Disclaimers: I don't own Fruits Basket or any of the characters. Resemblances to any Fruits Basket characters are completely noncoincidental. But seriously, I do own the story written here. This was written out of love and respect for the series so please don't sue this poor grad student's tooshi.
Innocent Seduction
Touru was washing dishes at the Souma's and humming a cheerful melody when Momiji shuffled up to stand behind her. He hovered on his tiptoes and peered intently over her shoulder in an attempt to get her attention. He had just finished taking a long bath and was still dripping a little water onto the floor. A drip from his chin landed on her shoulder, but she didn't seem to notice with all the other water around.
"Touru," he whispered while clad only in his slightly parted white terrycloth bathrobe. The sounds of the water running, her sweet humming, and the dishes clanging were too loud though, and she didn't hear him. "Um, Touru," he repeated while tapping her shoulder lightly with his index finger.
Startled, she jumped a little and almost dropped the bowl she was washing, but quickly recovered in time to turn to him with a welcoming smile lighting her features. "Yes, Momiji?" she asked.
Momiji blushed a little and eyed his toe that was tracing out short arcs in front of him. "Do you want to see my flagpole," he asked, face full of innocence.
Touru suddenly paled. Her jaw slackened and hit the floor while her hair stood strait on end. "Momiji, ah, I'm not so sure this is such a great idea," she stammered, looking for an appropriate excuse. Secretly, deep down she realized she really did want to see his winky, but knew that it was wrong. "What would Shigure or the others think if they walked in here?" she fumbled for an excuse. Shigure, she realized, would probably take a seat at the table and watch while sipping a cup of tea, maybe even take some pictures. She groaned at the thought of it.
"But, but..." Momiji started crying. "I just wanted Touru to see my flagpole. What's wrong with that?" he wailed. Tears were streaming from his eyes and she was sure his loud wailing cry would soon attract the attention of anyone left in the house. Touru, however, was lobster red by now and too flustered to try to calm him down. She couldn't understand how Momiji managed to maintain his innocent facade.
Suddenly, Momiji grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of the kitchen into the backyard while Touru tried to grab at any sanity she had left to reason with him.
When they managed to reach the sliding doors to the outside, she suddenly froze in shock. Out in the backyard, Momiji had erected his flagpole. It was a multicolored conglomeration that topped a small sandcastle he had built in the rock garden. A gentle breeze carried the fresh spring air into the house and caused the small white cloth attached to the flagpole to flutter gracefully in the air. Touru hesitantly approached the beautiful rod, afraid of knocking it down, to peer at the writing on the cloth. It was of a small bunny and rice ball holding hands.
"Momiji, it's beautiful!" she announced, hugging him tightly to her chest. It was then that the terry robe became to big for it's wearer and fell to cover in the sand.