The Demon Queen

Caught

I quickly slid off from on top of Muzan and sat up beside him. He jolted up to a sitting position as the sliding door to his room started to open. He seemed to be bracing himself for whatever reaction might come from his father seeing the two of us on his futon with a shared blanket over our laps.

The door opened. The tall figure of Muzan's father stood at the threshold, the blinding bright daylight from the corridor behind him. Muzan and I both instinctively shielded ourselves from the light, feeling its burning heat emitting towards us.

"What is this stench? Muzan!"

"Stench?" Muzan asked rather softly, almost as if he were confused.

My eyes popped open wide. The dead body! I thought in horror.

Although we did eat all of the doctor's flesh and organs, we left the bones behind, wrapped up in the man's clothing and hidden away in a cabinet. Still, the decaying odours must had settled into the bedroom, even though neither Muzan nor I could notice it anymore.

"Is this from that medicine you were supposed to be given?" Muzan's father asked rather roughly. "And why is it so dark in here?"

"I-I'm sleeping, Father," Muzan said as his father entered the room and went over to the blinds.

"Sleeping?" his father asked, obviously not believing him. "Sleeping in a foul-smelling room with Ubuyashiki Sakura?"

I yanked the blanket up over my body and held it by my mouth.

Muzan's father started to open the blinds. "Don't think I don't see you there, Ubuyashiki."

"Father, stop!" Muzan exclaimed. He shielded himself from the light coming in from the outside.

My skin felt like it was going to start melting off of me again. Just like when I woke up.

Muzan's father looked at us. "What is the matter with you two?" he asked in an irrate voice. He turned his attention to Muzan. "And you, Muzan, do you realise at all the repercussions of letting her overnight with you?"

"We didn't do anything! But shut the blinds, please!" Muzan said in a tone that was increasingly becoming frantic.

Sweat started to pour from my hairline down my forehead and over my face. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to Muzan. He was also sweating immensely.

Muzan's father stepped closer to us. He eyed us suspiciously, obviously having noted the state we were in. "What's going on?" he asked, the anger fading from his tone.


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A/N: I want to give some more explanation to the relation between Muzan and Sakura, after her identity as being in the Ubuyashiki family was stated in this chapter. 

First, we have to remember that the year at this part of the story is somewhere between 900-920, and that they are both part of a nobility Clan. The fact that they -- or any couple in an aristocratic position -- at the time would have some familial relation is not uncommon or looked down upon in this time period.

Second, I want to elaborate a bit on exactly how close the relation between Muzan and Sakura is. In my take on the story, the Clan that the Ubuyashikis and Kibutsujis belong to is quite extensive, including multiple "familial units" (this is why Muzan and Sakura do not share the same surname, they are part of different units under the same Clan). I think of them as being probably fourth cousins. Although from a modern thinking perspective, this might be considered shocking, but from the perspective of the time period the story is set in and their social status, it would not be a troubling factor. 

Of course, if someone has more historical insight on this topic and how it would relate to nobility in Heian Japan, they are absolutely welcome to correct me if I've made any wrong assumptions. I'm not a historian on this era and my background of determining what would most likely be "normal" or not is Eurocentric. 

I hope this explanation might clear out some confusion on this matter in my story.