He walks her to school on most days, insists on it. Yato always waits for her, bright and early, perched against the gate of the Iki residence. And she'd greet him with soft smiles as she takes her place beside him. Hands brushing against each other—half-mortal and divine, the conversations they exchange are easy while the sky above dilutes to softer blues.

It's routine: these solemn mornings between god and mortal. And with each step and lapse of careless banter, one can almost mistake the ordeal for…human. Normalcy in its basest form.

But there are mornings in which they're reminded of reality and it's limits. That the last thing this is is mundane. He'll live ages longer than she ever will, and she can just as easily forget him one day. Hiyori can wake up and forget about these mornings with him, and instead all she'll be able to recall are memories that fate has tampered with. Memories of walking to school alone, content for no reason, with Yato snuffed out from the path beside her.

On most occasions, she'd rather not choose to dwell on this.

x

It's another day, another morning.

She's halfway out of the threshold, Yato waiting for her by the gate, when she offers him an apologetic smile and pivots back towards the front door.

"Hiyori?"

"Sorry," her voice is calm, words haplessly thrown over her shoulder. "Forgot my notes! I'll be back in a few."

Yato's frowning once she comes back with everything accounted for; his mood takes a sour turn for the rest of the day. Hiyori notices, but makes no mention of it: convinced that it's too early to further upset a god. He doesn't walk as close to her side as usual. The morning bites cold into the bare skin of her hands, and she'll nestle up into her scarf—bunch the pink cloth around her and re-bunch it—until they reach the school gates in silence.

He leaves without a word: just a nod and the flash of his figure dissipating off to somewhere else. Hiyori stands there for a solid half-minute, equally upset as she enters the school grounds.

Somehow, he's managed to take the sunshine along with him.

x

"What was the formula supposed to be again?"

Yato looks up from his phone with the most unpleasant expression. He fails to bite back a tart response before he voices it out in the open, "How would Yuki know? You're the one teaching him."

Hiyori and Yukine send him a glare from where they're huddled over texbooks: studying.

The look Hiyori sends over has her rose-colored eyes glinting a more passionate pink. Yato realizes that he likes it—and hates it—at the same time.

"What's your problem all of a sudden?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who keeps forgetting things here." Yukine bristles, but neither Yato nor Hiyori take notice of this. Said god keeps his eyes trained down on his phone, waiting for a miracle. An out. An excuse to be anywhere else but here. "Maybe it's time you considered taking memory pills, Hiyori."

Yukine stops Hiyori before things get even more sour. With a tug of her arm, he anchors her back down to their notes, but not before sending Yato a sideways glare. "Ignore him, Hiyori. He's just being stupid."

Yato scoffs, and with the noisy clink of his fingers against the phone's keypad, equal parts annoying and immature andobnoxious, he turns his back on both of them.

x

Yato's too finicky for a god, Hiyori decides one day.

For someone with near-eternity ahead of him, she'd have expected Yato to be more lax about the little things: all their petty slip-ups and the like. Maybe it's the pressure of being an obscure god—a being no one hardly prays to—that's got him frowning more than she'd like. Clinging to loose ends, to five-yen wishes in the form of cleanup duties. Nowadays, it doesn't take much to rile him up. But even so, Hiyori wishes that the deity wouldn't be so cross with her whenever she'd forget her keys, or her phone, or minor bits of information as she tutors Yukine.

These are times which rarely happen, but always have Yato on-edge and angry whenever they do.

They're rested underneath a sleeping sakura tree, the endless night sky spilled above them. He lays his head on her lap, and she greets his midnight locks with gentle fingers.

Yato sighs: this is the closest thing he's ever relished in terms of admiration.

The skin of her fingertips tells him all he needs to know: tapered, gentle and warm against the edge of his temples. Hiyori cares, far too deeply for her own good, he realizes. But for a god who's lonelier than anything, Yato doesn't have the heart to grant the single-most wish he's been so capable of completing.

He pries his eyes from the cosmos to look at her.

"You know…you really should consider taking memory pills."

Hiyori ceases her motions, opting instead to thump the obnoxious deity on the forehead. He suddenly misses the feel of her fingers through his hair.

"Ow!"

"Do you really want to talk about this?" Hiyori sighs. "Are you really going to go there again? Ruin the night?"

Yato's eyes grow wide at the insinuation. "N-no! Of course not. I just—"

"I notice too, you know." A frown drips down from her lips. Hiyori looks wistful, timeless, against the backdrop of the tree's shade and the heavens. And Yato loses his words, feels his heart thrum and his throat drought out. She stills her hands against the crown of his head. "You do know you can always talk to me about it instead of getting all upset."

The night wraps them up in a sheet of silence. Yato's searching for his words in the stars—for the right answers to tell her.

It's an eternity before Yato sighs, reconciles. His voice is grim, fretting with urgency as he lays his fears out. "Sooner or later you'll forget about me and Yukine. Everything. When that time comes, you'll accept it, because there's nothing left to remember. I can't…I don't want that, Hiyori. And whenever you forget something, I start worrying because it's shitty and one day it can be me you'll forget about—"

"Hush."

Hiyori shakes her head, pouring her thoughts into his blue eyes as she leans down closer—ever so closer—to press a kiss on his forehead. Her hair falls soft against his face, a cascade of chocolate brown as heat spills from her lips. It ends just as soon as it happens, and Hiyori leans back, greeted by the sight of a god's cheeks tinged rose.

It's then that she realizes she's equally just as flustered.

"Hiyori…"

"Stop being stupid." A sad smile graces her lips, the tips of which meeting with the tail of a stray teardrop. "People do forget, and people will forget. They're only human, after all. But they won't if they cling onto something hard enough, with all their might."

The tear falls against Yato's cheek, heavy and chilling, and Hiyori moves to swipe it away with her fingers. "And I'll do just that. I won't forget, Yato—" she reaches out for one of his hands, clammy against her palm. She realizes she doesn't mind at all, feels more of the warmth than moisture—and despite the embarrassment, Yato doesn't pull back. "—so stop thinking about those things for a while and trust me, you silly god!"

He reaches another hand out to her, the pads of his fingers gliding against the corner of her eye. From where the tear fell.

"I'm sorry for keeping it in." It's the most sincere apology he's ever given out—one which takes lifetimes to form, forged out of the slabs of divine pride. The words are heavy against the tip of his tongue, but the moment they're out, Yato feels undeniably lighter. Weightless. "And I trust you, Hiyori."

Yato smiles, blue eyes light as the morning sky. Bright as the sparks spurned on by the near-brush of heavenly against finite skin before dropping her off at school. He flicks the tip of her nose playfully. "Because if I don't, then who'll be left to treat us out to meals?"

Hiyori scoffs: "Extortionist."

"An offering's an offering." Yato chuckles, and Hiyori finds herself grinning against her better judgement.

"Whatever, idiot."