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English
Series:
Part 14 of "Unfortunate Slices of a Bloody Life" (Demon Slayer Role-Swap AU (ish)), Part 19 of Why's Whumps 2024
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Whumptober 2024
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Published:
2024-11-03
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2,645
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1/1
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13
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54
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Our graveyard of candles

Summary:

Lacking the words, Nezuko shrugs, opting to tuck her nose into a shoulder she could identify out of millions of shoulders, forehead snug against a smooth neck, save for the dotted texture of four scars—once holes, where fingers had dug in tight, now just raised bumps, a memory. Brushing against Nezuko’s cheeks, stained with dark red marks that will never disappear, clacking with every breath, are almost-twin earrings—if not for the singular chip.
A soft laugh, equally as grieved, is pressed into the crown of her head, the faint trace of lips curving into a sad smile.

OR

Nezuko in the aftermath, two years after the final battle.

Notes:

Day 8

 

Sleep Deprivation | Isolation Chamber | Forced to Stay Awake |
"LEAVE THE LIGHTS ON"
(Coldplay, Midnight)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The tatami mats are cool and soft under Nezuko’s bare feet as she pads across the short distance of the house, past the absurdly long dining table, ridiculously huge considering the smallness of the house but very necessary. She walks past the kitchen space, past the doorway of one of the two bedrooms in the house, though she hesitates outside it for a moment, debating. 

On a day such as today, there are many things she could do. 

No one would judge her for burrowing under a blanket, for hiding away, for refusing to address the world on this mournful anniversary. No one would judge her for celebrating, either. For throwing parties, drinking until she is nauseous (although that could also be an action of grief, too), celebrating the triumph in any number of ways.

Tonight, Tengen and his wives will likely hold such a gathering.

Obanai and Mitsuri might join them, with Obanai being the one to mention the party. To anyone who doesn’t know the two, truly know them, they would be surprised at that: that it was the people-averse Serpent Pillar who always brought up the idea of going out, rather than the outgoing Love Pillar. However, it is because they love one another so much that this will always be the case. Mitsuri knows that Obanai does not like crowds or parties, so she would never ask to go, and Obanai would do anything to make her happy, so he will always ask, eager to be the source of her excited smiles and joy. 

To Mitsuri, Obanai is the sweetest, most kind man in the world, who was always so perfect with his words and reading her moods.

Nevermind that the last time Nezuko had dinner with the pair, just a few weeks prior, seated at her large table, Obanai told her she looked, “More awful than usual,” once Mitsuri left the room, which was his way of bringing up the fact that she obviously hadn’t been sleeping. She had smiled at him, though it was worn and tired, and told him he was a dick. 

(She’ll be alright, is what she didn’t say, though he read it in her snark. Her nightmares always get worse around the anniversary. Even though there have only been two of them, she is comfortable using the word “always,” since she can’t see them going away anytime in the next decade.)

Sanami, on the other hand, will definitely refrain from going, Nezuko has no doubt. 

He will spend this anniversary grieving, allowing himself to fall apart in the privacy of his home, and tomorrow, at the dawn of a new day, Nezuko will go visit him, pretending that she does not see the redness of his eyes, while he will pretend to not notice the purple-black bruises under hers. They will sit in not-quite-silence, Nezuko remembering what it feels like to have an older brother, while Sanami looks through her, picturing Genya in her stead, and Nezuko will not have the heart to blame him.

Then there is Muichiro…

Senjuro told her, the other day, that he had invited Muichiro over for dinner, to be held on the night of the anniversary, and planned to wrangle him into staying over. 

A few months after the final battle, when Muichiro finally had the strength to stay conscious for more than a handful of hours at a time, he had interrupted Nezuko as she read aloud to him, the sunlight streaming through the windows of the Butterfly Mansion illuminating the page. 

(A few months after that, when Muichiro, the last person on bed rest, was finally able to leave, deciding to take up Tengen’s offer of staying with him and his wife—who doted on him like he was their own son, as if trying to pour all the mothering he missed out on these past few years into every second—Nezuko and Kanao vacated the Butterfly Mansion. There were too many heavy memories, too many nightmares, trapped within those walls. The little butterfly girls, and Aoi, left around then well, with Aoi leaving to busier places to continue studying medicine (after Kanao made sure to laden her pockets with enough money to pave her way, no matter the obstacle). The girls, however, stuck with Kanao, who was glad to keep them under her protective wings for as long as she possibly could.)

“Rengoku-san invited me to dinner a lot,” Muichiro had said, loud enough for Nezuko to hear, which is how she knows he is starting a conversation. Admittedly, Nezuko had frozen, unsure where the conversation was going. Continuing on, perhaps not noticing her quiet panic, Muichiro said, even louder, voice wavering, “I never said thank you. To him. Or you. Or. Or his little brother. But you all always welcomed me. And I never got to say thank you.” 

Pursing her lips, Nezuko had set down the book, not bothering to mark the page. Neither of them were paying attention to the story anyway. 

“Rengoku-san knows,” She eventually managed, words tight in her throat but very certain, “So don’t worry about thanking him, Tokito-san. Besides, he never did it for appreciation. He did it because he cared. But if you want to thank me and Senjuro—that’s Rengoku-san’s little brother—then have dinner with us, as soon as you are strong enough to.”

After that, it was like a switch flipped back on inside of Muichiro. He finally had a reason to get stronger, to take his physical therapy—led by Aoi—seriously. And when the three at last sat down to dinner together, Senjuro had smiled his sweet, easy smile in the face of Muichiro’s tearful thanks, and said, “You’re welcome, Tokito-san. I expect you to repay me for all the food I cooked by coming to dinner every week—and you, too, Nezuko!—so I know you are really serious.” 

Muichiro had laughed incredulously, unflinching despite the way it must have pulled on every one of his aches and pains, and agreed. 

But today, on this dreaded anniversary, Nezuko cannot join them for dinner, and as the sun drops below the trees, darkness consuming the small house, Nezuko trails around the silent room, lighting far too many candles, decorating every surface with the thin flames. A fragrant mixture of scents fill the air, strong enough to temporarily overwhelm the smell of the non-existent blood, which lingers in Nezuko’s knows even exactly two years removed from from the day of Muzan’s death. 

Once the candles are all lit, Nezuko sits on the outskirts of the bright room in her small home with its stupidly large table, and does not know how to exist. 

After some time, the door to the bedroom—the one she had stalled in front of—opens, another person joining her, gracefully taking a seat beside Nezuko, a warm line of connection that, at last, reminds Nezuko to breathe. It is easy to drop her head onto their shoulder, to feel their hand intertwine with hers, and remember what it means to be alive.

Their voice, raspy and soft, asks, “Are you alright?”

A loaded question, with multiple answers. 

No but also yes but also never will be and yet at peace. 

Lacking the words, Nezuko shrugs, opting to tuck her nose into a shoulder she could identify out of millions of shoulders, forehead snug against a smooth neck, save for the dotted texture of four scars—once holes, where fingers had dug in tight, now just raised bumps, a memory. Brushing against Nezuko’s cheeks, stained with dark red marks that will never disappear, clacking with every breath, are almost-twin earrings—if not for the singular chip. 

A soft laugh, equally as grieved, is pressed into the crown of her head, the faint trace of lips curving into a sad smile. 

Without having to be told the meaning of the candles—although she remembers the date just as well as Nezuko does—Kanao once again proves that she knows Nezuko, down to her very core. She points to the pair of dark and light purple candles, two out of too many, all painstaking gathered and secretly collected by Nezuko in the year after the first nightmare of an anniversary. 

(She could not be calmed, not by Senjuro, Kanao, or Mitsuri, until at last Mitsuri took the issue into her own unnaturally strong arms and held Nezuko through the entire night, so she would stop attempting to claw off her own face amidst gut-wrenching sobs of pain.

It took a lot of convincing in the months after that for Mitsuri to feel comfortable leaving her alone, which Nezuko is grateful for. She had not been, by any means, able to be left alone, despite her own delusional belief that she could be. Only recently did Nezuko finally move out of Obanai and Mitsuri’s home, joining Kanao in her two bedroom place, alongside the little butterfly girls, after repeated promises to check in often .

It had taken even more convincing for Mitsuri to feel comfortable leaving Nezuko to her own devices for the second anniversary. Her concern makes something warm light up in Nezuko’s chest, something different than the sun that perpetually burns: a softer, kinder, more confused sort of grace. She is… not alright. But better.

Even if she is equally as sleepless in the month leading up to the anniversary, the same nervous energy was not present. No: Nezuko had focused that energy into something else, into her obsessive collecting, checking and rechecking her stash to make sure everything was in order.)

“My sisters like the colors you picked for them.” 

“You can’t even see what colors they are,” Nezuko scolds, although she misses the mark for playfulness and falls squarely on devastation. 

“No,” Kanao says softly, not disagreeing, “I can’t. But you picked the candles well. I can tell. They’re here, you know.”

Her voice far too hopeful, Nezuko murmurs, “You’re lying.” 

“Hardly,” Kanao refutes. “I’ve always seen things better than you have, you know.”

The flame of a bright yellow candle wavers like a full-body laugh, and Kanao laughs along with it. “See? Genya agrees.”

Despite the sheer impossibility of the task, the thin candles burn through the rest of the night, flickering and dancing as the Kanao and Nezuko converse with every flame. 

Nezuko tells Rengoku about Senjuro’s latest adventures, about how he has been dragging Muichiro along with him, how the two are as thick as thieves. She thanks him, Kanao’s presence a needed comfort, even as she finally tells the somber flame of her too-bright teacher that she hates the fact that he left her, although she could never hate him.

They both tell Genya that he was right about Sanami’s kindness. Kanao apologizes for not believing him in the same breath that Nezuko gleefully reveals that he was Obanai’s best man at his and Mitsuri’s wedding, and that he cried during it, so incredibly happy for his best friend. She also informs the quivering flame—laughter, Nezuko is sure, at her own expense—that she had attempted to take up shooting in his honor, and that Kanao had to confiscate the gun for everyone’s safety, since Nezuko was incredibly bad at it.

“The only reason that bullet ever hit Muzan was because of you,” Nezuko says into the silence, the flame stilling in time with her words. “So thank you. For saving us all.”

Nezuko even lit two teal and one maroon candles for Muichiro’s family, in order to softly tell these strangers that their son, their brother, will be alright. That he has people looking out for him.

To Tomioka and Himejima’s flames, neither Nezuko nor Kanao have much to say. So they offer a prayer for Himejima’s sake, the words a comforting roll, while Nezuko quietly offers Tomioka the little she has to offer.
“I’m glad we had dinner together,” she says to the small flame. “And thank you for believing me about Inosuke, back in the Entertainment District. I didn’t even have to ask. I’m sorry for not asking more.” 

His flame had grown, just a little, and after a moment of consideration, Kanao got up, deftly using the lights of each pinprick of flames as navigation, to move Tomioka’s candle squarely between Rengoku and Shinobu’s, and Himejima beside Kanae and Shinobu. Each flame grows a little brighter, after that.

Lady Tamao’s candle—a pretty purple, similar to Shinobu’s—sits apart from the rest, the flame barely discernible. But she seems happy enough, according to Kanao, and when Nezuko closes her eyes, she can almost taste the distinct scent of her floral Blood Demon Art in the air, which relaxes some of tightness in Nezuko’s shoulders, allowing her to sink further into Kanao’s side.

To Shinobu and Kanae, Kanao informs them that she is happy, or at the very least getting there. There are currently no butterflies in Kanao’s hair, which falls soft and loose around her shoulders, tickling Nezuko’s nose, but the pins are never far from her heart, even if they are physically distant. Kanao has already said a lot to her sisters, is not quite ready to share those words out loud, so she keeps her thoughts succinct and honest, then falls quiet.

To Nezuko’s own family, she shyly tells them Rengoku Senior gifted her some old booklets on Sun Breathing, and that she’s been attempting to piece the Hinokami Kagura back together. To carry on the tradition. The flame of Tanjiro’s green candle—Nezuko is so tired of maroon and red—placed squarely in the center of her parents and siblings, brushes against each of the other candles in turn throughout the night, as if reassuring himself of their presence. 

She proclaims, words directed toward her blood family, with more strength and conviction than she really feels, “You’ll have to wait a little longer for me. I’ll join you, one day, but for now… For now I want to learn how to be happy.” 

The image of a haori, beyond saving, stained with blood, half a pale pink and half a checkered green, folded neatly at the bottom of her and Kanao’s shared closet, appears in her mind. Beside it resides a mostly-destroyed butterfly haori, with the white cape (turned pink with irremovable blood) Kanao has long outgrown—even though she has not grown in size—tucked beneath it. Their histories, as inerasable as steeped in bloodstains, would have become their tombs, if allowed to fester and grow. 

Her new haori—matching with Kanao’s, with the little butterfly girls—is made of a soft blue fabric, puffy clouds dancing across in gentle patterns. 

So far removed from Flame and Flowers, from Butterflies and the Sun, but related, too, as they all exist within and under the big blue sky. 

“We’re making our own path,” Nezuko dares to say, almost afraid to look at Kanao, “Together.”

But she shouldn’t have been afraid, because Kanao just makes a soft sound of agreement against the shell of Nezuko’s ear—inaudible to her, but still understood as the puff of air warms her already heated ears. 

Perhaps the Hinokami Kagura will not quite be the same, once Nezuko is done with it. But that is alright—or, at least, it will be alright, as long as she keeps convincing herself of that fact.

To Master Ubuyakashiki’s flame, Kanao tells him solemnly, “You did it.”

There is nothing more to be said.

It is only at the tail end of the night that Rui’s flame, tucked alongside Nezuko’s family—a hope she could not quite douse, a guilt she could never shake—finally wavers. Nezuko smiles at it, kindly, sorrowfully, and says, “Welcome, brother. I am glad you could join us.”

 

Come morning, the flames extinguish in a single, beautiful wave, and for the first time, Nezuko is at peace with her goodbyes.

Notes:

!!! and !!! we have reached the end.

i hope this series has been enjoyable, and that this ending is satisfying in its own way.
kanao/nezuko is up for interpretation, but i like to think that they live out their days happy and together, figuring out how to live after tradgedy knowing the other will always have their back.

i also tried to give the other hashira their happy endings - or, as happy as i could make them, without entirely disregarding the character.

just. AHH. nezuko as a character means so much to me. she's soo,,, AHH. i could go on and on.
(part of me wants to make a bnha and demon slayer crossover, with hero student and demon nezuko and LOV tanjiro. tanjiro moms the hell out of them. nezuko freaks everyone out by regrowing her head on multiple occasions. the first time they see each other on the battlefield they run toward the other and everyone is like !!! omg they are gonna fight !! and they just start hugging. also nezuko texts in emojis bc typing with claws is annoying. her favorite is the middle finger.)

tell me what you think of this story!!!!! please!!! it really makes me happy.