“I guess he smiles just a bit when he’s eating salmon with daikon. But only then.”
“Creepy! He smiles?!” Zenitsu let out an exaggerated shudder. “That man can smile?!”
“Listen, Zenitsu,” Tanjiro said patiently. “Mr. Tomioka has the fish every day in the cafeteria. And today, the main dish is …”
“No way.” Finally serious, Zenitsu stared at Tanjiro.
His classmate nodded firmly. “Salmon stewed with daikon.”
“Tanjiroooooooo!” Zenitsu embraced Tanjiro triumphantly, overwhelmed with emotion. Tears streamed down his face. “You really are a true friend!”
“Ow, Zenitsu.”
“Now that that’s settled, let’s get to the cafeteria already!” Zenitsu urged his friend.
They headed to the dining hall in high spirits.
Tomioka was sitting alone at a table near the window. The day’s fish dish sat on the tray in front of him. Zenitsu and Tanjiro stood exactly diagonally behind Tomioka, so they couldn’t see his face, but the look on it had to have been an expression of never-before-seen bliss.
Tanjiro nodded silently, and Zenitsu returned the nod.
He walked over to Tomioka’s side and managed to shout without vomiting, “Mr. Tomioka! I need to talk to you!”
Tomioka looked over his shoulder. “Agatsuma.”
“I’m quitting the disci—”
“When are you going to dye your hair black?!”
Before Zenitsu could finish his sentence, a straight right landed on his cheek at unprecedented speed. There wasn’t a hint of the joy of salmon stewed with daikon in this punch. In fact, the look on Tomioka’s face spoke more of hatred or a deep-seated resentment.
“You’re setting a bad example as a member of the disciplinary committee. Go and dye it black right now,” his teacher ordered him coldly.
Zenitsu crumpled to the ground soundlessly. W-why? How? Doesn’t stewed salmon and daikon mean smiles? he asked himself, his mind hazy.
Feeling disconnected, he saw Tanjiro racing over to him and the tray that Tomioka had been eating from. Unfortunately, what was in the dish with the wave pattern on the tray was not salmon stewed with daikon but …
I-it can’t be … Yellowtail with daikon? Of course … Resentment toward Tanjiro filled Zenitsu’s heart as he lost consciousness.
“I really am so sorry, Zenitsu! I didn’t know!” Tanjiro bowed deeply when he came to pick Zenitsu up from the nurse’s room after school.
“No. How could you have known?” Zenitsu shook his head lifelessly in the bed. “It’s not your fault that the good salmon was suddenly replaced by yellowtail. If anything is to blame, it’d be my bad luck … Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Zenitsu,” Tanjiro murmured.
Zenitsu looked out the window, his gaze distant.
Tanjiro furrowed his brow, pained, and then forced a cheerful smile onto his face. “Hey, Zenitsu? I’ve been thinking …”
“Huh?” Zenitsu didn’t so much as glance at him.
“Why don’t you talk to a teacher besides Mr. Tomioka?”
“A teacher besides Mr. T—urp. Him?” Zenitsu hurriedly replaced the name that nearly made him throw up. “Like who?”
“Hmm.” Tanjiro thought for a second. “Maybe the art teacher, Mr. Uzui?”
“Nope!” Zenitsu shook his head, firmly. “A big fat nope to the gang teacher! I hate him! I super seriously hate that guy!”
“Okay. Mr. Kyogai. The music teacher.”
“Mr. Kyogai gets sick just looking at you, though!”
“Hm?”
Tanjiro cocked his head to one side curiously, not a bit aware of how unimaginably tone-deaf he was, before he frowned in thought again. Then his face lit up.
“I know! Mr. Rengoku!”
“That’s it!” Zenitsu cried, jumping down from the nurse’s room bed. “Mr. Rengoku’s so powerful a character, there’s no way he’d lose out to Mr. T—that teacher! And he’s a pretty good guy!”
Kyojuro Rengoku was a passionate teacher, a lover of history, and full of love for his students. Although he had a slight tendency not to listen to what people were saying, he was very popular with the students. He was far and away number one on the surveyed list of favorite teachers at Kimetsu Academy.
There may or may not have been some rather stalker-ish opinions in that survey like, “Those muscular arms bursting from the rolled-up sleeves of his button-up shirt slay me” and “I want to be the pin on his necktie” and “I hope he’s always so young, hot, and strong.” Given his youthful good looks, he was constantly being brought new potential marriage matches, and it must have been a bit of work to turn them all down.
“But where would Mr. Rengoku be at this time of day?” Zenitsu wondered.
“Not in the teachers’ room?” Tanjiro replied.
“If you’re looking for Mr. Rengoku, he’s in the library.”
“Wha?!”
At the sudden voice from the bed beside him, Zenitsu almost jumped out of his skin. The curtain between the beds slid back just a bit, and a boy with a grumpy look on his face poked his head out.
“Oh … H-hey there.” Zenitsu bowed his head, somewhat freaked out.
“I’m sorry. We were being loud,” Tanjiro apologized sincerely.
The grumpy look on the boy’s face remained. “If you know that, then get out already. The thing I hate the most is people interfering in this precious time when I lie here alone and sense the aura of Ms. Tamayo working in the nurse’s room through the curtain!” he spat, and yanked the curtain closed.
Almost at the same time, the curtain on the other side of the bed was pulled open, and the school doctor, Ms. Tamayo, poked her head in.
“Oh my, Agatsuma,” she said softly. “You’re awake. Wonderful.”
“Y-yes. Thank you.”
“You look better, but don’t push yourself. Stay in bed for another half an hour, okay?” Tamayo smiled gently, face full of compassion.
Meanwhile, he could sense a resentful “hurry up and go” coming loud and clear through the white curtain on the other side, with something approaching murderous thoughts.