Abandoned Chapter 11: Spiral, a fruits basket fanfic

Author's comments: Long time, no see Abandoned fans! I have two chapters for you before I run out of material to post. Hopefully I'll have chapter nine up by sometime next week (earlier if we're lucky, later if we're not). After that I'm going to have to either materialize some more out of thin air or just put it on hiatus because I haven't worked on any of my fanfictions in forever. I'm working on real, grown-up stories-aren't you proud of me?

...All kidding aside, Fruits Basket does not belong to me and this chapter is rated M for references to suicide. Rate and comment as you please, but no flames-it has been several years since I wrote this and I didn't do a scrap of editting before posting. It is, as you say, hot off the press! Hope you enjoy! :)

AYN EIGHT: SPIRAL

It was incredibly strange to feel incredibly light and immeasurably heavy at the same time. Somehow, though, Yuki pulled both off simultaneously when he hung up the phone on Kyo. He also couldn't manage to stop staring at his hands, even after Hatori wordlessly removed the phone from them.

Telling Kyo to get his ass in gear was a good thing, the cat needed a wake-up call. And since Yuki couldn't seem to hit Kyo physically anymore perhaps he had to punch the smug idiot's face in some other way. After all, Tohru loved Kyo, Kyo loved Tohru, and they needed to…

Needed to what? Hook up? He was playing matchmaker now?

Yuki was fairly sure he was going to be sick.

"Yuki-kun…um…" Maibara began, trailing off as if she didn't know what to say.

Good—he couldn't handle her right now, not when she looked so much like…

…Damn them. Damn all of them.

Who's sick idea of a joke was all this? As if Yuki couldn't guess, didn't know…

The phone rang again, and Yuki glared at the thing as though someone had bought a poisonous snake into the room and was trying to feed it to him.

"Hello?" Hatori asked, answering the phone again. A short pause and then, "Ayame." Yuki tensed—he really needed to stop thinking in metaphors. "Is Yuki up?" Hatori questioned, turning to look at the subject of said question.

Yuki gave him a pointed glare. Like he could deal with his obnoxiously flamboyant brother right now.

…Like he could ever deal with that crazy brother of his.

"No he's asleep." Hatori answered mercifully, "Can I take a message?" Another pause. "I'll be sure he gets it." Hatori hung up the phone and did so: "He's coming to visit you this weekend."

Yuki groaned and buried his face in the bed sheets in front of him.

Sure, why not, let's make things even more complicated!

"Is that bad?" Maibara asked.

"His brother can be a bit extreme at times. He's perfectly harmless." Hatori explained, adding his dishes to the pile she was washing.

Harmless? Right.

Harmless as a fighting bull in a store full of china.

…Wasn't that a saying?

Yes—Yes, it was.

First I tell my rival to go for the girl I love, then I start thinking in old sayings? Yuki wondered.

I must be losing my mind.

x—o—x—o—x

Kyo was fairly certain if that damn yankee and the psycho goth didn't bring Tohru home soon he was going to start losing it.

If he wasn't already.

Damn that rat, why'd he have to go and throw a monkey wrench into things? Kyo was doing just fine until that damn rat'd—

…Had he? Had he been doing just "fine?"

He'd been way too irritable lately—the fist-hole-in-the-wall count had increased tenfold so something had been bothering him lately. Had to have been. Yeah.

Who was he kidding? Kyo always had something that was bothering him. Part of his very nature was to be…bothered.

His thoughts were making no sense. Maybe because he was avoiding the main issue? The words Yuki'd uttered that still screamed at him from the back of his mind? That Tohru…

"Shit!" Kyo cursed, jumping to his feet as a familiar-looking motorbike pulled up Shigure's driveway. Tohru's yankee friend had bought the thing a couple months ago and promptly named it "The Beast," upping her tough girl image by several hundred notches. All she needed now was a leather jacket with fringes and a mean-spirited slogan on the back and the image would be complete.

…Where is this shit coming from, anyway? Kyo wondered as Tohru staggered down off The Beast, still looking a bit motor-sick. Sea-sick, motor-sick? Ha-ha—

Seriously, where?

Kyo was so nervous he almost walked right off the roof.

You know, without a ladder.

"Goddammit, what is wrong with you?" Kyo asked himself under his breath, "Pull it together!"

…And now he was talking to himself. Perfect.

He approached Tohru and met her in front of the door just as that crazy yankee pulled away on her motorized…thing. Now that Tohru was back Kyo felt how easy it would be to just forget it all and go on just…just…

…Well, he thought he could "just," but then she spoke.

"Hi Kyo." She greeted.

And Yuki's words came clattering down on him as though he'd built giant letters spelling them to drop on his head in this exact moment.

"She loves you and you haven't done a thing about it."

"I-I-I—"Kyo spluttered.

"What's wrong?" Tohru asked, immediately concerned.

"She loves you and you—"

"I'M WORKING ON IT DAMMIT!" Kyo shouted loud enough to hopefully scare the letter-dropper away, and the dead besides.

"W-W-Working on what?" Tohru stammered, startled by his sudden outburst.

"You'd think she'd be used to those by now." Yuki's voice seemed to echo in Kyo's head.

"Just what I need." Kyo muttered, "A rat in my head."

"Huh?" Tohru looked completely clueless, which was also nothing new.

"Are you just going to stand there doing nothing you stupid cat or are you going to say something to her?" The voice that sounded like Yuki taunted.

…It was just as annoying as having the real thing standing next to him.

Possibly more so—at least Kyo could punch the real one.

"Yuki erhm…I spoke to the damn rat today." Kyo said finally.

"Sohma-kun? How is he?"

"Ohhh….I really don't wanna talk about it." Kyo growled.

"Why? What happened? Is he okay?" Tohru put a hand around Kyo's arm as though she subconsciously expected him to run before answering him. She needn't have bothered—those large blue eyes on the verge of tears had the words spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"He tried to kill himself."

She didn't really need to hear that, why had he said that, what kind of moron—

—Aaand there came the tears.

"Wh-What…? He tried to…"

"No, I mean, he's okay, he just—"

"Why?" Tohru asked.

"He's depressed? How the hell should I know, I've never—"

"But why? Why would he be that sad, why would he—"

"Well, of course he's depressed, he loves you!" Kyo snapped.

…Dammit. Why was none of this coming out right?

"Y-Yuki does?" Tohru's eyes looked vaguely akin to a deer's. One standing in front of a motorbike.

Kyo really didn't want to think about her that way. "No, I didn't mean, I, arrg—! Look, he did, he does, what the hell do I know he could love Kagura for all I—"

Now there was a creepy thought.

"Kyo, I…what are you, are you o—"

"No, I'm not okay, okay!? That damn rat calls me from Iceland or wherever the hell he is now and tells me you love me and hangs up on me and—"

Tohru's face turned beet red and she covered her mouth, "Sohma-kun said that!?"

"Yeah, but it's not true I mean why the hell would it be, he's a rat, they don't ever tell lies!" Kyo was fairly sure there was some horrendous contradiction in there somewhere, "And it's not like I love you too so—" Kyo's rant stopped mid-sentence when Tohru pressed her lips to his.

The next thing Kyo heard was Tohru shouting, "I'm sorry!" The next thing he saw was Tohru running inside, her face redder than a fire engine.

She left a little orange cat standing statuesque on the front porch looking incredibly confused and wondering what had just happened.

And in the back of his mind the cat heard Yuki's voice tell him, "Now that's doing something about it. Congratulations you stupid cat." And Kyo did what he always did:

He told the damn rat to shut the hell up.

x—o—x—o—x

A few hours before Kyo was spluttering love confessions to Tohru, Tohru sat on the floor of Hana's room, picking at the carpet distractedly. Her friends were trying to cheer her up and she knew she should be listening to what Uo was telling her, but she just couldn't. She couldn't get Sohma-kun's face out of her mind, couldn't stop seeing the horror on his face when he'd seen her standing in the nurse's office a week ago, couldn't take back the awful thing she'd done to him by going there…

"Tohru? Hey Tohru, I'm talking to you." Uo grabbed Tohru by the shoulder and turned her to face her two friends. "What's a matter with you? You've been extra quiet for days."

"She's troubled because she upset someone she meant to make feel better. Is that right Tohru?" Hana asked.

"Y-Yeah…" Tohru stared back at the rug. "I think I made a bad situation a lot worse." She admitted, "I just thought…I could help. I always could before…"

"Lemme guess: You went and visited Yuki?" Uo questioned. Tohru nodded glumly. "Did you take that carrot-headed punk with you?" Another nod. "Well geez, Tohru, no wonder it made things worse! Those two fight worse than cats and dogs!"

Tohru winced inwardly—"cats and dogs" wasn't too far from the truth.

"I don't think it was that." Hana interrupted, "Both of them have been…unstable in their own way. The balance shifted, I think, sometime in April—" Tohru stiffened: April was when Kyo had defeated Yuki, "—and ever since then they've been more unstable than usual. I think a lot of that has to do with how they feel about you, Tohru."

"M-Me?"

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed!" Uo laughed, "Those two have been tripping over themselves for ages over you!"

Tohru wasn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't that she hadn't known Sohma-kun and Kyo cared about her, it's just that she didn't want to hurt either of them and there's nothing impartial about love so she'd tried so hard to be impartial, tried so hard, and yet…

…And yet Tohru had no more control over her love than Kyo had over his anger.

"…I think she does know Uo." Hana said softly, de-railing Tohru's train of thought. "I think she's been avoiding thinking about it because she didn't want to hurt either of them, especially after she realized she did have stronger feelings for one than the other."

"Seriously?! Since when? Tohru, which—"

"No." Tohru's voice was quiet at first, but grew louder with each word, "No, I won't do that to either of them! I won't hurt them like—"

"Tohru," Hana said, "You already have."

The tears that had threatened all evening began to fall and her friends pulled her over, held her close.

"Oh Tohru…" and "There, there." She heard them whisper. It didn't make it any better.

She'd already known. Knew from the moment she'd seen Sohma-kun's stricken face in the nurse's room miles away from here that he knew what she'd decided without choosing to. Had known for months, ever since…

Since April.

Oh God, was it all her fault, then? All her fault Yuki'd lost, all her fault he'd been sent away, all her fault that he'd—just because she…

…Because she…loved Kyo?

It hurt even to think it. How could she have done this to Sohma-kun? How could she not love Kyo? How could she—what could she…

What was she supposed to do?

x—o—x—o—x

As Tohru staggered down onto Shigure's front lawn from Uo's massive bike she took a deep breath.

"Take her easy, okay?" Uo asked, clearly concerned. Tohru nodded. "See you tomorrow." She said, and rode off.

Another deep breath. Another shaky deep breath. Another. One more.

Okay.

It didn't surprise Tohru to see Kyo walking up to her. She met him by the porch and they stood there, awkwardly.

"Hi Kyo." She said finally.

Kyo's gaze lowered and he looked as though he was struggling to lift a set of anvils with his shoulders—something was up. "I-I-I—"

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'M WORKING ON IT DAMMIT!" he shouted. Tohru jumped, startled by his sudden outburst. Was it something he'd done, something Shigure'd done?

…Something she'd done?

"W-W-Working on what?" she stammered.

Kyo just muttered something under his breath, not answering her.

How can I help him if I don't know what's wrong? She wondered while another part of her asked, 'You mean like how you helped Sohma-kun?' and her mouth only managed a "Huh?"

Kyo was silent a moment longer, still focused on some inner struggle. He must've won because he finally answered her. "Yuki ehrm…I spoke to the damn rat today."

Something was wrong—Kyo never called Sohma-kun by name. "Sohma-kun? How is he?" she asked, trying not to let the panic she felt seep into her voice.

Kyo just growled. "Ohhh…I really don't wanna talk about it."

Oh no. No, no, no, please don't tell me he—"Why? What happened? Is he okay?"

This time after Kyo spoke Tohru swore she felt her heart stop. "He tried to kill himself."

Every time Tohru thought she couldn't cry any more tears she managed to prove herself wrong. "Wh-what…? He tried to…"

"No, I mean, he's okay, he just—"

"Why?" but even as the word left her lips she knew the answer. Of course Sohma-kun had tried to…why wouldn't he try to when she…

"He's depressed?" Kyo asked rhetorically, "How the hell should I know, I've never—"

And just as Kyo said this Tohru heard the lie behind it, knew Kyo had tried to do such an awful thing to himself and when she asked, "But why? Why would he be that sad, why would he—" she wasn't sure if it was still Sohma-kun she was talking about, even though Kyo still was.

"Well, of course he's depressed, he loves you!"

…why wouldn't he try to when she… "Y-Yuki does?" She was lying to herself, lying so she wouldn't have to face this, lying because, because…

I don't want this to be my fault. Not for either of them.

Kyo was beyond flustered at this point, "No, I didn't mean, I, arrg—! Look, he did, he does, what the hell do I know he could love Kagura for all I—" Kyo paused, this thought just too weird for him to continue.

"Kyo I…" whatever Tohru wanted to say… "What are you," …she just couldn't get out, "are you o—" Before she could ask "okay?" Which wasn't what she wanted to ask anyway, Kyo interrupted, fuming.

"No, I'm not okay, okay!? That damn rat calls me from Iceland or wherever the hell he is now and tells me you love me and hangs up on me and—"

"Sohma-kun said that!?" Shock, amazement, confusion, relief. He knows, he cares, but he's okay with it?

Why else would he tell Kyo?

"Yeah, but it's not true I mean why the hell would it be, he's a rat, they don't ever tell lies!" Kyo ranted.

He wants it to be true, he wants me to love him and Sohma-kun wants me to love Kyo, and I have hurt both of them by not being honest and if I keep this up I'll hurt all of us and—

"And it's not like I love you too so—"

She kissed him. Kissed him for Sohma-kun, kissed Kyo for himself…

Kissed him for herself.

And when she pulled away she apologized—she needed time to think, to sort out how she was feeling…

…to forgive herself?

She ran inside.

NEXT: WAKEUP