When the light turns on, Kyo startles, jumping a good few inches off the floor as he turns to the door to figure out who'd flipped the light switch.
Yuki. Fantastic.
"What the hell are you doing? It's ten o'clock." Yuki asks, barely sparing Kyo a glance. While waiting for Kyo's response, he walks over to the sink for a glass of water.
For a second, Kyo's old fighting instincts come back up, and he almost asks Yuki what the hell he's doing just coming home, since it's apparently ten o'clock. But the gravity of his situation quickly settles back onto him, and Kyo just shakes his head.
Once Yuki's glass is full, he turns off the tap and turns around. He stares at Kyo as he drinks, perhaps actually a bit curious about what the "stupid cat" is up to now.
"I don't know anything about babies," Kyo blurts.
Yuki chokes on a sip of water and coughs a little. "Uh...excuse me?"
And Kyo knows that he shouldn't say anything else, that he should just go back up to Tohru's room. They haven't talked about telling anyone but Hatori yet, and he knows that Tohru would definitely want to be the one to tell Yuki. But he can't do this right now. He's petrified. He wants the baby, wants this, wants her...but he's terrified.
"Tohru's pregnant."
A staticky silence fills the air between the two boys. After a few moments, Yuki mumbles, "Well, fuck."
"Yeah."
"How'd that happen? And don't you dare make any sex jokes."
Does he somehow seem in the right state of mind to make sex jokes?
"She didn't take her birth control for a few days." Kyo can't help but wonder what on Earth he's doing telling Yuki, of all people, details about his sex life, but it's too late to go back now. And Yuki has a girlfriend. Maybe he'll get it, even though he still doesn't like Kyo too much.
Yuki takes a little time to think that over, turning around and getting more water as he does so. "If it were any other relationship, I'd think to say she trapped you."
Kyo snorts. "Tohru would never. You've been hanging around Manabe too much."
"Idiot. That's why I said 'any other relationship.' And...yes. Yes I have." He sighs, apparently getting lost in his own thoughts for a second before continuing, "Have you two decided what you're going to do?"
"She wants—" Kyo cuts himself off. He agreed to this. He knows he wants this too, no matter how fucking scared he is right now. He has to keep that in mind going forward, that this was very much a joint decision. "We're gonna have it."
"Is that what you want, too?"
Of course Yuki would notice that little slip up.
"I do," Kyo insists through gritted teeth, then takes a deep breath to calm himself down a bit. "I do. I'm just...really fucking scared."
"Yeah. Having a kid is scary."
"Mm…"
"Especially with how young you are."
"Not helping."
"Sorry," Yuki says, but he chuckles—a sound which he tries unsuccessfully to hide behind a light cough. Kyo wants to punch him for it. "Listen," he continues, eyes shifting awkwardly around the room, "do you, uh...well, do you want some weed?"
"What?"
"Shhh," Yuki hisses, looking at Shigure's door. "You heard me."
"Where the hell did you even get that?!" Kyo whisper-yells.
Yuki gives Kyo a look that suggests he already knows, and really, he does.
"No way," Kyo says firmly. "That shit's gross. And Tohru would kill me."
"Please, like Honda-san would care if you smoked weed one time to help you relax a bit."
Kyo clenches his jaw in frustration. He hates to admit it when Yuki's right, especially when it comes to Tohru, but well...he's right. That son of a bitch.
"Fine."
"Really?" Yuki asks incredulously.
"Don't make me change my mind," Kyo growls.
Yuki holds up his hands in surrender, then points to the front door. They put their coats and shoes on, then go sit on the top step of the staircase leading away from the house. Kyo looks down at where Tohru had fallen earlier, and guilt stabs at his ribs. Yuki nudges Kyo's elbow with his own, and when Kyo looks up, there's a lit joint being held out to him.
"How...do I do this?"
"It's intuitive."
"Listen, ya damn rat…"
"I'm not insulting you," Yuki assures him, then exhales a cloud of smoke. "It really is intuitive. Just do it. You're going to cough, but that's normal."
Kyo eyes him suspiciously, but takes the joint anyway. He brings it to his lips and inhales, then immediately coughs and splutters against the burning in his throat and lungs. "What the fuck…" he grumbles once he's caught his breath.
He passes the joint back. Yuki takes another hit while Kyo catches his breath and watches in mild amusement. "You don't cough. How often do you do this?" he asks.
Yuki's shoulders stiffen a bit. After exhaling, he says, voice chillingly calm, "If you tell Shigure, I'll murder you."
"Noted."
After several more passes of the joint, Yuki asks, "Are you feeling it?"
Kyo nods, then realizes that's a mistake. It's not an unpleasant feeling, exactly...just strange. "Damn...who told the world to spin so fast."
Yuki laughs—a real, raw laugh, the kind Kyo's never been allowed to hear from him before. It's startling for a second.
"You're feeling it," Yuki confirms.
"What do we do now?"
Yuki shrugs, then drops the end of the joint to the ground and crushes it with the toe of his shoe. "Whatever you want. Talk, I guess. What in particular is bothering you?"
The problem with that is, Kyo can't really focus on forming coherent sentences at the moment. But luckily, his mouth seems to work on its own.
"I don't know anything about babies," he blurts, repeating his line from inside.
"You said that already," Yuki points out. "But so what? You can learn. We all know how nerdy you are—so do some research."
"Eh—?! I am not nerdy!"
"You have straight A's."
"So do you," Kyo counters.
"Yes. And I'm nerdy."
Well. He's not wrong, exactly.
"Well, what am I supposed to do about money?"
"You've got a solid job lined up, and Honda-san will insist on working once she can. You'll be fine. You just need to budget."
"Tohru is good at that kind of stuff," Kyo admits.
Yuki nods. "Trust me, we can all tell."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"She cried when she had to spend money on new shoes for herself the other day."
"That was...probably pregnancy hormones." Looking back at it, Tohru had been extremely emotional the past week or so.
"Maybe partly. But it's not new for her. She doesn't know how to do anything for herself. It's all for other people, as you know well."
"Well...yeah."
"What else?" Yuki asks, folding his arms over his chest as an icy breeze blows by.
"What about the apartment? It's tiny."
"Half of Japan lives in tiny apartments."
"Not with a kid."
"Do you think the children live elsewhere?"
Kyo groans. "You know what I mean."
"So get a new place in a couple years. You're not even going to have the baby for nine months, and after that they're tiny for a while...right?"
"Are you asking me how much room babies take up?"
"Maybe…"
"How the hell should I know? I'm the last person in this family who should be having a baby."
Yuki hums. "So is that it? Is that what's really bothering you?"
Kyo sighs and tilts his head up toward the stars. They're pretty tonight, rippling and swirling in his vision just the tiniest bit. He snaps himself out of it. "I guess. And, I mean, like...what if the curse comes back?" He whispers it, as though saying it any louder might somehow make it reality.
Both boys are quiet for what feels like way too long, each clearly lost in their own thoughts and trauma. All of a sudden, Kyo's anxious. Like, really anxious. He's usually a nervous worry-wart as it is, but this is on a whole new level. He opens his mouth to ask Yuki if it's the weed doing that, but is cut off.
"We just have to believe that the curse isn't coming back. We have to," Yuki says firmly.
Kyo thinks that's way easier for Yuki to say than for him. Granted, they'd of course each had their own struggles with the curse, but as the child of the former Cat, Kyo's kid would be especially shunned, as it is now. It would be even worse if the curse were to come back. But he doesn't feel like fighting, and maybe he's a little sick of thinking about the curse right now, too, so he doesn't say it.
"I guess. And what if...what if she decides she doesn't love me anymore? Then she's stuck with me for the kid's sake."
"Have you seen the way Honda-san looks at you? She's crazy about you."
"Yeah, now, maybe."
"She loved you through the curse, and was willing to work with it for the rest of her life. That's not someone who just gets up and leaves one day. You're it for her."
Kyo hums, considering that, but he isn't given much time to.
"Listen, Kyo." Yuki inhales deeply, as though preparing to launch into a lengthy speech. Kyo looks at him sidelong, watches him cross and uncross his legs awkwardly. He looks a little anxious, too. "You're...a good guy when it comes to Honda-san. You'll be a good guy when it comes to your baby together, too. I think...I think you'll be a kind father. Certainly kinder than your birth father. So don't worry about that part, at least. And you can't go back and change the past. The situation is done, as inconvenient as it may seem right now. But I know you love her, and that you'll love your child. That's what really counts. And the material things will all come together."
"Well, uh...thanks. At least you don't think I'll be as bad as my old man."
"Definitely not."
That's all a lot to take in, and Kyo's hazy brain tries—like, really tries—but, for some reason, what it latches onto is…
"You should call her 'Tohru.'"
"Eh…? B-but, it—!"
Kyo doesn't ever think he's seen Yuki so completely embarrassed. If he were sober, it would probably be pretty entertaining and strangely satisfying.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." He can hear all the excuses Yuki's thinking up: It's a touchy subject in their culture. Maybe it's been too long now, and it would just be weird. "But I know it would make her happy."
Yuki sighs, shoulders sinking in mild defeat. "You're probably right."
"Oh, I'm definitely right." Kyo laughs, and Yuki does, too. And it makes Kyo wonder how exactly they got here. Sitting next to each other calmly is one thing, but having a deep conversation and laughing together? Kyo divulging his deepest fears to Yuki in the middle of the night? Just weeks ago, it would have been unthinkable. Now—maybe because he's high, or maybe because the curse isn't looming over them anymore, or maybe a combination of both—it's just...kind of weird. But maybe in a kinda good way.
"Hey," Kyo says. Yuki turns to him. "You think Akito ever pictured this for us?"
"The Cat and the Rat getting high together?" Yuki scoffs, a bit of a laugh in his voice.
Kyo chuckles under his breath. "You know what I mean. Just...the Cat and the Rat part."
"Yeah. Well, probably not."
"Yeah."
Yuki stands up and dusts off the seat of his pants with his palms. "Too bad. This was kind of fun, you stupid cat."
And for some reason, right now, "stupid cat" doesn't sting quite like it used to.
"Yeah, it was...ya damn rat."
Yuki nods, and Kyo thinks that maybe, just maybe, there's a hint of a smile on his cheeks. As he turns around to go inside, Kyo stands up and calls, "Hey. When Tohru tells you about the baby later...could you just act surprised? She's gonna want to be the one who tells you."
"Yeah. No problem."
"And, ya know...well, thanks."
Yuki just lifts his hand in a half-wave and heads back toward the house. After he feels composed enough to walk straight, Kyo follows him.
He ditches his coat and shoes and creeps back upstairs and into Tohru's room. She's in the exact same position she was when he left. He sighs in relief and slides under the covers next to her.
"Kyo-kun," she murmurs. He freezes. Her brown eyes flutter open lazily, blinking in protest at the now-dim lighting. "Where did you go?"
"Just to get a drink. Let's go back to sleep."
Tohru hums and reaches over, throwing her arm around Kyo's midsection and nuzzling her face into his chest. He winces—everyone knows what weed smells like, right?
"You smell like weed," she says, tone still sleepy, but now also slightly amused, he thinks.
Sober Kyo isn't a good liar, so he doesn't think High Kyo will be, either. So he decides to go the brutally honest route.
"Yeah, uh. I smoked weed with Yuki."
Tohru snorts out a giggle. "You're funny, Kyo-kun."
"Uh. Sure."
That was his intention—to be funny. Sure, of course.
"I love you," she whispers, and he can tell she's almost asleep again. He wonders what she'll think of all this in the morning, but that makes the weird anxiety come back, so he tries to push it out of his mind. Didn't Yuki say weed is to relax?
"I love you too," Kyo says, then reaches between them and ghosts his fingertips over her belly. "And you, too."
"Kyo-kun? Kyo-kun."
"Eh?" Kyo mumbles, forcing his eyes open. He feels weird—his head is all foggy. A hangover? Can you even get a hangover from weed?
The room is bright again, announcing the arrival of morning. And a very confused-looking Tohru is sitting next to him.
"You smell like weed," she says. She doesn't sound mad, exactly—just startled—which is good at least.
Kyo sits up. "Uh, well." He really doesn't know what to say to that. "I hung out with Yuki for a bit last night."
Tohru doesn't say anything to that, just blinks a few times, still looking totally baffled by what's going on. Kyo can't blame her. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would smoke weed (and he never is, ever again), and Yuki doesn't look like the kind of guy who would bring it home.
"O...kay…" she murmurs.
"Don't worry," he assures her, stretching his arms over his head and yawning. "I'm okay. It won't happen again."
"O...kay…"
Kyo leans over and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Did you sleep okay?"
"Mm-hmm. Are you feeling alright? Do you...still want to have the baby?"
"I'm fine—I'm in love with you, and I'm excited. Really. Everything'll work out. It just has to."
At that, Tohru smiles brightly. "Yes, it will. I'm sure of it."
They go about their normal weekend-morning routine. They both get dressed and go downstairs. Tohru cooks breakfast, though Kyo does a lot more assisting than usual. Shigure sits at the chabudai table in the living room, teasing "the lovebirds" with remarks that Kyo finds disgusting, which he isn't afraid to let him know about.
But when Yuki comes downstairs, the mood changes a little bit. Kyo stops mid-jab at Shigure, and Yuki just pauses in the doorway to the kitchen. Yuki gives Kyo a slight nod, which Kyo tries to return discreetly. Then, Yuki launches back into his usual self as if the moment had never happened—as if last night had never happened. It contributes to the casualness of their morning, and Kyo's grateful for that.
"Good morning, Honda-san! Do you need any help with breakfast?"
The four of them sit at the table together while they eat, though Tohru looks a little green and barely touches her food. They make small talk.
And every once in a while, Kyo and Yuki exchange a brief, knowing look.
A/N: I never really write Yuki, but that was so fun, so I'm looking forward to eventually working through the Yuki week prompts and getting to practice that lol. Thanks for sticking with me, suspending your disbelief, and picking up on the abstract (?) prompt references. I just really wanted to post this story so I was working to make it fit.