Thanks to everyone who has been reading! Well, here is, sadly, the last session with Shigure. To add to this sadness, there are two more chapters remaining after this. Ah well...

I'm quite pleased with this chapter. I think it offers some important character revelations and insights into some of this story's themes. With that begin said, I hope you all enjoy the read!

Patient – Sohma Shigure; Session #38

Kyou's 127th session with me continued to trouble me. Every free moment was spent dwelling on how I was going to aid my young cousin once his graduation commenced. With each patient I saw, I felt more and more pressure to produce some sort of plan, as if everyone was expecting it, for better or for worse. After all, Kyou was depending on me now to save him, and I certainly couldn't let him down. Not to mention my own mother, despite her worry that I had become "blasphemous," still believed that I was destined to be my family's savior, born to break the Sohma's from their curse once and for all.

Yet, it was more than that; it was as if I had to prove myself to the rest of my family. In the end, perhaps, I was desperate to show that I was worth more than they had thought – that I wasn't just some mistake or some spot that tarnished the Sohma name. This distressed me even more; could it be that my practice was never about helping my family but simply motivated by own selfish interests? I tried desperately to shake such ideas from my mind and remind myself that my actions were driven by altruistic goals. I was simply letting Akito's accusations that all I cared about was "controlling" everyone get to me, I theorized. What was worse, though, was that I couldn't think of any sort of logical plan that might end all of this curse nonsense once and for all. The idea that reason would ultimately prevail, ridding my family at last of their prejudices and misery, appeared to be less and less likely. I thought that I could attempt to get the police involved, because surely they wouldn't allow the imprisonment of a teenage boy, but I got the nagging suspicion such interference wouldn't necessarily work out as I thought it would. After all, the Sohma family was quite wealthy and influential. Moreover, they seemed to operate outside of modern Japanese society, playing by different rules entirely.

Such worries continued to vex me into mid December. On December 17th my anxieties were only amplified – it was my twenty-sixth birthday. It is important to note that for as long as I could remember, my birthday had never been acknowledged, let alone celebrated. Not even my mother dared to utter an acknowledgment of it (in fact, she spent the day quite miserable, which was rather disconcerting for myself, especially considering she spoke so excitedly of her prophecy for the other 364 days of the year). To my family, I suppose, the day was one of great shame so it was best not to recognize it ever occurred. After all, it was the anniversary of when I – an illegitimate bastard born of Sohma blood – came into the world, making tangible my mother's humiliating transgression; I was, to be perfectly blunt, nothing more than her mark of Cain to the Sohma clan. As a result, the day went on the surface ignored, although underneath the silence lay an unspoken disdain. I could feel it in each of my relatives' glares and in the tone of their voices when they talked to me. Even twenty six years later, my mother's sin was remembered with disgust, and I was nothing but its unhappy manifestation.

Every year, I coped with this unsettling day by preoccupying myself with other things. When I was a child, I would make sure to overly engage myself in my classes for the day. If there were no classes, I would lock myself in my room and read a book from cover to cover. Fortunately, when I studied abroad, it was easy for me to get caught up in my studies and other activities so that I would thankfully forget it was my birthday entirely. However, having returned back to Japan to serve as my family's therapist, I simply crammed December 17th with counseling sessions, not even bothering to give myself a lunch break. For my twenty-sixth birthday, I saw Ritsu, Haru, Kagura, and Momiji in the morning. For the afternoon I had Hatori, Shigure, and Akito scheduled. Most of these sessions went on as they typically did, with not much coming out of them. However, in the case of Shigure, I suppose there was always something of unusual interest found in my sessions with him.

Shigure strolled into my office at a little after two thirty, just minutes after a mostly stoic but mildly miff Hatori had made his happy exit. "Why, good afternoon, Kazuki!" he greeted me, taking his seat on the couch. "I hear you've been seeing quite a bit of patients today."

"Yes, well, I suppose I've had a busy day," I answered simply, knowing that Shigure was, as always, fishing for information. Determined not to divulge anything to him and to focus the session on helping him with his problems for once, I went on, "Now, how about we begin today discussing your relationship with your editor?"

"Sure," Shigure agreed pleasantly, reclining on the sofa. However, it soon became apparent to me that his easy consensus was only a ruse. "But, before I forget, I've been meaning to tell you Kazuki that I'm quite impressed to see that you've decided to stick around here."

"Oh?" Admittedly, Shigure had hooked me merely on the word "impressed." I had been curious ever since my session with Kyou as to what the others had really thought about my rejection of Professor Jammerson's offer and of the ideas they had concocted in their minds about my allegedly imminent rebellion against their "god."

"I'm sure Aunt Tomiko must be quite thrilled to see you stay," Shigure continued. He mused for a moment and smirked, "But I guess that means you haven't given up, yes? On breaking the curse, I mean."

"I already told you, I don't think there is a 'curse' of the kind that the rest of you have prescribed to."

"Ah, yes," Shigure recalled. "That's right. You still believe that reason and logic will prevail, don't you? That somehow you, with your wealth of knowledge and modern ideas, will finally be able to enlighten us poor, simple-minded folk? Despite the changing into animals bit, of course."

"I suppose so, yes," I answered uncomfortably, sensing the mocking tone in his voice.

Shigure shook his head and laughed sardonically. "You really are so silly, Kazuki." He chuckled some more and I grew stiff.

"Now, listen here – " I sharply cut into his laugher, clutching my pencil tightly around my fingers.

"Oh, I mean no offense," Shigure calmed down, but that unnerving smirk lingered on his face. "But I'm sorry – I've put us off topic again, haven't I? What did you want to discuss again? My editor, was it?"

However, Shigure had pushed the right buttons, and I was satisfactorily riled up. Granted, I knew that I shouldn't have given in to his mind tricks, but perhaps I had too much pride to let the whole conversation conclude in such a fashion. So, I said, "Shigure, I know you, like the others, think that I'm – "

Shigure interrupted me with another laugh. "Oh, I don't think like the others," he clarified lightly, but there was something dark in his eyes at my notion.

"You don't?" I questioned skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"Certainly not," he answered. "Most of them think you're planning something." He sent a glance my way, intent on reading my reaction to this statement before going on; "I go along with them, of course. No use playing devil's advocate and stirring things up, after all."

"And you don't think I am?"

He was quiet for a moment before plainly replying, "No. I don't think so. And even if you are – well, I'm sure it won't amount to much. You're just too silly about the whole thing." Once more, his scheming grin appeared.

I felt my skin prickle. There it was again – that word "silly." Gritting my teeth, I inquired as diplomatically as I could, "And what is it that you mean by 'silly,' Shigure?"

"Oh, you know..." He trailed off with a shrug, purposefully giving me an no answer at all. "But I must say, Kyou will be disappointed – I'm sure you've noticed that he's put a lot of faith in your abilities to outdo Akito."

This last remark stung harshly. Growing more fidgety, I told Shigure only somewhat convincingly, "Despite what you might think, I'm not going to allow Akito or anyone else in this family to lock up Kyou simply because he's, as you all put it, 'the cat.'"

"Of course, of course," Shigure humored me; he was amused but not persuaded.

"And what is it that you are doing, anyway?" I demanded, growing more confrontational at his condescension. "You certainly act as if you've got something up your sleeve all the time."

Shigure smiled cunningly. "I'm trying to break the curse, of course."

"You are?" To be truthful, I didn't really believe him. Surely, with such a sinister person lurking behind his amicable façade he couldn't be working toward such a noble end.

"Yes, I am."

"And what makes you think you can break it and I can't?" I hotly shot back.

"Honestly, lots of reasons," Shigure responded candidly. "As I said before, you're much too silly about the whole thing. Not to say you're not smart, but you think everything can be solved with logic and reason. The world, I'm afraid, is a lot more complicated than that."

"I'm aware of that," I snapped, feeling increasingly defensive and all the while growing more and more unprofessional. Yet, I found I didn't care about this latter point; I was sick of pretending for the sake of keeping face.

"I'm not sure you are," Shigure insisted, remaining oddly pleasant, as if we were talking about a new movie or the week's weather forecast. "But there's more than that, anyway, Kazuki. I mean, you'll never be able to understand the curse – you're not one of the jyunnishi, after all. You don't even believe there's a curse to begin with, even with us turning into animals. And, as you psychiatrists always say, you can't begin to fix a problem unless you recognize the problem to begin with."

"But there isn't a curse!" I blurted out angrily, rising to my feet and slamming the palms of my hands on my desk. "It's all in your heads that you need to be so miserable all the time. If you would just try and listen to reason – "

"Back to that again are we?" Shigure smirked, not at all alarmed by my outburst. "Don't you see, Kazuki? You're much too self-righteous. You think you know what's best for us but who's to say you know any more than Akito does? But you just want everyone to think as you do – for us all to smile and nod in agreement. And I can't say that I don't think it's a bit much for a man to envision himself as a savior or for him to believe that he alone can determine what is right and what is wrong. So, in the end, I can't help but thinking 'what's the point of usurping one god for another?'"

At this I felt crushed. Slowly, I fell back in my chair, his words weighing heavily on me. Perhaps sensing my defeat, Shigure rose and said, "I should be going now, I think." Standing up, he headed toward the door, seemingly satisfied for having finally asserted his upper-hand openly; he had accomplished what he had set out to do. Yet, as he was just about ready to leave my office, he uncharacteristically hesitated and turned back to me. "Kazuki, I'm sorry if my honesty was too harsh for your liking. You see, though, I had no choice. I know you mean well, but you'll never find what you're really looking for this way." Then, smiling the only genuine smile I can ever remember him giving me, he said, "Happy Birthday."

It was the first time anyone had ever spoken those two words to me – not even my mother had. Admittedly, I was quite startled by this simple utterance and had not a clue of how to react. I looked at my older cousin for what seemed like a lengthy time, lost for words as my mind was completely blank. He did not stand in the doorway for long and it was not until he disappeared into the hallway that I at last gave my reply: "Thank you, Shigure."