It seemed so much easier to keep quiet. To hold your tongue instead of speak what your mind spout to you. The words tumbling over and stumbling over in you head. It seemed so much easier and less complex to just stay there.
To stay quiet.
He does so, staying quiet. He ignores the familiar hurt in his chest. The tingling of his throat, the burning sensation humming throughout his entire body. His eyes focus on the smile on your lips that he didn't bring.
"Tanjiro, that's amazing!"
He watches you blush when Tanjiro smiles at you and compliment you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. His heart burns in envy at the action.
So he forces it down and runs up to you, a false tick of anger on his forehead when it's actually sadness that causing him to act like this.
Hagenzuka loved the Pillar, (Name) (Last Name).
...
She knows it's useless to accept her feelings, to try and hide them from him. The way he smiles so brightly makes it contagious, makes her heart race. A simple meeting of eyes makes her face redden. A grin to her makes her stumble for responses.
She hates him, truly, for making her feel like this because loving him hurt her. It hurt her so badly.
"But he's my light." So it's fine, she thinks. She remembers how he brought her out of the darkness when they met, saving her from death.
How funny, she laughs bitterly to herself. Bloodied petals, the colour of red stare back at her. And her mind flashes back to the cause of it. The same one that stopped her dying the first time is the cause of her dying now..
She coughs heavily, violently as a few more petals fall out her lips. They burrow themselves up her throat forcefully, coated red.
The same colour of his eye—-
She cries when more petals leave her lips, blood splatters onto the tatami mat. She thinks of her friend, Hagenzuka, and cries out for him. He can help her get through this, she thinks.
HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEPLEASE—-
Tears stream down her cheeks and she lets them fall. This time the petals are black and she chokes in realisation.
"H-Help me, Hagenzuka.."