I Spy (CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A REWRITE)

Chapter 22: Breaking News

Date: October 4, 2024
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Butterfly Mansion
Weather: Partly Cloudy

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The main friend group, apart from Tanjiro, were visiting over at the Butterfly Mansion this evening. They decided to call each other up to have a gathering to bring back some old times. They would've invited the redhead, but feared that a slip of the tongue may occur sometime during the meetup which would expose their entire secret life or at least a hint of it. They knew he was the smartest boy in the school due to his near-perfect grades and even if he didn't get the hint, they would rather not take their chances than possibly mess up. And considering the recent events with the new possible threat, something was bound to come up about that. 

They were all sitting in the living room with the exception of Aoi in the kitchen. Shinobu and Kanae were busy grading papers upstairs in their own respective rooms while the others were down there doing whatever. Kanao and Nezuko were busy doing some homework together, with Kanao helping her friend out every once in a while. Zenitsu and Genya were busy talking about their own lives. Inosuke was in the kitchen, patiently waiting for Aoi to finish cooking with drool coming out of his mouth and the biggest baby eyes we've ever seen. 

"Pft. He looks so funny when he does that" Aoi thought (with a slightly noticeable blush on her face) while trying to keep back her chuckle after she took a single glance at his face.

"Hey, Kanao?" Nezuko asked while writing down some answers on her paper. "Hm?" She replied.

"If you were to go anywhere in the world, where would it be?" 

"What made you ask this?" Kanao looked at her friend with an eyebrow raised, curious to know what led her to this thought.

"I don't know... just curious." Nezuko shrugged with a cheeky smile.

"Are you worried about the career path survey that you'll have next semester?"

"Uhhh... nah... and besides, I don't think I'll have any trouble with that... I already know what I want to become in the future." Nezuko responded with her arms outstretched.

"Hmmm... if I were to go anywhere in the world..." Kanao pondered the question for a bit with a hand resting on her cheek as she laid on the table in front of her.

"Somewhere where beautiful I guess... like a fresh flower field or maybe a tropical paradise. Or maybe a large foreign city like New York or Singapore." 

"Really? The beauty part I understand, but I never expected you to like big cities with their loud noises. I always took you for a silent and anti-social type." Nezuko teased a bit as she pointed her pencil at her friend.

Kanao chuckled back, "Who knows? People can change, introverts can become extroverts just like this." She snapped her fingers. "We all crave human connection, even if we don't know it. So maybe wanting to go to a big city and see the lights isn't so unnatural of me." She leaned back on the couch with her hands rested behind her head.

"Alright then." Nezuko nodded slightly before she thought about her response to the question.  

"If I were to visit any place in the world, it would be somewhere that would remind me of home. We used to live in a pretty remote area as you know, so I would probably go to visit a famous mountain like Mt. Fuji or Mt. Kilimanjaro. If that was not a viable option, I would visit a place that would remind me of the home I had when I first moved here, the soft and warm smell of bread baking in the oven and the happy and cheerful reply we get from customers when they would buy our pastries and baked goods."

"And as I also told you, before we moved here, my family ran a bakery after we moved from the mountains. Before I joined Kimetsu High, I was in a local middle school near the outskirts of Kimetsu. Our bakery was very popular with the entire neighborhood, and we would get customers every day. The bakery and house were separated from each other, and I would occasionally work alongside my parents in the bakery. Therefore, I arrived at school very tired, but I somehow managed to keep my GPA high enough so that I can enter Kimetsu High, but during summer break, after I completed eighth grade..."  Nezuko said as she started to look a bit down, reminiscing about the tragic events that occurred so long ago.

"...That's when you lost your entire family..." Kanao looked at Nezuko with a solemn expression.

"Mhm..." The mood got quiet between the two as Kanao decided to let Nezuko sit in silence for a while, giving her some space.

After that, she wanted to comfort her friend and patted her on the back with a hopeful smile. "It's ok, most of us have already experienced the sadness of losing their family, I know I may never feel the pain of losing my family, since my original family treated me like trash. But I know a lot of people who can help you get through this, I mean look at Emiko, Akira, and Isamu. They all lost family members and I am sure you can go to them and talk it out with them since they know how you felt."

 "Thanks, Kanao. I couldn't have asked for a better friend..." The two fist bumped with confident smirks and decided to return what they were previously doing.