Baaaah. I'm sorry. Really I am ; 3 ;

Anyone who's put up with me for TWO YEARS- TWO YEARS!!!!!!!!- deserves a reward. So if you're one of the people who reviewed for the first chapter when it came out, and the second, and now this one, you definitely deserve HEAPS AND HEAPS of praises.

....

or you could just do a request :D I'll list the lucky reviewers in the next chapter (which hopefully will not take a whole half-year to update). It could be FruBa yaoi, or maybe a pairing from a different fandom, hell it could be HET. –gasp- yeah I know I know.

Muchas gracias to DangerousDiamondDarling, Cole-Hyuuga, YinYangWhiteTiger, SeraphimXII, Nikik, eclipsedlight, loopycathair, CEILING CAT --lolol, Ketsueki-Ken, HeartAngel, sicca, random person, and BottleofWater, my first reviewer!

So on with this thing. :D


The ring of the phone echoed rather loudly throughout the house. So loudly, in fact, that Manabe was shocked out of his stupor as he zoned out while Kyo attempted to explain the poem in English and fell out his bed.

"AH PROTECT THE MELON!" he immediately yelled like his old gym teacher used to do back when they had to do those damned trust exercises in gym in which the crazy hag wouldn't give them a mat- anyway- and curled into a ball on his side.

A pillow quickly followed and knocked him upside the head. "Idiot! See if I help you again!" Kyo snapped, rolling on his side and grumbling about irritating people ie. a certain Kakeru Manabe.

Said raven-haired youth prodded the Kyo-lump in the back a few times. "Orangey~~ You're so nice and orange~ Helpful orange~ I'll name a crayon after you, it'll be called 'helpful orange' and be so much better than yellow orange or tiger orange.." "Shut up! Gah!"

Manabe grinned slightly. Eventually the cat had just gotten sick of choking down gross crack-Welch medicine and staring at the wall, listening to the other's whines of how he just couldn't get the homework...so Kyo had assisted him. In fact Kyo DID know his stuff, contrary to popular belief, he just didn't pay attention in class and studied like hell at home.

And even though he'd just met the guy Manabe insisted on sitting with him in bed and bringing him medicine and food and put up with regular beatings, verbal and otherwise, from the orange-eyed boy...it was..

Different.

Different from the treatment he was used to and just different as a WHOLE. Because while Tohru was always there for him and fussed over him there was an extent where she wouldn't go...she was too polite. Manabe was anything but- brash, overly outgoing, didn't take no for an answer...

Sometimes difference could be refreshing...it was like...different air here. A different atmosphere. No one knew what he was or that he should, by all rights, be hated for it.

While these thoughts skulked about Kyo's mind and Manabe blabbered about something or other the phone continued to ring and the cat-boy snapped, "You gonna get that or what?!" rolling on his stomach to look up at Manabe, brightly colored locks falling into his equally radiant eyes. He was like a little kid, with his bottom lip slightly pushed out at the fact that he was confined to the bed (the rain had started up again) and all...Kakeru covered an absent-minded grin and by this time the phone had stopped ringing- Mrs. Kimura had gotten it.

"Ah, Young Master Sohma...no, he is rarely inclined to picking up the phone himself, you know him. Busy at the moment with a stray..."

Yuki rolled his eyes. Just like Manabe...how many times had he come to school with a kitten in his arms or a mouse in his pocket and that stupid grin on his face? "And I'm not surprised. What is it this time- a rock he found in a puddle?"

Tohru wrung her hands besides him. She'd been worrying all day D: If she hadn't mentioned to the air that they had no rice Kyo wouldn't have gone out- or covered her protests- and if she'd thought to offer to go with him- this was all her fault! Shigure of course had no problem with the absence of the violent teen- "After all my house deserves a break too, don't you think, Tohru~?" but just like Yuki he pretended to search for the boy for her sake.

Then again, Yuki had to admit...it was awfully quiet without the other. Too quiet. He kept jumping at the smallest noises. Kyo was like this flash of color and without it the house seemed dull...

Well, that wasn't the reason! He didn't miss him or anything but the idiot was making Tohru worry, as usual...

"Actually," answered the woman on the other line, "It's a human today. A boy too, with hair as loud as his voice..."

Yuki's eyes widened.

"...and a rather foul mouth...this manor hasn't been so lively in years."

Kyo. Offff course.


"So the rain really bothers you, huhn?" Manabe asked the closed bathroom door, leaning back against it. There was a snort in answer from within. "You ask too many damn questions. It's weird enough I barely know you..." Kyo trailed off into a mutter as he turned the faucet off.

He laughed in answer, that clear, honest sound that hid nothing. "Yep! Which is why, Kyonkyon, you ask questions to get answers and that's how you get to know someone! No wonder you're so antisocial..."

"How are you acting like you've known me my whole life?! Weird-ass kid.." the slim teen opened the door, pulling his black hoodie back on- what he'd been wearing when he'd come here, so it actually fit. It was really no wonder he'd gotten a cold, Manabe thought, with such a thin thing on!

"Aw you should've put my clothes on.." "Shut up!"

Manabe laughed again and noticed Kyo was still wearing those beads around his wrist...strange...they were wet too, like he'd worn them in the shower. It was a kinda girly bracelet, surprising for this kinda guy. "You never answered my question."

What Kyo said was cut off by something being shoved in his mouth- spoon of medicine, ew! He wrinkled his nose and kinda wriggled a bit but choked it down again. If it was anyone else he'd put up far more of a fight, but in the past two days Kyo knew that Nabe would never let it go and would only proceed to say weird shit until he did. Better to avoid all that.

"...I just don't like it, alright? It tires me out which is why I'm not kicking your ass right now..." "Aha." Manabe eyed him for a bit and then caught his sleeve.

"Ah-?!"

"Just c'mon!" he grinned over his shoulder and bodily tugged him across the bedroom to the balcony, which he threw the doors open to.

"Are you insane?! After makin' such a big deal about me getting sick-!" Kyo loudly protested, yelping and catching the railing, glaring darkly over his shoulder. "You're so..." he paused and looked up at Manabe, who straddled the railing and looked over the dense forest with this...this...LOOK in his eyes. He'd never seen that kinda look.

....different...

"Hey, Orangey, y'know what you should do?" he pointed to the edge of the forest, where the greenery met the sky. "You should shout!"

"...shout." Kyo repeated blankly, just to double-check he hadn't said...well....there's nothing that rhymes with shout. SO YOUR LOGIC IS FAULTY KYO. D:.

Manabe carried on even with Kyo's incredulity. "Yep. You should shout your problems all the way to that very last tree...seriously! Keeping them bottled up like that isn't very healthy, you'll just end up exploding like a shaken cup of ramen."

Kyo didn't even bother answering this, still staring up at him.

"C'mon, no one here will know it's you! No one's outside anyway, not here...but think about it..." He hopped down and leaned on his elbows on the railing, dark hair curling from the weight of water into his sparkling eyes. "Someone, at least one person out there, might be listening. That one person might know all your troubles...all your loneliness, your pains, your rain-hating," he flashed a grin, "and suddenly your problems seem a bit easier to bear just cause there's another person in the world who knows and understands you."

"Suddenly, these things don't really matter...don't really bother you. And who knows? One day you might even meet the person! Kinda great huhn?"

He flicked his eyes down and curled his lip. "Or probably just weird."

Kyo still didn't answer, but not because he was just ASTOUNDED by his stupidity...but because...he got it. He understood what Manabe was saying. And Kyo had the feeling that in his own way the other had been in his position once, kept on the outside, feeling like there had to be something better somewhere else but too afraid to start looking...and above all else yearning to be included in.

There was someone he could relate to. And that someone was standing right next to him. It was too overwhelming...it must just be the medicine, having this weird fuzzy effect in his head, making him think dumb, optimistic crap. And everyone knows optimistic = dumb. The cup isn't half full or half empty- there's no water in it in the first place.

He peeked at Manabe through his bangs, saw the way the drops caught on his curling, smoky lashes and made his already glittering eyes shine all the more.

"Whatever....you're stupid..!" he whirled on his heel and returned back inside. "This's probably just some dumb way of you trying to get me more sick, asshole..."

Manabe lingered even after he'd gone. He was grinning, widely, a little dazedly. Because he saw in that split second the look in Kyo's eyes and the tiny smile on his lips, even if he hadn't realized it...

He'd made Kyo the Giant Grump SMILE!

Victory~ Manabe- 354353467567567567567567d3 World- 10, and the d is ten thousand more points, so hah.

"If you get more sick," he whispered to the never-ending rain, "will you stay longer?"


Yuki cursed and fiddled with the latch of the umbrella, opening the bright red thing up again. "Sorry, Honda-san.."

"Ah, it's no problem, Yuki-kun!" Tohru smiled sweetly up and made sure he was properly under too before they set off down the paths again. She was so glad that Manabe-san had found Kyo...! She thought that Manabe-san didn't really like her...but he seemed really nice and was good friends with Yuki! So, she couldn't complain.

"I just hope Kyo's alright..."

"I just hope that idiot's alright," Yuki murmured, then snorted. "The other one." Knowing Kyo's flighty temper and Manabe's over-sociability..

As the path winded out of the forest he spotted the familiar manor and then the black-haired boy standing at the balcony...but it was weird...Manabe had this dazed look on his face.

Oh, GOD, Kyo had given him even MORE permanent brain damage! Yuki groaned and grabbed Tohru's hand, hurrying her along and ringing the doorbell, hoping to get to them before it was too late and get that stupid cat off poor Manabe's hands...!


ALRIGHT THAT'S IT.

Oh yes- one more thing, requested by a reviewer.

What WAS the staff gossiping about? Hehe...


The Manabe manor was a vast place, filled with almost forty servants of varying professions. Now, this was quite helpful at times but....

It also led to a huge communication network.

Aka, a gossip train.

Which meant when something happened it jumped around like a giant bunny on steroids...and like a giant bunny on steroids was hard to hide away after.

You see, the butler wasn't a gossiper! Oh no. He was a trusted, gentlemanly man, too busy to involve himself in such silly twitterings...but he just had to tell the gardener as he was making his rounds about the boy who the young master was keeping in his room! After all the man had some weird notion about Manabe bringing home an orange cat or something, ridiculous really..

And then of course the gardener was just mentioning it in passing to show that other damn gardener that HE knew more about what was going on inside! The cook had heard and mentioned it to another and soon the secret of the young master carrying a very good-looking and half-naked guy around was spreading EVERYWHERE as the giant steroid-bunny took its victims.

"Can you imagine it?" whispered the curly-haired woman, pausing to press her towel to her cheek. "Just think...two boys lost and confused in the dead of night, so unfamiliar with these feelings...~"

The blond beside her collapsed into giggles, blushing. "And to think that Master Kakeru was in the same be-" she yelped as a sponge was wrung out on her head. Ms. Kimura had her hands on her hips, eyebrow twitching. O....sht.

"Are you getting your pay check in your mailbox to idley gossip or to work?" she asked in a dead calm voice which usually meant Inner!Kimura was screaming and raving.

As they scurried away the woman tucked her silvery hair back in her stern bun, glasses glinting and hiding her eyes. "Heh..." she pulled out a photo of Manabe keeping the weakened boy down to the bed with just one hand on his tanned chest, laughing while Kyo snarled death threats if he didn't get off.

Let's see Manabe wriggle his way out of work now~ Fufufu.