Their Tale [Kimetsu No Yaiba Oneshots]

Soulmates [Giyuu]

He first received them when he was nine.

It was after his bath when Tsutako asked him, "Did you bump your knee?" and he shook his head. He looked down, discovering a blueish mark on it. Funny. All he remembered about his knee for that day was an itch he felt when he was having his lunch.

That's the day he discovered his life was intertwined with someone.

Tsutako squealed so hard when she inspected the mark-butterfly bushes, according to her. She wondered what kind of a person her in-law would be.

"But why would it appear now?" Giyuu asked. He never remembered he had received them before.

"It only starts to appear when someone is nine years old. And it shows up when your soulmate receives a wound," she explained. "They probably scraped their knee this afternoon."

Then Tsutako started to ramble about how the colour and the tingle he felt indicate the severity of their injury, how lucky he was to have the mark because not everyone was blessed with such condition, and so on. But he was too sleepy from the warmth of the bath; so he felt asleep in his sister's arms amidst her chatter, his soulmate the last thing on his mind.

---

From that time, he would feel tingles every now and then, and it became his personal game to guess what happened to the person connected to him. A paper cut? A bump in the head? A stab from a needle? Even though there's no way for him to know whether his guess was correct or not, it was still fun.

But a week before he turned thirteen, a demon ransacked his house and killed his sister, changing his perspective on this flower mark on his skin.

It was no longer fun. Every mark showed this person was hurt somewhere out there. While he never received vivid marks and felt pain from his soulmate, he feared for the day he would receive them. He could hope the day wouldn't come, but was it all he could do? Just hoping, without any real action he could take?

"Then grow stronger," Sabito said to him. "Grow stronger, and protect people. By killing demons, you protect people, and indirectly, them. That's what a real man supposed to do."

Finding truth in those words, he dedicated himself to honing his skills. Urokodaki's training was hard; a day never passed when he didn't received a new cut or bruise. But it was bearable, even enjoyable with Sabito walking along with him through the path. The only thing that bothered him was how he filled their skin with butterfly bushes against their wish and sent them unwanted tingles all day long by going through this training.

So he apologised in his heart every night, hoping at least the flowers looked beautiful.

---

He woke up and found Sabito was nowhere to be found.

Again. He let someone precious to him perish again. Despite the strength he had acquired from Urokodaki, he's still unable to help anyone. Not a single person. Not even his best friend.

How weak. How powerless. How worthless.

Giyuu pressed his hand against his chest, feeling the heart that's beating beneath.

It sickened him. Demons. His lack of power. Him.

The blurry image of Sabito's back slowly becoming smaller and smaller haunted him. Tormented him. Another day he would dream of Tsutako's panicked face, warning him not to make a single sound before she closed the closet he was hiding. Then everything turned dark, and he heard his sister screaming for her life, while he could only see darkness but was still very much alive.