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...
Another day went by, and once again, I woke up on my futon with my clothes and hair less messy than usual. I got up, sat down, and stretched, feeling something different... it took a while, but I soon understood what set this night apart from the others. I didn't have any nightmares... Strange... could it be because of yesterday...? I thought as I got up and went through my usual morning routine upon waking up, putting on my Demon Slayer uniform along with my haori as always. After everything, I headed to the kitchen, where I saw Aoi, Mitsuri, and the other girls eating. Instead of joining them, I decided not to show up there and went a different way, with more nervous steps than usual.
I walked like that, out of the mansion, and found Kanao sitting on the balcony where I had arrived. I looked in her direction and noticed that she didn't even turn to look at me. I chose to approach her, to start a conversation that we rarely had.
-"Hi, Kanao-san." She slowly turned her face towards me, seeming to show a slight surprise because I never approached her for casual conversation, only for missions or training, but there wouldn't be anything like that at that hour. She ended up deciding to flip the coin, as she always does when her mind is conflicted between two choices. The coin landed and ended up on heads; she sighed and looked at me again.
-"Hello, Kocho-sama." In the end, she agreed to talk to me. Kanao is a complicated case for me. She's my sister, not by blood, but she's my sister. I should pay more attention to her, but there are so many things going on that... it's really hard.
-"You don't have to call me that, you can just say 'Kocho-san'." As always, I explained that the "sama" term wasn't the best, as it gave a somewhat wrong idea of our relationship.
-"Alright..." She responded somewhat dryly, then fell silent again. Clearly, Kanao wasn't good at conversations, and that's quite obvious.
-"Kanao... these days, a question popped into my head, has... our sister ever talked to you about 'someone special'?" I turned my gaze to the landscape and sat down next to her; she kept looking at me, noticing my silence, waiting for a response. Kanao took a moment to think.
-"Once... she mentioned it... but we never really got into that topic."
-"I see... have you... ever felt something for someone?... something special, like she used to say." I commented in a somewhat morbid tone, although it was a more personal and even embarrassing subject, it wasn't something to be sad about... what made the conversation sad was the fact that Kanae was involved in it.
-"I think... the closest was with Kanae-san herself... she always tried to understand and help me, but I'm not sure if that's the feeling she and you are talking about." I finished quietly for a few minutes, feeling the morning breeze gently brushing against my face.
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-"I see, it makes sense... thank you, Kanao-san." I stood up as I spoke, and Kanao just watched me in silence, without saying "you're welcome" or questioning why I said thank you. I simply walked away while that doubt probably lingered in the younger girl's mind.
