Sabito

February eighth.

It’s not a particularly special day; cold, but not special. For most people anyways. Sabito has thought different for years now.

Every passing year, he’s punched in the face with a reminder of his long gone friend, Tomioka Giyu. The boy was wounded during final selection by the first demon he met. Sabito had killed nearly every demon on that mountain except for a single one; instead, he’d stopped to try and keep his wounded friend safe.

Two people died during that selection. A boy Sabito had never met, and his best friend whose wounds got severely infected. He knew he couldn’t have done anything to fix it—he’s not a trained doctor in the slightest—but it hurt knowing that if he’d gotten to that one demon a little bit sooner, he might just have his friend beside him now.

Outside in the moonlight, he sat gazing at the stars and fireflies lighting up the sky. The quiet movement of a river off in the distance outside his mansion was relaxing on a night that felt so eerily quiet. The swaying of wisteria trees just beyond the fence in the corner of his eye seemed to fill in a sort of emptiness that threatened to surround Sabito entirely. This wasn’t the first year he had to celebrate his friend’s birthday on his own and yet it still hurt like it was.

Sure, he was a Hashira, he had nearly everything he could’ve ever wanted, but was it selfish just to ask for just a little more that night?