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Miss Kobayashi has heard every word in the book for what she is. Nerd, otaku, dork, shut-in, you name it. They’re not really wrong, or anything, and it’s not anything she really minds. It’s even made friends for her a few times.
The only catch is that it all gives her standards that are a little high for the real world. She’s always had her nose buried in some fantasy story or another.
She dreams pretty often, so thinking she’s woken up to find a dragon outside her apartment isn’t out of the norm. She’s probably asleep. Or she could be drunk still. That happens a fair bit too. Thankfully coding is monotonous enough she can phone it in hungover.
When the dragon turns into a little maid, and bounces with a flourish onto her balcony, she knows she’s definitely asleep. She hopes she stays asleep, honestly. This one’s a good one. She’s cute. And Kobayashi’s also a little afraid of her. She’s perfect.
Although this dream does seem a bit more real than others. And very long. And her tail does seem a bit more real than her sleepy imagination could muster.
She’s telling her she met in the mountains? She does drink there sometimes. And that she invited her back here?
Well, getting drunk and trying and failing to invite a girl back to her place seems a bit more like her awake-self.
She hates having to tell her hiring her is impossible. She’d really like for this dream to be real.
When it’s clear it all actually is real, she second guesses this whole “let’s have a real dragon-maid move in” thing.
She has no idea how to be a maid, which isn’t actually much of a drawback for Kobayashi. The maid part is only really for aesthetics and if she acted too perfectly maid-like she wouldn't be very interesting to have around after about two minutes.
The real issue is that she has no idea how to act passably human.
Maybe she can at least start out with the maid part to see how much she knows about humans.
When she tells her she can’t even ask her her likes instead of dislikes and Kobayashi learns why, she knows she’s in for it. This girl really is a dragon.
“Many of my friends were actually slain using the things they like. Like liquor, women, gems, and such.”
Check, check, and check, those are all on her list.
“Not much different from humans.”
“But I’ll let you know this one. I love you, Miss Kobayashi!” she exclaims and it must be some sort of trick.
“Are you planning to eat me?” she asks.
“I don’t mean that way! I mean sexually,” she nods, matter-of-fact.
Really? That quick? Is there a catch? There must be. That was too easy. Even dating sims take more finesse than Kobayashi knows she has to get a confession like that that quickly.
Lucky for her, even if she’s an otaku, or whatever anyone wants to call her, she’s never been one for dating sims.
Maybe Tohru doesn’t understand?
“I’m a woman, though?”
Tohru plows right through, so she must understand. At least that’s out of the way.
Unluckily for her, nothing she’s ever watched, read, or even thought about could’ve prepared her for living with a dragon.
Takiya thinks it’s wonderful, despite Tohru’s thinly-veiled threats leveled at him.
“She’s amazing. Where in the world did you find this girl?” he asks. Kobayashi decides to answer him honestly.
“Another dimension. I mean, she's a relative,” she corrects half-hearted.
He just laughs and claps her on the shoulder. People do that a lot. She answers with brutal honesty and it’s interpreted as a joke. At least it keeps her out of trouble.
Kobayashi wouldn’t necessarily call this a fantasy of hers partly because she never thought to aim quite this high, even in her dreams. The maid part was as far as she got. A dragon maid? With a tail? It’s just reaching is what it is.
Although she supposes if she did have an ideal partner, this would be her. And her mother said she’d never get married.
Of course her mother also probably wouldn’t think this counts even if Kobayashi did. At least she’s been prepared for this since it was clear that Kobayashi preferred khakis and ties to dresses and pencil skirts, since she became a programmer working with an office full of men and never tried to date any of them. She supposes the maid calendar full of illustrations of pretty women in perfectly starched skirts and frills didn’t do anything to encourage her mother, not that she was trying to.
Kobayashi has always agreed with her mother about the marriage thing, but for different reasons. She’s always been deathly afraid of what overwhelming normalcy can do. Routines. How it would hurt to love someone and have the heavy day-to-day of life dull them in her eyes.
But Tohru’s eyes seem different. These flickering reds and golds glow like there must be real fire in those too. How she’s never sure what she’ll do, when all the furniture in the room will disappear, if another dragon larger than the entirety of their building will appear, if she’ll try to feed her her own tail and re-grow it.
Boredom isn’t something she thinks is a possibility anymore.
And it’s not just the things Tohru does. It’s a way she looks at things. Kobayashi has always loved stories because this world has always seemed a little too dull and a little too cruel for her. A quiet apartment in a nondescript neighborhood in a sterile office in an unremarkable life.
But Tohru. Tohru loves it all so dearly. And everything is new and fascinating to her and it’s like she’s transforming it all into something fantastic, like Kobayashi has walked into another world even though it all looks the same. It doesn't feel the same.
She looks through her office windows and forgets the lines and lines of code because she finds dragons floating in the clouds there now. Cloudy days, gray and monotonous, are fewer because Tohru knows how to clear them.
The things Kobayashi takes for granted as routine are exciting for Tohru, every day things like how to use a phone, how to use search engines, shopping. The keyboard she sees as so tiring, as the physical tie to her desk, makes Tohru giggle and she tells her she thinks it’s so cool that Kobayashi knows how to type words with it and how quickly she can do it. The packed train she rides on every day that she finds stifling delights her.
“It’s fast, Kobayashi. I think I might be faster, of course. But oh, what is it made out of, why are there so many people on it?”
What’s even more fascinating is how Tohru looks at her the same way. Like she’s something unreal and incredible. She’s just a run-of-the mill office girl with middling clothes and an average apartment and slightly lank hair. So how does she find Tohru asleep, using one of her shirts as a pillow case one evening? Why does a magical, beautiful dragon girl want to nestle in with her at night in her mattress that’s a little lumpy? In a bed that’s a touch too small for two because, well, Kobayashi didn’t think she’d have someone to crawl in bed with at night on a regular basis?
But here she is, with a warm arm thrown over her waist and Kobayashi gets to wake up now to her. Sometimes she wakes up and Tohru is still asleep and she watches her breathe for a little while before she wakes her. Sometimes Tohru is the one who’s awake and she’s doing the same thing, watching her, and the look on her face and the way she smiles and reaches out to toy with a strand of Kobayashi’s hair is impossible because it’s clear she loves her and thinks her something special.
How many things about domestic life that she always rolled her eyes at that she does now without thinking anymore. Like wondering what Tohru is doing while she’s at work. Wondering if everyone is nice to her, if she’s getting along alright. Reminding her to pick something up from the store. Wondering if she’s lonely. How she starts to miss her when she’s not around even though she goes home to her every night.
And children aren’t something she’s ever been keen on, but do smallish dragons really count?
Whether or no, the warm feeling in the pit of her stomach when she watches how kind and wonderful Tohru is with her is something she can’t deny. And how she wants to protect Kanna when her little eyes well up like that.
Why does it feel like she is married, in a way, when she picks up and moves when it’s clear her tiny apartment is too small to house all of them? When she realizes, quietly, she’d rather move than lose them.
She doesn’t mind when Tohru finds some of her baby pictures in a photo album as they’re packing because she’ll see them eventually, anyway, and she almost wants her to find them. Kanna crawls in her lap and giggles with her over them, and eventually Kobayashi abandons packing to join them.
Why do so many of the apartments they view not feel good enough for them? Why is Kobayashi so much choosier now that they’re here?
She chooses the one with the roof even though the other two were closer to her work. The way they giggle, the way Kanna does a little dance, the way the sun plays in the reds and golds of Tohru’s eyes and pretty hair sway her. This is good for them. She wants to do things that are good for them.
She still wonders, sometimes, if she’s dreaming. It seems like the sort of thing she would dream up for herself. Living with a magic dragon-girl who’s beautiful and sweet and dresses this way because she knows she likes it. Who thinks she’s beautiful too, even when Kobayashi isn’t sure of it herself. With a little girl who tugs at the leg of her khakis, telling her she wants to go to work with her, wants to do everything with her, who looks at her with impressionable eyes and Kobayashi’s not sure she’s worthy of her either. Tohru seems to think so, with the way grins every time Kobayashi holds Kanna’s hand, or picks her up, or lets her fall asleep in her lap.
Tohru asks her if she thinks she’s loud, if she thinks she’s a lot to handle. And how can she tell her that, well, of course she is, she’s a magical dragon maid. Kobayashi never expected someone straight out of a fantasy to be particularly quiet or nondescript. That, no, she’s not quiet but the noise and bustle are what families do and that it’s not always convenient, but she loves it anyway?
Life is so much more tumultuous and it’s so much more wonderful anyway.
She has to learn exactly how to wash a dragon on the roof of her building and not let anyone see. She learns that of course Kanna will need clothes that look a little more like something from this world if she’s going to go to school every day. Tohru might be able to get away with being the “cosplay lady,” but Kanna’s teachers won’t cut her the same slack.
Then there’s the fact that of course Kanna’s school is going to want to know who her parents are and Kobayashi supposes they’re it. She has to clap a hand over Tohru’s mouth as she tries to explain who hatched Kanna and the politics of her banishment to the school.
She also has to come to terms with the fact that of course the school is going to bat an eye or two because even in other clothing, Kanna still has horns and so does one of her mothers, and there’s two of them. Tohru tries to explain that she’s a dragon and that her horns will have to stay. Kobayashi hushes her leaps in with a hurried “We like to give Kanna uh….creative freedom! We find she, uh, focuses better that way. We would really appreciate your patience with this matter-”
Takiya teases her now about having a wife and child, referring to them in little air quotes because he also thinks they're family and she guesses they are and that's part of the joke. And anyway she’s a bit more concerned today by whether Kanna is alright at her new school, if Tohru got her there alright and if she’s worried too.
Then there’s the day her mother drops by unannounced, having tried to visit her old apartment, concerned to hear she’d moved without telling her. Kobayashi shrugs and lets her in. She’s been on her own long enough it won’t matter if her mother gets upset and she might as well know.
Tohru freezes with wide eyes. She’s distrustful of anyone new Kobayashi brings in until she gets the okay from her directly. Sometimes not even then.
“Tohru, this is my mother.”
Tohru positively beams and lunges forward to introduce herself.
“I’m Tohru Kobayashi,” and of course, she forgot Tohru’s been using her last name and her mother goes slack-jawed. “I’m in love with your daughter and, oh, it’s lovely to meet you.”
Her mother can’t speak for a few minutes, just sits down and puts a hand to her forehead. She thinks she might be about to speak when Kanna runs in and latches onto her leg to ask if she’ll play video games with her and Kobayashi reminds her she has homework. Her mother goes silent again and a little pale.
She just lets her sit there for an hour and watch them, as Tohru cooks and hums to herself. As Kanna pouts over her paper and shows a lot more interest in discussing the myriad of ways she could set it on fire instead of finish the problems on it, as Tohru agrees that that would be a fun thing, and Kobayashi tells them that’s enough.
“No one is setting anything on fire,” she sighs, taking her glasses off because she’s getting a headache. And her mother laughs. She startles because she hasn’t heard a peep from her the whole time until now.
“You look just like your father.”
She comes back to life a little then, and she’s still quieter than normal, but she’ll talk now at least.
“She can cook-” she remarks and Tohru brightens and Kobayashi decides not to answer when she asks what’s in it because it’s almost certainly Tohru’s tail. Why does she keep insisting on cooking her own tail?
“You could’ve just told me, I’ve been waiting for you to get married and for grandchildren for long enough already” she huffs a little later because Kanna is growing on her, sitting in her lap. Kobayashi is already bracing herself for endless packages of clothes and toys and is the apartment big enough for all of it that’s about to descend?
“It’s a good thing you’re taking care of them, they need it,” she whispers to her, eyeing the maid outfit and horns and whatever it is that Kanna likes wearing.
Kobayashi weathers it all dutifully and doesn’t let the prideful swell in her chest show that she’s glad her mother gets to see them and likes them.
It is a bit of an odd arrangement still, though. They still sleep in separate rooms now that there are three bedrooms instead of one. She hasn’t even kissed her yet and here she is living with her and a child they’re taking care of. She supposes there’s a joke to be made there but she finds she doesn’t care if someone does because this is how she dreamed it would go anyway.
It’s so sweet and so comfortable and also somehow even more of a rush when she holds her hand walking back home. When they look at one another just a touch too long. When Tohru insists on helping her bathe and Kobayashi is fairly certain she understands the intimacy in the way she pulls her into her lap to embrace her during it.
She understands human love, doesn't she? Kobayashi hopes she does. It would be lovely, with her.
She asks her on a night Tohru slips quietly out of the room she shares with Kanna to join her. Kobayashi quietly bought a bigger bed when they moved and wonders if she notices. She’s not sure if she wants her to or not.
Tohru picks up on it near immediately.
“This is a new bed, isn’t it? Did you buy it for when I come in here?” she grins knowingly and damn her for being perceptive. She supposes she should've known. Anyone who can see through her clothes to find change in her pockets while she’s doing laundry is going to see through her motives too.
“That’s half the reason.”
“Is the other one your back?”
“Yes.”
She giggles and stares at her with this soft and reverent look that makes Kobayashi feel warm. She wonders if she should kiss her. She wonders if Tohru even really knows what that is. It’s hard to parse out, sometimes, how much she knows about humans.
“Tohru?”
“Hm?”
“What do you know about, uh. Human love?”
She knows Tohru knows how to love. She does that quite easily and fiercely. She wonders more what she knows about the human trappings of it.
“Oh, a lot! I had to research. I thought ‘if I’m in love with a human girl, I need to know everything about human relationships-’”
“Where did you research that?!”
“Oh, online, like you taught me.”
Oh no.
“Tohru. How...uh... detailed were the things you found?”
“Quite detailed-”
“Oh god. Okay just. Don't search for those things online anymore.”
“Oh, alright. I also searched at what age humans are allowed to enter in relationships since dragons can live to be hundreds of years old and I didn't know when humans are generally of age,” she pauses and scowls. “You're over eighteen aren't you?”
“Yes, far over-” she groans.
“Good because the consequences are rather severe as they are for murder, I found out that too in case I ever have to kill anyone.”
“We're throwing out the computer tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because it's illegal now. That computer is illegal now.”
“If you say so,” she laughs and then it goes silent between them.
She wants so badly to ask her if she knows about kisses. It's the only thing she wants in this moment. To lean over and press her lips to her pretty mouth.
“I know kisses, yes,” she tells her and Kobayashi jumps.
“Can you read minds too?” she yelps.
“No, you said it out loud,” she grins. “Although I am clairvoyant so sometimes I can predict what you might do.”
“Oh.”
There’s a heady sort of pause like they’re waiting for something and Tohru is the one who takes the leap.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
Kobayashi would normally balk and play cool and act like this isn’t what she wants. But what does it matter now? They live together and essentially have a child together. Keeping pretense is a little ridiculous at this point.
“Yes. If you do too, I mean.”
Tohru doesn't let her get any farther. She giggles so elatedly and closes the distance in seconds flat. Her lips are soft and warmer than a human’s would be and it's a little odd and a little pleasant too.
She pulls back and why are her eyes a little teary?
“Tohru?”
“I'm sorry, I just love you and that was so nice.”
“You know you can kiss me again, right?”
It's a little heartbreaking, the look of utter shock and bliss oh her face. Kobayashi still hasn't figured out why she looks at her this way. She doesn't deserve it. She doesn't deserve her.
“I can?”
“You can kiss me whenever you want,” she offers because it's true.
“But that would be all the time!”
“Well obviously I have to go to work and everything but. You can kiss me when I come home. Whenever you want.”
“Can I kiss you again now?”
How anyone this impossibly cute ended up in her bed, Kobayashi will never quite know.
“Yes.”
“Just. I don't know how to do very much. Dragons don't have anything like this. I just know how to do this,” she gives her another soft kiss and it's fairly chaste and Kobayashi realizes what she means.
“That's okay, I'm not that well versed myself.”
“What?!” Tohru looks at her with shock in the set of her mouth.
“Why is that so surprising?”
“I thought you knew everything,” she giggles.
“What's that supposed to mean? Ah, forget it. My point is I’m learning as I go too. Your guess is going to be as good as mine some of the time. Not all the time, I do still have the human leg-up here. “
“Haven't you kissed people, though?”
“Only once or twice and I was very drunk. I don't remember much. I remember it wasn't anything to write home about.”
“Haven't you dated anyone?”
Kobayashi feels her face go hot.
“Does that matter? And not really.”
“Why not?”
“I was waiting. I didn't like anyone,” she stammers, embarrassed. Tohru doesn't know that people have teased her before about having standards too high for her to keep up with. She wishes they could see who’s here with her now so she could get a little bit of smug revenge.
“Do you like me?”
Kobayashi hasn't really answered that question for herself yet. Although she supposes it all speaks for her. The new apartment, the way potential rejection from her mother wasn't as important as her mother meeting them, the piles of clothes she bought for her and for Kanna, the bigger bed, the way she's lying with her right here and right now.
“Yeah, I like you.”
“Do you love me?”
That's a question she’s not ready to answer just yet either. Mostly because she thinks she already knows the answer to this one too. She’ll just have to tell herself before she tells Tohru and that may take a while yet.
“Humans can take a while to fall in love. We're a little slower than dragons, I think. But I already like you. And I've already moved in with you, so. It looks good for you.”
“So, you're saying you will love me? In the future?” she wrinkles her nose, trying to figure it out.
“Probably. With the way things are going. Just give me a little time to get used to it, okay? I'm still dealing with the fact that dragons exist.”
“I'd give you three hundred years if you needed it!” she squeaks happily.
“No, I don't need that long, I won't even live that long! I meant a few months-”
But Tohru is kissing her again. Kobayashi deepens it, showing her how to do more than a little peck. She hums happily into it. She draws her bottom lip into her mouth and traces it with her tongue. She knows how to do these at least.
“Mm!” Tohru jumps back and giggles in that way she has. “I liked that!”
“Well come here and I'll do it again,” she murmurs and surprises herself. Where did Kobayashi learn to say things like that? There's something this girl does to her that makes her halfway competent with women.
She kisses her again and draws her into her mouth like that and Tohru makes the most impossibly happy sounds against her mouth and this is worth every headache. When Kobayashi tentatively touches her tongue to hers she sighs against her and her mouth and her breath are hot in such a lovely way. She tastes like something vaguely sweet and a little scorched, like sweets baked just a touch too long, that got a little too close to the fire
When she threads a hand in her hair, Tohru breaks away for a moment and smiles with soft eyes.
“I've never experienced anything like this. It almost makes me wish I were human.”
“I like exactly what you are. And you're getting a human experience anyway right now. Close enough.”
She nods and leans back in. Kobayashi is a little shocked and more than a little pleased when she tentatively toys with the buttons of her pajamas, opening them one by one. Humanity may be new to her but she picks things up quickly. Tohru slips her hand under the fabric and Kobayashi gasps because this is even better than even her wildest, most impossible dreams and-
“Miss Kobayashiiiiii-”
“What?” she asks, confused, because Tohru sounds a little odd.
Why is Tohru giggling so uncontrollably?
“It's not me,” she chortles.
“Miss Kobayashi!”
There it is again, more insistent.
Kobayashi realizes and groans pitifully at the same time Tohru asks sweetly, “Kanna, can it wait?”
Kanna has toddled in and looks quite perturbed at being left in her room alone.
“You left me! And what are you two doing in here?”
Okay so maybe it's a little different from her wildest dreams.
“Kanna. Just a few minutes,” Kobayashi pleads but she's having none of it.
“No!” she stamps her foot. “If Tohru gets to sleep in here, I want to too.”
They both know it's a losing battle. They try to convince her to just go back into the other room with Tohru but they're unsuccessful. Kobayashi grumbles and discreetly buttons up her top again and Tohru just insists on giggling still.
“What was the point of three bedrooms? Why did I move if everyone is in my bed anyway?” she grumps but she lifts up the covers anyway and Kanna leaps in and promptly digs her elbow into her ribs trying to get comfortable.
“Ah! Watch your elbows. And the horns! You're gonna put my eye out-”
Tohru settles behind her with an arm thrown over her waist. Kanna cuddles in at her front. She can't say she necessarily sleeps comfortably. It's crowded. Kanna drools. Tohru grinds her teeth so loudly it sounds like a power saw. But it's peaceful still, somehow, among the racket.
When she comes in the next morning, Takiya comments, “You look tired. And also happy.”
She's about to answer him when a suspicious shadow passes over the window and she just catches two enormous wingspans as they pass. They'll be the death of her for sure, she thinks. But it was also not much of a life before them either.
“Tired and also happy. Yeah, that's about right.”