Chapter Text
Giyu sat quietly at the café table, fingers lightly wrapped around the warm cup in front of him while Shinobu and Sabito talked across from him. Their voices blended into background noise at this point—comfortable, familiar, yet somehow distant.
Ever since waking up in the hospital two months ago, everything had felt… wrong.
Not terrifying.
Just incomplete.
Like waking up in someone else’s life and being expected to continue it normally.
The doctors had said recovery took time. Shinobu had reassured him countless times that confusion, emotional numbness, and gaps in memory were expected after severe trauma. Sabito kept trying to distract him with outings and conversations and old stories.
So Giyu tried not to think too hard about it.
But sometimes, late at night, he would feel grief so intense it made his chest ache.
Grief for something he couldn’t remember losing.
His gaze dropped toward his wrist again.
The soulmate mark rested against pale skin, dark blue ink-like lines curling delicately around his wristbone. Or… what remained of it.
A blue spider lily.
At least, it looked like one.
The stem remained intact, elegant and thin, but the petals had fallen apart, scattered downward across his skin like pieces blown away by wind.
Broken.
Giyu frowned faintly.
Was that normal?
Soulmate marks were supposed to help identify your other half. Everyone had unique symbols. But he had never seen one look… damaged before.
Whenever he asked about it, Shinobu’s smile tightened almost invisibly.
Sabito always changed the subject.
His fingers unconsciously moved toward the silver ring hanging from the chain around his neck.
Cold metal pressed against his fingertips.
He had woken up in the hospital wearing it on his ring finger.
No memory of buying it.
No memory of receiving it.
No memory attached to it at all.
Yet the thought of taking it off made him strangely uneasy.
Like something terrible would happen if he did.
“So then Kyojuro said,” Sabito laughed, pulling Giyu from his thoughts, “‘If we keep letting Sanemi isolate himself, he’s gonna become a cryptid.’”
Shinobu snorted into her drink. “He practically already is.”
Giyu blinked slowly.
“…Sanemi?”
Sabito paused briefly before nodding. “Yeah. One of our friends.”
Something sharp twisted painfully beneath Giyu’s ribs.
Not enough to visibly react.
Just enough to make his breath catch.
Weird.
He didn’t know that name.
So why did hearing it make his chest hurt?
“He’s finally agreeing to come hang out today,” Shinobu continued carefully, stirring her drink. “Which is shocking, honestly.”
Sabito pointed dramatically toward the sky. “A historic event.”
Giyu rubbed lightly at his chest without thinking.
“…I see.”
Shinobu’s eyes flickered briefly toward him.
Toward the broken spider lily mark.
Then away again.
“We’re meeting everyone in about twenty minutes,” she said gently. “You still okay going?”
Giyu hesitated.
For some reason, unease curled low in his stomach.
Like something was waiting for him.
Something important.
“…Yeah,” he answered quietly.
His fingers tightened unconsciously around the ring resting against his chest.
And for the briefest moment—
the broken petals of the spider lily stung painfully beneath his skin.
The three of them left the café together, the soft chime above the door ringing behind them as cool evening air brushed against Giyu’s face.
The sky was slowly turning orange, sunlight filtering through buildings and trees in warm streaks. People passed by along the sidewalks, chatting, laughing, hands intertwined with lovers and soulmates alike.
Giyu walked quietly beside Shinobu and Sabito, hands tucked into his pockets while they talked ahead of him.
“Well maybe if you stopped provoking him every five seconds, Sanemi would actually answer your calls,” Shinobu said dryly.
Sabito looked offended. “I provoke him out of love.”
“You told him he looked emotionally constipated.”
“He does.”
Giyu stared at them for a moment before looking away, the faintest hint of amusement tugging at him.
Despite everything… being around them felt comforting.
Safe.
Like even if he couldn’t remember parts of his life, he could still trust them completely.
Sabito suddenly reached over to fix Shinobu’s scarf absentmindedly while continuing his dramatic rant, and Shinobu rolled her eyes but allowed it anyway.
Soulmates.
Giyu looked down quietly.
They fit together naturally.
Effortlessly.
Sometimes he wondered what that felt like.
His fingers brushed the silver ring beneath his shirt again.
Would he ever find his soulmate?
The thought came before he could stop it.
Would they be kind?
Soft-spoken and gentle?
Or maybe rough around the edges, harsh with everyone else but softer with him?
Would they understand him without needing explanations?
Would being near them feel… complete?
A strange ache settled in his chest.
Not painful.
Lonely.
Giyu lowered his eyes slightly.
He hoped he could meet them someday.
Even if the idea felt oddly bittersweet.
Ahead of him, Shinobu suddenly slowed her pace.
“We’re here.”
Giyu looked up.
The park stretched ahead beautifully beneath the evening sky, trees rustling softly while groups of people gathered near benches and pathways. Familiar voices echoed nearby.
“Kyojuro!” Sabito called immediately.
A tall man with bright hair waved enthusiastically from across the park. Beside him stood Mitsuri, Obanai, and a few others Giyu recognized vaguely from previous meetings.
And then—
Giyu’s eyes landed on someone standing slightly apart from the group.
White hair.
Tall.
Arms crossed.
Scars trailing across pale skin.
His expression looked irritated already, as if he regretted coming.
The moment Giyu saw him—
Pain shot through his wrist.
Sharp.
Violent.
Giyu’s breath hitched.
At the exact same moment, the stranger jerked abruptly, one hand immediately grabbing his own wrist with a look of alarm.
Their eyes met.
And suddenly—
Glass shattering.
Rain pouring.
A hand desperately reaching toward him—
Giyu stumbled back slightly, pulse spiking.
The stranger looked equally shaken.
Around them, conversation died instantly.
Every single person in the group went silent.
Because beneath the sleeve of Giyu’s jacket—
one fallen blue petal had reattached itself to the spider lily mark.
Giyu stared down at his wrist, his breathing uneven as the blue mark burned faintly beneath his skin. The petal that had once been separated now rested perfectly against the stem, as though it had never broken off at all. He rubbed at it slowly with his thumb, confusion twisting tighter in his chest because soulmate marks were never supposed to move. They appeared at birth, completed upon meeting your soulmate, and stayed unchanged for the rest of a person’s life. At least… that was what everyone always said.
So why had his changed just now?
His gaze lifted hesitantly toward the white-haired man again, only for another uncomfortable wave of emotion to slam into him. Not physical pain this time, but something heavier and harder to describe. Fear. Grief. Longing. It all tangled together so tightly that Giyu couldn’t separate where one feeling ended and another began. The stranger across the park looked just as unsettled, his hand still clamped tightly around his own wrist while his sharp violet eyes remained locked onto Giyu.
The fragments from earlier flashed again for only a split second. Rain against shattered glass. A loud ringing noise. Fingers slipping away from his grasp no matter how tightly he tried to hold on. Giyu immediately looked away, stomach twisting harshly because the images felt far too real to simply be imagination. His chest tightened painfully, and instinctively his fingers curled around the ring hanging beneath his shirt like it could somehow steady him.
He didn’t want to see those things again.
They scared him.
Not because they were graphic or violent, but because of the emotions attached to them. Whoever that man was, the feelings connected to him were overwhelming enough to make Giyu feel like he was standing on the edge of something terrible. It felt like opening a door he wasn’t ready to walk through yet.
Around them, the group had fallen into an almost unnatural silence. Mitsuri looked like she was seconds away from crying, hands clasped tightly together near her chest while Obanai stood rigidly beside her. Kyojuro’s usual smile had faded into something gentler, sadder somehow, while Sabito and Shinobu exchanged a quick glance filled with tension Giyu didn’t understand.
The white-haired man finally broke eye contact first, expression twisting into visible irritation as if he hated whatever he had just felt. “The hell was that?” he muttered sharply, though his voice sounded strained underneath the anger. He looked down at his own wrist immediately afterward, and for the briefest moment, genuine panic flickered across his face.
Giyu swallowed quietly.
Because somehow, despite the fear curling in his stomach…
Part of him wanted to walk closer.
~~~
Sanemi didn’t know what the hell had just happened.
One second he’d been regretting coming to this stupid gathering in the first place, and the next he was hit with flashes so vivid they made his stomach lurch. Screeching tires. Rain-soaked roads. Blood on trembling hands. A voice calling out desperately through the sound of twisting metal.
His head throbbed painfully.
He didn’t want to think about it.
Didn’t want to look too closely at whatever those visions were trying to show him.
All he knew was that the moment he looked at that guy, every instinct in his body started screaming danger.
Sanemi stood rigidly near the edge of the group, jaw clenched tightly while irritation curled beneath his skin. No— not irritation. Fear. The realization made him even more annoyed because fear wasn’t something he felt often. Yet for some reason, the dark-haired stranger standing across the park made his chest feel tight enough to hurt.
And worse—
some invisible force kept pulling him closer.
It was subtle but impossible to ignore, like a thread tied somewhere deep inside his ribs tugging toward the other man. Every time Sanemi tried to mentally push the feeling away, it only grew stronger. It pissed him off immediately.
He didn’t know this guy.
So why did his body react like it did?
Sanemi looked down sharply at his wrist again.
His soulmate mark stretched along his forearm in dark thorned vines, harsh twisting lines wrapping around pale skin. Or at least, it used to.
Ever since waking up in the hospital months ago, the mark had been broken cleanly down the center, as if the vines had snapped apart violently. Doctors said soulmate marks could occasionally distort after trauma, but Sanemi knew from the looks people gave him that this wasn’t normal.
And now—
one of the broken vines had reconnected.
A single thorned strand curled back into place.
Sanemi’s stomach dropped.
“…What the fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
Across the park, he saw the dark-haired man staring at his own wrist too, expression equally disturbed.
The group around them remained painfully tense. Mitsuri looked close to tears, Shinobu had gone unusually quiet, and Sabito looked like he was trying very hard not to say something he wasn’t supposed to.
Sanemi noticed immediately.
His eyes narrowed.
“You all know something,” he said sharply.
Nobody answered.
That only made the growing unease worse.
Sanemi hated this feeling. Hated the confusion clawing at his chest. Hated the strange grief pressing against his ribs whenever he looked at the other man. Most of all, he hated the fact that despite every warning bell going off in his head…
he still couldn’t stop staring at him.
The stranger looked pale now, fingers wrapped tightly around the necklace hanging beneath his shirt like he was grounding himself. His blue eyes looked unsettled, uncertain, almost frightened.
And for reasons Sanemi couldn’t explain—
seeing that expression hurt.
Not physically.
Something deeper than that.
The silence stretched painfully between everyone, thick enough to suffocate.
Sanemi could practically feel the tension radiating off the group, every single person looking like they were balancing on the edge of saying something they absolutely shouldn’t. It made his already pounding headache worse. Whatever this was, everyone else clearly understood it better than he did, and he hated being left in the dark.
Before anyone could speak again, Kyojuro suddenly clapped his hands together loudly.
“Well!” he announced with forced cheerfulness, his bright grin returning just a little too quickly. “Since everyone’s here, why don’t we head toward the food stalls? I heard they’re selling taiyaki today!”
The abrupt change of topic was painfully obvious.
Sanemi noticed it immediately.
So did the dark-haired guy.
But nobody called it out.
Mitsuri nodded almost too fast. “Y-Yes! That sounds good!”
“Wonderful idea,” Shinobu added smoothly, though her smile looked tighter than usual.
Obanai sighed quietly beside her. “You’re all terrible at acting natural.”
“Shh,” Mitsuri whispered urgently.
The group slowly began moving again after that, conversations awkwardly restarting as everyone tried pretending nothing strange had just happened. Kyojuro intentionally walked near the center, loudly dragging Sabito into some ridiculous conversation to fill the silence while the others followed behind.
Sanemi shoved his hands into his pockets and stayed near the back.
Away from him.
That was probably best.
Because every time he looked at the guy, those flashes threatened to come back. He still couldn’t shake the lingering feeling of rain and shattered glass clawing at the inside of his skull. Worse, there had been emotions attached to those images—terror so intense it made his chest tighten even now.
Danger.
That was all Sanemi’s instincts kept telling him.
So why the hell did avoiding him suddenly feel so wrong?
Ahead of him, Sabito and Shinobu slowed their pace slightly to walk beside the dark-haired man. Sanemi could hear bits of their conversation from behind.
“You okay?” Shinobu asked softly.
“I’m fine,” the guy answered quietly after a pause. “Just confused.”
“That makes sense,” Sabito said gently.
The guy lowered his gaze toward the ground. “…Was that normal?”
Neither of them answered immediately.
Sanemi’s chest twisted strangely.
He shouldn’t care.
He didn’t even know this person.
Yet hearing the uncertainty in his voice made guilt settle heavily in his stomach for reasons he couldn’t explain. Like he’d done something terrible. Like he was responsible for the fear written across that pale face somehow.
Annoyed with himself, Sanemi grabbed the necklace hidden beneath his shirt unconsciously.
Cold silver pressed against his palm.
The ring hanging from it felt familiar despite the missing memories surrounding it. He had woken up wearing it after the accident too. No explanation. No recollection of where it came from.
Just a simple silver band he couldn’t bring himself to throw away.
Sanemi frowned faintly, thumb brushing across the metal absentmindedly.
Ahead of him, the dark-haired man suddenly did the exact same thing.
Both of them froze.
Because at the same moment—
their rings began to feel warm.
Sanemi’s expression immediately darkened.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
The moment warmth spread through the ring in his hand, he let go of it like it had burned him. His jaw tightened harshly as irritation surged through him again, sharp and defensive enough to drown out the unease curling in his chest.
Whatever this was, he wanted no part in it.
Without another word, Sanemi shoved his hands back into his pockets and lengthened his stride, deliberately moving farther ahead of the group. He ignored the confused look Kyojuro threw over his shoulder and pretended not to notice Mitsuri watching him nervously from the corner of her eye.
Distance.
That was what he needed.
Because every instinct in his body kept reacting to that guy in ways he couldn’t understand, and Sanemi hated things he couldn’t control.
Especially feelings.
Behind him, he could still hear the others talking softly while walking through the park pathways. Their voices blended with the sounds of evening crowds and rustling trees, but even with the growing distance, Sanemi remained painfully aware of one specific presence behind him.
Like his body refused to stop tracking where that man was.
It made him feel irritated down to his bones.
He barely knew anything about the guy besides the fact that looking at him caused painful flashes and weird reactions from his soulmate mark. That should’ve been enough reason to stay away completely. Honestly, it was enough reason.
So why did walking farther away suddenly make his chest ache?
Sanemi clicked his tongue under his breath, annoyed at himself.
Stupid.
He shoved the feeling down aggressively and kept walking.
He didn’t want anything to do with this.
Didn’t want strange visions.
Didn’t want unexplained emotions.
Didn’t want the suffocating grief that kept threatening to surface whenever those blue eyes looked at him.
Behind him, he heard Sabito say something that made the dark-haired man laugh quietly for the first time that evening.
The sound hit Sanemi unexpectedly hard.
His steps faltered for half a second.
Warmth spread painfully through his chest, so sudden and intense it almost felt like relief.
Like hearing that laugh was something he’d been missing for a very long time.
Sanemi’s stomach twisted immediately afterward.
“…The hell,” he muttered.
He forced himself to keep moving without looking back.
But beneath the sleeve of his jacket, the reconnected thorn vine slowly curled tighter around his wrist.
The food stalls were crowded with people by the time they arrived, warm lights glowing beneath hanging lanterns while the smell of grilled food and sweets filled the evening air. Conversations and laughter echoed around the park, making the atmosphere feel lively despite the uncomfortable tension still lingering within their group.
Thankfully, everyone seemed grateful for the distraction.
Kyojuro immediately dragged Obanai toward one of the skewered meat stalls while Mitsuri excitedly bounced between different dessert stands trying to decide what she wanted. Sabito started arguing with Shinobu over which taiyaki filling tasted better, their bickering familiar enough that it almost felt comforting.
Giyu quietly wandered a short distance away from them, hands tucked into his sleeves while he examined the rows of sweets displayed beneath the warm lights. The soft scent of sugar and roasted chestnuts lingered pleasantly in the air, calming him slightly after everything that had happened earlier.
Slightly.
Not completely.
Because no matter how hard he tried, he remained painfully aware of Sanemi somewhere nearby.
Even without looking.
It was strange.
Every time he forgot about him for even a moment, the faint sting beneath his soulmate mark would return like a reminder.
Giyu stopped in front of a mochi stall, eyes scanning the different flavors quietly before deciding to buy a small assortment for the group. The elderly vendor smiled warmly while packaging them carefully into a box, and for a brief moment, the normal interaction helped ease some of the unease inside him.
Then movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye.
Giyu glanced sideways instinctively.
A few stalls away, Sanemi stood near a traditional sweets stand with his hands shoved into his pockets while waiting for his order. The warm lantern light softened his sharp features slightly, illuminating the scars scattered across his skin and the faint irritation permanently etched into his expression.
The vendor handed him a container.
Ohagi.
Giyu blinked softly.
For some reason… that was unexpectedly cute.
Sanemi looked intimidating enough that Giyu would’ve expected him to buy something bitter or spicy instead. Seeing someone who looked so rough and harsh standing there quietly buying sweet rice cakes felt oddly endearing.
Before Giyu could stop himself, the faintest hint of amusement crossed his face.
And unfortunately—
Sanemi looked up at that exact moment.
Their eyes met instantly.
Giyu immediately looked away.
Heat rose faintly to his face as he focused very hard on the mochi box in his hands, pretending he had absolutely not been staring. His fingers tightened slightly around the package while embarrassment curled uncomfortably in his stomach.
Why was he embarrassed?
He didn’t even know this man.
A few feet away, Sanemi stared at him for a second longer before narrowing his eyes suspiciously. Though despite the irritation on his face, his grip on the ohagi container loosened slightly.
And beneath his sleeve—
another thorn vine quietly reconnected itself.