"Why are you crying?"

"The other kids were making fun of me!" She says, sniffing.

"Why?"

"Because no one will come to get me home!"

"Here, I will take you home."

"Really?"

"Yes, and I promise that one day, I will be able to take you to a place where you can be happy."

"When that day will come?"

He didn't respond. At all.

◇

We were walking for some time now.

"Wow, the sunset is really beautiful!" Tanjiro says, and it really was a nice view.

The sunset makes me feel a bit melancholic, though.

"Y/N, I was wondering…"

"Hm?" I say, taking my attention off the sun.

"Well, could I call you by your frst name?"

"Eh?"

"Ah, If you feel uncomfortable with it, there's no need to!"

"Y/N is first name."

"Eh?"

"Eh?"

Good job Y/N you dumb hoe, you forgot that they introduced themselves with their last name first and presented yourself wrong when Tanjiro asked for your name two months ago.

"…. So, I've been calling you by your first name all this time?"

"Yes."

An awkward silence starts, Tanjiro ears started to slowly get red.

What's with that reaction?

Oh yeah, I forgot that first name basis thing was more serious here.

"Since we have been calling you by your first name all this time, it doesn't feel that special anymore." Zenitsu comments.

"Ah! Should we try calling ourselves by nicknames, then?" Tanjiro excitedly says.

"I'm getting shivers just by imagining being called with nicknames by you." Zenitsu comments.

"Me. Want to try."

"SO WHAT NICKNAMES ARE WE GOING TO USE?!" He completely switches up when I said that.

"Well, I guess we should try giving one to Y/N first."

"That's easy, let's call her angel!"

"Eeeh? But I think mochi would suit her more!"

"No no, angel captures her cuteness way better!"

"What do you think, Inosuke?" Tanjiro turns to Inosuke.

"Why would you ask it to him?! Between a normal nickname and a food-based one, he will obviously choose the food one!"

"I know that. So mochi wins by two votes."

"That's cheating!"

"My turn!"

They turned to me, I point to Inosuke.

"Ino."

Then I point to Zenitsu.

"Zen."

And then to Tanjiro.

"Tan-tan."

"HAAAH? SHE JUST SHORTENED OUR NAMES!"

"Shut up boar!"

"Then… Zen?" I try to test the nickname, Zenitsu freezes and suddenly crouches in the middle of the road.

… That's quite the unexpected reaction.

"she'stoocuteican'ttakeitwhyisshesocute." He starts to murmuring several things that I didn't understand. I guess I should probably refrain from calling him Zen from now on.

♡

"Hold up! Would you guys mind waiting a second?" Zenitsu screeches, sitting in the floor while trembling and hugging his knees.

"Zenitsu? What's wrong?"

"I'm scared, all right?! Now that we are reaching our destination, I'm scared!"

I walk to him, crouching for reaching his eye-level and ready to comfort him.

Now behold! The results of my efforts in learning Japanese!

"…mochi."

I panicked.

"Why the hell is he sitting? How creepy is that?"

"Who are you to talk pig face?!" Zenitsu points to the mountains. "Don't tell me you're not getting any vibes from that mountain!"

We all turn around to look at the mountain, and he's right, it really has some creepy feeling to it, even more that I know there's a lower moon in it.

"Even if you say that, what good just sitting there will do?"

"I told you, he's just creepy."

"I am not in any way creepy! I'm normal! Me and Y/N are the normal ones! You guys are abnormal!" Zenitsu screams, taking advantage that I was still crouching in front of him and hugging me for support.

Tanjiro suddenly frowns and snaps his head to look at the mountain.

Wait, that demon slayer with the strings will appear now, right?!

I struggle to free myself of Zenitsu grasp, running in Tanjiro's direction.

"Sword!"

"Eh, but-"

"SWORD!"

"H-Here!"

He gave me his sword by pure intimidation, sorry Tanjiro.

I ran in the direction of the mountain, where is he?! Come on, I need to save him fast!

I could hear footsteps behind me, I guess Tanjiro and Inosuke probably followed me.

Ah! There he is!

"H-help me…"

"He's got your uniform on! He's a demon slayer! Something must've happened!"

Since he is all the way outside the mountain, the strings are probably not that strong, I might be able to cut it!

I started to randomly swing the sword above him, I can't really see the strings, so I'm just trying to cut them by luck.

His body suddenly limps on the floor, I cut it!

"Are you all right? What happened?!" Tanjiro asks, crouching to his level.

The boy slowly got up.

"I-I'm free? I got out!" He suddenly turns to hug me.

"Thank you! You saved me!"

Tanjiro was just there, confused as fuck.

"Mountain. Down." I say, pointing to the road we came from.

"You want me to descend the mountain?"

I nodded. Thank god he didn't question my broken Japanese.

"Okay, thank you! Thank you so much!"

Oh, he forgot his sword-

Well, fuck. Finders keepers!

☆

Tanjiro was perplexed, it's not the first time that she acted like she knew something would happen, should he ask her about it? 

"Let's go!" Y/N exclaims, pointing to the mountain.

"Right…let's go."

Even though Tanjiro said that, he froze in the spot as he looked at the mountain, his hand trembling a bit.

Inosuke bumps his arm in Tanjiro shoulder, going ahead.

"I will go first, you and underling can follow me, shivering. This is making me hungry."

Tanjiro looked at him in awe as he entered the mountain.

"Let's go, tan-tan!"

Y/N grabbed his hand and turned to drag him to the mountain, failing to see his face exploding in red.

They already held hands before, but in all cases it was Tanjiro who took her hand, not the other way around.

Also, he thought that Zenitsu was weird after seing his reaction to being called "Zen", but now he kinda gets it.

Y/N totally not forgot about Zenitsu.