Author's Note: I don't know what it is about one-sentence that makes me want to write: a) twisted couples, b) tragic couples, or d) twisted, tragic couples. This one happens to fall under the D category. SERIOUSLY. I don't know why!
Anyway, definitely not the last one-sentence challenge from me. I've got a few more I plan to do. Also, this marks my first one-sentence claim not to include sex. WHOA, RIGHT?
Warnings: Spoilers for chapter 97 and on! It's not happy, I'll tell you right now. So, yeah, darkfic. GASP, from M'gana? How blasphemously unusual! So, yeah, very dark Shigure, and takes place mostly later in the manga. And of course the usual punctuation abuse!
… I should probably write a happy Shigure/Tohru set to atone for how bad a person this makes me. -shrug-
Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket.
Little China Doll
#01: Walking:
"Just think," he dangles the taunting notion before her, dressed down as philosophy, "all the places you could go if only you knew where to start."
#02: Wishes:
Tohru wishes animatedly on a shooting star, taking Kyo's hand and Yuki's hand in each of her own; Shigure watches, eyes drawn southward of the sky, and only wants.
#03: Worry:
"Worry just your lips and sweets, rest only when you're dead," he cites to her in private from an old, unpublished book of poetry, "shiver when you've frozen, and lie only in your bed."
#04: Whimsy:
To him she is a walking fairytale, a quilt of every heroine and damsel sewn together, a book he will read until the pages are dog-eared and torn, until the spine is skewed with use, until the binding frays and unravels.
#05: Whiskey and Rum:
Every now and then, he slips a bit of alcohol into her tea, because he is fascinated when she's undone one too many buttons, and her skin is rosy with the flush of vodka.
#06: War:
When he leaves the Sohma estate, Akito's voice of noxious venom still in his ears ("Go home to your tramp, Shigure!"), he is a walking war.
#07: Wonder:
Her eyes are crystalline saucers, wide in wonderment at the smallest thing; he cannot stop his being narrowed by cynicism.
#09: Birthday:
Tohru congratulates him on becoming another year older, another year wiser; he smiles gratefully, and the words balance sourly on the tip of his tongue: I am only another year less alive.
#09: Blessing:
She is not the angel draped in silk and virgins' tears the others believe her to be – she's merely a new spin on an old curse.
#10: Bias:
"When you've lived as much as I have, you learn that everything should be perfectly balanced – and that tipping the scale is much more fun than just sitting on it."
#11: Burning:
Every single fire is clear in her eyes; they are the reason they shine so; and when the time comes, Shigure will feed the flames until they are wild and spread to her lips, her body, her everything, and char her heart to match his own.
#12: Breathing:
She speaks so quickly she can only breathe in tiny, insignificant sharp wisps; sometimes, he wants to rob her of those and empty her lungs entirely, just to shut her up.
#13: Belief:
"It is my firm belief that you are only as old as you feel," he tells her, but does not admit to feeling much spryer watching her run around in that scandalous school skirt.
#14: Balloon:
Her enthusiasm is infectious, blooming bulbous until it presses, stressed, into every corner of the room; Shigure yearns to take a pin and pop it, and let the emptiness pour out.
#15: Balcony:
Tohru is Rapunzel, waiting at her open window, hair snaking like vines down the tower wall – and he is more than willing to pull out every strand to reach her.
#16: Quirks:
When she lies, her cheeks blossom red with warmth, and her eyes fly about the room, alighting everywhere but on his own; Shigure sometimes makes her lie, delighting in her struggle.
#17: Weddings:
She is unbalanced and wobbles with optimism, with blind and deaf and dumb alacrity; he will wed his rage and sorrow to hers, open her eyes and ears and mouth with a black band.
#18: Jester:
A look crosses her face, drawing her features downward; she is disappointed, disheartened, distraught; he quickly assures her he is kidding, and she brightens instantly.
#19: Jewel:
No treasure is ever beautiful against a landscape of gold; he will bathe her in dust, in dull, blemishing mud, and let her glisten through the cracks.
#20: Just:
Shigure is equal parts terrified and entertained that recently he no longer gives her thoselooks in secret only because they will drive Akito insane.
#21: Smirk:
The whisper of a wicked smile crosses his face; Tohru has just walked into the kitchen in her school uniform, and promptly reminded him of last night's dream.
#22: Sorrow:
It is a truth that hangs between all of them, every member of the Zodiac, that brings grief and pain, and for Shigure a misplaced satisfaction: she will fail.
#23: Jump:
Boundless and energetic and hopeful, she bounces wherever she goes; he glides with grace, far ahead of her, spreading ice to bait her blind heels.
#24: Stupidity:
She is not a stupid woman, only a naïve one – and they have their uses too, he muses happily.
#25: Waste/Wasteland:
Some days he is left so exhausted by life, he has to resist every bullet firing through his brain that tells him, Take her, wage war on her, make her body a wasteland.
#26: Serenade:
Tohru and Shigure are always the first up in the morning – as such, he is the only one with the privilege of hearing her sing terribly off-key in the shower, and getting the repetitive Mogeta theme stuck in his head all day.
#27: Sarcasm:
He is a wonderful dancer, stepping lightly and expertly blurring the line between sarcasm and lies.
#28: Sordid:
"I love games!" Tohru exclaims, and Shigure silently replies, Oh, you'd hate all of mine.
#29: Sojourn:
"I'm a wanderer," he jokes to her in a cryptic tone, when she asks him seriously why he's never settled down with someone; he keeps the whole answer to himself: that he'll never stop moving, because the image of others striving to keep his pace is far too amusing.
#30: Share:
Tohru grows closer to Kyo everyday, and while he is proud to see Yuki gradually letting go, Shigure still has no intention of sharing.
#31: Natural:
He'll turn her life upside down until she's convinced winter is what comes first, the frostwork; what comes last, the webs of snowflakes strung over life; and that spring, the hope dripping off every waking petal, is but the temporary placeholder for an eternal and bitter cold.
#32: Horizon:
"You can go only as far as the sun reaches," he tells her, and she says to him, without missing a beat, "Then I want to be the sun, and reach everything."
#33: Virtuous:
She shines, a candle in the night, an untarnished silver spoon – and he is the rust devouring her little by little, taking her light unto himself with voracious hunger.
#34: Nowhere:
She talks heatedly with Kyo about all the places she'd love to go, and Shigure thinks, I will take you nowhere, and I'll make you love getting there.
#35: Waltz:
They are both alone on Christmas, both a little quieter than normal, both hesitant to break the silence that is halfway between awkward and companionable – and both mildly surprised when he asks her to dance.
#36: Near:
When his fingers brush her hip in the busy kitchen; flutter briefly along her breasts, light as butterfly wings, in a bustling street; skim the small of her back in crowded elevator – it is never the accident she thinks it is.
#37: Bane:
Her smiles come less easily now, her lips almost fighting to widen, her white teeth to shine; Shigure finds it less taxing to watch her, but does not acknowledge that his smiles struggle a bit more too.
#38: Neutral:
Apathetic is the furthest from everything Tohru is, so when she is crestfallen and placid and drowning in horrible neutrality, Shigure commits every last tear-track to memory.
#39: Quiet:
Silence leaks under her bedroom door, pooling at his feet – then a tiny sob, like a raindrop in a puddle; he smiles and walks away.
#40: Jousting:
When she is weary from her troubles, and the troubles of everyone else that she has heaped upon her shoulders, he offers her a kind word and slips into the armor of her white knight – and when she is safely in bed, asleep and purring with hope, he fades back into the shadows and leaves the steel to rust.
#41: Soliloquy:
"The heart is a room," he places his hand on his chest, "and you can paint it however you like – I prefer dark colors, myself."
#42: Quarrel:
"No," she argues between hiccups, "the heart is the brush, and your life is the canvas."
#43: Quitting:
She is crying again, on her knees where she thinks no one can see, shaking with grief and defeat; if this is what despair looks like on her, Shigure hopes she will always be on the verge of quitting.
#44: Valiant:
"You'll break her," Hatori warns, cigarette smoke spiraling up and sifting through the cracks in the ceiling; Shigure smiles and laughs, "I know."
#45: Victory:
He tells himself the eventual has come for her, that he has steeled himself for this, that fleeting hope was all he ever had and he knew it, secretly, in a dark recess of his mind, all along – still he frowns, and feels disappointment in every coiled muscle: Tohru has finally figured out Kureno will always be an anomaly.
#46: Solitary:
The void left behind Kyo yawns to feast upon every light, of fire, static, and sun, sucking her hungrily in, and spewing Yuki out with distaste.
#47: Defeat:
Kyo is gone, Yuki has left his house, and Tohru stands stiffly in the open door, watching the snow fall, trembling to the tips of her fingers; Shigure wishes she'd broken the curse, only so he could take her in his arms now and swallow every bit of her sorrow – until she is a blank book, to be rewritten in his messy hand.
#48: Breaking:
He places his lips to her ear, snow blanketing them like gossamer lace, and hears through flesh-turned-ice the sound of a heart singing mournful fragments of swansong.
#49: Question:
Her voice, weak and ruptured, strains, "In the end, did I really change anything?" and, for perhaps the first time, he tells her the absolute truth: "Of course you didn't."
#50: Nuance:
Nothing changes anymore, only the shades of blue on the walls, the length of shadows as the sun sleeps and stretches, and the pallor of her porcelain cheeks in a shattered mirror.