Tanjiro's Pov
The school day ended, and I walked home, splitting up from my friends. I opened the door to my home, the house was silent. I'm guessing mother, Nezuko and the children were at the bakery. I yawn and walk into my room, placing my bag in my room and changing out of my - or, well, Akaza's uniform. I changed into a plain white t-shirt and knee-length shorts. I then took the opportunity to wash the uniform I had borrowed as well as the uniform from the previous day, and while the uniforms were in the washing machine, I tidied up the house a little. I tidied, cleaned, washed the dishes, the usual things I would offer to do.
Then I began to do my homework after putting the damp uniforms in the clothes dryer. Barely 30 minutes had passed when I heard knocking on the front door. I walked towards the door, opening it, only to see a familiar face. Akaza. "Hey." He says calmly. "Hi." I reply in a similar tone. "Why are you here?" I didn't bother asking how he knew where I lived. Akaza raised his eyebrows, as if it was a strange question. "For my clothes. And tutoring." He spoke in a slightly amused tone. "They're drying." I stated, opening the door wider for him to enter, which he did soon after.
"You can continue your improvement work or perhaps do homework and I can check it for you?" I suggested, he glanced around, then looked at me. "Okay, sure." He shrugged, not exactly choosing which one he wanted to do. I led Akaza into the living room, a decent sized coffee table located in front of the couch displayed my unfinished homework. I sat on the floor, Akaza sitting opposite me, on the other side of the coffee table and opening his bag. "So what do I do?" He asked after a moment of silence. I look at him blankly. I pause, then sigh and take his bag, reaching in and taking out different sheets of homework. "Why don't you work on that for now." I said calmly, handing him a pen. He nodded and we sat in silence, doing our homework.
"Done."
He said, barely five minutes later. I raise my head, taking his homework and looking through it. Almost all of the answers were correct, and he finished all sheets in barely any time. "Hm." I hum in an impressed tone. "Are you sure you need tutoring?" I ask after a moment, handing his sheets back. He chuckled. "I don't know. I'm not the one who wanted a tutor."
"..What about your math homework?" I ask, and he gives me a blank look. There was a long moment of silence before he sighed. "I don't like math, I want to skip it."
"You can't, math is quite important, you know." I replied in a calm tone. "Can I see the math homework?"
Akaza glanced around, sighing, and began to put his stuff away. "We should do something fun instead."
"Oh, come on." I furrowed my eyebrows. "This is the last session this week. no more tutoring for four days."
"Then we should do something fun. I have an idea." He smiled, thought it wasn't a fun type of smile. He had come up with something I probably wouldn't like. "But it has to include math, though." I sighed, his smile faded for a second, before his smile went wider. "Deal."
He took out an un-used notebook from his bag and slid it over to me. "Write ten math equations and I'll do the same, then I'll go on to explain the rules."
I roll my eyes and do as he says, writing ten equations, making them fairly difficult to the point where even I struggled to work it out before writing it down.
Once I was finished, I handed them to him, and watched him at he began to write something, he took a short while before finishing and cutting them out, folding them up and scattering them on the coffee table, shuffling them all around it. "The rules are; work out the equation or do the dare." He smiled, seemingly excited. "'Do the dare'?" I mumbled, he didn't explain further. "I'll go first."
He hovered his hand over the small folded pieces of paper, before choosing one and unfolding it, before giggling with an amused expression, then showed me. It displayed one of my difficult questions, as well as something in slightly messy handwriting. 'Or take your shirt off'
I paused, then frowned. "I don't want to play this anymore. You can do that on your own." He chuckled and removed his shirt without hesitance. "Wh- you didn't even try!" I complained, he smirked at me. "I didn't want to. Now it's your turn."
"Nu uh." I replied sternly. "Not if they're all as immature as that."
He chuckled once again. "No, no, don't worry, some of them are mature."
I furrowed my eyebrows, it was quite the opposite of what I wanted to hear. I sigh, rolling my eyes and picking one at random. It was an elementary school level equation, and the dare was; 'Or strip'
I raised my eyebrows, and answered the question quickly. "11." I say, turning it around to show him, he looked bored. "Hm, you got an easy one. Fair enough." He mumbled, then immediately picked one, and smiled. "82" He smiled, throwing the paper behind him. "You didn't even let me see." I replied. "How do I know if you got it right."
"32+50." He stated. I sighed, rolling my eyes again and picking one with slight hesitance.
It was one of my difficult equations, and the dare.. Ugh. 'Or shower with the other player.'
I glanced at him, then back at the paper, before putting the paper down and getting out my notebook, trying to figure it out. It was one of the last equations I did, so I didn't really bother to work it out before writing it ─ the reason being that I didn't know the game was going to be this type of game, and I also thought this was going to be a silly warm-up thing for only Akaza, and not me.
He took the paper and read it, before smiling. "Did you even think before writing that equation thingy?" "Regretfully, nope." I say sternly, I'm still writing down in my notebook. In truth, this is probably a university level type of question, which I have only realized just now, and barely understood a thing I wrote. "What even is that? Why is there sign language stuff in it?" He asked.
"It's not sign language. Have you ever seen a calculator before?" I ask, glancing at him with genuine curiosity. He shrugged. "Not the freaky signs though... Seriously, what is that? Why is there a triangle in this?" He asked, rotating the paper as if that'd help. "I don't know, you're old, I thought you'd know."
He looked offended. "I'm not old.. I'm only 17." His tone was low, which indicated he was probably deeply offended. I'm not too sure how old he actually is though, since demons are pretty much immortal - as far as I'm aware, and I don't want to be rude and ask him his actual age - despite my previous coldness towards him. "And it's not like I did math everyday over the centuries of my life." He then paused. "You know, you won't be able to figure it out if you don't know what the triangle means."
I hate to admit it, but he was right, I'm just writing down random numbers and symbols at this point. "Which means......." He smiled slowly, gesturing to the dare. I didn't really want to, but it's the same as seven minutes in heaven - you don't get to pick who you spent time with for seven minutes.. This is more like ten minutes in pure hell and humiliation.
I sat there for a very long minute or so, before sighing and standing up. "Fine, but I'm not playing this game anymore after that." He nodded. "That's fine."
I cleared up the paper and disposed of them, then tidied up the coffee table a little bit more before guiding Akaza into my room, where I opened the door to my bathroom. "Quick shower, that's it." I said calmly. He paused for a minute. "Do you have a traditional bathroom? I prefer the traditional ones." He spoke calmly.
"You don't have a traditional shower." I mumbled, he was obviously trying to get a longer experience of this, I am certain there will be some form of mocking involved later. "I do, but you haven't seen it. I didn't exactly give you a tour of my home, just my room." He replied.
I paused, he was right. Then I sighed. "Okay, fine." I mumbled, walking out of my room as he followed behind me, I then opened one of the doors and it was as traditional as I could imagine it gets. There was a single bath, and a shower-head-thing attached to the wall, a stool placed neatly below the shower-head-thingy. It was pretty regular to see this in a house located in some places in Japan, where we'd shower first, clean and wash our body, then soak in the bath and relax. I grew up bathing with my siblings, usually helping the little ones wash their backs and teaching them how to do it, so I knew what to do, I just didn't really feel as comfortable with doing it with someone else, more specifically, Akaza.
He undressed pretty quickly, and so did I. "Soooo.." He mumbled, I didn't really want to know what he was going to say, so I simply sat on the stool and turned on the shower-thing. "Hm. Rude." He said, then approached me. "I'll wash your back."
"..Fine." I muttered. It was quite silent as he washed my back, it was the weird, awkward type of silence. I didn't really know what to say, and I wasn't really sure what he was thinking.
"..Who told you?" He then asked suddenly, I paused. "Told me what?"
"About my other school."
I was silent for a moment. "..I don't really know what you're talking about. Why do you keep bringing it up?" I ask. "Because I know you know." His tone went stern for a second, before returning to a calm tone. "Plus, I'm curious about how much you know about what happened."
"I don't know anything." I mumbled. I wasn't planning on snitching on Kanao anytime soon. "You're right. You don't." He chuckled, before he stopped washing my back, and began to pour shampoo on my hair. "I can do that myself." I mumbled, I wasn't quite expecting him to do it, since I was fully capable of actually reaching my hair. "It's fine, I like your hair." He replied.
I sighed quietly, I didn't mind it if he enjoyed doing it, I began to scrub the rest of my body with a soft sponge, just in case he decided to do that for me too. "..Who is the demon king?" I asked, I didn't really mean to ask it, I kind of thought it aloud. He stopped massaging his fingers through my hair for a moment, before continuing. "Nobody that you should be concerned about."
"Was he nice?" I ask. The question was out now, I may as well try to push further, of course without pushing boundaries. "..Occasionally. He was more strict than nice." He spoke in a soothingly calm tone. I had never heard him speak like this, which makes me wonder how he feels, since I can't exactly catch his scent through the shampoo and body wash.
"Was he nice to you, at least?" I asked. Daki had told me he was cruel to Akaza, but I wanted to hear it from him. "..Occasionally." He replied. "But I think he was just pushing me to work harder, despite me trying my hardest."
"..What about Daki and Gyutaro? I heard they were with you for a long time." I spoke calmly, I felt at ease for some reason. "Ah, so is that why you're asking questions? I take it Daki said something?" He chuckled. "She and Gyutaro were.. Complicated. Long story short, Gyutaro was inside of her, literally. It's not something I can explain to you though. Daki was probably the only one getting the best treatment. She was the lowest upper rank, so I guess Muzan was just 'hyping her up'. But as you can probably tell, Gyutaro is the muscle and Daki is the mouth." He explained.
"Upper ranks?" I mumbled. He was silent for a moment. "Yeah.. I was an upper rank, along with Daki and Gyutaro. Kokushibo was also one. And Nakime ended up becoming one after a while. There were six upper ranks - gyutaro and Daki being counted as only one."
"Six? But you only named a few." I mumbled. He was silent for a short while. "I don't usually talk about the other upper ranks.. But, since we are bathing together, I may as well tell you." He said in a joking manner. "There's Kokushibo - who was upper rank 1. A freak called Douma, upper 2. Then it was me, upper 3 and also the best out of them all. Nakime and hantengu - who both had their turn at upper 4, Gyokko - a bug-thing that lives in a pot as upper 5, and of course, daki and Gyutaro." He explained, I paused. "So why don't you like talking about the other upper ranks?" I asked. He sighed. "Because I don't." He stated, before turning the shower-head on and rinsing my hair, once Akaza was done rinsing, he spoke again. "My turn now." He patted my head. I nodded and rinsed my body, before standing up, swapping spaces with Akaza. I began to wash his back.
"Why are you so interested anyway?" He asked. I paused, not exactly knowing my reason at all. "Not sure.. I guess it's just interesting. No other demon spoke about their past or anything before."
He hummed a response, and there was a moment of silence. "Were you human, once?" "Yep."
"What was your life like as a human?" I ask, my curiosity is getting the better of me. "Not sure. I don't remember my human life. No demon does. But I remember Susumaru, I was there when the demon king turned her.." He mumbled. "She was a child, I'm guessing between the ages of 7-12.. The one thing you should know is - the demon king isn't someone you should mess with, or even be near. I know you've got a pretty good sense of smell, so, if you smell something odd - you're probably dealing with a being who is dangerous, you should stay away from those ones."
"Those ones?" I paused. "You mean demons? There are demons who still.. Kill?"
"..Mm." He hummed. "..Now stop talking, your endless questions are boring me." Akaza sighed. I fell silent. I didn't know there were still demons who did that stuff anymore, which is frightening, to say the least. I began to wash Akaza's hair, doing the same thing he did, massaging my fingers through his hair with calming motion. He tilted his head back slightly in response.
"Wash my body." He said calmly. "No." I replied almost instantly. "You."
He frowned, but sighed and did as I said.
Soon, I had finished and rinsed Akaza's hair as he rinsed his body. "I wanna go in the bath first." He said quickly, standing up. He shrugged. "You are the guest, it's basically a rule that th eguest goes in the bath first."
Akaza sat in the tub and I sat back on the stool. "I didn't know that." He mumbled
"Do you not have guests over at your home?" I asked. "Not usually. I mean, there's Koyuki but she practically lives with us. And if a guest stays over there's always a bathroom attached to each bedroom, so everyone has a choice." He calmly spoke. "Do you have guests over often?"
"Yes, usually family though, and a few friends." I shrugged.
"Oh, the freak show you walk around with?" He chuckled. I furrowed my eyebrows. "They're not a freak show." "They are, actually. One of them is always complaining, another always screaming, then there's the jumpy girl, and then the unnaturally calm one. And then, you. You're just ordinary."
I rolled my eyes. "And you're just a bully."
"And you're bathing with a bully. You should be careful." He chuckled. "Hey, what are you scared of, anyway?"
I paused, then furrowed my eyes. "Like I'd tell you." "Okay, calm down. It was just a question." He smirked.
After five minutes, he sighed and got out. "I'm done, can I borrow some of your clothes?" He asked, beginning to exit the bathroom. "I mean, sure, but your uniform is probably dry now, so you can wear that if you want to." I said calmly. He nodded and left. I then sat in the bath and began to relax a bit more.
To be completely honest, I thought he was going to either just stare at me or mock me when we first started to bathe, but he's been okay. I am interested in knowing why he doesn't like talking about the other upper ranks, but I won't ask him anymore, since he didn't seem interested in answering before.
After around ten minutes, I got out and dried myself with a clean towel before dressing - I usually have spare clothes in here, because I feel awkward walking around my house in a towel or complete nude - which Akaza didn't mind doing - apparently.
I stepped out and walked into my room, Akaza had dressed, and.. well, it was clear we wore different sizes, which both of us proved today. "A bit tight." He mumbled to me, tugging at the t-shirt that just barely fit him, but he did look relatively good, seeing as his abs were kind of showing through the shirt. "It'll do." He then shrugged, yawning and lying on my bed.
"You're not planning on sleeping in my bed now, right?" I raised my eyebrows, crossing my arms. He shook his head. "Nah. I have somewhere to be in like - five minutes anyway. that took longer than I expected."
I sighed, leaving the room and taking his uniform out of the dryer, folding them neatly. Unlike my mother, I didn't know how to use an iron-thing or anything, so just folding it was as good as it gets for me. I handed him his uniform. "Then you best not be late." I said in a calm tone.
He glanced at me, then the folded uniform, then looked back at me. "Are you secretly kicking me out?" He asked, sitting up. He didn't seem too bothered about it, more amused than anything.
"Maybe, maybe not." I shrugged. I just really wanted peace and quiet so I could sleep.
He chuckled, stood up and took the uniform. "Thanks." He smiled. "Then I'll leave." Akaza then chucked, and I followed him to the door. "I'm actually glad you kicked me out, I was drifting to sleep when you left the room, and I would have been late." He smiled, stepping out.
"By the way, this was a very fun tutoring lesson." He chuckled as he walked away. I rolled my eyes, it wasn't much fun for me, but whatever. I close the door, and immediately fall asleep when my head hits the pillow on my bed.
~~
It was around 4PM-6PM when I started it and then got bored - decided to continue this chapter at 2AM, it's 5AM now, I'm finally finished, fml.
I tried to make the whole bathing thing traditional so I did some research but it might not be correct so correct me if the whole Japanese bathroom thingy is correct (I've never been to Japan or studied it's culture before.)
Also - I wanted to make the whole ordeal thingy platonic and not too steamy because Tanjiro is still a minor and I'm sure boys have showered together before - like in the movies?? Not too sure :')
But alsoooo... Teenagers don't really wait until they're 18, right? (IDKKKKK) So I don't know what to doooo. Do I wait until Tanjiro is 18 or just go for it and hopefully not die while doing it??
I'm sorry if this was boring, but don't worry, I will be introducing a new character soon. ;~)
I'm going to sleep now because I swear my Scarameow just winked at me so I'm probs hallucinating :D ((Yes, I have a cat version plushie-thing of a character from genshin, but Scaramouche is sexy asf so give me a free pass pls.))
Okay I'm oversharing, so sorry, I'm so tired rn.
Good night/morning/afternoon/evening.
∧,,,∧ ( ̳• · • ̳) / づ♡
WC -- 3439
how was this chapter? Not too sure if this was decent, so you can rate it iyw <3 0-10