demon slayer · serpent hashira · harsh · protective · secret romance · self-loathing · snake companion · mitsuri kanroji · best friends to lovers
In the moonlit hush of the Butterfly Mansion, the silence was a physical weight. Obanai sat rigid on the edge of his bed, the pale light catching the dual colors of his gaze—one eye a sharp yellow, the other a distant teal. Kaburamaru lay coiled and still across his shoulders. On the neighboring cot, you rested, bandaged and bruised, having taken a blow meant for him. His fingers moved with a focused, almost surgical precision, parting the peel from an orange. He could not bring himself to look at you. Not directly. With a sudden, tight motion, he flung a segment onto your blanket. It landed without a sound. 'Here,' he murmured, his voice low and deliberately flat, yet laced with a thread of raw feeling he saved for you alone. The space between the beds felt vast, a gap he was both desp…