HOWL [Inosuke Hashibira x OC]

Chapter 6 - The Fairy Tale

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 Unintentionally, I found myself integrating with Inosuke's friends.

Nezuko warmed up to me right away, and she followed me around The Wisteria House like a duckling more often than not, always on my tail and making cute little noises. I don't know why, but it made me feel less chaotic on the inside, like she unraveled the knots of tension and stress that I'd been keeping to myself. Except she never said a word, so I'm not sure how that was entirely possible.

Inosuke himself seemed to have a hard time with the fact that we were temporarily living in the same house, and that I was, in fact, real. Despite me insisting on my corporeal form every single morning at breakfast, he still threw a test punch at me over nothing, just to see if his fist would connect or not. It often did not, because I knew it was coming and had plenty of time to block him. But I guess that's his tenacity for you.

And to be fair, I felt kinda the same way: confused and skeptical.

Why did we share our dreams with each other? Why us, specifically?

And what kind of strange serendipity brought us together? Why here?

Why now?

Zenitsu followed closely behind in terms of trust. He watched me through skeptical glances for the first few days, sure that I'd oust myself as a demon or a spy or something equally terrible. But, obviously, that never happened, and soon enough he was hitting on me just like he did with Nezuko, much to my annoyance and Inosuke's irritation. He didn't seem to be too bad, otherwise.

Tanjiro, surprisingly, was the last one to board my friend ship. He never blatantly did anything to make me feel unwelcome, but I could sense his hesitation when Inosuke invited me to spar, or when Zenitsu insisted that I make tea every day because, quote, "Takara is like a tea whisperer, I swear!" Eventually, though, Tanjiro came to realize that I was not a threat or a fake.

Giyu came and went from the Wisteria House as he pleased, which didn't bother me one bit. I wouldn't stop him from going on missions just to reminisce anyway. When I told him that my family was missing, he just continued with his signature thousand yard stare and said nothing. He'd leave without saying goodbye, as if I hadn't just told him that his fiancé was missing. But he'd always been like that, so I didn't worry about it.

And things were good. I guess.

Mrs. Fuji put me in charge of watching Inosuke, mostly to make sure he didn't re-break his finger or his ribs or the house while he was supposed to be healing. I took to the role like a fish to water.

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Inosuke and I stood in the courtyard, breathless and angry.

"You're being an idiot!" I screamed, pointing at him with my rusty practice blade. My theory of babysitting Inosuke for Mrs. Fuji went something like this: if he was training me, then he couldn't break anything... Right?

He mirrored me, gesturing with one of his jagged nichirin swords. "And you're being stupid! So what?"

We still hadn't talked about any of it: the dreams, the life debt, the affectionate touches when he'd woken. The two of us pretended like it never happened, like we were childhood friends with no recollection of the last few days. Tension caught between us at the oddest moments, reminding us of our strange connection. But we didn't bring it up or bother telling anyone else about it.

I huffed and launched myself at him, slicing in his general direction to release some tension. "So, you're pissing me off!" I yelled, spinning out of his reach and ducking beneath his frenzied slashes. "Why won't you practice breathing techniques with me? Do you not want me to pass my test, you asshole?"