Omega progenitor tomioka pt.2

Chapter 2

If Sanemi were to be honest, he sometimes found it hard to deal with Kanroji's overly cheerful personality and seemingly inexhaustible optimism. It was a rather peculiar personality trait to see within the Corps, considering that nearly three-quarters of the Slayers who composed it had a more or less traumatic background.

And it was partly for this reason that Sanemi found it difficult to stay around her for too long.

Although it was a sad thing to say, one thing that made the Demon Slayer Corps so powerful as a semi-functional pack was that the vast majority of its members were a bit broken, a bit too traumatized. Edges too sharp and instincts too keen for the polite society of those who knew no better, but still gentle and human enough to cling to each other.

Sanemi carried his story on his skin, in the blood under his fingernails and in the bitterness of his words. He had turned it into a medal, a weapon, and when his comrades looked at him, damaged but far from broken, he knew they understood.

I'm just like you. You are just like me.

Sanemi couldn't pretend to know Kanroji, and he didn't want to either.

He knew better now.

But there was a lightness in her that he didn't possess. Which he no longer possessed. Watching Kanroji and her bright smiles was painful sometimes. Because it was something foreign, inaccessible and incomprehensible. Kanroji smiled as if the world wasn't falling apart around them a little more with each passing night, as if they weren't all caught up in a war too big for them and which he doubted they would ever see the end of. 

Despite everything, Kanroji smiled.

Optimistic and hopeful, bright and warm.

It was like trying to face the sun without going blind.

That was one of the reasons she was so popular in the ranks, besides being an Omega Prime and almost ridiculously attractive (she wasn't his type, but he wasn't completely blind, thank you). She was like a beacon of hope for many in the Corps, something nice in a shitty world.

Sanemi...couldn't manage to cling to this hope, which only sounded like an empty promise to him, something too good to be true.

Obanai had been the complete opposite, chasing after Kanroji the way the Moon tirelessly chased the Sun. Obanai, who was just as traumatized as Sanemi, just as caustic, bitter and angry. Obanai, who was just as broken and scarred as Sanemi was.

So, despite Kanroji being the one who announced that she would help him, in the end, it was easier for everyone that it was Obanai who helped Sanemi. Because Obanai understood Sanemi in a way Kanroji couldn't. He understood the words in his silences and the whispers behind his cries. He saw the pain, guilt and shame behind the dull, blind anger that Sanemi wielded as a shield and as a weapon. Obanai understood what Sanemi couldn't always say and what he wished he could say.

Kanroji had tried though, but Sanemi was just...too much. Too angry, too aggressive, too defensive. She wore her emotions on her sleeve where he had woven them into his very bones, into his marrow and into his blood, close but inaccessible without a messy spill.

Sanemi's emotions were like him after all, messy and scarred, twisted and ugly.

Obanai was needed, both to push Sanemi's buttons until he spat what he meant rather than circle around it as well as translating all that raw, brutal mess into something Kanroji could work her magic with.

"You can't just come out of nowhere after all this and just say 'sorry,' Shinazugawa. That's not how it works."

"And why not ?" he had replied, bitterly. "I am sorry."

"Yes, you're sorry. But do you know why you're sorry ?"she asked, her head tilted to one side and her knowing eyes staring into his. "Do you even know why you're apologizing ?"

He apologized because he was sorry. Because he screwed up. Because it was the right thing to do. Because Oyakata-sama wanted it, although he didn't ask for it, because he wanted his whole pack to be in harmony with each other. Because he had made a mistake, several mistakes, too many mistakes.

Obanai, leaning against the tree under which they had gathered, sighed.

"What if Tomioka doesn't accept your apology ?"

Silence.

Sanemi's mind became blissfully empty for a brief moment, before anger rose, sharp and unleashed. There was a heavy weight in his throat and a bitter taste on his tongue, thick and ferrous like old blood.

"Why wouldn't he accept ?! I'm sorry! I...I'm..." he choked, his fingernails digging into his palms even as the image came to his mind.

Tomioka, pale ivory skin and his eyes so painfully blue, the bluest blue Sanemi had ever seen since he had lost half the color of the world with the death of his mother. Sitting behind a table, like a barrier between him and Sanemi, or standing still in the frame of a door he wouldn't allow him to cross, staring down at him. Blue, blue, blue eyes, like the sky above looking at him and finding him insufficient. Watching his soul laid bare in words others were weaving for him and deciding that it wasn't enough. Watching him bleed his ugly, filthy emotions all over the gravel of a path he shouldn't even stand on and deciding that it wasn't enough.

Tomioka, and his resting bitch face, unwavering and unreadable, turning away without a word, leaving Sanemi bleeding empty and... and...

"-zugawa"

Hanami. Sunny spring day with fragrant breeze, beautiful and warm and perfect.

"-nemi !"

Autumn and crisp dead leaves, black and rich humus.

A low crooning and soothing purr. Two intertwined perfumes, two opposite seasons brought together in a dance. A slender hand on his wrist. A stronger one against the back of his neck, tracing soothing circles just below his scent glands.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in a shaky breath, almost whining. "I'm sorry, I'm- "

(Why are you sorry ?)

Breath in. Breath out.

Again. And again. And once more.

There was a boy in the yard with them, his age more or less a few months. A strange kimono that made Tengen wince but in colors that remained indiscernible to him in all their glory, no doubt sparing him certain visual torture. His skin was pale and his features sharp. A fine face like those of a doll. A look as empty as one.

Blue, blue, blue, so blue it hurt.

Face without expression, voice without intonation, silhouette without perfume.

(Empty, empty, empty)

Pale and flawless and sky and heaven in his eyes as he stared down and...

"I am not like you."

And anger, anger, anger.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"We know," two voices answered. Spring and Autumn, petals and dead leaves, beginning and end.

But was it enough ?