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“Merry Christmas, Inosuke!” Tanjiro says, and Inosuke stops walking to turn around and look.
In Tanjiro’s hands is a present, wrapped in red and white striped paper, the corners neatly tucked, not a cinkle visible. It’s a small box, relatively short and somewhat long. Inosuke gets the sudden urge to take it from Tanjiro’s hands and mess it up, but all he can do is stare.
It’s late, the sky a dark and dusty blue. They had been walking in the park together, bundled in their coats, shoulders touching, as they strolled the paths. It was Tanjiro’s idea to come here. Inosuke doesn’t understand why it’s so important they do.
“What’s this for?” Inosuke’s hands are getting cold as he stands there. He refuses to so much as rub them together to salvage warmth.
Tanjiro looks at the box, and then back to Inosuke with a sunny smile. “A present. Because it’s Christmas.” He’s so patient, Inosuke doesn’t understand how he can have so much patience. Tanjiro says, “You can take it, you know,” when Inosuke does nothing but continue to stare.
“I know that.”
Inosuke takes the gift and doesn’t waste time tearing the paper off. Underneath the paper is just a plain white box, and so Inosuke tears into that as well.
The present Tanjiro has gifted him is a pair of gloves, made of soft brown leather and lined with some type of short, soft fur. Inosuke clenches his hand around the box. The tips of his fingers have gone stiff and pink, and now more than before he can feel the bite of the wind that whispers past them. It is not often he is left at a loss for words.
When Inosuke looks up, Tanjiro’s eyes are soft, and they sparkle with the reflection of the string lights that hang on the trees around them. Inosuke doesn’t understand how someone can look at him like that.
“Merry Christmas, Inosuke,” Tanjiro says again, quieter this time, more intimate.
He reaches out to take a glove from the box, with all the care that Inosuke lacked a moment ago. When Tanjiro takes the hand Inosuke is not crushing the box with, Inosuke feels warmth instantly spread from the point of contact. Through Tanjiro’s own woolen gloves, up Inosuke’s arm, right to the centre of it all, beating a frantic staccato in his chest. The feeling sits there, content, and Inosuke fidgets, because this is all too much. Tanjiro slides the glove on Inosuke’s hand, and even though it should be warmer now, after Tanjiro lets go, it’s not.
Inosuke thinks he may have been quiet for too long, because Tanjiro’s warm gaze has turned concerned. “I didn’t get you anything,” Inosuke says, in lieu of any thanks, because no form of thanks can convey what he’s really feeling.
The warmth is back, tenfold. “I already have my gift,” is all Tanjiro says.
Inosuke knows he isn’t the brightest, but he absolutely doesn’t know what that means. So he says, “I don’t know what that means.”
It wrings a laugh out of Tanjiro at least, which does something else in Inosuke’s chest.
“Here, put the other glove on, too.” Tanjiro takes the box and crumpled wrapping from Inosukes hand, ungloved and going a bit numb, and shoves it into his school bag.
When Tanjiro puts the glove on Inosuke’s hand, this time he doesn’t let go. Tanjiro holds it in front of him, looking at Inosuke’s palm, and then bends down to kiss the centre, feather light.
Inosuke’s loud sputtering and flailing does nothing to loosen Tanjiro’s grip on his hand, which seems to grow more firm. “You should take better care of your hands, Inosuke. They’re a part of you I admire very much.”
Tanjiro lets their hands drop to their sides, swinging slightly between them as they continue to walk. Inosuke has gone quiet, but the flush of his cheeks isn’t from just the cold anymore.
Even if it doesn’t convey all of what he’s feeling, Inosuke musters a quiet, “Thanks,” just to see that radiant warmth directed at him again.