Momo Shirasagi /KAIGAKU PICK ME/ KNY

The afternoon sun hung low over the Butterfly Estate's training grounds, casting long golden shadows across the polished wooden walkways and carefully manicured gardens. Wisteria petals drifted lazily on a warm breeze, their faint sweetness doing little to mask the tension that crackled in the air like static before a storm.

Kaigaku stood at the center of the training courtyard, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his sharp jawline onto the worn wooden planks beneath his feet. His Nichirin blade was still extended from his last strike, the faint ozone smell of Thunder Breathing lingering in the air around him. He had been at this for hours—since before dawn, if anyone had been keeping track. No one ever did, of course. No one ever watched him the way they watched others. The thought made his grip tighten on his sword until his knuckles went white.

He didn't need an audience. He didn't want one. He was going to surpass everyone—Zenitsu, the Hashira, everyone—and he would do it alone. Just like he'd done everything else in his miserable life.

Just a little more. One more form. One more—

"Kaigaku-sama!"

The voice was high, sweet, and utterly grating—like honey poured over broken glass. Kaigaku's eye twitched. He didn't turn around. Maybe if he ignored her, she would evaporate. She never did.

Momo Shirasagi practically floated across the courtyard toward him, her chestnut hair catching the sunlight in a way that was almost certainly intentional. Her haori—a beautiful gradient of peach, decorated with scattered blossoms—billowed dramatically behind her despite the fact that there was barely any wind. She had clearly practiced this entrance. She had probably practiced it in front of a mirror. Multiple times.

She came to a stop a few feet behind him, clasping her hands behind her back in a pose she'd seen in some romantic painting somewhere and had decided to replicate. Her head tilted to the side, her large doe eyes—soft amber, with just a hint of something sharper lurking beneath—fixed on his back with an expression of adoring concern.

"I brought you some ohagi," she announced, producing a small wrapped bundle from somewhere within her haori with a flourish. "I made it myself this morning! I know you've been training so hard, and I thought you might need something sweet to keep your strength up. Not that you need it, of course! You're already so strong. The strongest. I just thought..."

She trailed off, waiting for him to acknowledge her. He didn't.

The silence stretched. Momo's smile flickered, just for a moment—a crack in the porcelain mask—before she plastered it back into place and took a step closer.

"I also heard that there's a new slayer arriving today," she continued, her voice taking on a slightly different tone. Lighter. More casual. But there was something underneath it, something coiled and watchful. "Someone from the mountains, I think? I don't know much about them. I'm sure they're... fine. Probably not very experienced, though. It must be so hard for new slayers to adjust, don't you think?"

She paused, tilting her head the other way.

"I mean, not that I would know. I was ready for this life from the start."

Kaigaku still didn't respond. His sword remained raised, his muscles coiled. He was focusing. He was definitely focusing on his training and not on the way Momo's voice made him want to punch a hole through the nearby wall.

Momo's eye twitched—a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. She was used to this. She was not used to this. When she'd first met Kaigaku, she had been drawn to his intensity, his ambition, his refusal to acknowledge anyone he deemed beneath him. It was romantic, she'd told herself. He was tortured. He was misunderstood. He just needed someone to see the real him, to love him unconditionally, to prove that she was different from all the other girls who simpered over powerful slayers.

She had decided, within three days of meeting him, that she would be the one to break through his walls. She was special. She was worthy. And the fact that he barely acknowledged her existence was simply proof that he was playing hard to get.

It was a game. And she was winning.

...She was definitely winning.

"You know," Momo said, her voice dropping to a softer, more intimate register, "I've been thinking about what you said last week. About strength being the only thing that matters? I think you're absolutely right. That's why I've been training so hard. I want to be strong enough to stand beside you someday. Not that I'm anywhere close yet, of course! I'm just a weak little girl compared to you. But I'm trying. For you."

She let the last two words hang in the air, heavy with implication.

Kaigaku finally—finally—lowered his sword. He didn't turn around. He just stood there, his back to her, his voice flat and cold when he spoke.

"Are you done?"

Momo's smile froze. "I... I just wanted to—"

"Then leave."

The words were sharp, dismissive, final. Momo's hands tightened around the ohagi bundle, her carefully constructed expression wavering for just a moment. But she recovered quickly—she always did. She was special, after all. He didn't mean it. He was just stressed. He was always stressed.

She was about to try again—she had a whole script prepared, involving a story about how she'd almost been killed by a demon yesterday and had thought of him in her final moments—when something made her stop.

Kaigaku had gone still.

Not the rigid stillness of concentration, or the coiled tension of anger. This was different. His entire body had locked up, his head tilted slightly, like a predator catching an unfamiliar scent on the wind. His blade, which had been resting at his side, was suddenly gripped tight in his hand. His knuckles went white. His breathing stopped.

Momo blinked, her carefully rehearsed pout faltering into genuine confusion. "Kaigaku-sama? What's—"

And then she heard it.

Footsteps. Steady, measured footsteps on the wooden walkway behind her, approaching the training courtyard. A figure emerged from the shadow of the estate's main building, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, and Momo's trained senses immediately began cataloging details—height, build, the way they moved, the sword at their hip, the presence they carried with them. She didn't recognize them. A new slayer, then. Probably the one she'd mentioned earlier.

Momo's eyes narrowed.

The new arrival was... not what she had expected. She had expected someone awkward, inexperienced, fumbling with their sword and looking around with wide, nervous eyes. Instead, this person moved with a quiet, understated confidence that made her skin prickle. They weren't trying to impress anyone. They weren't performing. They simply were, existing in the space with a natural ease that Momo had spent her entire life trying to fake.

A woman, Momo noted, her jealousy flaring instinctively. Or at least, someone who fit that category. She couldn't quite tell from this distance—the sun was in her eyes—but it didn't matter. What mattered was the way Kaigaku was staring at them.

Kaigaku was staring.

Not a glance. Not a dismissive once-over. A full, unblinking, completely arrested stare, as if someone had just struck him across the face and he was still processing the blow. His blade hung forgotten at his side. His mouth was slightly open. His teal eyes—usually so cold, so contemptuous—had gone wide, then narrow, then wide again, like he couldn't decide how to react.

For a long, horrible moment, no one moved.

Momo felt something cold and sharp twist in her chest.

She had known Kaigaku for months. She had followed him, brought him food, trained near him, talked at him, walked behind him, sat in his shadow, memorized the exact shape of his scowl and the precise cadence of his dismissive grunts. She had spent months trying to earn even a fraction of that look—the look of someone actually seeing her—and she had received nothing. Nothing but cold indifference and the occasional grudging tolerance.

And now this stranger—this newcomer, this nobody—had walked into the courtyard, and Kaigaku was looking at them like they had personally hung the moon in the sky.

The ohagi bundle in Momo's hands crinkled as her grip tightened. The sweet, careful expression on her face flickered—just for an instant—into something uglier. Something sharper. Something with teeth.

Who does she think she is?

The stranger continued their approach, seemingly oblivious to the effect they were having. The afternoon light caught their features, illuminating them in a way that made Momo's jaw clench. They were... striking. In a way that was impossible to ignore, in a way that made Momo's carefully curated aesthetic feel suddenly, horribly artificial.

She hated them immediately.

She hated them so much.

Kaigaku still hadn't moved. He still hadn't spoken. He was just... standing there, his training forgotten, his sword limp at his side, his eyes fixed on the newcomer with an intensity that Momo had never seen him direct at anything other than his own reflection during solo training.

When he finally did speak, his voice was rough—rougher than usual—and slightly hoarse, as if he'd forgotten how to use it.

"...Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

The words were harsh, demanding, the same aggressive tone he used with everyone. But underneath the bark, there was something else—something Momo had never heard before in his voice. Something uncertain. Something almost... vulnerable.

He was nervous.

Kaigaku was nervous.

Momo's heart dropped into her stomach like a stone.

She watched, frozen, as Kaigaku's grip on his sword tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. She watched the way his jaw worked, the way his eyes flickered over the stranger's form, cataloging—but not in the cold, judgmental way he usually did. This was something else. This was the way a starving man might look at a feast he'd been told he could never touch.

The silence stretched, heavy and charged, broken only by the distant chirping of sparrows and the soft rustle of wisteria petals in the breeze. Momo stood off to the side, utterly forgotten, her ohagi growing warm and crushed in her hands, her carefully rehearsed script crumbling to dust in her throat.

She had planned for this moment. She had prepared for it—the day a new slayer would arrive, and she would be the one to welcome them, to show them the ropes, to prove that she was the undisputed queen of this little world she had built around Kaigaku. She had planned to be gracious, condescending, effortlessly superior.

But all of that planning had not accounted for this.

The village festival was in full swing by the time the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold that bled into the deepening purple of twilight. Paper lanterns swayed from wooden posts along every street, their warm glow casting dancing shadows across the faces of the crowd that had gathered to celebrate. The air was thick with the scent of grilled skewers, sweet dumplings, and the faint, heady perfume of incense drifting from a nearby shrine. Somewhere in the distance, the steady rhythm of taiko drums pulsed like a heartbeat, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter or the high, bright chime of a wind instrument.

Kaigaku hated festivals.

He had always hated them, for as long as he could remember. They were loud, crowded, and full of people who had no idea how lucky they were—people who had homes, families, warm meals waiting for them, people who had never had to steal scraps from garbage piles just to survive another night. Festivals were a celebration of everything he had never had, and he despised them with a quiet, bitter intensity that he kept carefully locked behind his usual scowl.

And yet, here he was.

He stood at the edge of the main thoroughfare, his back pressed against a wooden pillar, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. His Demon Slayer uniform was hidden beneath a plain, dark yukata that Momo had practically begged him to wear, claiming that his usual attire would "attract too much attention" and "ruin the atmosphere." He had told her he didn't care about the atmosphere. She had ignored him, produced the yukata from somewhere, and somehow—he still wasn't sure how—he had ended up wearing it.

He was fairly certain he had been manipulated. He was also fairly certain he didn't care enough to change.

The crowd flowed past him in a constant, chattering stream, a river of color and noise that he observed with detached contempt. Couples walked arm in arm, pointing at stalls and laughing at jokes he couldn't hear. Children darted between legs, clutching candied apples and paper masks. Old men sat on benches, nursing cups of sake and complaining about the younger generation. It was all so painfully, suffocatingly normal.

Kaigaku's jaw tightened.

What am I even doing here?

He knew exactly what he was doing here, of course. He was here because Momo Hakuchō had asked him—no, told him—that he was coming to the festival with her, and he had been too tired to argue. That was the excuse he had given himself, anyway. The truth was more complicated, and he didn't care to examine it too closely.

Speaking of Momo...

"Kaigaku-sama! Kaigaku-sama, look! They have peach mochi!"

The voice cut through the festival noise like a blade through silk, high and sweet and utterly impossible to ignore. Kaigaku's eye twitched. He turned his head just enough to see Momo weaving through the crowd toward him, her peach-pink hair bouncing with each step, her swan-and-blossom haori fluttering behind her like some kind of theatrical cape. She was holding up a small paper bag with both hands, her amber eyes sparkling with an enthusiasm that bordered on manic.

"I got some for you!" she announced, coming to a stop far too close to him. "I know you said you don't like sweets, but these are really good, I promise! The vendor said they're made with real peaches from the mountains, and I thought—well, I thought of you, because you're from the mountains, and—"

She cut herself off with a giggle, pressing the bag into his personal space. "Just try one. Please? For me?"

Kaigaku stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, very slowly, he reached out and took the bag. Not because he wanted the mochi. Not because he was hungry. But because if he didn't, Momo would keep talking, and he would have to listen to her voice for even longer than he already had.

Momo beamed, her entire face lighting up with triumph. "See? I knew you'd—"

"You're blocking my view," Kaigaku said flatly.

Momo's smile faltered for just an instant before snapping back into place. "Oh! Sorry, I just—I wanted to make sure you got them while they were still warm. I ran all the way across the festival to find you! It was so crowded, you wouldn't believe it. I almost got knocked over by a man carrying a whole crate of fish, and then—"

Kaigaku tuned her out.

He had become very good at tuning her out over the past few months. It was a survival skill, like knowing which demons could regenerate and which ones couldn't, or how to tell when someone was about to stab you in the back. Momo's voice was a constant, droning presence in his life now—a background noise that he had learned to ignore, like the buzz of cicadas in summer or the distant rumble of thunder.

It was almost impressive, really. The way she never seemed to run out of things to say. The way she always found a reason to be near him, always appeared at his elbow, always looked at him with those big, adoring eyes that made his skin crawl and something else—something he refused to name—stir in his chest.

He didn't like it.

He didn't like her.

...Mostly.

The festival continued around them, a cacophony of light and sound that Kaigaku observed with a detached sort of resentment. He watched a group of children run past, their paper lanterns swinging wildly. He watched a young couple share a stick of dango, their faces flushed with embarrassment and joy. He watched an old woman sell fortunes from a small wooden booth, her wrinkled hands shuffling cards with practiced ease.

And then he saw them.

Kaigaku didn't know what drew his attention first—the way they moved through the crowd, or the quiet confidence in their posture, or the simple fact that they seemed completely, utterly unbothered by the chaos around them. They stood near a stall selling hanging lanterns, examining the delicate paper designs with an expression of calm interest, and there was something about them—something different—that made Kaigaku's breath catch in his throat.

They weren't performing. They weren't trying to be seen. They were just... there. Present. Real. In a way that made everyone else around them look like painted dolls going through the motions of a script they'd been handed at birth.

Kaigaku's arms uncrossed slowly, his hands falling to his sides.

He didn't realize he had taken a step forward until Momo's voice cut through the fog in his brain.

"Kaigaku-sama? What are you looking at?"

Her voice was still sweet, still bright, but there was an edge to it now—a sharp, watchful note that Kaigaku recognized but didn't have the capacity to address. He was still staring. He couldn't stop. The person at the lantern stall had turned slightly, their profile catching the warm glow of the paper lights, and something in Kaigaku's chest tightened.

He had never seen them before.

He was certain of it. He would have remembered. He would have remembered the way they held themselves, the way the lantern light played across their features, the way they seemed to exist in a pocket of stillness while the rest of the world blurred past them like water around a stone.

Who are they?

The question burned in his mind, demanding an answer he didn't have.

Momo was still talking—something about the mochi getting cold, or the crowd getting thicker, or some other triviality that Kaigaku couldn't bring himself to care about. He heard her voice as if from a great distance, muffled and unimportant, like the sound of rain on a window when you're warm and safe inside.

He was still staring.

Create your own scenario!