The first time Akiko saw a ghost was with the Kamado family.It was only for a day, and he didn't say anything.

All he did was stand behind Tanjirou, and kept his eyes on Akiko.

"Tanjuro-san," Akiko tugs on his haori with her small hands, cheeks still round and eyes wide with innocence. He smiles down at the girl, having taken some time to stand for the day so that he could move himself to the front entrance of the house.

"Hm?" He wonders, and with her hand still clutched to the hem of his haori, she points to Tanjirou, who helps Nezuko and his mother with the laundry.

"Over there," she says, eyes unblinking. "There's a stranger with Tanjirou."

Tanjuro laughs, setting a hand on Akiko's head and ruffling her hair.

"Perhaps it's just the spirit of the mountain guiding Tanjirou. No need to be afraid."

So Akiko thinks nothing of it, nodding her head and rushing over to Tanjirou to help with the laundry. When the man moves his attention to Akiko, she smiles and waves her hand at him.

He blinks, perhaps in shock, but almost as soon as it appeared on his face, his usual stoic mask falls into place. He offers Akiko a nod, and she giddily returns back to the task at hand.

"Were you waving at a bird, Akiko?" Tanjirou asks, reaching up to hang a sheet.

Akiko sings to herself, off pitch and horrid, but she's happy. Tanjirou pouts when Akiko holds a finger to her lips.

"Secret!"

She sees the ghost till near night fall deep in the woods, where all of the younger siblings beg to stay outside a little longer to play.

Tanjirou gives up, sighing and nodding his head per their request and everyone cheers. But when he looks over to Akiko, he finds that her face is troubled.

"Hm? What's wrong?"

The man behind Tanjirou is shaking his head, and he points in the direction out of the woods and to the house.

"I think... we should go home..." Akiko mutters under her breath. Takeo's jaw drops and he starts to complain loudly, and even Nezuko looks disheartened with Akiko's sudden objection to continue playing.

"Mmmm... I think Akiko's right! We can play with dad back home, right? It's getting too dark for us to see anyway, right? What if we get lost on our way back?" Tanjirou slips his hand into Akiko's, and the tension in her shoulders relax ever so slightly.

He can smell the fear off of Akiko, and though she's been avoiding his gaze and looking over his head the whole day, Tanjirou decides not to think much of it and trusts that Akiko will be back to normal the next day.

He scolds Takeo when he decides to pout on the way home, but Nezuko talks excitedly with a couple oranges in her kimono to present Kie and Tanjuro with. She and Akiko swing their arms between each other, hands interlocked as they laugh all the way home.

Two days later, Akiko has to go back to the main estate down the mountain. Upon entering the village, she hears rumors that makes her feel glad that everyone got out of the woods before it was completely dark. Apparently, hunters in the mountains were torn to shreds by wolves.

Or, that was the story.

Looking back on it now, it was probably a demon.

And right now, seeing the ghost by Tanjirou's bedside isn't a good sign.

It's been a few days since she's returned from Tokyo, and patients haven't arrived for a while so Akiko has been tending to Haruki for the time being. With the new technology she's received, she knows that his brainwaves are faint, but they're there.

At any rate, Akiko doesn't know what to do when she sees the ghost by Tanjirou's bedside.

Now that she's grown up, she can see his face much more clearly now. Actually, there are two men. She assumes that it's because her eyes have evolved to something inhuman, but with the way she works she can only be thankful.

One of the men's hair is long, tied up into a ponytail. There's a scar similar to Tanjirou's on his forehead, though the ghost has a larger scar shaped like flames.His eyes are uninterested, sure, but they hold a certain warmth that brings Akiko at ease. There's a katana at his waist, and Akiko assumes that he's a passed away demon slayer.

The other man has long hair as well, but not as long as the one with a katana by his side. Instead, he looks much more like Tanjirou, just grown up. He doesn't have a katana, and Akiko only grows curious to the relation he has with Tanjirou and the other demon slayer.

She watches as the one without the forehead scar places a hand atop Tanjirou's forehead, and when she steps into the room he looks up at her before smiling. He probably already knew she was nearby and only looked up to acknowledge her presence.

"You're back," she states matter of factly. The man with the scarred forehead bows his head to Akiko.

"If you're going to take him away I won't let you," her tone of voice doesn't waver. She walks up to Tanjirou's bedside, leaving the usual glass of water and changing out his vase of flowers for the week.

The man that looks like Tanjirou laughs, but no noise comes from his mouth. With his other hand, he waves it around as if to say "we won't," and Akiko shrugs her shoulders.

"I just have to make sure. Tanjirou is important to me. If you take him away..." despite her eyes gleaming bright like the sun, the man places a hand above his katana at the sight of Akiko's poisonous look.

Not like he can do anything anyway.

Akiko sighs to herself, opening the window to pour the remaining water out of the vase and allowing fresh air to breeze in. She can only think that the men being here is a good sign.

Mountain spirits, right?

"Akiko?" Zenitsu's voice brings her attention away from the two ghosts and she rolls her eyes at the blonde.

"Did you get another splinter?"

"How rude!! ...Yeah."

"Deal with it yourself. If I touch it I might make it worse."

"AkikO PLeaSe!!!" He begins to cry, throwing himself at her feet and begging Akiko to help him with his small splinter.

She rolls her eyes, hoisting him up and tugging on his ear as she walks out of the room. When Akiko looks back, she sees that the two ghosts are gone, and she purses her lips, hoping that they won't do anything extreme to her fiance.

Zenitsu looks at her with worry, clutching his 'injured' hand, "By the way, I heard you talking... Who to?"

Akiko looks down at his dragged form, an eerie smile on her face as she creakily sings, "Oh y'know... Ghosts."

---

Akiko sees the castella before she sees Goto.

It's been two weeks since the ghost incident, and nothing has happened to Tanjirou. His vitals remain unchanged, but ever since Akiko has received the brainwave machine, she's been able to pick up on brainwaves as well.

Tanjirou's would act up every once in a while, but only during his sudden bouts of fever, so she has to assume that the fever is making him go haywire. But the past few days have been peaceful, and Akiko is finally at peace knowing that Tanjirou will be alright.

She smiles and Goto lazily waves a hand at the doctor before she comes running up, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she asks, "For me?"

Goto scoffs at her uncanny antics before pulling the tray away.

"No," he rolls his eyes, "They're for your fiance."

Akiko blinks owlishly, "He's awake?"

Goto shakes his head and Akiko's chest feels heavier, her shoulders sagging under the weight. But she shakes it off quickly and tries her best to smile at him instead.

"Well, I thought that since his nose is super human he might be able to smell the castella, and then maybe he would wake up?"

"Goto you're... You're a real work of art, I'll give you that."

Goto bumps his hip against her and she kicks at his leg in an attempt to trip him, but Goto wouldn't have it any other way.

The two catch up with what's been going around in the past few months, exchanging stories and whatnot of the Pillars and what they've been doing recently.

Akiko learns that Miyuki has been spending more time with Sanemi, though it's more like they're spending time yelling and teasing each other at nearby restaurants (and eventually getting kicked out of them).

Chiyo has been travelling with her baby sister (who is no longer sick, which is a relief) and has bumped into Giyuu a few times. Surprisingly, Giyuu is good with Ayame. Any other baby or animal and he's screamed and bitten at though, and Akiko chuckles at the news.

Genya and Himejima have been training hard and Genya is set to go to the swordsmith village to fix his guns again. Akiko raises her brows at Goto, and he sighs at the fact that he now has to run over to Genya and remind him of his monthly check up with Akiko.

Iguro is being a pain in the ass as always and Mitsuri has been enjoying her time in Hokkaido eating their apples. Uzui is at home resting with his wives and Goto just recently helped to ship a box of jewels to his mansion, so Akiko has to assume that he plans on being as flamboyant as ever.

When Goto asks about Shinobu, Akiko can't help but purse her lips. But she's quick to smile, explaining how Shinobu has been working as hard as ever and telling Goto to thank the other kakushis for regularly shipping packages to the Butterfly Estate.

Akiko squints her eyes at the broken porcelain pieces in front of the hospital ward's doorway.

The words "Clean this shit up," seem to write themselves on Goto's face and Akiko can tell that her face must hold the same words.

She sighs as she leans down to pick up the broken pieces, and Goto steps forward.

"Uhhh, I brought some castella over. So please clear the way so I can put it down. If it looks spoiled, just go ahead and eat it."

"Th... Thank you... so much..."

At the sound of her fiance's broken voice, Akiko's head whips up and her eyes are wide with disbelief.

Her eyes are so fucking damned that they didn't notice his concious state.

"Are you fucking kidding me," Akiko whispers to herself as Goto screams at Kanao, then promptly trips over Akiko's still bent over body in his appempt to rush out of the room.

Akiko pulls her own chair up besides Tanjirou's bedside and she smiles widely, unwrapping the stethoscope around her neck and adjusting it to fit it into her ears.

"Kanao, please step out of the room. And make sure no one walks in until I say so," she smiles at the girl, who nods her head eagerly.

The screaming and crying out in the hallway, but at least it's as quiet as it can get now. Akiko proceeds to do a general check up on Tanjirou's body, and he watches with tired eyes as she does her job.

"Did you miss me?" Tanjirou laughs weakly once Akiko's finished, and she carefully takes her hand into his own.

Akiko scoffs, wiping the tears in Tanjirou's eyes away before replying, "Of course I missed you. Two months without you was a bit too much."

She's beckoned closer and now it's Tanjirou's turn to wipe her tears away, though small and sparse. Still, it warms Tanjirou's heart to find that Akiko missed him during her time alone (though she won't admit it.)

"It wasn't too hard for you, was it? I thought I heard some things, but I might have been wrong."

She shakes her head, cradling his palm against her cheek and sighing in bliss.

"It was rocky, but now you're here so I'm better. You've missed out on a lot. I'll fill you in when you're all better," she kisses his palm and Tanjirou laughs at the feeling.

When Akiko moves her head to his mattress, tilting it to stare at his face and asking him to run his fingers through her hair, Tanjirou can't help but cast her a worried look.

"Are you okay? You seem a little off, Akiko."

"I can stop if you don't want me to touch you."

"There's my wife," he laughs again, and she bolts upright with a fierce blush raging on her face. Akiko mutters a quick, "Fiance," under her breath to correct him, but Tanjirou begs for her to rest her head again.

So she does as told, though much more hesitant now, and the two relish in silence together. The commotion outside has died down and Akiko assumes that Aoi waved everyone off for she and Tanjirou to have their alone time.

Tanjirou waits for Akiko to spill her feelings, and he can smell the turning of gears in her head as she tries to form sentences. He doesn't mind waiting though. She'll be able to talk in due time, and that's a much better step up from when she wouldn't say anything at all.

Akiko reaches up, grasping the fingers that are tangled in her hair and bringing them down to slowly peck. He gazes at her with all the warmth in the world, and he thinks of how he can get used to this special treatment.

But when Akiko starts, it's a much heavier topic than one he thought he was prepared for.

"I'm not sure if you heard me while you were in your coma, but I hate how we're fighting a war as children. We've gone through more than the average person our age has gone through, and our enemies have nothing to lose whereas we have everything to lose." She's crying now and the two both hate to see the tears.

Akiko moves to hide her tears, but Tanjirou helps her lift her face so that the two can at least meet in the middle.

"Please, for just one day can we forget who we are with the only information being that we love each other?"

--- 

its been about 4 years since ive written this story and I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember how to put gifs into a chapter on wattpad again. but i wrote the whole story and just want it all published for you guys. 

so here you go.

no aesthetic, just words lol