Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

2. Blessings and curses

That morning, Shinobu Kocho appeared to be less angry than usual.

Kaede stared at her as she ran around the Butterfly Estate, for once with a sweet smile on her face that wasn't sickening. Too much sugar on blood had always been something harmful, she wondered how the Insect Pillar could stand it, especially with such a small body.

It was only when she looked absentmindedly at Aoi, who tended the laundry, when Kaede realized that even if the little girls were with her, Yuu wasn't fluttering around her looking like an idiot. And she was smart enough to know that it had to do with Shinobu's sugar not being asphyxiating that day.

"What did you do with him?" She asked, breaking into her office unexpectedly. The gray smoke followed her like a dog followed its master. Shinobu had the nerve to play dumb.

"Hmmm? With who?" Her purple eyes looked up from the report she had been writing all morning.

Shinobu Kochou had spider eyes, Kaede noticed. No one saw to be able to distinguish the light shine of her spiderwebs knitted with silk, so everyone fell prey to them and she witnessed, rubbing her legs together and celebrating the wits that fed her.

But it wasn't only that everyone else didn't see it, Shinobu tried to hide the spider eyes she had with her sister's. Ah, the naive butterfly that wished to fly high, with hopes for wings, and because of butterfly eyes couldn't see the spider webs. The same eyes that Shinobu tried to hide behind, and those were the ones she pretended to have, even if both of them knew Shinobu was a spider and would always be. And that was why she was still alive.

What a terrifying person.

"Yuu," Kaede bit. "Where is he?"

Shinobu smiled but it wasn't any of those fake smiles Kaede could see through. The spider fangs peeked, as it rubbed its legs together to celebrate a trick that would get it a new fly.

"I sent him to get me medicine to some places," she said, bringing a hand to her cheek. "He's a very helpful boy, don't you think so?"

"That kid is a coward," she warned, furious over a possible harm done to a boy that was no grandchildren of hers. "If you've sent him to some dangerous place-"

"Ara, ara, he'll be okay," Shinobu dismissed it, waving her hand from side to side. "You worry too much, have you grown attached to him or something?"

Shinobu's office always smelled like disgusting wisteria.

"No one survives on the demon slaying corps," Kaede said, squinting. "Don't you dare tell me I worry too much."

Shinobu sighed and for a moment she looked smaller than she already was. When she stopped smiling her expression turned way less tight.

"I'll just say that this can have very positive results or... very negative results." She got up from the chair to settle a hand on her shoulder. "But I'm sure that I'll make that kid study medicine under my wing. And there's no other way except this one."

Of course, there was no way other than this if one was a spider.

But as much as she regretted it, Kaede was a spider too, one that could control storms, at the very least.

"Do you think..." Kaede started, whose gaze wandered to Aoi's white figure again. "That Yuu will stop being a coward after this and will finally talk to the girl like a normal person?"

The chair creaked when Shinobu sat down once again.

"I hope so. It's a pitiful sight."

Kaede nodded. "It is." Silence. "Back on my day the shy ones stayed single until their twenties."