Chapter Text
When the skies start to darken, the Kamado family knows better than to stay outside where dangerous creatures and demons lurk. Years of staying in the mountainside, surrounded by the shades of the trees and bushes have alerted the family on their unanimous curfew.
It’s quiet in the Kamado house, save for the faint crackling of the firewood inside the house and the occasional giggling and whispers of Tanjiro’s siblings.
On the other hand, Tanjiro is standing on their engawa. The lights are turned off around him, but the weak light from the lamps within their house provide Tanjiro with enough illumination, his only hope is that it doesn’t alert anybody outside watching through the closed shoji doors.
The kakushi stands tall with his shoulders back, he breathes in through his nose and out his mouth in an attempt at mimicking the focused breathing technique the demon slayers use. In his hands is one of his father’s old wooden cane, cut neatly into a mere stick extending from Tanjiro’s body to resemble a sword.
Tanjiro swings the sword from the top of his head and down into a straight line, visualizing a target in front him. He tilts his sword sideways to mimic how Shinazugawa or even Uzui use their weapons in battle.
A certain hashira springs into Tanjiro’s mind, one that represents the flow of water and Tanjiro closes his eyes. He remembers Tomioka on the night he saved Tanjiro and his family during the attack of a small demon horde in their house. He remembers how Tomioka twisted, turned, and sliced cleanly through the demons’ necks as if they were jelly.
Tanjiro breathes in and on his exhale, he runs a few steps forward and jumps up to create a beautiful arc with his wooden stick in the air. Or at least, he tries to, but finds himself on the ground with a rather loud thud. When he opens his eyes, he can make out their ceiling staring back at him.
“Tanjiro? Are you okay?” He hears his mother call for him.
“Yes, I’m fine!” Tanjiro apologizes and resigns himself to sitting up with a sigh.
A moment later, the shoji doors rattle slightly and it startles Tanjiro, who quickly moves to stand up, but finds somebody caging their arms around him in a loose circle, “Ah! Who–Tokito-san?”
The mist hashira in question smiles at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “Tanjiro, konbanwa.” He greets sweetly and moves to stand in front of Tanjiro.
“Wh-what are you doing here, Tokito-san?” Tanjiro asks in a whisper, still confused. Tokito smells strongly of smoke, demon blood, and sweat, possibly because he has just arrived from a mission.
“I just got back from a mission,” Tokito giggles and moves his face near Tanjiro’s with half-lidded eyes, “I always pass by your house after my missions, Tanjiro, and you can always just call me Muichiro.”
The mist hashira giggles again and almost stumbles into Tanjiro, the kakushi quickly braces his arms on the hashira’s sides and feels his body relax like deadweight in Tanjiro’s arms. He’s exhausted, Tanjiro registers.
With careful steps, Tanjiro lowers Tokito on the floor, letting the hashira’s head rest on the kakushi’s lap. Tokito immediately sighs in content, circling his arms around Tanjiro’s waist, “A-Ah, Tokito-san–!”
“It’s Muichiro, not Tokito.”
“Those are still both of your names…”
“Call me Muichiro anyway.”
“Muichiro.” Tanjiro says slowly, feeling heat rise up his cheeks when the mist hashira hums and pushes himself up to meet Tanjiro’s eyes.
“Yes?”
“...Are you exhausted?”
“Mmhm.” The mist hashira hums while nodding, the dopey expression on his face makes the hashira look rather cute, though Tanjiro quickly realizes that it would probably be rude to think so about a hashira.
“M-Muichiro... Can we—can you, um…” Tanjiro stutters, “Actually, nevermind. Would you like some water, Toki—ah, Muichiro-san?”
The mist hashira smiles, “No, thank you, Tanjiro. What were you about to say?”
Tanjiro shakes his head, “Nothing, Muichiro-san. Would you like me to lay down a futon? You can rest here, if you’d like.”
“With you?”
Tanjiro nods and is about to move to stand up when Tokito holds a hand to his shoulders and sits up, “What were you about to ask?”
“Oh, uh…”
“You can ask me anything, you know?”
“Yes, I know that… Um, I wanted to ask if we—you could, teach me how to do your breathing techniques?” Tanjiro finishes meekly, eyes staring at all parts of Tokito's face to look for signs of anger or dismissal. It was unheard of, after all, for a mere kakushi to ask an esteemed hashira for breathing tutorials.
Tanjiro doesn’t find any such signs, instead the mist hashira breaks into a blinding grin, “Sure!”
Tokito moves to the middle of the dark room and lays down on his back completely, his sword clanging on the wooden floors, “Come here beside me, Tanjiro.”
Tanjiro comes beside Tokito, feeling more excited than anything that a hashira is personally going to teach him the foundations of demon slayer techniques. The two of them lay flat on their backs beside each other, staring up at the ceiling.
“Concentrating your breathing is important since it helps us become physically stronger and faster, some even use it to recover from injuries,”
“The goal,” Tokito moves his hand to gesture on Tanjiro’s body, “is to inhale the maximum amount of oxygen and make use of the full capacity of your lungs,”
“Let’s start breathing in,” they both inhale, “and you concentrate your breath to your muscles, your lungs, your blood vessels.”
They inhale and exhale together, Tokito’s quiet voice almost lulling Tanjiro to sleep in the current late hours. The only thing keeping Tanjiro up is the fact that he can hear how different Tokito’s breathing sounds compared to his, it makes him try harder to match the hashira's breaths.
“Focus.” Tokito says when the kakushi's breaths start getting ragged and irregular, Tanjiro catches himself and they both resume breathing in and out in the empty dark room. The whole house grows quiet as well, as the Kamado family retires for the night.
They inhale and exhale together until Tanjiro feels like his lungs will explode. Tokito notices such things and says, “Let’s rest for tonight. You did great, Tanjiro.”
“Eh? But—” Tanjiro stops, feeling his lungs almost rip when he starts speaking.
“Coughing and feeling pain in your sides means you’ve done it right. We can try again tomorrow, okay?”
Tanjiro nods, hoping the hashira can see him in the dark. The kakushi excuses himself briefly to gather futons and pillows for him and the hashira. They sleep beside each other that night. Tanjiro is still staring up at the ceiling, his eyes closed, listening to Tokito breathe. Hashira's reallydo breathe differently, even when they sleep, Tanjiro notes to himself.
The kakushi falls asleep as well, thinking how he still has to meet with Shinobu tomorrow morning.
When the sun shines through the open engawa, Tanjiro twitches awake and finds the futon next to him neatly folded over and kept, “He left already, nii-chan.” Tanjiro’s sister, Nezuko, tells him as she starts doing her laundry for the day.
“What were you doing last night, nii-chan?” Nezuko asks, almost giggling at her brother’s bedhead.
Tanjiro yawns and stretches, his lungs already feeling better from last night, “We were breathing.”
Eh? …Breathing? Nezuko thinks, “O-Oh, I see…”
She did not see, but she has come to realize that her older brother has always had such a hectic life working at the demon corps, even as a kakushi.
