Author's Notes: Okay, I've got the next part out! Yesh! -grins- Eh, and I just realized that I have to re-introduce some characters to Tohru as this is an AU version of the manga -.-' I have to make things hard myself, ne? Anyway, that's all I have to say except that neko Kyou is SO kawaii! -glomps Sousa, her own kitten-

Disclaimer: I own no one. ...no seriously, I don't even own a manga--oh, wait... my sister does.

Caught in the Rain

Torrent Wind


As soon as Honda-kun had left with the neko, Shigure turned to him, questioning. "Anou... what's the matter, Ha-san? Did you already discover what is wrong?"

Yuki watched from his position in the room as Hatori fished a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it. Even though the doctor seemed very composed and calm, the fact that he then tossed the pack to Shigure gave away how grim he was. The nezumi and inu were both becoming more and more confused as the ryuu smoked.

Finally, he spoke, "As we know, the neko is indeed Kyou. However..." He glanced at Yuki before turning to Shigure again, "...it's not him."

"Aa?" Shigure asked, faintly confused.

Yuki frowned. "You're just contradicting yourself--"

The inu brightened as an idea came to mind. "Ah..." he said with a sly eye in the ryuu's direction. "You mean to say--metaphorically--it isn't him."

Now only the nezumi was lost.

The doctor nodded. "If you've noticed, Kyou said not one word, and it wasn't because of Honda-kun, was it?" He glanced at Yuki once again. "Knowing the way Kyou fights, was there something different about that attack on you?"

The boy frowned, not at all happy to remember that. "No. He just came out of nowhere and--" He stopped as suddenly important fact presented itself.

Shigure nodded, a smile on his face. "Aa, that's right. Out of nowhere without warning, ne?" He exchanged a look with Hatori. "Not like Kyou at all. More like a--"

"A neko," Yuki finished with a heavy frown on his face. "He acted like a neko pouncing on a..."

Hatori nodded slowly, crushing his cigarette in a nearby ash tray. "So you see our dilemma? Somehow, Kyou is in the belief that he truly is just a neko--"

"And he's stuck, ne?" asked Shigure with a considering look. "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone getting stuck before..."

The ryuu sighed a little. "It's happened before," he said slowly, almost tiredly, "Mostly each of the situation involved a mental break of some sort--"

"You mean," Yuki asked lowly, his voice now softer as if he were questioning himself, "he's not... sane?"

Shigure decided to cheerfully jump in again with, "No. He's not insane, right, Ha-san? Something must have happened that made Kyou retreat to the safety of the mind of his animal self."

Yuki looked to Hatori for confirmation. The doctor merely nodded, and the boy looked thoughtfully to the ground. "How long did it take others to recover?" he asked in a manner that conveyed mere curiosity.

Again, the elder two Jyuunishi looked to each other before the ryuu calmly answered, "Most never recovered."

There was a silence before the nezumi snorted. "Then I guess Kyou only has to worry about being put into a crate," he said lightly before leaving the room.

Flick!

The ryuu gave the inu a slightly bemused look as the other man exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Do you think that will be the only problem?" he asked curiously.

Shigure blinked at him before smirking and tossing the pack back. "Nothing will be easy for this group, Ha-san."




"Haaa! Kyou-kun is so calm now!"

The neko murmured a small growl before feeling the hold around him lighten slightly. The girl had been cooing and squeeing ever since he had given up his futile attempt to free himself from the Hold of Doom. Now he was limp in her arms and, apparently, appeared even more 'kawaii.'

Suddenly, he was shifted around to where he was being held under his front legs, face-to-face with the girl. She smiled brightly, but he stubbornly turned his head from her. This behavior made her laugh even brighter than her smile had been--

And he was back in a crushing hug, sweatdropping at the situation.

The girl happiness only made him more sour, but how was she to know that? At least they were finally away from that 'Ha-san.' He couldn't tell what kind of smell he had. Fish? No... Maybe a lizard?

"Maa!" His ears flattened as he was lifted up again, face-to-face with the girl. "Are you hungry, Kyou-kun? I can make you some fish if you want!"

His ears twitched forward. Fish?

"Ah!" shouted the girl happily while the neko swished his tail back and forth, awaiting her to carry out her offer. "So that's what makes you friendly!"

Again, his ears flattened as she carried him to the kitchen. She hadn't meant he hadn't been friendly before, right? Anyway, she was the one who was crushing /him/ constantly.

"Ne, Kyou-kun," she said quietly before adjusting her hold on him to place him in a more comfortable position. "I've never had a pet before...let alone a neko...so you'll have to help me pick out the fish."

His ears slowly unflattened as he became curious with this statement. So this girl wanted him to choose for himself? Well, this certainly changed some thing...

He purred.

She laughed, and the neko allowed her to hug him again. "All right! You can wait here while I--"

"Honda-san?"

The neko began to growl again, making the nezumi-smelling boy look at him. For a moment, the boy tried to catch the feline's eyes but would be denied as the neko turned his head away. What right did a nezumi have to look him in the eye anyway?

The girl, peacefully oblivious to this, cheerfully said, "Ah! Yuki-kun! Are you hungry as well? I was just about to make Kyou-kun some fish--"

"You really should just give him some of the leek soup from earlier."

The neko hissed at the boy for daring to suggest such a thing. The nezumi thought he could treat him like that? He should--

"Eh?! Kyou-kun!" the girl cried as the neko leapt out of her arms and managed to latch himself onto the boy's leg. The nezumi yelped in surprise and pain right before he ripped the offending creature from its hold by the scruff of the neck. The girl continued to look surprised.

The neko growled lowly.

"Baka neko..." the boy said darkly, glaring at the orange feline, "I'm not a nezumi that you can pounce on any time you feel. Do you understand?"

The feline gave no sign whether or not he understood. He merely swiped a paw at the annoying boy before the girl came to stand by him.

"Kyou-kun," she said carefully, "you really shouldn't attack anyone like that." While the neko irritably swished his tail, the girl suddenly gave him a worried look. "If you don't behave, Hatori-san, Shigure-san, or Yuki-kun might put you in a crate. You don't want that, right?"

The low growling stopped with those words. No, he certainly did not want to be locked up. Two parts of him furiously told him that, though he ignored one side of himself in favor of the other. So to show his willingness to behave, he gave a submissive /mow/.

The nezumi frowned at him but handed him over to the girl. "Honestly," he said tiredly, "I'm beginning to think whoever came up with that saying about the difference between neko and inu were right."

"Eh?" the girl asked cluelessly, holding the nejo as if she were cradling a child.

"Inu think of humans as gods," said a new voice to the conversation--the inu-smelling man's, "because they are treated very well by them. Neko, however, believe /they/ are gods because people treat them so well."

The boy glared at the neko. "And you're not a god, baka neko."

Another growl escaped the neko before the inu patted him roughly on the head. "Maa, maa, Kyou-kun," the man said cheerfully, managing to pull his hand away before he was clawed, "we all know Yuki-kun's being mean--"

The nezumi glared at the man.

"--but we all know you're a special neko." The man beamed at the girl then. "Ne, Tohru-kun?"

The girl smiled brightly again. "Hai! Because we found you, Kyou-kun! And because you're so kawaii!"

That was the only warning he had before he was crushed in a strong hug.




Souma Hatori walked into his home in the Honke only to be slammed into by a blond streak. He managed to regain his composure rather quickly and gave the boy hanging from his waist a reprimanding look. "Momiji. You need to be careful doing that," he said with a stern tone, though his expression softened somewhat.

The blond boy pulled away and beamed up at Hatori, knowing that the man wasn't really angry with him. "So you go to see Shi-chan, Yuki, and To-ru?" he asked curiously. "How were they? Are they all right?"

Hatori watched Momiji smile and chatter happily with the feeling of a father watching a son. Ever since Momiji's mother's memories were erased, Hatori had been taking care of the boy. That was why, even though Momiji had been told he couldn't meet Tohru again after he'd snuck out and and met her on the school rood, the doctor told him about the girl temporarily staying at Shigure's.

Something told him it was the right thing to do.

"They're all fine," he told Momiji as he lead the way to his office, where he sat in a chair and stated to work on finding a certain file. "I went over there because Shigure had found Kyou."

The blond's brown eyes widened. "Ehhh! Really?"

"Hm," was the only thing Hatori would offer.

Momiji had been one of the few members of their family that liked Kyou--if only because of the older boy's reactions to the things Momiji said. Still, it would hurt Momiji to know of the situation his cousin was in. Though he was not a psychologist, the doctor knew that he would claim part of the guilt and blame.

He raised his eyes slightly from the file he had found to see his young cousin hopping anxiously from foot to foot. "No, you can't see him," he told Momiji before writing something in a file.

The half-German boy lookde a bit downcast. "Aw... Ha'ri..."

"He was involved in something that will take him time to recover from," the man added, carefully editing out details. "That means that there shouldn't be too many of us around him. Honda-kun doesn't even realize he is there."

The girl really didn't know that another Souma was living under that roof. With Kyou caught in his neko form, it was apparent why she was ignorant of this fact.

"Oh," Momiji said sadly before attempting to light the situation by giving his elder cousin a sly look as he then asked, "Maa, are you writing about To-ru, Ha'ri?"

Hatori gave him a heavy-lidded stare usually reserved for Ayame and Shigure.



Author's Notes:
Okay, so if you didn't catch the slight change, I'll fill it in for you. Momiji did meet Tohru like he did in the manga, only in this story, it was only that one time and he wasn't able to come to the school's festival thing because Hatori said he wasn't allowed to. So that's how Tohru knows Hatori (who hasn't personally talked to her about why she should leave the Soumas alone because her stay is still temporary) and not Momiji, and yet Momiji knows and likes her. Whoo! That's the thing about slight AUs... you have to be careful with details -sweatdrops- Right... anyway, hope you enjoyed! Ja!

Anou - um...
Nezumi - rat/mouse
Inu - dog
Ryuu - dragon
Neko - cat
Jyuunishi - Zodiac
Kawaii - cute/adorable
Maa - now
Ne - hey
Baka - idiot/stupid
Honke - Souma Estate