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Contrary to what some people believe, Kyojuro wasn’t as stupid as people like to make him out to be. Sure, he might be a little dense when it came to social interactions, and talked a little too loudly for the average person, but one doesn’t secure the position of a Hashira without at least some semblance of wit about them.
So, really, Kyojuro was , in fact, very intelligent. He just doesn’t get certain things . Like not liking food, or why Muzan was the way he was. Mitsuri could ramble on and on about the intricacies of romantic love, but he would never fully grasp it.
Familial love? Sure! He loved Senjuro plenty. He loved his late mother. And he still has some love left for his father, even if he’s been reduced to that shadow of who he was that only drinks sake all day.
Platonic? No problem at all! He’s friends with his fellow Hashira. Some are a little on the quiet side—and sometimes a little too quiet, to the point where he has to ask Giyu to repeat himself—but they never reject his friendly advances at all!
But romantic? Kyojuro couldn’t fully fathom the idea.
The appearance of what it should be is blurry in his mind, the lines wobbly and the color off-kilter, but the gist is there nonetheless. It’s shaped something like what he could remember of his mother and father and their tender gestures, and sculpted a little more by what he’s seen of other couples, such as Master and his wife, and Tengen with his.
It’s an amateurish, clumsy perception of romance. Something a child would make. Which is exactly what Kyojuro was when it came to that .
Fighting demons ate away at his time, so it’s not like he could go around asking others about what it was like to be in love, nor did he intend to. All he really wanted to do was do his job, and do it efficiently enough to be able to come home to Senjuro’s cooking.
Until you threw it all up in the air.
Kyojuro had to give it to you—you definitely knew how to make an entrance. It wasn’t an exaggeration; he’d heard Tengen rant about the incident countless times to know it was something dramatic even to the Sound Hashira.
You also knew how to leave a lasting impression. No matter how many days Kyojuro would put behind that night you killed your first Lower Moon, he would never, ever , be able to get rid of your laugh from his mind.
He’d pressed it deep into his thoughts, traced over it idly, and sought to garner more moments like it from you as much as possible. Seeing your face break into sheer, utter joy like that. . . Perhaps, someday, Kyojuro could make himself the reason for your smile.
It came to a point where he’d been gently nudging—pestering, more like, though Senjuro’s all-too-understanding expression wouldn’t let him put it that way—his younger brother to get you to stay whenever you came around the estate to train him.
It hasn’t worked so far.
And how could he forget Hashira training, when you’d matched him blow for blow? It was as if the two of you perfectly slotted together, like a handle and its Nichirin blade, like noodles and broth in a bowl of ramen. Like frost and flame.
He’d never felt so complete. That clumsy approximation of romantic love in his mind had turned four-dimensional, something he could turn around, clearly look at from different angles, and imagine a future with. More importantly, it felt real .
Now, gazing at you under the warm pool of sunlight slanting in from the window above your cot, he couldn’t help but feel cold anxiety.
Your face was completely serene, body at rest. It would be an otherwisely calming image, but it was undermined by the many bandages wrapped around you, and the punctual arrival of Shinobu every hour or so to check over your condition.
When Senjuro had received a letter from a friend of yours several days before, alerting them to your injuries, he rushed over to the Estate as fast as he could. Shinobu and Giyu had thrown him curious looks when he’d arrived, but he hadn’t cared, not when it was you , lying prone on the bed, with gaping holes in your body.
Kyojuro had read over the reports. The fight at Natagumo Mountain had been brutal. No one expected more than one Lower Moon to be there. But Lower Moons were usually no trouble for the Hashira, so what had happened for you, the Frost Hashira, and the Kamado boy to have ended up so greatly injured?
It was something he’d been mulling over ever since he got to the Butterfly Estate and ended up on your bedside. There was nothing else to do, after all, while anxiously waiting for you to recover.
His hands twitched. He wanted to hold your hand. Very badly. But he wouldn’t dare touch you so intimately like that, not when you weren’t even conscious. But, maybe, when you’d wake up, he’d ask.
He’d ask many things. Like where you learned how to fight, or how you always manage to make people feel like you’d known each other for a long time. He’d ask whether you’d like to come over to his home for dinner sometime.
Kyojuro just wished you’d wake up soon.