what about royalty!au Sanemi and Akihiko?👉👈
ohohohoh! sanekihiko, eh? they are actually such a special lil pairing for me, if only because we see so little of them in fits canon.
and i really wanna write them... TwT so here are some drabbles of them!!! interspersed with some hcs cos why not
- The first time Sanemi meets Higuchi Akihiko, he finds him pretty annoying.
That guy is always hanging around the Butterfly Estate, even when he isn't injured. Talk about not reading the room; he should just fuck off and let the Kochou sisters do their job. He should have better things to do.
Sanemi also hates the way Akihiko stands. It's a little odd - spine straight and shoulders sitting in a way that looks regal. He never fidgets with his hands, an almost well-trained stillness to him that makes him almost look like a painted doll. When he is introduced to Sanemi for the first time (by Masachika), there's a calculated tilt to Akihiko's lips as he bows and murmurs his pleasantries.
It's the little jerk Akihiko does before he bows a little lower that has Sanemi's lips curling into a sneer. Just because he has the kanji for prince in his name doesn't make him an actual prince.
"Shinazugawa-san, it's a pleasure to meet you," Akihiko says politely, before visibly dismissing him to shoot the shit with Masachika.
That fucking asshole.
- of course, their relationship eventually thaws. it was hard to hate the guy when sanemi heard the way akihiko talked about his little sisters. he still thought it was amazingly idiotic of him to run around being a demon slayer when his family was still living, but to each his own.
although sanemi would appreciate it if akihiko didn't make such googly eyes at kanae-san. seriously, his hero worship had to end some time. it was disgusting. (sanemi didn't know if he was more jealous of kanae-san or akihiko.)
- The first time Sanemi starts to suspect that prince isn't just a part of Akihiko's name is when they have a run-in with minor nobility.
If you ask Sanemi, the thought of even having minor nobility is ridiculous. The notion is so antiquated that it makes his stomach cramp. He can't stop himself from scowling, his expression growing darker when he finds Akihiko and his annoying little crow that he calls Kin at the front of the house that was attacked.
Well, Sanemi calls it a house, but it's really a mansion. The garden could fit the entirety of his childhood home, and he wouldn't even know what to do with all this space. There are more rooms than there are shoes that sit in the genkan.
Akihiko is nonplussed, which just irritates Sanemi further. He enters the mansion with enviable grace, and the distraught daughter who is worrying over her little brother. He speaks to the minor noble with elegance and poise, his words carefully chosen and his every movement deliberate. Sanemi feels clunky and rough, like a stray mutt that was dragged in from an alleyway.
"Who are you?" Sanemi asks.
He doesn't mean anything by it. He finds himself surprised at the solemn look on Akihiko's face. To call it serious would be a mistake, because it's more than that. There is an entire lifetime that is left unspoken within those blue eyes that gaze at him.
"I'm no one important." Akihiko's laugh is hollow and doesn't reach his eyes. "Honestly, Sanemi, it's just manners."
Was it really just manners, when he had known exactly how to refer to the minor noble?
Sanemi doubts so. Then again, a prince wouldn't be a Demon Slayer. That's just absurd.
- masachika and kanae are the only people akihiko tells about his status as minor royalty. it's nothing, all things considered. akihiko has abdicated from his title, so he isn't any better than any other commoner. he finds himself more used to being called higuchi than o-akihiko-sama.
at his core, akihiko is just a simple boy. he isn't a prince at all. (even if he is.)
- what's the use of a prince who cannot even protect his younger sisters?
- "Why Akihiko?" Sanemi wonders aloud.
Akihiko pauses in his swings, tilting his head at Sanemi curiously. Sweat glistens on his bare chest, sliding down pale skin and dripping to the dirt. Sanemi carefully doesn't let his gaze wander, eyes fixed to Akihiko's face as emotions flicker across his features.
Three became two. Masachika rots in the ground and Sanemi is a Hashira. Akihiko is still Akihiko.
Akihiko laughs, resting the blunt edge of his bokken on his shoulder. "You're asking me? I didn't exactly choose my name, you know."
Sanemi scowls. "Just asking."
A shadow passes over Akihiko's face. His dark hair - as black as ink - is plastered to the back of his neck. It's getting long; he'll be asking Kanae-san or Sanemi himself to help him trim it.
"A name's just a name," Akihiko insists. "Don't think too much about it."
What's kuge mean? Sanemi wants to ask. He heard Kanae-san tease Akihiko about it the other day, but all he knew was that Akihiko had sputtered like a child and hurriedly shushed her. He doesn't know they the thought of Akihiko having secrets with Kanae-san makes him burn on the inside.
"What does your name mean?" Akihiko asks, flicking a sweaty lock of hair out of his eyes.
Sanemi shrugs. "Does it matter?"
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet."
"Huh? You making fun of me?"
"No." Akihiko lobs his bokken at Sanemi's head half-heartedly. Sanemi snatches it out of the air, rising to his full height. "It just means that even if you called a rose something else, it would still be a rose. It would still smell the same, and still be just as beautiful."
Sanemi clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, inexplicably irritated. "Never heard that before. It sounds like bullshit."
"Maa... others might call you Shinazugawa-sama, but you're still a grumpy old bastard, Sanemi."
The bokken whistles through the air. Akihiko let's out a yelp as the flat of the wooden plate cracks against his ass. He jumps a foot in the air, then whirls around to kick Sanemi's side.
Sanemi is more than ready for it. He traps Akihiko's leg against his side and takes a step forward to unbalance him. Of course, Akihiko being a Breath of Water user means he doesn't fall over, although he does hook an arm around Sanemi's neck so he doesn't land on his ass.
Belatedly, Sanemi realises that they're far too close like this. He hadn't thought this through.
"I don't get it," Sanemi says instead of a scathing retort.
This close, he can see Akihiko's unblemished skin, the curl of his eyelashes. Red paints Akihiko's cheeks like streaks of paint, and his blue eyes are wide.
Sanemi clarifies, "About the thing you said earlier."
It was in another language. He didn't know Akihiko spoke anything other than Japanese.
He realises there isn't a lot he knows about Akihiko. He knows the Breath of Water user has five sisters and two loving parents. He knows he came from a village somewhere in the northern part of Tokyo. He knows that Akihiko rarely scowls when met with civilians, but doesn't hold back his expressions when amongst Kisatsutai members - or at least he hadn't with Sanemi and Masachika. He knows Akihiko grieves stoically, but cries openly.
That's just about all he knows. He doesn't know what Akihiko did before he became a Demon Slayer, why he became a Demon Slayer when his family is still alive. He doesn't even know what kanji makes up Akihiko's name.
Akihiko chuckles. It's quiet and slow, and Sanemi can feel it in the depths of his chest.
"It means," murmurs Akihiko, "that whether your name is Sanemi or not, you're still you. You'd still be beautiful. Just like a rose."
The tension in the air is palpable. Sanemi can barely breathe because of it.
This is the moment he should let go. Akihiko should stumble away with an irate complaint - then he'll storm off while flipping Sanemi off.
Instead, Akihiko looks at him like he's something precious. Something beautiful and fragile and untouchable.
His arm around Sanemi's neck loosens, but he still rests his calloused palm against his sensitive nape.
"I shouldn't," Akihiko breathes.
His gaze darts downwards. Sanemi feels hot all over when Akihiko licks his lips; he's staring at Sanemi's lips.
"Pussy," Sanemi snarls quietly.
The heat in his chest won't go away.
"What's in a name?" Akihiko counters, then surges forward to press his lips to Sanemi's.
Sanemi's grip on Akihiko's leg tightens.
- in the end, it doesn't matter if akihiko is nobility, royalty or commoner. kuge or not, he still finds himself ensnared in douma's grasp, and he still falls to his younger sister's blade.
- sanemi finds another person to grieve. another thing to fuel his anger against onis. they take and take - and they always take from him.
- "What's in a name?" Sanemi says to Akihiko's younger sister, years later.
Higuchi Ayame pauses. Her blue eyes are almost the exact copy of Akihiko's, although the corners of them are harsher. She had always glared much more than Akihiko ever did.
"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet," Ayame completes slowly. "Akihiko-nii's favourite quote."
"Quote?"
"From Shakespeare. He was an English poet in the sixteenth century. Or seventeenth. I always forget."
Sanemi knows now that he and Akihiko would have never worked out. He knows more about kuge and buke than he did as a sixteen-year-old. The way Akihiko held himself - the way Ayame holds herself now - makes so much sense.
Not just nobility, no.
Royalty.
Akihiko was royalty, and he still recited poetry to him. Still kissed him like Sanemi was precious and important.
His old scars had never faded, but this particular unseen scar ached fiercer today.
Sanemi runs an absentminded hand through his hair. "Do kuge ever marry commoners?"
Ayame blinks. It's such an innocent expression that the mirage of Akihiko shatters in an instant.
She isn't Akihiko. Akihiko is gone. Permanently this time.
"No," she answers honestly, "but Akihiko-nii wasn't kuge when he joined the Kisatsutai. It's just a title anyway."
Her words and her actions don't match up. If the rumours are to be believed, then that Kamado brat is buke. That makes him more Ayame's equal than Sanemi had ever been to Akihiko.
And still they dance around each other like two nitwits.
"It's just a title," Sanemi echoes.
He tells himself it isn't for her benefit. (He knows he's lying.)
