A/N: Welcome to Kyo week! Here's the info about the event: p/CRxrBesLPgg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."
When Kyo kicks his shoes off after work, kisses his son and his wife hello, and then settles in at her side to help finish dinner, this is not a question he expects to hear (but then again, he's discovered that parenthood is full of surprises):
"Hey, Dad? When did you and Mama fall in love?"
Both he and Tohru stop what they're doing and turn to look at their son. Hajime is at the low table in their living room with a piece of paper in front of him, one that Kyo had just assumed is homework, but apparently is also the holder of this question.
"Eh? Where'd this come from all of a sudden?" Kyo asks.
"I'm supposed to interview my family for school. I had to come up with questions. That's the first one." He waves the paper.
"He's only in second grade and he came up with that?" Kyo mutters to Tohru, who just smiles and smacks his arm playfully.
"I heard that," Hajime deadpans.
"Sorry. So, when did we fall in love, huh…?" Kyo puts down the knife he's holding and leans his back against the counter.
He knows his son is expecting some storybook answer—"After we danced together on our first date, I kissed her and knew right away it was love!"—but really, there hadn't been just one moment. It was a collection of many.
When she told him he has a plum on his back. The time she followed him up to the roof and listened to him talk about martial arts. The first time she was selfish and asked him to take her back home. When she chased after him when she saw his true form. When she ate somen with him in the middle of the night for no real reason. That night in the rain, when she screamed with her whole chest that she loved him, and he knew she meant it.
Every single moment that she smiled at him, every time she confided in him, each time they held hands. It all piled up into love.
Tohru is a bit quicker with her answer. "Ever since I met your father...I think part of me loved him."
Kyo smiles at her. "That's really sweet, but he's not gonna get that."
"So, you've always loved Dad, but didn't really know that 'til later?" Hajime asks.
Tohru raises an eyebrow at Kyo. "I think he gets it."
"How'd he get so smart?" Kyo groans.
"Dad? You haven't answered yet."
He and Tohru have had this conversation a hundred times before and always come to the same conclusion—that it happened slowly. But she'd simplified the answer for their son, so it's safe to say he needs to do the same. Tohru watches him curiously. He smiles.
"I always loved her, too, I think. But if I have to pick one moment, that's when...probably when we went on vacation together and I had to go see someone, so your mom got left alone. When I came back, she was sitting alone on the beach and it was sunset, so it was like she was glowing, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."
He's never told her how he felt in that moment before. He runs a hand through his hair, cheeks red, and turns to her. Her eyes are glassy with tears, but she's smiling that goofy smile of hers, so he knows they're not bad tears, at least. Kyo takes her face in his hands.
"That's when it really hit me," he finishes. Tohru tilts her chin up, and he meets her in the middle with a sweet kiss.
"That's a lot to write…" Hajime grumbles, but he's already working on it.
Kyo chuckles at him. "Sorry."
"And when did you get married?"
"When we were 22," Kyo tells him, going back to chopping vegetables for their dinner.
"Did you buy Mama a ring?"
"Well duh," Kyo says, smiling at his son over his shoulder. "She deserves a pretty ring, don't you think?"
Hajime nods enthusiastically. Tohru laughs. "My boys are so sweet."
"My brother usually isn't," Hajime quips.
"We all know you love your brother," Kyo answers.
Hajime doesn't respond to that; he just continues onto his next question instead. "And how old were you guys when you had me?"
Kyo and Tohru share a look. "W-well…" Tohru mumbles.
Kyo takes the honest route. "You were born a few months before we got married."
"You did it backwards?" Hajime asks.
"Not backwards," Kyo says. "Families start in all sorts of different ways. You were what started ours."
"Did you decide to do it backwards—I mean, to have me before you got married—on purpose?"
This is where things would get a little too honest, though it's really a classic story—"No, your mom and I got drunk on New Year's Eve and, well…we were irresponsible. Had fun, though." Luckily, before he has to come up with a fib to replace that, Tohru jumps in.
"You were a very wonderful surprise."
"Hmm…" Hajime hums, tapping the tip of his pencil against the paper. He's silent for a few minutes, and Kyo and Tohru take advantage of the pause to catch their breaths. That was a lot of questions about their love life. They look at each other and smile.
"He's pretty cute, isn't he?" Tohru whispers.
"'Course he is. Look at who his mom is."
The quiet doesn't last long.
"When do you think I'm gonna fall in love?" Hajime calls out.
They have two very different answers that they spit out at the exact same time:
Tohru's anxious, "Not until you're all grown up, sweetheart!"
And Kyo's sarcastic, "Well since you're clearly a romantic, maybe soon."
Tohru shoots him a glare and he holds his hands up in surrender. "You really think we were all grown up when we fell in love, though?"
"Mmm…" She smiles a little, but it's not joyful. She averts her gaze back to the vegetables she's now stir frying. "Weren't you and I always pretty grown up?"
He smiles back a little and wraps an arm around her waist. They really had been forced to grow up early, and while it had been hard, it had brought them together, so they have no right to complain, Kyo knows.
"Do we have any pictures?" Hajime asks, completely oblivious to the melancholy that had suddenly fallen over the room.
Kyo snorts out a laugh. "Have you seen the walls?" he asks. Tohru's still nuts about pictures. Hajime sticks his tongue out.
"I meant that I can glue down onto the poster I have to make."
"You have to make a poster about this?" Kyo groans.
"Mm-hmm."
"That's an awfully private poster," Kyo mumbles to Tohru. She shrugs.
"Didn't you have to do a school project like this?"
"No, thank god. What would I have written?"
She giggles. "Well...true, you definitely couldn't have mentioned the curse. I'm sure Master would have given you good stories, though."
"So do we?" Hajime prompts.
Tohru nods and turns the stove burner off. "But after dinner. Go wash your hands and wake your brother from his nap, please."
After dinner, Kyo distracts their youngest son with a piece of cake leftover from a birthday party they'd gone to recently, while Tohru gets the shoebox she keeps extra copies of all their pictures in. Hajime gets out the poster board he brought home from school, along with markers and a glue stick.
When Tohru makes it back into the room, she sets the shoeboxes down, then eyes their youngest. "Kyo-kun," she chides. "That cake is as big as his head."
Kyo smiles sheepishly, reaching out to ruffle the toddler's orange hair. "Sorry."
"Mama, can I see the pictures now?" Hajime asks.
Tohru slowly lowers herself onto the tatami flooring. It's Kyo's turn to scold now. "Tohru. Let me get you a chair from the kitchen."
"I'm fine, Kyo-kun," she insists, then ends the conversation by opening the shoeboxes and motioning Hajime closer. He sits down at her side, head resting on her protruding pregnant belly.
Kyo moves to her other side so he can see, too. "Oh, hey. Our graduation picture."
"There's Uncle Yuki!" Hajime cheers.
"Mm-hmm. And Auntie Arisa and Auntie Saki," Tohru adds. She moves onto the next one—they're out of order, so a wedding picture appears next.
"Oh, look," Tohru says. "This was our wedding. It was very traditional."
"You look so pretty, Mama." Tohru smiles and kisses the top of his head. "Can I use this one?"
"Of course."
Next to them, Kyo is digging through the box. "Hajime, here you are in Mama's belly."
"Oooh," Hajime coos, taking the picture from his father's hand.
"And here we all are right after your brother was born."
"Speaking of," Tohru says, "could you please take the rest of the cake away from him?"
Kyo does as he's told, their son fussing as Tohru tries to hold him down to wipe his face.
By the time that fiasco is over, Hajime has selected a few more pictures from the box and is already busy gluing them down. A couple hours later, the poster is complete, and it's obvious that Hajime is very proud.
"Thanks for helping!" he says, leaning over and planting kisses on both of his parents' cheeks. His brother whines from his spot on the floor, and Hajime rolls his eyes before giving him a kiss too. "You didn't even do anything, though."
"I want to take a picture of you with the poster, please, Hajime," Tohru says, leaning on the table to try and pull herself up. Kyo rushes to her side.
"Tohru, please, you're 8 months pregnant."
She just shakes her head and smiles. "You're such a worrywart, Kyo-kun. I love you."
In bed that night, they look through Tohru's phone at the pictures she took of Hajime and the poster. Tohru giggles at the one of Hajime holding up his work, smiling big. "He's so cute without his front teeth."
Kyo laughs, too. "Yeah, I can't believe he lost them both at the same time. Like that one dorky song you sing sometimes."
"All I want for Christmas is—!"
He cuts her off by putting his palm over her mouth. She laughs from behind it. "Please no." He pulls his hand away and replaces it with his lips. The second Tohru tries to deepen the kiss, though, he pulls back and smiles at her, shaking his head. "We only have 3 nights of normal sleep left before you get induced. You should rest."
Tohru groans in protest, but she's smiling. "Thank you for always taking care of me."
His cheeks flush, and for some reason he still gets a little embarrassed about blushing around her so much, so he leans over and turns off the light to hide it. "Well, after all...I've always loved you."
She curls into his side. He kisses the top of her head. "I've always loved you, too. And I always will."
A/N: I know that's a John Green quote at the beginning and it might be a lil cheesy, but it works so well for them, doesn't it? And the title is from "That's When" by Taylor Swift. My inner 15-year-old-romantic is happy about all that.
Also...I'm a sucker for domestic Kyoru, so that's what had to be done for today. Much love to y'all, hope you enjoyed.