koi no yokan | inosuke hashibira

𝟐.𝟎

Shinobu waltzed into my room, holding up a bottle of ointment and a whole wrap of cloth. A bright smile was on her face as she sat down on my swirly chair and twirled herself over to face me as I sat on my bed.

"Alright, (Y/N). Let's see it!" She chirped as she started to unscrew the cap to the ointment.

Sighing, I opened up both my hands.

Blisters were across each finger, each joint, and each space in my palm. They were red, some seeping out blood. It even hurt to open up my hand.

Shinobu clicked her tongue as she dipped a small cotton ball into the ointment.

"My, my, you have to be careful on how long you train..." She sighed as she placed the cotton ball on my hand.

The ointment stung as it made contact with my skin. I bit my cheek to stop myself from making any embarrassing moves in front of her.

"It's okay! The ointment is just going to sting for a while, but it's going to help heal and numb out some of the pain as you fight." Shinobu continued as she softly dabbed the cotton on my fingers.

Flinching my arm ever so slightly, I averted my gaze away.

"So... Shinobu?" I asked as she hummed a response.

"Do you know if Tomioka is assigning me more missions?"

Shinobu paused for moment as she puckered her lips and looked up at the ceiling.

"Hm... I do know that Master Oyakata will be requesting Tomioka and I's presence this afternoon. If nothing happens after that meeting, you'll continue training unless Tomioka thinks differently." She replied as she placed down the cotton ball and swirled her chair around to grab the cloth wrap.

I nodded my head as she unwrapped the wrap and started to carefully wrap them around each finger, not too tight and not too loose.

The reason why I was asking?

It's been about a month since my last mission. I've grown a heavy hate for demons during that span and I'm aching for a chance just to grab a demon by its neck and snap it.

Ever since then, I've been training hard. Day and night, I wouldn't even eat sometimes. All just to get my emotions controlled. As Tomioka would say, I need to learn to control and take them during battle.

I've grown tiresome and I just want more action. It was strange, especially coming from someone like me.

And for some reason, I want to fight alongside Inosuke again.

It was weird. I never really thought of anyone else besides Aito. But- he'd pop in my mind every so often. When I'm watching the stars, I can't help but to think of his story.

It saddened me, knowing someone with such an upbeat and extroverted attitude had a lonely story. I wished to see him, maybe one more time, just to fight him or with him.

"Alright, (Y/N)! I'm gonna give you this whole cloth wrap." She handed me a, rather large, cloth wrap. "Just in case the wrap on your hands unloosen during your training."

I nodded as she started to excuse herself from my room. "Thank you, Shinobu." I called out to her.

She hummed a reply and closed the door.

----

I walked into the hospital wing, seeing Aoi try her best to train Aito to clean a wound. He whined, as he looked down at the fake wound from a training dummy. Aoi just sprayed a bunch of red ink on a cut and asked Aito to grab a clean cloth to clean it.