[center][color=red][sup][h1][b]Jae-eun Yoshihide[/b][/h1][/sup][/color][img]https://i.imgur.com/MUw7E9R.png[/img]

[b][sup][color=red]Location:[/color] [color=white]Demon Slayer Corps[/color]
[color=red]Mentions:[/color] [/sup][/b][/center][hr]Jae-eun sat with his hands folded in his lap, posture perfect, face pleasant. But something about the stillness was wrong. Too rigid. Too controlled. Like ice stretched thin over water that was much too deep and much too cold.

Kenzo was dead. Ryunosuke was captured. Guen, fucking Guen, who had dragged innocent blood across Tokyo's streets like a petulant child throwing a tantrum—was now claiming she'd "turn herself in" after two weeks of radio silence and corpses. The letter in his hand felt like an insult wrapped in paper. [i]Take care of my Tsuguko.[/i] As if he were her errand boy. As if she had any right to make requests after what she'd done.

His jaw tightened imperceptibly.

The Corps was rotting from the inside. Takaya was brilliant, yes, but he was fifteen years old and already carrying the weight of an organization that couldn't stop hemorrhaging bodies and bad decisions. Miyuki was grieving. Himari was struggling under the shadow of her brother's death. And now they had Dalnim Suga sneering at everyone in the room like he'd earned the privilege.

"You survived after that onslaught," Suga said, smirking at Hinotora. "I'm here for something else and yet all I see are weak women and feminine men. Kousai is the only real man!"

Something in Jae-eun's chest snapped. His Tsugoku, his student, his legacy, insulted. Jae-eun's head turned slowly, his smile sharpening into something that could cut glass. When he spoke, the words came out in flawless Korean, each syllable precise and cold as winter steel. [color=red]"A dog that enters its host's home and barks rudely gets its throat cut, Suga-ssi. If you're a real man, perhaps you should learn manners first?"[/color] His tone remained perfectly pleasant, but the venom underneath was unmistakable. He tilted his head, smile widening just a fraction. [color=red]"Or will you keep barking? It's instinct for dogs to bark at the things that scare them, no?"[/color]

Takaya's intervention was a mercy Jae-eun didn't particularly want. He'd been perfectly content to continue dissecting Suga's character in two languages, but orders were orders.

He turned his attention to Akira Yamazaki before Suga could respond. Guen's Tsuguko, her inheritor, the one left to carry water for a rogue Hashira's legacy. The young slayer stood with an androgynous grace that made gender irrelevant, features delicate but posture suggesting coiled steel beneath the surface. Jae-eun studied them with the clinical detachment of someone appraising a tool they might need to use later. Another piece of baggage he was expected to carry.

[color=red]"Yamazaki-san."[/color] His greeting was clipped, perfunctory, barely more than an acknowledgment of their existence. No warmth. No welcome. Just a name spoken into the void between them. [color=red]"Follow my instructions, don't do anything reckless, and we might get along."[/color] There was no offer of mentorship. No reassurance. Just cold efficiency wrapped in the shell of someone who used to care about such things.

When Gin introduced themselves with that poem, that playful jest about being two weeks old, Jae-eun's response was equally brief. [color=red]"Gin-san."[/color] A nod, the greeting equally brief. [color=red]"Welcome. I'm sure you'll find working with us very... educational."[/color]

Inside, something bitter coiled in his chest. Muragarasu's words echoed in his mind, unwelcome and persistent: [i]"Love is both sanctimonious and sacrilegious, it is a seed, nascent and unmolded until a practiced hand gives it shape."[/i]

His love for the Corps, for his duty, for the people he was supposed to protect, it was curdling into something else. Something possessive and resentful and tired. Dragon Breathing had always been about holding too tightly, about refusing to let go even when it hurt. But what happened when there was nothing left worth holding onto?

He sat in silence, waiting for the meeting to continue, and wondered distantly if anyone else could see how thin his mask had become. The pleasant mask was still there, technically, but it had become something sharper. Something that didn't bother to hide the exhaustion and contempt simmering underneath. Two weeks ago at the onsen, he'd been tired. Now, he wasn't sure if he was pretending that any of this still mattered.