Moments of vulnerability were rare for Kyo. Not just rare: all but unheard of. And allowing people to witness these moments was even more rare for him. Yet two had. His sensei, the man who raised him and taught him and was the father that he had never, ever had from the man who shared half his DNA, and Tohru. Sweet, clueless Tohru, who had literally stumbled into the life of the Sohma family with no idea what she would find, and who had accepted them all unconditionally. She had seen Kyo at his most vulnerable. Many, many times. And each time, it bothered Kyo less that he had let go in front of someone, because she wasn't just someone anymore. She was Tohru. His friend. His first, true friend, who did not spend time with him because she felt pity, and who did not avoid him because of his strange affliction. His sweet, clueless Tohru, who had unknowingly stumbled right into his heart.
"Yuki, I'm bored," Shigure whined from his young cousin's doorway. The young boy didn't even turn his head away from his desk when he replied.
"Shouldn't you be finishing your book?" he said blandly. "Your deadline is in two days."
"That's no fun," sighed the older man, plucking at his yukata.
"You're a grown man," Yuki growled. "Why don't you behave like it once in a while?"
Shigure pouted, then a mischievous light came into his eyes. With an overly dramatic sigh, he leaned heavily on the doorframe and covered his face with his hand.
"What's a grown man to do in a house full of high school students?" he moaned. "I suppose Tohru could always satisfy me, but then—"
A rush of air zipped past Shigure's right cheek, and a muted thunk! sounded alarmingly close. Cautiously, the older man turned his head to look at the wall beside his head. A pencil was embedded about three centimeters, point-first, in the plaster somewhere near an inch from Shigure's ear, still quivering from the impact. Slowly the dog looked back at Yuki, to find the rat scowling at him with black fire in his eyes.
"Filthy dog," he growled, turning back around to do his work.
His mission of temporary entertainment from Yuki accomplished, Shigure quietly slipped from the room, wary of any more flying writing utensils. Idly, he wondered where Tohru was. She wasn't in the kitchen; he had just been there. Perhaps on the porch?
An impish grin on the strange man's face, he tip-toed down the stairs and through the main hall, very quietly sliding open the front door and peering outside. Aha! There was his little brunette. She was sitting on the far end, her feet dangling off the side. But she wasn't alone. No, a certain orange-headed boy was sitting with her, leaning back and propped up on his elbows. He said something that Shigure couldn't hear, and Tohru laughed. Now, Shigure could be dense, but not even Yuki's brother Ayame could have missed the fond smile that crossed Kyo's face when his companion giggled. It was accompanied by an almost imperceptible blush that made Shigure's smile grow wider. He very gently slid back inside, and closed the door. Then, sneaking as though trying not to wake a sleeping baby, he slipped into the room nearest the two on the porch, and went to the window, opening it just enough to let sound in, and then ducking down to avoid being seen. In the few seconds his adventure had taken, it seemed that their conversation had taken a less laughable route.
"—better than me at everything," Shigure heard Kyo mutter.
"Don't say that Kyo," said Tohru. Shigure could just imagine her reaching out to pat his shoulder or even his hand. "There are things you're better at."
"Yeah?" snorted the cat, clearly dubious. "Like what?"
"Well, uh…" Tohru muttered, suddenly tongue-tied. Shigure suspected she was more flustered because she was surprised at being asked the question, rather than because she couldn't think of anything, but Kyo took it the wrong way. Of course he did—didn't the stupid cat always take things the wrong way?
"See?" he mumbled. Shigure risked peeking through the window in time to see Kyo look away from Tohru, out into the trees. "Nothin' special about me."
"That's—that's not what—" Tohru spluttered, now franticly trying to take back whatever she had said to offend him. "I mean, I just—I was just…surprised, is all. You don't usually, well, ask me anything. You just kind of snort and then blow it off, if it's a compliment."
There was a heavy moment of awkward silence, in which Shigure could almost hear Kyo's embarrassment at not only his initial response, but at Tohru's easy analysis of him just "blowing her off". His face was starting to hurt from all of that smiling.
Finally, Kyo broke the spell.
"…Sorry," he mumbled.
"What for?" said Tohru in surprise. Of course she was surprised. She never felt that she deserved apologies from anyone else, because she constantly tried to be responsible for everyone simultaneously. If something went wrong, even if it was completely out of her control, she would still blame herself. That was just how their sweet little Tohru was.
"For…blowing you off…all the time." It sounded like the words were hard for him to say, but coming from Kyo, those words were about as miraculous as the Sohma case.
The young girl outside laughed cheerfully.
"It's okay," she told Kyo. "I know that's just how you are."
Shigure smiled, but it wasn't his mischief-making smirk. It was a softer one, far more genuine, and it was for Tohru. She didn't realize how much what she had just said meant to Kyo or, indeed, to any of the Sohmas. For a complete outsider to not only accept their condition, but live with them and take care of them and get to know them was an idea that was nothing short of impossible. Nobody stuck around them because they wanted to. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with the Sohma clan unless they absolutely had to. It was part of the nature of their curse.
Yet Tohru defied those laws set upon them by Akito, their God. She stayed in Shigure's home, cooking and cleaning and gardening side-by-side with form-changing freaks, and it didn't ruffle her in the slightest. She looked at them as human beings with an unfortunate circumstance, but human beings nonetheless. And for Kyo especially, that was a big deal. To be accepted was all Kyo had ever wanted, and all he had never gotten. To finally find someone who accepted him, all of him, even the parts that he hated, was something momentous and wonderful and absolutely, wildly insane.
To hear the words "I know that's just how you are" gave Kyo a happiness he didn't think himself capable of. Shigure knew this, because he had known Kyo since he was just a small child.
"So are you gonna answer my question?"
"Huh—what?" stuttered Tohru. Shigure heard Kyo give a patient sigh—the only patient sigh that he had ever known to come from the notoriously impatient feline.
"What exactly am I better than Yuki at?" the cat elaborated.
"Well, you're really a great cook," said Tohru at once.
"Gee, thanks," said Kyo sardonically. "I'm sure my rice ball-making capabilities will come in real handy trying to beat that damned rat."
Tohru giggled in spite of herself before continuing.
"You're better with people," she told him. Shigure stiffened, and he knew that Kyo had just sat bolt upright. His hair was probably on end from surprise as well.
"In what world?!" he exclaimed. Privately, Shigure agreed. Kyo was hardly a people-person.
Tohru giggled.
"Well, more people like Yuki," she began, "because Yuki tries to make everyone happy. He doesn't put himself out there very much, and just kind of goes with what the majority wants. You don't care about the majority. You say what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want. That's just how you are. You act like yourself around others, so people know you better than they know Yuki. You're not as scared for them to see you. I think that makes you better with people than Yuki, because you communicate better."
Stunned silence followed her words. Then Shigure heard Kyo chuckle, softly at first, but then it grew into a loud belly-laugh. He could picture tears of humor gathering in the cat's eyes.
"Tohru, you're crazy," said Kyo, and the affection in his voice took Shigure by surprise, though the older man had long suspected the redhead's feelings toward Tohru. "Completely, totally insane."
"It's true!" Tohru exclaimed, and Shigure didn't have to see her to know that she was blushing.
"Thanks, weirdo," said Kyo, at a more conversational volume.
The older man inside peered out the window again, and an exclamation of shock nearly gave him away before it swallowed it. Kyo was leaning against Tohru, his head on her shoulder as though it was the most comfortable pillow. His wild orange hair looked to be tickling Tohru's neck, and his hand was just barely brushing hers. Tohru looked down at him, clearly as surprised—if not more so—than Shigure by the anti-social Kyo's action. When the girl, with a soft smile, leaned her cheek on Kyo's temple, Shigure couldn't stand it anymore.
"This is just too sweet," he snickered to himself, straightening up and flinging the window completely open. The bang of the window flying open sent Kyo flying away from Tohru, his hair standing on end and his pupils contracting to slits. Tohru's cheeks were a little pink, but she seemed remarkably unflustered as she turned to find Shigure hanging out the window. She gave him a little wave. Kyo gave him a far less kind hand gesture.
"How come I never get to cuddle with Tohru," Shigure pouted. Tohru blinked cluelessly, but Kyo bowed up at once.
"Because you're a creepy old man!" he snarled, and his canine teeth had gone sharp like a cat's in his anger. He shook a fist at Shigure, who only smiled innocently, then disappeared back into the house, closing the window behind him. He skipped happily back up the stairs to Yuki's room, noticing as he entered that the boy had retrieved his pencil from the wall, leaving a small hole behind.
"Go away, Shigure," he growled.
"No one wants to play with me," Shigure sighed. "Why can't you spend some quality time with your cousin?"
"Go spend quality time with Kyo," snapped the raven-haired boy. "I'm busy! That stupid cat has to be around here somewhere."
"I can't," Shigure sighed. "Tohru's monopolizing him, and he doesn't even seem to mind. It doesn't seem right to interrupt."
Oh, indeed.
Shigure couldn't be sure, but he thought that Yuki might have paused just the slightest bit at the mention of Tohru and Kyo.
Well, I've cause enough disturbance for one day, thought Shigure happily, slipping out of Yuki's room without a word. He probably should work on that book. He liked to keep his editor hanging, but he did still need to pay bills.
"Oh, where's the fun in that?" he sighed even as he sat down in front of his computer. "Nowhere. Nowhere at all."
Ah, I love Shigure. However, Kyo is my one and only, whom I love with all my heart 3 lol I'm mostly kidding. So, what did you think? Should I continue it, or leave it as a one-shot?
