Disclaimer:
All the characters in Fruits Basket belong to Natsuki Takaya. The setting and situations have been taken from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.
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Yuki-chan in Wonderland
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Yuki Sohma was beginning to get rather tired.
His older brother, the effeminate (Even more so than Yuki himself, really, though Yuki did not mind one bit) Ayame Sohma, had managed to drag the younger boy down to "A nice little lake, so as to have a lovely chat", and Yuki was far from enjoying himself.
Yuki was not particularly fond of his older brother.
When Yuki was younger, and in need of comfort, Ayame had made it quite obvious that he had no interest in such things. When the two were older, Ayame regretted it, and constantly tried to make amends.
Alas, as is usually is with older and younger siblings once the age difference has taken full effect, the two are on completely different planets (So to speak, for it would be quite silly to assume that they were on actual planets, separately!), so it makes Ayame's quest all the harder.
Now, usually Yuki disliked being around Ayame, but when one has to sit around, listening to older brothers prattle on about the time he was asked to make a properly fitted, embroidered, elaborate corset in only two day's notice, one starts to dislike being around the said brother even more.
So there Yuki was, sitting on the green grass under a shady lakeside tree, trying to ignore Ayame.
He had just been beginning to contemplate whether it would be a waste of strength knocking the older Sohma out and escaping, when suddenly a cream-colored rabbit with pink eyes bounded close by him.
Now, normally, this wouldn't be strange to Yuki, as he was part of the Sohmas that were cursed with the creatures of the Chinese Zodiac. This meant that whenever they were hugged by a member of the opposite sex, or came under a great deal of stress, they would transform into the creature they were cursed with. Yuki was cursed with the Rat, while his brother was the Snake, and the Rabbit was…
"Mo… miji?" Yuki started, looking surprised. Why was the 14 year-old German-Japanese Sohma transformed? Despite Yuki uttering his name, Momiji did not seem to hear, and rudely went on walking, looking carefully at a pocket watch. Yuki found this quite strange, as Momiji wasn't the sort to bother with watches, unless it meant that it was afternoon-tea-time.
Yuki, being a respectable young boy, decided that he should take it to be his duty to get Momiji back to his clothes before anyone saw the younger boy transform, and jumped to his feet.
"Hey, Momiji!" Yuki called out, but Momiji still did not seem to hear him. "He's like that." Yuki reminded himself as he quickened his pace to a run, for Momiji was running faster (If he had taken the time to think properly, Yuki would have remembered that Momiji, being a rabbit, tended to hop, but he wasn't in the right mind to think of that at this present time).
Fortunately, Yuki managed to keep a fair pace behind Momiji, just in time to see the rabbit pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge.
In another moment Yuki had followed down after him, never for one moment considering if he would get his clothes absolutely filthy, or that Ayame might be missing him (Though he wouldn't have minded with that thought, really).
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a sort of tunnel for some way, then as Yuki turned a corner, he found himself falling.
Yuki immediately noticed how odd it was that he wasn't falling with much speed. He knew he was slightly built for a male, but surely if one was plummeting to their death, it would be a whole lot quicker, wouldn't it?
Trying to think of something to do about this, Yuki looked down to see what was at the bottom of this enormous pit, but he could see nothing, for it was very dark.
He turned to look at the sides of the pit, perhaps hoping to find a hook, or something to grab onto, to stop himself from falling, and rescue himself.
Although there was nothing that he could really grab a hold of, Yuki did notice that the sides were all covered in shelves. Upon these shelves was an odd assortment of things, ranging from Snail shells to a DVD set titled "Fruits Basket".
"How odd," Yuki thought "Naming a series 'Fruits Basket'." Of all the strangest names…
"Well," Yuki sighed, folding his arms, rather jaded "I wonder what that baka Neko Kyou will have to say about this? That I fell down a hole before he could attempt for his #7845th try at defeating me."
Yuki was rather amused at this, but then frowned "I hope that everyone takes care of Miss Honda, though. I wouldn't want her to come to grief, just because I am not to be around any more."
"And my garden! Unless Miss Honda is able to look after it, it will most surely wilt and become spoilt. What a waste of time!" Yuki decided at that moment that he wouldn't really like it if he died, as it had far too many disadvantages.
Yuki was still falling after he had finished deciding this, and there seemed to be no end to the fall.
"Maybe I will fall right through the Earth!" Yuki exclaimed, then shook his head. That sounded much too childish. Akito would have had a great deal to say about him now if he had been there. Yuki was rather glad that Akito wasn't.
"Still, if that did happen," he mused "Then I would end up in a horribly unimportant place like Australia, where they all walk on their heads. How awful that would be!"
Down, down, down. As there was nothing much to do, Yuki continued talking to himself. "At least when I die, I won't have to worry about anyone like Ayame or Akito." Yuki tried to console himself. But although it was a comforting thought, Yuki still decided that he would much rather be alive.
He had begun to doze off, as he had nothing else to do, when Thump! Down he came on a large mattress.
It was a nice, soft one, and very springy. So much so that it caused Yuki to bounce back up to his feet on the ground in front of the mattress. Now, Yuki might have wondered what a mattress was doing at the bottom of a giant pit, but he was much more interested in finding a way out.
Yuki looked upwards, almost hoping that the distance that he had fallen wasn't really that large. Alas, all he could see was darkness. Looking around the area he was in, Yuki could see a long corridor directly in front of him, and the Momiji-Rabbit was still visible, rushing down it.
Yuki, who was always an athletic person by default, wasted no time in chasing after Momiji. He was getting quite close once he reached a bend in the long passage, and almost imagined that he had heard the genki little Rabbit saying to himself "Oh dear! I'd better not be late…" Momiji never really thought much about consequences, so this struck Yuki as rather odd.
Unfortunately, when he turned the corner, Momiji was no where in sight. He found himself in a long hall, much like one of the halls in the inner Sohma estate, which was lit by many ornate lamps hanging from the ceiling.
"How strange…" Yuki remarked to himself "Maybe I was just imagining falling down a pit." He tried a door, but it was locked fast, so he went to the second and tried again. Each and every one of the doors was locked. Once he had tried each door, Yuki moved to the center of the hall, feeling rather annoyed, and a little sad.
He really had felt that he was going to meet up with Miss Honda, Kyou, and all of the others again. Although most of them were really quite annoying, Yuki did not want to be separated from them all forever.
Suddenly, he came across a little table, made of rose-tinted glass, with a small golden key upon it. Yuki quickly snatched up the Key, and tried it on the locked sliding doors. But either the keyholes were too big, or too small, and did not fit.
On his second time around, though, he found a low curtain that he had definitely not seen before. When it was pulled back, it revealed a little door, almost fifteen inches high. Yuki tried the key, and it fitted!
Opening the door, Yuki found that it led into a small passage, not much bigger than a mouse hole. He looked inside, and saw a lovely garden, with many lovely flowers, which he noticed to all be roses of a shocking bright pink colour. Yuki thought that it might even have a nice vegetable garden, which would certainly be wonderful to see.
But more importantly, he would probably be able to find someone who could tell him how to get out of here…
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Unfortunately, poor Yuki wasn't of the right size to fit into the small door. "Why, whenever I don't want to transform, females tend to swarm around for some reason, yet now, there isn't even Miss Honda to aid me." Yuki commented, and then decided that if Tohru was indeed there, then even if Yuki had transformed, little Tohru wouldn't be able to follow him, so it was a very bad idea indeed.
After pacing by the door for a while, Yuki, most annoyed, went back to that lovely little table, almost hoping that it would have another Key sitting upon it, or at the very least someone to talk to.
But this time, he found a little bottle on it (Which he was most sure hadn't been there before at all), and around its neck was a paper label, with the words DRINK ME printed on it in large letters.
Yuki, being a smart young man, knew very well not to follow signs that you did not know the authority of. For it was all well and good drinking from a foreign bottle, but who would know what it could contain? Poison? Lemonade? That horrid tea that Ayame was so proud of? Yuki knew not to take any chances.
A good step to seeing if a drink is bad for you is to check its label, and see if it is marked "POISON". So Yuki did just that, turning it over to see what the contents were. Strangely, there was no Nutritional Value chart at all, but also nothing that said "POISON".
Normally, Yuki would still be suspicious of this, but as he was getting rather fed up with trying to find a way out, he decided that he had nothing else to lose, and took a large swig of it.
He recoiled immediately; for it was horribly sugary tasting, and decided that it must be one of those drinks that little Momiji was made to stay away from, lest he begin bouncing off of the walls.
The bottle was dropped quickly, and it fell to the ground, with a loud crash. Yuki was feeling decidedly odd.
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"Of all the stupid things…" he sighed, as he realized what was happening to him. He was shrinking, and quickly. He waited, with a rather appalled look on his face, until he had finished shrinking, by which he was only ten inches tall.
"First I fall down an enormous ditch, chasing after Momiji, and then when I drink this horrible cordial, I shrink." Yuki stated, looking most unhappy. His face brightened, though, when he realized that he was now small enough to fit through the door. Alas, the poor Nezumi had forgotten to take the little Key, which was still all the way up at the table.
He walked over to the table, and tried to reach the Key, but he did so in vain. The Key was up much too high for him to get at, and the thing that annoyed him the most was that he could see it quite clearly through the rose-tinted glass.
Yuki then thought that perhaps he could climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was much too slippery, and he could not get up at all.
Dejected, Yuki sat down, and wondered why it was him that was being subjected to such problematic nonsense.
"Because you are worthless, that is the answer." came a little voice not very far from him. In fact, Yuki was quite sure it was coming from his shoulder.
"What exactly are you talking about?" Yuki asked, feeling a little offended, and slightly even more dejected from that comment.
"I was answering your question." replied the voice matter-of-factly.
"I didn't ask anything." Yuki said, sounding rather bothered. And it was very much true, for he hadn't asked for anything at all.
"Your thoughts, then." corrected the voice, which Yuki was beginning to dislike already.
"How could you know what I was thinking?" the Rat glared, not looking pleased at all, and tried to look at the voice, but found that he could not see directly where this creature was.
"I'm your conscience, naturally!" replied the voice, sounding pleased with itself "And I know everything you're thinking about!"
Yuki didn't like the sound of this. "Who are you!" he said, a little quickly, and betraying the worry in his voice.
"I'm your conscience!" repeated the voice, sounding most irritated. The creature sprung up in front of him, for it had indeed been sitting on his shoulder, and grinned at him.
If it weren't for common sense, Yuki might have had the horrible idea that this was Akito Sohma, head of the Sohma household, and one of his main tormentors.
However, he quickly decided that it was not, for aside from the unfortunate resemblance, this Akito was smaller than Yuki was at this point (After all, it had managed to sit on Yuki's shoulder). It was currently sitting in mid-hover, with the aide of its raven-black chibi angel wings, looking bored.
"A… kito?" Yuki asked, making sure that is was indeed not one of the people he really did not appreciate in the least.
"Oh, lovely. You know your conscience's name. How perfectly smart." replied the Akito-conscience, not sounding at all impressed. It seemed more impressed with the smudge of dirt on the sleeve of its Kimono, and busied itself with trying to rub it off.
"But what are you doing down here?" Yuki asked, knowing full well, with some relief, that Akito was rarely allowed to venture outside the Main Estate, let alone go for walks in parks and fall down holes.
Yuki's Akito-conscience raised one of its pencil-thin eyebrows, and Yuki was sure that it thought he was a complete idiot.
"Down here? I've been with you all the time, baka." Yuki's conscience replied, folding its arms "And besides, isn't this place where you've always been?"
Yuki was thoroughly confused by this, but remained firm on the idea that this was indeed NOT the real Akito that he knew.
"Well, if you're my conscience, what should I do about getting out of here?" Yuki asked, looking skeptically at the chibi antagonist.
"How should I know?" his conscience said, rolling its eyes "And why would you want to leave? This is where you've been all your life!"
The Rat decided there and then that his conscience would be no help at all. He looked around, trying to ignore his conscience, which was looking unimpressed at its very best.
It was then that he noticed a small tray, not much bigger than he was tall, underneath the rose-tinted table.
Yuki walked casually over to it, being followed by his Conscience (What else is a conscience supposed to do, ignore the subject?), and found a small cake upon it.
"Since I drank that Red Cordial stuff," Yuki said, really to himself more than anyone else "And that made me much too small, maybe this will make me taller, and I can reach that Key, or I'll become smaller, and I can get under that door."
"I wouldn't do that, but do whatever, I don't really care." Akito-conscience pointed out, smirking wickedly.
Yuki ignored his conscience's warning, for Akito-conscience wasn't giving very helpful advice anyway, and took a large bite.
However, nothing happened, which left Yuki very disappointed. After all, nonsensical things had been happening all day, and he had really been expecting for something to happen. As he was quite hungry, he ate the entire cookie.
And his conscience watched him, snickering to itself…
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There is Chapter one finished! ˆ-ˆ
I had all of the characters figured out, except for Akito, so when I read the bit about Alice pretending she was two people, I thought "Yes! SOMETHING that Akito can be!" and made him be Yuki's conscience.
Anyway, I hope it's not too silly for you. I'll be reworking this when I have the time, and writing more at some stage. At some stage is the best I can offer, sadly. But please feel free to RR! I'm always happy for comments on improvement and the like.
Also, if anyone has any nonsense poems that they've made up that they could let me use (As Alice in Wonderland contains many nonsense poems), please let me know at be very appreciative!
Z-chan.