Aoi Kanzaki’s hand paused in the middle of slicing the daikon.
“What do you mean by ‘like that’…?”
“I mean… the kind of person who can be utterly merciless toward herself.”
Kiyohiko pointed at his recently healed right hand.
Although no trace of the wound remained, the phantom pain still lingered.
Just remembering that excruciating sensation made him shudder.
“What normal person would put poison—”
He stopped himself halfway.
“What normal person deals with poison every single day?
Is she pushing herself so hard because something happened in the past, or has she simply lost the will to live?”
This is probably one of that wicked woman’s secrets.
Since she was so unwilling to discuss it, I shouldn’t let anyone else know about the poison inside her body just yet.
The kitchen abruptly fell silent.
Even the three young girls who had been chattering while helping with lunch stopped what they were doing and looked worriedly toward Aoi.
Aoi lowered her head.
Her grip around the kitchen knife tightened, and her voice became subdued.
“Don’t talk about Lady Shinobu in that frivolous tone.”
She turned her back to Kiyohiko and resumed cutting the vegetables, though each movement was noticeably heavier than before.
“Lady Shinobu… wasn’t always like this.”
“She used to be rather short-tempered, but her smiles were genuine.
She became angry, raised her voice, and openly expressed how she felt.”
“But after Lady Kanae—Lady Shinobu’s elder sister—passed away, she changed.”
“Her sister?”
Kiyohiko stopped chewing.
“Lady Kanae was an incredibly gentle person.
She was always smiling…”
“Lady Shinobu forces herself to keep smiling because she wants to carry on Lady Kanae’s wishes.”
A faint choke entered Aoi’s voice, but she quickly suppressed it.
“As for her poison… that is how Lady Shinobu fights as the Insect Hashira.”
“She lacks the physical strength to cut off a demon’s head, so she had no choice but to devote herself to studying poison.”
“She would do anything if it meant killing demons.”
Aoi abruptly turned around and glared at Kiyohiko with reddened eyes.
“So don’t think that saving a few people gives you the right to interfere with Lady Shinobu’s life!”
“You have no idea how much weight she carries!”
“Finish eating and leave!
Stop getting in everyone’s way!”
With that, she grabbed a handful of ginger tsukudani and slapped it onto the plate in front of Kiyohiko, as though trying to stuff it into his mouth and silence him.
Kiyohiko looked down at the pile of preserved ginger, then back at Aoi’s fiercely protective expression.
Although she had scolded him, her words allowed a much clearer picture to form inside his mind.
So the young woman who constantly smiled while saying terrifying things was imitating her deceased elder sister?
…
It was the spoils Kiyohiko had just “borrowed” from the kitchen.
The midday sun poured across the courtyard like molten gold.
Whenever he moved even slightly too close to the corridor’s edge, warning heat burned across his skin.
Kiyohiko had no choice but to cling tightly to the shadows along the inner wall like a frightened gecko, moving in an awkward and ridiculous manner.
As he crawled, something suddenly occurred to him.
Shinobu Kocho had probably been treating him as a substitute.
A substitute for the demon who had murdered her sister.
No wonder she had despised him so intensely from the very beginning and looked as though she wanted to force an entire barrel of medicine down his throat.
Is this some kind of melodramatic stand-in trope?
She spoke about humans and demons peacefully coexisting and behaved so gently, yet deep inside, she probably wanted to kill every demon in existence.
Wouldn’t suppressing that much hatred eventually cause her to develop a second personality?
Besides…
“‘Demon-san’ this and ‘Demon-san’ that… It certainly rolls off her tongue easily!”
“I have a name!
My name is Kiyohiko!”
“I’m human!”
“Other than being unable to stand beneath the sun, occasionally wanting to drink blood, and possessing regenerative abilities, what part of me doesn’t look human?!”
Kiyohiko complained the entire way back to the specially prepared guest room, whose windows had been sealed with thick wooden boards.
Bang!
He kicked the door shut behind him, completely blocking out the irritating sunlight.
The room was shrouded in darkness, with only a thin line of light slipping beneath the door.
Rather than making him uncomfortable, the dim environment allowed his tense nerves to relax.
Kiyohiko sat cross-legged on the tatami and irritably placed the plate in front of himself.
Apart from several pieces of raw fish he had yet to finish, the plate held the pile of ginger tsukudani Aoi had given him.
“‘I don’t need a demon teaching me how to value my life’—hah!”
“She completely mistook kindness for malice!”
He grabbed a raw fish and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing furiously as though he were grinding apart the name of a certain woman who constantly smiled with narrowed eyes.
“She’s clearly the lunatic who treats her own life as worthless!”
“Drinking poison every day?
To avenge her sister?
Turning herself into a poisonous human weapon?”
“What is that supposed to be?
Performance art?”
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
That expression of hers—smiling while looking at him as though he were something filthy.
That habit of using the gentlest possible voice to deliver the cruelest rejection…
“What an utterly…”
“Unlovable woman.”
Without thinking, Kiyohiko grabbed a handful of ginger tsukudani and stuffed it directly into his mouth.
Cough, cough, cough!!”
In the next instant, a sharp spiciness shot directly through the roof of his mouth and exploded inside his skull.
Mixed with the distinctive salty sweetness of the preserved ginger, the flavor nearly brought tears spraying from his eyes.
“Blech!
What the hell is this?!
It tastes worse than kimchi!”
“Why is it so spicy?!
Why is the flavor so strong?!”
Kiyohiko stuck out his tongue and desperately panted for air.
“Blueberry said that woman loves eating this?”
“Are her taste buds broken?
Or is food this intense the only thing capable of overpowering the taste of poison in her mouth?”
He stared at the unassuming brown pieces of ginger on the plate, his brows furrowing so deeply that three vertical lines appeared between them.
Spicy.
Sharp.
Yet it left behind a faint sweetness in its aftertaste.
“It’s exactly like her,” Kiyohiko muttered.
He had no desire to eat another bite.
The moment he tasted it, he thought of that infuriating woman, and his appetite completely disappeared.
Who would want to eat something like this?
Who would ever want to get close to that woman?!
Kiyohiko raised his hand, intending to throw the ginger away.
However, his hand stopped halfway.
As though possessed by something, he withdrew it and picked up another small piece.
This time, he was mentally prepared.
The sharp flavor no longer seemed quite as unbearable.
“Hmph.
I’ll eat it!”
“I’ll eat all of your favorite food and leave none for you!
That’ll show you!”
He continued venting childishly as he mixed the remaining fish with the ginger tsukudani and swallowed everything in large mouthfuls.
At last, the hunger inside his stomach was completely satisfied, replenishing the energy his regeneration had consumed.
Now full, Kiyohiko sprawled across the tatami with his arms and legs spread wide, staring at the dark ceiling.
The flavor of ginger still lingered inside his mouth.
“An elder sister, huh…?”
He raised one hand into the darkness and slowly closed it around empty air.
“Is it really worth living this way for someone who’s already dead, Shinobu Kocho?”
“Your sister probably wouldn’t want to see you like this either…”