You're still here! That's exciting! Now for a sneak peek at a work in progress. Sometime in the future my sister and I will post an co-authored AU Fruits Basket. We've begun work on it this week and so far its going quite well, I think. It's Fruits Basket and Yukiru in Edo (1800s; you know in the time of the Shinsengumi and Choshu. A little before Rurouni Kenshin if you're familiar with that.) Fluffies shall abound! So put SeiSojiFan421 on Author Alert if you really want to know when it'll start its post run (we're posting it under her name). Expect it within a few months or earlier. Before the summer's out if we're lucky.
A translation that will come in handy: Je t'aime du fond de mon couer is French for I love you from the bottom of my heart. Or so I'm told. All I recognize in there is the word for 'heart', but at least now you know what I hope it means.
Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own Fruits Basket or its characters and all copyright goes to Natsuki Takaya.
~Eight years later~
Tohru idly wandered through the woods behind Shigure's house. Well, what used to be Shigure's house. He didn't live there anymore. No one did. She and Kyo were back in the area and while he was busy she was reminiscing over the past.
She blinked when she stumbled over what looked like a patch of weeds. "Oh! It's Yuki-kun's secret base!" She was happy to find something familiar, although not at all as she'd left it. One strawberry bush remained and the rest seemed to have been choked out.
She didn't have much time, but she knew that wouldn't leave without taking some sort of care for it. She hadn't seen Yuki in years but she knew he was doing well. He'd graduated college, obviously, and now he worked internationally for a Japanese company and wasn't home most of the time. She'd missed him over the years, but standing in their garden made her wish that he would show up and say something about needing to clean out the secret base so they could plant new seeds.
Inspired, Tohru knelt down and began weeding around the one remaining strawberry bush. Poor thing. Trying so hard to survive in a place where it was a struggle against the weeds to get the sunlight and water it needed. Her fingers brushed against something crisp.
She looked down. Paper? No, an envelope. What was it doing here? She picked it up, letting the dirt tumble away.
It… It had her name on it! But why was it buried? She opened it and pulled out five sheets of paper covered in Yuki's crisp and neat handwriting. Why had he buried it? When had he buried it?
Not sure what to expect, she started to read. At first it seemed like normal things but then what was written shocked her. He had loved her? Yuki had loved her? Despite feeling like she was reading something that was meant to be private, she kept going.
Ten minutes later, Tohru could only stare at the last lines, tears in her eyes. "I don't know what to do anymore, Tohru. I don't. When I see you with Kyo it hurts more than I thought possible. But I want you to be happy. As long as you're happy, I can deal with this pain. You'll never read this, I know, but if you do, promise me that you'll stay happy. That's all I want is for you to be happy and keep smiling even if it's not for me.
"You probably won't see me very often, because I know it will be easier if I don't see you. I'm sorry, Tohru, please forgive me. I know I'm being selfish, there isn't any other way. Forgive me. I love you."
What could she do? He'd been in so much pain and she hadn't even known! She couldn't leave Kyo; she'd never leave him. She wanted to help, but she didn't know how.
OoOoO
After she got home, the first thing she did was call him on his cell phone. Just as his letter had said, she hardly saw him and he was rarely even in Japan, but his cell phone was always a sure way to reach him.
"Moshi-moshi," he answered, his voice sounding dull and colorless. He'd never exactly sounded cheerful, but he hadn't ever sounded quite like this. "Sohma Yuki speaking."
"Yuki-kun, it's Tohru."
The response was immediate, his voice suddenly sounding much more like she remembered and more bright than before. "Honda-san, how are you?"
Tohru didn't remind him that she was 'Sohma-san' now and not 'Honda-san'. And somehow, the idea of him calling her anything but 'Honda-san' was slightly strange. "I'm doing very well." Remembering what he'd said in the letter, she added, "I'm happy."
"As long as you're happy," he said.
There was a brief silence before Tohru asked the question she'd called to ask him. "Are you in Japan? Or will you be anytime soon?"
"I'm in Germany actually, Honda-san."
"Oh," she couldn't keep the disappointment out of her tone.
Perhaps in response to the sadness in her voice he quickly said, "But I'm going to be in Tokyo tomorrow. I, uh—" There was a commotion on the other side that sounded like he was searching in his desk for something. It seemed to Tohru that he was only saying this on the spur of the moment.
Yuki suddenly came back to the phone. "I have a flight tonight."
"If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to have dinner with you while you're here," Tohru said hesitantly.
There was a silence and Tohru worried that she'd said the wrong thing. Finally he spoke again. "What about Kyo? I don't think he'd appreciate his wife having dinner with me."
"But you're my friend; I'm sure he won't mind." Actually, she was fairly certain that he would mind, but she wanted to talk to Yuki.
"I'll call you tomorrow, then?"
"Yes, tomorrow."
OoOoO
Tohru sat in the restaurant, waiting for Yuki. It was two days after her phone call to him; they'd postponed the dinner until the day after he got to Tokyo so that he wouldn't have too much jet lag. His letter was in her purse, and she dearly hoped that she wasn't making a mistake that could end up hurting him. What if he still felt same way he had when he'd written the letter? If he did, then—
"Honda-san?"
Tohru jumped at the sound of Yuki's voice. When had he gotten there? She stood up, not letting herself think before giving him a long hug. "I missed you, Yuki-kun," she said, stepping back. He looked different somehow. Older, for sure, but also drained and worn out. Not in the sense that he was tired, but like he'd taken all he could.
"I'm so glad you could come, Yuki-kun," she said, sitting down.
Yuki sat across from her, glancing over the menu, not quite looking at her. "I'm sorry I haven't been home."
"You've been busy." Tohru smiled. "Where all have you been?"
Yuki set down the menu, finally looking at her. "Everywhere, it seems. Right now, it's nice being able to speak Japanese without people looking at me as if it's all gibberish."
Tohru laughed a little, but quickly hid it behind her hand. "I'm sorry. "
"No, it's fine. It is humorous, I suppose."
The waiter came to take their order, writing down their requests on his notepad before leaving them.
"You've seen so much, and I've only ever seen a little of France—" She stopped, realizing that he probably didn't want to know anything about her trip to France. "Can you speak French now?"
The abrupt change of subject didn't go unnoticed, but Yuki answered her as if nothing had happened. "And English, Spanish, and I'm working on my German."
"That's so many! How do you keep track of them all?"
"Each time you learn a new language it gets easier. I'm not fluent by any means in any of them."
Tohru couldn't help but ask if he could say something for her. Yuki looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Je t'aime du fond de mon couer."
Tohru's eyes widened. "What does it mean?"
"Nothing important." Yuki suddenly looked down, once again not meeting her eyes.
What had happened to him? The Yuki sitting in front of her was completely different from the Yuki she'd known before. If she told him about the letter, would it only make it worse? "Yuki-kun, there's something I found recently."
"What do you mean?"
Tohru took out her purse, opening the clasp. When she slid the envelope across the table to him he froze. "H- Honda-san? Did you read this?"
She nodded.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "It… it was a long time ago. I didn't mean for you to find it."
"No, Yuki-kun, I'm sorry. I didn't even know you felt that way." She paused. "Do you still feel that way?"
"You're married, Honda-san. It doesn't matter anymore." His voice was quiet.
Tohru folded her hands in her lap. "It makes sense now. I mean, wh- why you left."
"Honda-san, please don't." Yuki leaned forward, burying his face in one hand. "I can't do this."
Then he did still feel the same way, even after all these years. What was it doing to him for him to be sitting here talking with her? If it had hurt to look at her when he'd written that letter, then what was he feeling now?
"I'm sorry," she said in a barely audible voice. She waited, watching until he returned to himself a little more. "I just thought that maybe you'd want it back."
"It isn't mine," he said, still not looking at her and not even reaching out to touch it. "If you want it you can have it. Otherwise, it belongs in the ground."
"But these are your personal feelings! I can't keep them like that and I'd hate to bury them again."
Yuki looked up at her, and the moment she saw the pain in his eyes she hated herself for asking to see him. For telling him that she'd found his letter. She hadn't even thought that it would hurt him this way, and now here she was unintentionally twisting the knife in even further.
"Honda-san, I buried that for a reason. It didn't work and nothing's changed." He looked so angry with himself and yet still it was the sadness that she saw most of all. "You've read it. You know that I didn't want to ruin your happiness by telling you any of this. Forget what you know. It's not important anymore; I'm always too late for things like this."
Their food came while Tohru was busy fighting away tears. She didn't want this! He was in emotional pain because of her and he had been for so long without her realizing it.
"You… you are happy, aren't you?" Yuki hadn't touched his food yet, in fact he didn't look like he was going to either.
"Yes, I'm happy."
Yuki began eating, a contemplative look on his face. "That's all I need, really. As long as you're happy, I'll be fine."
He didn't look fine, though. She had unintentionally destroyed him. He hardly seemed like himself anymore.
By the end of their meal, the letter still lay on the table between them. Yuki insisted that he pay, and Tohru didn't argue, letting him do something for her like the letter had said he enjoyed doing. "Yuki-kun, I think you should take it." Tohru gestured to the letter. "They're your personal emotions and that makes them precious. You should have them, not me."
"I'll only bury them again," he said.
When he did bury them, she hoped that what awaited him there would make him happy. She'd worked all day yesterday on it, and if he would smile just a little upon seeing it, she'd feel better. "I know. As long as you do it at the secret base."
Reluctantly, Yuki took the envelope from the table. "I don't know of a better place, anyway."
As they stood, Tohru couldn't help but give him another hug and she felt a little more at peace with herself when Yuki returned the embrace.
"Yuki-kun," she said, still wrapped in his arms. "Do you know the kind of flower that's always happy, and will always be there? It always comes back no matter what. It can even kill weeds."
"Is that supposed to be a riddle?" Yuki stepped away from her, his face amused. A step up from the hurt and pained face he'd been trying to hide all evening.
"No, not really. I just know I can't be what you want me to be, but I can be a daisy."
Yuki stared at her, confused. "What?"
"I'll be your daisy. Because you're a very important person to me, Yuki-kun. You are. You have a place in my heart that will always be yours."
"Thank you, Honda-san."
OoOoO
The next day, Yuki stared in wonder at his old garden. He'd come prepared to bury his feelings again, but he couldn't bear to dig a single hole the small piece of earth.
Covering every square inch of the secret base were white daisies, gently blowing in the wind.
*cries* It's probably just me crying, but if you did I want to hear about it! I've already begged for reviews in Part I so you know how I feel about them. Remember all that? *winks* Review!