"Tanjirou! I'm back!" Akiko's tiny arms weary at the fact that she's still cranking the window down, standing on her seat to stick her head out of the window.

Her mother scolds her, but Akiko pays it no mind, waving her arms and shouting Tanjirou's name over and over again with even more enthusiasm when his head pops out of the house.

His eyes light up and his cheeks flush a rosy red before he stumbles out of the house. Nezuko and Takeo follow after, shouting Akiko's name as the Tamura's new Model-T pulls up to the small house.

Akiko hops out of the car and into Tanjirou's arms, where he swings her in circles. The two laugh in delight as Akiko buries her head into the crook of his neck, arms tightly wrapped around him.

"I've missed you!" Akiko's voice sounds richer than before, and Tanjirou blushes again before squeezing her a bit tighter as a response.

"Oh my! Ray-san, Hiratsuka-san! I didn't think you'd be back for the summer!" Kie wipes her hands on her apron and Ray ruffles Tanjirou's head with a fond smile.

"Akiko isn't used to being apart from Tanjirou for so long, so we thought it best to let her see him again before she has to go back to school." Hiratsuka explains, her kimono pristine and new.

"Besides," her hand finds its way to Tanjirou's nose, tapping it lightly as Akiko giggles at her mother's teasing nature. "His birthday is soon, is it not? One year closer to double digits!"

"Tanjirou, let your fiancée breath." Tanjuro struggles to stand by the doorway and Kie helps to support him. Ray walks forward with his bag, ready to perform a physical, as the other kids rush to their father's side.

Tanjirou gently pulls Akiko along to urge his father back to bed while Tanjuro waves everyone off with his usual kind smile. Akiko smiles despite her concern when Tanjuro's big hand strokes Akiko's head. She grasps his kimono and he understands to return to his futon for the sake of his future daughter-in-law.

Nezuko goes to brew some tea while both parents sit and talk. All the children rush outside to play as the day's chores have been forgotten.

"Akiko, let's go into the mountains!" Tanjirou pulls his fiancée along and she frowns lightly.

"But won't there be bears?"

He stops in his place, turning to face her and holding both her hands before kissing her forehead.

She blushes fiercely when he smiles, sparkling in the sunlight.

"Don't worry! I'll protect you, okay? You're my fiancée after all!"

"Y-Yeah!"

"Ewww!! Tanjirou's being mushy!!" Takeo points at the two, who both flush with embarrassment. All the kids laugh as Tanjirou presses Akiko's face to his chest in an attempt to hide her away, yelling at his siblings to stop their teasing.

Akiko blankly stares out the car window, hands folded in her lap as the crow follows the car.

Those happy times have been ripped from her, and she can't even respond to her parent's concerned calls all throughout the car ride to the mountains.

The crow suddenly diverges from the car and Akiko blinks, her memories reeling to a stop and Tanjirou's high pitched voice torn away from her.

"Why aren't we going to the Kamado house." Her head doesn't move and her mother takes her daughter's hand, but Akiko pulls away.

If it's not Tanjirou's hand, she won't accept it.

"Your grandmother-"

"Driver. The mountains, please."

The family driver glances at Ray with concern and Akiko furrows her brows in frustration, screaming in her head for the driver to just do as she ordered.

Ray lets out a slow sigh before nodding his head, and the car turns course with the crow by its side once again.

Akiko finds herself zoning out again, mindlessly counting the times the crow flaps its wings or when it opens its beak to cry. Without any warning, she finds herself free falling back into her memories.

Her hand is tightly wrapped around Tanjirou's, throat choked up as Tanjirou gently wipes her tears away.

"I-" She hiccups, "I don't wanna go back to Tokyo..."

Her few weeks back in the countryside are coming to a close, and she's spending her last night at the Kamado house again.

Tanjirou smiles helplessly at her as the two sit on a stump outside the house. He can see her under the moonlight, her golden eyes a bit paler with the low lighting.

"I wanna stay with you! I don't wanna go back to Tokyo! The people are tall and no one knows who I am! The classroom is filled with boys but they only wanna be my friend because of papa! Either that or they think I'm dumb! I'm just as smart as them!!" Akiko cries even louder, her face a mess and her handkerchief sloppy with snot.

"He-Hey! Don't laugh at me!" She moves to shove him off the stump, but Tanjirou still laughs when he catches her hands, bringing her into his arms and turning her body so that she sits in front of him between his legs.

She's still a few centimeters taller than him, but their heights don't matter when they sit with each other.

"I think you're smarter than them." He smiles down at her, his green and black checkered haori wrapped around the both of them. Akiko puffs her cheeks out, her head poking out of the haori as Tanjirou rests his chin on top of her shoulder.

Akiko sniffles, "Really? You're not lying?"

She can feel him shake his head, "You're really smart!! Smarter than me!"

Akiko gasps, shifting in his arms to face him before clasping his cheeks and squishing them.

"No way! You're smarter than me! You know how to cook!" He laughs dryly in response, slowly removing Akiko's hands from his face as she turns back around to sit in between his legs.

"Isn't that something you're supposed to know how to do?"

Akiko shakes her head, "When we get married, you'll be living with me! We have maids to cook for us, and we can sit like this the whole day!"

Tanjirou hums, wrapping his arms around her and moving to rest his chin on her shoulder again.

"But I'd like to eat some of my fiancée's cooking. Ahhh, I'd taste your love in every bite and feel all fuzzy when I come home from a hard day's work!"

Akiko chokes a bit and Tanjirou laughs when she mutters out a bitter, "Guess I have to learn how to cook then...."

Akiko never did learn how to cook after that.

She was taught arithmetic, she perfected her English, and she learned both Europe and Japan's history. Most importantly, she learned science and medicine, most of it thanks to her father.

This was in hope that she will become her village's doctor.

Personally, she wanted to cure Tanjuro's disease so that she could happily eat dinner at a large table with the whole family. A warm setting filled with endless chatter and teasing and good natured laughs that she never experienced back at the estate with her grandmother.

This doesn't happen.

At the new age of 12, she received news of Tanjuro lying on his deathbed.

The Tamura family rushed to the house in the mountains for Ray to see if he can save Tanjuro's life, but Akiko saw the crow perched on the roof of the house.

Tanjuro's heart stopped beating the minute Ray placed his stethoscope over Tanjuro's heart.

Akiko stayed at the Kamado house for a week, begging her parents to stay a little longer each day so that she could comfort Tanjirou.

"Akiko..." Her mother warns, a cross look on her face as Akiko cowers behind Tanjirou, her hands grasping Tanjirou's sleeve.

"But kaa-san! I need to stay! Just a bit longer, please!" Akiko begs for the fourth day in a row. Tanjirou holds his fiancée close to him, heart aching at the thought of not seeing her again the next day like his father.

Ray and Hiratsuka look at Kie with a helpless expression, and Kie chuckles weakly, her figure frail. Her face is gaunt and her fingers are bonier than before, and she shakes whenever she takes a step, but she continues to smile for her children.

"I don't mind. I rather she stay for a few more days, actually," Kie says, and Akiko brightens at the thought. She lets go of Tanjirou's haori to throw herself into the arms of Kie, who chuckles softly at Akiko's affectionate behavior.

"Are you sure? We don't want to be a bother in your time of mourning." Hiratsuka murmurs, but watches as all the siblings hold on to a little piece of Akiko's kimono.

Kie pats the heads of her children, her heart full of love when looking at their faces. She stares at Akiko with the same amount of love, tucking a lock of hair behind Akiko's ear.

"Be a good girl, love. We'll be back by the end of the week, alright?"

Akiko hesitantly nods her head and the married couple steps into the Model-T, driving down the mountain and back to the Tamura Estate in the village.

But by the end of the week, her studies lagged behind, and she was forced to return to Tokyo.

Tanjirou assured her that his heart had healed by the end of the week, but she could see the way that his eyes were still the least bit bloodshot, and the way his hands shook behind his back, hair messier than usual and the fact that he's bitten his lips enough for them to have traces of dried blood, that he's lying through his teeth.

What an awful image of her fiance she has stuck in her mind, and she hopes that he was a lot happier when he-

The crow suddenly lands on top of a roof, and Akiko comes to the realization that they've arrived.

"Love, I don't think we should be here." Ray puts his hand on his daughter's shoulder, pulling her back from the door. Akiko stubbornly shrugs his hand off, eyes blinking away tears at the smell of rotten blood.

Her feet feel sluggish against the snow, and she looks to the nearby stump, almost catching sight of a faint Tanjirou, swinging his legs over the edge and waving at his beloved fiancée.

Akiko can see that the door is closed, but there's no point. There are punched in holes and dried blood staining the wood.

Someone most likely propped the door back in its place to keep passersby from looking inside.

Ray steps out of the car, bag in hand, at which Akiko solemnly glances at.

"There's no point." Her voice is hollow, and Ray looks at her with an all knowing look.

"It's not for them," He says, standing by the car and allowing Akiko her own time.

She takes another step, stomach turning and sweat pouring down her face. It's cold and her hair sticks to the back of her neck.

Her hands shake violently, gripping the hem of her kimono, grasping strands of hair, moving to clutch the cloth above her heart as it burns with pain.

Small puffs of air blow out, but they're uneven and she even forgets to breathe a few times.

There's no rhythm and Akiko finds herself swallowing her saliva more often than usual, but oddly enough it still feels as dry as the winter air.

The beating of her own heart roars in her ears and Akiko's eyes blink multiple times, begging to cast a different image than the one in front of her.

The sight of an empty house with no love or warmth.

No Nezuko to braid hairs with and talk about her brother till the moon's high in the sky.

No Kie to hug as her own mother.

No Hanako to read books to.

No Takeo to tease and make blush.

No Shigure to carry through the mountains when playing games.

No Rokuta to help rock to sleep.

No Tanjirou to share a futon with.

No Tanjirou to cry with.

To celebrate with.

To hold hands with.

To love.

She opens the door and the two week's worth of dread pours out of her mouth.

Akiko throws up.

---

"Urokodaki-san."

The tengu masked trainer looks up from the hotpot he's cooking, staring at his new disciple.

Nezuko is sleeping in the other room, and Tanjirou has finally finished writing in his diary. But there's a folded up piece of paper in his hand. Urokodaki raises a brow at it, but it obviously goes unnoticed.

"If it's not too much to ask..." Tanjirou bows his head, arms outstretched with the letter in hand for Urokodaki to take.

"I'd like to send this letter to my fiancée. She-She's probably worried sick about me, and I want her to know that I'm still alive."

Urokodaki doesn't say anything before taking the paper in his hands, "You have a fiancée?"

Tanjirou flushes a deep red before meekly nodding his head and quickly rambling, "Sh-She's studying in Tokyo. She should be 13 now, and we send each other letters all the time. We're supposed to be wed when she comes back at 16. But, uh..."

Urokodaki nods his head in understanding, his soft smile going unnoticed once again and Tanjirou asks him to send it to the "Tamura Estate" for Akiko's grandmother to forward to Akiko. That way, if Akiko's grandmother knows, then the whole village will be told.

This is Tanjirou's first mistake.

Tamura Higuchi blinks curiously at the crow that swoops in through her window. It hops over to her seiza sitting figure before sticking its leg out to display a tied up piece of paper. Carefully, Higuchi unties the letter from the crow before the crow bows its head and flies out the window.

"Whatever could this be-" She glares at the letter before reading it aloud to herself.

"Gracious grandmother-to-be. I hope this letter finds you in good health. This is Kamado Tanjirou, and I've sent a letter to you in hopes that you will tell Akiko as well as the rest of the village that I as well as my sister, Nezuko, are alive. I don't wish to worry her, and hope you will take the time to forward this message to her. With respect, Kamado Tanjirou."

Higuchi stares at the letter a minute longer, wrinkles deeply set and annoyance flaming deep within her.

To say she doesn't like Tanjirou is an understatement.

"Lady Higuchi." A servant calls, knocking on the shouji to capture the mistress of the estate's attention.

"Your daughter's family is here."

"Hm. Kakera, take this letter and discard of it. Burn it, tear it up, bury it, whatever you must." She hands her servant the letter before making her way to the front entrance.

Her face is complacent, unbothered with the way she's turned the tides of the future.