Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Love and Amnesty ❯ words from a dragon ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2.

On cue, Yuki and Kyou are in the room, looking at me in horror.

"Shigure-" Kyou snarls, cracking his knuckles.

"What are you doing?!" Yuki shouts.

I can imagine this must look like.

To see a young, half naked girl lying on a bed, a twenty eight year old "pervert" with his hand up her shirt, that would traumatize me for life.

You know, that would be a good idea for a hentai…

No! No! Bad Shigure! Slap, slap, slap.

"Ms. Honda!" Yuki says, rushing to her aid. "Did he do anything to hurt you?"

She remains silent.

"You fucking pervert," Kyou snaps. I can hear the anger burning in his voice.

Yuki's eyes are wide with fury.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," I say.

"Oh really?" Kyo yells, advancing on me menacingly, "sometimes a little of nothing can be a hell of a lot of something!"

"I didn't do anything to her."

"Tohru?" Yuki asks tentatively. "What did he do? Please tell me,"

"Argh…we should have known she's not safe around a sicko like you,"

Tohru sits up, clutching her shirt to her bare chest. She doesn't say anything, just begins to cry silently.

"Tohru?"

I look at her.

She shields her eyes from me and draws her knees up to her chest.

"She…she was asleep…" I say.

"I'VE HEARD ENOUGH OF YOUR BULLSHIT!" Kyou roars. I can see the desire in his eyes.

He wants to hit me.

I'm not even going to dodge it.

Suddenly I'm on the floor, the ceiling whirling about me. I see the outline of a foot in my face.

It slams into my jaw, crushing it.

I don't move.

"Tohru, you know you can sue him for this. You're old enough to."

I do not hear her voice.

Don't sue me, Tohru. My intentions were good. You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you…

But the words never reach my lips.

No words come to me for the remainder of the night. I cough. My mouth is filled with blood. I ignore the acrid taste and bury my face into the carpet.

"You see? He's guilty! He's being torn apart by guilt." Kyou says. He bends down close to me and picks up my face so he can stare me down.

"How does it feel to be the bitch now?" he growls.

"Kyou. Leave him. Ms. Honda. You can stay in my room. I'll sleep outside the door. I will protect you from him."

I didn't do anything.

I'm innocent.

I didn't even touch her…

Days, weeks, hours later (I have no idea how long it's been…) I wake up.

But I do not open my eyes.

I can feel the sunlight cascading in through the window. It's too bright. I shield my face from it. I can taste the blood in my mouth. I can feel the weight of guilt settling in my stomach. I heave myself up. I look down at the pink carpet.

It is littered with blood.

I look down at my hands.

I had no right, I think miserably.

I was wrong.

But I can't take it back now.

The most I can do is pray everything goes well in court.

I rise to my feet and look at myself in Tohru's vanity mirror.

I look different.

I am no longer Shigure Soma, the master novelist with a kind smile and a knack for mischief.

I am now Shigure Soma, the idiot hentai addict-undercover pedophile, who is always searching for his next victim.

I am a disgrace to the Somas.

I cannot stay here. Not with Tohru. Not with Yuki. Not with Kyou. I am consumed by guilt, by shame, by utter carelessness. I look at my hands. Smeared with dirt and dried blood. These hands can produce such works of art, yet they are now the very reason for my inevitable destruction. I am now a time bomb just waiting to self-destruct.

I have dug my own grave.

I have etched out my own tombstone.

I have built my own coffin.

Now I must lie in it, like a man.

But before I do, I must go running to Hatori. He is a very good listener even if he's impatient. I need someone to talk to. I need someone who will listen. I need someone who will understand.

I need Tohru.

NO NO NO!!! SLAP SLAP SLAP.

I am a dirty old man.

I don't bother to wash my face. I dismantle the window (I've had practice from my youthful days…sneaking in after curfew…) and jump out.

The bitter air stings my face, but I don't care. I need to find Hatori. I am running, but the pain is too much to bear. It feels like I am carrying the world on my shoulders. I need to get out of here. I run faster, my feet kicking up the dirt, my yukata dangling off my shoulders. The tears sting my eyes, but I will not allow them to fall.

Never again will I allow them to fall.

"HATORI!" I bang on the door, sinking to my knees.

"Hatori…" I breathe, exhausted from my 17 mile run.

Seventeen miles…seventeen…isn't Tohru seventeen?

BAD SHIGURE. BANG BANG BANG.

"What the hell do you think you are banging on my door like an ass-?" He stops talking the minute he sees my face.

"Shigure. I haven't seen you since New Year's."

"Can I come inside?"

He lets me in, and I sit on the floor massaging my blistered feet. They bleed.

As if I hadn't lost enough blood already.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asks solemnly, offering me a cigarette. I accept.

I don't know, I want to say, but the words don't make it.

"Shigure. I'm a busy man. If you're not going to talk I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I'm talking," I say, taking a long drag on the cigarette. The smoke fills my lungs, contaminating me, tainting my soul. I don't care. It feels good.

"I'm listening," Hatori says, checking his watch and flipping through a few folders noiselessly.

I tell him everything, from start to finish. I tell him my intentions; I tell him the guilt I felt, I tell him how much it hurts. I tell him I could spend the rest of my life in jail.

He just nods.

"I see," he says.

"That's it? `I see?!' No life-saving, crisis averting, god-given words of insight!?" I am outraged. Hatori is the one who solves all of my problems. How dare he remain silent at such a crucial point in my life!

"Shigure." He says, burying his cigarette in a glass ashtray, "the most I can do is tell you what I know you want to hear. Would that help you? Most certainly not. As of this very moment, even I am at a loss for words. I was not there to witness the incident, so understand I have very little insight on the situation or the circumstances."

"Hatori,"

I bury my face in my hands.

"What should I do?"

"What should you do? What should you do?!" Hatori jumps to his feet, looking down at me with disgust. "Be a man for god's sake! How dare you cower under the repercussions and use that as an excuse for your own rash actions! How dare you try to corrupt the reality of the situation by lying to my face? How dare you come crawling to me asking `what should I do?' You know damn well what you should do and using me as a substitute for a conscience is not going to compensate the actions you refuse to take responsibility for! You're a grown man, but you deal with tribulations like a child! How dare you wallow in misery and believe that the rest of us around you will gladly offer you pity and compassion when you fuck up? And then you dare call yourself an adult?!"

"Hatori," I started, but he wasn't finished.

"Shigure, I already know exactly what you're going to say. You're going to tell me that I'm not helping you at a time when you need it the most. You're going to tell me that you've always come to me for help in the past. You're going to tell me how much you appreciate hearing what I have to say, right? How do I know this? Because this is what you say every time, and now I'm putting my foot down."

"Actually I wasn't going to say anything of that nature," I say calmly.

He eyed me suspiciously.

"I was going to ask you what you would do."

"I wouldn't get myself into that kind of situation, first of all."

"If you were in my situation then,"

"I would make things right. I wouldn't try to run from my problems because that would be wrong, and you know what they say. Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Yeah but two Wrights made an airplane."

"You and your American jokes…I keep telling you…"

"Why do you always anticipate the negative?"

He chuckled lightly.

"Are you calling me a pessimist? That's okay; it's not the first time I've been told. Perhaps I talk to Akito too much. But then again, both the pessimist and the optimist contribute to society."

"How so?"

"The optimist makes the airplane. The pessimist makes the parachute."

"Thank you, Hatori." I say, rising to my feet.

He walks me to the door and kicks me in the shin.

"Get out," he says.

I take a last look at his face before I leave.

He's smiling.