#touch starved toshiro u will always be so silly to me..

[cenvast]

toshiro in your fanfic seems to like hugging/holding/cuddling kabru a lot. i forgot if he is like that in the manga but would you say he would be the more cuddlier of the two (especially with kabru)?

you're definitely right about toshiro being touch-starved in my fic sldkfj the short answer to your question is that yes, he's clingier than kabru in their relationship. i'll explain why i wrote him this way!

in canon, toshiro seems to dislike affectionate physical contact from other people. he appears to be uncomfortable with laios' touch though it's unclear if that's just influenced by his relationship with laios. in my memory, the only other person to consistently touch him is maizuru, who he ignores, since it's usually in the context of her grooming him as his servant. i would still categorize her touch as affectionate since she cares for him deeply and still dotes on him. we see falin touch him to rescue him from the nightmares, which sort of counts as affection since healing is a type of care, but he doesn't look particularly comfortable there either.

kabru touches people, including toshiro, much more casually than toshiro does. he shakes and squeezes laios' hand. he hugs rin. he grips mithrun's shoulders. etcetera. kabru is very comfortable using touch as a tool to foster intimacy in his relationships.

opposingly, we can glean from canon that toshiro hasn't experienced much physical affection in his life. he comes from a household where loving touch is rare. his father and hien don't hug him for comfort when he cries as a child. we rarely see maizuru hug him or touch him affectionately. multiple factors contribute to his physical distance from others including his culture's norms, his parents' general neglect, and his noble status. it'd be inappropriate for servants like maizuru or hien to frequently hug him even as a child, so if his father and mother weren't hugging him, no one really was.

i personally think that since toshiro hasn't experienced much touch, he doesn't know how much he craves it. although some people try to be physically affectionate with him, he's uncomfortable because his guard remains up. the situation with kabru is different because 1. they've already had sex, so the most embarrassing situation (or the reveal of his inner desires) is out of the way. it costs him little to take the next step after sex and ask kabru to cuddle 2. they're in a private setting.

at the beginning of the fic, toshiro chases physical closeness to kabru because it feels good and it's easier to ask for more when kabru initiates things. the intimacy kabru grants toshiro is something he isn't getting anywhere else in his life, so he takes as much of it as he can get. at least at first, toshiro is kind of latching onto the first guy that gives him affection without crossing his boundaries. he does like kabru as a person, ofc. i don't think he'd look so comfortable with kabru touching him so soon after getting to know him in canon if that wasn't the case. and in my fic, toshiro's feelings for kabru do eventually develop into something deeper. but overall, he's also just silly lol

kabru, on the other hand, enjoys physical affection, but he's not as starved for it as toshiro. historically, his main issue has been preventing his relationships from reaching beyond a certain level of emotional intimacy, so he highly values the fact that he and toshiro are openly and vocally in love with each other; that's what's rocking his world. their emotional intimacy is also important to toshiro, but he just has that added layer of trying to make up for 26 years of not being hugged alkjflfdkj