Disclaimer: No, I don't own the ultra-wonderful Fruits Basket… just this cute idea.
Chapter 2 is here! Sorry for the long wait and thanks for your patience, everyone. : )

"Psst! Machi, get up!"

Machi wasn't sure of first thing she'd hear the next morning, but a part of her was hoping it would be Yuki. This voice didn't sound like Yuki at all.

"Machiiii! Come on, get up!"

Slowly, she pushed herself onto her elbows and cracked open her eyes. Kakeru was in front of her, a big grin on his face. She looked at the clock above the green room's door: 5:30 A.M.

"Nn," she groaned, "Kakeru, are you insane?"

"Just needed an audience for this," he said, and she noticed the air horn in his hand a second too late.

BBBBBRRRRK!!

Machi covered her ears and gritted her teeth. Kimi screamed and toppled to the floor with a thunk.

"What IS that?!" Machi managed to make out Nao's voice in the midst of the bedlam.

"RIIIIIISE AAAND SHIIIINE!" Kakeru yelled over the blaring noise.

So quickly she didn't even see him coming, Yuki appeared in front of Machi, whacking the air horn out of Kakeru's hand.

"You," Yuki said menacingly, glaring at Kakeru with a killer's eyes, "are a complete jackass."

The karate chop to the head that Kakeru received from him was even louder than the air horn.

___

flurry:

3. a sudden shower or snowfall with a gust of wind.
4. a short rush of vigorous activity or movement.

­___

Thanks to Kakeru, the entire Student Council was wide awake in the green room at 6:00 A.M.

"Were you trying to give us all heart attacks?!" Nao shouted, pointing at Kakeru. "Honestly, you belong in an asylum!"

"Hey, don't blame me, blame yourself," Kakeru said, to Nao's surprise. "You're the one who said we should wake up early."

"Not this early, you moron!"

"SHUT. UP."

All heads turned to Yuki, who was slumped in a corner, his hand over his face. The others could see him scowling at Kakeru and Nao through his fingers.

"President," Machi asked tentatively, "are you alright?"

His look softened considerably when he turned to her. "I'm sorry, I'm just… not a morning person. I should really go back to sleep."

"No way!" Kakeru said indignantly. "We have to go outside now!"

Nao looked at Kakeru as if he had suddenly grown an extra head. "You really are insane. Do you realize how cold it is out there, especially this early in the morning?"

"The School Defense Force is prepared for any sort of weather!" Kakeru argued.

"Kimi is hungry," Kimi complained. "Kimi is not going outside until she has had a nice breakfast."

"Kimi, come onnnn," Kakeru appealed. "We only have a few measly hours left here—"

"We have practically the entire day."

"—shut up, Chibi. So we should make the most of it! I mean, we can always eat on the way back or something." Kakeru's eyes brightened. "Besides, we'd get to see the freshest snow, before anyone else!"

That just gave Machi reason to disagree. "No," she said pointedly.

"But it's the only way we'll get to wear these!"

"Wear what?" Yuki asked, but Kakeru had already dashed to the blue room and back with a duffel bag.

"Preeesenting," Kakeru said as he made a big show of unzipping the bag slowly, "the uniform sweaters for the School Defense Force!"

Kakeru tossed a pink coat to Kimi, a yellow one to Machi, a red one to Yuki and clutched a black one for himself. All of the sweaters read ASB Student Council on the back, with School Defense Force below it in smaller print.

He turned to Nao and blinked. "Did we ever pick out a colour for you?"

Kimi put a finger to her lips and looked up. "Kimi doesn't think so,"

"Ah, well, there's this boring gray one here," Kakeru said as he threw it to Nao. "Suits you just fine!"

"Very funny," Nao said dryly.

"I was being serious."

"Kakeru, this might be the only worthwhile idea you've ever had," Yuki said, stopping their argument before it could begin. "How did you do this?"

"The Commander made them!" Kakeru beamed. "Just look inside yours!"

Yuki's face went ice cold as he turned his sweater inside out and saw a message embroidered in blatant purple thread.

Dearest Yuki,

I, your older brother, Ayame Sohma, have put every fiber of my being and talents into making this garment a symbol of the devotion of my love to you. This article of clothing which has the impeccable quality of excellent, first-class work out of a sense of my great responsibility and insurmountable care—

"I refuse to wear it." Yuki dropped the sweater to the ground.

"Whaa? You have to!"

"I'll wear the coat I had on yesterday."

"Come on! Pleeeease! Do it for meee!"

Everyone in the room just stared at him.

Kakeru pouted. "Okay, whatever. Do it for Machi!" he pointed at her and she blushed. "Machi, you want Yun-Yun to wear it, don't you?"

"I…" she started, and everyone's attention was on her. "I think it… would look… nice… on you," she finished.

She felt like a deer caught in headlights, wishing she could just disappear.

"Well," Yuki said as he picked the sweater up, "I'll wear it, then."

Machi looked up for a second and accidentally met his gaze. He was looking at her in the way that made her feel the pang again.

"Just change so we can gooo!" Kakeru whined, pushing Yuki towards the blue room.

"Ladies first," Kimi said, skipping past them both, through the blue room and into the bathroom.

"For shame," Kakeru looked at her disapprovingly as she shut the door. "Machi and Yun-Yun are ladies, too."

WHAP.

Kakeru clutched his head in his new position on the floor. "Yun-Yun, you should go to anger management."

"And you should go to hell, but you don't see us complaining."

"I'm complaining," Nao muttered.

"Shut up, Chibi."

"See, THIS is what I'm talking about!" Kakeru raised his gloved hands into the air, white snowflakes falling on his black sweater. "Isn't this great?"

Machi, Kimi and Yuki walked up to him, ski poles and skis in hand, watching the snowflakes fall in thin sheets onto the already well-coated ground.

"This is beautiful," Kimi said, taking a camera out of her pocket and snapping a picture of the ground and the falling snowflakes. She turned the camera to Yuki. "Smile, Yun-Yun!"

Yuki hesitated before smiling slightly, leaning on his ski pole. It was 7:30 AM, and he wasn't fully awake yet.

"I'm going to check out the slopes!" Kakeru said, already heading off.

"You ski?" Yuki asked.

"All the time!" Kakeru said, grinning. "I am a master of many different talents!"

"Including annoyance," Nao said.

"Whatever," Kakeru rolled his eyes. "Hey Kimi, if your family owns this place, you must be pretty good too, huh?"

"Kimi is a very advanced skier," Kimi smiled.

"How about you, Chibi?"

Nao shrugged. "Perhaps between intermediate and advanced."

"You can come with us," Kakeru declared. "Well, I know Machi can't ski worth a damn."

Machi glared at him.

"Can you ski, Yun-Yun?"

Yuki thought for a second. "The Sohma might own a place like this," he said, "but I hardly ever ski. I'm probably not very good."

"So you stay here on the beginner's slopes with Machi and teach her," Kakeru announced.

Nao raised an eyebrow. "If we're better, shouldn't we—"

"School Defense Force, away!" Kakeru flew down the slopes.

"Yay!" Kimi screamed happily as she followed him.

"Hey! I was talking to you!" Nao said angrily as he skied behind them.

Yuki blinked as he watched their figures get smaller and smaller until they eventually disappeared.

When he turned to Machi, he found that she had thrown her skis off to the side and was walking down the hill, trudging through the snow.

He caught up with her. Before he could even ask, she said "I don't want to learn to ski."

"Why not?" Yuki asked.

"I hate snow. I don't want to learn anything that has to do with it."

She was making very deliberate tracks now. "I wish it would all just go away."

Yuki stepped with her, his bigger footsteps right beside her smaller ones. "Things you don't like will never just go away."

They were halfway down the beginner's hill now, the skis forgotten behind them. Yuki watched her expression carefully, and then he continued. "They'll never go away, but there are things you can do to make a bad situation better. Like walking in the snow."

"Like walking," Machi repeated, "in the snow."

"… we can make footprints in it together, alright?"

"I'm sorry," Yuki said, interrupting her memory.

Machi looked at him. "For what?"

"If that sounded stupid," he said, running a hand through his hair.

Machi stared at him. His red sweater and his hair had little snowflakes haphazardly embedded in them, and she liked the look.

"It didn't sound stupid," she informed him.

He turned to face her, and she knew he was noticing the snowflakes on her, too.

"You have a lot of snowflakes in your hair," he said, brushing them out.

Machi flinched at his gentle touch, and suddenly Yuki realized how close he was to her.

"Sorry," he said as he moved away. On his face was an expression that Machi couldn't read.

She knew she was blushing, though. "President, why are you like that?"

"Like what?"

Machi paused. She was supposed to have thought that, not said it, but if she stopped now he would think she was being weird. "You're nice. You're kind. You're smart. Everyone likes you, but you don't seem to like yourself."

The silence after she said that was so long that she was about to apologize, but then Yuki responded. "I could say the same thing about you."

A moment passed before Machi said "A lot of people dislike me."

"I like you."

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and he looked down at her. His hand reached up and held the ends of her hair, moving down her neck and resting on her shoulder.

"What's important is that the people important to me like me. One of them is you," Yuki said. "Do you like me, Machi?"

The answer to this question should have been so obvious. Yes should have been Machi's answer—an answer she could give Yuki in a heartbeat.

She hesitated, though—he was so close to her, she couldn't think straight—and suddenly the snowfall became heavier, the winds got higher.

"What?" Machi held her hands to her eyes, and her hair danced in the wind.

"A flurry," he said, covering his own eyes. "A heavy one. We have to get back up to the resort."

The two of them trudged through the snow and wind. Machi's hair blew into her eyes, and she blinked rapidly. "This is why I hate snow," she heard herself say.

Yuki laughed—a rare sound that she liked. "We're almost there…"

"Yun-Yuuuun!" they could hear Kimi's voice from higher up.

"Machiii! Yun-Yuuun!" Kakeru was yelling. "If you're both still alive; I'll promise to never wake you up with an air horn again!"

"We're not dead, idiot!" Yuki called.

"Oh. Darn," Kakeru joked as he got on his skis and slid down to meet them. He took hold of Machi's hands and guided her up, Yuki close behind them.

"Yun-Yun, you're back!" Kimi said, her long, black hair blowing all around in the wind.

"Machi and I came back too, you know," Kakeru sighed.

"She doesn't care!" Nao called from the open door of the resort as Kimi nodded and waltzed inside. "Just get in here!"

"I don't want to! And Machi and Yuki agree with me!" Kakeru yelled. "We will face the snow and howling winds all night!"

Machi and Yuki walked through the door and Nao shut it behind them.

"Wait!" Kakeru ran to the door. "Let me iiin, Chibi!"

"I really don't want to," Nao said inside.

"But we'll be arrested if we don't," Yuki said. Nao sighed and let him in.

"Some friends you are," Kakeru pouted.

Machi looked through the window at the flurry outside. The wind and snow had quickly covered up the tracks that she and Yuki made.

But that was okay. Maybe they could make more footprints when it was over.

I really hope you liked it, guys. : ) As much as (or more than) you liked Chapter 1. :D

But I have a surprise for you! Because so many people requested this to be a multi-chapter fic (which couldn't happen because I'd only meant it to be a twoshot so that my main focus would be Images And Imperfections, my Naruto story).

But my surprise is that I have a compromise: A sequel. So, Flurry will have a sequel that you guys need to look out for. Add me to Author Alerts so that you can see when I put it up. I sent you all review replies (because you are OMG awesome) but I won't be able to do that anymore because of school.

So, stay tuned for the sequel, and please review! :D