The Life and Times of an Average Coward|| Demon Slayer

Chapter 13: Her (Part I)

The Life and Times of an Average Coward

Chapter 13: Her (Part I)

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Kaigaku peaked through the small slit between the thin paper doors, eyes wandering of what the blind caretaker was keeping in the small room. Kaigaku had seen the new kid that the crybaby monk-in-training was clutching on his thin arms, the kid was probably around his age, but he hadn't really got a good look at him other than that he was really pale and sweaty and most likely sick. All Kaigaku knew about him is that he was found passed out in the middle of the forest, probably gotten lost and fainted due to exhaustion.

(Maybe he was running away from something, like how Kaigaku ran away from the bastard who he was sold to. That time, Kaigaku ran and ran as far as his feet could take him, not giving a damn if it's all bloodied and bruised, he just want to be out of there. Away from the disgusting pervert who collects children with uniquely colored eyes. As much as Kaigaku wanted to forget, Kaigaku was one of the most precious ones, with his dull turquoise eyes.)

Done searching, he held his breath when he was finally able to set his one eye on who he was looking for.

He stared at the sleeping child, but before he could take in his appearance, Kaigaku's heart suddenly went to his throat when the closed lids of the sleeping boy(?) opened, only for intense rich amber – almost gold with the aid of the soft candlelight – to stare back at him directly with curiosity. It was the most intense ten seconds of Kaigaku's life, before a smile started forming on the boy's delicate features.

It was a sad thing.

His golden eyes were still a little red and puffy with some tear tracks still present on his overly flushed cheeks, a sign that he probably has a fever. The boy's hair was long – probably reaching the boy's back – and choppy, a right sort of mess on the futon that he currently laid on, glowing brown, yellow and orange with the provided lighting. His skin was pale, paler than even Kaigaku's to be healthy, but they still glowed like every part of the weak boy, who's smiling at him with sadness and warmth.

Kaigaku can almost physically feel the heat in those glowing golden eyes.

It was... new.

Kaigaku had long been used to the cold, the cold he had grown up to, the coldness of his old room having only a thin moth-eaten blanket as a shield, the coldness and the staleness of each meal while eating with his family, the coldness of his parent's eyes as they looked at him, the coldness of the chains that held him down to his equally cold cage, the cold that he lived and breathed for the longest of time.

He was also quite familiar with hate.

Hate that was ever present for his cold useless parents who also hated him back, and then hate for those who oppose him, for those who have what he doesn't have, for the perverted bastard that wants to keep him in a cage, hate for those who were cold to him, for those who wanted him to feel the cold, and lastly, he hated those who hated him. The last mentioned where the type that he hated the most.

Him being kept in this temple after having been caught stealing had introduced him to the comfort of being bathed in lukewarm water. It was a new experience then. Being surrounded by children his age who had grown up to this kind of environment.

(He hates them for having that luxury.)

The blind caretaker doesn't understand him nor did the other children, Kaigaku was sure that with that progress, the lukewarm water would soon grow colder and colder and colder until Kaigaku was left to bathe with the bone chilling cold once again.