The Last of Freedom, a fruits basket fanfic

Summary: There is a certain freedom that comes with this summer. It is a time of risk and the danger of new beginnings. Haru/Yuki, Yuki/Tohru, Kyo/Kagura, former Haru/Rin.

Spoilers: through volume 11; although the story takes place during the summer of Tohru's third year, it becomes AU, particularly in terms of pairings, around the end of volume 11, if not earlier.

Warnings: language; allusions to sex

Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket, any of its characters, including and especially Haru, Yuki, Tohru, Kyo, Kagura, Momiji, and Rin, or any of its settings.

Haru spends a whole summer watching Yuki and Tohru.

They are sitting out in the sun under an umbrella on the sand. They are happy. He watches as Yuki tilts his head down to Tohru and laughs. He watches as Tohru tilts her head up to Yuki and smiles. He can't hear what they're saying, but it doesn't matter.

Haru sits back and pushes his feet under the sand and pretends to read his book. It's open in front of him, propped up on his bent knees, but its words are obscured by the letter he's hidden inside it. This is the fifteenth time he's read this letter from Rin, in which she tells him she forgives him, but she is not, absolutely not, coming back to Japan. Not now that she's finally free from it all.

He tells himself often that he doesn't miss her, and one day, he is surprised to learn that it is true.

They did spend one summer together. He remembers the way she looked against the backdrop of a setting sun. She was never the type of person to smile all the time, for no reason, as if it was easy and meaningless. Yet he did see, more than once, that upturn to her lips as he touched his fingertips to her cheek or touched his forehead gently to hers.

Haru hears Tohru's light, distinctive laugh and it breaks him out of his thoughts. Yuki is leaning toward her now, but Haru turns away before they kiss. It's true that he's happy for Yuki, it really is. Yuki is his best friend and he's wanted this now for a long time.

Haru stands up and walks back to the beach house.

"It's not real, is it?" Kyo asks. His voice is light and distant, and he is staring out the window as if at a dream. Haru is ashamed, later, to remember; he was so preoccupied with Yuki and Tohru that he had assumed Kyo was talking about them.

"Well, you're not imagining it," he answers dully, and slides down farther on the couch.

"No, I think I am." Kyo's voice is resigned and relieved. He steps back and breaks his own gaze; he starts to look around at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. "I thought I saw Kagura coming toward the house. Must be my imagination. It's too damn hot here—I need a drink."

Like that, he is back—Kyo Sohma: angry, snapping, defiant. He disappears into the kitchen, and Haru yells after him, meaningless words.

"You just miss her too much, that's all."

"Shut up!" Kyo calls back. Haru isn't listening.

On the night of the full moon, Momiji takes everyone out to the distant beach, far out of sight of the house and their own familiar stretch. Haru blasts his music as loud as the stereo will let him, and Yuki lets Momiji dance with Tohru for two songs, as he watches them, his back against a sand dune and his knees up to his chest. Haru sits next to him. For a long time, they are silent.

Then, "It's gotten a lot better, Haru," Yuki says. There is a tone in his voice like gratitude.

"That's what I told you," Haru answers, the only thing he knows to say, and adds, though the words are wrenched from his throat:

"You two are good together."

Yuki does not notice, either the words or the tone, because Tohru is walking toward him now and he is smiling to see her. He is smiling to see her and not to have to listen to Haru anymore.

It is good that they went out because the next day it starts to rain and does not stop for twenty-four hours. Haru goes to Kyo's room because it has a window that looks out on the ocean, and he sits and stares for hours at the raindrops coming down. Kyo is asleep on the bed behind him, breathing softly and steadily.

"It's been a long time since you felt like this, Hatsuharu," a little voice inside his head is telling him. "Might be a long time before you stop, too."

When the rain ends Haru walks down the beach, past the sight of the house, past the site of their party, farther than he has ever walked before. He sits and now, this time, he does not think. The air is still heavy with rain, and everything everywhere is wet with it, and the ocean is roaring louder now, is bigger. He thinks he has it all figured out.

When the rain was still coming down, he spent a lot of time in Kyo's room. Kyo slept and did not notice he was there. But Haru was glad not to be alone.

"It's still horrible out, Haru," Yuki's voice comes suddenly from behind him. "What are you dong here?"

Haru twists to look behind him. Yuki is standing five steps back. He is looking at Haru as if it has been ages since they've seen each other.

But Haru just shrugs and stands up. He puts one arm around Yuki's shoulders and starts to walk with him, their four bare feet sinking into the sand with each step. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know that it's that bad out."

They don't go back to the house. They just keep on walking, aimless as the air starts to cool around them, as evening comes on. Haru tells Yuki that he wishes he could tell him all of the things he was thinking, but he just can't put any of it into words.

"Maybe someday I'll tell you," he says. "Maybe someday when you have everything figured out I'll write to you and tell you to meet me back here again, and by then I'll have some things figured out, too. Then I'll be able to explain."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Yuki answers. "It seems like I never do. But I do think you've become more cynical, Haru."

"I'm only going to say this once," Kyo says.

He and Haru are standing by the door and watching a car coming closer and closer down the road to them.

"You were right, you damned punk."

Then the car comes to a halt outside the door and Kagura steps out. She runs to meet Kyo as she always does, and this time, he doesn't push her away.

"Summer romances are so…romantic," Tohru tells him later. "Kyo-kun and Kagura-san look so sweet together."

Haru smiles. "I'm sure he'll be happy to hear you say that," he says. In the back of his mind he is thinking that it is funny that he cannot look at her anymore. He remembers watching her dance with Yuki underneath the stars, that night, as the music blared around them and the rains assembled far away, beyond their reach or knowledge. He remembers the happiness he heard in Yuki's voice that night; he remembers telling Yuki that he was happy for him, too.

So now he says, "You and Yuki are pretty cute together too."

Tohru blushes but he does not hear her answer.

There is a certain freedom that comes with this summer. The rain clouds leave and the sun comes out again and the temperature rises. They are out every day; sometimes they swim, except for Kyo, who never does. He still scowls when anyone mentions Kagura's name, as if he's ashamed of himself for what he's doing, but when she's around he's near her, and they hide together often in the shadows. This is the last summer before Kyo, Tohru, and Yuki leave high school. It is a time of risk and the danger of new beginnings. Haru knows he is not the one who will have to face these things, not yet, but he worries for them, and for himself, just the same.

"Are you happy, Haru?" Momiji asks him. They are sitting on the sand. Below them, Tohru and Kagura are swimming, and Kyo is lying on the rocks above the reach of the surf, watching the sky. He has been still for so long Haru wonders, but only vaguely, if he is dead. Yuki has gone missing.

Haru, who is used to knowing if he is telling a lie or not, shrugs and says "Sure," in a listless sort of way, and wonders what the truth would be if he could tell it.

They stay up late, scattered across the porch of the summer house, watching fireflies and passing around the last three drinks in the house. "Last summer of freedom," Kyo says, and hands his to Kagura. She grasps his wrist with one small hand but he looks at her with expressionless eyes.

"It's never going to be like this again," Yuki says. His tone is the soft and subtle tone of agreement, and his hand is holding Tohru's, and, like the rest of them, when they speak, he sounds melancholy and tired.

"Do we want it to be?" Haru asks.

He remembers a time when Yuki asked him to be reckless, those last months in the dark room, when his skin was so pale he was translucent and the bend of his arms and his legs was leaden and filled with fatigue that would overwhelm anyone, that overwhelmed Haru even from the other side of the room. Show me how to be reckless, Yuki said. Show me.

Haru broke him out and they ran from Sohma House; they ran and ran until they couldn't run another step. They went to the swimming pool and climbed the fence and dove from the high dive to the deep end and struggled for air as they resurfaced.

I want to see you smile! Haru yelled. I want to hear you laugh!

And Yuki did smile, and Yuki did laugh, but when they walked back with their clothes and their skin soaked, and the light beginning to tinge the horizon and the dark leaves of the trees, he quirked the corners of his mouth the best he could and said, I wish I could, Haru. You know that.

Haru knew then that he could not break him out for one night and pretend it was okay.

Now the light of the candle they are burning hits Yuki's face and flickers shadows and patterns across his cheeks and lips, and his eyelids as they blink over his eyes.

"I do," Kyo says. He looks down as Kagura's arm curls around his waist and holds him close to her, and now, slowly, he dips his head so that his cheek touches her hair. "Last fucking summer of freedom," he says.

Haru blows out the candle and four pairs of feet slip quietly back inside.

The door to Yuki's room is open. Haru enters softly, expects him to be asleep, is surprised to see him sitting in a chair by the desk and staring quietly ahead into the darkened room. Haru closes the door and shuts off the light from the corridor. A thin stream comes, still, under the door. It lights Haru's feet but he can't look at his feet because Yuki is looking at him.

"Did you want something?" Yuki asks.

Haru can't answer. He says only, "Why are you still up?"

"Can't sleep," Yuki says. Then he sits and waits and doesn't ask again for the answer to his question.\

Haru stops in the doorway just before he enters the kitchen, because Tohru and Kagura are standing by the counter and making a grocery list.

This wouldn't stop him except that, from where he stands just out of their sight, he can see the tears coming down Kagura's cheeks.

"We were very reckless, Tohru-kun," she says, quiet, breaking—the pen shakes in her hand. "Right there—right on the porch with the candle gone out and the ocean…I could hear the ocean."

"I—Oh—Are you okay?" Tohru's eyes are large and bright with sad concern; they are not curious, only fearful; Haru watches her take the pen gently from Kagura's hand. The touch is enough to undo her, and she wraps her arms around Tohru's shoulders and cries a few shaky tears into Tohru's shirt.

Tohru returns the hug and closes her eyes.

"It's okay, Kagura-chan," she says.

After a few minutes, they separate, and Kagura carefully takes the list, with its circles of drying tears, and tears it up. Two clean pieces. Haru watches.

There are footsteps behind him that he does not notice, and Kyo comes down the hallway and past him and into the kitchen. He stops when he sees her. She stares at him. She takes the pieces of paper in her hands and she crushes them, and then runs, her bleary eyes blazing, out the back door.

"Kyo-kun—" Tohru starts. He is already gone.

Haru realizes (and his stomach suddenly drops and his balance becomes skewed and his fingers start to twitch, start to grab at the air for support) that sometimes, you only get one chance in life. He's only afraid because it seems he has imagined this chance. He asks if he can sit down, and Yuki nods, and he does, and he sits on the edge of Yuki's bed and watches him until the question comes back again.

"Did you want something?"

Life seems like a game, all of a sudden.

"If I told you I loved you what would you say?" Haru asks.

Yuki's face has changed over the years; the lines have become straighter and more thickly drawn, and Haru doesn't think he could be mistaken for a girl anymore. The head tilts now and the eyes narrow.

"You've told me that before," Yuki says.

Haru imagines what might happen now. Yuki might say something (he's not sure what form it would take) that would not crush him—that would, instead, make him some sort of happy. If he can keep this moment in his mind—this moment, still unsure, where more than one road is still open to him—he might be able to recall it later when everything seems decided and set in stone.

Kyo sulks on the stones above the water all day. Kagura and Tohru take the car and go shopping, and at the last minute Haru joins them. He buys a pair of cheap sunglasses in town and stands outside the grocery store with his back against the cool brick and watches the people walk past, happy that they cannot see his eyes.

Seeing them, he realizes just how isolated the Sohmas are, in their summer house, alone on the beach. All they know there is the sound of waves against the shore and the distinctive way everyone's feet sound when they hit the floorboards of the hall.

That night they eat dinner together, all at the same table, next to the window that looks out on the sea. Kagura must have realized just what Haru has realized, because she looks at Kyo, sitting across from her and one over, next to Haru, and says, "Kyo-kun, you need a haircut," in a carefully neutral tone.

He grumbles something that no one understands. Momiji brings up some careless, careful topic, and the conversation turns.

"I never meant it this way before," Haru says.

There is another pause.

Then Yuki moves forward on his chair and puts his hands on Haru's knees and says, "And what would you have me do? Go down the stairs and take the keys from the counter and drive away with you in Kagura's car, as far away as we can go? So far away that I forget about her?"

Haru closes his eyes and repeats the words to himself. All he hears is escape, escape, escape. Last summer of freedom, Kyo told them, and now those words seem to apply equally to everyone, even to Haru himself. He turns so that he does not face Yuki anymore, and opens his eyes and looks at the stars and imagines exotic and faraway places that someday he will see, or maybe never see and only dream of, and then he smiles.

It is a sad smile.

"All I want is the truth," he says.

Yuki's hands grip at his knees and he answers in a level and low voice, "I love you too."

Haru waits for resolution. He looks to the sky and watches it grow redder, redder, redder, and the waters underneath it change their colors to reflect it, and he waits. He listens to the car idling in the drive as Kagura prepares to leave, and he waits. He imagines the days changing, the weeks going by, and the pages of the calendar turning, and nothing changing, and everything changing.

He knows he was selfish, to come to Yuki's room that night.

"Then he told her he was selfish and he was sorry and she said she forgave him, and then Momiji came up and turned off her car and said he was glad she was staying. Then they went up to Kyo's room and they haven't come out for," he looks at his watch, "two hours now."

"Hmmm," Haru says, and then, "The sunset's pretty."

He can hear Yuki's soft laugh. "Yeah, I'm not interested in stories about the stupid cat, either," he says.

The waves come up along the beach and wash against their bare feet.

And what if they did take the car, or a boat, or a plane, and go away? What would happen to them then?

"If I told you that I was selfish and I'm sorry would you come up to my room for two hours with me?" Haru asks.

He expects Yuki to laugh but he doesn't.

He doesn't leave either.

Haru looks at him and sees that he is staring down at his feet, which he moves now so that the sand slips through his toes and sticks to his wet skin.

"I'm in love with her, Haru."

Yuki's voice is so calm that Haru feels he should make his calm, too. He waits until he can and then says, "I know."

He tells himself:

You can't look back on this later and say you had regrets. You can't look back on this later. It will be over then.

Yuki leans forward and wraps his arms around his legs, which he has bent so that they are up against his chest, and he seems small again, like the little boy he was when they first met, and isn't any more. "Haru, if you had believed me, about leaving, would you have said yes? Would we be out on that road right now?"

"I did believe you." The sand is still warm under his feet, even though the air around them is cooling. Inside, Tohru is making dinner and Momiji is helping the best he can.

Rin left, he thinks now, why can't he?

"I did believe you," he says again, "but…I don't think so, Yuki."

"That's probably the best thing you could have said," Yuki answers, and stands up to go. Haru turns around to watch him, but doesn't stand up. He lets Yuki walk several steps up the sand before he runs to catch up with him.

"If I had been the one asking, what would you have said?"

He holds his breath as if this question meant everything, but then they enter the house through the door by the kitchen and the life of the house springs up around him and brings his breath back. Momiji is setting the food down on the table and Tohru is smiling at both of them and kissing Yuki awkwardly on the cheek. She is holding a large and heavy dish in her hands. Yuki takes it from her and carries it to the next room. Kyo and Kagura come downstairs to join them, quiet but their hands are linked, and they sit down next to each other at the table.

There are voices coming from the next room but it is only the two of them, Yuki and Haru now, in the kitchen. They need one more plate to make the table complete, and as Haru reaches for one from the top shelf, he hears Yuki answer, "I don't know."

end