Chapter 8 - life on the farm / Urokodaki's Hospitality / -assumptions-

Gray morning light filtered in through the heavy curtains of a small wood-paneled room when Tanjiro awoke, much calmer.

He blinked his eyes slowly. A mild headache pulsed in his ears, but that was nothing abnormal. Leaning over the side of the bed, he reached for his backpack, but it wasn't there.

Instead, there was cold green tea on the bedside table, along with a note.

"Knock on the door when you're feeling up to it.

-Urokodaki"

His lips were cracked and dry. Tanjiro was grateful for the tea.

Tanjiro laid back down for a while, waiting for the headache to go away. It eased with time, and the sun brightened beneath the curtains. He let the bright line pass over his cheek as he prepared himself for what might be a trying day.

-Feeling better?- the stern, dark voice asked calmly.

So he hadn't been "sealed," Tanjiro assumed. 'Much.'

-Good.-

'This isn't our inn room.'

-Just noticed?-

Tanjiro rolled out of bed and opened the window. Sunlight flooded into the room and the impulse to snap back against the voice's rude comment melted away with it. The still-warm sheets were soothing against his skin as he made his bed.

The voice in his ears wasn't.

-I was just as unconscious as you,- the voice groaned in annoyance as Tanjiro's eyes adjusted to the light.

'And I can assume you're telling me the truth because...'

-Because I never lie to you.-

'You lie to me all the time.'

-No, that's the other one. The one I'm trying to help you against.- Tanjiro's eyes flicked involuntarily over toward a plastic plant in the corner. -That vase is gray. Happy?-

'It's blue.'

-It's gray to me. That flower is yellow.-

'True. I think it's called a daffodil.'

-What's that supposed to mean?-

'Forgiveness, I think. Honesty too. Or a broken relationship.'

-You took that flower breathing stuff too seriously, I think. Sometimes a flower is just a flower.-

'And if you didn't constantly say things like that, I'd have trusted us around Kanao a lot longer, and maybe you could have learned.'

-Still touchy about that one.-

Tanjiro's cheeks burned, and he closed his eyes tightly. He sat back down on the bed.

The voice was silent.

In and out came Tanjiro's breath, and in moments he was meditating on top of the water instead of on a small bed in an unknown location.

The waves were unsteady today, and he couldn't sit still. His white clothes rustled as Tanjiro stood, somehow dry, and looked down at the mirror-like surface beneath his feet, and into the eyes of the waiting shape below.

They studied each other. His reflection looked just like him, except he wore dark clothing and stared back at him with crossed arms, a deep frown, and glowing eyes. Behind him, a long, fleshless tail spilled out beneath his dark shirt, split into two not far past the seam. Fire flickered and cascaded along his spine, down toward the ends of the tails in little glowing embers, always fading away before it reached the tips. The ghostly firelights rippled in tune with his heartbeat. A pilot light at the back of his neck glowed steady and warm, unlike his expression, which was stern and calculating.

'patience' leapt to Tanjiro's hands. Its core was made of tempered steel, and its bow shone in a scintillating metal rainbow of colors. Larger and heavier by far than his other keys, it held a dull, glowing stem between its shoulder and two smooth blades. Only one bit grew out of the far end of its precise warding, notched with stern, even shapes that tolerated no deviation in their unbroken plane.

The stem was glowing today. Bite marks that matched his reflection's spine ran along the burning hilt, and smaller marks too. The damage wasn't deep yet, but fire leaked out from a crack behind Tanjiro's thumb. Somehow, he remained unburned.

The key became a blade in his hand, bright green. He held it pointed down, always down, as though the blade were magnetic. To do so meant the same as saying 'no', no to violence, no hurting them with his words, no to whatever was being demanded of him, the strongest signal he could send.

'Whatever you want, I won't do it. I say no.'

'patience' meant denial and space, and sometimes he held it with 'silence' too.

He would repeat it as often as he had to, as long as it took.

Only the thinnest of veils separated him from the waiting shape beneath the water, a layer of silvered glass, which was transparent for many feet around them, where the heat that blossomed between them spread their shadow in a ring, like a dark porthole into that waiting world beneath the waves. Steam rose around them, blotting out the clouds and the sun until all they could see was each other.

'Apologize for Kanao,' Tanjiro told his dark reflection.

-Today again and every day, but you're the one who left her.-

Tanjiro winced but held firm. 'She was happier with him. And safer too.'

-And that way, you didn't have to tell her how you thought you were going to die.-

A grimace crossed both of their lips, and the emotion swirled between them. Tanjiro thought he saw three sakura petals float into view across the water, together. One grew misshapen with two tips where the petal was pointed, but for a while, the other two petals didn't seem to mind. Then the matched pair danced off together somewhere unknown, leaving the split petal floating between him and his reflection, alone.

-We could relive this story again,- His reflection closed his eyes and clenched his fists, then let go, -or we can focus here, now. I'm sorry. Are you happy?-

Tanjiro didn't respond.

-Look. I don't know where we are. I don't know how long we've been here, but I need to know what the last thing you remember is.-

'Why?'

-Tanjiro, just listen to me.-

'No.'

-Ff- - The waiting shape grit his teeth in frustration. Four sharp fangs locked them together and kept them from grinding. -Fine,- he breathed in slowly, trying to calm himself the way Tanjiro did, but he was unsteady and the air hissed through his lips as he pulled it in desperately. It took him some time to admit, -I don't think I remember everything.-

Tanjiro stood stiffly for a few moments and then tried to focus. 'I remember the docks. It felt like it did in college again. I thought we were over that.'

The dark shape frowned. -We aren't,- he insisted. -And you still aren't feeding me.-

'It doesn't bother me as much when I don't tempt myself.'

-I need my strength, Tanjiro. This diet we keep arguing about is killing me. I'm just asking for beef, or chicken, or fish. Just something we can build muscle with.-

'I don't believe you. That's not what those impulses seem to want.'

-You're clearly making assumptions,- the voice argued, trying to get Tanjiro to look at him. -Have we, even once, given in?-

'No,' Tanjiro grit his teeth, and 'patience' flared.

-Do you have any intent to go that way, at all?- the dark shape pointed down, deeper into the watery dark, where the color of his spines grew rusty, then red in the fading light.

'No,' Tanjiro insisted again, and he flicked 'patience' against the water, pointing at his reflection.

The dark shape flinched and pulled his hands back. One spine pulled forward defensively while the other remained relaxed and languid.

Tanjiro didn't apologize.

-Then you're holding me back,- he said slowly, -because of what you assume I'm going to do if I get the chance, when all I did was defend us.-

Tanjiro shook his head. 'We took a test. And we failed.'

So he didn't remember last night. Maybe he still didn't even realize it. Great. -And you think that was because of me,- the dark-clothed reflection growled in frustration.

'Wasn't it?' Tanjiro asked.

For a few moments, the shape didn't answer. He only took in air, in unison with Tanjiro's own open, betrayed breaths.

-No. Not entirely,- he told him truthfully. -I'm not completely in control of my own actions, T.-

'Apparently, neither am I.' Tanjiro sighed. 'And every time that happens, it's always you, thinking we're in some kind of danger.'

-Our life hasn't exactly been safe and uneventful.-

'Not for lack of trying.' Tanjiro sighed softly.

-Oh, you could have tried harder.- The dark shape laughed. -Or listened to advice and dropped the people making it dangerous like a stone.-

'I would have been worse off if I had, and so would they. I did what I had to.'

-You really believe that, don't you? Even after everything? We didn't have to do anything for them.-

Tanjiro's fingers touched 'silence', hanging by his hip. He said nothing but asked for it with his eyes.

The dark shape clutched his head. -After everything they've done? Those people we spent our life on? After everything they almost did to the people we love?-

Tanjiro shook his head. 'Assumptions, just like you said,' he reminded his reflection. 'Every time we found someone who needed it, we intervened. We handled them so well that nothing actually happened, so no one needs to hear about it. They made bad first impressions, maybe, but there was no lasting harm done. Let it rest.'

-You know that if you tell that to these people, they'll think all this sympathy you carry around means you're just more of the same. The same as their fears. The same as them.-

Tanjiro frowned and held 'patience' steady between them. 'We aren't.'

-What makes you so sure?-

Tanjiro didn't have an answer.

Instead of arguing, he stood and smoothed out his bed, then picked up the empty teacup and tried the door. It was locked, so he knocked.

After a few moments, footsteps approached and a key slid in.

"Good morning," said Urokodaki's smiling face, though he still wore his red bandana. "Feeling better?" he asked.

"Morning," Tanjiro said simply, smiling weakly as he skipped over the question. "Am I too late to help with breakfast?"

Mr. Urokodaki shook his head. "Just in time," he said gently.

Breakfast was a silent affair, like usual, but this time it was heavy with unspoken questions. Urokodaki didn't ask, and Tanjiro didn't bring up the docks. Still, the old man watched him carefully as he ate.

"You may have been exposed to something," Mr. Urokodaki said simply near the end of their meal, "but you aren't showing any of the typical signs this morning. You got off easy, I'd wager."

-Did we now?-

Tanjiro didn't like keeping details back from the man who'd treated him so kindly, but he couldn't think of how best to approach it.

-I haven't been fine for years, thanks for asking,- the dark voice suggested.

'But we seem to have it under control.'

-Mostly.-

Tanjiro just took another bite of breakfast and said nothing.

Urokodaki watched him. Finally, he stood and took his coat from a hanger next to the door. "There's work around the farm when you're up for it," he said simply, and left the redhead there.

"Mostly," Tanjiro said to himself as he stood to wash the dishes. The fire in the dark voice's word hissed across his tongue and went out before it met his lips as he changed the word's meaning. 'Mostly,' could mean an eagerness to get started rather than knowing he wasn't completely fine.

"I guess I'm fine enough, so I'm mostly up for anything, sir," Tanjiro breathed, talking to no one, trying to make it sound sincere.

-We're so fine even an expert can't tell,- the voice sulked.

"I just don't know how to tell someone about this, that's all," Tanjiro whispered out loud.

-So is that what we're going with when he eventually finds out?-

The water in the sink came on with a flick of his hand and suds multiplied at his fingertips.

Tanjiro didn't answer.

The sun was bright, and Tanjiro had to shield his eyes when he walked out onto the farm with his sleeves still rolled up and damp from the dishes.

Mr. Urokodaki was nowhere in sight, but he looked out over a lawn that sloped down to a river's edge where salt from the ocean mixed with fresh water and left white rings all along the stony beach. Giant standing rocks dotted the coastline where the river met the sea, and the whole place was hung with boardwalks and nets. Only feet past the shore, the water's color became a deep, languid green; an underwater forest of kelp.

Except where the boardwalks met the shore, the small, deep river was lined with short, tangled hedges, their branches drooping low with green berries. Tanjiro found a tool shed near the side of the house next to a long vegetable garden, its deep, dry furrows running parallel to the water. A hand pump was affixed at one end.

Tanjiro knew how to care for a vegetable garden, so he started there. His fingers teased out ripe tomatoes and long, curling beans under the morning sun. He placed them in a wicker basket the color of warm bread, and remembered home.

He smiled as he remembered his siblings chasing each other through the garden rows as their mother told them to be careful. Takeo's hands were always trailing after his, catching the almost-ripe tomatoes like little yellow treasures even as Tanjiro left them behind on the vine to ripen for another day. Rows and rows of carrots and onions were planted too close one year by Hanako's mistake, and they came up small and spindly but at least there were a thousand of them and every one was sweet. The fuzzy line of those carrots drank up the water like it was sunlight, but their riverside home wasn't short on either.

He spent a dozen summers like that with them, every one a treasured memory, but no more.

He remembered writing the loss of them for his character, 'Tanjiro,' when he was only fifteen. For their project, his writing club was asked what would make them pick up a sword and fight, and it was that for him. Their father's breaths were already coming in short, ragged coughs, and when everyone got sick that winter, they thought they'd lose him. Tanjiro imagined what life would be like without the stoic patriarch of their family, and it was grim, in this age or any other.

But it didn't have to be so bad if somehow Tanjiro stood up and did more, he thought. If there was just more time in a day, or he worked harder, or...

If he gave up his writing and gave his siblings every ounce of strength he had, he thought maybe then they could have what he couldn't.

So he poured all he had into his writing, into the years he had left as a child, believing that perhaps there would be time he could come back to what he loved later, once they could all take care of themselves.

One by one, his siblings grew up and went their separate ways, all of them. Even him. It was a relief, though it meant growing apart.

Life without their laughter was...

Tanjiro dried his eyes silently. Unlike his character, he could still call his family any time he needed to. Most of them, anyway. Life was far better than it could have been.

Life on his own was...

'Well,' he thought as he brought the produce in, 'This place doesn't seem so bad yet, so it's alright right now.'

Seeming to rest in the sunlight, the dark voice said nothing.

As he left the green veil of bean trellises, a small hand found his basket and pulled him along. A short young woman wearing a clover-patterned blouse told him, "Here, ripe vegetables go on the porch, new guy."

"Right," Tanjiro nodded. He'd been about to bring them in, thinking they were meant for dinner.

She smiled when he responded and began to follow her. "Maybe you're not completely hopeless," she said.

Tanjiro scratched the back of his head, "I'll try not to be."

She took him around the front of the house and showed him a fresh produce stand next to the lone car in the driveway. "Our best goes there, but the real work is on the river," she said before she brought him back to the shed and handed him a pair of work gloves and introduced herself.

"My name's Makomo, and if you can follow along," she waved a hand in front of his eyes and moved her arm to the left and right like she was testing him. Tanjiro watched her closely, and she seemed satisfied. "I'll teach you everything you need to know."

"Thank you," said Tanjiro.

She shook her head. "Don't thank me yet."

Most of what Tanjiro needed to know was posted on signs near the rocks. The day's chores wound around the place in a line that began at the front door. Tanjiro followed the trail of tasks marked complete for the day until he found a small group of workers watched over by a man with bright peach colored hair, nitpicking everything they did.

No one seemed to mind when Tanjiro pitched in, mimicking their movements.

"That's right, lazy! Just fall right in line and pick up the slack!" the peach-haired man guffawed in his direction.

"Sabito, it's his first day," said Makomo, "and he was unconscious when Urokodaki brought him in. Don't overwork him."

Tanjiro felt his cheeks flush bright red, but no one looked up to acknowledge Makomo or what she said, and he was thankful for that. He took the shears Makomo had offered him and joined the line in cutting kelp into strips sized for the drying tables nearby while Sabito honed in on his technique.

Flawless precision took time, and Sabito wanted it done both quickly and perfectly. Makomo wanted to give him time to learn. No one but Tanjiro looked up to watch them argue.

"Nice day, isn't it?" he asked one of the others, but they shrugged and moved to a different table, avoiding the conversation.

A bell chimed and the group of workers moved on, but Tanjiro stayed to finish what he'd started. Sabito inspected his work.

"Not bad, but you've still got a long way to go to keep up with the others," he said. "What's your name, new guy?"

"Tanjiro," the redhead replied.

Sabito seemed delighted, his grin lit up his face. "Finally," he whispered, then clapped Tanjiro on the shoulder, "A conversation!"

Tanjiro shrugged and asked, "Do people not normally talk to each other around here?"

Sabito shook his head. "Sometimes, it's like they can't even hear me, which makes you special, my new friend."

The redhead smiled nervously, and tried not to wonder exactly what that meant.

"Trail behind the group with me," Sabito asked him, and Tanjiro did.

They talked about nothing and everything, and Tanjiro felt a little like a kid again as Sabito pointed out every frog and loose branch along the way like it was personally out to get them, and Tanjiro deftly avoided them all. Sabito skipped as he walked backwards with a weightless quality that made Tanjiro feel like he must be teasing him somehow. Following behind them, Makomo joined in on their laughter with easy grace. Together they made Tanjiro's steps feel heavy and awkward by comparison, but at least their conversation kept him smiling.

His heels ground into the stone pathway as they approached the house again around lunch time, Sabito and Makomo raced ahead through the grass without a sound and into the crowd, where Tanjiro lost track of them.

"I was surprised to see you out there so soon," said Urokodaki, waving. "I thought you'd spend more of the morning around the house."

"I picked through the garden," said Tanjiro, but the basket of produce was nowhere to be seen.

Urokodaki nodded. "I saw that, thank you. We'll be using it today for lunch."

"I'm glad. Do you want me handling the garden?"

"It's alright if you do," said Urokodaki, "and it'll save me a chore."

Urokodaki stirred the soup and began ladling it out, but Tanjiro hesitated before joining the line. Everyone else shuffled through tiredly.

-They have hollow eyes,- warned the dark voice. -And we don't know why.-

Their faces seemed to brighten with small smiles of recognition as each of the workers took food from Urokodaki, but they all ate on their own at the tables, leaving space between them. No chatter filled the air. He missed seeing Sabito and Makomo, but didn't find them among the crowd.

Tanjiro joined in last, and he quietly asked Urokodaki, "Who are these people?"

The old man let out a tense breath and told him, "You could have been just like them if things had gone differently," Urokodaki paused. "This is what happens after, to the people I've been confronting at the port, sometimes, when they take the test at Kasane Mountain. So I let them stay here until they remember who they are. It isn't much, but it's what I've got to spare. I thought you'd be more of the same. I may have misjudged you," Urokodaki ladled out some soup. Boiled mussels and bread were available on the side, but the mussels were gone. Tanjiro was silently glad. Their lingering smell was faint, and he moved past the empty container easily.

He took a slice of bread. "You're not on the best of terms with the research company, then?" Tanjiro asked.

Urokodaki shook his head. "Far too many of the people I've had to send there were never seen again. I won't make the same mistake with you. If you really want to go, it won't be until you're ready." the old man said solemnly.

They sat down together silently, and Tanjiro didn't eat until Mr. Urokodaki urged him to. They didn't speak again until they finished cleaning up after the meal.

"You have a choice," Mr. Urokodaki told him. "You can go and take your chances, or you can stay and learn the basics before you do."

Tanjiro hesitated. Zenitsu might be disappointed, but maybe he just didn't have the 'talent' or whatever else he needed to take the easy road.

"There will be work for you no matter what you choose," the old man told him. "But here, you might learn how to make a difference for the ones without a choice."

So Tanjiro nodded. "I'll stay here and learn with you, sir."

"Good," said Urokodaki. "I hope you remember how to swim."

Tanjiro gulped and smiled nervously.

"I won't repeat myself, so pay attention," were the first words from Urokodaki's mouth.

They brought back vague memories of another teacher and another time, of swords and the way of the river, of flow and turbulence, and the way water and patience, applied correctly, could cut through all the stubbornness in the world with perseverance and time.

Sometimes he and Urokodaki meditated together on the rocks. Every day, they brought in materials and some of the harvest for the other workers, and kept things running smoothly.

"So he has you working on the muscle farm now," Sabito joked and mimed his movements from on top of a rock once Urokodaki was out of view.

Makomo slapped him on the ankle and he fell backward onto the grass, laughing.

Tanjiro laughed with them and shook his head.

Unhurt, the peach-haired boy laid there while Makomo picked clover and wove it together in chains. When he reached out to take her work from her, she dodged him and dropped a handful of clover on his face. Sabito sputtered. His laughter shrieked in surprise. Tanjiro could swear they were just like children.

-I don't know what to say,- said the dark voice lethargically.

So Tanjiro said nothing, and only smiled at them.

When Urokodaki returned, he smiled too.

Later that evening after everyone else had gone to bed, Urokodaki sat in the kitchen with his glasses and some paperwork.

Three files sat before him. Two, named Sabito and Makomo, were thick with old photographs. Several newer photographs were out, and they had a blurry, overexposed quality to them. Around the same time many years ago, in every photograph that featured them somewhere in the background, their faces became blurred. Their bodies were see-through.

"Promising," was printed near the top of their files, along with a list of other traits. Also, "Deceased."

"Tanjiro Kamado," Urokodaki wrote at the top of a new file, crisp and fresh from the printer. "Promising," he wrote nearby.

Near a box simply labeled "Sensitive," Urokodaki simply filled in "yes."