Work Text:
when you woke up and checked the timer on your wrist, you knew it was the day. it was under twelve hours, therefore unless something happened, it would be today. of course this had happened before, getting low and then suddenly increasing when something like you getting sent out on a mission happened, but that didn’t stop you from hoping that everything would work out.
today you were going to the butterfly estate to do some training with shinobu. she may not have been the best with swords, but she had a whole different outlook on fighting than you did which is always nice. at some point during your training session though, aoi had come out to ask for her help. supposedly someone came into the estate that needed treatment, and she was the one who could handle said issue the best.
not having anything else to do, you decided to follow her to see if there was anything that you might be able to do to help, even if it was doing something simple as fetching her water or something. she ended up sending you into town to get something for her, which honestly, was probably to get you out of her way, but she asked, so why not deliver. by the time you had gotten back to the estate, she was already finished with everything she needed to do, thus meaning you could see who was in such a bad state.
walking into the room, you certainly hadn’t expected to see tanjiro laying unconscious in the bed, but in all fairness the only thing you really knew about him was that his sister is a demon. his sister, or the box that she generally resided in was no where in sight though, which made some type of sense since it was the middle of the day. nonetheless you set out through the estate to find his sister to make sure that she was alright. after seeing how he responded when sanemi stabbed the box that his sister was in, you knew it would probably be the first question he asked when he woke up.
after confirming that nezuko was fine, you sat on the bed beside tanjiro waiting for him to wake up. the thing was, he hadn’t woken up that day. or the next. or even for a month after that. as you had feared, your timer went back up everyday, saying you’ll meet your soulmate that day, only for it to repeat the cycle. at that point it must just be playing games on you.
you had been going on missions during this time, so at some point you forgot to check your timer daily. that is, until you found yourself back outside of the butterfly estate. you decided to go check on tanjiro again to see how he was doing. surprisingly, he was still out cold.
you had heard about people being able to hear outside while in a coma though, so you figured you could give it a shot in your free time. one of the first things that you said to him was that nezuko was fine. that was really the only thing you could think of to say for a while, so you sat in silence, picking your brain for something more to say. at the end of the day, you had realized your timer stopped. it really did reach zero. but when? you hadn’t done any fighting that day. it was just your journey to the butterfly estate. you hadn’t interacted with anyone new, other than tanjiro, but did that even count? he wasn’t awake. hell, you didn’t even know if he could hear you speaking to him. nonetheless, you kept returning everyday that you had time to give him random updates on things, or just to tell stupid stories of things that happened to some of the other pillars.
over the next few weeks, you grew more accustomed to this, making sure you always had something to share before you even arrived at the estate, which shinobu did give you a hard time for a some point, but that’s what ignoring people is for, right? what you hadn’t expected was to one day arrive with something in mind, but for tanjiro to be sitting straight up in his bed, inosuke and zenitsu not far away. the moment that the two of you made eye contact, you let out a greeting to him and the two others, before deciding that it was best if you continued on.
“it’s you,” tanjiro said. you gave him a look. “you’re the one who was talking to me while i was out, right?” a nod. “did your timer stop?” another nod. “well, all i can say then is, “thank you, soulmate.””