Author's Note: Lord I hope this works. Fate must be having one hell of a laugh at me, killing this blasted website's upload feature the night I finished my first update for this story since last May.

Um...I can't blame you if you need to go back and reread a lot. I thought of doing a summary, but who ever reads the author's notes? (Especially after this long of a gap between updates? Well you should!) To get to the point, real life is a bitch that enjoys getting in the way. I actually started writing this story (and all my others) because I had just quit my hellhole job and had loads of time and liberty on my hands. Naturally that came to an end, and this is the result. Please look on it kindly. ;;

I'd dearly love to thank EVERYONE who reviewed personally, and I did have a few picked out to do so, but unfortunately I can't get another tab/page up while this is working and if I navigate away from this page I might just lose everything I spent the last forty minutes exporting/cutting/copying/pasting/formatting. Just know that if you read, poked at, and/or reviewed any part of this story you have my eternal fangirly love.

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OKAY, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK WITHOUT SEEING SPOILERS IF YOU NEED TO REREAD PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Sorry if you do have to resort to that, but if it makes you feel any better, I did too before I could start writing this. Just be warned, it picks up right where it left off. Okay, GO!

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"I… I love Kyou-kun."

Haru blinked and remained silent. Then he blinked again. Was this really what she had been tearing her insides apart for? Something so… well, obvious? "Honda-san, that's…not exactly news…"

But Tohru adamantly shook her head, in spite of her faint blush. "No…no, it's…different."

"…What do you mean?" the boy replied, not bothering to hide his confusion.

Tohru bit her lip, still staring absently at the gleaming floor. "I…I've been thinking a lot…lately…about Kyou-kun. And Mom. And…and about today.

'Uh oh.' This was a tricky direction in conversation, to say the least. But over the time he had come to know the slight and energetic Honda girl, he had been able to see what he had seen in Yuki - a deep-rooted uncertainty, a carefully guarded insecurity wrapped in memories, kept far from the surface and even farther from others. This was important to her.

"Ah," was all he said aloud.

It was enough, though, and Tohru went on.

"I know it… it seemed like Kyou-kun and I… that is, we were…." she paused, heaved a breath in mild frustration. "I loved him. Love. I… I wanted to be with him."

"Wanted." Haru repeated, stressing the last syllable. The strangely serious girl beside him nodded slowly.

"…I don't want that. Not anymore."

A heavy silence fell between them. Tohru simply refused to raise her head, and Haru slipped off into space as he wondered at the implications of this bit of news. Oddly, the only real thought running through his head was '…Poor Kyou…'

Finally the bewildered bovine returned to his senses enough to pose a question. "…Why, Honda-san?"

Tohru remained perfectly still for a minute, thinking over her words. "It…isn't fair to Kyou-kun, in the end." She didn't have to look up to know that Haru was sending a questioning look her way; she was grateful that he chose to remain silent.

"I have amazing friends, Hatsuharu-san – I know that. And…not one day goes by that I don't give my thanks for having them around. But nothing… no matter how wonderful they are, I… I just can't seem to be satisfied with that.

"When Mom died… I lost the biggest part of my life. She– she was everything to me…" Tohru's voice faltered and her hands clenched on her knees, wrinkling the fabric of her skirt as she attempted to regain control of her emotions. "E-Even though Uo-chan and Hana-chan lost her too, they still spent every day making sure I was okay, that I wasn't sad. I… I felt I had to smile for them, because they tried so hard for my sake. I couldn't tell them that I was… that it felt like I was disappearing without her."

Haru watched as Tohru moved one of her clenched hands to press against her chest, where her heart lay. "It's still there, even today," she said in a sudden monotone. "The hole."

"…'The hole?'" Haru repeated.

Tohru nodded; she had hunched herself over the fist that was still clenched to her heart, her half-lidded eyes trained to the floor. "I know it's been more than a year… I just can't get rid of it. E-Everyone tells me how well I'm doing, and wonder how I can be so cheerful after she died… They don't get it…."

Haru blinked at the girl beside him, the gentleness in his eyes going unseen. "Don't get what?" he asked quietly.

Tohru's frame remained frozen in place, her long hair falling about her shoulders like a shroud. Her tone echoed the hush that had settled over her mind: "…That doing this, being this way… it's all I can do. I don't know how else to keep that hole from swallowing me up, or from taking everyone around me with it."

Haru shifted a bit before sitting back against his chair. It gave him a moment to think.

He'd dealt with the danger of being consumed by emotions, and not just his own. He had come to expect that just about everybody he came across had some kind of darkness within them, something that blacked out the edges of their vision no matter what they were looking at. After all, he had a side that most people would rather not see; if even he had it, surely everyone else did too. He didn't imagine that he was so special that he had anything one couldn't find in anyone else – the ability to transform into droopy-eyed livestock aside.

Even so, finding it to be so great in Tohru Honda was a bit distressing, though thinking about it left Haru feeling little in the way of surprise. What she was saying made sense to him. 'Maybe that's why she's telling me of all people.' He shrugged inwardly.

"Then you know you have people who would want to help you if you asked," he finally said.

"I do know," Tohru replied softly to her knees. "I know they'd try their best, like they always do – just like I know it wouldn't be enough for me, like I know I really don't deserve their efforts."

Haru paused; he knew the rules of etiquette as well as any other Japanese, but he got the feeling that this girl wasn't just being modest. "That's not true, Honda-san–"

"I'm not saying that I'm w-worthless," she interrupted, her free hand clenching at the fabric over her knee. "I r-really don't deserve them. After what I've done to them…"

"What have you done to them?" Haru was almost worrying for Tohru's sanity at this point. Didn't she know how many lives she had bettered in just his family alone?

"I've… used them. I've tried to fill that hole with friends, even knowing that it could never work. Uo-chan and Hana-chan tried so hard to h-help me, even though they lost Mom too, and still even now… I still act like I'm the only one suffering, like no one feels it the way I do."

Haru felt like sighing; was everybody broken these days, or what? "No one probably does feel it the way you do, Honda-san. She was your mother. No one can take a mother's place."

"I know that," she said. "I knew it all along, but I still tried to take so much from my friends." And with a quiet pat! pat!, two drops fell from behind her curtain of hair to make small dark spots on her skirt. "W-what's worst of all is what I've been doing to K-Kyou-kun."

"What, making him happy?" Haru said without sarcasm.

Tohru just shook her head as a few more droplets joined the others already staining her clothes. Haru couldn't have known he was just making her feel guiltier. "I don't r-really know how to put it into words. I never imagined this would happen when I first came to live with them all…"

Suddenly Tohru raised her head, straightening her body just long enough to draw her legs up onto the chair. She eased her arms around her knees and rested her chin on whatever was now topping the tangle of limbs. She stared at the floor.

"Have you ever lost someone important to you, Hatsuharu-san?"

Images of Rin immediately flashed through his mind. He blinked them away. "I think so."

"How are you… the way you are, then?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "If I really can't get them back, I guess I just focus on what I still have. It's a waste of time otherwise. Uh…" For once he wondered if he had said something he shouldn't have.

But Tohru only smiled wanly. "It is, isn't it. That's just it, though… I just can't focus on what I have. I mean, I can, and I do; I tell myself every day how lucky I am, how much I've got, how wonderful my friends are, how so many people would do anything to be in my shoes. But it doesn't matter how many times I say it to myself, or how hard I try to truly believe it. I'd still… I'd still…"

Haru was considering how to offer her some encouragement, but was surprised to see her furrow her brows fiercely and raise her voice to all but force the words out of the deepest, darkest recesses of her heart:

"I'd still trade everything away in a heartbeat if it meant I could have just one more day with her!"

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"…Shishou? Shishou."

Kazuma gave a slight start as Kyou's calls finally reached him. They had been speaking quietly together about everything and nothing, as they usually tended to do; but Kazuma had fallen into a silent reverence watching his foster son, bruised and broken but animated nonetheless – at least as far as the medication would allow.

He gave the boy a reassuring smile. "I'm sorry; what was that?"

Kyou made a questioning sound in the back of his throat as he stared at his Shishou in mock exasperation. "Really, sometimes I wonder how a guy with his head in the clouds so much of the time got to be Shishou of a dojo. You and Tohru are really two of a kind."

"Sorry, sorry," Kazuma replied with a soft laugh. "But I'm not the one who's been asleep half the day, after all. And at least Tohru-san is useful around the house."

"Yeah, if she learns how to fight she'll really give you a run for your money." Kyou said it with a smirk, but Kazuma caught the shadow that flickered behind his eyes.

"You're probably exhausted," he said, standing up from his chair. "I should let you get more rest before the nurses – or worse, Hatori-san – scold me for keeping you up."

"I don't care about them!" Kyou said, somewhat frantically. "Shishou, don't leave yet…"

Kazuma placed a hand gently over Kyou's. "You really do need rest; you need to let yourself heal, Kyou. And you look like you need to think about something, and all I will do is keep you from doing so."

Kyou's eyes pleaded before turning away from Kazuma's. His weakened hand twitched slightly; he wanted so much to simply be able to close it around that of Shishou's, to keep him there. "I know…" he said softly. "I don't want to think about it anymore."

Kazuma could feel his resolve to stop enabling Kyou to run away from his troubles dissipating at his son's bowed head. He did want Kyou to become strong enough to face these problems, so he could become strong enough to face his biggest problem someday before it actually came to pass. He needed Kyou to break free of the bonds that held him to Akito – to be strong enough to survive the break.

But all he saw before him was his precious little son, battered and breaking himself, and only asking him to stay.

He smiled inwardly, berating himself for being such a simpleton. He gave a little sigh, easing himself back into his chair. "Who am I to refuse such a simple request?"

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Tohru looked surprised at her own outburst. Haru wondered what that made him look like in comparison. Then Tohru's tears came more readily, and he focused on the more important matter at hand.

She may have been crying harder, but her words came to her more easily. "Ha-Hatsuharu-san, I really am the worst. What kind of a person would think of their friends in such a way? I'm a horrible person, I know I am. I've known it this whole time, and yet I still dared to go so far as to fall in love with Kyou-kun! And to let him get so close to me, let him think…! When I can't… when I can't do anything about it…" She trailed off with a sniffle.

Haru went up to one of the many short tables spread throughout the room, and robbed it of its complimentary box of tissues. This he handed to Tohru upon returning to his chair, and while she attempted to regain some control over her face, he spoke. "You're not horrible, Honda-san – you're just human. I bet anyone who suffered a loss like yours would feel the same way. But why can't you do anything about… about Kyou?"

Tohru coughed a little and took in a shaky breath. "I thought… for the longest time I had thought of Kyou-kun as just another friend. But… I couldn't throw him away for another chance with Mom. No, I… it's much worse. I've already started putting him in her place. I started to put him in a space he could never fill, and then this… something this terrible happens to him! No, I can't do anything about Kyou… because I can't love anyone so much again.

"Making one person attempt to fill in your every need isn't love – it's not the kind of love I'd want for Kyou-kun. And – and that's what it'd be. I know if I really let myself go, the way he wants me to… he'd drown in it. That kind of need is one that can't be filled by anyone, no matter how hard they try. It can hide under love, but it makes it an unfair love. Having one person doing all the giving and the other doing all the taking… It's destructive. It hurts the one you're supposed to love, and yourself in the end. I couldn't do that to Kyou, and I can't let anyone else be my whole world ever again. I… I won't be able to survive losing someone else like that ever again."

Haru felt he had to interrupt. "Who says you'd lose Kyou? First of all, he doesn't exactly give up easily. Just look at his scorecard for fights against Yuki – that seems pretty hopeless. And then just look at where we are. If he can survive getting hit by a car, I bet he'll be around for a while yet."

Finally, Tohru turned her head and locked eyes with the boy sitting so kindly beside her. Haru thought she looked like she was searching for something in his eyes. "I meant… Kyou might…" She bit her lip. 'He doesn't know that Kyou might be confined in the near future, does he? But…maybe if he did, he could help stop it…'

She shook her head at his questioning gaze. "I, um…" She sighed a little. 'It's not really my business to tell, is it? Kyou-kun didn't even want me to know.'

"Honda-san?"

"Ah," Tohru smiled thinly and dabbed at her eyes a final time, stretching out her legs once again as she did so. She stood up slowly and attempted to brush her skirt into some semblance of presentable form while Haru stood as well. She had something to think about. "I'm sorry, Hatsuharu-san, I guess I got a little carried away. Thank you for all your help." She bowed.

Haru bowed in return out of habit. "I don't think I was much help, but I hope you feel better…"

Tohru smiled again, this time a little more brightly. "You have been a great help. I just… I feel like I have a lot of things to catch up on. And I haven't eaten a thing since this morning, and Yuki-kun must be wondering where everyone is – ahh! Poor Yuki-kun! No one left him a note, and it's definitely past dinner time!" Genuine horror colored her face as she quickly said something about going to find Shigure-san and Hatori-san, and perhaps a phone.

Haru watched Tohru hurry off in the direction of the elevators. She looked a little wobbly, probably from cutting off the circulation to her legs for so long, but he thought she seemed at least a little bit less concerned with wearing her smile and more with letting it suit her.

They hadn't talked for more than twenty minutes, but it seemed that twenty minutes was all she really needed. Haru took a moment to marvel at people's tendency to come back to themselves simply by sharing their problems with someone, and then promptly got distracted by the flickering and subsequent death of one of the fluorescent lights above him. He suddenly realized that he was alone.

…And his head was starting to hurt.

'My brain must be thinking without me again,' he said to himself. It was a familiar pain. People often called him slow, but he knew that at least one half of his brain could go faster than the other; he saw it as saving himself a lot of effort.

He sat in silence for a few minutes, too lazy to bother coming up with any conscious thoughts to keep the other half of his brain occupied. Eventually he started humming a song to fill the void; and eventually he realized that it was the same song he had been listening to while trying to figure out Kyou the other day. Suddenly the angry youth's face would not fade from his mind's eye. It made Haru itch.

As the blandly designed wall clock on the other side of the room ticked away the minutes, Haru felt himself getting more agitated degree by degree as thoughts of Kyou whirled through his mind. Well, not so much as 'whirl'; this was Hatsuharu Sohma, after all. Much like fallen leaves caught in a circular crosswind, Haru's thoughts were suddenly pulled into sporadic, lazy movements that really got them nowhere for all their effort.

Why was he still in this sterile waiting room? Everyone else had gone to far friendlier places, maybe even home – except for perhaps Hatori, who really had to drive him back home so hopefully he was just lurking somewhere outside with his cancer sticks – but he couldn't bring himself to leave. Haru had certain things set in his mind, ways the world worked for him and what he considered right and wrong. Whenever something or someone went against one of these certain things, he was left wondering why. He used to ask the people involved, but his habit of speaking bluntly and to the point quickly taught him to wonder on in silence – unless, of course, they asked him about it first. He vaguely wondered if that was why people tended to avoid asking him for advice.

But something just wasn't ringing right with him at the thought of leaving before seeing Kyou.

'He doesn't want to see me,' he thought to himself. 'But… I want to see him.'

He didn't want Kyou to hate him. Before, he wouldn't have really thought it possible for Kyou to hate him, so he had never worried about it. He had never worried about Kyou, period. He hadn't been like Yuki; Haru had never had the urge or desire to protect Kyou, simply because Kyou hadn't needed it.

'Wouldn't have stood for it,' he corrected himself with a half smile. It faded quickly though, as his crosswind of thoughts died out yet again, leaving him back exactly where he had started:

So… what was keeping him here?

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They had sat in comfortable silence for some time, and Kazuma was starting to wonder (hope) that Kyou had fallen asleep.

Truthfully, Kyou felt… well, rather like he had been struck by a vehicle. His body was aching – not with pain, but with the desire to shut down to the bare minimum of necessary body systems and just sleep for the next two weeks or so. But he feared what he would find waiting for him in his sleep; he didn't recall all the details of the dream that had kicked him back to consciousness, but the feeling it had left him with was enough to make him anxious about going back to sleep.

He blinked forcefully several times. He had to think of something to say! If he didn't, only one of two things could happen: he could fall asleep from the comfort of the silence, or Shishou would have an excuse to leave him alone and thus rob him of the only thing capable of keeping him awake.

He settled for having a sudden bout of coughing. Not by choice – but it served his purpose nonetheless, and Kazuma went about fussing with his pillows and offering him more water.

'What the hell,' Kyou thought with a mental shrug, since physical ones were quite impossible at the moment, accepting the small Styrofoam cup. 'I never thought I could be grateful for a catheter bag.'

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Meanwhile, Haru had worked himself into the dead-leaves-in-a-crosswind version of a frenzy – which was probably something like a vigorous stir.

So what if Kyou would freak out if he went in to see him? So what if Haru wanted to see him? He was just as worried as anyone else (probably more so in, say, Shigure's case), and yet he was the only one who hadn't been able to look in on the boy. Plus, hadn't Kazuma said that Kyou had wanted to talk about what he'd been freaked out by this whole time? He had a reason (a right!) to see him…!

He suddenly found his irritation overwhelmed by a loud yawn. He glance at the clock on the wall again, this time noting the hour.

'Five after eleven,' he mused. 'Maybe Ha'ri really did go home.'

He got up from his seat and stretched, lengthening his entire body rather impressively. After the satisfying chorus of cracks from his spine, his feet started moving. He looked around absently, not really taking in the tired scenery.

It wasn't until he was in front of the familiar and forbidding fake maple door that guarded Kyou's room that he took stock of what was happening. He knocked softly.

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They had somehow gotten on the subject of Kazuma's early training days, back when he had been Kyou's age. He had had to leave a lot of things out, as he wasn't sure how well Kyou's body was up to a good guffaw at the moment.

"Ah, it's gotten so late," he remarked, getting up from his bedside seat. "I hope that's not an irate nurse out for my blood for keeping you from properly resting. Yes, I'm coming."

He opened the door, excuses for staying so late at the tip of his tongue, until he noticed who was on the outside. "Oh, Hatsuharu."

The bed sheets rustled softly as Kyou stiffened at the name of the intruder.

"Can I see Kyou?" Haru's voice drifted back to the cat in question. It sounded normal, he supposed… maybe a little tired.

Kazuma glanced back at Kyou, his eyes telling the boy that this was up to him entirely.

Normally, Kyou would have vehemently said 'No freaking way, not on your life or mine,' but something about the way Shishou was leaving the decision up to him told him that he was being trusted to make the Right Choice – which was always the harder one to make, wasn't it? He deflated, and gave the slight nod necessary for Shishou to usher in the other youth.

Kazuma couldn't help smiling at Kyou's show of discipline, or maybe he could even venture to call it maturity. He turned back to Haru and stepped out of the way. "Yes, come in."

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More Author's Notes, sorry: I hope this is okay. I really (REALLY) wanted to go into Kyou and Haru interacting again finally, but this chapter would have been endless and impossible for me to handle.

Just a few things. First, don't get me wrong and think I'm making Tohru a sort of 'villain'. What she's saying about herself is what she feels about herself, not what I feel about her. Personally, I love Tohru. She's the one who thinks she has the problems. Second, if you read this and think my writing style has changed since my last update, you are wrong. Considering how little writing and subsequent developing I've had time to do, this much should be obvious. Third, I hope you don't mind the ill-placed humour sprinkled around in here. Sorry.

I can't make promises at to when the next update will be, except that I'm not gonna take another ten months to post it. Next chapter, our boys finally see each other again! Let's hope no one else ends up in traction.