The fire in the hearth burned brightly, and the wood crackled from time to time.
Soma stood by the window, watching the snow fall thickly outside. Makomo stayed by the hearth, quietly gazing at the flames.
The room was silent.
So silent it was almost frightening.
Finally, after who knew how long, Makomo turned her head and looked at Soma. Her lively eyes were filled with complexity now, holding too many emotions that she wanted to express.
Soma closed the window, shutting out the wind and snow outside. Holding the tea Nezuko had just brewed, he walked over to Makomo's side.
The girl lowered her head slightly.
In the end, she still could not say it aloud.
Just like during these past few days, there had been several times when they met, and each time she had told herself that she would demand the truth. Yet in the end, she had never had the courage to say it.
Because she was afraid of that cruel truth.
"You came because you have something to say to me, right?"
Soma looked at the visibly thinner Makomo and finally asked first.
Some things would still exist no matter how long they were delayed.
"Are you really a demon?"
After a long silence, Makomo finally spoke.
At this moment, the girl's voice sounded hoarse. As she spoke, she raised her head and stared at Soma.
"Just as you heard from others." Soma answered.
"What I heard from others… I will not believe that. I only want to hear it from you." Makomo looked at Soma seriously.
She had not seen it with her own eyes, so she did not believe those things.
If Soma answered that he was not a demon, then she would believe him.
Deep inside, she also hoped that Soma would answer that he was not a demon.
Even if it was a lie, Makomo was willing to believe it was true.
"Yes. I am a demon."
He openly admitted his identity as a demon.
He could tell that Makomo probably wanted him to lie and deceive her, but there was no need.
The truth was there.
A lie was still a lie.
No matter how much Makomo tried to deceive herself, she would never truly be able to deceive her own heart. It would only become a thorn buried deep within her.
Hearing this answer, Makomo's small face instantly turned pale. Her petite body even swayed slightly.
She truly did not want to believe this truth.
It felt as though someone had violently wrenched her heart out—painful, so painfully sharp.
She had never imagined that the person she liked could be a demon, one of the very creatures she hated most. She could not even begin to picture the unforgivable things he had done.
At this moment, the sky itself seemed to have been covered in a dull gray haze. Everything turned dim and bleak.
For Makomo, life had been bleak since childhood.
She had no parents and no relatives. It was Sakonji Urokodaki who had taken her in and brought her to Mount Sagiri. There, she met many kind and admirable fellow disciples, as well as Sabito, who was like a younger brother to her.
Her teacher, Sakonji Urokodaki, taught them earnestly. Everyone studied seriously, working hard to become demon slayer and eradicate demons. The older disciples looked after her like family, and Sabito had almost become like a little brother to her.
For the first time, she, who had always been alone, had a home.
That period of time was the most beautiful ray of light in her childhood.
But after they took part in the Final Selection on Mount Fujikasane, her fellow disciples—including the older ones and even Sabito—left one by one with their packs on their backs.
In the end, only lonely letters remained.
The once-lively Mount Sagiri grew colder and quieter, until only she and Urokodaki-sensei were left.
The happiness she had once possessed was lost little by little.
Just like Mount Sagiri, which gradually became deserted.
Until Soma arrived with the Kamado family.
The cold, empty Mount Sagiri suddenly came alive again. She still remembered the first time she saw Soma—nothing particularly special, only that he was very tall and broad-shouldered.
But as they spent more time together and traveled to Final Selection side by side, his warmth had quietly seeped into her like a gentle light.
Without realizing it…
Little by little, warmth and color returned to her life.
Like many girls in the bloom of youth, she had begun to feel a vague, innocent fondness for someone of the opposite sex.
She had even—
always felt that he was a ray of light in her life.
Especially after her most respected Urokodaki-sensei passed away, the person she cared about most, the person most precious to her in this world, was the one before her eyes.
But now,
reality was telling her that the person she had once liked, admired, and cared for was a demon.
A cruel demon who had once killed heroic swordsmen like Hiroshi Furukawa and the others.
If she could, Makomo would rather never have met him at all. Perhaps she would have died on Mount Fujikasane at the hands of the Hand Demon, filled only with hatred, but even that would have been better than what she felt now.
If she could, Makomo wished she had never seen him.
Her hand unconsciously pressed against her heart.
Her heart was still beating, but it hurt—so much it hurt. A suffocating, agonizing pain.
At this moment, Makomo wanted so badly to hide away. She truly did not want to face any of this.
She really did not have the courage to face it.
"Why are you a demon?!"
Her furious voice came out almost as a sob.
Soma was silent.
He picked up a piece of firewood and tossed it into the hearth.
As the wood was thrown in, the flames burned even brighter. He glanced at Makomo and saw the tears streaming down her delicate face. He wanted to reach out and wipe them away, but his hand stopped.
He looked at her eyes, filled with resentment and yet also carrying a dazed emptiness.
He looked at how clearly she had grown thinner.
He looked at her pale face.
Suddenly, Soma felt as though his own heart had been clenched as well.
Perhaps he had always told himself not to hold expectations of others, and not to care about what others thought of him. Just as in the beginning, he had watched the Demon Slayer Corps swordsmen fight demons with indifference, not caring about their deaths, not caring at all that those people disappeared.
But when someone's connection to him gradually deepened, when someone admired and respected him more and more, when more and more people formed deeper bonds with him—
Yet seeing her like this made his chest ache unbearably.
If Makomo had truly believed he was a demon and shouted for others to strike him down, perhaps he would have felt a faint disappointment, but it would not have mattered much.
Yet the way she looked now made his heart ache.
He did not want to see her so heartbroken, so sorrowful, so pained. He hoped she would not care about these things, would not take them to heart.
But…
that was not very possible.
She had already placed her heart in his hands.
And he had taken the heart she placed in him and crushed it tightly, hurting her terribly.
That had certainly not been what he intended.
But now, he was indeed hurting the heart she had entrusted to him.
He wanted to say something in his defense, but in the end, he could not say anything.
After hesitating briefly, he only silently reached out and wiped the tears from the corners of Makomo's eyes.
But it would have been better if he had not wiped them at all.
The moment he did,
the tears in the girl's eyes became impossible to stop, flowing more and more.
"Don't cry anymore, all right?"
He spoke gently.
"I don't want to cry either… but why are you a demon?"
"Why…?"