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Zenitsu could hear the heartbeats of the people. Soft beats, strong beats. Crying heartbeats of fear and weakness —like his own—, contrary to those of temerity and what he preferred to call dumbness, like Inosuke's. There were also terrible beats, dreadful vibrations that made him tremble more than usual, beats of whom he wanted to run away. Although he shouldn't. Although a part of him wanted to fight against them with brave beats. Beats that wouldn't arrive.
Sometimes misleading heartbeats, that he tended to ignore for the affection he wanted so much. Alarming beats that disappeared whenever in his eyes was reflected the beauty and in his nose the soft and sweet scent of a girl. Beats that due to his own dumbness, led him to his financial ruin. But there were familiar heartbeats, too. Harmonious and protective ones, proof of humanity in a body that became target of the demon slayers. Nezuko's heartbeats were beautiful and pretty.
And he really believed that he had fallen for those beats.
But even in that simplified variety, there was another kind of heartbeat. Beats that he personally wished to not be able to hear. Beats that made him desire for not so enhanced hearing. Beats that, when thinking about them, when remembering them, made his own change in a wrong way. Heartbeats so gentle, so kind, that made him feel like in the heaven, in a sea of clouds that gave him absolute calm. Peace. And that was all. Only his own beats, the ones of his own heart, in a slow rythm that made him feel good. Good about himself. It was like all the burden in his body disappeared. Completely. Replaced by a warmth which filled him with a happiness that he couldn't express.
It was a really strange feeling, that one caused by the other heart. Acceptance, without any pressure or rejection for changing. Something he had never felt before. Not in the same way.
But in his mind, Zenitsu felt he should hate himself for it. He didn't like that his heartbeat changed to the rhythm of the other boy's.
They weren't proper beats. They were frowned upon. They were another reason for him being despised. Another way of disappointing non-existent expectations in him. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. It wasn't supposed his beats were the ones changing due to the ones of him. And he didn't want to think about it. He really didn't want to think about those beats in that way.
It wasn't a matter of thinking or not, anyway. He didn't. It wasn't his mind the one that focused on them. No. He wished to ignore them, not getting caught in them. And yet, he pursued the owner of those beats after doing the same with his sister; he felt his blushed cheeks while doing it, he felt an inappropiate happiness, and he could hear the confusion in the other's heart.
It wasn't right.
He felt disgusted of himself.
The blade of his sword cut those horrible beats forever, silencing the spider demon. The moonlight shone in Zenitsu's shape, while falling exhausted over the hanging house. He couldn't move, nor feeling his body at all. He could barely see, so he started to think, to reflect about what he actually wanted to be. What he dreamed about sometimes, being part of an impossible world. Once again, his wishes seems to contradict the truth in the sounds of his chest.
His eyes were closing, but his will wouldn't give in. He would resist. He would use the breathing technique to slow down the poison. He would live another day, no matter what.
That will weakened for a moment, when for the first time, both heartbeat and thoughts coincided with the memory of that person and his inner melody. A simple idea that flashed across his mind, and yet, the last thing he thought before his eyes closed. Little tears of realization and disgust ran down his face. Because despite thinking of Nezuko, previously in the battle, as an important person he wished to protect, it wasn't her name the last thing appearing is his head. Her beats weren't the last ones he remembered at the doorstep of death.
"Gramps is gonna let you have it! And (he's) gonna yell at you, too..."
Zenitsu was a total failure. His heartbeat was a proof of that. Constant fear, hating himself, sorrowing for a dream that would never come true. Unable to reciprocate those beats, the ones he should love, with the same intensity. He was a trash destined to die sooner or later, even if he wasn't going to die that day. —He wasn't. He would survive.— He wondered how he will be looked by that person if discovered. It wouldn't be like the first time they met each other. No. He wondered how the sounds of the other's heart would change after discovering the truth. He wondered if that was the meaning of his pathetic existence: to destroy that sweet smile, to turn beats filled of kindness, empathy and affection into beats of disgust and repugnance.
At the edge of the death, a part of him wanted to believe that even then the other would be like an angel, with a rhythm of beats as kind as the first time they met. One more example of how unworthy was Zenitsu of him. In body and spirit. How could he burden him with those terrible feelings? It wasn't enough with demanding his protection when he should be the one fighting on his own?
He wanted to sink into a silence where he couldn't hear beats from anyone. He wanted to lose that ability, even if it was only in his presence.
"I can pick up a sound so gentle and kind from Tanjiro, it makes me want to cry. So kind, I don't think I've ever heard anything like it before."
He wanted to forget those thoughts. He didn't want to be rejected by him too. Something very likely. He didn't want to hear the disappointment in his heartbeat.
How could it be that those beats that made him feel a happiness until that moment unknown to him, were now the reason of his anxiety?
Sometimes Zenitsu dreamed. It was a dream that made him happy. Inside, he didn't fear to love. He didn't need to fear the heartbeat of the other person. No matter who was the owner of the heartbeat that made him happy and complete, a girl or a boy. There was no place for that part of his mind that refused to listen out of fear, and that constantly reproached him. Nothing to fear, nothing to hate himself.
Fallen in that dream, Zenitsu was sure of being in the sea of clouds. The one where he could hear only the synchronized heartbeat of Tanjiro and him.
But it was a dream, elusive and unreachable. And the only heartbeat he could hear, in a sea of exterior fear, was one he didn't want to.