Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ The Butterfly Effect ❯ Know Thyself ( Chapter 6 )

Happy (early) Halloween!

Chapter Summary: Sometimes a little knowledge is a lot worse than no knowledge at all.

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Natsuki Takaya/HAKUSENSHA - TV TOKYO - NAS - Fruba Project.

Warning: Rated R for language, implied rape, torture, and adult situations.

/Chapter 6: Know Thyself/

/Know thyself? A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly./

-Andre Gide

"We have enough money for three, maybe four years, if we work part-time jobs."

"I thought that Tohru's inheritance was really large."

"It was really large, nezumi, but we bought and furnished a huge house, with huge property taxes and utility bills. We have just enough money left over to start one or two businesses while supporting us in the meantime."

"Well, I wanted to go to school anyways and our grades should transfer under our new names, so I don't really see the problem. Besides, I wouldn't have wanted to spend the rest of my life living off of Tohru's generosity anyway."

Tohru backs away from the living room entrance as if she has been stung. She knows that she wasn't supposed to hear that conversation and she's not sure what hurts her more: the fact that they didn't include her or the fact that they resent being dependent on her.

She walks to the back of the house and opens the door. There is a strong breeze today and she stands for a while, letting the wind tousle her hair and skirt. She needs the cool air because there is an unfamiliar burn building inside of her that is threatening to erupt.

*It's called anger, sweetie.*

She would do anything for the boys and they can't even have a discussion with her about their joint futures and their true feelings about her plan. After the return of her memories last night, it is too much.

*Let's go for a walk.*

Tohru grabs a coat from the hook and slips on a pair of sneakers. She needs to get outside. She needs to think. Most of all, she needs to get rid of the dull ache in her heart.

###

By the time that Tohru's thoughts catch up with her feet, she is at the edge of the forest. There is a small circle of trees that are obviously part of her property and then the distinct line that indicates the reserve. She sits down under one of the planted trees and leans back against the trunk.

She is changing. She would like to blame it all on the butterfly, but the truth is that she is just starting to let what was underneath come up to the surface. Tohru will not lie to herself. Now that she no longer apologizes all the time, she is starting to have emotions other than guilt develop in response to people: anger, amusement... lust. She has always known that she loves the boys, but now there are other feelings too. Feelings that are apparently not returned.

*What the hell? The boys may be stupid and chauvinistic but they think that the sun shines out of your ass.*

'They treat me like a child, like a little sister. They can't love me as a woman if they can't even trust me to make decisions like an adult.'

*Well, aside from the pity-fest, you make a good point. The boys aren't showing a lot of trust or respect for your abilities. So what are you going to do about it?*

'I don't know.' And then Tohru decides to be brutally honest, with both herself and the butterfly. 'I'm not smart. I'm not talented. I'm not beautiful. How can I earn their respect?'

*We're not back to this again. I told you to ignore that bitch. If you don't have confidence in yourself, then how can you expect the boys to have confidence in you?*

Suddenly Tohru starts laughing. All of the accumulated stress from the past few days finally snaps her control. The laughter isn't her normal inane giggling either. It sounds vaguely like her memories of her mother- full-throated and beautiful. 'This is so silly. I have a beautiful house and two dear friends who are willing to do anything to make me more comfortable. Not to mention an annoying voice in my head. Why am I complaining?'

*Tohru... this isn't healthy.*

'Later butterfly. Right now I am going to make a daisy chain.'

She is actually on her fourth chain, the first three wound around her arms and head, when she is swept up from behind and pulled hard against someone's chest.

"What were you thinking, going outside like that without telling anyone?"

And Tohru snaps.

"I heard you in the living room. If you treat me like a child, I'm going to act like a child."

It is immature, petty and poorly thought out. But it is a start.

When Yuki and Kyou look through the local college calendars and sort the bank statements, Tohru is included in the planning.

###

It is nearly three weeks before Kyou and Yuki decide that Tohru has mastered enough ducking moves and clothing transformations for it to be safe for her to go out in public. By this time, Tohru is completely house-crazy. She has cleaned the house from top to bottom and made enough food to feed several hundred hungry boys. Even the application for the cooking apprenticeship at the local trade school fails to keep her interest.

It is not only being cooped up in the house, it is not only having at least one boy always watching her every move- Akito has been using her links to drive Tohru nearly insane with pain. Tohru has figured out a few things about the bonds though. The longer she is away from Akito, the harder it seems that it is for Akito to use her bond. Never, after the first night, is Akito able to actually speak through the connection. Instead, every few nights, Tohru will be torn apart from the inside out. One of the bonds is not used to cause pain though. When Tohru asks the butterfly, it gives an unusually hesitant answer.

*It's a life bond. Your lives are joined.*

So apparently, on top of everything else, Tohru's life is now connected to a madwoman. Not only that, but it seems that while the boys' bonds to Akito are completely cut with distance, distance makes no difference to Tohru's connections. Or at least, Tohru is assuming that the boys can't feel Akito in their minds- she has never told them about her own bonds.

*You don't really have a choice, sweetheart. Akito may not know about me, but if you break that promise about anything else....*

'I really don't want to think about this. And we are safe.'

*For now.*

'That isn't helping to keep me from going crazy.' Really, all that has kept her sane has been helping Yuki with his garden and Kyou with his practice space.

###

It was Kyou who grabbed her first, since he needed to 'teach her how to avoid strange men'. He took her to a corner of the yard that he had marked out as a practice area. When Tohru stood rather stupidly in the center of his space, he came up behind her and put his arms around her. "This is what we need to be able to prevent." * 'Actually it's just an excuse to cop a feel.'* Tohru was disturbed that she hoped that the butterfly was right.

Unfortunately, Kyou seemed to be all business. "How do you think that Yuki and I have avoided public transformations in crowds of raving fangirls?"

"Good luck?"

Kyou allowed himself a small laugh and he visibly relaxed when he continued.

"Yah, that's a big part of it, but more importantly we both learned to sense and dodge people approaching us. You hopefully won't have the same kinds of problems-"

"You mean that I don't have hordes of raving fangirls?"

This time, Kyou laughed loudly. He sounded almost mischievous when he whispered in Tohru's ear, "I don't know. Was there something that you didn't tell us in high school?"

Tohru was surprised at her own humor, but decided that she liked playful Kyou far too much to stop. Maybe this was a chance to show him that she wasn't quite as naive as he and Yuki seemed to think. After all, she had spent three years living with Shigure and his novels.

"Well I did spend a lot of time with Hana-chan and Uo-chan...."

That actually ended the lesson for the day, as Kyou was unable to breathe for a good couple minutes and unable to speak to Tohru for the rest of the afternoon.

The lessons continued though, and Tohru found herself settling into an easy pattern of gentle teasing with Kyou. After the first disaster, he was far harder to faze and seemed to enjoy her little comments. Some of them did come from the butterfly, but Tohru was shocked to find that many of them were from her own mind.

There was actual practice as well. Kyou showed her series of simple feints and blocks that he made her repeat endlessly. There were moments that she hated him when she went through her hundredth kata repetition, but then he would 'attack' her and she would forget everything in the warmth of his body against hers. Really, her inability to defend herself against Kyou was probably why it took three weeks for him to decide that she was ready. It didn't help that he would always end their sessions by pulling her down onto his lap and giving her a massage 'to ease her muscles'. But the best part was after he finished the massage and simply held her in his lap while he told her stories about his training with Kazuma. Tohru wasn't sure if the stories were supposed to inspire her, but she had never felt closer to Kyou than when he shared his past.

###

Yuki didn't get Tohru involved with the garden until the end of the first week. Tohru had been spending so much time practicing with Kyou and organizing the house that she hadn't even had a chance to see what Yuki had accomplished. It wasn't all that odd really, since Yuki and Kyou had quickly established where their personal spaces were and, not surprisingly, the two had chosen opposite sides of the property.

It wasn't until the morning of the seventh day that Tohru got to see Yuki's work. Since Yuki was really not a morning person, she was shocked when Yuki came down as she was making breakfast. Even more shocking was that he seemed to be somewhat awake.

"May I have your help today, Tohru?"

Even though Tohru enjoyed her time with Kyou, she had really missed Yuki for the last few days. "I'd love to help you, Yuki."

It was strange but Yuki seemed almost shy when he grabbed Tohru's hand and led her into the yard. "It's not much, but I think that in a few years we can have a good-sized plot and the soil is already pretty fertile here so we won't need to do much adjusting." Yuki was babbling. It seemed that the cool, collected Prince was nervous about her reaction to his garden. He needn't have worried.

"Oh Yuki.... You did all this yourself?"

Somehow Yuki had managed to turn a corner of the lawn into a series of rows and furrows marked with tape and sticks. There were even some flats of plants sitting beside the shovels and rakes.

Yuki shuffled and muttered something about having time on his hands because she was always busy.

*'Aw... How cute. The rat's jealous. And he dug dirt for you. Catch him before he gets away!'*

Tohru ignored the butterfly and asked Yuki what he hoped to plant at this time of the year.

"I know it's late in the season, but it is much cooler here than... back there. We are a lot higher in the mountains and I think that the growing season starts a lot later. We may still be able to get strawberries."

He looked so hopeful, so very child-like and eager, that Tohru couldn't have disagreed even if she had known more than he did about gardening.

She pumped her arm in the air. "Yes! We can do it! We are determined!"

Tohru looked at Yuki. Yuki looked at Tohru. They both burst into laughter.

"Stop...stop... My sides are hurting."

Tohru would always blame what happened next on the butterfly.

It wasn't her fault that she had a sudden image of pristine, hygiene-obsessed Yuki rolling in the dirt while she tickled him. Really.

It took Yuki approximately three seconds to recover before Tohru was flipped underneath him. Tohru retaliated with a handful of dirt to the face. By dinnertime, zero strawberries had been planted and Yuki's silk shirt was completely ruined.

They actually did get some of the flats planted over the next few weeks, but a lot of the sessions seemed to start or end with them rolling around in the dirt. Tohru learned very quickly to ignore the butterfly's very graphic comments about something called 'mud-wrestling'. She was just happy that Yuki would relax and play around a little when she 'helped' him.

*'Actually you just like taking any opportunity you can to feel him up.'*

The sad part was that the butterfly was surprisingly accurate. Tohru did like touching Yuki and listening to him talk about gardening and watching him shovel dirt and hearing him laugh when she tickled him. She even liked the smell of him covered in damp earth and sweat. In fact the more time that she spent with Yuki, the more little stories he told her about himself, the more she wanted to be around him.

###

There is no doubt about it- Tohru is learning more about herself and about the boys.

She is in big trouble.

But she doesn't have to think about that right now because she is finally going to get out of the stupid house and away from the stupid feelings that are threatening to make her want two people at once.