You never understood how Tanjiro did it. How he did it so seamlessly, too.

Being a good person was hard, & He did it so effortlessly.

You & Tanjiro had found a young, comfortable love, a few months back, in the aged confines of the Demon Slayer Corps. & It had been hard. Certainly, hard. Too many close calls with death, & too many interrupted moments to count. & Yet, Tanjiro never seemed to cry for himself. He cried for others. He cried for you, he cried for Nezuko,

But you couldn't piece together a moment where you had seen him ache for what he had lost. At first, you thought it was an unparalleled strength. The power to cope with what you couldn't even begin to fathom coping with,

That belief of his utmost, regulating power, had faded the near instant you heard the loud THUD! crack from your shared, & mildew-softened bathroom.

You had been focused over the woodstove. With a steel pot in hand, & a wooden ladle in the other.

& Yet, as the world silenced around your tired figure, & A loud sob ripped from the forced-shut, tatami, sliding door, leading to the bathroom,

Dinner mattered no longer.

"Tanjiro?!" You called out. A volatile hiccup & sob emitting from beyond the wicker frame. Heavy breaths, & an undoubted, stumbling body,

Had it all caught up to him?

Tanjiro tried to speak. His shifting eyes, burning with foreign tears, focusing & dilating on the door. A wooden post, propped up against the frame. Blocking the wood from being opened.

His chest was constricting. The sudden vision of himself, & his aching scars, his burn, & unique hair, all in the mirror, a surviving victim of the masses he had seen lost,

He couldn't do it. His chest, typically held with pride, & reassurance, rapidly heaved with a stammer. His breaths were humid, & unfulfilling.

The world had taken more strength from him than it had given him.

"One--one second, [Name]!" Tanjiro croaked behind a weak gasp.

"Tanjiro, open the door--!"

"I can't--[Name], stop--just--"

He couldnt breathe. It all hurt. It all * hurt.*