A little story that's the culmination of eerna's art over on tumblr and tags from yatorihell, skadventuretime and fushiginokunino on that art. Enjoy~

Heads or Tails

"What'cha doin', Hiyori?" Yato climbed into her room effortlessly, swinging his legs in over the window sill. As he started to take his boots off and she looked up at him, he first noticed she was still in what seemed to be her pajamas before realizing shortly after that her cord was exposed and her sleeping form was nowhere to be found. Squinting at her, he asked, "Where's your body?"

She blinked and looked to her bedroom door, "Oh. I was watching a movie with my dad downstairs, but it wasn't really my taste so I kind of drifted off…" She looked back at him with a tilt of her head, "Where's Yukine-kun?"

Yato heaved a sigh and dropped to the floor, scratching the back of his neck as he made his way around the foot of her bed, "He's mad at me again." Looking back up at her, he gave her another curious look as she started to twist off the lid of what looked to be nail polish, "Uh… Hiyori? I'm not sure that'll work."

She gave a shrug in response, "It's relaxing. And it'll stay until I go back into my body, I think." Looking up to watch him, she continued, "So what's going on?" As he started to unzip his jacket and shed it off of his shoulders, her eyebrow pulled together, "And what are you doing?"

"Just gonna lay on the floor." He balled his jacket up and held it behind his head as he lowered himself, stretching out and groaning, "My back hurts."

Hiyori peered down over the edge of the bed, her tail twitching in slight irritation as she repeated herself, "What happened, Yato?"

He shook his head and stared up at the ceiling, "Nothing really. Just the same stuff as always, he just gets annoyed by things I do and eventually snaps on me." He rolled his eyes and his lips fell into a pout, "He always gets on me about helping Daikoku and Kofuku run their shop or doing chores around the house but when I actually do those things, they both get mad at me and kick me out. And on top of that, he gets pissed about stuff I do in my sleep. But I mean, I'm sleeping; what the hell am I supposed to do about that?"

Just as his eyes flickered back to her, she turned back around and disappeared from view, "Did you take food from the stand again?" His mouth fell open, but she continued before he had the chance to respond to her first accusation, "Or try to reorganize their house when you're supposed to be cleaning the floor?"

"Okay, so first off: I never just take food, I have the full intention of paying for it later." He huffed in response, giving a small glare to the bed and the tiny bit of her tail that waved in and out of view, even though he knew she couldn't see him, "And secondly, can you blame me for trying to bring a little luck into the house with some Feng Shui when the goddess of poverty herself lives there? If anything, I'm doing everybody a favor; including Kofuku."

"But it's not your house, Yato. I mean, yeah, you live there, but it's not yours. I'd be mad if you tried to rearrange my things here in my room, too."

"Your room's fine. Your dresser could maybe be a little bit more to the left but—"

She interrupted him with an annoyed sigh, changing the subject, "And the food thing—you know why that's bad. I shouldn't even have to explain that."

"Yeah, yeah…" He exhaled and closed his eyes briefly, "But what about the sleep thing?"

He heard her shift on the bed before he saw her face peeking down at him again, her voice softer and curious, "Well, what exactly do you do?"

"Talk, move around, sleep walk; you name it, I probably do it." He turned his head to the side and some of his hair fell down into his face as he thought out loud, "The sleep walking is pretty rare, though."

She gave a nervous laugh, "W-well, is there any sort of correlation you can figure out for when you do those things? Like maybe you do those sorts of things when you're sleep deprived and are sleeping well for the first time in several nights?"

Yato blinked and looked back up at her, "Hmm. I dunno."

"Maybe you should keep a journal and try to figure it out and then you can work on it from there." She turned around again and went back to painting her nails, but this time her back and her tail were still fully in view, "Not only to help keep Yukine-kun on your good side, but I think it'll help you, too."

"I guess so." He shrugged and lifted his legs, crossing his feet and resting them at the edge of the bed.

Yato stared up at the ceiling in thought again for a view minutes, trying to go over the details of his sleeping habits until the vibrant glow of Hiyori's cord took over his vision. He was honestly surprised she hadn't told him to move his feet as of yet or forcefully shoved them off herself, but he guessed that's because she was too distracted with painting her nails. Carefully, he reached up and rested his palm against the tip of her tail.

Though it gave a slight twitch as Hiyori tensed up, she didn't move it out of his grasp.

Now that he thought about it, he'd never really gotten the chance to look at it this closely. He'd yanked it to keep Hiyori out of trouble a few times, but that was about it. So he held it gently, his eyes moving over the swirl of purple and pink. It was slim and light colored now, with only a wider tuft towards the end, but he couldn't help but let his mind drift to the time when she had slipped even closer to the far shore; when her cord had been dark and wild.

It was forever a reminder of two wishes he hadn't granted.

"This is dangerous, you know," He ghosted his thumb over the ethereal fur, "Being out of your body for no reason." Still, it was rather beautiful, in a way, and he found himself somewhat in a daze as he continued to admire it. Not that that was surprising, considering it was a part of Hiyori's soul, after all.

"It's not like I did it on purpose." She grumbled in response, sounding just a bit embarrassed, "Besides, what is a good enough reason?"

Yato's face fell, his thumb freezing in place as he answered quietly, "I don't know."

Hiyori gave another huff and her tail flew upward as she turned around and leaned over the bed with a stern stare, "You better not be over thinking things, because my nails aren't dry yet and it'll be a few more minutes before I can knock some sense into you."

"I think I've been beaten up enough for one day, thanks." He blinked and dropped his hand back down to his stomach, slipping his other hand from out under his head as well to create a protective barrier across himself. He dropped his legs down to the floor as well, sure that they would be her first target due to their proximity to her.

"I'm serious, Yato." She shook her head and her voice softened, "If you really need me to say it officially, just please forget about my first wish and forget about trying so hard to make my life normal. I already said a long time ago that I wouldn't cut my ties with you, and you should have known from then that hardly anything about my life was going to be normal. I knew that when I made that choice." Her lips pulled downward into a frown, "I'm tired of you and Yukine-kun disappearing because you feel like you've let me down somehow when you haven't."

His lips parted, "But—"

"Please. You have enough to worry about without worrying about me." She dangled one of her legs off the edge of her bed and nudged his side with her foot, laughing, "Like your talent for making Yukine-kun and Daikoku-san angry."

He cracked a smile, "And you, too."

"Sometimes." She admitted willingly before nudging him again, "But I think I tend to forgive you a lot easier than they do."

Yato sat up and entangled his arms around her leg, clinging onto her tightly and chirping, "That's because Hiyori's the best!"

She immediately tried to fling him off, "O-okay, okay, that's enough!"

When he pulled away, he saw her cheeks were flushed and grinned to himself.

"I need to go wake myself up for lunch with my parents, anyway, so you should go home and try to make up with Yukine-kun." She hopped over him carefully before making her way towards the bedroom door, avoiding his eyes, "I'll see you later."

"Thank you." He said softly as he watched her walk away.

She paused at the door knob, answering right before she walked out, "You're welcome."