boketto || t. kamado

forty-five

This chapter and the last one apologize ahead of time for the upcoming chapters and entertainment district arc. I'm also not sorry though, cause I love it.

thanks for #1 in tanjirokamadoxreader hehe

Tanjiro could tell that Y/n fell asleep when her grip had loosened in his grasp. A certain tension left her muscles, and the same, relaxed expression she had on the train returned. Peaceful and calm without her usual worries.

He waited a few minutes, carefully watching and well aware that she hadn't slept more than a few minutes in way too long. He couldn't even imagine how draining that must be - let alone the fact that she'd get up with the sun and train until it left. And if she wasn't training, she was reading books alone. Lady Shinobu had given her a decent pile that would take him a year to get through, but she had gotten through half of it in the past week alone. All because she had so many hours without rest.

Rengoku's death was definitely troubling her as much as it was the rest of them. She hid it better, beneath a mask of indifference and devotion to training as a way to better herself and make sure nothing like that ever happened again. She tried hard to seem like it hadn't affected her. It seemed like she could keep moving and venture forward.

But nothing could escape his nose, even if he wanted to ignore it. When he first met her, she had an eternal scent of tea and old books, mixed with a thin melancholy that was present at all times. Like a cloud hanging over her head. It had dimmed while they traveled together, and he could even visibly notice her smile more and seem more expressive. As if she was in her element as a Demon Slayer and he was wholly convinced this is what she was born and made for.

But then Rengoku died, and her scent returned back into what it had been before. Back to when he had bumped into her on the road, asking for advice on how to break a boulder.

Tanjiro was also becoming increasingly aware of his own emotions. When they first met, fleeting touches and grazes had just been his usual way of expressing gratefulness and affection towards everyone. He'd pat Nezuko's head, place a hand on Zenitsu's shoulder, and give her hand a thankful polite grasp. But the longer he knew her, the more... important they seemed to become. Not for any specific reason, but each one seemed to engrave itself more in his mind until he'd think about even the softest graze of their hands for the entirety of the day.

He even noticed himself finding odd excuses and disguising them with pure intentions, which only seemed to make guilt eat at his bones. But her scent would take a shift of light giddiness, and it was suddenly worth it.

He could be oblivious - this was something his family had even teased him about when girls his age from the village would randomly give him gifts and he never figured out their true intentions. But when it came to his own mind and his own beating heart, he was able to figure things out more quickly.

He wasn't oblivious to how comforting it was to feel her hand on his back. He wasn't oblivious to how her smile made his breath stop short. He wasn't oblivious to how she'd follow his touch, making him want to give it back as quickly as possible.

But he also wasn't oblivious to the fact that they were demon slayers, whose lives could end at a moment's notice.

He watched as her chest rose and fell, before noticing that well over 20 minutes had passed, and she had yet to shift or make any movement or wake up again. It seemed what she had said was the truth. Aura's must really have a large effect on her, then. Seen as when he was angry, it had enough of an impact on her to frighten her. So maybe, something similar was occurring here.

He couldn't see auras, but his sense of smell was above all else. And Tanjiro could admit that he felt a flutter in his chest when he could smell the tea and old books coming closer.