Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Everybody Wants Her ❯ Chapter Ten - Poor Baby ( Chapter 10 )

A/N: Argh. I'm sorry this took longer than it should have. I got sick over the weekend, and thus spent most of my time either sleeping or playing the Sims 2. And working. I don't know what possessed me to go to work. Oh well anyway, Chapter Ten's all finished now.

Let's see now. This one's a little longer than usual, since it gives everyone their face time, including Hatori. Something that slightly violates the original coupling set-up occurs here, though there's nothing romantic or loving about it at all. As a fan of the couple that could be, this chapter makes me sad, but it has to be.

So I guess I'll give you a quick breakdown. This chapter contains the following couples, be they vague and unexpressed, or full-blown and obvious: Akito/Tohru, Akito/Kyo, Akito/Hatori (best couple ever), Kyo/Tohru, Hatori/female OC. Yes, I introduced an OC goddamn it. And if you tell me she's a Mary Sue you'll find yourself without your limbs, cos I know she isn't. I just couldn't legitimately use a canon character without explaining a lot of things that aren't really relevant to the story. Those of you who are this far along know you like the story, so just trust me, `kay?

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

 

~`~`~

 

Everybody Wants Her

Chapter Ten - Poor Baby

 

~`~`~

 

One eye snaps open, scorns the sun that's pouring in. Kyo-kun stumbles upwards, arches his back against the constant crick that comes from sleeping on a concrete floor. He could have sworn he heard something, a twittery giggle that he can't quite place. Then out pops cousin Kagura, dressed up special in a teal blue skirt. Her hair's done up and she's got earrings, her coat's white and fuzzy, shining new. “Hi Kyo-kun!” she says brightly, smiling through cherry-glossed lips. “I only just heard about your lock up…oh it's horrible! I wish stupid Akito and stupid everybody else would tell me what's going on. If I'd known you know I'd have come right away, don't you Kyo-kun? Oh I feel so bad though, it's been six whole months…”

“It's fine,” he tells her, just glad to see someone relatively harmless. Kagura's fury is fierce but she's balanced enough, her intentions are not cruel or desperate. And anyway, there's something about near constant solitude that'll make a visit from anyone seem special. “How'd you find out, Yuki tell you?”

“No,” she says, tucking wisps back into her brassy hair clip. “I haven't really been hearing much from Yun-chan…Shigure told me when I showed up at the house.”

The bit of info bothers Kyo-kun, he can't believe she's stayed away so long. Kagura's always had a way of barging in, claiming her place where nobody quite wants her. She doesn't explain and Kyo doesn't ask, but pretty soon she's babbling on about her college courses, how hard she has to fight for her free time. This suffices and Kyo doesn't pry, he doesn't want to know the news of a world he'll never live in. “Has Shihan…Kazuma…Shishou…what do you call him now? Has he come to see you yet? I bet he's really pitching a fit about what's happened, huh?”

“No,” says Kyo, sitting down with a reckless plop, wishing she'd hush up so he wouldn't feel quite so horribly abandoned. “No he hasn't, he's not.”

“What?!” gasps Kagura, black-mittened hand to her fluffy white chest. “That's ridiculous I mean, there's got to be some reason or else…well I'm going to kill him, that's what's or else.” She sighs, squats on the grass and smiles at Kyo. “Maybe he just hasn't found out yet. I mean I didn't know until just now. Maybe he's busy.”

“I'm sure,” he says, nowhere close to sure at all. She's got him down and he doesn't want to see her, Kagura's an emblem of all that he's denied. All he can take right now is someone beaten, broken to bits by the curse. For just a minute he wants Kagura locked up in here, shut away and forgotten about, denied the sight of everyone she loves. At the same time he absolutely doesn't want her leaving him, she's the first face that isn't Akito the kitty's seen in weeks.

Akito…

“Kagura?” Kyo asks her, sitting with his head tipped up and his spine too straight, he's got a knot in his throat he's pushing past. “If something in your life sucks monumental ass, does it make sense to want to drag everybody else down with you? Like if you're, I dunno, lets say you have some impossible paper to do, would you like it better if your best friend had to do the same?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. “Totally human nature. It's a lot harder to complain if no one gets it, right? What do you mean Kyo-kun, you want to have someone in the cage with you or something? Because I'd so go in there if I could.” The mittens come off and she's kneading his hands, crooning on over just how much she loves him. “Oh Kyo-kun I feel so bad!”

“It's…you don't need to feel guilty Kagura, don't be stupid. It's not really about me I guess, it's just I think I'm starting to understand somebody, that's all. Right now it's like, if you leave my life is fucking over. I'm so…lonely, he…he's lonely too.”

“Who's he?” she asks, her delivery too snappish for the message that she means. “I can only think of like…three he's you have anything to do with. Do you mean Yun-chan? I mean he's always seemed like the lonely type to me, but I didn't think you cared or anything…”

“Not Yuki, I don't care how the hell he's doing.” Kyo rips at the floor, shoots Meow Mix in Kagura's direction. How to explain without sounding insane, god Ka-chan could never forgive this. But she's getting impatient, the look on Kyo's face lets her know this can't be overlooked. “God, Kagura. I'm talking about God.”

“You mean Akito?” she says, soft and hushed and just so Sohma, no one else would leap to that conclusion first. “Who cares Kyo-kun, he's the one who locked you up! Don't go feeling sorry for that S.O.B.”

“Kagura don't you get it?” Kyo-kun says, beyond ecstatic at his newfound revelation. “Right now I feel just like he must everyday. There are differences, I mean nobody will listen to me and it's not like I'm really sick. But both of us are miserable, we've always known Akito is. And I'm willing to bet that all the other family heads felt just the same. The cat thing, it can't be because they're dangerous. They're not, I know I'm not it's just…somebody has to suffer with God. It's always been the cat and that…that's why. That's why I'm spending the rest of my life knee-deep in my own fucking filth.”

And Kagura, she's grave and she nods but she can't say anything, she can't connect and she's dead to the implications. It kills her to be cut off from her Kyo-kun, she holds his hand tighter since she's scared he'll slip away. “Do you think,” he asks, “do you think if he were happier he'd let me go?”

“You can't make Akito happy,” Ka-chan laughs, smiles wider then her little lips allow. “No one can Kyo-kun, you can't even put a dent in what the curse has done to him. Besides it's tradition, do you really think a five-minute good mood would make him break that?”

The kitty cat scowls, tears his arms away in vague irritation. “I'm not saying me,” he tells her. “But I can get him help, I know exactly what to do. Kagura I need you to bring him here, Tohru-kun too okay?”

“Why?” she asks, ready to go but she wants to know, she's got a claim on her Kyo that she's not giving up. Tohru's name gets her all protective, all mine mine mine about her darling. “What are you going to do?”

Kyo-kun strikes a stupid pose, gazes at the sky on his knees with his hands clasped tight. He says, “I'm going to give God my blessing,” and bids Kagura goodbye.

 

~`~`~

 

“This is shit!” Akito screams, slamming the ceramic bowl against the wall. Soup spills everywhere and Aki's got his arms crossed and his teeth ground down, Tohru's sitting wide-eyed at the side of the bed. “How dare you serve me this piss, it's fucking poison and I won't tolerate it Tohru!”

“A-akito…” she stammers, reaches quick for his hand and she's tossed away, hit hard and she just leaps away, arms straight to the little one inside. She knows she ought to move in closer, hold him until life's alright again but he'll…he'll…hell, what the hell can he do? She's made the soup because he can't be bothered with solid food, he's sick and he can't beat her, can't do anything but yell. “I'm sorry,” she tells him, grinning hard since she's feeling safe. “I'll just clean that up.”

“No you won't you little bitch, you're six months fucking pregnant and you're not doing any work!” Tohru smiles, doesn't point out that making the soup he so despises took work too, she just says she's glad he cares but she can't just leave the mess.
“How are you feeling today?” she asks him, and Akito just about spits in her face. What's she expecting, your standard fine just fine I'm great? To tell her off he starts to cough, harder than need be. It's straight in her face, Tohru's smiling through revulsion, her grin's feeling a little stuck-on now, a little plastered. “Akito,” she asks, “are you taking that cough syrup Hari gave you? Because you might be having a little less trouble if you were…”

“That crap stopped working last week,” he snaps, every word punctuated by yet another cough. Tohru sighs, baffled by his bratty behavior. Since that night she'd sat up terrified, loveless until Hari thrust him in her arms, Akito has been on this awful middle ground, too sick to stay up but restless all the same, kicking and screaming and having what could be called tantrums if he weren't twenty years old. He's taken every opportunity to let the Sohma know that he feels miserable, Tohru's been at his beck and call for months. She can't even pee without hearing him howl.

And the doctor's more than glad to delegate his job to her, let her take on everything not strictly medical. For the first time in years Hari's got thoughts that aren't of Akito, he can walk down the street completely free. He's actually got himself a casual date, a busty brunette named Sakurako. She's no Kana and she'll never last, but she's a distraction, a way to stave off the guilt he gets for not being there.

Tohru, of course, doesn't complain. Just because she's six months pregnant, her legs cramping up every time she even walks, doesn't mean that she's not just as good a wifely slave girl as usual. Akito's just thrown up all over her, the stench is horrific but she just smiles, sets about getting herself cleaned up. She considers this as an apprenticeship, her practice for the life to come. Her lover looks sleepy, he's drifting off and done with screaming, that's good because Tohru could really use some time alone, a couch and a brownie and her eyes closed tight.

 

~`~`~

 

It's not like she gets much rest, but one day she's squirreled away and hour or two alone. Akito's shut up in Hari's office, supposedly discussing the banalities of his condition. The man's gonna take him off Sertraline, it's not working well enough for Akito to tolerate the side effects. They started off on the meds track but of course they're raging over Sakurako now, Akito demanding he get rid of her and quick. Tohru's tuning out their tones, wrapping a dream around Akito's angry shrieking. She lets herself stay blind to it, pretend her Prince of Bitching is sweet and decent.

But anyway Tohru-kun, she's splayed out in bed with her eyes shut, trying to get comfortable under the weight of her rock-hard gut. Gravity's shoving her down and she tosses around, gives up and sits up and stares at the wall. It needs a good wash but she's exhausted, too drained to deal with household chores. Her eyes slip shut and her thoughts run wild, briefly touching on a gentle fury towards her Akito. The notion's rejected just as soon as it hits consciousness, he's sick and God and can't be blamed for being such a brat. But she's totally spent and she's pregnant, if she'd stuck with Kyo she wouldn't have to deal with this.

Oh hell, she'd just be cleaning house at Shigure's if not for Akito. These men, these Sohma's have no regard for the life inside her, they don't understand that she needs her sleep as bad as Akito. Not that she's complaining, not that Tohru won't do anything for anyone who asks. She stretches out and twists around, tells the kid it'll never have to clean a thing. Tohru drifts off, breathing deep in her sleep until she's jolted up, something's beating up her abdomen and it's her baby! It's kicking, the little one's mad on its mommy's behalf!

The kid keeps kicking and the first thing Tohru wants to do is run for Akito, have him crack a smile at his kid's development. She's not nimble enough though, she's weighed down and waddly and slow. And Tohru's not the type to disregard repeated warnings, she knows full well you don't walk in on Akito when he's with another Sohma. But it's hard to care with the baby banging on her belly, if he just feels the kid they'll be a family, Akito the father for real. She stumbles in, smiles wide and waves hello.

She doesn't walk in on anything pretty. Aki's got puke trailing down his mouth, fouling up one of the yukatas Tohru washed last night. His eyes are drills in Tohru-kun, his head's held high and Hari looks shaken, slightly bruised. “What are you doing here?” Akito asks, wiping his mouth and stepping disdainfully away from the mess. His voice catches on scratches and Tohru wants to get the man some water, take care of her Aki-baby.

But Tohru doesn't want to know what's happening, doesn't want to involve herself at all. To her this visit's just about her baby, the little embryonic beast that's beating her. Akito's just got to feel this. “Guess what?” she says, staring past Hatori into trembling Aki's eyes. “She…it…the baby. It's kicking. Do you want to feel?”

“I'd very much like to stop feeling at the moment,” Akito mumbles mechanically, taking in little of what she's said. “Hari I need pills, I'm really nauseated. And stop looking so fucking shocked, I barely touched you!”

Hari tries to make his face go blank again, tries to stop the tremors of his jaw. But he hardly believes what's just happened, he's praying Aki has the sense not to say a word in front of Tohru. “It…it's alright Akito. I…I'll go see if I can find you something…”

“Thank you,” he says, waving him off and wavering, sitting down fast at Tohru's feet. She bends down to be with him, pets his head and asks again if he'd like to feel the baby. “It's not as strong as it was but you should still be able to hear her. Him. It. I should probably ask Hatori-san what he got off the sonogram, huh?”

“That might be a good idea,” grunts Akito, trying not to let the child matter now. He's in a cynical mood, pissed off and he's quite sure her baby shares no blood of his. The chance is as thin as a limb of his, as throttled as his Yuki's lily neck. But it's there and he wants it bad, wants Tohru tiny in his arms again. He'll listen for the little one, make Tohru-kun feel good because he needs her absolutely.

He lays his head down, waits while Tohru feels for motion with her hands. That sets Akito seething, he wants those hands on him alone. Soon there's a kick, a wicked banging, and Akito jerks back, heart throbbing to the same tune times a thousand. The sound slinks its way inside his skull, sets off a headache and he scowls hard at Tohru-kun. “Way to say hello you little brat, this is probably gonna knock me out all day.”

Tohru laughs, says she thinks the little one can hear him. “Hear that baby?” she gabbles to her gut, “you be gentle with your daddykins next time, and he won't be such a meanie-poo.”

“Daddy…kins?” asks Akito, smirking in confusion. “Meanie-poo? My god Tohru, I didn't know you were so sappy. The kid can't even hear you and already you sound ridiculous.”

“Oh I'm sure the baby can hear us,” Tohru says, face stony with conviction. “Maybe she can't understand every word, but she can certainly pick up tones by this point. Which means you maybe shouldn't yell so much when you're around her…”

And he's about to start screaming, prove her wrong but the breath just sets him coughing, hacking spit into his hands. It lasts for ages, bends him forward in pain and soon he's sitting helpless on the floor. “Oh fuck…” he whispers, little tears spilling and he just wants things to go better, to have this baby thing untainted by the world. But he's sick and so sure of betrayal, so scared to just confront the girl. He'd rather deal with the date of his death, the definite method than this.

He looks at her, tips his head and says that god he's really sorry. “I'm really happy about the baby…” he tells her, the lie so absolutely obvious that it gets his point across stronger then the truth. He's not happy and his honeybee knows it, Aki can't stand the thought of it coming out Kyo's. And even if it is his, he'd make a lousy father, a monster of a dad. He doesn't want to be the one to ruin Tohru's baby, make yet another life a living hell.

Not believing him a bit, Tohru tells him that that's good. “I'm happy too,” she says. “There's nothing I want more than this…more than you…” And she pulls him in, curves his spine over the expanse of her front. Kissing him's the right thing, the reassuring thing because she knows he feels unloved. And right before it hits her she's about to, but the man's just been sick all over himself, she doesn't want to merge mouths with him right now.

But it's obvious to Akito what she's skipping out on. He doesn't realize why, just stores it away as another sign she loathes him. Tears fly down his face and Tohru tries to make it better, tries and fails forever until Hatori steps back in with Kagura.

Aki's pissed to have him back, their fight's still fresh in his head and he'd like to forget, block it out and keep on angsting over Tohru-kun. One would think that the rough paw down his pants would be enough to keep him gone forever, but Hari's too bound by his doctorly duty, he's leaning in the doorway now with pills in his hands.

Ka-chan smiles wide at little Tohru, bows stiffly for her irritating lord. “Hi guys!” she says, waving as she stares up at shaking Hatori. “What's up with him? He hasn't said one word to me since we met in the hall. Anyway whatever. Tohru-kun, Akito-sama, Kyo-kun says he wants to see you. I mean uh, so long as it's okay by Akito.”

“Actually it's not,” he snaps, bolting up and clutching vaguely at his hipbones. “Neither of us has any reason to see him, do we Tohru-kun?”

“Well he's sent for you, obviously there's something that he'd like for you to know,” snorts Kagura, pissed beyond reason, her fingers form fists and Hari holds her down, unthinking. Everything in his calls for Akito's protection, he's a doctor, a Sohma and a goddamn savior, it doesn't matter that he can't even look at Aki now. “Look just come alright? Kyo's been locked up there all alone for half a year and nobody's even going to see him. You'd think that Tohru-kun of all people would care.”

“I care!” she squeaks, her outburst thought out only in the moment. Aki's in her arms but she doesn't see him, doesn't care that this could cause him pain. “Kagura-chan, I have been seeing him, do you think I'd just let my Kyo-kun rot in jail alone?”

Akito shoves straight away from Tohru-kun, she's staring at him sweetly shocked. His molars grind each other down to dust, his hands shake and they reach for her wrists.

He twists.

“What do you mean you've been going to see him?!” Aki explodes, nails digging in and ripping skin. Red blood billows and he barely cares, all he wants is gentle denial, a sweet little smile but no, Tohru-kun looks horrified. “It's just to visit, right? Just to talk? You haven't been fucking him have you, you haven't been sucking his dick? Let me guess, it looks normal right?”

“Hey don't say that!” Ka-chan objects, tries to throw herself between them. Aki whips around, throws a punch that she ducks and he's down, tripped up on his own bad aim. He struggles upward, limbs pressing down on the hardwood floor. “Oh god I'm sorry,” Kagura says, holding out an arm for him to balance on. Akito hisses, convulses with coughing as he swats her gone.

“Tohru,” he says, voice needling on her, needy. He claws his way up and she's down with him, looking so pained at his beautiful face. Hands lock and he's not hurting her, his hands are fragile, falling now, and it's Tohru-kun that keeps it all together, keeps Aki conscious as he fails to be a brute. “Tohru-kun please…” Oh just look at you there on the floor… “Tell me you…” Poor baby, poor little sick one here in my arms… “Tell me you never…” If only I knew how to save you… “Tell me you never slept with him!” Oh darling don't cry…

“Don't cry,” she says, and he's just bawling now, beating feeble fists on the floor. He's whining over bruises, face gone all scarlet and soaked. “Please Aki don't…”

“You're not telling me no!” he says, frail voice falling over hitches in his throat. “Lie to me please Tohru-kun…please I can't take it, I can't, please please please don't leave me I don't want to be alone my honeybee…”

“Does she look like she's leaving?” Ka-chan asks, and she's screamed straight out of there, tossed aside by God because he just can't deal with her. Hatori slips out too, hangs by the doorway, instinctively checking out what's physical. It's best not to think now, not to dwell on before because he'll ruin this, just break Akito to bits with accusations. He won't speak and Tohru can't, the two of them just let Aki cry himself exhausted.

Akito lets out a low little moan, curls up fetal on the floor. “I hate this,” he says, tone all flattened out and corpsey now. “I hate this…being alive…thing. Nobody's making it worth it, my head hurts and my stomach hurts and my hair hurts and I just want it to stop…”

“I'll make it stop,” says Tohru-kun, threading hands through the filthy strings flying loose from Aki's head. He needs a bath badly and she'd do anything to give him one, to prove for sure that he's adored. She knows that Hari does it all the time, passionless and inattentive, yawning as he scrubs her Aki's naked back. She can't believe such care would prove him worthless, can't believe it's all that she can do.

If she wants him warm and safe and happy, that must mean she loves him. She cannot doubt that now, not with this poor baby melting in her arms. He's draining into her, forgetting he's anything but Tohru's baggage. “Make it stop…” he mumbles, agreeing with the whisper of life left inside him. “Do something…magic…”

“I will,” she swears, signing her life away with those words. Tohru's merely mortal, she's just a little girl. But she spills promises from her chapsticked lips, meaning nothing. It's okay. It's okay because he's shutting his eyes now. “Hatori I…is he alright?” she asks, searches for reassurance in the deadness of Hari's stare.

“He'll be fine, he's just tired himself out…he's been doing a lot of yelling today. If you want to take him to his room that'd be great.” The man's standing rigid, fists tight and his eyes to the sky. The rage is right there, the fury near staggering but no one does anything, no one asks Hatori just what's wrong. “I…I've got to go. I've got to speak with Sakurako…Akito's ordered it.”

“Wait a minute,” Tohru says, lifting the limp god to his feet. “I don't know what to do by myself, does he need medication?”

There are at least five pills that Aki needs shoved down his throat, an injection or three to keep him living. But Hari, he just tells her no.

 

~`~`~

 

He's out of the Sohma jailhouse, slinking down the street with his hands in his coat, counting his steps to keep from thinking. But numbers can't trump Akito, he's stuck on the worst part in seconds, on Akito's clammy hands wrenching him back and forth, stroking and poking and making him sick. He's looking at the rational, praying for chemical disturbances to explain this one away. And maybe that's it, malice followed by such patheticas can't be sane.

But the malice, the evil weeping look on his too-thin face…where had that come from? Sure their lord is prone to rage, but he hadn't lashed out like that since Hari's life dropped to the floor from his face, since she-who-could-make-him-feel was stolen from him. “You forgive me, right?” he'd demanded, scaling shaking hands over Hari's hardened form. “Do you really want to me to die knowing I was hated? That none of my sacrifices were worth it Hatori? That's what you're saying when you fuck this Sakurako slut, you're telling me that what I've done for you means nothing. Don't you learn? You'd better not love her, I wouldn't want to have to break your heart again.”

Hatori had been compliant, good to his god as his heart sped hysterical, his air came in nearly as erratic as this cruel little man's. In his mind Aki doubles over coughing, sick on his own speech and Hari tries to stay with that. It's soothing just to see the muscle spasms, the spitting up of phlegm and blood, god it's medical. Sickness is the safest thing he knows. What comes next, what he says…it hurts. “You can't possibly be planning to stay with her,” he'd said, tipping his heart-shaped heated face to the side. “She doesn't actually mean anything to you, does she?”

Wind whips hair into his visible eye, Hari does nothing because it's so hard to make the path ahead important. He'd told Akito that the girl meant nothing, he must have meant it because you just can't lie to God. Sakurako was a sweet one, a lovely lusty lady whose basic needs were just impossible. He brushes her begging aside, never takes her in his arms and it's just too much, Hari doesn't want this, it's hard work and she's Kana, he won't go through that awful ache again.

“You can't tell me you're going to choose a woman over God. I won't allow it, you know. It's disgusting Hatori, it's sick. I'm sick, I'm nearly dead and you're out fucking some whore with huge tits! Does she know about the curse Hatori, do you think she could possibly love you if she did?” Kana had, lovely Kana distant in his mind now, she's a symbol. God has reduced her to meaning alone, a memory. “What does she do for you anyway?” he'd asked, coughs spiking holes in his every word. “Does she jerk you off Hari, does she make you feel good in your pants?” And then he…that's when he…

His hands, his filthy little paws ripping down the zipper, tearing through the slit in the boxers to pull him out, pump him up and it just kills him to know that it was rising. Yes, Sakurako's touched him there, put her crimson lips around the width of it. But Akito, Akito whose birth he'd attended, Akito who's bedside he'd sat at nearly every night since then…Akito Akito Akito who ripped Kana straight out of his world. Akito squeezed his penis blood-red and painful, thrust it straight into the cesspool of his mouth. He kept it up only a moment before nausea sent him to his knees, he was retching on the floor and saying Hari's awful cock had made him ill.

“You'll have to leave her,” he'd insisted, spent and weak from the spasms spinning through him. “I need you Hatori, you're mine. You can't leave me for her, look you have a boner, you may hate me but your body doesn't. I'll destroy her if you leave me, you know I've done it before.”

And Hari'd said, “I don't care about her.” He'd told him he had Tohru-kun, he had all the love he could ever want in the trapped-and-weighed-down girl. “I don't care about her. She's not Kana, she's nothing, she's no one, you have Tohru…”

Sakurako can't matter, he's got to ditch her, just move on. It's been a fling, it's been casual, just comfort for lack of a worthwhile life. Her fake-wavy hair, narrow brown eyes and tight dresses, there's no beauty in that body, none. Sakurako's deep-belly laugh, her carnal carnivorous loving little self—nothing. Because Akito said so, he's God and that's enough, he'll leave her.

 

~`~`~

 

Hari's hand raps her door, and Sakurako sweeps him in, all reds and browns and earthy sweetness, god her smile nearly buckles his knees. “Hi Hari,” she says, pulls him into a kiss but he keeps his distance, doesn't let her breasts beat soft and close to him. When they come up for air she says she's missed him, nuzzles her big sharp chin against his cheek. She asks how he is and plays with his hair, just kisses him and kisses him as she leads them to the brown-leather couch.

“I'm sorry for just barging in like this,” says Hatori, fingers crossed and he can't look at her, can't look anywhere but at the paisley rug beneath him. “I should have called.”

“Oh it's alright Hatori, I was just going to go to the library, but that can wait. Now that you're here I doubt I'll want to read tonight, know what I mean?” She moves in close, tries for a hug but he scootches over, she's not Kana and she can't be trusted, Hari's got to end this now. But those eyes, those dark-chocolate eyes pouring love into his lap…no. This isn't God-approved and he can't, he doesn't love her, damn it!

She's gone on a tangent, Sakurako's spilling shit about her sister, needy Natsu and she hates her, Hari can't bear to make a break when he identifies. They talk awhile, share their horror stories, and when he can't get Akito's voice out of his head he makes it stop. “Nishikawa-san,” he says, formal and her face goes frozen, he'd called her Sa-chan up `til now. “I…we can't doing this. It's not working anymore.”

“What's not working?” Sa-chan asks, scooping one booted leg over the other. “I don't understand.”

It's obvious she does and he can't stand her, can't believe she won't just let this go. Couldn't this be simple, easy with no explanation? He can't tell her, can't explain the curse's obligation, why he can't take her in his arms and just hold on. Sa-chan would never understand why he's got to obey his baby cousin. “Our relationship. I'm sorry Nishikawa-san, but I don't feel anything for you and you're too…needy.”

“Needy?” she asks, shocked because she's never even called him, never asked for a thing but a kiss and a conversation. “How am I needy!?”

“Well you're always wanting to cuddle, and I'm just not comfortable with that. So, it isn't working out.” And he shrugs, stands up while she's baffled, strides off and doesn't say a word. His eyes burn as he hears her bawling but he just walks out, heads straight home to the neediest creature this world has ever known.

Akito. He's torn down the walls of Hari's life, wrecked everything but he's the world now, isn't he? Hari can go home and hold the world in his hands.

 

~`~`~

 

“They won't come to see you,” Kagura says, standing tip-toe by the cage to reach her Kyo-kun, he's climbed up the bars on a few bags of kitty litter, trying to find some overlooked means of escape. He hops down, glares hard at her with narrowed eyes.

“What?” he snaps, quick to rage and blaming Kagura, the little piggy messenger smiling grimly through the bars. “Why not? I was going to do something nice for him, I was going to make him happy. Is he sick or something? Couldn't you at least bring Tohru?”

“I don't know if he's sick, but Akito said there wasn't any reason to come. You should have told me what you wanted them for, I might have done a better job of convincing them…what's going on anyway?” She stokes his face and stares at him, it's human touch and he will not turn away. Anything's better than the sunken pain of being alone.

He shrugs, not sure what to say because he knows he can't just tell her. Ka-chan loves him and that's always been clear, he can't angst over Tohru and hurt the girl. He's giving her up but he's mad for her, if Kagura knew then it'd just kill her. “It's nothing,” he says, purring to the feel of her fingers, the kitty just can't help himself. “It's just there's been some tension between the two of us, I wasn't exactly thrilled about being locked up…I wanted to settle it, that's all.”

“Ah,” says Kagura, smirking smugly because she thinks he means a beat-down, that Kyo's gonna give their God what he deserves. She's pleased with this plan and Tohru's forgotten, she promises to bring him in when she can. “He's pretty pathetic you know. Can't even throw a punch anymore. You could take him no problem, Kyo.”

He probably could, but all he wants is just to make him happy.

 

~`~`~

 

Nana: My my. That was quite the lengthy chapter. I hope it was worth the eyestrain. We're at page 72 now, which is just ridiculous for a fanfic…but what can you do, it's not done yet and it won't be for a while now. Here's hoping you see what I mean about Sakurako, a canon character is just too complicated for the purpose of the scene.

Anyway yeah, the baby's coming most likely in Chapter Eleven, so make sure you come back and check that out. Thanks for reading and have a great day, leave a review for Poor Baby on your way out!