(This chapter is where I'm alot less confident with my writing ability, I don't really know how to write romance or feelings like that so don't pay any attention to it if it is subpar. Enjoy the read, though!)
Shinobu spent the next two days in turmoil with herself, even talking to demons about her problems before killing them, all while Giyuu and Mitsuri awkwardly stumbled through conversation on the trip back. She still couldn't quite look Giyuu in the eyes after he saw her chest, but she had a gift for him that she still needed to give. As the pair reached the butterfly mansion bruised and battered with very mediocre patch jobs from both of them as neither ever really learned the medical part of the job, Mitsuri reached into her bag and pulled out a folded red piece of clothing. Reaching for it hesitantly, Giyuu unraveled his... Haori. Stitched together very well, or at least as well as a large haori cut into about a dozen pieces could be. He leaned and brought a surprised Mitsuri into a hug, who while blushing returned said hug and patted the man on the back. For once, his uncaring and cold face dropped. Tomioka began thanking her several times before trying to regain his composure, the man standing straight up with the new haori draped around him slightly before the door opened. Shortly after, Aoi took them inside to see Shinobu in her office.
"Mitsuri, Tomioka!" She said happily.
"It's great to see you Shinobu!" The pink and green haired woman said while embracing the smaller woman.
Giyuu merely sat in a comfortable chair and began to doze off, as the two women spoke.
"Me and Tomioka handled eleven demons with really strong blood demon arts. They were like Gyomei's size, each! and at least one of them had a blood demon art that took our energy away. We both nearly passed out mid battle!" Kanroji said, With Shinobu listening as she rewrapped some bandages on Mitsuri's arm.
"Obanai and Me went out to a town just south of here and killed two lower moon demons. It wasn't as fun as yours sounds, however." She said, finishing the bandages and turning to Giyuu who was snoring lightly.
"I actually saved Giyuu from an attack! He saved me later, and took me out of the fight because I was basically sleep-fighting. When he came to get me up I hit him because he fought without me and-"
"So you're the reason he has a swollen cheek and a busted lip?" Shinobu intervened, carefully touching the sleeping Hashira's face. Mitsuri merely blushed in response.
"Sorry..." the girl said. Shinobu giggled at her reaction and went back to examining Giyuu
Such a bruised face. Guess Mitsuri really messed him up. But he has a fairly kind face, when he's sleeping... very handsome though. And nice deep blue eyes.
She blinked and realized she was staring at a very much awake Giyuu. She felt his hot breath on her face and backed up, both of their faces quickly turning a light shade of pink.
"OH! . . . Right, I forgot couples may need some alone time after not meeting for a while. I'll leave." Mitsuri said.
"Where YOU the one who told Obanai we slept together!?!?" Shinobu yelled as the pink haired woman ran out and shut the door behind her. After cooling off for a moment and locking the door, Shinobu turned back to Giyuu. The two locked eyes and she sighed.
"Hello? Tomioka-san?" She said, poking him in his shoulder. His hand lifted and shooed her away, smacking her hand.
"Ow, Tomioka! Don't hit people. It's rude! You already have enough trouble making friends." She smiled at him, continuing to poke.
"You're annoying and I'm tired." He said, opening one eye to make sure she wouldn't try to murder him for that. A swift punch from Kocho's hand into his shoulder was his expected result, so when it came he simply moved so she would miss and hit the chair cushion.
She sighed, deciding to continue her job as a nurse rather than bother him.
As fun as that is.
"Kanroji's letter said you had wounds on your chest, would you like me to take a look at them?" She asked. A very tired Giyuu scanned her face, before responding. He didn't really understand anything in his sleepy state aside from 'See your chest' and he responded accordingly.
"You want to see me naked?" he said plainly. Her face went right back to being red.
"NO! Well, yes, but no! I mean, I don't! Just to check for damage!" She shouted. Being far too tired to argue he simply stood and took his shirt off.
"WHYAREYOUJUSTSTRIPPING!" She screamed. He prayed that her walls were reinforced because this sounded extremely inappropriate, but at least her yelling had woken him up.
"Because you asked me to. You could also strip if it makes you feel more comfortable." Silence flooded the room. Tomioka was absolutely clueless, not understanding the mental embarrassment and panic she was facing.
"Kocho?" He said, tapping the woman on the shoulder. She turned around and gave a quick smack on his arm.
"Ow" he said in his normal monotone voice.
"You are going to be the death of me. Via heart attack, a stroke, maybe a seizure- You can't go saying stuff like that to women!" The insect hashira responded, staring off at a random wall to avoid eye contact. She felt like she might just melt if she looked him in the eyes after a comment like that.
"What? Did I do something wrong?" He bent over and reached under her chin to turn her face to his so he could examine closely.
"You look fine? You aren't sick." Moving his hand to her forehead to take her temperature, he realized how close the two were. His eyes scanned over her beautiful purple eyes, her soft expression and the slight fake pout she wore on her face.
She's really cute. . .
As he looked over her face, the man had a thought. Uzui said he should go for this kind of thing, right? Giyuu thought for several seconds and closed his eyes to prepare himself, when the contact was initiated by the short woman. A quick, warm peck on his lips sent electricity through his body as his eyes widened and looked at her. She stood with her head down and her arms fidgeting as she waited for any kind of response. For a moment, his mouth moved with no noise coming out, when finally he spoke.
"Shinobu..." She snapped her head upwards at the use of her given name, only for her kiss to be returned. She gladly leaned into it and grabbed at his hair to hold his head close, the two separating after a couple seconds of kissing. A long overdue kiss, both of them thought. Every thought they had ever had about each other came rushing back, and just as Giyuu leaned over her to continue, the door broke open.
"KYAAAA! Shinobu, has Tomioka already left? I need to talk to you right now!-" She looked at the situation in front of her. Giyuu was leaning against the wall over Shinobu and they were both panting while red in the face. She swears she saw Tomioka wipe something purple off of his lips with his uniform sleeve, but who could really know?
"MITSURI! That's the third door this month! Why do I even bother locking things!" The insect hashira said, quickly sliding out from under Giyuu's body and ushering Mitsuri out into the hall. Giyuu heard her squealing from the hallway, clearly Mitsuri torturing Kocho on what had been happening.
DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN? WHAT WAS THAT! The normally calm and collected mans brain ran wild with questions. His usual stoic facade was completely gone as he wiped her purple lipstick off his face. He tried to cool off but looking in a small mirror she had, he noticed his face was still flush with red. He reached for his hair only to realize that the ponytail had broken, most definitely via Kocho's apparent obsession with playing with his hair. He reached into a drawer and pulled out something he thought looked pretty, a dark blue butterfly hair clip. (Think Aoi's hairclips, but larger) After clipping his ponytail back together with a decent amount of issue (Kocho had helped him put his hair up since his injury), he walked out of the room and almost got away unnoticed.
"Ara ara, Tomioka-san." the small girl said. She grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him back towards herself, with him putting up very little resistance.
"Were you planning to just walk away?" She said, pulling him into her office with a grin on her still fairly red face.
"I thought you were speaking to Kanroji, so I was going to leave to give the two of you some privacy." He responded, walking just a couple of steps behind her.
"She was just telling me about how Obanai asked her to lunch.'' Silence sat between the two for a couple seconds.
"And? It's just lunch." What could be so important about lunch?
Back to normal dense Tomioka, Shinobu thought.
"You clearly aren't big into romance are you, Tomioka-san." Shinobu said, dragging the man through the doorway.
What am I even doing right now? That moment just felt so right... I know this is a bad idea, but I want that feeling again. She thought. An odd thought indeed, coming from her brain of all places. She could feel her body craving the feeling again, as that was the first time that everything felt truly right in her mind in a long time. She hadn't ever really had time to think about stuff like this, but that didn't matter right now. As she took another step into her office, Tomioka tapped on the girl's shoulder and she turned to face him.
"You don't have a door anymore, Kocho." She nodded to him, looking back at her desk.
"Tomioka-san, I'm just grabbing something. This is my office, not my room~" She said very obviously, hinting that she was taking him to her room.
"What does that have to do with the door?" He asked blankly.
He's such an airhead. As much as it bothers me, it makes him at least ten times more adorable.
"Jeez, Tomioka. You're really dense. Maybe this is why people d-don't like y-you."
I'm stuttering. I just stuttered in a sentence.
"...But you. . . like me?" He said, his own face heating up as the words left his mouth. She didn't respond, turning away as her brain restarted.
"Tomioka, don't go saying stuff like that out loud!" She almost yelled. She finally found her bag and grabbed it, quickly walking to her room while holding onto Tomioka's sleeve. She shut the door behind the two, and for a brief five minutes the pair was undisturbed...
"CAW! CAW!"
"TOMIOKA GIYUU AND KOCHO SHINOBU ARE TO TRAVEL TO MT._______. POSSIBLE LOWER MOONS IN AREA"
The crow, now resting on the window sill repeated its message once again, before staring at Shinobu. As it was about to caw again, she spoke.
"We heard you!" She shouted at it, making it fly off. The two slayers sighed, and stood to reach for their swords which they had now shed.
Well that was something. Every sensation and every feeling was new to Shinobu, since she had been avoiding this kind of thing for basically her whole life. She looked at the man in front of her, staring at him and taking note of the now purple section of his neck and face. Every kiss, every touch, made her body hot all over.
While they gathered their gear and Giyuu slipped his emergency knife into his boot strap, Shinobu tried to- not so subtly pull her haori to cover her neck. This made Giyuu a little embarrassed as he felt bad she didn't have the hair like he did to cover it. After around twenty minutes, They ran through the hallways of the mansion and out to the front courtyard where they saw the group of kids walk back up the pathway.
"Aoi, Kanao? Where did you all- Nevermind. Tomioka and I are going on a mission. You two girls and Tanjiro are in charge." She says pointing at the slayer.
"...Giyuu-san, Is your mission on Mount _____?" Tanjiro asked the man, tapping him on the shoulder. Giyuu merely nodded.
"I also received a mission there. Inosuke and Zenitsu are still on medical leave, though." The hashira looked at one another and shrugged. "Come on then, let's get moving. Aoi, Kanao, make sure they don't break anything please." Shinobu said. Tanjiro merely nodded at his friends as they walked passed, smiling when he and Kanao's eyes met.
Did... Did she just blush? Shinobu thought with a smirk on her face. The two hashira and Tanjiro took off South once they got past the gates, running on opposite sides of the dirt road. They had both made the decision to simply not speak about it for now, however Giyuu could feel his heart rate skyrocket whenever they even made eye contact.
"Giyuu-san, Is there any reason you are avoiding Mrs. Kocho?" Tanjiro asked from behind the man.
"..." He looked at Shinobu, who was staring ahead at the road.
"No." he continued.
"Hmmmm... alright!" The boy answered, not believing the older man but not bothering to push any further.
"Also, Giyuu-san," the young boy whispered.
"What's that purple stuff on your neck? It smells like wisteria."