Shinsuke turned around, his face wearing an undisguised “got you” smile that looked especially…
punchable.
At least, that was how Makomo saw it.
Her cheeks puffed out and her pale-green eyes went wide and round, like a little squirrel whose acorn had just been stolen.
“You, you did that on purpose!” Makomo stomped her foot in frustration.
“Yesterday too!
And today!”
“Mm-hm~” Shinsuke nodded cheerfully, hands tucked in his pockets, strolling back over to her with an easy sway.
“Well, what did you expect?
I called out for a whole year and nobody responded, so I’m owed a little payback.”
“We didn’t ignore you on purpose…” Makomo’s voice dropped, her fingers fidgeting with her hem again.
“It was Sabito who said…
said it was better to observe for a while…”
“And what did observing turn up?” Shinsuke asked, clearly entertained.
“That you’re a troublesome person.” A low voice came from beside them.
Sabito’s figure slowly materialized, same old haori, fox mask facing Shinsuke, radiating barely contained exasperation.
“Oh wow, Sabito’s here too.” Shinsuke wasn’t the least bit surprised and greeted him with a grin.
“Good evening~”
Sabito ignored the greeting entirely.
“You answered Makomo’s question yesterday, now it’s your turn.”
“Right, right!” Makomo perked up at the reminder, straightening her small frame and trying very hard to look serious.
“Shinsuke, you still haven’t told me!
How did you know about us?
And your Breathing style, and your blade…”
“Hold on, hold on.”
Shinsuke raised a hand, cutting off her rapid-fire questions.
“One question for one question, that’s only fair, isn’t it?”
Makomo blinked.
“Huh?”
“You answered my question yesterday about how I knew I killed a demon, so today I’ll answer one of yours.”
He held up a finger and gave it a little wave.
“The rest can wait until tomorrow.”
“That’s not fair!” Makomo couldn’t help but stamp her foot.
“You said you’d tell me today, you’re going back on your word!”
“This is called equal exchange.” Shinsuke said with a perfectly straight face.
“Besides, I showed up today, didn’t I?
That’s pretty sincere of me.”
Makomo looked over at Sabito, eyes pleading for backup.
Sabito was quiet for two seconds, then sighed.
“Just ask the one you want to know most.”
Makomo chewed her lip and thought it over, her wide eyes drifting over Shinsuke several times before she finally asked, carefully.
“Then…
that pink Breathing style of yours…
what exactly is it?
Why is it that every time you use it…
I…
I feel like I want to get closer to you?”
The moment the words were out, her face went red again and she quickly added, “I, I’m just curious!
I don’t mean anything by it!”
Shinsuke smiled.
He walked over to the boulder and leaned against its cool surface, patting the spot beside him.
“Want to sit?”
Neither Makomo nor Sabito moved.
“Alright then.” Shinsuke didn’t mind and spoke at an unhurried pace.
“My Breathing style is called Harem Breathing.”
Makomo tilted her head.
“Harem…?”
“It’s just a name.” Shinsuke continued without missing a beat.
“As for what it does…
simply put, it makes me stronger when there are girls around. This story is hosted at g.com.
The closer they are, the better the effect.”
The air went quiet for a few seconds.
Makomo blinked a few times, seemingly processing what she’d just heard.
Sabito’s fox mask tilted slightly.
“…Huh?”
“So,” Shinsuke turned to Makomo with his brightest smile.
“It’s completely normal that you want to get closer to me.
That’s just what my Breathing style does.
It has a natural pull on the opposite sex.”
Makomo’s face went red in an instant, all the way to the tips of her ears.
“What are you even saying!” She waved her hands in a panic, looking like she was about to combust.
“I never said I…
I didn’t…”
“Right, right, of course you didn’t.” Shinsuke nodded along agreeably, eyes full of barely hidden mischief.
Sabito stepped forward, positioning himself slightly in front of Makomo, mask facing Shinsuke.
“A Breathing style like this…
I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“That’s because I made it up myself.” Shinsuke shrugged.
“Pretty impressive, right?”
“…Not serious.” Sabito concluded.
“Thanks for the compliment~” Shinsuke accepted it without hesitation.
Makomo peeked out from behind Sabito, watching Shinsuke with an uneasy look, and asked quietly.
“But…
you know what our situation is…
so why would your Breathing style work on me?”
“That I genuinely don’t know.” Shinsuke spread his hands with a playful grin.
“Maybe my Breathing style has no effect on you at all, and the reason you want to be near me is actually…”
Makomo leaned in slightly.
“Because of what?”
“Because…” Shinsuke deliberately dragged it out, and the moment Makomo took two more unconscious steps forward, he suddenly delivered the line with a completely straight face.
“Because you like me!”
⊙(・◇・)?
“Huh?”
∑(O_O;) “Wha…?!”
(#／.＼#) “You!
You you you!
What are you even saying!!!”
Makomo’s expression went through about five stages at once, her little face flushing a vivid, flustered red.
The next second…
“Pop!”
Like a balloon that had been pricked, Makomo vanished on the spot.
“What just happened?!
Where’s Makomo?!”
Shinsuke was actually startled for a moment, genuinely worried he had taken it too far and caused the girl to short-circuit from embarrassment.
Fortunately, Sabito beside him remained perfectly calm.
“She bolted.
Don’t bother looking.
She probably won’t be able to face you for the next couple of days.”
“She didn’t actually explode, did she?”
Sabito (￣ー￣): “We’re ghosts, not balloons!”
“Good, good…”
Sabito sighed with resignation.
“But if you keep teasing her like this, I can’t guarantee she’ll ever come out to see you again.”
Shinsuke (￣へ￣): “Weren’t you the one who kept her from showing up in the first place?”
Sabito: “…I really am having a hard time liking you.”
“That’s fine, you’re not who I wanted to see anyway!”
“Alright, let’s call it here for today.” Shinsuke turned and waved over his shoulder as he walked away.
“Makomo, I’m heading out, see you tomorrow.
And if you don’t show up, I’ll just wander around the mountain shouting ‘Makomo!
Where are you!'”
“Don’t you dare!” Makomo’s flustered, indignant voice rang out right on cue.
“Hahaha~ Then you’d better not stand me up tomorrow~”
Shinsuke’s figure quickly disappeared into the trees.
Sabito stood where he was, staring at the spot where Shinsuke had gone, and said nothing for a long while.
“…What a strange guy.”
“Yeah…” Makomo reappeared beside him, face still pink, nodding with a small voice.
“But…
I don’t think I dislike him.”
Sabito rolled his eyes hard behind his mask.
He reached out and poked Makomo’s little head, sending it bobbing side to side.
“You are absolutely hopeless.”
Makomo stared in the direction Shinsuke had left, a soft flush drifting back across her face.
From then on, Shinsuke added one more item to his daily routine.
Every night before bed, he would head up to the mountaintop and chat with Makomo.
In the beginning, Sabito would also appear when questions were being answered.
But after a while, he simply couldn’t stand watching Makomo act like such a lovesick mess, so he decided what he didn’t see wouldn’t bother him and stopped showing up.
That said, he was hardly idle.
Tanjiro’s persistence had eventually gotten through to him.
Half a year later, just as it happened in the story, Sabito appeared before Tanjiro as both a mentor and a sparring partner.
Mt.
Sagiri was tall, so tall that the air near its peak grew thin, the summit pressing close to the clouds, blanketed in snow year-round and rarely touched by sunlight.
Perhaps that was why Sabito and Makomo had been able to linger there.
As time passed, Shinsuke and Tanjiro, this pair of training brothers, naturally became regulars at the mountaintop as well.
One spent his days grinding through brutal training, taking hit after hit.
The other spent his evenings sweet-talking a girl and generally being a menace.
Sometimes when Tanjiro wanted to keep training a little longer, Shinsuke would shoo him away.
Tanjiro had also grown curious about what exactly Shinsuke was sneaking off to the mountaintop to do every single night.
So one night he crept up to take a look.
What he saw broke him on the spot.
His senior brother, the one who called him “brother-in-law” at every turn and declared he was going to marry Nezuko.
To be honest, after all these years, Tanjiro hadn’t felt quite as resistant to that idea as he once had.
But this…
This absolute scoundrel!!!
Had been sneaking up to the mountaintop every single night to carry on a secret romance with one of his two little masters?!
This was beyond unforgivable!
When Tanjiro burst out of the trees shouting “You scoundrel Shinsuke!
What do you think of Nezuko?!” and sent Makomo fleeing in fright, the outcome was pretty much inevitable.
Tanjiro ended up with a bruised face and a head full of lumps, and only then did he finally learn the truth from a still-fuming Shinsuke.
His two little masters had both been orphans, disciples raised by Sakonji Urokodaki.
And they were both…
already dead.
ε(┬┬﹏┬┬)3
This sent Tanjiro into such a crying fit that he latched onto Sabito’s legs and refused to let go.
As for Makomo…
Shinsuke would not let Tanjiro anywhere near her.
At first, Tanjiro wanted to tell Urokodaki about all of this.
But Shinsuke stopped him.
Shinsuke understood clearly that their unresolved feelings hadn’t been worked through yet.
They still felt they had failed to live up to everything Urokodaki had raised and trained them to be, and that was why they couldn’t bring themselves to face him.
If the truth was ever going to reach Urokodaki, it would have to wait until after the hand demon at the Final Selection was dealt with.
Only then would both sides be able to find peace.
Tanjiro thought it through and came to the same conclusion, so he kept quiet and simply threw himself even harder into his own training.
And just like that, another year passed.
On this day, in the middle of a bout with Sabito, Tanjiro finally grasped the killing move that was uniquely his own.
The Flaw Line.
From somewhere on the mountaintop came the thunderous crash of the boulder splitting apart.
In the small storehouse below, Sakonji Urokodaki opened his eyes, filled with both pride and quiet sorrow.
It was time.