"Eh?" I asked, surprised.
"Shigure, don't scare her. She just got here," Yuki Sohma said. I looked over at him. He had his eyes closed, obviously irritated. His voice was like a girl's also. You wanted to laugh hysterically, but you hid it. All that came out was a retarded cough, causing the five look over at you.
"Oh my," Tohru said, getting up and putting a hand on my forehead. "Are you sick, Ney-chan?"
I shook my head as a reply. "I assure you, I'm fine."
Tohru moved her hand away from my forehead. "But your temperature's so high," she replied, walking off to what I thought was a kitchen.
After a while of silence, the orange-haired-kid-whose-name-I-forgot stared at me. "Hey, did you say you're last name's Walker?" he asked.
Yuki Sohma spoke before I could reply. "You never listen, stupid cat."
This caused the dude to tense up a bit, clenching his teeth. "Whatever, stupid rat!"
You laughed. This caused the two to stop quarreling and look at you.
"What's so funny?" Kyo said.
I shrugged. "Cat and rat rhyme. You two are very alike."
Kyo got up and walked towards me, unusually calm. He slapped me right across the face, something no one ever did to me.
"Don't ever say anything like that again," he said coldly. Everyone fell quiet.
I started to cry. Not because I was a little princess, but because I was trying to be friends with them, and I ruined it all.
"Don't mind him, Ney-san," Yuki Sohma said. He smiled, but I knew he was just as mad at me as Kyo was. I didn't even bother taking time to get up, I ran out of the open paper door, tripping a bit. I ran until I knew no one was following me. Panting, I decided to walk the rest of the way, until I came across a pond.
I stared at the beautiful pond, a small waterfall leading water tumbling into the big pond. The water was kind of greenish, and there was no sign of life within it. I sat down on one of the big rocks surrounding the pond, completely amazed by it all.
I looked over to Yuki Sohma sitting down on the same large rock I was on. I stared at him.
"How did you—" he cut me off.
"You shouldn't run away like that, Ney-san, with your fever and all." I turned my head away from him, crossing my arms over my chest like a little child.
Ignoring his parent-like concern, I asked, "What's so bad about being similar to another person?"
"Kyo-kun and I," he paused. I looked over at him. He was smiling, "we are nothing alike. I guess he just got mad because no one ever said that."
I stood up to face him. "You might not realize it, but I'm sure everyone around you thinks it. No offense to you, but you two are more alike than you give each other credit for."
This caught Yuki off-guard. He stared at me like if I were Bigfoot, or a ghost. I turned around to stomp off, and my foot touched the water, making me slip towards it, too.
"Ney-chan!" Yuki called, tackling me in. There was a poof noise and we reached the water. I swam up to surface, realized that Yuki was nowhere to be found, and I dove back down to look for him. There was a mouse passed out floating in the water, so I brought it up to surface to save its life. I looked around in the big pond for what seemed like a half of an hour. I gave up, reaching the surface again and crawled out, sobbing and crying.
'This is it,' I thought, 'I'm going to go to jail for committing homicide. How am I going to tell the others? 'Hey guys, sorry I lost your best friend Yuki in a pond, here's a gift basket!'?'
"Ney-chan?" a little voice called, tugging on my borrowed long sleeve shirt.
I looked over at the mouse. "Oh god, I'm going crazy!"
The mouse grew an irritated face. "Not quite." He pointed at himself. "It's me, Yuki."
I picked up the mouse and ran until I reached the Sohma house. I threw open the door and showed everyone the mouse.
"Yuki turned into a mouse!" I screamed. They all stared at me, then Kyo busted into a fit of laughter. Shigure and Tohru laughed nervously and looked at each other as if coming up with a plan to cover this all up.
In-between laughs, Kyo said, "She," laugh, "called," laugh, "Yuki a," laugh, choke, "mouse!" Mouse Yuki squirmed.
"Isn't he a mouse?" I asked, confused. Tohru shook her head.
"He's a rat."
Then you remembered the fight earlier.
Yuki Sohma spoke before I could reply. "You never listen, stupid cat."
This caused the dude to tense up a bit, clenching his teeth. "Whatever, stupid rat!"
"But does that mean that Kyo can turn into a kitty?" I asked. "And why only these two?"
"Yeah, Kyo can turn into a cat!" Tohru said, smiling. "And it's up to Shigure if he can tell you or not."
Shigure laughed nervously. "Kyo-kun, Yuki-kun, and I are Sohmas, correct?" I nodded. "Well, we're a part of the Chinese zodiac. Which ever animal from zodiac we were cursed with, we can transform into them." I nodded again.
"What does that have to do with a stupid cat? I've never even heard of a cat in the zodiac."
Mouse Yuki snickered. But in the middle of his snickering, there was a cloud and that same poof noise. Shigure ran off somewhere, Tohru turned her head away, and Kyo followed. I looked over at Yuki as the cloud disappeared and screamed, running over to the other side of the room and covering my eyes.
After a good five minutes…
"Alright, you can open your eyes now," Shigure announced. Yuki was in a sweater and slacks. He looked over at me sympathetically and I smiled awkwardly.
"Anyways…" Shigure said, breaking the silence in the room.
"There are twelve zodiac animals. There are only three of you. How does that work?" I asked.
"There are nine more Sohmas with the same ability. We transform if we hug or get hugged by the opposite sex, or if we're extremely weak."
I looked at him suspiciously. "I'm on Punk'd, aren't I?"