Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ In order to remember ❯ memories of an nightmare ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

In Order to Remember Chapter 4(A bit more serious perhaps/plot twist perhaps?)A day or two passed without too much happening, other than Momiji trying to visit Tohru and being turned away. He had a fit but Hari was firm, though he wasn’t sure how long he could keep everyone away, but a few days of respite, minus Akito’s own troubles, was time well bought. Yuki stayed away, as did Shigure. And Kagura had to be persuaded to stay away. Arisa was thwarted in her attempts to follow Yuki because he didn’t go anywhere except to school and home, and perhaps the market.“You’d think he’d actually go somewhere exciting,” she complained to Hana. “Can’t he be even the least bit devious? It’s downright boring following him around.” She threw a handful of sand back to the ground, her chin resting on her other hand as she watched some kids playing near her at the public park.“Then stop following him,” Hana replied. She turned to face her friend, her fingers tracing over the edging around the sand box they sat near. “If it has become such a bother, don’t do it.”Arisa gave her a look. “I’m not giving up,” she said. “Far from it. He’ll go back sometime and when he does, I’ll be waiting. He can’t keep away forever. It’s not like him.”“Maybe you’re right,” Hana replied. “But are you sure it will be worth the effort?”Arisa snorted. “Of course it will be. How could you ask something like that? The moment I find out where they’re keeping her, I’m gonna bust her out.”“She’s not a prisoner,” Hana tried to reason. “And if she is as sick as Yuki says, it would be wiser to let her stay where she is.”Arisa rolled her eyes. “You know I wouldn’t really do something like that. I just want to see her, make sure she’s okay. It’s been like a week. Whatever she’s got, it has to be pretty bad for her to be out so long.”Hana nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, you’re right. It would have to be something terrible, wouldn’t it?” She looked towards the sky. “I only hope she will soon recover.”“You and me both,” Arisa added.It started to rain in the early part of the afternoon, cold autumn rain. Once again, Kyo didn’t complain when Hari injected him with the medication, the weather affecting him as well as his illness. He’d simply stuck his arm out and looked over at Tohru while Hari had filled the needle. There was no use in fighting it. Besides, it had almost become routine over the past few days, about four times a day now. It was easier to focus his worry on her while Hari injected the stuff into his bloodstream, though it didn’t exactly make it hurt any less. And as far as he knew, she still hadn’t really woken up, nothing more than moaning and turning over.“How sick is she, really,” he asked Hari as he lay back against the pillows. It seemed that his body felt too heavy to do much but lay down lately. For all he knew he spent too much energy tossing and turning in the night. And though his dreams weren’t nightmares, they weren’t pleasant ones, though he never seemed able to remember them.Hatori turned to look at Tohru as he took care of the needle. “Sick enough,” he said heavily. Kyo was sure he was hiding something and he might have pressed the issue but something caught the corner of his eye. He tried to sit up again in surprise, instead of leaning against the small stack of pillows under his head, but he didn’t have the strength to keep up for long. If he’d had, he would have bowed or something. “Master? What... what’re you doing here?”Kazuma Sohma, Kyo’s karate master, stood in the doorway, a slight smile on his face. “Good morning, Hatori,” he greeting the older of the two. “Hello Kyo. I heard you were ill.” He looked over his all but adopted son with concern, even if that emotion didn’t make it to his face. He noticed that Hari had put him on a monitor, the wires trailing out from under his t-shirt. “Who…?” Kyo slumped back against the pillows, the strong medication starting to kick in. “It’s good to see you.”“Kagura told me. She was very distracted in her lessons. Believe it or not, she kept hitting everything off center. I almost had to force a confession out of her to save myself from more bruises,” Kazuma replied. “I would have come sooner but I had obligations to attend to.” Kyo tried to picture Kagura even getting through Kazuma’s guard to give him bruises, and couldn’t make it work, but then she definitely had a hay day every time she decided to beat him up. He definitely couldn’t block her advances, but then Kazuma was a master and Kyo…. Well, he was still learning, after all, though even thinking about being beat up by Kagura was annoying.Kazuma looked towards the other bed when Kyo didn’t seem to respond to his comments. “I see you’re not alone.”“Nah,” Kyo tried to sound light but only succeeded in sounding tired. “She was here first.” He started coughing and turned away until he could stop.“You should sleep,” Hari advised, coming back over after having checked on Tohru and giving her her own dose of medication. "Doctor's orders."“Can’t help… but sleep,” Kyo tried to growl. “What all you got in that stuff anyway?” He nodded at Hari’s lab coat pocket. “Always makes me feel so…. woozy.” “Hatori’s right,” Kazuma added. “You need your rest. I’m not going anywhere.”“But… Master,” Kyo started and stopped at the look in Kazuma’s eyes. He didn’t know if he’d be able to help it anyway. His eyelids were already heavy and drooping.“Good night, Kyo,” Kazuma said and pulled the blankets up to his chin, gently tucking him in. “Sleep well. I’ll be right here when you wake.” He turned to Hatori. “I was wondering if I might have a word.” “Of course.” Hari escorted him out of the room, closing the door until only a slit remained. He’d turned off the overhead light to encourage Kyo to sleep but Kyo tried to stay conscious anyway, at least enough to hear what they were talking about. He had a feeling it was important. And if anyone had noticed, it might have looked like two cat ears had appeared on his head, straining to listen as he tried to hang on to consciousness by thinking about how mad it made him every time Kagura beat him up.Kazuma rubbed his forehead, letting his guard down a bit now that he and Hatori were alone. “I was hoping that Kagura was over-exaggerating but Kyo really doesn’t look like he’s doing well. Tell me the truth, how bad is he?” He thought about his pale complexion, the two small points of red high on his cheekbones. And his eyes had definitely been feverish. Plus, Hari wouldn’t have put him on a monitor if there weren’t a need for it.Hatori leaned against the wall and sighed. “It’s not good. I know part of it is the medication and the weather, but it still leaves me concerned. I was hoping we’d beat this in a few days time but it would seem my hopes were a little too high. Strep isn’t always predictable, unfortunately. And Akito’s visit didn’t help matters, though I think things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand if Kyo hadn’t vomited on him.”“And Tohru?” Kazuma looked directly into Hatori’s eyes. “I heard you and Akito had a confrontation when she was brought here. I need to know.” He didn’t mention that he’d seen Akito later that day, and the smug expression of almost triumph on his face, though he couldn’t entirely say it was all the way smug. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he had his suspicions.Hari took a deep breath and slowly let it out, closing his eyes as he did so. “You know that I don’t like admitting my own feelings when I’m dealing with a particularly difficult situation like this. It is not objective as a doctor to do so. I haven’t even told Shigure yet but I’m worried.”Kazuma looked at his friend with concern. “Oh, what about?”He pushed away from the wall and crossed over to his microscope, fiddling with the knobs. “When they found her, before I knew about any of this…” he closed his eyes. He thought about the day he’d first met Tohru, the funny smile on her face, how she’d started to thaw out his cold heart the day he had her come to his house for the first time. He’d tried to protect her then; he didn’t know how to now.“Hatori, what is it?” He put a hand on Hari’s shoulder.“Please don’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you,” Hari requested. “It might make things more difficult.”“Of course,” Kazuma responded, his eyes betraying his emotions now that he felt less of a need to hide them. He didn’t know if his own emotions could compare with the ones he saw crossing Hari’s though.Hari sighed. “Shigure told me, when I arrived that morning, that her temperature was one hundred and five. It’s higher than anyone likes to have, high enough to… cause problems.”“What kind of problems?”Hari wished that this moment hadn’t come, wondering if the medication he’d given Kyo had fully taken affect, if he’d fallen asleep. He wondered if there was anyone else around, listening. This was not something he wanted to have “get around”. It would definitely complicate things with Shigure and Yuki if they knew, and it was better that Kyo didn’t know, at least for now. It would certainly make things worse for him, only so recently having narrowly escaped total disappointment.“When any living being reaches a certain temperature, it causes damage to the brain,” he tried to explain. “One-hundred and six is one of those temperatures that causes permanent brain damage.”Kazuma looked up sharply, understanding kicking in. “And you’re afraid–““I have no way of knowing just how high her temperature went before they realized she was ill, or for how long, though I doubt she’d have such a fever for long if it did indeed get that high. But there is the chance, even with one degree less, that--”“There may be some damage already done,” Kazuma finished for him, feeling very uncomfortable.Hari nodded. “It’s usually the memories that end up being damaged. But until she wakes, I can’t tell to what extent. If she wakes. It would have been better if we’d caught this sooner. I only hope that we caught Kyo’s illness in time.”“Yes,” Kazuma agreed. “Let us hope you did.”Kyo strained to hear, catching most of the conversation. And what he heard was terrifying. What if… what if Tohru… what if she lost her memories? What if she didn’t remember him? What if she wasn’t the same when she woke up? The very idea was horrific to him and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Even if she remembered everything else… What if she couldn’t remember accepting him, despite his original form? What if….?His mind grabbed onto the idea and clung to it, the thought sticking like melted tar, tainting his perspective, warping his fears. He wanted to jump out of bed and demand some kind of explanation from Hatori, to force him to find out if it was true, but he was too weak, his mind spiraling downward. Not even his anger could keep him awake much longer.“Not Tohru,” he said in a voice too weak to be heard. “Not Tohru.” His eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer and he slipped into dreams, but they didn’t bring him any comfort.He was walking down the street with Yuki. They weren’t exactly walking together, but then they weren’t exactly walking apart either. Both had their schoolbooks in hand.“They give us too much homework,” Kyo complained. “I bet they think we got nothing better to do with our time.”Yuki smiled slightly, laughing under his breath. “You wouldn’t have so much if you actually finished it when it was assigned,” he answered.Kyo snorted. “Yeah right. I’m telling ya, they like to torture us.” He stopped in mid-stride, looking forward. “Huh?”There was a girl in front of them, a girl with brown hair that looked a lot like…“Tohru?” Kyo walked forward and the girl turned around. “Tohru?”“Oh, hello,” Tohru said and looked past Kyo. “Hello Yuki.” She smiled her goofy grin, but it left her face when she looked back at Kyo. “Do I know you?”“It’s me,” Kyo said, putting a hand up to his collarbone, “Kyo.”“Who…” Tohru asked with confusion. She looked at Yuki and he shrugged.“Good afternoon, Miss Honda,” he said. “I’m glad that you’re doing better.”“Oh, yes,” Tohru said uncertainly. “Thank your cousin for me. He took good care of me,” she added. She looked back at Kyo, definitely a look of… something on her face. Kyo couldn’t decide what the look was, but he knew that whatever it was, she didn’t remember him.“Come on! It’s me, Kyo,” he tried again. “Remember? I’m the cat?” He would have hugged her if he thought it would help but she edged away from him, hiding behind Yuki. “Your friend is a little strange,” she said to him. Kyo tried to walk over to her but she sidled away.“Stop that, Kyo,” Yuki admonished. “You’re frightening Miss Honda.”“You… really don’t remember me, do you,” Kyo asked uncertainly. “But you remember the stupid rat?” His voice was starting to rise. His expression was one of hurt and disbelief. “But you have to remember me, the night of the storm, confronting Akito…?”“I’m sorry,” she said, but still kept Yuki between them, “but I don’t know who you are.”“Tell her who I am,” Kyo demanded of Yuki. “Tell her what happened?”Yuki didn’t say a word.Kyo fell to his knees, the world spinning around him, Yuki and Tohru sliding away from him. “Wait! You gotta remember. Please. It’s me! Tohru!” But the world kept tipping, washing away like water down a drain, sucking him in. There were chains coming from that drain, chains that kept him from climbing out. They were wrapped around his chest, making it hard to breathe. He tried to reach out to her, to see if she’d help him, but she wouldn’t even look at him.“Tohru!”He tried to sit up, panting, while sweat poured off him. He couldn’t see. Even his cat eyes had betrayed him. “No. Please!” he said again, this time not quite screaming. Why couldn’t he reach her? Something was holding him down. He scrabbled with his blankets but couldn’t seem to find where they ended or began. He clawed at them anyway, anything to get them off, his nails extended. He was making shreds of them in his panic.There were also things that felt like wires or strong cords attached to him that he tried to claw off. They were chains, chains around his body, pulling him downward. He severed one of them with a claw, only to set off a high pitched wail that hurt his ears, an alarm. He had to get out of here before anyone came…He continued to try and break free of his bonds but no matter how much he tried, there were always more holding him down. “No!” A sob chocked out of his mouth, though it sounded more like a gasp for air. There was something wet and kind of sticky on his fingers and down his front. His skin felt like it was on fire. They were torturing him! How could they? All he wanted was to get to Tohru, to…Heavy footsteps sounded outside the room and the light flicked on. “Ah!” he screamed and flung a hand up to cover his eyes, blinded, then bent over coughing as too much air filled his sensitive lungs. The wailing siren that had deafened him suddenly stopped but he couldn’t stop coughingStrong hands reached out for his arms as the tears stung at his eyes. He couldn’t stop them from falling anymore than he could stop coughing. And his coughing sounded rough. It reminded him of a seal. He feebly scratched at the sheets, still trying to get away, but he had only normal fingernails now, not cat claws. He felt like his blankets were strangling him. They smelled strange, with the tang of something metallic.Another set of footsteps entered the room as the owner of the first pushed the blankets away with one hand. Kyo’s wrists were held strongly by the other, held away from the wires and the blankets, away from his burning chest. Would the torture never end? Why didn’t they just end it all?“Here, hold him,” a voice said. “We have to keep him from doing any more damage.” He couldn’t tell whose voice because his own coughing kept him from hearing correctly. If only he’d transform into the cat, he would be able to hear better. But it didn’t happen. His beads jabbed into him from the hand that held his wrists together, almost as if they were mocking him somehow. If he were in his original form, they wouldn’t dare lay a hand on him. There was no way he could slip his beads off though.Another set of hands took over holding him, strong but gentle hands. The owner of those hands sat on the bed next to him and lifted him, holding him firmly upright by his upper arms, making sure they were kept far enough apart that he couldn’t do much with his hands. But his body felt like melting putty and he couldn’t keep his head up. His back bent over.“It’s all right,” he heard another voice say, almost crooning. “It’s all right… Kyo. No one is trying to hurt you.”Something cold was pressed against his chest. He’d ripped his shirt to shreds in his attempts to get the blankets and wires off otherwise he might not have felt it. And realizing that his skin was exposed, he shivered, shoulders hunching more as he tried to not gag. The metallic smell was strong in his nostrils.Someone wiped his chest with something that made it sting even more. He arched his back, trying to keep the stinging cloth away from the skin but it didn’t work. He struggled against his captor, trying to break away but the grip they had on him was too strong. His chest was heaving with each breath he took.“Hold him steady. If we don’t get this taken care of it will only make matters worse.”More words came; words from far away as he tried to not focus on the pain, tried to wiggle free. He couldn’t understand them but he wanted to, just to know what was going on. There was the sound of ripping as the last bits of his shirt were removed and set aside. They had to cut the collar to get it off. He really struggled when they did that, feeling the cold metal of the scissors next to his neck. It was worse than the blankets. But there was always the hands holding him, now pressing him against their owner’s chest, his head resting on those strong shoulders, tilted back so that his breathing passage was more open.He wanted to open his eyes, see who was holding him, but the light, it was too bright. He felt something being applied to his chest, something almost slimy feeling, then something like cloth being firmly pressed against that as Hatori applied bandages to his gouged skin. Hari thanked his lucky stars that the gouges weren’t any deeper than they were or he’d had to apply sutures. There was no way Kyo would have liked that.“Hopefully that will stop the bleeding,” he said as he applied the last strip of tape. “I’ll be right back. Just keep holding him and don’t let him tear the bandages off.”The hands that had been holding him up reached around him, enfolding him in a hug, arms pinned against his sides, gently rocking him, like his master had when he was a small child, scared by the night’s demons. “Shh…” The second voice continued right next to his ear. “You’re all right. Hatori’s getting something to help you sleep.” Kyo sobbed, his face now buried in his captor’s hair. He pushed feebly at the bedding with his bare feet since his arms weren’t free to do anything. “Please, just let me go. I didn’t do anything. It’s not my fault.”“I know. You’re all right. I’m here. It’s all right.”He felt a sharp prick on his arm. It didn’t last long but it left his world melting in streaks, but his chest started to ease, if only ever so slightly. His muscles relaxed as he slumped back. “It’s… not my fault.” He drifted to sleep in Kazuma’s arms, floating on the influence of the drug now in his veins.“There must be something else going on,” Hatori finally said to Kazuma as he looked into the distance. “Two days ago, he seemed to be improving, if only ever so slightly, but now…”They were in the main room of his clinic, the room he’d first talked to Tohru in, where he’d tried to convince her to leave the Sohmas, and had in turn had his own heart changed by her. He sat at his desk, Kazuma standing near byKazuma watched his friend with concern. Had it only been two days ago that he’d heard from Hari’s own mouth the concerns he had about Tohru, and now to find his concerns transferred to Kyo? He wasn’t sure what to think on the matter himself, but he had been the one to hold him in the dead of night, hold him and try to smooth away his fears.“I had to pump Tohru’s lungs yesterday, but I’m sure that I was able to remove most of the mucus,” he continued. “Her temperature has gone down a few degrees again. It’s even possible that she might wake soon. But Kyo.” He played with a paper weight on his desk. “It would seem that as Tohru gets better, Kyo only gets worse. At least his scratches haven’t become infected.”“I would that I could help you more,” Kazuma said quietly, thinking about the tears smudging Kyo’s face. Even when he’d first taken him in, the boy had rarely cried. What had caused him to do so during the night?“I appreciate your concern,” Hari said. “And any help you might offer will certainly be welcomed. I know that you have your dojo to attend to and have students to worry about as well.”“It’s true,” came the reply. “But perhaps when I am not teaching, I might be of some assistance.”Hari looked gratefully at Kazuma. “Momiji has been quite helpful with Tohru, for all his fussing over her, now that I’ve let him in,” he said. “It has been helpful to have someone watching over her while I help those I must. Yuki and Shigure, it would seem, took my ban to a longer term. But it would help to have someone to keep an eye on Kyo when I cannot.”Something moved quickly out of sight from the doorways leading outside, something dark colored. Hari looked up with surprise, wondering if he was simply seeing things, or if someone had actually stood there a moment ago, ducking out of sight.“I do not often see him cry,” Kazuma observed, not noticing that Hari’s attention was diverted. “What kind of dreams must he be having to cause such fear that he calls out in the night?” He wished he could take all of the pain those tears represented, but he knew he couldn’t. And Kyo wasn’t awake when he’d visited today so he couldn’t ask what they were. He didn’t add any thoughts about Kyo’s clawing rampage, though he’d agreed that perhaps it would be wise to keep him on a mild sedative so that they didn’t have a repeat incident.He looked up to see Hari looked towards the door, his expression unreadable. “I heard Akito tried to set himself on fire the other day,” Kazuma continued, trying to draw his friend out of his thoughts.“The fool,” Hari said. “The servants should have kept a closer eye. It’s lucky that I heard him coughing from the garden.”“What was he doing out there?”Hari shook his head lightly. He thought he’d seen the head of someone pocking back behind one of the screens, just barely in view, shorter hair than a girl’s typically, but not as short as some he’d seen. “He was trying to burn a robe, along with some other… personal mementos. Apparently Kyo managed to vomit on the hem of the garment. Being who Akito is, he couldn’t stand to have anything so defiled and so he tried to take care of it himself.”Kazuma didn’t need to really guess what the personal mementos were that he’d also tried to burn. They all knew he didn’t like his mother. “He didn’t burn himself, did he?” His eyes were concerned. He knew Akito’s temper.Hari leaned forward, trying to get a better look around the door frame, if he could. There was a slight bit of rustling coming from over there, as if someone were trying to stealthily walk around, their robe brushing against something else, like the wall. It couldn’t be Shigure, could it?“No, fortunately, though a good case of asphyxiation will hopefully deter him from doing anything so foolish again,” he put the paperweight back. “Thankfully it was nothing worse than that. He is definitely back to his… usual self.”“Yes,” Kazuma said grimly. “Though I can’t help but hope that he will at least learn a bit more caution from this. It would be good for him.”“Indeed.” He glanced one last time at the door but decided it wasn’t worth investigating. He guessed that whoever had been standing there was likely gone now, though he thought he caught the faint sound of birdsong, the kind that Akito liked to keep around.