Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ His Honor ❯ I Remember That Morning ( Prologue )

His Honor

By, Jamie1317kast

 

A regular evening of flipping through the channels, fighting over the remote control. Suddenly, “ This just in-”. The date: September 11th, 2001, and the news that shocked the world.

 

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is copyrighted to Natsuki Takaya, not me.

 

AN~ Don't kill me please. And don't ask, either. I have no idea WHERE this idea came from.

 

Rated R for violence.

 

I Remember That Morning:

 

“ Do you remember it?” He asked me, his eyes seeing something very far away over my left shoulder. “ Do you remember where you were, how you found out, how it made you feel?”

Shigure Sohma sat across from me, his brown eyes distant. He looked so tired in his grey kimono, so old. Old, as if he still carried the heavy burdens that should have fallen off years ago.

“ Yes, I remember that morning. I remember it very clearly.”

“ It was morning for you?”

“ Yes, we live in different time zones, you forget.”

“ Hai, Hai. So, for you, I mean, what was it like? What is your story?”

I peered at him from across the table for a moment, remembering. I knew that I was here to get Shigure's story, all of it, down to the very last dead man. But I couldn't expect not to give something to this old, tired, war-torn man.

So I began.

“ I was in 8th grade. We had just had morning break, and then my science class was going to watch Channel One.”

“ What's ` Channel One'?” Shigure asked, curious.

“ An informative show for students.”

“ Oh.”

“ And then, we were all being very loud, not paying attention to Ms Kay at all. She told us to shut up because there was something really important on the news. It wasn't Channel One, just the same old `news' like always, so we didn't care at first.

Then, Mz. Kay turned the TV up louder, and we quieted down. A couple of kids asked, ` Where is that place?' ` New York City.' Other kids answered.

` What's happening?' They could see the smoke and fire by now. ` Be quiet, we're trying to find out.' Came the replies.

We just watched, unable to do anything. Instinctively, somehow, we knew that this was big. Bigger than the burning of Rome, bigger than aliens, bigger than an Aaron Carter concert right down the street, bigger than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki-”

“ A-hem.”

“ Oh, right, sorry. Well, we knew it was big, anyway. The first tower collapsed while I was still in science, and the second when I was in math. It made me sick and it made me scared and it made me cry. My Mom came to get me before school got out. I was scared for my Dad because he was still in the army back then, a whole two hours away from home in Massachusetts.

It all turned out all right for us in the end, but not so for everybody else.”

“ It wasn't anything that had to do with Japan.” Shigure said, his eyes distant again. “ But that didn't mean it wouldn't have anything to do with me.”

I looked at him gently.

“ Why don't you tell me your story, Shigure? I'm sure you'll feel much better if you do.”

“ I wouldn't know where to start Kim, it's all so confusing. Everything is just so…grey.”

“ Try starting about when you first heard the news.”

Shigure took a deep breath, then let it out. “ Okay.”

 

~

 

Well, September 11th was just another normal day I suppose. Would have been, anyway, but that's not the point.

It was just a normal day, a school day, to be exact. And Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru were in their Senior year of school. I was writing my romance novels, as usual, you know. I was actually a nice, quiet novelist before all this nasty war business.

As usual, I tortured Mii-chan to no end when she came to pick up my latest manuscript. As usual, she left relieved but crying. As usual, Kyo and Yuki were arguing all the way home. As usual, I half-flirted with Tohru before she scurried off to go make supper.

As usual.

I was.

I used to be.

Another normal, boring day.

Right?

Wrong.

I'm not old enough to remember Vietnam, or WW2. I'm not exactly what you'd call ancient. But I know without doubt and without fail, that I will remember September 11th for the rest of my life.

After supper, the boys were fighting over the TV control and Tohru was upstairs doing her homework, so it was up to me to play mediator.

“ Give me that control, you damn Rat!”

“ Not on your life, you stupid Cat.”

“ RAWR! You'll give me that control or I'll rip your eyes out and feed them to the crows!”

There was a brief scuffle, and I simply reached in and grabbed the remote control before Kyo and Yuki got blood on my floor or smashed my house again. The boys grumbled, but there wasn't much they could do about it.

I flipped through the channels randomly, trying to find something both boys would hate so they would leave and go do their homework or something.

Suddenly, the phone rang.

Kyo jumped up. “ I'll get it!” He went out into the hall and came back only a moment later.

“ Shigure.” He sounded sober. “ Hatori's on the phone.”

I looked at Kyo, “ What is it?”

But there was no need for Ha'ri to tell me, I had just found the news.

“ This just in-“ said the anchorman.

 

And after that moment, there was no going back.