Hmm...no reviews yet? That's alright. I'll just keep posting and hope that it stirs up someone's interest :) Thanks to those of you who are reading! I'd love to hear what you think! Until then, here's Chapter 3!

-III. The Past Does Some Haunting-

We met Sachiko outside the school at the end of the day, and we were going to head off to work, when we ran into Yuki again.

"Oh, Yuki, it's you! I mean... Hi," Miki said.

Sachiko and I looked at each other curiosly. What was up with her?

Yuki chuckled. "It seems we're beginning to make a habit of bumping into each other. Why don't we walk home together?"

"Okay!" I said happily. Work was right on the way anyway.

"It was fun meeting your cousin this morning," Sachiko said. "He was funny. And those little rocks he made were really cute."

Yuki smiled a little. "I'm glad you liked him, Miss Fujioka." Then he looked at me. "Miss Oshiro, I thought I heard you say something about how you wished there was a Year of the Cat...?"

"Oh," I said, blushing a little. "It's an idea I had when I was a kid. Silly, really..."

"Cats," Yuki said disgustedly. "Useless, foolish creatures."

We all stopped walking, stunned by his statement.

He stopped as well. "Tell me, Miss Oshiro, how much do you know about the Chinese Zodiac?"

"Well..." I said cautiously, "I know the old stories my mom told me... I guess not much."

"Did you know it started as nothing more than a simple calendar? A way to mark the passage of time? It wasn't until later that it was used for things like astrology and fortune telling."

"Oh," I said. "So I guess the story about the animals isn't true then?" I hadn't ever really thought it was true, but it was sort of nice to think so.

"No, it isn't," he said. "I don't know when or why the animals were brought in, but never in the history of the Zodiac has the Cat ever been included. Yet, as the story is told, it still yearns to be accepted. Like I say, a truly foolish creature."

We stood in silence for a moment.

"Sounds like you really don't like cats," Miki said.

We were surprised that she had spoken, but we were more surprised at Yuki's expression. It was like he wanted to laugh at a joke, but didn't because he knew we wouldn't understand.

A gust of wind blew some leaves off of the tree we were standing under. Yuki leaned closer to Miki and caught a leaf before it hit her face.

"I noticed before that you were starting to look a bit pale, Miss Oshiro," he said, looking at me. "You should really take better care of yourself." He dropped the leaf to the ground, and started walking away. "Perhaps we'll bump into each other again tomorrow..."

A silence hung over us. It felt like minutes, but I knew it couldn't have been that long.

"Very mysterious, that one," Sachiko said. She looked at me. "You do look a little pale..." She tried to feel my forehead, but I pushed her hand away.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. We've got too much work to do! Let's go." I'm sure Mom had it much worse, I thought as we started walking away.

Then we noticed that Miki wasn't following. She was still staring at the spot where Yuki had been standing only moments ago.

We shook our heads.

"Come on, Miki," I said.

"Time to go to work," Sachiko said.

We each grabbed one of her arms and pulled her off to the office building.

;;;;;

She didn't really regain "consciousness" until we got inside the building.

We changed and got right to work. We mopped, scrubbed, took out the trash, whatever we could do. If it didn't move, we cleaned it.

Some of the other workers called us the hardest workers on the payroll, but we believed in earning our money. It wasn't right to get something for nothing.

We dragged ourselves home that night, completely exhausted. Again.

I'm not sick, I kept telling myself. Even if you feel warm, you don't have a fever. You don't have a fever. You don't have a fever.

3_3_3_3_3

"Ah," Shigure sighed. "We keep eating out like this, and I'll have to buy a bigger robe."

"So why don't you do the cooking?" Yuki asked annoyedly.

"Whenever I make dinner, you complain," Shigure answered.

"Pickled radish and curry is not dinner," Yuki said, clearly disgusted by just the thought of that particular dish. "I think one complaint is more or less justified."

Shigure chuckled. "Yuki, you've got a good head on your shoulders, but I just don't think you're cut out for housework. Let's get a housekeeper?"

"No." Yuki's tone would make one think that Shigure had asked this question before, and that Yuki was tired of putting up with it.

Yuki stopped walking. "Hold up," he said.

He and Shigure looked off the path, through the trees, and saw three familiar figures.

Yuki cocked his head to the side wonderingly. "Miss Miyamoto? Miss Fujioka? Miss Oshiro?"

They were headed towards a tent.

"Are they...living in that tent?" he wondered aloud.

Shigure made no answer.

3_3_3_3_3

We collapsed onto our sleeping bags, sighing heavily.

"I am going to leave a wake-up call for next summer," Miki said, running a hand through her dark hair.

"Me, too," Sachiko said.

"We can't," I said.

They both sat up and looked at me.

"Miki, you and I still have that paper for English to write. And Saki, didn't you say you had an assignment due for History?"

They both groaned and flopped back on their pillows.

"We have to keep our grades up. That was part of the deal we made in getting to stay together."

Miki groaned again. "Sometimes I really hate school."

We heard something that sounded a lot like footsteps outside the tent, and we all sat up, our backs stiff.

"Did you hear that?" Sachiko whispered.

Miki and I nodded.

We quietly moved to the front of the tent.

"What if it's an animal?" Miki asked.

"Well, we won't know unless we look," I said.

I put my hand on the zipper, trying to convince myself to just open the door. It's probably just a chipmunk, I told myself. And with that knowledge in my head, I unzipped the tent.

The three of us came face-to-face with none other than Yuki and Shigure.

Our eyes widened, and we all looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

Then Shigure burst out laughing.

I can't speak for Miki and Sachiko, since it was dark, but I knew that my own face was bright red and burning.

"Shigure, don't you think you're over-doing it a little?" Yuki asked.

;;;;;

After a lot of persuading on Yuki's part, we were convinced to go back to their house with them.

We knelt down in front of their table and they knelt across from us.

Shigure was still sniggering, his hand over his mouth (which completely failed to hide his overwhelming amusement).

"So, how long have you three been living out there?" Yuki asked.

We all shrugged.

"A little over a week, maybe?" I said.

"Well, that explains it."

We waited for him to continue.

"All of this land is Sohma property. It seemed odd that we'd suddenly have a new neighbor."

Great, their family is prestigious, I thought. That just helps us so much.

"We're sorry," Sachiko said. "But please...can't you just let us stay there a little while longer?"

"It'd only be for a few more weeks," I said, "and then we'd go!"

"We don't have much money, but we can pay you," Miki offered. "Please let us stay?"

"Those woods aren't too safe."

We all looked at Shigure, surprised that he had suddenly stopped laughing.

"You've got wild animals, landslides, even the occasional weirdo prowling around. It's not too safe for three young girls such as yourselves to be out there."

"So, you're done laughing now?" Yuki asked.

"Don't worry about us!" I said, standing up. "We're already used to all the bugs, and we... Oh..." I suddenly felt very faint, and slumped back to my knees, Sachiko and Miki catching me.

"Kiku!"

I suddenly found Yuki at my side as well. "A fever," he said, gently touching his hand to my forehead.

"You worry too much," Miki hissed at me.

"Shut. Up," Sachiko hissed back at her. "Don't make her feel worse than she already does."

Okay, I told myself, so you are sick.

"Ice! I'll get ice!" Shigure said, jumping up. He slid back a door that I assumed led to a kitchen, but it could've been a garbage dump from what I saw. "It's in here...somewhere..."

Miki snorted once. "And you call the woods unsafe?"

"Well, relatively speaking," Shigure said, smiling nervously.

Suddenly, his smile faded, and he looked very serious.

I thought I heard a wolf howling in the distance.

"There, you hear that? There's just been another landslide."

Sachiko narrowed her eyes at him.

I, with great effort, raised an eyebrow.

"How can you tell?" Sachiko asked.

"Call it instinct," Shigure answered.

"Was it close?" Yuki asked from his place in front of a cabinet with medicine in it.

"Close to the tent- I mean, not at alllll!" he sang.

I suddenly found my energy again and ran out of the house.

Miki and Sachiko were right behing me, and Yuki and Shigure were some distance behind us. Like I said before, we were the three fastest girls in our schools; it took a lot of stamina to keep up with us.

We stopped when we got to our tent. Or...at least, where it had been. We stared in horror at the gigantic mound of dirt, rocks, and plants that now covered our home.

"My mom's picture was still in there!" I threw myself on the ground and started clawing at the dirt. "Mom! I'm coming, Mom!"

"Stop," Sachiko said, grabbing one of my arms.

Miki grabbed the other. "It's okay, Kiku."

"No!" I cried, ripping my arms from their grasp.

I looked up, my vision blurred by my tears, to find Yuki kneeling next to me.

"They're right," he said.

"You're mother's probably glad it wasn't you in there. All of your parents," Shigure said, looking at Sachiko and Miki as well.

They looked at me sadly, and I felt fresh tears stinging my eyes.

"We'll come back when it's light, okay?" Shigure asked.

I sniffled and nodded.

Miki and Sachiko each took one of my arms again, and we slowly made our way back to Shigure's house.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, breaking the silence that before had only been broken by the sounds of twigs snapping under our feet, and various creatures cooing at us from their hiding places in the trees.

They smiled sadly at me.

"What are friends for, if not to get mad at every once in a while?" Miki said.

"You're one to talk," Sachiko said. "You blow up every day."

"I do not!"

"Do, too!"

I laughed, and their arguing turned into laughter as well.

;;;;;

Shigure and Yuki allowed us to stay the night, and set us up with blankets and mats on the living room floor (after we moved the table, of course).

We thanked them yet again for letting us stay, and they assured us that it was no trouble. Then we all said goodnight, the lights were turned out, and the door was shut.

I laid down and curled up under the unfamiliar blankets, feeling strangely comfortable.

The three of us lay in the dark for a while, soft moonlight streaming in through a window behind us.

I sensed that neither Miki nor Sachiko was asleep, and I think they knew I wasn't either.

"They really are nice, aren't they?" Miki asked quietly.

"I'll say," Sachiko said.

I merely nodded, even though I knew they couldn't see it in the dark.

"It's definitely better than the tent," Sachiko said.

"Heck yes," I mumbled tiredly.

I heard Miki shift under her blankets, and I turned my head to see her propped up on her elbow. "I think Yuki's still looking for some ice, Kiku. I can go ask..."

"No," I said. "No, it's alright. I just... I don't want to be too much trouble."

"You always say that," Sachiko said. "And then you end up being the most trouble."

I laughed softly and I turned to see her smile.

"Well, I, for one, am tired," Miki said. "It's a lot to happen in one day."

"Mm-hmm," Sachiko and I said together.

We were silent for a moment.

"We...we lost our home again," I said.

More silence.

"Hey, we'll be okay," Miki said.

"You bet we will," Sachiko agreed.

"Mm-hmm," I said. "It [i]is[/i] sad. But...I guess not as sad as other things."

We all knew what that meant. But still we talked.

"Like what?" Sachiko asked.

I exhaled. "Like...not telling Mom 'Be safe' on the day she died."

They had both heard this story a million times, and I had heard their stories of that day a million times, but it seemed like none of us ever got tired of retelling and rehearing.

"I said that every morning. 'Bye, be safe.' Except that morning. I didn't say it. I had a test, so I stayed up studying almost the whole night."

They always laughed a little at that part, remembering how studious I had been, and was still.

"When it was time for Mom to go to work...I didn't wake up. I couldn't tell her to be safe."

My voice grew tight, and tears stung my eyes again.

"And she never came home."

None of us got to say goodbye that day. But we all had our own takes on it.

Sachiko's parents had been in the car with my mom. They all worked together. Sachiko had been out running that morning, just like she had once done every morning. Her heartache lay in the fact that her run had led her right past the crash site. She always told us that it was an image she would never forget, no matter how much she wanted to. She said she would never forget what she had felt near that place: pain, sorrow...death.

She almost never cried, but that day...that day it seemed like she would cry until there was not a drop of water left in her entire body. After that day, she vowed she would never cry again. She would feel sadness, but never again would a tear leave her eye. I think it was because she said there could never be a greater sadness than seeing a scene of death and horror like the one she'd seen. So, to her, nothing was worth the tears after that.

Miki carried a different kind of heartache: guilt that she chose to expel by anger. Her birth parents had died when she was a baby, leaving her grandparents (who she had always referred to as her parents) to raise her. They had gone to the grocery store that morning for something that she had asked them to get.

She always told us, in her usual angry tone (but mixed with tears), that if she hadn't asked them to go to the store, they wouldn't have been in the accident. That none of them would've been. They'd still be with us. It was after the accident that she lost control of her temper more and more often...because of the guilt that she felt obligated to carry on her shoulders. Even though we told her over and over that none of us had any way of knowing what would happen that morning, she still just shook her head, thinking that the blame was all her own.

The accident changed us all. That night, we talked about it all over again, Miki and I very near tears.

We talked about how we had considered quitting school and working, but our various guardians had wanted us so badly to finish school.

My mom never finished school, but she had said that she always wished that she had.

So I stayed in school for her. I wanted to make her proud of me. I wanted to do what she had always wanted me to do. She worked so hard, and she did it all for me. Because that was how much she loved me. She did so much for me, and I couldn't even get up to tell her "Be safe" when she was walking out the door. Not even that one little thing. After all that, I figured the least I could do for her was finish high school like she wanted me to.

Miki and Sachiko told me that they would've dropped out, had it not been for me. I still don't really know if that's true or not. With Miki and Sachiko, it's very hard to tell.

So, I told myself as I was drifting off to sleep, I won't let a little fever get in the way of that. I can't give up because...of a...fever...

3_3_3_3_3

Shigure blinked away a few tears himself as the girls' talking quieted and they went to sleep.

A cool breeze blew through the house.

"It's amazing."

He looked up at Yuki.

"They always seem so cheerful at school. Best friends having fun together... You'd never guess that they've been suffering like this for so long.

"When I was young, there were many times that I wanted to run away from Sohma House, but I never did. I could always find some rationalization to stay.

"The fact of the matter is I just wasn't strong enough, or I could've left. I could've lived on my own in the woods in a tent. I could've done what she- ...they did."

Shigure wondered at his cousin's correction, but didn't ask about it. "You can call it amazing, but I don't think the word does it justice."

Yuki smiled a little and thought of the three girls sleeping just in the next room. "No," he said. "No, it doesn't."

Shigure was about to ask about his correcting himself, but Yuki sensed the question, and, knowing he didn't want to answer, posed his own question.

"Do you mind keeping an eye on them? I'd like to go out for a while."

Shigure completely forgot his previous question. "What? Where? You're not going to try digging out that tent?"

Yuki made no answer.

"You are, aren't you? Would you like me to come with you? It won't be easy alone."

"You're right," Yuki said, turning to face Shigure. Yuki's purple eyes began glowing. "But I don't think I said I was going alone..." He slipped -almost floated- out of the house, something that sounded like a whole nest of...rats scurrying and squeaking along after him.

"Be safe, Yuki..."

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