Chapter 24: Secrets and Rivalry

She gulped and straightened her back in preparation to enter when the door swung open forcefully and Kyo stood scowling menacingly in the door frame, "Oh, hey. Thought you were Yuki again." All aggression left Kyo's figure and he stood aside to let Tohru in.

"No he's outside." She confirmed, conscious of her reddening face as her eyes locked on Kyo's toned body. She briefly reminisced about an American actor Uo obsessed over called Channing Tatum and figured that Kyo looked a bit like an orange topped Japanese version.

"Sent you to come and get me hey?" Kyo shuffled around rambling about Yuki's laziness, Tohru snapped back into the present and began to gather her things and cleaned up the bottles of Gatorade and Red Bull that Kyo had manage to purchase and consume in order to prepare for the challenge ahead.

She looked up once she had finished and scanned the room for her friend, who was leaning against the corner of a book case staring at her sadly. Her eyes spoke to her a sorrow and she felt instantly obliged to comfort him.

"Are you ok Kyo-Kun? Is there something I can do?"

He averted his gaze in shame. Tohru could see he was having difficulty communicating his troubles, and she knew not to rush him.

"Yes," He said finally, "Yes there is. I need to tell you something. Something important."

"What is it," Tohru asked delicately, "You can trust me Kyo-Kun."

"I-I can't tell you. Not now." His voice broke and he looked again at the floor.

"Why not?" Tohru prompted.

"Because when I do tell you," His tone suddenly turned dark, "after I finish, I won't be able to talk to you again. It-it won't be the same."

Tohru froze, she couldn't not talk to Kyo ever again, it just couldn't be. What could be so bad as to prevent them from speaking? She could feel herself going into panic, she just couldn't let Kyo go. Not ever.

"Why ever not? It can't b-"

"No!" His breathing was heavy and his eyes wide as if shocked that the sound had passed his lips, "no." He repeated, but with less conviction as he closed his eyes, "I can't," beat, "I can't tell you because I'm a coward. I'm scared Tohru and I should have told you a long time ago."

He opened his eyes and Tohru could have sworn that she saw them glimmering with tears.

"I just," he turned away from her now, "wanted to let you know so that, well, urgh."

Finally letting go his exasperation he left the room. Tohru sat down and let go a breath she hadn't known she had been holding.

Kyo pressed the door closed, facing towards it as he did so, "In case you didn't know, my life doesn't happen to me purely for your entertainment."

"Oh, I know. But it is awfully fun when you get to jump along for the ride."

Kyo knocked his cousins shoulder as he went, "Piss off."

. . .

"You know what!" Kyo yelled at his cousin as he mounted his paddle board.

"What?" Yuki asked, rolling his eyes uninterestedly.

"I'm gonna beat the crap out of you!"

"Right. And what brought you to that conclusion?"

"The fact that you're a pretty little girly boy and I'm a black belt in martial arts!"

"Oh. Not maybe the probability that after all the fights we've had you might have won one of them?" Kyo's neck instantly turned scarlet, "And for the record, we are both black belts in martial arts."

"Whatever. I'm still gonna beat the crap out of you!"

"Um," Tohru interjected, "Are you sure this is a good idea? Perhaps you should learn how to paddle board first."

"I am sure!" Kyo retorted, picking up his paddle, "Be ready to be beaten rat boy!"

"What are we even doing?" Yuki asked with a tone of mild interest.

"Whoever can get to that beach first," Kyo pointed at a distant sore, "wins."

"Ha!" His cousin replied intently, "easy."

"You ready Rat boy?"

"Naturally."

"No." Tohru breathed anxiously.

"You?" Yuki asked Kyo mockingly.

"Like hell! Let's go!"

The two sped off across the clear sea.

"What's up with those two?"

"Arg!" Tohru leapt around to see the instructor staring after the two boys curiously.

"They need to calm down a bit." The lady shifted her attention to Tohru and grinned widely. She had deadlocks, tanned skin, and an infectious smile, "Names Nina," She said cheerfully, extending her hand which Tohru took.

"Hello, it is nice to meet you," She bowed graciously and the instructor bowed in return, still grinning.

"You Chinese?" She asked politely.

"Um, Japanese actually." Tohru corrected hastily.

"Ahh. Here for a holiday?"

"Yes."

"With those two immature creatures?" She nodded towards the two cousins.

"Mmm," Tohru confirmed.

"Good for you. How old are you? Still in high school?"

"Err," Tohru hurriedly translated in her head, "Um, I am seventeen."

The instructor nodded, her white teeth glinting in the sunlight, "Twenty-three. You gonna have a go or what?"

"Huh?"

"Paddle boarding." She explained.

"Oh, yes. Thank you." Tohru bowed and turned to enter the water by herself.

Mounting her board, she squinted into the distance to see Kyo and Yuki neck and neck on their way to the finish line. She wondered what Kyo had been talking about earlier as she felt anxiety return and clench her stomach as she tried to move her paddle smoothly through the water. Surely there was nothing that Kyo could say that would upset her enough to result in her not speaking to him.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she slipped gingerly off her board. Now entirely drenched, she lifted the hair out of her eyes and looked up to see that Kyo had now broken away from Yuki and was in steed to win the race. Tohru smiled. Although she did not agree with the constant bickering and dangerous contests against the two boys it was something that was important to Kyo so it was good that he was winning. Tohru often wished that Yuki would just loose to Kyo on purpose so that the two might stop fighting. She rubbed her brow in frustration.

Looking up again, she was alarmed to see that Kyo appeared to be losing his balance. She watched fearfully as Kyo lent unstably from side to side before his board slipped out from under his feet. Tohru watched as he fell in slow motion into the water and Yuki speed past him, as if leaching the time away. By the time he was back on his board, Kyo was already too far behind to win and ended up touching down on the beach second.

Tohru paddled slowly over to were the two boys were sitting on their boards. She caught snippets of their conversation as she egged closer, "I didn't think you would take loosing that badly."

"Yeah, but what I'm saying is that I shouldn't have lost!"

"How so?"

"You bloody pushed me, that's how Rat boy!"

"I did no such thing."

"Yeah, you did!"

"I couldn't have; I was too far behind you."

"No you weren't, you caught up too easy."

Yuki's voice suddenly became hushed but was met by an outburst from Kyo, "That's not true! After all, you're the one who keeps acting so sleazy. Going to your 'secret base' my ass! Who knows what-"

"Hello Miss Honda." Yuki smiled kindly at Tohru as she approached, his eyelids closing as they met his cheeks, "Kyo here is taking his loss pretty bad. As you know, he is ever such a poor looser."

"What the hell! That's completely beside the point! Besides, I wouldn't have lost if someone hadn-"

"I am very sorry we left you on the beach to participate in this pointless challenge. I am glad you made it over to us unharmed."

"'course she made it to us 'unharmed'," Kyo commented aggressively, making quotation marks with his fingers, "She's fully capable. Even if you don't think so" He added.

"I never said Miss Honder wasn't capable of anything in my life." Yuki countered as Kyo scoffed.

"How-how about we go and paddleboard back to the beach?" Tohru suggested hopefully.

"Yes, what a wonderful idea," Yuki confirmed rather forcefully and giving Kyo his pissed off look before turning to face Tohru, "but only if you hold my hand."

"Tohru doesn't need to hold hands with anyone she doesn't want to." Kyo said firmly.

Yuki raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice slightly, "Someone's jealous."

"Shut it." Kyo warned threateningly, "I was just about to say that you need both hands to paddle with you dumb ass."

"Stupid cat."

"C'mon," Kyo gestured to the beach opposite them, "lets go."

The three circled around the bay for the remainder of the session and got fish and chips at a restaurant on the beach.

"What do you guys wanna do tomorrow then?" Kyo asked after lunch was finished.

"It would depend on what we could book I would imagine." Yuki replied blankly, getting up to pay the bill.

As he left Tohru turned to look at Kyo who blinked at her. She opened her mouth but he got there first, speaking urgently, "I only told you so that you would know that something was up. Not to make you more worried."

Tohru was under the impression that this was not the sole reason why Kyo had voiced that something was troubling him. She thought back to their conversation, I'm scared Tohru and I should have told you a long time ago; was Kyo purposely backing himself into a corner so that he couldn't run away anymore?

Oh well, though she, what is the worst that could happen?

A/N:

Hey you guys remember that time I said I would be updating weekly? I lied. Sorry. ^_^

I am interested to see if you have theories about the story and if so PLEASE REPORT THEM TO MYSELF. Btw, if there are some odd spellings it is because I added gramarly to my browserbut didn't want to pay for it so I don't think it is properly installed; anyway, I swear that it is purposely misspelling things so that I feel I have to buy it. The moral of the story is; I have no idea what has happened.

Hope you enjoyed, please R&R and have a great week

Zozo – XOXO

Iloveanime1322 – Don't know if this chapter was as intense as you were expecting but in my eyes it was. ;P I feel you about Kyo and Yuki though. Do you think I've overdone that a little in this chapter? Idk. But thanks for the review, I'm glad I made you feel happy! : )))))))))

CLC - . . .maybe you should be writing this instead of me. . .T.T ;D