Gifts and roses..-*

Chapter 28 -

As Giyuu walked to headquarters to file his report, his thoughts remained tangled in the aftermath of seeing Sanemi again.

Two weeks had passed since he'd last seen him- two long weeks away from the rest of the corps, away from the storm that was Sanemi and the flurry of confusion he carried with him.

The distance had felt like a relief. The tension between them had started to feel like a battle that none of them could ever end. A break from it all was welcome- time to think, without the constant noise that came with being near Sanemi.

It gave room for his thoughts to fester, for lingering moments with Sanemi to replay over and over. The words, the looks, the strange, unfamiliar softness that had started to creep into their interactions after so long- they all felt more pronounced in his absence.

Sanemi had started to change, and Giyuu had started to come to terms with that.

Now, seeing Sanemi again after all that time... it was almost unsettling how different things felt compared to a month ago. Sanemi was still rough, still brash- but there was something else. The way Sanemi looked at him just moments ago- it was too much and yet somehow... less suffocating than before. It was disarming, like a piece of armour had been chipped away without his knowing.

Sure, he knew Sanemi was making an effort to change- but it still puzzled him all the same. As Giyuu passed under the swaying branches of a nearby tree, he replayed the moment in his mind. The way Sanemi had tried to chat normally, the way he looked at him, the awkward chuckle that followed...

It wasn't that he didn't want to acknowledge the change; it was more that he hadn't thought it possible for him to be this consistent. Giyuu could tell how hard it must be for him. The Sanemi he knew would never try this much for anyone, let alone him. But something had shifted, and Giyuu found himself walking, wondering what it all meant.

The effort Sanemi was making to put him at ease stirred something unexpected in Giyuu. He had found himself wanting to be... pleasant. Wanting to respond in kind. It was strange to even consider it, after everything that had passed between them. And yet, when they had spoken earlier, he had surprised himself with how easy it had been to converse with him, even to be a little playful like old times.

But that ease left him torn, caught between the desire to engage with Sanemi and the instinct to pull away. It had been driving him insane for the past few weeks- so much so that he'd lost his appetite entirely. He hadn't been eating well since the rejection, but this confusion, this emotional tug-of-war, had made it worse. After Sanemi's apology, food seemed... irrelevant. His mind was too distracted, too clouded to focus on something as simple as hunger.

Mitsuri had been the only reason he was eating in the first place, nudging him to take meals when he'd return to headquarters. But two weeks away on this mission had broken the fragile routine she'd helped him maintain. Without her reminders, he'd fallen back into his old habit of ignoring meals altogether, too caught up in his thoughts to care about food. The exhaustion didn't help either. He hadn't been sleeping well, and it had only worsened recently, leaving him drained and lethargic.

It was no wonder a mission that should have taken a few days had stretched into two full weeks. He just didn't have the energy, the drive to push through as he once had. Everything felt off balance.

As Giyuu neared the gates of headquarters, a familiar voice reached his ears, low and grumbling with irritation from just across the path. He turned, catching sight of a Kakushi stomping down the walkway, her expression stormy as she muttered profanities under her breath. She looked up and spotted him, her eyes widening before she hastily bowed.

"Sorry you had to hear that, Tomioka-san," she said quickly, straightening herself and smoothing her uniform, though the frustration in her voice still lingered.