InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Arigatou Project ❯ Foodaddict ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A/N: Finally got back to this. Sorry everyone. Foodaddict, this one's for you. I hope it's what you had in mind. Thanks for everything! You're an awesome reviewer and I love you!

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Show: Fruits Basket
Pairing: Shigure/Saki (author shakes fist-- argh!)
Rating: T for swearing... I think.
Lemon: Sorry, foodaddict, I tried but it just didn't work. There is kissing though.
Summary: Saki's had it with this weirdass vibe the Soumas give off. She's getting to the bottom of it... one way or another. Important note: slightly AR, because I just had to have them hug even though technically he can't. Had to. So sue me. Pretend the curse is something else nasty and unspecified.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Kisstory

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox


Shigure smiled behind his hand as he walked sedately onwards down the lamplit road. New Year's Day. Big party. Lots of booze. Behind him, Yuki and Kyo ran frantically for home, for once not scratching each other's eyes out. What was waiting for them there was far more important than their petty bickering, and even they knew it.

He sighed morosely. But nothing's waiting for me... except maybe Aya, but both of us know that's not going anywhere. Where are the mobs of high school girls when I need them? ...Not that there really ever are mobs of highschool girls. Sigh.

It was Momiji's turn to dance this year, and the cherub-faced little demon had been off the walls with excitement for weeks. Thankfully, Shigure had not been there... sometimes, having his own house was a real blessing. Also, there was no Akito in his house.

Despite himself, he shuddered at the thought of the younger man. There was something about him, not precisely evil but extremely unsettling, that made his company nearly intolerable for any but Kureno, and sometimes Hattori. It was in his cold, shuttered eyes, in the aching slope of his shoulders, in the way he languidly draped himself wherever the sun shone as though its warmth was all that kept him from freezing. Akito did not frighten Shigure, precisely, but he usually tended to watch his step around the head of the family.

So even Akito has those two. Yuki and Kyou have Tohru, Kagura has Kyou to dream of at least, and Hatsuharu has Yuki to do the same. Momiji is just a lecher, he wouldn't settle for just one anyways. Kisa and Hiro have each other. Hattori doesn't want anyone. Ayame... I'm not going into Ayame. Ritsu is terrifying. And Rin isn't coming.

He sighed again. Though he was glad that those two had finally gotten some sense talked to them and had gone where they belonged, with her, he couldn't help but feel a little left out. Everybody had somebody, these days, except for him.

Is it just me, or am I becoming a whiner? ...Nah, must be my imagination.

A sound behind him stopped him short. He smiled shortly, and tucked his hands into the sleeves of his kimono. "So, you didn't leave after all. I didn't think so."

"I only wish to speak with you for a moment."

He turned to face the deep violet eyes of the one person in the world that he was scared of, really truly piss-your-pants frightened of. Hanajima Saki. She obligingly looked as intimidating as he remembered her, dressed all in black with a dramatic cloak billowing from her shoulders. Her dark, slowly curling hair hardly moved in the wind. Shigure cringed and tried to make himself smaller.

"You know, you're almost as good a manipulator as I am," he chattered, trying to break the humming silence.

Not even a smile. God.

"Those two... have the same strange aura as you do. Hattori-san and Momiji-san had it too. Understand, I do not wish to pry, but it is my friend living in that house and that aura worries me."

Shigure could feel his face twitching as he pasted a fake, Hollywood smile on his face. "Why, Saki-chaaannn, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Strange aura? I assure you, we're just ordinary men living ordinary lives in our ordinary little house eating or..."

"You cannot fool me. You may as well have 'lying' written across your forehead in red ink, Shigure-san. There is nothing 'ordinary' about you, or about the other two. What is going on?"

Twitch. Twitch.

"Saki-chan... urk...."

She may be younger than him, but he felt at no advantage. She was his equal, easily... if not his better. Cringe. More mature, for certain. And more powerful. He wondered idly if she was poking around in his thoughts at that moment, or worse yet, through his memories, and immediately regretted it as the blood drained from his face.

"What is the secret? What are these strange things I always see when I walk past Souma-kun? Or his cousin? Or you? I intend to discover the answer to this, and you are going to help me." The inflection of her velvet voice never changed, but he heard the threat as though she'd shouted or brandished something pointy and bloodstained.

He sighed. It was becoming a habit.

"I can't."

Her hair raised about her, and purple sparks danced behind her eyes. "You can. You will." She began to murmur things just below hearing, but his subconscious apparently picked them up clearly enough and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Images of red, gory death began flashing in his mind's eye, and all his nerves began to tingle. Her voice, inflectionless and smooth, continued wending onwards.

"I promise, it's nothing that will be dangerous to Tohru!"

Er.... well, not reallly dangerous. Just a little. Only if she comes near Akito.

"That is not what I asked. Besides which, even in that pathetic answer there was only a sliver of truth. Shigure-san, I will tell you now that I am not leaving until you tell me. Do not think you will get out of this."

He sighed. Again. "I have an appointment right now... but I promise, I will tell you. Tea, next Tuesday? I promise not to skip, not much point since you know where I live. Either that or you could come to the house during school, if you can come up with a good enough excuse."

"I will do that. It is easier than it sounds. Tuesday morning, I will come. And there will be no more running away."

"Yes, ma'am. May I just say that you are possibly the scariest person I've ever met?"

Still no smile. "You may say it. At least it is not a lie. You lie too much." She turned and folded herself into the shadows as though she was part of them.

It was only with a valiant effort that he restrained himself from dropping to his knees. He felt drained, as though he'd just finished a strenuous session of... something...

Er.

The situation hit him like Kagura on a good day. He was going to tell someone about the Juunishi. Someone completely outside the family. Someone who could probably handle Akito even on a bad day. Someone they had no control over whatsoever. And there was no possibility of backing out now.

At least she was pretty.

He paused a moment to examine that extremely strange thought that had just popped out of nowhere. Pretty? Well, I suppose... once you get past the freakish waves of terror that emanate off her. Her hair is nice when it doesn't resemble demon wings. And her eyes are quite lovely when they aren't reading your deepest secrets and threatening death and agony and myriad things involving hot wax. But when she's not...

For the sheer joy of it, he decided to picture her without her psychic power.

Let's see... what would she be like if she was normal....

He froze. Oh. Wow. Flowing raven locks... crystalline purple eyes... fair, silky skin.... a figure to kill for... Oh. Ooohhhhh.

How had it escaped his noticed that she was a... was a... was a....WAS A... oferchrissakes. She's a smoking hot high school girl, is what she is. But easily a match for me... superior to me... in the maturity department. High school girl! High school girl! A high school girl is coming to my house. To my house. My house. Oh my god!

Looking furtively around to determine that no-one was looking, Shigure clapped his hands and joggled around a little in his version of the happy dance for a while. "High school girl... high school girl..." he chortled gleefully. "Super sexy high girl is coming to my house! Tra la la!" His old favorite song, with a bit of a twist. "High school girl..."

*Shigure-san... you cannot sing.*

"Glmp!" he choked when an ethereal and terrifyingly familiar voice rippled through his skull. "Saki... chan?" He peered around him, neck creaking with suddenly rigid muscles. She was nowhere in sight. Pyschic. Right. His heart was thundering wildly. How had he forgotten how scary she was? "Scary," he echoed himself, reassuringly. "Scarier than Akito. Akito. Souma. Party. Kuso!"

He bolted down the street for the the party he was now probably late for. Kuso! Kuso! KuSO!!!

VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV

Th e house was perfect. And empty, which was also perfect. Shigure bit his lip and tried not to scream like a girl from sheer nerves. If Akito ever got wind of what he was planning, he was more than dead. He was slaughtered. Annihilated. Pathetic splattered roadkill on the eighteen-lane highway of Ohshiti'mdead. If Akito ever found out, Shigure decided then and there, he'd commit seppuku with a butter knife before the waifish head of the family could lift a skeletal finger.

The urge to scream became nearly overpowering. He held it back... held it back... tried to swallow it... thought about fluffy bunnies and highschool girls in miniskirts...

"Your fear is giving me a headache."

Shigure screamed and banged his head painfully on the roof. "S-saki-chan! Aha! Ha! Ha!"

She massaged her temples with long fingers. "That was unpleasant. Do not do it again."

"Then knock next time! Didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to enter someone's house without asking permission?!"

Hanajima Saki turned her blackviolet eyes on him, and Souma Shigure shut up. In every sense of the word. "No. She did not. I was invited-- there is no need to ask permission."

It's only polite! he said... or tried to. His vocal cords had turned into tree trunks in his throat. Urk?

"Sit down." She offered him a seat. At his own table. He repressed the urge to laugh hysterically and sat down. She sat next to him, leaning on the low table with her legs carefully arranged out to the side. "Tell me."

He tried, he honestly did. But his voice was stuck in his throat like Yuki's cooking and he couldn't for the life of him make a sound. Her eyes narrowed.

"Fine then. Just show me. " Without warning, she slid cool hands around his face and into his hair, and pressed her forehead to his. He jumped, then froze as his head turned inside out with a wrench. It was like having a movie pulled backwards, frame by frame, out of his eye sockets.

The entire sordid thing played out as he watched helplessly. The real reason behind Yuki and Kyou's endless rivalry. Hattori and Kana's heart-wrenching tragedy. Kisa's sorrow, Ayame's unique way of dealing with everything. The mental issues they all had. Akito and his deep, Stygian secrets. Akito himself.

Shigure shut his eyes and prepared to die.

"Oh," she said in a small and suddenly vulnerable voice. "Oh."

He cracked one eyelid to look at her. "Saki-chan?" Shigure's eyes flew wide open then and bugged comically. She was crying. Honest-to-god tears were streaking down her face, and she had the scrunched up expression and everything. Crying. For real. "Saki-chan!"

"I am sorry!" she gasped. "I should not have... it was not... I am sorry!"

Shigure scratched his head uncomfortably. He knew what she'd just seen... not only had he seen it too, he'd lived it. But he'd had all his life to deal with it, one day at a time. To have all that dumped on her at once... he resorted to habit and sighed heavily. "I tried to warn you."

"I... I... Shigure-san..."

He stared at her bemusedly. She wasn't in the least bit scary, not right now. In fact, she actually looked rather frightened herself. It was a lot to assimilate at once. He felt like hugging her.

Shigure was a person who often did things that he felt like, just because he felt like doing them. So before he could think about how stupid he was being or how terrified he was of the girl he was about to hug, he hugged her. Curled his arms right around her shaking shoulders and pulled her right in. Well, this is not smart. Decidedly stupid, in fact. When she comes to she's going to turn my brain into quivering electrified jelly. But...

She felt quite nice, huddled in his arms. Very pleasant. Even though her tears were very wet, and she was probably getting snot all over his favorite daytime kimono. Experimentally, he tightened his arms a little bit. She only cried harder and threw her arms around his neck.

"Ummm... promise not to squish me for this when you regain your senses?" he squeaked.

"Idiot," she muttered into his neck through her intermittent sobbing, "I haven't lost my senses. I'm a psychic, and I just got hit with twenty-odd years of sorrow and darkness. Of course I'm crying."

"I mean, for hugging you."

"I needed it. I will not hurt you."

He sighed in relief and rested his cheek on her hair. "Mmm. It's all good, then. Your hair smells good."

"Do not get any strange ideas. You would have to be courting me properly for me to allow you to say things like that."

He grappled with the sentence for a foggy minute. "You mean, I can say them... if I 'court' you?"

"Of course. Those are courting words, are they not?"

"Well, I suppose they are. I mean, I was flattering you, so umm... er?"

She was silent, shaking with the remnants of tears. He stroked her hair, and blessed all the known gods and some that were known only to him (and some he'd just made up) for giving him this opportunity. No impure thoughts. No impure thoughts. Fluffy bunnies... fluffy bunnies... fluffy... Playboy... bunnies....

"Rabbits?" she asked, sounding extremely confused.

Her sounding confused was possibly the most attractive thing he'd ever come across. Swamped in lust, he made a split-second decision he just knew he would regret later. She smelled too good, and she had cool powers. And she was gorgeous. Really, it all made sense in his head.

"Um!" he croaked. "Um, well then, if I... er... will you... uhhh," he paused and sucked in a lungful of breath. "Willyougooutwithme?"

"...Excuse me?"

"I mean, we're fellow manipulators! We mess with people's heads for fun! We should, uh, stick together!"

"...I do not understand."

Well then! 'Subtle and safe' hadn't worked. Time for 'brutally blunt and probably suicidal.' "Saki-chan, I think I like you."

Silence. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Ticktockticktockticktocktick. TOCK. Shigure twitched and glared at the American clock on the wall.

Godsdammitanyhow! Smash the clock! Hate the clock! Smash it! Smash it into little tiny pieces! Crunch! Bang! Springs and cogs everywhere! Dead clock!

"You wish to court me?"

"Yes!" he blurted, insanely relieved that she'd finally understood his roundabout ramblings. "Yes, I would. Very much."

"...Why?" Her fathomless dark eyes were staring up at him, faintly puzzled. His head swam delightfully.

"Because. I admire you. Because you're beautiful. Because I damn well want to. I don't know. Will you?"

She leaned against him and appeared to think for a while. He turned to stone and felt pieces of himself flaking off every second she stayed silent. "You have... nice waves. Pleasant. Perhaps I will."

"Yes? That's a yes?"

"Yes."

Kyah!!! Never mind that this is the most screwed-up, ungainly, gibbled, twisted relationship I know of. Never mind that I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to make this work. Never mind that I'm (blank)ing insane and out of my pretty, safe little tree. She's a sexy highschool girl and she wants me to court her. Okay! Yes! This is good! Good, dammit!

...I'm insane.

"Tohru is going to pass out," he mused. She abruptly sat up and swiveled to face him again. "Is something the matter, Saki-chan?"

There was a glint in her eyes he didn't feel too comfortable about. He leaned back and felt his eyebrow twitch warily. She leaned forward and put her hands on her knees. She looked... speculative. "That reminds me..."

"Yes, Saki-chan?"

"There's something I have always wished to try, but have never found a pleasing opportunity for."

Skinning someone? Seeing how long you can keep a torture victim alive and conscious before you lose them? Yet another method of painful, fiery death I don't know about?

She planted her hands on his thighs, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to his.

Shock.

Not only was he not dead, he was kissing-- or rather being forcefully kissed by-- his new, sexy, highschool girlfriend. On the first... date. Thing. Maybe he was dead after all. And Christian. Soooo... they had it right about the whole Heaven deal. Though why I'm here, I'll never know. But hey! I'm here! So time to enjoy the perks of being dead!

Over his shock, he gratefully accepted the pension-plan-of-the-gods that had just fallen on his lap and kissed her back. She tasted like lavender and red wine, but somehow it was not an unpleasant combination. "Mm. Mmmmm. Mmmmmm." He'd discovered a slight... issue. Kissing Hanajima Saki, while a swimmingly fabulous experience, was hard work.

Oxygen! Air! Must... breathe! He pushed her back and sucked in a lungful gratefully. She looked at him quizzically. "Have to breathe sometimes," he explained ruefully. Apparently he was alive after all, with all the handicaps that go with it. Like have to breathe while kissing. Damn.

"Hn. Interesting," she said.

"Interesting?"

"Better than I expected. From you."

He recoiled as though mortally struck. "Saki-chan! Thou hast slain me!"

"You look alive to me."

He slumped. "Figuratively. Sheesh, don't you know anything about sarcasm or figures of speech?"

"...No. You may instruct me."

Oh god. Now I'm doomed. It's like Sisyphus and the rock thing... I can't win. But hey! Sisyphus never got to kiss the rock! Well, he might have, but why? Sisyphus' rock wasn't young and nubile and female and unngghhhhh....

"But first, I wish to try the kissing thing again. I am not satisfied."

"Sure thing!" As if I'd say no to that!

They spent long blissful units of time 'experimenting,' though with the last few functioning brain cells he realized that he could not go farther than that while she was yet so young. But 'experimenting' was damned nice, and he was quite, quite happy. Until...

"KYAHHHH!!!"

They fell off the table in a graceless tangle of thankfull still-clothed limbs.

"Shigure!" snarled a thunderous, extremely pissed-off voice. Somehow, Shigure found it in him to be relieved it wasn't Akito. The alternative really wasn't much better though.

"Yuki..." he started weakly. "I was... that is... we were... just, uhhhhhhh...."

"Hana-chan?" Tohru piped up meekly.

Kyou was not so polite. "What the hell are you doing? On the table we eat on, no less! Ew! EwewewewEW!!"

"Kyou-kun, we were just..."

"Experimenting," Saki intoned flatly. "He is courting me. I was curious. Did you know that some people think that we learned the practice of kissing from watching monkeys? Others think it was the Romans. I personally believe that it came from prehistoric mothers chewing up food and pushing it into their babies' mouths with their tongue..." she prattled onwards, voice cold and smooth as black glass.

Four incredibly disgusted faces stared at her, but she did not seem to notice.

"You're... courting her? As in, dating?" Kyou asked bemusedly.

"Apparently," Shigure answered, equally bemused.

"Shigure," Yuki said conversationally, "you are an idiot."

"I know."

"...Roman leaders used to kiss their leaders upon greeting..."

All four simultaneously got images of kissing the Emperor and threw themselves flat on the floor to beg forgiveness. "Oh god..."

"...but it was the Indians who originally made kissing an erotic act..."

"Saki-chan!"

"....in a state in America it is illegal for men with moustaches to kiss people 'habitually'...

"Hana-chan! Please stop!"

"...in another state they must have a certificate saying they are free from all infectious diseases..."

"SAKI-CHAAAANNNN!!!"

"...What?"

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

A/N: Arigatou gozaimasu, foodaddict-chan. I actually enjoyed that quite a bit. Hope you did too.

And all you other lurkers, too. Drop me a note sometime, lurkers make me nervous!