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"Lady Kocho?"
Giyu knew she shouldn't have said that, and that he should've just turned and left. Shinobu peeked her head up, alarmed by his sudden words.
"Giyu," she said kindly, rubbing her eyes, and looking at him with a pink-nosed smile.
He cringed at the sight of her smile. Fake smiles were the worst in his book, behind betrayers and cannibals.
"Why were you crying?"
"Huh? Oh, silly Giyu, I wasn't crying, just-"
"I know you were." he said coldly, and she looked up at him, tears prickling near the surface.
"Are you okay?" he added, because he knew that laying it on this thick would make her confess. He didn't know why he wanted to ask about the mean doctor's mental health, but the woman he cared for so much once said.
'Care for others, even if they don't care back. They will eventually'
Shinobu stayed quiet for a second, and in those moments of silence, the ones he found solitude in usually, made him feel jittery. Like he wanted to reach out quickly, and hear it.
"Not in the slightest," she whispered, and he turned back to her, wide-eyed.
"What's the matter?'' he asked, becoming genuinely curious.
"It's about my late sister, Kanae."
Late sister.
He heard the word too much at her funeral, and too much whenever he told someone about his sister. The woman he greatly admired. The woman who taught him to persevere. The woman who taught him to be kind.
"I miss her. She served in the war, but she died about a month ago."
Perhaps that's why she was crying. His sister, Tsutako, died years ago, and the pain softened to a muted sadness.
"I also had a sister," he said unintentionally, and Shinobu looked up, alarmed.
"She was pretty and sweet, and everyone loved her more than me. She died a few years back. I still remember everything she taught me about life." he said with a sad smile, reminiscing past memories in flashes of seconds.
"Mine was like that too," Shinobu said.
They sat in awkward silence, but soon, Shinobu laughed.
"What?" he asked, watching her giggle. Shinobu paused, still smiling. "It's just been so long since I found someone like me. You know that empty hollow feeling when you lose your closest companion? No one has ever told me of their feelings that were a long the lines of that."
Giyu knew he was supposed to hate her, but he smiled back.
