DISCLAIMER:
I do not own Fruits Basket. I wish I did, but I think we can all agree that Ms. Takaya is best for that job ;)
Read, review, and enjoy .
Kyo walked into the empty house, with its hardwood floors shining from their recent polish, reflecting the golden streaks of light streaming through the house from the sunset outside. He sighed and walked over to the glass sliding doors and opened one. He leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, and allowed his mind to empty of everything that he'd been worrying about. Mortgage, taxes, gas, groceries…money, money, money. Why did everything always come down to money? Kyo sighed again and gazed at the outline of the dojo, not far in the distance. After he and Tohru had graduated high school, Kyo had started working at the dojo while they lived in an apartment to try and earn enough money to buy a house. Two years later they had, and now they were here, and…well, actually, Kyo thought, I'm the only one here right now, so…. Where's Tohru? Kyo closed the door and started up the stairs. They had come here together to try and figure out a furniture plan, but he supposed that this empty house was also a place to think. Given, they had gotten a fair amount done- the kitchen and the master bedroom- his and Tohru's bedroom- had all the furniture moved in, and that was a fair day's work.
As Kyo came to the top of the oak staircase, another small window on the landing shone a rainbow across his face. He squinted against the light, and didn't hear the light footsteps descending the staircase behind him. "Beautiful, isn't it?" asked a soft voice behind him. Kyo, being the cat that he was, jumped in surprise. He wasn't used to being snuck up on. Tohru laughed, and Kyo smiled and took her in his arms. He pulled away to kiss her, but stopped and trailed his thumb under his wife's cheek. When he took it away, his thumb was wet with salt water.
Kyo looked at Tohru in concern, and his eyebrows bunched together. "What's wrong?"
"Hmm?"
"You've been crying."
"I have?" Tohru asked in slight surprise, and reached up to feel the wetness under her eyes for herself. "Oh."
"Tohru…what's the matter?"
She shook her head. "I'm not quite sure. I guess it's all just happening so fast. I mean, I know it's been two years, but…within those recent years, we've gotten married, Yuki's gotten married, even Shigure has gotten married, we've graduated college, and then we bought a house, and now… I just… it seems so sudden."
He studied her eyes. He could understand her position- a lot had happened in the past two years, it was true- but there was something he wasn't telling her… "Tohru, you do realize that within only three years you discovered that my family was a part of an ancient curse, could transform into animals within seconds, talk in our animal form, had special effects with the animal that we were, and then discovered that our roots into this country and its history dug deeper than anything you had ever learned….and then, to top it all off, you helped set us free. You met our kind of God, Tohru. You married the cat. I know that a lot of this is sudden, but that's not really what's bothering you, is it?"
Tohru gave a little laugh. "You can read me too well." Kyo smiled a small little smile, a hint of sadness on the edge of his lips. "I guess….it's not so much the others, the outside people and events and feelings, as it is us."
Kyo felt a little shiver run through his body, misinterpreting what his wife was saying. "What's wrong with us?"
"Not with us," Tohru assured, "Just with…us."
Kyo cocked his head. "I don't understand."
Tohru sighed. "I don't either. I guess… We've just changed so much, the both of us and individually, too. I look back at myself like I was in high school and I see a little girl, so different, so unafraid of the world and so happy all the time. I see a girl who saw the best in everything and everyone, who wasn't afraid to do something if it was right. Now I look in the mirror, and it's scary how much I've changed. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm afraid of what's out there. I don't look at people before I run away, and I'd do the wrong thing over the right thing to preserve myself. I'm…I'm not who I used to be, and that scares me, that the girl you fell in love with is…gone." She was crying again, the occasional tear slipping out.
Kyo looked at her and sighed. "Tohru… I think you need a little help remembering yourself. You weren't unafraid of the world. You knew its threats and its malformities and you realized that those were dangerous- you just chose not to let the bad things touch you. You weren't always happy. There were times when, like anyone, you were sad. When, just like anyone else, you doubted yourself and the world and your life, because you were a teenager and you had just lost your mom and discovered a huge, impossible secret. You chose to be happy because there was more to be happy about than there was to be sad about, and because happy was better. And you still see the best in everyone. You still do what you think is right. You just do it in a way that's different from how you used to. You analyze, you don't judge, and you just go about things in a way that's more sensible and makes more sense. And you can just stop right there with the 'I'm-not-the-girl-you-fell-in-love-with' business, because that's not true. You're Tohru Ho- Tohru Sohma", he smiled, "my wife, the love of my life, the only woman that I'll ever love and whom I'll love forever."
He took her in her arms and hugged her, and the last of the light from the dying sunset filtered through the window as Tohru realized her husband was right. She hadn't changed for the worse. She had just grown older.
"I love you, too," she whispered into his ear.
He smiled.
"And you know," she said softly into his ear in a jokingly seductive tone, "I just finished arranging the bed."
Kyo laughed as a shiver ran down his spine, and he swooped his wife up into his arms. She gave out a little gasp and then a laugh to match his, and carried her up into their room and closed the door behind them.
Hehehe…maybe they'll try out the bed…*wink, wink* but that should set the scene for our next chapter, I think ;) Anyway, this'll obviously be a multichip now, but I've got my trig final in two days and I'm going to epically fail it but I think I'll go and study now to try and fail a bit less. Review, please And thanks for reading!
