This is about the shortest fanfiction I've ever written. The estimated length is now falling around nine chapters. This chapter was one of the easiest to write (besides the first, actually). I almost did it all in one sitting! Anyway, you all know that Yuki confessed to Tohru in the last chapter (No one was too sick at the stomach to PM me! I'm so proud!)
Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket.
Although I'm not one to pair songs with fanfics (alright, so I am, but this one could stand on its own without it) I'd like to subtly nudge y'all into listening to "Silent All These Years" by Tori Amos for the first part of this fanfiction and "Sea of Love" version by Cat Power (used in "Juno") for the later.
Chapter Eight
There are 127,288,416 people living in Japan as of July 2008. There are around 875 people per square mile according to that number. Almost half of a person per square yard. The smallest apartment in the world is 62 square feet. One person in Japan has 18 square feet to call their own. So it should have been impossible for two human beings living in a medium-sized apartment to avoid each other for three days, but Yuki and Tohru managed it. It was sort of a precaution; Yuki was afraid of hearing Tohru say, "No." Tohru was afraid of hearing herself say, "Yes."
She loved him, yes. That was unquestionable, as pronounced and astute as the Tokyo Tower in the skyline around them. That was, of course, if you were looking at it from the right way. And Tohru was staring at the skyline of her heart through a very thick parking garage.
What had been defined for her had proven to be only half, as if it balanced on a fence and she only saw one side. Tohru'd long ago given up on trying to understand every side of the Sohmas that enveloped her; how could she remember it all? It did seem impossible. But there were some things that she should have known, things that were definite. Giant prongs of soaring red and white metal did not simply blink away sometimes into the night.
She loved him, yes, and he loved her, yes… But how many sides of Yuki Sohma did she misunderstand or not even know? In the end, she had chosen the seemingly simpler man—boy, actually—and been proven false. What it left behind wasn't just a doubt of other's character, but her own. Was her perception of others really that misguided?
And so the night when fog lazed in from Yokohama and cradled Tokyo in the crook of its arm, Tohru and Yuki discovered that they had long ago run out of things to say to each other that were considered neutral, safe. With seemingly nothing around them as they looked out their clouded windows and nothing to say, the two human beings sat across from each other and avoided each other's eyes.
Finally, Yuki sighed. The brunette jumped, then looked at him inquisitively. He shook his head. I didn't say anything, did you? She returned her gaze to the blue walls. The ex-rat exhaled. The ex-rat inhaled. Then he said, "What do you want to know?"
Tohru stiffened as words rattled the air around her, nearly unfamiliar. She replied shakily, "I… I don't understand."
"What do you want to know that's stopping you?"
Tohru blinked, then almost glared at the silver-haired young man across from her. This wasn't the time, she wasn't prepared, he'd closed in and made it so she only had one answer, it was a trick question, how could he know her so well, how dare he… he… How dare he care for me so much? The young woman shook her head at herself. She was avoiding the question and trying to justify it to herself instead of Yuki. The brown-eyed girl replied, "How much do you love me?"
"Enough, I believe."
"No, I mean… How much of you loves me?"
It was an unusual question. Yuki paused, mouth open as he processed, then replied, his voice guarded, "All of me,"
"How much of you do I see?"
He resisted the urge to make a joke about the limits of polite baring of the skin.
"More than anyone else ever has."
He looked away, then added softly, "More than I have, anyway."
And in that moment her heart was healed as it broke once more. There are times when a broken thing is positive. How could one properly set a bone without breaking it again? How could one dip a large cookie into milk without breaking it in half first? How could one repurpose a pair of jeans into a skirt without first cutting and ripping out stitches? How could a blinded, broken heart repair without someone peeling away what had been false?
She hid her face in her hands, leaning forward to prop herself up on the kotatsu Yuki had dragged out of the closet some months ago. She wasn't being fair about it, was she? The point of waiting to answer was so that she could clear her mind, see all angles, but what angle had she missed that had caused Yuki so much grief?
From behind the shield of her hands, Tohru said softly, "You know my answer, you always have. You've known my answer when I didn't. You know me better, seen more of me, than anyone else. But I can't… I can't summon the words to my tongue the way that I should. I can't summon the light to my eyes or the flush to my face, the clamor in my heart. I know you make me do these things. It should be simple. It should be easy, but I can't, can't do it by myself."
Yuki leaned forward and lifted her hands away from her face. Their eyes met for the first time in days and the pull between the two souls behind them brought them closer, closer, until only the prohibition of faces and lips pressed together held them apart.
And in her breath, in her scent, the sensation her hands linking with his as they sat there in the world they'd molded for themselves from white walls and hot days when scorpion fish was on sale were the words he drew from her heart.
I love you.
This is a very, very short chapter. But I wanted to separate Kyo/Uo's ending from Yuki and Tohru's. It's almost another story in itself. The last chapter will be out before Christmas, I promise you. Please review; it's all I have left in the world to look forward to.
