Tohru had a fever. Just a little thing, that's all it was. Too much stress, too much worry. It really shouldn't have had the effect it did. Instead of getting better, she got worse. She emphatically refused Hatori's help. She said she was feeling better that evening and that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. The last thing I'd said to her was, "Shut up and go to sleep, then." So she did. And she didn't wake up. Not the next day or the day after or any day after that.

In fact, she never woke up again.

"Watch where you're going, you damn rat!" I snarled. Yuki had bumped into me as he walked past.

His eyes looked glazed as he turned to me. Blinking it away, he muttered, "Watch yourself, stupid cat."

I glared at him, voice raised as I threatened, "I swear, I'll kick your ass!"

Yuki rolled his eyes, beginning to walk away. "Oh look, more empty threats."

I shoved him and immediately fell into a fighting stance, facing off against him. "Alright, that's it, let's take this outside!"

"Why not just finish this here?" he asked, getting into a looser fighting stance. He sounded distant, but I didn't comment.

"Please don't break my house!" Shigure hollered from downstairs. I ignored him in favor of throwing the first punch. Yuki dodged effortlessly, though the punch came unusually close to landing. He pressed his brief advantage and swung back, his fist flying towards me. I dodged, but he still made a glancing blow to my shoulder. It didn't really hurt, so I ignored it and pushed back harder, throwing three punches in quick succession. He danced around the first two without even thinking about it, but he was too slow for the third and it hit him square in the chest. He flew back and landed on his back in the hall. He didn't bother getting up, and I couldn't move — I was too stunned.

I'd beaten Yuki. I'd finally beaten Yuki. I'd knocked him flat on his ass. I stood up tall and laughed in triumph. "I did it! I beat you, you sissy rat, I knew I would do it! And now that I've beaten you, I'll finally be—!"

"Shut up." His words caught me off guard. Yuki was lying on the ground, defeated, and he dared to demand I do anything?

"Don't you tell me to shut up, I beat you fair and square, I—!"

"Kyo. Please." I froze. He called me by name. Not only that, he said please.

For a moment, I wondered what kind of tricks he was pulling. I deflated and stared at him in confusion, hoping my victory hadn't been a fluke. After a minute, I asked, "What's your problem?"

He answered without hesitation, still lying down. "It's today."

"What's today?"

"Tohru."

My eyes widened. Tohru. Today was the anniversary of her death.

"Oh."

My knees gave out and I fell to the floor, vision blurring almost immediately with unshed tears. Tohru. A whole year's passed and I still wake up wondering where you are. We should have known you needed to be more careful, I should have made you the damn leek soup, I should have done something. But I didn't. And it's my fault you're not with us anymore. Dammit. I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes, letting the black circles on the edge of my vision take over as I thought about her.

"I didn't even realize," I said out loud. I heard movement, but didn't look up. "I woke up and looked for her before remembering why I couldn't find her. Same as I always do, every damn day." I wasn't sure why I was telling him this, but I felt like I needed to tell someone. He'd understand, at the very least. He'd understand, better than anyone. "I miss her. So much. I miss her like a fish misses water."

Pause.

"So do I."

His response surprised me. I'd been expecting him to tell me to shut up again, or to say nothing and leave. But I guess when it came to Tohru, he always was kinda unpredictable. She'd changed him. Not that I really knew what he was like before, other than cold, but she changed him. Opened his heart. He was... more alive, when she was around. So was I. When she died, I spent a month locked in my room. I'd leave in the middle of the night to get leftovers and sporadically throughout the day to use the restroom. I didn't go to school. I didn't talk to anyone. I couldn't think straight. Sometimes, I couldn't breathe for crying. I couldn't sleep for the nightmares. I couldn't wake up from them, either. I was living one. Her memory haunted me until I had nothing left. I was broken.

I wasn't the only one devastated by her death, though. It nearly drove Shigure insane. He'd gone through her room and removed anything that even looked remotely "Tohru"; sold her bed, gave her little trinkets, pictures of her mother and all, to her grandfather, moved everything else that looked like it could belong to myself or Yuki to our rooms. He asked Hatori to erase his memories of her. He'd tried to pretend she never existed, because thoughts of her tore him apart. The first week after she died, he acted fine — but there was no acting when he'd scream and sob, begging the universe to bring her back.

In all honesty, it was probably for the best that he forgot her. The way his whole body shook when he cried for her, the way screams came during his nightmares, loud enough to wake Yuki and make him so hoarse he couldn't speak at all. It'd probably kill him to know who she was. But sometimes, at dinner, he'd ask Yuki, "Whatever happened with that Honda Tohru girl?" I guess the only memory he had left of her was their first meeting, before he'd gotten attached to her. Things'd get real quiet real quick, and he'd look around like he'd done something wrong. Sometimes Yuki would get up and leave, and Shigure would look at me like, "What's his deal?" I'd just shake my head and finish eating, and the tension wouldn't leave the room for days. So he learned not to ask. And we learned not to remind him. Didn't make it easy when he'd find something of hers, but we tried to keep him from remembering as best we could. It was kind of an unspoken agreement between Yuki and me. A temporary truce, for Shigure's sake.

Yuki had sat up while I was lost in thought, and I did the same, once I'd noticed. He was on the opposite end of the hall, back to the wall, and I sat crosslegged against the other. "Yuki? Kyo? You didn't kill each other, did—?" Shigure poked his head around the corner and cut himself off once he saw us. "Are you boys alright?" he asked hesitantly. "Did you put yourselves in time out?" he added, a sparkle of humor in his tone.

"Wha'd'you care?" I sneered, turning my head away. Yuki sniffled and I caught Shigure's eyebrows shoot up out of the corner of my eye.

"Yuki, are you hurt? Do you need me to call Hatori?" The elder man's tone was full of concern now, and all I could think about was that the last time he'd used that tone, the last time he'd said those words, he'd been talking to Tohru.

No, thank you! she'd said.

I'm fine.

Yuki stood up and kept his head down. "I'm fine." Without another word, he turned and walked stiffly into his room.

I could feel Shigure's gaze burning into me. I turned back to him. "Well?"

"Did... did something happen? It's not like you guys to be within ten feet of each other and not at least arguing."

I shook my head, rising to my feet. I'd tell you, I thought briefly, but you don't want to remember. "It's nothing."

With that, I left.

The roof was quiet and warm, just like it always was. It was breezy though, and the cold air chilled my skin and whipped the strings on my sweatshirt into my face. Eventually I tied them together with a frustrated growl.

"Is this a bad time?" Shigure was struggling to look up over the edge of the roof.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What d'you want?"

He hauled himself up and over the edge with a grunt, crawling slowly towards me and sitting out of arms' reach. "I wanted to talk to you about earlier." Oh, great. "I've tried speaking with Yuki, but he won't say a word. What happened?"

I huffed. "Nothin'. I finally beat that damn rat, but it doesn't count. Nothin' happened."

He looked thoughtful. "Is that why you both've been pouting ever since?"

"I wasn't pouting!" I shouted, stiffening.

"Strange," continued Shigure, ignoring me, "it's not like Yuki to lock himself away like that."

I looked at my feet. "I mean, he's got a reason. And even though I wasn't pouting—" I stated definitively, shooting my older cousin a glare before turning my gaze back down. "—I guess I got a reason too."

"And what reason might that be?"

I paused. "You don't wanna know."

He didn't reply, clearly lost in thought. I watched the sun continue its slow descent below the treeline. A thought flashed fleetingly through my mind — I should have been up this morning to watch the sunrise for her. — but I purposely ignored it. I'd only just finished crying, I sure as hell didn't need to start again with Shigure here.

"Why wouldn't I want to know, Kyo?"

"You just don't, alright? Ya told me before."

"Told you what?"

At this point, I was getting frustrated. "Told me that'cha don't wanna know," I snapped. "It's someone you never... really knew, anyway. So it's like you'd get it even if I did tell ya."

"Is this about that Honda Tohru?" My heart skipped a beat. "You both behave so oddly when I mention her, and I can't help but feel I'm missing something. You didn't run into her, did you? Did she find out somehow?"

I could feel my whole body tighten. I felt like screaming into the sky, asking why the world took her away. How could it? How could it take away such a beacon of light and hope and happiness without so much as a second thought? How could it take her away with something so simple as a fever?

"Kyo?"

"She—" I couldn't, I couldn't tell him, I couldn't. "She's dead. Quit talkin' about her like she's still here. 'C-Cause she ain't."

His eyes widened. "Oh. I... I'm sorry, Kyo. I wasn't aware the two of you were all that close, though."

Yeah, you wouldn't know, I thought spitefully. "That's your fault, not mine." I could see confusion grow on his face. Dammit, I let on too much. "I mean, she was a high school student," I managed, searching deseprately for something to add on to that. "You wouldn't really have had any way of knowing."

"That's not why." A third voice floated up from the same edge of the roof Shigure had climbed up on. Yuki jumped up in one swift motion, walking slowly towards us with slow, controlled steps.

"What do you mean by that, Yuki?" asked Shigure, choosing to ignore for the time being Yuki's sudden appearance in favor of asking him to elaborate.

"Don't tell him, ya damn rat, he chose to forget," I argued immediately, glaring at him. "If he wanted to know, he would'a remembered, dammit."

"Shut up, stupid cat. I'm sick of pretending she didn't exist. Sick of. Of pretending she was never a part of our lives."

"Oh yeah, well for all he knows, she wasn't, so—"

"Kyo, please," Shigure interrupted. "I think... I need to hear this."

I growled and looked away, wishing at the very least Yuki had waited until Shigure went back down to talk to him rather than invading my personal spot. The air itself felt different with him up here.

The rat sat down by Shigure, eyes flashing open and staring at nothing as he recounted her story. "The day after you met her, which I'm assuming is your only memory left of her, Miss Honda began living with us. Her mother had died a few months before, and she'd been living with her grandfather until he began renovations on his house. She then lived in a tent on our property. Once we discovered her, we told her she could stay with us. Originally, she was only meant to stay until renovations were complete, but when she went back, she realized that she wanted to stay. So we brought her back.

"We all grew close. Despite her hardship, everything she'd been through, she never once complained, never let it get in her way. She was always smiling. She'd determined that a good way to repay us for letting her live here was to cook our meals and clean the house. But she... hadn't needed to. Her happiness was... payment enough."

I could see him struggling to continue, so, as a rare act of kindness, I picked up the slack. Figured if Shigure was gonna know, he may as well know all of it. "She lived with us for a few more months. She knew 'bout the curse from the first day we met, 'cause the klutz fell on me, but for whatever reason, Akito didn't have her memory erased. I guess that was good for us, though. 'Cause she. She was. Aw, hell, that doesn't matter. She got sick last year. Fever. Wouldn't let you call Hatori, told us she was fine. She said she felt fine. Said she'd be okay. Then she went to sleep and... she didn't wake up." I saw Yuki bow his head out of the corner of my eye. "That was today. Not today today. Er. Last year, today."

There was a long silence. "So she..." Shigure put his head in his hands as he tried to think through all the potentially reoccuring memories the story had awakened. Within seconds, I could see his shoulders shaking as tears streamed down his face. The air prickled with awkwardness. Yuki and I had comforted Shigure when he was crying before, but not like this. It was one thing to quiet sobs that ripped at his throat and stole his voice. It was a whole other to hold his hand while he cried quietly for a lost stranger he used to know.

He clutched himself and cried until there were no more tears, and even then, his shoulders shook. The air was thick with his silence. Eventually, he stilled himself. Night had fallen by the time he next spoke. "Why would I want to forget her?"

"Are you kidding?" I replied. "You can hardly remember the girl, you don't even know what she was really like, and look at how you're crying. Can you imagine how much it hurt to remember?" I hesitated, looking away and lowering my voice. "It's..." Glancing back, I caught Yuki hopping off the roof and back into the house. "It was terrifying to... to watch. You used to get nightmares. You'd scream so loud it would wake up that damn rat. When you'd cry for her, you'd get... I'unno, inconsolable. We couldn't touch you, you'd thrash and throw us to the ground if we even got close. It was worse when you remembered."

The wind blew through the trees, rustling the leaves and blowing some onto the roof. Stars twinkled idly in the inky sky above. A howl rose in the distance.

I stood up. "She was your hope," I told him, walking towards the edge of the roof to go back inside. I stopped and corrected my previous statement. "She was all of ours."

I walked into the kitchen for some milk and was met instead with Yuki holding a tray of tea. My eyebrows furrowed and I blinked at him, confused. "It's not for you," he told me, a sneer in his tone. "You may as well have some since I made it, but it's for Shigure."

Narrowing my eyes, I said, "I didn't think you made it for me, damn rat."

"Then why'd you look so confused, stupid cat?"

"I was confused 'cause I didn't know you were in here, and don't call me stupid!" I shouted, leaning closer with my hands balled into fists behind me.

"Where is he?" Yuki asked, his tone even though his eyebrow was twitching irately.

I relaxed slightly. "I dunno. He was still on the roof last I saw."

The rat skirted around me and rounded the corner, tea tray held firmly as though he was concerned I'd try and kick it out of his hand. My goal is to beat you, not to make an ass out of myself, I argued internally.

The floor creaked under the weight of someone walking. "Oh, Yuki. Where are you going with that tea?"

"I was bringing it to you." Shigure must have been going downstairs.

"Oh. Well. I appreciate that. But if you don't mind, I'm just going to go to bed. Thank you for your concern." I turned the corner and saw him facing Yuki, red-rimmed eyes above a forced smile. "Good night, both of you." He gave us a little wave, as if to say, I'm okay. His body language and common sense told me he would be anything but.

I was walking through the hall when I noticed that the little red light on the phone that meant it was in use was blinking. I knew I shouldn't eavesdrop, but I couldn't help myself. I picked it up holding it gingerly to my ear and quieting my breath as much as I could.

"...speaking."

"My, you're up late, Momiji."

"Ha'ri couldn't sleep, so I made him some tea!" the boy told him cheerfully. Shigure's next words came out somewhat forced.

"Well, isn't that nice. Speaking of Hatori, would you mind getting him for me?"

"Of course! Hold on a minute." The line went silent briefly. "Thank you Momiji, now, off to bed. Hello?"

"Ah, Ha'ri. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine. To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice?"

"Tohru." There was a near inaudible gasp.

"Isn't that the girl Yuki and Kyo w— go to school with?" That was the first time I'd ever heard Hatori stumble over his words. It was unnerving, coming from someone who always spoke so clearly and concisely.

"I know, Hatori. I don't... remember. But I know. They told me today."

"I'm sorry."

"It's a bit late to be sorry," Shigure said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than Hatori. "I wish I'd called you. I truly do. I wish I'd. I—" He paused when his voice cracked and cleared his throat. "I wish I hadn't forgotten."

Hatori hesitated before replying. "If it helps you any... I've never met a person who needed to forget more."

Shigure gave a humorless chuckle. "It doesn't, but I appreciate the attempt. Anyway, the reason I'm calling you... I feel like you would know; why was she so important to me? Don't get me wrong, it's miserable that someone who sounds like they shone like the sun itself is gone, but... it doesn't make sense to me that I would need your help to forget her, if it was just that."

"Are... are you sure you're ready to hear?"

"It may as well be now, Hatori."

One of them took a deep breath before Hatori said, "She could have broken the curse."

My eyes widened and I nearly dropped the phone. Tohru could have broken the curse. I could have been free. I could have been free because of her. My mind was spinning. I quickly put the phone back to my ear, hoping for more information.

"...was learning to accept and love him back. She could have broken the curse," Hatori repeated.

"Kyo had said that she was my hope. That makes more sense now."

"You don't think he knows, do you?"

"No, I don't."

Well, hell, I sure know now, I thought.

"I think he only told me what he noticed," Shigure added.

"It would be better if we knew for sure."

"You're right. I'll ask him."

"I do hope you'll be more tactful than just outright asking him."

"Of course not, Hatori, I was going to walk into his room and say, 'Hey, Kyo, you don't know that in order to break the curse, you need to fall in love with someone who loves and accepts you back, do you?'" Shigure's voice dripped with sarcasm. I was overcome with a sudden wave of dizziness.

"You've been spending too much time with Ayame," Hatori replied with a sigh. I could almost see him shaking his head.

"Maybe you haven't been spending enough time with him," Shigure retorted. Another sigh could be heard, followed by a quiet laugh and a much more sincere tone of voice. "Thank you for telling me about her, Ha'ri."

"I only hope you don't regret it."

I hung up the phone, deciding I'd heard enough. I could still hear Shigure's muffled voice through the walls. The floor felt like it was moving beneath my feet. I took a deep breath, and another, and another, and immediately sprinted upstairs, into my room, slamming the door behind me.

I couldn't think straight. Words flew through my mind, disjointed sentences that didn't make any sense as I began pacing. I threaded my fingers through my hair and growled, wondering how we'd been so close.

"This can't be real," I said to myself. "We were almost free... And Shigure, that selfish bastard! He only cared about her 'cause she could have broken the curse!" My vision was blurring. I tripped over my feet and fell back onto my bed. Instead of getting up, I let myself lay there, staring at the ceiling.

After a few minutes, there was a knock on my door, followed by a quiet, "Kyo?"

He doesn't know I know anything. "What?" I grumbled.

"May I come in?" Shigure asked, sliding the door open.

"You're gonna come in anyway."

He shut it behind him with a soft laugh. "I figured I'd be polite."

" 'Course ya did."

"Anyway, I wanted to ask you a question."

I sat up, leaning against the wall. "Yeah?"

"What did you mean when you said that Tohru was my hope?"

I forced myself to look down. "I dunno. Just that whenever she was around, you acted more like everything would be okay. We all kinda did."

There was silence; Shigure was undeniably trying to discern if I was lying, and my heart was thudding in my chest at the thought of him deciding I was. In all honesty, it wasn't a lie, after all — that had been what I'd meant, at the time.

"Yuki, too?" he asked after a moment.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? I don't pay attention to that damn rat unless I'm about to kick his ass," I replied, raising my voice. When he didn't answer, I added more quietly, "She made him smile, at least. I dunno if that counts."

He sighed quietly. "Alright. Thank you, Kyo. Good night." A thought came to mind and I acted on it before I knew I had. "I'm sorry?"

"Why shouldn't I know? How to break the curse."

Shigure froze. "I'm not sure what you mean," he said carefully.

"I heard you and Hatori talking. I didn't understand before, but I do now, and what I wanna know is, why shouldn't I know?"

Shigure sputtered for a moment before letting out a much heavier sigh than he had before. "It needs to be genuine, Kyo. You have to truly love an outsider, and they need to truly accept you, true form and all. You can't just say you love someone and that'll be that. That's why we didn't tell you. We didn't want you to feel pressured into 'loving' someone for the sake of breaking the curse."

I glared at him, knowing that that wasn't the only reason — it was just the one that sounded best. Before I could speak again, the door slid open harshly, and I could see Yuki's eyes shimmering in the dim light. "Are you saying that Kyo has to be the one to break the curse?" he growled between ground teeth.

Shigure stepped back and looked between the two of us, expression helpless. "There's another reason," he muttered under his breath. "Yuki, Kyo, please don't do this. My hands are tied. Akito knows, and — he made me swear not to discuss it with you. I shouldn't have said what I already have, and you," he said, pointing at me admonishingly, "definitely shouldn't have been listening to my phone call." He paused for a moment, glancing between the two of us. "You're not to speak of this with anyone. Understand? I don't want Hatori to have to erase your memories."

My eyes narrowed. Yuki agreed first, muttering a troubled, "Fine," before exiting just as suddenly as he'd entered.

"Kyo?" Shigure encouraged.

"Whatever. There's never gonna be another Tohru anyway." I turned away, but I could practically feel the pity in his gaze. "Go away, would'ya?"

The door closed without so much as a good night.