Foreign
Uo winced as another cough elicited itself from Tohru's throat. Her teeth bit down on the inside of her lower lip, and she could feel the muscles in her cheek twist into a frown.
"I'm so sorry, guys; I must be such a bother to you all."
The blonde glanced towards the other girl, and she shook her head. "Of course not. We knew something was wrong when you didn't show up to school today. I just wish that you would have told us you were feeling so bad. You've got to tell us these things." Her muscles relaxed into a slow, relaxed grin.
Beside her, Hanajima tilted her head in a brief nod. "We both worry about you, Tohru." She spoke softly. A blush spread through the brunette's face; whither from embarrassment or fever, they couldn't tell. "Thank you so much. You're the best friends…" Tohru's sentence fell short with the interruption of a hacking cough. A gentle, white hand carefully pressed the girl back to the futon. "You must take better care of yourself, Honda-San." Tohru's half-lidded gaze turned to the Prince. She smiled weakly.
"That's right, Tohru." Uo shot a quick glance towards the novelist. "We're all here to take care of you, you know." Shigure grinned cheerfully at the morose bunch.
"Well, no wonder she's so pathetically sick. Just look how hard you make her work around here with all the cooking, and cleaning, and the other crap that she does. Damn!" Plentiful gazes turned towards the orange-haired teen found leaning against the door frame. He ignored the eyes, and instead glared down at the sick being. A frown spread across Tohru's face, causing him to huff indignantly. "She looks like she's about to die! She's so pale…"
"Now, Kyo…" Shigure began but snapped quiet when Hanajima spoke. "You shouldn't use such heavy and threatening curses around someone with such frailty. You wouldn't want anything to happen to Tohru because of your mindless accusations…" She paused, and a devilish grin twisted her lips upwards. "Because if anything were to happen to Tohru…."
"Guys! Don't fight. I'm alright, really! I'm al… alright…" Tohru deflated against Yuki's hand once again. His palm pressed lightly against her brow and then to either side of her face. "You rest. Kyo's just being stupid like always. Don't you worry over such frivolous things." The rat smiled down at her and she smiled back.
"Aaah! Damn it to hell!" Kyo rapped his fist against the door frame and turned. "Kyo!' Shigure shouted after him, but the cat strode away defiantly. Uo looked over at her bedridden friend, and watched as Tohru watched Kyo take off. Her hand lifted as though she was about to call him back, but Yuki took her hand into his own.
"Don't worry, Tohru. I'll go get him before he wrecks the house. You get some sleep, kay?" Uo quickly leapt to her feet and chased after the orange-headed tyrant.
The former yankee found him kicking rocks in the yard. Hands shoved into his pockets, the boy was scowling at the rocks like they were the bacteria that plagued their housekeeper and friend. Swinging his foot back, he punted the rock in a clean sweep into the bushes. It rattled the leaves briefly before quickly falling back into an uneasy silence.
"What do you think you're doing?" She asked. His posture didn't change. Instead he kicked another rock into the bushes. He scowled audibly. "I gotta get out of here. I can't stand this. This place; it's suffocating." He began a quick stride, paused, and turned a different direction. Gazing off into the path, he glared at the trees before him. She could see his jaw clenching with his unleashed desire to escape. His fists were clenching in his pockets, and she could spot the blue veins bulging in his forearms with protest. His eyebrows were furrowed, and wrinkles spread out from his forehead in a spider web of distress.
"So, go."
He jerked his head back to glare at the speaker. Uo stared back, impassively, a hand upon her hip. "Go? Where can I go? There's nowhere to go, I just want to go. I gotta go…" His teeth grinded together in his silent fuming. She watched as his shoulders jerk with irritation. She would have laughed had she not felt the same.
Kyo's attention leapt back to her when he heard the jangle of keys as they looped about her first finger. A slender brow lifted, invitingly. Her head indicating towards where her new, although only new to her, car was parked. The metallic keys clattered noisily as she caught them in her fist, and she turned slightly towards their escape. "Well?" She questioned. Kyo strode after her.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. He glared at the trees that zipped by outside his window. She looked back to the road, and glared at the empty dirt road. 'It's this damn dirt,' she decided. 'It's the dirt's fault for being so damn dirty and making her sick. This country air is just making her miserable… She should be with someone who can help take care of her, with Hana-Chan or me. Or…' She exhaled deeply.
'What am I saying? This stupid country's a hell of a lot better than where I live. I'm surprised I haven't keeled over yet with all the toxins in the air by my house. Hana-Chan's got enough people to take care of, what with her freakishly large family. I'd be better to watch her, but I've got to work all the time and the old man's useless…' Her eye trailed over to the spot of orange in the peripheries of her vision. 'At least at Sohma-Kun's, she's got a houseful of men watching her every movement.' Her brow furrowed at the thought. 'And by God if a single one of them…' her thought halted as she caught a glimpse of his lower lip. It was spotted with patches of ripped skin, as though he had been chewing on it. He probably had.
"Where are you wanting to go?" she asked him. The cat jerked his eyesight towards her, then back to the window. "I told you that I don't know." He huffed, and then more quietly told her, "I just had to get out of there." She nodded, knowingly.
They drove on in silence, Uo keeping a tired eye on the road in case there were any potholes or maybe a random pack of freshly-bought cigarettes someone had accidentally thrown out. 'Damn it, I should have grabbed mine. I could use one right about now…' Her teeth gnawed on her lower lip instead. She knew smoking was a bad habit, but the nicotine could really soothe her right about now.
"Stop here." The brakes squealed in protest as she slammed them down. Her head bolted forward only to snap back painfully against the seat. "Damn it! What the hell?!" She glared over at Kyo just as he was stepping outside the junk heap of a car. "What are you complaining about? You're the one driving." He snorted.
He walked around the front of the car, gazing off into the distance. Her eyes followed him then flickered off to take in their surroundings. "What the…?"
"It's a graveyard, stupid." She sputtered at his remark. "Of course I know it's a graveyard! Stupid!" She leaned out her window a bit, to peer after him with a narrowed gaze. "Why the hell did you tell me to stop here for?" His shoulders rolled into a casual shrug. She fumed.
As he was walking towards a chunk of stone, she pulled her car off the road. 'Just in case someone comes by,' she thought minutely before her thoughts turned back to him. 'What the hell are we doing here? He better not be coming here to break shit… I don't care how pissed off he is.'
She slipped out of her seat, slamming the door shut. She took a few steps to his side. Before the two of them was a clutter of smashed stone. The granite looked old and smooth, but the jagged pieces appeared as though it had been purposefully broken. "What are we doing here?"
"Getting away from that house, isn't that what we wanted?"
She frowned. That was what she had wanted. 'I hate being around sick people…' She snorted softly. Especially when Tohru was the one sick. She wasn't a nurse… and there wasn't anything she could do to help. She hated that. She hated not being able to help. 'It sucks just having to sit there and watch. There's nothing I can do, and the Sohmas already have her mostly taken care of. All I could do is just watch her in pain and I don't want to do that. I can't stand it! I feel so… useless.' That was the worst feeling of all. She didn't like being useless, especially not when it came to Tohru.
"Yeah, but why a graveyard?" She took the time to further investigate the area, only to notice that there were more stones protruding from the ground ahead of them, and behind them. She blinked, surveying the odd t-shaped blocks casting weak shadows before them. "It's not even a temple… it's a…"
"Burial ground." Kyo stood next to her, wiping his hands against the thighs of his pants. "It's where foreigners used to bury their dead." She cast a quick glance towards the rubble, and noticed that he had pieced together the parts of a headstone. A name was engraved into the granite, but it was inscribed in another language that she doubted she could pronounce. The numbers dated back hundreds of years ago.
"I come here sometimes," Kyo admitted. His hands returned to his pocket, and he stretched out his legs. "I come here when I need time to myself… But I'm not the only one who knows about it. Other people just show up, too." His foot motioned toward the shattered grave marker.
"Of course, others would know about it. I mean, it's a graveyard. People would come to pay their respects and all." She followed him as he carefully made his way onto the dirt-beaten trail. "Naw, not to these graves. They were all from another country, and all of them date back to the early wars. They're all foreign."
She blinked, wondering how often he had come here to know that, but brushed the thought away. 'Everyone needs someplace to escape.' She told herself.
"So what do you do here, peek around at all the dead folks and lie out peacefully?" She smirked at her own pun. He ignored the comment. Squatting down in front of an odd t-shaped stone, he picked up some of the flowers that cluttered its base.
"You steal flowers from the dead?" she spoke incredulously. He frowned at her, and shoved the flowers into her hands. "They're withered. It makes this place look trashy." He swiped a handful of dirt from the base, and brushed leaves off the stone of another. Moving down the row, he plucked weeds out from around a headstone, then a second, then a third. On the fourth one was a broken picture frame, but instead of tossing it, he set it back up into place.
"Why don't you throw that away? You can't even tell what the picture was anymore." He shook his head. "Someone left it on this guy's grave as a remembrance. That would be stealing."
Starting a second row, Uo helped to jerk the weeds away from the stones, and wiped leaves from the crosses. She tilted her head to watch as Kyo chipped away some moss growing the headstone next to her. He grunted at the effort, and almost punched himself in the jaw as the belt of fungus gave way. He tossed the green fungi away and quickly began picking the gunk out from his nails.
"Why are you bothering? These guys are all foreigners. Nobody's going to bother reading their names. They were our enemies."
Kyo lifted his gaze to her and frowned. "So?" She blinked. "Just because they were foreigner doesn't mean they shouldn't rest peacefully. They did what they had to do in life, and now they should get to rest. I wouldn't break someone's grave marker just because they weren't like me." He twisted his head towards the stone beside him. It was still standing, but a large fissure had split the stone almost in two.
They moved on, setting up overturned flower pots and returning small trinkets back to their supposed graves. They picked up discarded pieces of trash and stuffed them into a bag that Uo had fetched from her car.
Hours later, well… maybe not hours, but it seemed like a long time to her, Kyo finally stood up. He clapped his hands together, dusting away the grime that covered his palms. She pushed herself away from one final grave with a handful of decayed flowers. He opened a bag for her and she shoved the brittle blossoms into it along with the rest. He twisted the loopholes around each other, barely managing to shove all the trash inside. Once tied up, he headed for her car.
She watched him, lugging the large trash bag by his side, and couldn't help but feel a gentle smirk tugging at the edges of her lip. "You're a nice guy, you know?"
The Sohma jerked back to glance at her, his brows knitted into a curious façade of disbelief. "What?" His voice rang with an incredulous tone. She waved a hand dismisfully and trotted after him. Once she was next to him, she flashed him a gentle smile. "Let's head back to Tohru." The cat nodded. His face was turned away, but she almost swore she could see the reddish hint of a blush on his face. Her smile stretched.
They drove back in silence. Her eyes glanced in his direction every few moments. Even when they were back at Shigure's, hovering over Tohru, she continued to watch him. An odd sort of warmth presided in her stomach, half due to Tohru's condition getting better but the other half… She watched Kyo from the peripheral of her eye. It was an odd feeling, not one she was used to. 'Foreign.'
Back here, in the house, he was back to being Kyo. Shigure teased him, Yuki scoffed at him, and Hanajima threatened him occasionally. He was back to being the arrogant, snotty brat. But… whenever his eyes were on Tohru, Uo could spot that serene, gentle, and respectful guy that she met at the graveyard briefly. 'How come I never noticed it before… but he's got a nice face. His eyes are sweet, but it's hard to tell.' She chuckled softly, pulling Tohru's attention to herself. "You okay, Uo? Sorry to be such a bother! I bet you had to work today…" The yankee just grinned, patting the brunette upon her head. "Don't worry! The worst they can do is fire me. What then?"
-Epilogue.-
Two days later, Uo stomped out of the small grocer and slammed their front door. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. She cast a glance back toward the store and grimaced. "Fire me? That jerk!" She kicked at the wall, only causing damage to her own foot. She scowled, hollering a few incentives.
Stalking down the street, she grumbled softly to herself. A few people glanced her way, wary looks upon their faces. But she ignored it. "Missing too many days? I can't help it. I've got school and friends to take care of, gotta watch after Dad, and homework, and can't go to work all the time. Summer's on the way and I've got to party!" As she stomped down the sidewalk, a small sign snatched her attention. Her large, hazel eyes blinked. It was the name of a shrine on the placard, but graffiti had obscured the name written there. Her gaze dragged up the mountain of stairs, each concrete step leading to a temple. A smile twitched upon her face and she took a few steps. 'Time to work out some aggression.' She smiled.
The theme here is foreign. I was meaning to work in a thought about how Kyo felt foreign when it came to his family, like being an outsider, but I didn't want to complicate the storyline.
KyoXUo is my favorite pairing, so I hope others like it, too. I almost strayed into a UoKyoTohru... but had to edit that part out. I hope to write more Fruits Basket fanfiction, soon.