Everchanging

At Peace

!!TW!! Slight thought of grief/funerals, talk of rape/bullying/gossip, talks of animal rescues (abuse cases/euthanization/eating problems)

Hanako listened to the dim clattering as her eldest brother's friends helped her mommy and daddy clean up. The bake sale had been a huge success, like it was every year, so there wasn't much inventory to take. But the number of dishes to be done made the little girl shiver, she knew how much Nezuko hated dirty dish water. But that was okay since the big scary boy with big scary scars was the one that took up dish duty.

He did it quietly, like he had done pretty much everything whenever Hanako and her other siblings went to watch him. He would talk and laugh with Tanjiro and the other teenagers, but if her daddy or mommy tried to talk to him, he would immediately shut up and turn all stiff. It was kind of funny, Hanako thought, such a big scary boy stuttering his words like how Takeo did whenever he would get scolded.

Speaking of, Takeo stood beside her as he watched alongside her. He had been keenly curious of the new boy even though Hanako had pointed out that they had already met him once before. He had come to the bakery with his bigger, scarier brother when he had first moved here. She could recall how he had a ton of bandages on him, his scars much redder and grosser. They looked like they hurt a lot, like how Tanjiro's burn scar had when he first got it. But thankfully, Tanjiro's scar had faded mostly over the years. Now it was faint and Hanako didn't get queasy when she looked at it.

But that wasn't the case for the big scary boy. His scars didn't fade a ton, they had just gotten less puffy and older. And his scars looked like they hurt a lot, and they were all over his body, like someone had sat there and placed them one after the other. And Hanako came to the decision that, though this boy may be big and scary, whoever gave him all of those scars was even bigger and scarier.

"He's so weird." Takeo mumbled from beside her, his brows pinching funnily as he pointed at how the big scary boy meticulously scrubbed each of her mommy's dishes. And he did it all alone, urging whoever tried to help him to go do some other tasks. She could hear him humming something to himself, and it seemed like he was actually content with sticking his hands in that gross dish water. "Don't you think so?"

His eyelashes were long, casting a shadow on his pudgy cheeks, and even though his face was relaxed his tiny brows were still downturned and slightly pouty looking. And maybe he wouldn't be so scary looking if he didn't have all of those scars, some even peeking from his t-shirt sleeves as the taut skin stretched down his shoulder. Some crossed his wrists, even his palms were also littered with those marks. And he was so big , so much bigger than her daddy and he was huge !

And he had been so much more animated before, when his bigger scarier brother had been here with the other adults. But they left not too long ago, and now the big scary boy was so quiet. His eyes would linger on things in their house, like their pictures or the art that was scribbled on the wall with messy crayon. And when he looked at those things, his eyes would lower like he was thinking something, and his face would get all tight like he was angry. But he wouldn't say anything, instead just turning and taking over whatever chore someone was doing. Like the dishes.

He would get all tense when her daddy would come closer to talk to him, and Hanako caught onto the weird expression her daddy and mommy wore when they looked at the big scary boy. It was the face they made when something made them sad, like when they all had to dress fancy and go to their grandpa's funeral when Hanako was much littler and Rokuta wasn't even born yet.

Hanako didn't know a lot about her big brother and sister's new friend, but she knew that just looking at him made her mommy and daddy sad. So that made him a little less scary, because her mommy and daddy weren't scared of him. Just sad. So maybe Hanako shouldn't be scared, maybe she should be sad?