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Even Pillars had to take time off, although Sanemi wasn’t fond of it. He spent most of his free time training or, well, hunting down demons. The only time he took proper time off was when he was seriously injured, but that didn’t happen as much these days. Unless he faced one of the Twelve Moon demons, he found them severely lacking. If one managed to land a blow on him, it was usually because he was facing multiple demons at once.
At least that was fun. As much as he loathed demons with every fiber of his being and wanted to kill them all, it was always disappointing when they ended up dying quickly. The demons might’ve thought that the night belonged to them, but the moon lit his hunting ground. They were just unwanted intruders.
Boredom was not something he handled well, but not even he could fight all the time. Well, he tried, but it never worked out. Out of all the Pillars, he figured that he got into the most bouts. He might not have been the strongest, but he was the deadliest. He didn’t give a shit if anyone thought differently. Mitsuri always commented when they crossed paths and he bore a new scar, proving his point, although he knew that her near-flawless skin wasn’t due to a lack of fighting.
If a demon managed to land a blow on her with all that twisting and jumping she did, they had to be dangerous as hell. The way she was able to dodge attacks was ridiculous. The human body should not have been able to bend like that. It shouldn’t have been able to do a lot of things that they did as Pillars, but it was normal for them. That was life while hunting demons.
But life while not hunting demons? That was a little...weird.
How he managed to find himself spending time with the Love Pillar out of all his compatriots was beyond him. This was his sector, so what the hell was she doing here? However, when Mitsuri showed up on his doorstep complaining about hunger (and damn, did that girl eat), he couldn’t exactly turn her away. Even if he was trying to spend a day or two in solitude before his restlessness got the best of him, he’d feel guilty after the fact. Had it been anyone else, he might’ve grabbed his sword and proclaimed that he had to do a patrol.
But not Mitsuri, never her. He could turn down Kocho’s fake innocent smile, Tokito’s blank gaze, Rengoku’s blind optimism, and whatever else the others threw at him. Mitsuri, on the other hand, blew in like the wind herself. She was just so damn nice. Being mean to her was like being mean to some little woodland creature. It was weird and wrong. She genuinely cared about everyone and even adored what most people would’ve considered negative traits, which meant that his cold and abrasive behavior only made her smile.
“Ah, thank you, Shinazugawa!” Mitsuri exclaimed as she set aside her sixth bowl of ramen. Honestly, how did she manage to eat that much and maintain such a figure? Not that he paid attention to that. There wasn’t time for anything like that when there were demons to hunt, people to save, a monster who turned humans into demons to kill. “I was so hungry after that battle!”
“Right on the outskirts of my sector, huh?” Sanemi muttered irritably, taking a swing of wine. He very rarely drank – Pillars didn’t have time to be incapacitated and he didn’t like the feeling of not being in complete control of his body and mind – but Mitsuri had shoved the bottle into his hand, having apparently been given three as a thank you.
Hopefully, it’d take the edge off his frustration over not doing shit. It wasn’t like him to miss things like that, but just out of his reach, it was possible. He couldn’t be everywhere at once and, as Ubuyashiki told him, even he needed a moment to breathe once in a while. His fellow Pillars could handle business while he rested after a hard-fought battle or in between hunting and patrolling his sector.
Mitsuri grabbed a piece of ohagi and happily munched on it. “No worries! I took care of it. No one was killed. It’s always so lovely when that happens. We can’t always be so lucky.”
No, they couldn’t. Every person he lost carved deeper into his heart. Most of the time, they weren’t even alerted to a demon’s presence until after they started killing in a specific area, which was why Sanemi often went out of his way to hunt in between missions. He didn’t need to wait for orders in order to hunt demons down. He just needed them dead.
“Did you make these yourself?” Mitsuri asked as she ate her second piece of ohagi.
Sanemi stared at the food. “Ah, yeah.”
“I didn’t know you could cook!”
“Yeah, it’s nothing.” Sanemi stuffed an entire piece of ohagi in his mouth to stop himself from talking. He wasn’t really embarrassed by the fact that he could cook, but he also felt weird talking about himself. The other Pillars hadn’t even been aware that he had a little brother until Genya showed up after surviving the Final Selection. Man, had that been annoying as piss. He wasn’t fond of Iguro knowing shit about him.
Mitsuri stretched out her legs and held out a hand. He looked at it for a moment before he realized what she was asking for and then handed over the bottle. Their fingers brushed against each other’s, something that he steadfastly ignored while she blushed. It didn’t mean anything. Mitsuri blushed about everything. She loved people and she loved the idea of being in love, falling in love, all that junk.
He hoped for the best for her, but that wasn’t for him.
To be honest, he didn’t know if it was for her, seeing as how she’d joined the Demon Slayer Corps in hopes of finding a strong husband. He knew most people wouldn’t understand (and he didn’t either most days), but Mitsuri was absurdly strong. Men these days would consider her strength a slight against them and force her to hide that side of herself. It was stupid. Besides the fact that it made her eat a fuck ton of food, her incredible strength was one of the best things about her.
She deserved someone that was not only her equal but also treated her as one. It was a nice dream, one that he might’ve had years ago before he found out that demons were real. Someone as kind and loving as her really did deserve that happiness. The fact that she could still hope for it was a testament to her strength. He’d long since shoved that aside to make room for more rage.
“This stuff is so sweet!” Mitsuri giggled and took another sip. “Those people were so nice.”
He’d received a few offerings here and there after defeating a demon, but he rarely took them up on the gifts. He didn’t need shit from them. It was his job to kill demons. It was what he liked to do. He knew it was a sick, tasteless sort of pleasure, but every strike against them felt good. That was a gift in itself. But he’d be a fool to think he was looked upon as fondly as Mitsuri by the people she protected and saved. She was the gift.
“Careful,” Sanemi growled when she sloshed the bottle and nearly spilled some wine on the floor. He snatched it from her, and she blinked innocently, almost making him feel bad. Almost. “When’s the last time you had a drink?”
“Um…” Mitsuri tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Iguro’s birthday?”
Of course she hung out with him. She was friendly with everyone. However, she and Iguro were close, weren’t they? Sanemi respected his fellow Pillars (well, most of them – Tomioka didn’t count), but he wasn’t friends with them. He didn’t have the time or desire to be all buddy-buddy with them. Chances were none of them were going to be around in the next few years. Pillars didn’t have long lives. Those that did manage to retire were far and few in between.
Sanemi never planned on retiring.
Scowling, he pointed a finger at her. “You’re gonna get drunk if you don’t monitor yourself.”
Mitsuri pouted. “No I won’t!”
“You don’t have a tolerance for this shit,” Sanemi scolded. Her pout only grew, her lips pursing in a way that would’ve made anyone else lean forward to kiss her. Everyone always talked about how cute she was, even demons sometimes. They always liked to eat to prettiest girls and, out of all the Pillars, she was certainly the most attractive.
It was gross. He hated it when he heard them say shit like that. It made him want to kill them even more.
Sanemi took another swig of the wine and frowned when he realized it was basically empty. They must have killed it while eating and her talking without him realizing it. Huh. It didn’t feel like they’d drank the entire bottle. Maybe they could crack open another one since this stuff was so weak or maybe it didn’t affect them as much because of how much they’d trained their bodies.
“Aw, do you not drink much either?” Mitsuri asked.
Scowling, Sanemi set the empty bottle aside and reached for the other beside her. “No. I don’t have time for that shit. No sense in getting piss drunk when we might need to fight any second.”
“Mm, I can tell,” Mitsuri giggled.
Sanemi furrowed his brow. She was a sweet girl, but she was not prone to teasing behavior. That was more Koucho’s style, and it was never pleasant to be on the receiving end of her sharp smile and even sharper tongue. But now Mitsuri was teasing him. “What do you mean?”
Mitsuri clapped her hands together, the smile on her face so big that it bunched up her flushed cheeks. “Your cheeks are pink! Except for your scars, so they stand out even more.” She tilted her head and giggled again. “They look so cute.”
“Cute,” Sanemi repeated, staring at her. “Cute?” She nodded gleefully, and he shook his head. “No, they’re not– They’re not fucking cute. They’re–” They were scars. No one in their right fucking mind thought scars were cute. He’d never considered them a bad thing, except maybe a mark against his skills before he received proper swordsmanship training. He didn’t think they were ugly and wasn’t ashamed of them – but they weren’t cute. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk!” Mitsuri gasped. “You’re drunk!”
“You just called my scars ‘cute’!” Sanemi could feel his cheeks warming, but he refused to believe that he was blushing. He was simply...breathing improperly. Blood was rushing to his face because of a breathing technique. Those could make a person even hotter than normal. He bit down on the cork and pulled it out with his teeth, spitting it out to the side. “You’re obviously drunk.”
Mitsuri reached for the bottle, leaning on her hands and knees, but he held it out of her reach. Sitting back down on her knees, she said, “I’ve always thought your scars were attractive,” and the wind was sucked right out of his lungs. What…? What was she saying? No, no, this was just Mitsuri. She thought everyone and everything was cute, even Tokioma’s lone wolf depression act. It didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t let it mean anything or he was likely to do or say something stupid. “I just...never said it out loud.”
“Why not?” Sanemi blurted, brusque as ever.
“I guess I wasn’t brave enough.”
Sanemi gawked at her. Not brave enough? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Mitsuri was a Pillar, for fuck’s sake. One didn’t become a Pillar without being brave as hell and one of the toughest bastards alive, even someone has sweet and adorable as her. Naive as she came off and loving as she was, he had seen her fight multiple demons that would’ve made other people literally shit the pot. Demons always underestimated her (and to be honest, he had as well when he first met her), but she was not to be taken lightly under any circumstances.
“Are you shitting me?” Sanemi demanded.
“No!” Mitsuri buried her blushing face in her hands. “Now I really am embarrassed! I can’t believe I said that out loud. I never say stuff like that out loud!”
“What...other stuff do you not say out loud?” Sanemi asked before realizing what he was saying. As soon as it hit him, he clamped his mouth shut (Why did he ask that? Why did he want to know?), but the damage was done.
Mitsuri pulled her hands away from her face. “Eh?”
“Never mind! It doesn’t matter! You’re brave, so stop acting like a wimp!” Sanemi took a swing of the wine, but he miscalculated. It was far too much and went the wrong way down his throat, leaving him to cough and sputter like an idiot.
“Ah, Shinazugawa!” Mitsuri exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m–” He cut himself off with another cough, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. “I’m fucking–” Another goddamn cough, and he set the bottle aside. When would it stop? “Fine–”
Mitsuri grabbed a napkin and leaned forward again. “Here, let me–”
“I’m fine!”
“You spilled some on you–”
“I can–”
Everything happened in a flash, as per usual since they were Pillars. They didn’t half-ass things. No, no, instead, with Mitsuri fighting to help him because she felt guilty for some unknown reason and Sanemi trying to fend her off while hacking up a lung, they ended up in a predicament. Precisely, he grabbed her wrist as she was trying to wipe him off and jerked on her to get her to stop. However, she was leaning forward precariously, which meant she yelped and tumbled into him, her natural strength knocking him onto his back.
It was a mistake. Everything about this was a mistake – from letting Mitsuri into his home, to giving her food, to agreeing to drink this godforsaken wine, to opening his goddamn mouth. But the biggest mistake of all was underestimating how stupid they could both be. They were Pillars, so shit like this didn’t happen often, but sometimes he forgot that they were just humans too and they could very easily do something embarrassing.
Sanemi didn’t get embarrassed often – he didn’t see the point in it when he so rarely cared about what other people thought of him – so when it did happen, he really didn’t know how to handle himself.
And he really didn’t know how to handle the fact that Mitsuri was laying on top of him, her chest pressed against his, and her face just inches away, her eyes wide and bright, her hair hanging over her face and brushing against him. A solid weight, a comforting weight, a really soft, nice…
“Shinazugawa?” Mitsuri prompted right before Sanemi could touch her hair.
Sanemi blinked and then, with all the delicacy of a rock, threw Mitsuri off him.
She landed on the ground with an “oof” while he bolted upright and jumped to his feet. The only issue was that he didn’t know what he was doing. He hadn’t the faintest plan on where to go next. His first instinct was to grab the nearest wooden sword, go to his training yard, and beat every dummy senseless, but he knew that was irrational. He hadn’t drunk nearly enough to act like a complete lunatic. Mitsuri was sitting up, a confused pout at her lips, and rubbing her side, but she wasn’t complaining, which made things even worse.
“We should train!” Sanemi declared. Yes, good, that was...somewhat rational. At least he thought it was, anything that could get his mind off of whatever the hell had just happened. “All this sitting around is just a waste of time. It’s pathetic! We’re Pillars. We should use this to our advantage. No one else can fight on our level, so c’mon, let’s fight!”
“Huh?” Mitsuri pulled herself up and rubbed her ass, which she’d landed on when he threw her. “But we just ate and drank…”
“All the more reason why we should,” Sanemi insisted as he swept out of the room. She followed him without complaint, although he could sense her hesitation. She was fiddling with her hands, something he noticed that she often did. Soft as she was everywhere else, even with a few scars, her hands were that of a swordsman’s, tough and calloused. “We often have to fight when we’re injured and blood loss can make things even worse for us. There’s a chance that one day we’ll have to keep fighting when we should be incapacitated. The alcohol can mimic that effect!”
“I suppose so…” Her cheeks were naturally pink like she was always blushing (perhaps from whatever thought she had that she didn’t say out loud and he definitely didn’t want to know about), but they seemed even more flushed than normal, probably because of the wine. Fighting one another might not have been the best idea, but he couldn’t think of anything else. It was also the one thing he always fell back on.
When in doubt, fight. It hadn’t let him down so far. He was still alive, after all.
“Here.” Sanemi tossed her a wooden sword, which she caught with ease despite the wine. “I know it’s not your usual sword style, but…”
Mitsuri beamed. “I don’t mind!”
Sanemi pointed a wooden sword at her. “You should get used to multiple weapons anyways!”
“Of course!”
“And–” Honestly, he didn’t know why he was yelling at her at this point when all she was doing was agreeing with him and smiling. It really put him out and threw him off. How the hell was he supposed to keep up that steady stream of ferocity when faced with something so agreeable and sweet? He wanted to groan but fought the urge. This entire night was a mistake. “Don’t hold back.”
“Are you sure?” Mitsuri asked, tilting her head. “We did drink. We could hurt one another.”
“So hurt me then if you can. Give it all you got.” Sanemi smirked and got into a familiar stance, one that allowed him the speed that helped him become the Wind Pillar. “You said my scars were attractive, so why not try giving me another one? No human has ever done that.”
“Oh.” Mitsuri blushed deeply and tightened her grip on the sword. “Oh, okay!”
This was most definitely a mistake, but the second their wooden swords clashed and he found himself inches away from her face again, he didn’t mind. It was one he could live with among the thousands of other mistakes he regretted.