[Requests Open] A unedited collection of (un)romantic short stories brought to you by my obsession with Demon Slayer ships.
[illustrations do not belong to me, credits to original owners]
Note: This is about one year after the final battle
Aoi POV:
Aoi fixed the butterfly pins in her hair and smoothed the wrinkles in her clothes, getting ready for another day of treating patients. It was late February, the sky was filled with smokey gray clouds and not a single ray of sunlight to be seen. The weather was already gloomy enough, not helping her depressed mood. At breakfast nobody talked, all knowing what day it was today, nobody spoke a single word about it and only the hollow sound of wooden chopsticks against plates were heard. Soon after, everyone went about the day silently, treating wounds, providing medicine and such. Hours passed by quickly and morning melted into noon which transitioned to late afternoon. A light drizzle had started to cover the butterfly estate, it was the first rain of spring.
Aoi studied the room that she just entered, it was small, but big enough for the people who might come by later. By the wall was a small table, it displayed a picture of a young lady with beautiful violet eyes and whose hair was tied into a neat french bun held up by a butterfly pin. Above the table was a sword hanging on the wall and next to the sword was the butterfly pin the women in the picture was wearing in her hair.
"Shinobu-sama..." She whispered as she crouched down next to the table, "You would be nineteen today..."
Aoi sniffled slightly as tears threatened to spill.
"I have came to report to you what has been going on lately," She chuckled at how she phrased her words, but continued, "Kanao has lost vision is one eye, but she insists that she's fine, but she's been improving quite a lot, she makes her own decisions now...you'd be really proud."
Aoi sniffed again and a single tear ran down her cheek, she gazed at the picture of Shinobu smiling calmly, wishing that she could've done something to prevent her death.
"Inosuke and the others have visited several times and are here right now in honor of you, and Kanao seems to take interest in Tanjiro-kun, but you probably already saw that coming. " Tears streamed down Aoi's face, despite her effort to suppress them and she started to sob.
(Notice how she said "Inosuke and the others")
The door of the room creaked open and the sound of footsteps reached Aoi's ears, she looked up and stared into the golden eyes of Zenitsu. Aoi immediately started to wipe away the tears that stained her cheeks, but that only made the crying worse. She felt Zenitsu's hand pat her comfortingly on her back.
"It's ok...I heard everything..."
Right, Aoi forgot that Zenitsu had crazy good hearing.
"I-I'm s-s-sorry-y,"
"What for?"
"R-r-ruining your-r mood."
Zenitsu chuckled slightly, "You didn't, but you ruined your own mood."
"S-stop!"
"Ok, ok!"
After a few moments of silence, Zenitsu spoke again in a more serious tone, "You know, Shinobu-san wouldn't like to see you crying, I feel like she would say something like: Aoi, please stand up and dry your tears, I would like you to be happy, after all, my sacrifice wasn't in vain and we were able to eradicate the demon race with my death."
Even though Aoi was never fond of Zenitsu and his perverted ways, hearing these words somehow made her feel better. She was grateful that she still had people around her who care about her well being.
When she looked up, Aoi realized that there were flowers on the table, fresh flowers that still had droplets of water on them. After picking them up and telling Zenitsu, she realized they were a small bunch of sky blue forget-me-nots. That's when Aoi remembered that when she had came into the room, the paper lanterns were already lit and the dust had been wiped off of Shinobu's picture frame.
Someone had been here before her.
Something that Aoi had picked up from Shinobu was her ability to notice small details. Forget-me-nots symbolize love and longing so they were too intimate for someone to give randomly. Aoi also took note of the uneven stems of each stalk, meaning they were hand picked.
She already had a rough idea of who this person was and Zenitsu saying that he had been here when she was out buying eggs only confirmed her suspicions.
Aoi always found Tomioka Giyuu a little odd, he would only talk when it was absolutely necessary and no matter how hard you provoke him, you wouldn't get more than a perplexed expression-as proven by Shinobu in the many times Aoi heard her annoying Giyuu. Aoi liked to see Shinobu annoy Giyuu, not because it was comedic, but because Shinobu would become more like herself, rather than a shadow of Kanae. Aoi knew the connection between them was more that just the relationship between peers. He could actually understand the pain that Shinobu has gone through, having experienced something similar himself.
But alas, they were not meant to be in this lifetime, afterall, fate was something everyone was trying to escape.
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(Here are the forget-me-nots that Giyuu gave to Shinobu)
