Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket/ Furuba, or its characters.
For those of you who haven't read the later chapters of the manga, Kuragi Machi is a freshman in Kawaia High, the accountant on the student council. Unlike the rest of the school, she feels that Yuki is not a "prince," only a lonely person hiding behind a façade. This, of course, invokes the wrath of the Prince Yuki Club, who harass Machi in Ch. 89.
As, sadly, (SPOILER) Yuki feels that his relationship with Tohru is like that of a mother and son, the only other possible candidate for his affections is Machi. I sincerely hope that more YukixMachi fanfiction will appear in the future, as they do make a sweet couple.
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She ran her fingers down the edges of her book rather absently, her eyes blank and unfocused. She couldn't concentrate in this empty state, not on her studies, not on anything. Her thoughts were disconnected, vague, meaningless, a vortex of complete nothingness.
She tried to focus, beads of sweat running down her face as she strained, but her lack of energy stopped her from getting any farther than the first sentence. Words bounced dizzily across the page, which only made her head ache harder and spin more furiously than before.
With a sigh, she shut her textbook, her mind still devoid of the information the author so persistently tried to cram in. Still calmly stroking the pages, one of her fingers caught on a piece of red sticking out insolently from beneath the rest. She flicked it back and forth mildly for a few moments before she realized what it was.
Opening up the textbook slowly, she found her realization to be correct. Wedged thickly between two sheaves of paper was a maple leaf of brilliant crimson, flecked with brown in several spots. Yuki's maple leaf. She had almost forgotten it was there.
She traced a path around the apex tenderly with her fingers, sliding them down the midrib and across the veins. She still didn't know why she even bothered keeping it. Only that she could not throw it away. Never.
How foolish of me, a mild stream of thought ran along her mind. It's only a leaf. A worthless piece of trash. A quick rebuttal was strewn in. It's not. I won't throw it away. Yuki gave it to me. Why this should be important she didn't know, but it nagged at the back of her head until she had to throw it in.
Yuki. She closed her eyes, the little red leaf still perched on her hands, and drew his image to mind. He was as every bit as princely his classmates believed him to be as far as looks went, with pale, milky skin, glossy lavender-grey tresses, eyes of fiery heliotrope, and long, black up-curled lashes fringed on creamy eyelids. But past that was a different image, the exact opposite of what a prince should be.
He had always seemed to her lonely and distorted, someone alone and lost in the cold, unfriendly world. Though he had won the envy and admiration of his fellow classmates, he had always seemed far-off and distant, wrapped up in his own troubled mind. Someone of her kin.
Maybe it was because she understood him so well that he so silently and constantly entered her thoughts, that she kept his gift. Maybe it was because she saw him as a reflection of her own self, because he, too, was misunderstood by others. Maybe…maybe that was why she wanted to be closer to him, to know him better, to be able to cast out his loneliness and hunger for human companionship, and, in the process, cast out her own.
She and Yuki both had walked life's long, winding path, alone and forsaken, both hiding behind a façade of false cheer or stolidity. Both had no one to understand or empathize with them, no one to save them from their greatest enemy: themselves. Darkness gnawed at them both from inside them, filling their minds with cold, bitter thoughts and portrayals of themselves. They had both questioned their existence, whether the world would miss them if they were never there, or be glad of it.
These last thoughts were somewhat strange to her, as she had never compared herself to Yuki in this manner before, nor did she know anything of Yuki to assume this, but she knew that they were true. Yuki wasn't that much different from herself, and because of this, she felt a rush of sympathy for him, something she had never felt before. Even for herself.
And what was this…this fluttering feeling she experienced when he was around? Why did she suddenly become awkward or clumsy whenever she caught sight of him, that her heart skipped a beat whenever she heard his name? Why should she even care about him, sympathize for his loneliness, stand up for him whenever others regarded him as the perfect image of a prince? Did she even care about him? Wasn't she only a blank, dull, non-existent spirit, lost in a world of real and interesting human beings, caring for no one, needing nothing? Wasn't she?
If this was so…
…why was it that she felt this way now? Hadn't her mother always told her that she was such a boring little girl? A boring person doesn't harbor emotions like these.
In some odd, elusive way, Sohma Yuki had changed her. Because of him and his kindness towards her, she had become a different person. What kind of person she didn't know, but she wasn't that boring, emotionless girl her mother—and herself—had believed her to be. No, not any longer. She was a real, existing, living person who could feel—sorrow—hope—dream—love.
That last thought had slipped into her mind before she could push it back. She pushed it away now. Love? She laughed at herself. Love was a void in her body. She could love no one—and no one could love her. She was one of those lonely, pitiable (and perhaps even envied) human beings that love overlooked altogether. She did not, could not, would not love. This she did not doubt, even for a moment. She dismissed the thought scornfully.
The first rosy-golden streaks of morning had streamed in through the cracks in her window when she had finally opened her eyes. Quickly she absorbed what must have happened. She had fallen too deeply in her thoughts again, unknowing, uncaring of the passing time. She went through the rest of the morning rather vaguely, dimly recollecting after she had eaten breakfast that she had left her textbooks on her bed. Only when she found and picked up the maple leaf spread out among all the wreckage in her bedroom did she recall her heartfelt thoughts of the night.
She gazed at it fixedly and critically, before tucking it away in the folds of her textbook.
She was still plain, dull Kuragi Machi.
No one could change that.