Chapter 8- Truth Hurts!

Kyo left school early. He just wanted to; it was one of those days. He spent the day on the roof. He didn't want to do anything.

Voices jerk him awake. Looking down he sees Yuki and Tohru walk inside the house.

Going down he hears Tohru in the kitchen getting ready to cook. Yuki isn't in sight. He sneaks up behind Tohru and drops his head onto her shoulder. This slightly startles her, but she doesn't comment.

"You left early today."

"Just wanted to sleep."

"You skipped school for that? You could of went to the nurse's office instead. Did you sleep well?"

"hmm." He pushes his face into her shoulder smelling the sweet aroma of her skin. She pauses for a second but doesn't move away.

"Your still tired?"

He doesn't answer. She continues chopping up lettuce.

He slightly falls to sleep like this but Tohru just sighs. At least while she is chopping he can stay like this, though this position is already getting her nervous. He must be really be tired. Maybe a storm is on the way.

Once done cutting she calls out his name, but he doesn't answer. She moves slowly around to face him which wakes him up. They are so close their noses are almost touching.

He hears footsteps retreating from the room and when he whips around his sister is slowly backing up from the doorway. "Um, sorry to interrupt." Anri apologizes. Blushing, Kyo insults Tohru's cooking and backpedals it to the other side of the kitchen. Anri gives him a weird look before going to change so she can start helping Tohru.

"How is she getting to school?" Tohru asks. "Isn't her school half an hour away?"

Well that is a quick recovery for the girl, his heart is still bouncing out of his chest. Why did he do that? Well if she's going to act calm so can he.

"I don't know. That's a good question." he says, glad his voice sounded normal to him. "I'm guessing Hatori is taking her but he's gotten busier with Akito and other priorities. So I have no clue how she's getting to school now."

"Hmm," She starts stirring some ingredients together. "I hope she's alright. I know when my Mom died and I was on my own, I was very sad, and I thought I had to carry the sadness on my own. I think she's doing the same thing. She's keeping her feelings to herself and not letting anyone else help her shoulder it."

She goes to the other side of the kitchen to get more ingredients, "Luckily, I found you guys to help me. It's a little different for her though. She hasn't seen any of you since she was a kid. She has no connection to us besides the little bit of memories of her younger days. I, at least, knew Yuki through my school, which lead me to all of you who taught me it was alright to lean on someone. She isn't allowed to talk to her adopted father, and because of the curse she can't talk to her friends at school about this. I just wish she could have someone to lean on. Oh, I didn't mean she couldn't end up leaning on us or anything, I'm just saying it must be hard. I mean-" she cut herself off in embarrassment.

They stay quiet for another moment soaking in what she said. Kyo knows she is correct. He doesn't want her to be correct. He wants to know that Anri believes he can help her. That she has more memories of him than the day she left. He knows she is correct and that hurts.

"It's okay, I know what you just said is true, but I still wish it isn't." He wants to put his hands on her back or shoulders to comfort her. He hates seeing her all frazzled up like this… he secretly likes it too, it's… cute.

He shakes his head of these absurd thoughts. Why are these thoughts going through his head? Another good question is why is he so tired? He certainly is tired enough to do something stupid like let his feelings be shown by resting against Tohru. And he was caught by his sister! Could today get any worse?

She stops cooking and looks at him. "Is everything okay? Really?"

"Yeah, I'm just worried she's not liking it here. I mean she has to deal with the rat like us and that can damper anyone's mood, but… I don't know… we've changed so much since we were last together and I don't know if she's happy here or not. I'm going upstairs call me down for dinner."

He runs off and climbs on the roof again until Anri calls into his room as she passed to come down to dinner. A few minutes into dinner he decides to ask Anri some questions.

"Hey, who is taking you to school anyways?"

Anri stops mid-bite, ramen hanging from her mouth. She quickly sucks it up, taking a minute to decide if she should answer truthfully or not.

"First it was either Hatori or Kureno who took me to school, but I was getting in the way of their jobs and personal matters, so I got one of my school friends to take me."

"Oh, who?" Shigure inquires.

"Um, you won't know them I don't think."

"Now that's got my attention." Kyo says. "Come on we're all curious now."

Thinking no way out of it she admits, "Kyoya Ootori."

Silence.

"A GUY IS TAKING YOU TO SCHOOL EVERY MORNING?"

Wincing Haruhi nods. "Ah, yeah, it's no big deal or anything. He doesn't do it for free though, he got me doing extra club work."

"I thought you were in a club with girls. What type of work is he making you do? Are you his housewife now?!" Kyo is furious.

"Um, maybe we should let her explain before we get mad at her." Tohru, always the amiable person she is, suggests.

But the thing is, she didn't want to answer. What could she say that would possibly justify riding to school with a guy without spilling her secret?

They continue to stare at her until she was too uncomfortable. "I ugh, gotta go do homework." She starts to get up.

Kyo pulls her back down. "Oh no you don't. Explain!"

She feels stuck in a corner, he feels betrayed. Kyo looks around at the other stunned faces. Wait, not all stunned. Shigure sits there, still eating.

"You knew, didn't you?" Kyo accuses.

"Hm," He conforms, "When she said she was helping with the ball last Sunday. That ball is thrown by the Host Club of the school, they entertain girls, no girls are hosts themselves. Only one girl considers herself the manager. But this Kyoya Ootori is actually the manager."

"Wait so you mean she is pretending to be a guy as a host?! She's surrounded by guys then?! How is that even possible? Do they know? How have you not been found out yet? Does Akito know?" Ten thousand questions flood Kyo's mind, only half come out of his mouth.

"No one knows anything. It's fine. Well, Kyoya knows that I was adopted and that I am a Sohma, but that's all he knows." Haruhi confides.

"Hm, not so much. Ayami, Hatori and I told him everything about the family but the curse."

"WHAT? Why did you do that?" Kyo yells. Haruhi looks at Shigure in pure shock.

"Wh-When?" Haruhi stumbles.

"Last Friday when I went to see Ayami at his shop. Mr. Ootori came by. He wanted to know about us. He wasn't as subtle as he thinks. Haha. I admit you have a good friend there. He just had your best interest at heart."

"So, someone knows about us. And we are not going to tell Akito?" Kyo couldn't believe it. "Again, how have you not been found out though?"

Haruhi looks down at her hands wishing to leave. She doesn't answer.

"Answer god damn it!" Kyo yells and jerks her chin up looking into her afraid eyes.

She slaps his hand away and runs out of the house.

Kyo takes a step back, he can't think of why she would put everyone in jeopardy like that. It's hard enough going through public school, but those are rich bastards that doesn't care about anything but their own interests. Why would she join a club that is only guys? They would have to know by now she's a girl. And if they know she's a girl, the logical next step is that something would have happened that would prove that she's a girl. And there is only two ways they would know. He just wishes that it wasn't the curse, but then again, he hopes that those guys didn't see her nude; he'd have to kick some terrible ass if so.

"Damn it." He whispers, backing up against the wall, slowly sliding down and burying his head in his arms. Tohru rubs his arms, trying to calm him. Yuki sits quietly, his face pale white and blank, remembering the past.

Shigure stares at the three leftover teens in his house. He knew when he said it that it would cause trouble, but not this much. He forgot this part of what Akito did to Anri and Yuki so long ago. Kyo didn't know about it so he didn't know not to take her chin in his hands while looking her in the eyes.

"Yuki. Look at me. It's alright. That's in the past. You don't have to bear it anymore."

Yuki looks up at his older cousin pain and sadness in his eyes. "I, nor Anri, are not free of it until Akito lets us go. Even then, we will be under his control through memory and his possessiveness. As long as he is our god, it can and will happen again." He shakily gets up and goes to his room.

"What did he mean? What did Akito do? What will happen again?"

Shigure sighs, "You shouldn't have touched her chin like that. Akito-he did that action while he made her hurt Yuki and while they did… other things. As you know they are his favorites. Well, they might be his favorite but since they were always by his side, he took out his anger on both. Except it wasn't until later that he liked to punish us with his own hands, he made Anri hurt others.

Especially Yuki, since he knew both of those kids didn't want to be by his side, he made Anri hurt him. This he knew hurt her the most than seeing him punish Yuki, it was herself. That kind of broke them. If your father didn't take her away to give up, then she would have really broken. With your mom dead, you disgraced and your dad wanting out, she would have stayed with Akito as his permanent pet. I'm afraid she would have lost herself if she stayed there. Now that she's back-"

He didn't finish letting Tohru and Kyo fill in the blanks. "He wants them back. They will go there almost every day after school. She is to quit her club and even though she will be at her school still, she will have to change her name and thus change her status at the school. He is already wrecking her, who knows what will happen once she starts to regularly stay with Akito."

Kyo couldn't believe what he was hearing. How didn't he know about this? He knew that sometimes Akito hit them. But to force a little girl to hurt someone she's by every day? He couldn't imagine what exactly he made her do and didn't want to.

"I'm going to go find her."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I think I need to do this alone."

Tohru nods and they help each other stand.

He starts with the backyard and works his way all around the estate, but she is nowhere to be seen. He tries to call her, but it goes to voicemail. He tries again, this time it goes through.

"Sorry Kyo I missed your first call. I'm with Kyoya, we're going to one of the Hosts houses. I'll be home late. Sorry again." She hangs up before he can say anything. Well damn, she sounded like she was going to cry. Fine he'll wait but he will talk to her. He goes back home to tell the rest where she is.

4/2/19 A/N OMG did you guys see the Fruits Basket reboot! I went on Tuesday to the theatre release and it was AMAZING! It not just followed the manga but expanded on it to where it was like I was living it with them. I can't wait for more! And after four months I finally released a chapter and working on the next. Hopefully I'll go back to once a month posting again. Thanks for reading!