Aya has been braiding Nezuko's hair for thirty minutes now.
Well, Tanjirou wouldn't call it 'braiding' because everytime Aya leaves his sister's hair tied into a tidy perfect braid, she unmades it without a blink and starts again. And, frankly, he's starting to get worried. The fourth time he calls her, Aya finally hears him and lets Nezuko go, who admires her half made braid with a frown.
"Are you okay?" He asks. She's sitting very close to him, knees touching, and Tanjirou entertains the idea of holding her hand but ultimately drops it.
"Yeah," Aya swallows nervously and tries to laugh it off, but when Tanjirou's careful glare doesn't change she sighs and flops back against the wall. "I'm just worried."
"What about?"
She shrugs. "Yuu, I guess. You know... his parents got killed... It's strange." She suddenly sits again and Tanjirou jumps a little bit. "He lost everything, and now he thinks miss Tamayo killed his parents, how am I supposed to...?" She does a strange gesture with her hands and groans. "I'm just worried about how he's doing. Despite everything, he's still Yuu."
I still care about him, Tanjirou hears instead, and he smiles.
"I think he'll be fine," he says. "After all, it's Tamayo." His voice sounds a little bit strained. "She couldn't have."
Aya silently eyes Nezuko's hair and her hand twitches, as if thinking about starting her endless braiding again. "It's not Tamayo the one I'm worried about. They've been talking for a while now, it's so boring."
Tanjirou looks at the wall that separates them from the room Tamayo and Yuu went into and then looks at her.
"Can you really see that?" He tries not to, but ends up stifling a laugh. Aya tries not to laugh either but Tanjirou's muffled chuckles are contagious.
"I mean, it's a little bit weird," she tugs a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles a little. Tanjirou does too.
"It is a little bit weird," he says. "But I could smell you from a mile away, I guess I understand." He's lying, if it were Aya he would be able to smell her from much further away, but he doesn't say that.
"I've never asked," Aya suddenly turns to him and pokes his cheek. "How does it work? Your nose."
"Oh." Tanjirou tries to think about a proper answer while Aya looks at him with curious eyes. "I smell things more intensely than other people, for example," he points at what surely must be the kitchen. "I can smell the tea Yushiro's boiling," then he points at the window, where Aya curiously peeks to see a bright garden, "and the flowers outside."
"What kind are they?" She asks.
"Some chamomile," he ponders, focusing a little bit before answering. "Lavender too."
"That's so cool!" Aya chuckles like a little kid. "What do demons smell like?"
"Um," Tanjirou staggers. "Ashes."
"Whenever I look at demons they look like this strange... black void," Aya says, "It would make sense if they smelled like ash. Your sense of smell is so cool."
"Eh, it is a little bit troubling sometimes. Smells can be overwhelming." Tanjirou thinks about blood and how it's permanently latched at the back of his tongue no matter how many times he washes his teeth or drinks water, but prefers to go for something softer. "Zenitsu buys this expensive cologne he puts on all the time because he says girls will like him but it just smells so awful to me."
Aya laughs and gets just a little bit closer, stopping only a second to see if Tanjirou's expression sours before settling a hand on his knee. "And me? What about my smell?"
"Your smell?" He asks. Yes, her smell. The most comforting, familiar scent he's ever encountered. He could probably tell it apart from a hundred others if it came to it, track her down to the ends of earth like a dog would a treasured toy. But instead of saying all that, he says, "you smell nice."
Her smile is just a tad brighter, "doesn't it overwhelm you?" She squeezes on the place her hand is, his knee, all the while settling another hand on him, this time on his shoulder. All of a sudden Tanjirou feels very hot.
"It would never," he says in the tiniest, tiniest voice. Nezuko is right there, Tanjirou notices. Would she even notice if they were to kiss a little bit? Would her lack of a human consciousness make her see this as a game, maybe?
"I'm glad." Her smile is soft when she slightly leans in and stops, hair tickling his cheek, as she waits for Tanjirou to meet her halfway.
He's now realizing he's never kissed anyone before, at least not anyone he liked. His first kiss was stolen by a girl from the village down the mountain, daughter to the owners of a noodles restaurant that pecked his lips behind her parents' little stall (with the smell of steaming water on his nose, he couldn't stop smelling it for weeks).
But this is different, Tanjirou thinks, getting close too. He's not sharing intimacy with a girl he barely knows, this is Aya, and that, somehow, changes everything.
"What the hell are you guys doing?"
Yushiro stands in the room with a little tray that holds a newly brewed teapot Tanjirou should have smelled coming a while ago.
Aya jumps back like a cat that's been splashed with water, face very red, and tries to laugh it off.
"Nothing!" She involuntarily yelps, at which she coughs and then says, this time more quietly, "we were doing nothing, Tanjirou was just... smelling me."
He suddenly turns to her, as equally red, and sends a glare her way that says "really?" Now Yushiro's looking at him weird.
"Ooookay," he squints, settling the little tray on the table. "It's none of my business whatever you guys are into."
Aya chuckles nervously again, but doesn't say a word. Tanjirou has never felt so embarrassed in his life.
Nezuko claims back her spot on Aya's knees and he's glad when seeing that this time, Aya braids her hair and leaves it alone the first time.
Their afternoon continues without any complications and it's only a matter of time until Yuu and Tamayo come out of the room.
He looks a little bit shaken, probably how Tanjirou himself does after a nightmare. Actually, both him and Tamayo do, faintly smelling of nostalgia and what Tanjirou can tell is sadness.
"Ayaka," Tamayo calls.
Without another word Aya nods and follows her inside the room carrying Nezuko alongside her, and Tanjirou watches both of them disappear when the door closes.
"Dude," Yuu says when sitting next to him, hands shaking a little under the table. "You look so red, do you need me or Yushiro to check your temperature?"
Tanjirou only turns of a brighter red and Yushiro snorts. "Believe me, he does not."
Yuu makes a little confused sound, but doesn't push any further.
ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ
At first glance, Ayaka Iwamoto doesn't look like anything special.
Her black hair and brown eyes don't make her anything other than a regular Japanese girl, if not a little too pale.
"So?" Tamayo starts, taking a seat on the crimson armchair she ordered only a few months ago. "You wanted to talk."
"Yes," Ayaka says. She doesn't sit when Tamayo tells her to and prefers to remain standing. Nezuko on her arms distractedly plays with the strands of hair that frame her face. "So you're a demon."
Well, gotta give her points for not hitting around the bush, Tamayo thinks.
She examines her with a careful glance and speaks after a while, "I am a demon."
"Oh, cool," Ayaka nods. "So you've always had a consciousness?"
"Not at the start, but I guess that doesn't really matter." Tamayo raises an eyebrow. "I know you're not really interested in me."
"Yeah, sorry," she says, and somehow she does sound sorry.
"I don't mind," Tamayo mutters, she eyes Nezuko who Ayaka holds strongly, both legs hanging from her hip, like how Tamayo used to pick her children when she was human. "You want a cure, right, Ayaka?"
"Just call me Aya, please," she chirps.
"Right," Tamayo says slowly. "Okay, Aya, so you want a cure. Some family member? Some friend you couldn't help?"
"I never... said I wanted a cure," Aya raises an eyebrow and smiles a little. "I... don't have any demon relatives or friends either." She stares at Nezuko. "No offense."
"I don't think she can actually get offended," Tamayo points out. Aya just shrugs and Nezuko glances at both of them, as if catching her name in the air, but eventually drops it and goes back to playing with the ends of the braid she didn't have thirty minutes ago.
"Anyways," Aya starts again, "You're one of the few demons I've met so far, apart from Nezuko and the ones I've..." Her voice drops and Tamayo raises an eyebrow again.
"Killed?" She tries.
"Yeah, that." Aya nervously swallows. "You may think this is a little bit silly."
"No, not at all," Tamayo says, and she doesn't know if she's being sarcastic or not.
"I just..." Her eyes have been wandering around the room ever since she got here, which frankly hadn't helped the impression Tamayo was getting of her. "This is a little bit awkward."
"If you haven't peed yourself, I think I'll be fine." Aya holds her gaze for a minute and Tamayo shrugs. "I'm a doctor, I've seen lots of embarrassing things."
"Oh," Aya chuckles a little and looks her in the eye for the first time. "It's just that you look... like a very miserable person, miss Tamayo."
She has to stop for a minute before picking her voice up again. "I... what?"
"I mean, not just you." If she weren't holding Nezuko, Tamayo knows Aya would be fidgeting nervously right now as her gaze goes back to flying around the room. "All the demons I've encountered, all the demons I've killed, they all looked miserable."
"Do you think you can help them?" The moment the words get out of her mouth, Aya goes stiff.
"Um," she nods. "I think they just need... someone to help them. I think they can make up for their sins and go on the right path again."
Tamayo perks up at this, She's watched as dynasties build themselves and crumbled back to dust for centuries, lives wither away and disappear with the wind, but she's never seen this before.
Aya's eyes shine in the dark of the room without the need of sunlight as she smiles, pulling Nezuko closer to her chest in tenderness. "There is much pain in this world, it's overwhelming and unavoidable and ugly, crawling around the earth like maggots and spiders." Something hits Tamayo's chest when Aya looks up at her. "We cannot help but be hurt and hurt others, it's definitely inescapable and agonizing. But we have to learn and understand and to forget, or else we'll always be suffering."
"I was suffering," she continues, pressing her lips to Nezuko's forehead and talking against her scalp. "But I met someone who was always there for me, no matter what. And I think that's what they need, someone who'll stretch out a hand to help them. That's why I want your permission to mention the cure to other demons, to make them know there's a way out of their pain." Her eyes hold genuine desperation. "I want to be that someone for them, miss Tamayo."
She was wrong, Tamayo thinks, she may look ordinary or like someone that could easily be lost in the crowd. But her eyes, she notices, are out of this world.
And this is how she knows, she knows that Ayaka Iwamoto will save them all.