Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Backseat Driver ❯ Third Gear ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Backseat Driver
By, Jamie1317kast
What happens when Shigure misses finals? The last chapter breaks loose.
Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is copyrighted to Natsuki Takaya, not me. Ryoko, Takamichi and Rumiko belong to me, and Midnight belongs to Kirenia.
Rated R just because `Gure and Aya are in the same fic together.
Third Gear:
Rain pounded relentlessly on the roof of the Dog's House, fresh, clear, spring rain. Shigure wasn't tired though; he'd rather run around naked. Sun or rain didn't make any difference to his disposition.
He was laying chest down on his bed, feet randomly weaving around in the air. Face propped up by his hand; his other hand gently turned the pages of a large Sohma photo album. Hair hung into his eyes that he didn't bother to move. Off to the side was the picture he had stolen from Ryoko's desk.
He flipped the pages slowly, perusing each picture and the writing below it. Suddenly, as he was about to turn the page again, he stopped. The snapshot his fingertips rested on was old.
Old around the edges, and creased, the photograph gave off a nearly antique air. In it were three people. The woman on the left had long black hair and black eyes, her wedding kimono did nothing to soften her expression; Ren Sohma. Her husband, the former head of the family, Akira Sohma looked young and sick as Akito looked now. But stranger still, was the man standing next to Akira.
Shigure barely recognized the young man with long black hair and dull green eyes. Picking up the photo he had stolen, he compared the two men. There was no doubt that they were the same person. Shigure's hand shook as he read the names on the back of Akira's wedding picture.
Sohma, Akira. Head of the Family of Sohma, Kami-sama.
Sohma, Ren. Akira-sama's wife.
Sohma, Takamichi. Akira-sama's brother, Dragon. (Banished, no longer considered part of the family.)
Practically dropping the album, Shigure scrambled for his bookcase. He extracted a large volume that depicted the lineage of the Sohma and the Zodiac. The book's bloodlines easily went back about a thousand years. Blowing the dust off the cover, he hefted it open. Careful with the older pages, he flipped toward the newer end and the generation before him.
Sure enough, Akira's only brother was listed as Takamichi.
Shigure sat down and mused for awhile, his brows stitched together lightly. By the time he snapped out of his reverie, he was very late for Driver's Ed. Scrambling to get his things and the picture, he ran out the door and into the rain.
Reaching the Driver's school, Shigure found it dark. Running across the parking lot, feet splashing in the gigantic rain puddles. He practically collapsed onto the building's wall, taking deep breaths.
" Damn!" He shouted, punching the wall.
" I've missed it!" Shigure paced back and forth angrily along the front of the building. " How?! How could I be so STUPID?!! Aarrgghh!! I am SUCH and IDIOT!!" Shigure's anger at himself had been building since that afternoon.
He stomped vehemently, punched the wall, and stomped his feet. The rain continued to pour down, soaking him further and chilling him to the bone. The grey and the fog rolled in thickly, obscuring the far side of the parking lot. He shivered as the wind picked up.
At last lost within his self-rage, Shigure threw down his papers, and trampling them into the mud and pavement. " I HATE THIS! THIS WAS THE DUMBEST IDEA I EVER HAD!"
His anger drowned him, the rain only suffocating him off more. The cold, the anger, the fatigue, and the rain finally registered in Shigure's mind. But before he could collect himself, his feet gave out from under him.
Lying facedown in a rather deep puddle, Shigure did not make a move to get up. ' Maybe I'll die here.' He thought morbidly.
Those were his last thoughts before his consciousness was lost in the dark and the cold. Shigure passed out, the rain pounding down on his back.
" Ayame, if he was going to answer, he would have done so the first time you called." Hatori looked over at Ayame, who was nervously clutching his cell phone to his ear.
" But Tori-san, 'Gure-san didn't come to class. I'm worried about him." Ayame's normally happy face was drawn with concern.
Hatori's face remained passive, but his mind whirled with all the possible and logical reasons that Shigure wasn't answering his home phone. He gently steered his new car through the Main House's central gate.
Both boys had taken their written tests and passed with flying colors and a thumbs up from Midnight Sensei. After that, the second half was behind the wheel.
Hatori had been more than a little nervous as he had gotten into the driver's seat to take his final. Aside from a couple jerky turns, he had done fine. He had passed Driver's Education, and was amazed that Ayame had passed as well.
Ryoko had not re-appeared since Midnight had taken over, and Hatori tried not to let it bother him as much as it had been bothering Shigure. Of course, knowing the Dog, he was probably in a guilty turmoil over something stupid he had done.
" I'm calling Ryoko-sensei." Ayame announced, dialing her number faster than Hatori could protest. " If anyone can find Shigure, it'll be her." And, anxiously, he waited for Ryoko to pick up her phone.
Headlights strained to shine through the rain and fog. A motorcycle ripped into the driving school's parking lot, coming to a skidding halt before Shigure's prone form. Kicking the kickstand out, Midnight tugged at the passenger behind her.
Ryoko's arms were locked tightly around Midnight's waist, refusing to let go. Her head was bent, eyes closed tight in fatigue and pain. Midnight pried Ryoko's fingers apart, and helped her off the bike.
Standing, Ryoko's eyes fluttered open, lashes stuck together with rain. Her gaze fell upon Shigure, and immediately she rushed to his side, turning him over and shaking him.
" Midnight!" She cried out to her friend, fearing the worst.
Midnight leaned down, peering through her helmet. " He'll be fine, just get him inside." Came the muffled reply.
And, struggling with her own fatigue and Shigure's weight, she lifted him. Clutching the teenage boy close to her chest, Ryoko fought with her strength to carry him even as far as the back door.
Midnight unlocked the door and then went back out into the rain to pull her motorcycle into the garage.
Ryoko laid him down onto a couch in the back room. Her arms shook tiredly once she had set him down. And, as she bent to place him on the cushions, their chests met briefly.
In a brief moment of extreme pain, Shigure's mind sped up, shooting through a weaving timeline gap of nearly ten years. He barely remembered what had happened to him that day in the rain.
Midnight had called Hatori, who had come to get him. When he had awakened, the picture had been gone from his breast pocket. He hadn't seen, nor heard from Ryoko or Midnight since.
He didn't mind so much not getting his license, Ha'ri or Aya could drive him around if he needed it.
What stung him most, was that Ryoko-sensei hadn't even bothered to call to give him a second chance when he had missed final's day. In a strange, odd way, he had cared a lot for her, and it hurt to 'lose' her. Even though Aya had tried to console him by saying that Midnight and Ryoko were probably both lesbians anyway and she wouldn't have been interested in him, it didn't really help Shigure much at all.
Shigure tried to re-call the last thing that had happened to him. Then, he remembered.
A crash. He'd run out into the street, trying to beat the crosswalk light, when a motorcycle hadn't been able to stop in time.
Gradually, Shigure woke up.
The first thing Shigure saw when he awoke was Ayame's face. Ayame glommped Shigure the moment he knew he was awake.
" A-Aya?" Shigure asked, not sure what Aya was doing here.
" Oh! ' Gure-san! I thought you had DIED! It was terrible!" Aya said, along with a hundred other things along the same train of thought.
Hatori came into the room wearing his doctor's coat, nodding to Shigure.
A confused Shigure tried to take in his surroundings. He was in the hospital, white sterile walls by his bed.
" Was the driver okay?" He asked Hatori.
" Go see her for yourself if you're so worried." Was the Dragon's reply, and, was that a smile Shigure saw lurking at the corners of Hatori's lips. It was. Shigure half-wondered what was so funny.
So, once Shigure discovered that he still had both his legs, Ayame led him to the next room over. He stopped dead in the doorway; eyes locked onto the woman sitting up in the bed across from him. Aya snickered, Hatori chuckled, and Shigure stood there gaping like a fish out of water.
She turned to him, smiling a mischievous grin. " Ready to try for you license again, Shigure?"
The corners of his mouth twitched upward, then he giggled, then chuckled, and finally, he burst out laughing.
With tears in his eyes he answered Ryoko, " N-not in a m-million years!"
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