Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Jaded By Rain ❯ Painful Memories ( Chapter 2 )

Jaded By Rain

By, Jamie1317kast

 

When you trust someone with your deepest secret, and they swear to keep it under pain of death… when that secret is revealed, is death the only option?

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Furuba they are copyright to Natsuki Takaya-sensei. My own characters are Ryoko Sohma, Gabriel Sohma, Takamichi Sohma, Taichii Okinawa, Rumiko Young-Li, Chang Wong, Shi Fu-Li, Xiao Fua, Yueh Sohma, Saizo Chung, and if any other of my characters pop up I'll let you know.

 

Rated R for adult situations, language, and implied rape.

 

Painful Memories:

 

The early Fall mist rises off the pond. It's curling tendrils of white and grey winding up through the trees. Ryoko wades, naked, through the water. Her bare feet picking their way carefully along the grimy bottom. The early morning sun glints off her wet, tan skin. Beads of water making their wet, dark paths down her back. She takes a deep breath, and dives.

 

Ryoko wanders into the kitchen around six o'clock to make pancakes. She has a towel slung around her shoulders to catch the pond water dripping off her hair. Her school uniform is drying on the clothesline outside (she got attacked by a rainstorm on her way home from school), and she wears a rumpled blue T-shirt, and dark blue sweat pants.

She goes to reach for the frying pan and stops. Her bracelet glints in the kitchen light. She frowns. “ Stupid fucking thing..” she gripes. She contemplates a thought that has been brewing in her mind ever since she came to live in Japan. She strides around the kitchen, making breakfast, still deep in thought.

As she sets out the pancakes on the living room table, she comes to a heartwrenching decision. She will. After all, she's supposed to be the Rat, right? Can't be caught wearing the Cat's beads, right? Right.

She places a hesitant hand on her left wrist, she's taken them off before, of course. But never for an extended period of time. But she's been training, she can take the pain, she knows she can. She cocks her head slightly, no sounds from upstairs yet. Good. Wait… the soft creaking on the hallway above can only mean that the house is waking up. ` Maybe, this afternoon.' Ryoko thinks, ` But not now. Now, I have school.'

 

Kyo, Yuki and Ryoko make their way home from school. Yuki chatters away about his garden, the things he likes to do, how much his fangirls annoy him, how much Kyo pisses him off, “ And that baka neko never shuts up. He's always yelling about one thing or another, always so loud.” Yuki grimaces, Kyo glares at the back of the Rat's head. ` Kuso Nezumi.'

“ Yuki, you shouldn't say such things about Kyo.” Ryoko chides him, she's the peacemaker. “ After all, there's a reason for everything. There must be a reason for why he's always so loud. … Maybe, he's so loud because he doesn't think that anyone is listening to him.” Yuki stares at Ryoko, “ You give him too much credit, Ryoko-san.” Yuki mutters, “ He's only a Cat.”

 

“ Hey.” Ryoko, turns from her spot on the porch to see Kyo standing in the yard in front of her, “ Thanks. For sticking up for me, I mean.” Ryoko nods, it's a mutual understanding. You're not sticking up for the other person because they're weak, you're sticking up for them because no one ever has. Because you want to protect them. Because you're both the same, after all.

Kyo turns to go continue with his training, “ Kyo! Wait a minute.” He turns back,

“ Yeah?”, uncertain now. He cares for Ryoko, and how could he not? She's a Cat, same as him, it would be un-natural for him to not feel for her. He longs to tell her his feelings, but, alas, he is 16. And male. This puts a damper on things.

Men.

“ Can we talk? That is, if you want to.” Ryoko knew that Kyo was trustworthy, she knew he wouldn't betray her confidence. Since that incident on the roof, Ryoko had smiled more often. Even though he'd had the opportunity, he hadn't tried anything. Granted, he'd tried to get up, several times. But, it hadn't been an experience she regretted. She was ready to tell him, ready to reveal her secret, and, to extend a favor.

 

Shigure was in his study, fighting desperately against writers block. And losing. Badly. His fingers twisting the hem of his Fall kimono, rolling the heavy cloth beneath his fingertips. He sighed, no ideas. At least, not right now anyway.

Shigure got up. He walked over to his bookshelf and stopped. Someone had been in his study. Looking at the romance novels no doubt. Boys, Shigure shook his head. Now which ones were out of place, let's see…

Before Shigure could come to a solid conclusion of which boy had been folding down the page edges of the sex scenes, he heard voices.

“ You've got to swear, Kyo. Don't tell a soul.” That was Ryoko's voice. Sounded like there was some Secret Trading taking place on the front lawn. But, why was Ryoko talking to Kyo? She was a Rat, after all. He listened to the conversation from the round window in his study.

Or not a Rat, as the case may be. Shigure peered out, hoping he wouldn't be seen. Ryoko was nestled in Kyo's arms, head on his chest. The beads on her wrist clinking together softly, why hadn't Shigure noticed them before? He stopped thinking as he switched from Plot Mode to Eavesdropping Mode in .05 nanoseconds.

 

“ It all started with a friend of mine, Saizo Chung. You see, my father found us…

 

“ Damnnit! How the Hell are you supposed to do this?” An in-experienced shuffling is taking place in a dimly-lit room. “ I don't know.” A girl's voice replies, “ I certainly know less than you do, that's for sure.” Two people, young, and in love struggle to figure out the complications of sex.

“ It's not transforming you that's my problem.” A boy, of no more than thirteen, his eyes shifting from the girl before him, to the a book of how-to about sex.

“ Saizo…” The girl whispers, “ We don't have to do this now. We can wait. Father will be home soon, he'll catch us, he'll see.” Her nervous voice shaking as she lies beneath her close friend.

From downstairs, a door shuts. Heavy footsteps and creaking floorboards go unheard by the couple a floor above. “ I think I've got it now…” The boy assures her, “ It might hurt so-“

Whatever the boy was going to say will never be known. The girls' father stands framed in the doorway, a look of shock on his face. The daughter turns her face from him, ashamed.

The scuffle only lasted a moment. Consisting of a struggle to grab their cloths, the blinding lights being flicked on, and the father grabbing the boy's collar.

 

“ So.. he was your first?” Kyo asked hesitantly, these things she was telling him were big. Deep, up close and personal. He held Ryoko close, trying to concentrate on her words and not the fact that her breasts were squishing into his chest. Her eyes, what he could see of them, looked sad.

“ Not really.” She replied, nuzzling his shirt with her cheek. “ Saizo knew all my secrets. I even told him about the Zodiac an' everything. We'd been best friends since practically ever. We decided, at my 12 and his 13, that we were ready for, you know…IT. Sex.” Ryoko snickers a little, admiring the foolishness of her twelve-year-old youth. “ We were wrong, of course. My Father found us. He was a Dragon, you know.”

“ Once I revealed that I'd told Saizo about the Zodiac, he…”

 

“ Father, NO!” Ryoko struggles to get out of her older brother's arms, “ Please! Anything but that! Don't take his memories!! Please, Father, please!” She stops struggling, crying, wailing. She knows. This has happened before, but that doesn't make it any less painful.

“ Don't worry Ryoko.” Saizo turns a little to smile half-heartedly at his friend,

“ Even if I don't remember, you will.” He turns back to Ryoko's father, a man with a sad face and a great weight on his shoulders.

Ryoko's father gently places a hand on Saizo's face, his manner much more gentle than it had been when he'd found them naked on the floor of his daughter's room. This was duty, nothing more.

A blinding flash, Ryoko squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to see. Didn't want to see her friend being dragged away, out the door. And out of her life forever. She knew she wouldn't ever see him again.

 

“ What the Hell do you mean ` betrothed'? What in Buddha's name does that mean?” Ryoko stood before her father, hands on her hips, flicking her long, black hair back over her shoulders.

It means that you're engaged to be married, that's what he said. Her father had looked at her coldly, “ To an Outsider.”

 

“ Wait. There's something I don't understand. Why did your Dad stop you from being with that Saizo guy, and then set you up with this Outsider?” Kyo asked, quizzical.

“ Because apparently” Ryoko's voice hardening at the memory, “ I'd been engaged to this man before I was even born. Or at least that's what Dad said.” She narrowed her eyes.

Kyo snorted, “ Well that's just plain bullshit.” Ryoko nodded against his chest,

“ You couldn't be more right.” She agreed.

“ Well after that, I met the man. His name was Taichii Okinawa, and he was the son of Japanese ambassador to China. A man of great political power, he paid my Father a great deal of money for me. I hated him. I still hate him. He had this whole cock-and-bullshit idea into his head that women are inferior to men and belong in the kitchen and in the bed. I really hated him.”

“ He, rather quickly in fact, found out my secret. The Zodiac secret.” Kyo drew in a sharp breath. “ After that, I was always his pet. He loved seeing how far he could touch me without having me transform.” Bile rose in Ryoko's throat. “ He always threatened to expose the Zodiac secret to the world if I didn't do exactly what he told me to. It makes me sick. The horrible things he made me do.”

Kyo gulped, he hated to think of it as well. He hoped this guy was dead and buried. Buried deep, preferably. Really deep. `Cause if this man was still alive, Kyo was gonna murder him. And make it painful. Really painful.

 

He was the type of man who reveled in power. He drank it in, bathed in it, the fact that he had an ace up his sleeve made him seem nearly drunk. The bastard. He paraded Ryoko around, to all the fancy upper-class parties, all the social events. He loved showing her off, in her ornate Chinese robes with her long black hair put up in the most ridiculous traditional styles.

He always wore suits. Ryoko can't ever remember him wearing anything else. Always black, or dark blue, with a red tie. That damn red tie. He was always fiddling with it, loosening with it, tightening with it, rolling the cloth under his fingers. It nearly drove Ryoko mad. But the red tie aside, Ryoko rather liked the fact that Taichii wore suits. It made him seem more human, less manly. Suits, to Ryoko, made men seem less like men and more like women. Softer around the edges.

His face was sharp, all angles and sudden corners. His skin was oily, it glistened in the florescent lights on the ceilings above him. He had cold brown eyes, the kind you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Asian skin, and perfect lips. He wore Men's Lipstick. As if there was such a thing. The kind men wear in commercials, he said it made him look young. It really made him look stupid, but Ryoko never told him what she thought. His black hair was always slicked back with some mysterious type of gel, it made his head sticky to the touch. Especially when he'd been under the lights for hours, it would melt and make his head one whole mess of grease and oil.

He wore cologne too. Brunt, the outdoorsy kind. Of course, the bastard never did do anything away from his desk. He'd always come back to his house smelling like melted oil and pine. Ryoko hated his smell, the smell of a man.

 

After her father had found her with Saizo Chung, she'd moved in with Taichii Okinawa, that bastard. In an elaborate traditional house in the suburbs outside of Beijing. Ryoko was, for lack of a better term, his bitch. She cleaned his messy house, cooked his extravagant meals, did his disgusting laundry with a clothespin on her nose, and waited on him oily hand and smelly foot.

Every day he'd come back to the house from a long day in a plush office. Ryoko would have already set the table and the meal, waiting until he had sat down until sitting herself. Every day he'd sit on the leather couch in front of the television, drinking beer and watching American football. Ryoko hated football. She learned English simply by listening to him parade the language around to other high-standing officials. And every day, he'd take a pinch at her, or a squeeze, and then laugh maliciously when she shied away from him.

One day was different.

Taichii had come home early from work. Ryoko was sitting in the kitchen, reading a book. Speak, an American book by a Miss. Anderson. Struggling through the English, reading out loud to herself, Ryoko did not hear Taichii's red Ferrari pull up the driveway. So engrossed was she in her reading, that she did not even hear him until it was far, far too late.

His oily hands were suddenly on her shoulders, un-buttoning her chimase. She struggled, he laughed. His teeth biting her neck, her shoulders, sending pain, and not pleasure coursing through her. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. This was due to the fact that Taichii's lips were clamped against her own. His tongue probed her mouth, dancing with hers, as he ripped open her chimase, nails raking down her woman's chest.

Before Ryoko knew, she was on the floor below him, his greasy hair hanging into his face. His hot, ugly breath on her cheek. He tore her clothes apart, bra, pants, panties. All of it. Until she was naked, cold, and shivering. Hard for her, he struggled desperately with his zipper, fingers fumbling in sick anticipation.

As the real rape began, so did the rain. It hurled itself down out of the skies, desperate to wash the Earth clean of it's sins. Before, the rain had been something Ryoko hated, loathed. It stole her energy, made her ache inside. But now, now, the rain was her savior. Taichii hadn't bothered with her bracelet, the fool.

Ryoko cried out when he thrust his way inside of her, making her bleed. Her nails dug into her palms, making little half-moon circles. She bit her tongue, and it bled. She heard the rain. She looked at her beads, she made her choice.

 

Kyo was silent. All he could do was hold Ryoko, and hold her close. No wonder, no wonder that her eyes had been dead. No small fucking wonder. She'd torn off her beads, the black and white round beads of the Cat, the seal on the Cat's true form. So she had a true form too, this surprised Kyo more than it should have, he thought that he'd been the only one who had to live with that grotesque form. The knowledge of what she'd done churned over and over in the pit of Kyo's stomach.

She'd ripped him apart.