┌───────────┐
暖かい
└───────────┘

EPILOGUE

꧁꧂

"Woah, this place is pretty big!" (Y/N) remarked, wandering around the empty house that was up for sale.

"Yeah, I actually think this will work well for us financially, too," Hakuji agreed. He tagged along right behind her like her shadow as she explored more rooms.

The married lovers finally planned to purchase a home they would stay in for awhile together, and ultimately decided that they were in love with his household.

After searching around the city, this one seemed to work the best. It was much more spacious than moving into one of their apartments.

And soon enough, they were moving in (after some paperwork and banking, of course).

"I still can't believe you scored a girl before I did, Hakuji-kun," Kyoujurou huffed out, playfully rolling his eyes. As Hakuji's close friend, he was helping them move their boxes of belongings into their new home. "I'm older than you, too—this isn't fair," he whined.

"I guess I just have way more charm than you do," Hakuji joked, earning him a playful punch on his arm from his friend. "I'm kidding," he laughed.

Hakuji then turned to look at his wife, who was in the adjacent room, which was the kitchen, unpacking a few of their belongings. He couldn't help it, but he also didn't notice the smile etching its way onto his face.

"Fate just decided to be nice to us this time," he figured.

"Simp," Kyoujurou huffed out under his breath.

"Hey!" Hakuji called at him, a fake, angry tone lacing his voice. "I heard that!"

Kyoujurou just laughed at him, and then made his way out of the door to go fetch another box to bring him. Hakuji was about to follow, until the voice of his wife called him.

"Hakuji!" (Y/N) called from the next room, which was the kitchen. "Can you come and help me with this?"

Without a verbal response, he immediately rushed over to where she was leaning over a large opened box where a pile of kitchen supplies rested inside.

"Can you help me put all of these away?" she asked him with a sheepish smile.

He sighed in annoyance, which she learned to tell was playful and fake, but then nevertheless moved to help her. They had already decided where things like plates, cups, utensils, pans, or cooking supplies would go, anyways.

"Of course," he sighed out. "Anything for you."

"Thank you, my love!"

The two began to remove stuff from the large box, and then Kyoujurou dropped in another one for them to unpack in the kitchen, as well as the dining room.

They worked in silence for the most part, until (Y/N) started speaking.

"Y'know," she began, an almost thoughtful tone edging at her voice.

This immediately grasped Hakuji's attention away from unpacking, and he turned his focus towards her.

"I never thought we'd make it this far," she admitted rather surprisedly, her tone highlighting her evident disbelief.

"What do you mean?" he asked her. He knew she did not carry any ill-intent by that statement—he trusted that it didn't mean she was disappointed in being with him, or anything like that. Still, he could not help but feel confused and a bit skeptical.

"After dying in my past life, it just felt impossible for me to finally achieve everything I wanted with you," she explained. She continued to work unpacking the kitchenware, not once sparing him a glance.

Oh, so that's what she meant, Hakuji thought to himself.

(Y/N) almost jumped when she felt her husband's arms snaking around her waist from behind, but she relaxed almost immediately to his warm, loving embrace.

"I honestly thought the same," Hakuji admitted through a mumble as he inwardly recalled their hardships from the past. "But this is truly reality, and I'm so grateful that we can finally be happy together."

His wife burst into a joyous grin and turned to properly hug him, agreeing, "I'm incredibly grateful, as well."

He did not hesitate to kiss her, and the two lovers held each other in happiness at the thought of finally being able to live a happy, married life.

In the past, fate did not even allow them to have their wedding day due to the sickness that overtook (Y/N)'s life, and Hakuji's sadness that came with it. They could not have their "happily ever after."

So living this new life just felt so foreign and unreal to them.

But in the end, that did not matter anymore as they could finally live together in happiness. It seemed that they were still fated to fall in love and wed each other. They just had to wait the painstakingly long years until reincarnation.

And when Hakuji leaned away from their kiss, he could not help the unconditional love he felt for his wife in front of him.

"I love you," he told her.

"I love you, too."

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┌───────────┐
WARM
└───────────┘

༄

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AFTERWORD

꧁꧂

Thank you mistbaby once again
so much for commissioning this
book! ♡ I'm sorry it took me so
long to release it, but I'm pretty
satisfied with it all working out!

And to other readers: thank you
for reading and  supporting this
story! I'm glad to know that you
have made it here to the end. ♡

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TRIVIA

꧁꧂

༄ At the end there, Kyoujurou walked in on the two being all lovey-dovey, and so he teasingly made fun of them.

༄ This was my first commissioned book! :3

༄ I... honestly don't know anything about coffee (I'm more of a tea person), so I had to confusedly look a bit of stuff up LOL.

༄ ("Google, what is a mocha?")

༄ The requester had actually given me three options for (Y/N)'s and Hakuji's meeting to choose from. One of the three was a number neighbor scenario, and another was (Y/N) being a worker at a coffee shop. I ended up liking both of these and combining them.

༄ No, I honestly don't remember what the other option was. :')

༄ The titles of the chapters went through a lot of different stages, before I finally decided on a sweet coffee theme.

༄ The title of the book was originally "After All" before I changed it to "Warm."

༄ Hakuji and Kyoujurou in the modern era are definitely bros. I mean, they already work out together. They keep track of each other's muscle gain and weight, as well as hype each other up for improvement.

༄ "Damn bro, your muscles are lookin' pretty good today!"

༄ "Nah, bro—LOOK AT YOURS!"

༄ After reuniting and settling into her life with her lover, (Y/N) would playfully joke around that Hakuji would give more attention to Kyoujurou than he gave to her.

༄ The first boardwalk scene was slightly inspired by "City of Stars" and "A Lovely Night" from La La Land.

༄ Douma LOVES teasing Hakuji about (Y/N).

༄ Michikatsu honestly could not care less about Hakuji's love life.

༄ At their wedding, Muzan bought the couple the most expensive gift, just because he wanted to show off his money in this life.

༄ Kyoujurou was obviously Hakuji's best man at the wedding.

༄ The wedding was so chaotic because of the guests being former demons and Demon Slayers, but the wedded couple still enjoyed it in the end.

༄ Shinobu was quite surprised to find out that her former coworker at the coffee shop ((Y/N) eventually quit after she finished college) was past lovers with the former Upper Moon Three, but she nevertheless supported and accepted them together.

༄ Tanjirou supported them, too!

༄ Giyuu... could not care less. He still kind of hated Hakuji after their battle in the Infinity Fortress.

༄ Hakuji is the type of husband to flaunt and show off his wife to other people randomly. He likes talking good about her.

༄ Hakuji remained a very loving and very understanding husband.

༄ He would get so terrified if his wife caught a small cold from the weather, or if she even sneezed from allergies. He was just really scared of the past repeating itself and taking her away from him again.

༄ But every time this would happen, (Y/N) made sure to reassure him that she would always stay by his side.

༄ Both Hakuji and (Y/N) ended up leading happy and healthy lives together.

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༄