A/N: Koichi is the consequence of my pharmacology lectures. The bit that involves his sickly…stuff anyway. And just in case any of you freak out, glucocorticoids are used in the long term treatment of severe/unmanageable asthma and the medications nowadays generally have less (and less severe) side-effects. If you're wondering why I said that, it's what causes the side-effect I mentioned in the drabble 011.

The Curse of the Cat

011. Odds and Ends

To fit somewhere was always a difficult thing, and for Koichi it was especially difficult when even the skin he wore rejected him. His family, his mother and hers: his grandmother, were the only ones to smile about it, but even there was sadness and an inconvenience for them. For it broke easily: the slightest stretch, the faintest scratch…and easily infected too. When he was younger the pain of it would be unbearable, but it got easier with time. He put up with it. He accepted it. He got used to it.

It wasn't like he could change that; it was a far better alternative to being unable to breathe. That terrifying tightening of his chest. The sensation of being crushed in all directions, floundering without aim, without light…even if that light did sting, and burn.

For that relief, he could pay the price. Even if people stayed away from him. Even if it hurt. Because there was very little worse than being crushed in an ocean where no-one could see…or a black metal box in the end.

012. Tea

'Koji,' Takuya complained. 'You never come over to any of our homes, even when we invite you.'

'What are you talking about?' the other replied. 'I've been to JP's.'

'For an assignment.' The brunet rolled his eyes. ''cause Zoe and I were going there anyway and it made the most sense to meet up. But that's no reason not to hang out with us outside of school. You don't even come to the arcade with me and my brother.'

'Neither do JP and Zoe.'

'Well, they like different sorts of games.' He shrugged. 'I know you'd like the fighting ones though. And then we could go to that tea-shop down the street. Their strawberry daifuku is the best.'

Koji stared at him with a slight frown.

'Don't you like strawberry daifuku?' Takuya asked. 'They have other things as well, like apple pie – did I say something?'

'I'll bet their apple pie is nowhere near as good as my mother's,' the Rat snapped, ignoring the fact he could barely remember its taste. Perhaps it was the childish notion that a mother was the best cook in the world. Maybe because it was one of the few things he had left of her. Maybe it was because Fuyuno had ultimately put a stop to him wanting to know more, to know why…and he had been forced to content himself with what he had. Those singular memories that he had almost lost with everything else. That he had locked away to keep safe and to forget…

So how had a single mention of apple pie brought them back to the surface?

Takuya grinned at that. 'I'll take you up on that bet then, so long as you come to the arcade with me and Shinya beforehand. I'll even treat you. Games and tea: how does that sound? And you can stay for dinner too. Mum's making grill.'

How easily the brunet had roped him in.

'I can pay for myself,' was all he said.

'Yeah, but this is what friends do,' the other pointed out, waving his wallet…where a few yen notes fell out. 'Uhh…'

'You don't have enough, do you?'

'Umm…'

Koji shook his head, hiding the smile that threatened to crawl out. 'I've got enough for all of us.'

'Hang on!' Takuya grabbed his allowance. 'I do have enough for the pie, you know!'

'You just said that's what friends do,' Koji returned.

'So you think of me as your friend!'

The jubilance almost made Koji reconsider his statement. Almost.

013. Twisted

If hurting another person was wrong, then every person who ever stepped foot in the world was a sinner. The world was arranged in a hierarchy; within his own family the Cat was looked down upon by the others of the Zodiac, and those that new about them. Even those that didn't know did the same; they saw him standing in the snow before the Main House each New Years, frail and worn. Sometimes, they saw him as a monster of a different sort, with easy infections spreading through his skin like a wildfire no matter how many preventative measures he took. But even the Cat was better than an outsider; as twisted as that relationship was, at least he was still considered to be a part of the Sohma family. Even if no-one considered it a true part, less so since he did not bear the name. If he had, at least those ignorant of their situation would have considered him no different than any other Sohma.

His mother on the other hand…no-one considered her a part of the Sohma family at all, even though she had married one. And as a single mother, the rest of society looked down upon the two of them as well.

It seemed like their destiny: a world in which they did not belong. But that did not make it right. That did not make it acceptable. He knew his mother was sad, but for whatever reason – he feared it to be him – she had accepted that.

'You don't need to, though,' she always said to him. 'Unless…you can satisfy yourself with defeating him?'

She said it in a way that suggested she knew he could not do such a thing, that he could not meet the threshold the Head of the Sohma family had put upon him.

'Would you go away? If you had the chance?'

He hadn't answered that question immediately. 'Why didn't you Mum?' he asked instead. He knew the Sohma's owned quite a bit of the area they were in; his mother worked at one of the few places that didn't come under that family's jurisdiction and their apartment was another such place. But reminders of his father's, her husband's, family were so firmly engraved into their lives that the only way to avoid it would be to move far from Tokyo.

She had smiled sadly at him in reply. 'There are things…' she said softly. '…one cannot just abandon. I still love your father.'

In the end, he found it was the same for him. With all rights he should hate the brother he didn't know, who could live peacefully with a family that rejected him…and more than peacefully as he was the exalted Rat, the one closest to God.

It was a situation twisted and tangled to a barely recognisable state.

014. Echo

Being ignored was crueller than being struck, but it was difficult to see that in the moment of sharp pain. It was like the different of being stabbed clean through and pressed against a burning slab of steel; at the time the sword goes through the heart it is difficult to think of anything more painful, but the ancient Chinese used a pillar of steel as an execution method for a very good reason. Wrapped around that burning slab until they fell upon molten coals…and to keep holding on, if only because they needed to cling to life just a little longer, was an agony few really understood.

But direct wounds always hurt more when they were fresh, and watching those wounds being inflicted was like feeling an echo in one's own memory, like lying there and letting himself be beaten so another, the boar's, agony settled into satisfaction.

Later, covered in bruises and broken skin, he had cried hot tears of pain and bitterness, wailing at the unfairness of it all. But the Head had come, and said that was his place. His duty, to be crushed beneath the weight of the other Zodiacs like a sacrificial doll. But his mother had been angry when she had heard; his body and soul was his responsibility, she had snapped, and it was not for anyone else to decide what he was to do with it. Eventually, she had taken him away, separating herself from the Sohma clan…but as one cursed by the Cat, he could never be free of them.

Or of the life in the compound, and the few days a year he had to spend there, standing in the frozen snow while the other Zodiac members enjoyed the banquet. He had only ever caught the Head watching him, his expression as the snow that fell about them.

He felt the cool juzu beads around his wrist, then pushed the door open and interrupted the three boys within. The smallest of them uncurled and looked at him with two puffy green eyes; the older two looked a tad scared before the tallest recovered.

'Kimura?' he asked, as if testing the waters with the name. 'As you can see, we're in the middle of something here, so if you don't mind –'

The apparent side-kicked snickered. 'Yeah, wouldn't want you spreading your germs on our business.'

The two laughed; the younger boy started at the statement and trembled, but made no other move.

'Now, let's play –' The tallest boy stepped forward again, only to be stopped as Koichi stepped further into the room.

'What is he to you?' He realised only later he had used the word 'what' and not 'who' as his mother had taught him.

'What's it to you?' the other returned. 'But if you must know, he makes a good punching bad.' He knelt down, taking the dirtied chin in his hands. 'And he never tells, sweet kid.'

'Uhh…' The second bully looked a tad uncomfortable. 'He might.'

'Kimura? Please, he's practically a ghost student.'

Koichi said nothing to that.

'Now that I think about it, someone like that is a far better punching bag –' The tall boy swung at the other at those words, easily catching him on the cheek. The other's head turned slightly at the impact but that was all.

The victim was, unnoticed to the other three, fidgeting. 'That's mean,' he burst out finally, quietening again when the other two turned to glare at him. 'Stop it.'

'Giving us a lecture?' the smaller of the pair smirked, stepping forward. 'You're just a spineless –'

The other grabbed his arm.

'What?'

'I hear a teacher coming.'

And indeed, all four could hear footsteps.

The two bullies quickly departed down one corridor; Koichi touched the warmness of his cheek and went down the other. The last boy looked anxiously between the three directions before scurrying off after his unorthodox savoir, heart still quaking somewhere the level of his sneakers.

015. Soothe

The cold water felt like the snow on his cheek; it was going to bruise at the very least, but his skin had cracked slightly as well so the paper towel he was using as a compact quickly became blotted with red.

He heard the bathroom door open and close behind him.

'I don't get it,' the miserable sniff greeted him. 'Why do people pick on other people?'

'That's just the way the world works,' the other replied monotonously, replacing the paper towel in his hand with a freshly damped one. 'The hierarchy in which one person's pain travels to another person.'

'It's not fair though!'

No…no it wasn't. He hadn't chosen to be the Cat after all. He hadn't chosen to cause so much trouble for his mother…but it couldn't be helped. And she would worry about him again once she saw his cheek…

'Why didn't you defend yourself?' the boy asked. 'Why did you let them hit you?'

Blue eyes lowered slightly. 'Why didn't you?' he returned, dodging the question instead of answering it.

The green eyed boy lowered his gaze. 'I – I'm a weakling,' he answered. 'And they're bigger, and older – but you're their age, aren't you?'

More like in between the two age groups, for while he did share a class with the elder it was only because the tall boy had been held back a year and not progressed to junior high school.

'But you didn't want to fight back, did you?' Puffy green eyes blinked at him. 'You didn't care if they hit you.' He twisted his roughed-up shirt with nervous hands. 'Would your parents care?'

'Mum does…but she's the only one.' It was the simple truth; there was no need to hide such a thing. In truth, his grandmother would care as well...if she ever found out. But she was stubborn enough to take his father to court and that would wind up being a regional disaster and so his mother avoided informing her about their messed up family situation.

'I care.' The boy fidgeted some more. ''cause it was my fault. 'cause people always pick on me.' He stood on his tiptoes, trying to peer at the other's reflection. 'Did he hit you hard?'

'No,' Koichi sighed. 'My skin's just…fragile.'

'Doesn't that hurt more then?'

'No. I'm used to it.'

'But that's not – that's not fair.'

The kid was unbelievably endearing. If rather naïve. It was surprising the other had stuck around as longs he had, particularly as he had made no move to clean himself up. It surprised him even more when the other had shown indignation on his behalf.

'That's life.'

'Some God's not fair then.'

He was reminded of Fuyuno at that stage, and then for some reason, he started laughing. One hand shot out to support him on the sink; the Head of the Sohma family was no laughing matter but for some reason the peals of laughter escaped without restraint.

'Yutaka says laughter's good medicine.' The boy sounded much happier. 'I'm Tommy. Tommy Himi.' He bowed. 'Thank you for your help.'

Koichi turned, an odd expression on his face. 'Koichi Kimura,' he said finally, when the other beamed at him.

Luckily, the bell went at that moment and both of them hurriedly tidied up and fled to their respective classrooms, Tommy at least wondering what tale he would have to tell the teacher to avoid trouble.

Or maybe…he should tell the truth. Maybe he could; he'd managed to speak up after all, and gotten no extra pains for it like he'd thought he would. Even if it was luck that had saved him. Even if he had come very close to not speaking up at all.

But it had seemed somehow easier to speak in the defense of someone else.