The Demon Queen

New Beginnings

A week passed, and I hadn't seen or heard anything from Gyutaro. I wasn't expecting him to come to the Castle to apologise or talk about what happened. But also, I wasn't going to go over to the Red Light District to seek him out. Although I felt an emptiness without him and missed him greatly, I was willing to let him go if that's how it was going to be.

I lived 900 years without him. I could live without him again now.

I decided to take a walk in the moonlight around the grounds. It was one way I could try to push Gyutaro from my thoughts, despite that I was passing by all the places I used to train him. There were too many memories. 100 years of memories. But it was still easier facing the memories on the Castle grounds than those left on the veranda outside my wing.

I came upon a small bed of white spider lilies. Muzan had Akaza plant them long ago and tried to change them into the blue ones in his lab. Of course, he never succeeded.

I squatted down and picked up one of the flowers. I found the shape of them to be beautiful, as were all of the spider lilies, but the white colour was exceedingly boring.

New beginnings ... positivity ...? I mused to myself over the meaning of the white spider lily. Yeah, right. What would bring me that?

"Sakura-sama?"

Kokushibou? I thought curiously.

I looked behind me to see Kokushibou standing there. Once my eyes came close to meeting his, he looked away. However, one of his eyes crept its gaze over to look at me directly.

Kokushibou cleared his throat. He pointed to a spot beside me. "May I?"

"Sure."

Kokushibou sat crossed-legged at the edge of the bed of white spider lilies. I relaxed in my position and sat down rather than squatting.

"So, are you coming to ask me about Douma and the Blue Spider Lily?" I asked.

Kokushibou's eyes blinked.

"Because I don't have anything new about that."

"No."

"Oh. Okay."

"Muzan-sama isn't looking for you, and I wasn't looking for you," he continued. "I take walks here often. The flowers are beautiful." He picked up one of the white spider lilies. "Not only these, but the others planted around the grounds."

I watched him slowly twirl the flower by its stem in his fingers.

"But I --" he continued, his eyes locked on the flower. "I did sense you here while on my walk and decided to see if I could approach you instead of avoiding you."

"Why?"

"You seem sad."

"I'm not sad."

A couple of his eyes looked at me. "Oh. I thought it was because of what happened to Rui. I know it's troubled Muzan-sama a lot."

"No. I don't have that kind of connection to Rui."

"Hmm ..." he hummed and brought all of his attention back to the flower.

I've forgotten how awkward he is, I thought. Well, that's one of the reasons why I stopped learning sword fighting with him.

"Sakura-sama?"

"What?"

"Muzan-sama told me about the boy who wears the same earrings as Yoriichi did."

"Of course he'd tell you," I said. "Is this the point you were trying to get to all this time?"