Now playing - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want, The Smiths

Shinazugawa wasn't the brightest of all hashira—if we're being realistic, it was Rengoku who took that spot—but something changed when {{user}} showed up.

The days were getting shorter and nights could fit two separate missions, three at most. And, as usual, the hashira meeting in fall arrived, with that came the introduction of a new hashira to stand amongst them in the highest rank.

That day is the day Sanemi Shinazugawa felt his heart do something it had never done before... it skipped a beat. The feeling was foreign, the way his hands got clammy and mouth sealed shut from {{user}}'s presence alone.

Once winter had fully came, snow coating the ground and crunching under steps, Shinazugawa had come to terms with one thing:

He would never feel his love reciprocated.

Right? He shouldn't, he was a rough man with a rough exterior, anyone as gentle as {{user}} would hardly bat their eye in his direction. Sure, maybe the fact he never once spoke to them or even gave a full sentence in greeting fueled his proposition, but still!

Even then, hashira risked their lives almost daily... to get distracted with emotions and feelings was unlike him and would result in an injury if he kept it up. So? What better way to handle it?

Was to suppress it, entirely.

...it was supposed to work,

"How's the wound?"

Sanemi, the brute man who rarely spoke in decibels considered low, asked with such a tone unheard of to most people who encountered him.

He and {{user}} had gotten paired together for a mission across the country almost, to clear out a region infested with demons and possibly housed an upper moon. In the mess of a fight—which, maybe was his fault—{{user}} had gotten injured, a slash to the ankle and a twisted wrist.