Chapter Text
Hissing, Nezuko forces herself to hold the cool, damp cloth against the reddened stretch of skin on her lower arm, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. In a day or two, the bruise will darken into an already familiar purple—darker than the purple sickness that twists down the Master’s face, darker than wisteria—whose edges will eventually fade into a sickly green. Green will overtake purple, brown will overtake green, and Nezuko will have a new bruise in the same space before it can even disappear entirely.
Admittedly, she is surprised that this bruise is on a new stretch of skin—surprised that she even has any skin left that is unpummeled, unbruised, untouched.
Rengoku is not a bad teacher, nor a cruel one. He’s a great teacher, honestly; better than Nezuko expected, even as she dreads and worries over her own inchworming climb of improvement. He’d been the first person to notice the blooming bruises and ask about them, concerned that he was going too hard in his training, that he was pushing her to do too much, too fast, despite the fact that they had yet to even spar.
But no—Nezuko just bruises like a peach, always has, the smallest bump blossoming into a purple mark, skin scraped and raw even when she is nearly positive that nothing had hit her in that specific spot. Some of the bruises come from her losing her balance and falling against sharp rocks, some from smacking herself with the wooden training swords, some from occurrences Nezuko cannot remember, even though the injury remains proof that something must have happened for days afterward.
Even Before, little malformed circles of greenish-blue had littered her shins and forearms, from playing that accidentally grew too rough, from bumping against low-lying tables, from what seemed like the air itself at times. So the bruises are familiar, somewhat, though they are far more numerous now than Nezuko ever imagined to be possible.
And yet, she cannot find it within herself to regret them, each splotch proof of a necessary mistake, of a lesson learned (the scabs on her knees are finally flaking off, her reward for practicing a specific move for hours, even without Rengoku present, landing on her knees more times than her feet in the beginning), of an ounce more strength gained.
Senjuro had been the one to give Nezuko the soft, fluffy cloth, some week or so ago. It is kinder against her skin than rough towels she had been using before, far more soothing, and Nezuko hadn’t known what to do with his kindness other than stiffly accept the gift and dip her head in a shallow bow.
He is too kind, too sweet, to exist near Nezuko’s sharp thorns; thorns that she does not know how to dull. And yet, slowly, without her input, they are dulling nonetheless. She knows that, in part, it is due to Senjuro’s constant kindness and because training makes it too tiring to be angry all the time. Then there is Rengoku’s very presence, and his innate ability to offer comfort in the most desperately needed ways, freely offered at the drop of a hat.
As Nezuko attempts to soothe her angry skin, someone makes their approach known, footsteps heavy and obvious, grumbling in annoyance all the while. Silently, Nezuko shifts to the side, so the person can access the bucket of fresh water she had drawn from the stone well and used to wet her cloth. The person doesn’t seem to even notice her, rudely scrubbing their dirty hands in the water, splashing it over his face, running dirt-heavy hands through his ratty mohawk of hair.
“Uh—” Nezuko starts, eyebrows high, already judging him for not using the wooden dipper and instead contaminating the whole bucket. “What are you—?”
Without a word, the boy starts to tip the bucket of dirty water onto its side, ready to spill the water back down the well’s hollow mouth, and like a snake—faster than Nezuko has ever moved before, faster than she ever could move before—her aching arm snaps forward, snagging a white-knuckle grip on the rim of the bucket, hand opposite of the boy’s. “What are you doing?” She exclaims, “You can’t do that!”
Slowly, the boy’s eyes shift to the side. To look at Nezuko. The muscles in her arm strain to keep the bucket upright as he obstinately continues to try to push it over. He was probably a few years older than her, a gnarly scar cutting across half his face, from cheek to nose. He was a little bit taller, just as scrawny, and five times as angry, biting out a nasty, “Shut up! It’s just water, and it’s from a damn hole in the ground anyway.”
“Are you dumb?” Nezuko questions impulsively, gritting her teeth as they fight for control over the bucket. While most of the bitterness, the cruelty, of Nezuko’s grief had drained out of her body only a few weeks into training with Rengoku—it was hard to be cruel and exhausted at the same time, so now Nezuko was just left with grief, lacking any bitterness to distract from its melancholy taste—it is still easy to scrounge up feelings of deep annoyance. Of the residual bitterness that lies dormant under her skin, buried under exhaustion and the power that comes from building muscles, from swinging a sword until the skin on her hand sticks to the wooden hilt, bloodying it, and from lying down at night and having no other choice but to fall asleep the instant her head hits the pillow, even as nightmares haunt her at every turn.
“Fuck off,” the boy retorts angrily, yanking the bucket.
For a brief second, Nezuko wonders if this squabble is even worth it. Then, her eyes flit toward still-dirty hands, blood smearing across his knuckles, and the idea of blood in the water—even just a little—has her nauseous and furious. Stomping heavily on his foot, the boy reels back in surprise. From there, it is easy to overpower the boy, yanking the bucket from his grip, back toward her. Only, she yanks a bit too hard, which sends the contents of the bucket splashing over the both of them.
Spitting out dirty, grimy water—iron on her tongue, and Nezuko wants to gag—she lets go of the bucket, which knocks against the stone side of the well in an uneven, slowing tempo, the rope attaching it to the well keeping it from touching the ground or rolling away.
She’s still trying to blink water out of her eyes when a blunt, accusing finger jabs into her chest, the boy’s face a flaming, furious, blurry red.
“You did that on purpose!”
Annoyance rolls like a tidal wave as she smacks his hand away. “Uh—idiot—I’m soaked too. Why would I do that on purpose?”
“Because!” The boy splutters, and Nezuko juts out her chin as she interrupts him, crowding into his space.
“Because?” She echoes mockingly, “Because nothing! You know I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Nezuko doesn’t see the punch coming. A tightly clenched fist slams against her cheek, snapping her head to the side—a new bruise will undoubtedly form before the next day—causing Nezuko to reel backward, brushing against the no-longer-swinging bucket and side of the well.
When she turns to look at the boy, he’s frozen, as if just realizing what he did, and he starts to lift his hands upward in an apology. Nezuko doesn’t let him, charging forward, her shoulder slamming into his gut. Together they fall onto the small rocks and pebbles, bruising the bruises on Nezuko’s knees, undoubtedly hurting the boy’s back if his brief grimace is anything to go by, but it mustn’t be too bad, considering her immediately starts bracing his arms against Nezuko’s shoulders, pushing against them in an attempt to throw her off, while Nezuko tries to shove his face into the ground at the same time. Eventually he stops going for her shoulders and instead grabs thick fistfulls of her wet hair, yanking hard enough that Nezuko yelps and stops what she is doing, instead attempting to untangle his fingers.
The boy takes the opportunity to shove himself upright unthinkingly, their foreheads slamming in a very familiar way, causing them to both stop struggling as they let out matching noises of pain. Nose to nose—or, well, the tip of Nezuko’s nose to the bridge of his nose, considering she’s hovering over him, all of her weight on her knees—they silently blink at each other.
Then: “Your forehead is massive.”
Maybe not the best thing to say, but Nezuko is right. His forehead was tall enough to hit her forehead, after all, despite him being about an inch shorter right now due to how they fell.
He looks at her incredulously, and sharply yanks her hair one last time before letting it go, pushing a wincing Nezuko off of him and onto the ground. Rocks dig into her palms as she uses them to catch herself. She doesn’t bother straightening, though, even as the boy stands up, soggy and limp mohawk plastered across his big forehead, clothes equally wet. Nezuko is not much better, and she wants to gag at remembering how nasty the boy’s hands had been, and how they had tangled themselves in her hair.
For a while, he just looks down at her, before scoffing and walking away.
Nezuko throws a pebble at his receding back, missing the goal between his shoulder blades, instead smacking square against his lower back, but she’s already scattering away in a sprint by the time he turns around, cursing and swearing.