You've Made Your Grave

Kichi strolls into the hospital briskly, doing his best to ignore the sick and dying children around him. Despite centuries of being a reaper, it's still kinda awkward to be surrounded by this sort of sadness. At least they rarely beg for more time; they've suffered for their entire short lives, so they're usually just ready for it to be over. Much easier that way.

Today's reaping is a young girl with hm, some sort of terrible illness because of course, why else would she be dying? He's a few minutes early, but it won't hurt to slip into her room and observe. A slim, white haired man is sitting in one of the chairs near her bed, and he appears to be dozing while she sleeps. Aw, right, according to plans, she should pass peacefully in her sleep. That's the easiest kind.

Kichi leans against the wall and watches the seconds tick by on the cheap, plastic clock on the wall. It's not quite accurate but it gives him a good sense of how much time has passed.

The man jerks a little and sits up, stretching his arms as he does. He looks like a family member, if Kichi had to guess. Welp, guess someone'll notice the problem pretty quickly then! The man looks up and very clearly looks at Kichi, and they lock eyes.

Oh.

Hm. That's bad.

“Who are you?” he demands, getting out of the chair. Kichi flicks the door shut with a gesture and frowns. Usually no one but the intended can see their reaper, but rarely other humans can. It's so rare that he's never experienced it before, and Kichi isn't really sure how he feels. Not great, so far.

“Mm, wish you couldn't see me, because this is about to be super awkward,” he says, pulling his scythe out of the air. “See, unfortunately for you, I'm here to collect this girl's soul, since it's just about to be her time to pass. And you're either gonna have to step out or have a front row view of it.”

His eyes widen and he makes his way closer to Kichi, looking worried. “What are you, then?”

Kichi grins. “A grim reaper,” he explains, and watches the color drain from the other man's face. Yeah, this is probably gonna be a huge pain. He'd heard it usually gets messy when someone else can see you, but he'd somehow thought he'd be able to avoid it ever happening to him.

“Take me instead of her,” he says to Kichi, eyebrows furrowed into a look of determination.

Nope, now it got worse. “Okay, yeah, I can sort of see why you might be confused, but this isn't some sort of thing where I just need to reap a soul. I am here for a very specific one, and unless you're very good a disguising yourself, you're not Kumoko Sankai.”

This doesn't seem to deter him. “I don't care. Please, she's a little girl.”

Kichi rolls his eyes and attempts to change his tactics. “Cool, so you'd rather leave her heartbroken and all alone in this world because you're too selfish to let her go?” he asks, watching him crumple in on himself. “Besides, not reaping her soul won't heal her. It'll leave her just as sickly and miserable for an indefinite time, until someone else gets assigned to her. And then she'll still die.”

His expression falls even more and Kichi wants to scream. He'd heard rumors that people would try this, but he'd always assumed it would be easy to brush off. No, he gets the saddest and most stubborn boy in the world instead of a weepy mother or something.

“I don't care; I still think she has a chance,” he says firmly, and Kichi audibly groans. “You don't understand. She's my only family! I have to take care of her.”

“Which will be really easy when you're dead, I'm sure,” Kichi responds. “I know it's hard to lose someone, but-”

“Do you?” he interrupts to ask.

There's a beat of silence between them where Kichi stews on his options. It’s not like humans know that there’s more than a singular reaper. Hell, most of them don’t even believe in that. So it’s not this guy’s fault that he doesn’t know that families are not a purely human experience. He really shouldn't do this, but he's not heartless. If it'll make this guy feel better to give up his life for no reason, that's on him.

Kichi sighs. “Fine then. You wanna die so badly? Sure, we can play this game.”

“I want a week first, and then you can have me,” he insists, and Kichi nearly does scream this time. It's close.

“You've got to be kidding me.”

“You said you didn't have to bring back a required number of souls, right? So let me have a week to get my affairs in order, and then you can do whatever you want with me,” he says, glancing over at Kumoko sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed.

Kichi should say no. He should turn around and just do what he came to do, but…. “Oh, you do not make this easy for anyone, do you? Deal.”

He nods shortly. “Thank you.”

Kichi offers him his hand. “So let's shake on it.”

Without hesitation, the other man takes it, and Kichi gets a rush of information about him as he marks him for future collection. Makura Sankai, eldest child and only son, an intense and determined man with few goals: protect his sister and destroy his mother. Hm. Talk about someone who thinks in extremes! Shame he’s gonna die before he can truly accomplish these things, but that’s not his problem.

Kichi releases his hand and grins. “See you in a week, Makura,” he says, staying just long enough to see the confusion cross his face before vanishing.