Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is the property of Natsuki Takaya.

Warnings: Shounen-ai, angst.

Pairings: Past Kyou x Yuki, implied Yuki x Tohru.

Notes: Written for the lj tempus_mort seasonal challenge. Somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes. And a pairing I haven't written as of it yet.

 

New Year

First came the time of tentative kisses and touches of hands. They discovered something between them. They discovered they didn't have to fight anymore.

What started grew. Then there was the time of passion and heat, when they were each other's everything. They were each other's whole world. Long days were spent simply lying next to each other in the sun. It was the time of warmth, of joy. It was when he felt content.

But all things end, and slowly the touches stopped and the look in the other's eyes became reserved for someone else. This was time of dying, of hopelessness, or wistfulness and regret. Some days it would rain and some days the sun would shine, but that didn't seem to change the fact that they were drifting apart.

He ran away then, and the time of cold and lonely nights began. Days of watching the rain pound down on unfamiliar streets from a window in an apartment that didn't belong to his cousin. Reaching for the other's hand, only to again remember its absence. It was the time when he withdrew to save his own heart.

Kyou scowled at the glaring sunlight that came from the gap between his curtains. It was January now, and he thought maybe this would be his new year, the time he could grow again. He pulled on the clothes he'd worn the day before and walked past his roommate's door, which was firmly closed.

He drank a glass of juice before walking to the door and pulling his trainers from under his roommate's shoes and a pair of shoes he didn't recognise. That would explain the shut door. He opened the door and left the apartment.

It seemed that everyone had someone but him. For example, that couple walking down the street on the other side of the road…

Kyou flinched. That couple… Any passer-by would have looked at them and thought what a wonderful couple they made, how they smiled happily together. And he knew that. He knew she was better for him than he'd ever be. He knew why she smiled like that. He knew all too well. He knew of the tingling feeling as the other's fingers slowly and softly travelled down his back, he knew of the look of love in those eyes, he knew of everything.

But he didn't say anything. They passed him by in an instant and never looked back.

He scowled, scuffed his shoes against the pavement and continued walking to work.

It still hurt. He'd hoped that he could look at them and be happy. That he could look them in the eye. He'd hoped that he was over it.

He knew he wasn't, and wouldn't be.

It wasn't the new year after all.

~owari