“So, did you know?” Akari popped her face out again. “Toyo, she found a vine lantern.”
“A vine lantern?” Tanjiro cocked his head to one side. He’d been raised in the mountains, but this was the first time he’d heard this term. “Is that a flower or something?”
“Uh-huh. It’s a flower.” Akari bobbed her head up and down and pointed to the nearby mountain with a small finger. “It grows up there. If you find one, you can marry purple.”
“Purple?” he asked and then understood. “Oh, you mean marry into the purple.”
“That’s how come Toyo gets to go be the wife of a rich man,” the little girl told him smugly.
“That’s just a superstition.” Akari frowned. “It’s a village legend from a long time ago. ‘Keep the flower that only blooms on the night of the new moon against your skin, and you will marry the person you love and live a life happier than all others.’ Akari heard the aunties saying that Toyo made such a good match, she must have found a vine lantern.”
“Oh, I get it.” Tanjiro slapped a fist into his open palm. “And since tonight’s the new moon …”
“Yes.” Akane nodded, looking troubled. “She says she’s going to go pick one. Even though I keep telling her it’s not a real flower.”
So that was why they were arguing.
Their argument was silly, but the falling evening was no joke. Once it got dark—as it soon would—the demons would start to come out. The older sister was right to worry.
Tanjiro peered at Akari, still glued to her sister’s back, as he said, “But the mountains are dangerous at night, you know?”
“I’m already six years old,” the girl with the bowl cut replied with a headstrong look on her face.
Tanjiro burst out laughing in his head, but he made sure the look on his face was extremely serious as he explained, “It’s dangerous for grown-ups too.”
“Because of the demons?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Tanjiro nodded.
“Hmm. Are demons scary?”
“Mm-hmm. Very scary,” Tanjiro told her in a grave tone.
Akari seemed to think for a moment. “Okay,” she said, apparently reluctant. “I won’t go up the mountain.”
Akane’s sigh showed her relief. “Thank you so much. You’ve been a very big help.” She bowed deeply and then yanked on her little sister’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Tanjiro watched the two of them walk away.
“What’s the matter, Tanjiro? Who were those girls?” Zenitsu asked as he trotted over with Inosuke right behind him. “They say something to you?”
“Yeah.” Tanjiro relayed what the girls had just told him.
“Pft! Stupid. Just kids playing around.” Inosuke wasn’t even the slightest bit interested, but Zenitsu seemed fascinated.
“Whoooa, what an interesting flower,” he murmured. “How great would it be to marry the person you love and be the happiest person in the world? Although, the marrying into wealth part, I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”
“It’s nothing more than a legend, Zenitsu,” Tanjiro reminded him, remembering the burning intensity of Zenitsu’s desire to get married. This, after all, was the guy who had begged a girl he’d just met on the road to marry him, sobbing all the while. “Akane said it’s not a real flower.”
“Well, of course it’s not,” Zenitsu agreed. “But girls, well, they’re easy prey for these kinds of fantastic legends about love.”
“They are?” Tanjiro said.
“Oh yeah. They like spells and stuff too, right?” Zenitsu told him, confidently. “There’s that whole ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ thing too. A flower that only blooms on the night of the new moon is exactly the sort of thing girls go wild for. Oh, hey! They say your wish will come true if you make it on the night of the new moon, so maybe that’s where it comes from. In that case, just maybe, just maybe. I mean, there are a lot of legends that aren’t total garbage. There might actually be a flower like that.”
“You really know your stuff, huh, Zenitsu?” Tanjiro complimented his friend’s surprisingly astute analysis.
“Oh you! Flattery’ll get you nowhere!” Zenitsu chuckled creepily in embarrassment, his face turning red. “Wee hee hee hee!”
When Tanjiro really thought about it, Zenitsu probably only knew all of this because he had some vulgar ulterior motive like making conversation with girls, but it still duly impressed Tanjiro.
Huh. So girls like that kind of stuff, he thought, and then paused. Nezuko too? He smiled at the feel of the hard Kirikumo Cedar box pressing against his back. The charming figure of the bride-to-be Toyo overlapped with Nezuko in his mind. His little sister wearing the traditional, beautiful black kimono and smiling. Happily. Joyfully. This image quickly cleared away the fog in his head.
Was that it … ? He finally understood the cause of his gloomy anxiety.
“Hey! You guys! Who cares about some dumb flower? We gotta get back to the old lady’s! She’s waiting to fry us some of that stuff with the little coat!” Inosuke yelled as his stomach loudly growled. Remembering the feast leftovers probably made him hungry. “C’mon! Quit dragging your feet!”
“Wait. You want to eat again? Does your stomach never get full?” Zenitsu said, rolling his eyes. He looked back at Tanjiro. “What’s wrong? You coming?”
Tanjiro stood stock-still in the road, staring off into the distance.
“Tanjiro?” Zenitsu asked.
He hesitated slightly and then said, “Sorry. I have to do something first. You and Inosuke go on ahead.”
Impatient, he turned and hurried after Akane and Akari.
“Oh … There they are!”
He’d been worried he would have trouble finding them given the time since they had walked away, but these were two little girls, after all. Aided by the power of his nose, Tanjiro quickly caught up with the small shadows happily holding hands in the twilight sun.