"A Strange Sort of Peace"
Author's Note: My first Furuba fanfic. It's Yuki-centric because I like to torture, confuse and make him happy most. Also, I've written this on sort of a whim, immensely tired of seeing Kyou fall instantly in love with Yuki and saying "Man he's hot and I want sex!... wait ... Why did I think that about Yuki!??!? I didn't just think that!!" over and over and over again in fanfics on FFnet. Anyhoo, why dont we do ourselves a favor and get this out of the way: You shall expect disorganization, much OOC, and overall suckiness.... =P and I shall expect no reviews. Deal?
Deal! *shakes reader's hand*
Besides I'm doing this in my free time, and there's no guarantee that it'll be the best piece you've ever read or that I'll continue it if I lose interest. But if you've read what I've had to say and don't mind, I hope you enjoy your stay.
Pairings:
KyouxYuki TohruxYuki
(Yes I know I'm a strange one.)
Summary: It all begins when a sleepless Yuki finds himself haunted nightly by a benevolent kitchen ghost. Could this be related to the dangerous accidents that keep happening around Tohru? Meanwhile, both a shocked Kyou and a timid Tohru find themselves falling in love... with Yuki!?
Warnings: This story includes yaoi, non-consensual sex (rape), violence, death and much OMGness. Rating may change.
Part 1:
Yuki brushed a lock of hair from his eyes, bringing his lean arms around his trembling body. Both the cold and the silence wrapped around him and he couldn't help but shiver in its grasp. It took him a few moments to finally gather his thoughts enough to know where he was: in his bedroom, exhausted and sore.
He looked down reproachfully at the blankets that were lying so peacefully on the floor. I must've kicked off them off again, he thought to himself. Couldn't he have just one night's rest? It wasn't too much to ask for was it? He had enough to worry about and he didn't need to add sleepless nights to the list.
Calm down Yuki. You don't want another attack…He placed a careful hand over his chest and his fingers were greeted with the erratic beating of his heart, the action done purely by habit. A habit purely conditioned by the instability of his health in the past few days.
It was several agonizingly slow minutes before he finally lifted his head and allowed his eyes adjust to the sickly white glow of the moon. It came streaming in through his window like a searchlight.
He turned to the alarm clock and eyed the red numbers that glared back at him a deep red 3:37.
Yuki groaned, letting his head rest within the safety of his hands. He could feel the bags under his eyes already, and it had surprised him immensely that no one had mentioned anything about his appearance yet. Whenever he had looked in the mirror, the bags under his eyes had been the first thing he had noticed. So why wasn't anyone reacting?? Either everyone was trying to be polite, which was probably not the case with the bakaneko… or everyone was too busy with their own lives to notice.
He snorted when he realized the self-pity hiding in his train of thought.
It had been a good three weeks since he had gotten some decent rest and there was no doubt in his mind that the sleeplessness was from the reoccurring dreams that he always seemed to forget. Whenever he had tried to reach out for them, they would filter through his fingers like fine grains of sand.
They gave him a distinct feeling of dread, almost as if he sensed an oncoming danger. Animal instinct that made him more aware than he had wanted to be.
His choice inevitably had been to find other methods to try to coax himself back to sleep. One of which was trudging all the way downstairs into the kitchen at an ungodly hour to reluctantly fix himself some hot chocolate. Poorly made, he reminded himself, but hot chocolate none the less.
So despite the protests of his weary body, Yuki swung his feet off the bed. Yuki couldn't help that his hot chocolate (as Kyou would say) 'completely sucked.' He could only be thankful that Tohru had gotten into the habit of buying instant-ramen recently. Even Yuki could prepare a decent serving of that. There was no way he could burn hot water. At least he hoped.
He crept down the stairs as silently as he possibly could, making his way step by step. First past Tohru's room… then past the cat's, and finally past Shigure's room, taking moments in between to quell his rapidly beating heart. He jumped every time there was a creak in the floorboards, and made notes about where to avoid stepping in the future.
He sighed. If he had to be honest, it wasn't as if he had really expected to be getting more sleep since he had moved into Shigure's house. The refreshing change in surroundings was always overshadowed by the lingering images of his dark room back at the main house. It was enough to keep him up several hours each night alone. And still yet there was that image of a dark-haired boy that always crept into his room on a cold night. That particular memory had lingered in his mind long after he managed to escape the confines of the main house.
Before he knew it he had a steaming cup of ramen noodles sitting ready at the counter: A nightly ritual that he might have settled completely into had it not been for the slight change that had happened when he sat down to eat the hot noodles. The was a slight pause when he realized, "What am I going to eat it with? My hands?" He looked about irritated and annoyed when his gaze finally settled on the object of his loathing.
"Damned chopsticks..." he muttered and eyed them from across the kitchen counter. He reached for them and stopped halfway, realizing that his arm wasn't long enough to grab them, ensuring a weary trek all the way around the table to get them.
And he sighed, getting up off his chair to retrieve the two utensils.
But they saved him the trouble.
The two chopsticks jumped off the counter of their own accord and very much… floated… through the air towards his hands.
If washing his face hadn't woken him up yet, this sure did.
He stared, not sure whether to be grateful or horrified. No, he was not seeing things. Chopsticks, however expensive, usually didn't have the capability to float over to one when they wished them to.
The moment of shock had passed and completely by reflex he dropped the chopsticks and stared at them as they lay lifeless on the floor.
He thought he had heard laughing, distant and trapsparent, but hollow on his sharp hearing.
"I'm not really awake." he spoke softly, wondering whether or not the words would really wake him up from the dream he was surely in. And as if to mock his words, the chopsticks jumped back to life and lofted up into the air. They rested in his hands and he felt his fingers close firmly around them as if someone else had reached out and moved his fingers for him.
"W-What the…," He said a bit louder than he had wanted to. He narrowed his eyes and looked about the empty kitchen. "If this is another one of your pranks, Shigure, I'm really not in the mood. I'm not falling for it either." He hissed impatiently.
And no reply came from the dark, empty rooms of the house; Only the steady ticking of the clock on the living room wall. Much to his discomfort, Shigure did not pop up from around the corner pointing at laughing. And did not, in the process, explain how in the hell he managed to make the chopsticks float.
Then how in the world…? He must have been going insane.
There was more soft laughing. And if he hadn't been on the verge of going into hysterics, he would have noted the feminine touch that caressed his right cheek.
But nothing else occurred that night.
He felt inclined once or twice, though to set them down out of his own reach just to see if they would come back to him on their own. They didn't, however. They simply laid on the table silently until Yuki sighed and picked them up himself.
So Yuki was content to eat his cup of luke-warm ramen noodles hurriedly, wanting to head back to bed before any more interesting things decided to happen.
He returned swiftly to his room and closed the door behind him, pausing in mid breath to watch the silhouette of a butterfly fluttered past his window with uneven grace.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The chopsticks danced for him a second night, finally convincing him that perhaps it really wasn't a dream after all. And it was getting harder to convince himself that it wasn't real when they danced a third night. Damn near impossible when they danced for him on a fourth.
But were the chopsticks really alive? Because when he began to consider the absurd notion that they were inanimate objects that insisted on moving by themselves, it still didn't account for the amused laugh that he sometimes heard when he would fling them away in surprise.
And he came to the conclusion; The chopsticks were not alive. They would never be. Instead, he decided that the kitchen was haunted instead. Much better explanation, Yuki thought to himself grimly, than animate kitchen utensils.
He didn't want to think about the implications if the butcher knives were to come alive. He shuddered slightly.
Then again, considering his circumstances, perhaps a haunting was not that improbable. After all, if one could turn into a mouse when hugged by the opposite gender, then most likely a haunted kitchen would not seem so out of place in a Sohma household.
"What," he asked suddenly when a soothing voice interrupted his train of thought. He felt several pairs of eyes burning into him with curiosity from across the table. Two of those pairs lingering curiously until he made eye contact with each.
"I asked if you were you all right." Said Tohru in mid-scoop, letting her gaze fall to the table. A soft red blush appeared on her face. She then turned to the bowl in her hands and placed a bit of rice into Shigure's bowl for him.
Kyou watched in silence, and tried to keep the indifferent expression locked on his face as he rolled his eyes.
It was breakfast and the four of then were seated comfortably around the table. The morning sun was streaming in through the open door behind him, and there was a comforting glow about the room. It was just a shame that Yuki felt too exhausted to appreciate the nice day.
Tohru sat on the opposite side with a questioning look on her face. He realized a moment later that he had been staring down at his chopsticks as if he were waiting for something to happen.
"Oh no, no Honda-san... I'm quite all right." He said and eagerly began picking at his food to satisfy her. She nodded and smiled, the odd moment dismissed after a few choice words. The wind chimes rang in the soft breeze outside.
"Did you have trouble sleeping again last night, Yuki?" Tohru asked. Yuki
"What makes you say that, Tohru?" He asked, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. How did Tohru know about him having trouble sleeping? Had he been that obvious about it? He doubted it. And besides, even if she did know about it, he certainly wouldn't admit to it. He didn't feel like talking about his sleepless nights. If anything, it would only add on to the list of things that Tohru worried about. As if she didn't worry enough about the three of them already.
"We all heard you pounding your way downstairs last night." muttered Kyou prodding at the rice his own bowl. "You couldn't have been louder if you had fallen down the stairs."
Yuki opened his mouth a witty reply ready on his lips, but he held his tongue when suddenly Kyou's cup of water decided to tip itself over. The group was in silence as the water spread out onto the table in a small flood. Yuki heard the feminine laughing again and he faintly wondered whether or not Tohru, Shigure or Kyou had heard it.
"Oh!" Tohru said and stood. Yuki looked around the room, but of course found nothing. Meanwhile, Tohru slipped off into the kitchen to grab something to clean it up.
An amused smile crossed Yuki's face however, and he took the opportunity to snipe at the framed act of clumsiness. "I don't need to make a fool of you this morning. You seem very apt at making a fool of yourself." Yuki said feeling quite satisfied, though his curiosity did make him take a second glance around the room. Still nothing.
"You wanna make something of it!?" Kyou said, leaning forward over the table threateningly. Yuki only rested his chin on his palm amused.
"Only if you feel like getting beat down this morning. And quit being so noisy and help clean it up." Yuki motioned to the wet table, small puddles already starting to form at some spots under the table. Kyou's face only turned redder.
"Maybe if you'd stop fucking movin' the table and shit, then maybe we could eat in peace! " he said, standing up and slamming his hand down. His aura burned brightly around him, the red glow slightly tinting the living room in red.
Yuki tensed covertly, feeling the touch of Kyou's fingers against his. At first there was the usual feeling off indignity and being offended from the invasion of personal space. But he jerked his hand back when there was a curious longing that he didn't understand.
And instead of understanding it, Yuki simply followed his programmed responses and continued the argument. It was easier to figure it out later, anyway, Yuki supposed.
"I didn't do a thing, but if you need a lesson taught, which I think you do… then we can settle this right now." he retorted just as quickly, standing up on the opposite side, somewhat glad for the excuse to move his hand away Kyou's.
Shigure grinned as usual while Tohru continued to utter worried 'Um's and 'You guys...'s, a bit of a poor attempt to quell the two raging forces of destruction.
"Today's the day!" he said determinedly, making a point of flicking Yuki off as he spoke.
"I'd like to see you try," All at once the two forces collided in a show of power and fury that rivaled that of a tempest.
Tohru stood and held out her hand helplessly, as if the action might at least stop the two. Shigure simply pulled out his fan and laughed.
"Tohru, dear, it's best to let them fight. They've got a lot of energy. They're growing boys after all- no doubt you've already noticed that." Tohru blushed severely at his comment, throwing her gaze down at the floor. She suddenly notice a stain of what she thought absentmindedly was grape juice and stared at it with all her proverbial might. "Besides, they're going to be the ones who fix whatever they break."
Tohru nodded a bit numbly the sounds of the raging battle sounding around them. "That's true."
"So now that we're alone, sweet Tohru, I should point out that you're quite the grown woman too," he said, suddenly appearing all too close to the surprised Tohru on the other side. She blushed even more fiercely, but the moment was interrupted when the two deliverers of destruction were at her side already in mid-pummel of the author.
"Pervert!" they both exclaimed in unison, sending Shigure flying no less than several yards across the living room.
Well that's one way to stop an argument… Tohru thought to herself a bit grimly.
"Save your indecency for when you corrupt little girls with your perverted books." Kyou said, cracking his knuckles and standing protectively over Tohru. Kyou unconsciously waited for Yuki to deliver his own righteous remark, but there was only silence. Both Kyou and Tohru found his lack of retort a bit odd. Even more awkward when they turned to see Yuki staring at the open door to the hallway.
"Yuki are you all right?" Tohru asked. She frowned when Yuki failed to answer, still lost in his own thoughts.
And unknown to the other three, they had actually been correct in their first assumptions. Yuki did see something in the hallway. It was a fleeting glance of red out of the corner of his eye. A familiar flutter he was absolutely sure he had seen several nights before.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The walk to school was no different from any other day. It was Tohru, Kyou and Yuki together, Tohru was of course in the middle. And as it was Yuki and Tohru made with the idle talk while Kyou had pointedly placed some remarks in between.
But frankly, Kyou wasn't in the mood for chitchat. He could feel his stomach churning inside him, which usually only happened when he was frustrated about something. It wasn't exactly easy for Kyou to ever figure out what he was feeling, because … well… he just wasn't good at that kind of… stuff.
And listening to Tohru and Yuki go at it with idle-talk wasn't a good way to keep his temper in check. So rather than give his temper an opportunity to rear its ugly head, he made the smart decision to exclude himself altogether. Besides, it gave him the change to delve into his own train of thought.
More specifically the amethyst eyed boy who walked lightly on the other side of Tohru.
He stared at his hands. They were still kind of 'tingly' from earlier that morning.
"… you think, Kyou?" Tohru asked, looking quite flustered. She quickly pretended that her skirt needed some fixing and let her gaze slide downwards.
"I think what?" Kyou asked, raising an eyebrow in response to her reaction. What had they been talking about again?
Yuki did somewhat of a cross between a laugh and a sigh, "She was asking you if you wanted to go see a movie this afternoon. What's wrong with you today?"
"You're what's wrong with me that's what," he snapped back quietly, refusing to look him in the face. Whether Yuki had heard the comment or not, he sure didn't react. And on the other hand, Yuki was grateful for Kyou's refusal to look at him. He felt he wasn't exactly in the shape to be seen by the cat, especially when Tohru's words still rang loudly in his ears.
"That is… if you weren't busy this afternoon… you know. I don't have work so… would Yuki-kun like to go to the movies with me?… A-Ah! I mean Kyou is invited too but… that is if he wants to come, and I don't want to force him to go if he doesn't want to! That is um, if Yuki-kun wants to go as well…Because Yuki doesn't have to go either, It's just…Aahhh…see…if he's busy and all-"
And how else could he answer but, "I'd love to go."
Strangely enough, the question came so fast that he didn't have time to get nervous.
He had imagined over and over the moment when he'd ask Tohru, but it had never gone like this.
The high-flying feeling never left Tohru either. Even Uochan and Hanachan noticed her bright smile that morning when she walked into the classroom and waved to the motley duo.
But the pleasant time that Yuki had spent with Tohru that morning quickly left his mind as a substitute teacher walked into the classroom and immediately started the lecture. He forgot to introduce himself to us, he said, making a mental note on the rude habit and condemned him for it.
He took to writing notes but the insistent pitter-patter of the rain outside the window caught his attention. It beat quietly on the rooftops and the window panes and Yuki looked down at his notebook and almost wanted to laugh.
He drew a small heart and cautiously put the letters Y and T together, testing out the feeling of the pencil on paper. He had seen some of the other girls do it with his name and theirs, wondering what it felt like to be in love. To be in real love. Not just the strange infatuations that seemed to follow him daily.
He quickly erased the letters, and the faintly drawn heart and turned his attention back to the rain.
He had never understood what made Tohru love the rain so much. He had listened to her talk for an entire afternoon about the utter appreciation she had for it…
But on rainy days, Tohru would never play in the rain. She'd always stand out on the porch under the shelter of the roof, hand outstretched as if she were reaching for it desperately. But she'd never take a step forward into the rain, as if something was holding her back. Instead, she stood content to feel the raindrops tease the tips of her fingers.
As for Yuki… well, he loathed the rain with all his being. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach every time that he saw it. He suspected the hate for it was from two distinct reasons. First was that he was never given the chance to love it like the other Sohma children grew to. He always had to watch it from the inside, cold and lonely.
At the main house, rainy days meant he had to stay inside. The adults were deathly afraid of him becoming even more sick. So Akito would always confine him to his room, leaving Yuki feel caged… and cornered. Until he found that on rainy days… He could sit perched on the windowsill watching the other children of the house splashing in puddles and running around in the courtyard: A whimsical image of what Yuki might have become if Akito had never come into his life. He would've been one of them, wouldn't he?
Usually, it didn't last long. It would only be a matter of time before the mothers and fathers would have found them and pulled them inside. Warmth. Comfort. Care. Love. And he had to watch it all from a distance.
And once they were inside again, all that was left was to listen for was the quiet, steady footsteps that always warned him of Akito's comings.
Everyone loved the rain, he supposed.
Even Kyou. Sometimes Yuki would catch sight of the cat sleeking into his room, complaining about being soaked to the bone when caught in sudden downpours. But there was a certain hint of playfulness that he always had when he came inside. Strange, considering Yuki had always thought cats hated water.
Everyone loved the rain… everyone but Yuki.
Meanwhile, the cat himself wasn't really paying attention to the teacher either. His eyes followed Yuki's gaze. What the hell's he looking at anyway? It's not like there's anything interesting out there anyway… He could tell by the vacant look Yuki's his eyes that the boy was off in his own world, a drastic change from the way he usually paid rapt attention to his teachers. He always did excel in academics easily, unlike Kyou. All this fazing out lately is annoying me. He thought and turned back to his desk to continue doodling on the side of his history notes.
Yes. There were a lot of things that Yuki remembered when it rained… He remembered the unbearable, intruding heat and the arms that had snaked their way around his waist.
Eventually, though, Kyou yawned and found that his doodles weren't enough to capture his attention for long. The rain continued to fall outside, drawing his eyes back towards the window where unfortunately Yuki was in his way.
Yuki remembered the dark room. And the cold, damp floor against his back.
But to his surprise, the Prince was already looking back at him with a glazed look in his eyes that were immediately ripped away upon making eye contact. The hell? Was he staring at me?? Yuki gave a barely visible shudder. No…he's looking past me, Kyou realized and frowned.
Yuki remembered humiliation. The shame. Embarrassment.
There was a small creak from Yuki's desk. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted the mouse's hands as he gripped the side of his desk for dear life. His arms were crossed over his notebook, concealing the white knuckles underneath.
Didn't anyone else notice? Kyou chewed on the tip of his pencil.
The icy hands. The unrelenting cruelty. So cold…
And hate… Self loathing… Yuki remembered the frantic screaming that had drowned out a quiet laughter in his ears.
Oh, yes… He thought. Yuki remembered many things indeed.
Kyou turned his eyes away just in time to hear the bell ring. Yuki sat unmoving, ignoring the shuffling around him as students gathered their books.
It was beginning to get on his nerves. Yuki was tuning out the rest of the world again.
If anything, the mouse was usually alert, careful and sharp. Lately he had been sluggish and somewhat… tired looking. If anything it was a bit disturbing to Kyou, even if he wanted to beat Yuki into the ground every chance he had.
Author's Note: Review with an empty, useless review and I shall give you a mouse plushy. Review a good review or constructive criticism and you shall receive a Kyou, Yuki and Tohru plushy package. Mail me $50 and I you shall receive a singing telegram from the Sohma of your choice.
Meh... first chapter over. Not really that interesting yet. Things get moving in the next chapter ^^.