#reader x shiharu

[dreamingofyouthemanyone]

When They Wonder Why You Chose Them - 11

SCREAMING HHAHAHAHA. HIII IT'S BEEN A WHILE HAHA but omg the game is about the come out, we're finally here, and we've hit an obstacle but we're gonna have faith!! Thank you everyone for sticking up until the end! AHHH IM SO EXCITED!

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Featuring: Members of the Sweeper Guild | Hound Sweeper

Type: Headcanons

Prompt: Each character musing over why did you pick them to be your first partner in this journey

Warning: Pre-Game Launch Character Assumptions

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Amused is one way to put Shiharu’s opinion of the entire situation.

Even since the beginning, he wonders what exactly had drawn him to you. He knows that many see him as a ghost—willowy, translucent, and certainly as vengeful as one if wronged—and he muses if that’s something you find interesting. To prefer a ghost instead of a sun.

He treats you cordially enough at first, close but not so, keeping an imaginary abyss between the two of you, and he doesn’t expect you to take the leap, because why would you? What are your reasons for doing so? Why make the effort when it will bring you neither fortune nor reward?

It’s best, in the end, to keep a certain distance, or else you’ll get dragged into something that you’ll regret and he’ll later have to do damage control for.

Yet, no matter what he does, you’re always there to spend time with him. You attempt to get closer to him beneath the cover of guidance and seeking his help on matters that pertain to your requests. He can see your endeavors in creating a bridge through that bottomless abyss that he’s tried so hard to keep permanent between the two of you, and he protests.

He doesn’t outright ignore you or shut you down, because that would defeat the purpose of him being a catalyst for your future. He wants to help you, not delay your progress, so he does what is needed of him but politely refuses any situations that are superfluous, even going so far as to point out the reasons to support his case.

He doesn’t know whether he should feel frustrated or incredulous when you merely find loopholes against his reasons.

If he doesn’t want to spend more money eating out? Then you can go and buy groceries and make something together at the guild! If he doesn’t have the time to do so? Then you can help him with other matters so that he’ll have more time! And if he tells you that you might not have the skillset for that? Then you inform him that he can always teach you so that the guild will be more effective as a whole in the future!

It drives him somewhat insane, just how persistent you are, and he reaches his tipping point one day and nearly snaps at you—why go so far just to get close to him? His purpose is to support you, to help you reach your full potential by achieving your dreams, and you can’t accomplish any of that if you turn your attention to him, someone who doesn’t even deserve to be considered a person after all he’s done.

It takes him a moment to realize what he’s done, and an apology is already prepared at the tip of his tongue but he’s interrupted by hands coming up to cradle his face.

There’s a heartbroken expression twisting your features, one that he wants to wipe clean off your face, but that determined light comes back to your eyes and you tell him, explicitly, your reasons for choosing him.

Suffice to say, he’s floored by the truth, and something on his expression must show the chaotic jumble of emotions he’s feeling deep inside of him because you embrace him, bringing his face into your shoulder. And, for once, even if it's with reluctant arms and a shaky heart, he returns the gesture.

“Even if it’s me, would you still be willing to hold my hand? … No, you don’t have to answer me. I can already tell by the look on your face. Thank you… From now on, if you need anything, I’ll go and fetch it for you. No matter what it may be.”

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Alma is indifferent to your decision.

And why wouldn’t he be? It doesn’t exactly change anything, aside from having more work to deal with, but even that isn’t too big of a problem. Things have been getting boring as of late, and he appreciates anything that’ll keep him from getting antsy.

But he can’t deny that it’s fun to relive what he’d thought he’d long since given up. Being able to have a reason to journey to places he’s only heard rumors of, to experience the difficulties of travel and the luxuries of a warm bed and meal after a hard day’s at work, and to meet a bunch of strangers that you have no idea if they’ll be a friend or a foe in the long run.

It helps that you’re there too. Your company is surprisingly pleasant to be in, even though you pester him whenever he feels like sleeping in, but you’re fun to talk to and you don’t care all too much about getting a bite of whatever he’s fancying for dinner as you two go over your reports. He feels more energized whenever you’re there, like he has even more reason to fulfill his job, which is something that he both sighs and smiles over.

Karma, on the other hand, feels inconvenienced by your decision and in turn you.

He prefers to stay hidden beneath the stillness of Alma, loath to have any sort of interaction with you, but he forces ripples upon the surface and makes an appearance when you get in the way of his job, sneering at you that it isn’t any of your business, that you have no right to intervene into any of his affairs with confessors.

To him, your requests have been disrupting his duties, making it less and less likely for him to hunt down the guilty and hear their cases before he executes judgement upon their souls. And it’s not as if he can just abandon his duty to you. He’d made a promise to you, and he’d be a hypocrite if he went back on it due to personal reasons, so only you have the right to break it.

Both sides of him can see the bewilderment that appears on your face whenever he switches between his personas, but the desire to understand is there, so he sits you down one night and explains it to you, holding your trembling hands the whole time.

He doesn’t expect you to understand, doesn’t expect anyone to understand why he copes in this way, but his heart does flip into itself when he sees that you’re trying to. He squeezes your hands, unwilling to let go, but the words are out of his mouth before he even knows it—it doesn’t have to be me.

And you understand him, judging by how eyes snap wide open. In any other situation, he would have smirked at how easy it is for the two of you to read one another, but this isn’t just any situation so he gives you a tight-lipped smile. (10)

What seems like hours pass by between the two of you before he sees you clench your jaw, a flash of indignation passing by your the curl of your lips, and before he knows it, you have a hand on his braid, tugging him down to your level and making him hunch over. You tell him, in words that ring out fiercely in his head, that you want it to be him, and whatever thoughts he’d had, whatever thoughts that Karma had of your weak resolve, they crumble just like that.

Why? He’ll ask on another night, because it seems like full moons are the perfect setting for a serious conversation between the two of you. And you’ll look at him as if he’d grown a second head before chuckling, your hands finding his, and this time, it’s you who does the explaining until he understands.

“Aha! You should see the look on your face! Ah, but don’t worry! I won’t drop you, see? I just wanted to try carrying you, but man I didn’t think you’d weigh this much… Kidding! I’m just joking! Aww, don’t give me that look! … You wouldn’t! You promised me that we’d get to try out that barbecue restaurant! I already said I was sorry—!”

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Lykos can see it as clear as day—another obligation to add alongside the shackles lining his limbs.

At the very least, your intentions seem to align well with his objectives, giving him no reason to reject your offer. If you, too, are in the pursuit of foiling whatever schemes evil has in store, then it would only be right to support your cause.

With Shiharu’s permission and assurance that he’ll be fine on his own, he goes out of his way to help you out whenever he can, from day-to-day tasks and up to life-threatening ones. He prefers the latter, and he knows that it shows whenever a conflicted expression appears on your face as you give him the requested details to take care of a harmful entity hellbent on threatening the lives of civilians.

More often than not, these days, he has to resist the urge to pat you whenever you look worried, to offer some means of comforting words to you, but he holds himself back, unwilling to cross the line of professionalism. For all he knows, your concern may be directed to only the civilians in the line of danger, and it would be presumptuous of him to assume otherwise.

His mind is eventually put to rest when you seek him out one day, brandishing a protection charm from who knows where only for you to give it to him with a firm look and an even firmer promise extracted from that he’ll always have it on his body.

He keeps it in a hidden slit on the belt wrapped across his chest, letting it rest against his heart so it’s there where he can first feel the warmth of its magic when it activates.

After that, it’s laughably easy for him to return your gesture. No longer does he shy away from patting your head or giving you kinder words, now that he knows you wouldn’t spurn him like so many others have.

He allows you to worry over him, staying quiet as you fuss over any injuries he sustained in battle that day and letting you run your fingers through his fur as a means to distract you whenever you’re stressed. He finds himself wishing that he can bring peace faster, so that you don’t have to spend so much time tiring yourself out in this battle, but even he’s realistic enough to know that it’s an impossible dream and that the best he can do is to protect you from harm’s way.

He enjoys being with you, more so than he could have ever imagined, and it’s precisely so that he lets you see the more vulnerable sides of him, even if at his own expense. Even now, he can still remember the look on your face when the two of you had visited the orphanage he frequents to in order to donate what spare coin he has and all the children had come running up to him, asking for tosses and climbing all over his body as if he were a playground.

It’s because he trusts you so much that he asks you, as the two of you are staring up at the stars after a long day, why you chose him.

The way your eyes had looked when you’d turned to him could have put the moon itself to shame at that very moment, but as much as he’d want to lose himself in them, he keeps his ears open for your words, raptly listening to you.

He feels even more at ease after that, knowing that even if many gazes look his way and don’t see someone willing to die for their protection, you at the very least will always know. And that’s enough for him.

“You should take this. It’s going to be a chilly night. … Hm? Me? Don’t worry about it. I have my own coat, don’t you see? I’ll be fine…. You do know that we don’t have to share? … If it puts your mind to ease, alright then. But keep close, we don’t want you getting sick.”

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The first thing Daste does when you make the offer to him is to complain.

If it were up to him, he would have outright shut you down. Better to not waste either of your time, right? But Shiharu’s gaze in itself feels like a piping hot brand even across the room, and he’s not stupid enough to ignore what is basically an unspoken command.

He doesn’t make it easy for you, no, because if anyone’s adjusting, it’s definitely not him. He’s already done his part, agreeing to this kind of trouble, and it isn’t as if he rejects any of your requests or goes out of his way to sabotage them. He’s not that much of an asshole.

In the end, he isn’t made to be indestructible nor has he ever wanted to be. It takes time for him to warm up to you, and he doesn’t even realize that he’s grown attached to you until you don’t show up one morning on a day of the week that you usually do and he’s getting fidgety to the point he would have nearly blown up his workroom if not for his mind telling him to doublecheck his mixture of chemicals.

When you drop by the next day, he’s instantly at your side, shooting questions and generally fretting over you. He catches himself when he sees how your expression shifts, and he clamps his mouth shut, getting all red in the face because of his actions.

It’s a turning point in his relationship with you, for him to know just how much he cares for your wellbeing, and he awkwardly stumbles through it in the beginning, not quite sure where he stands in your life because he’s been a total ass to you.

It’s only when you take the initiative to reach out to him once more, this time with the both of you truly open to the idea, that he realizes that all this time, you’ve only really just been waiting for him, and what else can he do but catch up to you and make up for lost time?

And boy, he really does try to make it worth your while. Suddenly, stilted conversations become full of life and grand gestures that it’s hard to remember anything from the past. He shows you all of the combustibles and explosives he has in store, both the ones used for work and the ones used for pure aesthetic, and he offers to show you each one of them with an excited grin and anticipating heart. (9)

The minute you give him the go, he knows exactly what he’s going to show you and he sets it up quickly, telling you to clear up your schedule for tonight, and he’s practically vibrating in his skin as he sits by you, far away from the stack of fireworks he’s arranged in the center of the empty field. He glances at you before lighting the fuse that’s just at his feet.

Seconds later, an unimaginable number of colors burst into being in the night sky, illustrating wide-petaled flowers that trickle down as if drawn with actual paint that hadn’t been given the time to dry. It’s a sight that still makes it feel as if his heart is imploding upon itself, but he risks looking at you, wanting to see your expression.

His breath hitches when he sees the look on your face, something taking hold of his lungs and squeezing it mercilessly. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but when the sounds from the fireworks die down a bit, he can’t help asking you just why had you picked him. Just why had you still chosen to stick around.

Your eyes widen, caught off guard by the suddenness of his question, but your surprise softens into something, dare he say it, loving and you take your hand in his, intertwining your fingers, and you give him your answer. At the end of the night, he can say for sure that it isn’t the fireworks that had made his day.

"Oi, oi, oi! Don't just go around touching things! It's dangerous in my work bench. Give me your hands! ... Okay, good, at least you didn't hurt. Don't do that again, okay? You had me worried for a 'sec there, sheesh."