Chapter Text
Douma sat in his car, covered by the dark glass of his windows and the equally obscure lenses of his sunglasses.
He pursed his lips, thinking.
In front of him, Moonlab research gleamed in the morning sun, tucked away between trees and unkempt foliage. The structure overwhelmed all nature around it, he had also decided to remove all vines and crusts that had taken residence on the walls before they started their work.
It was all for nothing if the girl wasn’t there.
Incapable of postponing the opening, Douma played with the cellphone in his hand.
There was no way he could take definitive actions without calling him. Douma wasn’t hesitating out of uncertainty, but rather a dull sense of fear that had taken residence inside his bones from the first time he had seen him.
Douma wasn’t afraid of anything, nothing made him skip and run to the other direction, but he requested reverence with the mere movement of his eyes.
He pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear.
“Yes?” a deep, calm voice answered on the other side.
“Muzan-sama, so good to hear your lovely voice!” Douma said, playing around with his praises.
“Get to the point,” Muzan said, clearly put off by his subordinate’s games.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” Douma chewed on his lower lip, trying to find the least upsetting way to deliver his news. “I’m afraid we have a problem, and I don’t seem to be able to get to the bottom of it.”
A sigh. “Why doesn’t it surprise me?”
Douma let out a daring chuckle. “The girl has escaped.”
“What?” Glass shattered, breaking against the tile floor.
Douma could picture pens and awards falling to the ground, reduced into a million of little pieces. He grimaced.
“If I had anyone else I could use to substitute your useless ass, I’d take you off the case right this instant,” Muzan hissed. “Find that girl. She could have gone anywhere, get to the police right this second and find her.”
Blinking, Douma nodded before he realized that his boss couldn’t see him. “Yes, of course. Right away.”
“Get to her,” Muzan warned him. “Or I might just have to come down there myself.”
The line fell. Douma sighed, he threw the phone on the other seat and prepared to bulshit his way through the opening, waiting for the moment when he could spare a few seconds to get to the police station.
⭒⭑⭒
Shinobu took her lab coat and put it on with one well practiced movement. Looking at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t stop the smile that grew on her face when she examined her figure.
It had been years since she had finished her studies, struggling with taking care of her sister, working at a dead end job for Sabito’s grandfather to pay off her loan for the tuition. She knew the help from people around her had been a fundamental part of her life, one that she was deeply grateful for, but it was nice to know that the other half of the merit came from her own resilience.
She took a deep breath, raised her hands and worked to comb her hair backwards.
A small face showed up in the mirror, then the small body of Kanao clad in her signature school uniform. She was grasping her backpack’s shoulder pads with both hands.
“I’m heading out,” she said, in her usual quiet tone. There was a small butterfly pin on the dresser next to her, Kanao handed it to her sister silently. “Here.”
“Thanks, Sweetie.” Done with her hair, Shinobu turned around to give Kanao a kiss on her forehead and a pat on the head. “I’ll see you after my shift, food’s in the fridge.”
Kanao was still wearing that faraway look, her shoulders were raised almost to her ears while she inspected her sister. Her lips pursed, she forced herself to nod.
Shinobu sighed. “You still don’t want me to go. I get it, but it’s a good opportunity for me.”
“I know,” Kanao said, shifting her eyes to an indefinite point above the other woman’s shoulders.
“It’s hard to find a good job that also has a good boss. I’d say it’s impossible, really,” Shinobu concluded, sensing what the problem was in the argument. She straightened her back, which didn’t make her much taller than Kanao, and added, “You gotta compromise, you’ll understand when you get older.”
A squeeze to Kanao’s shoulders and they were both moving to the entrance, sliding their shoes on and leaving the house.
Kanao reflected on her sister’s words. She debated with herself whether to tell her about the bug, if she would ever believe the story. It was hard to keep things from Shinobu; they always talked about everything, she was, to many extent, her only female friend.
She bit her lip when they faced each other outside the house, waving goodbye as she walked to school and Shinobu disappeared behind the dark windows of her car.
There would be a good time to tell her, maybe soon, when she would have collected more proofs.
Walking to school with a newfound resolution, Kanao started to think about a plan to unmask Douma once and for all.
⭒⭑⭒
Drinks had been set, food was hidden behind the cushions, clothes had been arranged on the table next to their D&D game, where Tanjirou had been extra careful not to mess up their campaign.
Moving aside to observe his handiwork, he nodded to himself and picked up his backpack.
Nezuko was sleeping, curled up on the couch in the cozy jumpsuit and jumper Kanao had given her that saturday. Ever since, she had woke up once to wash herself again and then yawned her way back on the couch, where she had spent the majority of the weekend.
Tanjirou hadn’t seen her eat nor drink, but he didn’t want to push his luck and decided to leave some of the untouched snacks for her in case the slumber came to an end and she found herself hungry. He hoped she hadn’t been restraining herself because she didn't want to take off her muzzle in front of him.
“Alright, I’m going.” Over the past few days, he had taken to talking to her even when she wasn’t actively listening. It was therapeutic, somehow.
There was still the issue of having to tell Giyuu, somewhere along the line they would have to work on a plan to give Nezuko a permanent house. Tanjirou had stayed up late at night, wondering if they could put her up for adoption, trying to think about what the bureaucracy for that would be like.
He was frustrated at himself for being too young to handle things on his own, but there was still a possibility they hadn’t considered and he wanted to talk about it to his friends.
“Giyuu should be home early today, so be careful. If he comes down, shrink yourself and hide inside the laundry basket.” He sighed. “I truly hope you can hear me, Nezuko.”
He patted her head, looked at the time on his wrist clock and ran out the door when he realized it was only ten minutes until the bell rang.
⭒⭑⭒
Driving to the laboratory was exhausting for someone who was used to walking everywhere.
Shinobu rarely drove, and if she did it was strictly for big groceries runs and long travels out town, which only happened once or twice a years when they went on holiday during the summer.
For that exact reason, Shinobu had decided to get on the road a bit too early, so she decided to stop at Sabito’s shop to buy something to eat. The nerves had stopped her from having breakfast, but since she was sure that she was going to arrive on time anxiety had gone away and left behind an empty stomach.
She walked inside, the small bell on the door rang and Sabito immediately turned to her.
He was arranging supplies on the shelves, hands full of canned goods. There were several unopened boxes next to the door, Shinobu could see the amount of work he would have to do during the day and she frowned.
“Hi, you okay there?”
“Yeah,” he tried. Although his tone was confident, his body betrayed him when a bottle of oil fell out of his grasp and almost shattered on the floor. Sabito cursed under his breath. “Could you get that, please?”
Shinobu reluctantly helped him, putting the bottle on the right shelf. “You should call someone to help you. I’m sure Giyuu would be happy to assist.”
Sabito blushed. “Stop that.” He quickly fixed the last items in his arms and rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been doing this for years, you think I don’t know how to put stuff in places?”
“You weren’t doing it alone, though. Not until recently.”
A frown worked its way on Sabito’s face. He cleaned his throat. Ever the master of emotional avoidance, he took a new box and opened it in a matter of seconds to busy himself.
The loss of his grandfather had signed him in ways no one of them had been ready to acknowledge. Urokodaki had been a pillar of the town, helping Sabito and his friends in all ways he could until the illness that had taken his lungs forced him to rest on his bed for days on end.
More difficult than the loss, his slow deterioration had put all three of them out of their depths. They had been so used to seeing the old man up and about, changing diapers, fixing bikes and holding them up when they needed a hand.
“We all miss him, you know.”
Shinobu would never forget that when she and Giyuu had been rejected by most of their neighborhoods, Urokodaki had showed up on Giyuu’s doorstep with free diapers and a warm smile.
His presence had always been fundamental for the kids, even Zenitsu had suffered his passing.
“I know,” Sabito nodded. He laid the tuna can on its shelf with a sense of reverence. “It’s been months, I should be able to talk about this stuff.”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Kanao has never told me anything, either. We’re all different when it comes to grief.”
She hadn’t planned on a therapy session when she walked inside the shop, but it was hard to see her friend clearly in need of help. For the first time ever, she was physically unable to give him comfort and it pained her immensely to see that he wasn’t willing to take it from someone else when offered.
“Speaking of,” he said, turning to face her fully. “I swear I am not changing the subject but the kids came around yesterday and… don’t they look, preoccupied to you?”
“Preoccupied?” Shinobu mocked him. “Did you eat a vocabulary yesterday?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, they’re acting weird.”
Everyone knew what he meant. Giyuu had expressed her similar concerns the day after the blackout, talking about how spooked Tanjirou had been. There was also Kanao, the way she worried about Shinobu’s new job was unusual and a bit distressful.
“Yes. You’re right, but I really don’t know what to do about it.”
There was a brand of chocolate candy bars she liked peeking from one of the boxes at her feet, she took it and opened it without waiting for a sign of approval. While she chewed on the sweet, her mind returned to the discussion she had with her sister before going out for work.
“I wish Makomo were still here, she was better than me at helping with these things.”
Shinobu snorted. “You’re doing fine,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Perhaps you could go to Giyuu’s house later, talk to Tanjirou a bit. He is the one who likes you most, you know,” she informed him.
“What about Kanao and the others?” Sabito pouted. “I thought they liked me, too.”
Shinobu raised a finger and started listing. “Zenitsu uses you for free treats, Inosuke thinks you’re too good at Taekwondo and it pisses him off. Kanao likes you, but only when Giyuu is not around you because she thinks you get annoying.” The light-aired way she said it made things progressively worse. “She’s right.”
“Really?”
“Their words, not mine. Tanjirou actually thinks you’re cool for some reason that goes beyond my comprehension.” She finished eating the last bit of her snack and gave Sabito the wrap, still sticky with melted chocolate.
“Gross,” he commented before he threw it in the garbage can.
“I have to go now, think about what I said.”
“The part about my dead father-figure, the one about the ridiculous man I have a crush on, or the tibid on how the kids I’ve known since birth apparenty all hate me?” Sabito said, exasperated.
Shinobu pretended to think about it, then said, “All of it. I do give extremely good advice. You’d know if you’d ever follow one.” She skipped to the entrance door, her lab coat flowing behind her like a gown. “Bye, Sabito-chan!”
“Stop calling me that!” he yelled behind her.
“Okay, Sabito-chan!” Shinobu’s voice echoed from the other side of the door.
She got in her car and disappeared a few seconds later, he could see her from the large window on the right side of the building.
Sabito snickered. It was hard for him to understand Shinobu’s ability to carry an emotionally exhausting conversation before she jumped back into teasing them until she had the last word. He had found her behaviour annoying at first, but after knowing her all his life it was hard to imagine living in a world without her cheerful mockeries.
He inspected a ketchup tub the way one would look at a sacred tome, thinking about all the things they had said before he settled on a course of action with a convinced noise from deep within his throat.
⭒⭑⭒
The sky was clear, despite it being the middle of winter, which meant that the kids could enjoy a little bit of time outside the school before they reached class.
Tanjirou had arrived at a decent time for once, catching his friends in the middle of small talks.
“Good Morning, everyone!” he said upon greeting, smiling brightly. After the stress of the past couple of hours, it was nice to see some familiar faces with whom he could share Nezuko’s existence.
“Hi, Tanjirou. How’s Nezuko-chan?” Kanao asked, fixing her backpack suspenders on her shoulders.
The others turned their head in his direction, as well, clearly curious. Tanjirou marveled at the speed they all got to care about the girl, in one way or the other.
“She’s good,” he answered. “Sleeping. She seems to do that a lot.”
“Probably didn’t get much shut eye in Douma’s chamber of torture,” Zenitsu observed, only half joking.
A sudden wave of sadness hit Tanjirou at the thought of Nezuko alone in a cell, whimpering after who knew what strange experimentation. Granted, they didn’t have hard proof about what happened inside the laboratory, but he believed her, utterly and completely; Sabito always said he was too kind for his own good, that he needed to grow a pair and stop being so gullible, but it was different with Nezuko.
He just wished he knew how to explain it.
“Yeah, probably,” he remarked.
“Speaking of which, Shinobu has started her work at Moonlab today,” Kanao informed them. “I’ll try to get some information out of her.”
“You make it sound like you’re getting ready for an interrogation,” Zenitsu noticed, a bit worried, as he took a step away from her and closer to Tanjirou.
Kanao shrugged.
There was something weird about the whole exchange: Inosuke hadn’t said a single work, not even a remark about Douma when he was brought up. It bugged Tanjirou the wrong way, so he took a step forward and asked, “Inosuke, how did things go with your mom?”
The boy looked up from his sneakers, blinking himself into reality. He shared a look with Kanao, but didn’t elaborate further on what was going on inside his head. “We didn’t really talk. She has been busy.”
“Work?” Tanjirou pressed.
“I guess.” Inosuke shrugged.
Kanao put a hand on his shoulder, reassuringly. “Whatever happens, we’re here for you.”
A second of silent support passed over them before the bell rang, signaling that they were supposed to start moving.
While they walked to the main gate, Tanjirou asked, “You’re all coming over after school, right?”
The gang nodded, although Zenitsu had to add, “I’m coming, but I’ll probably miss a few days of school this week. Grandpa isn’t feeling well.”
They all knew about the man’s fragile health, it came to no surprise that Zenitsu would put himself on the line to be there for him: he was his only caretaker, since both the boy’s parents had died thirteen years before.
Zenitus didn’t remember much of them, he had been raised by his grandfather and that filled him with joy because he had been showered by enough love and affection to suffice the loss. Even though the man could be a little rough at times, everything he’s done was was all for his grandson’s good.
Sometimes, Tanjirou and Zenitus joked about the fact that great tragedies on both parts had, somehow, brought them all together.
“Did you tell the teachers yet?” Kanao wondered.
“I’ll tell them today, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“We can take turns bringing you homework,” Tanjirou observed.
“Yeah, and if there is anything else you need just tell us and we’ll get it from the store before we come to you,” Kanao nodded.
“Thanks,” Zenitsu said, sincerely. “It means a lot.”
They walked silently the rest of the way, a shared understanding between them that they were going to put themselves into situations that were far greater than any single one of them could ever imagine.
Somehow, though, they all believed that it was possible to overcome them, if they stuck together.
⭒⭑⭒
A card swiped in a pad, the light on it turned green and the doors opened to reveal a long white hallway where people run back and forth, seemingly busy with complex things Shinobu wasn’t going to be updated about.
She swallowed, moving with slow steps through the running interns who didn’t even show her the latest bit of compassion.
Douma was waiting for her, his back straight and his hands folded in front of him. It was hard to see him in his white lab coat, it hid all the colors that designed him and were surely twirling around in the fabric of his clothes.
“Good to see you, Shinobu-kun. You’re late,” he said, tilting his head to the side. It was hard to notice any malice behind his words, but a lesser woman would have blushed at the idea of being reprimanded on her first day.
Shinobu was not going to give him the satisfaction of see her quiver. “I am ten minutes early, actually. The only way I can be any earlier is if I start sleeping here.”
He was not going to discover that she had woken up hours too early, it was way too revealing. She needed to maintain her façade.
Many people wouldn't have dared to speak to their boss the way she had, but Shinobu had gone through too much to let herself be cornered by a stranger who was simply too confident in himself.
If it mean that she was going to be fired on her first day, it would have been worth it.
To her surprise, Douma hummed. “Follow me,” he said, before he began his march to an unknown location.
It was hard for her to put up with his large steps, but she managed. People she didn’t recognize passed her by and it made her uncomfortable. Her entire life, Shinobu had always been surrounded by familiar faces, being thrown into an environment so strange made the change real, like her new job was a figure looming over her, dark and threatening.
“Where are we going?”
“To your office.”
Douma took a left turn at the end of another hallway, virtually identical to the others. He opened a door that led to a large room where people with masks and protective glasses worked on invisible, biological matter.
“Don’t worry about them, it’s not dangerous,” Douma told her when Shinobu covered her mouth with one hand on instinct. He was about to touch her wrist with a finger to direct her but the girl moved on her own.
“Sure,” she replied, unconvinced. “Let’s say that.”
They reached a post in one corner, vials and samples organized on the side that faced the wall. The surname “Kocho” was engraved in a small label on the pristine white table.
The first thing she did was to put on the protective gear and a pair of latex gloves.
“This is your post. You will be briefed about the specifics by a superior that’s going to supervise you and your results. Do try not to mess up,” Douma said with a smile. He bowed his head and left without saying anything else.
Shinobu stood, motionless, looking around herself to try and understand who was the supposed superior who was going to talk to her.
A few minutes passed before a lady with bright pink hair in an enormous bun fond her, she smiled apologetically and tried not to ruin the little dots under her eyes that she had drawn with makeup. “Hello, I’m here to teach you about our work here. You must be Kocho-san.”
She was out of breath and Shinobu could see the impressive line of her cleavage. She blushed.
“Yes.”
The girl offered her hand. “I’m Misturi, it’s nice to meet you. Ready to work on some bio-modifiers?”
There were so many possible meanings behind the word, she had been confused during the interview and didn’t try to get a further explenation from Douma, content to have a job for which she wasn’t overqualified for once in her life.
“Alright.” She shook Mitsuri’s hand. “Show me what we’re working with.”
⭒⭑⭒
Midday was always a dead few hours, everyone was either at home cooking or at school, which meant that Sabito’s grocery shop was empty most of the times.
He usually went for a walk around the block to clear his head, or he’d take the opportunity to catch up on some reading he postponed when he was free. It was easier for him to fill the time with inane tasks since most of the heavy work was relegated to the end of the day or the very beginning.
That day, Sabito felt like the phone was looking at him. He supposed it had much to do with Shinobu’s noisy questions, her ability to nag at his most hidden concerns and waltz away as if nothing had happened.
Sabito huffed, knowing that he was about to give in his impulses even before he really started to move.
Picking up the receiver, he composed the number he had learned by heart and never dared to compose.
A familiar voice reached him through the registered massage of her answering machine, asking him to please leave a message so she could respond when she’d come home.
Sabito debated with himself whether to hang up or actually speak. He spent a whole second thinking about his actions before he let his mouth run, he’d have liked to believe that Giyuu and Shinobu would have been proud of him.
“Hi, Makomo. It’s me, Sabito. It’s been a while since we talked and I know you’re really busy, so I won’t take too much of your time.” He paused, breathed in and finished, “I wanted to know if you’re okay, catch up, if you want. Just… call me at the shop tomorrow around this time, if you’re free, I guess.”
The picture he had left next the register stared at him: his own smiling face, years younger and much chubbier, Makomo hanging from their grandfather’s arms as he made her swing around back and forth.
“Uhm. Yeah, so, that was it. Bye.”
Closing the call, Sabito huffed in frustration and passed a hand over his face to wash away the melancholia.
Breathing in the shop, he felt the years gather on his back and slouched forward, letting it weight down on him.
⭒⭑⭒
Tanjirou was walking briskly to his classroom, trying to be on time to the next class for a change.
For all that he tried, there always seemed to be something stopping him from arriving places on time. It happened with his friends, with his assignments and, obviously, with his classes.
Teachers were good on him because he was hardworking and trustworthy but it wasn’t like he wanted to test their patience.
He hoped he would reach the house before Giyuu returned from his shift that afternoon, according to him he had managed to get out of a few hours of work thanks to all the unpaid overtime. His boss had simply decided that it would have been easier for him to give Giyuu a few short days instead of paying him what he was due.
It cut back on their budget, but it helped their relationship. Or it would have, in any other occasion.
While Tanjirou recited schedules, analyzed times and contemplated further actions, he didn’t notice the hand that grabbed him until he was hidden from view and thrown against a bathroom wall.
The contrast between cold tiles on his back and the burning sensation behind his head was almost unbearable.
It all happened so quickly that he barely had time to take his opponent’s arm in his and yank backwards. Despite his knee-jerk reaction, the movement hadn’t been strong enough and he found his scream muffled by a large hand.
Familiar eyes stared back in his, the tension in Tanjirou’s back eased and the hand on his mouth disappeared.
“Inosuke, what are you doing?” he breathed, trying to compose himself by clearing his throat.
“Stupid Kantaro, don’t scream! I need to tell you something.”
“And you thought this would be the right way to do it?”
The room was empty, no one was about to come inside because the next period had just started a few seconds before: all the boys had already washed their hands and walked to class. Except for Inosuke, who had been apparently waiting for Tanjirou to spook him out of his skin.
Inosuke closed the door to the bathroom with a kick, his hand was still clutching Tanjirou’s lapel. His brows were furrowed, his shoulder hunched over his friend’s figure.
“You okay?” he asked, which felt foreign because Tanjirou felt he was the one who needed to ask the question.
“Sure, why?” He realised his heart was beating too loudly for it to be normal, his face must have also been burning red considering how hot he felt. “Ah,” he said, after he noticed. “I suppose I got scared more than you thought I’d be.”
“Uh.” Inosuke hummed. “Whatever, listen to me,” he said. “Rainbow eyes put bugs in my room.”
“He what?” Tanjirou screamed.
“Man! Shush!” Inosuke urged him.
It was almost comical how the interaction conflicted with their usual dynamic.
“He threatened Kanao and then he bugged my room. I can’t even take them off.”
“That’s why you were acting strange outside.” It wasn’t a question, as much as an observation.
“Duh. Kanao knows but she doesn’t want me to tell anyone, so I’m telling you,” Inosuke explained.
Tanjirou chuckled.” She told you not to tell anyone and the first thing you do is to kidnap me to tell me everything?” he pointed out.
The other boy looked put out, crossing his brows when he said, “You’re not everyone.”
The admission somehow stirred something in Tanjirou’s chest that he didn’t have time to elaborate on and tried to gulp down with a mouthful of saliva. “What did you want to do about it?”
Suddenly, Inosuke’s eyes started to sparkle and a weird, cocky, smile worked its way to his face. “We need to act on him, Stupid.”
“Act on him?” Tanjirou repeated, confused by his friend’s choice of words. When he got the actual meaning, he gasped. “You mean boycott the lab or something? That’s illegal! We could go to jail!”
Inosuke got impossibly closer, inspecting Tanjirou’s face with a serious tilt to his lips. “What would you have me do then, if I can’t fight him?”
“Ah,” Tanjirou said, uselessly. The other boy was too close, he had to push his head further back against the wall to avoid brushing their noses together. “I guess we could gather some evidence and then… show Giyuu? Or Sabito-san,” he stuttered.
He had pictured a different way to expose them his plan, but clarity had briefly abandoned his brain.
Inosuke considered it, blinked, took a step back and nodded. “It will take a while but the four of us should be enough. I’ll lead the search, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Tanjirou noted fondly.
His friend’s sudden bursts of self confidence were always followed by some boisterous exclamation, which would see next to no follow up when they started to actually gather together; Inosuke had learned how to work in a team years before, when Tanjirou used to sit on him until he stopped with his tantrums and Kanao hit him on the head with strong sticks to make him shut up.
Despite his new-found affinity for being part of a team, though, Inosuke still had to shake off the attitude.
“We’d better get to class, it’s late already,” Tanjirou said, gesturing to the door.
They both got scolded when they reached class, the teacher said something about it always being the two of them to be out after the break, but they were let off with a warning.
Tanjirou sighed in relief.
⭒⭑⭒
Giyuu was the only one who didn’t do much actual work outside of bringing coffee and talking on the phone with worried elderly he usually spent a large part of his morning at the front desk, sulking.
It was starting to wear on him, the concept of not doing much actual police work. Sometimes, he believed that it would be easier to move to another city so he could exploit his academy training. When he found himself looking at apartment bookings in his bed, alone at night, he stopped himself short as soon as his thoughts derailed to his friends and the life they would be leaving behind.
In the end, he was never strong enough to picture himself without the family they had created for themselves.
Giyuu looked up from his desk when a sound from the front door interrupted his quiet working, as aimless and boring as it has been up to that moment, only to see a man dressed in fine rainbow prints and washed up jeans walk in front of him.
It was unusual for them to receive visitors, most of the times they dealt with lost cats and children who walked a bit too far from their parents’ reach, even then his co-workers usually took to the field, leaving Giyuu on his own behind the desk.
Shinobu liked to joke that he was working as a glorified secretary, most of the times his pride didn’t allow him to agree with her but he knew his friend was right.
“Is there something I can help you with, Sir?” Giyuu asked, polite but carefully distant.
The man blinked, moving his long wavy hair until they were carefully poised behind his shoulder. “I’m here to file a missing person report,” he said, his voice smooth and calm even as his eyes betrayed a tad of panic.
Giyuu’s eyes widened of their own accord before he could bring himself to keep his composure. He thought it was just another case of someone who had greatly overestimated his child’s wanderings and filed his surprise in a neat box for later.
Nonetheless, he was having a hard time placing the man somewhere in town, which was the weirdest thing in the scenario: they didn’t get visitors, nor tourists, so he concluded that the had to be a scientist from the lab.
His leg started to bounce on its own against the table, making it wobble slightly to the rhythm of his anxiety.
“My daughter has been missing since Friday night. ” the man said, stoic.
“Your…?” Giyuu asked, clearly put out. If Tanjirou would have gone missing for more than a few hours, he would have called the whole army to bring him back, while that man had waited three whole days before going to the police.
It was weird, and it made Giyuu question his intentions even further.
The man took a chair from the far left wall and brought it to the desk so he could sit down.
“May I ask who you are, Sir? Not to be rude, but we don’t usually see new faces around here,” Giyuu asked, looking for the forms he'd need to start on a description of the missing kid.
“I work for Moonlab, we just moved in for the duration of the research. We won’t be staying long,” the man said, looking around the room with his hands behind his back.
Giyuu’s movements halted when he heard the name of the laboratory, but he kept looking for the documents after a split second of hesitation, hoping no one had noticed it and choosing instead to focus on the way he had stressed his intention to leave their little town soon.
“Do you have any pictures of her we can use?” he asked, derailing the subject completely.
“I’m afraid not.”
Giyuu nodded in understanding, even if he was fighting a losing battle against the part of his gut that told him having no picture of one’s missing kid was not a sign of good parenting and that man was giving him one red flag after the other. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to call an artist to give us a depiction of the girl.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“It must be hard to be separated from your kid,” he nagged, spying from under his bangs any reactions that may confirm or deny his suspicions. “Surely, you must have looked everywhere for her.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” the man said, nodding along. “My dear Nezuko would never leave on her own, I fear someone took her,” he added with a hand on his chest. Dramatic, almost bland in his fake concern. It lasted all but a second before he returned to his unreadable neutrality.
He made Giyuu’s skin crawl.
“Nezuko,” he repeated, with a hint of sadness. “Lovely name.” Taking a pen from his right, Giyuu gestured for the man to fill out the form he had laid in front of him. “If you would be so kind as to complete this file, I’ll call a sketch artist right now so I can start looking for her.”
The man tilted his head. “Do you have kids? Officer…”
“Tomioka, and yes. I have a son,” Giyuu answered. He took his time by crossing his legs and putting himself back together, busying his hands and mind with the phone so he could call someone to make the drawing for him. HE hoped the call on the phone would stop him from giving into the unusual need to run away from the other man.
They didn’t have a real sketch artist, or at least not one that would allow Giyuu to work on the case alone like he wanted, so there was only one other option to keep the affair low and make sure he was not leaving a little girl’s life in the hands of one of his less capable co-workers.
“He must be really young, isn’t it a marvel to see how fast they grow?” the other kept on making small talk, compiling the file. His voice didn’t speak of any emotion, not a hint of sympathy, it was like hearing a machine from one of those sci-fi movies Inosuke liked to make them watch.
Giyuu didn’t want to give away information on Tanjirou, so he settled for a neutral, “Yes, it is.”
Fortunately, the person on the other side of the call answered immediately after, allowing him to stop the chat and get on with business.
“Hello, I’m officer Tomioka, calling from the police station.” A pause. “I’m in need of assistance on a portrait, a missing child.”
The man raised his head ever so slightly, listening to the conversation. Giyuu noticed, but didn’t comment, deciding instead to angle himself so that the phone was as far away as possible from the other.
“Yes, it's urgent.” He ended the conversation soon after, cutting his interlocutor short. “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Giyuu explained, raising a corner of his mouth to look less worried than he was.
“Right,” the man said, going back to his paper.
True to his words, just a few seconds after the stranger put down his pen, a disheveled Sabito ran inside the station, slamming the glass door against the wall so forcefully that it almost broke under the strength of his thrust.
Giyuu forced himself not to flinch, but barely managed.
“You said,” he panted, getting his breath under control. “You said there is a missing kid?”
“Yes,” Giyuu said, gesturing to the man in front of him. “We need a sketch to look for her, think you can do that?”
His friend had always been incredibly good at drawing, when they were in high school Sabito often got paid for his portraits and renderings by his classmates, it worked as a way to put some money aside so he could buy Giyuu and Maokomo ice cream and treat them to a movie every now and then. He had abandoned his hobby after his sister had moved out, too busy with helping around the shop to sit down and draw like he used to, but Giyuu never forgot the little drawings Sabito would make of him when he pretended to follow lessons during the day.
“Sure,” he agreed, even though he hadn’t picked up a pencil in almost two years. “I can do that.”
Giyuu gave him a clean sheet and a pencil that didn’t look like it had walked out of a shredder, got up and left his seat for Sabito to take with an encouraging smile that edged on giddy.
The realization that he would have seen Sabito draw after all that time hit him like a train and suddenly, he was trying to force down his excitement and remember that there was still a girl who needed actual help.
Gushing over his ridiculous crush would have had to wait.
In a matter of fifteen minutes, they found themselves in front a drawing that, according to the man, looked fairly close to his daughter and could work to identify her.
Giyuu looked at the finished product with a frown between his brows that deepened every second. The girl, for all intents and purposes, had something that called to him, a feeling of familiarity he didn't want to place but was unavoidably similar to the fond heat he'd feel in his stomach whenever Tanjirou smiled at him.
“You okay?” Sabito asked, picking up on his friend’s discomfort.
“Oh, yes,” Giyuu lied, taking the file the strange man had filled to get a look at his generic information, since he had failed to introduce himself all throughout their meeting.
“Douma-san, is it?” he asked, reading through unfocused eyes; when he didn't receive an answer, he took the silence as confirmation. “I’ll call you as soon as we make progress with the inquiry. I need to tell you that since more than seventy-two hours have passed since the disappearance, it will be harder to locate the girl.”
The subtle rebuke flew over Douma’s head, or he simply decided to ignore it. “I’m sure you will do a fine work, Tomioka-san,” he said, clapping his hands together once. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have work to attend to.”
He got up, offered his hands to both men and excused himself with a curt, “Thank you for your time, Gentlemen.” He turned around, walked out of the station and past the corner on the right without as much as a look behind his back.
“That was weird,” Sabito commented. “Care to tell me what that was about?”
Giyuu walked around the desk so he could put back the chair that Douma had moved, using the excuse to avoid Sabito’s knowing gaze. “What what was about?”
The sound of someone slamming their heads on the dark wooden desk accompanied the comment. “Oh, Jeez, I don’t know. One moment I’m stocking up ketchup bottles, the other I’m drawing the picture of a girl who looks like Tanjirou in a wig. Maybe you can see where I got lost,” Sabito said, laying on the table the anomaly that Giyuu had worked so hard to eliminate from his mind.
“Don’t talk so loudly,” Giyuu whispered. “They can't hear you, or they'd butt in.”
“Well, I demand an explanation,” Sabito said, stubborn as a mule as he planted his feet to the ground and got up.
Giyuu sighed, defeated, and gestured for Sabito to follow him outside so they could talk more privately.
Once they reached an ally a few meters away from the station, backs against a brick wall that had seen better days, shoulders brushing and noses cold from not having bothered to put on a coat, they let out a breath and started talking.
“Is Tanjirou okay?” Sabito asked immediately. “Do you know where he is?”
“School. They would have called me if he didn’t show,” Giyuu said, then stopped himself and gulped down on air. “Right?”
Sabito frowned, but nodded to reassure him. “Right.”
It was an unreasonable fear, they knew, but the resemblance was uncanny and they both had heard of stranger things. A crazy man that abducted children through the police was not as unbelievable as they would have liked it to be.
“So, any idea of what he wants? Or if the girl even exists?”
Giyuu shrugged. “I’m going to check and make sure he has legal rights over her, first thing when I go back in.”
“You’d better,” Sabito said. “That was one shady looking dude.”
"If she exist I can't allow him to take her, not if I'm not sure that he's good," Giyuu said, talking to himself as much as he was talking to Sabito.
"He didn't seem all there to me."
“I want to take the case,” Giyuu interjected. “I don’t want other to know about it.” He didn’t mention the part about his suspicions, the faint way Nezuko’s eyes brought him back to a burning lab fourteen years before, flames lighting up the dark sky and Tanjirou crying against his chest, masking his own silent tears as he dropped to his knees.
“Finally!” Sabito exclaimed, patting Giyuu on the back so hard that he almost fell over. “About time you’d stick it to those assholes.”
“I’m not sticking anything to anyone, but I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“Same thing,” Sabito decided. A shiver ran through his spine and he gritted his teeth against the cold.
"You still got it, by the way. The drawing, it's good," Giyuu said, shoving his shoulder against Sabito gently.
"Makomo is better than me," he punctuated, hiding a smile between numb fingers for a second. "I'd kill for a smoke right now," he sobbed, slouching against the bricks at his back.
"I'll kill you if you dare to touch that stuff again," Giyuu threatened, his voice far more demanding and stern than anyone had heard ever since Tanjirou had last ruined one of Kanao's dresses when they were toddlers.
"Bring that energy to work tomorrow, Tomioka," Sabito teased him, working through the surprise of hearing his friend so determined when it came to his well-being. “We should get back to it, though, it’s freezing out here,” he said after a beat, raising from the wall so he could start walking to the end of the ally.
Giyuu took a few seconds to compose himself, shaking off invisible dirt from his shoulders and straightening his uniform shirt. "Right, let's go."