Note: I focused on Yukine and Hiyori for obvious reasons, but added in Daikoku since it's the most obvious "freeloader" connection and there's some interesting potential there. I also used some canon events and some non-canon (but canon-compliant) events to round things out and try to build up a rhythm and structure. How well I did that is up for debate lol
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
The phone rang once, twice, three times in Hiyori's ear, and she feared that useless god—'god'?—wasn't going to answer. But then, just as the call was about to go to voicemail, it was accepted with an irritated sigh on the other end of the line.
"What do you need now?" Yato asked impatiently.
"Ah… Sorry to bother you so late." Hiyori swallowed and kept her gaze fixed on the crablike creature glowing an ethereal blue-green perched on the building above her. "Actually, I found you a shinki…"
"Huh?" The air shimmered and Yato appeared, still in his ever-present tracksuit and silly scarf, phone still pressed to his ear. "What are you talking about?"
Hiyori laughed nervously and swept her arm out to point up at the creature lurking above. "Wh-what do you think of him?"
Yato's eyes went as big as saucers and a strange expression descended upon his face. His boggle-eyed look lasted about a full two seconds before he turned on his heel and went sprinting down the street.
"Run!"
Hiyori took his cue, and behind them the ground trembled as the crab creature jumped down and began scuttling after them.
"B-but you said shinki are spirits!"
"That's an ordinary old phantom! Just a twisted ball of emotions and curses. Can't you tell just by looking at it?"
"I thought so too at first, but you said not to judge things by how they look!"
"That's how you follow my teachings?" the god wailed. "Don't try so hard!"
"A-also, I just dropped my body!"
Yato swung his head back around to scowl at her. "Try harder with that!"
The ayakashi's pincers snapped the air right near Hiyori's tail, and it swiped at her again. She leaped away in a panic and flew much higher into the air than should be possible. And then she remembered: she was actually a pretty good fighter in this half-phantom form!
Well, she would just take out the ayakashi herself since Yato was apparently useless without one of these so-called shinki. Okay, her plan to make him help her by finding him a shinki so that he couldn't hide behind any more excuses had backfired pretty dramatically, but now was her chance to fix it!
She kicked off the side of a building and whipped her leg around to aim a punishing kick at the phantom's face. "Jungle sava–! Ahhh!"
A jolt like lightning zapped through her body as a hand closed firmly around her tail and used it to yank her around and out of the air. The electricity crackled through her as she fell to the ground in a dazed heap, but she caught a glimpse of the ayakashi's jaws clamping down on Yato's other arm. It shook him about roughly until he managed to swing a leg around and slam his boot into one of the pincers, which broke off and went flying. The phantom released him with a screech.
Yato fell to the ground in a heap, but was back on his feet in an instant. He took off running again, grabbing Hiyori's hand and dragging her after him. She managed to shake herself out of her daze and sprint as fast as her legs could carry her.
They ducked behind a wall for cover, and Hiyori bent over with a wheeze as she struggled to pull air into her lungs past the stitch in her side and tightness in her chest. Yato stood straight as a rod with his back to the wall, the fingers of one hand curled tightly about the wrist of the other. As Hiyori caught her breath, she noticed the purplish blotch marring the pale skin of the hand he was clutching like a stormy bruise.
"Your hand isn't looking so good," she said, reaching for it. "Are you–?"
"It's fine." Yato whipped it away and held it away from her. "Don't touch it or it will blight you too."
"Blight?"
"It's a kind of defilement." Yato's face had a pinched, pained quality as he slid up his sleeve to inspect the purple splotch creeping up his arm. "Unless you cleanse it, it'll stay there and spread and eat away at you. Also, that's not a tail. It's a lifeline that connects your physical and ethereal forms. If it gets cut, you'll die."
"H-huh?"
"Smells nice," creaked a cacophony of voices from above them.
"Run!" Yato yelled.
He yanked his sleeve back down and took off, and Hiyori raced after him as the phantom scuttled behind.
Die?
So then, Yato had grabbed her earlier and gotten blighted for his troubles in order to save her from having her lifeline cut? That…was the first non-useless thing he'd done since she'd met him.
Still, that seemed like an even better reason for him to just fix her body already.
"No way!" she wailed. "I'm not wireless?"
And she couldn't help but despair that she was never going to be fixed when she had to rely on such a useless 'god' to help her.
"You, with nowhere to go and nowhere to return, I grant you a place to belong. My name is Yato. Bearing a posthumous name, you shall remain here. With this name, I make thee my servant. With this name and its alternate, I use my life to make thee a regalia. Thou art Yuki! As a regalia, Setsu! Come, Sekki!"
He didn't know much of anything, floating in a peaceful lull of existence…or nonexistence. He didn't know. It didn't matter.
The first thing he really remembered was becoming a length of steel gripped in a sweaty hand, but it was all still a haze. Some slashing, some moving, some talking, but it all seemed blurry and far away.
"Yukine."
Suddenly he wasn't steel anymore, but a human shivering against the chill winter air.
"I'm Yato, your master." The man was lanky with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, wearing some weird tracksuit and a ragged scarf. Not very impressive. "I've summoned you from the Far Shore to serve as my shinki. Put this on. You've nothing to fear anymore."
The man smiled and held out his jacket.
The boy stared and then drew his lips back in disgust. "No way. It reeks of sweat." The creepy tracksuit man stared back, eyes strangely blank and face frozen in a weird expression of disbelief. There was a brown-haired girl behind him, wearing a nice coat and pink scarf. "Hey, you. Can I borrow that?"
The girl laughed in nervous disbelief but let him have the garments, which he pulled on as quickly as possible against the cold. He bumped into the jersey man and said jersey fell to the ground.
The boy knew three things: his name was Yukine, he was dead, and he hated it here already.
He stepped forward, and the cloth ground into the dirt beneath his feet.
Hiyori listened to Mayu's story in horror and watched as a train rumbled past on the tracks. To think that ayakashi could even possess people to the point where they would commit suicide…
"Don't you want to do something?" she asked Yato, who hadn't spoken a word throughout the story and was watching with a flat, unsympathetic gaze. "People are dying!"
The flatness of his stare didn't waver. "If someone wants to die, let them die."
Hiyori couldn't believe it. She had seen evidence of Yato's less than stellar attitude before, but this was on a whole different level. How could he even say such a thing?
"I don't think that's the right attitude to take," she protested.
Yato shrugged and stared at the tracks with hard eyes. "If a soul's willing to commit suicide, that means it's been possessed. It can't even become a shinki. There's no saving it."
"How can you say that? Isn't that your job?"
Yato's eyes finally slid to meet Hiyori's. They burned a bright, cold blue. Entirely unsympathetic.
Well, if he wasn't going to take care of the problem, she would! He was the absolute worst to say something like that.
…As usual when she tried to take saving the day into her own hands, she ended up in a world of trouble. This time, she was mobbed by a dozen ayakashi on the platform, shoved out onto the tracks, and held down as the train roared towards her.
"Ahhh! Why does this always happen to meee?"
Sunlight glinted off steel somewhere high above her, and suddenly the phantoms holding her down blew apart and she found herself free.
"Jump!" Yato called as he flipped through the air and landed on top of the speeding train.
Hiyori didn't need to be told twice. She leapt up in a hurry, just in time to hit the top of the train rather than becoming a speedbump.
"Ya…to…?"
"Idiot," the god grumbled. "Didn't I tell you that you'll die if your cord is severed?"
But he was hardly paying attention to her anymore. She watched in awe as he and Yukine slashed through the phantom beckoning a gloomy man towards the tracks at the rail crossing as the train approached. Even though Yato had said he didn't care about helping those who wanted to die, he had in the end.
When she voiced this thought, though, he just shook his head.
"It ain't like that," he said flatly. "But I won't let anyone die in front of these guys, if I can help it. Even if things are painful and tough, people should appreciate what it means to be alive at all."
It took a moment for Hiyori to make the connection, but then her eyes widened. She had misunderstood him. The reason he didn't want to help… Shinki were people who had already died, many of them so young and innocent, and if they hadn't died by suicide, then they were people who had wanted to keep living. What Yato couldn't stand, couldn't forgive, was people wasting the life they'd been given and even doing so in front of shinki who would have given so much for the chance to keep living.
Life was a gift that shouldn't be wasted. Yato had rescued this man so that he didn't throw it away in front of Yukine and Mayu, despite his personal qualms.
Naming a shinki, she realized suddenly, was like gifting them a second chance at life. Not the same life they'd had before. It wouldn't be a perfect life and would have many limitations, but it was the closest thing the dead had to a second chance.
So Yato had gifted Yukine a new life and had saved Hiyori's own a couple of times already. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to this god than met the eye.
And Hiyori's own eyes filled with tears.
"Yukine! It's true that you can't interact with people of the Near Shore on equal terms anymore, but…"
Life wasn't fair, and neither was death. Yukine had been robbed of his chance to live and go to school with the other kids and make friends and have a family, and it wasn't fair and maybe everyone should be just like him and die.
That was what the voices whispered to him as he pounded against the borderlines trapping him inside with the unbearable pain clawing at his skin and ripping him apart from the inside out. Hiyori had talked about friends, but Yukine was basically invisible to the world now. Wasn't that what even Yato was saying? Why should he abide by the rules of a world that wouldn't even acknowledge his existence? What did it matter if it was wrong? What about his situation wasn't wrong?
"But I found you and gave you a person's name, so…live as a person. Live, Yukine!"
Yato was still sprawled across the ground, but had managed to lever himself up partway on his elbows. His voice rasped in his throat and another cough rattled his chest. Blood spilled from between his lips, coloring every word crimson.
Something shivered and shattered deep in Yukine's chest.
It finally hit him, what Hiyori had meant. Not only had she fought for him despite everything he'd done, but so had Yato. No matter how obnoxious or frustrating or seemingly unsympathetic Yato could be, he had endured every sting and let the blight spread farther and farther instead of doing either of the things Kazuma and the others had urged him to. He had refused to kill Yukine or revoke his name and banish him, and had instead put his own life on the line to save Yukine's.
Hazy, half-remembered words floated back into Yukine's consciousness: "You, with nowhere to go and nowhere to return, I grant you a place to belong."
Yukine couldn't belong to the living world anymore and there was nothing waiting for him in death, but Yato had used his own life to make Yukine a regalia and give him a space in between to belong. Yato was poor and didn't always provide Yukine with necessities like food and shelter, but he had given him a second chance at life and held on with fierce tenacity even when Yukine did his best to ruin it.
Life wasn't fair, and neither was death. This space between wasn't perfect and neither was Yato, but they were a gift. They were home. And, Yukine realized suddenly, he wanted that second chance more than anything.
"I'm sorry!" he wailed, his chest heaving with sobs as tears filled his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Daikoku climbed the stairs with a tray of snacks and nudged the door open with his foot. "I have–"
"Ohhh, hey, Daikoku!" Yato said brightly. "Is that food? Awesome, I'm starved!"
Yukine and Hiyori were sitting at a low table going over school lessons, which was exactly the scene Daikoku had been expecting to see. What he had not been expecting to see—or, perhaps more accurately, what he had been hoping not to see—was Yato lounging on the floor with a smarmy grin as if he belonged there.
"What are you doing here?" Daikoku demanded. "We're letting Yukine use a room since you can't provide for him, but you're on your own."
Yato just snorted and rolled over onto his back with an ever-widening grin. "Aw, don't be so mean, Daikoku!"
"Scram, you damn freeloader!"
But Daikoku knew a losing war when he saw one. Yato was as difficult to get rid of as a cockroach, and often just as annoying. His only saving grace was that he had a heart of gold buried somewhere deep—very deep—beneath his obnoxious exterior…and that Daikoku and Kofuku happened to owe him.
Still, Daikoku was pessimistically aware that this was the beginning of a very long and unproductive relationship with the worst of freeloaders.
"Yukineee! Your wonderful master has something for you!"
Yukine was lying on his stomach on his futon, kicking his legs back and forth through the air idly as he read through one of Hiyori's textbooks, and he didn't bother looking up as Yato bounced into the room in a whirlwind of frenetic energy.
"There's a ninety-nine percent chance that it's something stupid I don't want," he said flatly as he turned the page. "If it's something stupid, throw it away and don't bother me with it."
"You're so mean! I should take it back just for that."
"I swear, if you wasted all our money on a bunch of useless charms again…"
"Not this time!" Yato nudged Yukine's side with his boot and dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor. Yukine sat up with a long-suffering sigh and eyed the large box in Yato's lap warily. The wide, loopy grin on Yato's face did not bode well. The god tore the box open with great relish and pulled out a white lamp with a long bulb. "Look! It's a study lamp, so that you can do all those mountains of homework Hiyori gives you at night without ruining your eyes squinting at everything."
Yukine stared, mouth slightly agape. Had…had Yato actually bought something useful for once? That was a surprisingly thoughtful gift.
Then his eyes narrowed. That was an expensive-looking lamp with a powerful bulb. Yato was dirt poor and that thing definitely wasn't cheap, so…
"Did you steal that thing?" Yukine demanded.
Yato pouted. "Of course not. You're the accomplished thief."
Yukine flinched at the reminder of his pre-ablution shenanigans, but perhaps he deserved the jab after throwing out such an accusation. Still, that wasn't enough to dull his tongue.
"You swipe stuff too," he muttered mutinously. "Did you make Hiyori buy it for you, then?"
"I bought it myself!" Yato huffed.
"With the money you're making from jobs?" Yukine asked in surprise. There wasn't much of that to go around, and he was pretty sure it was all earmarked for the construction of a future shrine. When it wasn't being wasted on dumb scams and silly trinkets, anyway.
"Pfft! Like I'd waste my shrine savings! Okay, I actually took the money out of your stash from your job. So really, it's like you bought it for yourself! I just sort of helped."
"Wh-what?" Yukine lunged at Yato, who somehow managed to scuttle away while still clutching the box in his lap. "You jerk! Make some money of your own and stop stealing mine!"
"Hey, I was just being nice and getting you a gift! But if you think it's something stupid, I'll just take it back…"
Yukine paused his assault and bit his lip as he ran his gaze over the sleek head of the lamp peeking out from the box. It would be useful… And despite the whole issue of payment, it was something Yato had personally picked out just for Yukine. Such gestures were few and far between, and… And Yukine appreciated the thought. It warmed his heart a little. That little piece of himself that couldn't help but seek Yato's approval and affection was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.
A sudden thought hit him, and his gaze snapped to Yato's face. He wondered if the real reason the god had bought this was as a way to combat Yukine's fear of the dark. If so, nothing of his intentions showed on his face—Yato just watched with that smug little smirk, his eyebrows raised theatrically. If so, Yukine appreciated his tact in not bringing it up.
"I want it," he mumbled with as much irritation as he could muster, dropping his gaze to hide his blush. He snatched the heavy box away from Yato and busied himself with unpacking and setting up the lamp.
Behind him, Yato snorted loudly. "Uh-huh… Oh, and one more thing."
Yukine turned back with a scowl. "What now?"
"I bought you a nightlight too! Since you don't like the dark!" Yato's eyes shone with mischief as he whipped out a smaller box and ripped it open to thrust the contents at Yukine. A distressingly familiar character in the form of a plastic shade stared at the shinki with beady little eyes. "Look! It's a capyper!"
"I…am going to…kill you!" Yukine snatched up the empty box from the lamp and threw it at Yato.
"Ow!" Yato wailed, clutching at his face in an overly dramatic manner. "Yukineee!"
"Don't waste my money on stupid shit like capypers!"
"But capypers are amaaazing!"
Still, Yukine plugged in the nightlight once Yato escaped to lick his wounds. That night, the bright light of the study lamp kept the darkness at bay while he worked through a set of math problems, and he even stayed up late to read some more of his book just because he could. The lamp was a wonderful thing, even if Yato had long since turned his back and pulled the covers over his head. But he hadn't complained about the light, and Yukine reasoned that he would if it was really that bad. His master liked to whine about everything.
And when Yukine finally turned off the lamp, the circle of soft yellow light cast by the nightlight put him at peace. Even if the shade was in the shape of a stupid capyper.
The next morning, after Yato had run downstairs to bug Daikoku about breakfast, Yukine recovered his hidden stash of money. He'd need a better hiding place if his idiot master had found it. But when he counted, he couldn't find any missing.
"That's weird," he muttered to himself.
His eye caught on the bottle that had been forgotten on the table when Yato got distracted by food. It had been nearly three-quarters of the way full of five yen coins before, but now it was nearly empty. Yukine blinked blankly for a long moment.
"Idiot god," he mumbled as he returned his stash to its hidey-hole. But he was smiling.
Hiyori beamed as she handed Yukine his homework back. He watched with wide, nervous eyes, waiting for her verdict.
"Good job!" she said. "You got them all right today!"
"Th-thanks!" Yukine flushed with pride, but then hesitated and glanced over at where Yato was digging through the fridge.
"But…what is this?" Hiyori handed him the last page, which had a large and very detailed drawing of a capyper covering the empty lower half.
"Hey, idiot god! I thought I told you to stop drawing on my homework!"
"But I was booored," Yato whined. He snatched something out of the fridge and shoved the entire thing into his mouth.
Yukine sighed and turned back to Hiyori with a sheepish smile. "Actually, Yato helped me last night because I got confused, and he checked over all my answers for me," he admitted. "I was kind of worried that he told me to do them all wrong just to mess with me…"
Hiyori's eyes widened and she tilted her head to blink at the god. "I didn't know you were good at math, Yato."
Yato slammed the fridge shut with a bang and swallowed down his stolen treat. He turned on her with a scowl and flounced over to the table with an air of injured arrogance.
"You have any idea how long I've been alive, kid? I pretty much know everything! And that's easy, kiddie math, anyways."
"Everything, huh?" Hiyori shook her head. This from the guy who was convinced capypers were real. "Well, thanks for helping Yukine."
She gave Yukine his lesson for the day and offered him a set of practice problems. Then, ignoring Yato's sighing and moping about things being boring when they were working on stupid stuff, she started on her own homework. This turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, since she still dropped her body much too frequently and missed large chunks of her classes as a result.
She had always been pretty good at math, but halfway through the page all the symbols and numbers began looking like gibberish. She chewed on the end of her pencil absently and sighed before scribbling out her third failed attempt at problem number twelve.
"It's easier if you start here," Yato said suddenly from behind her.
Hiyori jumped in surprise as he leaned over her shoulder and snatched her pencil to outline a simpler way of solving the problem. His eyes slid across the equations intently, serious and focused, as he explained it step by step. Hiyori alternated between watching his progress with the problem and watching him.
He laid it all out so well that everything was suddenly crystal clear, and Hiyori thought it odd that he was such a good teacher. He tended to grow impatient quickly and skip over anything he deemed unnecessary to the final goal, so it was strange to see him so engrossed in the process and taking the time to explain his line of logic to an outsider.
His gaze slid sideways, bright blue eyes locking on Hiyori's own. "Are you even paying attention?" he asked with an irritated sigh.
Hiyori turned red and looked back down at the page. "Yes! Actually…this makes a lot more sense now. Thanks, Yato."
"Well," he said, back to his normal cheery self, "I did tell you I know everything! If you give me five yen, I'll do all your homework for you!"
"I think I'd better do it myself," Hiyori said with an apologetic smile. "I need the practice if I want to learn!"
Yato opened his mouth, but was interrupted by his phone ringing. "Hello!" he said brightly. "Thank you for calling! Fast, affordable, and reliable! Delivery god Yato at your service!…I see…No problem!" He turned to Yukine with shining eyes. "Yukine, we have a job!"
"Can't you see I'm busy?" Yukine grumbled, flipping over the page to start on the problems on the back. "I don't want to clean any more bathrooms with you."
Yato blinked at him silently and then scowled. "Actually, this sounds like a fun job. But since you're so busy, I'll do it myself!"
"You do that," Yukine muttered.
Yato disappeared with a huff, and Hiyori had to chuckle.
"Don't you think you should help him?" she asked. "I mean, he did help you with your homework, right?"
The pencil paused and Yukine frowned down at the paper, but then he shook it off and got back to work. "His jobs are lame."
It was true that Yato's jobs could be menial and sometimes downright demeaning for a god, but he deserved credit for how hard he worked at them. He might seem lazy much of the time, but he did throw himself fully into jobs other gods would be too proud to take.
Hiyori sighed and turned back to her homework, but her mouth dropped open as she came face to face with a gigantic drawing of a capyper engulfing her work. "No way! When did he even do this? Yatooo!"
"If only he'd put as much effort into getting work as he does into annoying us…"
Hiyori decided to let this one slide since Yato had been so helpful with explaining the difficult procedure, but there was no way she was turning in her homework with a capyper covering half the page.
Yukine quickly finished the assigned problems, and Hiyori abandoned her own work for the next part of the lesson. They were still working through example problems with their heads bent close together when Yato came trudging back in the front door, trailing the faint scent of chlorine behind him.
"How's the lesson going?" he asked tiredly.
"Great!" Hiyori chirped. "Thanks for letting him stay."
Yato ducked his head and clumped past with a muttered, "Wouldn't want to interrupt your lessons for something silly."
Yukine didn't even look up from the page. "Really dirty bathroom today, huh?"
"I told you, it wasn't a bathroom! It was a fun job, and you missed it all!"
"You smell like bleach."
Yato stormed upstairs with a slew of muttered curses, leaving Yukine to smirk and Hiyori to smile after him.
Daikoku stepped into the kitchen and found the counters clear of dirty dishes. He stared at the empty surface blankly. He had been busy and only now had time to wash the dishes from earlier, but it looked like someone had beat him to it. And possibly scrubbed the counter and sink while they were at it, since they practically sparkled.
It couldn't have been Kofuku, or the kitchen would be a total wreck. She had an unfortunate tendency to bring disaster to even the simplest tasks.
Yukine was sitting at the table, placidly working his way through another set of math problems while munching on an orange.
"Thanks for taking care of the dishes," Daikoku said, because who else could it have been?
Yukine looked up with a faint frown. "I didn't do anything to the dishes. There weren't any out when I came down a few minutes ago."
"Oh… Was Hiyori here earlier?"
"Nope. She hasn't come by today yet."
Daikoku was stumped. "Then who…?"
"Oh, you're back!" Yato pounded down the stairs like a herd of cattle and grinned at Daikoku. "Wonderful! I'm starved. What's for lunch?"
Daikoku's eye twitched. "Make your own food. Better yet, buy your own food."
"But I'm huuungry!"
He rolled his eyes, but then paused and frowned at Yato. "You didn't happen to wash the dishes, did you?"
"Huh?" Yato scratched the back of his head and his eyes rolled off to the side. "That sounds like work. Why should I have to do work when you're here to do it for me?"
Daikoku dismissed him with an irritated sigh. That definitely sounded like the lazy moocher he knew. Well, it was time to make lunch, even if it was frustrating that Yato would swoop in at the last second and score a meal without putting in any effort.
He headed for the fridge, but stopped in his tracks and turned back. Yato had leaned over Yukine's shoulder to peer at his work and make a deliberately annoying comment about it, but Daikoku's eyes were drawn to his hands.
Daikoku frowned at them, puzzled. The sleeves of the jersey were still wet.
Yukine was puzzled by the sudden appearance of the gloves.
"Come on, Yukine!" Yato said. "We've got some ayakashi to kill today!"
He breezed past Yukine and Hiyori as they chatted out in front of Kofuku's place. He was also pulling on a pair of what appeared to be black, fingerless gloves.
"What are the gloves for?" Hiyori asked curiously as she trailed behind him and Yukine, purple tail swishing through the air.
"It's a new fashion statement," Yato said proudly. "I feel like they complete my look."
Yukine snorted derisively as he swept his scornful gaze over the wrinkled tracksuit, tattered scarf, and new gloves. "They look stupid. I can't believe you somehow managed to make your outfit even worse."
"You're just jealous!"
"Of you? I don't think so. Those are–"
"Come, Sekki!"
Which was a childish way of putting an end to an argument, but Yukine cut the idiot some slack and dropped the subject.
The ayakashi were small fry and otherwise unremarkable, but there was one interesting thing that came out of the encounter.
"Hey, Drippy!" Yukine said as they finished up and he reverted back to his human form. "On second thought, keep the gloves. They look ridiculous, but they cut down on all that horrific hand sweat. Just make sure you wash them."
"They look good!" Yato wailed. "It's a new stylistic choice!"
Still, Yukine slowly became aware of a new, odd habit. Despite the gloves being a 'fashion statement' of dubious quality, Yato only seemed to wear them when they were going out to hunt ayakashi or sometimes when doing jobs. Yukine didn't complain—having his master look even more stupid than usual was a small price to pay for reduced exposure to his sweaty palms—but he did find it a bit curious. Just another of Yato's many idiosyncratic quirks, he supposed.
A few weeks later, he had just finished some homework before an ayakashi hunt and walked in on Yato and Hiyori waiting for him in the kitchen.
"These things are horrible," Yato muttered as he pulled the fingerless gloves on and gave them a distasteful look. "They're so uncomfortable."
"Really?" Hiyori asked. "They don't look so bad to me, but maybe they just take some getting used to. The things we put up with for the sake of fashion, huh?"
Yato muttered some sort of lackluster agreement and flexed his fingers.
"Hey, Drippy," Yukine said as he slipped through the doorway and raised his eyebrows at the god. "If they're that bad, stop wearing them. I'm pretty much used to your ridiculous hand sweat by now, anyway."
Yato scowled. "They're a fashion statement!"
Still, Yukine noticed that the gloves disappeared shortly thereafter, and he didn't comment on their absence.
Hiyori slumped against the wall, dispirited. There had to be a way out of this prison Kugaha had trapped them in, but she had yet to find it.
Kazuma had been speaking his thoughts aloud for a while as he tried to work through what was happening, but he suddenly turned on Hiyori with wide eyes. "Could that be Kugaha's plan…?"
Hiyori blinked at him. "Huh?"
"If you are unable to return, Yato will think Veena kidnapped you. He'll come…and they'll be pitted against each other in a fight to the death." His face drained completely of blood. "This is a disaster."
"It might not happen," Hiyori tried to reassure him. "I mean, Bishamon wants to kill Yato and he's been avoiding her for a long time, right? I doubt he'd want to walk right into her stronghold and pick a fight."
"…I think you're underestimating him." Kazuma pushed his glasses farther up his nose and studied her with solemn, worried eyes. "He nearly let himself die in order to save Yukine, even though he knew better. And he seems to have grown quite fond of you as well. He might be difficult and sometimes it's hard to win his loyalty, but once you have it, he'll go to great lengths for you. No, he'll come for you."
Hiyori flushed and frowned down at the ground. Yato might seem a bit callous and indifferent at times, but it was true that he had frequently rescued or even risked his life for her and Yukine.
She cleared her throat and shook her head. "I guess that if Yato really killed all her shinki in the past, their fight is probably inevitable either way."
"…Yato isn't the one to blame."
Hiyori listened in fascination as Kazuma finally spilled out the story. The story that Yato had never once told anyone, as far as she could tell. Not even though revealing it could have saved him so much trouble with Bishamon.
It gave a heart and soul to the stories she'd heard of the old god of calamity, and she finally knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would storm right into Bishamon's lair and fight to the death if he thought it would save her.
.
Yukine watched in horror as Bishamon's shinki trapped Yato in a small, triangular space with their borderlines. He couldn't even reach his master like this, and only bounced off the borderlines uselessly.
"This ends now," Bishamon said, eyes flashing. "Come, Saiki!"
It was that gigantic sword again, the one with the blade powerful enough to cut through just about everything. It would shatter Yukine in one blow, and Yato…
Yato braced himself inside his prison, glaring defiantly and narrowing his eyes against the coming blow.
Those triangular borderlines brought back memories of Yukine's ablution, when he was the one trapped inside. But he had survived, because Yato had held out to the very end for him. This time… Yato would not survive this.
"Many gods will exile their shinki after stinging them just once," Mayu had said later. "But Yato didn't abandon you, even after all that. So from now on, take up the name he gave you and obey your master."
Or Yato's response just a few minutes ago to Yukine's excuses about going dull because he didn't want to hurt Bishamon's shinki. "Then let me say it differently this time: protect me."
That name Yato had given him…Yukine would take it up to protect his master.
Everything happened so fast. The blade came down, and suddenly everything shattered into a million pieces around him. There was a moment, an eternity, of peaceful nothing, and then–
"Sekki!"
Suddenly Yukine was back, but he was different. Now he was…two swords?
"A-are you okay, Yukine?" Yato rasped. He was half-crouched on the ground, clutching the swords in trembling hands.
"Yep, better than ever!" Yukine laughed a little. "I was kind of in a daze so I'm not sure what happened, but just when I thought I was a goner, I came back as two blades. Weird, huh?"
"I…I thought you'd been killed for sure…"
Yukine finally took a good, long look at Yato. The god's breathing was ragged, his hands trembling, and his wide eyes clouded with a lingering haze of shock and fear and loss.
Yukine sucked in a breath. "Yato…"
Yato shook his head, shaking out all the shell-shocked grief from his eyes, and rose to his feet with a grin, his gaze already focusing back on Bishamon. "You have my thanks, Yukine. You're the first shinki to ever evolve for me. I'm gonna brag to everyone when we get back!"
"B-brag?"
As it turned out, Yato had been totally serious. The second they cleared things up with Bishamon and met up with everyone at Tenjin's shrine, he began bragging to everyone who would listen.
"That's my kid! He's a genius, huh? Isn't he so cool? Are you guys jealous? You don't have anything like him!"
Yukine flushed with pride. Yato's praise and unashamed pride in him somehow meant the world, and…and even more so that glimpse of pain and fear from before. Yato might be a lousy, good-for-nothing god, but he was Yukine's god. And really, after everything he had done, the least Yukine could do in return was use the name and second chance at life Yato had given him to protect his unbelievably obnoxious but undeniably wonderful master.
The bathroom was so clean that it was literally sparkling. The grout had been scrubbed and shone white rather than a dingy gray threatened by creeping mold, the floor was swept, the trash had been removed, the tub was scrubbed clean, and everything had been wiped down to a gleaming shine.
Daikoku gaped in disbelief. That mold had survived onslaughts of cleaners for centuries! He knew only one person who had spent years perfecting the art of cleaning bathrooms.
He stormed back out into the kitchen and jabbed an accusing finger at Yato's chest. "What the hell did you do to the bathroom?"
"Hm?" Yato quit pestering Hiyori and Yukine to tilt his head and blink at Daikoku uncomprehendingly. Hiyori and Yukine abandoned their lesson to watch the confrontation.
"Did he make a mess of it?" Yukine asked. "Idiot god, stop wrecking everything!"
"No," said Daikoku, narrowing his eyes. "It's clean."
"Ohhh," Yato said. He grinned. "I came up with a new mold-scrubbing technique, but there's a chance of toxic fumes and permanent grout damage, so I wanted to test it out before risking it in a client's house. It's not good to have unsatisfied clients! I figured your bathroom was a safe bet to be a guinea pig."
Daikoku's eye twitched and he could feel the storm clouds gathering on his face. "Toxic fumes?" he repeated. "Permanent grout damage? Are you pulling my leg?"
"Nope!"
"And testing your new mold-scrubbing technique involved cleaning everything else too?"
"Well, I had to scrub everything just in case. Who knows where all the toxic fumes and chemicals could've gotten? I have to use that bathroom too, and I don't want to get poisoned!"
Daikoku wondered how Yato could spin a story like that with a straight face.
"You–"
"Uh, Daikoku?" Hiyori interrupted timidly. "I think something might be burning."
He barely managed to bite back a curse as he rushed to rescue their lunch burning on the stove. Thankfully, the damage wasn't too bad and he managed to salvage most of it. This was what he got for leaving the stove unattended while cooking.
"Kofuku!" he called as he began dishing out food. "Lunch is ready!"
"Yaaay!"
He smiled to himself as she came rushing into the kitchen in a whirlwind of skirts and pink hair. He turned to bring the food to the table, but paused to watch.
Yato had gone back to harassing Yukine and Hiyori about their homework, which had devolved into a loud argument. Daikoku smiled as Kofuku threw herself into the fray, Hiyori tried to play peacekeeper, Yukine vented his frustration, and Yato continued on as blithely as ever. They all made this place feel like home, giving it a lively air that it had been lacking for centuries, and Kofuku was happy to always have friends around to socialize with.
For one bittersweet moment, it reminded him of Daigo, of how things could have been. But this was how things were, and it was like magic. Even with Yato hanging around. Maybe especially with Yato, if only because none of this would have been possible if he hadn't come to Daikoku's aid all those years ago when he'd been blighting Kofuku and needed a way out. Yato had brought his new friends here and breathed life into their home again, and it was wonderful.
"Settle down!" Daikoku huffed. "It's time to eat."
He passed out food, hesitated, and set a plate down in front of Yato too. Yato blinked at it with a blank expression and then eyed Daikoku warily. Usually, he ended up swiping food and throwing a fuss to get included in meals since Daikoku wasn't keen on encouraging lazy freeloaders.
This time, Daikoku just shrugged and sat down at the table. "It's not like I've been able to get rid of you."
Yato stared at him and then grinned. "Yaaay! I'm finally an accepted tenant!"
"Sadly, not a paying one," Daikoku muttered.
But he smiled to himself as he watched Yato and the others dig in. Freeloaders or not, they had brought something to this home. Somehow, they had become something like family.
Yes, even Yato.
Hiyori ended the call with Kofuku and frowned out her window. It was good that Yukine had refused Ebisu's offer, but strange that Yato was upset anyway.
A shrine, huh…?
She leaned back in her chair and watched the sky darkening outside the glass for a few minutes before coming to a decision. Sliding the chair back, she stood and paid a visit to her brother's old room. He had always kept boxes of junk lying around, and she was sure she could find some supplies somewhere.
She spent nearly forty minutes digging through every box and drawer before retreating to her room with her haul. She wasn't very talented with her hands and knew little about construction or sculpture or art or any of that, but the least she could do was try. It turned out to be a slightly more painful process than she'd imagined, and she picked up a splinter or two and a nick from the scissors.
But in the end, she knew it would be worth it, even if it made Yato just a tiny bit happy. Despite all his—admittedly, many—faults, he had done so much for Hiyori and the others. Helping Kazuma and saving Bishamon, nearly dying to give Yukine a second chance, rescuing Hiyori herself too many times to count… They might call him lazy, a freeloader, and he often was in a variety of ways, but no one worked harder for the people he cared about than he did.
Hiyori wanted to give him something back, even if it was just something small. Some trifling token of gratitude to show her appreciation for everything he had done.
She stayed up all night working on her craft project. It was kind of small and a little lopsided and had some slight construction issues, but it was the best she could do.
She hoped he liked it.
.
Yato was still flopped across the futon and buried in a nest of blankets when Hiyori arrived. He kept his face buried in the pillow and didn't look up even when he heard her footsteps and voice. The world was looking awfully gray again right now, and he wished everyone would just leave him alone for a day or two until he got back on his feet.
"So this time it's Yato who's upset?" Hiyori asked.
"He's all depressed because 'I wanted a shrine!'" Yukine said, the eye roll evident in his voice. "What a spoiled kid."
Yato wouldn't expect him to understand. It was cruel of Ebisu to hit his weak point like that. Still, Yato wanted to do it himself. He wanted his own shrine from his own money or his own believers. But it wasn't like he'd really made any progress at all in centuries, so maybe it was a moot point.
Fine, he might be overreacting like a spoiled kid. He should really stop being so pathetic and moping over such a small thing. But…but… But it had been his dream since he was a kid, since Sakura had pointed out a shrine and said she was sure he would have one someday too. The world had only ever beaten that dream down. Father called it unnecessary and silly, no humans remembered him, and everyone else thought he was childish or taunted him about what a worthless god he was so of course he didn't have a shrine.
Well, maybe they were right, all of them, but that didn't make it any easier.
"But he hasn't eaten a thing," Daikoku said mournfully.
Wow, Yato must really be worrying them if Daikoku was voluntarily offering food. He should suck it up and stop moping, but he figured that if he had to live for centuries, he should at least get the occasional day off to sulk a bit if he wanted to.
"Yukki, you didn't sting him, did you?" Kofuku asked.
"No, I didn't!" Yukine protested.
"Yato…" Hiyori's voice came closer as she approached the futon and knelt down. "Did you really want a shrine that badly?"
"Yeah," Yato mumbled into the pillow. "Not having one is like being told 'get lost, you aren't needed'."
Which was, he reflected morosely, exactly what the world had always told him. Only Father regarded him as truly useful, and that was only because Yato became his puppet, his tool for mass murder. That wasn't something to be proud of. He was only useful to the people who wanted him to kill. It was, as Father had always said, the only thing he was really good at.
The rest of the world met him with cold indifference or outright hostility, if he was even noticed at all. He cleaned bathrooms and walked dogs for a pittance, and was promptly forgotten within seconds. He killed ayakashi and saved people from corruption, but no one ever looked his way. Even the other gods all thought he was useless at best and an evil god of calamity at worst.
It was his fault, he knew it was, but still. His attitude rubbed people the wrong way and he was selfish and rarely seemed to do anything worthwhile. After how hard he had struggled to survive throughout the centuries, after everything he had done and sacrificed to get here, it still felt like disappearing tomorrow would ultimately change nothing.
"That's good," Hiyori said. "This is for you, Yato."
He lifted his head to see what she had placed next to him, and froze as he saw the tiny shrine perched on the corner of the futon. It was small and a bit sloppily constructed and the carvings were a bit like messy scribbles, but there was heart carved into each line.
Yato sat up and slowly picked up the shrine, cradling it reverently in his hands as he stared down with wide eyes and slightly parted lips. Waiting for the dream to end, maybe.
But the wood was rough and solidly real beneath his fingertips, and he could almost feel the affection and gratitude and friendship seeping into every splinter and crack.
He still held his breath like a dreamer afraid of air, but he could feel the tears slowly welling behind the disbelief.
Look at that, Sakura…
In all his centuries of existence, no one had ever handed him their heart in a shrine and said 'thank you, I need you, you're worth something'.
What had he done?
What had he done to deserve this?
He couldn't help but feel, somewhere deep down in his heart, that he was tricking them all. Yukine and Hiyori didn't know who he had been, didn't understand the god they had done so much to help. Even Daikoku and Kofuku, who knew some of his past, were unaware of the darker pieces. A sharp thorn of guilt pierced his heart for a passing second, but…
But…
"Isn't that great?" Yukine asked. "You got the shrine you always wanted! Now you can cheer up a lit– He's crying?"
"You're overexaggerating!" Hiyori wailed.
But he didn't want to think about all that now.
He hunched over and finally breathed, letting all the emotions flood in. He squeezed his eyes shut and curled over the tiny shrine as the tears ran down his cheeks in silent streams.
Daikoku and Kofuku had welcomed him into their home and accepted him even when he just lazed about and never helped out. Yukine had risked his life and name to protect him and pledged eternal loyalty to become a hafuri even when Yato wasn't a good master and couldn't provide for him. Hiyori had made him a shrine and handed him his childhood dream even when he was always annoying her and getting her sucked into his messes.
Father had always said that he was a god who only knew how to take. A god of calamity who only brought misfortune and death.
But Yato…wanted to give something back. He had no way to repay any of them, knew that he could work for a hundred years more and still not have done anything as wonderful for them as they had done for him, but he wanted to try. He didn't deserve everything they gave him, but he wanted to someday.
He wanted to change for them. They made him want to be a better god.
Look at that, Sakura. I finally found people who really care about me and make me want to change like you did. Thank you for pointing me the right way.
He thought that this might be what love was supposed to feel like.
Note: This was honestly supposed to just be kind of cute and sweet, but it got a little bittersweet once I decided to stick in Yato's POV X) Oops lol Poor guy.