~BRAVE~ (Tanjiro X Reader)

Story

Later that evening, after dinner. My mother had already gone to bed and the boys, Nezuko and I were gathered in the living room with our pillows in hand and pajamas on. I wanted to make this into a sleepover since I never really had the liberty of having one before. I asked Nezuko and she persisted that we had the boys join too. She nuzzled against my leg and clung onto me until I said yes. Within the next five minutes, blankets and pillows infested my childhood living room as us teenagers talked.

"Your mom is scary," Zenitsu complained. He hid under his pillow. I laughed at him. Inosuke had found him not long after I got into my room. He was hiding in the old garden.

"She was scared someone broke into her house. I would hope she looked scary." I played with the cloth of my pillow and Nezuko nuzzled her head to my cheek in thanks. I sighed in contentment.

"I thought her dinner was good," Tanjiro said. I smiled and the others nodded with him. Inosuke was surprisingly quiet. He hadn't picked a fight yet. His body was on his side as he used his arm to support his head to listen.

"She's been cooking all her life. I suggested that she open up her own restaurant, but she refused. Of course, I was like eight years old?" My head tilted to the side to try and remember. My mother had me at a young age and before then, she worked at a restaurant in the town nearby.

"I saw the pictures on the walls. You as a child, you're adorable!" Zenitsu mentioned. I blushed and stuffed my face in my pillow. He squished his cheeks in happiness at the pictures. "Such a hard little worker you were!"

"I was always dirty in those photos! I worked a lot back then with Diakoku in our garden." I muffled out. "She would always sneak photos of me when I wasn't looking." My head peeked out from the cloth of the pillow and the boys laughed at my flustered state. Nezuko started to dose off next to me. Her head tapped on my shoulder lightly as she struggled to stay awake.

"This is where you grew up?" Tanjiro asked. "Nezuko and I grew up in a place like this, but much smaller and colder." He laughed out, remembering all of the fun memories. Out of all of the stories he had told me, I didn't think he'd ever mentioned his childhood.

"Really? Tell us a story." My eyes gleamed with excitement and he scratched the back of his head. He hummed in thought for a while until he smiled. With the one single smile it seemed as if it was the only thing in the world.

My heart thumped against my chest and my body warmed up a bit. Even though it was dark. The colors were so vibrant.

"We grew up with four other siblings. But when it was just Nezuko and I, during the winter we would hold these big snowball fights." He paused to check and make sure we had his attention. My smile never faltered and I scooted closer to the boy. I wanted to hear more. To see more. His smile grew as he saw me inching closer. "I had spent the whole night making myself some sort of a snow fort. With thousands of snowballs inside. My mother didn't like the idea of me staying up that late. So I had to go back inside. But made sure to hide all of my work from Nezuko so she wouldn't see. That morning, I woke up and ran outside as fast as I could to check to make sure everything was okay. And it was all gone!" His arms stretched out in disappointment. I could see his cheeks puff out a bit. He was clearly still upset about all of his misplaced hard work.

"All of it? Was it melted?" Zenitsu asked. Curiosity laced in his voice. He propped his head upon his hands and listened closely. Inosuke was slumped over with the four of his limbs spread out in all directions. He fell fast asleep at the mention of a story.

"It wasn't melted. It was still winter. Since I was little, I thought a yeti had taken it." He laughed. "My fort was still standing, but all of the snowballs were gone." Finally his arms rested under his chin after all of his hand movements he had been conducting to give his story more emphasis.

"Where was it?" I adjusted my sitting position to be more comfortable and ran my hands through my hair to get it out of my face. I would have normally put it up, but bedtime was a different case.

My mother wasn't wrong to say that my hair had gotten longer. It fell almost seductively down my back. Every strand perfectly placed.

"I'm getting there!" He laughed at my eagerness. "I was upset that all of that work had just gone missing. I looked for it everywhere but it was simply gone. I asked my dad about it and he said he had no clue. I hadn't told anyone about it. And no one really came outside of my house in the morning except for me, and..." he paused and looked at the two of us waiting for an answer with raised eyebrows.

"Nezuko?" I questioned. He nodded his head and smiled. It was almost as if we were children answering a teachers question.

"Yes. So I went to go question her about it. She felt betrayed by what I hid from her and ran out of the house with fire in her eyes that said she was going to bring me down. I had completely given up about my snowballs until my mom entered the room with a bit of snow on her clothes. She never really went outside in the morning unless she needed to go down to the village. I questioned her about my snowballs and you want to know what I was met with?" Tanjiro's smile grew more and more by the second. He was excited to finish his story.

"What was it?" I tilted my head to the side in wonder and Tanjiro's arms flew up in the air.
_________________________________
Original release date: May 27th 2020