Stone Cold | Tanjirou Kamado (old version)

29. A demon, two demons

In between the muffled senses and the white feelings, Ayaka dreamed about a demon.

The Butterfly Estate was as empty as it could be, taking into account the Sun hadn't come out yet.

Kanao's injuries weren't much, at least, Ayaka guessed, not for someone like her.

Kanao Tsuyuri, tsuguko and the one who saw just as much as Ayaka. Being a tsuguko had to do with strength, and even if Kanao didn't blink, sigh or even mutter any words unless she wasn't told to, she was still better than Ayaka. Faster, smarter, lighter, and that had nothing to do with Kanao's passivity nor with her similarities to a brittle flower. And as much as Ayaka was a mountain and as much as Ayaka was a stone statue that could have had Buddha Amida's face plastered on it, she was still inferior to a weak and simple flower.

But mountains had always shown compassion towards the weak flowers, hadn't they? They allow for them to bury their roots in obscure gaps far above, like a point of colour where there should only be stone, but there it was, and Kanao was the kind of flower that could survive winter, after all, she had closed off her petals for a winter much worse than this one.

That was why Ayaka found herself covering Kanao's legs in bandages, doing her best with a small frown and tongue slightly peeking in between her teeth in concentration. Who could have thought someone that had spent so much time in between cotton and syrup wouldn't be able to clean even the smallest of cuts.

"Ayaka-san," Kanao weakly called, and that made her raise her gaze. "There's someone by the door."

"Who the hell would be awake at-?" Her voice got choked down when seeing Yuu, eyes carrying heavy and black balls.

"Ah, you..." Ayaka muttered, getting her gaze back to Kanao's injuries, spread all over her white legs. Although she was backwards to him, Ayaka looked at Yuu by the corner of her eye, the heaviness to his form, the sweat that made his hair shine unpleasantly. She didn't like it. "What are you doing out of bed so early?"

Yuu scrunched his nose up in a way that wasn't normal, too furious for it to be him.

"Well, sorry for not being able to sleep, not all of us have sweet dreams," he bitterly barked, distractedly taking the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Something under Ayaka's skin pulsed strongly at the sight, and that melted all tension her body could have held.

"You... that's not... that wasn't what I..." she whispered, ears fastly turning red, fortunately hidden under her hair.

Yuu ignored her and laid a hand on the bed Kanao was sitting on, as his eyes lazily traveled across the bloody mess in which Ayaka had turned her bandages into. They were lynx eyes, she noticed, black and empty, all stars having fallen to his cheeks, and on them, with a simple look, Ayaka found a different Yuu to the one she knew. It wasn't the one that tormented her during the night as much as his eyes drilled holes on her.

When his gaze turned so judging she couldn't ignore it, Ayaka threw her hands up in the air and turned around to him.

"What?"

He simply pointed with a finger.

"You're doing it wrong."

Her cheeks burned red when she spoke:

"I already know that." Ayaka continued to play with the cloth that as much as she tried didn't stay around where she wanted it to stay. "If you're gonna be muttering things like that then-"

"Oh, shut up," Yuu told her, shoving her to the side and taking on his hands the task Ayaka had left half assed. "Leave it to me, will you? Kanao doesn't deserve to be a victim of your pride."