Let's take a break from the heavy drama that we just witnessed.
We should have a light and happy story where you and Inosuke were having fun. Enjoy!
----
You supposed to be having a training with your master, Gyomei in his estate.
But here you are, footsteps are obnoxiously loud and heavy in the hallway of the Butterfly Estate to see the three musketeers who are most likely to involve in a serious matter.
It's like you're making yourself known for them to be frightened, especially Inosuke.
You know being a demon slayer is having your life in danger but they should always be careful. It's not a joke to just take it lightly for them to have fun, to seek for the thrill and playing with fire.
Before Tanjirou and Zenitsu came in your way, you and that hardheaded man with a boar mask are already together. You got separated from him when one of the Twelve Kizuki, Kyogai changed the room when Inosuke's about to slaughter him.
But you still managed to escape the Drum House when you saw the boy who has scar on his forehead and Inosuke having a fight as he slowly loosing consciousness after getting a headbutt from Tanjiro.
"Where are they?!"
"(Y/N)-sama please lower your voice. Shinobu-sama was not in a good mood to deal with your outburst."
Naho confront you while the other two was holding the end of your haori to slow down your pace in the middle of the hallway. You don't want to see the odd smile of the Insect Pillar first in the morning so you let yourself calm down.
"Alright, alright..."
Stopping your own feet just to face them as your knees met the floor, patting the head of the three before asking them.
"But where are those troublemakers? I gotta see that they're fine with my own eyes." your bond with the three musketeers are too strong to take this slightly, still remembering your situation with them in the Mt. Natagumo where serious medication needs to introduce itself to them.
They all nodded to you and they took your hands to take you with them.
As you're almost in the end of the hallway, you already hear the screeching voice of Zenitsu, thinking that he has to do something that he definitely don't want to. You can't help but to worry more for Inosuke. Knowing him, he doesn't want to lose from them and pretend to not feel pain in everything even though his body covered in deep cuts and bruises.
He might even want to start a fight with Tanjiro.
You were the one who open the door to see Aoi, holding a cup while her other hand was on the chin of Zenitsu, who's crying and begging for mercy. That was the first thing you notice while on the other side, you can see the other male who's laying on the bed, his boar mask were nowhere to be seen.
Without a word, you hurriedly ran to see him closely.
"A-are you okay?!"
Dumb question, (Y/N).
Of course he isn't. It's like he didn't heard you and he kept his eyes in the ceiling, not saying anything to keep your worries away.
Panic seems to enjoy this situation and it starts to ran up to your chest as fast as it can.
Since you can't talk to Inosuke properly, your eyes landed to the three little girls before asking a question.
"Do you know what happened to him?"
They just shrug their shoulders off and that made you sigh deeply, too occupied to notice that Inosuke is watching every move you take.
"H-he got the blood demon art of a lower demon and it was too late before he could avoid it."
"He can't move his body and his voice was temporary loss, only his eyes can move and wander." Zenitsu confronted you about what's going on with Inosuke. You just land your hand on top of his head to pat him, like your saying that he did a good job to make it out alive while he was just watching your face, seeing how it just relaxed when you heard what his condition was.
The moment that Shinobu entered the room, you flooded her some questions about the blood demon art such as when will it disappear, or was there any side effect other than the paralyzation. Shinobu mentioned that since he was the first one who has this kind of condition in her estate, she has a substitute for the real medicine that will fully evaporate the demon art he accidentally got.
Days has passed, the medicine that Shinobu gave is slowly working. he can tilt and adjust his head, he can now move his arms, hands and fingers and bend his knees but he can't talk. That's why Zenitsu is always teasing and it always work since he can't control his temper.
"Do you want something, Inosuke?" You glanced at him while preparing the medicine and you can see his index finger is pointing at the bedside table in front of you. All that was left there was a scratch paper and a pencil. It comes to your mind that he might have to say something so you hurriedly went to the table and handed the paper and pencil to him.
Tanjiro and Zenitsu is taking their Rehabilitation Training so the both of you can talk about a lot that others don't know. There's still some things that you and Inosuke only knows. The times where it's just the two of you, alone and just trying and struggling to survive, giving your best to fight a demon. You can say you grew feelings for him and that's normal! Sometimes when we're given too much time to bond with a person, it just fall into this kind of feelings that you can't get rid off and you're just go with the flow. As long as he needs you, you'll never give anything up to ruin your relationship with him that kind of hard to built because of his lack of understanding things. He just kinda understanding the things in his own definition of what it really means naturally.
It's like you're the translator when he doesn't understand something and you're definitely okay with that.
As soon as you're done preparing his medicine, the paper covers his face absolutely intentional because he don't want her to notice what he's about to do next.
"... What happened to your arm? Are you okay?" You also taught him how to read and write since he mentioned that he doesn't know how to. It takes a lot of time and what he just learned was the basic ones. You might just admit that you're quite shocked because in a couple of minutes he just finished his sentence, not like the other days where it takes half an hour to end a simple sentences like this.
You then touched your wound that has bandage on before avoiding his eyes that's always stares back as hard as it can. He slowly put the paper away from his face to see what your reaction is but he was surprised when you pulled out a warm smile that he missed, that he's been yearning for. Making him realized how beautiful you actually are.
Admitting to him that it was because of your clumsiness, picking a fresh roses for your sister who just became a Demon Slayer this morning and since you're surrounded by the flowers, it's given that the sharp thorns on them might wounded you and it did because you're that clumsy.
"Here, it's time to drink this. Let me help you get up."
As you helped him get up, you handed him the cup that had his medicine that has sat for a while but you saw him scribbling something on the back of the paper.
"When I'm fully recovered, I'll find that rose who cut your arms and torture them!" You laughed at his sudden outburst while the smoke in his nose are coming out aggressively, thinking that he was not that serious to do that with a mere flower but he's gonna do that thing to prove to you that no one can hurt you until you're by his side.
"You can't just do that Inosuke, it's just a flower!" Confronting him won't fully change his mind but if this is the way to make you laugh, he will always do these things to see you so happy.
"You want to hear something surprising?"
You're intrigued and wondering what he's about to say so all you did was to nod in front of him as your genuine laugh died.
"Come closer," with those words he just wrote, your heart pound a little bit faster than the normal and your ears were fully on him, carefully listening to whatever he might do while the gap is slowly getting narrow as your face was getting closer and closer.
He can hear your short breaths and it made him more nervous than ever. What he'll do might cause you disappointment and shock since he's been hiding this whole damn time. He want you to be the first to know since you're the one who always take care of him while the two was gone, keeping their ass whooped by the girls here in the Estate.
You flinched a little bit when you felt his warm hands on your shoulder until his mouth got close enough to your ear not knowing what to do, you just stood there confused.
"I can really move my whole body all this time."
You hitched your breath and your eyes widened on what he just said. The reason why you're still here because no one can take care of him because he can't move nor talk! But right now he can talk and move his whole body like nothing happened! That really surprised you and you're about to pull yourself away from him, he hold your waist with his free hand, tight enough to lay you down on his bed making sure that he didn't hurt you thoroughly.
Things like this happened so fast that what he just said couldn't sink in to your brain to process it properly. The fact that he lied to you all this time, your thoughts came up with a guess that he's doing this just to see you, and to talk to you or just... wasting your time by taking care of his lying ass.
That thought made you mad because he's taking you as a joke, not seeing you as a serious person who's making sure her time was occupied with something that she's satisfied with.
You shut your eyes and start to push his chest away from you.
"Inosuke--let me go! I can't believe you just lied to me!"
"I didn't mean to (Y/N)! I'm sorry!"
He finally said your name right this time. It was overwhelming and wanting to hear more from him but it was nothing to compare the madness you had for him for lying. Lying is unforgivable to you and he knows that.
Well, he knows everything about you but he thinks that this is the way he only knows to see your face.
"Listen to me, I did that because I--" You cut his words by putting your hand on his mouth because of one thing. You don't want to hear the things that might be awkward for the two of you. You think that what he might say is to make fun of you, that it was just a joke and call it a day.
But that was definitely far from what he want to say to you.
"Stop! Stop it already! i don't want to hear your stupid reasons! I hate you! I really do---!"
What he did next made your eyes wide open, as wide as they can and you stopped struggling while you felt your heart stopped its beating. The second thing you feel was his lips, on top of yours to make your mouth shut.
He did not do that to silence you, he did that because he always wanted to do that to you. To know what he truly feels about you.
"I did that because I want to see you everyday, to know how you're gonna take care of a person like me..."
Smirking at you while you just stiffened in front of him, waiting for him to say the words you've been fantasizing, you've always want to hear from his own mouth.
"And I think that this was the right time to say to you...
... that I love you, (Y/N)."