Sooooo. I am stuck going to a BORING campy thingy this weekend. I went last year and I came home sick, so that might add to my aversion to "Youth Conference." But this year (like last year) my parents are putting a foot in and are making me go. I would tell you more about it, but I wouldn't want you to have nightmares like I do. Speaking of nightmares, I had one last night where I was working as stage crew in play and there were two girls always sitting at a lunch table. I recognized the first girl, her name was Michelle. But then the other girl turns around and it is Michelle again! But I know that Michelle has no twin. I have no idea why this was a nightmare, but I woke up in a coldish sweat…
Anyway, I will be gone (forever!! It seems…) this weekend, which is why I am updating today… I shudder at the thought of the state of my inbox when I will come back… (-Subtle hint at reviewing…-)
FYI, the beginning of this chapter is kinda serious, but the rest is not at allllllll.
Oo0oO
Then next day was one of the worst that Kyo had had in his sad, miserable life. He couldn't get Tohru off his mind. And as Karma, the cruel mistress, would have it, neither would the world. Everywhere he went, at every step he took, the world would throw reminders of the klutzy brown haired girl at him.
He hadn't thought of her, much, for the last three years. During the first while, the pain had stung him sharp and strong. Whenever his thoughts drifted to the kind girl he had known, he felt his insides burn and scrape, pulling him down into a pit he never had hope of escaping. Her chocolate hair and goofy grin haunted him day and night, when he thought of how things could have been and when he woke to the harsh cruelty of the real world. During that first period of time, his heart had cried out every time he heard a giggle or saw a flash of brown hair. It was as bad as loosing Kaji, Rei, Tsujiai, and Sana all over. But the pain of loosing them was miniscule compared to the pain he felt at loosing Tohru. As much as he was attached to them, the emotional scars that he bore from their loss were small. Tohru's was gargantuan. It was as if he lost the four of them all at once, the moment that Tohru fell back, her memories of them gone. Kyo thought h could never come back from the path his life had taken.
But like how scars fade over time, slowly but surely Tohru had drifted from his mind. It wasn't as if she and his feeling for her had gone. No. As time passed, the hurt just lessened, until it was just a bite, then a ping, and now a dull ache in the back of his heart and mind. It wasn't as if he meant to forget her. He wanted to keep her memory as alive as was physically possible. But things, as they have a habit of doing, happened and bit by bit the pain and suffering he had felt at her loss were replaced by new worries, obligations, and goals. When ever he would think of her now, it was with a resigned sigh and head shake. He had let go of the past. It was over now, he knew that. Her last pledge, just before she had turned to have her memories adjusted, troubled him. And the knowledge that he was the reason of her demise of sorts from their lives weighed on his mind as well. But he had put it all behind him, knowing that it was futile to worry himself. She wouldn't like it. When ever they were down on their luck she would always worry herself sick, a majority of the time literally.
And with this mindset, Kyo had stepped off the twisted path that his life had become and went into the great unknown. He had to admit, this giant leap of faith on his part had helped in the distraction and easing of the pain he had felt when Tohru had left. Over time, all that remained was his love and the dull twinge in his chest.
But with this one call, this one meeting, Kyo's resigned and calm life was thrown into a frenzied chaos.
"My life is crap."
Kyo lay sprawled across his queen sized bed, tangled in his sheets after a long night of terrible dreams.
In the dream, Kagura would not leave him alone. Kyo kept telling her that she was getting married to Kunimitsu in a few weeks and that he had a test one how to build a motorcycle to study for. But still she would not leave him alone. So Kyo, a cheese grater suddenly appearing in his clammy hand, began grating cheese for all he was worth. But the cheese that fell in tiny curls would never fall into the bowl.
Suddenly the cheese wedge began talking to him.
"Ow. That fork hurts."
Kyo was about to point out that the instrument he was using was in fact not a fork, but was actually a cheese grater, when he realized that he recognized the voice talking to him. It was Tohru's voice.
"Tohru! How are the penguins?"
"Terrible."
He kneeled down on the floor, holding the hunk of cheese between his two hands as if it were an extremely delicate and fragile antique.
"Why?"
"The Jelly Beans! They overran my fridge and I accidentally stepped on one!"
In his dream, Kyo remembered being horrified.
In the morning, Kyo felt stupid, both for caring about jelly beans and for talking to a block of cheese. He could understand his concern for the penguins, although it could have just been side effects of his half drowsy state.
It was Sunday and he had the day off from school. Kyo glanced at his clock. It was 9:30, much too early to be waking after the long night last night. Misa and her friends hadn't shut up all night. So Kyo was wondering why he was up so early. Then it struck him.
Ring! Ring! The telephone belched out.
Kyo murmured under his breath as he untangled himself from his sheets and threw them off. He tumbled down the hall, past his laundry pile, which was over flowing, the washer making an odd clanking sound and piled into the living form. Leaning over his second armchair, he grabbed the phone off his kitchen counter.
"Hello?" He asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"Melon Kyo-kun," belted out the cheery, spunky voice. Kyo was immediately reminded of Shigure, who answered every phone call that way.
"Um?" Kyo asked.
"This is Misa. You know from down the call. Your next-door-neighbor."
"Oh."
"My mom called you last night?" The statement was a question.
"Yeah, I got the message."
"Sorry! I know my friends were totally obnoxious."
"Yeah…" Kyo intoned. He rubbed a lock of bright orange hair out of his face and heaved himself out of the armchair that he had flung himself into. He meandered into the kitchen. The only thing that distinguished the front room from the kitchen was the change from tile in the kitchen to the carpet in the front room. No wall, no break. Jut a thing strip of metal to keep the edges down.
Kyo rooted around in the fridge as Misa went on.
"I suppose she, my mom I mean, told you about my request."
"You wanted to talk to me about college."
"I still do! Oh, that would be wonderful if you could. You're going to be in the police force and that's just want I want to do! Dad says that all his bodyguards have rubbed off on me!"
Misa laughed. Kyo smiled a bit and continued his search for milk behind a tall pitcher of kool-aid.
Misa's father was a high ranking government official. He was a portly man with a belly as big as his sense of humor. He was grey and balding everywhere but in the mustache that he kept groomed in a grandfatherly fashion. He was a charming man, is wit only matched by that of his wife. Most of his children were grown and Misa was the only thing keeping him and his wife from being empty nesters. Kyo couldn't have asked for better neighbors, although he could have done without all of Misa's rowdy friends.
"So," Misa continued. "I was thinking and I just want to get this planned out. This is for a school project. My final school project." She groaned.
"I'm glad I didn't have one of those…" Kyo answered only because there was a pause. He had located the milk and now it was just a matter of extracting it from its chilly prison.
"You're lucky. This project is the biggest pain in the butt ever. But anyway, I just have to ask. Would to day be okay for me to talk to you?"
Kyo thought about his dream then looked down at himself. While Misa's friends had been loud, He was usually and early riser. Having retained the cat's finicky habits, he would usually be up and showered by this time. But there he was, slobby in his sleepwear at 9:30, even if it was a Sunday.
"I'm having a bit of an off day…" His voice petered out. "How about if I call you tomorrow after I get home?"
"'Kay!" Misa's cheery voice rang out. "Sounds good to me! Thanks!"
"Sure. If you need anything, just call."
"I sure will! Thanks again Kyo-kun. You're a life saver! Bye!"
"Yup."
The phone clicked off.
It was then that Karma and destiny hit him. Hard.
Lifting the milk carton to his lips, Kyo prepared to take a swig when a copious amount of the white liquid leaked out of the side. It dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt, drenching it.
"Ah!" came Kyo's outburst.
He jumped back, reflex kicking in. He plunked the milk carton down and grabbed a rag that Kagura had gotten him to decorate the kitchen with. He dabbed at the growing dark spot. The shirt, however, was beyond repair. Kyo noticed some other gigantic spots that were rather eye catching. They stood out like a beacon on his white tee.
Calling it a lost cause, Kyo ripped the shirt off and huffed down the hall, past his laundry, into his room, past his bed and into a large walk in closet that like everything in his house, doubled as something else. He glanced around it. Besides a few pairs of pants and a blow-up bed, his closet was painfully devoid of any clean shirts. Heaving an agitated sigh, Kyo turned on his heel and pranced into the hallway that doubled as his laundry room. He rooted through shirt after shirt, searching for an acceptable shirt to wear. But he seemed to have developed a curse of dribbling food on his shirts and taking it home for later. Every shirt seemed to have a stain of some kind on it.
The most acceptable shirt turned out to be his least favorite one. It was tight and too small for him. Why he still had it and why he had even bought it in the first place was a mystery to him, but he was thankful none the less.
It was at times like these that he wished that Tohru was still here. She wouldn't have let the house fall into such decay on her watch.
Kyo clapped a hand to his forehead. Tohru was the last thing he needed to think about right now. How she always came to mind was beginning to annoy. Especially if she was a block of cheese.
Surveying the pile of laundry that awaited him, Kyo felt a deeps sense of dread and impending doom. As if on cue the washer made a sound that even Kyo, who knew nothing when it came to technology, knew that the washer would wash no more.
Kyo closed his eyes and let out a single, strangled grunt of disbelief.
Kazuki, who hadn't seemed to notice his sister's recent departure, hopped up on the washer as if to say "Real men don't wash their own clothes! They go to the dry cleaners!"
Kyo turned from the hurricane like stat that was his hallway/laundry room combo and faced his bathroom. At least he would be clean.
Oo0oO
Grumbling about lack of soap, Kyo made his way back to the kitchen tripping over one of the numerous laundry baskets that littered his walkway. Turning into the kitchen, he found that he had left the mild out. It had gone warm in the extremely long time that it had taken to take a shower, despite the lack of soap.
Muttering curses under his breath, Kyo stuffed the lukewarm milk back into the fringe. Not knowing what else to cook, he stood in front of his cupboards for a full five minutes before opting on dry cereal.
Gross. He thought. I really should cook something else. But no other ideas came to mind. What did Tohru always use to make us?
Angrily, Kyo shoved a handful of cornflakes into his mouth. He was thinking of Tohru. Again.
His mouth dry and his wet hair dripping into his eyes, Kyo decided to do something. Anything. He needed to get Tohru out of his mind. It was going to drive him crazy.
Feeling father lame as he did so, Kyo gathered his laundry and jammed it all in a large plastic bag. He slung it over his shoulder, called to Kazuki that he was leaving and headed off for the Laundromat. He actually hoped that Misa bout be at her door wishing her friend off. Then he could at last ask her to walk with him to distract him and take his mind off of Tohru. But fate was working wonders against him that day and Misa wasn't at the door. There was nary a sound coming from the house and it was hard for Kyo to decide whether Misa's friends were all gone home or if they were still asleep.
So Kyo walked alone. He concentrated on stepping on each block of concrete three times each. He knew he looked stupid, but it kept him distracted from his wondering thoughts. For a while that is.
As he wan on his second step on his 85th slab of concrete, he looked up and saw it. The car dealership. The Honda car dealership.
Kyo ran the rest of the way there.
Without sorting colors from whites, Kyo stuffed as much laundry as would fit into the nearest machine. Then, huffing back onto the nearest bench, he picked up a magazine from the rack next to him at random. He wasn't much of a magazine reader, but seeing as he had nothing better to do he read on. He flipped it open to any page and found himself looking down at happy couple hugging. The girl looked a bit like Tohru, but a second glance told him it was in fact not her. Moodily, Kyo flipped to the next page. The magazine wasn't doing its job of distracting him.
Then next page found him staring at a full page ad.
"Remember your high school crush?"
It asked him.
"Well, find out what happened to them on classmates. com!"
Kyo threw the magazine onto the floor in a fit. He knew what had happened to his high school crush. He didn't need some website to help him.
The music playing overhead changed from talking to radio. Lacking anything better to do, Kyo listened.
"I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me,
And every step I take reminds me of just how we used to be.
Well, how can I forget you, girl?
When there is always something there to remind me.
Always something there to remind me.
As shadows fall, I pass a small cafe where we would dance at night.
And I can't help recalling how it how it felt to kiss and hold you tight
Well, how can I forget you, girl?
When there is always something there to remind me.
Always something there to remind me.
I was born to love her, and I'll never be free.
You'll always be a part of me."
Kyo let out a strangled cry and wrenched the washer door open. Pulling out sopping clothes, Kyo threw them back into the plastic garbage bag, mixing wet with dry, and hurried out of the building. An old man sitting next to him gave him the evil eye then continued on with his book reading.
Oo0oO
Pacing up and down the carpet in his apartment, Kyo couldn't take it any longer. His muddled brain was in a frenzy and he didn't seem to be in control of his legs. They continued to put one foot in front of the other, dragging him around against his will. Willing himself to calm down, Kyo thought through his predicament. He had walked past that car dealership nearly everyday of his life. It was only now that he had heard from Tohru that it was driving him crazy. That song, an oldie, played all the time. It was nothing to freak out about. It wasn't speaking about him. At all. Cornflakes were cornflakes. Not an epiphany.
Needing something to keep his hands busy, Kyo started sprucing up his house. It had fallen apart a bit in the last weeks. When he was finally pleased with the state it was in, Kyo started in on organizing. His clothes were far beyond repair, so he would just have to worry about those later. Not once was his mind not on Tohru.
Pulling a box he wasn't sure why he had out from under his bed, Kyo opened it and saw high school memorabilia stacked inside. He remembered now what it was. Shishou had packed it for him so that he could "Look back fondly on his high school years." He had asked everyone Kyo had known to put something in there. Shigure had been the first to pack something in, and it was because of that, that Kyo had never opened it. Knowing the perv, it would be something he would not want to see. But if he thought back, Kyo realized that he had in fact already opened it. That was where he had gotten the orange cat for An. From this box.
Knowing that he shouldn't be looking at it, for fear that he would show up later in the local loony bin, he peered inside. He sifted through the top layer, papers with outstanding marks, report cards, a goodbye card from his fan club (he had wanted to throw it away, but Shishou insisted on him keeping it,) Kyo got to the meat of the box.
Here and there, there were pictures. Most were from when Arisa had gone picture crazy on their school trip. Here and there he saw familiar faces: Hana eating, Manabe tackling Yuki, the two dorks flirting with the class girls. The edge of a wooden frame caught his eye. He pulled it out, sending a landslide of other papers back into the box.
The picture was covered by brown paper. The paper was covered in Shigure's loopy handwriting and Kyo was sure that Shigure had worked on this when he was supposed to be working on his book. The handwriting was hard to read, but Kyo supposed that was the way that it was supposed to be. Shigure had always liked to torture him.
"Kyo-kun-sama.
"This is from your most merciful substitute guardian. I know that I am special in your heart, (here Kyo scoffed) so I would like you to have this in payment for what I am about to do. I truly am sorry. I hope you have a good life, even with the hardship that is going to come your way. Hopefully this small reminder will help you undo the pain that I caused.
"Kind regards,
"Shigure Sohma."
Kyo wasn't sure what to make of the writing on the paper. The first part seemed like a joke, but the ending… He wasn't all that sure. Deciding just to ignore it, Kyo ripped the paper off. He jumped back when he saw the picture.
It was a picture of him and Tohru. Obviously it was a candid shot. Kyo hadn't been fond of having his picture taken and if he did, he often had a sour look on his face. But in this picture, taken from the side, he was smiling and Tohru was smiling along with him. Her hair was blowing out from the two pigtails that she had on the side of her head. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be laughing at something he had said. He was pointing at something in the distance. The bottom of his arm took up most of the picture, and the only part of Tohru that was visible was her head, but it was a picture of them none the less.
Suddenly it was all clear to him: Shigure had been planning that fateful night all along. The night the curse was broken. The night that Tohru was broken.
With out thinking, Kyo rose to his feet, stomped up the hall and was on the phone before he realized it.
"Hello?" A quiet voice picked up.
"Tohru?" Kyo asked.
Tohru was shocked to be addressed by her first name, but she found the sound oddly familiar and comforting.
"Um yes, this is her. Is this you Kyo-san?"
"Kyo-kun."
"What?"
"Being called –san makes me twitch. Just call me Kyo."
"Kyo-kun."
"What?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to try it out."
Kyo bit back an outburst. This conversation was turning out to be awfully familiar.
"What ever. Anyway, I wanted to call you and tell you that I'm all for the meeting. Just give me the time and place and I'll be there."
Oo0oO
And so it ends. This was a really long chapter for me! And I wrote it all in one sitting. Kind of. I kinda wrote the beginning on paper.
I was counting on doing a lot more things to remind him of Tohru, but it was getting far too long and I know that some of you (coughScourgeofBloodClancough) are just like me and can't sit through long chapters. And if you will notice, the last bit of dialog actually comes from the book! n.n It makes me happy!
Anyway…….. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. In review form!! C:
