Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

27. Love as a fatal flaw

Playing with the candy that the oiran Koinatsu had given him, Tanjirou couldn't stop thinking about the legend of Tanabata.

On the seventh day of the seventh month, the lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi reunited, crossing the skies to enjoy their time together that, although brief, had to be enough for them for an entire year until they could see each other again.

At the start it hadn't been like that. Her father, good intentioned, had looked for a husband to be with Orihime during the time she wasn't weaving the clothes he liked so much.

But their love ran so deep that both Orihime and Hikoboshi neglected their duties as celestial beings, which brought the wrath of Orihime's father, who separated them as a punishment for their disobedience.

The story had a happy ending, otherwise it would be too sad for Tanjirou to like it. Thanks to the benevolence of the skies, Orihime and Hikoboshi were allowed to see each other once a year, as the rest of the time was dedicated to their duties. It was a punishment nevertheless.

Tanjirou believed it was similar to the girls that lost their footing in that district.

"It seems that the madame from the Kyogoku house fell down a window and died." The whispered name of the house peaked his attention, recognising it from Aya's mouth as the house she, Kanao and Zenitsu had been sold to. "How horrible, right? We should be careful."

"I've heard lots of girls have been losing their footing lately," the other girl in the oiran's room whispered back. "So scary."

"Um, excuse me." Tanjirou crouched down over their shoulders. "But, what does 'lose your footing' mean?"

"You don't know? 'Losing your footing' means running away without having payed your doubt to the house," explained the shortest girl. "A lot of girls do so with their lovers. It's not common, but there are cases where it happens."

"However, if they find you, the consequences are terrible." 'Just like Orihime and Hikoboshi's celestial punishment' Tanjirou thought, "Lately, a lot of girls have been running off without a trace, supposedly with lovers."

"They say that the oiran Suma-"

'Wasn't that one of Uzui's wives?'

The door slid open and the oiran Koinatsu, who Tanjirou had originally come to see, appeared slim and wrapped up in clothes he could only dream of buying.

"Spreading rumours isn't okay." And although her words were scolding, the oiran's face remained as sweet as always. "You shouldn't talk about those girls... no one knows what really happened, to them and you're already old enough to stop gossiping like this." Then her gaze landed on Tanjirou and all the packages he had brought to her room. "You're Sumi, right? I heard you came a little while ago."

Tanjirou managed to mutter a little 'yes', choking back a strangled sound as he was too taken aback by the oiran's beauty. She smiled sweetly at him and left some candies on his hand.

"Thank you very much. Take this for your hard work." Which only led Tanjirou to be even more flustered at both the oiran's appearance and personality.

'I should ask about Uzui's wife,' Tanjirou mused.

"Is... is it true that the oiran Suma has lost her footing?"

Koinatsu looked at him with a crease in between her perfect eyebrows:

"Why are you asking me that?"

"It's... it's just that-" 'Come on, think about something, knucklehead!' "Suma is my... my big sister!"

"Oh..." Koinatsu and the girls tried not to look too horrified when they saw his face, horribly contorted because of the lie that pained him so much to tell. But the oiran finally relaxed and started narrating.