Demon Slayer: As If We Had Met Before

[Includes Giyu and Shinobu, Obanai and Mitsuri, Sanemi and Kanae, Sabito and Makomo, and canon pairings; multiple ships, with Giyu and Shinobu as the main couple] + [Apologies for out-of-character moments] + [Modern AU, everyone survives] Under the streetlamp, Sabito watched his childhood friend Giyu Tomioka leave. “Call me when you get home.” Giyu came out of the karaoke bar with all his emotions locked away. He’d had plenty to drink, but his eyes looked far too clear. “I’m not drunk.” Sabito knew that this childhood friend, whom he’d grown up alongside, always hid his loneliness as if nothing were wrong. A night breeze stirred, and a familiar figure appeared before them. Shinobu Kocho smiled with violet eyes, like a butterfly fluttering into view. “Hellooo, Mr. Tomioka. You look pretty drunk.” She called him a cab, but he kept her in it with the excuse that it was too late to be out alone. “It’s too late. It’s not safe for you to go back alone. Get in.” Two years earlier, he’d been a quiet, reserved exchange student overseas. Though he liked her, he never said so. She was the girl who pretended to just happen to pass through his world. Now she found him crouching beneath a streetlamp. “Why are you sitting here?” “Aren’t you afraid I’ll rummage through your home?” “You wouldn’t.” … Later, they got together, and Shinobu stopped politely calling him Mr. Tomioka. She leaned against Giyu’s shoulder, twirling the cuff of his sleeve around her finger. “Giyu, when you went abroad, did you ever secretly think about me?” Giyu tightened his arm around her waist and gently rested his cheek against the top of her head. “Every day.” Shinobu smiled, her eyes crinkling, and snuggled closer into his arms. “Me too.”