"And Then…" for "Fruits Basket"

Disclaimer: Too many copyright lawyers,

Just look for excuses to fight,

Well, people like me

Are as poor as can be,

This is just a fan fiction, right? (Mikazuki Yuriko)

For my friend Caiti, with love. May you be blessed with health and happiness.

Chapter 21: Cocks and Horses

"Shigure! SHIGURE! Come out here this instant!"

The unmistakable yelling voice accompanied by frenzied fist-banging on the door was no other than the zodiac Dog's dear editor, Mi'i, who was, it seemed, on the war path yet again. Shigure had plenty of warning; she'd left a rather angry-sounding message on his answering machine—one of over fifty—threatening to come up and pulverize him if he didn't return her phone calls. Shigure had just returned from a trip to the grocery store; now that Tohru was no longer around to take care of him, he was back to doing things on his own, and he was finding that somewhat more difficult than he remembered it being—after all, how was he supposed to know that laundry detergent with bleach shouldn't be used on his favorite dark blue robes? Or that milk eventually turned solid after a couple of weeks? Shigure had hung his head in the middle of the aisle at the store, trying to find his favorite brand of ketchup but, unsuccessful, chose the cheapest stuff instead. He also discovered, after some trial and error, that to get on the bus back to the house, he had to be waiting on the other side of the street.

He was jabbing at a carton of half-melted strawberry ice cream with a spoon and reading the newspaper in the living room when he finally noticed the red light on his answering machine flashing. He hadn't bothered to check his messages for the past several days. They were all from the same number, anyway. Shigure didn't have his latest manuscript ready quite yet for publishing, though it was way past the deadline. Mi'i was probably pulling hair out over him. He hoped not. Her hair really was quite nice. He hoped she'd at least donate it to be made into a wig if she was yanking it out.

He was just about ready by the time he heard her car screech to a halt in front of his house. Leaving the newspaper and ice cream on the living room table, he tip-toed out of the room just as Mi'i commenced her battering ram tactics.

"Shigure, I know you're in there! Get your butt out here now! Or I'll…..I'll…..do something really bad to you!"

Shigure chuckled as he closed the bathroom door on himself.

His editor really hadn't needed break down the door—that was what it sounded like to Shigure—it was unlocked after all. Next he heard footsteps running around from room to room, and he could just picture Mi'i, nose raised like a bloodhound trying to catch his scent and track him.

"Come out from wherever it is you're hiding, Shigure!" Mi'i called. Her voice suddenly got sing-songy as she bluffed, "I'll cancel your next book signing deal….." When he didn't answer, he heard her "Argh!" echo throughout the empty house. It wouldn't take her too much longer. Shigure looked at the stopwatch in his hand. If she found him in the next thirty seconds, this would be a new record. Maybe he'd make up a little award certificate for her.

"Hah! Gotcha---AAGHH!" The face of the woman who just burst in through the bathroom door flashed through many different expressions in just a short second. From pursed-lipped perseverance to delighted triumph to sudden mortification to utter embarrassment, though the last she hid behind her hands, blindly trying to back away out of the room and missing the door, bumping up against the doorframe. Shigure scooped a handful of bubbles and splatted them on his head.

"Mi'i, I'm trying to take a bath," he remarked, just as his thumb punched the stop button on the watch.

"Yes, I can see that. Wait, no, I can't!" she suddenly contradicted, her voice going up octaves with every passing sentence. "I mean……ARGH! Shigure, why the heck are you in the bath when you have a major deadline to meet! The release date for this book has already been announced! It should have been on the press weeks ago! Why are you dawdling? And for that matter, why are you avoiding my calls?"

"It's really hard to have a conversation when you've got your face covered," Shigure said, swirling the fragrant bubbles filling the tub to the brim. He had to admire her determination. She was still there, for one thing, if turning a very deep shade of crimson behind her slender, well-lotioned hands. "I need to unwind. Stress just blocks up the creative passages flowing to the brain. And I have to bathe sometime, you know. I wouldn't have very many fans wanting signed copies of my books if I smelled bad, would I?"

"That is…..that is beside the point!" Mi'i cried. "The point is that if you don't get your act together, I'm the one who's gonna be in trouble with the publishers because your stupid book's not ready yet, and it should have been ages ago! Do you WANT me to get fired!"

"Of course not!" Shigure responded in an affronted tone. He began floating a rubber ducky across the sea of bubbles. "Who else would fix my margins for me?"

At that, Mi'i's hands flew away from her face and she glared at Shigure, then remembering why she'd had her eyes covered in the first place, she quickly looked away, though she seemed very tempted to continue pointing her Glare of Death at him.

"Margins!" she growled through gritted teeth. "Margins! I could end up living in a box on the side of the road, and all you care about is MARGINS!"

"Oh, Mi'i, you wouldn't end up in a box," Shigure consoled her, sculpting a tall mound of bubbles before him. "Though if you did, I would recommend a refrigerator box. You'd be bit big for it, but I'm sure that if you cut out a window and put some drapes up, and maybe a little flower box outside, it would make a lovely little house. Oh, and by the way," he said, reading the numbers on the stopwatch and smiling, "You broke sixty seconds today! That's a new best!"

Outside a youth on a bicycle pedaling up the mountain road that ran through Shigure's property turned his head to stare at the house from which a roar of swearing like an explosion was sounding, fit to shake the house off its foundation.

Shigure cocked his head and began screwing his pinky into his ear.

"I think I had some water in my ear just now."

Mi'i, red-faced and fuming, breathed heavily through her flaring nostrils, and purple veins were beginning to pop up on her forehead.

"You…..have…..until…..tomorrow…..to…..finish…..that…..book," she enunciated. "If…..you…..are…..not…..done…..by…..nine…o'clock…..I…..will…..kill…..you….."

Shigure raised an innocent eyebrow at her.

"Maybe you should take a nice hot bath, too, Mi'i," he suggested. "You look as if you need to kick back and relax for a bit. You're working too hard at that cubbyhole you call an office."

"NO BATH!" she shouted like thunder, abruptly leaving the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.

Shigure simply smiled to himself and continued playing with the bubbles on his bathwater.

Through the holes cut in his black hood, pulled over his face like a mask, Kureno smirked at the chubby young student he had cornered in the deserted alleyway. His victim was sandwiched between two trashcans, whimpering and shifting his eyes from the knife in Kureno's hand to the Cock's masked face.

"Take it! Just take it!" the young man begged, reaching into the pocket of his khaki pants for a wallet. The chubby student's voice reminded Kureno of a squealing piglet. He sort of looked like one, too, with his smooth, fleshy pink cheeks and beady eyes behind large eyeglasses. Kureno caught the wallet tossed to him with one hand and cracked it open. There were a few bills, and coins jingled in one of the pockets. He didn't carry any credit cards on him, Kureno noted with disappointment, though there was a blood donor ID card and video rental club pass.

"So…..Masahiko," Kureno crooned. "Looks like you're a pretty frugal citizen." The picture on the donor card was pretty laughable. "seeing as you're a starving student, I'll be easy on you this time." It was true. He didn't need, or really even want, this boy's money. He was just wasting time while the Sohmas were in class. He was hoping for a chance to run into Tohru and get her alone. He would take it upon himself to educate her in some of the facts of life. This piglet could probably use some of Kureno's teachings as well. "I'll give this back to you, but at a price." He folded his knife in on itself and pocketed it. Then he delivered a swift blow to the young man's stomach with his knee, knocking the wind out of the chubby student so that he crumpled to the cement.

"The next time the Yakuza comes to collect dues, make sure you've got enough to pay," Kureno warned him. That was the standard warning to anyone the Yakuza moved in on. He might as well spread the reputation while he was here. While the piglet…..Masahiko…..groaned, hunched over and clutching his stomach, Kureno turned around and left the scene. Once he turned the corner of this quiet, residential area—a fairly rich area judging by the size of the houses and the nice cars—he pulled off the black hood, stuffed it in his pocket, and meandered off. He had no concerns about running into any police. He wasn't without friends in this place. He eyed some of the cars parked on the street as he wandered through the suburbs. Many of them were foreign models: Mercedes-Bentz, Porches, Jaguars, Lexuses…..And yet he couldn't find someone to mug carrying more than lunch money. He looked over a bright red Porsche with interest. It was parked outside of a house with a high gate surrounding the well-trimmed yard. The house's windows had curtains drawn on both stories.

Before he could make up his mind whether or not to take a shot at the sports car, he heard a husky but feminine voice say his name. He turned his back on the Porsche to find his cousin Rin looking at him disapprovingly. She always looked at him like that. It made him want to laugh out loud.

"What are you doing here, Rini?" he asked, calling her by his pet name for her. She utterly hated it. "Not enough men to keep you busy back home so you're out exploring new venues?"

Her rosebud mouth pouted, but she didn't lash out at him with her fiery temper. Not that she would. Not with him. Though she was older than he, he could put her in her place as easily as any of the other Sohmas.

"Up to no good as usual, are you, Kureno?" she said flatly.

"I have to make a living," he replied. "Be a dear and warn me if anyone's coming," he said condescendingly, bending down to study the fancy chrome hubcaps on the Porsche. He pulled his infamous little tool kit from his jacket pocket and began working on the hubcaps. While he pried them off, he made idle conversation with Rin, who hadn't made any effort so far to leave. She, like all the rest of them, were just too used to doing what he said. It was pitiful, and he loved it.

"I hear things didn't work out between you and ol' Shigure," he said with a mocking tone. "I told you not to get your hopes up. You're cursed. It's your destiny to be miserable. You might as well get used to it."

"Maybe I'm not so willing to accept it as you are," the Horse bit back. She came to stand by him and squatted down, balancing on the toes of her high-heeled leather boots. A risky thing for her to do, with her short skirt and low-cut tank top. Kureno didn't give any time to checking her out, though. She was his cousin, for one thing, and physically beautiful as she was, her personality made her as ugly to him as a teenager with a severe case of acne. Besides, he was concentrating on the task at hand. One hubcap came off finally, and he moved to the next.

"At any rate, why do you care?" Rin interrogated him. "You've got your stupid gang. I should think you have more 'important' things to do than keep tabs on my failed relationships."

"Rini," Kureno said with an unkind smile, though he avoided looking at her. "I'm family. I care."

Rin made a disgusted sound and stood up, scanning the streets. She spat back, saying, "That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard."

"If it tops all of Shigure's and Hatsuharu's tender overtures towards you, then I'd say that's a pretty impressive load of crap," Kureno answered, grinding salt into the wound.

"At least I'm trying to find happiness!" she cried in a tone that was becoming higher and higher pitched. "I haven't given up yet, unlike you!"

Kureno chuckled, despite himself, as he pried off the second of the Porsche's shiny chrome hubcaps. Just one was probably worth a few hundred bucks.

"Your optimism is quite…..refreshing, Rini," he said, laughing at her. "When are you going to get it? You're a Sohma. Nobody loves you, and no one ever will. All you're going to get out of life is one broken heart after another. Even the Sohmas are shunning you now. You're going to grow old—alone and ugly—and die that way. The very least you could do is commit suicide and go out with some honor, seeing as you have none. At least then the rest of us would be rid of your pathetic moping."

Rin was virtually quivering with anger, and there were telltale signs of tears clouding her shining black eyes.

"All you care about is other people's suffering," Rin retorted, her voice not so steady as before. "You love it. At the very least, my dying would deprive you of that! It's enough reason to commit suicide in itself!" Abandoning her position as his lookout, she stormed off down the street, long sleek hair swaying behind her. Kureno grinned contentedly and finished what he was doing.

On the train back home, Rin sat apart, as much as was possible on the busy line, from everyone else, huddled in a corner and making eye contact with no one. Other passengers were more or less doing the same, reading books and newspapers, doing crosswords, or staring blankly out the windows at the scenery rushing by too fast to really be seen. The train departing from Tokyo usually wasn't too busy this time of day. The rush hour was still a ways off.

Rin stared at her bare knees, her conversation with Kureno playing over and over again in her head. It wasn't the first of its kind. Her younger cousin had always bullied her growing up, and always would, unless she actually took him up on his advice. Her gaze lingered on a thin white scar on her forearm. He'd almost persuaded her, once.

At every stop the people around her changed—businessmen became students, who turned into bums or more businessmen, a rainbow assortment of people going about their own business and their own lives. None of them were feeling the way she did just then, she was willing to bet. None of them carried the Sohma curse.

Kureno was right about that, much as she loathed admitting it. It was her lot in life to be miserable. That was what being a Sohma meant. That was what being cursed meant. But what if she didn't want that fate anymore? There wasn't anything she could do to change it. Those were the thoughts that so often dragged her down into the seemingly inescapable depths of despair.

She wasn't sure why she'd taken this train to Tokyo in the first place. It wasn't to look for men, as Kureno had so crudely remarked. But Rin had no business being there, so why did she get on board? She felt as though she was just a robot, and getting on the train for Tokyo had been someone else pushing the buttons, not her.

She could have gone to Ginza. She might have had fun there. Or Kobe. Her favorite city was Kyoto, especially at this time of year, with the leaves beginning to turn vivid colors of red and orange and gold.

More passengers filed in or got off, and attendants routinely came by to check for valid tickets. Rin wordlessly showed her pass whenever prompted, and for the most part she was left alone.

She didn't have very much motivation to head back home. Her cramped little apartment was a mess, and there wasn't anything in particular she really wanted to do there. She certainly didn't want to see any of her family, especially Shigure, after how he rejected her. Again.

Maybe if she just stayed on this train forever and ever, she wouldn't have to take responsibility for her life.

Wait, there was someone she'd wanted to see in Tokyo. She'd heard there was someone now in Tokyo who could work miracles with people.

Everyone at Sohma House was talking about her.

Rin saw her as just a stupid, immature schoolgirl when they'd first met, but over time, she came to realize just how much of an impact she'd had on the Sohma clan. Kyo and Yuki were free of Akito, relatively speaking. Hatori seemed a bit brighter than usual. Ritsu wasn't the same whiny, cross-dressing boy he'd once been, Kisa was more confident in herself, and Hiro more gentle. Maybe that's why Rin had gotten on the train bound for Tokyo.

"Isn't this your stop?" asked a woman in a T-shirt and blue jeans seated next to her. Rin snapped out of her daze and regarded the woman interrupting her stream of thoughts with mild irritation.

"This is it, right? Sorry, I just happened to glance at your ticket. I'm getting off here, too." With that, the woman got up and walked away to join the pack eager to be released of the train. Rin looked at her ticket. Yes, this was the right stop.

She made her way back to her place with the same melancholy spirit she'd had ever since running into Kureno again. She hated him the most out of all the Sohmas. Even more than Akito. He was up to his usual antics. Rin could care less what he did in his spare time, but unfortunately, tormenting her was near the top of his list of favorite hobbies. As she walked into her dim apartment, she dropped her keys on the table in the tiny alcove that served as the kitchen and went back into her bedroom, not even bothering to turn the lights on.

She hated Kureno, hated him more than anyone else in the world except for one person. The one who would torment her until the day she died. The one who was cruelest of all.

Herself.

Flopping herself down onto the mattress of her bed, Rin inclined her head a bit to see a framed photograph on the nightstand. It was a picture of her mother. The woman was in her early fifties now, and a bit more homely and wrinkled than her counterpart in the nickel frame. Her hair, the same color as Rin's was cropped short, and curly, and her deep black eyes seemed to convey a sense of warmth and gentleness. Rin hadn't spoken to her in months.

Rin had discovered her wily powers in her early teenaged years. When she'd filled out a bit—she'd been as skinny as a stick until age fourteen or so—and when her body finally matched up with her height, she noticed the amount of attention she drew from people, girls as well as boys, increased exponentially. The girls were all jealous. The boys…..well…..they were a lot nicer to her than they had been growing up.

It hadn't taken Rin long to realize that she could use this new shape of hers to get what she wanted. From the opposite sex at least. Nothing big. Just a bit of respect or a favor here and there. Before long, she was thriving on it.

The first boy she actually had feelings for was a fifteen-year-old in her year named Fujii Kawabata. They weren't in the same classes, but Rin took every opportunity before and after school to get his attention. The models in the magazines showed her how—sleek, gorgeous women whose faces didn't convey a care in the world. They were part of a transcendental reality. Reality couldn't touch them.

She first kissed Fujii in the gymnasium after school. She knew it was dangerous, but she wanted him to love her so badly. It was hard to keep him from wrapping his arms around her—she wanted him to, so badly, but the consequences would have been disastrous. What would the boy she had a crush on think if she suddenly changed into a horse right then and there? Not only would she be in trouble with Akito and the Sohmas, but the empire of respect and admiration she'd worked so hard to create for herself would be shattered. It was her only lifeline. So, with a touch of regret, she worked and teased Fujii, and by doing so distanced herself from him. Seita Kawaguchi was next, then Shinji Watabe, then Tetsuya Nomiyama, Shouji Yamanaka, Tarou Yamagata, and so on, until she was known in even the other schools in the prefecture.

Her parents worried about her radical behavior. They had been strict as the tea ceremony, raising her. When they saw some of the new fashions she was wearing, they made her take them back to the store, which was humiliating. So Rin learned to hide her purchases and show them only the cheap, innocent outfits she brought home as decoys. She changed her attire before going to school, but after she was out of her mother's eyesight. On several occasions, she had been punished by the principal for indecency, and on a few occasions throughout her junior high and high school careers, suspended, but the more she pushed the envelope, the more Rin wanted to.

Her parents were at a loss. Where did they go wrong, they wondered? They took a way the suggestive clothes, but Rin always got her hands on more. They took away her allowance and credit cards. Rin remembered the first time she swiped a bra from the Victoria's Secret at the mall.

Rin considered going into modeling after high school, but her parents were appalled at the idea and enrolled her in an all-girls college. She'd been attending until just a couple months ago. She decided to drop out and was living on whatever photo shoots came along. But truthfully, they left her feeling empty inside.

Every day was basically the same now. She'd go out in the morning, hang around town all day, maybe go to pose for snapshots for low-class magazines, grab some take-out to eat, then go home and sit in the silence of her dark apartment. It was all so…..lonely.

The light shining through the slits in her bedroom window's blinds cast laser-like rays of light across the portrait of her mother. Rin stared at the picture from her pillow. What would her mother say if she could see her now, she wondered?

Her parents had dropped in one night as Rin was coming home from the studio. Rin had left the door unlocked and discovered them standing in the living room, amidst the TV and the piles of magazines and scattered laundry and boxes that she'd never gotten around to unpacking.

They'd had to go to the main house to find out where she was. They were so worried, they said. They hadn't heard from her in weeks. Why was she avoiding them? Rin hadn't even had a chance to answer their question before they assaulted her with more. Why wasn't she in school, and why was she dressed that way? Didn't she know that she was an embarrassment to the family? Apparently her reputation had gotten around, as well as some gossip that even Rin was a bit surprised to hear about her. When the air cleared enough for her to put up her defense, Rin responded by quietly turning around, shutting the front door on them, and leaving. She made sure they were gone before she went back.

They've probably disowned me, she thought sullenly. The smile on her mother's round face seemed false to her. Have you forgotten all about me by now, she asked her mother's photograph?

Not long after that incident, she'd been walking along the streets by the Kawaia High School and ran into Hatsuharu. Quite literally. They were both turning the same corner at the same time, from different directions. He accidentally stepped on her foot, and they went tumbling down to the pavement. Rin jarred her tailbone, and lightly scraped her knee, but other than that, she was okay. What startled her most was the young man who'd tripped into her arms. He had scruffy black and white hair—an usual color for non-Sohmas—and his eyes were as wide with shock as hers.

"R-Rin?" he inquired breathlessly. That may have been because his stomach landed on her shin. She vaguely remembered the boy, though not his name, from her childhood at Sohma House. Though she'd always just seen this immature boy in him who was always throwing temper tantrums and hanging around the Rat, Yuki. He looked a lot different from that old mental image Rin kept of him. He was a lot taller for sure, and his muscles were a lot more built up. That face didn't seem immature at all.

The fact that neither of them had transformed was enough evidence to convict him of being a Sohma. The feel of a man's arms around her was thought-stopping, but all the same, Rin scrambled to right herself.

"Yes," she said sharply. "Who are you?"

"Hatsuharu Sohma," he said. "I'm your cousin, once removed."

"So that explains it."

He got up as well, and they just stared at each other uncertainly for a moment or two.

"Well…..bye," she said, stepping around him to go her own way.

"Hey, wait a minute," Haru said. "Are you…..doing anything on Saturday?"

And that was the beginning of it.

Rin sat up on her bed and drew her knees to her chest. She still had some old pictures taken in those little souvenir booths from various places they'd gone to together. They were still in that unpacked box, along with all the other mementos of her old life. Hatsuharu had treated her out to movies and theme parks. She remembered going ice skating with him once and holding his hand so she wouldn't fall. Which she did anyway, making him lose his own balance and topple on her. But no matter how bumped up she got, she liked the feeling of being held. And he never, ever tried to take advantage of her like all those other guys did.

Hatsuharu even made her forget about Shigure for a while. The two of them were so different that Rin could hardly compare them. They even kissed differently. She never told him about what happened with Shigure. That was her own private memory.

Even now when she tried to recall the circumstances for their break-up, it was hard to dredge up details. She knew that she was the one who'd called it off. Haru had tried to convince her not to, but she was absolute. Maybe she was still longing for Shigure, who was away at school. Or maybe she just wasn't used to be with one guy for so long. At any rate, she dumped him, and moved on. Life went back to being empty and dark again.

"Maybe it's just the curse," she muttered to her tiny bedroom. Kureno had said it. The curse was an unending cycle. No matter how she tried to get by it, she was going to get shot down. She was going to be miserable and ugly and alone. Forever.

All she wanted was to be held. To love and be loved. Was it really so much to ask?

Shigure turned her away, and she put up a wall between herself and Hatsuharu.

"Why did it have to be me, though?" If there was someone she could ask, she would have driven the question until she got an answer. But no one could explain why the curse was, or how. Or who it would ensnare next. She might as well ask why people died.

A tear was balling up in the corner of her eye and tipped over to spatter her knee.

She couldn't keep going on this way.

She had no one to turn to.

She couldn't do it anymore.

Maybe Kureno had a point.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long wait. School's really kicking my butt. Between homework, a Japanese translation project, and cleaning up after my husband, life is pretty busy. I'm taking an ever-so-short break from midterms to finish this chapter and get started on the next. Anyway, hope no one's too depressed with the ending to this one. Next one will be a bit perkier. I wanted to take a minute to explore Rin's personal history, and her relationship with Hatsuharu. And of course it's always great to have Mi'i back for a visit. The next chapter will be up soon! Thanks for your reviews! I love getting emails, so feel free to drop a line and rant or ask questions (just keep it clean). Ja ne, minna-san.

Next Chapter: "Confessions"