She felt guilty, she really really did. But what was she supposed to do? She had screwed thigs up before they were outstandingly fucked up by Rengoku-san. How was she supposed to know? She was just curious and she had acted in order to satisfy that curiosity. They could argue if sticking her nose in someone else’s business was wrong or not, but it was not a crime, was it? She had done it out of the goodness of her heart, not really thinking of hurting anyone but… she could not back off now, that road was actually inaccessible for her since she could not shake everyone’s eyes from her back.
In the afternoon, before the whole catastrophe with Rengoku-san happened, she had sneaked into Tomioka-san's bedroom and taken an old looking book. She had not had the time to look at it so she had acted as if she had not done anything and decided to read it once the attention was somewhere else and then put it back where she had found it with nobody being the wiser… but Rengoku-san happened and she could not read the book and she could not access Tomioka-san’s bedroom to put it back.
She would have bet anything that the morning would be a bit chaotic after everything that had transpired the previous afternoon but it had been surprisingly calm. Aiko’s pee and blood had been cleaned up, they wore different clothing, unsoiled, and their hair was perfectly styled. Aiko wore a light pink kimono and a cherry hairpin that kept a delicate braid holding her hair in a bun at the base of her neck. Suki was attired in many many layers of clothing, mostly in dark blues and black and her hair was bound in a loose ponytail behind her back.
The girls did not talked a lot during breakfast, nobody talked much during breakfast to be more precise, the omegas did not felt like it and the rest of them were afraid of saying something out of place and induce another one of those panic attacks; but after Tomioka-san left to give Rengoku-san his breakfast Aiko stood up in front of them and bowed her head.
“I am sorry for my actions last afternoon, I did not mean for you to witness that,” she said.
If Shinobu were to guess, she would have said that all of them opened their mouths to stop her but Suki was faster, standing up next to her sister and looking at them straight to their faces, probably unwilling to show any kind of weakness in front of so many alphas without the constant protection of Tomioka-san, she spoke.
“I am sorry for what I said, I acted rashly without considering others feelings,” Suki added to her sister.
“We accept your apologies, but there is no need to apologize for anything that any of you did last afternoon,” Mitsuri replied, mindful to stay seated so as to not scare them nor look more threatening than she already was to those girls, “you got scared and reacted, there is no wrong in that,” she added.
“It was not an appropriate way to react, we could have hurt someone,” Suki replied, accepting her sister’s hand in hers.
“Well, I guess that is something that you will get better at doing as time goes by, you just need to keep practicing as we all do. You have time,” Mitsuri said, the softest smile she had in store was shining in her face, honest and careful.
Suki tensed up, not really sure about what to say to that. The situation was uncomfortable and they all could sense it but no one knew how to change it; Shinobu looked around, looking for something to talk about, to change the subject, but there was nothing appealing enough to bring it up without making even more obvious how weird the situation was.
Strangely enough the blessing came in the form of Iguro-san who had taken his breakfast in his bedroom that morning and appeared freshly changed into his demon slayer uniform with no idea of the conversation they had been part of.
They had left the Water Estate blindfolded and with a heavy heart, even Shinobu had to accept that she liked the place. Mitsuri tried and failed to put a smile on her face when they left but the truth was that they all were worried about the girls in particular and the four omegas in general; they seemed to be better alone than with them, if Shinobu was to judge.
Rengoku-san had not opened his mouth in the whole trip to the Master’s house but he seemed not to be the only one, Shinazugawa-san was also quiet which was strange since he had not argued with Tomioka-san for a long while. In normal circumstances they lasted way less time before Shinazugawa-san decided to bark at the Water Hashira. Shinobu wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that his brother was under Tomioka-san’s care or if the fact that they all knew that he had a brother was to blame for the change in his attitude.
Iguro-san, on the other hand, seemed to have returned to his usual behavior as soon as they left the Water Estate, his poisonous looks and his stinging words cut more than one to their knees. Iguro-san was not a patient man, not at all, but it was still strange to see that Tomioka-san seemed to dodge any spiteful comment either by chance or because Iguro-san swallowed his criticism towards the Water Hashira.
The garden of the Master’s Estate was empty and the Hashira spread in groups right away. They had been in close contact with each other for too much time, more than the time they were used to spend with any of the others… or with all of them together. Tokito-kun had attached himself to Tomioka-san who had wandered off as far from the rest as he possibly could. Himejima-san had taken a seat close to the water fountain and looked as if he were praying and close by there were Rengoku-san, Mitsuri-chan and Uzui-san. Under the tree there were Shinazugawa-san and Iguro-san who were also sitting on the ground instead of perched on top of the tree for a change. She thought that that was the perfect moment to take a look at the book she had sneaked out of the Water Estate so she walked a little away to the side and took the book out of the confinements of her clothing.
“Tomioka-san, the Master wishes to talk with you in private,” one of Oyakata-sama’s daughters said and Tomioka-san disappeared inside the house.
Better for her, she thought, she could read without the threat of Tomioka’s eyes.
The book was quite old and Shinobu inspected it as if it were some kind of relic; she went through the pages quite fast, as to see if she found something of interest in plain sight, something that took her attention but nothing did… not until she got to a loose page.
Two children were depicted in the sketch, one of them was extraordinarily detailed, as if the person who had made the sketch had spent hours on end focused only on that one, the other one was sketched faster, almost sloppily, but she could still pick a handful of fairly recognizable facial features.
The one she recognized as Tomioka-san had the same exact hairstyle he still used but his hair seemed shorter then; there was nothing else that she could identify Tomioka-like in the entire sketch, the child seemed happy and cute and friendly, he had such a big honest smile that his eyes were almost squeezed shut. The other one also had fairly long hair, it looked quite messy, almost mane-like, and he had what looked like some kind of scar by his mouth. He was not smiling but his expression was a lot more mischievous.
A shadow loomed over her, Shinobu could not believe that she was so enticed by the sketch that she had not heard some of the Hashira walking towards her until they were all praying on the book she had on her hands. Uzui-san was looming on top of her, looking at the sketch over her shoulder, Mitsuri-san was by his side and Rengoku-san stayed a little bit farther away but close enough to hear their conversation.
“Is that Tomioka?” Uzui asked, that was enough to get the attention of the rest of the Hashira who soon started to move towards them.
“I think so,” she replied reluctantly.
Shinobu gave Uzui the loose page with the sketch to entertain him as she opened the book in the first page. The penmanship was a little messy but perfectly legible, if she had to guess the person that had written in that page was not exactly old and she wondered if the person who had drawn that sketch was the same that had written in the book. She wondered if it was an old acquaintance of Tomioka-san.
“Sabito,” it read, and Shinobu decided to read it out loud for the rest to listen in.
By that moment all of them but Tomioka-san himself were surrounding her, interested in whatever they were about to hear but not really knowing what it was about. Shinobu had a fleeting bad feeling, as if she were reading something she should not, but she let that feeling go and told herself that if it was in plain sight it was probably not that important, not really taking into account that it was in Tomioka-san’s bedroom where they were not supposed to enter. Too late for that.
“You force me to do this, I have zero faith in it. I don’t know why you, among everyone else, thought about writing, you who barely know how to write without a thousand mistakes in a sentence. But you said “do it” and I will always follow, not that I will ever tell you that… not that I will ever allow you to read this book, not that you can, let’s be honest,” she read.
The silence was almost total, everyone was invested in it and Shinobu was not going to stop once she had already started, there looked to be quite innocent, nothing was going to happened if they stopped after that, once that first page was read and shared despite the fact that she had already read something that had aroused a few doubts in her. Maybe the rest of the Hashira were not as observant as her but if they were… then she might have already messed up.
“I don’t feel comfortable writing about it just as much as I don’t feel comfortable talking about it. It is strange, it is painful and you will ever be better than me in enduring anything, training, mean words, nasty looks, punishment, pain. I am not, I don’t like it, I am tired of hurting, I am tired of looks and unkind words and memories that used to be happy but are not anymore. I just want… I just want something that lasts forever,” she continued, pushing through the uncomfortable feeling that was growing and festering in her stomach.
She felt guilty, she was reading something private and if she was not wrong that book was not from an unknown acquaintance of Tomioka-san but from Tomioka-san himself, probably written when he was a child, directed to someone that would not read it and probably for nobody but Tomioka-san to read through.
“Maybe I am asking for too much. I always seem to ask for far too much.
“I hope this is enough for you, even if you don’t see and you don’t know. When you ask, and I know you will, I will be able to tell you ‘yes, I did it, I wrote something’, I won’t lie. I don’t like to lie, not to you, even though sometimes I do, sometimes I have to or you would hate me, I think that if you get to know me, really know me, you would hate me, I am far too weak, far too dumb, far too selfish. I am not enough for someone as good as you, maybe not good enough for anybody.
“Till next time.
“Giyuu.”
Silence was definitely deafening, Shinobu did not know how to take all of that in. She had never thought of Tomioka-san having that kind of feeling which was really stupid on her end, of course he had feelings and of course he had insecurities, mostly when he was nothing but a child, they all knew than not many of them came to the corps without a burden but she had never had a glimpse at what that burden looked like for Tomioka-san.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Iguro-san said, ripping the book out of her hands and closing it to protect the rest of it. “After all the mess that Rengoku did at his Estate you come here with this? Are you fucking kidding me?” he continued, seething with rage.
Shinobu was not sure what to reply, her excuse of ‘I did it before Rengoku-san happened’ did not felt powerful enough anymore, she could have left the book anywhere else in the house, Tomioka-san would had probably found it weird but she would not have broken the rule about not taking thighs out of the Estate… but that was not the whole truth, any excuse seemed to shrink after what she had read.
“Was the bullying not enough? This is way out of line, have you ever seen Tomioka sticking his nose in your business? No, he does not, he literally never did a thing to us but we could not be fast enough to be a menace to him, his privacy, his home and even his kids,” he barked at them, taking the sketch from Rengoku-san’s hands and sticking it carefully inside the book. The meticulous care of the act did not correspond to the anger with which he spoke. “You could have chosen to be a bitch and read it to yourself but you choose to even share it, you are fucking disgusting and if you think that I will not be telling the Master and Tomioka about it you are very wrong. I can now understand why there is a statute of secrecy over the Water Estate because people like you would jeopardize whatever is hidden in there for a little insight for your words to sting a little more when you bully him the next time. Sadistic, that is what you are,” he added, his eyes boring into hers, hateful.
“Iguro… I think that is quite enough,” Uzui-san said.
“Would you like me to give her a little insight on you, Uzui?” he questioned. Malice, that was what was oozing out of Iguro’s poisonous tongue, he was going for the kill with very malicious intent but he was somewhat right to do so. She had not even taken into account the fact that Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke were also present.
“She made a mistake, Iguro,” Rengoku-san replied once Uzui was effectively silenced.
“Like the mistake you made yesterday? The Hashira are getting it wrong outstandingly often lately, curiously it is always about Tomioka for some reason,” he said as sarcastically as he possibly could. “I am done with mistakes, that was not a mistake, that book did not fall onto her hands and even if it did, and I do not think it did for a second, she could have just left it in the Water Estate, she brought it here and read it out loud. That is not a mistake, that is intentional, that is a choice. And you are not in any position to defend anybody, because commanding an omega is not a ‘mistake’, you took that choice consciously, it was intentional. You say that it was a mistake because it did not work out as you wanted it to,” Iguro replied, a vein popping up in his forehead.
Silence extended throughout the Master’s Estate once Iguro-san’s voice died down. All in deep thought, all feeling kind of bad and none brave enough to talk to either discuss the newfound information about Tomioka–san or about anything else that could take their attention from the very uncomfortable issue at hand.
Shinobu felt really bad, she honestly did and there was no amount of mental gymnastics that she could do that would be enough to justify what she had done, there was no excuse in existence that would excuse her behavior. And Iguro was right, she had not had enough with keeping it to herself, no, she had had to share it without a second thought about how Tomioka-san would have felt for that breach in his privacy.
The worst part was probably that even then she seemed unable to stop thinking about what she had just discovered; what was so painful that Tomioka-san could not even write about it? What could have hurt him that much? And for how long had he been hurting? Tomioka-san could not be too old by the time he had written that letter, probably in his early teens, but he already carried a pretty sad look on life.
‘Nasty looks and unkind words,’ that in particular stood up to her more than anything else, maybe because she had been one of the people that used unkind words towards him quite often. But Iguro-san was the master of nasty looks and unkind words and Tomioka-san seemed to be chill about it so was it still valid or was it something he had struggled with when he was younger but successfully overcome as he got older?
Shinobu had never seen him as vulnerable as he was on those pages and she had dared to expose him without a second thought. Iguro-san was right, she was despicable, she had acted selfishly and in a very cruel way. She had no right to read it out loud, she had no right to read it at all but the fact that she had shared it made it one hundred times worse.
If all of that still rang true, the Hashira were almost a nightmare to Tomioka-san, every insecurity listed in that first letter they had already exploited. They were so messed up, Shinobu was sure that Tomioka-san had been a child when he had written that letter, so how had a child come to the point to firmly believe that he would be hated for being himself? Was that the reason he spoke so little? Was that the reason he was isolating himself so often? Was that the reason he was so subdued?
What if that was the real him he was so scared of showing to whomever that Sabito person was? They had hated, or at least despised, him for that very reason. Had they proved him right? She honestly hoped not, that was so unfair and cruel on their part, incredibly cruel to hate someone just because he did not speak too much, just because he had survived whatever his trials had been and arrived on the other side a little shaken up. They had been horrible people, and they owed him an apology, she owed him more than an apology, but how? How was she even going to begin to apologize?
She had never thought of Tomioka-san as weak, he had been a Hashira for a very long time and had barely ever received a wound, he had been thrusted into the corps at a fairly young age and was still there, strong, whole and able bodied. She had never perceived him as a dumb person either, one look at all the things he was teaching his kids would be enough to tell even the most ignorant and arrogant person that he was anything but dumb. And even if she had seen him as selfish from time to time, mostly when she could not understand why he would never show an emotion even if their fellow demon slayers ended up dead or badly hurt, she could not say that anymore, not after having met his kids. He was the most selfless person in the world when it came to them and he had accepted them all equally as if he knew them his whole life even when Genya had been under his care for little over a month.
But who cared what her epiphanies were? Who cared what she thought of him? The problem was what he thought of himself and none of the Hashira had been helpful to take him from that dark place if he had not grown out of it… they had actually been plenty helpful to thrust him back into that dark place. Of course he would think he was not good enough if the only thing everyone did was to highlight how ordinary and common he was out of jealousy or out of anger but most probably out of misunderstandings.
That was something that called her attention immediately, him saying he was not good enough, and probably she was not the only one. She had to give it to Shinazugawa-san, Tomioka-san had said more than once that he was ‘not like the rest of them’ and she was as guilty as everybody else of having thought that he meant that he was better but… was that the truth? And even if he said that with that meaning, did he mean it? Because he would not be the first person Shinobu crossed paths with that would say something about themself only to hide their real feelings about themselves.
And the following matter was such a little detail that she could interpret it in so many ways that Shinobu could not decide if it was worth it to put her mind to it… but how could she ignore it? ‘Following’ had so many implications, it could be innocent: a student following in his sensei’s footsteps, a friend going after the other… but it also meant an omega following their alpha, steadfast, loyal, unwavering and unconditional.
But Tomioka-san was neither an alpha nor an omega, he had always been a beta… right? He had never passed by the Butterfly Estate to get some birth control or heat suppressants, he had never displayed any scent, none at all, and he had never excused himself from a mission as every omega did when they were in heat. And if all that was not enough, he had not been affected by Rengoku-san’s command at all, he had literally made him stop so there were no reasons at all for her to suspect that he was, indeed, an omega.
He knew so much about omegas though, and he was very good at teaching omegas how to achieve those almost unachievable goals. That would also explain why Suki and Aiko had taken to calling him ‘haha’ instead of ‘chichi’ and would justify his protectiveness towards the kids… though she could not point the protectiveness on that alone when she had felt protective of them after a couple of hours from their first meeting.
A door opened and Tomioka-san appeared in the engawa of the Master’s Estate, his feet touched the little white rocks of the garden in complete silence and walked towards them, quite the novelty for him to approach them instead of the other way around. For a moment Shinobu thought that he already knew what had gone down while he was absent but he turned to look straight into Rengoku-san's sole surviving eye.
“The Master wishes to speak with you first,” he said in his almost monotone voice.
Shinobu was somewhat surprised about it, she thought that he would be angry or hurt or… anything really, but Tomioka-san seemed to hold no grudge. After the speech he had given Rengoku-san the afternoon before she was a little bewildered, or more than a little. She would have expect him to look at Rengoku-san with disdain, to offer a backhanded comment; she would not have put it past him to just refuse to acknowledge his presence altogether but no, there was nothing but the same respect he had hold for Rengoku-san a week prior or a month, or a year prior.
Rengoku-san took his leave, probably glad that he would not be present when Tomioka-san found out what they had been doing, probably not exactly looking for yet another devastating scolding that they all very well deserved, mostly her. So Rengoku-san bowed his head a little towards Tomioka-san, maybe as an apology, maybe as a way of showing his respect for him, maybe just to thank him for letting him know, and walked towards the entrance to see Oyakata-sama and deal with the consequences of his actions.
“This is yours,” Iguro-san said, pushing the old book into Tomioka-san’s hands, not even looking at him.
All eyes but Iguro-sans’s were on Tomioka-san instantly and he took a moment to understand what was going on. Had they not paid as close attention as they were, they would have probably missed his reaction. His eyes had barely opened a little bit too much for his usual self, his breath stuttered a bit and his hands tightened a little around the old book.
“Where did you find it?” he asked, his voice as monotone as ever, his eyes their normal size, his breathing back to normal… his hands were still a little bit too tight around the book.
“I took it from your bedroom, Tomioka-san, I am very sorry,” she dared to say, but ‘sorry’ did not even begin to cover what she had done.
“What else did you find there? How far along did you read?” he asked, slightly turning towards her. Bizarrely, that was probably the first time he actually engaged in a conversation with her, but she could not enjoy it with all the guilt she was carrying inside.
“Nothing much, I just got in, saw that and took it. I thought that maybe I could learn something and I was planning on sneaking in again and leaving it there but all the things with Rengoku-san happened and I could not even take a little peek at the book so… I took it with me,” she confessed. “We saw a sketch and I read the first entry… out loud,” she said.
She felt herself shrinking under the heavy stares she was receiving from everyone. Tomioka-san seemed to be the only one not looking at her and she was not sure if it was good or not. She was sure she would be given hell for what she had done, both Tomioka-san and Oyakata-sama would give her the disciplinary actions that were considered pertinent, she knew, but she was also expecting Tomioka-san to scream at her for her actions and she was ready to endure it. She had fucked up, she had to take the consequences on stride just like Rengoku-san was taking his right at that moment.
Tomioka-san did not scream at her right away, he took his time putting the book away, hiding it in the safety of his clothes and securing it there were nobody could take it without him knowing about it and rearranged his haori on his shoulders, almost as if grooming himself, to calm him down before he engaged in whatever he had going her way.
“It was not very wise of you,” he said, more than an insult, it was a statement. “There is no information about the statute of secrecy or what it is placed under it in the first entries, nonetheless, taking this out of the Water Estate is a risk we did not have to take,” he said. Shinobu was not sure if he was trying to calm himself down or her but she was thankful nonetheless.
She felt even more guilty about what she had done though, if she could feel even more guilty than that at all. He was being considered or kind, or at least he was not punishing her right away and she did not deserve that consideration. She had been an asshole to him for a very long time and she had just stolen from him, putting him, his kids and the whole corps in danger for nothing, for a little insight on her fellow Hashira. She was immature and undeserving and she would make sure not to forget about it.
Her curiosity was a good thing in many ways but it could be used to her detriment or the detriment of others. Her curiosity was dangerous and she needed to learn to keep it under control just like Tanjiro had to learn to control his instincts. And she would, she knew that she could be better and better she would become. That had been the last time she did something like that, she would make sure of it, she would gain his trust and she would never let him down. She knew she could, she was determined enough.