The Blacksmith's daugther was a witch (Tomioka Giyuu x reader)

Chapter 26: The Red Light District

Previously:

She would make him tell her why he had to take the Flame Pillar from her so young, why he attacked the Mugen Train when he shouldn't have even been here. And after she found everything out, she would erase him from existence. Not slowly and painfully, no, she would make it quick. She has caused enough pain, but she still had to avenge her best friend.

No matter what it would take.

Nobody questioned (Y/N) on why she arrived a day later, they simply expected she (or rather he, as most of them thought) ran into some demons on the way and had to delay her return to deal with them. While it wasn't completely wrong as she actually has encountered a large number of them, it really wasn't the real reason and she was glad no one forced her to spill it.

Giyuu has been acting strange the last few days, he always looked down on the ground and spoke even less than usually. She grew quite concerned for her raven haired friend but sadly, she could not comfort him. Surely it couldn't be because of their encounter at the graveyard... right? She remembered how his face fell when she ran away from him, how he called out her name frantically, as if he's missed her. But there was no way she could have had such an impact on him in the short time they knew each other, he was not one to grow attached to others. Still, it concerned her how he canceled all their training sessions until further notice, only to run into her multiple times of the day, not having anything to do but sulking. Was he sick? Should she check him for any signs of illness? No, Hakumei was not a doctor, she couldn't do anything for him. And so she could only watch as he grew stranger and his usually stoic ocean eyes showed a foreign sadness.

It was not just her who noticed the change, Uzui complained about the sad Water Pillar almost every day, claiming that it was obvious that a lady dumped the lad. For some reason, the idea of him being in love with someone only to get his heart broken brought a weirdly painfull sensation into her chest. But she paid it no mind, disregarding it as concern for a close friend. Ah, the witch knew next to nothing about human feelings.

Currently she was sitting on a huge rock by the river, the Sound Pillar comfortably sprawled next to her, talking her ear off. She has grown very attached to him over time, finding his energy refreshing in the mids of all the serious faces. He never failed to make her laugh. Not only that, the man had a strange way of bringing her out of her shell to do stupid, sometimes slightly childish things that she would have never thought she would enjoy. But she did and she loved that she could have fun like that even in the dangerous and depressing world they lived in.

The silver haired man threw a rock into the water, watching as in bounced from the surface a few times before sinking.

"You know, Ren, that Tomioka isn't flamboyant at all lately! Look, I'm not saying the cold bastard was ever much of a flaboyant guy but this is on whole another level..." he frowned, obviously annoyed by the lack of flamboyance in the air around the blue eyed hashira, "we should do something about it, he can't sulk about a chick forever."

She only nodded quietly, trying to throw a rock to bounce as his did, failing miserably. She furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding how her friend did it so easily. His red eyes suddenly widened as did his smile, an idea probably coming into his mind. And if the dumb grin was anything to go by, it would be absolutely stupid, yet brilliant. She turned her head to face him and prodded him to continue.

"We should take him along the next time we go drinking!" Tengen exclaimed happily as if he just solved every problem of the world, "drinking with friends is sure to lift the poor lad's spirits!"

She tilted her head, not really buying it. She was quite conviced that Giyuu didn't consider her nor Uzui his friends, they were coworkers at best. She pointed at herself, the hashira, shook her head and lastly, pointed at the running river. The Sound Pillar has gotten very good at reading her body language and gestures in the time they have known each other and had absolutely no issue deciphering what she wanted to say. With him understanding her so well, it was very easy for the two to comunicate even without her notepad and it was much faster too.