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I couldn’t utter my love when it counted
Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now
Hozier
“Let’s stop here for a moment,” she said as she headed to an untamed patch of wildflowers, veering off the main road.
Giyuu did not deem to respond for she simply stated an action. Whether it was requested or not, it did not matter. If he were to protest, she would still do whatever she pleased. He learned long ago not to waste his breath.
Shinobu squatted before prairies, harebells and forget me nots, knees close to her chest. Eyelids fluttering shut; nose raised to smell them. Golden rays dappling her form just so that she looked like a morning glory incarnate, her headpiece the butterfly resting on its center.
Giyuu had not known he had made his way to her until he felt the suppleness of overgrown grass under his feet, surprising himself.
“If Tanjiro were here, can you guess what he would say it smelled like?”
Though a question this time, Giyuu did not answer. We have a mission to complete, he did not press.
“Freedom,” she whispered with a hint of sadness in her voice.
Having Shinobu’s back to him, Giyuu allowed himself to close his eyes and take a long inhale. A fragrance so foreign yet so known to his soul, it made his heart ache.
What must freedom look like, what it must feel like.
Shinobu’s clothes rustling captured Giyuu’s attention and he watched as she extended her arm, pointer finger outstretched as a butterfly, the same color of her perceptive eyes, sat on her nail.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked as she turned to him and smiled, soft, sincere.
Shinobu’s expectant stare made Giyuu realize that his mouth was slightly agape. The breath exhaled through lips, wasted. Yet the words did not come. And when she truly waited for a response.
Shinobu’s expression shifted from curious to comprehensive. She sighed as if he ruined her fun.
“We must get going, I know. I know.”
Getting to her feet, she squished his shoulder as she returned to the main road.
Frozen as his soul sang a long-winded note, Giyuu shrugged the feeling away, joining Shinobu.
“This is why people don’t like you.”
“People do like me.”
Shinobu’s silence spoke more than his ever could. It seemed to imply he was wrong.
The path stretched before them, destination unreachable. Unsure as the dark clouds rolling in. The sunshine and wildflowers behind them appeared to beg their return.
“Don’t worry. At least, I still like you,” she reassured him as if he were a sulking child.
Spying at Shinobu from the corner of his eyes, Giyuu felt like he was watching a walking dream. Known to his heart, it was freedom, seen and felt.
And I like you, he did not utter for he learned to be frugal long ago.