She was a girl. Twelve years old, maybe. Small, with straight black hair, and a little face with features so delicate they looked like they had been painted with a fine brush.
She wore a red yukata patterned with flowers, covered by a sleeveless haori of a purple so dark it looked black under the moon. A strip of pale brown cloth cinched her waist as a sash, and on her head, tilted as if she had put it on carelessly, rested a smiling fox mask. It was a little big for her. It sat slightly crooked, and the two little blue flowers decorating it gave her a mischievous air.
Because beneath that mask, two large eyes of a transparent cyan were watching him with something that wasn't exactly fear, but was very close to it.
Shyness.
'Finally!'
A fleeting gleam crossed Marcus's eyes.
"How do you know?"
The girl extended a small finger and pointed at the sword on his waist.
"There's still a little demon smell left on it... It didn't have that before."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"So you've been watching me this whole time."
"..."
Makomo pressed her lips together without saying anything.
Taking a few steps toward her, Marcus stopped about three meters away.
"I called out to you two many times this past year, but you never paid me any attention..." He tilted his head, and a playful smile spread across his face. "Why did you decide to show yourself today? Did I have to kill a demon first to earn your approval?"
Somewhat self conscious under his gaze, Makomo lowered her head and started twisting the corner of her clothing between her fingers.
A faint blush crept up her cheeks.
"Actually... I was pretty curious about you too..." She murmured in a very quiet voice, almost swallowed by the silence of the mountain. "But Sabito wouldn't let me... He said you looked... inappropriate..."
"Makomo... so this is how you betray me..."
The moment she finished speaking, a youthful voice echoed from the top of the large boulder.
"Ah!"
Makomo flinched and ducked her head even lower, the tips of her ears lighting up red.
"I... I was just telling the truth..."
At the top of the boulder, the air distorted, and from that ripple, another silhouette appeared.
It was a boy who looked somewhat older than Makomo. Short hair in a peach tone, and over his face, a fox mask marked with a scar that crossed his cheek.
But not even the mask could hide the look he was giving Makomo. One of those looks that say "I can't believe you did that" and "but I can't really be mad at you either" at the same time.
Sabito.
The gleam in Marcus's eyes intensified. He looked at one and then the other, savoring the moment.
Makomo, perhaps seeking to escape the embarrassment of being exposed, turned back toward Marcus. And when she opened her mouth, the questions came pouring out in a cascade.
"Um... Marcus-kun, I really am so curious. How did you know we existed? Not even the master knows we can manifest like this..."
"And your sword!" She took a half step forward, momentarily forgetting her shyness. "It looks like a normal sword, but we can sense that on the inside it's... empty. As if there were some kind of space in there. It's strange..."
"And also..." Her voice dropped a tone. "What's going on with that breathing technique of yours? It's pink, which is already weird, but when you use it, I feel like... I want to get a little closer to you..."
The last words were barely audible, and her eyes fled to anywhere that wasn't Marcus's face.
"Makomo!"
Sabito, who until then had limited himself to watching from the boulder with his arms crossed, couldn't take it anymore.
"What are you doing lowering yourself like that? You're his senpai! Act like it!"
!
However, Makomo instantly turned toward him with a murderous look. But it lasted barely a second, because she immediately turned back around toward Marcus, shooting him a cautious glance, like someone peering over the edge of a cliff.
And what she saw was the moonlight washing over his face. Falling right on a suggestive smile that curved the corner of his lips.
Makomo's heart went wild, if she even still had one, and she ducked her head again, gripped by a sweet panic she didn't know how to handle.
Behind her, Sabito rolled his eyes.
He didn't understand it. Makomo was normally the more composed of the two. Balanced, quiet, hard to rattle. But the moment this guy appeared in the clearing, she transformed into a trembling mess incapable of completing a sentence without blushing.
It was irritating to watch.
Marcus, for his part, observed her with that smile that wouldn't leave his face.
Because now he knew for certain.
Before tonight he had only had suspicions. But after seeing Makomo's reaction, the evidence was irrefutable: the affinity bonus of his Breath of Desire didn't distinguish between flesh and spirit.
It worked on humans, demons, and even on souls.
And judging by how she was acting, the nervousness, the blushing, the way her eyes kept drifting back to him over and over like moths drawn to a flame, the most likely explanation was that she had been watching him for months.
Every day he spent carving the boulder, every training session, every afternoon sitting in this clearing calling out to them without getting a response... she had been there.
'Interesting...'
He had spent weeks planning how to coax these two out of hiding. How to earn Makomo's trust and convince her to voluntarily enter his sword.
And now it turned out half the work was already done.
Things were going to be much simpler than expected.
He just needed to fan the flame a little more.
"You're curious?"
Makomo nodded without hesitation, and behind her, Sabito didn't nod, but the way he tilted his head slightly forward gave him away.
He wanted to know too.
Because unlike Tanjiro, who was an open book, Marcus was something else. Opaque. Unpredictable.
Too strange...
Then Marcus tilted his head.
"I'm not going to tell you."
!
Makomo froze.
Her mouth fell open and her eyes, already big to begin with, grew even wider.
All the bravery she had gathered over months to take this step, all the courage it took her to show herself for the first time... and that was the answer.
A "no."
Sabito, beside her, was also struck speechless. He hadn't remotely expected that.
"Do you want to know?"
Marcus savored the words as if they were candy.
"Tomorrow. Wait for me here and then I'll tell you everything."
"..."
Confusion crossed Makomo's face, then something like disappointment, and finally a mix of both that tinged her voice when she finally managed to speak.
"...Wh... why?"
She had waited an entire year...
Marcus saw the disappointment in those eyes and instead of giving in, he winked at her. At her and at the still bewildered Sabito.
"You two watched me talk to myself for a year."
"And now that you're the curious ones, you can't wait a single day?"
And before either of them found an answer, he turned around and started walking down the mountain.
His silhouette kept shrinking between the trees until the shadows of the forest swallowed him whole.
The clearing fell silent again.
"..."
Makomo stayed still, staring at the exact spot where Marcus had disappeared.
He didn't come back...
Makomo puffed up her cheeks, transforming her face into an expression of contained indignation.
And then she vanished. Without another word.
Sabito was left alone on the boulder.
He looked at the empty trail. He looked at the spot where Makomo had just been. And sighed with exhaustion.
"I told you... that guy has no shame."
The next second, his silhouette began to fade too.
....
The next day, when the sun finished sinking behind the mountains and darkness reclaimed the forest, Marcus waited for Tanjiro to go rest.
Then he went up.
He planted himself next to the giant boulder, cleared his throat, and spoke into the nothingness with complete nonchalance.
"Come out."
"..."
"...Makomo? Sabito?"
"..."
Only the song of the last birds returning to their nests.
Nothing else.
Marcus waited. He mentally counted to ten. Generous. Giving them the benefit of the doubt.
But nobody appeared.
"Alright. If you don't come out, I'm leaving."
And right after, he turned around and started walking toward the downhill trail with the same casualness he had arrived with.
One step... Two... Three...
The darkness of the forest closed in around him. The trees started swallowing his silhouette.
A couple more steps and he would vanish into the shadows.
"Hey!"
But a shout reached him from behind. Annoyed.
"Don't... don't go!"
Marcus stopped, and where nobody could see him, the corner of his lips curved upward.
'Too easy.'
He took his time. Savored the moment. And then he turned around.
There she was.
In the dim light of the clearing, with the fox mask tilted on her head and her lips pursed in a pout that was fighting to look angry.
________
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