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He had always been fascinated with winter.
From the moment he was old enough to think, he remembered the first time a snowflake landed upon his fingers tips as a child, the perfect patterned shape it took before it disappeared into a drop of water. It had been a perfect winter day with an overcast sky and the snowflakes fluttering around as they created a world of white, grey and black. The trees looked liked dark hands reaching from within the sleeping earth as they continued to reach for the sky even if they were naked of their leaves.
His parents had tried to play in the snow with him but he had been trying to find more perfect snowflakes instead.
Sometimes he wanted to make the perfect one; out of snow, out of paper, out of his mother's favorite sheets, out of white paint he slathered on the murals of the cult's religious figures. He had believed at the time that if he could make snowflakes maybe he could make the inside cold and vacant like his mind. Of course when he became older such an idea was left to die like many other misconceptions in his time as a small one.
Up until his parents died, he didn't think much about these lambs they had gathered before him. They expected a shepherd from this child who couldn't even feel even a shred of sympathy. It was almost laughable if he were able to feel any mirth for the situation. Once his mother and father died though and he found himself all alone to lead this flock of pitiful sheep, he found himself...lost.
There was no direction, nothing to keep him entertained and no one to tell him how to lead.
Until he found his passion in studying these pitiful lambs around him. Studied their many expressions from the minor to major, finding the little quirks and the small gestures they made so fascinating. Each emotion they showed was so unique he almost wished he could understand how they felt. What it would be like to have a reaction fueled by feelings instead of just acting them out to satisfy the audience.
It was almost like the snowflakes he wanted to fill the temple with as a child.
When Muzan came to him and turned him, it incited his epiphany; where his emotions should be he had room to create a paradise inside him where everyone was together. The void inside him could be filled with these people, with no heaven or earth to go to. It was better they all died within him like this, where there's no more pain, no more suffering. Just a nice, cold empty place to reside in his own body.
Not even those considered lovers were spared by this being as cold as the winter nights.
Yet with all he gained in only 85 years of living, eating disciples and rising in the demon ranks, there was still an emptiness that he couldn't fill. It felt as endless as a night sky. No matter how far it stretched out there was no way to reach the end of it.
"Douma-sama?"
He was drawn out of his life's memories by the sweetest, warmest voice he ever had the interest to hear. He blinked his rainbow eyes as he turned to the owner; a beautiful young woman with her baby nestled to her breast. Her hair reminded him of an ebony waterfall, her soft green eyes of grass sprouting from the earth once the winter had ended.
He smiled at her as he flicked open his fan, "Hello Kotoha-san. It's a beautiful spring evening is it not?'
Spring always came after winter. It melted away that blankets of snow and gave way for the colors of beautiful spring to arise as the sun grew warmer. He remembered being at a loss when the snow melted with all the snowflakes. How could he have filled the temple with snow flakes, was something he had wondered when spring foiled his plans.
It just wasn't as fascinating...until Kotoha came into his life.
She smiled at him as she caressed Inosuke's head, the baby asleep and drooling, "I love when spring comes. The flowers always make me smile when they grow and bloom. I used to live near so many meadows when I was a little one-"
He watched her speak with a softer smile plastered on his face and eyes half lidded. He watched the way the soft moon light reflected off her pretty face, the soft red lips darkening and almost creating a small halo around her head. If he had wished he would have made her a goddess of the cult right then and there with how she laughed softly to herself when she spoke.
"-and the rabbits would let me chase them. I can still remember how soft the grass was on my bare feet."
You are such a cute lamb. The cutest I ever had in my flock.
The baby opened his little green eyes and looked up at Douma before yawning and moving closer to his mother to settle back down.
Subconsciously his eyes soften as he gently reached out his fingers to gently touch the baby's hair as his mother filled the silence with her sweet voice and kind laughter as she recalled her times as an energetic child. They made him...forget a moment that his expressions were masks to hide the emptiness inside. He could forget that they came from years of practice and not naturally like they would a baby.
It was easier to pretend with Kotoha and Inosuke.
"Hmmm...I prefer winter myself, actually," Douma hummed as the baby held his hand and he beamed, "It's always so quiet and pristine as everything is asleep and the sky gives us the most lovely pristine patterns of ice," he sighed softly even as Kotoha looked a bit confused, before he reached up towards one of the flower bushes beside him and picked a beautiful pink tsubaki flower, turning to Kotoha to gently slip into her hair, "However...I think I can learn to also enjoy spring time...as long as you are there beside me for each spring."
The blush on her face makes his smile grow small before he turned his face away. His body was...warm. For the first time it felt quite warm around this woman he enjoyed and he couldn't understand why. He's been warmed by arousal before when he took past lovers to bed, he has felt the hear of flames on his skin.
He has felt many physical things that sometimes replaced his missing emotions with hose strongly they affect him...yet this was a different physical reaction. This warmth went through his whole body like the sun was warming it despite it having set a long while ago. He slowly moved his hand from Inosuke's grip to her hand and lightly intertwined their fingers.
"...I hope to be there for every spring with you too Douma-dono."
...
The void inside him returns with a vengeance as he quietly moved through the forest and sniffed the air.
Blood from his meals this evening was splattered on his mouth and his clothes as he moved barefoot across the autumn ground. The sky had clouds rolling in as the leaves were still changing their colors in the night, and the frost was just starting to form on the grass. His ears twitched when he can hear her running footsteps ahead.
He had worked so hard to make their lived better. He gave her his time, his ear to listen, his should to cry on and all she had to do was turn a blind eye so he could continue being that for her. They could be a family, be together and raise Inosuke together. It didn't matter he felt nothing because she felt enough for both of them and he found himself entertaining the idea in his head for months.
The tears dripped down his face as he kept his calm, steady pace after her. Even with how far ahead she has gotten he can hear her heartbeat racing alongside the soft one of her baby's.
What a stupid, foolish lamb. All the planning he made, all the time he spent on her wasted because she refused to accept him at his worst.
"Kotoha..." he called, his face blank as a sheet of ice as the air became colder around him. The tears froze on his cheeks as he heard the river up ahead, "you should have just listened..."
He sent his fan flying forwards ahead of him and by the time he heard her cry of paid he soon passed through trees to the clearing of the cliff. There she was curled up with her eyes and mouth open in fear and shock. Blood dripped down her chin as she struggled to look over the cliff before he stood over.
Douma looked down into the water below, blinking slowly before he sighed and shook his head, "Poor thing...I should have known you were too good to last in this world..."
He gripped the back of her head to lift her off the ground by her hair, watching as her eyes were starting to slowly dull as her mutilated body hangs limp from the damage of his fan. When she looked up into his face she can see the blank look as fresh tears drip on to her face. For a moment he gently brushed her hair back from her face behind her ear as his brow furrow a moment.
"...I just wanted us to be a family," He whispered, "..Instead...you do this. You should have just played along and pretended you saw nothing...why why didn't you just do that you stupid, pitiful lamb?...sweet, stupid, beautiful, pitiful lamb..."
Kotoha couldn't answer. More blood just gurgled from her mouth as she closed her eyes and coughed harder her body shaking, "Ulk...ghrk...mmmnnngh..."
"..." The dulled, blank expression on his face was frightening as he slowly pulled her very close to his body even as she weakly tried to pull away, "..It's okay now...no more suffering...no more pain...you shouldn't have thrown your baby to his death...or he'd be joining you in paradise now...you're going to fill that void inside me, where the others are...wouldn't you like that?"
His embrace was so cold...why did she have to be so stupid...? Her lower lip started to wobble and she closed her tear filled eyes.
Please...survive Inosuke...I'm so sorry...
He felt nothing even as he finished swallowing her into his body. He felt completely numb as he picked up his fan slowly and opened it while her blood glistened right off it. He looked down into the river as his rainbow eyes glow.
When the fan moves across his face, it's like it morphed back into his usual staged smile, although his rainbow eyes dulled. He sighed before turning away to return to his temple where his followers sleep, oblivious to the murderous, emotionless monster that lives within the walls with them.
Perhaps...the next time he thinks of trying to take on a family, he would need to be more careful.
Especially if he grew attached to them.