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I think I might have misunderstood what the feeling I chase so much called “love” actually feels like.
Why have I realized that? Well that 's simple.
I’m in love with Inoko.
The moment I laid my eyes on her for the first time, my heart skipped a beat and my chest set on fire. Her emerald eyes shone with determination when they looked my way, she ran up to where I stood, stumbling over and pushing me down.
I love Inoko’s beautiful eyes, a gorgeous green colour threatening to blind everyone who dares stare back at them for long enough. If I could, I’d gladly go blind if it meant her staring back at mine with that same look she had whenever she was excited.
I love Inoko’s smile, especially when she smiles at me. The dimples on her cheeks and the way she shows her teeth in that wild grin of hers always makes my heart flutter and my knees go weak.
I love Inoko’s dark hair. The way it sits on her shoulders, messy and undone and sometimes even tangled up with flowers and twigs- Makes her look effortlessly beautiful and natural. I wish she would let me get closer so I could untie the knots on that messy hair of hers by running my fingers through her soft, dark blue hues of hair and let the ocean waves take me away with her.
I love when Inoko’s hands grasp onto my haori whenever we’re in a crowded space, meaning she finds comfort in my presence. When I get to hold her hand and pretend there's another meaning to “us”. Pretend there isn’t a mission making her be this way with me. Another reason for when she drags me somewhere where it can just be me and her. Another explanation as to why she so carelessly takes her make-up and kimono off with me around, seemingly without a care in the world. A reason as to why I cover my eyes when her chest is bare. It's out of respect, I tell myself, she never once said she wanted me to stare.
However, when that wicked voice calls out to me and asks me why I’m looking away, I’m forced to accept the reality I’ve been looking away from.
I hate Inosuke.
Every moment I’m forced to be in the same room as him I feel nothing but the need to puke and run away. The way he looks at me with those stupid-girl eyes whenever he isn’t hiding them beneath that mask only makes me feel anxious in anticipation for what he might be thinking about, even worse whenever he does hide his face behind that boar mask.
I hate his smile, his big-fucked-up-teeth smile. The way his teeth are crooked and his fangs stand out when he smiles make him look like a predator searching for its prey only scared him and made his disgust for the man bigger. How careless was Inosuke?
I hate his stupid, matted hair. How he never takes good care of it unless he is made to by someone else. How he complains and screams and pulls whenever somebody else that he doesn’t “trust with it” tries to comb it.
I hate the way his calloused palms stubbornly grab onto his dented Nichirin Swords despite his injuries when he goes in for the kill, and when he pulls the hair of the demon’s head he just cuts off and holds it up in the air before it fades away completely. Before I myself feel my vision fading away.
I hate how the next moment I wake up in the infirmary, injured and feeling sick, and I can’t hear Inosuke anywhere nearby. When I don’t wake up to his hands cradling my own.
The mission is over now.
I hate when I gather the strenght and willpower to make myself stand up and search for anyone that could help me ease the pain on my chest with some sleeping drugs and I find Inosuke sitting with Aoi in the kitchen table, numerous empty food plates laid on the table which obviously meant Inosuke must have had seconds and likely thirds.
I hate the way Aoi laughs and responds to Inosuke whenever he speaks proudly about his adventures or how mighty he was himself. How could she stand someone like him? Someone so horrible, disgusting, repelling, stupid…
I hate the way I see Inosuke’s bandaged up hands reach out to grab Aoi’s and squeeze them to catch her attention as he keeps on speaking about his day, the way Aoi doesn’t pull back and instead seems to fluster slightly before grabbing it back and giving it a light squeeze with a smile. He hates the way Inosuke freezes for a moment and his cheeks turn red before he squeezes hers again tighter as if he felt he was being challenged, and instead of complaining about it Aoi just giggles and tells him he’s the best at holding hands.
After that, Zenitsu just walked away and started making his way back to the room he had previously woken up in. He didn’t really want to see those two love birds holding hands and smooching next. And if Inosuke later on kissed that woman’s hand? He couldn’t care less.
So then why?
Why did the pain in my chest only greaten after witnessing the scene in the kitchen?
Why did I have to choose to lie to myself? Was it to feel better about it? How could I still be such a coward?
I knew what I felt. What I felt was unnatural. Disgusting, horrible, repelling, stupid. So why am I crying now?
I’m in love with Inosuke.
And no matter how much I thought of those words that made me doubt and hate myself, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered in the end.
Because it didn't matter what they both could have been if they were both boys. Inosuke was the forbidden fruit he wasn’t allowed to have.
And instead of confronting his own feelings and talking to someone about his terrible, terrible thoughts, he chose to pretend Inoko to be real and project those feelings that made his throat close up at the idea of telling him about them to her instead.
Stupid Zenitsu.
He knew he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up when “Inoko” pulled him aside after they had to go watch a romance play to keep an eye out for Demons and “she” asked him how it felt to be in love. It was too good to be true.
If he had just said something sooner. Forgiven himself and confessed to him. Maybe then, they could have been a real couple.
But whatever Zenitsu thought he should have done didn't matter anymore.
He had wasted his chance, thrown it away into the ocean and walked away. It only makes sense things would turn out to be this way in the end.
Maybe now Zenitsu could try to get him out of his head and find a girl to love. Someone that will make him feel normal again.
However, the dark pit in his chest would never fully go away, not when he's forced to see the couple walk around giving each other piggy back rides or looking at the stars together like the both of them used to do before. Not when Inosuke’s smile still plagued his every thought.
There is no hope of love for someone like him, he would probably die alone, wouldn’t he?
Because the only girl he could truly ever love was Inosuke in drag.