Chapter Text
Kyojuro is sixteen when his mother passes from an unknown disease. No one could say it was sudden, it wasn’t even really surprising. A few years after giving birth to Senjuro, his mother had started to gradually lose her strength, to the point of spending every day in bed. As much as Kyojuro would like to say he had hope that she would recover, in fact it felt like he had already been grieving for a long time.
The wake happens on a spring day, the sky so clear and beautiful it feels mocking. He and his brother stand side by side as members of the Demon Slayer Corps fill the room and form a queue to light incense in front of his mother’s picture. Most of the people attending are pillars who served along his father, some of them familiar faces to Kyojuro.
“How are you holding up, squirt?” Uzui, the sound pillar, steps closer to him, bowing slightly and placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. He’s not that much older than Kyojuro, but he likes to act like an old man full of ancient wisdom. That thought manages to get a smile out of him.
“As well as can be expected,” he replies.
“I hear you,” Uzui continues. He moves towards Senjuro, who’s wearing his toughest face, and puts a hand on his shoulder too. “Tell me if you two or your dad need any help.”
His father is wallowing somewhere else in the Flame Estate. Kyojuro bows in acknowledgement and hides his closed fists behind his back.
Other pillars approach to offer their condolences, Gyomei Himejima and Shinobu Kocho. Kyojuro had seen them here and there, being his father’s tsuguko, but they’d never talked before. It suddenly dawns on him that it hasn’t been long since Kocho lost her sister to a demon. If attending yet another funeral so soon affects her, she doesn’t let it show. He and Senjuro respectfully accept their words as they did with Uzui.
When Kyojuro looks back up, he sees a person he doesn’t recognize lighting incense for his mother. It’s a boy, probably around his age, with cascading black hair tied into a ponytail. He is wearing the corps uniform with a black mourning haori on top, just like the others.
Oh, Kyojuro realizes, it’s the water pillar.
His father told him once that the water pillar was as elusive as his title. He didn’t attend pillar meetings regularly and he usually arrived late to the ones he did go to. He preferred to be alone and didn’t talk to his co-workers if he could help it. Kyojuro had never seen him before today and he wasn’t expecting to.
The black-haired boy turns to the Rengoku siblings and Kyojuro’s breath catches on the way out.
He looks a little like her is what stuns him. Mostly the serious tilt of the eyebrows and the long, dark hair. Although Ruka had always smiled freely in the presence of her children, she generally kept her face stern and closed-off. It gives him a bit of a whiplash to see somebody else with the same countenance.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the water pillar says, bowing. His name is Giyuu Tomioka, Kyojuro tells himself after scouring his mind for a bit.
“Thank you, Tomioka-san.”
He seems a little surprised that Kyojuro remembers his name. But then his expression quickly clears and his eyes go back to that stern frown. When Tomioka turns to his little brother, Kyojuro’s smile freezes, he knows what’s going to happen before it comes.
Senjuro takes a good look at Tomioka’s face and starts bawling.
In one fast swoop, Kyojuro picks his brother up and buries his face on his neck. Senjuro had been holding back since the wake started. It was an admirable effort for a ten-year-old, he concedes, feeling the wetness on his shoulder. He rocks his brother from side to side, petting his hair.
It’s only after Senjuro’s calmed down a bit that he risks casting a glance at the pillar and almost laughs. Tomioka’s wide-eyed and looking as if he's just dropped a very expensive vase and doesn’t know what to do with the pieces. It makes Kyojuro want to tease him a bit.
“It’s nothing personal, Tomioka-san,” he offers, chuckling. “Senjuro’s just tired.”
“I see,” Tomioka responds, stiltedly.
And then promptly turns around and leaves.
Kyojuro is so bewildered he almost forgets what had Senjuro upset in the first place. But then his brother sniffs against his neck and the brief moment of respite passes. He quickly presses Senjuro closer to his chest.
The sudden image of his father that morning pops into mind. The flame pillar had been hiccuping over his mother’s body, devastated, a shadow of himself.
Kyojuro sighs. Any levity flees him after that.
***
A couple of weeks go by and his father doesn’t return to the demon corps. Ubuyashiki is kind enough to give him a longer period of mourning, but as more and more time passes, it seems unlikely that Shinjuro Rengoku will recover from his current state. Kyojuro watches as his father delves into a deeper spiral of alcoholism and trains twice as hard to make up for it. If his hunch is correct, his father won’t be going back to his duties as a demon slayer.
Kyojuro steps between each of the straw dummies set up on the training grounds, hitting their vital spots before moving to the next. A strand of hair falls into his eyes and he brusquely shakes his head to clear it.
Senjuro is too young to understand fully, but he notices the changes in the household in his own innocent way. He starts picking up more chores to do despite the servants insisting he doesn’t have to and stops complaining about sword practice. And although Kyojuro'd find Senjuro's newfound willingness to train good in any other circumstance, now it just makes him feel sad.
Kyojuro swings the bokken harder. It tears through the dummy as if it were a blade.
He has to keep his spirits high, though, no matter what. Senjuro doesn’t deserve to be burdened by his older brothers’ feelings. And his father can’t even manage himself, let alone another person’s grief. Kyojuro will withstand it, even though he’s worried about his family, even though he thinks his father won’t get better, even though he misses his mother like crazy.
The next time he hits the dummy, its head flies a couple of miles over the wall.
This training session is just an excuse to vent his frustration on the dummies, and so he stops with an annoyed huff. One of the housekeepers is waiting on the engawa, hands placed together on her lap.
“Yes?” Kyojuro says, wiping sweat from his brow.
“There is a member of the corps at the door, Kyojuro-sama.”
Kyojuro stores his wooden sword away and walks to the front door, putting on a smile. Of everybody he imagined could be visiting them, Giyuu Tomioka was definitely the last on the list. All of his latent irritability is replaced by confusion.
“Tomioka-san?” He blinks. “How can I help you?”
“Rengoku. I was wondering if your father is home.”
His father is currently in bed, either nursing one hell of a hangover, Kyojuro thinks regretfully, or getting a head start in the next one.
“Sorry. It’s not a good time to see him.”
“Oh. I brought him a gift…”
Tomioka looks down and Kyojuro notices a small basket in his hands. He stares. Both of them stand in awkward silence for a minute.
And then Tomioka turns to leave.
“Wait!” Kyojuro says, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. He opens the door wider, making a gesture for Tomioka to come in. “Would you like to have some tea, Tomioka-san?”
Tomioka tilts his head slightly. “Okay…”
Kyojuro guides him to the tea room, where there is still some left from his afternoon snack with Senjuro. He touches the side of the kettle and concludes it’s warm enough. After serving two cups, he brings a tray to the low table and sits on the other side. Tomioka's corps uniform is covered by a strange haori, divided in two halves, one faded red and the other a geometric yellow and green pattern. He is looking at the training ground visible from the other side of the shoji.
Kyojuro hands over the cup.
“I haven’t seen your father recently,” Tomioka starts, sliding the basket across the table. “I wanted to give him this.”
There are all kinds of herbs and flowers inside Kyojuro doesn't know, but he recognizes a few. One of the plants’ roots can be chewed on to make nausea go away. Nestled under the leaves, almost hidden, is a small package of konpeito.
“The sweet's for your brother.”
Kyojuro looks at it for a long time before he finds his words.
“That's very thoughtful. I’ll make sure to hand it to them.”
After Kyojuro accepts the gift, silence falls over them again.
It's a good opportunity to stare at the water pillar in front of him. He’s pretty sure he got it right before. His father never mentioned him beyond commenting on his unfriendliness. Although… Kyojuro now recalls Uzui complaining once when they were all eating at a restaurant together about the water pillar's “lack of style”, whatever that meant.
And yet, Tomioka took time out of his day to visit a grieving man.
“Actually, my father is not handling the loss very well,” the words suddenly jump out of his mouth, without his permission. “He isn’t taking care of himself and he is in no condition to go back to his position as pillar.”
Kyojuro’s smile tightens at the edges.
“My brother and I are doing our best to move on with our lives. Senjuro, who always disliked sword practice, has gone back to training diligently. But despite how many times I talk to him, my father just stays in bed and drowns his sorrows in sake. He is not like that, he has always been an honorable person and a loving father.”
Tomioka continues to stare at him, not speaking a word.
Kyojuro feels frustration welling up inside him. He takes the cup and downs the tea in one go, even though that’s rude. He barely holds himself back from slamming the fine porcelain down.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I want to support him through this difficult time, but he won’t let me in. And when I insist, he…” Kyojuro suddenly stops, wondering if it’s a good idea to talk about this to another person, especially one of his father’s ex-colleagues. But now the dams are open, and he has never been one to hold back, anyway. “He curses at me and tells me everything is meaningless, that what I’m doing is useless and that I’ll never be strong enough.”
Kyojuro’s smile is thin by the end of it and he looks down.
“I don’t know what I'm doing wrong.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
He snaps his eyes up, meeting Tomioka’s eyes at the other side of the table.
Tomioka’s expression looks angry and he is staring at Kyojuro with an intensity that leaves him rooted to the spot.
“His pain doesn't diminish your own. His way of dealing with it is not better than yours,” Tomioka says sharply. “Wallowing in feelings is for people who are weak. Moving on is the mark of true strength.”
Tomioka breathes in and looks back at the tree line around the property. His eyes suddenly seem very far away.
“Knowing we will never be good enough is hard. But that is the burden we who survive must carry.”
Kyojuro falters.
Tomioka's words sound heavy with the past as they leave his mouth. Whatever happened to him to make him say those words, Kyojuro knows it's something that still hangs over his head.
“But I wish,” Kyojuro says, “he wouldn’t carry this burden alone.”
To his surprise, he feels tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t cry during the wake. He doesn't remember the last time he cried, actually. Probably when he was still a baby.
The tears flow steadily down his cheeks. Once they start, they flow like a river. He can't hold them back, it feels like they were only waiting for the right moment to come out. He thinks about his mother and her quiet elegance despite her weakened strength. About his father and his open smile when he arrived home after a mission. About Senjuro when he complained about training. And about himself. None of that is meaningless, no matter what his father says.
And then he looks up at Tomioka and again feels the urge to laugh. The water pillar is watching him with the grimace of someone who swallowed a bitter candy. It’s the second time already Kyojuro bears witness to that expression.
Goodness, what will Tomioka think if the Rengoku men keep crying in front of him? He raises his hands and slaps his cheeks hard. The sting of it breaks him out of his mood. Crying doesn't solve anything, so he concentrates on getting his tears to stop. And, when they finally do, he smiles at the other.
Tomioka looks at him like he grew a second head, but Kyojuro just laughs.
“You're right, Tomioka-san! Moving on is the only option for me!”
“Hm.” Tomioka glances at him from the corner of his eyes. “Are you your father’s tsuguko?”
“I am.”
“I see.”
Kyojuro wonders what that means. The water pillar finishes his tea and stands up. “I’ll be going now.”
“Ah, yes!” Kyojuro smiles and jumps up to follow him to the door. “Thank you for your visit, Tomioka-san! You’ve given me a lot to think about!”
Tomioka just nods, a little awkwardly, and leaves without saying anything else. What a peculiar person, Kyojuro thinks.
He picks up the herbs basket and takes it to his father’s room. It’s impossible not to twist his nose at the smell inside. Alcohol and old bed lining. He feels his heart clenching painfully in his chest at the sight of his father, laying down with his back to the world, reduced to such a low.
Kyojuro puts the basket on the floor next to him. He slips the candy into his pocket, to give to Senjuro later.
“Father.” Kyojuro stands up straight. “The water pillar came to see you and brought you this. Please use it to settle your stomach! Everybody is worried about you and hoping for your swift return!”
His father raises a shoulder but doesn’t acknowledge him otherwise.
A month later, Kyojuro becomes the flame pillar.