Wisteria Eyed

48

"Why are you acting so civil to me?" I asked bluntly, looking at the older man who was watching us silently from the porch.

It had been a few days since our spat and ever since then, a lot of changes happened that I honestly didn't quite anticipate.

And one of those changes was Rengoku Senior oddly taking a keen interest in our training regime — both mine and the stooges'.

"What do you mean?" He asked off-handedly as he took a sip of his tea — I was quite thankful that he had finally given up bringing his alcohol since around the second day. That was definitely a bad influence on the kids and I didn't want it anywhere near them.

"You know what I mean, Rengoku-sama," I tilted my head almost sassily as I replied, "I thought we didn't reach your mark of talent and would have been driven out of the Estate by today or so."

"I never said I would do that." It amused me how he avoided my gaze when he said that.

"Ah, so Ren-senpai stopped you, didn't he?"

"I'm telling you I didn't say anything about it!" he finally turned to look at me, his eyes glaring at me without any real heat behind them.

It was truly strange how much Rengoku Senior changed in the past few days — especially considering how he didn't yell or scream at us whenever he saw us anymore. Instead, he just silently watched us with his tired, observant eyes.

Which was something infinitely worse, according to Senjuro and Zenitsu.

I suppressed a smile as I remembered those two's reaction last time; they both seemed very proud but disapproving (at the same time?) of my spat with the old man — an odd combination if you ask me, but amusing nonetheless as I was nagged to hell and back to stay away from the 'drunkard.'

That was a very different thing that the said 'drunkard' seemed to seek us on his own the very next day — going as far as watching us train (and I, meditate) silently while almost everyone glared at him for simply sitting there.

Thankfully enough, everyone was used to his presence now; and since he only silently observed us, no one commented or interacted with him much.

Except, well, me.

"Glad to hear that," I smiled at him genuinely, "But honestly, why are you behaving so... docile with us? We genuinely thought you were sitting here to pick a fight with us or point out our flaws but instead, you just sit here and observe us, for some odd reason."

"I won't do that!" Rengoku Senior huffed before slumping back to his tired position, "I know none of you wants to trust me but I am simply just sitting here because—"

"—Because you are bored?" I smiled when he made a face at me, "And we are interesting? I mean, I won't disagree with you if you say that."

"You talk a lot of nonsense for someone doing nothing but sitting around for the past three days."

And that was another thing that changed — I and Rengoku Senior's spats turned into (playful?) banters, if you could call them that.

Since our last yelling match, we both somehow developed an odd relationship where he taunted me openly and I quipped back just as unashamedly — none of us actually looking to pick a fight but still walking on the thin line of respect and disrespect.

Especially in my case as I very often called him out and sassed him back without any hesitation; well, there was some hesitation in the beginning but once I noticed that he (oddly enough) didn't mind, I stopped holding back.

Much to Senjuro and Tanjiro's horror, unfortunately. Ren-senpai was amused as hell though.

I chuckled at his taunt as I stood up to refill his cup with tea, "That's true, but what can I do if the only thing I currently need is meditation, hm?"