Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Revelations ❯ Yuki's Shock ( Chapter 1 )

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

Revelations

By CrazyDragon

My first FB fanfic--heck, it's the first fanfic I've ever posted. Heh!

This popped into my head one night after I'd read too many yaoi fanfics about Kyo and Yuki, and it kept bugging me until I wrote it down. I mean--why couldn't those two actually be just plain friends, kind of like close brothers who don't want to admit they actually like each other?

Ano, why the heck do most of the fics I've been finding tend to only deal with romantic-type relationships? Geez, you'd think nobody thought with anything other than their hormones! ::snickering slightly:: Ah, whatever folks want to read...

I just haven't been finding enough non-citrus, non-“mushy” fanfics to make me happy, so I decided to write one myself. Not that I don't like a good lemon now and then--but I like a little variance in my diet...! Let's have a nice hearty dollop of straight angst, for instance. Here, I've got a ladle--

DISCLAIMER--They ain't mine...BWAAAAAAAH!!! sniffle-snuffle!! If I owned Fruits Basket, I'd be makin' money!

Chapter 1 - Yuki's Shock

“Oi--Hatori. Did I ever thank you? For taking away my best friend's memories, all those years ago...”

Yuki froze where he was in the hallway, startled. Not startled that Kyo was being disrespectful--that was that baka neko's nature, after all--but at the unaccustomed neutral tone of it. It was almost...bland.

Besides, since when did Kyo have a best friend? Who'd want to be best friends with such a violent, loud-mouthed baka, anyway?

Curiosity wasn't the exclusive realm of the neko, after all...

“No, I can't say as you did. Not that you should,” came Hatori's calm response. Yuki cocked his head, his ears all but twitching in curiosity. The rainy Sunday had been unbearably boring so far, what with no school, Shigure off gods knew where hiding from his editor, and Honda-san off visiting her friends. Fighting with that baka neko just wasn't worth the bother on rainy days; there was no challenge at all at those times.

That is, if he even got out of bed. Kyo and rainy days just did not mix.

“No--really. I should have thanked you. You did us both a favor, actually; an' at least I get to see him, an' I could even sneak in some help sometimes.” Kyo's voice stayed surprisingly soft, especially considering what he said next. “I guess I just wasn't having a good year, then--especially for a six-year-old. I mean, first Akito has you take Yuki's memories away, and suddenly I'm supposed to act like I hate my best friend--or Akito'll hurt him; then Mom kills herself right in front of me, just `cause she can't handle that I was born the neko...” A trace of acid bitterness had managed to creep into Kyo's still oddly quiet voice.

Yuki suddenly reminded himself to breathe, before he passed out right there in the hallway. A sense of complete unreality had wound about him, leaving him feeling like he was wrapped tight in thick cotton from head to foot--but for his ears, that seemed to be underwater. What was he hearing?!

But Kyo hadn't stopped talking, yet. Yuki wrenched his concentration back into focus.

“...Shishou's suddenly the only person around who ain't completely shunning me...then I find out it doesn't damned well matter what I decide to do with my life, `cause Akito's having me locked away in the Neko's House the day after I graduate High School--up `til the day I die--” A rather hysterical note spiraled Kyo's voice up slightly, in both volume and pitch, before he regained that unusual control over himself. He snorted softly. “That's when I decided--at least if I didn't make any more friends, there'd be nobody grieving when Akito throws away the key, ne?”

Yuki couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to. His mind seemed as frozen as his body, trying to grasp what Kyo was saying.

`Locked up?! What's Kyo talking about? And--“best friend”? Me??--and that baka neko?!' His wide eyes were fixed on the door to Shigure's study, the paper softly glowing with the light from inside. He wished they were standing between the light and the door, so he could see their silhouettes; body language might possibly have helped him understand just what was going on.

This was just so--unreal! Maybe he was actually asleep, and dreaming all of this--

“There's no point in being bitter about it, Kyo. What will be, will be.” Hatori's voice was as soft as normal; cold as winter ice. Yuki could never understand how someone who seemed to care so little about other people could've decided to become a healer...

Kyo snorted again, louder this time. “Hah--and it's gonna `be' in, what; four months, two weeks, and four days, ain't it.” Yuki heard Hatori sigh, then what sounded like someone standing up. There was a pause, after a couple of footsteps; the near-missed sound of a couple pats, probably Hatori's hand on Kyo's shoulder. Which was odd enough in itself; Hatori, comforting someone?

“Tell Shigure I'll be back tomorrow evening to check on his wrist. You should feel better then, too--this weather system should move on by morning.”

“...Hai.”

Yuki snapped back to himself in a panic when he realized Hatori was coming his way. He slipped quietly down the hall and back up the stairs, stopping in the shadows out of sight just in time. He listened as Hatori let himself out the front door, his eyes fixed speculatively on the study's door.

Kyo was still in there. Did he really want to find out what that was all about? It was the baka neko, for Kami's sake! His worst enemy!

--Wasn't he?

Had Hatori messed with his memories, when he was a child? Even as Hatori had erased the memories of those children who'd seen child-Yuki transform, that time?

A soft sound, rather like a muffled sob, startled Yuki again. He flattened himself against the wall and watched, dumfounded, as Kyo finally came out, staring pensively after Hatori. Kyo angrily swiped at his face--Yuki's eyes nearly fell out of his head as he realized that, yes, the baka neko had actually been crying!--before heading outside himself. Probably for the roof, rain or no rain; that baka neko was going to fall and break his neck climbing up there, one of these days. They'd still not figured out how he was getting up there, either--he never used the ladder, and the trees just weren't close enough to the house to be of any use.

Yuki slowly made his way back to his room, mind whirling. He had some thinking to do, himself.

He caught himself considering taking an umbrella up to the roof so the baka neko didn't catch cold, and a shiver ran up his spine. That just had to have been Honda-san's influence on him. This was his worst enemy he was thinking about, had been for years!

Except--it looked like Kyo had had a lot more to deal with than Yuki had ever thought. `Locked up--?!' He knew several of the Neko-cursed Sohmas of the past had been locked up; such as the one before Kyo, Kazuma-sensei's grandfather...

It's not that he'd ever actually put all that much thought into Kyo's situation, before. The constant attacks had annoyed the nezumi enough that he'd quickly stopped trying to figure out why they were happening, and just wished wholeheartedly that they would stop.

When he wasn't busy worrying about what Akito would do to him next, that is. That was enough to distract anyone.

The neko's seemingly constant state of anger was a great deal more understandable, though, in light of what Yuki had just overheard. And once Yuki understood, that made it that much harder to hate Kyo for it...especially as he doubted he'd have been a very pleasant person to be around, growing up knowing that was his inevitable future.

Yuki quietly closed his door and sat on his futon to think, as one of the foundations of his life started tilting precariously, threatening to knock into all the others.

***

Supper was a quiet affair. Kyo was in his silent-grumpy, `it's raining, don't bother me' mode, and the sneakily-returned Shigure was too theatrically miserable with his supposedly sprained wrist to do anything but moan about `the pain,' and how he'd never be able to finish his latest manuscript for poor dear Mit-chan now... Yuki wasn't about to ask how the inu had managed that injury to himself, and Kyo wasn't volunteering to say, if he even knew. Honda-san wasn't due back for a few more hours; since no one had felt like braving either Shigure's near-toxic cooking or doing it themselves, they'd ordered out.

It was a shame, really; on the rare occasion that Kyo took to the kitchen, the results were quite nearly as good as Honda-san's. Actually...sometimes, it was better; especially if fish of any kind was involved.

Not that Yuki would ever willingly let the baka neko know that opinion!

Yuki concentrated on not grinding his teeth in frustration. He just couldn't help staring at Kyo, and wondering. He yanked his eyes away every time he realized he was doing it, but they kept wandering back within a few minutes.

“Whaddayou staring at, you kuso nezumi?!”

“Nothing.” Yuki calmly took another bite of his meal, determinedly fixing his eyes on the plate. The usual urge to hit Kyo just wasn't in him, just then; it was crowded out by too many whirling questions.

Kyo stared at him, then shook his head and muttered under his breath at Yuki's oddly almost-polite, quiet tone. It wasn't a tone he was used to hearing from the nezumi--not directed at himself, anyway. It made his neck-hairs stand straight out!

The neko was looking more pale and worn than was normal even on rainy days. He soon gave up trying to figure out what was up with Yuki, and went back to playing with his food. He'd hardly eaten a bite of it yet; you'd think there were the hated leeks on his plate, except he wasn't screaming or spluttering.

Yuki had hardly eaten more; his appetite just wasn't there. He'd spent the afternoon thinking back through his childhood, specifically to the year he and Kyo had been six, trying to see if he could find any gaps in his memories that could've been caused by Hatori's memory-wiping. To his dismay, he'd found that anything before that New Year's party was--fuzzy; indistinct. Spotty. Everything immediately after was quite clear, though.

So. It was possible. Kuso! Though he couldn't imagine why, it was definitely possible that Hatori had taken some of his memories away back then. It might not have been because he and Kyo had been--he shivered uncomfortably at the mere thought--friends; there might've been another reason. Even if he couldn't come up with one single idea that would make any amount of sense.

He'd gone through all of his memories since that time very carefully, trying to be objective, to put aside his almost instinctual dislike of the baka neko. --Which attitude, he'd thought with a sickly chill while sitting in his suddenly too-dark room, could also have been a result of Hatori's meddling; he'd heard once that the Dragon of the Jyuunishi could plant basic influences in someone's mind during a memory wipe, if Akito ordered it. Such as an intense dislike of a specific person or animal.

Yuki couldn't bring up a single memory of hating Kyo, before that New Year's.

He had analyzed everything he could remember Kyo saying and doing since that time--and after a flash of queasy inspiration, he'd also thought about every instance of `good luck' that had happened to him, that he couldn't reliably pin responsibility for on anyone else. The things that had mysteriously happened specifically in his, Yuki's, benefit.

For instance, someone had called Hatori, or Shigure, or once even Ayami, every time Akito started getting too carried away with his--punishments. There was no way they could have known things were getting out of hand on their own; Akito had him in that sound-proofed little room for a reason, after all, and it had usually happened when the others had been away from the Honke. Akito hadn't wanted interruptions. One or another of them would usually arrive in what Yuki had thought as the nick of time, looking rather out of breath; and sometimes they were rather confused when trying to justify their presence.

Almost like they'd gotten an emergency call, and in the frantic rush to get there hadn't had time to think up a decent excuse.

Kyo had been Kazuma-sensei's star pupil since Kyo's mother died; and just what had she died of, anyway? Whenever Yuki thought of her, he got a rather strong memory of exceptionally delicious mochi... The official story was that she'd died of a mysterious illness, and Yuki had never thought about it much, before. The rumors varied from Kyo's monstrous “true form” killing her with his bare hands, to her killing herself for the shame of having given birth to such a monster.

`Kami-sama. She wouldn't really have...would she...?!' A shiver passed through Yuki as his mind shied away from the thought. It was bad enough when one of the Jyuunishi-cursed's parents chose to forget, like Momiji's mother. Yuki's own parents were merely--distant; always expecting perfection from him, with few displays of any sort of affection. They went through all the proper motions of parenthood, without seeming to care overly much about him as a person. He had always felt that he was their duty, more than their son; or maybe a trophy, as the nezumi was supposed to be the `best' of those with the Jyuunishi curse.

“...then Mom kills herself right in front of me...”

But--for his mother to kill herself, just because of his curse--! Yuki had never thought much about that rumor; he hadn't wanted to consider it. It was too--disturbing. And...if he'd put much thought into it, he might have started sympathizing with the neko.

Akito would not have liked that. Akito never liked it when Yuki showed signs of any kind of interest in anyone other than the Clan Head.

Kyo had been training in the martial arts ever since his mother's death, and Yuki had heard that Kazuma-sensei had long since been putting Kyo to helping him train some of the beginning students, and lately even some of the intermediates. Yuki hadn't even started training until he was eleven years old, after Kyo--seemingly out of the blue--tried to attack him. Supposedly so Kyo would be accepted into the Zodiac, and into the family, if he won; that was what the baka neko always claimed, anyway. Loudly.

How in Kami-sama's name could Kyo have lost every single time he attacked his so-called worst enemy, when he was supposedly training so hard for it?! If his skills were truly so terrible, Kazuma-sensei would've surely stopped his training years ago, and would certainly never have allowed him to help with teaching! Just writing it off as part of their curses--saying the neko simply can never defeat the nezumi--Yuki wasn't satisfied with that explanation. It just didn't feel right to him; the very idea raised the hairs on the back of his neck and made him feel vaguely angry.

Looking back objectively on that first “attack” for the first time in his life, Yuki had wondered how anybody in their right minds could have missed that Kyo had been holding back with a vengeance! Yuki was now fairly certain that Kyo had nearly hurt himself, while trying to avoid hurting his `target'.

And Kazuma-sensei--he hadn't really scolded Kyo for the attacks; he'd simply used the excuse to start training Yuki. By rights, Kazuma-sensei should've landed into Kyo for using his art on an untrained opponent; and a sickly one at that, someone completely unable to defend himself properly. The marital arts were to be practiced to protect the weak, not beat up on them!

Had Kazuma-sensei actually told Kyo to do it, so he could have Yuki for a student? Had someone else not only seen what Akito was doing to Yuki, but actually tried to help him, in some tangible way?

Or--had Kyo talked Kazuma-sensei into letting him do it?

The breathing exercises, alone had certainly helped with his poor health; it had actually helped a bit with controlling his asthma. The nezumi was certain that Hatori had approved of Kazuma-sensei's training. It had also gotten him in decent physical shape--without Kazuma-sensei pushing him to excel at the martial arts, Yuki was fairly certain he'd have gotten little or no physical exercise at all; he'd have been lucky not to have wasted away to practically nothing by the time he went into High School.

Yuki then thought about Hatsuharu. On the rare occasions when Haru went Black and attacked him, he usually had a hard time defending himself, let along beating Haru. Yet Kyo never seemed to have a problem whipping Haru, even Black Haru in a full rage. Though Kyo did manage, usually, to not fight Black Haru in front of Yuki. Why? So Yuki wouldn't have the opportunity to notice that the neko was holding back in their fights?

And why did Kyo mainly seem to start their fights when Yuki was in a foul mood, or feeling depressed? Did he actually think it would make Yuki feel better, to hit somebody?

To make up for Akito hitting him...

“--and suddenly I'm supposed to act like I hate my best friend--or Akito'll hurt him--“

How many times that Akito had punished Yuki for seeming trifles--had really been to punish Kyo? Was Kyo purposely losing their fights because he felt guilty, and was giving Yuki a chance to beat up on him for a vengeance he didn't even know he might be due? Or had Akito simply informed the neko that he'd better not ever defeat Akito's precious nezumi?

Yuki shuddered slightly and pushed his plate away, stomach upset at remembering that train of thought; suddenly determined to have a little chat with that baka neko. --No; with Kyo. He really shouldn't insult him so off-handedly, even only in his thoughts; only when he'd specifically earned it. Much as the thought that he'd misjudged someone so badly for so long rankled, especially the neko, he kept hearing Kyo's words to Hatori over and over in his head--“ --`cause Akito's having me locked away in the Neko's House the day after I graduate High School, up `til the day I die.”

There was a very limited amount of time to get this sorted out with Kyo--or he might never know the truth; never have the chance to straighten things out between them.

Breath catching painfully as his old asthma problem tickled at his lungs, he stared straight at Kyo until the red-head looked up at him. Trying to look annoyed, but failing; the neko truly just looked miserable, and bone-tired.

Yuki shivered, remembering the recent time when he'd first seen Kyo's `true form'--the hideous body that was forced upon the neko when it rained, if he wasn't wearing his bracelet seal. He'd never even known about it, `til then--hadn't known the horrible second curse Kyo suffered under; the real reason the Sohma family shunned him. When the rest of the family called Kyo a “monster,” he'd always assumed it was just another simple insult--not a literal reference to another part of the neko's curse!

He hadn't understood that Kyo had been suffering, quite likely more than he had, for all these years. He hadn't wanted to think about it. He'd really only had Akito's abuse to deal with, unless you counted the family's unreasonably high expectations of the nezumi as `abuse'. Kyo--he'd had not only the pariah nature of the cat's curse, but that awful, horrible secondary curse itself; and Yuki could imagine all too easily what Akito could have, would have, said and done to Kyo about that.

When Kazuma-sensei had removed Kyo's bracelet, that curse's seal, that day Yuki and Honda-san found out about his `true' form--Yuki had been shocked at the look of hurt betrayal on Kyo's face, right before his features...melted...into something else; something hideous. A look that had screamed with pain, “You, too?!?” And he could easily see that the transformation itself was nowhere near painless, unlike their regular animal transformations; it had obviously physically hurt, a great deal.

It had also apparently had an effect on Kyo's thoughts. Yuki had seen how Kyo struggled with himself, with the anger... It had almost been like watching a possession by an evil spirit. He knew very well that Kyo would never willingly hurt Tohru, neither one of them would--yet in his Monster form, he'd very nearly ripped at her with his claws. Yuki rubbed his shoulder, absently, remembering the pain where those claws had caught him while he hung on to Kyo's leg.

Yuki could easily see Akito taking the bracelet-seal away on a regular basis, much more often than anyone else would know about; hammering a young Kyo with abusive words about how horrible, how sickening he was. How nobody would ever willingly befriend an evil, stinking monster like that...

He had a terrible, sick feeling that Akito had been setting Kyo up to think that his imprisonment after High School was only right. Akito liked to play sick mind games like that.

Yuki knew.

“Kuso nezumi, will you cut it out?! I don't feel like fightin' right now; I'll beat you tomorrow.” Kyo pushed his own plate away and shoved himself rather shakily to his feet, his glare falling quite short of its usual fire. Yuki glanced at Shigure, the only one who'd actually been eating; the inu seemed inclined to his usual inaction regarding one of their fights, more interested in his food than them. At least, as long as it seemed his house wasn't in imminent danger of being demolished.

Yuki stood and followed Kyo, who glared over his shoulder at him, but couldn't seem to work up the energy to yell any more. The tightness about his squinting red eyes spoke of a fierce headache. Yuki knew the neko was prone to them during rainy times, though he'd never really thought of them as more than a relief for him--Kyo never attacked when he was in the throes of one of them.

Yuki had never really cared before that it was pain that kept Kyo quiet.

He blinked for a second, suddenly remembering a documentary Honda-san had been watching on the T.V. last month; one of the ones about nekos. He hadn't exactly been thrilled at the time about watching that, but Honda-san had been so enraptured that he hadn't had the heart to ask her to change the channel. One bit came back to him; about how the creatures didn't show it when they were in pain--they just bore with it; and when it got too bad to bear, they simply went off and hid until it either passed, or they died.

His gaze flicked up to the ceiling as he suddenly realized all the time Kyo spent on the roof, or out in the forest...hiding from people. Maybe--it wasn't simply because he was an antisocial baka. Maybe--it was because he was hurting, and didn't want anyone to see it.

Kyo was silent all the slow way up the stairs and into his room. His head must've been hurting even more than usual, on top of the depressive lassitude, or he'd have muttered the whole way; he was almost staggering as it was, he'd lost all of his usual feline grace of movement.

Yuki frowned at him, then darted aside to grab the bottle of aspirin from the bathroom, along with a cup of water. If only to make sure Kyo was coherent when he started asking his questions, of course. Not because he was worried about the ba--the neko, or anything...

***