“And like, it was so underwhelming! I was expecting more of an-” Y/N was painting the nails of one of the bound people, while also gossiping.
“GO BACK TO TRAINING!” Iguro hit her head with his fist, grabbing her collar and dragging her away from the person.
“Waaaait! I didn't finish painting his other hand! WAAAIT-” She struggled in his grasp.
He didn't wait.
“Go grab your wooden sword!” He said.
"M..my sword?” She awkwardly avoided eye contact, smiling shakily at him.
“Did you lose it?! AGAIN?!”
Y/N jumped. “Whoa, don't scream! How did you think I got the nail polish?”
“You SOLD it?!”
“I wouldn't say that I sooold it.” She smiled blankly at him. “More like I traded it with a little girl I found!”
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!” Obanai unsheathed his sword.
“GYAAAH! You told me you were only going to kill me if I lost it again!” She cried while running away from him.
“YOU SOLD IT-”
“I traded it!” She interrupted.
“WHATEVER! THAT'S EVEN WORSE! THE BASIC RULE OF A SWORDSMEN IS TO TREAT YOUR WEAPON WITH RESPECT!”
“IT WASN'T EVEN A REAL SWORD!” Y/N exclaimed. “AND LOOK AT ITS PINK COLOR! IT'S SUPER CUTE! MITSURI WOULD'VE LOVED IT!”
Just like that, Iguro froze. “She would?”
Y/N grinned. “Yep! If you say 'please Y/N, the prettiest girl in the whole universe' I will give it to you so you can give it to her!”
“I'M NOT DOING THAT!” He raised his sword again.
“GYAAAAH! SORRY, SORRY! YOU CAN HAVE IT! IT'S YOURS!”
Two swordsmen, who were waiting for their turn in the training, stared at them with annoyed expressions. “What's up with that girl?”
“She's weird as hell, what is someone like her doing in the corps?”
Obanai froze, stopping chasing after the panicking girl.
“Huh?” Y/N stopped running when she noticed his sudden stop. “What is it? Did you give up on killing me? Are we good now?” She approached him in careful steps.
He ignored her, approaching the two guys with a menacing aura. “You two are becoming obstacles.”
“WHY?!” They panicked. 'I THOUGHT HE HATED HER?!'
Tanjiro sweat-dropped at the whole interaction. 'Is this a 'only I can bully her' type of situation?'
Obanai turned away from the two guys crying, walking over to Y/N (who still wasn't understanding at all what was happening). “This is mine now.” And he aggressively grabbed away the nail polish from her hands.
“Wha!” She turned to Tanjiro with a shocked expression. “Did you see that Tanjiro?! He robbed me! He just swiped it from my hands, what an asshole!”
“Y/N… you really should start to pay more attention to your surroundings-” He smiled awkwardly at her.
“I only managed to use it once, this world is so unfair-!” She sobbed, it didn't look like she heard what Tanjiro just said.
'Look at her, lost in her own world again.' He smiled at her, looking love-struck.
“Ugh. I hate them so much.” One of the people bound to the wood columns commented to another.
“Right? She's just saying a bunch of stupid things, but he's acting like she's the cutest person in the world, they really should get a room or something-”
“I really hate happy couples.” Another one sighed.
“Huh? They are a couple? I thought Y/N and Obanai were a couple?” One of the people bound to the ceiling said.
“Wait, they aren't?! But he just defended her for those guys-”
“But she and Tanjiro look waaay closer! I can tell!” A girl said. “He treats her really nicely! If Iguro likes her, then he has to step up his game already!”
“Maybe he would be nicer to us if he got a girlfriend…”
“But Tanjiro is such a nice person, I would feel bad if he were to lose the girl he likes-”
They are treating your love life like it's a telenovela-
'Huh? What was it, Ether?'
… Forget it. Just concentrate on training.
In the fourth day of training, Tanjiro was able to strike more accurately than ever before, he could dodge Iguro's attacks and launch his own too.
When an attack struck and cut the hem of Iguro's haori, he said Tanjiro's training was over.
“MY TURN!” Y/N excitedly ran up to him, which was weird for Obanai, who was used to having to drag her back to training over and over again.
And in five minutes of training, she cut his haori too. “Yay! I did it! No need to congratulate me, I know how amazing I am-” she started to walk off to grab her stuff, only to be interrupted.
“Wait a second.”
She froze. “What is it?”
“You could have done this from the start?”
“... Maybe.”
“THEN WHAT WERE THE FOUR DAYS YOU SPENT FUCKING AROUND HERE FOR?!”
Y/N smiled excitedly, answering with no hesitation : “To spend time with you, of course!”
And Obanai, who was about to reach for his weapon, froze. “What?”
“Who would want to spend time with him by choice? AUGH-” A swordsman blankly commented, being elbowed in the stomach by another one.
Y/N kept talking : “You're a meanie, but I know that you're a nice person!…. I think… occasionally… Well, maybe deep down your heart… REALLY deep down-”
“Are you trying to give me a compliment or not?!” He aggressively pulled her cheeks.
“I'M SORRY-”
Obanai stopped, looking at her blankly for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. “Your next training is with Sanemi, right? Rengoku will be there too, but you still have to be careful.”
“Aaww, are you worried about me?”
“Leave before I hit you.”
“Okay, let's leave Tanjiro!”
“Y/N.” He called her out, making her jump.
“What? Did I do something?! I didn't lose any other swords if that's what you're thinking-” She immediately panicked.
“SHUT UP!” He cleaned his throat. “Next time, maybe… just MAYBE, I might let you pet Kaburamaru.”
“Wow… Is that his way of showing he cares?”
“He really sucks at this-”
An irk mark appeared in his head as he heard the whispers around the room, those people would definitely suffer later.
“Really?! You mean it?!” Y/N smiled so brightly it almost blinded everyone in the room.
“...Yes.”
“Wow! I'm really looking forward to next time then! Bye Iguro! Bye Kaburamaru! Bye everyone, hope you're freed from the pillars soon!”
And just like that, Y/N left a whole room of blushing people behind.
『••✎••』
They would go to Shinazugawa's estate the next day, Y/N was already panicking in her room just by thinking about this training, what were the chances of Sanemi killing her on the spot as soon as he saw her…?
Well, Kyojuro was going to be there, so she was going to be fine! … right? She just had to stay glued to him all the day! Yeah! She was going to survive this!
She face-planted on the bed, burying her face in her pillow and letting out a deep, tired breath.
After a while, Y/N heard a soft knock on the window.
There was only one person who would appear that late at night to visit her, and she held back an annoyed sigh. Douma stopped appearing for about a week, but looks like her break is over.
“Look Douma, I really need to sleep today, okay? So, just leave.” Still with her face buried in the pillow, she mumbled while making a signal with her hand for him to leave.
“... It's not Douma.”
Y/N recognized that voice.
She exasperatedly sat up, eyes widening in surprise after seeing who was siting at her window.
“Akaza?”
“Y-”
“Goodnight.” She buried her face back in the pillow.
“DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP!” He stomped over to her, grabbing her collar while trying to make the girl get up.
“NOOO! You're not real! You're only a dream! I made you up in my head!” She exclaimed, covering her ears with her hands. “Leave dream Akaza! LEAVE!”
“YOU'RE NOT DREAMING, YOU IDIOT!” He pulled her ear.
“Ow! Ow!” She slapped his hand away, staring at him awestruck. “You….are really here?”
“Yes.”
“Sniff…. ughh...”
“Stop crying.”
“How! Sniff- How I am supposed- hic- To stooooopp-! sniff-” She kept sobbing furiously.
“You look gross, stop.”
“YOU'RE SO MEAAAAAN! WHY DID YOU LEAVE?! WA-”
“Hey! Don't make noise!" He slapped his hand against Y/N's mouth, muffling her loud cries. “Just listen, okay?”
She silently nodded, he then slowly removed his hand.
“You…look fine.”
“Why wouldn't I be?” Y/N confusedly tilted her head.
“That asshole tricked me-” He mumbled under his breath.
“What? Who tricked you?”
“That's not relevant.” He got up, seeming to be about to leave again. “I wasn't even planning on ever coming back here at all. Consider this a goodbye.”
“STOP!” She ran to block his way. “You're not leaving like last time! At least give me a proper explanation!”
He glared at her, staring right at the girl's determinate expression as she put herself in front of him. “Judging by your expression, I guess you already have an idea of what happened.”
“I do.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I want to hear it from you.”
He avoided her gaze. “Can't you just forget this and let me leave?”
“No. I want to know why you left.” Y/N pressured him.
The room was painfully silent now. Akaza wouldn't stop blankly looking around, seeming to be deeply considering on what to tell the girl.
Y/N doesn't know why he came back or what he even came here for, but she's not letting this opportunity go to waste. She WILL discover right now what Akaza is thinking.
He seemed to finally had muttered enough courage to speak up. “Your dream… Your dream is childish, Y/N. A war where nobody dies? That's a fantasy.”
“…huh?” She didn't expect that.
“But don't think I'm saying this because I blame you, I would never do that. But, I'm aware that you can't make a decision yourself. You can't decide whom to save and what to do because you're too soft, that's why I'm making the decision in your place.”
She gritted her teeth. “With this “decision” you mean you decided to join hands with a mass killer?! Maybe you're right, perhaps it's impossible to save everyone, but the best we can do is choosing the option where more people live, why would you choose the opposite?! This doesn't make sense!”
“… That's exactly something you would say.”
“So!?”
“Don't you ever get tired?”
Y/N's eyes widened. “… What…?”
“You're always talking about them. About saving them, about how much you like these humans, but what about you? What do you think about your life? About yourself?”
“I- I don't understand!” She shook her head. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“Those people don't even know that you've been repeating this for years. They don't even know your efforts, and you are never going to be recognized for it. When you die, all of these humans will just forget you without a second thought because your sacrifices have no meaning to them. They only see you as an optimistic idiot.”
“So… What…? Who cares if they only see me as an idiot? It's not like I'm not doing this to be praised…” She looked down, closing her hand into a fist as she harshly bit her lip.
She felt Akaza's hands gently rest on her cheeks, raising her head so he could look at her in directly in the eyes.
“I know.” He approached her, gently pressing his lips against hers, Y/N jolted with the sudden action.
Y/N could feel her palms tremble furiously, what was happening? How? Why?
When he backed away from her, she frowned and looked away from him.
“Why…. why are you doing this to me…?” she softly mumbled, tears slowly starting to form and come out from her eyes.
“Because I care about you.”
“Then why are you leaving?!” She grabbed his hands, who were still delicately pressed against her cheeks.
“… I'm choosing the option where you have more chances of surviving.”
“But I don't care whether I live or not!”
“You know that this is not true.”
Y/N squeezed her eyes shut, she looked pained, like she just received a punch. “How I am supposed to believe in you when you're leaving? If after all this time… after everything, you're just going to leave, then how I am supposed to feel?”
“Look-”
“I trusted you! I told so many things about myself!” She slowly let go of his hands. “You… Were you just lying to me?”
“I wasn't!” He grabbed her shoulders.
“You told me… You told me that I was a real person!” She sobbed. “How am I supposed to believe in you now?! You're going to help Muzan kill them, even though you know how much everyone means to me! How can you tell me you care about me while doing that?!”
“But they shouldn't matter more than you!”
“But they do matter!” She exclaimed. “If you kill anyone, I'm not forgiving you!”
“... That's fine.” Akaza's expression looked stone-cold. “You can hate me as much as you want, as long as you're still alive.”
And he walked past her. So, that was it, huh? He changed sides, he was dead-set on killing them.
“Too soft… to make a decision.. a childish… dream…” Y/N mumbled to herself, suddenly gritting her teeth in anger.
She grabbed a hairpin that was resting on the bedside and aggressively threw it at the leaving Akaza, the object harshly stabbed the wall right beside his head, his cheek got cut and blood slowly seeped out of it.
“I'm going to kill you for this.” Y/N glared at him. “My dream… my dream is NOT childish. I'll show you how wrong you are!”
He stared coldly at her as the wound on his cheek instantly closed, silently walking over to the hairpin stuck to the wall and pulling it off to throw it back at her.
“I will be waiting then.”
And he left, just like that.
Y/N didn't know how to feel. She felt angry. Angry about how he didn't take her seriously, angry about how she was so weak to him that he felt like he had to make a decision by himself, and lastly, angry at the fact that she couldn't hate him despite everything.
This frustrating… terrible feeling… nobody ever taught her how to deal with it.
So infuriating… She's working so hard to create a perfect future, she dedicated all of her life to it! Why does everybody keep getting in her way?! Frustrating. Frustrating. Frustrating.
But… she can't take this out on herself because she promised to Ether she wouldn't hurt herself anymore, but neither does she can take it out on other people…
So… what is she supposed to do with all this anger?