like he had lived there his entire life. And, perhaps Sanemi didn't want to admit it outright, but he didn't hate that feeling of belongingness.

So it was that as he walks back to his room, he finds Yoshida sitting at the engawa. Perhaps it was the world's way of giving him some distraction, something to turn his mind away from his debilitating thought. No, not a distraction. A reprieve. Yeah, that sounds right. In her gentle touches, her small smiles, and those eyes that crinkled so wonderfully. It was a genuineness Sanemi didn't think he could see from a person, yet here it was being offered to selflessly. And maybe that was why each image of her that flashes in his mind incurs a strange feeling in his stomach. A fluttering in his chest. A tightening of his throat.

Tonight, though, as the picturesque image of Yoshida sitting languidly on the engawa comes into view, Sanemi pinpoints that far-off look in her eyes, so different from her usual composure and collected manners. Even basked in moonlight and caressed by the breeze, she seems to be in an undrunk stupor, lost in ruminations and thoughts. And even with such a lost expression on her face, Sanemi could only take a breath. And it's so damn frustrating for him that he doesn't understand why he did.

Sanemi approaches Yoshida with a knowing disregard for all the nimbleness and stealth he's acquired over the years. His guard, once so fortified and impenetrable, had slowly, unconsciously, and perhaps mercifully, crumbled little by little with all the time he spent with Yoshida. He owed it to himself, he thought, to finally relax a little bit around a person. And, somehow, that person just happened to Yoshida. Sanemi didn't want to make it any weirder than he felt it was. He reasoned, quite unreasonably, that it could have been any other person he could have let his guard down around. It just happened to be Yoshida. Just so.

Yet here he was, sitting unceremoniously beside Yoshida with a loud grunt. Was he concerned about that look in her face? Hell no. He was just going to sit here because he couldn't fucking sleep, that's all. So why did she have to turn to him and give him that damnable smile that always makes his heart flutter? Damn it.

"Good evening, Shinazugawa-san," Yoshida greets, small smile gracing her lips and half lidded eyes turning to him. He only grunts in return, refusing to look at her.

Satisfied with his disgruntled response, nonetheless, Yoshida turns her head back to the sky, cloudy haze over her eyes returning. Sanemi glances at her contemplatively as he leans back on the engawa to feel the pleasant breeze on his skin. It was a strange sight on Yoshida, one he'd seen on comrades at night. Detachment. Distance. Remoteness. Words that stood as sharp contrasts to her usual demeanor.

Sanemi wasn't a nosy bastard, but he does worry. And because he doesn't like to meddle, he decides to sit there silently and let Yoshida contemplate uninterrupted. Perhaps she needed that. Even despite his roaring instincts to talk to her and sate his curiosity about what she's thinking, he remains silent. Because silence sometimes is all a person needs, so he gives it.

A few minutes pass, perhaps a dozen, and Yoshida does not move from her spot. And, at this point, Sanemi's worries become a bit stronger than before. This didn't feel right. She feels...ungrounded. Like she was drowning in her mind, strangling her escape from its chains of apprehension. And he knew damn well how that felt.

Sanemi sighs frustratedly, not knowing whether he was sighing at his lack of knowledge on how to comfort her or at the reflection of himself he's seeing in her.

"Alright," Sanemi gruffs. "Out with it."

Yoshida breaks out of her daze with a startle, turning to him with a surprised look on her face.

"What?" She manages.

Sanemi lets out another sigh and roughly ruffles his hair. "Look," he puts down his hand, leaving a mess of disheveled hair, "you're clearly thinking about some shit. If you keep this up, you're gonna wake up tomorrow feeling just as shit, so might as well let it out and feel less crappy about it tomorrow."

He huffs and shoots her an exasperated look. Okay, clearly comfort isn't his forte, but he's gonna make do with what he can.

Yoshida's expression was unreadable. She simply looks at him coolly and turns her head back to the moonlit sky. She kept silent, and it unnerved Sanemi. Actually, it scared him, because godsamn it, he knew he was shit at this but he didn't know he'd be this bad at it. Talk about a kick to the ego.

A few moments passed between them, but Sanemi didn't pester her. He figured maybe she needed to collect herself, or maybe she just didn't want to answer him. Point is, he tried. Although, he was really shit-

"I treated a patient earlier," Yoshida starts. It startles Sanemi, making him turn his head at her in slight surprise. "He was a man. Tall, young, burly. Around our age, I suppose." She takes a breath. "I was treating him and...he caught a glimpse of my hands."

She lifts her hand to the moonlight, illuminating her supple fingers and pale skin, illuminating scars that crisscrossed those fingers, scars that ran down her knuckles, her palm, carving discolored, raised lines that were unbecoming of a respectable lady of their time. It had always been an insecurity of hers, compared to other ladies' delicate fingers, well cared for and treated. But Yoshida took pride in her hands, ones that have saved multiple lives at the cost of her own scarring and, admittedly, marriage prospects. She takes great pride in her scars, yes, but anxiety and a few targeted words can open the crevices she thought she'd closed.

"That man," Yoshida continues. "He said things that...well, one you might normally hear when a woman does not fit into standards." She huffs bitterly. "Women's hands aren't supposed to look that ugly. You should let men do your job, that way you'd look more valuable. This is why your job is to bear children and care for them. No need to be ambitious." Yoshida takes a shaky breath and turns to Sanemi hesitantly, putting down her hand on her lap. "That kind."

She offers him a tight smile with a shrug of her shoulders. Sanemi hadn't moved, simply blinking at her narrative with those wide eyes. He was listening, she could tell. Processing, she didn't know.

It was unnerving for Yoshida, to say the least. To be admitting insecurities she'd never say out loud. If anything, she didn't want to burden Sanemi with anything. With everything he's been through, the last thing he needed was another insignificant story added to his load. About scars, nonetheless. Now she felt entitled. Who was she to talk about scars when this man beside is literally covered in scars? A flush rises on her cheeks as embarrassment and shame settles.

"S-sorry, I-" she stammers. "That was insensitive. I-I shouldn't have-"

A cold touch. A soft grasp. A gentle lift.

Sanemi's hold on her hand stopped her dialogue promptly, an unreadable expression on his face. He takes her hand gently and turns it thoughtfully. His calloused fingers start tracing the scars that cross her fingers, making sure to trace every single one on each finger. Yoshida watches with bated breath as the spectacle in front of her unfolds. She doesn't understand why he's doing what he is, but she had no intention of pulling away. So she continues to watch. Watch Sanemi run a finger through the deeper scar on her palm where her scalpel had slipped past her and left a jarring gash across her skin. Watch Sanemi turn her head and feel the raised lines on her knuckles, circling on each one like relishing the stories behind them. It was a strange sight, and an even stranger sensation, but Yoshida didn't mind it. In fact, she liked it-

Sanemi suddenly brings her hands to his lips. And Yoshida freezes completely. What-

He tentatively presses his lips on her fingers, then he lingers. A moment. Another.

Yet he continues.

He presses a kiss to her knuckles, another further down closer to her risk where another scar crossed, and another close to her thumb. Each kiss stays, lingers, longer than it should be perhaps, yet he continues to trail down. He turns her hand and starts kissing her palm, feeling her hand trembling slightly at his touch. Sanemi relishes it, the effect he has on her. He doesn't know why, but it's there. So he keeps going. He kisses each scar from her palm, up each finger, on each crevice, on each ridge. Carefully, yet firmly, to assure her that they were beautiful. That he's thankful for them. That they look so, so wonderful on her-

Fucking hell, what was he doing?

He immediately held her hand away from his face, shock and horror dawning on him. What was he doing? Was he- Wait, no. Damn it, what had he done? Yoshida-

"S-shit." He stutters, his breath hitching at all the wrong times, heat beginning to bloom on his face from shame. "S-sorry, I-"

Sanemi turns to Yoshida, expecting to see a furious, disgusted face. But, when he does turn, hurriedly, desperately...his breath stops. Not hitch, not catch. Just stops.

Yoshida wasn't too far from his face, yet she might as well be so close. Her face was bathed by the moonlight, tiny dust particles floated along the moonbeams, sparkling and glittering around her face. And encased in that ethereal glow, Yoshida's face held the most endearing flush. Painting her entire face, highlighting her cheeks, emphasizing her widened eyes, and those parted lips. Sanemi had half a mind to swipe his thumb over it-

Stop! What the fuck was wrong with him? Sure, he'd never seen her so flushed before. So open. So, so flushed...because of him. Looking straight into his eyes with that mesmerizing gaze, drawing him in. gods, she looked so beautiful. What the hell?

Sanemi catches his breath. Damn it, he needed to compose himself.

"Sorry," he breathes. Why is he so breathless? "I-I don't know what-"

Suddenly, warm lips press onto his cheek, right where the scar that crossed his nose bridge started. It was a quick peck, but it froze Sanemi completely. It came without warning, and left his skin even quicker...but it lingered. Her breath on his cheek, her warmth so close to his face. She stayed a moment longer even as she slowly pulls back.

As she draws away from Sanemi, he could only turn his head shakily to look at her. Eyes half-closed. Lips slightly puckered. Cheeks still flushed.

Then she looks at him through her eyelashes, and damn it if that didn't bring Sanemi's doom. He could feel his face burning completely and he was confident he was as red as Yoshida is right now, looking at him so alluringly. From the distance she had drawn herself away from him, their faces were now only a couple of inches away from each other.

Yet all they could see was each other's eyes, reflecting one another, conveying indescribable thoughts and feelings, drawing them in as their breaths mingled. They didn't move, afraid to break whatever this was. This feeling. This tension. The way Yoshida's hands still tingled from his kisses. The way Sanemi's cheek still burned from that single kiss. Perhaps it was because they opened their vulnerable parts to each other that they felt like this. Drawn.

So they look at each other. Searching. Exploring. Answers, perhaps were in the depths of each other's eyes, their flushed cheeks, and their defeaning heartbeats.

The crackle of a branch snaps them out of their daze.

Sanemi and Yoshida bolt away from each other, both eager to put as much distance as they could. Yoshida was quick to stand up, abruptly and awkwardly, and start stomping back to her room.

"G-goodnight, Shinazugawa-san!" She calls, her pitch higher and voice cracking slightly than she would have liked. She stomps forward and almost dashes into a run as she rounds the corner, defeaned by her heartbeat and burned by her face.

Sanemi, on the other hand, stays frozen in his place. Still sitting, leaning against a post, and chest heaving. Unconsciously, his hand touches the spot Yoshida kissed, his finger drawing small circles on the scar he used to hate passionately. The scar that started it all. The one from his mother. From his past. A painful reminder. But now...as he touches it, the flutter in his heart intensifies. Not of bitterness, not of regret....but he didn't know what.

He recalls the ghost of her lips, the feel of her touch, and the linger of her skin. Sanemi takes a large breath.

What the hell was wrong with him?

-

so yeah you can imagine how awkward the next morning would be. They'd be two blushing idiots trying to finish a single conversation without looking away from one another in embarrassment. They're such losers, gosh.

[nocakeanywhere]

Breathe

-

Sanemi Shinazugawa sat up from his futon. It was one of those nights when sleep seemed to elude him and recurrences of the past bombarded him with unceasing doubts and bitterness. It's the silence, the tranquility, the absence of constant adrenaline that distracts him from his self depreciation and grief. He blames it on that as his cold sweat drips from his brow and the pangs in his heart get deeper and harsher with each thought.

He huffs in exasperation, getting up much more aggressively than needed to shake off the bubbling of his emotions. Even months after the final battle, he thought he'd have gotten better at handling this shit. But no, the world didn't seem to give a flying fuck about giving a some peace of mind. Or just a distraction of the mind, for that matter.

Sanemi leaves his room with a simmering anger and frustration at his ineptitude at dealing with this...grief. So uncontrollable, so incomprehensible. Feelings that reached into the crevices of his self, into the recesses of his childhood, into the memories he'd longed for and regretted the most. Feelings that seemed so overpowering in the face of the trembling child inside him. He hated this. Yet he mourned for it. And so he channels this familiar anger, this defensive wall, this protection. He summons it once again in the midst of the night, willing it to quell the scarier monster lurking inside him: sorrow. Because what more can a broken dog do than revert to its old ways?

So, yes, Sanemi walks forward, a jarring emotional mess against the serenity of the night atmosphere and the calming breeze. He walks to the kitchen, to the tub where the water was stored, and drank quite unceremoniously to quench his parched throat. It was a feeble attempt at alleviating the physical symptoms he suffered from emotional wounds. This deep breath he took, the way he clenched his hands, and the way he rolled his head to ease the tension in his neck. All feeble, yet still helpful. He stays unmoving for a time, easing himself from the elusive images flashing in his mind whenever he drifts off to sleep. Easing himself from the nightmarish images of Genya in his final moments and, worst of all, images of what Genya could've been if he hadn't gone insane and joined the Corps. Because, at the end of the day, it wasn't his own regrets that haunted Sanemi Shinazugawa. It was the loss of what could have been that kept him on the precipice of insanity. A hopeful future. A happy marriage for his siblings. A smiling mother. All gone. And that hurt like a bitch.

But, tonight, despite all that shit, he eases himself because he knows—some kinder, more compassionate part of himself that strangely had the voice of Kagaya-sama whispers—he deserves this. To relieve himself. To let his guard down. Because he had lost too much. And he knows he is allowed to grieve for it.

And so he closes his eyes, stops glaring at the ceiling like it had done him wrong, and exhales. He hadn't done this sort of exhale in a long time. An exhale that didn't urge him to quickly take another breath, one that didn't need to power his blood with unnatural abilities, and one that didn't need to suppress his anger for the world. It was just a long, long, long exhale.

Out, out, and out.

Then he holds. Hold. Hold.

Sanemi knows he'd need to take another breath. Another breath to replenish his lungs. Another breath to make him see another day. And, so, begrudgingly, agonizingly, he does. After his shoulders relax and his head clears, he takes another breath. Because that's what it means to keep on living. To breathe through it all. Despite the pain, despite the agony.

He breathes.

I was supposed to write fluff. Yet here we are again. Sorry sanemi. Border credits: @strangergraphics

[nocakeanywhere]

Hair Cut

—

Summary: Genya had a nightmare and tries to wake his Mama but it doesn't end well. This is the aftermath that follows.

—

Warnings for: child abuse, talk of child abuse. (aka Shizu hit Genya.)

Word Count: 7093 (I almost died honestly.)

This is a part 2, but I tried to write in a way that it shouldn't matter too much. These are the connected posts: part 1 and art for the beginning of this.

(Also this is based on the my thought that Genya’s mohawk exists because his hair looks like his father’s.)

—

“AAHHHHHH!!”

The scream woke Sanemi up with a jolt. And it all happened too quickly. The harsh sound of a hand slapping against skin and the sharp thud that followed. 

Genya’s wail and cries struck Sanemi to his core as he fought against the covers trapping him. His limbs finally freed, he scrambled to his brother’s side, quickly covering him with his own body before looking around for the threat. There wasn’t any. There was no Kyogo. Just Mama huddling in on herself. She looked spooked, a far away look on her face, like she wasn’t there. 

Genya was still crying burying his face in Sanemi’s shirt. His pained whimpers were like daggers to Sanemi’s ears and heart. Sanemi rubbed his small, bare shoulders that were peeking out from his shirt. 

Genya clung tighter as a full body sob was rung out of the smaller boy. Sanemi scooped the boy closer to himself rubbing a hand up and down his bony back as they sat on the floor. 

Sanemi looked at his Mama again, brows pinched in worry. 

“Ma.” He called.

She stared blankly ahead of her as if looking at something he couldn’t see. 

“Ma.” He called again. She wouldn’t look at him. Her face was pale like a ghost’s. He searched her face, eyes scanning the pinch of her brows, the crinkle by her eyes, and the downturn of her trembling lips. 

“What happen-” He started but was cut off by her turning her face away abruptly.

Bewildered and hurt by her actions, and now feeling a little scared himself, Sanemi tightened his arms around Genya. The little boy whimpered again, clinging closer to Sanemi. 

She didn’t answer him. She laid down, rolling onto her side facing away from the two. 

Her form was still and soon after her breathing evened out as she fell asleep.

Sanemi was scared and confused, his arms shaking. Why was Mama acting like that? He looked at the dark head of hair below his chin and cradled the back of it with his hand. His eyes searched her form like it would tell him the answer, but it didn’t. The slow up and down of her side moving told him she was breathing, and that was all it told him.

He pulls Genya fully into his lap and slowly rocks himself to soothe himself and the crying boy. But despite it, small hiccups could still be heard below him. So he shifted Genya so he clung to him like a monkey and shuffled slowly on bent knees with one arm holding Genya’s back as he crawled back to their futon. 

He laid them both down gingerly, using his right hand to pull the blanket over them both while Genya still clung to him tightly. His hand went back to cradling Genya’s head. Fingers slowly combed through black hair like their Mama would do for him sometimes. But Genya wasn’t calming down.

“Shhh,” he shushes, "It's okay.” Genya’s small sniffles could still be heard as Sanemi’s hand cards through his hair. They lay there until the number of sniffles dwindles along with the small knots the older boy found with his fingers.

Sanemi shifts back, intent on seeing Genya’s face, but Genya chases him, clinging tighter to his shirt. He was trying to hide. But Sanemi doesn’t let him and pushes him back until his grip loosens enough on Sanemi’s shirt to see his little brother’s face.

Genya looks up with a begging look. His face is washed in sadness, sadder than he’s ever seen Genya’s sunshine face.

Sanemi wipes a thumb under one of Genya’s eyes and the boy scrubs his face pushing his older brother's hand away. He’s pouting but the sadness takes over again, even draining the irritation from the younger’s face. Sanemi doesn’t like it.

“Genya,” he says softly, concern edging his voice, “Tell me what happened.”

He shakes his head. 

“No.”

“Genya…”

He shakes his head again. 

“No. Too sad.” He says as tears start to well up in his eyes again. The older’s brows furrow further in concern and he bites his lip.

Sanemi doesn’t want him to cry again, so he forces a small grin to take over his face.

“Then smile. That’ll make you happy.” He says to him.

An angry pout pulls at the smaller face below him as those angry eyes meet his. 

“No.” He says firmly.

“No?” Sanemi echoes.

Genya nods ‘yes’ sharply, brows still drawn.

Then Sanemi, in an innocent voice, says, “Then I guess I’ll just have tooo…make you happy.”

Tickling hands meet Genya’s sides suddenly and he squirms, giggling. He fights to keep the smile off his face while Sanemi fights to keep it on. Genya loses the battle and fully gives in to a blinding smile.

They breathe out panting as they calm their hearts from their laughter. Both boys wear a matching smile until Sanemi’s eyes trail across the red mark appearing on Genya’s still chubby cheeks. There was a dark bruise slowly taking its place. Sanemi’s smile shrinks and he asks again, putting a smaller smile on as he meets his brother’s gaze.

“Now will you tell me what happened?” He hedges.

He sees the happiness drain from Genya’s face and the sadness replaces it again. Dang it, Sanemi thinks. 

“I’m still sad, Nemi.” Sanemi hums, thinking. His face brightens as a thought catches.

“Then you leave me no choice.” He says, as a devious grin spreading his lips. “I’m calling you something.”

Genya’s eyes flash open wide, “No Aniki!” He says angrily. 

Sanemi's eyes widen in glee. A mischievous smirk splitting onto his face now, “I’ll call you twerp.” He snickers remembering Genya’s displeasure from earlier that day.

Genya scowls and still misinterprets the word.

“I’m not a bird.” He crosses his arms.

Sanemi’s smile widens and he chuckles.

“Oh you’re definitely a bird. With that bird's nest on top of your head?” He laughs and rubs his knuckles into the little boy’s hair. Genya squirms trying to get away and slaps at his brother’s arm. Sanemi relents with one last laugh and looks at Genya and hums again in thought. Sanemi taps his chin. “But you're so small…”

Genya whines shoving at his older brother, not wanting to take any more teasing.

Sanemi snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it! You’re a baby bird.”

Genya’s mouth drops open at the offense. His offended features on full display as he sputters. “I’m not a baby!”

Sanemi's eyes crinkle in amusement, humming in appreciation of his brother’s approval. “So you think you're like a bird as well. I’m glad we agree.” He says smugly.

Genya huffs, frustrated. “I’m not a bird either.” He says and then hits his brother hard in the chest.

Sanemi huffs out a wheeze. His little brother was getting stronger. He could feel it. Right there, the little rascal. He chortles and winces at his now sore chest.

“You’ll be my baby bird until you tell me what happened.” He teases, pain straining his voice. Dang, his lungs hurt now.

Genya huffs, his face scrunched up. The little angry face slowly melts into the same sadness as before as his eyes start to water again. Ah crap. Worry blooms in Sanemi and all traces of teasing completely fall away. 

Sanemi pulls him closer and watches him while he waits for Genya to speak. He shuffles and rubs Sanemi’s shirt between his fingers. Then Genya mutters something so quiet that Sanemi, even though he’s this close, can’t understand it.

“What?”

Genya speaks up, his voice as wobbly as the tears threatening to fall in his eyes. 

“Mama hit me.” He whispers.

Those three words rattle Sanemi’s world. His eyes go wide. 

What. 

Mama hit Genya? 

Mama hit Genya? 

His thoughts are racing and his own eyes start to well up with tears. Sanemi’s shoulders shake, threatening sobs. 

Why would she do that? She loves us. She wouldn’t do that. 

But it makes too much sense. There was no one else that could have done that to Genya. Kyogo wasn’t home. Then a thought strikes fear into him. Is she starting to hate them like Kyogo did? Sanemi trembles, bottom lip wobbling. Not Mama too. 

He buries his face in Genya’s hair and the tears leak onto the dark fluff below. A sob racks Sanemi’s body and he squeezes Genya closer. Genya lets out a pained squeak and pulls back. Sanemi’s eyes find the forming bruise on Genya’s face again. 

Mama did that. His tears run hot down his cheeks. Not Kyogo. His lips wobble. 

The longer he looks at the slowly forming bruise the more something is stoked inside him. His eyes pulse in anger. The feeling builds and swells as he hears his and his brother’s crying until one single thought makes sense in the storm brewing in his mind. 

I hate her. 

A sharp pain strikes his heart like a double-edged blade, but he pushes it away even though he wants to cry at the thought. He forces himself to stay angry and lets the building swell of rage spew.

If she wants to hate us, then I. Hate. Her. 

His breath is coming out in short huffs and tears continue to roll down his heated face. 

Memories of wanting to be like her come unbidden to his mind. He could feel the way she caressed his cheek and hugged him and gave him kisses good night, but it only serves to make him angrier. His skin boils and shakes them off in a rage. I don’t want to be like her! Her face flashes through his mind soon followed by his father’s. I don’t want to be like them! He brings Genya closer. Mamas and Fathers are worthless. He spits venomously in his mind. As his breathing slows and his thoughts with it, he feels Genya trying to hug him back. 

A watery, “I’m sorry Nemi,” is what he hears first and it makes Sanemi go still. He shouldn’t be sorry, but Genya continues, blubbering out words around his tears and snot. 

“I wanted Mama cuz I h-had a bad dream. I thought M-mama would scare it away. But she didn’t.” He trembles and his little lips wobble. He sobs harder against Sanemi. 

“Why did she hit me, Nemi? Is she mad at me? Did I make her mad, Nemi? What if she never scares the bad dreams away again?” He’s crying, begging Sanemi for answers as he fists Sanemi’s shirt. So Sanemi hugs his brother tightly. Something overwhelming hits him at that moment and he knows what to say.

“I’ll do it.”

Genya pauses in his cries, lifting a teary-eyed face and snotty nose to see his brother’s face. Sanemi looks at his brother with a look Genya had never seen before. 

“I’ll protect you from the bad dreams Genya. I’ll protect you from everything.” He declares fiercely, his eyes like a fire. 

“We don’t need a Mama.” He spits, shocking the little boy. “We only need each other.” He continues softly. His eyes search Genya’s to see if he understands. Genya nods. His brother is right. He’s always right. He sniffles and snuggles closer to Sanemi and rests his head on his chest. 

“Only each other.” Genya repeats in a shaky voice. Sanemi’s head nods ‘yes’ against Genya’s. 

“I’ll protect you Genya.” His arms hold him securely and he lifts his hate-filled eyes to narrow at the sleeping form of their mother. 

“I promise.” 

—

The next morning Sanemi is woken by the sun like usual. Genya is still curled in his arms with his head resting against Sanemi’s arm that’s under him. The both of them are still laying on their sides like the night before. 

Sanemi sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns his face to see his mother moving their mending baskets into the kitchen. Narrowed lavender eyes watch as she moves and hefts the baskets closer to the bench and prepping table. 

She finally gets them to the table where the ferns are no longer drying. She must have put them up already. She opens her basket and pulls out her tray, needles, and threads. They’re neatly set up on the prepping table. As she turns to pull out the mending her eyes meet Sanemi’s.

He glares menacingly and hopes she feels every ounce of hate he now has for her. He pulls Genya closer in a protective hold. 

Her eyes shine with emotion and her lip wobbles. She looks back at the mending and it looks like tears are coming to her eyes. A weird feeling prods at Sanemi’s chest but he shoves it away. He doesn’t care if she cries. He hates her.

He watches her move, glare still in place. Genya stirs beside him and he looks down. The bruise had gotten worse. It was swollen and was roughly in the shape of his Mama’s hand. 

A queasy feeling rests in Sanemi’s stomach and hot angry tears come to his eyes, which he doesn’t allow to fall. He holds Genya closer to his chest for comfort. A different, overwhelming, emotion prods at his chest, poking into his heart with the desire to be named. He feels- he thinks for a moment. He feels betrayed. Mamas shouldn’t do what she did. Neither should Father’s. He thought he could trust her. 

He shakes his head as hot tears trail down his face without his permission. But she’s just like him. His eyes burn. He wipes the tears away with his shoulder. His eyes rest on her back as she moves in the kitchen. He hates her. He tries to hold them back, but the tears come again anyway.

Sanemi lays there while his tears roll down his cheeks, dripping into Genya’s hair. Genya stirs again, starting to wake up. He winces a little as he opens his eyes, the skin beside them slightly swollen. Sanemi quickly wipes his face on his shoulder again before Genya can see. 

“H-hey Genya. How’re you feeling?” Sanemi asks. He sees Mama tense out of the corner of his eye. Good, he thinks at her, you should feel bad.

“Hurts Nemi.” He says wincing again when he widens his mouth. The skin beside it is also swollen. Sanemi frowns at this. His eyes trace the swelling from Genya’s mouth, to the corner of his eye, to his temple curving down and stopping right before his ear. The injury and swelling practically covered the left side of his face, with the bruises at the center.

His eyes meet Genya’s and he forces a smile. “It’ll get better Genya.” He says. There wasn’t much they could do about it now. 

Genya’s eyes shift to the side and latch onto the small form of their mother sitting on her bench at the table. She was sitting stiffly. There wasn’t any humming. In fact the only noise was the swish of fabric as she moved the shirt she was mending. 

They could see her hands trembling which was unusual for their Mama. She always had steady hands. It was those ‘steady hands’ that made them money from mending. 

Genya made to get up and go to their mother, probably to apologize, having forgotten their discussion the previous night, but Sanemi forced him to stay beside him. Genya frowned at Sanemi’s hands holding him there. He looks at Sanemi with pinched brows, a question on his lips, but Sanemi can tell the moment that Genya realizes why he was stopping him. His face morphs from understanding to sorrow. 

“But I…I want to say sorry Nemi.” He whispers.

“She doesn’t deserve a ‘sorry’.” He whispers back harshly.

Genya flinches back at his voice before nodding, lowering his small brows and looking conflicted. And with that their day starts. Sanemi helps Genya get dressed and then they make their way to the kitchen. 

Sanemi can feel her looking at them, but he doesn’t look back. He rummages through the cabinet and once he finds what he’s looking for, grabs a handful of dried ferns and hands some to Genya. He turns to his mother and glares at her and Genya looks between them anxiously.

She goes to speak. “Sanemi-”

He turns not letting her speak to him. “Come on Genya. Let’s go look at my beetles.” He says and as they leave to the backyard he turns a glare towards his mother again. Her face pinches and she turns back to the table and listens as her boys shut the shoji door on their way out.

—

The sun shines, slowly rising to its peak as two boys crouch down in the corner of the yard. Birds chirp and a warm breeze rustles their clothes and hair as they poke sticks into the loosely weaved bamboo basket in front of them. The prod and poke, trying to encourage the horned beetles within to move. 

“Why are there so many nii-san?” Genya asks as he watches the beetles move under the moist dirt. 

“Cause the parents left them behind.” Sanemi says moving his stick to gently prod at a large beetle. Genya’s brows furrow as he looks at the beetles moving slowly before them in the dark container. 

“That’s sad. I’m sorry, beetles.” He says to them, leaning closer to talk to them. He looks at the ones surfacing from the dirt. 

“Why do some have horns?” Genya asks. He sits down on this bum and pulls his knees up, content now to just watch now that the beetles are moving.

“Cause some are boys and the others are girls.” Sanemi answers and joins his brother, leaning back to sit and watch through the bamboo cage. Genya nods in understanding before confusion colors his face and he looks at Sanemi.

“But which is which?” Sanemi looks at him and then back at the beetles. The wind shifts his hair and he brushes it back. He points at the ones with horns. 

“I think these ones are the boys. They’re really big and strong looking.” He smiles proudly, glancing back at Genya.

Genya smiles a toothy smile and nods along. “They’re really pretty. I hope we keep them forever.” He says throwing his arms wide to show how long ‘forever’ was.

Sanemi nods happily. He smiles. “Me too.” He stares at the beetles smiling while resting his head on his knees. He lays his head to the side and looks back at Genya before he speaks. 

“Ya know they used to be real ugly.” Genya looks at him. Sanemi nods at the beetles. 

“Yeah they looked like fat worms and crawled around in the dirt, and then they turned even uglier. They looked all squishy and brown before getting darker and getting harder backs. They can fly too.” He says. 

Genya’s eyes widen at the flying bit as he looks back at the now beautiful bugs, trying to imagine them as ugly. He shakes his head, unable to see them as anything but as they are.

Sanemi bumps his left elbow into Genya’s right arm. “Did you want to feed them?” He asks and Genya’s eyes widen, an excited grin spreading, but winces a little and shrinks his smile, still excited. Sanemi eyes glance at the swollen side of his brother's face before shifting to stand. He holds out a hand to help his brother up. “Come on.” Genya grabs his hand and follows his brother. 

The grass tickles their feet, brushing it where their sandals don’t cover. Genya giggles at the feeling, kicking his feet along the grass as they walk. 

Sanemi leads him around their house instructing Genya to pick flowers. He’s a little confused by this, but he likes picking flowers, so he does so without complaint. Once they have a couple handfuls, Sanemi heads back to the bamboo cage. 

The brothers kneel beside it and Sanemi begins to pick off the flower heads and dropping them in. Genya almost protests at the ripping of perfectly good flowers until he sees the beetles scurry to them and follows his brother’s example. The brothers continue to do this until all that’s left is stems. Genya looks as the beetles.

“They eat flowers?” Genya cocks his head at Sanemi, trying to confirm his suspicions.

“Yes.”

“How’d you know nii-san?” Sanemi looks at his brother, laughing a little at his face. His brows are raised and eyes wide as they stare at Sanemi. 

He chuckles. “Their parents were eating from flowers when I found them in the woods.” Sanemi pauses. “I think they also eat tree sap, cause the mama looked like she was eating that when I was watching them. But yeah, they eat flowers.” Genya nods seriously. 

“You’re smart nii-san.” He says, awe in his voice as his eyes practically sparkle. Sanemi smiles.

“Thanks. Ya know the babies eat rotten wood?” Genya’s head whips to the side, eyes wide. 

“Really?” He says. 

Sanemi nods. “Yeah. If I didn’t figure that out, they would have died.” 

Genya’s brows pinch as he looks at the hungry beetles. Genya scoots closer and leans his head against his brother’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re smart Nemi.” 

Sanemi rests his left arm around Genya, pulling him closer and rests his head atop his.

“Thanks bud.”

They sit and watch as the beetles feast, squirming and bumping each other to get to the flowers in the enclosed space. Sometimes a small fight would breakout between the beetles making the two brothers giggle and cheer the beetles on. The sun had begun to grow hotter as it rose in the morning sky and Sanemi’s thoughts shifted to his mother. 

He watched a male beetle, smaller than the others, eat. His eyes trailed over the dark red and black bug. His mother had talked to him yesterday about wanting to see if these beetles were edible. Most were he knew. He had said to her that they would race the beetles soon and the weakest ones would be what they would eat. That little beetle would probably be eaten. 

Sanemi’s face sours and anger petters to life in his chest. He didn’t know how he felt now. He knew yesterday he’d do anything to make sure Mama wouldn’t have to worry about food, even sacrificing his baby beetles, but then last night…Sanemi huffs a little. 

Genya giggles beside him, slightly jostling Sanemi as he watches two male beetles fall over from fighting each other. Sanemi looks back at the smaller beetle, sadly but making up his mind. He’d sacrifice them for Genya, and for his mother, he supposed, but only because she still had their new siblings in her belly.

Sanemi’s thoughts drift to the unborn twins. His mother was inside right now working on the mending. Usually Sanemi would be right beside her. The morning after getting new stuff from their clients to fix and wash was always busy. 

They would eat, get ready for the day, then begin mending the clothing they were given to mend. Then they’d wash the other, dirty clothes and hang them up. After, they’d take a break to eat lunch and then work through the rest of the day washing, mending, hanging clothes to dry. 

By the time the sun went down they’d stop to make dinner and eat. Then they’d bring in all the dried clothes to fold tomorrow and after, get Genya ready for bed. Sanemi and Shizu would continue to mend clothing until they grew tired. Sanemi always got tired first and would be sent to bed while his mother stayed up long after him. All in all, days like this one were very busy. 

It would be hard on their Mama to do it all by herself if Sanemi didn’t help her. But he didn’t want to help her. He hated her. He looks over at Genya’s face, where he could see the swollen bruising. The anger pettered to life once more, before dying out. A sigh escapes his lips.

He couldn’t let his anger get in the way when he still had to protect his siblings and help make money with Mama. Sanemi stands, a determined look crossing his face. I’ll help her, but only for the babies and Genya. He looks down at Genya as Genya looks at him and cocks his head.

“Where you going, Nemi?” He asks.

“To help Mama.” He says.

Genya has a questioning look on his face. Sanemi, seeing this, says. “I need to help her with the clothes, so we can make money and get food and stuff, and I need to help the babies in her belly.” Genya nods before looking down and not meeting Sanemi’s eyes. 

“I still want to say sorry Nemi.” He says in a small voice. The anger sparks in Sanemi again, but he tries to soften it.

“You don’t have to say sorry Genya. She should say sorry.” He answers sternly while crossing his arms. 

Genya’s watery eyes meet his.

“B-but I don’t want Mama to think I hate her.” He stutters. 

Sanemi huffs and turns away while his brows furrow. “Well I do.” He says bitterly.

“Nemi!” He gasps. 

“Well I do.” He says to Genya more firmly. “If she can do that then I can hate her like father.” He says gesturing to the left side of Genya’s face. 

Genya huffs and crosses his arms. His baby cheeks puff out and he scrunches his face at his older brother, still wincing at the pain. “I don’t.” He says petulantly, willing to be in pain to show Sanemi his angry face.

“You should! She hit you Genya.” Sanemi says, raising his voice. 

“Mama was scared!” Genya stands and stomps his foot while clenching his fists at his side. 

“No she wasn’t!” Sanemi yells back stubbornly.

“Yes she was!” Genya yells. 

Both boys are breathing harshly. Eyes wide in anger and faces flushed. The Genya’s belly gurgles in hunger and they both look at the belly for interrupting them. Genya turns away crossing his arms over his belly. “She was.” Genya says getting the last word in. 

Sanemi turns away, sighing frustrated. “Come on. Let’s go eat lunch. We gotta help Mama catch up anyway.” 

Genya nods sharply, refusing to meet Sanemi’s eyes as they walk back to the house.

—

The two boys come into the kitchen and see their mother making a soup of some kind. Sanemi recognizes the smell of ferns, nettles, and garlic. The room is filled with the aroma and sounds of a ladle scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. No one speaks. 

Sanemi glances at the bare dining table and seat cushions and begins wordlessly setting the table with Genya trailing behind him to help. Once set, they look at the barrel in the corner. Sanemi knew it was low yesterday and with a glance at the pot on the stove, he knew they’d have to get more water for them to drink. 

With a turn, he picks up the two small buckets beside the barrel and hands one to Genya. It takes quite a long time, but they eventually fetch water from the well outside and bring it in, with Genya’s only half as filled as Sanemi’s. 

Once back inside Genya gets the job of ladling water into the cups, which he spills. Multiple times. But in the end, each cup is filled and the bowls beside them may or may not be as well. 

The rest of the water they dump into the barrel for later, replacing the lid. Then the two sit and wait, listening to their mother stir the soup. Sanemi sips the water out of his bowl, not knowing what else to do in this silence. This silence only belonged here when Kyogo was home to eat with them. It didn’t belong when it was just the three of them. 

After a little wait, their Ma finishes, bringing the pot over to the table and ladles a spoonful into each bowl. The steam rises tickling Sanemi’s face. He glances at his mother as she moves to set the pot back on the stove. She looks miserable. And like she’s been crying. Something uncomfortable squirms in his chest, but he ignores it and begins blowing off his food.

The day continues much like that. Silent. Awkward. Uncomfortable. And tense. Sanemi and Genya had begun working on the washing first. Genya would fetch water and help wash the clothing, and Sanemi, being taller, would hang the clothing after rinsing it. They worked well together, knowing where each other were as they moved. But they didn’t talk, not with two still being upset from their earlier argument. After finishing, they moved inside to help. 

Genya went off and played in the corner with the wooden toys that used to be Sanemi’s while Sanemi helped his mother with the mending. He would pull things from his basket, find the correct thread, fix the item, and then pile it beside him. The pattern continued and he fell into the familiar rhythm.

They were sitting at the prepping table beside the stove, on the bench together. It was a familiar setting but not the same. The silence was still there. No humming or talking. No laughter either. It made the room feel gloomy and stifling. The only thing heard was Genya mumbling to himself as he spoke for the toys in his hands. Usually, he’d talk aloud and they would hear the stories he had concocted for the toys. But not today. Today wasn’t a day to hear cheerful stories played by toys.

Sanemi glanced at his mother and quickly looked back to his mending. He wanted her to say something, anything, but she didn’t. She kept her silence. He could see her from the corner of his eye. Her form was bowed and her face troubled by something, Maybe guilt? She should feel guilty. She deserves it. Her face was also tired. Something pokes at his chest and he shoves it away. He wasn’t worried. He didn’t care. Sanemi focused more intensely on the tear in the plain black kimono in front of him. His mother sighs beside him audibly, making him tense, but he acts like nothing happened. 

“Sanemi. Genya. We need to talk.” She says quietly. 

Sanemi tenses again and still works on the mending. He hears Genya’s mumbling stop and hears the clatter as he puts the wooden toys down. Genya’s feet shuffle across the floor as he makes his way to the kitchen. 

“Sanemi.” She calls, but he continues the stitches, ignoring her. Now she finally wants to talk? “Sanemi.” She calls again. What about this morning? What about last night!? His stitches move faster, still precise, until he nicks his finger. He hisses, dropping the kimono and needle into his lap. He sticks his thumb in his mouth and whips his head to his mother with a glare, but falters at the look on her face. 

She looks broken, pleading, and weary, like a burden was dropped on her shoulders heavier than she could handle. She motions for them to move to the table. 

Sanemi huffs and continues sucking the blood from the pricked spot on his thumb. He doesn’t want to go. He sees his mother and Genya move from the corner of his eye. 

His mother starts to kneel but goes off kilter as she does. Sanemi is up in a flash, grabbing her elbow to steady her. She looks at Sanemi and gives a small smile before settling on the floor with one hand holding her stomach. Sanemi keeps a neutral face and decides to join them. He sits cross-legged, crosses his arms, and sticks his pricked thumb back in his mouth.

Sanemi watches as Genya settles to the right of their mother and much closer to her than Sanemi was. It made a sour feeling bubble up in his stomach. Mama trails her eyes over Genya’s bruises that she can clearly see from this angle. His face was still swollen and would likely be that way for a couple of days. The older boy could see the guilt building the longer she looked and in a weird way it made Sanemi feel better. 

All day he had wanted to say something mean and hurtful to her to get her to realize what she had done, to acknowledge what she had done to Genya. He wanted to shake her and wake her from her silence and maybe yell and scream. 

He had wanted her to feel ignored, but he hadn’t expected her to ignore them, or well …she didn’t ignore them. But she didn’t say anything either, but that just made him more angry. She hit Genya. The least she could do was fess up to it and say sorry. 

But now seeing her feel that guilt made it all dissipate. But he wouldn’t let her off the hook easily, so he kept his glare up and sucked on his thumb. He wished he didn’t need to. His face briefly pouted. It made him look like a baby again. 

Movement caught his eyes as he saw his mother briefly reach a hand towards Genya’s face as if to hold it, but stopped herself and let her hand fall back into her lap. A pained look crossed her face as a disappointed look crossed Genya’s. Genya watched their mother sadly as she replaced her hands. He was probably thinking she thought he hated her like he said that morning. A shuddering breath left their mother as she sucked in air and let it out.

“I’m sorry.” She starts. Sanemi pulls his thumb from his mouth.

Her head raises and she looks at both their faces. Sanemi can see the regret and sorrow there. But mostly the guilt. Glistening eyes look at Genya and he tries to smile at her. Her knuckles turn white with how she’s clenching them in her lap. 

“I hurt you.” She chokes. 

Her eyes turn to Sanemi and he glances to the side. 

“And broke your trust.” She whispers. 

A shuddering breath goes in and goes out again. Her eyes lowered to her white-knuckled grip. 

“I have never wanted to hurt you. I have always wanted to protect you. And I never meant to-”

“Then why did you?” Sanemi’s harsh voice cuts in, unable to help himself. 

Her tears flow freely as her startled face meets Sanemi’s even harsher glare. His face is brittle, riddled with anger, hurt, and betrayal. She could see the tears welled up deep in his eyes, but they weren’t spilling. 

Sanemi stands to his feet as his anger spikes. 

“Why did you do that?!” He yells practically in her face even at a distance. His arm swings wide to point at Genya’s face. Shizu looks. Genya doesn’t meet either of their eyes. He just fiddles with his fingers. 

“Do you hate us?!” Sanemi’s childish voice cracks and Shizu whips around in horror to stare at her eldest. Tears are cascading down his cheeks now, falling off his long lashes as he stares, at her, broken. His voice wobbles as he continues to yell.

“Why’d you do it?! Why’d you hit him?! I thought you loved us! But you hate us! You’re supposed to be a Mama! You’re supposed to be my Mama! Our Mama! Why’re you being like him?!” He shouts. He sobs and tries to rub away tears that won’t stop rolling, cheeks too wet to wipe them away. His nose begins to snot as he hiccups. 

Shizu sits shocked. She can hear Genya crying as well. She unfreezes and slowly reaches for Sanemi’s hand and tugs it. He jerks away, resisting weakly, still scrubbing his face with one arm. She tugs again towards her and he follows. She pulls him close and pulls him in until he’s sitting on what’s left of her lap after the baby bump. 

She tucks his head under hers and hugs him close, listening to his hiccuping cries. Her tears fall down her face into his snow white hair as she squeezes her eyes shut. She opens them to look at Genya who’s still crying. 

He’s rubbing his face and spreading his snot and tears along his arms. Shizu holds out a hand and he practically runs and slams into them both. She holds her boys crying with them until the sniffles die down and the snot runs dry and the tears slow to a turtle's pace. They pull away and look at her with expectant, red rimmed, eyes. 

Shizu looks down in shame. 

Her voice is soft as she speaks. “I had almost been asleep.” She starts. She stares at her open palms in her lap. They start to shake. 

“It was dark. Someone had turned off the lights.” She pauses, taking in a shaky breath. 

“I could feel someone above me. I thought your father was home, maybe, and hadn’t bothered us for some reason. Or maybe he wasn’t there at all.” She trails off and tears spring to her eyes. Her voice becomes strained. 

“I opened my eyes and it was him. He was over me and I- I-” She chokes on a sob. 

“I panicked.” She said and covered her mouth. 

“And when I looked back it wasn’t your father.” She looks at Genya. 

“I’m so sorry honey. I didn’t know. I don’t know what happened. I thought you were- You looked like-” She cuts herself off, regret clear on her face for comparing Genya to him. She looks at her lap again. Silence washes over them and Sanemi swallows. 

“Why-” He starts, catching his mother’s attention. He clears his throat. “Why didn’t you say anything after? Or when we woke up?” He asks in a small voice, needings to know. His eyes search her face as she answers.

She clears her throat and meets their eyes. “That night…I don’t know. I saw what happened and then I’m not completely sure what happened after. I just woke up the next morning. And today…I-” She pauses as she searches her own thoughts before continuing. 

“I didn’t know how. It was clear you both were upset with me this morning and wanted space.” She says softly. “So I gave it. I think we all needed time to think on it. But I couldn’t let it last forever.” She finished.

Sanemi nodded in understanding and feeling slightly guilty for shunning their mother today. He hadn’t made it easy to approach them. His fingers rub the cloth of his shirt hem between them anxiously, not sure where to go from there.

Genya suddenly stands up and pumps a fist. “I’m gonna cut my hair!” He shouts and starts running and looking around the room for something to cut it with. This makes them both look at him in shock.

“What??”

“Huh!?”

Genya looks exasperated and places his hands on his hips. “My hair scares Mama. We need to cut it.” He explains, like that makes sense. 

Sanemi can see the moment he spots the scissors behind him on the prepping table. He jumps up running to the table. Genya runs and Sanemi beats him to it. He holds the scissors high above the little boy’s head. Shizu shakes from her shock and realizes why Genya was doing what he was doing. She struggles to stand, but manages, and makes her way over to her boys. 

“Nemi! Give it to me!” Genya squeaks at his brother, his voice becoming higher as he gets frustrated.

“No! I’m not letting you cut your hair.” He says back incredulously. “You’ll probably cut your ear off!”

Genya stomps. “No I won’t.”

Shizu rests a hand on Genya’s shoulder causing him to look at her. His face is pulled into a pout. “Genya. Your hair is not scary. I’m sorry I made you think that. But you don’t need to cut it. I promise. I don’t think you’re him. You're nothing like him.” She says her brows lowered as she searches his face in concern.

Genya huffs and crosses his arms. “My hair is scary. I don’t want hair that scares you.” He pouts and looks down. He swings his foot, scuffing it against the floor before he meets her eyes again.

“You always say my hair is pretty like daddy’s, but it’s not pretty if it’s like his.” He pauses before saying seriously. “I don’t want ugly hair.” He scowls, turning his scrunched face to his mother.

“You don’t have ugly hair, sweetheart.” She says and she brushes her fingers through it. She sighs. “But I guess it is getting too long.” She hedges.

Sanemi looks at his little brother and his hair. He tilts his head to get a different angle. I guess his hair does look like Kyogo’s. Sanemi shudders a bit. Not good. Sanemi finds himself nodding along with his mother. “Yeah you don’t have ugly hair, but you also don’t have a warriors' hair either!” Sanemi says. 

“What?” Genya says, cocking his head.

Sanemi’s mother looks at him trying to figure out what he’s up to. He smiles reassuringly at her before he looks back to Genya.

“Yeah! You could be like a samurai! They only have hair in the middle.” Sanemi raises his hands to his hair and squishes the hair up like a fin on a fish. “Like this! You would look super cool!”

Genya wiggles, getting excited. He looks at his mother who still looks hesitant. 

“Please.” He says, eyes big and pleading. He squeezes his hands together and bounces a little and her resolve crumbles. 

“Okay.”  She sighs.

The boys cheer and Sanemi begins gathering the hair cutting supplies in a hurry. Her boys bumble about bumping into each other. Sanemi ends up having to dodge Genya’s grabby hands, who’s a little too eager to get started. Shizu smiles at their antics. She lets out a startled laugh as her youngest kicks her eldest in the shin for being too slow and for not letting him have sharp objects.

“You can’t have ‘em!”

“Why not!”

“You’ll cut your ear off. Or your finger!”

“No I won’t!”

The house was filled with noise once more. Squabbling and laughter resounded in the kitchen as the sun began to lower. Shizu smiled as she laughed. Their life wasn’t perfect, but in moments like this she felt it was. 

“Get back here twerp!” Sanemi yells chasing his little brother as he runs off.

“I’m not a bird!” He yells back, not heeding his command.

She laughed, smiling again. Yes, it was perfect.

—

So I tried to take my time with this, but still felt like I rushed it. Oh well. Hope y'all enjoyed.

Anyways, Cool stuff I found while researching:

I thought about where Genya's mohawk might have been inspired from and Chonmage a topknot haircut commonly worn by samurai in the Edo period kind of fit the bill. It looks kind of similar to a mohawk and could be misinterpreted by a young child like Sanemi to be the shape he described it as.

Japanese rhinoceros adult beetles are nocturnal, do burrow under dirt, and like a moist environments. They eat nectar and tree sap along with fruit and other sweet things. At first they look like white grubs that eat rotten wood, then become weird, ugly, and brown, before developing wings and a hard outer shell. The male's wings develop different to account for the extra weight of their horns.

[nocakeanywhere]

cutie patootie sunshine boy

Kyojuro Rengoku! RIP! Here's a little cute picture for everyone out there who just needs a little sunshine to warm their broken hearts!

[nocakeanywhere]

been reading some of your sanemi x oc stories and i like yoshida!!! and i cant wait to read the rest and more if you write more!! i hope it isnt weird to say but this inspires me to also make more sanemi x oc content for myself

Ashevjdbejdbk stawwwp u literally made me so happy! I'm so glad you liked Yoshida! I'm so glad her personality still came through. I wanted to make her still feel as vague as possible so the reader can still project if they wanted to. Dw i do plan to write more in the future! What's more, I'm also so happy that my work has inspired you to do so!! Keep up at itt😍😍. Delulu is the solulu. Trust✊🏼

[nocakeanywhere]

Drunk

Pairing: Sanemi x OC

Physical touch was never Sanemi's main forte, so what happens when everything suddenly leads to drunken touches? (guys this is wholesome shyte. I aint that thirsty yet.)

OR

Where Sanemi deals with drunk fluff on the walk home.

-

It was a lively night at the town of Kawagoe. Unabashed laughter filled the air and the scent of alcohol even stronger. Chaos could be heard from miles away from the town chief's townhouse. Earlier in the day, the chief had kept badgering people to come to the ramen house in celebration of...well, nobody even knew, but it was an excuse to get drunk and be merry. So, the lively atmosphere ensued.

Sanemi Shinazugawa was never very fond of parties. He found it too loud, crowded, and frankly annoying. This time, though, the chief had personally approached him during Sanemi's stroll in the market, slapping him in the back quite harshly, to invite him to the festivities. He had gone on about how Sanemi was slowly starting to blend into town, how everyone had gotten used to his face (despite still being obviously scared), and how the old ladies knew who to call if they ever needed heavy lifting. Sanemi didn't know what to feel about that last one. It sounded like people saw him as an errand boy (oh, how the mighty have fallen). Nonetheless, there was a strange feeling in his chest from being acknowledged just for his presence even though he wasn't always in Kawagoe. There was a sense of belonging he didn't know he'd feel again after losing everyone precious to him. But there it was.

Frankly, he didn't mind how quaint the town was. Because of his appearance, people were rightfully very suspicious of him when he first arrived, but as time went on, they did slowly warm up to him. It did help that he was almost always with the town doctor and so stayed frequently at her estate, but he could tell that even when he was by himself, people were willing to approach him even if a bit reluctant. He supposed they thought they could just tattle to their good ol' doctor. But again, he didn't mind.

And so it was that here he was sitting at one of the tables, except he was alone. Everybody else had gone to other tables to chat and drink away. Sanemi knew they wouldn't stay long with him. They'd ask him just basic and polite (sometimes) questions to get to know him, then move on to another person. He expected it. He was still an outsider, after all. And he didn't exactly look very approachable with his menacing appearance and that perpetual frown on his face. Thus, he took the liberty of sprawling on the entire bench, his own arm draped over the backrest, and leaned his head back into the wall to close his eyes as the noise slowly faded into static. Sanemi gradually relaxed his shoulders as he basked in the noise he had associated with a normal life. He stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying how no one bothered to come up to him unnecessarily. His peace was broken, however, when he felt something lightly brush his knee along with someone's presence beside him.

Sanemi opened one eye to peer at the intrusion. Yoshida, the town doctor, sat beside him with back straight, knees together, hands folded on her lap. She looked quite put together if not for the wide flush in her cheeks and her unfocused eyes. Funny, looks like doctor had too much to drink. She turned to him and smiled softly with a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Hi." Yoshida crooned.

Her voice was slightly hoarse and her greeting came out very breathy. Like her morning voice. Not that Sanemi had ever heard it, but he'd like to imagine she would sound like that. Wait. Why was he even imagining that? Not to mention, that dreamy look in her eyes had the effect of making her look sleepy, the type he would expect to see when she greeted her husband in the morning hours, looking up at him dazed, then cuddling to his chest for warmth. And, for some reason, Sanemi realized with shocking sobriety, that he had imagined her waking up cuddled in his arms.

Sanemi quickly turned his gaze away from her, only grunting to her greeting. He opted to focus on the scene before him where everyone danced merrily like fools. If he wasn't looking at that damn smile and eyes of hers, maybe he wouldn't be having such scandalous thoughts. So, yeah, he was without wife, and yeah, she was without husband, but that doesn't make any thoughts like that okay! And she was also quite drunk so no, not alright.

So he chose to ignore that strange feeling in his chest, that sudden drop in his stomach like he'd been on the verge of falling but caught himself in time. It created a somewhat ticklish sensation in his chest that was really...weird. And he also felt warm, and that wasn't because of the little alcohol he had that night.

Blissfully unaware to his conflict, Yoshida simply sat quietly beside him, turning her head back to look at the chaotic scene of the ramen house after she heard Sanemi grunt in response. Yoshida was a typically quiet person, settling for observation rather than confrontation; she had a gentle demeanor, but wielded surprising authority when instructing or scolding. Sanemi had never seen her in any other state, especially not in a drunken state, so he was mildly curious what he would see.

Yoshida and Sanemi sat silently beside each other, settling for each other's quiet company instead of mingling. Only now did Sanemi realize how close she had actually sat to him. It wasn't overly close since he was sprawled out on the bench and easily occupied seats for two people, but the bench certainly still had enough space to sit three other people comfortably. Yet Yoshida sat right next to his knee, their clothes brushing against each other every now and then. Sanemi didn't mind and remained silent next to her.

At some point, Yoshida started swaying. Broken segments of an unrecognizable tune would escape her occasionally, but she remained silent mostly. Sanemi glanced at her amusedly, but decided not to comment on it. A sleepy smile adorned her face and, she had closed her eyes halfway through her segmented tune. She stayed like that for a few minutes until Sanemi noticed that Yoshida had stopped swaying. He turned to her to see that, while her posture remained the same, she was slowly starting to nod off, her head startling itself every time it lost control.

"Oi."

Yoshida lightly stirred and fluttered her eyes slightly open, half-asleep.

"Wanna get out of here?" He asked cooly. He hadn't moved from his position, and his gaze remained fixed on the chaos, but he still glanced intently for her reaction. From the corner of his eye, he saw her nod her head in exaggerated ups and downs that her body swayed with it. She had her lips pursed in a tight smile which puffed her cheeks and showed her small dimple.

Fuck, that's adorable.

Wait. What.

Sanemi abruptly stood from his seat as if to shake off the thought and turned to her, hoping she couldn't see the confusion and bewilderment at what he just thought. .

"Stay here." He said firmly, pointing a finger at her before heading out to say their goodbyes to the chief, not before ensuring there were no nearby creeps or other dangers around Yoshida. He prayed Yoshida wouldn't move from her spot. Only heaven knows what drunk people can actually do, and Sanemi had, unfortunately, witnessed some of those alcoholic abominatioms. He hoped in hell she wouldn't do anything crazy.

The chief, however, had different plans than simply letting him go after Sanemi had greeted him. Soon, he was surrounded by the chief's friends, who were clearly drunk, bombarding him with questions about his background, his scars, his marital life, and his job. Sanemi took the liberty of only giving vague answers as much as he wanted to leave immediately. He didn't want to seem rude by ignoring them, especially since his actions could affect Yoshida's reputation and some shit. So, he tried to throw them off as politely as possible, even taking a drink offered to him, and go back to Yoshida. It took him longer to escape than he would have liked but he immediately rushed back to Yoshida. Only, she wasn't where he left her.

He started frantically searching for her all over the ramen house, trying to spot her among the crowds of people, to no avail. He hurried outside to see if she had left without him, and was instantly relieved to see her sitting down at the bench by the entrance, all upright, head hung low, and breathing steady. She was definitely sleeping, and Sanemi wondered how uncomfortable she must be.

"Yoshida." He called.

Sanemi didn't expect his voice to sound so soft. No signs of stirring.

"Yoshida."

He called louder this time. Still no stir. He resorted to lightly shaking her by the shoulders and calling her again, but still no sign. How the hell is she so sound asleep?

"Yoshida." He decided to very lightly tap her cheeks, hoping the touch would startle her awake. This time, she did stir, but instead of opening her eyes, she leaned into Sanemi's touch.

Naturally, Sanemi Shinazugawa's brain short circuited.

She nuzzled her head to his touch, humming in satisfaction as her cheek was now fully encased in his hand. Sanemi could feel how warm her cheek was from the alcohol, but it definitely wasn't as warm his right now. He was confident he was fully bright red and also deaf from how loud his heart thundered in his ears. The way she had turned her head positioned his thumb exactly at her lips and, shit, he felt so conscious about it.

Then she very slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him through her eyelashes. That lethargic look and half lidded eyes had the effect of making her look very, very seductive. The flush in her cheeks. The half-lidded eyes. Her breath on his hand.

It made him lose his mind.

He couldn't think properly. Everything was drowned out by his heartbeat, his shallow breathing, and the senseless thoughts flooding his head. His eyes started fixating on her lips, and, unconsciously, perhaps experimentally, he swiped his thumb over it. He wanted to see how they felt, how easily he could move it, and how warm they were. And, damn it, they felt nice. Yoshida didn't seem fazed at all, her eyes boring into his with that look. Damn, he really wanted to kiss-

Sanemi quickly withdrew his hand like he'd been burned. What the hell was that?

The sudden movement broke Yoshida out of her stupor. Her gaze refocused onto Sanemi, focused but lethargic, making a confused noise before tilting her head questioningly as if she didn't know where she was.

"Come on." Sanemi grunted. "You're going home."

That was all he could say to mask the chaos inside of him. He clenched his hand to override the tingling sensation that lingered on his hand from touching Yoshida's face, trying to ignore from how well she fit in it. His mind was reeling and he felt like passing out from how hot his body burned. Sanemi turned his back from Yoshida, expecting her to get up, because he's sure his face was a dead giveaway to how flustered he was, wrestling internally with thoughts he shouldn't be thinking. Actually, why the hell was he even thinking those thoughts?

Sanemi heard Yoshida shuffle behind him. Good, she's awake now. He started walking, hoping Yoshida would catch up to him, and she did. She walked silently next to him and Sanemi couldn't be happier that she didn't try to talk to him. Granted, he knew now that she was a sleepy drunk, but heaven knows he'd be a mess if he tried to talk to her right now, much less face her while talking.

So they continued walking in silence, only the occasional whistling of the breeze and the rustling of trees interrupting. The ramen house was quite a ways from the Yoshida estate, so their longer walk helped calm Sanemi's heart and cool his face. He couldn't afford being so distracted even when his body was already hyper alert from years of scouring for demons at night. After all, he was walking home a lady. He can't be distracted by said lady if he wanted to protect her, so he refocused his attention to his surroundings, happy to have something to turn his mind to besides his uncontrollable thoughts.

They continued walking in silence, Sanemi occasionally glancing at Yoshida who seemed to be walking normally if it wasn't for the droopy look in her eyes that made her look half asleep. Suddenly, a gust of night wind blew through them, causing a shiver to run down Sanemi's body. To his surprise, though, he heard a huff of annoyance beside him and turned to see Yoshida furrowing her eyebrows, eyes narrowed, and pouting her lips. She suddenly quickened her pace and stopped in front of Sanemi, blocking him.

He raised a questioning brow. She was looking up at him through furrowed brows, her hands lightly clenching into fists, and her pout deepening, and it was with incredulity and amusement that Sanemi realized...Yoshida was sulking.

And he found it so fucking cute.

Sanemi fought the urge to laugh. The usually composed Yoshida, all proper and polite, sulking in front of him. He'd never seen her pout or whine, so this was certainly a sight to remember. He was about to tease her when, suddenly, Yoshida stepped forward and lightly brushed away his haori to snake her hands around his waist in his kimono, so Yoshida appeared hidden inside his haori.

In other words, she was hugging him.

And Sanemi Shinazugawa was frozen in place as his breath hitched. He was red. He was very, very, very red. His stomach was turning like crazy and his heartbeat was skipping all over the place.

"O-oi!" He exclaimed, looking down at her in bewilderment. Damn it, he stuttered. Why in the shit was he stuttering? "Wh-what the hell are you doing?!"

Yoshida rested her head on his chest, and she had shifted her position slightly to fit more snugly against him. His haori gently settled around Yoshida's shoulders, engulfing her completely as she sighed into the embrace.

Sanemi remained frozen. His hands hovered above her in an attempt to pry her off him, but he couldn't will it to move, his fingers twitching as his hands hovered aimlessly. Why the hell wasn't he moving his hands?

Then, without warning, she tightened her embrace around his waist, and the yelp that escaped Sanemi as he slightly stumbled forward into her was one he'd never admit.

"Oi!" He helplessly called.

She was now completely flush against him, and he could most definitely feel the shape of her body even through his kimono. He swallowed heavily.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

As if that wasn't enough, Yoshida started nuzzling her head against his chest. Mind you, his open chest. And, goddamn it, his pride for his muscles was going to be his downfall. This was completely different from earlier. This wasn't small skin contact. This was her face cuddling against his chest, and damn it if that didn't cause his heart to speed up even more, and the flipping in his stomach intensified.

"Yoshida!" He yelled, almost breathlessly. This woman was going to be the death of him.

Interrupted, Yoshida stopped nuzzling, and looked up at Sanemi, resting her head. She did so in a way where her one cheek was slightly upturned from pressing down his chest, still having that drunken lethargy in her eyes that made her look so, so endearing.

Sanemi gulped. His mind suddenly flashed back to his ruminations back in the ramen house. How he had imagined her waking up cuddled in his arms as she greeted him good morning. How she would snuggle for warmth. How she would look up at him dreamily and give him that sleepy smile.

The parallel of his imagination and what was happening currently was sending his brain into overdrive. She was still looking up at him expectantly, and she pouted her lips again.

Why is she so damn adorable?!

He didn't like how shaky the breath he took to quell himself was, but he had to take one before talking to this woman. Every time.

"What exactly are you doing?" He asked firmly, warningly narrowing his eyes to try to send a message. Yoshida only pouted her lips even deeper and furrowed her brows at him before nuzzling into his chest again.

"But ish cold...." She whined through her nuzzling. Sanemi let out a breath of disbelief. He finally regained control of his hands and he willed himself to grab Yoshida by the shoulders and distance her from him, earning him a surprisingly needy whine he'd never heard from her before. Her head tilted backwards, exposing her neck, before rolling back to give him her pout again. Seriously, this woman.

"For fuck's sake." Sanemi let go of her and took off his haori and draped it over her shoulders. "Here."

Her lips pursed into a tight line before she hummed contemplatively. She wiggled her shoulders as if trying to adjust to his haori before gliding her arms through the sleeves. Fully worn, the haori looked a size too big for her. The sleeves went beyond her fingertips, the wider shoulders put a saggy look on her, and its loose figure made her look like a large dumpling.

But, damn, it looked perfect on her.

Sanemi had never shared his clothes before. Of course, there was the case with his siblings, but he had never done so past his adolescent years. Everybody had been too scared of him in the demon slayer corps to even pull such a stunt. And so he never thought that his clothes would look so good in somebody else. And it looked so right to be on her. He had the same thought earlier when she buried herself inside his haori to hug him. Now he wondered how she would look if she were wearing his other clothes, how it would engulf her so easily, how she would walk around the house with his scent on her and-

Sanemi quickly caught himself in shock of what the hell he was thinking. Again. For the nth time tonight.

He darted past Yoshida to start walking ahead of her. He knew she was going to follow, but who knows what else could happen if he were to keep staring at Yoshida wearing his haori. Surely enough, she was once again shuffling behind him, but he made sure that he was always a couple of steps ahead of her. His dignity really had gone through the ditch tonight. Right now, he looked like some blushing teenager who just got his first crush. What the hell. And his stomach just won't stop fucking flipping every time he unconsciously recalled, well, everything.

"Wait.....Shina-jfksbdksk...san."

That interrupted his thoughts. Was Yoshdia trying to call him? He had no intention of slowing down, though.

"Shi-hdjfjskkjfh..." He heard her audibly take a breath. "Shinaz-jdbswij...." She continued mumbling.

Sanemi held back a laugh. Yoshida was tripping over her words, and she couldn't pronounce his name. Her gibberish then kept trailing off as if she was falling asleep. It was hilarious, so he kept walking ahead, wanting to hear more.

Yoshida suddenly let out an annoyed huff behind him. Oh, she's pissed-

"Sanemi."

That stopped him dead in his tracks.

What.

What did she call him?

His brain stuttered hard. Very hard. He couldn't process anything else besides his heartbeat. Everything inside him twisted into ticklish sensations more intensely, the pit in his stomach dropping further and jumping higher.

She called him Sanemi. His first name. Without honorifics. Just Sanemi.

Damn it, he was soaring. High. In clouds. Away from the earth.

And he was also standing like a fool in the middle of the road, so he couldn't notice Yoshida stop right beside him. She looked at his frozen state confusedly before looking down at his hand, pausing to stare at it almost contemplatively.

A moment passed.

Yoshida slid her hand down his wrist and interlocked their hands together. Sanemi didn't move.

"Your name's too long." She grumbled sleepily as she gave his hand a squeeze.

That woke Sanemi.

He was completely out for a second from just having his name called. Seriously, what was wrong with him? It's just his name. His name. On her lips. He felt like squealing like a damn schoolgirl.

Suddenly, he felt his arm swing forward. Confused, he looked to his side to see Yoshida now standing beside him blankly gazing at him. Then he looked down, to see that his hand was holding Yoshida's. And Yoshida was holding his hand. Not just holding, their fingers were interlocked in a way that their arms twisted together.

His jaw dropped in shock. Physically. And he didn't think he could widen his eyes as much as he did at this moment.

How did he not feel that?!? Wait, no. They were holding hands. THEY WERE HOLDING HANDS. THEY WERE HOLDING HANDS!

His heart really wasn't getting any rest tonight. It was thundering again in his ears and his face was entirely warm. He could feel how slender her fingers were, how they were slightly roughened up by all the treatments she's done, and just...how well her hand fits in his.

Hiccup.

The sound startled both of them. It was a high pitched hiccup, the type that caught people more by surprise.

Hiccup.

Hiccup.

Hiccup.

Sanemi's face turned red. From embarrassment, this time. He quickly covered his mouth as he realized that those high pitched hiccups were coming from him. Gods, he wanted to die.

His chest sharply hitched for every inescapable hiccup, and he squeezed his face tighter in a futile attempt to muffle it. Even then, he knew his face was red but he couldn't even feel its warmth because his entire body was burning from just holding Yoshida's hand. His wasn't even holding hers back yet (gods knows what would happen to him once he did), so his fingers just hung limp despite feeling Yoshida's grip on the ridges between his fingers. At one point, she even started to rub her thumb over his hand.

Hiccup.

Goddamn it, he was going to die tonight.

A small smile flashed in Yoshida's face as she let out a small chuckle from his predicament. She swung their arms forward again like they were some kids walking home from school.

"Shall we go, Sanemi?" She beamed at him childishly. Oh, the things she does to him.

Sanemi, ever the idiot, could only nod dumbly and have his arm swung to Yoshida's whims, his hiccups sharply punctuating and echoing in the air on their way home.

-

This was one long ass fic, but guys I was up till 5 am writing this so please excuse the pacing. Sanemi's too much of an idiot for me to sleep off this delulu.

[nocakeanywhere]

Change in Constants

Pair: Sanemi x OC

Where Sanemi slowly reveals his domestic side (aka this is domestic fluff ig).

OR

Where Sanemi farms aura points ✨ nonchalantly ✨ (in the kitchen cuz guys he's a great cook, where else is he gonna cook and eat up).

-

Yoshida liked the normality in everyday life. She liked a reliable routine she could fall back to if things were ever disrupted. Very few changes tend to happen in the Yoshida estate. Even with the coming and going of patients and medicine, the day typically started and ended in the same manner. Lately, however, Yoshida noticed that some things did start to change. Like how there was now an additional room cleaned more regularly than not, how the extra cushion in zashiki stopped being put away a few weeks ago, and how the food supply now always accounted for another person. She didn't mind these small additions to her routine, but it was the man that came along with these changes that made it more noticeable.

Sanemi Shinazugawa's visits to the Yoshida estate had become more frequent as of late. He still continued with his travelling, of course, but the interval between his leaving and arriving seemed to become shorter and shorter as time went on. Every time he visited, he brought with him his rough demeanor, blunt responses, and murderous glares. It wasn't a personality everyone could handle. While he had definitely mellowed out over the months after the final battle, the defensive exterior he had carefully crafted to protect himself wasn't one he could easily break down. In fact, it was more so that he had identified himself with it over the years of cruelty and bloodshed. Yoshida, however, still noticed how behind his rough exterior, he would silently gather the dishes and wash after every meal, how he would take heavy things off Yoshida's shoulders even when he was doing something else, how neatly he hung the futons to air it out, and how he listened silently to her apprentice, Yukiko, as she talked his ear off about medicinal herbs.

He wasn't a man of many nice words, but what he lacked in words, he made up for in action. It wasn't exactly easy for Sanemi to face years of suppressed emotion and to process it healthily. Oftentimes, his first instinct was to suppress any emotion other than anger. He had, after all, curated his daily vocabulary to reflect his anger towards the world and, by extension, everyone else in it. He was too busy surviving to even acknowledge the kindness he possessed within him. He was forced to undermine it, even, in favor of his constant self blame and degradation. Lately, though, now that the world didn't face as much shit with the demons gone, he couldn't fall back to the anger he used to displace towards the demons. All he was left with was the fight with himself, and that was an uphill battle. One more difficult than even fighting Muzan, but it was one he knew damn well he was going to take. It was going to take time, of course, but he did try his best to slowly heal the child in him who the world had taken too much from. So he did it by action. Because actions were far easier to convey than words. Especially when his words always tend to have a negative connotation under it, although he didn't mean to.

And it was because of his actions that Yoshida noticed the other change he had brought into her household. Indubitably, Sanemi had asserted his presence in the kitchen like how a predator would mark its territory.

It had happened on a day when Sanemi had just gotten back from one of his trips. Yoshida hadn't been aware that he had arrived since Yukiko was the one who welcomed him. So imagine her surprise when, after leaving the kitchen briefly, she found Sanemi silently chopping up extra portions of vegetables on the counter like it was all was normal. Yoshida kept insisting that he should rest and let her do the work until he grabbed jer by the shoulders and forcibly sat her down. When she tried to stand up or protest, he would glare daggers at her and threaten to tie her down the chair. Of course, she knew he didn't mean it, but it was certainly a strange sight for such a burly man to be in the kitchen where she had only seen women in. She didn't mind it, though, so she let Sanemi busy himself away while she sipped on her tea as she watched him.

As it turns out, Sanemi Shinazugawa was a great cook. Yukiko had barraged him with praise after praise as she practically inhaled her food and asked for seconds, and Yoshida couldn't help but agree. And so it was that it became normal for Sanemi to be in the kitchen every time he visited. Of course, it was under the condition that Yoshida would be there to help alongside him, and he didn't really argue against it.

There weren't any servants in the Yoshida estate. Aside from the occasional hiring of workers or coming of deliveries, it was mainly Yoshida and Yukiko maintaining the house. Her estate's size wasn't so big that it would take more than two people to maintain it properly. And in those tasks, Yoshida was the one in charge of the cooking. While Yukiko would help alongside her sometimes, Yoshida made sure to still take on most of the work. After all, Yukiko was still a child. While she did teach her what she needed to know, she didn't want the task to burden Yukiko too much. So, most of the time, Yoshida spent her time at the kitchen alone and in silence.

She couldn't help but admit, however, that it was certainly nice to have someone else in the kitchen. She would sometimes ask Sanemi to open a bottle she couldn't open or to cut up a particularly hard vegetable. Sometimes, they would ask each other how this and that tasted and would teach each other recipes from their hometowns. Sometimes, they would just talk about mundane stuff like the market prices or the rapid change in technology in the cities. Sometimes, though, they would just stand by each other silently as they worked away. It was a comfortable silence that Yoshida had gradually grown used to, and the warmth at her side was one she tended to miss when he was away on his trips.

Truthfully, the routine her and Sanemi had established felt very domestic. And it incurred strange feelings in her chest. Every now and then, she would wonder if this was what it felt like to have a husband once she got married. The thought would immediately bring warmth to her face, and her heart would beat a little bit faster when she did. So she tried to dismiss the thought as quickly as it came. They were just cooking, for goodness' sake. Why was she thinking about marriage?

One time in particular, though, would be engrained in Yoshida's mind and would often accompany the thoughts that would pop up every now and then.

It was, once again, on a day that Sanemi had just gotten back from his travels. He was soaking in the bath she had prepared a bath for him since he looked particularly exhausted from this trip. All the while, she decided to prepare a meal for him for after he finished bathing. Sanemi tended to take long in his baths so she was in no rush to cook the meal.

Yoshida had been preparing the ingredients when she heard a shuffle by the doorway of the kitchen. She didn't need to look up to know who it was. Only one person in the house had that kind of presence, after all. A person who seemed to have finished his bath much faster than Yoshida expected.

"Please go rest, Shinazugawa-san." She implored, still not looking up. "This shouldn't take too long."

Sanemi was quiet. He was just standing there and she felt him staring at her. It wasn't weird or anything, but it did make her feel conscious of the movement of her hands or how awkward she must look standing. Nonetheless, she continued her task and expected him to leave after until she heard his footsteps draw closer and settle at her side.

"Yoshida."

"Your hair's in the way." He remarked.

She only hummed in response. Dear gods, why does his voice have to be so deep? It's making her feel things in her stomach. She definitely wasn't going to look up now. Instead, she opted to focus on the craters she made on the potato to remove the little sprouts which was interrupted when she felt calloused fingers brush her brow and gather the stray hairs that had unwittingly fallen from her bun and tuck it behind her ear.

The touch stuttered Yoshida's movements and she felt her heartbeat quicken. It took her half a second to process what happened before she turned her head shakily to Sanemi who was looking at her cooly.

Right. Yoshida had noted earlier to redo the low bun she had tied her hair into that had slowly come undone. But with everything that Sanemi was unwittingly doing to her, that had been the last thing on her mind.

Lords, why does this man never cover his chest?

Sanemi was leaning on the counter with one hand while his other lingered in her ear where, his head slightly bent down to meet her eye level, and they just felt so close.

As both of them held their gazes, the thundering in Yoshida's ears amplified. Was Sanemi really so unaffected by whatever was happening? It was all a very strange moment between them until Sanemi, ever the loving bastard, broke it with one of his classic smirks.

"Finally looking at me, huh?" He teased, slowly withdrawing his hand from her face.

Yoshida hated to admit that the ghost of it lingered in her skin, and even more so how her eyes began to roam Sanemi's current state. His usually unruly white hair had been tamed by the water, droplets dripping them from its ends, sliding down his cheek, and Yoshida subconsciously traced its path as it went down jaw, his neck, his collarbone, all the way down to his open chest-

As she felt the heat creep up her face, she quickly turned away and went back to chopping.

"Yes, well," she cleared her throat, "I still think you should rest. You're wobbling like an old man with a bad knee."

Sanemi simply huffed.

"Yeah. Nice try, lady." He pushed himself off the counter and shifted to move closely behind her. "Stay still."

His hands grazed her nape and started undoing the loose bun she had done.

"Wha-"

Yoshida instinctively tried to turn around out of surprise only for Sanemi to gently press his hand on her cheek to turn her head back.

"Relax." He assured. "I'm just going to tie your hair. Don't want your hair getting on the food now, do we?"

Yoshida was so startled that her head nodded of its own accord. What in the world?

"Good. Now keep doing what you have." He started raking his hand through her loose hair, separating out any knots that formed. She decided to continue her task despite her inner turmoil. While standing side by side cooking and chatting together felt domestic, this was another level of closeness. The way his hands brushed her forehead as he gathered up her hair and how carefully he was treading his hands all felt very....intimate. Especially when she could feel his breathing so closely and his touch even closer. It was then that Yoshida noticed how he was treading her hair.

"Are you...braiding right now?" She asked, incredulous. He wasn't doing it too tightly or loosely, it was just enough that Yoshida wondered just how adept his hands are.

Sanemi only grunted, bundling up another strand to tie into the braid. The question hung in the air with the answer already known. So Yoshida let him do his work silently and went back to hers.

At some point, Yoshida had finished all she needed to cut, but stayed still waiting for Sanemi to finish. Instead, she closed her eyes to feel just how gentle he was in touching her hair, and unconsciously, she may have started to lean into his touch somewhere in the middle. Her heart still hammered slightly from its previous marathon but she figured it was nicer to relish someone else's touch once in a while.

On the other hand, as Sanemi interlocked the strands of hair effortlessly, his mind reeled from the sensation in his fingertips every time he brushed over Yoshida's nape. Despite appearing unbothered by how close he can feel Yoshida against his chest and how smooth her skin looked up close, he had only realized what he was doing halfway through the braid, and was, in real time, currently palpitating. His body had moved on its own when he first approached Yoshida. The tucking of the hair? Hovering so close to her? He intended everything to be a harmless gesture meant in good faith. He hadn't realized how that good faith would put him so close to her. He was doing perfectly fine until he sobered up halfway through his gestures, causing his fingers to stop suddenly as he felt the heat creep up his face. He was afraid that Yoshida would notice how awkward his movements had suddenly become, but she showed no signs of noticing. He did hear her sigh contentedly(?) (perhaps he was projecting) and, she didn't move even after she finished chopping. If anything, he felt her very subtly lean in his touch and, perhaps she wasn't even aware of it, but it stirred that fluttering feeling in Sanemi's chest.

Was she really so willing to be vulnerable in front of him? Him? Scarred, ragged, mannerless man who can't even say one nice thing properly? Through the times when trusting anyone was a luxury and being trusted was simply a burden that engendered his job of slaying demons, vulnerability was a foreign existence to Sanemi. Vulnerability in front of him, no less. That tended to result in disastrous consequences that he didn't give himself time to mourn for. But this? Leaning into him and letting him do whatever? It stirred bittersweet feelings, one that triggered memories of his family, his brother, and his comrades. He didn't like dwelling on it, but....he didn't mind this. Because, gradually, subconsciously, he'd also found himself letting his guard down Yoshida. Something about her gentle demeanor, her compassion for others, her love for Genya, and, that understanding in her eyes that seemed to see right through him made it feel somewhat...alright. Yeah, he didn't mind this.

So as Sanemi tied up the braid, he allowed himself to gently place his hands on her shoulders. She didn't stir from her position, so he leaned forward to peer over her shoulders to look at her. Yoshida had closed her eyes and had tilted her head slightly backwards. Was she actually leaning into him? Sanemi felt that strange twinge again. She looked so tranquil and so, so beautiful-

"Hey." He called.

He watched her stir and slowly flutter her eyes open, looking like she was broken out of a daze.

Sanemi should have expected what happened next. He had called her, so it was only natural that she would turn her head to face him. However, having been struck by something indescribable at the sight of her, he didn't look away, and his head stayed awfully close. So it was, that when she turned, their faces met only millimeters apart, their breath tickling each other's lips in that split moment. Their eyes both widened immediately at the sudden proximity and they stepped away from each other as if struck by lightning, turning back to hide their faces.

"Thank you."

His extremely warm face and defeaning heartbeat was driving him insane. Why the hell was he feeling so weird? He'd been close to other women before. Although he'd never actually been in a relationship of any kind with them, he had worked with female slayers before and he never got this awkward around them. Still, Sanemi wanted to see if maybe, just maybe, Yoshida was also feeling as flustered as him. He slightly turned his head to peek at Yoshida, and she also looked flushed, her entire face donning a pinkish hue from the ordeal. Strangely, there was an unexpected sense of elation in Sanemi's chest at the thought of him having an effect on her. The feeling caught him iff guard and he shook his head to dismiss the thought. Why would that even matter?

It was a small assurance, he supposed, that he wasn't the only one flustered with the situation. His mind was spiraling out of control, reeling as it replayed how the warmth of her breath lingered on his lips and how her eyes gazed at him, half-lidded and dazed. What the hell was he thinking? For fuck's sake, why was he treating her, thinking about her, like she's his wife? And no, he was not about to acknowledge that fluttering feeling in his stomach again from thinking that. And no, he wasn't about to recall how her skin had felt against his as he brushed against her multiple times. And no, he was definitely not thinking about how their lips were so close and how easy it would be to close the distance-

Yoshida's voice broke his string of thoughts and Sanemi couldn't be more happy that she did because WHERE THE HELL WAS THAT GOING?!

It took a moment before her gratitude registered to which he only grunted to. He decided it was finally time to leave before his thoughts went haywire again.

"Don't burn anything." He grumbled on his way out, refusing to turn his head back even as he awaited the answer. A pause.

"I won't." Came the small reply. And with that, Sanemi left the kitchen to sort his thoughts.

Meanwhile, Yoshida was left to wrestle with how on earth she was going to continue her task with her heart thundering so loudly in her ears and how warm her body seemed to be. Her knees eventually gave away and she had to lean on the counter for support, staying like that for a good few minutes before she went back to cooking.

It was certainly a very intense memory that replayed on Yoshida's mind every time her and Sanemi were in the kitchen again in the future. They had acted as normal after it happened, but, really...Yoshida wouldn't be able to forget how red Sanemi's face was even if she tried.

[nocakeanywhere]

Favorite Color

Pair: Sanemi x OC

Where a stroll in the market stirs quickened heartbeats and flushed cheeks.

OR

Where Sanemi can't help blushing cuz he's an idiot in romance

-

"My, such beauty! Might I tempt the young lady with a hairpin to suit her loveliness?"

Yoshida turned her head to the salesman beaming at her from behind his stall. A variety of hairpins were laid out in front of him, each one adorning uniquely intricate patterns and colors. The craftsmanship was splendid enough that Yoshida couldn't help but want to introspect more closely. She hummed in contemplation as she perused the hairpins from afar.

"Perhaps you might." She smiled politely at the salesman and drew closer to his stall.

"You're not getting scammed, are you?" A voice came from behind her. "He's got a sleazy look on his face." Sanemi peeked from the bags he carried in his arms.

He had just got back to Kawagoe from Tokyo when he saw Yoshida heading to the market. He offered to go with her since she was planning to buy food for supplies and, since he willingly assigned himself the role of cook during his visits, he felt it only right to accompany her.

They went together to each stall selling produce and goods, both of them exchanging thoughts on which ones to pick. As it turns out, Yoshida was quite good at haggling, and it certainly helped that she had an intimidating, scarred, burly man standing behind her glaring daggers at the vendors. Yoshida knew most of the people in town from having treated them, so the lowered prices came more easily for her than others. She did scold Sanemi lightly for glaring at the vendors, insisting that there was no need for it. He'd still do it, though.

On a different note, It was quite a development for him to have gone from carrying bodies to trying to balance the bags of food in his arms. Not that he minded. Spending time browsing the market with Yoshida wasn't very unpleasant or tedious. In fact, it felt very...domestic. It was something he had only seen couples do on the occasions when he did pass the market during his patrols in the past. He never imagined he'd be doing the same with Yoshida. Wait.

Not that Yoshida was his lover, of course! He was just offering to help and-

His lover.

His stupid brain went back to that ridiculous detail in his thoughts. Those two words created a flutter in Sanemi's chest that he couldn't comprehend. His imagination started going wild before he was interrupted by the salesman's offer with the hairpins.

Yoshida had leaned forward into the stall to look at the hairpins more closely. What caught Sanemi's eyes, however, was the brooches being sold on the stall beside the hairpins. He zeroed in on each brooch and the conversation beside him became muted.

"My," Yoshida mused, "they're all very beautiful. I might have a hard time picking one, I'm afraid."

"Well, that's no problem, miss!" The salesman assured. "Let's see...what might be the lady's favorite color?"

Yoshida almost instinctively answered blue. After all, it had always been her favorite. Lately, however, she found herself being drawn to another color. One that she had seen in a certain kid's haori and a certain someone's eyes.

"Purple." She replied softly.

"I see." The salesman inspected his collection, picking out the hairpins that had accents of purple in its patterns and laying multiple before her. "As you can see, I have multiple shades of purple. Is there any particular hue you prefer?"

She hummed in contemplation as she picked up a hairpin and turned it in her hand. The shade seemed to change slightly when the light hit the pattern and, frankly, she wasn't entirely sure what she wanted. She just blurted out purple because...well, it reminded her of things. Things that are more significant than the color blue. She put down the hairpin and laid the choices side by side.

"Shinazugawa-san."

Sanemi only grunted in return, not looking at her. While he was standing beside her, he seemed to be fixated on something on the neighboring stall.

"Shinazugawa-san."

He turned his head very slightly but his eyes didn't leave the brooches he was inspecting. The vibrant hue of one brooch strongly reminded him of a certain someone's eyes. Maybe he should just buy it-

Sanemi's breath hitched when a hand suddenly touched his cheek and gently tugged at him to turn his head. It caught him off guard but surprisingly still turned his head in compliance. His brain short circuited when he met Yoshida's gaze. She was looking deeply into his eyes as if she was looking for something deep in its pools.

Shit. There goes his heart again. He didn't know if it was skipping beats or if it was speeding up. Not to mention, her hand stayed on his cheek as if to keep him in place. He felt very aware of its presence and how gently it caressed him. Damn it, now his face was definitely heating up. He could feel the flush creep onto his cheeks, but he couldn't bear to look away from Yoshida's gaze, even in embarrassment. He was similarly captivated by the pools in her eyes. Huh, looks like he was right about the brooch. It did look like her eyes.

She suddenly smiled at him as if she got the answer she was looking for. Mind you, her hand was STILL on his face. So the smile absolutely did nothing but devastate Sanemi's dignity. His heart definitely sped up. It's always that damn smile.

"Lilac." She suddenly blurted before turning her head to the vendor. She then withdrew her hand from Sanemi's face, and he couldn't help but feel its absence. Frankly, he was confused about what just happened. He wasn't paying attention to what Yoshida had been doing beforehand but it sure left one hell of an aftermath in Sanemi's insides.

"Well, miss," the salesman handed her a hairpin that adorned flower patterns that held hints of pale purple in it, "this should do it, then." Yoshida held it under the light and the flowers turned a richer hue of purple. It was exactly what she was looking for. She handed the salesman the payment and thanked him.

Sanemi peered at what she had bought. It looked sturdy and she could probably use it to kill someone. Yeah, all good.

"You could stab someone with that, you know." He critiqued. Yoshida simply rolled her eyes.

"I know." She put it away on her kimono. "Shall we head back, then?"

"Whatever you want, owner of the house." He smirked. Yoshida simply chuckled before starting to walk away. Sanemi was about to follow suit until he saw the salesman grinning at him like an idiot.

"What?" Sanemi snapped. He really didn't like how the sleazebag looked.

"You're very lucky to have her, sir. She's a wonderful lady." He continued grinning and it's really started piss Sanemi off. "I wish both of you abundant blessings." He bowed his head to Sanemi.

It took a second for Sanemi to realize his implications. The warmth immediately flew back to his face. He could definitely tell that he was red right now. Did he just-? Them? As lovers? He thought they were a couple? Wait. But that's not-

"I also noticed that you were staring at this brooch earlier, sir." The salesman offered. He reached out from the other stall and grabbed the brooch Sanemi kept staring at. "This is also my stall. I just have a different vendor." He quickly explained.

He held out the brooch to Sanemi. "You can have this for free, sir."

"What?" Sanemi's brows furrowed. "Why would you do that? Are you even a salesman or what?"

The salesman let out a breathy laugh. "Yes, sir, I am. But I do think it's only fair for you to have something of your lover's eye color as well."

His lover. Damn it, his heart jumped again. But it was just as well that he was confused.

His brows furrowed in annoyance and confusion. What the hell was he going on about? He really hadn't been paying attention to him and Yoshida's exchange earlier so Sanemi genuinely did not know why she suddenly did what she did.

"Please, sir. I insist you take it." The salesman winked. "Consider this as assurance that you'll get a better deal next time you come to my stall."

Sanemi rolled his eyes, but he certainly wasn't going to shy away from a free deal. So he grabbed the brooch from the salesman's hands and grunted his thanks before catching up to Yoshida. On the way, he inspected the brooch and how vibrant it looked especially under the light. It had pretty good craftsmanship in all the patterns snaking around each other in the middle. Sanemi was forced to consider that maybe the sleazebag may be decent, after all. He put away the brooch on his sleeve.

Yoshida seemed to have stopped walking and was waiting for him to catch up with her. She smiled at him when he made it to her side and started walking again.

"What took you?" She asked. She had seen him talking briefly with the salesman and was curious what it was about.

"Sleazeball just gave me something." He glanced at her. "He was being weird."

Yoshida was about to ask what he was given when Sanemi passed the shadow of a tree where rays of sunlight shafted through the foliage. He had closed one eye as a beam was hitting him directly in the face.

"Wait." Yoshida suddenly grabbed his arm to stop him. "Stay still."

Sanemi squinted at her. "You do know I'm being blinded right now, right?" He had now raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight while trying to balance the bags he carried on the other arm.

She only hummed in response as she took the hairpin from her kimono. She chuckled at the sight of Sanemi squinting his eyes like an old man.

Yoshida reached out for his hand that was shielding his eyes and slowly lowered it down. (This did not leave Sanemi unaffected). She held up the hairpin next to his face, where it was basked in sunlight much like Sanemi's face.

"Shinazugawa-san." She called softly. "Can you look at me please?"

And look he did. And odd sensations started bubbling in his chest again as he met her soft gaze. She was looking back and forth between his eyes and the hairpin she held up.

Yoshida had noticed it before, but Sanemi's eyes tended to look a shade darker when the sunlight hit it. Interestingly, it turned the shade of Genya's haori. And Yoshida couldn't help but be touched by the two brothers' connection even when separated by death. So she flashed a satisfied smile when she saw that her hairpin turned the exact shade of Sanemi's eyes under the light.

"Perfect." Yoshida grinned at him and it made Sanemi's face heat up.

Truthfully, Sanemi was starting to get annoyed at how easily he's being swayed by every single thing she does. He didn't mind, per se, it was more of a conflict with himself. Had he always been this sensitive to his emotions?

But I do think it's only fair for you to have something of your lover's eye color, as well.

The salesman's words suddenly crossed his mind. Wait. Did she-? Did she get the hairpin that had his eye color? Was that why she looked at his eyes so closely earlier? Wait, stop. Really? What the hell?

Sanem couldn't help how the corner of his lips started twitching upwards. Was he swooning right now? Damn it, he felt like laughing. He quickly covered his mouth with his free hand and looked away. Yoshida had lowered the hairpin to put it away again in her kimono. Sanemi decided he had enough emotional storms today.

"Yoshida."

She simply hummed in response as she fixed her kimono, not looking at him.

"Look at me." Sanemi echoed her words earlier. The sudden drop in his voice stuttered Yoshida's movement. It sounded almost hoarse and it caught her off guard. It definitely also made her stomach flutter for some reason. When she did look up at him, his gaze felt so...intense. It made her feel so conscious of herself that it sent a surge of warmth to her cheeks. She didn't know if she wanted to look away or not.

Sanemi held up the brooch he had been given earlier and put it next to her face. Yoshida's face wasn't being hit directly by the sunlight but it was illuminated enough that it seemed to glow. The brooch was the exact shade of her eyes.

"Perfect." He smirked at her. Yoshida seemed to be in a daze for a second before his words registered. Her mouth opened slightly in shock and Sanemi couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in what he just did. Yeah, now they were even.

Yoshida quickly looked away and puffed. "What are you even doing?" She mumbled. Perhaps Sanemi was imagining it or maybe it was wishful thinking but he swore he saw a sputter of color paint her cheeks when he looked at her.

Not waiting for an answer to her question, she quickly turned away from him and started walking faster. He couldn't help the small laugh that escaped him. Now that she had her back turned to him and was now some ways away, Sanemi finally let out the smile he was holding back earlier. He knew it was a stupid smile. It was the kind that pulled tightly on his lips to tamper down the pressure building up in in chest to his throat. He covered his mouth because he really couldn't stop smiling now that he had let it out. He really wanted to kick something. Punch something. Scream at the top of his lungs. What was wrong with him?

Hold on a minute.

Kick his feet? In the air? What the- Was he feeling giddy? Goddamn it, he was.

Sanemi took a deep breath to compose himself. His dignity was really plummeting lower and lower every time he felt like this. Yoshida had now gained some distance between them and hadn't looked back once. Lately, he's really had a hard time understanding what he was feeling every time he was with her. It didn't really feel like that when he was with other women. He didn't know how to handle things like this. He was scared he might do something stupid. He's never dealt with his emotions going haywire like this so frequently so it scared him a bit. But finally experiencing emotions aside from anger perpetually...it really wasn't bad. It made him feel human again and come to terms with things from his past.

...

You know what, maybe he didn't mind feeling this, after all.

[nocakeanywhere]

AGING HEADCANONS — SANEMI SHINAZUGAWA

just a lighthearted drabble about Sanemi dealing with the effects of age on his body.

CW: 600 words • MDNI • suggestive/implied sexual content • comfort • fluff

Sanemi Shinazugawa strikes me as the type to retain a great deal of his strength as he ages. He takes pride in his muscles, and even after the Corps is disbanded, he keeps up his physique. After all, while the threat of demons has been purged from the earth, humans are still a fickle enemy. Best to be prepared to defend himself — and his family — at all times.

But what Sanemi is not prepared for is the impact his rigorous training has on his body as he gets older. Sure, he’s strong; always has been, always will be. Unfortunately for the former Wind Hashira, however, Sanemi is learning that reaching his forties has its consequences.

His joints, for example, are just the latest casualty.

“The fuck do you mean I threw a hip out?” He grumbles you help him settle into your sofa with a grunt. “I’ve done these exercises every day for more than twenty damn years —“

“Not as flexible as you were in your twenties, are you?” You half-scold, half tease, wiping your hand across your damp forehead.

When you’d awoken that morning, you hadn’t expected the labor of lugging your husband back inside his mansion before he’d completed his morning training.

You’d been in the middle of preparing tea for you to share once he’d finished — a well-settled part of your routine, one you knew he looked forward to as much as you did, even now, twenty years after you’d married. Never before had this sacred ritual been disrupted until this morning, when Sanemi’s strangled yell sent the birds scattering into the sky, and the tea kettle nearly out of your hands.

You’d hurried out into your gardens, where Sanemi maintained his sparring ring, complete with thick, wooden posts and an orderly litter of training weapons. There, sprawled across the ground, had been your husband, spitting every filthy word in his lexicon into the dirt, his hand gingerly braced atop his right hip.

In your retirement from the Demon Slayer Corps, Sanemi had been the more active one between the two of you. You regretted not keeping up with training, however, when you’d been forced to shove your shoulder under your husband’s and half-heave, half-drag him back inside your shared estate.

Once settled, you help guide Sanemi’s right leg up onto the cushion, keeping his hip elevated. “I’ll ring for Kanao or one of her girls, later.”

The Kamado family lived well over an hour away in the mountains. Had Sanemi been injured even a decade earlier, you would’ve panicked. While you were certain the doctors in the nearby prefecture were perfectly competent, there were none you trusted more than Kanao or her daughters. Thankfully, you no longer had to rely on crows or even mail services to reach them, Sanemi having purchased a telephone a few years earlier.

To your surprise, Sanemi doesn’t argue, instead turning his attention to the way you rub at the small of your back.“You okay?”

“Better than you,” you retort easily, forcing yourself to walk away, spine straight, into the kitchen to fetch the tea you’d prepared. Like you’d let him see how age was beginning to affect you, too. Heaven knows the kind of trouble you’d be in if both of you were down for the count, and you don’t think you could survive the embarrassment of sending after one of your children for assistance.

You return a moment later with the tea tray, laden with the delicate china Sanemi had gifted to you on your wedding day. He grunts his thanks when you hand him his cup, filled halfway with his tea of choice — green — sharp and bitter, the way he liked.

You busy yourself with pouring tea for yourself. “Maybe this is your sign to ease up. It’s perfectly normal that you can’t do the same things you once could, you know.”

He deflects with a cocky, smug grin. “Don’t have any trouble keepin’ up with you, darlin’. At least, you haven’t had any complaints.”

Humming, you settle into one of the great armchairs across from him. “If memory serves me right, your knee popped rather loudly the other night.”

He’d been thrusting hard up into you while you braced your hands against the headboard when a loud pop! had disrupted the steady rhythm of your hips. And, try as he might, your husband’s furtive attempt at covering the sound with a loud moan hadn’t been successful.

Sanemi’s cheeks redden, and he drops his gaze back to his tea, muttering under his breath. You smirk. Y/N, one; Sanemi, zero.

“Gettin’ old sucks,” he sighs, blowing on the steaming liquid. “Bet fuckin’ Uzui doesn’t have to deal with this shit. Tomioka and I are the only ones who still train consistently.”

“Yes, well, Uzui has his plate full.”

It was true; between three wives and four children, you reckon the former Sound Hashira got more than his fair share of physical activity.

You glance to your husband, then, chewing lightly on your lip. “I’m happy you have these issues, you know. These aches and pains — I think they’re a good thing.”

Sanemi snorts, though his eyes warm when he meets your gaze across the sitting room. “You just like seein’ me knocked down a few pegs.”

“Not at all,” you set your tea cup on the lacquered table between you and smooth your hands over your skirt. “I like knowing you’re here to age.”

Solemnity passes over his face then, softening the irritated set of his mouth. You know, as well as he, how lucky the two of you are to be sitting here, bemoaning the woes of aging, when so many of your comrades hadn’t the same fortune.

Every morning you see is a blessing; every new line appearing by your eyes or the corners of your mouths, a luxury far too many never got to indulge. No matter how inconvenient your stiffening joints or limited mobility became, you would never not be grateful.

When Sanemi finds his voice, it is hoarse with emotion. “Get over here. I wanna kiss you.”

Oh, you would love nothing more, but now that you’ve sat down, you find the concept of standing up almost an impossible feat. Perhaps the two of you really are doomed.

Busted, you grin, sheepish. “Can’t. My back is a little more sore than I let on.”

Sanemi groans and you laugh. “Then I stand by what I said. Gettin’ old fuckin’ sucks.”

[nocakeanywhere]

Sanemi’s babies

Sanemi has a small collection of rhino-beetles and is raising them in the garden of your house. Now, his favourite one is missing and he is incredibly distressed.

Pairing: husband!Sanemi x married!gn!reader

Japanese rhinoceros beetle: The Japanese rhinoceros beetle are commonly found in continental Asia in countries such as China, the Korean peninsula, Japan, and Taiwan. In these areas, this species of beetle is often found in broad-leaved forests with tropical or sub-tropical climates.

Sanemi barely gets nervous these days. Since the demons are dead and there are no threats except his own imagination and nightmares, he allowed himself to be more relaxed. Less angry, stressed and full of adrenaline. It’s nice to not have your heart beat at the speed of light and constantly feel alert and paranoid. His biggest worry these days is making sure to keep you happy and taking care of his babies.

They’re not human though, his babies, you two haven’t come that far yet. His Japanese rhinoceros beetles— the ones he raised all the way from eggs, to larvae and to full adult beetles. Sanemi feeds every beetle personally, gave them names, kept track of their relationships with other beetles and build them a habitat himself. He keeps them in the garden of your estate underneath the porch so no birds can pick them up. It’s a daily routine for him to pick the beetles up from their habitat and let them roam around in the garden, keeping a close eye to make sure they’re all safe.

But his time, after picking and placing beetles down onto the lush grass and greeting every single one personally, your husband noticed something. His favourite one, the one he named Geya, is gone. It had a beautiful dark brown, almost black shell and impressive horns on his head, with those he managed to win so many fights your husband put him up with! But now, he’s missing. Sanemi was frantically searching the self-build habitat and all the favourite places of Geya. He’s not on the tree stumps, not buried in the ground or inside the small pile of leafs. So, he counted through all the other beetles again; Onabai is present, so is Yogmei, Gakaya, Nemouk, Misuri, Nobushi and Jitanro. Where the hell is Geya?!

You noticed your husband running around in the courtyard like a lunatic. You stopped in your way to the kitchen for snacks to watch him lift rocks, check every tree on all sides, open the ground by digging with his fingers and counting through his beetles over and over and over again. Sanemi looked so stressed, the sleeves of his yukata crumpled up to his bicep, his veins bulging in his arms and threatening to burst from the sheer intensity of tension in them. You stepped onto the porch and watched your husband crouch over your planted vegetables, his hand itching out to rip them out and check in the soil for his beetle. That made you finally call out to him.

“Shinazugawa Sanemi, just what in the world are you doing?! Get away from my vegetables, now!”

He almost jumped out of his skin hearing your stern voice scold him. Your husband quickly straightened up and faced you, his fists clenched on his sides. His brows were furrowed in stress, but his lips were a little pouty. You saw him mumbling something while kicking his feet slightly. You couldn’t hear him across the garden, so you called out to him.

“What did you say?”

“I lost Geya!!”

Sanemi yelled, the shout being directed at himself and not at you, running his hands through his hair, still avoiding looking into your eyes. He looked embarrassed of loosing his favourite beetle, the one he was the most proud of. Geya had trouble walking during the first few weeks of his early developing after the larva stage, so Sanemi made sure to feed him all the nutrients and more, helped him train to walk by bringing him outside more and introducing him to the other beetles wich helped Geya to copy their walking style. You saw your husband sob after noticing how well his little pride and joy is doing and how his beetle is now walking without problems. Seeing Sanemi so distraught at his missing baby, you cannot not offer help.

“Where does he usually hide?”

“I already checked all his favourite places. He’s nowhere.”

He shrugged and looked around the garden to think of any other places Geya could hide. You nodded and decided to check the inside of the house while he searches the outside again. The beetle was not in the kitchen, nor in the bedroom, bathroom, cellar or wherever else you could think of. While checking the cupboards again in case the beetle was attracted to the foods you store there, starter laughing loudly and parading through the gardens. After lifting your head and glancing outside to the porch, you saw your husband proudly parade through your garden, with Geya sitting on his palms, wich he was holding far over his head. The brightest grin ever spread all over his face after finally finding his beloved beetle.

“Where was it?”

You quickly head outside, watching Sanemi petting and cupping the bug in his palm.

“He was hiding under the porch. You didn’t like the hot sun, didn’t you? Don’t ever do that to me again, okay? Be good now.”

Seeing your husband babytalk a beetle with a quiet, cutesy voice made you want to both laugh and cringe. You know that both reactions will offend him, so you kept quiet and let him have his moment with his so-called baby. Sanemi set Geya down in the grass, reuniting him with his other friends. He proudly watched them all interact and roam around for a moment before gesturing you to come closer. With a sigh, you obliged and stood beside him, glancing down at the beetles. Sanemi wrapped his arm around your waist and pressed kisses all over your cheek.

“I’m so proud of ‘em. So fuckin’ proud.”

Nodding, you placed a return kiss on his cheek. He grinned at the affection and got quiet, just watching his beetles walk around and push each other around. Sanemi broke the silence.

“Let’s have kids.”

“… huh?”

🎃

Fictober prompt: “I can’t find it”

I hope you all get the references with the names XD I wanna imagine Sanemi laying on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air and grinning while watching his beetles fight amongst each other. He’s healing his inner child! Also, I assisted in a school event today and managed to win a couple prizes during a game! I got a chocolate penguin, bread baking cylinders that are designed in different shapes for different shaped bread, an LED lamp and some origami paper!! I love bread so I am very excited about the shape thingies. Also, the chocolate penguin is already eaten and gone.

Anyways, make sure to EAT, SLEEP and DRINK enough!

Take care of yourselves <3

[nocakeanywhere]

Sanemi + the hashira.

(Note: Giyu's crow is super old and therefore unreliable for delivering important messages. He doesn't explain this of course. )

Based on this famous chart: