I don't own them, and part of me wishes they'd never been created to torment me so. This is set about seven years after the current time, and it's not cheerful. Probably a one-shot. I like reviews!

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The room was about six feet square. It was never cleaned, and had begun to smell distinctly. In one corner was a toilet, and next to it, a water tap. The only light came from a very small window near the ceiling, which only let in any decent amount of light during the midmorning anyway. Not that it mattered; the inhabitant of the room had no need for light. There was no bed, no furniture of any kind, only the thick smell of solitude, and a heavy silence.

As for the inhabitant, he was a young man, about twenty-three. His name was Kyou, and he had been inside the room for five years.

At first, Kyou had fought against his imprisonment. He had been, at age eighteen, a fiery and passionate young man, quick to anger, and with harsh words he had withstood the torture visited upon him, but to no avail. It had worn into him, and at some point, he had given up. Since then he had become less and less of a man.

It wasn't even the torture that had broken him, horrible as it was. Such things he could identify and hate, and so survive. It was the lonliness. Trapped in the emptiness of this room, never a kind word said to him, he had forgotten what it meant to be human.

He was a sight to behold. His irregular feedings and lack of exercise had given him a gaunt, bony frame in place of the toned muscle he had before. His red hair had not been cut once in the last five years, and was tangled and filthy, hanging in rat's nests down his back. Eyes that had dulled from a warm red to almost brown stared out with no spark of life. The clothes he had worn when he'd been thrown into the cell had fallen into rags, and so he was naked, and he had not had a bath, so he was dirty.

He hadn't spoken a word out loud in two years, not that there was anyone to care if he did or not. Only two people ever visited him: Akito, his captor, who taunted and tortured him, and Hatori, the doctor, who fixed him up afterwards. Hatori always brought him food when he came, and this was the only time the young man ever ate.

No one had been to see him in almost a month, although he didn't know that. He had no idea of time; did not even know how long he'd been in there. He was aware that he was starving to death, but he didn't care. When the hunger became unbearable, he put his mouth to the water tap and drank. It helped little, but would sometimes keep the pains at bay.

The rest of the time, he usually spent lying in the dust on the floor, either sleeping or, more often, simply staring. In sleep he had frequent nightmares, and so just lying awake was what he preferred.

This is what he was doing when he heard the footsteps. In the old days, he would have tensed up and prepared to attack whoever was outside to make an escape, but now he stayed where he was. He didn't care. It was only Akito, come to torment him some more, and when he was gone, Hatori would set his broken bones and tend to his cuts and feed him, and then they would go away again and leave him alone.

He heard and did not register the sound of a key in the lock. Hatori entered. Kyou might have been surprised, if he had cared. Maybe Akito had come and gone already, and he just didn't remember. What did he care?

"Kyou."

He stayed where he was.

"Kyou?" Hatori knelt down next to the young man. "You must be wondering why it's been so long."

He hadn't.

"Akito has been very ill."

Darn.

"He's just died." The man's voice was touched with relief and a bit of awe.

Kyou didn't react.

"Do you understand what that means?" Hatori waited for a response, any response, something to let him know that Kyou could hear him, but he received none.

"It means," said a soft, shaking voice from the doorway. "That we can go home."

The new voice got a reaction. Kyou's eyes flickered to the doorway to his cousin Yuki, framed in the doorway and backlit by the light, which seemed so bright to his eyes that he had to squint.

"Yes," said Hatori. "His power is broken. Our lives are our own now."

And Kyou began to laugh. It was a harsh, strained sound, coming from vocal cords that had not been used in two years, and Hatori knew he would be hearing that laugh in nightmares for years to come. Yuki winced away.

Hatori wrapped Kyou in a blanket and started to lift the frail body. The young man did not resist. He lay still and felt himself being carried outside the room that had been his entire world, and closed his eyes against the sunlight outside. He didn't want to see anything. Hatori set him in the backseat of his car, and asked, "Would you rather go to the Sohma House, or back to Shigure's, where you lived before?"

Silence. Hatori and Yuki exchanged a glance. "Hey, baka neko," Yuki said gently. "Where do you want to go?"

He turned his head to face away from them and stared blankly at the carseat.

"Shigure's, then?" Yuki asked. No response. He looked to Hatori. "I think that's a better idea," he said lamely.

"Mm. Let's go, then," Hatori said, looking back at his young cousin with concern.

The little house in the woods was just as it had been five years before, except that Shigure lived there alone now. He'd left the boys' rooms as they'd left them, in the sad hope that Akito's life would end soon. He solemnly took Kyou from Hatori's arms and carried him up the stairs and into the old bedroom, setting him gently on his old futon.

The three gathered in the downstairs living area to confer.

"How could I let this happen?" moaned Hatori. "I should have done something."

"I didn't expect... I didn't expect this," Yuki whispered hollowly.

"Do you think he'll be all right, Ha-san?" asked Shigure.

"I don't know. We'll have to try to reintegrate him into normal life, but..." he trailed off, got quiet.

"But?" Yuki prompted.

"It's never worked before," he admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"According to the histories, all of the former cats have either chosen to return to the cell to wait for death, or committed suicide soon after being released," Hatori told them sadly.

For a moment, silence reigned. Then, an eruption from Yuki. "So then you KNEW. You knew this would happen!"

Hatori couldn't answer.

"Well," sighed Shigure. "We'd better do something."

"I will call Kazuma tonight," Hatori began, rising to his feet. "He knows a great deal about the curse of the cat, and Kyou respects him. Perhaps he can help us."

"And Tohru-kun?" Shigure fixed his eyes on his tired cousin. "Should we track her down?"

He heaved a sigh. "You might as well. But that's it." He looked sternly at the other two men. "No one else is to know where he is. Understand?"

"Why the secrecy?" demanded Yuki.

"Kyou hasn't seen any human being but me and Akito in five years until today. Do you think it's wise to let the entire family trample in here and see him?"

Yuki sighed. "No, I guess you're right."

"I'll be back tomorrow to check on him. Try to get him to eat something, will you Shigure?"

"Hai."

"Yuki. Are you coming back with me?"

"Eh-yeh. I'd like, if it's alright with Shigure, to stay on here for a while. Like the old days."

Shigure smiled the way Yuki remembered, and chirped "I would be so happy, Yuki-kun, if you would live with me again! And if Tohru-kun comes back too, it'll be like nothing ever changed!"

Yuki gazed at the table. Everything had changed, and Shigure knew it.