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It’s a day in early April and the two of them are sitting under a tree in the late hours of the day, sun falling and slipping steadily towards the horizon. Senjuro’s contribution is a plate of sakura mochi, Nezuko’s is a closed pitcher of homemade strawberry lemonade. The light is dimming, or perhaps calming, and the air is warm. An intermittent breeze cools them off, fussing with their hair.
It is then, during this scheduled hang out time of theirs, after school and clubs and responsibilities, that Nezuko turns to him, a soft smile on her face and an odd look to her expression—though fond.
“Senjuro,” she speaks into the air, and her mouth must taste of nothing but sweetness to her own tongue, as Senjuro’s does, “I would like to marry you.”
Senjuro chokes on his lemonade, coughing into his cup. His face progressively grows a flaming red, and the heat is felt through his face and chest, to the tips of his ears and his clutching fingers, one hand tight around the cup and the other in the grass below him. He inhales deeply, repetitively. He sounds breathless even to his own ears. “What?” He manages, stammers.
They aren’t dating. They’re just good friends. This is a bit quick.
Nezuko’s lips quirk up into an amused smile. “I said,” she repeats, “that I would like to marry you.”
Senjuro’s mind is confused.
Through his flustered state, he breathes, and blinks, and sets his cup down, closing its lid. He tries to think of something to say.
Nezuko is very pretty, of course. And very kind. And they are good friends because they get along great, and they like spending time with each other.
But this is very sudden. And—
—“Marriage?” He repeats, as though asking for clarification.
Nezuko nods her head, taking a sip of her lemonade, and answers back, surely, “Marriage.”
Well, okay. Marriage.
He stares down at the half gone plate of mochi, very red.
Weakly, his mouth dry and hands itching with a sort of stunned, nervous energy, he replies, “Marriage is quick.”
Nezuko blinks, surprised, then smiles warmly at him, as bright as the dawn. “Well, not now,” she clarifies, “just eventually.”
Senjuro blinks again. “Oh.” Eventually.
His friend giggles, teeth pearly white, eyes pretty pink.
“And you don’t have to want to marry me now,” she starts, “I can wait.” Quite suddenly, her eyes are carefully on him, in a way he is unused to, and Senjuro feels hot. “And I can wait. Until you want to, or until you don’t.”
The sun plays tricks with the clouds, darkening everything with shade, and she reaches a casual hand towards the mochi, the other towards Senjuro’s hand. She takes his soft hand into her own soft hand, and gently—kindly—she leaves a piece of sakura mochi in it.
Senjuro is good at making sakura mochi. He perfected it when Mitsuri had such a violent, long lasting craving for the desert that she changed the amount of stock their local grocery store ordered for well over a year.
With Nezuko’s hands still around his, she holds one of the most important parts of him; his service and his care. His love, his brother calls it, and it has never failed to make him pink at the ears. He’s more fire now than sunrise’s rose, though, and he feels like he may be melting with these sudden revelations.
That Senjuro doesn’t mind, really. It wasn’t something he fantasized about, but it’s something he very suddenly wants to.
This girl, who he spends afternoons with. Who he sits with under trees. Who he bakes and cooks for, and who bakes and cooks for him in return. Who shares smiles with him, and conversations, and worries.
Yes, he would be just fine with pursuing a relationship with her. It’s an embarrassing thought, because he’s never been good at thinking of his own future. They’ve just been friends three years now.
Nezuko opens her mouth to speak, just barely. In a panic, though, Senjuro is already rushing to say—his lungs constricting in his chest at his haste—, “Okay.”
Senjuro has never done this before. He thinks, abashedly, quickly, that he can try and learn.
Nezuko pauses.
“Okay?” She asks, staring at him like she’s about to be relieved, like she’s asking for clarification.
Senjuro nods very quickly in reply, head a bonfire of bright, flustered heat. “Yes!”
Nezuko smiles wider, like she’s relieved. She shifts herself closer, leaning into his space readily. The hand still around the sakura mochi in Senjuro’s palm switches gears to take a chunk out of the side of it, bringing the small thieved portion of rice and filling to her mouth to eat. The wind rustles her hair, mid-length down her back and an inky, pretty black. Senjuro is still struggling to understand what’s happened, but he’s happy, light on the wonder of it.
When Nezuko darts forward to plant a short, sweet, chaste kiss on his cheek, he gasps, heart in his throat with surprise, and on instinct he pulls them together in a hug to reciprocate the affection, resting his check against hers. The hand with two-thirds left of mochi on it is extended out to the side, to stay out of the way, as is Nezuko’s hand holding onto that hand, and his other arm wraps around her securely. Nezuko makes a short, startled noise of surprise before she’s hugging back just as tight, the both of them suddenly giggling and flustered together under a tree and, maybe, just maybe, going to get married eventually. Senjuro isn’t sure.
When the hug is finished and their arms slip from each other’s, Nezuko sits herself right next to Senjuro, moving her cup of strawberry lemonade by her side and stealing the rest of the sakura mochi from Senjuro’s hand.
Senjuro laughs and stresses the grass between his hands, taking another piece from his plate to hold.
They talk, and they sit, and they smile at each other, pink nor care ever leaving them. It isn’t all that different, compared to how these afternoons normally go, but it is. It’s warming of the throat, instead of just the mind and heart. And when it grows too late, both the leftover mochi and leftover strawberry lemonade goes to Nezuko, because it is her turn to take it home.
At goodbye, Senjuro kisses her hand.
At goodbye, Nezuko tops off his cup with lemonade and promises to see him at school tomorrow.
After Nezuko is home, she loads the food and half empty pitcher onto the dining table.
The younger Kamados are already in bed, so she shares it with her mother, Tanjiro, Takeo, and Hanako.
She grins the whole while. She ignores as her mother and elder brother are sending her amused and questioning looks.
After Senjuro is home, he retreats to his room to sip on his lemonade, and he lies in bed.
In his house, the stench of sake rots. His brother moved out a while ago, and now it is just him and his father.
He is frightened, he realized earlier, that he will become like his father. He is frightened that he will fail. He is frightened that, if Nezuko’s desire of marrying him becomes actualized, he would drag her down with him.
He is frightened, because he has never done anything like this before. He is frightened, because his brother is without a partner and his brother is his role model, and the only pair of footsteps he knows belongs to his father.
He is frightened, but he is also happy.
Senjuro wants to make Nezuko happy, because that is what she makes him.
He curls around himself and counts to ten, smiling to his own mind.