Just a Smile [Chapter 4]
Title: Just a Smile
Originally Published: Mar. 27, 2006
Pairing: Kyou/Haru
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: PG
Words: 1,729
Summary: Kyou gets caught out in a downpour one evening miles from Shigure's house, but he's not the only one wandering the woods! Kyou doesn't like to talk, but Haru has a habit of understanding things that aren't said.
Disclaimer: Nothing from Fruits Basket is mine.
Warnings: Some possible language and lots of teen angst.
A/N: Ah... how prolific I am when unemployed.
The next morning dawned bright and clear, the night's storm merely a memory left shining in beads off the leaves and grass.
As usual, Kyou had awoken early. Whereas he would have gone downstairs for a shower right after waking most mornings, today was a little different. Kyou never really awoke fully refreshed after a rainy night, and this was no exception; however he felt considerably worse for wear from the events that had transpired in this very room the night before.
So it was that Kyou simply contented himself with watching the early sun's weak rays peeking through his window to stretch out faintly across the floor. He felt perfectly comfortable where he was, and enjoyed the total blankness of mind that one can only really experience either after a long bout with unconsciousness or by being Hatsuharu Sohma.
And just like that, Kyou's blissful peace of mind was shattered when the thought of Haru suddenly entered his mind. Indulging in a groan of misery, he heaved himself up off the bed and stretched both his arms high above his head; after his back cracked satisfyingly he sighed and went on a hunt for his school uniform.
'Damn it, where the hell did I leave it yesterday before I went out?' he wondered to himself. Finally he found it after fully turning out his bedding. "What the hell?" he mumbled to himself, wondering how it could possibly end up wedged under the blanket.
After collecting his clothes he made his way downstairs to the bathroom for a shower. The first thing he noticed upon entering the room was that the sweat pants he always ran in were not in their usual spot. 'Damn it, that stupid cow actually walked out of the house in those! He can't have even been wearing underwear either…'
"GAH!" he said out loud, giving himself a quick whap on the head. "Don't go there, don't think about it…don't think about it…don't think about it…"
He went through his shower doing his best not to think about 'it,' often returning to chanting his newly discovered mantra of "Don't think about it," aloud. "Great, now I'm gonna have to start talking to myself to keep my mind off it…goddamn it, I already AM talking to myself!"
Over on the Sohma estate, Haru was having a likewise different kind of morning than usual. He had gone to sleep the night before thinking about what had happened yesterday with Kyou; upon waking his brain picked up right where it had left off, as though the hours of dreams in between had never occurred.
When he went Black, he was fully aware of what he was doing; after all, the Black part of his mind and heart only enabled him to let go and do what he really wanted. It just lacked self-restraint, to put it lightly. It wasn't a matter of there being two Haru's, for they were indeed one in the same. Like the waning and waxing moon, he had a dark side and a light side and phases that changed their balance. While one might be hidden in the shadow of the other, both were always present.
Kyou had always been stubborn, but something about the way he relentlessly held his hatred for something as trivial as photographs disturbed Haru somewhere deep down - deep enough to reach his Black side. He hadn't been lying when he had told Kyou that he liked photos; what could possibly be so bad about something that Haru loved that it drew only hatred out of Kyou? The question had been circling through his mind almost nonstop since the discovery had been made. It had made him angry when Kyou refused to give his reasons, because in a way it had felt like Kyou was saying he hated a part of Haru himself without telling him why.
'What could it be about them…about what makes me happy…that could cause him such pain? Am I wrong to like them?'
He wasn't sure how long he had been staring at the wall opposite his bed while lost in thought, but he was suddenly interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Haru, wake up or you'll be late." It was Hatori, as usual. At least some things stayed the same after part of one's foundations are rocked, apparently.
Back in Kyouville, the morning seemed to be dragging along disturbingly slowly. Kyou had finished showering and gotten dressed, finally emerging from the bathroom and heading for the kitchen. A glance at the clock on the wall told him he'd barely been up for fifteen minutes, and that he'd woken up earlier than usual as well.
Sighing to himself, he reached into the fridge for the usual carton of milk, turned around, and ran right into Tohru. "Oof," he let out quietly, narrowly avoiding hitting her head-on and catching hold of her arm before she could stumble. "You've really got to stop sneaking up on people like this, Tohru," he said, letting out another sigh while she collected herself.
"I'm so sorry, Kyou-kun! And right after what happened last night too…" she looked positively distraught.
Kyou bristled and took a nervous step back. 'Crap! Did she see…?' "Y-yesterday?"
"Yes, when I bumped Hatsuharu-san into you. Oh, that was so terrible! I thought for sure I'd hurt the both of you! And I almost spilled that hot tea all over Hatsuharu-san's back - that could have caused serious harm to bare skin!"
Kyou turned back to the open fridge to hide his burning face at the mention of semi-naked Haru. "That…that's nothing, Tohru, don't worry about it. Nothing bad happened." He felt his face grow hotter and he choked on whatever else he was going to say. 'Damn it! I did NOT just call it good. Never. Never in a million years!' He clenched his fingers in his hair in frustration. "Never…nevernevernevernevernever…" he chanted under his breath.
"Um…Kyou-kun? Are you okay?" Tohru asked carefully. "Y-you're talking to yourself…"
"I'M FINE!" Kyou yelled, diving headfirst into the fridge and pretending to rifle through the shelves for some hard-to-reach breakfast food.
"O-of course!" Tohru agreed readily, not understanding what was causing Kyou's outbursts but still determined not to add to it.
Back inside the refrigerator, Kyou grimaced. 'It's going to be a long…long day.'
"What's up with Kyon?"
"Eh?"
"His waves do seem a bit more erratic than usual…"
"I've never seen him pay such close attention in class before."
"It seems that each time a wave goes awry he pays closer attention to the lecture..."
"You two didn't have a fight or anything, did you Tohru?"
"EHH?"
It was the last class before lunch, and Kyou had been quite right - it was going to be a long day. Not that he'd been a bad student before, but like any other kid he had a tendency to space out every now and then in class, and especially right before lunch. But every time he allowed his mind to wander from the equations on the page in front of him it inevitably landed on the subject of Haru. He couldn't just start rambling to himself in class, in front of twenty-five other people and their no-nonsense teacher, just to distract himself. So he had settled for making the chalkboard and the woman writing on it the center of his universe.
It worked, for the most part. At least it did until Kyou discovered just how many seemingly non-related subjects could remind him of Haru. Even he couldn't figure out what the quadratic formula had to do with the stupid cow, except maybe for the fact that neither of them made a whole lot of sense.
Finally the bell rang for the lunch break. Kyou made sure to thoroughly memorize the homework assignment before slowly and very precisely putting his desk back in order. He was dreading this time more than any other part of the day - the period he was most likely to bump into Haru. They didn't eat lunch all together that frequently, and he was hoping with all his might that today the wandering bovine would avoid the group.
"Man…I should have asked Momiji to drag that stupid cow around school during lunch," Kyou lamented under his breath.
"Kyoooou! Are you talking about me?" a familiar childlike voice rang through the air. Kyou snapped up in his seat and looked to his right; Momiji was there, giving him a pouty mock-glare. "Kyou, you shouldn't talk about people when they're not in the room!"
Kyou stood up and ground his fist to Momiji's head in a vicious noogie. "You are in the room, rabbit brain," he ground out.
"Waaaaah, Kyou's picking on meeee!" Momiji whined.
This had almost become their way of greeting each other; in spite of the comfort of indulging in the usual ritual, Momiji's appearance was cause for much alarm in Kyou. Usually it only heralded the arrival of Haru, and this was precisely the thing Kyou did not need at the moment. Or ever.
"Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm starving. Let's get out of here and go eat before all the good lunch spots get taken."
"What are you talking about, Kyon?" Uotani Arisa said flatly from a few feet in front of the door to the classroom. "We've all been waiting on your pokey ass to go eat, so get a move on!"
"WELL WHO ASKED YOU TO DO THAT?" he yelled back, finally abandoning his desk.
"If we didn't you'd get lost and then we'd have to spend five bucks filing a missing pet report at the animal shelter. And I hate putting up flyers."
"WHAT'D YOU SAY?"
"YOU HEARD ME, YOU LITTLE LOST KITTEN!"
"SAY THAT AGAIN! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!"
"What did you bring for lunch today, Tohru-kun?" Hanajima Saki asked in her usual unchanging tone.
Tohru smiled at her friends' liveliness as they continued to bicker before responding. "Oh just the usual, Hana-chan! Would you like to share it with me?"
"I would love to," Hana replied with the smile she reserved solely for Tohru.
"Oh, Momiji; there you are."
The group turned almost as one to look at the newcomer, and Kyou's nightmare suddenly began to take a turn form in the real world - Hatsuharu Sohma had arrived.
Originally Published: Mar. 27, 2006
Pairing: Kyou/Haru
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: PG
Words: 1,729
Summary: Kyou gets caught out in a downpour one evening miles from Shigure's house, but he's not the only one wandering the woods! Kyou doesn't like to talk, but Haru has a habit of understanding things that aren't said.
Disclaimer: Nothing from Fruits Basket is mine.
Warnings: Some possible language and lots of teen angst.
A/N: Ah... how prolific I am when unemployed.
The next morning dawned bright and clear, the night's storm merely a memory left shining in beads off the leaves and grass.
As usual, Kyou had awoken early. Whereas he would have gone downstairs for a shower right after waking most mornings, today was a little different. Kyou never really awoke fully refreshed after a rainy night, and this was no exception; however he felt considerably worse for wear from the events that had transpired in this very room the night before.
So it was that Kyou simply contented himself with watching the early sun's weak rays peeking through his window to stretch out faintly across the floor. He felt perfectly comfortable where he was, and enjoyed the total blankness of mind that one can only really experience either after a long bout with unconsciousness or by being Hatsuharu Sohma.
And just like that, Kyou's blissful peace of mind was shattered when the thought of Haru suddenly entered his mind. Indulging in a groan of misery, he heaved himself up off the bed and stretched both his arms high above his head; after his back cracked satisfyingly he sighed and went on a hunt for his school uniform.
'Damn it, where the hell did I leave it yesterday before I went out?' he wondered to himself. Finally he found it after fully turning out his bedding. "What the hell?" he mumbled to himself, wondering how it could possibly end up wedged under the blanket.
After collecting his clothes he made his way downstairs to the bathroom for a shower. The first thing he noticed upon entering the room was that the sweat pants he always ran in were not in their usual spot. 'Damn it, that stupid cow actually walked out of the house in those! He can't have even been wearing underwear either…'
"GAH!" he said out loud, giving himself a quick whap on the head. "Don't go there, don't think about it…don't think about it…don't think about it…"
He went through his shower doing his best not to think about 'it,' often returning to chanting his newly discovered mantra of "Don't think about it," aloud. "Great, now I'm gonna have to start talking to myself to keep my mind off it…goddamn it, I already AM talking to myself!"
Over on the Sohma estate, Haru was having a likewise different kind of morning than usual. He had gone to sleep the night before thinking about what had happened yesterday with Kyou; upon waking his brain picked up right where it had left off, as though the hours of dreams in between had never occurred.
When he went Black, he was fully aware of what he was doing; after all, the Black part of his mind and heart only enabled him to let go and do what he really wanted. It just lacked self-restraint, to put it lightly. It wasn't a matter of there being two Haru's, for they were indeed one in the same. Like the waning and waxing moon, he had a dark side and a light side and phases that changed their balance. While one might be hidden in the shadow of the other, both were always present.
Kyou had always been stubborn, but something about the way he relentlessly held his hatred for something as trivial as photographs disturbed Haru somewhere deep down - deep enough to reach his Black side. He hadn't been lying when he had told Kyou that he liked photos; what could possibly be so bad about something that Haru loved that it drew only hatred out of Kyou? The question had been circling through his mind almost nonstop since the discovery had been made. It had made him angry when Kyou refused to give his reasons, because in a way it had felt like Kyou was saying he hated a part of Haru himself without telling him why.
'What could it be about them…about what makes me happy…that could cause him such pain? Am I wrong to like them?'
He wasn't sure how long he had been staring at the wall opposite his bed while lost in thought, but he was suddenly interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Haru, wake up or you'll be late." It was Hatori, as usual. At least some things stayed the same after part of one's foundations are rocked, apparently.
Back in Kyouville, the morning seemed to be dragging along disturbingly slowly. Kyou had finished showering and gotten dressed, finally emerging from the bathroom and heading for the kitchen. A glance at the clock on the wall told him he'd barely been up for fifteen minutes, and that he'd woken up earlier than usual as well.
Sighing to himself, he reached into the fridge for the usual carton of milk, turned around, and ran right into Tohru. "Oof," he let out quietly, narrowly avoiding hitting her head-on and catching hold of her arm before she could stumble. "You've really got to stop sneaking up on people like this, Tohru," he said, letting out another sigh while she collected herself.
"I'm so sorry, Kyou-kun! And right after what happened last night too…" she looked positively distraught.
Kyou bristled and took a nervous step back. 'Crap! Did she see…?' "Y-yesterday?"
"Yes, when I bumped Hatsuharu-san into you. Oh, that was so terrible! I thought for sure I'd hurt the both of you! And I almost spilled that hot tea all over Hatsuharu-san's back - that could have caused serious harm to bare skin!"
Kyou turned back to the open fridge to hide his burning face at the mention of semi-naked Haru. "That…that's nothing, Tohru, don't worry about it. Nothing bad happened." He felt his face grow hotter and he choked on whatever else he was going to say. 'Damn it! I did NOT just call it good. Never. Never in a million years!' He clenched his fingers in his hair in frustration. "Never…nevernevernevernevernever…" he chanted under his breath.
"Um…Kyou-kun? Are you okay?" Tohru asked carefully. "Y-you're talking to yourself…"
"I'M FINE!" Kyou yelled, diving headfirst into the fridge and pretending to rifle through the shelves for some hard-to-reach breakfast food.
"O-of course!" Tohru agreed readily, not understanding what was causing Kyou's outbursts but still determined not to add to it.
Back inside the refrigerator, Kyou grimaced. 'It's going to be a long…long day.'
"What's up with Kyon?"
"Eh?"
"His waves do seem a bit more erratic than usual…"
"I've never seen him pay such close attention in class before."
"It seems that each time a wave goes awry he pays closer attention to the lecture..."
"You two didn't have a fight or anything, did you Tohru?"
"EHH?"
It was the last class before lunch, and Kyou had been quite right - it was going to be a long day. Not that he'd been a bad student before, but like any other kid he had a tendency to space out every now and then in class, and especially right before lunch. But every time he allowed his mind to wander from the equations on the page in front of him it inevitably landed on the subject of Haru. He couldn't just start rambling to himself in class, in front of twenty-five other people and their no-nonsense teacher, just to distract himself. So he had settled for making the chalkboard and the woman writing on it the center of his universe.
It worked, for the most part. At least it did until Kyou discovered just how many seemingly non-related subjects could remind him of Haru. Even he couldn't figure out what the quadratic formula had to do with the stupid cow, except maybe for the fact that neither of them made a whole lot of sense.
Finally the bell rang for the lunch break. Kyou made sure to thoroughly memorize the homework assignment before slowly and very precisely putting his desk back in order. He was dreading this time more than any other part of the day - the period he was most likely to bump into Haru. They didn't eat lunch all together that frequently, and he was hoping with all his might that today the wandering bovine would avoid the group.
"Man…I should have asked Momiji to drag that stupid cow around school during lunch," Kyou lamented under his breath.
"Kyoooou! Are you talking about me?" a familiar childlike voice rang through the air. Kyou snapped up in his seat and looked to his right; Momiji was there, giving him a pouty mock-glare. "Kyou, you shouldn't talk about people when they're not in the room!"
Kyou stood up and ground his fist to Momiji's head in a vicious noogie. "You are in the room, rabbit brain," he ground out.
"Waaaaah, Kyou's picking on meeee!" Momiji whined.
This had almost become their way of greeting each other; in spite of the comfort of indulging in the usual ritual, Momiji's appearance was cause for much alarm in Kyou. Usually it only heralded the arrival of Haru, and this was precisely the thing Kyou did not need at the moment. Or ever.
"Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm starving. Let's get out of here and go eat before all the good lunch spots get taken."
"What are you talking about, Kyon?" Uotani Arisa said flatly from a few feet in front of the door to the classroom. "We've all been waiting on your pokey ass to go eat, so get a move on!"
"WELL WHO ASKED YOU TO DO THAT?" he yelled back, finally abandoning his desk.
"If we didn't you'd get lost and then we'd have to spend five bucks filing a missing pet report at the animal shelter. And I hate putting up flyers."
"WHAT'D YOU SAY?"
"YOU HEARD ME, YOU LITTLE LOST KITTEN!"
"SAY THAT AGAIN! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!"
"What did you bring for lunch today, Tohru-kun?" Hanajima Saki asked in her usual unchanging tone.
Tohru smiled at her friends' liveliness as they continued to bicker before responding. "Oh just the usual, Hana-chan! Would you like to share it with me?"
"I would love to," Hana replied with the smile she reserved solely for Tohru.
"Oh, Momiji; there you are."
The group turned almost as one to look at the newcomer, and Kyou's nightmare suddenly began to take a turn form in the real world - Hatsuharu Sohma had arrived.