Chapter Text
For the first time since the ghost began haunting his apartment, Sanemi came home before ten.
He told himself it was because he’d finished grading early. It had nothing to do with the thought that maybe the quiet, blue shimmer would already be waiting.
It was.
Giyuu stood near the window again, calm as a painting. The city lights blinked beneath him—cars streaming, neon signs pulsing, rain beginning its nightly rhythm.
Sanemi kicked off his shoes. “You just stand there all day, huh?”
“I like the view,” Giyuu answered softly. “It moves.”
Sanemi snorted. “That’s called traffic.”
Giyuu blinked. “Does it attack people?”
“Only your patience.”
Later, Sanemi found himself watching the spirit explore like a bewildered cat.
Giyuu crouched beside the television, head tilted. The bright screen reflected across his faint outline.
“It’s a… box of moving portraits?” he asked.
“It’s TV,” Sanemi said. “Shows people pretending to live.”
“Pretending?” Giyuu murmured, frowning slightly. “Why not just live?”
That one actually made Sanemi laugh—loud, short, surprised. “You got me there, samurai.”
He didn’t miss how Giyuu’s expression softened at the sound, almost like he’d never heard someone laugh for him before.
When Giyuu discovered the refrigerator, he startled so badly that Sanemi nearly dropped his phone.
The hum kicked on and the ghost jumped back, hand on his sword out of pure habit.
“It growled at me,” he said, completely serious.
“It’s a fridge, not a demon,” Sanemi wheezed between laughs. “Keeps food cold.”
Giyuu leaned closer, curiosity overriding caution. He reached out—but his hand slipped through the door, scattering a shimmer of blue light that fizzled against the steel.
He stared at his hand for a moment. The smile that followed was small but real.
“I used to guard others from things that devoured. Now even food boxes frighten me.”
Sanemi tried to play it off, but his grin lingered longer than it should have. “You’re hopeless, Tomioka.”
“Perhaps,” Giyuu replied calmly. “But I’m learning.”
Each night became a rhythm of small discoveries.
The kettle startled him the first time it whistled; he bowed to it apologetically afterward.
He tried to mimic Sanemi’s coffee-making ritual, concentrating so hard that Sanemi had to bite his cheek not to laugh at a ghost earnestly studying a mug he couldn’t touch.
And once—God help him—Giyuu tried to follow the sound of music through Sanemi’s earphones, only to mutter, “There are people trapped inside these cords.”
Sanemi almost choked on his drink.
He didn’t say it out loud, but there was something—adorable—about watching the stoic warrior unravel at every modern marvel. The man looked like a lost relic, yes, but a strangely endearing one.
He didn’t say that either.
Then one night, the laughter died too quickly.
Giyuu was at the window again, tracing the city lights with distant eyes when the blue around him flickered—sharp, jagged, like static.
Sanemi’s brow furrowed. “Hey. You do that light trick on purpose?”
Giyuu blinked, steadying himself. “No. It happens sometimes.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said—too quickly.
The shimmer stabilized, but for a moment his form had looked thinner, edges dissolving before pulling back together.
Sanemi wanted to ask again, but something in Giyuu’s face—calm, too calm—told him not to press.
So he just muttered, “Don’t short-circuit on me. I don’t know how to fix a ghost.”
A faint smile touched Giyuu’s lips. “I’ll manage.”
But when Sanemi turned away, Giyuu’s hand brushed his own chest, just where his heartbeat should’ve been.
Pain pulsed there—sharp, distant, as though carried from another world.
He closed his eyes, breath hitching.
Not yet, he thought. I can’t fade yet.
When he opened them, Sanemi was watching him again—pretending he wasn’t worried, pretending this wasn’t slowly getting under his skin.
“Hungry?” Sanemi asked gruffly. “I’ve got ramen. You can, uh, look at it.”
Giyuu chuckled—quiet, genuine—and the flicker steadied once more.
Days slipped into something resembling routine.
Sanemi woke, went to work, barked at teenagers, came home, and found a ghost waiting by the window.
It should’ve been insane.
But insanity, it seemed, was easier to live with than loneliness.
And somewhere in between, they started talking—really talking.
“Repeat after me,” Sanemi said one night, pointing at the TV. “That’s a remote control.”
“Re-mot con-trol,” Giyuu echoed carefully, as if reciting sacred text.
“Good. You use it to change channels.”
Giyuu frowned faintly. “Does it control the box people live in?”
Sanemi burst out laughing, nearly dropping his beer. “Nah, it just changes what idiot you’re watching.”
Giyuu’s brow knit, the confusion so genuine that it made Sanemi’s grin soften. “You really are hopeless,” he said, shaking his head.
Giyuu didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “Perhaps. But I learn fast.”
The progress began by accident.
Sanemi had been tossing a pen back and forth while explaining what a smartphone was. Giyuu, curious, reached out to trace the motion.
At first, the pen simply slipped through his hand in a shimmer of blue light—like always.
Then, on instinct, Giyuu tried again—slowly, focus narrowing to his fingertips, like steadying a breathing form.
The air thickened. The shimmer brightened.
And the pen stopped midair.
Balanced. Trembling. Real.
Sanemi’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”
Giyuu blinked, startled himself. The pen wobbled once, but didn’t fall. He stared at it like it was a living thing.
“Did you—” Sanemi started. “You just moved that. You—what the hell, you got telekinesis now?”
Giyuu tilted his head. “Tele… what?”
Sanemi huffed out a laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Never mind. You’re a freakin’ Jedi now, congratulations.”
Giyuu frowned, completely lost—but when he caught Sanemi’s grin, something warm flickered across his face. The faintest smile.
It stayed.
After that night, everything changed in small, beautiful ways.
Giyuu began learning to hold things. At first, just light touches—a spoon, a page corner, the switch of a lamp.
He’d tremble every time, terrified it would dissolve through his fingers again, but it didn’t. Not anymore.
One evening, Sanemi came home to find the refrigerator door open and Giyuu standing in front of it, utterly transfixed.
“You didn’t,” Sanemi said, half laughing.
“I did,” Giyuu said, sounding both proud and guilty. “It no longer growls.”
“You made peace with it, huh?”
“I apologized,” Giyuu admitted, straight-faced.
Sanemi grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. “You’re unbelievable.”
Soon he could even manage the washing machine. When it whirred to life, he startled again—but didn’t flinch this time.
Instead, he looked back at Sanemi with a quiet glow that was almost childlike.
“See? You’re a natural,” Sanemi said, watching him with a strange fondness he couldn’t name.
Then came the night that sealed it.
It had been a brutal day.
Students misbehaving, paperwork piling, the principal calling him “too harsh.” By the time Sanemi stumbled into his apartment, the weight of exhaustion sat heavy in his chest.
He unlocked the door, expecting darkness.
Instead, every light was on. The faint hum of the kettle filled the silence.
And on the table—two steaming mugs of coffee.
He blinked. “…What the hell?”
Giyuu stood by the counter, the glow around him soft, steady.
“I noticed that coffee calms you down,” he said simply. “So I made some.”
Sanemi’s throat tightened.
He didn’t remember the last time anyone had done something that gentle for him.
He walked over, staring at the two cups. “Why two?” he asked, voice rougher than he meant.
Giyuu froze. For a heartbeat, he looked as though he hadn’t realized it himself.
Then a small, shy smile touched his lips. “I forgot,” he said quietly. “That I can’t drink it.”
The words landed between them like a stone dropped into water.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was heavy, aching, full.
Sanemi swallowed hard, something burning in his chest.
He reached out, slow, unsure—until his fingers brushed against Giyuu’s hand.
And right before contact, the skin beneath his fingertips dissolved into light—tiny, trembling orbs of blue drifting up like fireflies before fading.
Sanemi froze, breath catching.
That familiar ache, the one he thought he’d buried years ago, cracked wide open.
“Damn it…” he whispered, barely audible.
Giyuu only looked at him with that same soft sadness—the kind that didn’t need words to be understood.
The second cup of coffee cooled untouched.
But Sanemi didn’t throw it away.
Everytime Giyuu forgets and makes cups for two, Sanemi leaves it there, every night after, beside his own.
It started quietly.
They’d been sitting together—the usual scene.
Sanemi grading papers at the table, muttering curses at messy handwriting, Giyuu quietly cleaning the counter for the fifth time that night, though he didn’t technically have to.
Outside, the rain sang its usual low lullaby against the glass.
Then Giyuu froze.
It was subtle at first—a hand tightening against the countertop, a tremor that made the cup he was holding rattle faintly.
Sanemi looked up just in time to see the light around him stutter.
“Oi,” he said, brows furrowing. “You okay?”
Giyuu opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t.
The air seemed to leave him all at once. His hand flew to his chest, breath hitching. His body folded forward, knees hitting the floor in silence.
“Tomioka!”
Sanemi was on his feet in an instant, chair scraping back violently.
He knelt beside him, instinct screaming to touch—to steady—to do something—but his hand stopped halfway, shaking.
He couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t ground him.
“Shit, shit—hey, breathe—hell, you can’t even—damn it!”
Sanemi’s voice cracked, rough with panic. He hovered uselessly, fingers twitching near Giyuu’s shoulder. Every time he got too close, the faint light sparked again, threatening to break him apart.
“C’mon, dammit, hold on—”
Giyuu couldn’t hear him anymore.
The room had blurred into white light, his vision swimming.
He wasn’t seeing Sanemi now—he was somewhere else.
Bright. Too bright.
The smell of antiseptic and iron.
The rhythmic beat of his heart thumping in his own chest, going faster as seconds pass by.
He was lying in what seemed like the beds he lied on to in the Butterfly Estate..
His real body.
There were bandages wrapped tight around his chest, the sheets stained faintly with red. His skin was pale, lips chapped. Wires snaking from his arm.
He could hear voices through the haze.
“Giyuu-san! Please—please, stay with us!”
Aoi’s voice, trembling and tight.
And another—
“Tomioka-san, hang on!”
…Tanjirou.
The boy’s voice cracked on his name.
His heart clenched again, a bolt of pain so sharp he almost blacked out completely. He could feel it—his pulse struggling, his lungs fighting for air back in the time he came from.
And then—
like the breath of wind after a storm—
it stopped.
The pain didn’t vanish; it simply dulled into stillness.
The white light dimmed.
And when he blinked, the cold was gone.
He was back.
Back in the apartment, the rain still falling.
Sanemi kneeling in front of him, eyes wide, jaw tight.
“Hey—hey, you with me?” Sanemi’s voice was rough, somewhere between anger and fear. “Don’t you—don’t you dare pull that disappearing act on me again.”
Giyuu blinked once, twice, trying to steady his breath.
“I’m—fine,” he managed, voice faint.
“The hell you are!” Sanemi barked, though the venom wasn’t there. “You scared the shit outta me!”
Giyuu flinched, straightened up slowly, still pale with the lingering echo of whatever pain had torn through him.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Sanemi opened his mouth to yell again, but the words died somewhere behind his teeth.
He exhaled sharply instead, raking a hand through his hair. “Tch. You’re gonna kill me before your damn demons do.”
Something in Giyuu’s expression shifted at that—a faint flicker of realization.
He looked down at his trembling hands, light pulsing faintly beneath the skin.
“…Sanemi,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“I don’t think I can stay here forever.”
Sanemi froze. The words hit harder than they should have, like someone had cut the ground from under him.
He didn’t answer—not immediately. Just stared at Giyuu, at the man made of light and rain and borrowed time.
Finally, he muttered, low and stubborn, “We’ll
figure it out later. You’re here now.”
Giyuu looked up, meeting his gaze.
That small, gentle smile returned—fragile, like glass, but full of warmth.
“Yes,” he said softly. “For now.”
The rain kept falling.
Sanemi didn’t move, afraid that if he blinked too long, the light in front of him would vanish again.