The Two Under the Moonlight

In the Butterfly Mansion's dining hall, a lavish dinner covered the long table. Steaming miso soup, grilled fish and meat, and freshly cooked rice filled the air with a tempting aroma.

"Um... Miss... Shinobu?"

Kiyohiko looked at the mountain of pickled ginger in his bowl, its sharp, spicy scent wafting up at him. A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead.

This is way too much! It's not even a side dish-it's practically the main course!

Although he was a Foodie who ate anything to suppress his demonic instincts, he was a demon, not a monk. At least give me a little more meat!

"What's wrong?"

Shinobu Kocho sat across from him, holding her rice bowl with that impeccable smile on her face.

"These are my favorite pickled ginger. I saw you make ginger pork for lunch today, so I thought you'd finally learned to appreciate how delicious ginger is. Don't tell me... you don't like it?"

"N-no, it's not that I don't like it. It's just this amount..."

Kiyohiko was just about to push his bowl a little farther away, making one last attempt to resist.

Shinobu Kocho suddenly leaned forward, bringing herself closer to Kiyohiko.

"Or is it..."

She lowered her voice until only the two of them could hear, deliberately giving it a tingling, teasing lilt:

"Are you going to disobey me again? But just this afternoon, you said... I was your 'most important person'..."

Kiyohiko went rigid.

His face flushed bright red in an instant. His chopsticks hung suspended in midair, and he looked as though he'd been hit with a paralyzing spell.

How was this any less embarrassing than having your homeroom teacher discover a love letter you'd written to the prettiest girl in class and make you read it aloud to everyone?

This wicked woman is definitely doing it on purpose! She's using those words against me!

"I... I'll eat it! I'll eat it, all right?!"

He didn't dare raise his voice too much, since Aoi Kanzaki and Kanao were still nearby. He could only let out a low, aggrieved growl, pick up his bowl, and shovel a huge mouthful of pickled ginger into his mouth as though facing death.

The spicy flavor shot straight up his nose, stinging so badly that his eyes nearly watered. But he could only chew with tears in his eyes, glaring accusingly at the woman across from him, who wore a thoroughly delighted smile.

A short distance away, Aoi Kanzaki watched the scene and let out a long sigh of relief.

Those two had kept everyone worried sick all day.

"Thank goodness. It looks like they've made up," she murmured as she put some food on Kanao's plate. "Kiyohiko-kun looks pitiful, but as long as Lady Shinobu isn't angry anymore, that's good enough."

Holding her teacup, Kanao looked over at Kiyohiko, who was suffering but showed no real dislike in his eyes, and Shinobu Kocho, who was resting her cheek in her hand with a smile across her face. The corners of Kanao's lips rose slightly, and she nodded gently.

After dinner, the dishes and chopsticks were washed, and the bustle gradually gave way to quiet.

A bright moon hung high in the night sky, its cool light spilling into the Butterfly Mansion's courtyard and giving the neatly trimmed shrubs a silver lining.

Kiyohiko sat at the edge of the veranda, holding a cup of hot tea as he tried to wash away the lingering taste of ginger.

The wooden boards beside him creaked softly as Shinobu Kocho sat down, forcing her way in right next to him.

"Too close," Kiyohiko complained, shifting a little to the left without making a fuss.

Shinobu Kocho said nothing and silently followed him. The two of them went on like that, one shifting and then the other, until a pillar blocked Kiyohiko's way and he glared at her. Only then did she sit beside him at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.

"Hey, Kiyohiko-kun."

Shinobu's voice sounded particularly clear in the night. "Actually, there's something I wanted to ask you."

"What is it?"

"Why are you so determined to save people? Even if it means leaving yourself covered in wounds."

Shinobu Kocho turned to look at Kiyohiko's profile.

"You were like that on Mount Fujikasane during the Final Selection, and you're still like that now."

"Everyone in the Demon Slayer Corps fights desperately too, but most of them do it for revenge or to slay demons. You're different... I get the feeling that, rather than 'killing demons,' you care more about 'not letting people die.' Even if that person means nothing to you."

"So you can praise me after all, Miss Shinobu? I thought all you ever did was tease and bully me."

"Is that so? You look like you enjoy it to me."

Shinobu Kocho poked Kiyohiko's shoulder, paying no mind to his accusation, as though he'd said something to praise her.

"What do you mean, enjoy it? I was just letting you have your way," Kiyohiko grumbled in protest.

"Yes, yes, you were letting me have my way..." Shinobu Kocho agreed, playing along.

"So, great Kiyohiko-kun, you still haven't answered my question."

Kiyohiko looked at Shinobu Kocho in silence for a moment, then gave a wry laugh. He leaned back on his hands and gazed at the bright moon in the night sky.

How was he supposed to explain it? Surely he couldn't tell her that he'd been a medical intern in his previous life, worked late into the night every day, and ended up here after dying suddenly?

"Well, that's a story that goes way, way back. When I was three..."

Kiyohiko had expected Shinobu Kocho to say something like, "That's way too far back," or, "I don't have time to listen to such boring stories."

Then he wouldn't have had to talk about the past.

But Shinobu Kocho didn't.

Kiyohiko glanced at Shinobu Kocho and found her sitting with her hands in her lap, watching him and listening with great interest.

"Uh... I thought..."

"Thought what?" Shinobu Kocho gave him a knowing smile, as though she knew what he was thinking. "That I'd run out of patience and wouldn't want to listen?"

"Actually... I'm interested in everything about you..."

Shinobu Kocho hadn't meant to tease Kiyohiko. She wasn't usually like this with other people, but the words had come out that way naturally.

This idiot demon will probably call me a wicked woman and run away again.

That was what Shinobu Kocho thought.

But unexpectedly, Kiyohiko seemed much happier after hearing her words, his face lighting up with excitement.

"Really!?"

He settled into a more comfortable position and started complaining like a drunk middle-aged man in an izakaya:

"You have no idea. I used to be a... uh, a doctor's apprentice, in a sense."

"That was no life for a human being! Every morning I had to drag myself up at six to make rounds, and at night I had to write medical records until midnight. If I got stuck with a night shift, I could forget about closing my eyes for thirty-six hours straight!"

"And, and, I once had this patient..."

Under the moonlight, Kiyohiko spoke vividly, gesturing with his hands as Shinobu Kocho watched him quietly. Her purple eyes looked deep and gentle in the moonlight.