The Days That Must Happen

ARC IV-ACT XIV

across from the living room, mitsuri and tanjiro exchange worried glances. you had been staring at the napkins for what seemed to be an eternity.

your gaze never faltered, tense and narrowed as you silently pondered over a reasonable explanation for what sat in front of you. "and you guys are sure nobody came down to mess with this?" you asked, looking up at the two. "i'm not upset, i just want to figure this out.

another exchanged glance before they shook their heads once more. "i didn't smell anyone pass the hallway after sanemi and rengoku came down to train, and zenitsu said he heard your pen all morning but other than your breathing he didn't pick up on any other sounds from this room."

they had to be wrong, someone had to have missed it.

'+8 beds' sat beside messy writing and scribbled drawings.

you frowned. eight beds? even if it was you who wrote it and you had just forgotten with sleep and daze, why on earth would you logically need eight more beds?

mitsuri stepped forward, playing with her fingers anxiously. "what's the issue?"

you shook your head. "it just... it had additional dot points i didn't write down."

"maybe you just forgot about them." tanjiro shrugged. "no one here has been in the best state of mind lately, and by the looks of it you didn't sleep very long, so maybe you just didn't realize you added that."

"i thought that too, but logically why would i add an extra eight beds to the list?"

"maybe you miscounted?" mitsuri hummed.

shaking your head once more, you decided to chalk it up to a simple weird occurrence with no explanation, a pointless prank by the still suspecting hashiras. annoyed, you scrunched up the napkin in your hand, creating a rough white ball and began to walk towards the small, plastic rubbish bin. "i didn't miscount but no point in dwelling on it."

you opened your hand to let it drop and then?

then you paused, blue markings catching your attention on the bare side of the napkin. a smiley face mockingly stared at you through one of the thoughtless scrunched folds. slowly, you unraveled the napkin, seeing your writing only to flip it over.

there, in the bottom left corner sat the smiley face.

'you'll need them :)'

"guys just fess up!" mitsuri whined as she stared at the group in front of her in disbelief.

shinobu sighed, pinching her nose. "this is so childish, truly..." turning, she too gave her group a glare. "look, guys, i don't think anyone here did this but if you did, just end this for the rest of us."

silent murmurs and confused glances were shared, not one person having valuable information for the mystery of the napkin.

"okay," the dark haired woman nodded, turning on her heels to look at her female colleague. "so no one here did it. it must have been the author."

she furiously shook her head. "no. they're certain it wasn't them."

"why does it matter anyway?" uzui yawned, stretching his arms over his head. "it's some pointless writing, just throw the thing away."

"because!" mitsuri cried out, digging into her pocket to pull out the scrunched up ball. "what if this is valuable information?! i mean, if the author is sure they didn't write it and it just appeared out of thin air, then maybe-!"

"maybe what?" uzui spoke up again, laughing slightly at the implication that some words on a snotty napkin could mean anything other than drowsy memory. "the napkin will lead us back home?"