Stone Cold | Tanjirou Kamado (old version)

19.5. Without a name or a surname

Kanao followed orders. She followed them without questioning them and she followed them with no feeling on her face, and that was why she found herself kneeling before Ayaka's face, twilight close and a dead demon behind her.

Her name had been called in a whisper from the floor, where Kanao found a small Ayaka, knees squeezed against her chest and arms around her like a ball and eyes closed against the door of a patient's room Kanao didn't know of, when she should have been on her bed hours ago.

The plate on the doors had "Shinazugawa Genya. Rank 10. Treatment: Not needed" carved on it. Never before had she heard of someone that got into the Butterfly Estate without needing treatment, but who was Kanao to question it?

"I do not," Ayaka whispered against her lips. The words sticked to her tongue as if they shouldn't be able to get out, and that's the last thing she heard before Ayaka skipped a bit and crashed against her forehead.

Kanao threw herself back because of the blow but she didn't bring a hand up to her face nor did she loudly curse, Ayaka did, and Kanao had the certainty that if she did something like that Shinobu would heavily scold her. Maybe Shinobu would scold Ayaka too for cursing, she wasn't sure about that, what she was sure about instead was that she scolded her grandmother, and that made her for some reason stop cursing so much.

Gasping, Ayaka finally rose her head and fixed on Kanao, and she saw the light Ayaka appeared to beam by herself, but there was one on her cheeks too, one different to what she usually saw.

Ayaka was pretty, pretty like the girls on the village Kanao laid her eyes on for a second too long and pretty how Aoi said Kanao was, but Ayaka wasn't attractive like how Mitsuri Kanroji was or how Kanae could sometimes be, when she put on some makeup and changed the demon slayer's uniform for a kimono to go to the local festivals. That kind of beauty was mature, awe-inspiring and full to the brim, made for adults, but Ayaka's was simple and innocent, like a green apple that had flourished early from the flower up on the tree and could be gently witnessed without the need to bite, because if not it would be too bitter and she wasn't ready for that soon, even if her juices had sweetness to them.

"Kanao," Ayaka said in a sigh that came from the deepest part of her chest, brushing the palm of her hand against her forehead, which is surprisingly sweaty. "Butterfly girl," she then said a moment later. She had never called her only by her first name before, she was always Kanao Tsuyuri just like her master was always talked about in honorifics and shishous or how she said Kobayashi instead of Yuu even if everyone else called him by his first name.

"You're crying," Kanao said, without any actual meaning, a simple observation, something that could be noticed on her cheeks and that she must have known too, even so she touched the corners of her eyes in confusion, fingers soaking in salty water, then harshly brushing them away with her sleeve.

"Don't you have anything else to do?" She bit back, squeezing herself tighter against the corner of the door.

"But you called me, I just wanted to listen to your commands more clearly."

Ayaka squinted as if she was looking at the sun, scrunching up her face and making a frown that didn't sit well with her pretty white skin, as she looked over at Kanao taking a coin out of her pocket and throwing it out into the air, this time she obeyed what came out.

"Why do you do that?" She slowly muttered, just as she was used to doing things, before thinking about them for a long time and warily, even if it was hard to think about them. She wouldn't have wanted to anger those who gave her flesh and blood and that could snatch it away whenever they wanted.

"So you have nothing else to do." Ayaka raised her eyebrows, lazy on her voice. "Great, I love to hear what other tsugukos have to say, what is it that I do so much? Come on, butterfly girl, spit it out, throw some insults at my face."