Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ On Our Knees ❯ Flashback - When We Were Young ( Chapter 2 )

Mii finished wailing almost as abruptly as she had begun. She opened her eyes to see Shigure’s smile. “How can you smile at me like that? Don’t you know that you are driving me stark raving mad?”

“That’s only too evident, dear friend.” Shigure chuckled. “How else could you forget yourself to such an extent? Honestly, Mi-chan, what a self-indulgent display! You’re worse that Chikako; I must have been thinking of you when I conjured her up.”

“Don’t do this to me again, Gure-san.” But Mii knew that it was too late; he had already begun.

“Shigure-sama to you, dearest.”

Mii bowed her head, breathed deeply and swallowed another wail; she got those from her mother, who screamed like a banshee at the slightest provocation. “Shigure-sama, most honorable host, I beg you. Grant me this favor that I ask most humbly of you.”

“But it is I who is humbled before you, dearest.” Already kneeling at the table, Shigure bowed his head.

Mii fell to her knees and laid her forehead on the floor, prostrate. “I’m begging you, Shigure-sama! Will you give me the pages?”

Shigure rose, eyes never leaving Mii’s prone figure. He walked around her to gaze at her upturned bottom, white panties covering her pale cheeks, just barely showing from under her pleated navy skirt. Mii felt him staring, knew he liked to see her this way. She hadn’t liked wearing the school uniform in public, but that couldn’t be helped. She knew that she would only waste time if she didn’t play along.

Mii had known Shigure since her senior year in high school. He’d never let her down on purpose, was unfailingly loyal, but he had a playful nature that often brought her to the brink of catastrophe, or at least major embarrassment.

Today, for instance. She was convinced that he’d written the pages, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease her senseless. And maybe the time WOULD get away from them and maybe she WOULD lose her job, or be demoted. She really hoped not!

Forehead touching the floorboards, Mii wondered if he had the wrist cuffs already in his hand. Twelve years since he first offered them to her, and she still felt that familiar tingle of excitement at the thought of those velvet bonds. She’d felt it the first time she’d seen them in his hand, then looked up to see his happy grin. He was always ready to play, like a little puppy, she thought.

Shigure had approached her in the hall at school one morning, where she lingered by the water fountain, daydreaming as she waited for the first bell to ring so she could go to homeroom. His cousins Ayame and Hatori observed from a distance. She’d noticed them, looked for them, really, as soon as she saw Shigure; the three were inseparable, and called themselves the Mabudachi Trio, the Three Amigos.

“They hang out together all the time, they’re good looking, and they don’t have girlfriends? They are so obviously gay, Mi-chan! Give it up.” Mii’s older sister Saeko had trampled Mii’s hopes when she’d described the trio.

Saeko, married with a new baby, had been wild in school, and her advice had always been on the mark, because she really had been around, unlike Mii, who just fantasized a lot, especially about the Sohma boys. But now Shigure was asking if he could walk her home, maybe buy her kakigori on the way, and Mii could only nod, breathless.

“Great, okay, I’ll meet you after sixth period by the front gate.” Shigure grinned again and almost skipped back to his cousins.

On the way home, Shigure made good on his promise and bought her strawberry kakigori. He made jokes about their classmates, causing Mii to burst into snorting giggles, which made Shigure laugh in turn, until they were stumbling down the sidewalk in paroxysms of laughter. Suddenly Shigure said, “I like having fun with you, Mi-chan.”

Mii was a bit stunned. One walk home and Shigure was already telling her that? She wasn’t used to such frankness, or even to such casual conversation with a cute boy. “Me, too, Gure-san. I mean, I like being with you, too.” Mii blushed.

“The thing is, with my cousins, we have this pact. It’s kind of a secret, so I can’t say much, but basically we can’t have girlfriends until college.”

“Really?” Mii felt her heart sink to the soles of her feet.

“Yeah, but if you want, we can still see each other.”

“I’d like that, Gure-san, but how, if it has to be a secret?”

“Well, actually, it has to be a secret from everyone else, but with Aya and Ha-san, it can’t be a secret. Does that make sense?”

“Um, I don’t think I understand. . .”

“Whatever happened between us, they would want to know about. I would have to tell them, or. . . maybe they would want to, um. . . be with us, when we were, uh, together.” Shigure stumbled over the words, but only because he was watching how they registered on Mii, who suddenly seemed to be having difficulty breathing, her eyes growing wider and wider, staring at her feet still moving down the sidewalk. They were alone on the side street, only a block or so from her house.

“I, um. . .I don’t know, Gure-san. . .”

Shigure slowed abruptly and moved just a step behind Mii. As she turned, curious, in his direction, he put one hand over her wrist closest to him and pinned it to her back, just above her bottom. With his free hand he reached to clasp her other hand tightly in his, pulled her close in one movement, and brought his lips down on the soft whiteness of her neck.

As the kiss deepened, feeling helpless in his iron grip, Mii arched her neck up to meet him, and was rewarded as he trailed his lips with little kisses to her own waiting mouth. She felt his tongue search her own, find her passion and bring it surging up, leaving a scorching path from her thighs to her lips even as she shivered with the intensity of her desire. Soon the arm behind her back began to tingle and go a bit numb, as Shigure gripped her wrist and pulled her in tight and close to him. She didn’t want him to let her go.

But Shigure ended the kiss, pulling his head back to look into Mii’s eyes, lids half-closed as urgency suffused her entire being, toes to fingertips, nerve endings pulsating, knees weak.

“That was nice, wasn’t it? You smell wonderful, like cinnamon.” Shigure breathed deeply in her hair. “That’s what I’ll tell Aya and Ha-san, and also that your mouth was strawberry-sweet from your kakigori. . .that you didn’t try to pull away when I kissed you . . .that I held your wrist but that I really wanted to use these.”

He let go of her hand to reach into the pocket of his uniform and pull out something black and velvety. Mii stared at the cuffs, then looked up at Shigure, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“Really, it’s even more fun with both hands behind your back!”

Mii felt a shiver spread out from the brand of his kiss on her neck, almost trembled with the tingling of her skin and the pang deep in her belly as she looked up into his eyes. She couldn’t say no, but she couldn’t say yes either, until he bent to kiss her again, and she was glad that he hadn’t let go of her wrist behind her back. She had often dreamed of it, but had never felt such longing.

Even now, Mii knew that same desire was building inside her : to be taken, to be held fast, to be the helpless object of this man’s desires. Knowing that it was all a game did nothing to diminish the sensations of vulnerability and submission that infused her as she knelt prostrate in Shigure’s study.

Of course she wanted the pages and she didn’t want to lose her job; that only added to her sense of helplessness in the situation. But even if he had not put his work between them, she knew that she would still be here before him, waiting, because everything that was happening in this room made her temperature rise, shortened her breath, sent pulses of heat radiating from her center. The protesting, the mock dispute, her posture on the floor, Shigure standing over her, never knowing what exactly he was going to do-she didn’t think she would ever get enough.

“I do have something to give you, Mi-chan; you know that. Do you want it?”

As always he assured himself that she was still up for his games, but never once had she turned him down. Although she was not exactly eager to admit to her longing, she knew that given the on-again, off-again nature of their long relationship, he needed to hear it from her. And today Mii didn’t have time to let him coax an answer from her.

She rotated her head to let her cheek rest on the tatami as she stared back at Shigure. He flashed her a smile and a wink, and she turned her face back to the floor. “Yes, Gure-san.” She spoke softly but clearly. “You know the answer is yes.”

Shigure reached down and lifting one of her hands from the floor, put it in a velvety cuff in one deft movement. “Shigure-sama, dearest. I told you that already, so now you’ll pay for the insolence.”

He fastened the cuff on her other hand and stood to admire his handiwork. “And all that screaming, especially in front of the others!! Is that how you thank me for offering you a fabulous lunch and stimulating conversation?”

Mii said nothing but smiled to herself; as usual Shigure had no trouble finding an excuse to give her a little well-deserved discipline. Suddenly Shigure dropped on all fours beside her and peered at her face, saw her biting back a grin, her nose touching the floor. “So you think this is funny, Mi-chan? You are in for it this time, dear friend. . .”