A/N: Hello, lovely people! This is a side-project of sorts (so not sure how often it's going to get updated, but hey), a collection of one-shots of post-curse Kyoru. I really wish we'd gotten to see more of them dating and trying to settle into life together, and the fanfics about it give me life, so here's my contribution lol.

This has no point, it's just fluffy. Title of the story, and of each chapter will be from "State of Grace" by Taylor Swift, because I think it's a very Kyoru song and I'm shit at titling fics. Enjoy!

Today has been bizarre. Surreal. Absolutely fucking terrifying in a few ways, but completely perfect in many more.

The most perfect of all being the fact that he's walking home hand in hand with Tohru...and if he wants to, he can hug her when they get inside.

After a few hours, they've finally managed to get away from Master's house. He'd been nearly giddy about Kyo's curse breaking, and rightfully so. And Kyo loves Master. It was great to sit around and eat pizza with his dad, his now-girlfriend, and Kunimitsu (who was like a weird brother in a lot of ways)—it was probably the most normal Kyo's ever felt. But tonight, he really just wants to be with Tohru. He'd been fretting over her all through dinner. If she so much as moved kind of funny, he sprang to attention, offering her water and Tylenol, and checking her forehead for signs of fever (though that would be completely unrelated to her recent hospital trip and was just one of his random anxieties coming to the surface).

Finally, Master tugged Kyo into one last hug, told him to be good, and let the pair leave. Tohru insisted she was fine and that they could stay ("You should spend time with your dad right now, Kyo-kun!") the whole way down the path to the main road, Kyo placating her by saying they could come back tomorrow if she really wanted to.

Now he can get her home and worry about her in peace. Hold her. Make sure she's safe.

At the bottom of the long staircase leading up to Shigure's house, though, he pauses. Tohru keeps moving, stopping a couple of steps up when it becomes impossible to continue without letting go of Kyo's hand.

"Kyo-kun? What's wrong?" she asks. She squeezes his fingers.

"Oh, uh...the stairs."

She purses her lips and turns to look up the staircase again, clearly trying to interpret his vague words. She comes up with a very different answer than what he's thinking. "Are you too tired to go up them?"

It's a stupid statement, really, but everything Tohru says and does is endearing in some way, and he loves her, so he just smiles fondly and shakes his head. "Nah. Are you, though? I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Her cheeks flush, probably half from embarrassment and half from indignation at his off-handed comment about her clumsiness. She comes back down to his side. "I'm okay, Kyo-kun. You've been worrying about me all day."

"Eh? N-no I haven't…"

"You have, and I appreciate it," she says, cutting him off. She reaches up to his face. Instinctively, he leans down a bit, making it easier for her to cup his cheeks. He closes his eyes. Her hands are warm, and the feeling of them on his skin grounds him.

"But they wouldn't have let me out of the hospital if I wasn't okay to go home," she adds.

He nods. He knows it's true, really. "Okay."

She pulls back and grabs his hand again. He follows her this time, but then stops a few stairs up. When she looks back at him again, he blurts, "But what if you fall?"

"I've never fallen on these stairs before."

It's a lie. He knows it, and she knows it, too. Just a handful of weeks ago, when they'd gone to the store to buy eggs together, she'd fallen on these stairs on their way home. She narrowly escaped a sprained ankle—or possibly something even worse—by Kyo catching her, which of course then resulted in her carrying him the rest of the way home as a cat.

Speaking of carrying, he can do that now.

"What if I carry you?"

"Kyo-kun," she insists. "I'm fine."

He gulps down his remaining anxiety and continues up the stairs by her side. There's no bargaining with her when she gets stubborn like this, so he just holds her hand extra tightly so he can try to keep her upright, if needed.

"See? Fine! I didn't even stumble once!" she points out proudly once they've made it to the front door. She's right. She is a little winded, though, and that worries him, but he knows better than to say anything right now.

Instead, he smiles and shakes his head, digging around in his pocket for his house key. Once he has it, he tries to unlock the door, but fumbles uselessly for a moment before Tohru gently pulls the key away and takes over.

Why are his hands shaking?

And also…

"How long have my hands been shaking?" he asks, because he can tell by the gentle, purely nurturing look on her face as she hands back the key, that she noticed a while ago.

"The whole way home. That's why I keep holding onto you." She pauses before adding in a panicked voice, "A-and of course I just like holding your hand!"

He chuckles because he knows how she feels about him, knows she likes touching him and holding his hand, yet she's being so awkward about it. It's adorable.

"I know, dork. It's okay. Thank you."

Inside the house, Kyo feels his shoulders relax. They're home. She's safe here. He can get her into bed, then go down the hall to his own room—with his door open, though, so he can hear her if she calls him—and in the morning, he'll cook her breakfast and bring it to her so she doesn't even have to attempt going downstairs.

But instead of immediately putting that plan into action, he finds himself just staring at Tohru. They've moved away from the front door now, and she's looking around the main room. He can practically see the gears turning in her head—she's already making a mental list of everything she needs to clean. He'll be damned if he lets her clean or cook anytime soon, though.

"Wanna go to bed?" he asks, and she looks at him, blinking a couple times and letting out an awkward, "um…"

Once he realizes what exactly he said, he feels heat rise to his cheeks. "Our own beds!" he corrects hurriedly, before figuring out that she knows that he didn't mean for it to sound weird...and is just teasing him.

She smirks, an expression he's not used to seeing on her usually soft face, but that he could absolutely stand to become more acquainted with.

"Well," she says, passing a hand through her bangs, "I think I'll shower first. My hair's gross."

"No it's not," he says, then the logical side of his mind kicks into gear. "Wait...can you even shower with those stitches?" He tilts his head toward her right arm.

"They said it should be okay, as long as I dry off really well and change the bandages right after. Will you, um…" she bites her lip, clearly fighting some inner battle with herself over what she wants to say next. The fact that she can go from teasing him one second to being so shy the next is mystifying to Kyo. "Will you come say goodnight to me when I'm done?"

Such a simple request, but she's so embarrassed by it...and honestly, so is he. They've said goodnight to each other nearly every night for the past three years, but always as friends, as roommates. Never as...whatever this is. Never with the implication that he could kiss her goodnight, too, or hug her, or even follow her into her room if she asks him to.

This is going to take getting used to.

"'Course."

She smiles sweetly and squeezes his hand once more before letting go and disappearing up the stairs, Kyo watching her back very carefully.

He stands there in the living room for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself, and feels his stomach growl.

He's hungry. How is he hungry when they just ate?

He realizes, then, that he'd forgotten to eat his fucking dinner because he'd been staring at Tohru like a lovestruck idiot the entire time. Surely everyone noticed that. He'll get teased by Kunimitsu tomorrow.

"Shit," he mumbles, and distracts himself by going to the kitchen and digging around in the cupboards. He's putting some packaged curry on the stove when he hears the padding of feet behind him.

"Hey, good shower?" he asks, keeping his eyes on the task in front of him so he doesn't spill the curry powder everywhere.

"Well, uh…"

He sets down the package and turns. Tohru is standing there in the doorway, wearing the same clothes she came home in, her hair still dry.

"You didn't shower?"

She doesn't answer verbally, but he notices the fingers of her left hand ghosting over the bandages on her opposite arm. He swallows hard.

"Does it hurt to lift that arm?" he whispers.

"Maybe a little."

"Tohru."

"Okay, yes. It does. But it's okay, I'll just shower tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be better in the morning."

It's like she wants him to ignore the fact that she just got out of the hospital, and that she was put there in the first place because of him—because he'd ran off and left her in the rain that day, and if he'd stayed and talked it out with her, things would have been so different.

But he can't do that. He's trying to change, to not run away from anything anymore. He loves her too much to turn away from the knowledge that she's hurting and that it's his fault. Again. It's always his fault. Besides, the physical evidence is all over her, and that's hard to not notice—the bandages covering stitches on her upper arm; the new, jagged scar above her left eyebrow; and the one running vertically down her forearm, still slightly raised from being in the healing stage.

"I can wash your hair," he blurts. It's the least he can do.

She tilts her head to the side, eyes studying his. "You don't have to do that. It can wait until tomorrow."

It's the least he can do.

"I want to." That's also true. There's something oddly relaxing about the idea of getting to run his fingers through her hair repeatedly, working the shampoo to a froth in the thick, dark strands he's always loved so much. And something exciting about the idea of being able to do something so intimate for her, no matter how small.

"Just c'mere," he adds when she doesn't respond right away. He moves to take the curry off the stove.

"N-no, you can eat first, Kyo-kun!" she insists. She rushes over and puts her hand on his wrist to stop him. "You didn't eat any dinner."

So she noticed too? Of course she did. Fantastic.

He sighs and turns away in an attempt to hide the blush he feels rising to his cheeks.

"'Kay," he concedes, turning the burner back on. "Do...do you want some?"

"I'm okay," she says, and something about the tone of her voice—it's mischievous, almost—makes him look at her again. "I got to eat and look at you. I can multitask."

Fuck. She's making fun of him. He knows it, but her voice sounds so sexy like that. It makes part of him want to grab her face and kiss her senseless, then move his lips down to her neck, and then even further down until he's tasted every inch of her body. That's not a feeling he's really used to having about Tohru without guilt added into the mix. It makes him jittery.

"Yeah, yeah," he mumbles, hating the prepubescent-sounding crack in his voice. What is he, fourteen?

She giggles, apparently satisfied with his reaction. "I'll make the rice," she offers.

"No, sit down! You're not doing any work."

"All I have to do is put it in the rice cooker and turn it on, Kyo-kun."

He stirs the solidifying curry rapidly, needing to do something, anything with the energy he feels piling up in his body. Anything that doesn't involve pulling her away from the rice cooker and being a complete douchebag by mauling her. He can't complain about her overexerting herself while he's thinking about them doing that, so he's quiet. She takes his silence as permission and gets to work.

She sits at the low table in the living room with him while he eats. She spends the entire time staring at him, which makes him feel a little itchy, not only from the excessive attention, but also from the knowledge that she's probably only doing it to tease him again. But after a bit, he notices her gaze settling on his lips, and he bites down on his tongue. She wants him to kiss her. He thinks. Maybe. But he doesn't really have the guts to, at the moment.

Maybe he is fourteen. An adult surely wouldn't be this awkward about such a thing, after all.

Instead, he takes his last bite hurriedly, then abandons the table, dirty dish and all, to go into the kitchen and drag a chair over to the sink. He looks at her expectantly. The longer she sits there, the more he starts to lose his nerve. Finally, she stands up in a hurry.

"Oh! Now?"

"Unless you don't want me to anymore."

"No, I do, I really do!" He can't help but smile at how eager she sounds, and the anxiety in his chest dissipates. "I'll go get my shampoo."

While she scurries back upstairs, Kyo turns on the tap and waits for the water to heat up. In a minute, Tohru returns with two bottles (one of which he has absolutely no idea the contents of) and a towel. He takes the towel and drapes it over the edge of the counter so it doesn't hurt her neck, then gathers her hair up in his hands as she sits.

She tilts her head back, and he runs her hair under the faucet, fingers lacing through it to make sure it all gets wet evenly.

She sighs and hums in appreciation, eyes fluttering shut. It takes all of Kyo's willpower to keep his fingers moving as he stares at her contented face. She's comfortable, completely relaxed. What an odd state to see Tohru Honda in.

He likes it.

"So...you like having your hair played with, huh?" he asks, forcing his eyes away from her and to the shampoo bottle on the counter. He's not really sure how much to use, but she has a lot of hair, so he squeezes a generous amount into his hand.

"Hm? O-oh, I guess so. I've never really had anyone do it before. But...you doing it feels good."

She flushes, and he's sure his cheeks match. He's going to get to learn all these little things about her, he realizes then.

He knows her favorite color and food, what kind of shitty pop music she listens to in her room while she cleans, everything about her past—but the small things, things he wouldn't ever be able to know without touching her like this, he doesn't have a clue about yet.

The idea is sort of thrilling.

He lathers the shampoo between his palms before spreading it throughout her hair. He scratches at her scalp gently, and she gasps, then coughs in an attempt to disguise it. He just chuckles, pretending the fact that she's enjoying this means a lot less to him than it actually does because he thinks he needs to play things cool, for some reason. Probably because he's a ball of nerves around her right now, even though they've spent years together.

As he rinses her hair, he looks at the second bottle Tohru brought down. "So, what's this stuff do?"

"Hm?" She opens her eyes and turns. "Oh, that's conditioner. It makes hair softer."

"Oh. Well your hair always looks really soft, so I guess that explains it."

Girls use too many products to keep straight, but he decides that this particular one sounds rather important.

"You don't use conditioner?"

Kyo shrugs. "I use whatever comes in that one bottle I buy from the drugstore."

She giggles. "That bodywash-shampoo combo they advertise on TV? In the ad that always has a hopelessly messy guy that needs to make showering easier somehow, right?"

"It's cheap," he protests, blushing at her jab. She bites her lip around another smile. "Dork," he adds.

He squirts a bit of the mysterious conditioner into his hand and rubs it through her hair.

"You should try some of it sometime," she says.

"What, my hair's not soft enough for you?" he teases.

"Hmm." She reaches out. He laughs and dips his head, and she cards her fingers through his fiery locks. He can see why she likes him playing with her hair now. It feels really good. "It's really soft."

"See? That stuff works fine." He picks his head back up and goes to rinse her hair, but she stops him.

"You have to let it sit for a minute before rinsing it."

"Takes time for the magic to activate?"

"And you call me a dork, Kyo-kun." He rolls his eyes.

"Hey," she adds after a minute. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course."

"How are you feeling? Really feeling?"

He raises an eyebrow. He's not sure what he was expecting her to ask, but it definitely wasn't that. "What do you mean?"

"A lot has happened to you today."

"Me? You're the one who just got out of the hospital."

"You just had an ancient family curse break," she points out.

"Uh...y-yeah, true." He hums, considering. "I feel lucky," he says finally. She watches him quietly, prompting him to continue. "I got you back. I don't deserve you because I was really an idiot last time we talked, but you took me back anyway. And now I can hold you without transforming, which is even better, obviously. So I feel lucky."

Tohru's eyes water, but she blinks the tears back and looks away. "I love you," she tells him.

It takes him a second to get over the odd shock that runs through him at that. She's said it a few times today, but hearing it fall from her lips so casually is a little jarring. "I love you too," he responds, feeling like an idiot for taking so long to say anything. "A lot."

"Promise?"

He shakes his head, a grin tugging at his lips. "Of course. Would I sprint a mile for someone I don't love?"

She laughs. "Sorry about that."

"Can I rinse this now?"

"Yeah."

The process of washing her hair was much quicker than he'd expected it to be, and he feels himself deflate slightly at the loss of closeness now that it's over. She sits up and he pats at it with the towel, but she has so much hair that it doesn't seem to do much to contain the water dripping from the ends. She smiles and takes it from him, using only her left hand to awkwardly rub her hair dry.

"Thank you."

"Anytime." He thinks of something, hesitates, then forces himself to say it because he doesn't want this all to be over just yet. "Hey, um. Don't you usually braid your hair for bed?"

"O-oh...well, yes."

"I can do that. If you want."

"You know how to braid hair?" she asks, her surprise evident in her voice.

"Yeah, sorta. I'm not an expert or anything, obviously…"

Tohru's entire face lights up like a kid at Disneyland, and it makes him blush. He shifts his weight from foot to foot awkwardly as he waits for her response. "I'd love that, Kyo-kun!"

They wander up the stairs hand in hand. He waits in the hall while she gets into her pajamas. When she opens the door again, the top few buttons of her sleep shirt are undone—she can't even lift her arm that short distance without some pain, apparently—and it nearly makes him choke. He forces himself not to look, because he wants to be a gentleman, dammit.

"Want me to—?" he asks, gesturing vaguely in the direction of her chest.

"Oh, um, yes please."

They're both brilliantly red as he reaches out to her, fingers brushing her skin as he works the buttons on her shirt. Being this close to her, he notices that her wet hair is making damp spots on her clothes, too. It's almost too much. He briefly considers fleeing the room completely, but then the buttons are done up, and she's holding two hair ties out to him in her open palm. He takes them and slips them over his right wrist as she sits at her desk. He steps up behind her and takes her hair in his hands again, trying not to seem too eager.

They're quiet as he divides her hair in half, and then that half into thirds, before getting to work on one braid.

"You're really good at this, Kyo-kun," she says after a bit.

He huffs out a short laugh, focusing on finishing off the first braid. "Kagura used to make me do it to her hair when we were kids."

In her mirror, he notices Tohru's face tighten a bit at the mention of Kagura. He bites at the inside of his cheek, frustrated with himself for bringing up another girl, for making her feel weird. But how does he fix it?

He knows Tohru so well, better than he knows himself. But being able to do things for her in a romantic capacity will take some adjusting to. Could he kiss her, or would that make it worse right now? Would he need to ask for permission first?

He settles on taking the end of her braid and pulling it in front of her face, using it to tickle the tip of her nose. She giggles and turns to look at him.

"It's more fun doing it for you," he says. It's a lame attempt at a save, but he hopes she feels what's behind it.

I never loved her. But I love you. I love you so much. I like taking care of you like this.

She smiles. Because, after all, she knows him really well, too.

"Maybe someday we'll have a daughter you can do it for, too," she says quietly.

Kyo freezes. Tohru noticeably tenses, too.

"I'm sorry, that was really thoughtless of me to say! I mean, I don't know if you might even want kids, let alone want them with m-me…" she rambles nervously. Her hands are waving in front of her face like they always do when she gets embarrassed. He grabs her fingers to still her arm before she manages to mess up her stitches from all the shaking.

Never in his life has Kyo thought about having children. Until today, it had never been a possibility, so why bother fantasizing about it? But when he looks at Tohru now, at her big brown eyes that always look at him with so much love, her thin frame and pale skin, when he thinks about her intoxicating laugh and how kind she is to everyone, he thinks he might.

"It's okay. I probably do." He takes a bit of delight in the way her eyes widen at that. "Want kids, I mean. And all of them with you."

She inhales sharply. "You do?" she squeaks out, and Kyo can tell she's trying not to cry. He can't take seeing her like that right now, so he needs to distract her.

"Of course, dork. And hey, uh." He pauses, scratches at the back of his neck. "I was wondering...would it be alright if I kiss you?"

Tohru turns an incredible shade of red, but she doesn't miss a beat responding. "I'd really like that. And you don't have to ask for permission."

There goes that fear of his, at least.

He bends down and leans in, cupping her cheek in his hand. She closes her eyes in anticipation, but when he glances down at her lips, he sees that her bottom one is captured between her teeth, being gnawed at. He chuckles.

"Nervous?" he asks.

She snaps her eyes open. "Huh? O-oh, well, maybe a little…" As soon as she's done talking, she's worrying her lip between her teeth again.

Kyo isn't any less nervous than she is, but this seems like one of those moments where he needs to be strong for the both of them. "Well, you gotta let go if you want to do this," he whispers, tracing his thumb along her lower lip. Her breath hitches in her throat, and he pretends not to notice it, even though the sound fogs his brain and makes it hard to think about anything else.

"Oh. Right. Sorry." She releases her lip and promptly closes her eyes again. He smiles a bit to himself as he looks her over. He sort of kind of really loves how her lip looks a bit swollen now, and the idea that he's about to make it worse in a totally different way.

Before he can lose his nerve, he leans in and presses his lips to hers chastely. This is only their third kiss, and only the second that Tohru remembers, but she's a natural. She moves her mouth against Kyo's with no hesitation, as though she's been making out with him for years. It makes his legs feel weak. When he feels her swipe her tongue across his lower lip, he has to actually sink down to his knees on the carpet to keep some amount of composure. She giggles against his mouth, and he finds himself smiling, too, instead of being embarrassed.

When they break apart for air, they stay in each other's space, and Kyo opens his eyes and notices that her lips are definitely redder and puffier now than they had been before. Dimly, he feels a small sense of accomplishment at that before telling himself that that's a really weird thing to think.

"I should finish your hair so you can get to sleep," he says softly, standing back up and moving behind her again.

"You said you're not an expert, but I'm not too sure about that," she says, examining his handiwork in the mirror when he's finished.

"Uh. Thanks?" he replies awkwardly, not really sure how to react to that as an 18 year old boy. She laughs lightly and spins around to face him.

"Well, uh…goodnight, Kyo-kun. Thank you for everything today."

She doesn't need to thank him, not at all. Not ever. She thinks he's being overly sweet, maybe, but he's going to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for that day in the rain. He'll spend the rest of his life trying to keep that promise he made her mom, now, too. Washing and braiding her hair, cooking for her, helping her fold laundry—whatever she needs, he knows he'll not only do it, but cherish the process, too. The thought makes his heart feel unsteady.

"Goodnight." He tries to keep a tremble out of his voice, and is overly proud of himself when he succeeds. He doesn't want to cry in front of her right now. He doesn't need to make her feel guilty, especially for something that's not her fault.

"Can I, uh...can we kiss again?"

He smiles and takes her cheeks in his hands. "You don't need to ask for permission to kiss me, either, ya know." So she does, and it's so sweet and gentle. It makes him warm. He decides kissing Tohru is his new favorite thing to do.

He kisses her nose once she backs up. He wants to stay with her and hold her all night, but she doesn't ask, and he's sure as hell not going to make himself look weird by suggesting it, so he steps backward, heading to her door. "I'm gonna keep this open, 'kay?" he says. "In case you need to call me for anything."

She nods. "Thank you."

He nods back and takes one last look at her before stepping completely out of her room. She's so, so beautiful. And she's his, somehow.

"Oh, Kyo-kun?"

"Mm?" He pauses in the hall and peeks back around the doorframe.

"Would you, um—would you maybe consider washing my hair again for me sometime?" she blurts, cheeks crimson.

He's taken a bit aback by that, but he manages to nod. He'll do that every day from now on, if that's what she wants. "Of course."

Seemingly pleased with this, she smiles before turning around and crawling into bed, leaving Kyo alone in the hall. He makes it to his door before slumping down against the wall, letting his head fall into his hands.

It's just...so much. So much has happened. They've shared so much today. He loves her so much, maybe too much—so much it threatens to eat him alive.

He knows that he'd willingly let it, too.

After a bit, he manages to drag himself up and into his room. There's no way in hell he's going to get any sleep tonight, so he grabs a random manga off his bookshelf and sits near his door, ready to run into Tohru's room if necessary. He reads the same page eight times, somehow not gathering any information every time, as he hyperfocuses on listening for any sound coming out her door. Eventually he hears her breathing come in long, even sighs, indicating that she's fallen asleep. It makes him smile.

Someday he'll get to sleep next to her. That's a weird thought, considering he anticipated being locked up in a cage until just a few days ago. For the first time, he feels himself looking forward to the future.

That's weird, too.

But in a very good way.

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