SUMMERY: Everyone wants a big brother, especially if it's one as caring and kind as Tanjiro. They all think so but it's too bad they can't have a brother like him-...Or can they actually in a different way?
INFO AND DISCLAIMERS: This is gonna be a little story based on the art by feshnie on deviantart and an au based on the same picture by @yuki2sksksk on Tumblr. It'll just be cute little Oneshots because honestly I think all these ships involving Nezuko are cute. Although Inosuke's route will be written up for interpretation as platonic or romantic. This is just an au I'm doing for fun so things aren't going to be cannon and might be ooc. All art shown with the Chapters (minus the coverart which is by Feshnie on DeviantArt) was either taken from the anime or from the Kimetsu No Yaiba/Kimetsu Gakuen mangas, or are sketches by Koyoharu Gotouge. I don't own demon slayer, the characters, art, etc. Demon Slayer/Art/etc. belongs to Koyoharu Gotouge.
Links to both content creators are below please support both artists and their own content.
Nezuko wasn't sure how to take what had happened yesterday or why Inosuke tackled her.
But eventually she just decided to chalk it up to Inosuke's usual weird actions and let it go since Tanjiro seemed to and to be honest whatever Inosuke was doing wasn't all that bad anyways. Although it was both confusing and sweet he was suddenly going around proclaiming to be their brother now. He was probably just roughhousing as a way to show affection in his own weird way. Oh well. She'd still busy herself with other important things while waiting for Tanjiro's injuries to heal. She honestly didn't mind helping Shinobu and Aoi take care of everyone in the meantime. It felt awkward just lazing around while the others did all the work. So she volunteered to help with the cleaning today. Broom bristles sweeping again hardwood sounded out as she hummed and pushed the broom back and forth sweeping up the small dirt pile.
"N-Nezuko?"
She paused turning around with a blink only to smile. "Senjuro! Hi!"
The sweeping paused. Her smile widened. The teen boy with flame colored hair and bright orange eyes. He has nervously smiled back to her shuffling nervously in the doorway and clasping his hands together. She honestly wasn't expecting to see him here since most of the time he would be with Rengoku as the flame Haishira was still recovering or visiting his friends or keeping to himself helping Aoi with something.
"How's Kyojuro doing? I heard he started breathing better."
Senjuro nodded looking away. "Um..B-Brother's doing a lot better thanks. H-He's busy right now and I'm not busy so I was thinking that...m-maybe I could help you with your cleaning today."
Nezuko smiled brightly. "I'd love that! If you could help me move the furniture to sweep under it'd be a really big help." She gestured to the bed she was currently trying to sweep under.
Senjuro lit up immediately. "R-Really? Yeah! I can totally do that!"
For the next ten minutes there was silence afterwards besides the sounds of Senjuro moving furniture and then moving it back into place once Nezuko was done sweeping the floor under it. Thanks to his help, she was able to get it done much faster and was able to start scrubbing the floors right after-
"I-Ill help you!," Senjuro insisted with a smile, "I'll even go get you the water you need."
"Are you sure? You already helped so much."
"Yeah! Besides you're gonna need help moving all the furniture again to mop under them aren't you?"
"Hm. Well I guess you have a point. Alright! We can get done much faster that way!"
Rinse and repeat the previous progress only it took a little longer as she had to literally scrub the floors on her hands and knees. She was surprised when Senjuro suddenly dunked another scrub brush in the bucket and actually got on his own hands and knees and proceeded to help her scrub down the floors of the large room with her. She sent a smile his way... Senjuro lit up a light pink at her cute smile before snapping back to his work and scrubbing down the floors with her. It was way faster with him helping her and soon both were standing in the hallway outside the room sighing. Senjuro had taken the bucket before she could grab it insisting on dumping out the water for her which she was grateful for.
"Alright! It looks like I'm all done!" She beamed at the spotless room before then.
"What? Y-You don't need anymore help with anything else? W-What about the sheets or windows?"
"Tanjiro already helped me clean the sheets yesterday and Aoi already cleaned the windows before I came in. So you don't have to do anything else for me, but I'm grateful for the help, Senjuro. That was very nice of you."
Senjuro sputtered a bit thinking- "MY BROTHER!!" He shouted out startling both of them and making her blink. "I mean Kyojuro!" He quickly held up his hands flustered. "He's still expecting his food! If you're not busy how about you come visit him with me?" He gulped a bit pink faced. "I-Im sure he'd really like to see you again Nezuko."
Nezuko paused blinking at him before humming. That was a good point. She really hadn't seen Kyojuro since she was changed back to human and began staying here. Tanjiro and his friends had visited him plenty of times but she hadn't seen him too often.
"Ok." She nodded at him smiling. "Why not? It'll be fun to see him again."
Senjuro smiled at her again in relief. "Ok! C-Come on! We need to get his food from the kitchen first but he'll be really happy to see us!"
"Ok!"
He gestured for her to follow him before walking away leading the way all the way to the kitchen which was mostly empty except for one of the butterfly girls getting a few apples. She greeted the both of them before scurrying away allowing them both access to the kitchen alone. Huh...Guess everyone else was busy doing other things, and it already looked like Aoi cleaned up here so there was no other reason for her to be here until dinner time. But Nezuko sat down and watched patiently as Senjuro got to work grabbing a frying pan, cutting board, and a decently sharp knife. He glanced back at her once with a smile.
"Are you hungry too? I-I can make you some food too! In fact let's make Tanjiro some too!"
Nezuko stared at him in awe. "Really? That's so nice of you! Tanjiro would love that!"
He smiled wider. "Well let's get started. Can you hand me some bento boxes from the shelf behind you?"
Nezuko did as he asked placing four small bento boxes on the counter in front of him as he turned back to his work. Frying, cutting, placing, and cooking whatever he grabbed at before turning and starting to fill in the boxes with whatever he was cooking.
"That smells delicious, Senjuro! I can't believe you made this all by yourself!" She gushed mouth watering at the filled boxes.
The boxes were absolutely filled with rice and fried beef and onions but set on top of the big portions was smaller additions of pan fried tofu, grilled scallions, and two boiled eggs per box. It all smelt absolutely delicious and heavenly. She could eat all four of them if she wasn't so polite. She looked back up when a warm kettle was set onto a rather large tray along with a few cups.
"Well, it helps that I was used to cooking for myself for a long time. You pick up a few things after doing it so many times.. B-But I'm glad you think so. Come on! Let's take this to Kyojuro. He's waiting for us."
He placed two of the bentos onto the large tray before placing lids on one other for Tanjiro later. She happily carried the other two since Senjuro seemed to have his hands full and going ahead and digging into hers as they walked. She let out a pleased hum as soon as the food hit her mouth. A shy but pleased smile was given to her by Senjuro.
"D-Do you like it?"
"It's so good! I wish I had food like this all the time!," she gushed pushing another egg into her mouth.
"Yeah... It's too bad. If we lived closer I could cook for you a lot more."
"I just might have to visit you all more often then!"
He lit up hopefully. "I'd like that! ...You know. I really like cooking. I cook all the time for my brother and father. If I had anymore family, I'd cook for them too!"
"Aw. That's so sweet of you. You and Kyojuro are so nice!"
"Yep! That's us!... Y'know I would cook for a wife too if I ever meet the right one."
"Really?"
He nodded shyly. "Yeah...Wow. Speaking of family.." he tried shyly looking at her again. "I'm amazed Tanjiro and Kyojuro aren't brothers themselves. They're so alike and their names even almost rhyme."
Nezuko hummed thinking it over. "...Now that I think about it, they are pretty similar in personality." She giggled. "But they're both so caring. It's nice to see Tanjiro view someone as his own big brother."
"Hm...Well, you know there's a way where he could be Tanjiro's big brother."
Nezuko looked at him blinking as he smiled lightly pink faced. "Oh...Does your father want to adopt us?"
Senjuro nearly dropped the tray as he stared at her. "....I-...No. Not really..." He would've facepalmed himself if he could. But instead he looked down in embarrassment. "I was actually...maybe....m-marriage.... between.....two of..our families...."
There was silence for a moment before Nezuko gave him a pitiful look. "I'm sorry Senjuro but Tanjiro and I have no other sisters, and I certainly couldn't marry him."
"N-No! I-I Wasn't talking about Kyojuro!!" He stopped and looked at her flustered. "N-Nezuko, I-.... Y-You-..." He sputtered out trying to desperately say something similar to a functional sentence as she blinked confused at him. "I..really....well...You are....Pretty neat!"
Nezuko blinked again. "Thank you. I think you're really nice too. Are you alright?" She tilted her head at his shaky stuttery form. "You look about ready to collapse."
He gulped nervously. "I-"
"Nezuko." Senjuro jumped with a little yelp as both turned and found Aoi carrying a basket and raising a brow. "I thought you were going to come help me go pick food from the garden when you were done."
"Oh that's right!" She turned to Senjuro with an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry. I completely forgot I promised to help Aoi in the garden. But I will absolutely come visit Kyojuro first thing tomorrow morning! Thank you so much for the food though!" She gave a quick bow. "I'll be sure to give Tanjiro his!"
"But I-"
He didn't get another chance to speak before Nezuko already turned and quickly hurried after Aoi towards the end of the hallway.. although she did give him a quick look back at his flustered state before shaking her head again and quickly hurrying after her. Senjuro stood there for a moment before sighing, turning, and continuing to walk away. A few hallways away a room opened and a smiling face turned to him. Bandages around his middle and a patch over his left eye. An older copy of Senjuro almost.
"SENJURO!! There you are! So how'd it go!? Did my sweet brother manage to sweep Nezuko off her feet?"
Everyone Wants A Brother Like You Part 7 Conclusion
(Hey everyone. I just wanted to thank everyone who read this far and liked my story enough to read it to it's end. I had a lot of fun writing it and it makes me happy knowing some people loved it enough to read it fully. If you liked this consider checking out my other works. Thanks to everyone for reading this, faving it, or leaving a nice comment. And thank you to Koyoharu Gotouge for creating such wonderful characters and giving me the opportunity to make this wonderful story.
EDIT: The ending is left pretty open for interpretation so you can decide if Nezuko does end up with one of the boys you prefer or if she doesn't.)
Nezuko was certainly expecting a lot of things from Tanjiro when she first approached him about this situation.
After some reassurance from Zenitsu and rethinking it over, she decided that it would actually be better to talk about this with him. For her own clear mind too. Nezuko still had some butterflies in her stomach as she searched for her brother and found him outside the front of the mansion talking to Kanao and Giyuu. He looked absolutely happy to see her when she walked up to the trio and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Nezuko!"
"Tanjiro, do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about something."
"Sure! One minute."
With a quick good bye to the others, Tanjiro was pulled aside from his anxious sister.
"Are you alright?," he asked concerned, "You look worried about something."
She hesitated. "I have a problem but I'm not sure how you're going to take it."
That made his brows raise in concern. "Nezuko..If you're worried about something then you can tell me. You know you can talk to me about anything. I won't be mad I promise."
She inhaled before sighing. "Alright. D-Do you remember when Inosuke tackled me?"
She proceeded to explain everything to him. Inosuke's strange behaviors based on what someone told him. Senjuro's suggestions for marriage and his flustered state. Genya's own flustered state and the attempted bragging. Muichiro's whole marriage presentation. And...Well she didn't have to explain Zenitsu. She was sure he was just acting as he always did around her and not because of whatever suddenly came over the others. Tanjiro listened to her rambling on silently and surprisingly calm. His arms crossed and his face completely neutral. When she was done explaining everything he was silent for a long while . Nezuko was expecting a variety of things. Him getting mad at their friends. Him becoming overprotective all of a sudden. Maybe he wouldn't believe her and brush her off telling her she was overreacting. Shocked maybe. Or a mix of everything. But surprisingly he only sighed and nodded.
"Yeah. I was wondering when you'd notice."
Nezuko stared. "....Wait. YOU KNEW THE ENTIRE TIME?!"
Tanjiro held up his hands. "Not the entire time. Only since yesterday when Muichiro gave me a presentation on us becoming in-laws."
...oh.
She shook her head. "Well... You're not mad?"
"No. Not really. I mean I am surprised that everyone seems want to romance you.." he rubbed his neck. "But I can't really be mad at our friends can I? I mean none of them are really bad people. In fact they're all really good people just...I dunno I guess I was shocked when I talked to them all."
She blinked surprised. "You spoke to all of them?"
He nodded. "I had a feeling maybe Muichiro wasn't the only one. They all seemed embarrassed and when I asked why, they said something about wanting us to be brothers."
"At least that explains Inosuke."
He nodded. "Yeah. I told them I appreciated the thought and of course I already considered them all family but maybe they should've just asked me that from the beginning."
She blinked. "So...what do we do about this now?"
Again Tanjiro shrugged. "I'm not sure but I guess it's up to you if you want to have them court you? I'll support you in whatever you want, Nezuko! You deserve to be happy after everything!"
Nezuko blinked again before sighing. "I don't know what to do. I'm glad you're not angry but I need time to think about everything."
Tanjiro nodded. "I understand that but just know I'll support you in anything you decide." He pointed back behind him at Giyuu and Kanao still having a conversation. "In the meantime why not join us? We were going to get some rice cakes from the town nearby."
