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It started when he was a young boy. Inosuke was an orphan, and often moved between various foster homes. Always too rowdy. Always too loud. Never good enough, never willing to bend for the sake of adults. It never really mattered any way, he would always be carted off in the end never to see the people who tried to tame him ever again.
One day, his forehead got a terrible itch. He was playing around in the backyard of his latest guardian, chasing some geese that made the mistake of grazing on his temporary property. At first he thought one of them revenged pooped on him, but that wasn’t it. His fingers only scratched at skin at first. No matter how hard Inosuke scratched, it only got worse, and spread. Blood began to flow, followed by… petals?
Inosuke froze in a cold shock. Petals? Did he just bloom a flower on his head? He started to head inside. Regardless of how much he hated adults, they knew things. They didn’t always give him the answers he wanted, usually covering the truth, but by now he knew how to read the signs. His current temporary guardian, a flamboyant man with three wives, also had several flowers across his body.
“Hey, big perv!” Inosuke called out, finding Tengen in his garage lifting weights. He looked up, already used to the… brash nature of the boy. Inosuke stared at him and pointed to his forehead, where a pale centifolia flower had just finished blooming, surrounded by the blood of his itching.
Tengen whistled at that, impressed. “Wow kid, your soulmate is starting off early! Very flamboyant! Of course maybe you'll grow up like me with a few soul mates, you should look for people with that flower when you get older!” Inosuke stared at him hard, confused, and was about to yell at him for a proper answer when Tengen held up a hand. “Yeah, I know. It’s a bad spot. You know why people get flowers, right? They say that the scars on your soulmate's bodies bloom onto you, and I don’t know if every soul mate can actually get along well enough to marry. Sometimes they just become good friends. But all three of my soulmates were down for it and you see how happy we are together.”
Inosuke contemplated this for a moment, relaxing. Then he puffed up his chest. “My soulmate must be really strong to live after an injury like this! I'm gonna have to train so I can beat them, whoever it is!”
Tengen gave a booming laugh. “That’s the spirit! Come here, I'll teach you how to use some of my gear if you want!”
Not all of Inosuke's guardians were so kind. He had been moved again a few months after, Tengen's family planning to leave the country for a while. Inosuke didn't want to go with them, used to being left behind. This time he and his now former family wished each other the best, before Inosuke was shipped off through child services.
His current guardian was pretty terrible, no doubt about it. Inosuke was only 12 and had already weighed his chances of running away from this one. There is no skirting around the bush, this large man with blonde hair who claimed to be a religious leader beat his family. And Inosuke. Always in places where child services wouldn’t notice when they came to inspect how things were going.
One day, that familiar itch started to happen again. Inosuke had spent the last month in this hellhole scared of this new guardian, who would lock him in his room at night to keep him there. The damage this was doing to the young boy's mind made the itching feeling even scarier than it was the first time.
Now, Inosuke had learned the concept of abuse. His soulmate, right now, had received another large scar across the face. The terrified child watched his reflection of the broken CRT TV in his room, as the cherry blossoms started to bloom in what Inosuke envisioned as a long striping gash across his right cheek.
Tears formed in his eyes, believing that his soulmate must be scared for their life as well. But he didn’t sob. On that night, Inosuke decided to be strong not for competition. He was going to escape from this house, resolved to show the social workers all the bruises this new guardian gave him, and he was going to learn how to fight. He needed to become strong, at any cost, because even if he was scared too it mattered too much to him that he would be able to protect the person fated to him.
Inosuke did start to lead a tumultuous life ever since then. Well, it was definitely rocky before, but now he actively sought trouble. Picking fights in school, showing off in the gym, and throwing a punch at any one who made fun of his face. He looked like a damn bouquet now, but that was fine with him. His soulmate was a person who survived through bad situations, and he vowed to make sure that that person won't need to be afraid any more after they met.
He did get a few scars here and there. Nothing to rival his face, just a few signs of fights gone wrong They mostly riddled his arms and torso. By the time he was a junior in high school, his current (and probably final, as long as he stayed around long enough to age out of the system) foster family ran a pig farm. There were a few cows, and Inosuke enjoyed working with the large animals. They were all pretty stubborn, and sometimes he got yelled at for upsetting the bull, but he could handle the brute easily. It made him proud to know he could toss it off balance if it tried to threat display him, it meant he would be able to protect his soulmate.
What Inosuke wasn't prepared for, though, was his trip into town that day. There was a bakery he liked, he usually only went during school hours (yes he skipped, it wasn’t like he was ever going to college anyway) but today was a Saturday. It was busier than usual, but that didn’t bother him so much. What did bother him was the boy working at the counter.
Inosuke knew the Kamado bakery was family run. He did not know about the eldest son. Inosuke stared long and hard at him, his eyes blazing with a fierceness. There was a big scar on his forehead, and a line of cherry blossoms on his cheek. The boy noticed, and started to look uncomfortable. There were too many customers right now to make a scene though, so Inosuke made a face before taking up an entire booth to himself, continuing to watch the boy at work.
As if this day couldn’t have any more coincidences, the two last customers of that line took notice of the counter boy as well. The shorter one elbowed the tall, mohawk baring delinquent looking dude. Then the one with the mohawk turned to curse at the shorter, and Inosuke's eyes widened. No way. If the one with the forehead matched the centifolia, the one with the cheek matched the cherry blossoms.
Inosuke got up right there. “HEY!” He shouted, voice harsh and demanding. The three of them turned. Holy shit, the short one was absolutely *covered* in scars. His soulmate must look like a whole garden. “Mohawk! And Cake boy! I need to talk to you!”
Genya and Sanemi both glowered down at this short, ragged man with a face hidden by petals, yelling at them out of nowhere. Sanemi took a step forward, about to tell him to fuck off, when Genya grabbed his older brother's arm. “Don't worry, ‘Nemi, I think it's okay.” He then addressed Inosuke. “Can we pick up our order first? It's for a memorial buddy, I'm not in the mood.”
Tanjirou spoke up just then. “Shinazugawa-san, I think it might be worth our time to talk. I know you noticed it too.” Genya wanted to tell him no, but the look in Tanjirou's eyes made him falter. He had been coming to this bakery for years, and he knew what the flowers meant. He just didn’t want to get the Kamado's involved with him, no matter how much his brother teased him about it. Now here was someone who matched both of them, and he clearly had no such reservations.
Sanemi cursed under his breath. He hated the way that Tanjirou could wash a sense of trust over people, but he just gave Genya a hard pat on the back. “I'll see you at home. Don't be late, or throw all your ice cream to the pigs down the street.” Genya started in protest, but Sanemi already threw the money on the counter and took the order of cupcakes with him. Each one had initials on the top, for all of their siblings that they lost. One for their mother too. None for their father. It was all they could afford for a memorial, aside from the little shrine they kept in part of the house.
Tanjirou's shift was ending soon, when his sister Nezuko would take over the counter. She was a girl of few words, but she was more than capable of handling customers. There was a local blonde boy who really liked to be here when she worked, but after one uncomfortable advance she hit him hard enough in the face to leave a black eye. They had a matching scar and flower on their shoulders though, so Nezuko accepted him as long as he behaved. Tanjirou thought that was for the best any way, that she could hold her own. Her temper could be scary regardless. When she finally came to tag Tanjirou out, he joined the booth where the two other boys were glaring uncomfortably at each other.
Inosuke tsked at him, and started. “Finally, forehead. What's your name?”
Tanjirou frowned. This isn't how he wanted things to go. “My name is Kamado Tanjirou. And you? Me and Genya already know each other, but you're new around here right? It's not often we get people moving in, did you start working on a farm recently?”
The shorter boy frowned right back. “My name is Hashibira Inosuke, and no Monjirou-“ Tanjirou flinched at the name butchering- “I didn't come here just for work. I ran away from my last home and they stuck me here, but I kind of like it. Lots of cows to chase and the pigs are much nicer than people have ever been.”
Genya huffed at this. “Yeah, my big bro already ran the background check when we noticed you. Home to home. And then you come here trying to make a first impression like this? The fuck is wrong with you?” He saw Tanjirou flinch at his raised voice, and realize he was leaning over the table to tower over Inosuke. He sat back down slowly, understanding creeping across his face. He wasn’t exactly making a good first impression either.
Inosuke only grumbled to himself for a moment, before raising his voice to match what Genya just threw at him. “It's not my fault that I spent my life looking like a springtime tree because of you two! I was scared. And because of that I'm gonna show you both that I can protect you and theres nothing you can do about it!”
Tanjirou spoke up now, “Wait guys! Don't you think we should, you know, try to get along? And what's this about protecting? Inosuke you're not making-“
“Too late, Tanjirou.” Genya cut him off, already dragging Inosuke outside. Tanjirou gasped and followed them, already starting to fight each other and its been a whole 10 minutes since he sat down. He wondered what went on while he was finishing his shift, it must have been really ugly. He knew that Genya had a temper but he never liked to actually get involved with violence, ever since he started being mentored by the buddhist who moved up the hill.
“What the fuck do you know about it?” Genya yelled, trapped in a tussle with the wild new kid. “You think you can come around here and try to make everything better? Just because we happened to meet?? You don’t know what it was like!” Inosuke kept on dodging Genya's harsher blows, his own getting blocked by the taller's strong arms.
At this moment, Inosuke's mind was swarming with confusion. He came here and made his promise to protect these two, and this is how he was treated? No, he wasn't going to have it. “I don't know anything other than I'm here now!” His vision started to swim. Great, now he was crying, he had to get this over with fast.
Tanjirou intervened just then, getting in between the two wild forces. The two people filled with rage and suffering, who only fed off each other’s pain. He crashed their heads together and wound back, bringing his own head forward with a loud crack.
Double K.O.
When Inosuke regained consciousness, he was inside a house. Not his house, but that didn’t upset him too much. He was used to waking up in strange places after all. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was to be under blankets on a couch with Tanjirou in a chair next to him. On the floor was an air mattress holding Genya's huge body, also tucked in. Still unconscious, though.
Tanjirou noticed him waking. “Wow already? I'm glad you're okay! I'm sorry about that but you two were just so much. I thought it would be better if we had a nice chat over some hot chocolate.” Inosuke sighed, and mumbled in agreement. He had some reevaluating to do, about his entire life. His soulmates weren't weak at all, though maybe Genpo could work on his slow attempts at grapples.
They waited for Genya to wake up, and got to know each other a little bit. Tanjirou was kind, but firm, and now that he was paying attention Inosuke noticed that his smiles were infectious. He liked that. Apparently his forehead was the result of shielding one of his younger siblings from a tipping pot of boiling water.
Genya was another story. He got up, and seemed… very sad. When asked, he hesitated for a long time to tell the two about the scar that gave them their cherry blossoms. When he finally explained, Tanjirou's demeanor matched Genya's sadness. When he was a kid, his mother grew very ill. Their father had died before that, and it was more of a blessing with the way he treated Genya and all his siblings. Siblings who were killed when a pack of wolves descended from the nearby woods during a harsh winter and found them like sitting ducks. Its how Sanemi got the bulk of his scars as well.
That’s why Genya and Sanemi moved into town, unable to afford a more urban location but no way in hell would they stay that close to the woods. Genya still felt pains of panic if dogs barked at night. Inosuke didn't know what to say to that. It wasn’t at all what he was expecting. In fact, it was much worse. Animals had only ever been kind to him, at least once he established dominance.
Inosuke explained his misunderstanding. He refused to feel foolish about it, that he had been fighting for the sake of people who he never met. That he had experienced abuse, and feared the worst. That he had sincerely expected to be able to come here and make everything better. He felt tears pooling in his eyes, and Tanjirou pulled them both in for a hug. Maybe now they could get to know each other properly, Inosuke wouldn't need to fight any more. Though, any dog who scared Genya was gonna get yelled at even if Tanjirou refused to let him chase the mutts.