rui.
Rui had taken his seat rather awkwardly, keeping his hands folded on his lap, and almost staring down at the table rather than Tanjirou himself. Still, as awkward as it felt for him to be in so human an establishment like this, and as sad as he was to be surrounded by happy, chattering families – it was nice to just have someone else there, to be able to listen to someone just… talking to him.
“… hm?”
He’d been so wrapped up in just listening to Tanjirou speaking that when he stops and apologizes to Rui it takes the demon a few beats to mentally catch up with the shift in conversation.
“No, it–you’re fine.”
Rui fidgets in his chair a little bit, all too aware of how miserable and pathetic he must seem especially in comparison to the Demon Moon that had fought against Tanjirou – threatened to slice him to pieces – so fiercely. Even if his rank is nonexistent here, the symbol’s still in his eye, and he knows that from certain angles there’s no way Tanjirou can’t see that Rui still has it. It seems like it’s always going to be there, an ugly reminder of everything he’d done.
He fidgets again.
“I’m used to worse. Not… that your stories are bad. I walk around at night and just – think. So…” So anything other than ‘sitting on a bench in an empty park at night with nothing but his thoughts and his threads’ was an improvement is what he’s saying, but he doesn’t quite know how to vocalize that. Rui tilts his head a little bit.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if anything’s really ‘sudden’ in this city. A lot can happen here. People can come and go. The whole city can shift. So, you… you, coming here… I think asking for me to sit with you in a restaurant is more sudden than you being in the city as a whole.”
There’s a bit of an unstated reverence there, more obvious in tone than Rui realizes – his voice lifts a little, but quickly returns to its usual dull tones.
“It’s nice to have somebody else who knows who I am talking to me just like I’m anybody else. I never got to thank you for – when I was dying, I – your… your hand.” But it still stings too much to be able to explain any of what happened properly. Rui glances away, taking sudden interest in the patterns of the wallpaper. Even if he swears he can hear his parents sometimes, that doesn’t mean it’s anything easy to say, and the thought of crying in front of Tanjirou made Rui feel disgusting. “– you can eat,” he continues, instead. “It won’t make me hungry myself, and you said you are, and I… I owe you that much. As thanks. I don’t mind.”
like the scar on his head, those marks will always serve as a reminder of the past. Likening a simple burn to a brand earned through ruthlessness might be comparing apples to oranges, but in his mind, those things could serve as one’s proof of change. Everyone is capable of a change of it, or so he’d like to believe.
“Ah. You felt it, then?” His hand, that is. In Rui’s dying moments, the weight of his loneliness felt oppressive. How many times has Nezuko saved him from the clutches of depravity, he wondered? Had Muzan taken absolutely everything from him -- everyone -- would he have traveled the same path? It’s a thought even he’s scared to approach. “You don’t need to thank me for something like that. That kind of thing should be natural, shouldn’t it? You did the things that you did out of a desire to build a family. I get it, even if I didn’t agree with your methods, I... I understood.”
In the end, demons get to the point where they are because of solitude, he thinks. They’re as immortal for as long as they allow themselves to be and strong as the numbers they eat, but rarely are they ever in each other’s company. Living alone, dying alone, likely having fed off the very people they cared about before turning -- Tanjiro can’t imagine that kind of hopeless misery. What if he stayed home and was killed that fateful day? If Nezuko turned by herself, where would she be now?
If nobody he knew cared about her or treated her like she was normal, how many friends would he even have? Giyuu-san, Urokodaki-san, Zenitsu, Inosuke? Their compassion saved them time and time again and given them sanctuary when they needed it most. If Rui had people like that, would things have been the same?
“You’ve really changed, Rui. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised, just like I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hungry, haha.” Alright, then. He’ll order three riceballs to start, with a kettle of green tea. “I already ran into a few people here that came from our world. They were all Demon Slayers. ...Have you encountered any of them? Did they try to harm you?”
