Well, here I am again about to launch myself noobily into another fandom archive. It can't be helped, I suppose. Fruits Basket crack pairings are too tempting to let set and die off. So very tempting...Ah, well. You canon-vets will just have to either ignore my existence entirely or take a ride on the dark side. Kyo and Tohru are perfect for each other...yes, they are undeniably adorable. But Haru...I had to. I really had to, didn't I? Man, what the heck am I doing? I suppose anyone who bothers to read past this prologue will discover the answer to this question along with me, eh? Come to think of it, does anyone actually read author's notes anymore, even if they are uselessly rambling ones as I am demonstrating now? I'm kind of curious if I remain the sole fanficker who read AN's.

DISCLAIMER: I will only say this once. I am an adnormal teenager who writes fictions for stories made by someone amazing and not me. I own absolutely nothing.

Moving on, I hope I can entertain you through the whole page, if only for a sentence before you rage quit-click my story for the plot that's revealed in chapter 1. Hmm. I wonder if anyone bothered to read this far?

NOTE: This continues from volume 23, before the last seven pages of volume 23, I believe, for those precise people. Just before that is where I'm continuing from. Okay. Anything else that pops up I'll probably explain in chapter 1. So...

ONWARD.

Prologue:

Revenge Has a Curse

Life meant nothing without her.

He could so easily believe those words. Disappear into the dark and withhold all breath. Haru quirked a surely black brow at the thought then clicked the trigger of a lighter he'd never used. Rin would have slapped the sight of him bloodily bruised with a cigarette between his purple knuckles, unlit and torn in two from a twisted hold. Alone and reigning king within the alley, Haru was sure Rin would have left her mark and run. She had known him well enough not to stick around for the after shock that erupted within him from a terribly pleasing crash of pain.

It had all changed within a few months. When that girl, Tohru, had rained down upon them all. Pain within their cursed world had been frequent, routinely so as they all danced to the whim of 'God'. But she had offered unabashed comfort in the form of words and her pure existence. Haru blinked once at the crackle of a footstep against gravel.

Rin and Tohru. The beautiful girl with fire in her eyes and the one who could extinguish such a flame. Opposites and parallels just the same. Haru had wholly understood Rin's fascination and dared to hate it before becoming enticed by the purity of their little savior once or twice, and dared for a third. Perhaps a mistake.

"...Haru...?"

His eyes lifted slowly upon the face of the pretty little girl who'd broken the curse. Haru smiled slowly and threw out a hand to welcome her to the home that was his. His cursed world. The tips of his fingers swept her cheek and she flinched back in surprise. "Welcome, Tohru Honda. Sit awhile."

"No." She shook her head furiously and touched his shoulder, checking worriedly at her back. She pulled at his sleeve. "You're hurt, Haru." She turned his face as he began to slouch. The brown eyes he met were sad. "You need help..."

Haru touched her hands gently and brought them to his face. Tohru watched him in silence, her lips parted slightly and her breath hot against his cheeks. He closed his eyes and saw Rin's fire in the place of Tohru's innocence. Her hands were cold as Tohru's were warm. Her hair the black in her heart while Tohru's shade was comparable to the sweet of honey. His eyes slid open. "Something you would never do," he said quietly.

He fell forward into her embrace before the question graced her breath. She gasped as his mind twisted into the curse of his birthright. His limps became long as his coat grew coarse. Haru fell to the darkness he'd feared of and grasped for, and all that haunted him was the vision of her face. Pale and dead.

Hate me.