"Let me get this straight... You're banned from seeing him ever again?"

"Well, on the bright side-?"

"There is no bright side."

"...I got to meet Oyakata-sama!"

Kanon sighs, face in her hands as she looks at a messy Akiko. The hems of her hakama is a little ripped and it isn't tied right, there's a missing button from her usual poofy blouse, and her hair looks like a mess.

She's eating some bread and cheese, crumbs on her face as her crow pecks at what's fallen on the table.

Kanon doesn't even want to ask.

"Hey, but I said sorry before it happened!"

"That doesn't mean you can just go to the water estate to rip out Giyuu's hair! What happened to 'do no harm'?!"

---

A good few hours earlier, Akiko is seen with a small bundle of food tied to her back and her leather physician's bag in her hand. Kanon looks at her with a tilted head, hands folded behind her back. She doesn't remember making Akiko food.

"Where are you going?" Kanon asks, and Akiko jumps.

"Kanon... Whatever happens... I'm so sorry."

Akiko runs out of the house after that, hobbling a little under the weight of her bag. She has to hold it with two hands, and she curses her weak arms.

A good hour later, Akiko arrives in front of the water pillar estate. The aura to commit a crime oozes from Akiko and she makes a mental list of her weapons- ahem, tools, in her bag.

"Tomioka-san?" Akiko knocks on the door, "Sorry I'm not Kanon, but can we talk? It's important."

There's no answer. Akiko furrows her brows. She can see him sitting, looking at the door with slight fear, through a sliver of a crack in the door. Her eyes narrow in on his figure, and she notices that he doesn't have his katana on him.

He could probably still mess her up though.

"I'm walking in," she deadpans, and she watches him jump a bit. Her bright smile is disarming, and Giyuu doesn't know why she looks so happy to see him.

"Good! You're home! I'm gonna kill you now."

And she's not kidding.

Giyuu easy dodges some flimsily thrown scalpels, disarming her easily and tucking her under his arm like he did Shinobu a couple weeks ago.

"I know you're mad-"

"Uh, YEAH. My fiance is alive and you didn't tell me!"

"I forgot who he was. Also, I didn't know his name and you didn't give me a physical description."

"I DON'T CARE!!"

Kakushis arrive to the water pillar estate under frantic orders, only to find the two tumbling around the tatami mats. Akiko is going absolutely feral on Giyuu and yells at him for bringing her so much pain. Giyuu takes it like a champ, but he doesn't suffer any injuries. Akiko gets hurt the most, honestly.

The kakushis have to rip Akiko off of Giyuu, Goto asking her what's wrong and promising her some snacks and a free therapy session later. She resists for a while, until a kakushi pleads for Giyuu to knock the poor girl out.

He does as he's told, a swift hand delivered to her neck, and the last thing Akiko sees is the guilty look on Giyuu's face.

When she wakes up, she's not at the Butterfly Estate. She's laying in a garden, the shade of a tree protecting her. There's light humming nearby, and Akiko blinks to readjust her sight.

She sees Giyuu seated patiently far away from her first. Then, she sees a man with long hair and a serene face. His eyes are dull, and Akiko concludes that whatever is making him look so sickly must be why he's blind.

"Tamura Akiko has awoken," Giyuu states, and the man stops humming. He smiles at the direction of Giyuu's voice, nodding his head in thanks.

"Thank you, Giyuu. You may go now."

A fuzzy feeling awakens in Akiko's chest and she stands from her spot underneath the tree, slowly walking towards the man. He hears her footsteps and waits patiently, hands folded in his lap with a smile on his face.

"Come," he pats the wooden floor next to him, "sit beside me."

She does as she's told, and she doesn't feel any anger in her heart anymore. The aura this man radiates is soft, and Akiko can't find it in her heart to hate Giyuu right now. She even feels a little bad for Giyuu, but she shakes her head at the thought.

Three years of agony and suffering can't be excused nor forgotten.

"I'm so glad I get to meet another one of my lovely children. You've worked so hard to save so many," he says, and she smiles weakly.

"Children?"

"The demon slayers, yes. I commend you for your service."

Akiko tilts her head in confusion, "But I'm not... I'm not a demon slayer."

The man offers her another smile, and Akiko's heart skips a beat.

What happens next makes her heart stop completely.

He suddenly holds his arm out, and Akiko nearly screams at the crow that lands.

She backs away uneasily, sweating profusely as the man pets the crow.

"This is Miruna, by the way. Your crow. A kasugai karasu for demon slayers."

Miruna looks at Akiko before hopping off the man's arm to land closer to Akiko. She shakes at the sight of her own crow, breathing highly irregular and shaking down to her bones.

"I'm sorry for attacking Giyuu but just get that thing away from me," Akiko quickly rambles out, closing her eyes when Miruna tilts her head at Akiko.

The man chuckles lightly before looking to the source of her voice, "May I see your hands?"

Akiko rushes to his other side, away from her crow, before doing as she's told. His grip on her hands tighten when she struggles to get away, Miruna flying onto the man's shoulder closest to Akiko.

The man starts to hum again, and the crow relaxes on his shoulder, closing its eyes. Akiko stares at it with wide eyes, breathing slowed significantly to the point where she might not even be breathing at all.

"Feel better now?"

"You're going to die."

He laughs, shoulders shaking as Miruna is disturbed from their peace.

"Why do you say that?" He inquires, and Akiko blushes with embarrassment.

She turns away, hand relaxing in his hold, "My eyes... They're cursed. That's why. The minute my eyes see a crow, someone dies."

He hums at her explanation before smiling. The crow hops down right in front of Akiko, and he feels her tense up again. So he continues to sing under his breath, and her shoulders relax. She allows for him to lead her hands forward, though Akiko still jumps at the feeling of soft feathers against her slightly cut up hands.

"Not so cursed now, hm?"

Akiko leaves the Ubuyashiki estate with her bag of food and physician's bag, names and faces memorized in her mind, a crow perched on her shoulder, a warning, and a dangerous proposal.

---

"Akiko!"

Said girl turns her head at the sound of her name, and she smiles gently at Tanjirou. He looks utterly exhausted, his body bruised lightly in random places from what Akiko can see. Despite his fatigue, Tanjirou still looks more worried for her than himself.

"Are you okay?" Akiko starts first, "You're all battered up!"

Tanjirou laughs weakly and the two walk down the hallway together. He nods his head before explaining, "Sumi, Naho and Kiyo have been hitting me with futon beaters so that I can learn to do the full concentration breathing all the time."

Akiko raises her brow, watching the way his chest and shoulders rise to confirm that he really is doing the full concentration breathing. He's not lying, but she worries at the method.

"But besides that, I heard something happened between you and Giyuu-san?"

Just at the mention of his name, Akiko grows a bit irritated. She wishes for Oyakata's humming, but the look on Tanjirou's face is enough to ease her nerves.

She sighs in defeat, "Let's talk about this on the engawa. I'll ask Kanon for some snacks."

Zenitsu and Inosuke are still moping around the medical ward, and Akiko knows that Tanjirou and she are at risk of being overheard by the blonde. But when she checks in on the two in silence, she finds that Zenitsu is curled up next to Nezuko's box. Inosuke snores loudly, and she rolls her eyes.

Tanjirou is already waiting for her by the engawa, head turned to face her before she even rounds the corner to the garden. There's some matcha tea waiting for them, and some of Akiko's favorite rice crackers.

He doesn't say anything. Akiko appreciates that he's okay with waiting for her.

Birds fly by, and Akiko hears her crow caw nearby. Tanjirou doesn't smell her fear anymore, and he only wonders as to what happened.

"I met Oyakata-sama," she starts, and his eyes widen.

"You did?"

"Mhm. He called me one of his children. He has a nice voice."

The conversation falls silent again, and Akiko feels awkward. There continues to be pauses and moments where they both don't know what to say. Their rhythms are struggling to pace with each other, and there are times where the sailor has to leave for the ocean.

"But I went to find Giyuu to fight him."

Tanjirou raises a brow, but he Akiko's scent indicates that she's being completely truthful.

Sure, he understands that Giyuu is a hard person to approach, what with his aloof, cold personality and blunt tone, but to want to fight him? And for Akiko of all people to want to fight someone?

She can see that he wants to know why, so she continues, "He told me you died."

"Really? He did?"

Akiko nods, taking a sip from her matcha before closing her eyes, listening to everything around her. Tanjirou continues to watch his fiance, trying to redraw Akiko's imagine into his mind.

"I never got the letters you sent to my grandmother, and Tomioka-san telling me that you died put me through three years of emotional hell. And then..." she opens her eyes the barest amount, lashes brushing her cheeks and a sliver of sunlight peeking out, "you came back."

He falters, mind going blank when she turns to face him. He's caught in her eyes all over again, and it's almost as if he's being pulled in.

Tanjirou is drowning in liquid gold.

His insecurities rise to the surface and Akiko can see them plain as day.

Zenitsu wakes up to the sound of nails on a chalkboard, and he grasps his ears at the severity of the sounds. It doesn't take much energy to realize that Akiko and Tanjirou are out of sync, and they're struggling.

It's been three years but he can smell the city life radiate off of her. The brushing of shoulders in Tokyo, a smell completely foreign to Japan that Tanjirou has to assume it's what other countries smell like. It's her western blouse that throws Tanjirou off the most, as he can smell that it's most likely been imported or bought overseas.

Moga.

A modern woman.

When they were kids, he thought he would support the family he would have with Akiko. She'd be great at teaching the kids and taking care of them with her medical knowledge, and they would live comfortably.

But she smells so strongly of independence, verging isolation, and Tanjirou is afraid that she doesn't need him.

Doesn't want him.

Akiko can see through the rise and fall of his chest that his breathing has quickened, and his heart rate is speeding up. It's different from the concentration breathing she sees from Kanao, so there's something wrong.

And she wants to hold him close to her.

He looks so stressed and overwhelmed and she knows that it's because of her. Because of them.

He can smell how dancers step on each other's feet and the pain they feel between Akiko and he. Akiko can see the artist fail to encapture their vision onto canvas, failing their model and enveloped with defeat.

Even Zenitsu can hear the orchestra fail to follow the conductor, and the panic that ensues.

Still, Akiko quietly reaches out.

The hands supporting her behind her back are an exact mirror of Tanjirou's sitting form. One carefully extends, and the tips of her fingers loosely find a way to become woven with his own.

Tanjiou blinks, snapping out of his panicked state to look down at his hands. They're laced together ever so slightly, her fingers finding the opening gaps of his spread out ones.

He hates to think it, but she smells closer to him both physically and figuratively now.

And so he smiles, his breathing reverting back to its full concentration breathing for practice and his heart rate decelerating from it's erratic one. Tanjirou further pushes his fingers through her's, tightening his grip and absentmindedly tracing her thumb with his own in circles.

They're flushing red, looking away from each other, but they decide to scoot closer so that Akiko can place her head on his shoulder. They were always close in height as kids, but now Tanjirou is significantly taller than she, and her head rests comfortably in the crook of his neck.

Tanjirou still can't understand Akiko and Akiko continues to look for a version of Tanjirou that doesn't exist, but for now, at least now, the dancers glide across the floor and the artist completes their masterpiece with the help of their muse.

Zenitsu can hear their hearts beat as one, like that of a symphony.