#readerxobanai

Series: An Unknown World — Demon Slayer

The path to the Mist Estate wound through a forest that seemed half-dream, half-memory. The air grew cooler with each step, sunlight dissolving into silver haze. Birdsong came and went like forgotten thoughts, fading into the quiet.

By the time you reached the gate, you could barely see more than a few feet ahead. Mist coiled between the trees, swallowing color and shape until the world felt like a watercolor that hadn’t dried yet. This place felt different. Still. Suspended. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

You were still taking in the silence when a voice — clear, lilting, and female — rang out from the fog.

“Stop walking, you’re going to hit the gate!”

You froze. “What—?”

The mist parted just enough for a crow to swoop straight into your face.

“AH—!”

You stumbled backward, waving your arms as feathers brushed your cheek. The crow fluttered indignantly and landed on the gatepost with a loud huff.

“Honestly. Humans. No awareness.”

You blinked. Before you could argue with a bird, the fog parted just enough to reveal him.

Muichiro Tokito stood a few paces away, framed by white plum blossoms and drifting haze. His hair was longer than you’d expected, soft black fading to pale turquoise that caught the light like morning frost. His eyes — unfocused, pale, almost translucent — flicked over you without expression.

For a long moment, he just looked at you.

Then his expression flickered — surprise breaking through the fog of calm. “You,” he said softly, almost to himself. “You were the one from the garden.”

You nodded, unsure what else to say. “Yes, Master Ubuyashiki sent me.”

“I remember you,” he murmured. “You didn’t look like this before.”

You blinked. “Like what?”

He tilted his head, studying you with that strange, unblinking focus of his. “Like someone who wanted to disappear.”

The words caught you off guard — sharp and honest, but not unkind. They hung in the air like mist before rain.

Before you could think of how to respond, he added simply, “You look… alive now.”

A heartbeat passed. Then his eyes widened, as if realizing what he’d just said. “Oh.” A pause. “That sounded strange, didn’t it? Sorry.”

The apology was so flatly sincere that you couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped.

Something flickered in his expression — not confusion this time, but something softer, almost startled. He blinked once. Twice. Then, slowly, a faint smile ghosted across his lips.

It wasn’t much. Barely a shift. But it transformed him — like light breaking through morning mist, subtle yet radiant.

He turned away before you could speak, the moment passing like fog slipping through fingers. “Come,” he said simply. “The courtyard’s this way.”

The Mist Estate unfolded like a dream rendered in shades of white and blue. Bonsai trees dotted the paths, their blossoms pale as moonlight. The pond you passed was so still it mirrored the clouds, making it impossible to tell where reflection ended and sky began.

The air smelled faintly of stone and rain — clean, restrained. The world here didn’t hum like the Butterfly Estate; it breathed. Slowly. Carefully.

And Tokito fit perfectly within it.

He walked with that same quiet precision, each step unhurried but exact, as if even the mist obeyed his rhythm. There was a gentleness in the way he moved — and beneath it, something sharp and unknowable.

He didn’t speak again until you reached the engawa.

“I forget things sometimes,” he said simply, his tone drifting as lightly as the fog. Then, after a pause, his gaze flicked toward you again. “But I think I’ll remember you.”

Your heart stuttered, unsure if it was a compliment or a confession. You managed a small, uncertain smile. “I’ll… try to be memorable, then.”

He looked faintly puzzled by that — as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Hmm,” he said after a beat. “You don’t need to try.”

He didn’t remember you like this in the garden. Then, you had been quiet and colorless, eyes dulled by confusion. But now— Now there was light in you.

And he found himself watching you longer than he meant to.

That night, as you unpacked in your small room overlooking the pond, the world felt impossibly still. The paper walls glowed faintly with moonlight, and somewhere down the corridor you could hear Tokito’s voice — quiet, unhurried, humming something tuneless under his breath. It wasn’t a song so much as a rhythm — the sound of thought drifting in circles.

You set your few belongings neatly beside the futon and sat by the window. The mist outside moved like breath across the water, faint ripples catching the silver light.

Your thoughts drifted back to Shinobu — her measured voice, her patience hidden beneath gentle humor. You could almost smell the sharpness of crushed herbs on her sleeves, hear the faint scrape of mortar and pestle at dawn.

Then you thought of Aoi, who always spoke like she was scolding the universe into order, and of the girls — Kiyo, Sumi, Naho — their laughter spilling down the hallways like bells. You missed them more than you’d expected. Their warmth had followed you through every mile of the journey, a quiet tether to something soft and familiar.

Your thoughts turned, then, to Giyu.

The memory of his presence still lingered like the cool weight of river stones — silent but grounding. He had taught you discipline without needing words, and his patience had shaped your earliest strength. There was a quiet certainty about him that you admired; it reminded you of deep water — calm on the surface, but filled with unseen depths.

Sometimes you wondered if he ever thought of you. If he’d notice your absence the next time the morning fog rolled through his training grounds. You smiled faintly at the thought — small, wistful, gone in an instant.

Then, unbidden, your thoughts drifted to Tokito.

The way his eyes seemed distant even when they were on you. The strange quiet that clung to him — not empty, but heavy, like fog over still water. You couldn’t tell if he was always like that, or if he simply didn’t know what to say.

And yet, when he had looked at you earlier — really looked — you’d seen a flicker of something clear beneath the haze. Something that made you wonder what he was like before the mist took root in him.

You caught yourself smiling faintly at the thought — and immediately scolded yourself for it. You didn’t even know him.

You were about to stand, to close the shutters for the night, when a sharp voice shattered the quiet:

“Training starts tomorrow at dawn,” Ginko declared from the window ledge, every syllable crisp and judgmental.

You flinched. “Are you serious? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Discipline doesn’t keep office hours,” she replied primly, adjusting her feathers. Her long lashes blinked in the moonlight like she was posing for a portrait. “You may be Shinobu’s little prodigy, but my boy expects precision.”

You blinked. “Your boy?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, her chest puffing out proudly. “My Hashira. The Mist Pillar. The prodigy. The one whose reputation I intend to preserve.”

You sighed, trying to keep a straight face. “Of course.”

“Good.” She nodded curtly, clearly pleased with herself. “Now rest. You’ll need it. You look like someone who bruises easily.”

Before you could respond, she was gone — a blur of indignant feathers vanishing into the night.

You sat back against the window frame, half amused, half exasperated. “She’s going to be unbearable, isn’t she?” you murmured to the empty room.

Outside, the mist drifted silently across the courtyard. And through it, you caught sight of him.

Muichiro stood at the far end of the engawa, half-shadowed by the fog, his face turned toward the stars. The pale light traced the outline of his hair, glinting silver-blue at the tips. His expression was distant, thoughtful — but not empty.

Something in the sight of him stirred a strange stillness inside you — not longing exactly, but curiosity. You wondered what he saw when he looked at the night sky. You wondered if he ever saw himself in it.

He didn’t know you were watching. He didn’t know that, as the mist curled between you, your thoughts mirrored his own — quiet, uncertain, searching.

Because in that same moment, Muichiro Tokito’s thoughts lingered on you.

The sound of your laughter had stayed with him. It was strange, how it kept returning — bright, alive, cutting through the dull hum of memory he could never quite reach.