Author's Note: This was an experiment to see if I could write an angsty story where not every part ended happily. The plot is probably a little cliche—a theoretical origin of the Sohma curse—but I tried to make it different. I decided to focus on Akito, Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo during this story, having them play starring roles in each part throughout various lifetimes.
I decided to call the story Leaves because it follows the cycles of the seasons as well as the different stages of the curse—from its genesis to its end. Even the chapters are named for the different stages of a leaf's life. To avoid confusion about who's who in what life, the first three chapters will be posted in reverse chronological order.
Also, so there's no confusion about the contents of the story, the rating is for violence and death. There are absolutely no sexual undertones here.
I don't know how many people will actually read this, but if you do, I'd really appreciate some feedback.
For anyone interested, here's a short summary of this installment: Autumn has always been a time of year that Akito Sohma despised. It dredges up terrible feelings of unrest that he cannot begin to identify. As another course of the dreaded season approaches, he finds himself begging to understand why he has always hated fall...
Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Baskets or its characters.
Leaves
Part 1: Ochiba
Akito Sohma shivered slightly, pulling the hanten higher on his shoulders. Fall was approaching rapidly, he knew. He could feel it in the very air around him, with every breeze that reminded him ever so slightly of the cold, bitter breath of death.
Autumn had been the season he reviled, even more than the bitter winter that often aggravated his perpetual ill health. Though he would never admit it to anyone, he found that there was a certain beauty to the coldness of winter that he enjoyed—something that harkened back to a simpler life.
Even spring and summer had their good points, but fall had absolutely no redeeming qualities in his mind. The vivid display of red, orange, and golden hues displayed by leaves that others seemed to find resplendent were all too easily likened to their death—the death of all things in nature, he mused. Cool breezes that hearkened to the winds that would soon bring snow on their currents chilled him to the bone, causing him to spend most of his time indoors, even when the weather was mild.
Days like this—cool, blustery days when all of the leaves of every tree on the Sohma estate seemed to have changed colors and clouds hung heavy overhead—were the worst. They were especially difficult to endure when he found himself alone, as he was at that moment.
Generally, he would have called upon one of his faithful Junikyu to join him for the afternoon. However, outside circumstances had prevented him from doing such. Shigure was off promoting one of his most successful novels to date, and Hatori was away, seeing to a bout of flu that had been plaguing Yuki. Akito might have spent the afternoon with Kureno, but he had seen neither hide nor hair of the rooster. Even the other occupants of Sohma house seemed to be otherwise occupied.
As another cool breeze touched his slender frame, the jade god figurehead shuddered ever so slightly. It was getting dark outside; soon, they would all return, whether they liked it or not. His Junikyu always came back.
They have to be faithful to me, he thought cynically. I am their god. Thanks to me, they are able to lead semi-normal lives. They don't even realize how much power I have over them…
For as long as he could remember, Akito had known that he was above all others. Everyone had always revered and reviled him simultaneously, blessed and cursed him in the same breath. He made the weight of their burden slightly easier to bear, but at the same time he controlled their very existence.
For that reason alone, many of them were glad to see that his life was edging closer to death. Despite the claims of that stupid, ugly girl that lived under his faithful dog's care, he knew only too well that all of his Junikyu would breathe a sigh of relief with his passing. They would be only too happy to see him go, hoping in vain that his successor would be of a different mind than he had been.
He chuckled sinisterly at the thought. The older ones—Shigure, Hatori, even that pathetic serpent—knew that there was an inherent insanity that seemed to plague the head of the Sohma family without fail; his predecessor had experienced it, as had any that had come before him.
Akito had not been subject to such bouts of madness all his life. He had been relatively balanced until the death of his beloved nurse at the age of four, his precious Hisae, who had been Yuki's predecessor. After that time, he had had terrible temper tantrums that escalated into vengeful displays of rage as he aged. Not even his own mother could control him as the fury of his temper grew.
Sometimes such shows were the only way to remind his Junikyu who their master was. If they were not shown periodically, they would often develop rebellious tendencies—as they had when that girl had entered their presence. Though he had generously decided to allow the ugly woman to continue living with his cousins, she was well aware of what would happen if she so much as made one misstep while in his family's custody. It gave him a sense of control he relished.
Only the threat of autumn's arrival shook his confidence. He would never allow anyone to know, but his hatred for the season masked a deep-seated fear of its very name. It all stemmed from a dream he had had since before he could remember, about the pale face of a young woman with sightless blue marbles for eyes, and cracked, bloody lips that moved with words he could not hear, but were felt just the same: "When next we meet on the twenty-first eve of autumn, I will bring your death…"
As a child, the nightmare would cause him to wake up screaming until his nurse came running to see what troubled him. When he recited the promise—more like a threat—he could vaguely remember seeing a flicker of recognition in her eyes before she went about comforting him, telling him that it was not real and that he had nothing to fear. All the same, he had never been able to completely shake the feeling that there was something ominous about the autumnal season.
Akito was brought out of his thoughts when he heard the sound of the shoji slowly sliding shut behind him. Glancing back, he was surprised to see the last person he would have expected.
His steel-gray eyes narrowed in annoyance as he demanded, "What are you doing here?"
It was that stupid, ugly girl he continued to allow to live in Shigure's house. He had allowed her presence at first out of amusement, to see what kind of impact she would have on his Junikyu. As of late, though, he grew ill-at-ease in her company; something about her made him nervous, reminding him vaguely of the strange slip that fall caused in his iron grip on what he believed to be his—and he hated to lose control.
A closer inspection of the girl allowed him to see that she seemed to be out of sorts. The disgustingly happy glint that usually lit her azure eyes was suspiciously absent, and there was no cheery smile plastered on her face. In fact, there was something almost cold about the way she was gazing at him, not saying a word.
Instead of answering him, the girl merely knelt before him, keeping her head carefully lowered while she folded her hands in her lap. Apparently, she was trying to seek an audience with him—how very presumptuous of her.
"I said, what are you doing here?" he growled. She offered him nothing but silence, a tactic that he believed grew tiresome.
Striding forward swiftly, he reached out to yank her head up by the hair. "I don't have times to play games, you ugly girl! Answer me!"
As he jerked her head back, he was startled by the lack of expression she continued to maintain. Her eyes were like lasers, looking right through him, as she quietly murmured, "Have you already forgotten, Ieyasu-san?"
At the mention of the unfamiliar name, Akito glimpsed something he thought he recognized for a brief moment, but it vanished in the blink of an eye. Still, the experience was unsettling for someone who loathed anything that was beyond his comprehension—because it was beyond his control.
His eyes narrowed further. "What are you talking about, you stupid girl?"
"I find it hard to believe you forgot so quickly," she muttered, eyes cast downward. "You kept your promise then, why should you have forgotten mine now?"
"Stop speaking in riddles!" he ordered angrily, shaking her head in an attempt to make her speak sensibly.
"You promised to destroy my happiness because you claimed I destroyed yours, Akahito-dono," the girl answered, using yet another foreign name.
"What are you talking about!" he wanted to know, seething for all that he did not understand the situation. "Who are you talking to!"
Instead of answering directly, she continued her statement, as if he had not interrupted her. "You said you would destroy me when the sun set on our eighteenth summer together. You kept your promise, Ieyasu-san, when you took my life."
There was a flicker of recognition once again as words unspoken entered his mind. "You destroyed my happiness, and so I shall destroy yours! If ever we should meet again, Tomoe Hamada, I will destroy you! As the sun sets on our eighteenth summer together, I will kill you!"
The image of the dying young woman appeared suddenly, her cracked, bloody lips moving as he heard the words of an all too familiar voice. "I hate you. You make us suffer this fate of your own volition. You had your revenge—and I will have mine, too. When next we meet on the twenty-first eve of autumn, I will bring your death, Ieyasu Sohma…"
Shaken by the alien words and memories, he released his grip on the girl. Even still, he refused to allow her to know how frightened he was. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I think you do, Akito-san," she whispered, her eyes glittering in the glow coming in from the light on the porch that led into the garden. "You killed me then, because you thought I had robbed you of your happiness. Now, I will take your life in compensation for my own…"
He watched in horror as she suddenly pulled out a gun. "No! I haven't done anything to you!"
"You destroyed me for my happiness," she told him quietly as she slowly loaded the gun and prepared to take aim. "I intend to do the same, Akito-san."
Akito's eyes darted around wildly as he screamed, "Kureno! Hatori!"
"Nobody can help you now, Akito-san," she whispered as she advanced on him.
He backed ever closer to the door, knowing that he should have been running as far from her as possible. But something prevented him from escaping the room. Something caused his feet to feel like lead weights that refused to move outside the boundaries of the enclosure. Something that instinctively knew that he would not survive this encounter.
His breathing was ragged as she drew ever closer and he felt his back hit the doorframe. He was so close—but he could not make his feet take the few steps necessary to stumble out onto the porch.
"You can't do this!" he breathed desperately. "You're too weak to kill me! You're just a stupid, ugly girl who sticks her nose in where it doesn't belong! You can't kill anyone because you're too nice!"
"That's what you said then, Ieyasu-san," she replied. "You said I was too cheerful and happy to kill anyone, ever. But you could never have realized you couldn't destroy anything. Do you know why? It's because I was never truly happy again, Akahito-dono. When Yasuhiko died, I died as well. Not even reincarnation can heal the wounds it created.
"All my life, I wondered why I was never truly happy." She paused a moment, as if reflecting. Then she went on. "But the moment I met you, from the first time I laid eyes on you, Akito-san, I realized the source of my sadness. I played the fool, getting close to Yasuhiko and the others again, all the while waiting for this moment. You believed my death then would bring you happiness, and you took the opportunity to fulfill your promise.
"Now I, too, will attempt to regain my happiness," the girl whispered, pointing the gun at his forehead. "You're happier now than you were then, Ieyasu-san. I want that same happiness next time as well. After all my waiting, I've come to fulfill my promise to you."
He wasn't sure when, but at some point, tears had begun to stream down his cheeks; even with the inflectionless tone she adopted, he could see that she was having the same reaction to her own words. And though he did not completely understand what she was trying to tell him, some part of his soul recognized it in a way that was beyond mortal comprehension.
Akito did not even know what he meant as he told her, "It was your brother who cursed us! If you want to blame someone, place responsibility where it is due!"
Blinking back fresh tears, the girl shook her head slowly. "It wasn't Aniue alone, Akito-san. You cursed us all, to be reborn time and again. We've all lived a thousand times in misery. Only when your blood is thinned to extinction shall our curse be lifted."
She turned the safety off with a soft click. For a long moment, Akito inhaled deeply. Refusing to show weakness, he closed his eyes as he distantly heard the sound of the gun firing and—
Tohru Honda watched blankly as his body slump to the floor, the hole in his forehead leaking blood. Tears continued to stream down her face as she watched him, whispering, "Forgive me, Akito-san, but we must end this cycle…"
She looked up expectantly as she heard the sound of frantic footsteps approaching. A moment later, the door was thrown open as a panicked Kyo shouted, "Tohru!"
When he took in the scene before him, he swallowed hard and resisted the urge to vomit. Eyes wide in horror, they flickered to the girl and the firearm she still held in her hand. "W-what're you—"
Shaking her head sadly, she slowly lifted the gun and aimed it at another target. "I'm sorry, Aniue…"
His crimson eyes were impossibly large as he sputtered, "Tohru—no—!"
Too late. She fired the gun.
The Junikyu cat watched in horror as his best friend crumpled to the ground in a heap and the gun clattered from her hand. She'd shot herself in the temple.
Rushing over to her, he pulled her limp body into his arms. He knew she was dead, but he couldn't simply believe that she would shoot herself. Feeling tears forming in his eyes, he choked back a sob as he whispered, "Damn it! Why, Tohru?"