Chapter Text
The first New Years that Kyo spends with her, he doesn't wish for anything.
There's something he wants, sure: to beat Yuki in a fight. That's what he thinks about as he watches the sunrise from the rooftop, anyway. The sky turns from black to blue, mixes purple and orange and yellow. It lights up the city on the horizon, an entire world in front of him, but the wind whips at his cheeks from this high up—and he shouts what he wants so that everyone knows. So that he doesn't forget.
But it doesn't sit the right way in his chest, the way he thinks a wish is supposed to.
He watches her out of the corner of his eye. She clasps her hands in front of her chest, eyes closed and smiling—and Kyo decides that a wish must be something good. Something that makes you happy. That's what she makes it look like, at least.
Beating Yuki will fix everything. (Beating Yuki won't make him happy.)
That's the year Kyo decides he doesn't like New Years that much, and that he likes wishes even less.
He walks into the kitchen the next morning, and she's there.
"Good morning, Kyo-kun!" she says brightly. She's chopping vegetables, hair spilling out of her braids. "I'm surprised you're awake so early."
Kyo shrugs, avoiding her eyes as he grabs the milk carton from the fridge. "Didn't want to sleep all day."
"That makes sense," she laughs, even though it wasn't funny. "I thought I'd be more tired, but I guess the excitement of the new year woke me up!"
"Probably," he says. He sticks to the edge of the room so that he doesn't have to brush past her, accidentally touch her, even look at her. Being alone with her makes everything better and worse, so he heads into the living room and plops down in front of the TV.
He flips through the channels aimlessly, but the sound of the TV is nothing compared to the sound of her slicing and dicing, of her knife meeting her cutting board in a steady rhythm, of her absentmindedly humming a bit out-of-tune. The smell of leeks is pungent—but he's gotten used to it, ever since she moved in, so it's not too bad as long as he doesn't have to eat them.
"Hey, Kyo-kun?"
He pauses. "What?" He doesn't turn around to look at her.
"Um, well… I was just wondering what you wished for last night."
He leans his elbows against the kotatsu. "Aren't you not supposed to ask?"
"Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or pry." He hears her set down her knife, and then she's hurrying into the living room and standing next to him. "I have an idea! I'll tell you what I wished for first, if you want."
"That's not what I meant, I just." He sees her in his periphery, tries to focus on her pink socks and not on her face. "It won't come true if you tell someone, right? So you shouldn't tell me."
"Oh… you're probably right." She nods dutifully, then giggles. "I guess we shouldn't talk about them, then. I want mine to come true, and yours, too!"
"Well, I didn't wish for anything."
"Really?"
"Yeah. What's the point? It's not like they come true." Kyo looks up at her, and he immediately regrets it, because looking at her smile makes him feel odd—so looking at her now, her brows upturned and her eyes sad, just makes him feel awful. "I mean… I just don't believe in that sort of thing."
It's never worked before.
"Right... I understand." She smiles at him, and it doesn't quite reach her eyes. She walks back to the kitchen and continues chopping. Her humming doesn't start again.
He feels like shit.
"Yours will probably work," he says, eyes still fixed on the TV. "Like I said, just don't tell anyone what it is, okay?"
And it's so stupid to think that he can hear her start to smile again, but he swears he does in that moment.
"I won't, Kyo-kun! I promise."
And even though Kyo still doesn't believe in wishes, he thinks he might have one this year. Even if he doesn't quite understand it.
Kyo finds her on the roof, and it strikes him that it always used to be the other way around. Anytime he ran away, she found him up here. She's always chased after him, talked him off the ledge, brought him home.
He wonders what Tohru is running from tonight. (He ignores that he might already know.)
She came home covered in dirt, saying very little as she made dinner, as she ate, as she excused herself after cleaning up because she didn't feel well.
Tohru never says what she means, and Kyo's gotten used to that; he likes to think he's picked up on an unspoken language. Her little movements, changes in her eyes, which smiles are fake. He knows what to say to get her to open up, and he knows when she's ready to actually do that, too.
Tonight, he doesn't know what she wants when she starts crying. The best he can do is try to wipe away her tears. Even that feels like a little more than he has any right to do.
"What do you wish for, Kyo-kun?"
And it's not even New Years, and he doesn't understand why she would talk about wishes right now, not when she's upset and he's confused and she won't tell him the truth and he can't do anything about it—
"For someone to quit crying," he says.
He means it. That's far more important than any wish he might have tonight.
New Years comes along again, and it's the second one that he spends with Tohru.
"What are you going to wish for on your first shrine visit of the new year, Kyo-kun?"
He laughs. "If I tell you mine, you gotta tell me yours."
Her eyes go wide. "That's right! Sorry, never mind!"
Kyo thinks it's maybe the first year he's ever had a wish he could put into words.
He watches Tohru as her eyes drift around the room, probably spacing out. She sits with her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her hair ribbons are new and pressed for the special occasion. She turns to him suddenly, her hair and ribbons both whipping around with her.
"Maybe we can come to Shishou's for next New Years, too!" she says. "Wouldn't that be fun?"
Their last New Years together.
"I'm sure he'd like that." Kyo reaches out and grabs one of her ribbons, gently tugging at it. "If you're not careful, you're gonna hit someone with one of these, too."
Tohru giggles. "You're only worried about that because you think you'll get hit. You're too slow to dodge them, Kyo-kun."
"Yeah, you wish, idiot," he says, and it only makes her laugh harder.
He has a wish, but that doesn't mean there's any chance of it coming true. Doesn't mean he wants it to come true.
It doesn't mean he believes in them now.
He's just an idiot.
Their first New Years out of Shigure's house, Kyo reaches out a hand to Tohru and helps her up onto their new roof. It's not as big as Shigure's, and it definitely has never been used as an inhabitable spot, either. It's slanted at a steeper angle, and Tohru clutches onto Kyo's sleeve as they decide where to sit.
The sky is clear, though, and the sun is bright as it rises in front of them. They're together, so it feels like home.
"Kyo-kun?"
"Yeah?"
She takes his hand in her own. "Would you tell me your wish this year?"
"Tohru," he chides, making up for all the days that he wouldn't say it. "We've been over this. You can't tell anyone your wish if you want it to come true."
"I know, I know. But I still wonder every year."
Kyo raps his fist gently against her forehead. "Well, I told you a long time ago, I don't believe in that sort of thing."
"If you say so," Tohru laughs.
She leans over and kisses him, and as the sky turns kaleidoscopic, Kyo wonders what he could possibly wish for this year, what more he could possibly want when he has this now. When he has Tohru by his side.
He pulls away finally, and then he kisses her on the cheek. "Maybe there's one thing I can think of," he says. "I'm not telling you, though."
She beams at him. "I'll just have to guess, then!"
"Good luck with that."
Kyo wishes for this to never end. This time, he thinks his luck might hold.