Chapter Text
It had been a close call. Too close.
The mission had gone sideways just as they were wrapping up another mission inside the Hollow Zero.
The earth suddenly shook, splitting the uneven ground in front of them. A blinding rupture tore through the earth as giant claws appeared from the cracks, pushing themselves free. The beast that emerged wasn’t on any record of HAND or even HIA. It was a sickening, contorted thing. Its ribs-like structure jutting across its body yet swaying like it had no bones, its very skin a web of pulsing ether cracks, leaking energy that made their carrot datas stutter and their breaths hitched.
“It’s heading for us!”
Soukaku's scream was followed by Yanagi's raised naginata, and Tailless was ready to be unsheathed by Miyabi, yet none of them saw the secondary rupture right underneath their feet.
It burst up from the ground behind them. A whip-like tail was going to hit them from the blind spot, swiping them clean off the ground and breaking their formation.
None of them could react fast enough for the sudden ambush.
None of them, except Harumasa.
He sprinted to the back from his scouting position without thinking. He jumped between them and the strike. Dormant Tide dismantled into its two blades, but he was too late to take a proper defensive stance.
“Ugh-!”
The impact immediately sent him flying to the nearest rubble before his body unceremoniously dropped to the ground, unmoving. Dormant Blossom and Dark Tide cluttered next to him, echoing through the deafening battlefield before the rest of Section 6 could realise what was going on. Miyabi’s eyes widened in shock when she noticed no movement came from the archer after he went down.
“Harumasa!”
She called for a retreat without any second thought and carried him out, legs struggling under the growing dead weight, as Yanagi and Soukaku cleared the path ahead to reach the nearest fissure.
Miyabi didn't bother to stop the step-siblings from breaking their formations and not following the escape protocols. Their main priority was saving their archer, their friend.
Their family.
By the time he regained his bearing in the recovery ward, he just laughed it off with the same crooked grin that was always plastered on his face, even if he was still hooked up to an oxygen mask.
“I felt like a fish out of the water back there~ ether residue tasted awful, by the way.”
The fox thiren had said nothing at the time. Just nodded, told him to rest, and walked out with her fists clenched tight enough to leave crescent marks in her palms.
---
"Phew, never expected that I'll miss my home this much~"
Now, days later, she stood in the middle of his apartment after she drove him back from the hospital. Her HSO coat was folded neatly beside her, and Tailless leaned against the wall, untouched. The rain had passed, leaving behind a glassy hush that settled over the city of New Eridu. The kitchen windows fogged faintly from the tea brewing on the stove. The space was quiet, save for the gentle whirr of the heater and the muffled hum of distant traffic. Faint traces of medicinal herbs and antiseptics lingered in the air.
Under the harsh fluorescent light, Harumasa looked pale in a way that no amount of sunlight could fix for now.
But he was still smiling as if nothing had happened these past few days.
That single fact rubbed Miyabi the wrong way.
“You were unconscious on the field,” she said, jaw tightened. “You stopped breathing for twelve seconds when the medics tried to help you.”
His back was faced towards her, avoiding any eye contact.
"It's all because you threw yourself in front of us.”
The words dropped like a stone in still water, rippling through the silence between them.
She could replay the scene perfectly like a broken record. She could still feel the fear spiked in her heart from the event. The sickening sound of the shaking ground and the sudden screech ringing in her ears. The way Harumasa had turned, eyes wide with alarm, before hurling himself toward the source of the ambush without a second thought.
She remembered the crack of impact. The flying dust. The silence.
“—Get him out of here!”
Yanagi’s scream followed behind. Soukaku swung her banner around to chase the smaller ethereals away in a panicked and uncontrolled movement.
Miyabi had barely heard them. She’d already been running, the weight of him folding into her arms like broken glass.
“You looked dead,” she continued. She couldn’t hide the shakiness of her voice as emotions rushed inside her like a flood from a broken dam. “Do you have any idea what that looked like to us? To me?”
He still wouldn’t look at her, so Miyabi stepped closer enough to fill the distance between them.
“I thought you were gone,” Her fingers curled on her damp skirt. “You threw yourself in front of a rupture meant for us. And then you stopped breathing just like that.”
Harumasa raised his eyes—slowly, as if it physically hurt to meet her gaze.
But then came that crooked grin. That same deflection she’d grown to hate as much as she once admired it.
“Could’ve been worse,” Harumasa hummed nonchalantly, wiping his hands with a towel. “Could’ve been me turning into an ethereal. Then you’d have to take me down, and that would’ve ruined our Section's reputation. ‘An Executive Officer of Section 6 turned into an ethereal while on a mission.’ Tragic, isn’t it?”
“That’s not funny,” she said quietly.
The smile on his face trembled. Its corners turned downward into a more melancholic one.
“I know. Sorry.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the kettle beginning to hiss faintly.
Miyabi took a breath. “You really scared me, Harumasa,” she confessed.
He looked at her again, eyes soft. “It’s okay. I’m alright.”
“But what if you hadn’t been?”
His smile turned apologetic this time. “Then… I’d have a dramatic exit. I’d leave a message on my terminal. Something poetic. Probably steal a quote or two from Deputy Chief.”
Miyabi stepped closer, expression unreadable. “You always joke when it’s about yourself.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Habit.”
“Stop.” Her voice cracked. “Just for once. Stop pretending this doesn’t matter. Like you don’t matter.”
Harumasa went silent again. His amber eyes cast down, breaking away from her.
“You were unconscious. We didn’t know if you’d wake up just like the last time,” Miyabi’s gaze darkened, remembering the time when Harumasa went alone to investigate the miracle drug case. “When I asked about your condition, they wouldn’t tell me a damn thing. I'm not a family in their list. In their eyes, I'm just your Chief, and Yanagi and Soukaku are just colleagues in our line of work."
He blinked, caught off guard by the shift of the conversation.
“I had to fight to see you,” she continued. “Do you know how that felt? Watching them wheel you away, not knowing if I’d even be allowed in the room? The unknown scares me, Haru. I’m scared something happened behind the closed door, and I can’t do anything for you.”
The tension between them grew heavy.
“That’s when I realized,” she said, her voice trembling despite her calm face, “if something happened to you again or worse, I don’t have the power to help you. I wouldn’t even be allowed to sign the papers to bring you home.”
She could feel her nails digging deeper into her palms.
“I don’t want to be just someone they let in after the fact was already written on the paper,” Miyabi whispered. “I want to be the one who stays. Who’s allowed to stay through everything."
The kettle whistled louder. He reached to shut it off but paused when her next words landed, soft and sudden.
“Marry me.”
His hand hovered over the stove. Only the faint hissing of cooling steam remained to fill the growing silence.
He turned around, eyes widened at the blunt statement.
“…What?”
Miyabi didn’t move. Her posture was as straight as ever, her hands balled at her sides. But there was a slight flush to her cheeks, either from her contained frustration towards him or just pure embarrassment. Her ears, ever traitorous, were twitching anxiously.
“I said,” she repeated, firmer this time, “Let’s get married. You and me.”
Harumasa stared. Then his mouth slowly curled into a disbelieving grin. “Wait, seriously? You’re proposing to me?”
She nodded once.
He huffed a laugh, dragging a hand through his messy hair. “Shouldn’t it be the guy doing that? I mean, come on, you’re breaking all the tropes here. I was gonna surprise you with a bouquet of melon bread someday.”
But his eyes flicked downward. His hand dropped to the side, fingers brushing against the hem of his shirt, where his newest round of prescribed analgesic patches clung under the fabric. His body had been slower to recover lately. The excruciating pain clung longer, and the spells of coughs were harder to hide.
“You were never going to do it,” Miyabi said, almost whispering.
He didn’t answer as his grin faltered.
She was right. He never would have. He couldn’t imagine anchoring her to a life where he might disappear without warning. A future built on a weakened heart and shaky mornings and pills lined up like gravestones.
“You think I don’t know why?” He opened his mouth to deflect the conversation, but she stepped closer, closing the already nonexistent gap between them and stopping just in front of him. “You think I haven’t watched you do everything to make this easier for me? You hold yourself back because you think loving me means protecting me from you. But I don’t want distance, Harumasa. I want you.”
Harumasa smiled again, but it was tired this time. Wistful. “I mean… isn’t it selfish? I don’t have a long lease on life. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Fairness,” she echoed, voice soft. “That’s not love.”
He tilted his head slightly away, unable to meet Miyabi’s eyes.
“I know you’re sick. I know you wake up in pain some mornings. I know you hate that your hands sometimes shake when you draw your bow. I know you downplay it so the others don’t worry, but I see it. Every day, I see it. And I stay. Not out of duty or pity. I stay because I love you.”
He inhaled sharply, but she didn’t let him interrupt.
“I’m not afraid of the future, Harumasa. Not if it’s with you,” she said. A cascade of feeling, spilling out before she could stop herself. “I’ll slay every Hollow in this city if that means buying you another day. I’ll search the ends of New Eridu for a cure if that means I can see you smile at me when I wake up. I’ll make tea for your throat every night if that’s what you need. I don’t care how long we have. I just want that time with you.”
Harumasa’s breath caught in his throat. His chest felt too tight.
“Miyabi—”
“Even if I can’t save you,” Miyabi’s voice faltered, but her glistening eyes never wavered. “Let me love you. Isn’t that enough?”
Harumasa’s legs gave slightly under him, and he leaned back against the counter. He brought a hand up to his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have to watch me die.”
“Then live with me,” she said.
The heater hummed louder. The raindrops on the windows faded into mist.
Then he let out a quiet laugh and stepped forward, pressing his forehead against hers.
“You’re being irrational, you know that?” he whispered.
“So are you.”
He leaned in, nose brushing hers, eyes fluttering shut.
“I don’t deserve you,” he tugged her closer.
She touched his hand, threading their fingers together. “Then spend the rest of our time proving me wrong.”
A pause.
“…Okay,” he said softly.
She blinked. “Okay?”
“Let’s do it. I want to marry you.”
Her ruby-like eyes shone.
“You really mean that?”
He gave a small smile. “Yeah. I’m scared. But… I want to be yours, Hoshimi Miyabi. I’ve always wanted that.”
They stood in the kitchen, holding each other in the dim light as the sky outside cleared, casting streaks of moonlight through the haze. Their shadows stretched long on the tiles beneath them.
Miyabi lifted her hands slowly, looping her arms around his neck. Harumasa drew her in with arms that had always known how to hold her for thousand times. Their bodies fit pressed together in warmth.
He leaned in, his breath warm against her skin.
“Then, from this day forward…”
Her lips brushed his like a whisper of contact.
“For better,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“For worse,” came next, softer, as she kissed the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes, hiding the vulnerable embers from the world to see.
“For richer,” she kissed the corner of one eye.
“For poorer,” she kissed the other. A tear slid down beneath her mouth, warm and fragile. His lashes fluttered, brushing her skin like breath against a prayer.
“In sickness,” she whispered, one hand rising to cup his cheek. “And in health…”
He opened his eyes again to meet hers.
The silence between them deepened, thick with the weight of unspoken memories—of mornings marked by coughs, of nights cradled in silence, of missions and glances and years of unyielding proximity.
“Until death do us part,” Miyabi finished, the words catching slightly in her throat.
And Harumasa laughed.
It was not a loud sound. Not like his usual mischievous laugh. But a gentle laugh that shimmered, gold-threaded and trembling, as though his very soul had finally been freed from the growing guilt. It slipped from him like sunlight breaking through clouds, light and warm and wholly beautiful.
Miyabi could imagine the golden bells that chimed with each of his breaths.
“Yeah,” he breathed, hands rising to cradle her face. Red blooms under Miyabi's pale skin as his calloused thumbs brushed over the planes of her cheeks.
Then he kissed her.
It was soft, like the first note of a lullaby, like drops sliding down glass. He kissed her like a thousand unsaid things folded into one breath. Miyabi kissed him back with the same care, anchoring him, grounding him, giving him something solid to hold in a world that had always felt too cruel.
When they parted, their foreheads met again, breath shared between them, still wrapped in the hush of that vow.
“Until death do us part,” he echoed.