Kyo's POV

"Aaya!" I heard Shigure's voice echoing from downstairs. "Oh, I've missed you! It's been too long!"

"It has indeed, Gure-sensei! Much, much too long!"

My eyes opened as I started out of sleep, then widened. "Oh, good Lord, no…" I muttered. I jumped out of bed and stormed down the stairs, really hoping not to see who I knew I would see.

"And Kyo-kun! How wonderful to see you! While maybe I should be supporting my brother in his romantic endeavors, I do believe that you and Tohru-chan make a much cuter couple," he smiled, winking at me.

My first reaction was shock, then frustration, then pure fury. I turned on Shigure. "YOU BASTARD! YOU TOLD HIM!"

"Well, of course I told him!" Shigure looked shocked.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'OF COURSE YOU TOLD HIM'?"

"Well, you seemed to accept my idea of having more help, so I figured I'd help you recruit!"

"RECRUIT?"

"Yeah! Finding you more help!"

"I DON'T NEED ANYMORE HELP!"

"Oh, Kyo-kun," Ayame sighed. "It hurts me to see you yelling at Shigure-san like this! Especially when he was only trying to help you…"

"SHUT UP!" I couldn't believe it! He'd told AYAME? Of all people, Ayame? "Come on, Shigure! HIM!" I calmed down a little, but only enough so that my yells were understandable. "I would have been upset but overall okay if you'd told like, Kisa or Hatori or something, but Ayame?"

"Well, I thought he might like to help…"

"And I do!" grinned Yuki's brother. "I love assisting young ones in affairs of the heart! Why, Mine was just telling me about her sister, whose boyfriend just – "

"I DON'T CARE!" I roared. "Shigure, how COULD YOU?"

"Well –"

"YOU KNOW WHAT? JUST NEVERMIND! TELL THE WHOLE FAMILY, WHY DON'T YOU!"

"He's working on it," Ayame chuckled.

"WHAT?" I could not believe what I was hearing. Why had I even thought to trust Shigure in the first place? Shouldn't I have known that he would have let me down some way or another.

"Uh…well…you just said you'd be okay if I told Kisa or Hatori…"

"YOU TOLD KISA AND HATORI?"

"And Ritsu, and Hiro, and Kagura…"

"OH, WELL THAT'S ALL OF US, ISN'T IT? GLAD WE'RE ALL INFORMED NOW!"

"Kyo-kun, calm down! We're here to help!" I suddenly heard the small, sweet voice of Kisa from behind me. "Really! We just want you and Sissy to be happy together!" She looked pleading, wanting me to believe her.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "You really think it's possible?"

She smiled a shy little grin. "Yes, I do! You two would be very nice together."

I smirked a little, feeling my face softening. "Thank you, Kisa-chan."

She grinned wider. "You're welcome!" she wrapped her small arms around my waist, and I hugged her back. Then she took my hand and began leading me into the kitchen, where Ritsu was chopping some vegetables, and Hiro, Hatori, Haru and Kagura were drinking cups of milk. "You need ideas, right?" Kisa asked excitedly. "We can help! We can give you all the ideas you need to help Tohru fall in love with you!"

"That is, if she doesn't think he's a total jerk like he is…" Hiro muttered into his cup.

"Hey!" I protested. "Kisa said you were here to help! Was she lying?" I sneered.

Hiro sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes. "I'm only here because Kisa wanted me to come. Otherwise, I'd be perfectly happy watching the television at home. Don't worry – I don't really care whether or not you're happy."

"Oh, Hiro-kun, that's a horrible thing to say!" Kisa said, looking appalled at her friend's behavior. "I care if he's happy! Don't you want Tohru-chan to be happy?"

He raised an eyebrow. Kisa looked at him pleadingly. He sighed. "Yes. It is my deepest wish that Tohru and Kyo-kun fall madly in love, then get married and have dozens of babies, happy forever in a world where life is fair and there's no curse. By all means, let's help!" His voice dripped with sarcasm, but Kisa grinned, looking satisfied.

"Good! Let's get started!"

I sat down on the countertop, watching the other five people in the room, who were as silent as I. I glanced at Hatori. "Hatori-san, you don't need to help. I'm sure you think this is stupid."

"On the contrary, I think I should be here. Needless to say, I do believe I'd be the natural voice of reason among the rest of your helpers. Wouldn't want Tohru ending up dead because someone thinks it's romantic to have a date on the edge of a cliff."

"We wouldn't tell them to have a date on the edge of a cliff!" said Ritsu, looking stunned. His long blond hair swung around as he turned to look at Hatori. "Do you really think we're so ignorant?" His eyes widened. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to offend you or anything! I just meant that we wouldn't tell them to do that because we really do know that that would be dangerous and ill-advised! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine, Ritsu-kun, really." Hatori put his chin in his hand, looking at Kagura. "Kagura-kun, I was actually unsure as to whether or not you'd want to help. I'm glad you do, though, don't get me wrong."

"Yes, I want to help," Kagura said, sighing. I only now realized that this was the first time I'd been in the same room with the boar without being beaten to a pulp or kissed to death in the first two minutes. "I just want Kyo-kun to be happy. Whether it's with me or Tohru-chan, he deserves love." She looked at me. "Everyone deserves love."

I felt…almost guilty… Don't feel guilty! I chastised myself. There's nothing you can do! You don't love her! You can't help it if you love Tohru! As it was, I looked away from her.

Ritsu took a large bowl filled with chopped vegetables and gestured towards the living room. "How about we all sit in the living room? It seems fairly crowded in here…" His eyes widened. "Not that any of you are crowding me or each other or anything! You're all fine, and there's more than enough room for all of us! Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm wasting your lives, telling you to change rooms! I'm so sorry!" he wailed.

"Come on, Ritsu-kun, it's all right," Kisa took his hand. "We really will be more comfortable in the living room," she smiled. He smiled back gratefully.

"Oh, good, snacks!" exclaimed Shigure as we all sat down around the small table. It really wasn't meant to seat nine people, but we actually would be more comfortable in the larger space than in the kitchen.

It took me until then to notice: "Wait, where's Tohru and Yuki?"

"I got them out of the house with Momiji," said Haru. "I suggested they go to the park or the marketplace or something."

"Well, let's get down to business, shall we?" said Shigure, leaning in. "Kyo-kun needs help to capture the attention and the heart of his beloved! What ideas can we come up with to make this possible?"

For the first twenty minutes of our conversation, I was utterly mortified. Ayame and Shigure were not actually coming up with very romantic ideas so much as lustful. I was sure that if they talked about getting us into a closet together one more time, I was going to be sick.

But I was grateful when Kisa and Kagura turned things in a more innocent direction and I could stop yelling at the perverts to shut the hell up.

"What about something more traditional?" Haru asked, following Kisa's lead.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, have Kyo take Tohru out for a date! A sort of day-on-the-town thing?"

There were murmurs of "Oh, that's cute," and "That's sweet," and "You're all stupid." (Hiro wasn't feeling very optimistic about all of this.)

"Uh, guys. How will she not know it's a date?" I asked, seeing the major flaw in this first, apparently.

"Easy! She's Tohru," said Ayame, smiling. "She won't see it as a date, she'll see it as a day out with a friend! It's up to you to make it a date."

I understood what they were all saying, and I was definitely excited t the idea to go out on a date with Tohru, but there were still things wrong with this idea. "But what about Yuki? And Tohru's innocent – not stupid. She could figure it out. And Momiji's been trailing her everywhere, not that that didn't help us today…"

"That's fine, we can take care of Yuki, right?" said Kagura. "We'll keep him busy. Maybe if Hiro-kun and Kisa -chan–"

"What, just because we're kids, you think we'll make the perfect distraction? That's a little presumptuous, isn't it?" Hiro huffed.

"Well, actually, that sort of was what I was thinking…" Kagura said quietly, blushing. "Kisa's innocent and believable enough, and you could go along for the backbone… It should be only too easy to keep Yuki from figuring out where Kyo-kun and Tohru-chan are."

"I think it's a good idea. Do you want to help me, Hiro?" Kisa asked, smiling at him.

He blushed and replied reluctantly, "Yeah. Of course."

Ha. That was the good thing about Hiro: he was willing to do anything for Kisa, and Kisa was willing to do anything to help me with Tohru. Ergo, he was willing to do anything to help me with Tohru.

"So, what will we do when we're 'out on the town'?" I asked, expecting the worst. Closets, mostly.

"I figured you could take her out to the movies, and out for food, and ask her what she wants to do. You'll find something," Shigure smiled at me giddily.

"Oh, well, that's not too horrible. I was expecting much, much worse," I told him.

"I'm hurt, Kyo-kun. That you expect the worst of us," Ayame put his hand over his heart and closed his eyes.

"I'm sure you'll get over it," I told him sarcastically, smirking at him.

"Hey, everyone, we're back!" Tohru called. "Oh!" she stopped short. "What are you all doing here?" Yuki's eyes were wide and startled as he took in the sight of most of his family sitting in the living room.

"Sissy!" Kisa leaped up and hugged Tohru tight, and Tohru smiled and hugged her back, still looking bewildered.

"Yes, what are you all doing here?" Yuki asked, crossing his arms. Momiji came into the room then, too, and looked at all of us suspiciously, especially me.

I came up with the quickest and easiest idea that I could. "Well, you know, Hiro-kun's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and we wanted to help him plan it out! But we thought it would be easier to all come here, rather than the main house," I babbled, praying that they'd believe me.

"Oh!" Tohru smiled, obviously placated. "I didn't know! I'll have to run out and get you something!"

"Uh, you don't have to… I mean, yeah, 'cause it's my birthday, so…" Hiro looked confused and upset, now that he was put into the spotlight. Kisa smiled at him and patted his arm, calming him somewhat though he blushed.

"So I guess we'll just go…?" Yuki still looked suspicious, but gestured in a vague direction.

I knew that for them to believe us, we'd have to keep this up. I almost felt sorry for Hiro. Almost. "No, we need you three to help us!" Kagura said, speaking my mind. Whoa…she was scary…

"Oh, okay!" Tohru smiled at sat down on my left, and Yuki sat on the side of the table next to her. But she was actually sitting next to me… I smiled. Momiji planted himself next to Kisa, still looking suspicious and almost angry at me. "So, what have we planned so far?"

The original eight of us looked at each other nervously. Then we all started muttering things at once. "Well, we're going to get balloons – lots of balloons!"

"We're planning on a huge cake, four layers! Chocolate, lemon, strawberry, vanilla –"

"We'll have the party here, there's enough space for all of us –"

I stopped muttering about streamers and smiled at my new army. They were good. They could improvise like this? I could trust them with Yuki. Things might actually turn out well for me. Hmm. That'd be a first!

Of course, now we had a party to plan, too...

Oh well. The way it looked, Tohru and a few of the others would have it done in only a few hours. No need to worry. I just needed to plan for my first date…

A/N: Come on. I HAD to include the family. Well, not Akito, but… Can you really see Akito trying to get Kyo and Tohru started in a romantic relationship? You can? Well, that's for your fanfic then, not mine ;) Hope you like it!