secretly judging you

haunted by prophetic images since 7 yrs old

[aphelaeon]

theyre evolving

(it wasnt even the right kamado 👺)

[aphelaeon]

A Skulk of His Regrets

Time could never heal a weary heart.

The boulder was never part of the plan.

It was never part of his students’ training regime. It just… didn’t cross his mind, knowing that a read of their prowess was enough for Sakonji to send them off to their possible—actual—deaths and now that only one of his student remains alive, he wondered if he truly had the right to be called a master swordsman.

Said remaining student, now his pride as he donned the title of Hashira, sent him another student his way. A boy who could not challenge the fate of his sister being turned into a demon. Or so he thinks. Not because he was clumsy. Not because he couldn’t hold a sword properly.

But because he wore his heart on his sleeve.

He had the same shine in Giyuu’s eyes, that hopeful shade that screamed determination, so long as he had family by his side. He also used to be flimsy with his stances—Sakonji was quite worried to be sending him to the selection. And while now, he had become the master of his field, even surpassing his peak back when he bore the title of the Hashira, there was no longer that child who had stars for eyes. All that remained was a bottomless ocean across them.

The death of Sabito broke him.

Sakonji can’t handle bearing that blame anymore. As miraculous as it is for the demon to deny her endless hunger, he fears such determination won’t be enough. Both for the sister (if she succumbs to her true nature) and her brother (if he dies fighting for it). He has housed so many children with such vigor in their bearings, only for the only thing to return from their death sentence was the sword they honed and the pieces of the fox masks he gifted to them. 

Day and night, that child spends all his waking moments into etching all his teachings under his skin. He could feel the enthusiasm. The covet to hold the sword. The need to mold his hands around the handle. But the more the days pass by, the less the idea becomes appetizing. The more the kid ends up bruised, the less he pretends as master (and let his body heal on his own) and the more he plays as caretaker (making ointments to help his injuries). The more the kid memorizes (rather than learns), the less he corrects it.

He’s acknowledged that he’s an old man, worn down by time and guilt. The man isn’t a devout by any means, but when he came across that very boulder among his mindless strolls, where he search for answers he didn’t even know what he questions, he took it as a sign.

The boulder was never part of the plan.

And Sakonji is tired of setting another child to his deathbed.

[aphelaeon]

Rhetoric Against the Winter

The cold solstice begets a dying hearth.

It’s not that he dislikes winter.

In fact, it was Tanjirou’s first memory. The rush of cold breeze, the warmth of his mother beside him, and the torches he feels alongside, its a sensation so prepotent, so memorable, he could almost taste the cold on his tongue. But the center stage of his reminisce is the man dancing on ice, surrounded by the ring of torches. His father, an embodiment of grace and strength, dancing as if his bones weren’t stuttering from the cold or bare feet aching from the time that clawed at him to wilt since he was brought into the world. 

A beautiful tradition; he cares more about how his father manages to dance all night long rather than why dancing at all.

His father told him that anything can be done without tiring yourself out. You have to know your body. What should be done and what shouldn’t. The dance is framed in a way of efficient movement, passed across generations after generations while ensuring no changes, additions or eliminations. The strictness wasn’t for decor—It’s by necessity, he was told. Struggling is part of the process, his father said after being told that he’ll soon inherit the responsibility.

Succeeding, is, too.

Winter was also the dusk when he died.

(Winter was also the dusk when everyone died.)

It became a reminder of his emergence as the new head of the family, tasked to shoulder the burden of setting the fire to the hearth. His father said that once the eldest began the tradition, that was their sign of stepping into adulthood. And he was more than ready to shoulder the fire he was left with.

Blood on the snow has often bothered him. When his father took the life of a bear threatening his family’s safety, the carcass falls heavy against the soft ground. Almost immediately, the alighting snow was ready to cover it all, blood and body. He almost couldn’t send it off with a proper prayer with how all his younger mind could think of was how easy the snow buried the blood, as if erasing all notion that death ever happened. The cold challenged his sense of smell too—blanketing his nose, masking the scent of death.

He immortalized that certain scent. The blood on snow. It eased him to know than otherwise.

(And it, too, was his omen to leaving his life behind.)

The sprouts of Taranome signified the start of Spring. It signified that snow no longer covered the ground and the breath of death melts into water that could bring life and nourish all of the living. He welcomes the bitter taste, one he could not appreciate when the winter numbed his tongue, and the company that it brings along—the warmth of the season, the chirp of birds, the start of a new beginning. He preferred spring than winter. Not truly a dislike of winter.

But the scent of blood was an omen Tanjirou hated the most.

[aphelaeon]

Dancing on Fire

You held me in your arms, and no longer was I cold.

Tanjirou is beautiful against the snow.

His color clashes against it, both the flakes alighting from the sky and the path his bare feet treads upon. Though it drapes every surface it can touch – trees, ground, sky – into a beautiful winter wonderland, he’s forever the beauty you gravitate to. His red and the winter’s white—such a fitting color palette. You could endure the harsh cold all night, so long as he lets you watch him dance alongside.

The sky has dusked and the stars littered the heavens. But the sun you’re more interested in was surrounded by torches, all dancing alongside him, with the beat of the gelid breeze sliding right between the trunks and the thickets. It kisses your skin flushed but the fire nearby overpowers it until its reminiscent of his lips upon your skin, the taste of affection immortalized underneath your fiber.

“Join me.”

His eyes scintillate against the fire, the color of passion and carnage welcoming you into his den. Embers clash with snowflakes and the man before you stood among the bare and the dead with his incandescence, highlighting his overgrown tufts that framed his face covered by the headpiece until they fell on his shoulders. Nowadays, he's been keeping it in a low ponytail because that's how far you could reach in full height; after all, everyday chores are difficult with only one hand working, and you’re more than happy to tend to his service.

One you're not sure how he manages when he dances so gracefully, fooling you to think he has control of every limb, mesmerizing you as every loose clothing follows every movement. Every step he takes copies the heartbeat ringing in your ears and it lulls you into serenity.

And that expression. Years have molded his visage into maturity and even if his headpiece hides much of it, you will never be rid of that smile, so fond yet so loose, the sunshine in his gaze forever yours to bathe upon. The hand scarred from all his unwritten epics only yours to take.

A picturesque fire against snowfall that he belongs from, a beautiful painting deserved to be framed.

“I’ll pass. I don’t dance.”

You, however, don’t.

There's a certain tone across his sunkissed expression, that which the fire only further highlights; familiar yet searing, when he dims his light in your darkest throes because you're vulnerable from the preying light. And it's certainly hinged upon your lack of hesitance. However stubborn you are, the low rumble of his chest (that you so badly want to feel under your fingers) tells a story otherwise. 

And just like those nights, you want him.

“You don’t have to be good at dancing.” His hand tempts you once more, coaxing you into the middle patch lacking snow, as if his word is the truth and it fools even you to believe you truly belonged there. With him. “Here, I’ll guide you.”

And he wants you too.

Which is why you look away, blowing raspberries the same manner you waved his words off. “I am–” With the same hands raised, you took a step farther back, stomach and nerves feeling the jitters always present alongside him, and now you’re certain it was not from the gelid season. ”–Not ruining any traditional, sacred dance your family has.”

This earns you a low hum from the Kamado, muttering, “You’re not ruining anything.” The humble smile returns to grace his lips, one you gravitate to within the tendrils of darkness because he’s proven himself the light your dying world needed.

“I’d like it better if you’re in my arms.”

Red and even more heat consumes your cheeks while your shoulder stiffened, flustered at his unexpected flirt. “D– don’t use your charms against me, Tanjirou Kamado.” Though your threat comes with sternness, embarrassment is another flavor mixed in it, and the way his eyes trailed over your eyes (and the unsubtle way they lingered on your lips) tells you he enjoys it.

“Well, I'd be remiss–” He starts with a shrug, a playful timbre seeping through his clemency, “–Not to use your weakness.”

Really. Your narrowed eyes ar accompanies by your crossed arms. Enjoying himself a little too much. “Oh, you're so lucky you're cute, you son of a–”

“No one is watching.” Tanjirou laughed and stepped outside of the circle just to be closer to you. You're not sure where your flinch is derived from; if it's him suddenly stepping away in the middle of the dance that makes it sacrilegious or it's his characteristic warmth that immediately embraces you despite the distance. However hesitant you are, he makes up for it with conviction as he takes advantage of your loosened self-hug (that you didn’t even realized) to disentangle your hand into his, embracing them with his own, instead protecting you from the cold as if his warm hands were born for it. 

You want to reel at his touch for the sake of your palpitating heart but you know better that he wants you, so you let him pull your body towards him. No matter how gentle his textured ministration is, the tingle within them remains as unhealthy as they did the first time you met, when he had a sword in hand and a hero’s resolve in the other. His touch guides your hand to his barely visible lips, chapped and cold that merely grinned wider when your fingers almost never wanted to leave him, before lowering to the space above his heart and it ignites your skin like no fire could.

“It’ll just be between the two of us.” His husks affords a deeper baritone when he leans towards you, the rumbles of his chest under your fingers the conductor to your racing heart. No matter the barrier that is the headpiece, the smile underneath is a novel you'll never tire of reading and it promises temptations begetting both sinful and sacred.

“Trust me?”

But the heart underneath you beats just as rapid as yours, the heartbeat you’ve dreaded that would stop once upon a time after dancing with death. Such nightmare now seems so out of reach when his heart sings only for you.

A low grumble escaped your tight lips as you felt your stomach do somersaults and your heart ran another marathon, unable to get used to this intimacy with him. But you knew that seconds before you is inevitable because you can’t just seem to refuse him and his unfairly convincing invitation, and all you could do was look away with a rubescent complexion.

And he knows your trust in him is as boundless as the sun’s reign among the sky.

Tanjirou brightens up the dusk (you don't know how he manages to convey it when his expression is still covered) and eagerly, yet so gently, pulls you into the ring of fire.

Perhaps you're too ensorcelled with him that you tripped on your second step forward – you don't even know what you tripped on – alongside the undignified screech you let out, one he merely brushes off as the man and his protective grip pulled you back up with a beat reminiscent to his dance. His dulcet reaction only incites even more crimson out of your cheeks but you don't get to do anything else when he starts swaying you in a rhythm, pulling you alongside until you finally reach the center.

“I told you.” You kick his ankle with a frown in between the beats. “I’m going to mess this up.”

“And I'll tell you,” Comes his soft but solid affirmation before slipping his fingers in between your left ones and guiding your right hand to his shoulder. He leans closer to you, enough that you notice his lips are in the perfect angle above yours, making your digits curl on his clothing and turn your head away. Regardless, he pushes himself closer until you feel his nose on the side of your neck even with the fabric. 

“I’ll make sure you won’t.” 

Whether he knows his effect on you or not, he lets go of his hold to plant his palm on your waist with a tune on his tongue. He must be sensing your scent tainted by severe fluster, even more so at the proximity, and you think the sound of his mirth hinges upon that. And as angelic as it sounds, you really want to kick his foot harder.

“Just focus on me… won’t you?”

His noises urge you to look up, to return his stare that studied your face with adoration and modest gaiety. You realized he had lifted the paper off his face to grace you with what you've been trying to look at since he began dancing.

His tanned cheeks were also reddening, some stray locks escaping from his tied hair and flying with the wind, and his respiration materializing into visible puffs of air. 

He, who holds you like no other, is a man retaining the purity and glee from his youth, yet he is also a man matured and scarred by all that he went through. Gentle like a mother’s loving embrace and protective like a father’s fortitude. Soothing and cooling to the senses like a pacific stream and fiery and warm like the rays of the scorching sun. He comprises all the beauty that can’t be described. And you were certain that even a mix of all the most beautiful and deeply compelling words cannot ever tantamount, but–

“Pretty.” You mutter, not even noticing your hand on his shoulder until it’s already lifting his mask in his steed.

Or at the way his eyes widened. At the lively scarlet worsening in his end. As much as bashful his smile is shaped, he keeps the eye contact and you revel the shine in their eyes and how your reflection in them is something you’d never thought you’d enjoy. Maybe it didn’t matter if you saw yourself in him—you just wanted to imprint the imagery behind your eyelids, just so it could be the only thing you’ll see in your dreams. You want to experience all of him, even if he’s already given himself so much of you with how much your heart contains him.

Though, you had yet to give a grin of victory for finally placing him at the end of the fluster when you feel a palm on your back that pulled you closer to his chest. A peep of surprise escapes from you as you instinctively let go of him to plant both palms against him. And you had to bite your tongue to refrain any more sounds out when he lowly breathes to you, 

“Sweetheart… my heart can only take so much.”

As soon as your gaze fly upward, you only realized just how awfully close he truly was, enough that he could rest the mask over your crown to keep the contact across your noses. Until your lips share the same air, and the words unspoken alongside, and you felt like the winter froze your bones despite the warmth he radiated.

“You’re too perfect for me.”

And that’s all it took before Tanjirou closes the distance and claimed you forevermore.

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

via tcdrawadventure on X/Twitter

[peachdues]

“I can’t read this reader insert because I’d NEVER do that —“ guess what!! you are because it’s my fic!! my hand is literally up your ass, you are my talking puppet!!

[octavio-world]

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