𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳

11. SWEET DREAMS

thank you for the multitude of kind comments on the last chapter!!

[物の哀れ]

They were inside the monster—so Inosuke believed. Well, he wasn't wrong in a sense. That's what had her worried. If they were in the belly of a beast, when would they be swallowed up? Where was it's neck? Everytime she looked herself in the reflection of the window, it seemed the other soul with the vengeful eyes was looking back at her—even the demon was warning her.

Then she faced forward, walking down the aisle. She pulled the tickets out of her pocket. "It's not truly an animal, Inosuke. It's like a moving house, if that will get you to tone down. You need to hold on to this ticket if you don't want to get kicked off."

"Is it food?"

"No-- don't eat it. Just put it in your pocket," she said, then handed one to Zenitsu and Tanjiro.

"Do you remember what the flame hashira looks like?" Zenitsu asked Tanjiro and Sakurai.

Sakurai delved into her mind briefly and thought. Well, it was hard to forget such a bright face as his, wide-eyed like an unblinking chameleon, and also the fact that he wanted her dead regardless of the master's thoughts. "Yes, he's got a distinct flame to him. It's very big and warm, unyielding."

"I gather the same from his scent," Tanjiro remarked. "His hair is flashy."

"Umai!" a voice began, to which everyone on the train turned in annoyance at. "Oishii! Oishii!" the voice was remarking at the tastiness of his meal... over and over again. That flashiness matched the hair, for sure. They approached a seat and watched Rengoku-san chow down on a bento box in front of them with blank faces. Multiple boxes, in fact.

"Excuse me," Tanjiro began, and Rengoku turned to him beaming with the same gluttonous face Sakurai displayed in the morning.

"Oishii!"

Yes, I understand already, said Tanjiro's face.

They sat down, being a little squishy with five so Inosuke sat on Sakurai's lap as if he were a baby boar himself-- mostly to elevate him as he kept looking around in curiosity. She didn't agree to it at all, pushing him off of her and forcing him to squish to the window while Zenitsu sat on the other edge, herself in the middle. She pulled out the onigiri to share, eating herself and resisting to remark on the umeboshi in Rengoku fashion.

There were many people on the train, so even with their swords hidden they looked out of place. A little girl was going down the aisle in her pink dress, stopping in curiosity to look at them.

Sakurai leaned over Zenitsu to look back at the curious girls' eyes, the wood creaking and the sound of each cart shaking over the rails quite loud. Then handed the box of onigiri to her. "Don't you think your mom is worried? Why don't you go back and sit with her—and take this with you."

The little girl brightened, running back down the aisle past other children. "Oka-san! There's a fox over there! And a boar! Kitsune-chan gave this to me!"

Sakurai glowed at the sound of her nickname, covering her reddening face of embarrassment.

Then, Tanjiro explained something called "Dance of the Fire God" that he learned from his father when he was young, that help him defeat the lower kizuki. Sakurai had never heard him speak of it before, but even being friends and training with Yoiriichi she could not be sure of it if she did not see it in action.

"Never heard of it! Glad you could use it in the fight though!" Rengoku responded. "The breath of flames has a long history! You should become my tsugoku, I'll look after you!"