Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ FREE KITTENS ❯ Food, Futons, And Happy Endings ( Chapter 4 )

FREE KITTENS

By, Jamie1317kast

 

The cat's outta the bag, literaly! Yuki tries to cope and Shigure makes a bad descision. After all, animals, unlike people, are not used to deciet.

 

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is copyrighted to Natsuki Takaya, not me. Midnight and Raven belong to my Akito-chan and Ryoko and Gabriel belong to me.

 

Food, Futons, And Happy Endings:

 

" Well, of course Kyonkichi, we'll look after them. No trouble at all. Don't worry, Tohru-kun's having a wonderful time, mmhmm, yes, alright, talk to you later." Shigure sighed and hung up the phone. Kyo had decided to go off with Kazuma on a father-son camping trip, leaving the smaller Sohma house to deal with the four cats by themselves.

Gabriel never got in the way and was almost always being petted and adored by Tohru. Midnight, furiously in love with Gabriel but too proud to show it, followed him everywhere and tried to ignore the fact that Tohru made her want to throw up. Raven shyly stalked Yuki, who was constantly nervous and fretting about cat hair on his school uniform. Shigure and Ryoko seemed to be getting along quite well, she was happy but Shigure's mind was a flurry of dark intentions.

 

Um, Yuki-kun? Yuki nearly jumped a mile when Raven appeared in the kitchen doorway.

" Oh, it's just you. What do you want?" ' I can't believe I'm talking to a cat, something must be wrong with me. I hope I'm not sick.' Yuki stared down at the shy, black cat, willing her to just go away.

I'm hungry. She meowed, and, embarrassed, covered her face with her tail. Can you feed me?

" Oh, yeah, well, I guess." He looked around for the cat food that Tohru had bought, hoping that while she was feeding he could slip away. " Where is it?"

Tohru-kun always keeps the food-stuffs over there. She pointed with her nose and flick of her ears.

Yuki retrieved the cat food and filled the dark blue bowl marked 'Raven'. She gratefuly accepted and thanked him. He was just about to slip out of the kitchen when a question that had been stewing in him popped out.

" I-I thought that cats ate rats like me. Why…why do you like me anyway? What could I possibley have that would make you like me?"

Raven stopped eating, and gently wiped the crumbs from her cheeks with her paws. I-I-I c-can't explain it, r-really. You're not a person, but you're not a rat, either. I don't have any fancies about what we might be, but i… Raven turned and looked Yuki square in the eyes, bravely attacking her shyness. I know that I can never be with you in a human way, or even in an animal way. But still i…I want to be with you, Yuki. Because I LOVE you, not like you. And…and even if that means that all you do is feed me every day and pet me and smile, just once, I could live with that.

She blushed to her nose and to the pads of her paws. Nothing fancy, just…a smile, once a day, I could…get by on that sort of thing. I'd be happy, so, I could never ask for more than simple happiness.

The room was silent and Yuki took up her empty food bowl and lay it beside the dirty dishes. She watched him with anticipating eyes, anxious to know if, or what he would say. " I…am not a good person." Yuki stared down at the drain, focusing furiously on not sounding like a complete fool.

" But, I want to be a good person. So, I think that to do something like that, I need to shake up the snowglobe of my life. I can't…force my decisions or my pre-judgements onto others, so I have to shake up my pre-determined prespectives. I want to be good, so I must try to be good."

" I…will feed you tomorrow. I can't…garuntee anything, but still, for the sake of opening the lid and accepting that which I could not before, I will try. So," Yuki turned and smiled at the tiny, wide-eyed she-cat. " Please, be patient with me."

Her tail swept the floor in her excitement and she kneaded the kitchen floor with her claws. " Of course! Thank you, thank you so much Yuki-kun!"

It started with a smile…

And grew into a friendship…

And, before they knew it, it was a simple happiness.

 

Ryoko stared up at the vast, night sky. She lifted a paw to wash, but thought again, and set it down. She closed her eyes to that indescribable darkness, and opened them again, blue eyes reflecting the star's reflection.

I…have to tell him.

She watched as Shigure left the house from her perch on the roof. Tohru bid him to be safe and he promised that he would. He left the yard and continued down a winding path into the woods.

Where is he going? She wondered, skidding to the lower roof and jumping to the ground. Shigure's tall form dissappeared into the darkness of the forest. Ryoko shivered, but went after him.

He continued on for some time until he came to what looked like a great wall. The path was wider here and Shigure turned onto it, following it around to the front of Sohma House. Ryoko watched him go in, wondering what her sweetheart was doing in this strange place which smelled of death.

Hopping up onto the wall, she followed him over the rooftops, keeping to the shadows. She soon found out why Shigure was here.

And his name was Akito.

 

Who was that?

Shigure looked up from the twist in the path which would lead him back to his house. Ryoko was crouched on the top of the wall, glaring at Shigure with undisguised jealousy.

And, calmly, Shigure told her.

Ryoko stiffened, her whole body went rigid with anger. So…why did you…

“ I was bored.” He shrugged, watching the small Siamese cat with half-lidded eyes.

She avoided his eyes now, hunching down to give her tummy fur a few, swift licks. She thought of how she had shared his futon, how she and him in his dog form had been together as only lovers should, she thought, and she felt sick.

You don't deserve to know! She cried, jumping to the ground and speeding away into the dark.

 

Many months later, Midnight had confessed her love to Gabriel and they were also, simply happy. They purred together in the sun, curled up like a fluffy yin and yang circle.

Shigure was out getting jelly buns, because, of course, he couldn't write without some fresh jelly buns, when he saw the cardboard box sitting in an alleyway. He came over to inspect, curious.

The guilt was immediate, and Shigure practicaly staggered under the weight of it. He reached out and picked up the box, completely forgetting the bag of jelly buns. He looked down at his forlorn snack, and a another hand picked the bag.

The woman blinked at him. “ Do you want these?”

He shook his head and smiled. “ No, I have more important things to do, thank you.”

“ Don't mention it. Ever.” The woman smiled, turned and continued down the street, waving back only once and Shigure was sure he caught a flash of some sort of forgiveness in those blue, blue-eyes.

He shook his head again, and tightened his grip on the cardboard box. Several tiny voice reached his ears.

I'm hungry!

Stop pushing!

Where's my mom?

Where are we going?

“ Home.” Shigure whispered, catching his reflection in a shop window. “ Home.”

The box read, FREE KITTENS.

 

The end!