Disclaimer: Don't own Fruit Basket
Alone
Tap tap tap tap- Tap tap tap tap- Tap tap tap tap-
Long fingers stopped drumming on the keyboard to pick up the assignment sheet. English: Creative Writing. Overturning stereotypes. Easy. Anybody could do that. Nodding in determination, Yuki turned back to the computer screen and again his fingers found the right keys and the insistent tapping noise filled the room. No words appeared on the blank white sheet though.
Screwing his eyes nearly shut, Yuki glared at the screen, allowing himself a bit of a childish moment. Common… Kyo had already finished this assignment. Had not taken him any time at all. Tohru had not had much trouble with it either. The cat had overturned the stereotype of a family – obviously taking his experience of Akito as inspiration, and the rice ball had written about a strong female character that lived in a tent independently. Both had accomplished the assignment easily in about half an hour.
The difference between him and Tohru and Kyo, Yuki reasoned, was that they were resistant readings. They were not your stereotypical princess and bad boy. But him? He was stereotypical… 'There is nothing worth commenting on about Prince Perfect,' Yuki thought sourly.
Only he was stuck in front of the monitor for two hours and still did not have one word. His family must break just about every stereotype there was for goodness sake!
"A blank page?" Shigure's voice as suddenly right next to his ear and Yuki almost jumped in surprise. "How can you stand a blank page?!"
Leaning slightly to the left so that the older man's head wasn't touching his own, Yuki groaned at the interruption. "I almost had an idea then, you damn dog!"
"Almost?" Shigure felt a smile tugging at the side of his mouth. "ALMOST he says! Yuki ALMOST had an idea for his assignment after sitting here for over two hours."
No witty come back came into mind as Shigure hit the nail on the head. He simply sighed and folded the task sheet again across the almost ripped white line that came from folding the paper too many times.
Said paper was plucked from his fingers as Shigure settled himself in front of the printer on the computer desk. Yuki sighed in resignation and slumped back onto the floor, lying on his back half under the low table.
"Yuki, you do realise that you left this to the night before it was due, don't you?"
"What of it?" the teenager sighed, fed up with the task.
Light-heartedly Shigure sung back "Just wanted to remind you that you're worse then me with deadlines! At least I finish things… Just don't hand… them… in…" He hid behind the paper as Yuki glared at him.
A short time passed as Shigure read though the task and Yuki imagined the fail he would receive if he did not hand in anything… Then tortured himself more by comparing that F to his straight A's received that year.
"Right. This is easy Yuki! All you have to do is write a 1,000 word story about anything so long as it challenges a stereotype." All he got was a grunt of acknowledgment. "…You do know what a stereotype is, don't you?" Violet eyes rolled, replying word by word the textbook definition. "Fine. What stereotype have you picked to overturn then?"
"Don't know."
Shigure sighed dramatically and draped his hand over his face. "Yuki you are being so unhelpful. How about pulling from your own experiences? You could write about how being gay is nothing to be ashamed of! Or… Not… I'm trying to help here! No need to give me the evil eye!"
Yuki finally pulled himself back up. "Alright, alright. Look, I appreciate the help, but I think I have writer's block or something."
That was something Shigure could understand. "Fine. Let's bounce ideas off each other. I usually do it with Aya when I have writer's block. Relate it to your life, because that will be the easiest to write about."
The two of them bounced ideas off each other for a while.
"Zodiac."
"Acceptance."
"God."
"Alone." Yuki's eyes had shifted to train on Shigure's as they traded words, but after around a minute, on the word alone, purple eyes flinched away, wishing he had not said something so personal and regretting Shigure ever tried to help him.
"Alone: a word meaning without any other person or thing nearby or in attendance, for company, or to give assistance." Shigure's voice recited the dictionary definition, and somehow it was a mockery of Yuki's definition of stereotypes just before. Shigure continued, "Stereotypically, people who are alone are not given a choice. People who are alone are in some way forced to be in isolation. What would be the alternate or resistant reading to this stereotype?"
Still not looking at Shigure, Yuki replied slowly and quietly, "There is no alternate or resistant… If someone is alone they have to be."
Shigure shock his head though Yuki could only see it though the corner of his eye. "The alternate reading is to be around people, but think you are alone."
Soft footsteps travelled to the doorway and softly shut the door behind them. A long moment passed before Yuki's hands again found the keyboard and words appeared on the screen.
There was once a little boy who wished he could be friends with the cat that liked to wonder around his home. But this cat did not want to be friends with the little boy, and somehow that refusal touched something very deep within the little boy, and he convinced himself that because that one cat did not like him, nobody would, or does.
It was lonely; watching the cat make friends with everyone else, and not him. It was so lonely that the little boy did not notice when other people tried to be friends with him, so convinced that he was not worthy of their friendship.
'Perhaps…' Yuki thought as he wrote his story onto the screen, 'I did not know myself that well after all.'