Wrestling In The Sand | InoTan

Inosuke Is Screwed

Inosuke wasn't always the best at meeting new people. It made his mind swirl with unwelcome thoughts, and that's something he hated; thinking made his head hurt.

He wasn't from an area that homed many people, just some every couple of miles unless you went to the town half an hour away. So it was just him and his mother living in a rundown two-story ranch house. The only other living things on the estate were animals; Inosuke could do animals easily. They're a lot less complex than people.

But she had decided to drop a bombshell on him last minute, right before the summer started. They would be staying with his aunt in a hot, sunny, crowded beach town Inosuke couldn't be bothered to remember the name of.

Though right now, the pain of thinking and the annoyance of being here was nothing compared to the pulsing of his forehead as the sun burned him from above.

What had he done again? Oh yeah, he challenged the redhead who dared to stare at him.

Inosuke groans as his eyes blink open slowly. Something cold and wet sits on his forehead, soothing the ache, but the pain quickly returns when he hears a girlish scream.

"Tanjirou, he's moving! He's a zombie!" Inosuke recognizes the screech as the blonde boy's voice.

Huh, so his name was Tanjirou, the one worthy of his time.

Inosuke sits up, holding what he assumes to be an icepack to his head as he slowly eyes the pair in front of him as his vision returns. The blonde is hiding and peeking out from behind another car, and Tanjirou is yelling at his companion to pull it together.

He thinks he hears something along the lines of Monitsu? Zenitsu? No, it was definitely Monitsu.

"Oi, Gonpachiro, where do you live?"

The redhead whips around to face him, eyebrows up in his hairline. "Who are you talking to?"

"You dammit," Inosuke growls, baring his teeth slightly.

The redhead's pink lips part as offense takes over his face, and Inosuke can't help snapping his eyes down to the movement. They looked soft, and he wanted to brush the pad of his thumb over the boy's bottom lip.

"I don't know who that is; my name is Tanjirou Kamado." The tan boy puts his hands on his hips. "And I live down there in one of those houses."

Inosuke turns around to look at a line of houses along the beach that Tanjirou points at. He makes a mental note of that in the back of his brain, where he keeps essential information.

The blonde, Zenitsu, peers out a little farther from the car he's behind before standing up and walking over to the pair. He's slightly hunched over, arms raised and close to his chest as he hides behind his friend.

"Please get him out of my car. I would like to leave," he whispers into Tanjirou's ear, eyes never leaving Inosuke.

Inosuke hears him and scoffs, standing up from the seat and striding over to them.

"Scram then, I'll deal with you another day." A feral smile takes over the ravenette's face once more.

Zenitsu doesn't have to be told twice as he mutters a quick goodbye to Tanjirou before getting in his car and driving away down the road.

Inosuke observes Tanjirou's profile while the redhead watches his friend flee the scene. Being this close, he can see the dusting of light freckles from years of sun exposure along his cheeks and the tops of his shoulders. They look at home on his tan skin, but what Inosuke is most fascinated by is the dark scar on Tanjirou's forehead as well as the thickness of his skull.