PROMPT 1: ok i heard you were asking for fic requests so! this is silly but like... modern highschool au where tanjiro is failing a subject and zenitsu offers to tutor him...

Tanjirou thinks he's doing all right, all things considered.

He wakes up at five o'clock on the dot before the sun has even peeked over the horizon. The first thing to do is fish out the chicken wings that he left defrosting in the sink last night. Boiling a pot of water and splitting spices, he finds himself lost in cooking. Only the click of plastic lids shutting tight on six different lunch boxes of varying colours and sizes accompany the running footsteps of his waking brothers and sisters upstairs.

Then he has to take Rokuta to a daycare while Nezuko helps with getting Takeo, Hanako, and Shigeru ready for the bus fast enough to drop them off at their respective elementary and middle schools. By then, it's seven-thirty. Tanjirou barely has time to throw his books in a bag and struggle with his own uniform as he races out of the house. Classes are the same as always, with Inosuke snoring in one ear and Zenitsu silently lamenting their doom on tomorrow's quiz in another.

At lunch, he helps Murata hang up posters. The poor guy had a habit of getting stuck with jobs and Tanjirou just can't find it in himself to not lend a hand. He ends up not eating, not until he's already home and emptying out the laundry baskets while starting on dinner as a strip of ham hangs from his teeth. That's around the time when Nezuko returns with everyone else. It's his cue to strap on an apron and leave her with washing the dishes and finishing dinner.

His part-time job at a local fast-food joint is taxing but rewarding. Mopping the floor and cleaning the toilets aside, the recurring clients know Tanjirou by name and always give him a nice tip. Where there's a lull in customers is when he can sneak a bite from his unfinished lunch box. He returns at the dead of night to an envelope of cash sent in the mailbox and a yawn lodged in his throat.

Of course, he makes sure to greet his family with a nice, warm, and gentle hug as they all wish him good night while showing off this drawing or that test they did in school that day. Showering, brushing his teeth, and crashing at the bottom bunk bed that he shared with Takeo, there's just enough time to get in a solid seven hours of sleep as recommended for his age.

So yes; all things considered, Tanjirou thinks he's doing okay.

Until he realized, sitting in an office in front of Professor Tengen and with an evaluation marked with red scribbles, he had forgotten one crucial thing in his routine.

"You're failing my class." The man says it like it is, "very abhorrently."

"I'm sorry. I have no excuse." He does have reasons, but an excuse? It was non-existent.

"You have until the next test to turn this around or else I'd have to start contacting your parents. Curriculum rules, kid, not mine."

And no- that was absolutely the last thing that Tanjirou wanted to happen. Straightening himself, he looks his teacher in the eye with complete seriousness. "Yes, Tengen-sensei. I understand and will do better!"

The problem was, Tanjirou never really understood math. Like at all.

He still cracks down on his textbooks whenever he can anyway. Maybe he has to cut into his sleeping time here and there, sacrifice the portions he makes at breakfast so then he gets those extra ten minutes to take notes, even opt out of eating in between breaks at his job in exchange for last-minute homework problems. These are small things, Tanjirou keeps telling himself.

Yet one lunch break, while in the middle of carrying cases of clarinets to the music hall, his vision blurs and feet give out from under him like a carpet being pulled. He's on the ground with a searing headache before he knows it, and all he can register before he loses consciousness is a blur of yellow in his peripheral.

"Tanjirou-!"

He wakes up in a burrito of blankets. Nurse Shinobu takes his temperature and declares his cold and malnutrition with zero change in her countenance. He can't really say the same for his friend sprawled out on the adjacent chair though.

"I can't BELIEVE YOU!" The screech grinds on his ears, but Tanjirou only blinks back at Zenitsu like he did nothing wrong. The blond chops at the air, fire practically emitting from his mouth. "Nezuko-chan was just here a minute ago and told me EVERYTHING! Making breakfast, laundry, all that volunteer work you do for student council, studying, a part-time job…?! You're absolutely and with certain probability a reckless and selfless moron, Tanjirou!"

"What's… wrong with that?"

Zenitsu gaps. Before Shinobu can stop him (not that she would), he promptly smacks the boy in the head. This is quickly followed by exasperatedly grabbing at his uniform collar and shaking his friend with each word. "YOU. ARE. KILLING YOURSELF! PLEASE MOURN OVER THOSE OF US WHO WORRY ABOUT YOU!"

Tanjirou sputters, feeling dizzy at the motion. "O-Okay-!"

"MOURN, I SAID!"

"I-I'm mourning, I'm mourning!" Finally, he's freed from the grip. Zenitsu sends him a glare, one that Tanjirou can only return with a sheepish smile when he finishes fixing his uniform. "Thanks, Zenitsu-"

"Don't 'thanks, Zenitsu' me!" His friend isn't done, it seemed. Angrily shoving a hand in his own bag, it doesn't take long for him to find his binder and throw it onto the bed. Tanjirou doesn't have a chance to even read the heading on it before Zenitsu is speaking again. "When do you wake up, five o'clock, right? Good, then that's when I'll come over."

Huh?

"Huh?"

"You heard me." He stepped closer. "Five o'clock a.m. every weekday at your house. I'll tutor you while you COOK because you can't stop worrying about other people for ONCE in your life-!"

Tanjirou didn't know what came over him. Maybe it was the relief. Maybe it was gratitude for having a friend like Zenitsu. Maybe it was the realization that he didn't have to do this alone. But he pulled the other teen forward by the front of his shirt. Squeezing Zenitsu in the most wholesome hug he could give, Tanjirou found himself at a loss of all words except "really, thank you."

And Tanjirou knew that now, everything really would be all right.