Tohru is writing this only a few months after they've become newlyweds, so they're still young and, although they've been together for a few years already after graduation, they're really just starting out. Please enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you! :)

He was gruff and hard like concrete, rough around the edges, guarded. He put up solid brick walls around himself, around his heart, and posted a sign that read 'Private Property: Trespassers will be shot.' He intrigued me and worried me. I was intrigued by his temper, like a loaded shot gun with one finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest startle. I was worried for his fragile heart, and also, selfishly, that he disliked me.

Over time, he began, little by little, to show me more of his true self, ever so slowly crawling on hands and knees out of the protective cave he was hiding in, disassembling the walls brick by solid brick. He showed me more of his faces – his embarrassed face, his nervous face, his sad face, his tender face – and less of his angry one. They made me so happy. They displayed his true self, his kind heart, and I began to anticipate them, and later to yearn for them, and later still to hunger for them. They warmed my heart and showed me his. His normally closed-off nature made them sweet, and I wished constantly for the taste of them on my tongue. If I wasn't with him, I wanted to be. If we weren't speaking, I watched him. If I was alone, I thought of him. I wanted so much to know him, to know as much as I possibly could of him, but I didn't dare prod. I feared that he might scurry back into the dark, build the wall back up so fast that I wouldn't even know until it was done. So I let him come to me, like a wild animal that I wished to feed.

He could be mean, which cracked my heart. He could be warm, which pieced it back together. Everything he said, everything he did affected me in ways that I can never explain. No one else had – or has – that power over me, and no one ever will. He alone holds my heart in his strong, calloused hands, and he cares for it gently and caressingly, like a giant with a baby bird.

And now, as we begin our life together as a family, I have never been so content. I have never been so welcoming of the future, embracing whatever may come with open arms, anticipating the good and the bad, the highs and the lows as one anticipates a friend. Each night as we sit down together at the table to share a meal, I have no doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be. If each of us has a purpose, he is mine. Kyo is not just my husband. He is my best friend, my rock, my love. I couldn't imagine my life any other way.

Thanks for reading! What letter grade would *you* give Tohru? :)