Chapter 4. Introductions
.
.
Rousted by a sudden upwind Zenitsu bit down on his mouth.
He teared up from the pinch.
"Screw it!"
Balled fists clenched.
Chest pumped up with courage.
If he didn't step up now Nezuko-chan was never going to notice his damn existence.
He was doomed to remain a watching ghost wallowing in envy and spite while that dense Tanjiro hogged all of Nezuko-chan's doting smiles.
"Just look at him..!" Zenitsu was mad with disbelief.
Nezuko-chan was literally sending bubbly hearts at him adoring and cupping his face like that and the asshole was fascinated by AN INVISIBLE FLY OVER THEIR HEADS~!
This was unacceptable, Zenitsu could not afford to lose this unappreciated lovable fawn to that airhead of a brother.
"..Right.. that's right..! Tanjiro is dense.. and an airhead..! The hell am I worried about..!?"
Competition for Nezuko-chan's heart existed only in his head.
He didn't even have to put his mind into it.
[Full Focus Breath!]
It was now or never.
"N-Nezuko-chan!"
His first interaction with human Nezuko-chan and his feet were freezing.
"D-Do you remember me, Nezuko-chan..!? Me..!?"
Holy shit he realized how pathetic pointing at his own face for attention had to look like.
Nezuko-chan was probably thinking a stalker had just jumped her out of an alley.
Tanjiro was not involved at all, his mind had wandered far off to space following that invisible fly, but even so Zenitsu was quickly getting the feeling he was third-wheeling.
Nezuko was only caught a little unprepared as she looked up but Zenitsu was sweating bullets just seeing his needy reflection inside Nezuko's round garnet eyes.
Being noticed and wondered about by human Nezuko-chan was actually much more stressful than what he had accounted for.
"Please tell me you remember my name, Nezuko-chan..!"
Stressing her memory was stressing Nezuko's brows.
"...Tanjiro's..."
"...?"
"..."
"...?"
"...Friend?"
The overly anxious image Zenitsu had for himself smilingly scattered in the wind.
"THAT'S A HORRIBLE WAY TO BE REMEMBERED~!"
Bitter waterworks were turned on in Zenitsu.
"You're so cruel Nezuko-chan!"
"...Fuh!..."
The blonde gasped while his nose was still running.
"..Nezuko-chan is...giggling..?"
The way her slightly bent wrist had come to hide her lips was so shy and ladylike at the same time, all too different from the absorbed and catatonic Nezuko-chan Zenitsu was used to.
Nezuko smiled up without doubt in her eyes.
"It would be too rude of me not to remember you, Zenitsu-kun!"
He gaped at that cheerful tilt of her head.
"OHHHHHHHHH~!"
A blast of excitement launched him to the moon.
Not only she remembered him,
"SHE CALLED ME ZENITSU-KUUUUUUN!"
But of course! Why did he have any doubts to begin with?
Even if she was a demon back then Nezuko-chan obviously remembered the piggybacks he'd give her.
He had obviously grown so much on her that she felt comfortable enough calling him with his first name along with a very friendly honorific.
Zenitsu was hugging himself, swaying like a man in love.
"Oh! That's right!"
Tanjiro twitched like a dummy, something had jogged his memory.
"Nezuko! There's two more people I want you to meet!"
"~W-Wait Tanjiro!" Her heart skipped a beat.
He didn't even warn her about catching her hand.
"Jeez..!" Nezuko was up on her feet and already trying hard not to be upset at him.
Her brother was apparently still thinking she'd wander and get lost if he wasn't holding her hand at all times.
"That's when I was a demon, dummy!"
Nezuko had shut her eyes in embarrassment, barely parting her lashes only to cast a peek between their held hands.
It was embarrassing now...
"..."
...But she didn't dislike the feeling.
As a matter of fact she was gazing at their laced hands absorbed in a melancholic recollection.
"..We were always close, but Tanjiro had never needed to hold my hand like that before I turned into a demon.."
It was strange, but admittedly some good things had come out of this demon ordeal.
A fuzzy feeling numbed Nezuko as she smiled to herself.
"Guys this is human Nezuko!"
"—?" Nezuko's eyes blinked open when Tanjiro suddenly let go of her hand.
"Human Nezuko is awesome, right!?"
Tanjiro bent sideways to pull the curtains for the grand opening everyone had been waiting for.
[TA-DA~!]
Or well... Sort of.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Awkward.
"..Tanjiro just called a girl... awesome?..."
Zenitsu's blinded eye was twitching with madness and fury.
"TANJIRO YOU DUMMY~!"
Nezuko had taken a sudden dive on a roller-coaster realizing her brother was showing her like she was some amazing circus animal.
She didn't want to do this but she squeezed her eyes shut and balled a fist, Tanjiro was embarrassing her for real!
[knock]
"...?" Tanjiro felt a harmless bump behind his head.
"You're not even trying, Nezuko-chan."
Zenitsu's shoulders drooped with no hope.
It was so obvious she didn't have it in her to hurt even one of her brother's hair.
"Nezuko."
She lost a gasp, taken aback by the comforting face Tanjiro made out of the blue.
"Every person here is a dear friend, you don't need to feel embarrassed among our companions."
It was times like this Nezuko's enchanted red eyes remembered, how her brother was in fact deeply understanding, uncannily more mature than the person he let out to be.
"That said, without further ado!"
'Even if it was only at times', Nezuko recalled with a sorry smile.
"Presenting to you—"
Tanjiro looked like he was about to explode with the next introduction, Zenitsu didn't like it.
"The Great Hashibara Inosuke!"
Zenitsu already had a feeling he was going to be disturbed by Inosuke's lack of embarrassment, or reaction altogether.
The god-complex idiot was really seeing nothing wrong with Tanjiro's ridiculous glorification of his name, wasn't he?
"...Nezuko-chan?" On the other end, Zenitsu wondered why Nezuko seemed so flustered.
"Oh no!"
Nezuko was in a flap realizing her untidy presentation right before meeting the rest of the group.
"I'm wearing this gloomy black haori over my pink yukata, not to mention my hairpin is gone and now my hair is loose!... WUAH! WAIT!? Why are the ends of my hair still orange!?"
Tanjiro had told her to relax, but Nezuko couldn't help but smile and cry a bit hopelessly.
"..Why are the ends of my hair... still orange..?" Nezuko vainly repeated as waterfalls of comical tears cascaded her dash-shaped eyes.
It couldn't be helped, she had to make do with her demon looks for the time being.
Taking a deep breath Nezuko's strapped legwarmers turned at the direction of Tanjiro's extended arm.
"..."
"...!"
A pig-headed and topless muscular man holding swords was silently staring at her, his embalmed blue eyes looked scary.
"That's Inosuke-kun! I remember Tanjiro once saying he was raised by boars..!"
Nezuko was a bit stiff as she raised an uncertain gesture to communicate.
"N-Nice to meet you, Inosu—"
[snort] Inosuke's pig nostrils vented impatient steam.
"..." Nezuko's uncurling fingers curled back into a ball while her smile widened with regret.
Inosuke was just waiting for the human ceremonies to get wrapped up so he could hit the resume button with his fight.
"Nezuko."
"—!" The long-haired girl shot uptight when Tanjiro's hand cupped her shoulder from behind.
"I know we both had a rough start with this person, but.."
Tanjiro helped her turn a bit.
"..."
"..."
And Nezuko's garnet eyes slowly widened.
"..This is Kanao-chan, Nezuko."
Once gasping Nezuko forgot to breathe again, overwhelmed by the silent girl's mystic charm.
Laced white boots, a short pleated black skirt, the same demon-hunter uniform Tanjiro and Zenitsu-kun were wearing, though instead of a haori she carried a white cloak tying with a pink flower-like knot on her chest.
The fringes on her forehead were cropped perfectly straight, likely with a scissor, predisposing the eye for a disciplined and plain haircut, but on the right side of her head she kept a long ponytail wrapped on a pink and green butterfly-ornament, making one wonder if the delicate contrast was there to indicate a different side to her, because Kanao-chan did have a very nostalgic facet.
She was a girl that would always make others think she was looking back in her past, longing and yearning for bygone days because of her melancholic purple eyes and emptily smiling lips. The embodiment of a lonely snowflower, so well-mannered and tame...
"..." yet Nezuko could not forget how it was a deadly mistake to judge this flower by its cover.
The memories from her demon days were coming back to Nezuko.
Unlike Tanjiro who tried to understand the feelings of the demons he was fighting, in the end always hurting and regretting for the perishing blood on his sword.. Kanao-chan would not linger asking questions before slaying demons in cold-blood. It was exactly because of her lacking empathy in taking lives that Nezuko could not let this go on.
"This girl.. she is Tanjiro's..!" Nezuko knowingly frowned.
Not everyone seemed sure yet, but Nezuko knew.
.
.
A couple days back, when Tanjiro assumed Nezuko was tired and sleeping from the heavy toll of the remedy, the still demon-Nezuko was in fact peeping with wonder, snuggled like a worm under her blankets.
Despite their polar opposite personalities Tanjiro and Kanao-chan were good friends.
Good friends visited each other, and they hugged each other, because it was the normal thing for good friends to do.
...It was a normal thing to do, till Nezuko saw Kanao-chan's white boots stand on their tips.
.
.
As a toddler demon she didn't quite understand what they were doing.
"...Nezuko?"
Tanjiro had no recollection of his human sister frowning.
"...I'm sorry, Tanjiro..."
But now Nezuko felt her demon nails growing inside her fists.
If she had learnt anything from her days fighting as a demon alongside Tanjiro, it was to always have Tanjiro's back.
"...I can't let you date that person...!"
"..." Kanao finally raised her distant gaze, ironically enough, to be greeted by a demon's disapproving stare.
.
.
25/05/19
Reviews are welcome! TBC
