That Case (Demon Slayer Fanfic)

That Case

"I'm fine."

Except he wasn't.

Kocho Shinobu let out a sigh, wondering how Giyu could be so stubborn only to remember shortly after the fact that Giyu wasn't so much stubborn as he was an idiot when it came to functioning like a normal person. As such, there was no way she could trust him when it came to knowing whether he was fine or not.

"Sit."

"Why?"

"Because you aren't fine." She tugged on his sleeve while he pouted. "You've definitely caught a cold."

"I don't get sick."

And right there was the problem. Tomioka Giyu stubbornly refused to believe there was anything wrong with him unless he could visibly see an injury yet receiving an injury didn't mean her fellow hashira recognized the fact something was wrong unless something was wrong. She let out a sigh, tugging at his haori . "This is why nobody likes you."

The look he gave her - well, she hated the look of his face that he sent her way, yet she couldn't help the way she felt. Her stomach lurched, remembering the first time she'd told him nobody liked him, thinking he was indifferent to what people thought when he was, in truth, acutely oblivious. Painfully so.

She tugged again, pushing her mouth into her pout. "Well, come on. Inside."

He relented for now and sat down on the edge of the bed, pouting. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

The fact he kept insisting he was fine should have warned her about the trouble coming her way, but she brushed aside his response and started into her other duties at Butterfly Mansion, humming as she went from room to room. As she walked, that was when she ran into him again, and her eyes narrowed in frustration at him trying to sneak away.

"Tomioka-san," she said firmly.

He glanced up, his dark blue eyes widening as he looked at her in disbelief. "I'm..."

What should have been a finished sentence instead became a gasp as he fell forward, and she found herself rushing forward to catch him as he fell unconscious. "Tomioka-san!"

Of course, trying to catch someone almost a head taller than herself and who also weighed almost twice as much as she did wasn't something Shinobu should have expected to end well. She found herself knocked off her feet, his weight toppling her onto the ground while his entire weight was on top of her.

She let out a sigh. She felt Giyu's face rest against her shoulder and felt just how hot his skin had become. Her mouth pressed firmly together. "Tomioka-san, seriously." She then let slip from her tongue. "You know, you could have just asked, naughty boy."

He didn't hear, so he couldn't respond with his usual embarrassment from hearing accusations of doing something inappropriate, or even from being referred to as a small child. She let out a sigh, preparing to shift him from his position of being half-on her onto his back and off of her when he heard someone call out. "Kocho-san?"

She glanced in the direction of the voice. "Oh! Aoi-chan! There's been an incident."

"Obviously?"

Shinobu continued looking at her, smiling as she did so. "Would you help me get Tomioka-san off of me. He's passed out, I'm afraid. He didn't listen to me about staying put, and his condition worsened."