Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ The Small Things ❯ Tick Tock, Tick Twitch ( Chapter 3 )

Tick Tock, Tick Twitch:

 

* * * Some timeframe later… * * *

 

“Are you sure you will be okay by yourself, Miss Honda?” a concerned Yuki asked yet again, as Tohru grabbed three coats and attempted to nicely usher him out the front door.

 

It was a fine Saturday morning, though a tad windy, and all the Sohma boys had a busy day ahead of them. Yuki had several school-related meetings to attend, as well as a doctor's appointment, and a certain flustered editor had demanded Shigure's presence at a writers' convention on the other side of town. Kagura had earlier hinted that she might pop by to visit Kyo, who claimed that he needed to train today anyway.

 

Yet no one seemed to be in much of a hurry to leave.

 

“She'll be fine, ya damn rat!” shouted a voice from somewhere beyond the front door of Shigure's house. There was a pause, then Kyo's bright red face appeared in the doorway, trying to look at Tohru and avoid eye contact at the same time. “You will be alright, right?”

 

Tohru flashed her typical brightly beaming grin over the bundle of coats in her arms.

 

“Of course!” She glanced at her watch, then suddenly morphed into an erratic frenzy of arms, legs and coats. “Ahh!!! Look at the time! You'll all be late! Hurry, hurry! Don't want to keep anyone waiting - that would be so rude - quick, hurry!”

 

She threw the coats at the Sohmas. A nimble hand grabbed the first, but the other slapped its oblivious owner head-on, then was angrily plucked off to reveal a zipper-imprinted face just as bright as its owner's hair.

 

The third coat landed with a thump on the ground.

 

There was a prolonged moment of confusion, when all that could be heard was the silent creak of three heads turning to look at the same spot on the ground.

 

“Just a minute - I'm coming, I'm coming!” sang an all-too-familiar falsetto.

 

Yuki sighed, slowly putting his coat on.

 

Kyo rolled his eyes and disappeared, presumably to sit on the porch.

 

Tohru looked around restlessly and twiddled her thumbs, growing more and more anxious.

 

Then, there fell a silence so dead that one could quite easily hear the barely audible circular advancement of the second hand on Tohru's wristwatch, the ticking of which conveniently sounded between various fidgety movements of the three impatient beings in its vicinity.

 

Tick.

 

Yuki straightened his shirt.

 

Tock.

 

Kyo yawned.

 

Tick.

 

To-

 

“Um, Shigure, I don't mean to rush you or anything, but -”

 

“Ta-da!”

 

A neat, polished man slid into view. He grinned dashingly and struck a pose.

 

“Fetching, isn't it?”

 

Unimpressed, Kyo stood up and dusted himself off.

 

“Yeah, yeah, it's great. Can we go now?”

 

Tohru smiled.

 

“You look very charming, Shigure.” She looked at her watch yet again and gasped. “Oh my god! Now you'll definitely be late! Quick, you'd better go!”

 

She tried to shoo everyone away, but Shigure merely waved his hand, unperturbed.

 

“No need to worry. Ha'ri was kind enough to offer me a ride, and I'm sure that he wouldn't mind chauffeuring these two.”

 

“Oh.” At a loss, Tohru stopped, slowly lowering her hands. No one appeared to notice her left eye twitch slightly during the millisecond it took her to find something more to ramble on about. “But you'd better not keep Hatori waiting! It's so nice of him to take time out of his busy schedule to help - so off you go! Chip chop, chip chop!”

 

She had already successfully gotten Yuki outside, and proceeded to push a now resigned Shigure after him. Kyo didn't seem to need much encouragement, and stood outside waiting, continuously glancing over his shoulder somewhat agitatedly.

 

“Ok, ok. We'll be back by dinner, I should think.” said Shigure, finally taking control of his own feet and following his impatient cousins. “Bye, Tohru. Take care of yourself!”

 

“Goodbye, Miss Honda.”

 

“Yeah, see ya.”

 

“Have fun! Bye! Take care!”

 

Tohru stood at the edge of the porch and waved cheerily, still smiling as they walked off into the distance.

 

Only when they were completely out of sight did the corner of her mouth, still curved into a smile, move the slightest inch.

 

“About bloody time, bastards.”

 

 

 

Author's Note:

 

I'd just like to take a moment to remember a day some time ago, when I accidentally whacked a friend's friend's friend (pretty much just some person I'd only known for a couple of hours and was REALLY tall) in the eye with the zipper of my jacket. Actually, it was half purpose and half accident. That is, I meant to hit him with my jacket, but I never planned for the zipper to basically stab him in the eye!

Well, honestly, I didn't remember at all - but a friend (whose friend's friend I had injured) pointed it out afterwards, and apparently this is all the fault of my guilty subconscious. So there you go.

 

(By the way, if the guy who I'm talking about is, for some odd reason, reading this - I'm really, really sorry!!! And I am even sorrier that I can't remember your name either…)

 

Also, I said `timeframe' because I don't know when exactly it was - but it is set quite early in the anime. It doesn't really matter much anyway, since I'm pretty much warping the whole thing - but thought you should know.