𝙆𝙉𝙔 𝙭 𝘿𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙣! 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

Chapter Three

Weeks have passed since Kotoha came to the cult, and she seemed to trust you and Douma, but you still didn't completely trust her; in fact, you had problems trusting anyone, especially Douma's followers because to you, they were all just a bunch of naive humans.

Douma - surprisingly - seemed to like spending time with her. With this observation, you wondered if he would ever kill her especially that he had little to no murderous intent when she's around.

Not to mention that she looked really beautiful after her scars completely healed and it was strange that Douma hasn't killed her yet; he was a picky eater who preferred pretty women over any other kind of humans after all, and she was the prettiest of all the women he's devoured.

"Does he like her? No no... that's impossible. Could it be that he's finally feeling something? After all these years?" You wondered, fixating your gaze on Douma who seemed genuinely happy listening to Kotoha's angelic singing voice.

"Beautiful... You have a unique singing voice, Kotoha-san." You said as soon as she stopped singing, smiling softly.

"Agreed!" Douma exclaimed, clasping his hands together.

"Really?" She said with a shy smile, then shifted her gaze to Inosuke who was sleeping peacefully in her arms, and hummed a lullaby.

"It's getting really late... Goodnight Yuki-san and Douma-sama." She said then went to sleep.

"Goodnight." You and Douma said in unison, and as soon as she left, you turned to Douma, staring at him knowingly.

"Eh? Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked, acting clueless. "Is something wrong?"

You stayed silent for a moment, staring intensly into his soul. "Yes, something's wrong... with you." You said in a monotonous tone. "Are you sick?"

"We don't get sick, silly!" He laughed, waving a hand dismissively.

"I'm serious!" You whisper-yelled at him. "You should see the way you act around her! Honestly... you– Nevermind..."

"Who? Kotoha-chan?" He questioned. "What about her? Ah! Are you jealous she's taking my attention away from–"

"No!" You interrupted. "This is serious! You shouldn't get emotionally involved with anyone, especially a human!"

"Emotionally involved? I thought that you knew me much better than that, Yuki-chan!" He sighed dramatically. "Don't worry, I'm not attached to her or anyone really because simply... I'm incapable of feeling."

You were used to Douma lying all the time that you couldn't trust he was telling the truth, even when it came to such an obvious matter. "You better be telling the truth." You said. "Or else he will–"

"He needs me, I'm an upper rank kizuki, and it's been a century since I became one!" Douma interrupted, flashing a confident grin. "There's no way he would kill me because if he wanted to, he would've done that long ago, right?"

"That's not how it works... not really." You sighed. "Remember, be careful." Silence fell between you two, and to add more tension to the situation, you decided to test him. "You might be the one to kill her at the end of the day."

"I'll do it if I had to." He said in a rather quiet tone to your absolute surprise.

"Douma-sama..." You uttered, staring wide-eyed at him.

"I want to keep her by my side till she dies naturally." He confessed. "She's beautiful and I love her singing. You know... It feels nice having someone so pure around."

"I respect your wishes, Douma-sama, but–" You paused and thought for a while.

Although you were just another emotionless demon, you had some moments were you felt an emotion or two, and looking around you, emotions seemed rather bittersweet.

It was unfair that during his long lifetime, Douma has never experienced neither a positive nor a negative emotion.

You felt sorry for him.

"Perhaps it's his chance to finally experience how to feel... Or maybe he's pretending that he's capable of feeling to fill his empty heart for a while."

"Alright... understood." You finally agreed on his decision.

Since that day, you made it your duty to protect Kotoha, although she was going to die eventually and you saw no point in delaying her death.

-

Just then, you and Douma were both summoned to the infinity fortress.

"Eh?" You both looked at each other with puzzled looks, trying to figure out the reason why you were summoned all of a sudden.

"I don't have a good feeling about that, I think he might be angry with us!" Douma said in a rather careless tone. "What do you think, Yuki-chan? Should I gouge out an eyeball and gift it to him?"

Just as he was reaching for his eyes, you slapped his hands away. "Absolutely not! That's disgusting! How many times--"

"Kneel down."

You looked up to see Muzan looking raging mad as he glared daggers at the both of you.

Without any word, you kneeled before him, and as for Douma, he started greeting Muzan like an old friend, still smiling cheerfully as he faced his master.

"When are you going to find the blue spider lily?" He asked, fixating his gaze on you. "I thought you had more knowledge about that since you work with potions and plants, but you never fail to disappoint me."

"But the blue spider lily only blooms during daytime, it's almost impossible to identify it when it looks like any other plant during nighttime." You thought, and immediately stopped your chain of thoughts once you remembered that your master can read your thoughts especially when you're located so close to him.

"Master, Yuki-chan barely ever leaves the temple, I'm afraid that you have to entrust this mission to someone else!" Douma said, and you've never been so scared in your life to face the consequences of Douma's choice of words or actions than at that moment.

"Did I ask you to talk? I know who I'm leaving this mission to." He said in a monotonous voice then looked in your direction once more. "You're dismissed."

And with a strike on the biwa, you found yourself back at the temple. Infront of you, you saw vials of ingredients some equipment. "The blue spider lily blooms for roughly two days in a year, how am I even supposed to find it?" You sighed, burying your face in the palms of your hands.

Suddenly, the voice calling for you from afar snapped you out of your thoughts; apparently, Douma was also dismissed after some time. "I wonder..."

"Yuki-chan!" He beamed with excitement as soon as he saw you at your quarters.

"So?" You asked, frowning anxiously.

"So?" He mimicked you, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh it's nothing important! Just about Kotoha-chan!" Then he went on explaining how Muzan didn't approve of humans coexisting with demons. "Kotoha-chan is harmless, you know? But we did make a deal! If she's in any way threatening to us, I'll kill her!" He said, lowering his voice by the last sentence.

"Hm... Fair." You muttered.

"One more thing! He agreed to let the uppermoons carry out the mission of finding the blue spider lily." He added, and you stared at him in disbelief, feeling like a weight has lifted off your shoulders.

"Just kidding! You should've seen your face!" He burst out laughing, and you were - needless to say- speechless because as much as you needed help, you knew that Douma wasn't the right person to talk to Muzan about such matter.

"When I meet Kokushibou-dono, I'll ask him if he could talk to the leader about that, though." He added, and you gave him a skeptical look, but he stood his ground. "Hey! What's that look for? I'm not kidding this time!"

"Thanks... I guess." You sighed.

─── ∙ ~εïз~ ∙ ───

Word count: 1298 words

-',✎ A/n: My least favourite part is writing a scene that includes Muzan it's too stressful to write ngl 💀