Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Everybody Wants Her ❯ Chapter Sixteen - Not What I Had Meant To Do ( Chapter 16 )

 

A/N: Alright, well first off let me just say that I'm sorry this took so long. Writing fanfics is a frowned upon activity during midterm season, especially when you are almost certainly failing math and borderline in other classes because you were writing while they lectured instead of paying attention. Writer's block did not exactly help the process either. Not that many people seem to be reading anymore, but I apologize to those who are. Hopefully Chapter Sixteen's worth the wait.

Now I'm warning you, this chapter deals quite a bit with rape, though certainly not more than Victim did. I think we've had enough of that for one fanfic. Anyway. If you're this far along that's probably not a deterrent, just thought I'd point that out. So…enjoy!

 

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Everybody Wants Her

Chapter Sixteen - Not What I Had Meant To Do

 

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Yuki's not the type to drop everything and come to God when he is called. Mostly he just misinterprets, sees the sudden pain and awful feelings as some special new disease. The summons make him think he's sicker than he is, that there's more than asthma wrong with him. Aki's voice in his head gets him feeling like he's crazy, flawed and fractured from the painful past. Aki's hooked him in his psyche, but it doesn't take until he's reeled in like a dying fish. The fisherman's exhausted and he cannot make the effort, he sends Hari in for Yuki-kun instead.

Hatori stands massive in the doorframe, picks a patch of scaly skin as he waits for him. Bluntness is pointless with Yuki,-kun and Hari hasn't got the tact to tell him any other way. So he skips the preparation, just tells him that he's wanted in Akito's room. Yuki's shaking, playing brave because he can't remember being called for something good. No, it was always just this whipping thrashing agony, shrieks and insults and Aki puking on his shoes. There's more to this but more's not relevant, nothing past the beatings mean a thing.

“I don't know what he wants,” says Hatori, “but he's very…sick, right now, I doubt he'll have the strength to hurt you.” It's not a lie, not really, Aki's sick as hell it's just that's not the thing that matters now. Hari's vague on what went on between the rat and God alone as children, but he knows that Aki used to kick his ass. He's not willing to risk a reaction, listen to Yuki laugh or cry about his dear God's plight. So. Silence will do.

They walk straight in like war-scarred soldiers, Yuki breathing deep as he can to keep the panicked thoughts at bay. His focus sticks stubborn to the floorboards, the wreck on the ground and this is Aki's room. It's been ages since he's been in here, since he's cared to look around. Its dark to spare Akito migraines, the floor is fouled up with puke and dirty tissues. Clothes hang out of the dresser and this whole place is a disaster, Yuki can't believe that Tohru hasn't cleaned it up .She must be truly broken if she doesn't give a damn.

And Akito is filthy too, stained with everything that could possibly come out of a human body. Hari hasn't fixed this, Tohru hasn't, no one has. Everybody in this room looks dead.

“Yuki,” Tohru says, reminding him that there are people here, that he's invaded holy space for a reason. She's standing by the window, peering through curtains as she plays with Taeko's hair. Distracting herself, because she cannot bear to look at Akito, at anyone involved in this disaster. And Yuki is, he's not sure how but he's important, Tohru will not turn to grin at him. She says his name and sighs, she doesn't know or even want to know what any of this means.

Akito does. He's soggy with memory, stinging with the pain of all he's done. Sick because the one thing he'd always thought was wonderful between them is dirt now, it's destroyed. Rape. All this time he'd thought it was connection, Yuki loving him for once and god good god it wasn't, god he's got to hate him now. God. He's God and he can use this to forgive his every sin. It doesn't work though, guilt persists, and Aki calls him over. “Y-yuki…” he rasps, curled fetal and he can't look either, it hurts too much to squint up into his shocked and crumpled face. “Y-you came…I didn't, I didn't think that you…that you would…”

The girls in the room then turn to look at him, Tohru's face looking dazed and she says to him, “you never think that anyone will come for you. You're their god, they haven't got any choice. I don't, either. We always come when you call.” Her big eyes slip into slits, she's shut down now and Yuki wants to go to her, comfort her but Aki's broken, Aki wants him close by on the bed. He sits down soft and hopes he doesn't hurt him, shudders slightly at the bloodstains on the sheets.

Aki struggles up to stare at him, gasping with the effort and you know that this is killing him. “I raped you,” he tells him, “it was not what I had meant to do.”

This creates a whirlwind in poor Yuki-kun, gets him reaching for his meds because that's how he's learned to feel things now, have his attack and let that be what's most important, kill the thoughts before they kill him first. But it doesn't come, he's breathing fine and he should probably try and face this. “I…I don't remember that Akito, I…don't think you ever did that. You…you did whip me, you were violent but…I don't think you ever raped me.”

Face it. Right. Yuki cannot face a thing, can't look Aki in the eye and everyone's avoiding this, Tohru at the window and Hari at the door. Only Yuki's on the bed and Aki's mouthing words at him, he can't hear. Yes he's got this in his head, himself a kid and so forgetful, Akito was background noise for the precious moment prior to. Himself with the sun in his eyes, hunched over his gameboy having fun, playing and for once Akito didn't matter, suffering was moot. He was happy.

And then God said, I'm lonely. I'm freezing Yuki, sick as hell. Come to bed with me and make me better. He'd told him no, refused to be his medication. Just that one time all he wanted was to be a kid, to raise his Pikachu to level ten. It seems selfish now, ridiculous and cruel. Who was he to deny a cancer patient comfort? But back then he gave comfort everyday. As a child Aki needed even more.

Face it. Skip the details, think on the event. Akito's eyebrows furrow—too well-sculpted, he looks more like a girl than Yuki—no. No focus. Listen to his words because you've got to know your past. “I don't know what scares me more,” says Akito, “that I'm so delusional that I think I've done this thing, or that I really…really did. I c-can…I can tell you what I remember…you can tell me if I'm wrong or not.”

Tohru-kun stands up then, her blinders failing and she cannot listen anymore. “Akito,” she says, “take Taeko-chan. I have to uh…I have to go to the bathroom. P-please tell Yuki-kun about whatever it is you've done while I'm gone.”

The brows knit further, Aki coughs a bit and tells her no, what she needs is not the bathroom but to know him, life is leaving and if his ending is to mean a thing she needs to be informed. To him it matters more that Tohru know than Yuki-kun, though it's his past and none of her business, really. “Don't,” he tells her, “don't leave or I will kill myself.”

Hari snorts, rolls his eyes and thinks that this threat is such a valid one when he's got the girl convinced he's dying anyway. But sarcasm slides off quickly, he's soon silent and wondering if he should be here, if any of them ought to be.

Knees hunched up to keep safe what's breaking, Akito begins to speak. “I'd had…chemotherapy the week before. I was, I had been throwing up since then and I was…exhausted, I was gentle with you Yuki! I was feeling…almost as bad as I feel now I…” And something snaps, something changes in Akito's eyes. The troubled calm is shattered, soon he's risen from his bed and holding Yuki by the collar, raking nails down his face and feeling crazy, about to pass out or puke all over him. But he needs to be abused. “You deserved it Yuki-kuuuun! I don't know why I didn't see it before, you deserve everything I've done to you because I AM GOD and GOD IS ALWAYS RIGHT! I am sinless, I don't have to say I'm fucking sorry!”

It's no surprise when he's doubled over, blood-soaked head to the blankets as he chokes on the effort. The words just devastate his lungs, pokes holes in Yuki's soul as he tries not to tap into too much trauma. And Tohru, Tohru's holding him tight, telling him he's got to be a good boy now. She's still holding Taeko and it's a tough maneuver, she winds up placing her angry baby on the bed. “Don't be like this,” she says, “I hate it when you do this Akito. Don't be mean, don't, please…”

Aki rubs his eyes and coughs again, wonders if and when the Dilaudid's going to leave him. “Whatever,” he says, sorry but he'd be a hypocrite if he apologized, he'd be making a fool of himself. He coughs again, stares agonized at his shattered leg. Maybe this is not about the rape thing, maybe it's the beating and the deep betrayal, the role reversal that he never thought that he would know. He feels violated yes, broken into but…how can he know if that's how it went with the rat here? That single moment, that bright time when he apparently abused him, it couldn't have been like this. No, he doesn't get it after all. And Yuki can't remember, what's the point in opening his mouth?

It's not like he can pretend he hasn't said it though. Hasn't looked him in the eye and said, I raped you. He owes him something, the truth now and a chance to turn his god into a victim. The hate in his honeybee's eyes tells him he deserves it. “Look,” he says, “just fucking listen. I asked you to come to bed with me and you wouldn't. You were playing your gameboy, you didn't want to stop and I think you were afraid of me. You should have been. You were ten years old and before I got too sick to I was…well you remember the whip. But I didn't care. I needed someone and you wouldn't so I…forced you. To be with me. Just to lie there.” He trails off, stifles a sob because this is not his fucking tragedy. He has no right to hurt over this, none.

“But,” says Yuki-kun, “there was more to it than that?”

Aki nods, coughs a bit and keeps on talking, the tale falling out of him like blood from an open vein. “I don't know what made me choose to…I can't explain but I just, I thought that if I had sex with somebody I'd feel better. It's the ultimate closeness and I…I just wanted to feel that. You weren't coming near me and it made me…angry. I thought if I just took you in my arms…”

And now it is his tragedy, now Aki's got tears down his cheeks in torrents, Aki's face is clogged with snot and he is bawling. He's sorry, so sorry that he's basically Kyo-kun now, a rapist and there's no way around it. “F-forgive me…” he begs him, coughing blood onto his blankets. “I t-thought it was…I thought I was making you love me…I'm sorry…”

“It's…okay,” says Yuki-kun, knowing it's not but Aki's sobbing, body heaving with the gravity of guilt. “Don't worry about it.”

“No, no it's not okay, what I did was deranged, and I know how it feels Yuki, I've been raped too! Kyo-kun fucked me and…” He's pushed forward now, clung to by his honeybee who's kissing him, comforting like she hasn't heard his schpeel. Tohru's just about the last few words, the victimization of Poor Baby. The fact that he was fucked makes his sins okay, they've got to be or how can she keep loving him? Leaving's out of the question; it doesn't matter if the thought of Aki mauling Yuki as a kid just makes her sick. If she goes he's good as well ordered really, to track down Kyo and have a talk with him, find out what he's done dead, the Sohma clan a scrap of history.

So Tohru runs her hands through Aki's hair.

 

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Tohru's been asked, and the why of it. Hatori and Yuki both, neither one can stand the thought of their god defiled, even Yuki with his own abuse so new and bright in his brain. She's got Taeko in a sling beside her, leaving the baby with the boys would be ridiculous. They've got things to discuss, trauma to work through and Tohru's her only real parent at this point anyway. Not that she's a very good mother, with Aki around it's near impossible to do right by her. Thanks to Tohru and the mess that she's invented, Taeko Sohma will grow up as psychologically screwed as all the others with her name.

But that's not the problem now, she's pretty excised the baby from her thoughts. She's turning the property up-si-down, hoping that Kyo hasn't left yet, changed his name and dyed his hair, done whatever must be done to avoid being tracked down. Please, she thinks, Mommy let him be stupid, please! “KYO-KUN!!” she bellows, setting off the kid with the volume, Taeko's wailing now and Tohru has to comfort her, can't be bothered because she's sucked so dry by all these Sohma folk. Her mother could have handled this, Kyoko could've taken on the whole damn world. “Kyo where are you, it's me Tohru-kun! I just want to talk to you!”

Decades pass and she does not find him, soon Tohru's tearing her hair, teary-eyed with frustration. “KYO!!” she wails, Taeko turning in to her displeasure. “If you come back to me I'll marry you, I'll give up Akito forever KYO!!!”

And. There he is, slipping towards her from behind an ancient oak tree. “Really,” he says, faking a smile through his mud-stiffened face. “I guess I'll take you up on that then. It's good to see you Tohru-kun.”

She reddens then, holds Taeko tighter to her as she shakes her head. “I…I didn't…mean that Kyo, I just…thought it would get you to come out if you were there. I'm sorry…”

Kyo-kun laughs, picks shit off his forearms as he tells her yes he knows. “When you find out what I've done you'll hate me anyway, I don't deserve you anymore.”

“I already know what you've done,” she says, “and I don't hate you. I mean, Aki says he's done the same and…well he'll have to forgive you. He'd be a hypocrite not to, and he'll do what I say so don't…don't worry. But Kyo could you just…could you tell me why you did that? He might die now and I can't bear to lose him…”

He shakes his head, says it's stupid and he sort of regrets it now. “I don't know,” he says, wanting to launch a rant about what a monster Aki is, but looking at Tohru he can tell that would be pointless. He won't explain, won't make excuses like Akito likely has. He's over with the Sohma, Satan as far as they're concerned. It doesn't matter, can't matter `cause they've always hated him. If he's angry now then Tohru-kun will too. “I really don't know Tohru-kun.”

“Oh,” she whispers, “I see.”

The conversation stops and they try to continue it, try to dredge up a reason to see each other than Akito. Not much else is on their minds though now, his violated body will be with them both eternally. “Is he alright?” Kyo asks, still trying to work the dried filth off of him. “It doesn't matter, I just want to know because you'll be upset if he's not and…yeah.”

“He isn't, really,” Tohru says, “he's got a lot of broken bones, and Hatori-san had to give him this really strong medication, this Dilaudid thing…it's supposed to be stronger than morphine. He thinks he's going to die, and I think that he wants to…” She sighs, lets Taeko's tiny hands curl around her index finger. “It's hard to decide if he deserved it…but I guess it doesn't matter. I want you to come back Kyo. I'll really miss you if you go…Taeko-chan would too.”

“Don't…don't use that,” he tells her, eyes flicking away from the flame-haired little girl. “You've already made it clear that I can't have anything to do with her. Akito's her father because you love him, so…don't get my hopes up Tohru. It's not fair.”

“Well it doesn't really matter now,” she says, “he knows she's yours and he…he's such wreck. M-my Akito, my beloved…he doesn't want to live anymore. He can't walk and he can't stop coughing and there's no way he can be Taeko's father. He just can't. It's too much for him. I want it so much but…Kyo, I need you to help me with this.”

Kyo-kun smiles, lips bleeding as they crack and bend to make it possible. “That'd be great,” he tells her. “I mean I was planning to go find Kazuma, but from what I hear he's off in China and anyway, I've sort of been disgraced. I don't know if he could take me. But you're basically a queen now, if you say I can stay here than I guess that means I can. I'd like to be with you and Taeko-chan.”

“I wish you could hold her,” Tohru says, face buried in her daughter's hair, tears streaming down to leave her soaked. “I wish Akito could he…he's too weak. And I don't have time for her I…I'm a terrible mother. I'm a terrible girlfriend too, I'm talking to you and I wasn't there to stop you…oh god this is all my fault…”

“Oh no,” Kyo says, eyes rolling and he thinks that this is ludicrous, he's disgusted but he cannot stand to see his Tohru cry. “No Tohru-kun, it's not you, it's just our…my reaction to you that made me do this. And Taeko's going to be fine. My mother killed herself and I'm doing great.”

“No you're not,” she yelps, “you're miserable! You're a rapist, you want something I can never ever give you and you've always been unhappy. Don't use yourself as an example Kyo-kun, that just scares me even more!”

Eyebrows raised, he glares at her, tells her “well that's nice of you to say.” Tohru bows in apology, comforts Taeko when she cries about the dip down towards the earth. But she means it, they know she means it and honestly, it's true. Tohru cannot be an absentee, a suicidal mommy if she wants her little girl to grow up thrilled. Things need to change, and if Kyo helps out they maybe can.

“I want you to be a part of Taeko's life,” she tells him, making this clear to spare him later pain. Her hands clasp his and she keeps talking, tells him that she can't go back to making love to him. “I adore him,” Tohru says, “I won't say more because I don't want to upset you but…I'm going to marry him, if I ever can I'm going to have his baby. I just want you there to be my friend and help with Taeko-chan. Not to be a lover, Kyo.”

Disappointed, he agrees. He's known this, doesn't see why Tohru needs to bring it up again. She wants so much for him to know, can't stand the thought of a misunderstanding, a chance that they could get it on again. It's not that all he wants to do is fuck her, yeah he wants it bad but he'd give anything to be the one about to marry her. And he can't even say now that he is more deserving. “Just know that if you change your mind, I'm here. I love you Tohru-kun.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, brushing lips to say she's sorry, that she'd do this if she could but she loves Akito. “Thank you Kyo-kun. I'm sure that one day you'll get over me.”

“No.” He shakes his head, savors the close-mouthed kiss he knows will be their last. “No Tohru, I don't think I ever will. But hey, it's not like it's the damn rat getting to be with you, right? Then I really would have been mad.” He laughs then, and so does she. Not because it's funny but because it's all they have. This false and awkward friendship that they'll have to transform back into something that feels real. “Well,” he whispers, choking up and trying not to, tears spotting the ground because he hasn't got a thing he's wanted in the world. A daughter sure, but he can't hold her, can't have much connection `til she's grown. “I guess we should go, huh? I could really use a shower, and I guess you want to go back to Akito. I…I'll see you later, Tohru-kun.”

“Right,” she says, grinning soft as if she's somehow happy. “See you later Kyo.”

 

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Nana: Well, Everybody Wants Her is very nearly done now…there's maybe one more chapter and then…after nearly half a year…it'll be over! The thought's a little frightening. After this I'll be working on originals, I guess…maybe a few more fanfics if I can't break the addiction. So yeah. What did you guys think of this chapter? It was very difficult for me to write, but I'm pretty much satisfied now. But let me know what you think please, I need reviews to live! The recent `four reviews per chapter' thing isn't making me too happy, especially since I know I have more readers than that! Thank you and much love!