Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket

AN: Thanks to Wikipedia for the article on Uo I used for reference writing this fanfiction! Also thanks to Ash for her constant pokes to write more. Italics is flashback if you can't tell.

The Red Butterfly

Summery: When Yuki asks Uo how she met Tohru, Uo wonders who she needed more: Tohru or Kyoko

"Uo…How did you met Ms. Honda?" Yuki asked.

Tohru had got it into her mind to have a slumber party in the living room, so Uo, Hana, Kyo, Yuki and Tohru had all squished their sleeping bags into the room. Kyo was one end, then Tohru was squished between her two best friends. Yuki had scored the couch, because Uo had insisted that the Prince could not possibly sleep on the floor.

"Haven't I answered that before?" Uo sighed but continued anyway. "I heard that Kyoko Honda was in town and had a daughter that went to my school. Accidentally I bumped into Tohru one time…"

Yuki was lying on his side with one arm cushioning his head and the other hanging down beside the couch. Suppressing a yawn at the late (or very early) hour, he replied sleepily, "Then how did you become friends with her?"

Uo shrugged and yawned as well, stretching her hands above her head and lying on her back. Her voice was faint as she answered though the yawn. "I began to see them both… Tohru and Kyoko… more and more. One time the gang caught up with me and Kyoko saved me."

"That's right. Honda's mum was part of a gang too, wasn't she?" Uo hummed in response. "Were they much different? You would have thought that being part of a gang Kyoko would be more… ruthless?"

"Kyoko… She was different on a whole new level. She was still The Legendary Red Butterfly, but she was also a mother, and a kind person. Even if it was only for a short time, I do not regret meting her. If I had not met Kyoko I would have died when the gang came after me… If I had not met her I would not have had the courage to want more for myself." Uo turned a suddenly skeptical eye on the boy above her lying on the couch. "Well that was revealing, wasn't it? Why did you ask in the first place?"

"Because it was late and… I was curious." Yuki rolled onto his back. "Ugh… Too late. Goodnight, Arisa."

"It's Uo. Goodnight, Prince."

Yuki smiled, realizing what she was implying: If he called her Arisa he would get the 'Prince' treatment. He lay awake, suddenly realizing that he could not sleep. A thought came to him and he spoke it aloud without thinking, something the purple haired teenager did not do very often. "Uo? Then what is Tohru to you? If Kyoko's strength meant so much to you, don't you ever wish that Tohru was a little more like her mum?" Suddenly he realized how cynical that statement and hoped that the words only reached deaf ears. "Sorry, that was harsh. Tohru has so much kindness to her, nobody could help loving her."

However Uo's blue eye darkened in the darkness, realizing the second comment for what it was: a cover-up. It got her thinking.

"Uo? Uo are you ok?" Hana asked in her quiet, spaced out voice.

"Huh?" The blond teenager blinked a few times before answering, "Oh, I'm fine. Just… thinking."

Her friend didn't question, just nodded and kept on walking. As she and Hana had the same class together next they were walking to the classroom together. They sat in their usual seats at the back of the classroom as the teacher called the roll and Kyo joined them a few minutes later, rolling his eyes at the teacher's screeching about his being late.

"Hey." He flung his bag down behind the chair and flopped into the seat.

Uo poked him, smirking. "You bad ass. Late again." Kyoko would have done something like that. I would have. Tohru would never be late for a class if she could help it.

Kyo just snorted and pulled out his math book. "Not like you don't do the same all the time." Uo blinked as he stated her thoughts out loud.

A few minutes into the lesson Hana passed Uo a note reading, 'Your electric waves are confusing, Uo…'

Checking Kyo did not realize what was going on, she quickly scrawled back, 'Can't keep anything from ya, can I?'

Hana nodded with a smile. 'What's on your mind then?'

Uo did not reply till the end of the lesson, and Hana did not say anything, giving her friend a chance to think over her answer. Finally, in the locker room, when everyone else had gone to lunch, she sighed. "Hana… Why is Tohru so special to us all? What is it about her that makes her so… I don't know."

"You already know why," Hana took out a comb and hair tie from her locker and started to plait her long black hair, as she had let it out so as to 'concentrate more effectively' in math. "Tohru does what you and I can't in that she can see all the good things about a person and instantly forgive their bad points. She is not a particularly strong person in that she will take on the legend her mother left of the Red Butterfly, but…"

Hana finished tying her hair and looked at Uo closely, almost certain that she knew what her friend was thinking from her waves and that one question. "She is like Kyoko that she is a loving and caring person. Everyone needs someone like that in their lives."

They held eye contact for a while before Hana smiled, "I miss Kyoko too, but her daughter… she is defiantly worthy of the name Honda."

Their conversation ended when Kyo came storming into the room holding his side and muttering darkly about the 'damn rat...' The black haired girl waved to the two of them before gliding out of the room while Uo finally got around to concentrating on putting her books away.

"Oi Kyo! Got beat again by Yuki?" Used to their unusual nicknames and Kyo's attitude after getting beat by Yuki, she already knew the answer to the question. She received a glare in turn that she could not help laughing at. Kyo's disgruntled expression was too good to miss. "You don't need a hand, do ya? I used to be part of a gang you know." She pulled out the lead pipe that seemed to scare everyone so much from her locker and gave a sunny smile.

Kyo just grunted and told her that he would get Yuki back someday… "Besides which, you aren't in the gang anymore, and I don't want you to be either. Girls don't have to be so tough."

He got a thunk over the head for that comment, but… the little bugger was right. She did not have to be so strong and at the moment. Kyoko was a great person and was missed, but at the moment, she needed this; this normality in her life. Not a legend, just… Simply being able to laugh. Kyoko had given that to her.