A/N- This is a birthday present for the magnificent scarlethousecarl, which is almost (ALMOST) on time. It's an idea I'd been toying with for awhile, and it seems it finally came to fruition, so I very much hope she (and you all) enjoys it!
They stay for most of the afternoon at her grandmother's house, which is an extremely surreal experience for Yato, and Hiyori's grandmother very much doesn't like him. But eventually the time draws near when they all ought to leave and go their separate ways. He and Yukine are on their way out the door when Hiyori calls out to him. Yukine glances curiously over his shoulder, but keeps walking, meandering away down the steps.
"Yato," Hiyori repeats his name, wide brown eyes catching his gaze intently. "Masaomi and I need to get going. We have some things we need to talk to my parents about. But I was wondering… if you're not too busy, would you come to my house tonight? I wanted to talk to you properly, and we didn't get the chance today."
It's like an electric shock to his system. Being the recipient of her attention makes him astonishingly happy. After weeks of avoiding her, though, having her look at him so earnestly isn't just electrifying, it's intoxicating.
He's helplessly mute, so he just nods.
Waiting until evening is agonizing, so he ends up camping out in her tree starting at about five o'clock. Yukine, thankfully, has new homework she assigned him that afternoon, so with him occupied, Yato doesn't need to make up an excuse for his solo outing.
It's about nine when Hiyori's window opens. She's changed out of the clothes she wore earlier and into pretty pink pyjamas, and her hair is down, falling long and loose over her shoulders. "You've been up there for hours," she whispers, at just the right volume for his preternaturally good hearing. "Come down from there, will you?"
He wonders, for perhaps the hundredth time, how she always knows when he's nearby; he's been watching the windows fruitlessly for a glimpse of her, so he knows she can't have seen him, and although her senses have also been heightened because of her condition, he has been still and silent since he arrived, so she couldn't have heard him either. Still, it's part of the mystery that is Iki Hiyori— a mystery he has long been reluctant to solve, because the day he does is the day he loses her. Maybe. Lately he's started to hope that she really means the thing she promises him…
But that's neither here nor there at the moment. He leaps gracefully straight from his perch to her window ledge, and drops noiselessly inside. She smiles at him and backs away to sit on her bed, before slipping out of her body, which flops back onto the mattress. It's probably alarming how easily she can abandon her physical form these days.
"I don't want my parents to hear me talking to myself," she says with a grin.
"Good idea, wouldn't want them to think you're going crazy!" he teases her, and it feels hopelessly good to be able to joke with her again like this. He feels like dying from happiness when he sees her entirely unoffended scowl. Yukine's right— forcing himself to stay away from her has been extremely bad for his mental health.
She slides down against the wall and pats the floor next to her. He takes the invitation and sits down on the carpet, not close enough that they're touching, but close enough to feel her warmth.
"So what did you want to talk about?" He asks.
Hiyori shrugs. "A few things," she says vaguely. "I've missed you."
She has her knees drawn up to her chest protectively and he feels a stab of guilt. His whole motive for staying away was to avoid causing her pain, but clearly has been unsuccessful.
"I've missed you, too," he admits.
"Then not answering your phone was stupid," she says bluntly. "I understand why you thought you should stay away, but you really shouldn't have."
He wants to say something, but he's not sure what, and after a moment, she continues, glaring at her knees as she speaks.
"Up until now, you've never done anything that really hurt me. Annoyed me, sure, but that's just you being, well, you." Ouch. "But staying away… it's like you're making my choices for me, you know?"
"I didn't think of it like that," he says, and feels like a total heel because of course he would bring her pain even with good intentions.
She nods. "I figured not." Her posture relaxes, one leg slipping out of her curled-up defensive all as she leans back against the wall.
"Sorry," he adds. "I just don't want to bring you any more—" The word calamity nearly slips from his lips, but he doesn't want to see pity in her eyes, so he quickly changes direction. "—misfortune."
Hiyori gives a most unladylike snort and nudges his shoulder. "Didn't I already say you never have? You've brought me good things, Yato."
She can't be serious. "That's nice of you to say, but—"
"You've really been fretting about what happened at the hospital, haven't you?" she interrupts.
There's more to it than that, but that's the big thing, the real disaster he brought down on her. "If you weren't involved with me, Dad wouldn't have—"
"I caused that," she says, catching him off guard. Hiyori only interrupts people when she's either impatient or feels especially passionate about something, and he's uncertain which category this falls under.
"You can't be held responsible for your father's actions… and you're not responsible for mine, either." She's turned fully to look him dead in the eyes, and she looks so fierce in her conviction it astounds him. "I'm the one who challenged him, Yato. That was probably stupid of me, but despite how it turned out, I don't regret standing up to him."
The absolute resolution in her expression nearly undoes him. This is why he adores her. Well, one of many reasons, but at this particular moment, it's his favorite. And yet, despite her conviction, it's still a naive sentiment.
"But you couldn't have known what the consequences would be," he argues.
She makes a face that somehow manages to be a sympathetic grimace and a smile all at once, and he wonders how she can be this expressive. "But I did know," she says.
He shakes his head. "I know I told you guys about… about what I used to do for him, but he's… I guess you know this now, but he's vicious."
"I knew what I was getting myself into," she asserts again. "I guess after what he did to Sakura, I should have known he would try to hurt me indirectly, but— Yato?"
She looks concerned. He's probably gone pale. He really doesn't care, because he feels suddenly like he's had the floor drop out from under him. He wants to believe that somehow she's talking about a different Sakura, but he knows she isn't.
Over the ringing in his ears, he hears himself ask, "How do you know about that?"
Hiyori's eyes widen and she claps a hand over her mouth. "I never told you, did I?" She mumbles through her fingers. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Yato. I meant to tell you but then Yukine was always around and everything happened at the hospital, and…"
"Who— did Hiiro— did Nora tell you?"
She shakes her head, and lowers both her hand and her eyes. "No. You did. Or… maybe I just…? I still don't really understand what happened."
He feels a tiny bit less shaky now that he's had a second to breathe, but Hiyori's confused, thoughtful expression surely can't mean anything good. "What do you mean I told you? I wouldn't…"
She nods. "No. It was really strange. You were asleep upstairs at Kofuku-san's home, and I sat down next to you and it was like I just fell into your memories somehow."
For the second time in sixty seconds, he feels as if he's been plunged into a bucket of ice water.
"I don't understand how it happened," she continues. "Things have been so busy I haven't had the chance to ask. Do you know how something like that could happen?"
"Not really sure," he says numbly, and it's only half a lie. It would mean she was… but no, she couldn't possibly be—
"Are you angry?"
The shy question makes him look over at her. Her posture is curled inward again, but her gaze is steady and he's pretty certain that her worry is more concern for his well-being than for anything he might say to her. Once again he's overwhelmed by how kind this girl can be, and her warmth thaws through the chill that has stolen over him.
"No." He's not. He's been angry with Hiyori a handful of times— usually because she's done something rash and life-threatening again— but now is not one of those times. Mostly he just feels… vulnerable. "How much… I mean, what exactly did you see?"
She shifts forward, resting her chin on her propped-up knee and staring straight ahead at her closet door. "Not your whole life story or anything. It was all jumbled up. The day you named Hiiro, and how you two used to- to kill people together." She doesn't shy away from the reality of his life, and he's grateful; any illusions she ever had about him are surely gone now, and he appreciates that she isn't trying to ignore or deny it. "And… and I saw how everything happened with Sakura. Your father used someone you loved to hurt you, he did such a cruel thing… so when I say that I knew just how vicious he is before I challenged him, I really mean that."
It hits him hard, then, how much she knows. Yukine might be aware of how recently he's been a killer, but he doesn't know details. But Hiyori… now she's seen— actually seen— how much blood he's soaked in, but still she's sitting next to him in her flower-print pyjamas, watching him with gentle eyes.
"You've known about this for more than a month," he says.
"More than two, actually."
"And you're… you still…" He can be eloquent enough when he wants to, but he's incredibly inarticulate about this. It's annoying, but every time he tries, the words just won't come.
But Hiyori understands anyway. He really hopes it isn't telepathy (which, unfortunately, now seems like a legitimate possibility), but he rather thinks it's just because she's wonderfully empathetic.
"If you're trying to ask if I'm tempted to run away screaming because I saw what you used to do, then you really do worry about the silliest things. Kofuku told me about it the very first time I met her, you know. The only thing that's really changed is that now I have context."
It's too much, far too much to take in. All along, practically from the very beginning, even before that mess with the pervy psycho and her nutjob doctor-shinki, Hiyori knew. Not everything, but she knew he was a killer and she still sought him out over and over, still saved his life… and now she really does know everything, or at least the bitterest parts. And still, she is here.
"I never wanted anyone to know about that," he says. "Bad enough that Dad and Nora know what I did to her…"
Hiyori reaches out and takes his hand. At any other time, he would be delighted, but the mood is too heavy for him to dredge up any excitement. "You didn't know," she says firmly.
"Yes I did," he says, voice heavy. "I'm a god. I knew I shouldn't tell her her name, but I did anyway. I doomed her and took her life. I did that, Hiyori, and I can't take it back."
Her eyes are sad, but her hand is so warm as she squeezes his fingers. "You were being manipulated. You know that, right? Your father orchestrated that. Yato, you were a child; even if you're a god, he had power over you, and you wanted his affection, and you didn't know what would happen. The only thing you're guilty of is trusting someone who ended up betraying that trust."
He isn't sure she's right about that, but it breaks him anyway. She's granted him an absolution he didn't know he needed and never thought he would receive, and it splits him wide open. Tears spill over, and he closes his eyes, not even bothering to try to suppress the overflow of saltwater. He's always been terrible at concealing his feelings, anyway.
For nine hundred years he's been carrying the weight of Sakura's doomed soul around his neck, and Hiyori isn't Sakura, but her words sound like forgiveness. He sniffles, and then she reaches around with her free hand and pulls his head down onto her shoulder. He cries into the soft fabric of her pyjama top, but she doesn't seem to mind; one of her hands still holds tight to his, and the other weaves into his hair, cradling his head gently. It's such a tender show of affection, something softer than Kofuku's strangling tackle-hugs and warmer than a brotherly pat on the shoulder from Kazuma or Daikoku. In Hiyori's embrace he feels a kind of security and warmth he's only ever experienced from one other person. The girl is different, and his relationship to her is most definitely different, but the sense of peace and safety is the same, except that perhaps he treasures such things more now than he did then.
The world turns slow around them, and eventually Hiyori says, "You should never have had to carry something like that all alone."
He continues to hide against her cotton-covered shoulder, because now that he's this close he doesn't know how to leave, but he's got control of his voice back. "I'm a god, Hiyori. If I can't bear the weight of even one life, I don't deserve my title."
"Sakura-san was precious to you, and what your father did to her— and to you— was cruel. You have been bearing the weight of that all this time, but that doesn't mean you have to carry it alone."
He doesn't respond. He can't.
"You've named your shinki in her honor, haven't you?" she guesses. "Yukine, and before Tenjin named her, Mayu-san was Tomone, right?"
Tamanone hangs in the air between them, and Yato is caught again by amazement at how insightful she is. Hiyori never seems to miss anything— and she never forgets anything, either. That makes him both hopeful and very, very afraid.
"You caught me," he says with a watery laugh, and reluctantly sits back. He doesn't want to move away from her, but emotional breakdown aside, there's something very important that needs to be said. "Hiyori, you know you can't tell anyone."
"I know. It's a 'god's greatest secret,' after all." She's still got a grip on his hand, and she squeezes reassuringly again. "And I'm not a god, but I'll help you keep it."
"Thank you," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. This is all so unprecedented, a human knowing so much, knowing the greatest secret the universe keeps, and he feels like there's something dangerous in it. Many somethings. But he's so tired and so sick of worrying.
"I'm with you no matter what," she says. "I mean it when I say I don't want you to have to carry these things alone."
He looks at her, and she's watching him with those big eyes of hers, absolutely earnest and full of the knowledge of exactly what she's trying to promise him.
And for the first time, the very first time, something in him tentatively reaches out and accepts her promise.
"Okay," he says.
She smiles, big and bright and warm as the summer sun. "Okay."