Choices A.N.(Another school assignment... for Healthy Paths this time -- It's corny and rally short. Enjoy. Review!)
While Tohru slept, she had a dream. A dream about when she was young and her mother, Kyoko, was still alive.
"What do you want in life?" Kyoko asked Tohru as she braided the small girl's hair.
Tohru answered immediately, "I want you to be happy mommy."
Kyoko chuckled at her daughter's innocence. "No Tohru," she said softly. "What do you want for you?"
This time Tohru thought hard. "I want... to not be in trouble... and I want... um... to keep my friends and... I want to have fun!"
Kyoko let go of Tohru's finished braid and patted the girl fondly on the head. "Those are good goals sweetie. You hang onto them."
Tohru awoke to the sound of her alarm clock and quickly dressed into her school uniform. She walked into the hall and tapped on the door of the room next to hers. "Kyo-kun! School!"
"It's SUNDAY!" Kyo yelled back.
Tohru stopped knocking and counted off the days of the weeks on her fingers. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. School for the past six days. Yup, it was Sunday. "Oh," she said softly. "Right."
Tohru went downstairs dejectedly and made and ate breakfast. "I'm going to the Sohma main house to visit Kagura." She announced to anyone who was listening, which only happened to be one person.
Shigure looked up from the morning paper, "Have fun Tohru-chan and could you please pick up some milk on your way back? The stuff in the fridge is two weeks past the expiration date." Then he returned to the paper.
"Alright." Tohru agreed while mentally congratulating herself for not eating anything with milk lately.
Tohru walked quietly through the woods and 10 minutes later reached the Sohma main estate. Opening the gate she walked onto the village-like property and toward a house in the right corner, where Kagura, Kagura's mom, and Kagura's cousin, Rin, lived.
Tohru knocked softly on the door. No one came... Tohru knocked again, louder this time. Still no one came. Tohru eventually resorted to pounding her fist on the door.
Finally someone opened the door. Tohru was now face to face with a tall, skinny pale girl with long black hair. The girl was clearly a few years older than Tohru herself and was wearing a leather mini-skirt and a black button-up shirt that was not fully buttoned and didn't cover all it should. The girl was Rin.
"Ohayo Rin-san. Is Kagura-chan here?" Tohru asked looking into Rin's glazed eyes.
"She's babysitting Hiro and Kisa over at Kisa's house." Rin answered, slightly slurring her words. "C'mon inside Tohru."
"Why? What are we going to do?" Tohru asked cautiously because it was becoming clearer and clearer that Rin was drunk.
"Well I've got some sake..." Rin said, motioning to the sake on the counter inside.
"That's drinking!" Tohru exclaimed, stating the obvious.
"Uh... yeah." Rin replied. "Wake up Tohru. You're not a kid anymore."
"But I could get arrested."
"You could, but won't." Rin assured her. "I do this all the time."
"I think I'll go help Kagura-chan instead." Tohru said uncomfortably. "Why don't you come also?" she suggested. Anything to get Rin away from the sake.
"Uh, no." Rin answered. "I don't know what hole you crawled out of, but nowadays getting wasted is considered more fun than watching after bratty kids."
"Kisa-chan is not bratty!" Tohru argued. "She's sweet!"
"But Hiro's not." Rin pointed out.
Tohru couldn't argue with that... "Well, I'm going to go help Kagura- chan. You can join us at anytime." And with that she turned and walked away. Halfway down the path she turned around and forced herself to look into Rin's eyes again. "We'll be waiting for you Rin-san."
When Tohru reached Kisa's house, all she had to do was lightly tap on the door and it was opened.
"Sissy!" Kisa exclaimed and threw herself at Tohru.
"Oh, hi Tohru-chan!" Kagura said.
"Oh joy..." said Hiro totally unenthused.
Just then the phone rang and Hiro, who ran to get it, tripped over something and burst out crying. And then, the fire detector went off.
"The cookies are burning!" exclaimed Kagura, who had just picked up the phone.
"Did you say something?" Tohru asked loudly over the noise. "The COOKIES!" Kagura yelled. "I'm putting a band-aid on Hiro! I can't get them!" Tohru shouted back apologetically.
"I'll get them." said Rin, who had just arrived at the still open door. Rin ran over to the oven and retrieved the dark brown cookies.
"Hello?" Kagura said to whoever was on the other end of the phone that she'd been holding for the past few minutes.
"Kagura?" a male's voice asked.
"Hatsuharu-chan? Yeah, it's me. Where are you?" Kagura asked.
"I'm not sure." Haru answered. "I'm lost again."
10 minutes later Rin, Tohru, Kagura, Kisa, Hiro, and the directionally challenged Haru were all around Kisa's kitchen table eating only slightly burnt cookies.
"Why'd you get drunk Rin?" Haru asked. "Why baby?"
Rin stared at her boyfriend silently. Then she broke down crying. "You were gone for so many days, I didn't think you'd come back. And Akito is making life hell and... and..." Rin accepted a Kleenex from Kagura. "and Tohru made me realize that what I'm doing is bad. And... I wanna quit. I don't wanna drink anymore."
Tohru smiled kindly. "We'll help you." Then she looked at Kisa and Hiro. "Just remember kids, drinking is bad."