Airheads in Love

Cassieandra8291, this one's just for you! ^w^
        
     I’m gonna kill that little brat, Momiji, was all Kyo Sohma could think as he watched all the people - well, mostly children - skating along that menacingly shiny rink.  As he watched, some little kid fell on his backside and started wailing.  Kyo’s scowl deepened.  I’m really gonna kill that little brat.
     “Kyo-kun!” a cheerful voice interrupted his seething imagination, “Kyo-kun, I got our roller skates!”
     Kyo pushed his naturally orange hair out of his eyes so he could better see his girlfriend.  There she was - Tohru Honda, in all her, well, space cadety glory.  Her long brown hair was pulled back into two braided pigtails, and her ditsy smile, that he’d come to love so much, was in its usual place on her adorable face.  As usual, she seemed entirely oblivious that there was anyone else around her but Kyo and herself.
     Which was the only thing that held Kyo back from knocking off the heads of those guys behind her that were laughing.
     “That face,” he heard one of them say, then they burst into obnoxious snorts again.
     Kyo quickly grabbed Tohru by the arm and tugged her away from the jerks, then pushed her down - very gently, for him - on a bench.
     “Don’t worry about people like that,” he said in his most awkwardly endearing tone, “Just… ignore them or something…”
    “What are you talking about, Kyo-kun?” Tohru asked, putting on that almost motherly look of concern.  All he could do was laugh at how oblivious she was, and hug her.
     Man, he loved being able to hug Tohru.  Those years he’d spent under the curse of the zodiac were behind him, he knew that, but he couldn’t help but wonder how in the world he could have gone all that time, with Tohru right there, in his reach, without hugging her at least once every day.
     “Look, he’s making that face again!”
     Snapped out of his rather mushy train of thought, Kyo pulled away from Tohru and frowned.  Wait a second… Those guys were laughing at him?
     “Tohru, do I have something on my face?” he asked self-consciously, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his hand.
     Tohru just frowned again, “Um… I don’t think so… I was actually going to say you looked… er… you look quite… um… handsome, tonight…” she looked down at her knee pads then (which he’d insisted on her wearing), and he watched with a fond smile as her face turned a familiar shade of red.
     He resisted the urge to repeat himself, to tell her that she didn’t have to be awkward with him anymore, but he just kissed the top of her head instead, and stole his pair of skates from her lap.
     After a moment, Tohru seemed to overcome from her red spell, and was positively bouncing in the seat beside him.
     “Oh, Kyo-kun, look!” she exclaimed, pointing out to the roller rink as he laced up his skates (he was doing his best not to think about how many places his skates had been).  “Oh, this was such a good idea!  It’ll be fun, won’t it Kyo-kun?”
     He could never wound his pride so severely to tell her that it had been, in fact Momiji’s idea, and her happiness silenced all his complaints about it being stupid and for little kids.  He looked on the bright side of things.  Tohru was clumsy, likely to fall many times, which would give him the perfect excuse to hold her hand the entire time…
     With this bright future on his mind, Kyo smiled and nodded, his mood lifted.  Tohru always seemed to have that affect on him.
     “Let me get up first,” Kyo kindly demanded, “I don’t want you busting your head before we even get out there.” he lifted himself gracefully from the bench; it was amazing what years of martial arts training could do for your balance.
     “Yes!” Tohru agreed, jumping up with a little too much enthusiasm and stumbling.  He grabbed her by the arms quickly and steadied her.  “Heehee, whoops,” was all she said, and covered her mouth with her hand when she giggled, like a little kid.  Kyo scrutinized her thin, weak body nervously.  He really should have made her wear a helmet too, and some elbow pads, and shin guards…
     “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” he confessed, not letting her move from her spot.
     “Oh,” Tohru said, her face falling for just a moment, but then she brightened again, “Well, is there something else you wanted to do, Kyo-kun?”
     Ughhhh, those wretched sparkling eyes.
     “No, we’re staying here,” he stated, grabbing her hand and tugging her carefully forward.  The moment their skates touched the gleaming floor of the rink, the main lights went out, replaced by annoying strobe lights and glowing disco balls.
     “Oh, great,” Kyo groaned.  As if it wasn’t dreadful enough thinking of Tohru trying to keep her balance on wheels - now on wheels in the dark!
     “Oh!” She gasped, looking at the floor, “Look, Kyo-kun, isn’t it pretty?”
     He wanted to say something corny and sweet, like “not as pretty as you are,” but he was so anxious with thoughts of Tohru breaking something she would need later that he couldn’t form coherent words, much less a whole sentence.
     “Let’s just… start out slow,” he managed after a moment.  He kept a careful hold on her hand as they began to glide around the floor.
     Even with the girly little pigtails, the wide, excited eyes, and nearly ridiculous smile on her face, Tohru looked so beautiful to Kyo as they drifted along that he couldn’t move his eyes from her.  It was all so bizarre to him, how such a wonderful, understanding girl would want to be with a guy like him.
     Even more bizarre to him was that he fell first.
     “Whoa!” he yelped as he rolled face first into a wall, rocking him backward on his heels and his rear.
     “Kyo-kun!” Tohru said, all nervous and motherly again, falling to her cushioned knees, “Are you alright, Kyo-kun?”
     Kyo didn’t even respond, just stared at the extremely reflective floor, and then, suddenly, burst into laughter - hard, painful laughter that cut into his sides and forced tears from his orange eyes.
     So that was what those guys had been laughing at.
     Reflected on the floor was his face - his usually angry, stubborn, I’m-a-monster-and-the-whole-world-hates-me face, caught in quite possibly the funniest expression he’d ever seen.  When he was looking at Tohru, he had been smiling so hard that he was shocked he didn’t dislocate his jaw.  His eyes were softened somehow, and his whole face seemed to glow…
     It couldn’t have been funnier if he’d been drooling.
     “Wh - what’s so funny?” Tohru asked, “Are you sure you’re alright?  Was I skating wrong?  Were we going too fast?  Did -”
     He quickly put a finger to her lips to stop her panic attack.
     “It’s fine, Tohru,” he said, then, with a wicked grin, he teased, “But it was your fault.”
     He watched her eyes go wide in surprise, then he was kissing her.
     He heard laughter again - probably those same guys as before.
     But this time, he didn’t care.