Work Text:
Tanjirou awoke with the taste of lemon water and sunshine on his mouth.
It took him a moment for his brain to come online and process where he was and what day it was. Tanjirou blinked away the sleep from his eyes before he broke out into a yawn, looking up at the sky. Above him, two large trees blocked out the afternoon sky with their green leaves, providing a nice shade for him as he laid in the hammock of his backyard.
Tanjirou had gotten home from the last day of school about two hours earlier with Nezuko and his two best friends, Zenitsu and Inosuke. They were all relaxing in the backyard, simply basking in the warmth of the sun and the beginning of summer break with lemonade that Nezuko had made for everyone. Exhausted from the exciting final day, surrounded by his closest people, and refreshed by the sweetness of a delicious citrus drink, Tanjirou wasn’t surprised to find out he fell asleep.
After remembering all that, Tanjirou finally took notice of the warm body that laid pressed up against him in the hammock. Having been someone who naturally excludes warm body heat and having smaller siblings (and friends) who like to cling to him, Tanjirou was used to having someone curl up to or cuddle him as they slept. This shouldn’t have been any different. Yet, when he turned to see who it was, Tanjirou couldn’t stop the sight from taking his breath away.
It wasn’t the feeling of surprise that left him breathless and caused Tanjirou to freeze up, no it was how close and pretty Inosuke looked sleeping next to him. The sunlight that filtered through the leaves hit his face so softly, leaving shadows that gracefully sculptured his face with accenting highlights. Inosuke had his mask laying on the ground next to them, a rare time when he would sleep with it off, usually opting to sleep with it on in the presence of others. He had also gone and undone his uniform shirt, unbuttoning it and leaving his front side entirely bare how Inosuke likes it. It made Tanjirou feel blessed, knowing that Inosuke was comfortable enough around him to not feel the need to hide away. It made him feel special to the other boy.
Up close, Tanjirou can see the fading scars from previous brawls Inosuke was in and the little bump on his nose from when he broke it once in a particularly nasty fight they had in their first year of high school. Tanjirou remembers that fight. It was a big fiasco with a whiney girl named “Daki” harassing some young girl and a skinny guy who rode her around on a motorcycle came in to defend her when Zenitsu tattled on her to professor Tengen. Tanjirou couldn’t remember the guy’s name, not that it mattered. He just recalls the two of them pulling up after school, starting a fight with them, and both of them being assholes.
Inosuke stirs in his sleep and Tanjirou’s attention is once again fully placed onto him. Long eyelashes lay dedicatedly against his smooth skin, dark in contrast and Tanjirou wishes he could reach over to touch the skin of Inosuke’s cheek with his calloused hand. His slow, soft breathing was a rare occurrence since Inosuke normally snored so loudly, like a dragon or boar would, but he wasn’t this time. And with nothing but the gentle breeze of the wind rustling the leaves, Tanjirou listened intently to the other’s breathing and just silently watched, trying his best not to feel like a creep.
He wasn’t sure exactly when their relationship had shifted from friendly, platonic affection to… whatever this was. Sure, it was still arguably friendly and platonic, but there was something different about it. When it came to showing affection with Zenitsu, Tanjirou restricted it down to occasional hugs, shoulder bumps, piggyback rides or accidental brush of hands and leaning against each other. He did the same with Inosuke, but it was just more deeper than that. There was a stronger warmth, a tingly feeling that would linger whenever they touched, and whenever they came in contact, Tanjirou couldn’t help but think it wasn’t enough.
Even now, Tanjirou felt like something was missing from this situation, but he didn't know what. So, he decided to just snuff the feeling away and relax in the warmth of the afternoon and the other boy’s sleeping presence.
Tanjirou knew he should get up, but the domesticity of the situation made his heart lurch, racing and he laid there as he waited for his heart to slow and his face to cool down along with the summer air.
There was something so soft about the whole thing that made him feel so warm, warmer than the sun that peeked through the leaves of the tree branches over them. It was different from their usual roughhousing and playful competitive games. It was a good kind of different that had Tanjirou wanting to stay here, laying in the hammock with Inosuke forever.
But of course, he can’t. Things happen and life goes on. And this thing in particular happened to be his sister.
Tanjirou smells Nezuko approaching before he hears her.
"Tanjirou? Are you awake?" She asks softly, as if not wanting to wake him if he wasn’t.
He sat up slowly, careful not to wake Inosuke as he nodded. His sister smiles sweetly at him.
"Good, because you need to run."
"Huh?” Tanjirou blinked, confused at the suggestion. That was random. “Why?"
Just then, Zenitsu slammed open their glass backdoor and burst out of their house, house slippers flying off his feet before he landed on his butt, hands sprawled out and face into the ground, yelling. He quickly turned around as the Kamado’s younger teens and kids came out with water guns, pumping them menacingly before aiming them at the poor blonde.
"Because Zenitsu and I made the mistake of buying the kids water guns as a celebratory gift for making it through the school year." Replied Nezuko as she and Tanjirou watched the scene unfold from a safe distance away.
"W-Wait! Why are you targeting me?!” Zenitsu wailed. “I’m the one who bought you those things! I'm a friend, not a foe!"
"Well, to us, it looks like you're an evil demon that needs to be slain!" Shouted the second oldest of the teens, 15-year-old Takeo.
"A d-demon?!" Yelped the blonde, confused and horrified.
They began to spray him and then turned to face Tanjirou when he shouted at them to stop and leave him alone. Simultaneously, they all smile wickedly to each other and suddenly, Tanjirou can feel the shift in bloodlust from focusing on Zenitsu to him.
"The sleep demon has awoken!" 13-year-old Hanako announced as she pumped her water gun again.
Ironically, to Tanjirou, they looked like the demons.
The kids charge as a group as Tanjirou shouts at them to wait, but they don’t listen. With Inosuke still curled up next to him, an arm sprawled out over his waist, Tanjirou can’t scramble out of the hammock fast enough before the kids spray him and Inosuke.
Inosuke immediately wakes and sits up with a loud and angry roar. The kids’ eyes widen and they shrink back, taking a cautionary step back too as Inosuke wipes his face, rubbing the stolen sleep and water from his eyes before looking to the kids and then to Tanjirou who was also wet. He’s mad, robbed of his peaceful slumber, and the kids are the ones who stepped on the tails of the sleeping lion. Or boar boy in this case.
Any normal person could have put two and two together and figured that the two of them were victims in this sudden water gun assault, but Inosuke was no normal person. To him, seeing Tanjirou wet automatically meant that he was the culprit of this attack and it was evidence of his evil-doing, caught red handed in the act. And the panicked look that Tanjirou gave him as the red-head realized that Inosuke would blame him only served to further prove that Tanjiour was guilty. And guilty people needed to be brought to justice, as his former history teacher Rengoku said.
Tanjirou tensed up, hands raising up in a pathetic attempt to sooth the now furious beast that was looking at him wildly.
“Wait, it wasn’t me! Inosuke, don’t!”
With another feral out cry, Inosuke jumped and tackled Tanjirou, causing them to tumble out of the hammock and for Tanjirou to hit the ground on his back with an “oomph!” Inosuke sat down on top of him, bearing down all his weight on Tanjirou’s stomach. He grabbed at Tanjirou’s cheeks, pulling them harshly and stretching out his face as he yelled wildly out of anger. Oh how the prettiest faces make the scariest faces when angry.
“Shtop! It washn’t me, Inoshuke! Pleashe shtop! It hurshts! Shtop !”
Those pleads fell onto deaf ears as Inosuke continued to roughly pull on the red-head’s cheeks until Tanjiou’s guilty siblings came running up to them, weapons lowered.
Takeo was the first to speak up.
“Wait, Inosuke, it really wasn’t him!”
“Yeah, it was us!” Shigeru, the third son of the Kamado family, added.
“We’re sorry, so please get off Tanjirou!” Hanako pleaded.
It seems like it did the trick since Inosuke’s yells simmered down. After a moment, he let go of Tanjirou's face before placing closed fists on his hips, turning to face the younger Kamado children with a glare.
“You guys have five seconds to either run or explain why I shouldn’t clobber each and every one of you.”
Wow, okay, they got a warning, but I didn’t? Tanjirou thought to himself as he rubbed at his own cheeks gently, trying to soothe the pink and aching muscle there. He got full on attacked without a warning or an attempt to clear his name. A part of him is happy that Inosuke is softer with his younger siblings, but another part of Tanjirou is internally pouting that he can’t experience the same gentleness, even if it’s still a bit rough around the edges.
The kids quickly scramble for a good explanation before the youngest of all the Kamado children, Rokuta, speaks.
“We’re having a water gun fight! It’s us, Demon Slayers, versus you guys, the demons!”
“Haah?” Inosuke’s brows furrow as he takes in this answer, beads of water dripping down his dark black and blue-tipped hair. As he lays underneath the other boy, Tanjirou’s eyes follow the one droplet of water that falls off Inosuke’s bangs and onto his button nose, tracing the curvature of it. It stops on the tip of his nose and, with a dark flush of his cheeks, Tanjirou swallows down the urge to kiss the droplet away. He’s grateful to be able to excuse the blushing on his cheeks from the hard pinching and pulling Inosuke gave him if anyone were to question him on it.
“We bought water balloons for you.” Nezuko chimes in with a smile as she gently pats at Inosuke’s shoulder to urge him off her brother. He silently complies and gets off, eyes wide and a wicked grin forming on his lips.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?! C’mon, let’s go fill them!” He shouts to the kids before he starts running to the house. “Last one there gets a water balloon to the face!” The kids all look at each other wide eyed before they burst into smiles and laughs, chasing and running after the older teen.
Nezuko extends her hand down to her brother to help him up and he graciously takes it with a bright smile.
“Thank you, Nezuko.”
She hums in response as Zenitsu walks up to them, drenched in his school uniform still. The two Kamado siblings’ eyes widen at the sight of him before bursting into laughter.
“Don’t laugh at me!” He whines loudly, hand reaching out to cling to Nezuko’s hand. “Can one of you please get me a towel? I would get it myself, but I don’t want to wet the inside of your home.”
“Yeah, I got it.” Tanjirou says. “I’m not as wet as you are.”
“Are you sure?” Nezuko asks. “I can grab them if you want.”
“It’s okay!” He cheerfully exclaims. “Actually, if you could Nezuko, could you make more of that lemonade from earlier? It was delicious.”
Nezuko nods and smiles a beautiful smile, humming once again in response.
“While you two do that, I’m gonna go wring out my shirt and air dry out here.” Zenitsu says as he starts to unbutton his dress shirt.
The two eldest siblings nod and head inside before they separate to different parts of the house. Tanjirou can hear the kids and Inosuke making a fuse in the kitchen as they fill up the balloons. He reaches the closet where they keep the extra towels and grabs a couple of them for this upcoming water battle when he hears commotion in the kitchen.
“Insouke, that’s too much water! Stop!” Takeo exclaimed.
“The bigger the balloon, the better the splash!” Inosuke rebukes back. Tanjirou can practically hear the massive grin on his face. He loves how his friends get along so well with his siblings. It makes his heart sing.
“Be careful! It’s gonna pop!” Hanako warned.
“Relax, it’s not gonna pop—”
The collective surprised screams that comes after that has Tanjirou running into the kitchen with the towels. When he walks in, he’s taken aback at the sight of all the kids being partially wet, with Inosuke looking more wet than before, his whole front side completely wet. In his hands is a broken rubber balloon. Nezuko stands behind them, arms crossed. She looks partially amused, but also a bit upset. To stifle the laugh that is about to slip past his lips, Tanjirou brings a hand up to cover his mouth. The scene before him is hilarious.
“If you guys are gonna make a mess, then use the garden hose outside. Don’t ruin the kitchen.” Nezuko states firmly.
The wet group of children give an collective “Okay” before they take the container bin of already done water balloons and take it outside, pulling a still stunned Inosuke with them. As they pass by him, Tanjirou finally lets out a chuckle and it seems to have snapped Inosuke out of his shocked trance because he looks up to the red-head, cackling. The other kids hear it and join in the laughing. Tanjirou follows them out, a grin forming as he listens to the sound of joy coming from his favorite people in the world.
As the kids and Inosuke fill the balloons, Tanjirou and Zenitsu set up some lawn chairs they had to use as cover around the backyard and used sticks to establish “safe zones” which were really the patio and where the hammock was. By the time they were done, the kids were finished with the balloons and Nezuko had brought out the refreshments and even cut up some watermelon. She placed the platter down on the garden table they had outdoors.
“Can I join you guys in playing?” She asked.
“Yes, please!” Rokuta exclaimed.
They start playing, and all goes well at first. Splashes and sprays flew in all directions, accompanied by the sound of laughter. However, at some point, the lines between demon slayers and demons, friend and foe, start to blur with a little bit of friendly fire. A bit of inaccuracy with the water guns and bad throws lead to hitting the wrong targets, hitting allies instead, and suddenly, it’s war on everyone.
When they finally got tired, the sun had started to set and they were all drenched, sitting around the garden table with towels draped around each of them as they drank lemonade and ate watermelon under the setting sun.
Tanjirou was talking to Nezuko when he heard Rokuta say something very interesting to Inosuke.
“Y’know, Inosuke, you’re like our brother.”
“Huh? You mean I’m like Tanjirou?” Inosuke asked, confused.
“No, he means like a brother of ours.” Takeo clarified.
“Like a brother of yours?” Zenitsu parroted. “You mean like an in-law? Do you see me as an in-law right now?!” He asked enthusiastically, leaning up into Takeo and Rokuta's personal space, delusionally bright-eyed and grinning with hope.
“Zenistu, we aren’t even dating yet!” Nezuko exclaimed with flushed cheeks.
“Did I hear that right? Was that a ‘yet’?” Zenitsu asked vehemently, whipping around to grab at Nezuko’s hands and hold them in his own. “I do have a chance!”
“Yeah, like that! Kind of like a brother-in-law!” Hanako answers, ignoring Zenitsu and Nezuko’s conversation, but giving her sister support anyway by patting at her back silently. Nezuko looked a bit uncomfortable and overwhelmed.
“Oh. But I’m sure as hell not gonna marry your sister.” Inosuke says to the kids.
“You better not, I’ll kill you,” Zenitsu seethes, his emotional switch instantly flipping as he scowls at the raven.
“Not if I kill you first.” Inosuke shoots back.
“We weren’t talking about Nezuko.” Shigeru clarifies.
“Then who?” Inosuke and Zenitsu ask in unison. The others all look to Tanjirou and the two follow their gazes. Zenitsu is the first to understand what the Kamado kids are putting down.
“Oh! You mean Inosuke and Tanjirou as the ones getting married!” He explains out loud just to spell it out to Inosuke and Tanjirou, who seems to still be a bit slow on the uptake. With Zenitsu’s words, Tanjirou immediately flushes red and stammers.
“W-Wait, hold on now—”
“Okay.” Inosuke says. Tanjirou looks at the boy sitting next to him with furrowed brows, jaw dropping open.
“H-Huh?!”
“I’ll marry you.”
“WHAT?!” Tanjirou shouts, face becoming redder by the second. He was cold from the water that was being thrown and sprayed to him about ten minutes ago, but now he feels like he’ll overheat from all the blood rushing to his face.
“I said I’ll marry you.” Inosuke states.
“I wasn’t asking you to marry me!”
“I wasn’t either. I’m telling you I will.”
Tanjirou is floored and doesn’t know how to respond to that for a second. He stares at Inosuke and then everyone else at the table in silence before he finally recovers.
“T-That’s not how it works!”
“How does it work then?” Inosuke asks, crossing his arms over his chest, arching a brow. “You like me and I like you, so let’s get married.”
Tanjirou’s mouth drops open again at that. Luckily for him, Zenitsu interrupts right then.
“Hold up, no! You two can’t get married before Nezuko and I do!”
“Zenitsu, I said we aren’t dating!”
“Neither are they, but they’re already planning on marriage! Why can’t we?” The blonde argues back to her. She made a little hum in irritation at the response.
“Hah! We’re gonna get married before you! Suck it!” Inosuke sticks his tongue out at Zenitsu who yells and grabs onto the other’s shoulders.
“NO! I refuse to lose to a brute like you and get married second to you guys!”
“Okay, okay! Stop!” Tanjirou stops the quarrel, hands landing on Zenitsu and Inosuke’s shoulders. “Let’s talk about this later.” He says directly to Inosuke “Marriage is a very big commitment and it can’t be decided so quickly. As for you,” He turns to face Zenitsu. “Please consider Nezuko’s feelings. She isn’t ready for marriage talk yet. Go slow for her, okay?”
The boys grumble out a “Fine,” begrudgingly and Tanjirou smiles brightly, grateful to the two of them.
“Okay, now, Nezuko took her time to make this for us, so let’s continue to eat!” He motions for everyone to continue eating and they do. After a few moments of silence, the kids eventually begin to talk about something else now that the drama has stopped. Meanwhile, Zenitsu apologizes to Nezuko for making her uncomfortable and as they get lost in their own conversation, Inosuke leans over from his seat and into Tanjirou’s space.
“So when did you want to talk about the marriage thing?” He asks seriously.
Tanjirou flushes a bit, choking a bit on his glass of lemonade. How attractive. He coughs into his fist, stammering.
“Um, pr-probably in a couple years if we start to date?”
“Then let’s start dating now.”
“Inosuke—”
“What, why are you so hesitant about this?” He asks, fixing Tanjirou with a quizzical look.
“I’m not—”
“You are .” Inosuke interjected. “Don’t be a damn chicken. What’s got you so scared of it?”
“I’m not!” Tanjirou exclaimed, starting to get a bit defensive.
“Then what?”
“It’s just— y’know …”
“No, I don’t.”
Tanjirou rubs the back of his neck, looking down at the table and away from Inosuke who looks at his profile so intently. It makes him squirm, knowing that someone as attractive as Inosuke is staring at him so closely like this.
“I don’t want you to make the mistake of marrying me young just to regret it later and leave me.”
“Who said it would be a mistake?”
Tanjirou blinked at him. Insouke sighed.
“Listen, I’m not as dumb as you think I am. I know how serious marriage is, although I don’t really see the point of it. Having or not having some paper certificate thing isn’t gonna stop me from wanting to be stuck to you for the rest of my life. That kind of life…Well, that kind of life doesn't sound so bad.”
Tanjirou’s eyes widened at that.
“If you want to wait a few years just like Zenitsu and Nezuko, I don’t mind. I ain't going anywhere between now and then.”
Tanjirou blinks away his surprise and smiles warmly at the raven.
“Yes, I’d like for us to do that. Thank you, Inosuke.”
He clicked his tongue, looked away sharply, turning his head away. It might be the trick of sunlight, but Tanjirou swears he saw a shade of pink on his cheeks.
“But you owe me,” Inosuke says. “I’m not doing this waiting thing out of the kindness of my own heart. I expect you to let me eat some of your food from this day forward.”
“You do that anyway.” Tanjirou laughs.
“Yeah, well,” Inosuke turns his head back to reach over and steal a piece of cubed watermelon from Tanjirou’s plate, chewing it. “Get used to it because I ain’t gonna stop doing it until the day I die.”
“You dying? I don’t think anything can kill you.” Zenitsu chimes in, butting into the conversation with his keen sense of hearing.
“Damn right, I’m practically immortal. So you’re stuck with me for all eternity, Tanjirou.” Inosuke declares with a toothy grin, so wide and prideful.
Tanjirou smiles brightly, cheeks flushed and happy.
“I look forward to it!”
“You better!”
Tanjirou chuckles as Inosuke pigs out and Zenitsu expresses his disgust. And it’s there, surrounded by his friends and family, when Tanjirou thinks about what Inosuke said. This? Being with his most important people for all of eternity? Yeah, Inosuke was right. It doesn’t sound so bad at all.
In fact, it sounds perfect.