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A dark shadow fell on the Sohma house. A man, short in stature with dark black hair was pacing around the house . . . waiting.
Finally, there was a knock on the door, which he opened to reveal a woman.
"I'm here," she said simply.
Without a word the man handed her what she had come for.
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The sun shone brightly through the cracks in the blinds of Shigure's house.
Tohru, Kyo, and Yuki, the other inhabitants of the house each eventually wondered into the kitchen to start the morning. Tohru, busy as usual, was cooking breakfast for the boys as they sat glaring at each other from opposite sides of the table.
"I wonder where Shigure is," Tohru said, trying to start a conversation.
Kyo, complete with bed head and a large yawn replied, "Who the heck cares!"
Tohru looked startled as she transferred eggs onto 4 plates, "His breakfast will be cold . . ."
"Kyo will eat it," Yuki offered, "the fat cat . . ."
"SHUT UP YOU DUMB RAT!" Kyo screamed at Yuki, almost knocking the table over as he pounced up.
The two boys glared menacingly at each other as Shigure made his entrance.
"No one's eating my breakfast," he announced happily, taking his plate from Tohru and plopping down beside Kyo.
Yuki and Kyo continued their staring contest as they shoveled in the breakfast Tohru thoughtfully placed in front of them. Tohru sat next to Yuki and delicately ate her omelet and sipped her fresh orange juice.
"Shigure, you're usually one of the first awake," she noticed.
"Oh, I was awake," he declared, "I was just looking for something in the attic."
"We have an attic?" Kyo asked, losing the staring contest as always.
"Duh," Yuki remarked, smiling humbly to himself with satisfaction as he took a bite of sausage.
"In fact, we do have an attic," Shigure explained, "and as I looked for my summer rain boots this morning I had a grand idea."
They all sat back in their chairs, thinking about Shigure's previous grand ideas.
"You're not going to make us volunteer at the animal hospital again, are you?" Kyo asked, "I have better things to do this weekend."
"Yeah, Kyo has to hang out with his friend," Yuki smiled smugly, followed by a kick under the table from Kyo.
"OUCH!" Tohru exclaimed, grabbing her leg in pain.
"Tohru!" they exclaimed in sync.
"Look what you made me do!" Kyo yelled at Yuki.
"It's okay, I'm fine," Tohru assured them, trying to prevent another fight.
"It's not my fault you have poor aim," Yuki pointed out.
"Alright, alright, calm down everyone," Shigure demanded, "Don't you all want to hear my grand idea?"
"Yes, of course," Tohru replied with a smile.
"Yuki and Kyo will . . . help Tohru clean the attic today!"
Kyo's mouth dropped in shock, "There is NO WAY I'm spending the entire day cleaning the stupid attic I didn't even know about with stupid YUKI!"
"It's okay Shigure, I'll clean it myself," Tohru offered, taking everyone's breakfast plates to clean off.
"Kyo just doesn't want to ruin his nails," Yuki laughed, "I'll help you Tohru."
Kyo glared at Yuki, "I'll help too, and I'll clean A LOT better than you."
"Good!" Shigure said joyously, clapping his hands together.
"Where do you think you're going?" Kyo asked, "How come you don't have to clean the scummy attic?"
"Oh, I must meet up with Ayame today!" Shigure explained, "That's why I needed my summer rain boots. Toodles!"
"It's not even raining . . ." Kyo grumbled to himself.
After the dishes were washed and cleaning supplies hauled out, they got ready to clean the attic.
Yuki showed them where it was, climbing the ladder and opening the door. As the last of the cleaning supplies were into the room, the three looked around and examined their surroundings.
There wasn't much in the room besides large boxes of books and clothing that obviously belonged to Shigure. Some photo albums were stacked in the corner next to an old dusty chair, and an old antique mirror stood tall in the center of the room. The walls and floor were packed with years of dirt and cobwebs.
"So . . . let's get cleaning!" Tohru exclaimed, tightening her cleaning head scarf.
"Shigure is mad . . ." Kyo decided, "there is no way we'll finish cleaning this in one day."
Yuki reluctantly grabbed a rag and a bucket of soap, and he began to scrub the walls. Tohru rearranged the boxes to clear off the floor.
Kyo stood there with his arms crossed for a few minutes. He finally rolled up his sleeves and began to sweep the floor. The time started to go by quickly. After about one hour, the attic was beginning to look much better, so they decided to take a break.
Yuki sat down in the dusty armchair, and a cloud of dust formed around him. He coughed and stood up, waving away the dust.
"Baby!" Kyo laughed, taking a seat in the chair, and standing up right away.
"Th-th-there's a SPIDER!" he shrieked, jumping on top of the chair and pointing at the nearby photo albums.
Yuki was unable to attend to it because he was laughing so hard. Tohru walked over to the photo album and carefully placed the spider on the floor. She covered her mouth in an attempt to not embarrass Kyo by laughing.
"What's in that anyway?" Kyo asked, trying to change the subject and picking up one of the books.
He sat back down and opened it, as Yuki and Tohru arranged themselves on either side to get a better look. The pictures were mostly of a young Shigure, each page showed him at a different year off his life, from a baby to about twenty. In between, there were some pictures of his cousins Ayame and Hatori. It wasn't until the end that there was a different picture.
The last page revealed a picture of a man. He had dark black hair, and a mysterious grin. It seemed like he would be one of those guys that not many people could tolerate. Despite this, he was young and handsome. The three examined the picture for a while longer than the other ones.
"Who could this be?" Yuki asked, looking at Kyo, "I've never seen this guy before."
"Why are you looking at me? I've never seen this guy either," Kyo snapped, closing the book.
Yuki rolled his eyes.
"Why don't we ask Shigure?" Tohru asked.
"He asked us to clean his attic, not go through all his personal belongings," Kyo pointed out, "Hold on."
He opened the book and flipped to the last page again. He slid the picture out of the book and looked at the back. Kyo was surprised; usually every one of Shigure's pictures had a date on the back. This one had no date, and no name.
"That's weird," he decided, placing it back in the book, "it's going to bother me."
"Yeah," Yuki agreed, "we should get back to cleaning though."
Tohru sprang into action, and resumed cleaning her portion of the attic. The other two followed suit, but Kyo just could not get that picture out of his head.
Until, that is, they came across something else.
"OUCH!" Tohru yelled, suddenly grabbing her hand in pain.
Kyo and Yuki ran to her aid.
"Are you okay?" Kyo asked, looking concerned for the first time in awhile . . . well maybe for the first time ever.
"Yeah, I'm fine I just . . . the floor board is lose right here, and I scraped my hand on the nail," she explained, pointing to the spot.
Yuki examined it for a moment. The floor board was partially up, and could easily be lifted up . . . almost as if someone had wanted access to it. Yuki carefully began to pull up the floor board, and it cracked in half.
They jerked back, surprised by the loud noise.
Yuki looked through the thin crack and spotted something. It looked like paper, but old and worn from the cracks and time in the attic. Carefully, he wedged it lose.
It was an envelope.
And on the envelope, in cursive writing was one word.
Kyo.
They sat there in silence for a minute, examining the strange envelope.
"Stupid CAT! You said you didn't know we had an attic. . ." Yuki pointed out.
Kyo was silent for a moment, ". . . I didn't know there was an attic, and I've never seen that before in my life!"
"He's telling the truth," Tohru said, studying his face, and trying to prevent further argument.
"Well . . . then we can open it," Yuki decided, preparing to open the thin paper flap.
"WAIT! It has my name on it! I get to open it!" Kyo declared, snatching the letter from Yuki's grasp.
"Fine," Yuki gave in.
Kyo opened it slowly, so he wouldn't rip it.