Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

5. Reds and peaches

Nezuko Kamado remembered.

Even if on the inside of her mind there was mist, even if everything was painted by the red. Nezuko remembers.

That man had come and spilled his red, his blood and his life over Nezuko, and she had taken it in and made it part of herself. That's why, when she saw another red, the one on the hair and eyes of her brother, she realized she wasn't painted by it all.

There were parts of her that weren't soaked in blood, parts of cheerful and pure colors that came to her in dreams and when her gaze stayed at one point for too long. Maybe Muzan Kibutsuji had dressed her in scarlet clothes, but she knew that wasn't the only red there was.

So in order not to follow that one, the one that uttered evilness and hunger and misery, Nezuko followed the ruby red of fire.

With him came the parts that weren't crimson, the purple plums on her mother's eyes, the charcoal on the hair of her sibling or the white from Takeo's skin.

Especially when she slept, the colors covered the red completely, that appeared insistently by the corner of her eye, and that brought her ease. The time she spent on the wooden box was the most peaceful she could have in between the pain of what pulsed on her veins, something dark and abysmal that she always managed to keep under control.

So when she slept, Nezuko Kamado remembered.

And when she got tired of remembering, Nezuko Kamado awakened.

It was easy to open the door of the wooden box from the inside. Her brother was too kind to not let her get out somehow on her own (that's something that constantly repeated itself on her memories, her onii-chan was always kind, always too kind).

But wherever Nezuko was didn't appear in her memories.

She looked around her, from the floor her little legs stood on, and looked for the red she was always running after.

Those who she also dreamed about, the dandelion haired boy, the wild boar and the wisteria girl, were all asleep in a row of seats not too far away from there. All of them had been kind to her, so Nezuko cherished them too, enough so for them to appear in her dreams and thus for her to remember.

She didn't recognize the people tied to their wrists. The flaming man she remembered from some time, she didn't know when, was also there. For a moment Nezuko got alarmed at the sight of the human girl he was grabbing by the neck, "protect humans, humans are family" rumbles over the dark red, but when she waited after a few seconds she realized there was no danger of her being choked to death, which left her relieved.

She would have run to her brother's side and his red if not because of the screaming.

The boy with small marks on the cheeks that Nezuko never missed when looking at him skipped a bit on his seat and screamed, falling to the floor and on his knees.

He yelled so much, unhinged and like a madman, that for a moment it reminded Nezuko of her family's massacre. Which infuriated her.

Yuu, that was how she had learned he was called, ended up huffing and drenched in his own sweat, raising both hands up his face. His eyes, wide open, traveled over to Nezuko, who stared at him unblinking from her place. The sight made him sigh in relief.

"Nezuko," he said in a whisper, brushing away the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. "Thank goodness"

Both seem to forget the boy that was tied to him, who lunged forward raising the gimlet in the air that looked too similar to the dark red Nezuko always avoided.