Shinobu Kocho, an eighteen-year-old girl living in Japan, is a young adult who recently lost her sister to a man-eating demon. Due to this event, she has been plagued by intense nightmares about what happened, hiding all her pain behind a smile. Now...
I was lying on my futon, awake for some time, staring at the ceiling. How long have I been like this? I don't know, but it's already dawn. I really slept very little... I can't stop thinking about what happened yesterday... About Shinobu... I get up with a slight headache and look at myself in the mirror. I'm all messy, so I decide to take a bath to clean up (obviously) and calm my mind. I like hot water, but it's never the same as the hot springs. I sigh slightly disappointed.
After a long bath, I start combing my hair and put on a casual green kimono, not my usual outfit.
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I open the doors of my room that lead to the outside, and I see a girl sitting on the balcony. There must be many people living in this mansion, I think. She wears a butterfly pinned in her hair, just like Shinobu. She seems to have bangs and is dressed in the demon slayer uniform, along with a common white cloak. I approach her and decide to greet her politely, maybe she's another caretaker.
"Hello, how are you?" I ask with a big smile, crouching next to her on the balcony, bringing my face to her eye level. The girl notices my presence and takes a coin from her clothes, tossing it up and catching it in her hand when it falls. The coin landed heads up.
"Hello, I'm fine," she replies, looking thoughtful for a moment but still keeping a smile.
"That's good. Why did you toss the coin?" I ask curiously. I usually only see coins used for transactions; I didn't know they could have other unknown uses.
"That's how I decide what to do," she responds. Deciding through a coin... Is it leaving everything to chance? It doesn't make much sense to me.
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-"One question, if it landed tails, would you not talk to me?" I want to be more certain about it.
-"That's correct," she confirms. But what if she doesn't like what the coin chooses? This method doesn't seem very practical in my view.
-"Why don't you decide for yourself? Sometimes the coin may tell you to do something you don't want," I share my opinion.
-"Without the coin, I can't make any decisions, so I guess it's okay," she reflects on those words for a moment. I think about what happened to her. My smile turns into a gentle expression of pity. I decide to say goodbye and leave. The girl remains unfazed, just smiling... Just like Shinobu.
