As the Cherry Blossoms Fall…

Giyuu hated the color blue.

He hated it for a lot of reasons. But one stood out and was the biggest reason for the hate. It was because it was the color of his eyes. The same eyes who had witnessed the death of his friends Sabito and Makomo. Who couldn’t do anything but stare when the demon killed them in front of him. The same eyes that had witnessed the death of his sister and he couldn’t do anything but stare.

He couldn’t do anything right. He couldn’t even talk in public correctly even though his family were known talkers. He was truly worthless and just a waste of oxygen. There was a tree out there that was working hard to provide oxygen for him that he didn’t deserve. He was wasting everyone’s hard work.

He doesn’t deserve food, water, or oxygen. His friends would have been great and better demon slayers then he ever would have been. His sister would be married to the love of her life and would be happy. This all could have happened if it wasn’t for him.

He was in his house when the thoughts started. When he was in the midst of the thoughts he caught himself going to the bathroom. When the thoughts finished he noticed he was holding something. He was holding a razor. He turned around and locked the door. He didn’t want anyone to walk in.

He rolled up his sleeve instinctively. He had done this so many times it had become second nature. He chose the right arm this time since it looked bare compared to how many scars and fresh cuts on the other. He still had scars on this arm but not as much compared to the left.

He put the blade to his skin. He decided to take one cut for everyone that died for him and for everything that he hated about himself. This was because he wasn’t expected to be anywhere. He wasn’t that big of an idiot to do so much if he had to be somewhere. Especially as a fake hashira.

Sabito, one, Makomo, two, Tsukato, three, people he couldn’t save, four, five, six, his eyes, seven, the fact that he couldn’t stop his uncle,eight, that he isn’t social, nine, his arms for doing this and being so weak, ten, eleven, twelve.

And so on until he reached fifty. The fiftieth one was for having so many things. He looked down and saw his arm covered in blood. He stood there shocked. He snapped out of it and started to clean his arm with water not caring if it stung because he deserved it.

He got a bandage after and started to wrap it, thankful that he didn’t have any kakushi watching over him. He put his mismatched haori back on. He took it off early not wanting for any blood to get on the precious fabric.

“Caw, caw, Giyuu Tomioka is required to be at the hashira meeting at 3:30 pm! Caw, caw.” His crow called from a nearby window.

He looked at the clock and froze. It was 3:20 and he couldn’t walk there in the time he had to run. But if he did run he would probably pass out due to blood loss. Plus he also was already feeling dizzy. He could not show up in general but then he would be wasting everyone’s time and his crow said he was required.

Damit

He thought as he decided to run. If only his crow had been there a few minutes earlier. On that note he needed to look into retirement plans for his crow.

He was about five minutes from the meeting. When he got there he noticed he was the first one there. He was confused. He looked at a nearby clock that read 3:25 so he was there five minutes early which didn’t explain why no one was here. He looked around and saw a nearby kakushi.

“Hey you, what time is the hashira meeting?” he asked. The kakushi seemed confused by him talking to him.

“It starts at 3:45,” the kakushi said, still looking confused.

That's weird, he thought. His crow told him fifteen minutes earlier. He shrugged it off as miscommunication and because his crow was really old he mixed up the dates.

A few minutes later the other hashiras filled in slowly but surely they did. All of them seemed surprised that he was already there since he was usually late courtesy of his crow. Nobody spoke to him though, which he was grateful for.

Soon the master came out and the meeting started.

He told them their missions and he had been paired to go with Sanemi to the red light district since there were sightings of demons pairing up to kill people. This was weird since it had been almost unprecedented for demons to be pairing up.

Once the master said this since it was the last mission the meeting was dismissed.

After the meeting Shinobu basically floated up to him and started to tease him. At first it was the regular jabs on how he should be talking more and how he should smile more.

Then it started to become more personal. At this point Obanai and Sanemi came up too. They mainly stayed silent as everyone did before she took it a bit too far.

She only took it this far when she noticed he was zoning out and didn’t care for her little jabs. She also amped up when Obanai called the jabs pathetic.

“I can see why you parents died and left you to your sister who died because of you and no wonder your so useless you couldn’t even die like your friends did when they were protecting you and on top of that you can’t even beat your heart properly when you use the eleventh form of your water breathing.” She blurted out. As soon as she finished everyone stayed silent to the point where you could hear a pin drop.

His eyes started to tear up and before anyone could stop him he ran off.

He didn’t know why he was crying since what she said had been all true. He was truly worthless. It was his fault. The demon slayer corps could have had two excellent water breathers or maybe two more strong Hashrias and not a fake one. But that was all shattered because of him.

He climbed the trees and turned a deaf ear to them calling out to him for reasons he didn’t know since they hated him.

He kept running not caring that his bandages were probably soaked by now because he deserved it. He was too pathetic and weak.

He was so pathetic that he cut himself and didn’t just suck it up. He was weak.

After a few minutes of his thoughts circling around through his mind he finally arrived at his estate. He didn’t notice that his face was soaked with tears.

He only noticed when he stopped and felt the cool air on his wet face. He was pathetic to have cried this much.

Since even when his sister was dying because of him she didn’t even cry and now he’s crying because of stupid reasons.

He remembered the brother and sister named Tanjiro and Nezuko and how the brother was able to protect his sister even when he was passed out by throwing the hatchet. And how Nezuko was able to even try to protect her brother even while a demon and not eating her first human yet. This was all done while they were grieving over their family too.

He couldn’t protect even one of the people that he had cared about before and he knew a breathing style during the last two times.

He was useless and the only reason the siblings were even grieving over their family was because he had been too late to stop the demon who killed them.

He was pathetic and no wonder the hashiras hated him. He hated himself.

He already entered his estate at this point and the tears kept going and flowing like his water breathing forms did. He started too the kitchen since he hadn’t eaten anything for about a week and if he died now he would be an inconvenience to everyone especially since it wasn’t exactly easy to find another hashira.

He was also interrupted a few minutes earlier while he was changing the bandages by a knock on his door. He quickly finished changing them and went to look at who it was.

Shit

It was Sanemi…

Why was he here? He thought.

“Are you going to open up? I need to talk to you.” Sanemi half-yelled, sounding a bit agitated.

He almost flew to the door which made him really dizzy but he just had to suck it up. The only reason he was even dizzy was because he was weak.

He opened the door to find the taller wind hashira.

He didn’t say anything since no doubt the crying had almost certainly taken his voice by now and he didn’t want to appear weak to his colleague.

Sanemi seemed shocked for a bit and seemed like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He just kept looking at Giyuus ocean eyes.

This is why I hate my eyes they are so ugly

Giyuu thought.sanemi just stared at him for only five minutes but it seemed it was for hours. Once he looked away Giyuu could have sworn he felt a tinge of sadness but he must have imagined it.

Sanemi cleared his throat “I’m here to talk about the mission.” Sanemi said seriously but not making eye contact with the short hashira.

“We’ll come inside and get yourself situated.” Giyuu said finally getting the words out which seemed a lot less plunged into sadness then he thought they would be.

He let Sanemi inside quickly

“Jeez Tomioka, your place is so bland and where are your Kakushi?” Sanemi asked almost as soon as he took a few steps inside.

“I don’t have any,” Giyuu said casually.

Sanemi just looked at him strangely and seemed like he wanted to retort in some way but decided against it for some odd reason.

Giyuu just led him to the main living space. He didn’t really have anywhere else for the meet since he didn’t have someone regularly take care of the guest bedrooms. Because of that all of them were covered in dust because of the underuse.

He stopped abruptly while in the main living space signaling Sanemi to sit.

He saw what Sanemi had in his hand which he did not notice earlier. It seemed like a scroll or like a map or even a set of instructions. Suddenly there was a hand moving in front of his face that made him shake out of his thoughts and stop staring at the scroll.

“Hey are you there I can’t do this by myself you know.” Sanemi said while moving his hand rapidly in front of Giyuu’s face.

After that Sanemi started to explain the plan and Giyuu gave him his full attention by looking him in the eye, the Lavender pair looking at the Ocean pair.

After Sanemi decided he was going to make them a meal since he was starving while Giyuu decided to go to the bathroom.

When he got inside he just looked in the mirror, his still tear streaked face staring back at him.

God why am I so pathetic?

He said when his body went into autopilot mode locking the door and getting the razor. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal the bandages.

He unwrapped them and started to cut at the already bloody skin. He did about thirty cuts when he decided it was enough for seeming so pathetic earlier when he was crying when Shinobu said something that was nothing but the truth.

He cleaned up the mess for the second time today and got out smelling the aroma of a fresh cooked meal. It smelled delicious. Too bad he wasn’t worthy of food itself.

He took a few steps but found it hard to remain non-dizzy. He slowly started to stabilize himself and was able to keep a somewhat steady pace. This whole thing was probably due to the blood loss or maybe the pain he tuned out.

Honestly he seemed to catch himself tuning out in pain a lot. He snapped out of his saddening thoughts when he saw Sanemi.

He had on a spare apron and was making something in the kitchen but he couldn’t tell what exactly it was.

Suddenly the lavender eyes met with the ocean ones. They stared at each other for what again felt like ages. Then a cherry blossom flying in from a nearby window broke the staring.

The blossom flew inside and somehow held its place for a few seconds in the air when a few more flew in. The original cherry blossom flew swiftly to the ground in between them.

Soon because of a current of wind there were cherry blossoms dancing all around them and surrounding them both. When the wind died down the floor was covered in cherry blossom petals.

The only cherry blossoms that were intact were facing the direction of Sanemi while the other was facing Giyuu right between them. He was sure that there were at least a dozen flowers in his only black hair and even more petals in his hair.

Sanemi had about twenty five or so petals in his hair while he also had about five or so visible flowers in his hair.

They both looked each other in the eye again.

Lavender meeting Ocean…