The mountain was a creature of silence and snow. Each step Tanjuro Kamado took sank deep into the white blanket, the only sound the soft crunch beneath his sandals and the whisper of the wind through the skeletal trees. His breath plumed in the icy air, a steady rhythm against the immense quiet. He was returning from a distant village, his pack lighter, his heart heavier with the weariness of a long journey.
It was a scent that made him pause.
Not the clean, sharp scent of pine or the frozen purity of the air. This was something metallic. Thin. Coppery.
Blood.
His pace quickened, his weariness forgotten. The scent led him off the path, into a thicket where the snow was less trampled. And there, half-buried in a drift, was a small shape.
A child.
A boy, no older than five or six. His clothes were little more than rags, torn and stained with old, brownish blood. His skin was pale as the snow around him, save for the dark, frightening blush of frostbite on his cheeks and fingertips. But it was the boy's hair that caught Tanjuro's eye—a shock of wild, spiky black hair, and beneath a dusting of snowflakes, the most striking feature of all: his eyes.
They were open, wide and unblinking, the color of frozen lake water—a pale, icy blue. But they held no tears, no fear, no plea. They were empty. Hollowed out by a trauma too vast for his small frame to hold.
Tanjuro knelt, his own breath catching. "Hello there," he said, his voice low and gentle, a warm murmur in the cold silence.
The boy didn't flinch. Didn't move. He simply stared, a tiny statue in the snow.
Carefully, Tanjuro brushed the snow from the boy's small body. He was freezing, his pulse a faint, frantic flutter under cold skin. Without another thought, Tanjuro unwrapped his own haori, the thick fabric warmed by his body, and bundled the boy inside, swaddling him tightly against his chest.
The boy offered no resistance. He was as limp as a doll, his icy eyes fixed on some point far away.
"Let's get you warm," Tanjuro murmured, holding the small bundle close as he turned and began the trek back home, his steps now urgent.
The warmth of the Kamado hearth seemed to blaze twice as bright when Tanjuro shouldered the door open. The rich, savory smell of stew filled the air.
"Father! You're back!" Tanjiro, ever energetic, bounded towards him, his smile wide. Then he stopped, his red eyes going wide. "Who's that?"
Kie Kamado turned from the pot, her gentle eyes filled with immediate concern. She rushed over, her hands already reaching out. "Tanjuro? What happened?"
"He was in the snow," Tanjuro said, his voice tight with worry as he laid the boy gently by the irori. "Half-frozen. He hasn't spoken a word."
Nezuko, clutching her little brother Rokuta, peeked out from behind her mother's legs, her pink eyes curious and soft.
The family gathered around the silent boy. Kie brought warm broth, holding a spoon to his lips. He didn't open his mouth. Tanjiro brought a blanket, draping it over his small shoulders. The boy didn't seem to notice. He just sat, staring into the fire, his ice-blue eyes reflecting the flames but showing no sign of feeling their warmth.
"He's like a little ghost," Takeo whispered.
"He's cold," Nezuko said, her voice small and sure. She wriggled out from behind Kie and sat right next to the boy, leaning her small, warm body against his cold one. She didn't say anything else. She just stayed there, a silent offer of comfort.
Hours passed. The boy was cleaned, dressed in some of Tanjiro's old clothes, and sat persistently by the warmth. Still, he was silent.
As night fell and the younger children were put to bed, Tanjuro and Kie watched him.
"We cannot send him back out there," Kie said softly, her hand on her husband's arm. "He has nowhere to go."
"Of course not," Tanjuro said. His gaze was on the boy, on the vacant eyes that had yet to shed a single tear. "He needs a family."
It was Tanjiro who approached him last. He sat facing the boy, holding out his hand. In his palm was a small, carved wooden fox, one of his few treasures.
"My name's Tanjiro," he said, his voice earnest and kind. "This is for you."
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, with a slowness that was agonizing, the boy's eyes shifted from the fire to the toy. His gaze, empty for so long, seemed to focus for a fraction of a second on the small, polished shape.
He didn't take it. But he looked.
It was the first reaction he had shown all night.
A profound silence settled over the household, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Tanjuro and Kie exchanged a look of quiet understanding. Tanjiro smiled, a bright, hopeful thing in the dim light.
Nezuko, already half-asleep on her futon, murmured, "He's home now."
Outside, the wind howled. But inside, surrounded by a warmth he couldn't yet feel, the boy with ice-blue eyes and a heart frozen shut had found a harbor. The first, fragile thread of a new bond had been spun in the quiet of the mountain night. They would call him Shoyo. And he would be theirs.