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When Naho told Aoi that there was a second uncooperative patient in the infirmary, this was the last thing that would have come to mind. The blond teen screaming about spiders was bad enough but not entirely out of the realm of typical slayer experiences. But the boy wearing a boar’s head as a mask was entirely new. He had some cuts and deep contusions, possibly even some fractures, but the real concern was apparently his throat. The Water Hashira had reported that he had found the young slayer in the grasp of a large demon, his throat crushed in a hand larger than his head.
Even after that, the boy had the temerity to shout at the senior corps member, demanding to fight. He’d passed out before the kakushi arrived to bring the slayers back for treatment and had been silent since he arrived. Aoi had asked the young trio to check the extent of his bruising while she worked on the antidote Shinobu had concocted for the hoard of slayers who were recovering from being transformed into spiders. But he refused to let them examine him, staying mute and limp in the bed. They hadn’t even been able to remove his mask or uniform yet.
Aoi sighs as she washes the herbal residue from her hands and goes to see what she can do. He’s filthy, the sheets on the bed now stained with dirt and smudges of blood. He lays back against the pillow, presumably staring at the corner where the ceiling and wall meet based on the angle of his mask.
She walks up to his bed and waits a moment, seeing if he acknowledges her. He doesn’t. She decides to start slowly and gauge if the young girls who act as nurses were just afraid or if he was truly uncooperative.
“Do you know where you are?” she asks.
He doesn’t move.
“Are you awake?” she asks.
No response. Aoi huffs.
“Lift your finger up if you’re awake,” she says.
His index finger twitches then lifts a centimeter off the blanket for a moment.
“Good,” Aoi says. “I need to look at your throat. Take off the mask.”
He doesn’t move.
Aoi feels a vein in her forehead begin to pulse. “Either you take it off or I’ll take it off for you.”
The blond boy in the next bed over makes a sound but doesn’t say anything. Aoi’s not sure if it was a stifled laugh or a sound of fear. She ignores him.
The boar headed boy still doesn’t move. Aoi sighs and says, “I warned you.”
His hands shoot up to the bottom edge of his mask and his knuckles turn white as he clutches it.
This unexpected reaction makes Aoi relax a little. At least he’s able to move somewhat. Her face softens. “I don’t need to take it completely off,” she tells him, seeing if she can get through to him. “I just need to see your throat and your mouth.”
He shakes his head. The mask doesn’t move since he’s gripping onto it, but his shoulders shimmy with the movement. If anything, Naho was minimizing the level of this teen’s noncompliance. Aoi doesn’t have a choice but to keep trying.
“Let’s start with your throat then. I can already see some bruising along your collarbone. I need to see how deep it is and how much of your throat was affected. Just lift it a few inches.”
His hands relax the smallest amount and she hides a look of surprise as he does what she says. His body is tense but now she can see the mottled dark colors appearing across his neck. She reaches towards him and he flinches away.
“I need to feel the bruising to see if your muscles or spine were damaged.”
He doesn’t react for a long moment but eventually his elbows spread a little wider, making it easier for her to see and reach toward him.
The blond boy gasps and Aoi snaps her head around to glare at him for a moment. He shrinks back behind his blanket and she looks to her patient again. She gingerly feels the skin to see if there’s further damage. Despite his reluctance, he’s not trembling like many other slayers do when she touches such a widely spanning injury.
“You’re lucky,” she says in a curt voice. “I don’t feel any broken vertebrae or tears in the muscles. Now I need to see your mouth.”
The mask snaps back down onto his shoulders and his entire upper torso twists as he shakes his head no.
Aoi sighs, agitated. “Just your mouth. If you want to risk never being able to talk again, be my guest.”
He flinches then and raises the mask back up, bit by bit. When the lower lip is just at the tip of his nose, he stops. The bruising reaches up to his chin and his face is smudged with blood. Aoi reaches for the rag in her pocket and wipes at his cheeks gently.
She notices how full his lips and cheeks are, wondering if he might be younger than they thought. All the slayers were in good physical condition but his physique was closer to the higher level slayers who had already been in the corps for much longer. Aoi had been surprised when Naho told her the patient was noted to be from this year’s final selection. When the cloth touches him, he twists his head away, but Aoi persists until the exposed skin is clean enough. She puts the rag back in her pocket as she says, “Open your mouth.”
He hesitates again, but just as she’s about to say it more firmly he opens his mouth. Aoi puts her fingers gently under his chin and he stiffens even further but doesn’t close it. She pushes against his jaw and he makes a small sound of pain. She angles her head to allow more light into his throat and looks for a minute. She pulls away, satisfied with the initial exam, and he pulls the mask back down.
“Do you know him?” she asks, turning to the blond slayer. He squeaks and nods his head, hiding again. “What’s his name?”
The teen is quiet for a moment. “I-Inosuke. He said his name is Hashibira Inosuke.”
Aoi nods and checks the nameless chart. She adds her notes and the time of the exam, with a guess at how to spell his name at the top just so they have a way to refer to him until he’s able to confirm it for them.
“Your throat doesn’t look like there will be lasting damage. But your vocal cords definitely need rest and we’ll provide you with liquid pain relief to numb the pain. I’m going to get some more water and have the nurses wash you off and change the sheets. Will you cooperate with them this time?”
To her surprise, he nods a couple times.
She goes back to the pharmacy office and reads over her mentor’s notes to find a pain relief that can be mixed into water for the boy. When she returns, Kiyo, Naho, and Sumi are crowded around the boar headed boy’s bed, rubbing his limp limbs with damp cloths, the water turning a murky brown as they rinse them off. She holds out a cup of the medication but he doesn’t react.
“Drink this, it will take the pain away.”
“Don’t do it, it’s gro-ahh,” the blond boy shrinks back from trying to warn the other slayer when Aoi looks at him.
“It’s completely different from your medicine,” she says firmly. “And you’ll take it unless you want your limbs to stay so short.” She watches as he hides his head under the pillow then turns back to the patient in front of her.
“This will help,” she tells him, trying to use a gentle voice but becoming increasingly annoyed. She’s tempted to snatch the mask off his face, but doesn’t want to risk hurting his neck further with the rough movement that would cause.
Slowly, he turns his hand and makes a circle, as if he were holding something. Aoi puts the cup down into his grip and he lifts it to his face, pouring it through the nostrils of the mask. Some of the medicated water flows out down across his neck and onto his shoulders and pillow. Aoi frowns, but hears a small swallow followed by a sound of pain.
She gives the mixture a moment to start working before she takes the cup from his hand, their fingers brushing. He lets go and pulls his hand in closer to himself at the touch.
Aoi leaves for a few minutes to put the cup away with the other dirty dishes and grab a set of pajamas and fresh sheets. By the time she returns, the young trio have finished washing him off and are trying to convince him to change clothes so they can wash his pants. He’s lying in the bed, still not reacting to anything. When she steps into his field of view, he shrinks back a bit.
Without a word, she holds up the clean clothing and shakes them a little, not expecting him to react. She can’t hide her surprise when he sits up, looking at his own lap. Kiyo and Sumi take the shirt from Aoi and slip it on over his limp arms, leaving it unbuttoned once they get it on his shoulders.
“One more,” Aoi says to him, still holding the pants. He stands up, arms hanging by his sides. Aoi nods at Naho and she works together with Sumi to change the sheets quickly while Kiyo finishes buttoning the shirt as he stands. They leave the blanket pulled down at the foot when they finish.
“I’ll leave these here and come back in five minutes. If you’re not wearing them, I’ll change your pants myself. Let’s go, girls.” She and the nurses leave the room, the blond slayer looking after them with wide eyes. When Aoi returns, his black pants and the furry sash are on the foot of the bed and he’s lying in the freshly made bed, the blanket pulled up to his chest, staring at the corner of the room again.
“It’s a start,” she mutters to herself, taking the clothing to add them to the laundry.
A new slayer arrives later in the afternoon, carried in on a kakushi’s back. It’s her first time actually meeting one, since Shinobu is at a meeting. As she leads them into the infirmary, the blond boy is shouting at Kiyo again, complaining about the taste of his medicine. Aoi firmly tells him off, having already lost track of how many times he’d needed to be reprimanded about it. She takes the young girl out of the room to calm down and only hears snippets of the conversation that follows. It sounds like the newly arrived patient also knows the other two and might be a more cooperative source of information.
That night, when the patients are asleep, Aoi makes one final round before going to bed herself. She sees the boar headed boy still has the mask on and approaches his bed.
“Are you awake?” she asks quietly. His finger raises slightly off the bed like before. “Any chance I can finish washing your face?” His shoulders hunch but he doesn’t reach up for his mask again. Aoi pulls one of her hands up and watches for a reaction. He seems much more cooperative now that the third slayer is there. Her hand touches the coarse fur of the mask before he reacts, reaching for her hand. He stops just before he grabs her wrist and slowly puts his hand back down.
Aoi reaches with her other hand and gently pulls the mask up by the sides. It feels oily and scratchy. She looks at it closely, seeing if there are any holes or tears. It seems to be in good condition other than being dirty, so she puts it on the floor by his bedside for now. The room is dark, but she blinks in surprise when she finally sees his face. Full lips, long lashes, bright green eyes. He definitely looks younger than his body would suggest, effeminate even. Aoi sighs as she takes a clean rag from her pocket once more and gently cleans his face. He refuses to meet her gaze. She’d thought nothing would surprise her anymore after dealing with the corps for so long, but apparently she was wrong.
When she finishes, she hands the mask back, planning to try again tomorrow to see if he’ll let her wash it. He puts it on in a rush and flinches as he bumps it against his shoulders, the edges of the bruising having spread further out through the day. Without a word, Aoi goes back to the pharmacy, mixes more pain killer into some water, and returns to set it by his bed. She leaves before he can do anything, but the glass is empty the next morning and his pillow is still dry.
The third slayer, who Aoi learned that day is named Tanjiro, is an infinitely more cooperative patient than either of the others who fought the family of spider demons. During the first couple days of his recovery, Aoi learned about the encounter that brought them all to the Butterfly Mansion for treatment. Tanjiro readily told her the story of how he came to join the corps and, after some days of rest, even introduced Aoi to his demon sister after night fell. Aoi had been terrified at the thought of a demon within the house but, when he opened the box and the girl appeared, she was surprised for the second time in her recent memory.
A young child, looking no more than four years old, crawled out of the box, clad in an oversized kimono with a piece of bamboo tied to her mouth like a muzzle. Tanjiro introduced her as Nezuko and explained that they were the only survivors of their family. Holding his sister sweetly as she lay on his lap, he told Aoi the story of how he met Giyuu in the woods while running for help, shortly after Nezuko first awoke, transformed. How he trained for two years under Giyuu’s former teacher, Urokodaki, a name that sounded vaguely familiar. Aoi was surprised by herself when she confided in the kind boy that she had also studied with a water breathing trainer prior to joining the corps. Tanjiro had smiled and tried to strike up a conversation about the feel of the forms, the visual spectacle that they created, but Aoi’s own level of swordsmanship had only produced the faintest of traces in the air as she practiced. He’d asked what color her sword had turned and Aoi flushed, remembering that she had never unsheathed the weapon after it arrived. It sat, still never used, in the back of her closet. She excused herself, not lying when she said she had chores to do before bed but certainly using it as an out.
The next day, Aoi was surprised to see an older version of that same young girl, the same kimono now perfectly fitted, sitting on the porch in the early night. “Nezuko?” she asked quietly.
The girl turned at the sound of her name and Aoi flinched. Those pink eyes with the inhuman sparkle closed in a kind way, though Aoi couldn’t see a smile around the muzzle. Before her eyes, the girl shrank into the child she’d seen before then grew back to the young teen that she truly was. Aoi stood in the hallway, stunned, her heart pounding with anxiety.
A hand on hers made her jump and she realized that Nezuko had come closer. The demon girl was holding her hand and reaching towards her face. Aoi’s eyes slammed shut and she hunched in on herself. The feeling of a gentle pat on her head made her relax. Nezuko’s hand was on top of her head, rubbing slowly from side to side, pulling Aoi’s pigtails into gentle swaying. She opened her eyes and saw that same contented, closed eyed expression on the young demon’s face and her fear started to melt.
Nezuko pulled Aoi down the hallway to the intensive care wing, where the demon girl had been given a private room to rest in. Nezuko pointed at the box and pulled Aoi’s hand towards it. The young nurse crouched down and Nezuko flopped onto the floor like a child. The demon traced one of the holes in the side of the box and looked at Aoi. She could feel the question in that gaze. Can you fix it? Fix it like you’re fixing them? Aoi nodded. Nezuko’s body language changed in an instant, excitement and gratitude written all over her face.
The next day, Aoi grabbed a can of wood varnish and spread some newspapers on the floor in an empty room. She went to the room Nezuko had brought her to and knocked before entering. The demon girl was nowhere to be seen but Aoi heard a slight tapping from the box. The blue-eyed woman ensured the curtains were pulled tightly shut before knocking on the box. Nezuko popped the door of it open slightly, testing if she could come out into the room. She looked like a child again, better to fit in the box, Aoi assumed. Once she deemed it safe, Nezuko crawled out of the box again. She stood up, her head near the height of Aoi’s waist and reached for her, like a child asking to be picked up.
Aoi crouched and Nezuko patted her on the head again, smiling with her eyes like before. Nezuko ducked under the bed then, as if playing hide and seek, and watched as Aoi took the box to the prepared area. Having the box sit in a bright spot would speed the drying process and she could air out the smell of the varnish more easily. Aoi sat quietly as she worked, thinking about her patients. A few other slayers had come and gone with minor injuries over the past days, and there were still some in intensive care rooms receiving the antidote to the spider transformation, though Shinobu cared for them the most due to the severity of the change.
Tanjiro and the boar headed boy Inosuke, who his friend had confirmed his name and pointed out the sash attached to the other teen’s fundoshi with his name and birth date on it, were set to start Functional Recovery Training the next day. The blond boy’s limbs were still shortened so he would join them later. He was doing well physically, though he still whined at every dose of medication and often between, testing Aoi’s already thin patience every day. While Tanjiro was happy to converse with her, Shinobu, and the trio of nurses, Inosuke had remained quite quiet while his throat healed. She knew practically nothing about the wild boy, but she sensed from how Tanjiro and Zenitsu treated him that this wasn’t his normal personality.
Sometimes, she heard him mumbling to himself in the bed, the damage making his voice hoarse and thin, and Zenitsu would snicker. It made Aoi’s chest tight with annoyance, to hear him treat the other patient’s pain as a source of amusement, but she kept her mouth shut. She had no right to chastise a slayer of the corps, someone who actually went on missions, who actually stood up to the demons that made her blood run cold. At least, not about something other than medication. So she worked around them, like always, trying not to feel any particular sort of way about any of them.
Aoi’s hands automatically did the work of lacquering the wooden box, building up layer upon layer of the sticky substance. After several passes, the holes began to clog. She let it rest, working on each side to close the gaps. The smell was heavy in the air despite the open door and she felt a little woozy. But this was a chore that she’d been asked to do, even tacitly, so she would see that it got done. It was the least she could do to feel like she earned her stay.
Tanjiro found her as she applied the final coat. He expressed surprise and gratitude for her work, but Aoi only looked at him stoically. “I was just doing my job,” she told him with a slight bow before walking away.
That was earlier today. Now, Aoi sits on a stool in the private wash room of the Butterfly Mansion, the one in the wing where their bedrooms are. She’s washing off after cleaning up dinner; the plates, cups, chopsticks, knives, pots, pans, mixing bowls, everything clean and put back in place for her to wake up and make breakfast the next day. Her shoulders ache and she’s looking forward to a warm bath more than ever. The water has already been used by everyone else and she’ll be the last into the tub tonight. She watches the soap slide down her arms onto the floor, washing down the slotted drain that carries the dirt and grime of their work away.
Aoi’s eyes light up and she dumps water over herself to get rid of the rest of the suds. She dries off without touching the tub and dresses back in her dirty clothes, her hair still down and damp. She walks quickly to the infirmary and checks to see if anyone is awake. Tanjiro and Zenitsu are sound asleep, but Inosuke is wearing his mask so she can’t tell. She creeps into the room quietly and comes up to his bedside.
The teen doesn’t move, as usual. Aoi had tried at least once each day to take the boar mask away from him to wash. She remembers how oily it felt in her hands that first night, the one night he allowed her to touch it and pick it up off his face. His surprising face.
Aoi waits for a moment but the mask stares up at the corner of the wall and ceiling without reacting.
“Are you awake?” she asks.
His finger lifts off the blanket for a moment, like she’d told him to do that first day.
“Come with me,” she tells him.
He doesn’t move. Aoi’s mouth sets into a hard line and she takes a deep breath.
“Your mask needs washed. It’s oily and I’m sure the inside is coated with blood. If you won’t let me take it off to clean it, then come with me.” She’s speaking in a hushed tone, but it’s commanding all the same.
What is with this girl, Inosuke thinks, still not moving. Why does she think she can order around me, the great Inosuke? She must be really strong to think she can make me do things.
His throat still hurts, but the water she gives him has helped. Whenever one of the young girls brings him water, the mixture is off – it either numbs his throat and mouth entirely or does nothing at all. But this girl’s water always works.
Despite the cursed clothes they put on him, he can feel her body vibrating next to his bed. It’s getting faster as she stares at him and he starts to feel a prickle in the middle of his forehead, a sense of danger. His eyes go wide under the mask. She can’t see him through it, so how is she staring straight at him?
Her arms are crossed over her chest as she huffs at him. They come loose and he feels the air move as she reaches for him. Now he moves. He sits up, holding the mask down onto his shoulders. She can’t have it, he thinks.
Aoi sighs now, but she’s determined to get it clean once and for all. She chews on her lip, thinking of how she can convince him.
“I don’t have to take it off?” he asks, his voice scratchy and deep.
Aoi’s shoulders relax a little. “No. I have an idea,” she tells him. “Come with me.”
He stands up from the bed, the blanket falling halfway off it, and Aoi turns to leave the room without checking if he’s following. Her annoyance and forced air of nonchalance, unknowingly to her, reads as confidence and strength to the boy. He follows her, his bare feet padding quietly through the halls.
She leads him down a hall that he hasn’t been in before. There’s residual aura all over the walls that read of home as opposed to the feeling of work and duty in the infirmary and dining areas. She takes him to the bathroom she was just in and closes the door behind them. There’s a tension rod by the side of it and she uses it to lock the door. Inosuke bristles, looking around the room that’s lit by a lantern on the wall. A bath? Why is this girl so insistent on washing me, he wonders.
She says something but he doesn’t hear her. “HAH?” he shouts out the questioning noise in his confusion of the situation.
She makes a shushing noise. “Take off your clothes,” she repeats herself.
Inosuke’s jaw drops under the mask. He stares at her without a sound. He hasn’t been around people that long, but he’s picked up from what little he’s seen that people don’t normally take their clothes off around each other.
“If you don’t take them off, they’ll get wet and you’ll have to change anyway,” she tells him, her voice even and unreadable. “I’ll wait over here while you get undressed and go sit on that stool.”
There she goes again with the commands. He bristles at her, to him, brash attitude. Instead of undressing, he stomps over to the stool and sits. The floor and stool are still wet from her bathing earlier. The bottom hems around his ankles start to get heavy as they soak up the puddles, and the seat of his pants is now cold and damp. The water is chilly against his skin, but he’s stubborn and sits there, arms crossed.
Aoi shakes her head. “I warned you,” she says, like that first day. She crosses the room and scoops up a ladle of warm water from the bath. She turns and dumps it over his head.
“What’s the big idea?” he shouts, turning to look over his shoulder before flinching at the twist on his nearly-healed bruises.
“I told you,” she says calmly, walking around him to smear some of the shampoo paste Shinobu makes onto her fingers, “your mask needs washed.”
He sits on the stool, fuming but compliant for now. Her ability to not be rattled by what he thinks is intimidation confuses him. She’s really strong, he thinks to himself. In reality, to her it just comes across as a tantrum, similar to what the little nurse trio pulled when they were younger and new to the Mansion.
He flinches when his mask moves, reaching up to grip it again. Aoi doesn’t react, rubbing her fingers over the now damp fur. The shampoo starts to lather into the coarse exterior of the mask and Inosuke sniffs as the air inside the mask starts to smell like flowers.
She works silently, spreading the shampoo across the outside of the mask. She massages the ears gently and rubs the bubbles around the bottom lip, her fingers brushing against his neck. He stiffens at the touch but doesn’t move away. Eventually, she rinses off her hands and grabs a bar of soap. She rubs it a few times, starting a lather in her hands, then puts it back down. She approaches him from the front this time, her face pinched in a frown of concentration.
She reaches for his face and he tilts backwards. With no reaction, she just keeps pushing her hands out towards him. She grips the small tusks on either side of the snout and rubs her hands across them, as if washing carrots or daikon in the sink. Then, she reaches up to the eyes and smudges them with the bubbles too. Finally, she gives the pink fleshy part of the snout a good scrub as well.
At last, she steps back away from him and rinses her hands again. The water is cooling down, so she frowns a bit, thinking how she won’t have the chance to soak her tired shoulders for another day. With a sigh, she takes the ladle and rinses him off a few times, rubbing the mask as the water runs down to ensure all the shampoo and soap are gone.
She gets another hand of shampoo and comes up behind him again. “Hold the front of your mask as close to your face as you can,” she tells him, rubbing her hands together, smearing the paste.
He twists to look at her in confusion for a moment then turns around and does as she says when he sees the unchanging expression on her face. He really can’t get a read on her, except for her dominating aura. The three little ones obey her, Shinobu always agrees with her, Tanjiro listens to her, and even Zenitsu stops whining and is reduced to just sniveling when she reprimands him. The back lip of the mask tilts away from his neck, leaving a spacious gap, and he goes stiff as a board when her hands slip up and into it.
Her hands are turned towards herself, rubbing shampoo across the inside of the mask. It’s a bit rubbery but the suds will still do their job. She cleans the inside of it as well as she can without taking it off him, her slender arms reaching easily into the gap. Her elbows brush against his upper back as she works, but he doesn’t pull away this time. When she finally pulls her hands back out, having washed the back half of the inside, the suds covering her hands are black and brown, with flakes of crusted blood throughout. She frowns.
“Will you let me wash it properly?” she asks, exasperated.
Seeing the grime that coats her hands, Inosuke flinches. He always tries to take care of his mask, the last remains of the boar that raised him in that mountain forest. Seeing what he’d allowed to build up inside her hide unnerves him. The hands that are pressing the mask to his face move to grip it by the sides.
Aoi starts to sigh, but it gets caught in her throat as he lifts the mask. His hair has some of the bloody shampoo suds through it. In the light of the bath, she can see the blue shine that gets particularly bright around the ragged ends. She wonders if he cuts his hair himself with his pitted blades. He holds the mask in his lap for a moment, his pajamas soaked and sudsy.
Her frown relaxes when he holds it up to her with one hand. She rinses the dirty suds from her hands and takes it gently from his grasp. She holds it gingerly and dunks a bucket into the tub, to preserve some of the clean water. She dips the mask into what’s left in the tub and scrubs at it under the surface. She can see the tendrils of brown seeping out into the once clear water. After several minutes, the preserved skin inside feels much softer. The only clean water left is the bucket that she took out just before.
She sets the mask down on the side of the tub and dumps another half-ladle of water onto his head, rinsing out the brown bubbles and blood flakes. She takes another scoop of shampoo paste in her hands and puts her fingers into his hair.
Inosuke flinches down, curling away from her touch. She doesn’t say anything, just follows his movement and continues to scrub his hair. He’s curled in half, his torso pressing down against the tops of his thighs, his whole body trembling with discomfort and the effort he’s putting into becoming a ball. His hands grip at his own biceps as Aoi gingerly runs her fingers through the tangled mess.
He only relaxes when she steps away for a couple seconds, but then she’s back with a comb in her hand. Still saying nothing, she crouches beside him, bringing her eyes level with his head as he still leans forward, and she starts to work at the larger knots in his hair. Inosuke doesn’t want to breathe, but he has to. The last human to touch him nearly this much was the old man with the rice crackers, who had held him in his lap as a very young child to read to him, yet this girl is doing it so brazenly.
Unconsciously, he tilts his head sideways, leaning into her touch. His eyes grow heavy as she gently pulls the comb and her fingers through the strands of his hair, detangling it and bringing the shampoo through. He stops trembling as he loosens up a bit but he doesn’t sit up straight.
Aoi notices the tension going down a notch and continues her ministrations. It takes a while, but when she feels no more knots on that side of his head, she stands and walks around him. She crouches again and repeats the care, his head tilting sleepily towards her again. He doesn’t see it, but her frown finally cracks into a straight line, if not the tiniest hint of a smile. His breathing is deep and even, despite the chill of his wet clothes.
Finally, his hair is clean and knot-free, so Aoi stands back up. She grabs the bucket from beside the tub and rinses him off, half a ladle at a time, running her fingers through it each time to ensure all the paste is gone from his hair. Halfway through, he hums low in his throat, almost as if he’s purring.
“Wait here,” she tells him, but this time her voice is softer, kinder. He looks up from his folded position and hears the tension rod slipping out of the door frame. Her footsteps fade down the hallway and it’s silent for a few moments. He blinks as a drop of water finds its way into his eye and reaches up to rub it. Aoi returns as he does, holding a fresh set of pajamas, a clean fundoshi, and a dry towel. She locks the door again and sets them on the dry part of the floor, the towel on top.
“Change out of those clothes, dry off, and get dressed. I’ll take you back to the infirmary after that.” She turns around and looks at the wall to give him privacy. To Inosuke, this is another show of her strength. Not only does she believe that he’ll obey her commands, but to take her eyes off him? Animals would never so openly show their backs to a stranger like this, especially one as strong as him, the King of the Mountain.
He stands up from the stool, his footsteps squelching on the wet floor. He struggles with the wet buttons on the pajamas, his fingers unable to get a grip. He makes a sound of frustration and grips the shirt, ready to tear it open.
“Don’t!” Aoi’s curt voice breaks through his head. He looks at her and she’s still standing by the wall, but with her head turned so she can see him.
“Why are you looking at me!” he shouts back.
Aoi sighs. “I heard a popping sound and when I turned around you were about to tear that shirt.”
A pop? Inosuke looks down at the shirt and sees that the first button is already missing.
“You’re such an animal,” she says, turning fully to face him. She doesn’t know how right her statement is. She crosses the bathroom and slaps his hands away from the shirt. He chokes on a noise of anger but can’t bring himself to do anything, not understanding why she seems to think she’s in charge of him.
Aoi’s hands steadily trail down the shirt, loosening the wet buttons with ease. Once the shirt is fully open, she steps back to the wall with her face turned away again.
Inosuke pulls the shirt off angrily, slamming the wet fabric down onto the floor. The pants and his fundoshi follow. He wipes the towel angrily across his body, growling in his throat despite the slight lingering pain. He’s not fully dry, but he grabs the pajamas off the floor and dresses himself.
Aoi waits for a few more minutes, but when he doesn’t say anything she finally turns to look. Seeing him fully dressed, she reaches for the tension rod and unlocks the door again. “I’ll take you back to your bed,” she tells him. “Don’t come down this hallway again. Understand?”
He tsks as he follows her back to the infirmary. Only once he’s there does he realize that he left his mask on the edge of the tub. He bolts back out of the bed and lets out a strangled sound as Aoi manages to grab his arm. “It has to dry first,” she says.
His eyes, wide already, flick to her and he wonders how she knew what he was going for.
“I’ll hang the clothes to dry and put the mask on a drying rack. You can have it back at breakfast if it’s dry enough,” she tells him. “Go to sleep.”
“But-“
“Go to sleep,” she repeats, her voice a dark whisper. She lets go of his arm and leaves the room without another word.
Inosuke lies back down in the bed, curling up and pulling the blanket over his head. He runs his fingers through his now clean hair, remembering how it felt to have her brush it. He sleeps fitfully, but he does sleep. In the morning, when he wakes up, the mask is sitting on the floor by his bed, still damp and smelling of flowers.