Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

14. Senjuro doesn't like mochi

He felt like both a ghost and a dream. Maybe this meant he was already dead, or maybe something inside him had rotten, but Tanjirou stared at how Upper Moon Three killed Rengoku-san and him, the spectator, the survivor that managed to avoid tragedy only by casualty, could do nothing about it.

Like the ghost unable to touch anything or the dreamer that heard nothing as he slept, Tanjirou was unable to change things.

Getting up from bed, putting on the demon slayer uniform and sliding the wooden box on his shoulders were automatic actions, just like thanking condolences in his father's funeral had been, as all his siblings, neat and tidy, were placed in a line like bronze or silver figures. "Thank you very much for coming, thank you very much for coming, thank you very much for coming." It had been so many times he had said those words that Tanjirou appeared to fade away in thin air, becoming only the deep voice that was heard at a far away distance "thank you very much for coming" as empty as his chest had been back then.

Sadness was nothing new, mourning was nothing new, and this feeling, of becoming immaterial and following, step by step, the things he had to do and say, wasn't either.

The Summer Sun soaked his forehead with sweat as Nezuko scratched with her nails against the wooden wall on his back, maybe it was her way of comforting him, he didn't know. He would like to think so, but he didn't believe Nezuko actually knew about Rengoku's death, and even if she did, she wouldn't truly understand what it meant (a burden and a disappointment and a scar he'd carry for the rest of his life). That thought made something burn inside his chest, he ignored it.

The voice of Upper Moon Three clamored in his mind "pathetic, you're pathetic". Tanjirou would have loved to disagree, but since he couldn't, he'd simply keep on living to, one day, be able to.

He didn't know back then, but this same feeling would be the one to drag him down to Hell.

However, that moment was still far in the future.

The black shadow on Rengoku's crow in the distance stayed on his sight like a bright star that guided him in dawn. Of orange shades, a brilliant point in the sky, he did nothing but follow its lead.

It could be said that Tanjirou thought a lot and about a lot of things, so when he smelled a light scent of wisteria, it was already too late.

In a second Tanjirou, along with the wooden box, were tackled down to the ground.

"Are you stupid!?"

He had never seen Aya so messy or unkempt, sitting on top of him and looking so annoyed. She grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and shook him from side to side as she continued sputtering out gibberish nonstop.

So many were the words that came out of her mouth that for some reason his ears blocked them, and in the silence of someone that ignored everything around him, Tanjirou looked at her.

He couldn't believe that disaster was something Aya would have tolerated; stray strands of hair sticked out from her braid, as if half done, or maybe with trembling hands, settled on her shoulder. There were some buttons of her uniform undone, too, as the white shirt peeked in between the buttons that had been wrongly buckled. Even the suneates were wrongly tied, she didn't even wear the kote gloves. Lastly, she was completely soaked in sweat, and for someone he knew to calculate every move in order not to waste energy, he felt like she had pushed everything aside to go there by the way her heart made her chest pump.

"And don't you ever leave like that again! Do you think you can just do that stuff without telling me!? You're a complete moron!"

Aya's voice hit his ears again and Tanjirou blinked.