Disclaimer: Not mine. In any way. NONE OF THEM. PLEASE DON'T SUE ME I DON'T HAVE A JOB ANYMORE. TT

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Kyou Sohma sat alone in the hollow of a tree trunk, arms wrapped loosely around his knees. His face was hidden by lengthy orange hair that clung to the back of his neck, and not one muscle moved. Kyou Sohma, cursed by the vengeful spirit of the cat from the old Chinese zodiac fable, had gotten himself caught in quite a heavy rainfall.

The heavier the rain became, the farther his head seemed to fall forward until it finally bumped into his knees. He let out a faint groan, but remained quite immobile.

'It figures,' he thought to himself, the very thought sluggish. The one day he had managed to finish his homework early enough to have time to go out prowling before dinner, and he gets caught in this sudden downpour miles away from Shigure's house. 'Hilly miles, too' he grumbled inwardly, lacking the energy to vocalize anything even vaguely resembling words.

The best he had been able to do was to find an especially large tree among the hundreds that grew on this Sohma estate, which hadn't been hard. Unfortunately he had been there for a good twenty minutes now, and each second that ticked away sapped at his already waning strength.

Somewhere in the back of his fuzzy mind, he realized that he had to get back for dinner before Tohru started worrying herself to death. A brief image of her wringing the life out of a dishtowel while she tried to finish cooking flashed before his eyes before sleep overtook him - then he knew no more.

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Back at the house…

"Tohru-kun…we're going to run out of dishtowels soon if you keep doing that…"

Tohru looked up in surprise at Shigure, then back down to her hands, which had been doing their very best to strangle her trusty towel. "Ahh! I'm sorry, Shigure-san! You too, towel-san, I'm so sorry!"

"It's nothing, Tohru," Shigure said with his usual smile. "Oh right, I came here to ask you something of terribly great importance."

"Eh?" Tohru's eyes widened. "Um, whatever it is, I'll answer to the best of my ability!"

"Ah, I knew I could count on you! That's why you're my little housewife, right Tohru?" Shigure said, sneaking an arm around the girl's shoulders.

"Um…" she quickly grew flustered. "Was that…your question, Shigure-san?"

"Ha ha! Always the same Tohru," Shigure said, patting her on the shoulder. His face suddenly turned serious. "But no, that wasn't what I wanted to ask. No, my highly important question, the one that only you can answer is…"

Tohru waited with bated breath, intent on catching every word of such a majorquestion. "Y-yes?"

"When's dinner? I'm starving."

Tohru froze at the anticlimactic query, blinking a few times. "Eh? Oh, um…well, that's just it, actually…" she trailed off, turning her gaze to the window.

"Huh?" Shigure followed her line of vision. Rain shrouded their view of the outside world in a watery veil, making even the closest trees and bushes appear to be shapeless blobs of nothing. Shigure blinked once, twice; then comprehension bloomed over his features. "Ah! Kyou-kun's gone out, hasn't he? Honestly, he should really learn to check the weather reports before going on an outing. I wouldn't be surprised if heis stuck out in that mess."

Tohru bit her lip. "I hope he's alright out there…Shigure-san, he's been gone for a long time now. What if he…what if he can't get back somehow?" Visions of Kyou's behavior on previous rainy days sprang into Tohru's mind - his total lack of energy, even to get angry at Yuki, his turning in early without eating and being, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about him, Tohru," Shigure said reassuringly. "He'll be alright; he's probably holed up in some cave right now - maybe one of his bear friends from the mountains has invited him in."

"Do you really think so?" Tohru asked, turning around and looking at Shigure with a delighted smile. "That would be nice; it must have been a long time since they last saw each other, after all."

"Indeed," Shigure said, struggling to smother his laughter. "Anyway, when he does make it back, he'll probably be too tired to eat. If he gets here fast enough we'll make him some nice snacks with the leftovers, right?" '"We" meaning "you," of course,' he thought to himself, seeing as for the safety of all it was generally agreed that Shigure stay out of the kitchen.

"Right!" Tohru agreed, busying herself once again with her smile restored. "Dinner will be out in just a few more minutes, so please forgive the delay!"

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"Hm…"

Hatsuharu Sohma found himself in a mysterious situation indeed. The bi-colored hair of great infamy was currently plastered wetly to his face, obscuring his vision. He wasn't exactly sure why Lady Fate had led him so far astray of his destination, but who was he to question such a mysterious power?

He scratched at a lock of hair that was particularly bothersome, being stuck in his left eye and whatnot. Finally he brushed the wet hair off of his typically mellow face and took in his surroundings.

…No matter how many times he visited, the forest surrounding Sensei's house all looked the same to him. Not one to be deterred by anything as abstract as direction, Haru pushed onward, paying no mind to the cold rivulets of water running down his face and neck.

After about ten minutes, he paused. Up ahead lay a giant tree with thickly growing foliage, but that wasn't what had caught his attention. A few feet above the ground, he could make out something through the curtain of rain - something rather orange.

He made his way over at an easy pace until he stood before the tree. It was just as he had expected - the orange thing was actually one Kyou Sohma's head, slumped forward quite a ways and attached to an equally slumping body.

It wasn't difficult to figure out this situation, nor what had to be done to remedy it. 'At least he wasn't in the tree,' he thought to himself as he took hold of Kyou's limp arm and heaved.

The exhausted cat's eyes opened in shock as he was lifted to his feet and felt his arm being slung around strong shoulders. The brief spurt of energy subsequently brought on was short-lived, however, and his red eyes hazed over; but it had been enough for him to recognize his rescuer. "Haru…what are you…?"

"Hey," the younger boy said firmly. "Can you point us in the right direction before you conk out?"

Kyou's eyes struggled to form a glare, but he quickly felt the waste of energy and instead turned his head to take in the terrain. He slowly lifted a finger at the small path to their right; "That…will get us back home…" And with that, Kyo's head dropped forward.

Haru gave a small smile. "Home, is it?"

"Nn…" Kyo was fading fast. "Just don't get us lost, damn it."

"How mean."

They plodded along the footpath, barely visible in the downpour and difficult to walk for all the mud. But Haru kept them going at a steady pace, never stopping; he half dragged Kyou along, though the stubborn boy insisted on using his own two feet to make progress. Haru kept a thread of extremely random conversation going to keep the orange-haired boy awake, though he really only remained so out of irritation at the cow's questions.

"Do you have a camera?" Haru came to ask.

"I don't have anything on me, you idiot…" Kyou ground out tiredly.

"Well you've got your clothes on you. But I meant if you just had one at all."

"…No."

"Oh. That's too bad." He fell silent.

Kyou allowed Haru to lead him a bit further before his curiosity got the best of him. "…Why?"

"Hn? Why what? And is this the right way?"

"No go left…at the bush up there…and why is not having a camera too bad, you moron?"

"Oh. Well, 'cause I like pictures. Don't you, Kyou?"

"No, I don't!" Kyou started yelling, but quickly running out of steam and slumping down further. "Ahh, what use are pictures anyway…"

"They're like memories though, don't you think? Something you can always go back to and remember."

"Keh. I don't need pictures to remember any of it."

"Any of what?" Haru was asking more for the sake of keeping Kyou talking rather than any real interest, and his attention remained focused on the path ahead of them.

"Any of it…all of it…I couldn't forget if I tried."

Haru glanced down at Kyou's face, but it was hidden by wet orange hair. Somehow he thought the older boy had fallen asleep on his feet and was sleep-talking, or perhaps delirious from the long walk in the rain. Either way, the subject of their conversation had taken a decidedly different turn. "Any of them?" he clarified for Kyou, watching for some kind of reaction.

"…Yeah." The boy's head refused to come up, and finally he stopped moving altogether. "Haru."

"Hm?" Haru stopped pulling him along, taking a moment to glance around their surroundings. He was surprised to find that Shigure's house was just around the next bend in the path and down the hill; he could see the roof from where they stood.

"I don't…want any pictures."

Haru blinked down at the older boy leaning against him for support curiously. "You don't have to have any, Kyou," he said.

Kyou shook his head. "I mean…what's the use of a picture? It's just a face, frozen in one moment…they aren't…frozen. That's not how I…want to remember them. Stuck with some phony smile…not alive. I see them the way I want to…in my own mind."

Haru didn't say anything for a moment. Rainwater ran unchecked down his face, and he suddenly realized something - he was very cold. "Come on," he said to Kyou, hauling him forward a few feet before the other boy could protest.

They made their way in silence, Kyou's head hanging low and Haru watching the path in front of them; it broadened out as it neared the house, but it took a winding course down the hill. When they were about halfway down, he finally broke the silence. "You could be right, Kyou; pictures aren't real. But I still like them anyway."

"Why? What's the point?" Kyou mumbled. A flash of lightening illuminated the world for a split second, followed closely by the thunderclap.

"Why does it have to have a point? Some things are fun just because they don't have a point, don't you think?"

"Some of us don't have time to waste on things like that," Kyou said quietly.

Haru looked over at Kyou in mild surprise. "What do you mean?" Kyou didn't elaborate, and was saved from more questions by a yell. "Kyou-kun!"

The boys looked up to see Tohru running over from the house, her face a mask of worry.

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Author's Note: Well...so maybe not a lot has happened yet, ne? But hey it's just a first chapter. By the way, this fic is a request by my dear Cheri-sama, though I've been intrigued by the Kyou/Haru idea for a little while now myself. This is my first fic of this sort (and this ship) and I have no idea where it's going to end up at the moment, except for the fact that we'll get to see some boy fluff in the future. Pyon!

Please let me know what you think. Kyou-kun's rather touchy about photos, inne? Hmm, I wonder why...