I'm so sorry for dissapearing again! My mom got sick so i've been out of my hometown for a while, I'm still not home but at least I got time to update!
I hope you enjoy the chapter, and thanks for not leaving despite how long it has been <33
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Tanjiro got permission to move to the next residence in just ten days.
Since Tanjiro is leaving, Y/N naturally wants to follow him, however, in the poor girl circumstances, leaving Tengen's residence was harder than the training itself.
“YYYY/NNN, DON'T LEAVEEEEE-” Suma has been hugging her and crying for more than ten minutes.
“Suma, you can't… sniff…. force her… Sniff.. To stay!.. Sniff...” Though Makio was doing her best to be supportive, there was an unbelievable amount of snot coming out from her nose.
“Hinatsuru, are you crying too?” Tengen sweat-dropped, placing his hand on her shoulder.
“I'm not!” She jolted, turning her face away from them.
'…Why are they acting like I'm dying or something…?' Y/N thought, sending a glance to the poor Tanjiro watching the whole thing with a troubled expression, he had to start the next training, but he also didn't want to leave her behind.
She sighed, patting Suma's head. “I promise I will visit you guys, okay?”
“... I will double the amount of onigiris if you stay.” Suma blurted out.
“Very tempting, but I will decline.”
“Ugh…” She finally let go of her, mopping over the Makio and Hinatsuru.
“I'm leaving then, bye everyone! Thanks for everything!” She said, running over to Tanjiro.
“There's no way she likes him that much that she even refused food…” Makio whispered, the four staring at the two leaving.
As the two were walking off, Tanjiro suddenly looked back at them, snickering smugly at the group of people.
'THIS TWO-FACED BRAT-'
The next hashira in line was Muichiro, Y/N was so excited to see him again!
But… there's another thing that she has to worry about right now…
As she and Tanjiro walked side by side, Y/N decided that to ask him, mostly because she felt stuck in what to do about her current situation.
“Tanjiro, can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
“Huh?” He looked surprised for a second, but smiled gently just after. “Sure! What is it?”
“Uh, what should someone do if a really….really annoying thing stuck to them, and the more badly the person treats it, the more stuck it gets?” You can already tell, but the annoying thing is Douma.
“… Is there someone bothering you, Y/N?” Tanjiro asked, tilting his head with a worried expression.
“Hey! I said it was a hypothetical question!” She exclaimed.
“Oh! Okay! Then… my “hypothetical” answer is… I guess… since they get stuck more if you- I mean, the person, treats them badly, then maybe the person should be nice to them?”
“…nice?”
It's a pretty obvious answer… but… treating Douma nicely is very hard for Y/N! However, it could work, right?
I mean, this whole thing is happening because Y/N realized too late of the upper moon two's masochistic tendencies in the first place, maybe he would get bored of her if she treated him normally!
“Ugh… I really don't want to though…” She let her thoughts out-loud.
Tanjiro glanced at her. Just who could it be for her to look so troubled?
He was ready to ask her, but the ground suddenly started to tremble and the loud sound of numerous footsteps could be heard from the distance.
“YYYYYY/NNNNN!”
The corps members who still didn't finish Tengen's training and therefore would still be stuck with him were running over to them.
“Oh, I forgot to say goodbye to them.”
“You shouldn't forget things like that!” Tanjiro scolded her.
“Y/NNNN why did you leave without saying anything?!” Suzuki tackled her.
“Sorry… Sorry…”
“Even though… sniff… even though Fujio and I decided that if we had a child, we would name it after you-”
“Please don't do that.”
“DON'T LEAVEEEEE-”
Y/N's fan club would grow stronger day by day. Because Y/N treats everyone so nicely in an environment where they are constantly being abused by Tengen, it was probably really hard to see her leave.
“Come on guys, don't be so pessimistic! All you have to do is finish Tengen's training and catch up to me, right?” She smiled gently. “I will be cheering for everyone.”
On that day, the corps member's performance suddenly improved dramatically. Tengen was pretty confused.
“Phew… it's a good thing you managed to convince them… I thought we would be stuck in place for the next ten minutes again…” Tanjiro sighed.
“Yeah…”
“They looked pretty determined though, I'm sure you will see then again in no time!”
“Hm.” Y/N shrugged.
'I would rather if they stayed in the same place, though. Completing this training is the same as going to war, right? I don't want anybody to die.' She kept these selfish thoughts to herself.
Everyone is going to. One day. That's how humans are.
'Wow, thanks Ether. I feel soooo much better.'
You're welcome.
'I was being sarca-… Forget it. Thank you.' Sometimes, Y/N had to accept that Ether was just trying to comfort her in his own weird-ignorant-god way.
“Oh, there's Tokito's residence!” Tanjiro pointed at the place.
“Wow! I'm so excited to-” Y/N was about to approach the door, only for it to be abruptly open and a random corps member falling outside.
“Run… run away…" He whispered at them, looking up at the two with a completed beat up face.
“Tanjiro… do we still have time to escape?”
“I don't think so.”
“Oh, you guys are here!” Muichiro finally appeared, running over outside and stepping on the half-dead person on the floor. “Welcome! I'm really happy to see you both again.”
“T-thanks-” Tanjiro said, glancing several times at the person being stepped on. “Is that person okay?”
“Oh, him?” He looked down at the man, his sweet expression changing to a scary glare in a matter of seconds. “He will receive the appropriate punishment for trying to escape the training, don't worry.”
“I don't think he was asking about that, Mui-” Y/N commented.
“Come inside!” He smiled brightly again, guiding them inside while dragging his victim by the collar.
'Wow…. look at their faces- is this hell?' Y/N thought, looking around and only seeing lots of terrified people.
“Excuse me for a while…” Muichiro whispered, dragging his victim to a separated room and coming back with empty hands.
“Is he okay?” Y/N asked.
“He's alive.” He smiled brightly at her in response. “Let's start the training now, shall we?”
The people in the room cried loudly.
Muichiro's training mostly consisted of body coordination, he was insanely fast and because of his long clothes, it was hard to tell where he would attack or in which direction he was going for, so sparring with him was close to hell.
As would expect, Tanjiro did pretty well, and as for Y/N…
“Wow… Tengen's training must be pretty good, you're remarkably better than you were at the swordsmanship village, Y/N.” Muichiro commented, he looked genuinely impressed.
“Haha… Is that so?” She awkwardly scratched her head.
The thing is, Y/N had started this whole thing with the body of a person from the 21st century who had never trained before, even after Ether made whatever weird time-modification he does to help her use the seraphic breathing, she still could only use it one or two times before exploding her insides.
The same applied for a long time, her body has always been too weak for her to move properly, she's been relying a lot on muscle memory to get through fights.
However, she's been training for almost a year now, her body can finally match up to her abilities (at least a little) though she's not sure if it’s enough.
Anyway, she should probably tone it down tomorrow, it would be odd if she shows too much growth in a short span of time, and she doesn't want to be passed on to the next residence without Tanjiro and lose plot relevant events.
With the training of the day done and the night falling, Tanjiro and Y/N went back.
Now, all that's left is…
“Oh! You didn't escape to another house today?" At night, when Y/N was ready to sleep, he entered through her room's window.
Him. Douma.
“Ugh.” Y/N trembled, she really hoped he would give her a break today.
'Okay…okay… Be nice to him Y/N… be nice to him… you can do that…'
Y/N thought to herself, attentively staring at the demon snooping around her room.
He suddenly turned to her, smiling like always. “Hey, how about a little game, Y/N?”
“A game?” She confusedly asked.
“To know each other better! I ask you three question, and you ask me three questions.”
“I really couldn't care less about getting to know you.” Y/N deadpanned at him.
“Aaaww, don't be like that!”
'Right- I have to be nice to him for him to get bored of me-! Okay- okay...'
“Fine.” She sighed, and then stared blankly at him. “What's your first question?”
“What's your favorite color, Y/N?”
“Huh?” Y/N jolted. She didn't expect such a silly question. “Really? That's what you want to know?”
He nodded.
“O…kay…" She got momentarily confused, but still answered : “It's [F/C].”
“It's your turn now.” He smiled.
It's weird, Y/N has nothing to ask him. She pretty much already knows everything that could be important from reading the manga.
If there is anything she's curious about, then that would be… “Are you saying that you like me because you're planning something? Like, are you just trying to make me drop my guard or whatever?”
His smile didn't falter for a second. He only gave a straight-forward answer, not even caring to elaborate. “No.”
Even if he says it out-loud, Y/N can not believe that guy truly has feeling for her. Well, it's not like that would change anything, liking her or not, she'd still hate his guts.
“My turn then! Do you know your family, Y/N?”
Oh. The stupid color question was probably just to make her less nervous. She should have known he would throw a stupidly personal question all of a sudden.
'Even so, what family should I talk about? My original one? The one from the 21st century? …. Yoriichii?'
“... I don't have any family.” She decided to go with the simplest answer.
'Well, that much is true. Any family I had is either dead or not born yet.'
“Aaww, do you want me to hug you for comfort?” He smiled at her.
“Stay away from me.” She immediately cut him off. “I can't believe you're using this situation to get a hug, seriously, what's wrong with you?”
“Is that your question?”
“What- N-”
“There's nothing wrong with me!” He didn't let her finish, answering her rhetorical question in a cheery tone. “Well, at least that what I think so!”
“That was cheating you dumb fu-”
“My turn! What type of person do you like?”
“The opposite of you.”
“Haha! Good one, but please answer honestly.” He said.
'Okay, that was his last question, I just need to answer this and make him a random question and this stupid game will finally be over…'
“Uh. I guess… kind people?”
“Eeh? Am I not kind?” He frowned.
“No-” Y/N jolted, she forgot she was supposed to be nice to him! “Uh- I suppose- in... different interpretations, there might be someone out there who may think you're kind.”
“Is that so?” He slumped his shoulders. “But I don't really care if it's not you who thinks so.”
“I- Well…”
'Say something nice, say something nice…'
“-Moving on to my question.”
Y/N was unable to say something nice to him to the very end. She literally couldn't find anything to compliment him about without sounding completely sarcastic.
'That was so stressful! I'm glad it's over, he should be leaving now…' Y/N let out a few deep breaths.
“Hey, are you going to sleep now? Humans are quite fragile, right? If they don't sleep properly, they break, right?” Douma said, the smile in his face making Y/N tremble, she just knew he was about to do something annoying.
“That is an exaggeration.” Even so, she pushed the uncomfortable feeling aside and answered his question.
“Can I sleep with you?”
“NO??”
“Aaaww, why not?”
“I hate you and I don't trust you at all.”
“Pfft- I expected that answer.” He giggled, he seemed satisfied.
And then it clicked, he made that completely unreasonable request because he knew how harshly Y/N would refuse it, what he wanted was the insults!
Y/N hated that he could predict her so easily, and hated that he was getting what he wanted! She didn't manage to be nice to him at least once, and actually, that stupid three question game seemed to have made more progress with him, which was the exact opposite of what she wished for!
“I will be leaving for today, don't miss me too much-”
“Wait!” She grabbed him before he could get through the window, he tumbled back, staring with a surprised face at her.
Honestly, seeing him without that stupid smile that seemed to be always glued to his face all the time made her really satisfied.
“Why do you like me? Haven't I been really terrible to you? Do you honestly think this isn't weird at all?!"
Y/N, in a moment of desperation, decided to appeal to reason, maybe if he realized how ridiculous his actions sound, he would leave her alone-
“You are a really weird human.” He said.
“Huh?”
“You say you hate me, and then you act all worried, I can't tell how you feel at all.” He avoided eye-contact with her, it must be hard for someone who's used to always mirroring other emotions to not be able to understand one at all.
“You didn't answer my question.” She kept staring at his face, it seemed like she succeeded in pressuring him, great!
“I… have no idea.”
“Huh?”
“I have no idea why I like you, I just do.”
'Oh. Not only he gave a weirdly sincere answer, I did also not succeed at all in snapping him out of his delusion.'
“Pfft, why do you look so surprised? Is it really that impossible to you?” Look at him, having fun with her reactions once again.
“Of course it is! Aren't you supposed to be humanity enemy or something?! Aren't you just an emotionless prick?!”
“What hurtful words Y/N!” He didn't look hurt at all. “I guess that's what people call forbidden love?”
“No?! It's called impossible love because I don't like you at all!”
He smiled at her in response. “Until tomorrow, Y/N.” He approached her, gently moving her hair out of the way and kissing her forehead.
“?!?!?” She backed away, completely in shock.
“Bye!” Douma happily waved goodbye to her, leaving through the window.
“Ugh- Ugh-” She ran up to the window. “DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!" He was probably too far to hear this complaint now.