Fading Memories (GiyuShino)

Chapter 2

Third Person POV

3 hours later...

After his walk, he went back to his and his sister's apartment.

He opened the door using the spare key, took off his shoes and socks. He got into his usual sandals and collapsed onto his bed. 

'I did a lot of walking, I should take a shower.' As he took a shower. 

Drying up and changing to comfortable clothes. He started cooking lunch, of course it's salmon daikon. While cooking lunch he heard someone come in.

"Welcome back nee-san, you're back just in time for lunch." Tomioka said in a calm tone.

"Thanks for cooking lunch, I'm already pretty tired." Tsutako said. "What's for lunch?"

"The usual." Tomioka replied.

"Not surprised." She chuckled.

They ate peacefully and Tomioka was washing the dishes when Tsutako started a coughing fit.

"You okay, nee-san?" Tomioka asked worryingly.  

"I-I'm fine" Tsutako managed to say in between coughs.

She kept coughing until she could barely breathe.

"Fine my ass, you're going to the ER." Tomioka said before carrying his sister to the nearby hospital.

"Your sister has severe fungal pneumonia, luckily it was diagnosed pretty early. We're going to give her a antifungal." the doctor said.

Tsutako was on the hospital bed, unconscious. 

About 6 hours later...

Kanae burst through the door, and nearly shouted but Tomioka put his finger against his lip and gave out a loud "Shhhh." 

"Sorry, when I saw the message you texted me through Tsutako's phone I immediately bolted to here."  Kanae said in between pants.

"It's okay, she contracted fungal pneumonia, luckily I got her here fast enough." Tomioka explained.

"I feel very bad for her, must've hurt really badly." Kanae said.

"I'll be staying here." Tomioka said.

Kanae just nodded and sat down next to Tsutako.

Tomioka slept on his chair and when he woke up he realized it was already 11pm.

He left the hospital and went back into his apartment. He collapsed onto his bed and slept.

SUNDAY 

Tomioka woke up at 2pm in the afternoon, he got up and made himself lunch. Salmon daikon. (duh) and he decided to visit Tsutako, whom is still unconscious. He held her hand for 1 hour before leaving and collapsing on his bed yet again. Scrolling through memes and he fell asleep.

MONDAY 

On the fore thoughts of Tomioka's mind is one book. 

The Demon Slayer Corps

He went to school pretty early at about 7:45, just to read the book. He reached the library and found that, someone else was reading the book. Tomioka took a closer look at the person.

Purple eyes, petite figure, hair ending in purple tips. Kocho Shinobu was reading the book, her eyes were glued to the book.

It looked like she was only a few pages in. Looking at the general information of The Demon Slayers. 

Tomioka went into the library and took a seat next to Shinobu, the petite girl was too engrossed to notice Tomioka also reading the book beside her. 

Tomioka poked her shoulder once, she didn't respond. He poked again, not a single response. He poked again but this time, she turned her head to the left and he accidentally poked her cheek. 

This caused a wave of nostalgia and energy to surge between the two of them.

They both had a memory in their mind, there was a petite young woman, wearing a butterfly haori. She was poking the shoulder of a taller man that had quite the long hair. As he turned, the woman accidentally poked his cheek. 

It was an exact parallel of what was happening right now.

"S-sorry, I was just trying to get your attention." Tomioka explained.

"It's alright." Shinobu replied. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I was reading the book you're currently reading." Tomioka explained.

"This one?" Shinobu says as she gestures to the Demon Slayer book.

"Yeah." Tomioka replied.

"Alright, come here." Shinobu ordered.

'Huh?' Tomioka thought as he inched closer to her, he realized how close both of their faces were, Shinobu on the other hand kept reading and allowed Tomioka to read as well. Not noticing how close their faces actually were.

Tomioka was about to speak up, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out of it. He was confused at first, but then decided to just keep reading. 

Tomioka's POV

Most of what she's reading is stuff that I've already read. 

But then she got to the "relationships" section, which grabbed my interest. Other relationships were boring, what got my attention the most was the section called "Hashira relationships." 

The book said that, "the insect hashira was the only other Hashira (other than the love hashira, but she was nice to everyone) to talk to the water hashira. The pair could even be mistaken as a married couple. It was said that the insect hashira held feelings for the water hashira, although the insect hashira usually teased the water hashira, this was in an attempt to help the latter interact with other people. In the end, the water hashira himself admitted that he was only comfortable around Kocho Shinobu and the Kamado siblings. 

This gave another flashback in both their minds.

Flashback starts.

Third Person POV

"Tomioka-san!" Kocho said. Tomioka didn't mind her and he kept walking. Kocho repeatedly tried calling out his name. After about 1 minute of Kocho just trying to get Tomioka's attention, a vein appeared on her forehead.

"This is why nobody likes you Tomioka-san." Kocho sharply said.

At this moment, Tomioka decided to break out of character momentarily. 

"If you truly hate me, then why do you continue to talk to me?" Tomioka said in the old, boring  monotone voice.

Kocho was visible surprised by his reply. 

"I just feel bad for you. Since you're so uninformed about people disliking you."  Kocho quickly  replied.

"Then leave me alone, since you dislike me." Tomioka said. Although, inside his mind he was questioning if breaking character was the good choice.

That reply left Kocho in heavy surprise. It was her first time experiencing Tomioka breaking his silence. 

But before Tomioka could get out of Kocho's sight, he spoke-shouted "Truth be told, you're one of the only people I could ever break character on." before walking away.

This surprised Kocho even more.

End of Flashback.

A/N: I know I know, pretty unrealistic for Tomioka to break character.

I'll put my minimum word count at 1000 words, so that the chapters are a bit long. I'm planning to write maybe about 15-20 chapters, depending on the plot.