Kyo has a crooked nose. It was one of the first things Tohru noticed once she had full access to staring at his face, though she had spent plenty of time before they were ever together staring at his face as well. The place where the bridge of his nose deviates from its traditional path is a dead giveaway.
For a long time, it really bothered her. When she first reached out to gently trace the jagged slope with her finger, Kyo smiled at her. A side effect of having it broken at least a dozen times in his life.
It wasn't the shape or aesthetics of his nose that were the problem, it was the fact that anyone would ever dare hurt him. She cupped his cheek in her hand and frowned, trying to ignore her temper simmering under her skin. It wasn't as if she actually had the capability to protect him, especially not physically, but nevertheless.
Kyo assured her that he thoroughly deserved to have his nose broken. He reminded her that a handful of times it happened was when she was actually present. It was all Yuki and Haru, he told her. Coupla' assholes. Although, of course, he at least broke Haru's nose in return. He never did get the chance to return the favor to Yuki. Maybe one day. Either way, Kyo just laughed it off.
Shishou showed her a picture of what he dubbed 'the worst Kyo has ever looked.' It was a middle school class picture. He stood in the back row, a scowl on his face. His eye had a deep, purple crescent moon underneath it. It was taken only a year before they met.
His nose wasn't the only giveaway of the tumultuous childhood he had. He had plenty of tiny scars all over his hands, proof that he'd been known to punch through unsuspecting windows. He had a puckered spot on his shin, which he blamed on Kagura knocking him into a boulder. But just below Kyo's left eyebrow laid a deep groove, only about a centimeter long.
Tohru only received a very cursory explanation of that mark. It was clear Kyo was not keen to talk about it. A permanent reminder of the abuse he'd received before the age of five. His mother had a matching one on her cheek. A dinner gone awry; that was all Kyo wished to explain. Tohru didn't need the details anyway.
The marks on his body made her want to cry. She couldn't stomach the thought of anyone intentionally hurting him. And she especially couldn't stand the physical reminder of what he'd suffered mentally as well. The years of ridicule, abuse, victimization, and fear he had to face. Sometimes it made her cry to think about. While Kyo would assure her that he was fine, that it was all in the past, that he'd let it all go, it still tore at her heart.
"Everyone's got scars, Tohru," her mother had said to her in middle school. "Even if you can't see 'em, they're there." Her mother assured her that scars weren't a bad thing. They were just evidence of the past. "It's what you do after you're hurt that matters."
But if those physical reminders of his past pain bothered Tohru, her scars bothered him even more.
Her hands were littered with tiny pockmarks. Burns from pans or the racks in the oven. Tiny punctures from poking herself with a knife on more occasions than she was willing to admit. She had a piece of pencil lead permanently buried in her palm from a mechanical pencil stabbing her while she dug through her bag back in high school.
Her knees had permanent marks from the amount of times she'd tripped and tore through her tights. She gritted her teeth not just because she'd have to buy another new pair of stockings, but because she could never quite believe how she was so clumsy.
Those weren't the scars that bothered him, especially seeing as she continued to be clumsy well into adulthood. It was the scars she found him tracing in the middle of the night. The scars he would fix his gaze on when she was able to wear summer clothing again. The scars that their son asked about on occasion, only to be met with two adults who couldn't fathom a way to answer.
Just as Kyo assured her that his scars were nothing to worry about, she did the same for him. It didn't stop him from pressing three of his fingers to the three parallel lines on her shoulder. It didn't stop his face from twisting to a look of pain that broke her heart. It didn't stop him from repeating over and over out loud how sorry he was and it certainly didn't stop whatever awful things he was saying to himself in his head.
He had a different reaction whenever she caught him staring at the scar on her opposite side. Long and thin, but deep; the tiny suture marks still very much visible even years later. When she caught him staring at that, she could feel the tension radiating off of him. His jaw would set, teeth clamped together, mouth set in a scowl. No matter the weather, Tohru always made sure to wear long sleeves whenever Akito and Kyo were together with her in a room, though that had only happened a handful of times since they'd left home.
They were a patchwork quilt of defects, but her mother had, of course, been right all those years ago. It's what you do after that matters.
And after all of the trauma, the injuries both physical and emotional, what they did together mattered more than ever. Because they created Hajime. And Hajime is the most perfect little boy she has ever known.
Hajime does not know anger. He does not know rejection or exclusion. He does not know judgement or loneliness. Hajime is surrounded every day by love and, in turn, returns it to his parents and those around him. He is kind, empathetic. He is precocious and articulate at only the age of two. He is everything she ever could have dreamed of.
True, that she and Kyo spent hours when he was an infant just staring at him as he slept. At his porcelain face, framed by vibrant red hair and his tiny, cherubic hands. Even now, Hajime's parents find tranquility in simply watching him play, basking in the smile on his face and returning it back wholeheartedly. Hajime is the center of their world. He melts any residual anger and soothes the pain that lingers in the two of them.
They are inseparable, the three of them. Hajime joins both of his parents at work every day, following papa around the dojo between classes and playing at Tohru's feet when the after-school crowd comes rushing in. He helps cook meals, as much as a toddler can, and grabs each of their hands as they go for walks along the shoreline in the evening.
As of late, he winds up in their bed at dawn every day. Sometimes being held by Tohru, other times by Kyo, but oftentimes placed squarely in the center, where both of his parents can cocoon him and squeeze another hour of sleep out of the morning before they can start their day together.
Today, Hajime rose from bed earlier than the sun, and Tohru heard through thick, sleepy ears the sound of Kyo plucking him up by the arm and hauling him up to their bed to share his pillow. She felt the blankets shift subtly as the two boys snuggled in close to succumb once more to silence and calm.
It's a shrill cry that wakes her up. She bolts upright in bed next to Kyo, who is pulling Hajime up from the floor. Hajime screams in agony as Kyo wraps him up in the blanket, rising to his feet in a hurried panic. Tohru looks on in horror as Kyo holds a corner of the blanket over Hajime's face, which is profusely bleeding, and she leaps to her feet.
It is a deep, albeit small cut under his eyebrow. Once Hajime's panicked parents figure out that they alone will not be able to stop the bleeding, Tohru throws yesterday's dress from the laundry basket over her pajamas. Kyo grabs his t-shirt from the floor and they hurry out to the car, where Tohru sits with Hajime to keep him calm and keep the now-soiled blanket pressed to his face.
Hajime leaves the hospital with three tiny stitches, a swollen eye, and a frown, all courtesy of the sharp corner of the bedside table he collided with when he rolled too far toward the edge.
At home, Hajime curls up on their bed with the two of them, safely in the middle, a parental shield on either side of him. He falls asleep for an early nap, no doubt a result of the morning's trauma and the child-sized dose of medicine they gave him to calm the pain and swelling.
After an hour of just watching Hajime sleep, Tohru rises to heat up a late breakfast and returns, two steaming bowls of ramen on a tray in her hands, to find Kyo staring fixedly on the mark, tears in his eyes, as he grabs his son's hand as gently as possible so as not to wake him. Tohru rests the tray on the offending nightstand and curls herself into Kyo's lap.
"It's gonna leave a scar," Kyo whispers, brushing his lips against her hair. She can't fathom a supportive response, so she just nods against his chest. "I don't want him to have a scar." She nods once more. She doesn't want Hajime to have a scar, either. She doesn't want him to ever hurt. She doesn't want the reminder of doctors stitching him up while he wailed.
"Now's the time when you're supposed to give a positive Kyoko/Tohru spin on things," Kyo suggests, wrapping his palm under her chin, tilting her head up to meet her eyes. There's a ghost of a smile on his lips. He's trying to cheer himself up, too. "Didn't your mom have a whole speech about scars?"
Tohru returns his slight smile. "She did, but I think she was referring to being mugged with a knife or in a fight." She giggles softly, picturing her mom's speech if she were here right now. "But she once fainted when I had a bloody nose, so she would be no good in this situation."
They fall silent and Tohru returns her head to his chest. As they sit there in contemplative silence, a tidal wave of guilt crashes down upon the two of them. She can feel it well up in her chest and she can hear Kyo's breathing give him away.
Scars are a part of each of their lives, but not what either of them ever wanted for Hajime. Logically, she knows that kids get hurt all the time. She used to work in a school and now that they both work at the dojo, bandages and first aid kits are a part of their daily lives. But seeing her own child hurt, bleeding, and marked, even though there is nothing she could have done to prevent it makes her feel sick to her stomach.
Tohru breaks the silence and asks "Do you think a sparring helmet would fit his head?" Kyo snorts and she smiles, though she is partially serious. "Really!" She exclaims, a little too loudly and he hushes her. "At least until it heals...we don't want it to get worse." She whispers the last part.
Kyo hugs her tightly into his chest again. "I'll try to find one his size."
The same night, Tohru sits on their bed folding laundry. From the baby monitor, she hears Kyo read Hajime a bedtime story, her heart melting, as it always seems to, whenever he gets into it and switches up his voice for each of the characters. She hears the gentle thump of the hardback closing and being set up on the bookshelf next to Hajime's bed. She continues to listen as Hajime and Kyo both yawn.
"Papa?" Hajime asks, his little voice floating through the monitor like music. Kyo prompts him to continue and Hajime says "Papa match?" Tohru rises to peek out of their bedroom door across the hall, curious as to what Hajime is saying.
"Match what?" Kyo asks, puzzlement lacing his tone.
Hajime sits up and reaches his hand out to point to Kyo's left eyebrow and the scar that sits just below it. With his other hand, he touches his own stitched up brow, though his is on the right side. Tohru smiles as she looks at her husband and Hajime. Hajime points out the scar with no mal-intent and no judgement, just making an observation as he tends to do.
"Yeah, guess we do match, huh?" Kyo responds, smiling and kissing his son gently on his injury. Hajime returns the favor, missing Kyo's scar entirely and landing a kiss on his temple instead. "You know what mama always says when we match…" Kyo says, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as he settles Hajime back down under the blankets. "Aw, so cute." Kyo croons in a high-pitched voice.
Hajime giggles, a musical sound, and recites a toddler version of her frequent catchphrase "I take a picture."
"I love you, Hajime," Kyo whispers, kissing the crown of his son's head.
"Love you, too," Hajime breathes, cuddling closer to his side. "So cute."