Chapter Text
Tanjiro brings their ragged band of four back to his and Nezuko’s childhood home. Neither of them had returned since the night their family was killed.
“Do we walk through the village?” Nezuko asks him once the forest path opens up to sprawling farmland. She walks shoulder to shoulder with Tanjiro as Zenitsu marches quietly behind. Inosuke goes forth at an inconsistent pace, sauntering after a butterfly. The warm, sun-baked road widens and cuts through rice paddies and neat rows of crop. If they were to follow it, it would eventually take them to a familiar village with its one main street, its single inn. Farmers would be there selling their produce at the marketplace, and the air would be laden with smells of laundry soap, dust, and little steamed buns filled with sweet bean paste. Familiar faces would greet them, and they would shift with surprise, and curiosity, and then maybe pity. They would wonder where the surviving Kamado siblings had gone all those years after the bloody slaughter of their family.
Tanjiro thinks it over.
“What do you want to do?” he asks Nezuko.
Nezuko meets his gaze for a long moment, seeming to search his face. Tanjiro tries to look neutral, open.
“You’re tired,” she declares. “Let’s take the footpath.”
“I’m fine,” Tanjiro says. “Did you want to see the village? The footpath takes longer anyway.” Nezuko shakes her head gently.
“We can go see the village after we get-” she pauses, “home. After we get home and have a good night’s rest we can go. We have enough food to last another full day at least.”
“Okay,” Tanjiro says, unable to hold back the huff of relief in the word. Nezuko shoots him a pointed look at that, though her mouth twists in a sad smile.
After two more hours of walking and a tearful reunion with old man Saburo, Tanjiro lays eyes on the thatched roof of his childhood home. The sight of it makes him feel lightheaded. He has this dream, sometimes, where he’ll take the path through the forest and come into the clearing. Sometimes the house is silent, and he’ll peer in to see bodies torn apart on the floor. Other times he stands there, too afraid to find out what’s inside, and then a small pitter patter of feet on wood floorboards will quicken his heart rate, his little siblings rushing out suddenly to greet him. Smiling and warm and whole. Alive.
But the house is shuttered and silent, and he is the one to walk up to the front entrance, the rest of the group following. Tanjiro’s mother used to like keeping the doors wide open during the summer. As if sensing the confused mess of emotions in his chest, Zenitsu and Inosuke are quiet as they hover behind him. He doesn’t talk about his family much, but they know -in the simplest terms- of what had happened to his family and his heart behind this door. Nezuko stands by his side and touches his arm. Tanjiro takes a breath.
The wood doorframe slides open with a few firm tugs. The house is silent but there are no bodies on the floor. Just a thin layer of dust coating bare, unpolished wood where there used to be tatami. Tanjiro looks across to see familiar trinkets still hanging from a nail by the far window, some plates and bowls stacked on the open shelves in the tiny kitchen area. The wall of drawers and storage space remains, but the few other pieces of furniture in the house must have been thrown out. Old man Saburo mentioned that family friends and villagers beyond had helped lay the Kamado family to rest, removing bloodied items and cleaning the best they could, all the while hoping that Tanjiro and Nezuko had escaped to safety. Tanjiro would have to find those people and thank them later.
“Welcome,” Tanjiro hears himself say. His voice sounds distant and muted. He turns to Inosuke and Zenitsu and can’t muddle through his head well enough to read their scents or the looks on their faces.
They step into the house. Nezuko clutches his arm and he leans into the touch.
“That’s where we slept,” he says, pointing to the empty floor space near the window and a single closet. “There used to be a table…”
Inosuke isn’t shy about taking of lap of the small perimeter, sniffing around and leaving footprints in his wake. Tanjiro thinks he can see dark, mottled stains on the floorboards, under the dust.
“You have a nice home,” Zenitsu says softly.
“Thank you,” Tanjiro replies. “And, um. Here’s the kitchen,” Tanjiro says, turning away to another corner of the room. On the stove sits the only metal wok they’d used since he can remember. The coal bucket sits nearby still half-full, as if waiting to be used. Inosuke sniffs that too.
Past the kitchen is the back entrance and a short corridor that leads to a room meant for bathing. Tanjiro his struck by memories of bathing Rokuta and his other young siblings, his ears filling with their delighted giggles and screeching as he would scrub them down and scoop lades of water over their soapy hair. He jolts back to the present when Nezuko pushes past him suddenly to shove open the door and step out into the sun.
She doesn’t turn around so he watches her for a moment, finally seeing her clenched hands.
Oh.
He hadn’t even thought to ask how Nezuko was feeling about returning. She had come back to herself with such a steady, smiling presence, and Tanjiro hadn't wanted to upset her with questions. Tanjiro had had many nights to grieve, to call on the good memories which would sometimes, just sometimes, override the horror of the last time he saw his mother’s face. And the faces of his siblings, which he couldn’t bear to look at but had been unable to turn away from.
Nezuko hadn't had that time.
He walks slowly to her until they are standing face to face. Her gaze is empty but wet.
“Nezuko,” he says. He reaches for her hand with his good arm, wanting to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself with the way she’s digging her nails into her palms. She responds with a shuddering breath and holds his hand. Then she reaches for Tanjiro’s other hand, the emaciated thing he doesn’t quite like to look at. Still, he can feel the dull, pleasant sensation of her warmth and the pressure of her grip. These days, she makes a point to still touch his arm, to not look away when it is exposed, to hold that injured hand if it happens to be the one in reach. She is kind and fierce, and grumpy when woken up in the morning and Tanjiro is indescribably, unspeakably grateful he did not lose her.
After a moment, Nezuko’s eyes light as they spot something over Tanjiro’s shoulder. From her throat leaps a low, wounded sound.
Tanjiro turns to see a bed of small, purple flowers at the forests edge. He can make out the five mounds of dirt underneath.
Everything feels real, all of a sudden. And the feeling doesn’t threaten to consume him. The surrounding forest exists in a way it hadn’t really just a moment ago, and Tanjiro is here, now, with Nezuko and his dear friends. He feels the sun, smells the earth. He knows that his family is buried, resting forever in a bed of flowers. They are resting. There can only be peace for them now.
And it is such a beautiful day, and he and Nezuko have returned, and they have brought friends who have stood by in threat of death, for hope of life. These thoughts and feelings circle around him.
Something in Tanjiro’s chest settles.
“Let’s pay our respects, Nezuko,” Tanjiro says quietly. He smiles down at her, and she has finally let the tears fall. They slip down her cheeks as she gives a jerky nod.
Tanjiro looks over to see Inosuke fidgeting on the narrow porch and Zenitsu trying to subtly hush him. He smiles when he makes eye contact with them as well, and Zenitsu sheepishly releases Inosuke’s arm from a firm pinch.
They follow in quiet understanding after Tanjiro and Nezuko move to kneel in front of the mounds. The four of them end up side by side in a neat row on sun-warmed earth. Bees circle the wildflowers, busily collecting pollen. Tanjiro closes his eyes.
Mama, Takeo, Shigeru, Hanako, Rokuta. Papa.
I’m back, he thinks.
Nezuko and I are safe.
And Muzan is gone- he and the other demons won’t be hurting people anymore.
I’m tired.
It’s over.
My friends are here. Inosuke and Zenitsu.
We take care of each other.
I will see you soon. Maybe not too soon, of course! But soon.
Rest well.