I had a dream that my brother came to visit me. He was standing next to my bed looking at me. I wanted to jump up. I wanted to talk to him, but I was so, so sleepy that I couldn’t get up.
That’s the dream I had.
When Genya raised his heavy lids, he saw the ceiling of the Butterfly Mansion. In the bed next to him, Tanjiro Kamado was sleeping quietly, bandages wrapped around different parts of his body.
Naturally, his older brother Sanemi wasn’t there. So it was a dream. Well, yeah, I guess. There was no way his brother would come to visit him.
Feeling pathetic, Genya sat up and met the eyes of the girl who came into the room. One of the three girls here, the one with braids—he was pretty sure her name was Naho.
She stiffened, looking faintly nervous. “Aoiiii! Genya’s awake!”
“Sorry, Naho! I can’t get away right now! Take his pulse and check his temperature,” Aoi replied in a harsh voice from the room next door.
Genya heard the cry of what he assumed was a Demon Slayer and some commotion caused by kicking and flailing. Apparently an emergency case.
Naho nervously approached Genya’s bed. “All right, I’ll take your pulse now,” she said, almost to herself, and tentatively touched his left wrist. He could tell that her small hand was shaking.
Well, of course she’s scared.
Back when Genya was eating demon flesh in a quest for greater power, Himejima had introduced him to Shinobu. Ever since then, he’d been coming here from time to time, but he’d never had a real conversation with Shinobu or any of the others. There was the fact that he was awkward with the opposite sex, that particular hallmark of adolescence. But more than that, he’d been constantly on edge back then.
He was annoyed at himself for not even being able to learn breathing. Frustration at the distance he couldn’t bridge between himself and his brother made him lash out in anger at everything. Not just demons, but things and people too.
It was only natural she’d be frightened.
“Your pulse is normal. I’ll just take your temperature.” Naho was still scared, but she deftly carried out the tasks Aoi had assigned her. “Ninety-eight. You don’t have a fever either. Do you have any pain?”
He shook his head wordlessly.
“All right then. I’ll bring your lunch.”
“Oh. I-I’m not eating,” he said in a small voice, and he could tell that Naho looked at him with a slightly troubled expression. She wasn’t reproaching him. Her gaze was gloomy, anxious. Then there came the sound of glass breaking.
“Eeeek!”
“Please stop that!” He heard cries from the next room.
“Aoi? Sumi?” Naho called, her face pale. She flew out of the room. Genya shuddered at the sound of that name.
Sumi …
His dead little sister had also been named Sumi. She’d been a spoiled brat, but also a kind girl, and so thoughtful of their mother. She had adored her big brothers Genya and Sanemi.
Genya! He gasped at the sound of his dead sister’s voice and leaped up to go after Naho.
When he entered the neighboring room, he found broken glass scattered on the floor. Aoi, Sumi, and Naho were looking toward the bed with frightened expressions. The eyes of the man there shone with hatred and annoyance.
“Please calm down!” Aoi insisted. “You have to rest right now!”
“And what’s resting going to get me?! Is it going to grow back my arm?!” the Demon Slayer snarled.
“There’s nothing that can be done about your arm,” Aoi continued. “But you’ve lost an incredible amount of blood. If you push yourself any more than this—”
“You don’t go on missions!” he cut her off. “What do you know?!”
Aoi gasped, at a loss for words. Sumi and Naho hugged each other, trembling.
“I have to take out as many demons as I can!” he shouted. “For Yae’s sake! They murdered her! But now that I’m missing an arm, how exactly am I supposed to swing a sword?!” He grabbed the water jug from the bedside table and threw it at the girls.
“Eeee!” they shrieked.
Genya dashed forward to catch the jug in one hand. Fortunately, it was empty.
The man looked taken aback by Genya’s sudden appearance, but he quickly recovered himself and glared at him. “What do you want?”
“You can’t go hitting girls,” Genya told him.
“It’s none of your business,” the man spat.
Genya knew only too well those eyes filled with hatred, impatience, annoyance, and an unfathomable anger and sadness. They had once been his own eyes.
“I don’t care about crows! Katana! I want my katana! And I want it now!”
When he’d survived the Final Selection, he’d slammed his fist into the face of the little girl who was their guide, and he had her hair in his hands when Tanjiro stopped him. These eyes were his from back then. As if he had now been made to see exactly how wild, how twisted he had been, Genya spoke in a deliberately even voice.
“These girls treat the injuries of Demon Slayers free of charge for the sake of the Demon Slayer Corps. Be grateful. You have no right to complain.”
“You,” the wounded Demon Slayer protested. “You say that because you’re hardly even hurt! But I—”
“If you lost your good hand, then you can just hold your katana in your other hand,” Genya said flatly. “And if you lose that hand too, hold the blade in your mouth. At least, that’s what I would do.”
“Wha …”
“If you’re not prepared to do that much, then quit the Demon Slayer Corps.” Now he looked into the man’s eyes for the first time.
The man fell into a brief, dazed silence and then finally began to weep. “Yae … Yae …”
A lover or a sister, maybe. He cried the name of his lost loved one. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry … Yaeee … I’m sorry …”