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Nobody knew that the great Oyakata-sama wasn’t actually a caregiver. Nobody new he was actually a flip, not even his beloved wife Amane, and he was very careful to keep it this way. He had an image to uphold, afterall, and being a small, miserable child was not a part of that image.
Kagaya feels horrible for needing this. He can’t even fight, doesn’t even have the mental scars he knows battle leaves on his children, so why should he need to regress? Why should he need to snatch up any few hours he’s left alone to be a child? He knows when he thinks rationally about it that it has something to do with having his true childhood cut short by too many responsibilities too young, but this doesn’t stop the guilt.
He’s meant to be the reliable one, the one others lean on for help, the strongest soul in the weakest body. Nobody could know that he was actually just weak all the way through.
He’s careful with his regression. Only alone, privately and behind closed doors, no matter how much he sometimes wishes somebody could take care of him for once. He’s always careful to never slip too young, to always be close enough to big that he could pull himself back out should anything happen and require his attention.
As his illness has progressed however, he has had less and less time alone. Worrying over his physical health, Amane and the children never do leave him alone long enough to tend to his mental health. At this point he’s needed to regress for a couple weeks, the warm fuzziness a constant temptation at the back of his mind.
He knew if this kept going much longer, he was going to slip involuntarily and blow his cover. So, one afternoon when Amane and the kids were all going to be out of the house for an hour, he decided to let himself slip, just a little, just enough to take the edge off the want need to be small. It wasn’t the length of time he’d usually consider safe, but at this point he’d take what he could get.
So now he was small, just laying there fidgeting with the edge of his blanket, indulging in the good feeling of being in this headspace he’d been longing for for ages. He would have done something, he used to love coloring when he was small, but for one, he only had an hour and didn’t want to have to worry about re-hiding everything, and also, with how sick he was now, he really just didn’t have the energy.
Then someone walked into his room. He quickly jerked his thumb from where it had been in his mouth, praying that whoever it was hadn’t seen that. It was Tengen, he realized too slowly. He tried to pull himself back out of headspace, but he truly hadn’t realized how young he had slipped, properly into toddler space at the oldest.
He supposed slipping too far was his brain’s way of punishing him for pushing off his regression for so long. Well, he at least thought something along those lines, that complexity was a bit much for his baby brain to comprehend.
Well, he couldn’t pull himself out. He tried, and failed, to be big again. So, he could just keep trying! And in the meantime, he could pretend! Yes, this was a good plan, pretend to be big until he could make himself big again.
Now, the first challenge was a greeting. He managed to mumble out an “ ‘ello Tengen”, but he could tell it had come out slurred. Hopefully Tengen would just blame that on exhaustion from his illness. Goodness this was going to be difficult, wasn’t it.
Kagaya didn’t really listen to what Tengen was saying, something about the hashira training he thought. He was devoting all his energy to trying to act big and be big again, and despite that, it wasn’t even working!
Tengen had clocked that something was off with the master almost immediately, but had chalked it up to a bad day with his illness. But he started noticing things. Small behavioral quirks, that reminded him . . . they reminded him of his littles. Specifically, of Tanjiro or Genya when they were trying to hide that they were regressed from him.
But that didn’t make sense. The master was a caregiver, not a flip . . . right? Tengen paused in explaining his issue, taking a moment to really listen. When he listened carefully, there was something . . . off about Oyakata-sama’s rhythm. Something different from his usual, something softer, something . . . smaller.
Okay, at this point he was mostly convinced Oya Ubu Kagaya, it felt wrong to call him anything else like this, was regressed, but there was only one way to be sure. He opened his mouth.
Ten had stopped talking. That was bad, he was pretty sure. Had he been asked a question? He hadn’t heard anything like that, but then again he hadn’t really heard anything Ten was saying, distracted with trying (and failing miserably) to be big.
He thought he probably had, so he opened his mouth to respond, resisting the urge to pop his thumb in, though he wasn’t even sure what he was going to say. Before he had to come up with anything, Ten was talking again, and he was trying to pay attention this time.
“Kagaya, how old are you?”
At this simple query, the little (for there was no question in Tengen’s mind about that now) burst into tears. He curled onto his side on the futon, muttering a constant low stream of “No no no nonono ‘m big ‘m big ‘m big” through his tears.
At this, Tengen scooped up Kagaya’s thin frame, he really was so small physically as well as mentally, and cradled the mentally younger boy against himself, quietly murmuring “It’s alright, you’re allowed to do this, you’re allowed to be small, you don’t have to be big, I’m not mad at you, nobody will be mad at you for this, droplet."
Being cradled in the taller man's lap wasn’t helping at all with Kagaya’s fight for bigness. Curse the man’s ridiculous height and his own weakened form, combining to make him feel so so small in comparison.
It was the nickname that truly broke him though. Broke any will he had left to try and fight his regression, broke any reservation or worry he had about being discovered, broke anything in him still trying to panic, because he finally had what he had wanted for years. He finally had somebody taking care of him. So he just leaned into the mentally older man’s chest, and cried.
This is the scene Amane arrived home to, her husband a soggy, crumpled, very clearly tiny mess in Uzui’s lap. A little while ago he had managed to cry himself out and fall asleep from exhaustion, so Uzui hissed softly “Quiet, he’s asleep and he’s small.” At this, Amane cut her greeting off in her throat, instead tilting her head quizzically at this new development. “Did you know about this?” he asked.
“No, this is the first time I’ve seen him like this, I had no idea he regressed.” I wish he would have trusted me with it she didn’t add, knowing that would only make the former pillar feel bad and be completely unproductive.
“Well, now that you’re here, can you do me a favor? Could you grab him one of the spare pacis? He keeps trying to stick his thumb in his mouth.”
“Of course,” Amane answered, and she hurried out of the room.