Stone Cold | Tanjirou Kamado (old version)

24. False humans

For the first time, ever since Kanao had known her, Ayaka didn't talk during the way to their room.

Ryu in the counter waved his hand but Ayaka didn't wave back, walking by his side in complete silence, upstairs. Her eyes are somewhere far away, not there.

Kanao followed her through the stairs where Ryu had the rented rooms, one for them and one for who they now knew was the father of that girl, Tomoko.

"Sit down," Ayaka told Kanao without even looking at her, disappearing in the bathroom.

She obeyed because, what else could she do? Her heart stayed silent as Ayaka kept her mouth shut, appearing through the door with a first aid kit. She knelt before her, slightly lifting up Kanao's skirt.

Right, she had forgotten about that. The tea had fallen all over her legs, leaving on them the red of burns, like a small opening for the thin blood lines that fell from where Kanao had sunk her nails.

Her heart had beaten strongly, kicking against her chest as if wanting to escape by breaking her ribs as she witnessed how that girl hit the little kid.

It was too familiar, so familiar it made her entire body roar. If Tomoko's eyes had been purple instead of blue, if they had been mixed in with a little pink, slightly bigger, hair just a bit darker, it would have been like looking at herself in the mirror. Maybe Kanao had been able to feel the hit on her bones, which were now bigger, she was taller and cleaner, but was there any difference between her and the girl she saw now?

That Tomoko had cried and that Tomoko had screamed and even under threats and hits she had opposed those with her same blood flowing through their veins.

That people hadn't been her family like the people with Kanao's blood wasn't hers either.

"You should... you should be more careful." Ayaka said, trying to breathe as she pressed ice against Kanao's injuries.

There was a frown strongly carved on her face, wrinkles sculpted on her forehead as if she had been trying to do something with all her strength.

When the inflammation got reduced and Auaka saw it fit she grabbed a green ointment and slid it down her legs. Kanao hadn't noticed how much it hurt until she felt the relief of not being in pain anymore. Almost silently, she sighed.

Ayaka took from somewhere on her uniform a tissue, cleaning off the rest of blood on her legs with it. More scars to go along with the ones she already had, Kanao wished to stop, but that wish was drowned down before her silence, so there was nothing left.

"Ayaka-san," she started, when noticing the way her shoulders flinched, biting her lip almost too much. Ayaka's chest jolted when a small drowned sob came from her.

She frowned as much as she could, and Kanao thought it looked similar to the expression a demon slayer wore when losing a limb during battle, an arm, a leg, both hands, she was smart enough to relate it to the feeling of being crushed by extreme pain.

"I couldn't stand it," Ayaka croaked out, and it doesn't take much for her to be muffled by another sob that came out even more eagerly. Kanao stared unmoving like someone who witnessed a dam finally breaking down. All tension on her body melted when she gulped one last time and bursted into tears.

"I couldn't stand it! The way they looked at me, the way they laughed and made fun of me! They jumped at me at every chance they had!" Ayaka hid her face in between Kanao's legs, voice cut in between pitiful sobs and kneeling before her as if she looked for comfort from a god, but Kanao wasn't a god, she wasn't even human, and the only piece of humanity she had left was wondering what to do. In between which two options will you choose if you throw that coin? There is none, so you'll have to come up with them by yourself, but it's too much work, isn't it? Too much for your poor heart.