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In the middle of winter, the snow is thick on the surface of the mountain. His every step sinks into it, freezing water seeping rapidly into the fabric bound around his calves. Nezuko trails blood as she goes, dripping sluggishly from her palm and bursting into blooms of fire that steam and bring relished warmth to their stiff faces.
She moves ahead of him, demon attributes keeping her safe from the climate like any cold-blooded animal. It is obvious to both of them that Tanjirou is no longer used to the bitter cold of the mountain. His Breathing techniques are of little consequence here, where there is nothing to fight and only the calamities to brave.
Tanjirou catches the stench of stale blood before anything else.
He trudges quicker and grabs for Nezuko’s wrist, careful to avoid the slick of her self-inflicted wound. The motion is enough to bring her to a stop and for her to turn to him in confusion. He tightens his grip slightly, then tugs her in another direction.
“Let’s go this way,” he says, voice hoarse with disuse. He doesn’t have to repeat himself; Nezuko nods obediently and follows after him.
Crude graves welcome them.
Tanjirou glances at Nezuko, and then quickly away. She hasn’t seen them, yet. Not even that day when Tanjirou was only twelve and failing to pack dirt atop mangled bodies with his bare hands, not when Tanjirou cried himself hoarse and unintelligible and scraped his hands raw on wood and stone, and not when Tanjirou was forced to leave their home for what, then, felt like an eternity.
The hastily-made grave markers barely stick through the snow. Tied around the trunk of the tree over them is a rough-hewn length of rope. Even in the dark, Tanjirou can see the faded colours twined about each other. The thickest cord is in the lavender their mother favoured — it was the most expensive fabric she ever had dyed.
He only has his blade, some money, and the clothes on this bag. To his side, Nezuko lets her wound heal and swipes the remaining blood on her sleeve. Tanjirou flexes his fingers, insufficiently protected by worn gloves, and digs his hands into the snow. Frostbite is a very real danger, here; he’s already lost the feeling in his smallest fingers.
And yet — this is something he must do.
They clear the graves, but the snow comes down hard and fast. Nezuko touches Tanjirou’s hand — he doesn’t feel it. His insides broil with an anger he wishes he left behind when the war was won, but he couldn’t. He can’t. They bow their heads.
Tanjirou thinks that they are among the lucky ones. They had bodies to bury, graves over which they pray to gods. Others aren’t so lucky. He remembers Genya, he remembers Kanao. He remembers all the people he has met over the years, who have suffered under the hands, and the mouths, of demons. He remembers Inosuke, who had only a mother he couldn’t even remember. He remembers Inosuke.
He sends prayers for them, too.
“The dead are just dead,” Inosuke had told him, once, obstinate. He had pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and his hair was a wild mess about his fair face. His swords were gripped in tight, bloody fists by his sides. “And we’ll forget.”
“Forget what?” Tanjirou asked, watching the way Inosuke’s eyes sparkled even in the dark. He was, despite everything he was, truly exquisite.
“Everything.” Inosuke moved his gaze to meet Tanjirou’s. For the first time in a very long time, Tanjirou could not read him. “Everyone.”
Tanjirou reached over to touch his wrist, gentle and barely-there. Inosuke’s words haunted him. He didn’t know why.
Perhaps it was the unnerving sensation of looking into a mirror and seeing too much.
“The dead are just dead,” Inosuke repeated, moving away. “Don’t waste your time on them.”
Tanjirou isn’t wasting his time on anyone.
He cannot help the way his palm presses over his nostrils. The phantom, rotten stench of death haunts him, although he knows it has long since gone, washed away by rain and snow and time.
Before a backdrop of a cold night, their old house is a dilapidated pile of ruin. The shouji are ripped off their beams as they were years ago, and in their sorry state have allowed snow and filth and many other things to collect like pests within. The only scent left lingering here is that of soggy tatami and rotting wood. It is enough to test his stomach, weak from travel and limited rations and too much of everything, and make bile rise like lava straight up through his throat and into his mouth.
“We can,” he begins, after a dry gulp around words he does not want to say, “tear it all down. Start over.” At a rancid spike of fear, he holds his breath and glances in the opposite direction. What is left of what used to be their communal bedroom crumbles in his fingers. “Or we can… try again. Rebuild.” The scent sharpens, into something like grief. He takes a look at the room, at the filth, at the fragments of what was and what used to be. He steps back.
Tanjirou, feeling the guilt churn in his gut, leaves the decision to Nezuko.
It takes a while, enough time for the sky to turn purple and the meek fire to dwindle, before he hears the sound of wood panelling snapping into bits.
He breathes in the air, tastes the acrid stench of not-quite-demon and grief, and he stands.
Their mountain is not habitable for most flowers. The perpetual frigid winter in which it is locked keeps it a snowy slate throughout the seasons. What plants do grow die easily — or shoot up to the skies to loom over them.
He comes across a scant handful of them, firstly taking their petals between the rough pads of his fingers to feel their smoothness, followed by breathing in deep to absorb an aroma that is hopefully pleasant. Lastly, he thinks of Nezuko and how pretty things make her smile. He surveys the flower again, then he moves on.
It takes Tanjirou days of hiking through paths that have long since been buried, before he finds a cluster of winter peonies.
They are beautiful, and he only has the vaguest memories of seeing his mother cultivate them in a pocket garden no larger than their youngest siblings back then.
He doesn’t have to look anymore.
The sound of ripping through tatami rings in his ears. His Nichirin blade was not made for this, and Tanjirou internally apologises to Haganezuka, but the blade does its job. On the other end of the house, Nezuko tears through the mat with her nails.
Inosuke would relish in the mindless violence of this. He liked moving, whether with a sword or without. The rush of strength invigorated him. Perhaps he would hate it, then, that it was a simple task. He would tire of repetitive actions too easily when there wasn’t a face to break. Tanjirou wishes he could know for sure.
Bit by bit, they reveal the washitsu beneath, squishy in spots where years of decay have seeped through the mats and into the wood. Nezuko, he knows, wishes to keep most of the house intact so as she continues to clear the tatami, Tanjirou sets about finding a way to peel back only the layer which has degraded.
As he does, he imagines what the rest of the house will look like when they finish it. They have a bit of coin, now, donations from anonymous sponsors the Slayers have determined as theirs. He thinks they can afford a tokonoma, thinks they can afford to gather bits and pieces that would brighten up their house.
He thinks about futons, about where to source them. Nezuko deserves her own room — they have all this space, once shared between eight, between the two of them. They do not sell futons in the village at the foot of their mountain; perhaps there are merchants who do in the next town. Tanjirou can make a trip of it and clear the local areas of any wandering demons. He thinks about how expensive futons are. Hopefully not much. Nezuko would tell him what size she prefers, whereas Tanjirou… well, he really only needs one that can fit two. Perhaps even three. That sounds luxurious.
Inosuke told him once about laying in a field of flowers. “They feel nice,” he’d said, when Tanjirou told him that he’d only slept on fur and tatami, or on plain, tightly packed dirt. “Flowers are soft.” Tanjirou imagines that Inosuke would call them luxurious, if he knew the word.
If Tanjirou inhales deeply and saves the breath in his lungs for a long beat, he can taste flowers sprouting through snow beyond the village.
He opens his eyes and sets his sword on the washitsu. “I’ll see what else we’ll need,” he tells Nezuko on his way out of the open entryway. Nezuko makes a quiet, distracted sound in acknowledgement.
Tanjirou has a head for math. Master Urokodaki had further enriched him by teaching him what the upper-class knew, which involved arithmetic problems he would go over as he trained. He calls back to this as he paces the perimeter of their bare house and imagines the size of five and a half tatami mats. It is meant to be good luck, he’s heard, but they’ve always had more than that. Large mats are expensive and difficult to lay down — but Tanjirou has no plans on holding back on the perfect house.
He isn’t certain that ‘good luck’ will truly bring any good for them, but he is willing to try.
Tatami, he remembers, is to be laid in strips and not in grids. Also for good luck. He considers this as he counts, and he wonders if it matters. He doesn’t believe in luck or omens, and neither do Nezuko and Inosuke.
But, he thinks, it would not hurt.
The peonies die. Tanjirou is, understandably, disappointed. It is only logical, however, that his first attempt failed, when gardening was never an item in his ever-growing list of skills.
Nezuko seems to be even more disappointed than he is, sometimes sitting in the snow by the small plot he’d dug out. The pink flowers were the only spot of colour around here, where everything is either too bleak or too dark.
Tanjirou resolves to try again.
They travel down the mountain. Tanjirou’s thighs burn with an exertion he welcomes. Few demons loiter this far, and the ones that do are easily dealt with. His lungs haven’t so much as quivered since that final battle.
The village before them looks like a painting pulled directly from Tanjirou’s memories — a tad faded and that much more worn out, but whole and largely as it was. Little changes have been made by the people who live there or by the force of time. He holds his breath for a long while.
The villagers are surprised to see them. There are a few new faces amongst them, a newborn baby and other children. When Tanjirou sniffs the air discreetly, tugging the threadbare fabric of his scarf over his mouth, he can name all those who’ve left, and who’ve gone. He notes in regret that one of them is that lonely man who sheltered him for a night.
“Come, dears,” says one elder, gesturing for him and Nezuko to approach her home, “I’ll treat you to a good meal and you can tell us all about your time away from here, yes?” This is someone who has known Tanjirou’s parents since they were children. This is someone who climbed the mountain to visit their mother when she was pregnant, for all six children.
Nezuko smiles and ushers him into the opened home.
Throughout their journey, they came across many towns. They tasted a variety of food, met a great assortment of people, and yet — the plain broth Tanjirou finds himself sipping is still the best he’s ever had. Running his tongue over his lips and chasing the soup droplets, he wistfully wishes that Inosuke could taste this as well, could experience the open embrace of an entire village who would welcome him unconditionally. The lack of meat might dissuade him, but he thinks Inosuke would enjoy it. This. He had always loved being treated like an emperor.
That is, of course, ignoring all the comforts that an actual emperor would have. Inosuke was flowerbeds and brawling, rather than gold, silk, and lacquer. He thinks of the coins in his pouch and of the serrated edges of Inosuke’s blades.
“It was difficult,” he admits, when they are asked, “but we learnt a lot.” It is all he can bear to say on the matter.
Nezuko is silent beside him, but she hums noncommittally when they try again.
“You’ve grown a lot, as well,” the elder says, setting chipped cups of tea before them. Jasmine, Tanjirou can tell. “You two make beautiful adults.”
“Thank you,” he says honestly.
The villagers who’ve only ever known their quaint village are curious about other towns. Tanjirou tells them about big cities, about Tokyo and trains and colourful beaming lights that bring the brilliance out of gold hair, white hair, red hair. Those are interesting colours for hair, someone points out, and Tanjirou agrees. He fingers his own dark hair and just says they’ve met interesting people.
“Have you married yet?” some of them ask.
Nezuko tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles shyly, talking about a soldier in the capital who waits for her when probed. Tanjirou thinks of green eyes and blue hair and scars like starbursts over snow-white skin. Tight-lipped, he smiles.
One villager — an old man, with wrinkled, trembling hands, who used to buy Tanjirou’s leftover coal when it became warm enough for most not to need so much — presents him with a hatchet. It is dense and firm within Tanjirou’s grip, and the weight of it is familiar in the same way a game from childhood is. The old man says it’s to protect him and his sister up in the mountain where they’re all alone, as though Tanjirou doesn’t have a long sword strapped to his waist. Tanjirou thanks him.
He means to hunt with this — Haganezuka would never forgive him if he was to use his Nichirin blade. The hatchet, he finds, is better fit for the task anyway, although not ideal, and he brings in little beast after little beast to keep his and Nezuko’s stomachs full.
Fur is a challenge to collect, but Tanjirou never shies from a challenge. Inosuke would know how to do this better. He’d told Tanjirou stories of how he survived in his mountain alone. Sometimes Tanjirou would think he was lying, because the things he told him just could not possibly be true, but Inosuke always reeked of earnest sincerity around him. He never knew how to lie.
So Tanjirou tries. And he washes the fur the best he can. Inosuke only wore fur; he would hate to wear anything else, if he was to wear anything at all. And their mountain is terribly cold, Inosuke would never survive basking in his own body heat. A fur cloak would do him well. If Tanjirou is persistent enough, perhaps he can even get Inosuke in a haori.
It is a nice thought.
They return from the trip to the village with an armful of food each and sound advice on how to raise peonies in the garden. Among their spoils is a modest stack of straws.
He plants another handful of peonies and carefully builds a hut around them. They will persevere, or so he hopes. Winter peonies, after all, only grow in the coldest and the toughest of conditions.
He shimmies his glove off to gently slip his knuckle against one frail — strong — petal. It is so soft.
Tanjirou has never been one for art. It is a skill he never had the reason nor the time to hone, but he spent the lulls in his travels trying his hand at teaching Inosuke all the things he should have been taught but wasn’t. On the roads they took, it was hard to obtain paper, brushes, and inks, but they had an abundance of dirt. When they were too far from a town, they would set up camp off the commonly travelled paths for the night. In the light of a fire and with a stick in hand, Tanjirou would scratch on the earth images he hoped Inosuke would be able to interpret.
The only characters Inosuke really knew were that of his name — and even then, it was in a detached sense, as though the strokes represented his name, but were not his name. Words were like this, as well. But Tanjirou was optimistic; Inosuke was almost inhumanly observant. Reading would come easily, in time.
“What’s that?” Inosuke asked, once, over Tanjirou’s scribble of overlapping, curling lines. He did his best to recreate what he remembered of the pattern on Master Urokodaki’s haori. He had asked Nezuko for her opinion silently, and she nodded; he supposed that meant it was good enough.
“It’s a wave,” Tanjirou said, and at Inosuke’s uncomprehending expression, traced another, less wobbly pattern on the ground. Next to it, he wrote the character for wave.
He took snow into the shallow cup of his hands and waited patiently. Befuddled, Inosuke observed him with all his endearing curiosity. Charmed, Tanjirou hid a smile as his body heat melted the snow into a cold puddle that he gently swished from side to side.
“That,” Tanjirou said, seeing how Inosuke’s bright eyes swallowed in the sight of water lapping over the sides of his fingers and curling back towards the centre of its meagre pool, “is a wave.”
Quietly, Inosuke repeated after him, with something like childish awe in his voice, “A wave.”
Tanjirou often wondered how much of pure naivety was behind Inosuke’s tone when he sounded like that, and how much was not knowing which words to put to which concepts and the brilliance that was figuring it out at long last.
Tanjirou spilt the water onto the ground and handed the stick he’d used as a brush to Inosuke. After helping him adjust his grip properly, he prompted him to practice the new character on the ground. His penmanship was awkward, heavy-handed and blocky the way a toddler would write. Tanjirou praised him sincerely.
Hair spilling over one shoulder and tongue caught between teeth, Inosuke painted a beautiful picture. Given time, his writing would become as beautiful as Tanjirou could teach him, he was certain.
It feels like iron weights within him now, the desire to have Inosuke’s calligraphy on a kakejiku.
Having decided that they had enough money to spare, they acquire a blank kakejiku and a bonsai. The pot is a simple thing, made of dark clay, hand painted black and glazed. On their tokonoma, it almost appears to be on its own island. Nezuko loves it, and so does Tanjirou.
He stares at it from his spot on the engawa, dipping hemp fabric in tubs of dyes. His mother had a technique she employed to make all their checkered haori; Tanjirou made an attempt at mimicking his old haori, but the squares came out uneven and the blacks bled into the greens. Nezuko’s hand at shibori is infinitely better than anything he can come up with himself, and the green-black haori she hangs up to dry has squares in all the right sizes.
Tanjirou is left with his own humble project — a few buckets and a carefully sewn haori. It is a little small for Tanjirou, and he thinks it is as perfect as it can get.
The haori is a dark blue. Without Inosuke nearby as a basis of comparison, Tanjirou is left to pull the shades of the sky and the rivers of Inosuke’s hair himself. He surveys the haori’s material, holds it in his hands the way he sometimes wishes he’s touching Inosuke’s hair, and smiles wryly at his utter inability to know for certain.
Next to the fur cloak, he pins the haori up to dry, the excess dye dripping onto the snow. He will return every few hours to watch over it, even when nothing adverse will happen to some cloth at the side of their mountain.
He scrubs his hands with lye and rinses them, watching as the bubbles bloom like flowers and the stone beneath him wash with colour.
The dyes stain the flesh beneath his fingernails. He is only grateful that they are calm, clean blues.
After two unsuccessful constructs of a house for the peonies, Tanjirou’s third attempt does not, in fact, bow under the pressure of the snow which collects above it. Instead, the ice slides off it and lands in a round pile on the edges of the plant. Tanjirou even remembers, now, to sweep it away every so often.
The peonies bloom, bright and flushed in the dead of winter.
A new, not unfamiliar, scent tickles his nose and sends him shooting up in his thin futon.
He scrambles for the fur cloak piled over his feet and nearly rips the newly-installed shouji off its beams in his haste. He thinks Nezuko stirs in her room, but he doesn’t care to check. He is too preoccupied with trudging down the snow to follow the trail he cannot, will not, allow himself to lose. At the end of it is Inosuke, in only his fine uniform buttoned up to his throat.
It is new, Tanjirou notes in a daze, the sleeves on his arms and not raggedly cut off as he prefers. He is wearing his boar’s mask, but he whips it off when Tanjirou comes into view. His face is an alarming shade of red due to the climate.
Tanjirou could weep.
Instead, he stumbles forward, arms trembling and nearly dropping the fur on the snow. He doesn’t, though, and reaches Inosuke with a whistling sigh. He drapes the cloak over Inosuke’s shoulders with stiff fingers, dragging his knuckles over cold cheeks with a wobbling smile.
“Hi,” he says, insufficiently.
Words have never been Inosuke’s forte, however, and he takes Tanjirou’s pathetic attempt at conversation with an imperious grin. “Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” Inosuke asks, burrowing into the fur and pressing close to Tanjirou.
Tanjirou can only shuffle awkwardly, bare toes curling in the snow because he hadn’t even paused to think about putting on footwear before bolting, and says, “Isn’t this already a welcoming? It’s a, ah, a housewarming present.”
Inosuke’s eyes sparkle. He presses the concentration of iciness that is the tip of his nose against Tanjirou’s jaw, just where he could reach, and pushes past him.
“Well,” he sings over his shoulder, “I suppose it is quite warm.”
“Did you find it?” Tanjirou blurts, almost desperately. He burns from the inside, out. Inosuke’s eyes meet his in the dark. Tanjirou swallows around the clarification on his tongue: your family. Did you find them?
After a too-long moment, Inosuke laughs. It is loud and achingly cherished, breaking through the silence that has settled over the mountain. Inosuke looks down at him from the engawa, imperially, as though he is king of the mountain, and says, “Don’t be silly, Tanjirou. I’ve found everything right here.”
Tanjirou stands there, watching as Inosuke carefully shakes the front door open and creeps inside their home with all the familiarity as though he’d been there when it was built, and he feels his chest bloom with a warmth he thought he’d lost in the beginning of winter.