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“You’re really moving on already, huh?” Genya commented from his seat in the corner as he watched Tanjiro pack to move on to the next Hashira Training site.
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I moved the boulder, so next up is Giyu’s training.”
Genya couldn’t fathom what it was like to be on a first-name basis with any of the Hashira. Even his brother - nope, no, he was so not going there right now. Point being, that Tanjiro was close enough with a Hashira to be on a first-name basis was ridiculous .
Well, when you were as strong as Tanjiro was, maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous. Genya wouldn’t know.
And that’s exactly why Sanemi hates you, a tiny but brutal voice in the back of his mind hissed. If he was stronger, if he could use Breaths, then he wouldn’t need to eat demons and he wouldn’t be so disgusting that his older brother tried to blind him.
“Hey,” Tanjiro murmured, temporarily abandoning his bag in favor of sliding over next to Genya. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Genya lied. Really, Tanjiro shouldn’t be concerning himself with a weakling like him. Tanjiro was strong , brave, could and did fight for himself and others - hell, he was the only reason Genya wasn’t blind right now. He didn’t have time to waste on someone who couldn’t even take a single Breath.
Tanjiro tapped the tip of his nose. “Nuh-uh. I can smell what you’re thinking, remember?”
Genya wrinkled his own nose. “No, you can’t.” As good as Tanjiro’s sense of smell was, he was reasonably certain it didn’t grant the ability to read minds.
“All right, I can’t read your mind,” Tanjiro conceded. “But I can smell your emotions, and you’re being all…self-deprecate-y.” He peered up at Genya with those large, inquisitive eyes of his. “Why?”
Genya looked away - anywhere, so he didn’t have to meet Tanjiro’s gaze, because then his so-very-carefully-constructed walls would undoubtedly crumble and Tanjiro did not need that right now.
“Is it because Inosuke teased you because you haven’t finished the boulder training yet?” Tanjiro guessed. “Because you’re almost there, aren’t you? I know you can do it!”
It was, and it wasn’t, and he clenched his jaw to prevent the words from spilling out.
“Is it because of your brother? I know I told you he loves you as much as ever, and he does , but I get that it’s still hard.” Tanjiro tilted his head. “Is that it?”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to Tomioka’s training now?” Genya gritted out. “You don’t want to be late.” Because of me, he thought but refused to say aloud.
Tanjiro shrugged. “I want to make sure you’re okay first.”
Why? “I’m fine,” he insisted, even as that voice in his head growled, Liar .
Tanjiro considered him for a moment, then asked, “Is it because there was no more watermelon left over at lunch? I know it’s your favorite and—”
“ What ?” Genya blinked at him. The first two guesses made sense - too much sense - but what did this have to do with anything? “Why would I be upset over that?”
“I don’t know!” Tanjiro threw up his hands. “But you aren’t telling me if my guesses are even close, so I had to go with something!”
And in spite of everything, Genya couldn’t help but laugh a little. “It’s not because there wasn’t enough watermelon.” Would that it were so.
“Okay,” Tanjiro said, shifting closer so that their shoulders were pressed together. “Then what is it?”
No - no, he wasn’t doing this, he wasn’t —
But he glanced down and met Tanjiro’s eyes and felt his resolve waver. “...It’s stupid,” he muttered, looking away again.
“Not if it’s upsetting you,” Tanjiro insisted. “ You’re not stupid, so whatever’s bothering you can’t be stupid either.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” he pointed out.
“Sure it does,” Tanjiro retorted. “But you’re not distracting me that easily. So what is it?” He leaned his chin on Genya’s shoulder - god , those huge doe eyes would be the death of Genya someday. “If you tell me, maybe I can help you fix it!”
“It’s not something you can fix,” he shook his head. It was simply fact that he was nowhere near Tanjiro’s level and never would be. No amount of training would ever fix that, no matter how hard he pushed himself; even eating demons only got him a little closer, and that wasn’t real strength.
“You never know. Sometimes two minds are better than one!”
How was he such an optimist, after everything that had happened to him? His sister was a demon , for goodness’ sake - and he never spoke much about the rest of his family, but Genya wasn’t stupid. Even after demons ripped his life apart and showed him just how pathetic humans were in the face of their strength - how did he look at the world and still believe in positive outcomes?
Because he was strong enough to make them happen. That was it, wasn’t it? He was strong enough to protect his sister and his friends against even an Upper Moon. Genya only found it hard to believe because he’d been too weak to even fetch a doctor for his little siblings all those years ago. There was no comparison between the two of them - there never had been.
A light flick to his forehead and a stern-but-kind “ Hey” snapped him out of his thoughts. “You’re doing it again,” Tanjiro said. “Thinking - whatever it is you’re thinking.”
Genya pulled away, getting to his feet and hugging his arms to his chest. “Just - just go to Tomioka’s training already. Forget about me.” It was for the best, it was for Tanjiro’s own good, even as he felt like he was scraping something out of his heart as he said it.
Tanjiro stood, looking utterly bewildered. “What? Why would I ever do that?”
Genya didn’t reply to that, simply turning away. How could he reply? To answer would make Tanjiro want to stay even more, to try to change his mind, because that was how Tanjiro worked: even when he shouldn’t, he cared about the people around him.
There was a pause, and then Tanjiro stepped forward and around so that he was in front of Genya. “Genya…” he said softly, slipping his hands around Genya’s and gently urging them down from their crossed position. He brought their joined hands to his lips, pressing a few kisses to Genya’s knuckles.
And that was another thing he couldn’t fathom: how Tanjiro saw him this way, as someone desirable, someone he wanted to be with, rather than someone scarred and damaged beyond repair. He hadn’t understood it that day in the Butterfly Mansion when Tanjiro confessed to liking him, and he hadn’t come to understand it any more since then.
“Is it…because you don’t think I should spend time with you?”
…Goddamn it. Damn what , exactly, he wasn’t sure, but something .
His silence was all the answer Tanjiro needed. Tanjiro threw his arms around Genya, pulling him close so quickly and unexpectedly that it knocked the wind out of him.
“What’re you—?”
“I want to spend time with you, okay?” he said, words firm and - Genya didn’t know why - with an urgency to them. “It’s not whether or not I should spend time with you. I like being around you, and - and if you like being around me, then that’s enough.”
“But - but why ?” he asked, feeling like the world was rapidly falling off its axis.
“I just do,” Tanjiro said.
“But—” How was he supposed to make Tanjiro understand? How could he explain that he wasn’t worth it? “ Why ?!”
“Because,” Tanjiro said, as if it was that simple. As if it was ever that simple.
“But,” he whispered, his voice sounding so impossibly small even to his own ears, “you - you should be training. I’ll just hold you back. You’ll always be ahead of me, stronger - you can’t waste time waiting for me to catch up. I’m—” and, oh god, his voice was breaking, why was his voice breaking— “I’m not worth that.”
“ Genya ,” Tanjiro said firmly, and now he actually sounded angry . He lifted his head to frown up at Genya. “That’s not true.”
But it was. That was the lesson Sanemi had learned so long ago, that had taken Genya too long to finally figure out. In a world of demons and, effectively, superpowered humans, he simply would never measure up - he would just drag down those ahead of him.
A warm hand on his cheek made him flinch. “It’s not ,” Tanjiro stated, voice low and serious. “So I pushed a boulder. You’ve done the same thing without even being able to use Total Concentration Breathing.”
“I haven’t even done it,” he pointed out, “I still haven’t moved it one—”
“Without Breathing, I wouldn’t be able to do half the things you can do,” Tanjiro continued. “You’ve figured out how to work around things that would’ve stopped plenty of other people.”
“Yeah,” he bitterly agreed. “I eat demons. Don’t try to tell me that’s a good thing.”
“All right, I won’t,” Tanjiro conceded. “But don’t try to tell me you’re not just as good with your gun as some of the Hashira are with their blades.”
He wasn’t, but Tanjiro’s tone and expression brokered no room for argument.
“And you’re more than how well you can fight,” Tanjiro continued. “You - you’re smart, and kind, and brave, and you are strong, and a million other things. You are .”
He wasn’t, he wasn’t - he felt himself starting to tremble as if from hundreds of miles away. He wasn’t. Tanjiro - Tanjiro was all those things. How could he say that about Genya? He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t—
And from hundreds of miles away, he felt those arms around him tighten.
“I’ll always wait for you,” a soft voice said, sounding distant and close all at once. “I don’t care how long it takes. You’re not holding me back . I’ll wait because I want to.”
What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to reply to that?
But that soft voice didn’t seem to expect him to. It just kept talking to him, following some unknown stream of consciousness until it wasn’t even talking about him at all, but about something to do with a Kasugai crow. He didn’t understand how that happened, and right now, he couldn’t even begin to follow that line of thought, so he didn’t try.
The arms around him were attached to a body so much steadier than his own. Something told him he shouldn’t lean into it, that he didn’t have the right to take support from it, but—
He was so tired of his own weakness.
Somehow, he found himself clinging back just as tightly. And he didn’t quite have it in him to feel guilty for it.