Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ I LOVE YOU ❯ Reminder ( Chapter 15 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket or its characters. It belongs to Takaya Natsuki. Nor do I own the lyrics to "Reminded" they are property of Drowning Pool

As always, thank you to my wonderful editor Smiling Onigiri.

To everyone else, I am so sorry. I know this update took forever. I sort of got hung up on my other story, because I was having too much fun writing it. It happens sometimes. I'll try to do better.

Also, I realize that I made a mistake. The new school year in Japan actually starts in April, but I have Yuki, Kyo and Tohru starting college at the end of summer. So, forgive me, but I am going to keep it that way.

And finally, if you're reading this on Mediaminer and the format looks like shit, it's not my fault. What is the problem with that site anyway? My chapters look great, then I post and they get all distorted. So sad.

I LOVE YOU

Chapter Fifteen: Reminded

"People change, Kyo," is what Kagura had said to me. "They grow and they change, and sometimes they fall out of love."

That was three months ago, on New Year's Eve.

We were sitting on the snowy rooftop of the dojo that no longer belonged to my father and she was holding my hand while I fought back tears. I remember I kept telling myself that I couldn't cry for her, not for Kagura, not for this girl who would break up with me in the middle of the New Year's Eve celebration. What kind of person would do that?

"So that's it?" I asked her as I stared at the laces on my shoes. "After all these years of wanting to be with me, wanting to marry me even, you're just over it now?"

"Yes," she said in the smallest voice, and I needed to look up then because I didn't understand. If she didn't love me, if these last seven months had meant nothing to her, then why was she...?

"What in the hell are you crying about?" I practically screamed at her, and considered ripping my tongue out when she looked me in the eyes and smiled. "You're breaking up with me, woman! You don't get to cry! Can't you do anything right?"

"No, Kyo. I really guess that I can't." She said softly, and then she let go of my hand and stood up because `he' was coming towards us. He was a year younger than me, three years younger than her, but he still looked like such a little kid. He was with Haru and Ritsu and they were all three carrying New Year's kites. He looked up when he saw us, looked at her, then me, and then smiled with that big, goofy grin of his.

"There you are, Kagura," he said sweetly and I felt my anger rise. "We were looking for you because the banquet is about to start. You know how Akito will get if we show up late."

`The banquet!' Had he mentioned it just to piss me off? Was he trying to start a fight? Did Momiji really want to get his ass kicked?

"Stop it, Kyo." Kagura said, obviously reading my mind. Then she waved them away and called down, "I'll meet you there, okay Miji-kun? I'll just be another minute."

"Miji-kun?" I couldn't help but repeat. "You make me sick. So are you sleeping with him already?"

"No, Kyo, not yet," she said honestly. "I want to take things slow with him. I want to be sure this time."

"Sure?" I wondered, and noticed that she was crying again.

"Yes." She said in a voice so low that I could barely hear. "I want to be sure that I'm the only one this time, that there isn't someone else. This time I want someone who will love me back."

"Ah," I realized, so that was what it was really about, wasn't it? It always came back to the same thing between us, the one person we couldn't put behind us. It always came back to Tohru Honda.

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" I asked in annoyance. "Tohru and I are not even friends anymore. I did everything you asked of me, all to prove that I wanted to be with you, but you still can't get over it, can you?"

"That you're in love with someone else? It's something that I should get over? Hardly," Kagura said heatedly. "Kyo, the only reason that we're together is because you can't have Tohru, because she's in love with Yuki. If you thought you had even a snowball's chance in hell of changing that, you would have never have given me the time of day, right? Tell me I'm not right."

I stared up at her, wanting to tell her exactly that, wanting to say it so she wouldn't leave me, so I wouldn't be alone again, but the problem was that I couldn't. I couldn't say it, because I refused to lie to her. Kagura deserved better than that. She deserved someone who truly loved her back.

"I can't," I admitted under my breath, and then I broke down and allowed the tears to come.

"I know." She said quietly, sitting down beside me and putting an arm across my shoulder. "Kyo, when you came to me last summer and told me that you had confessed your feelings to Tohru and she had turned you down, I was so happy. I knew that it was terrible for me to feel happy when you were so obviously in pain, but I couldn't help myself. I loved you, and I thought that eventually you would get over your feelings for Tohru and you might learn to love me back. I've been so foolish. Everything I've ever done has been for you. For so long, my entire life has been about you, but do you know what, Kyo?"

"What?" I forced out, although I didn't really want to hear any more. If she was going, then I wanted her to go. I didn't want her sitting there feeling sorry for me like that. I'd rather she hated me, just as I was certain Tohru hated me, than have her pity me.

"I don't want to do it anymore. It's exhausting, Kyo, and I'm tired. I want to find someone who can love me, not because I'm a convenient substitute for Tohru Honda, but because I'm me."

"But why Momiji?" I asked. "It doesn't even make any sense."

"Because, Kyo, he's nice to me. He makes me feel good about myself, and he's said that he's falling in love with me. I don't know Kyo, maybe it's a mistake, but I owe it to myself to find out for sure." Pulling her arm away she stood up. "Now I better go, Akito's going to kill me."

Grabbing her by the ankle, I looked up at her.

"Kagura, I didn't make you feel good about yourself?" I asked and felt like my heart was tearing out of my chest.

"Dear Kyo." She said softly and bent down to kiss the top of my head. "In order to make someone feel good about them self, you need to first be able to love yourself, and Kyo, you don't. You don't love yourself, and you've never loved me."

"But I'm with you, aren't I! I'm trying!" I pointed out loudly.

"I know, Kyo. I understand how hard you've tried, but the point is that you shouldn't have to try," she told me. Then she stood tall and wiped the tears from her face with one hand. "Kyo, you are so incredible. You're so much better then you'll probably ever know, but you don't even want to see it. I thought that I could help you open your eyes. I wanted to help you see just how wonderful you really are, but I wasn't strong enough, or maybe I just wasn't enough. I hope that someday you will find someone stronger, another girl like Tohru Honda, perhaps."

Staying silent because I had no words to offer her, I released her ankle and watched as she climbed down from the roof and moved off towards the banquet. I considered, for just one moment, running after her. `Maybe if I lied to her, if I said all those things that she had been trying to get me to say for so long, maybe then....'

In the end, I did nothing. I sat there on the roof until morning, and then I wandered into the mountains. For the next three weeks I trained, and when I was certain I was ready, I returned home and challenged Yuki to a battle. Within moments, and just as expected, I was knocked on my ass. I couldn't even get a single punch to connect. As always, I was hopeless. I was a loser.

*

Down too long like I was before
And I've never thought I'd see the day
Can't be wrong 'cause I know the score
And I guess there is no other way

*

From that day forward I avoided everybody. That was when I decided to drop out of college.

"Kyo, you need to stay in school. If Akito learns that you dropped out, he might go forward with his threat to lock you up." Shigure had warned me.

He warned me, but I didn't listen.

"I don't care!" I told him, and it was the truth. Ninety-nine percent of my life had basically sucked. There were only a few things that had ever mattered to me. One was Kazuma, my adopted father, another was Tohru Honda, and the last was beating Yuki. That was it. That was all I'd ever had.

Now my father was gone. He left last summer, without even saying goodbye, and he still has not returned. I had been certain that he would return for New Years, but he didn't. "He's probably met someone again," I told myself angrily. When I was ten there had been a woman. She hadn't been around for long, however, and I was happy to see her go. "She can have him!" I finally decided. I didn't need him. I didn't need anyone. I was perfectly fine without him.

I wasn't though, not really.

*

Reminded of you

Reminded
There it is all in black and white
And it looks like that's the way it goes
Doesn't matter if it's wrong or right
'Cause by now I'm sure that I know

*

I lost Tohru a couple of months later. I lost her to Yuki, of course.

"I'm sorry, Kyo... but my feelings, my heart... I'm already in love with someone." With these words, Tohru had devastated me. "Actually, Kyo, I'm a little surprised to learn you feel this way, especially considering your relationship with Kagura. She loves you very much, you know. I could never think of coming between you two."

"So it's Yuki?" I asked, choosing to ignore everything else and focus on my rival.

"I didn't say that." She said to me, but by the way her face immediately turned ten shades of red, I knew that I was correct. "Yuki and I, we're not...."

"Shut the hell up!" I yelled at her. "You don't need to lie to me about it. It's obvious that he's in love with you. I've known it all along. I just didn't think that you were dumb enough to feel the same way about him."

"Kyo, I'm sorry." She said in a low voice and broke into tears.

"You don't need to cry about it." I told her, which only made her cry harder. "Why do you always have to cry over everything?"

"Kyo, I'm sorry." She repeated, and turned her back to me.

Reaching out, I grabbed her by the shoulders, meaning to turn her around. I had something that I wanted tell her, but I needed to say it to her face.

"No, let go of me!" She had cried out in pain with a panicked look on her face.

"Tohru, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to grab you so hard," I apologized.

"You didn't. It's only that I'm still a little sore from my fall." She explained.

"Well, you should have gone to see Hatori like we told you!" I yelled at her.

A week before, the ever-clumsy Tohru had fallen down a flight of stairs at work. Not only had she given herself a black eye as well as a bloody lip, she had also managed to bang up her arms and legs quite a bit. It had been suggested that she pay a visit to Hatori, because not only did she look like shit, she was acting even stranger then she normally did. We were all worried that she had a concussion. Every one of us, even Yuki, had asked her to go, but the little fool had refused.

"I know, Kyo. I'm sorry, but I'm fine, really I am." She said, but her phony smile didn't convince me one bit. "I better go get dinner started."

"Wait!" I told her and grabbed her hand before she could climb down from where we stood on the roof. "I have something that I want to say."

"Okay." She said, and waited, the fake smile plastered on her face and making it impossible for me to get my thoughts straight.

I was going to tell her that it was okay, that I was fine with her choosing Yuki over me, and that if things didn't work out, I'd be around. I was even going to suggest that I'd wait for her, just in case she came to her senses anytime soon.

Unfortunately, Yuki chose that very moment to walk up the drive and seeing us on the roof, call up a `hello'.

This, of course, set me off in entirely the wrong direction.

"You won't be happy. You do know that, don't you? Akito will never allow you to be together." I said bitterly, and when her eyes went wide and quickly refilled with tears, I found myself smiling coldly. "You'd be better off with me."

"Perhaps, but I love him," she whispered through her tears and looked toward the top of the ladder where Yuki was just about to step onto the roof. The stupid rat had climbed up to see us, to see her. He was invading my territory and that pissed me off even more.

"Oh, who needs you anyway?" I said cruelly to her, and a moment later found myself face down in the front lawn. With one kick, Yuki had sent me flying off the roof.

*

Never felt so undecided
Everything I've ever had has been taken away
Little boy so scared and frightened
All of the things that have happened I'm surely to blame

Accept your fate then you'll be well but the truth is that it never ends

*

That was the night I decided to go and visit Kagura. It was also the first time Kagura and I slept together. The next morning when Kagura asked if we could be boyfriend and girlfriend for real, I said yes. A week later when she asked if I would stop being friends with Tohru, I said yes again. For the rest of the summer I avoided Tohru and Yuki. When summer ended and Tohru moved away to Tokyo, I told myself it was for the best.

I told myself that I didn't love her anymore and that I never wanted to see her again. I pretended that I didn't miss her, but I really did. I missed her horribly.

*

You can say that you've been through hell
But you'll always lose another friend
Never felt so unimportant
Everything I've ever said has been taken in vain

*

This weekend it happened, Akito made good on his threat to have me locked up. I was taken to a small one-bedroom house located deep in the woods. It has bars on its windows and doors, minimal furniture, and no communication with the outside world. Kureno will be visiting on a regular basis to bring food and supplies.

But I am not alone anymore....

She's sleeping now, peacefully beside me in our one and only bed. The first night I had gone to sleep on the floor, as was the gentlemanly thing to do. When she woke up screaming at two A.M., I turned on all the lights in the small house at her request, and then I crawled into bed with her and held her hand until she fell asleep.

I shouldn't be happy....

But I am.

*

Little girl so scared and frightened
All of the things that I do are still subject to change

*

*************************************************

Chapter done. Another will be on the way soon. Let me know you still love me!

YTR