Work Text:
The evening was falling when Tanjirou, Zenitsu and Inosuke arrived at the Ryokan. Tanjirou’s crow had informed them that they would have to stay at the inn for a few days to watch over the surroundings. Demons had been seen prowling nearby and were scaring the townspeople a few meters away.
The owners of the place were an elderly couple, who welcomed them with pleasure and kindness, delighted to have them there. The old lady explained to them that inside all the rooms were compound of fusuma doors, collective thermal baths, gardens and sophisticated cuisine with typical dishes. They were offered a spacious room for the three of them, in which the well-kept tatami floor was appreciated, with a small table in the center of the room and freshly made tea placed on top. On one side was a tokonoma with a painting and a flower arrangement.
As Inosuke marveled at everything, Tanjirou and Zenitsu thanked the owners immensely and wished them good night.
They had to take turns to mount guard at night, each vigilance would be in the forest and in the village. They devised a game to choose the turns and the first place was taken by…
“ME? WHY ME???” Zenitsu shouted in a pitiful whine, leaving the cup of tea on the table. Tanjirou gave him an apologetic look. “THIS ISN’T FAIR. I’M GOING TO DIE. THAT’S WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, ISN’T IT? I’LL DIE FIRST AND YOU’LL NOT SEE ME AGAIN.”
Tanjirou hushed him.
“Do you want us to change and I go first, Zenitsu?” Tanjirou asked as he made a face, possibly concerned at the sight of Zenitsu panicking.
Inosuke, who had taken possession of the engawa to drink his tea there while gazing at the garden, rolled his eyes and murmured, You’re spoiling him too much, Gonpachiro.
Zenitsu narrowed his eyes when his words didn’t go unnoticed by his good hearing. He shifted his attention from Tanjirou to Inosuke’s back, glaring at him. It didn’t have the effect he believed it would have. What’s more, it had no effect, but at least he tried. Zenitsu snorted and looked back at Tanjirou, who was still struggling for the expression he should put on. He hadn’t heard Inosuke, apparently.
Tanjirou cradled the cup between his hands, kindly. “I don’t mind if you prefer—”
Zenitsu put a hand in front of his face to silence him. Tanjirou raised an eyebrow at that and Zenitsu put his hands to his hair with a groan, shaking it in frustration.
“No. Well, yes. No. Nonono.” Zenitsu spoke, shaking his head with thousands and thousands of fateful situations that could result that night. He wanted to ignore it all and hit his fists against the small table, looking at Tanjirou with a shaky determination. “I’ll go… I’ll go first.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Tanjirou asked again, this time in a tone far from being friendly and closer to being amusing. “Because if it’s too much for you we can always manage without—ouch!”
Zenitsu had hit him on the top of his head with the ulnar part of his hand, grinding his teeth in annoyance. He didn’t want Tanjirou to finish saying what he planned to say. What about his feelings? Didn’t his feelings matter???
Tanjirou rubbed his head and chuckled softly.
“Sorry, Zenitsu.” Then he smiled, but the kindness was still heard in the serious change in his voice. “Your sparrow will tell you when your guard duty will end. Inosuke goes after your turn, so don’t worry too much out there. But if you really need help and the situation gets complicated, rest assured we will be with you as soon as possible.”
Zenitsu stared at Tanjirou in silence, this time being the one who didn’t know what expression to put on. Tanjirou was clearly telling him that he wasn’t alone, but reality wanted to hit him so he realized that he was going to be alone out there. Out there he would be surrounded by darkness and endless sounds that would make him look back. He didn’t want to look back—
“Zenitsu.”
Zenitsu blinked and shot his desperate gaze at Tanjirou, who was now giving him an inquiring and worried look.
“Are you seriously okay? You just…”
But Zenitsu didn’t let him finish those words either when he jumped up from his cushion, went to pick up his katana and left the room, but not before feeling another look at the back of his neck once he disappeared.
Zenitsu rubbed the back of his neck and walked down the hallways, heading to the genkan. He sat down to put on his sandals and, at that moment, he felt his mouth tremble as he restrained himself. His mind flew into the thousands of fateful situations that would occur when he stepped on the ground outside, when he entered the forest and was surrounded by darkness. He wanted to ignore it, but this time it settled in his head and didn’t leave him alone.
He looked up at the entrance of the Ryokan and mentally prepared himself for all that, getting up.
The rural road that communicated with the village and the forest grew wider as Zenitsu moved away from the inn. However, it wasn’t the only thing widening—the night also did. It welcomed him with every step as if it wanted to devour him and keep him in the shadows, and the only thing Zenitsu could do was keep walking, despite his trembling, his tiredness and his constant state of fear.
He kept walking.
Zenitsu looked at his surroundings when he began to visualize the entrance to the forest just ahead. He gripped the end of his haori tightly, taking a deep breath. And just as he was going to release all the breath he had taken to calm himself, something landed on his shoulder without warning. His whole body bristled and he choked on his breath.
“GYAAAAAAAHHH!” Zenitsu put his hands to his head and threw himself to the ground with his eyes shut tightly, curling up into a protective ball as much as possible. “Stopstopstopstopstop—”
Then he heard a familiar sound. He heard a soft chirping echoing near his ear, and it calmed him enough to drop his arms from his head and look up. Small, black eyes stared back at him and Zenitsu’s own expression lit up.
“It’s youuu, Chuntaro.” Zenitsu cradled his hands and his sparrow landed on them, chirping. “Don’t you dare to scare me like that again. I thought I would die.” He whined.
The little sparrow tilted its head, chirping again.
“At least I won’t be alone.” Zenitsu murmured, relieved. But the relief didn’t last long when he realized one thing. One thing that made him groan discouraged again. “But you’re a bird, so you can’t do much except tell me when to go back to the inn. That means that we are both useless…”
His eyes watered and his lower lip was put on top of his upper one, trembling. The sparrow flew and, annoyed, pecked his head hard. Zenitsu complained with tears in his eyes and frantically waved his arms to stop it. With his hands on his head, Zenitsu glared at his sparrow, failing in the attempt not to appear to be more hurted than he already was. The sparrow lifted its beak on a winning chirp and landed once more on the swordsman’s shoulder.
Zenitsu got up from the ground and sighed reluctantly. He looked at the forest entrance and went through the tall trees.
Darkness enveloped him and Zenitsu trembled harder now, grabbing the hilt of his katana with one hand and the fabric of his haori with the other. His eyes kept moving frantically from one place to another, stopping at suspicious bushes and branches. His heart was pounding so hard in his rib cage that he was able to hear every pulse as if it were whispering in his ear. Zenitsu was going crazy. His surroundings were full of sounds that danced to the sound of fateful situations. Endless sounds that made him look back.
I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to look back.
Zenitsu closed his eyes and thought of the idea of covering his ears so he wouldn’t hear anything else. The idea was very tempting, but he didn’t do it.
His sparrow chirped, and Zenitsu opened his eyes, sensing every movement around him once more. His path expanded when he reached a clearing and his steps slowed down. He examined the place. He paid attention to the sounds, but his mind wandered slightly in the kind words Tanjirou said to him the moment he looked up to see the moon. Moonlight illuminated the tops of the trees and faded into translucent white, filtering into the clearing as a point of attention. And still, the darkness never stopped wandering around the place.
He thought once more of Tanjirou’s words and that he wouldn’t be alone. He thought of the warm and friendly sound that was always heard in Tanjirou. In the strong, determining and somewhat stupidly nice sound that was always heard in Inosuke. For a moment he wondered what sound was heard in himself.
Zenitsu always wanted to be as brave as Tanjirou and Inosuke. He always wanted to live a modest, normal life, instead of that of a Demon Slayer. But…
Zenitsu rubbed the back of his neck, the tickle of a still lingering bluish look on his skin. That stupid boar, lingering on him…
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. His ears stopped picking up sounds, but he had an unpleasant feeling that it wasn’t normal.
Nothing... Nothing—until something came out of that nothing. A sound so familiar and so sick that it caused Zenitsu’s heart to sink into the depth of the echo.
Since they had met—not in a very nice way, but in a lot of fun way—Inosuke never understood that strange feeling he felt every time Zenitsu’s moods changed. He didn’t understand that feeling he felt every time Zenitsu cried. Whether it was from tears of cowardice, from being hurt, or simply from whining that he was going to die at any moment.
The first time it pissed Inosuke off how weak and cowardly someone like Zenitsu could be. His presence was always annoying. It made Inosuke clench his fist and want to punch his face back then. It made him rage and want to demonstrate his strength in a fight against the weak, a strength Inosuke saw that Zenitsu didn’t possess at a glance.
Since they had met, Inosuke always thought that Zenitsu would be a senseless weakling. He didn’t understand what he felt every time Zenitsu cried that he was going to die anytime when it never really happened. He never died in combat despite whining his entire life. He never died because he seemed to show more than that weakness that he showed on the outside. Something Inosuke couldn’t quite understand.
So Zenitsu wasn’t all weakness. And from there something changed.
The interest and curiosity Inosuke began to have in Zenitsu brought him to a new change of perspective. That change made him feel even weirder when he sometimes saw Zenitsu disheartened and teary-eyed. It was as if something was playing with Inosuke’s guts, because seeing his comrade like that had come to dislike it not a bit. He was no longer thinking of fighting Zenitsu—although it still amused to Inosuke seeing him run away from him every time—because something inside Inosuke turned in discomfort as memories of Zenitsu crying flooded his mind.
He didn’t know exactly how many times he had seen Zenitsu with tears in his eyes.
Inosuke could reach out the pain and fear that Zenitsu seemed to always feel inside, as if he felt it with his sensitive sense of touch, just like nature.
When Zenitsu cried, it was as if the sun were hiding for a few painful minutes, as if the sun were covered by dark clouds and it was beginning to rain. But Inosuke didn’t like those drops at all.
Inosuke stared at the sliding door where Zenitsu’s silhouette disappeared a while ago. His jaw had tightened when Tanjirou let Zenitsu go in that strange state of excitement and despair, but Inosuke didn’t stop him either. And now the cup in his hands was constantly being scratched by his fingernails, uneasy at someone who had disappeared.
“I hope you don’t break the cup, Inosuke. The owners don’t deserve to have to pick up broken pieces.” Tanjirou spoke with a hint of something different in his innocent voice, as if he knew Inosuke’s deepest secrets. “Go to sleep.”
Inosuke shook his head away from his thoughts and set the cup on the table. By way of competition, he was the first to get under the futon.
A bubble exploded in his face and Zenitsu woke up in the middle of a path filled with more darkness, with his katana unsheathed and clutched tightly in his hand. His ears were ringing for some reason, the wind around him was echoing erratically, and with a glance at his field of vision the tree trunks seemed to be closer than normal.
Above the erratic sounds around him and the calm sounds inside him, Zenitsu heard the gurgling that a Demon’s body always made as it vanished into ashes, a short distance from where he was. Zenitsu’s body froze and he panicked.
Why I heard that. Why I have unsheathed my katana. Demons. Oh, no, Demons. Do I have a wound, a broken bone? Have they killed me?? I’M DEAD, RIGHT?
“WHY I DON’T REMEMBER ANYTHING?” Zenitsu shouted into the wind, immediately sheathing his Nichirin sword.
Zenitsu covered his ears with his hands and the whistling was reduced to mere quietness, being replaced by the strong beats of his blood, by the gasps that slid off his lips and the trembling in his shoulders. Zenitsu looked down and his knees hit the ground, suddenly feeling the weariness of all the emotions that remained exposed and the few locked up.
He lowered his arms and a bird’s chirping was heard above his head. His sparrow had landed there, and Zenitsu didn’t know for how long Chuntaro had been there. The sparrow chirped again and its small eyes sparkled as it lifted its wing in one direction. Chuntaro seemed happy about something, but Zenitsu knew immediately that they had to go back to the inn. It was the signal to finish.
Zenitsu rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, wiping ghost tears. He didn’t know what had happened. Zenitsu didn’t know why he smelled of blood despite not having it. And he also didn’t know why he decided to look back a little.
It was all a pure nightmare.
Footsteps slowly creaked on the tatami floor and stopped.
“Inosuke…”
Inosuke’s eyes fluttered open as someone shook him by the shoulder to wake him up.
“Inosuke, it’s your turn.”
Inosuke was about to throw his pillow as a stone to shut him up, but he thought twice about it when he heard Zenitsu’s rasped voice.
With all his senses abruptly awake, Inosuke rested his weight on his forearm and turned to face the stupid swordsman—but Zenitsu had already slipped into his futon with his back to him, curling up on himself as much as he could.
Inosuke ignored the small voice in his head that told him to stay and bit back a growl. He got up and left to take his watch duty.
The sunset spilled the golden gleams of its last rays through the space between Inosuke’s fingers, warming the palm of his hand one last time. The faint light entered the room and the shadows lengthened. It was going to start getting dark soon, and during the day he hadn’t seen much of Zenitsu at the inn. Inosuke barely heard his whimpers.
Tanjirou was sitting on his heels in the engawa, the sleeves of his Demon Slayer uniform rolled up to his elbows as he wrung a cloth filled with water. Then he shook it with the help of the gentle breeze and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Tontaro.”
Tanjirou turned around and found Inosuke right behind him, standing with his boar mask on, but he wasn’t looking at him. Tanjirou hummed to let him know he was listening, wringing the cloth in his hands once again.
“Where’s Monitsu?”
Tanjirou stopped on the spot.
“Ah.” He blinked, taking in Inosuke’s unexpected question. Tanjirou put a hand to his chin and looked thoughtfully at the sky. “Hmm, I think he’s with Nezuko in her room. The last time I saw him, he went there.”
Inosuke crossed his arms, his head down. He wondered if Zenitsu would be in that dark room again, discouraged and possibly with clouds in his eyes. He wondered if Nezuko made him happy enough not to cry. Inosuke remembered Zenitsu’s rasped voice from the night before, as if the idiot himself had spent all his energies or had overreacted. As if something else had happened that Inosuke overlooked.
Inosuke wondered when he would see the sun again in all its glory.
“Inosuke, can I ask you a question?” Tanjirou asked softly, turning completely to face his comrade.
Instantly Inosuke turned his head and looked down at Tanjirou with a light of curiosity shining around him.
Tanjirou smiled and said carefully, “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
Inosuke didn’t answer, even immediately, but his muscles tensed and loosened within seconds like a betrayal. Inosuke had never wondered if what he felt was concern or something else, but every time he looked directly into those brown eyes mixed with gold that Zenitsu possessed, Inosuke felt strange in his entire being. He had no idea how to explain it, but he thought it was enough visual response for Tanjirou, being the person he was.
Inosuke didn’t answer. Instead, he uncrossed his arms and clenched his hands into fists, closing and opening his palms. He felt the calluses and breathed out through the nose of the boar mask.
“I want to have hand-to-hand combat.” Inosuke said all of a sudden.
Tanjirou raised an eyebrow at him.
“Again? I don’t think that’s…” Tanjirou trailed off as he smelled restlessness in every fiber of Inosuke. At first glance, you couldn’t see that something was bothering him but, Tanjirou, not wanting to inflict more hard emotions on Inosuke, nodded in understanding. “Let’s go outside.”
The gardens next to the inn were dimly lit alive by moonlight high in the dark sky. The leaves of the trees whispered the proximity of the rest and the lights of the Ryokan were turned on to welcome the night.
The old lady prepared a delicious dinner for them before they began to do their work.
They sat around the table on their respective cushions, savoring the delicious rice dishes. Nezuko sat with them that night, making rice balls with her hands instead of eating it. Tanjirou smiled fondly and stroked her little sister’s head. Inosuke ate the rice with big bites and a frown, a small scratch on his left cheekbone. Zenitsu had showed up for dinner as if he was deep in thought.
“I think we should increase vigilance time.” Tanjirou said, breaking the silence. Inosuke and Zenitsu looked at him. “I met two Demons approaching the village yesterday, so today I’ll go watch there again. I would like to stay longer.”
Zenitsu’s body tensed, letting his head hit the table.
“You want to see me dead, right, Tanjirou?” Zenitsu groaned, letting out a dramatic sigh. Tanjirou looked at Inosuke and then back to Zenitsu, rubbing his head apologetically.
“Alright, we can change today.” Tanjirou said. “I can go first, Inosuke after me, and you last, Zenitsu.”
Zenitsu abruptly raised his look. He thought about the night before and squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. If he was going to be the last to be devoured by darkness, he would rather be the first and know that someone else was watching his back. That Tanjirou and Inosuke would wake up and he would have his back-up. Zenitsu still blindly trusted Tanjirou’s words.
“I can still be the first, I don’t mind anymore.” Zenitsu stated, his voice shaky but tinged with confidence.
Tanjirou smiled and nodded.
“Then I’ll be second and Inosuke will be last.” Tanjirou concluded, but paused at the lack of complaints and the mysterious silence that followed. “Wait.”
Tanjirou and Zenitsu’s heads synchronized to turn towards Inosuke, mildly incredulous. Inosuke gave them a blank look, still silent, but frowned at them.
“What?” Inosuke snapped.
“Nothing, just…” Tanjirou began. “Usually you don’t want to be the last of anything, Inosuke.”
Inosuke crossed his arms and shrugged, the glimpse of a gaze stopping longer on Zenitsu than Tanjirou. Zenitsu blinked at him when he noticed that little detail, fearful that Inosuke would jump in rage at any moment and complain in grunts as he always did whenever he didn’t like something. And yet, that moment never came.
Why did it never come?
Tanjirou watched between Inosuke and Zenitsu, more confused than ever with Inosuke agreeing with something. Lately Inosuke hadn’t done anything weird, but this time it was he who was acting weird. Tanjirou no longer knew whether to suspect, but the decision had already been made.
Zenitsu went to make his turn to the forest once more.
It was the second time Inosuke had seen his figure disappear through the door of the room. It was the second time he felt restless. He had hardly seen Zenitsu all day, and now he saw him go once more. Inosuke sat on his futon and gazed at the engawa and the garden, wanting to undo all those feelings that tugged at his guts and heart. He ran a hand through his hair and growled, turning his gaze to the boar mask beside him.
Tanjirou fell asleep, but Inosuke didn’t. He grabbed both of his Nichirin swords and held them tightly in his hands, waiting.
A few hours later, Inosuke felt movement in the hallway. Soft footsteps creaking on the tatami floor. Inosuke turned his head as Zenitsu entered the room quietly, heading straight to Tanjirou’s futon through the darkness of the room. The moonlight filtering through the engawa made it possible to see the room without having to turn on the light. Inosuke saw Zenitsu crouch down and shake Tanjirou’s shoulder silently, whispering something.
Inosuke wondered if this was how Zenitsu woke him up the night before.
Tanjirou woke up and Zenitsu got up, but he didn’t go to his futon, but once he met Inosuke’s gaze across the room—possibly knowing in advance that he was awake—Zenitsu approached him and slowly sank to the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He flexed his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, resting his forehead between his knees.
Despite the silence, despite the considerable distance between them, Inosuke was able to see him before Zenitsu sat down. He had returned with the same wasted face with which he sometimes saw him. Always with that face bathed by exhausting emotions. Zenitsu had returned, had sat almost beside him without saying a word, and had bowed his head as if he were in another world, downhearted, frustrated, or thoughtful. But today the difference was the mildly superficial scratch adorning his lower jaw.
The strange sensation returned to Inosuke to feel it pierce his chest.
Tanjirou had already gone for his watch duty, and Inosuke was no longer sleepy. He wanted to face once and for all all those weird feelings that had taken over him for months. He wanted to face the clouds that darkened the golden brown of Zenitsu’s eyes at once.
Inosuke tensed his jaw and didn’t care about anything else.
“I like the drops that fall from the sky when it rains.” Inosuke said, completely wrapping one of his katanas with the bandage of the hilt. Inosuke’s wrist tensed as he made sure to tighten each wrap into a spiral, but maybe it was because of what he was going to say next. Maybe it was because of everything he had seen and everything he had hated to see.
Inosuke’s gaze and frown focused on his Nichirin sword with intensity to ignore the weight of Zenitsu’s confused gaze on him.
“But not the ones that fall from your eyes.” Inosuke finally mused, biting back a growl.
Zenitsu raised his head from his knees when he heard him speak, when he heard a different sound coming from Inosuke. He didn’t understand why Inosuke had stayed awake, why he was pulling that kind of conversation out of nowhere or what he was really talking about, but Zenitsu stared at him, not used to seeing Inosuke like that.
“My… eyes?” Zenitsu murmured, trying to understand. “You mean… the tears?”
Inosuke looked at him and Zenitsu blinked at the darkness of the room when their eyes met, frozen for a moment at the contrast of shadows and lights that perfected Inosuke’s face. Zenitsu didn’t know at what point his comrade’s eyes were so blue and so bright, at what moment his expressive face was so tempting to keep looking.
Seeing Inosuke in that light did something in Zenitsu’s stomach.
“You have never cried, Inosuke?” Zenitsu asked, unable to imagine tears running down Inosuke’s cheeks—but the possibilities were always there, hidden.
“Hah? Who needs to cry? There’s no time for that!”
Zenitsu’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. His expression weakened and Zenitsu looked down.
“Of course not.” He answered for Inosuke, snuggling closer to himself. Inosuke would never understand him.
That night had been harder than the night before. Zenitsu knew this when he woke up in the forest with his katana in hand, and after a few seconds he fell exhausted, once again. Zenitsu knew this when he smelled the blood he had this time on his face and leg, the pain itching tirelessly as he made his way to the inn. He had looked back again, to his past.
Inosuke would never understand him but, for once, he wanted someone to understand. The sound he heard in Inosuke was enough proof for Zenitsu to start speaking, not minding if Inosuke was really listening to him or not. But he trusted.
“When I started the training to be a Demon Slayer, a particular person didn’t treat me very well along the way.” Zenitsu bit the inside of his cheek. “My senior always made me feel insecure, small, and useless for handling one Style. I’m always feeling like I can’t keep moving forward. I hardly remember anything when I run into Demons. I want to become like you. You guys are great in tough situations and you’re not afraid of anything, but I’m a coward. I’m just me, nothing perfect or special.”
Zenitsu’s voice broke and he exhaled shakily in a familiar frame of mind that Inosuke knew very well now.
Tired of imagining tears in his eyes again, Inosuke reached out in a groan and gripped one side of Zenitsu’s haori tightly. The swordsman yelped as Inosuke pounced on him, causing them both to unbalance from the extra weight and fall. Zenitsu’s back hit the floor and Inosuke curved over him, his knees fixed into either side of Zenitsu’s waist.
Zenitsu freaked out and reacted out of his shock from the blow.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOI—” Zenitsu stopped short. Inosuke had lifted him by pulling up the side of the haori he had grabbed and Zenitsu quickly put his hands between their faces as a defense so Inosuke wouldn’t hurt him. He didn’t want to fight Inosuke again. He was going to kill him for sure!
“You are a Demon Slayer, AREN’T YOU?!” Inosuke growled at him, releasing Zenitsu when he saw him frantically nod. Zenitsu’s back hit the floor again, this time less hard. “So stop crying once and for all!”
With his thumbs and some frustration, Inosuke wiped away the tears that had begun to flow down Zenitsu’s lower eyelids. Zenitsu dropped his arms and was startled by the unexpected, rough touch, freezing in the instant Inosuke’s palms rested on his cheeks after the action was over. Zenitsu shuddered.
“I know you’re so afraid.” Inosuke hissed, some of his locks dangling like curtains at the sides of his face. “I can see the pain inside of you every time I see you cry.”
Under normal circumstances, Zenitsu would have already struggled to get the stupid boar off him. But he couldn’t. He was mesmerized—by his words, by those eyes so fixed on him. Those eyes so full of contained rage and any other emotion ringing in Zenitsu’s ears. He shuddered again, his eyes swimming and searching on Inosuke’s face.
The distance turned out to be very short now.
“In the storm, lightning always comes. Between the lightning comes thunder. It light up the sky, creak loudly. I know nature with all my being. Among strength comes courage.” Inosuke snapped, leveling the emotions in his voice. He gazed intently into Zenitsu’s wide-open eyes. “Next night I want you to demonstrate the courage you really have. I want you to prove it and not bring that downhearted face, Monitsu. If I see you one more time with that weepy face I’m going to kick your ass!”
Inosuke exhaled in a groan, “You may be a coward, you may be afraid, but you are not dead. Every time you go out there you are NOT dead! That’s because you have potential, just like me, just like Monjiro. And you have never run away. SO STOP FEELING LIKE THE CRAP YOU ARE WILLING TO BE AND BELIEVE MORE IN YOURSELF!”
Silence settled over them when the only thing heard in the distance was the breeze in the garden.
Zenitsu blinked away the tears. Those words hit him hard. Of all the people, he didn’t expect in any way that Inosuke would tell him all that. The image of an Inosuke encouraging him to go ahead and not look back hadn’t even been in his mind.
He still felt on his cheeks Inosuke’s big, strong and calloused hands. It seemed that Inosuke didn’t know the meaning of personal space right now. Heat rose up Zenitsu’s neck and stopped in his ears, his face burning pure scarlet. His heart skipped a beat and his stomach suddenly fluttered.
Oh, no.
If he continued like this… If they continued in this position, with those intense blue eyes not breaking contact with his own, with those strong hands holding his face in determination and those words echoing in his mind, Zenitsu was going to lose his mind.
His heart couldn’t take it anymore that night. But Inosuke’s sound… His sound…
Zenitsu gulped and took a deep breath. Inosuke had decided to be the last in turns… because of him? Had he stayed awake for him? Was that why he had been so quiet? How was that even possible in this world?
Zenitsu laughed then, unable to help it. As Zenitsu rested his elbows on either side of him, his fingers managed to brush Inosuke’s knees over his uniform pants.
“Thank you.” Zenitsu spoke after a while, marveling at the expression Inosuke put on when he said it. Zenitsu grimaced at the increased pressure on his cheeks. “Inosu—ow, ow, OW—MY CHEEKS—”
Inosuke released him and clicked his tongue, but stared down at Zenitsu with scrutiny. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he had heard Zenitsu’s laugh, silly and filled with happiness, leaving Inosuke speechless. His laugh had been the beginning of Inosuke’s surprise, but his warm thanks had been the middle. Inosuke liked the expression Zenitsu put on saying those words, he liked too much to see his stupid expression change for him, and his stupid smile; and Inosuke wondered what the ending would be. He wondered if what he felt in his heart at seeing Zenitsu like that would be the ending.
Or just an ending giving way to a new beginning.
Zenitsu rubbed his cheeks and chuckled despite the situation, smiling with his eyes closed.
“You have a sound very warm after all, Inosuke.”
Zenitsu watched as Inosuke froze and huffed without anger, pulling himself off him. Zenitsu already missed those hands on him. He missed him lingering on his skin.
Inosuke turned and looked at him over his shoulder.
“Don’t ever say that you’re nothing perfect or special. Because to me you are, Monitsu.” Inosuke mused, heading to his futon.
Zenitsu’s heart hummed full of warmth. He covered his mouth with his hand, staring at Inosuke’s bare back. Zenitsu felt his eyes watering again, but not because he felt alone, useless, or in danger. Not because of being surrounded by darkness or looking back. But because of how immensely Inosuke had affected him—all of him, from the beginning.
Zenitsu put a hand to his heart, patting it for the future.
The next night, Inosuke opened his eyes at the crack of several thunderclaps in the distance. He turned to see Zenitsu’s futon and found it empty. Inosuke smirked, a new sensation settling in him.
He knew nature with all his being. In the storm, lightning always came. Between the lightning came thunder. It lit up the sky, creaked loudly. Among strength came courage. Zenitsu was proving it that night. His thunder would shine above the drops that fell from his eyes, and maybe Inosuke would see the sun rise behind all that rain again.