Catch My Eyes
By Kay
Disclaimer: I don't own "Fruits Basket" or any of its characters. If I did, there would be more aprons. And more Kyou-kun. ^_^
Author's Notes: This is my first posted "Fruits Basket" fic-- I've started others, but haven't gotten around to finishing them yet. This one's just a series of short clips, featuring Y/K shounen ai. (REALLY short-- sorry about that. ^^;;) Please enjoy them just the same, while I cook up some longer ones for you!
To tell the truth, I look back and dislike this piece. I've finally seen the entire anime and realized it was very OOC, but I decided that there was a lot of OOC out there, anyway. Might as well post it, rather than have it take up dust on my computer, you know? So feel free to ignore it. *shrugs* Thanks.
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For Kyou, it had always been about belonging.
He didn't know when the aching desire for acceptance had begun. Perhaps, in a most-definite sort of way, it all started from his very birth-- no, before that, while he was in the womb of his mother, the woman who brought so many bittersweet memories to his mind. Maybe it was then, while the curse was implanted in him through his Sohma blood, that the instinctive need to fit in had risen. The desperate wanting to be a part of everyone and everything.
It had started the moment he opened his sleepy crimson eyes to the world. When the Sohma family realized that this child was no member of the Zodiac. He was a Cat. The feline, the forgotten and pardoned one, ever to be shunned and looked upon with disgust and contempt. An outsider. Not one of them. Never worthy of being one of them.
Kyou had wanted so badly to belong.
Even as a child, as he bitterly watched the other special children play, he'd known the truth. The curse was going to be his undoing. It would sentence him to a life of loneliness. He hated being alone, though, and loathed the absence of human affection. He was a child-- and a kitten, in retrospect-- and both creatures lived steadily on streams of love and sweet words, whispers and murmurs and strokes of the hair...
Such things are denied to a Cat, however, and Kyou's childhood lay barren behind him.
Perhaps that was when it all began.
Perhaps that was why he tried so hard to beat his rival, the damned nezumi. Because Yuki represented acceptance-and to be better than Yuki meant he could earn a place at the New Years banquet. It was his life-long desire to win over the nezumi, and Kyou sometimes dreamed about it, when the nights were cool and soft against his tanned skin. The nights where he could lay on the roof and feel the ridges under his thin backbones, while he stared up at the fathomless sky and its never ending darkness. The fantasies would come then.
They were sweet dreams. Dreams of everyone laughing with him, instead of at him. Of being touched with genuine love, clapped on the shoulder in friendly camaraderie, and never being looked upon with hatred ever again. When, after he had beaten Yuki, the damned nezumi would look at him instead of through him.
Back in those days, when he'd had those dreams, they were such fleetingly beautiful things. Like iridescent clouds he could never grasp in his hands. Kyou loved and hated those dreams. They were so perfect, so wonderful that he couldn't stop the endless stream of them into his head. Yet it hurt him.
It hurt so much, when he knew they were impossible.
Was it so much to ask? Kyou used to wonder, as he idly twisted the hem of his shirt into little knots. To have everyone love me, everything need me?
Apparently so.
Kyou looked back on these dreams with bittersweet longing, and something quite a lot more than pain.
At first, the dreams were more than enough to sustain him. They gave him hope that someday they would be truth, not merely translucent promises of a never-to-be-created world. They gave him the power and will to go up to Yuki time after time, and challenge the stupid rat to a battle that he knew Yuki would win. They gave him strength. Purpose. Resolve.
But no one can live on bits of dreams and wishes.
And Kyou, most of all, knew such things broke easily.
After a while... it became harder. The sweet images of being loved, and having people treat him as though he was worth being alive, began to fade. Every time Yuki beat him in a fight, or Tohru, the girl he was so confused over, grew hurt at his harsh words... it was so hard. Training in the mountains hadn't been this hard.
I'm never going to be accepted. There will be no love, no fond smiles, no affectionate gestures or pride.
Kyou stopped looking at the sky at night. The stars no longer gave him the dreams that impassioned him so much-- they were as empty and meaningless as he believed his soul was becoming. How could he had ever believed...? How could he have ever thought that all it would take was a single victory over that damned nezumi to be... to be...
Dreams were nothing. The pursuit was nothing.
Kyou was nothing.
And so he began to end the drive to defeat Yuki in combat, keeping quietly to himself in his room until they needed him. If they ever needed him. But they never needed him.
And he stopped trying to make Tohru feel better every time she frantically apologized for being wrong. And he began to make his own meals, devoid of leek or other unwanted ingredients. The kitchen had always been a safe haven for Kyou, who loved the scent of cooking food, and secretly flourished when gently patting rice balls.
He began to forget how to smile-- but then they started coming without warning. It was such an insignificant thing, that slight turn of the lips, that even Shigure failed to notice it at first. It was only when the dog was concerned at Kyou's lack of energy and spirit, that Shigure finally noticed the serene expression cross his lips. Kyou never smiled like that, so silent and content.
Kyou began to stop making his trips to sulk on the rooftop. The sky was nothing but beautiful in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
The cat began to feel sad resignation at his fate, rather than anger and injustice. With this new sensation of acceptance, he began to forgive Yuki. Not really in an outloud, obvious sort of manner, but in ways that were obvious to the noticing eye. Kyou now did not pick fights with Yuki, though he occasionally tried to finish them. He also did not react cruelly to the rat. He even smiled at him a few times-- that tired, almost delicate twist of the lips that never failed to send Yuki into a confused, irritated mood.
Yes, it must have begun then-- when Kyou was changing.
Once, Kyou read in his master's books that sometimes it took a great failure to gain a beautiful victory.
Therefore, it must have began when he stopped looking at the sky, and began looking at Yuki's dark amethyst eyes... and realized with a shock...
You're looking back.
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Well, there you go. ^_^ Some short, sappy dribble. To make up for the OOC-ness and the shortest chapter I think I've ever done, I'm going to try and finish my more recent, more OOC, and definitely longer Fruits Basket piece. Deal?
Next Part: Yuki ponders the new changes in our neko-chan.
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