koi no yokan | inosuke hashibira

𝟏.𝟐

The boy simply stared at me. I felt a little nervous, thinking I had done something wrong. I retracted my hand and placed in on my chest, my lips pulling into a straight line as I averted my eyes someplace else.

I then noticed that he had a wound that cut from his shoulder to his elbow. It was bleeding out, blood seeping down his arm and onto his wrist.

"Oh, you're injured!" I gasped out and kneed down in front of him.

The boy simply backed up into the boulder even more.

"What... what the hell was that..." he gulped. His voice was deep and raspy, quite like a teen's. It wasn't deep enough to be called an adult's voice and it certainly wasn't light enough to be called a child's. I made the assumption that this boy was about my age.

I reached into my pocket, pulling out a bandage strip. "I don't usually do duel wielding, but under quick decision making, I just decided to." I held out my hand to him once more. "I can patch up that wound for you if you'd like."

The boy simply stood right up in a sudden motion, yanking his body away.

"I don't need that! I'm fine!" He shouted, clutching onto his bleeding wound on his shoulder.

I simply blinked at him for a while, a little confused. "Are you su-"

"AND FIGHT ME!" He demanded, holding up his fists. I noticed that he was in a fighting stance, one of his legs holding him up while the other was held forward. His body was facing diagonally away from me, but his face was towards me.

This Selection was only getting weirder and weirder. Demon slayers aren't allowed to fight each other. We aren't official demon slayers yet, but we still have to learn to not fight each other since we're all on the same team. Maybe this guy didn't understand the rules yet.

I stand up beside him, scratching the back of my neck.

"We aren't allowed to fight each other, I'm sorry," I nervously chuckled and started to slowly walk backward. "I need to go and-"

It was so quick, but the boy swung a high punch at me. I stepped back quick enough but was suddenly bombarded with the boy swinging, even more, kicks and punches at me. I started to step back more as he swung a high kick to me.

A little bit of frustration entered my body. I kicked off from the ground and held onto a nearby tree.

"HEY! THAT'S CHEATING!" He shouted, pointing up at me and jumping up and down.

"I'm sorry, but we aren't allowed to fight each other!" I called back to him. I climbed up to the nearest branch and sat down, dangling my feet.

Soon enough, I found my stomach start to rumble. The boy below me was still hollering as he was trying to cut the tree down. I didn't want to really get in the way of whatever he was doing, so I simply pulled out a little ball of sweet rice from my pocket.

That's when I wondered, maybe he's hungry too.

I tilted my body over my legs, seeing him with his hands on his hips as he pointed up at me.

"GET DOWN!" He demanded.

I waved the rice ball in the air.

"Do you want one?" I shouted back.

"WHAT?"

"A rice ball! It's sweet!" I chuckled as I swallowed down a nice bite.

"Is it edible?"

"It's rice!"

I slipped off the branch a final time. As I landed on my feet, my hair falling onto my shoulders, I tilted my head and laid out a small rice ball in my palm. I felt a small sting in my ankle, but I dismissed it as quickly as it came.