Kiyohiko Gets Fed by Shinobu Kocho

Cold sweat slid down Kiyohiko's temple and dripped onto the white pillow, leaving a small dark stain.

The girl before him wore a smile as radiant as a flower, yet the aversion emanating from her very core was so intense that even the air seemed to freeze.

All right, it seemed he'd messed something up.

There was still one thing Kiyohiko didn't understand, though.

Kiyohiko's Adam's apple bobbed as he forced out a smile that looked relaxed but was actually stiff.

"Miss Shinobu, we haven't met before, have we?"

His voice was a little hoarse from thirst, and his eyes were full of genuine confusion.

"I know I'm a demon... but it feels like you have some kind of personal grudge against me. I don't think I've offended you... at least, I don't think I offended you before, did I?"

"Oh my, what a slow child you are."

She turned her wrist, and the slender Nichirin Blade traced an elegant arc through the air.

"Isn't it only natural for the Demon Slayer Corps to despise demons? Just as people despise cockroaches and rats."

Shinobu's voice was soft and sweet, as though she were telling a child a bedtime story, but her words were vicious.

"You eat people, kill people, and destroy families. To us, the very existence of every demon is a sin."

"And even though the desire to eat people runs through your body, you still pretend to be a victim and ask me why I hate you... creatures like demons really are all born liars."

Grrr-

At that moment, with tensions running high and the atmosphere at its most oppressive, a loud, prolonged rumble suddenly rang through the entire hospital room.

Kiyohiko's stomach had chosen this moment to voice its utterly untimely protest.

"Um..."

He looked awkwardly at Shinobu, who was right in front of him, his gaze wandering. "I know you said I'm a liar... but it seems my stomach can't lie. Miss Shinobu, could you... give me something to eat first? I'm not picky. Duck blood and vermicelli soup would do..."

The chill in Shinobu Kocho's eyes faltered for a brief instant. Then she put away her Nichirin Blade and straightened up.

"Duck blood and vermicelli soup?"

She repeated the unfamiliar words, the smile on her lips turning somewhat amused. "We don't have anything like that here. But since Oyakata-sama said to observe you... I can't let you starve to death."

She turned and walked toward the door, her figure still slender and graceful. But before closing it, she glanced over her shoulder and left him with a few airy words:

"Don't try anything. The moment you show a single fang, my poison will make your whole body rot away and kill you. Remember that, Mr. Little Demon."

Only after Kiyohiko had confirmed that Shinobu Kocho had left and that he was alone in the room did he drop his comically awkward smile.

Tch.

That woman was just too strange.

Kiyohiko hadn't noticed it while watching the anime in his previous life, but now that he'd met her in person, he realized just how fake that smile of hers was.

And it wasn't the kind of fake you could see through at a glance. It was perfectly fake, so perfect it was like a semipermanent mask, as though she wanted to hide her real face beneath it forever.

Kiyohiko closed his eyes and thought.

Kiyohiko tried to understand.

Kiyohiko decided to give up.

"Damn it, if I'd known I was going to transmigrate, I would've watched the movies and anime a dozen times before coming here."

He'd better think about how to raise his bond value instead. At the very least, he needed to stop making it go down.

After a while, the door opened again. There was no duck blood and vermicelli soup, only two rather misshapen rice balls and a cup of tea that gave off an eerie purple glow.

Shinobu Kocho walked over to the bed and reached out with her slender fingers to undo the buckle of the strap binding Kiyohiko's right hand.

"This is all there is. Eat. Don't try anything unnecessary with that hand, unless you want to find out what a dislocated wrist feels like."

As if granted a pardon, Kiyohiko grabbed a rice ball and stuffed it into his mouth.

But the moment it entered his mouth, his expression twisted.

To him now, the rice had no aroma, the nori was like plastic wrap, and the pickled plum inside was practically a dried-out stone. The whole thing felt like chewing a lump of old wax mixed with sawdust.

It tasted awful.

So awful he wanted to cry.

Still, he could definitely feel his craving for humans weaken a little.

Kiyohiko chewed mechanically with his cheeks puffed out like a hamster's, cautiously raising his eyes to watch Shinobu, who was sitting in the chair beside the bed.

She sat perfectly straight, her hands folded in her lap.

She was smiling, the corners of her mouth turned up fifteen degrees, her eyes and brows curved.

Everything was so lovely and gentle. Well... if he ignored the Nichirin Blade she kept fiddling with.

"Um... Miss Shinobu?"

Kiyohiko struggled to swallow a mouthful of "sawdust rice ball" before speaking cautiously. "I know I shouldn't ask... but are you in a bad mood?"

Shinobu's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, but her smile remained unchanged.

"Oh? Why do you say that? Don't I look like I'm smiling?"

"You are smiling, but..."

Kiyohiko hunched his shoulders and pointed at his own eyes, then at her face. "There's no smile in your eyes at all. And it feels like... you're angry? Like, really, really angry."

He paused, then added:

"Honestly, if you hate me, just say so. You don't have to force yourself to smile. It's pretty creepy... really, I feel like you're going to throw that cup of purple tea in my face any second."

Shinobu Kocho slowly rose to her feet, an extremely tiny, almost invisible "#" popping up at her temple.

"Your intuition is annoyingly sharp."

Her voice was as light as a feather, yet as cold as ice.

"Since you know I'm angry, shut your mouth and drink this tea like a good boy. It's a specially prepared Wisteria tea. It won't poison you to death, but it'll keep a noisy little demon like you quiet for a whole day."

With that, she picked up the cup of purple tea and held it directly to Kiyohiko's lips, her smile as radiant as a spider lily in full bloom.

"Come on, open wide. Ah-"

"Um... Miss Shinobu, let's be reasonable."

He turned his head slightly, trying to move this female Yama with a sincere look.

"Won't drinking that affect my value as a subject of observation? I mean, it's poison, isn't it?"

"It's fine. I'm an expert in pharmacology, you know. I have perfect control over the dosage."

"Wait! I think I'd rather..."

"Be good and open your mouth."

A few minutes later.

Kiyohiko sprawled on the hospital bed like a salted fish that had lost its dreams. His tongue lolled to one side, his eyes rolled back, and his throat made a "huh, huh" sound like an old bellows being worked, as though he might depart this world at any moment.