Disclaimer: Fruits Basket and all Fruits Basket characters and things like that belong to Natsuki Takaya and Hana to Yume comics. Everything else you don't recognize, like Adriana Aziz and the plot, (There's a plot? -.-) probably belong to me.


The Stream's Winter
By Ela-chan


Chapter Four

Discovery and Laughter


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The night herself had settled into a fitful sleep, and the House of the three Sohma men and 'the other' was silent, thick, and lacquered in a peaceful, yet tense darkness.

Adriana lay still, sprawled all over the sofa, eyes wide open and staring at the patched ceiling above. She frowned, remembering a question she had asked of the lavender-haired boy earlier on in the day, just after she had made her bed and helped Tohru with the dishes.

'Hey, Sohma. Why's the house patched up like it is?'

Yuki had said that he had knocked Kyo clean through the roof when they had gotten into another one of their infamous fights – he had told her of this with a straight face, no less -- and that they had not enough money for the repairs. Adriana thought it all to be bollocks, having someone being knocked through a roof like that (And the fact that they were in a financial situation so poor that they could not afford to patch up a roof properly). But, nevertheless, Yuki's grace and agility was a pro to his story, and so she had settled to neither believe nor decline the story's truth.

As she pondered and counted the many strips of tape rounding the enormous hole in the roof, her ears suddenly twitched, catching whiff of a shadowy movement. Her eyes darted about, shiftily, meticulously, and her heart leapt with a kind of excitement she had grown to be so fond of. Someone was on the roof, and, whoever it was, was shifting on it, as though … as though – trying to get to sleep!

Adriana sat bolt up right, like a rake stepped on, and that same, slow smile that had appeared before was now spreading across her face, baring semblance to that of a crazed clown, searching for its next feed.

She whipped off the blanket that she had snugly wrapped around her, and put her feet on the ground. With a trilling shiver through her blood – the floor was freezing! – Adriana tip-toed across the living room's wooden floor, through the kitchen, and out into the open night air.

The wind whipped her hair about, and she shivered again, the whips of wind raising hairs and gooseflesh. She brought her adjusting eyes to the magnificently painted sky, and saw that the stars were twinkling merrily, as though it were the night that the Messiah had been born, and the heavens were rejoicing. It was a clear, crisp night, and Adriana was glad for the warm stillness. A peaceful expression settled across her face, and she could have fallen asleep right there, standing up.

Shuffle; shuffle

Her ears perked once more; and again, the smile returned. She whirled around in a flurry of brown hair and ducky pyjamas, smiling like a mad man grasping the hilt of a blood-stained dagger. With a glint of her teeth showing through in the darkening night, she sent a knowing look to the tops of the Sohma Household, eyes glittering and hands clenched, poised, ready.

She took a sprinting jump, and leapt up, so high that she latched onto the gutter, making the slightest of slight noises, like the creak of a jack-in-the-box before the clown's head exploded through. Her smile morphed into a full blown grin as her fingers squirmed and twitched to find comfort, securing her safety. This was a cinch for her, and the fun awaiting made every fibre in her body tingle and vibrate with buzzing anticipation. With an easy haul, she brought herself up, into the air, and onto the roof, crouched on all fours, as though ready to pounce at an unsuspecting animal.

Well, that wasn't necessarily a lie.

With much stealth and stunning precision, she crept across the shadowed part of the roof, ascending until she came to the point where the other part descended, like a stairwell to Hell. She carefully placed her long digits on the higher part, and peeked over mischievously, eyes glittering like raw diamond fragments.

Her eyes came face to face with a bright orange head. Some strands that were caught by the wind tickled her nose. That smile, if it were possible, widened to its extreme.

Adriana brought her hands up slowly, quietly, adrenaline building higher and higher inside of her, like every sin kept hidden from the priest. With the loudest yell she could muster, she brought her hands raining down on Kyo, like raindrop bullets, and shook the living cat hairs out of him.

'Kyo Sohma!' she bellowed into the night like a banshee, catapulting a parliament of black owls out of the nearby trees. Several dogs and wolves in the distance yelped, completely mortified, and bolted off.

Kyo reacted with an even louder yell of his own. He jerked violently and bolted off the roof as fast as he could; so fast, that he looked only to be blurring of a blur as he streaked across the landing, and leapt off. Adriana saw that he was breathing very heavily and fast, a very sure sign that her intention was, indeed, fulfilled.

And with that, she burst out laughing.

Kyo whirled around incredulously, utterly baffled and looking quite bizarre as he began to lash at the invisible enemies he now seemed to think he had. But when he heard the laughter, his eyes darted back to the roof, and upon seeing who it was, a ferocious glare captured every vein in his dark orange eyes.

'You – where the hell did you – What the hell was that for?!'

He took a running jump, much similarly to Adriana's, and leapt onto the roof, not even misplacing a single strand of his sunset-coloured hair. He was beyond furious, beyond reason, and he displayed as much as he stalked to the rolling-on-the-ground laughing girl, and loomed above her, hands clenched into fists, and several veins popping in his head.

'What the hell are you doing here?!' he demanded through gritted teeth, unclenching and clenching his fists several times. He seemed to be restraining himself from physically lashing at Adriana, at a girl. But, surely everyone had their limits.

'You – holy – damn it, that was good,' wheezed Adriana, tears of mirth now leaking from the corners of her eyes. Her sides were beginning to ache, and she clutched them from fear that they would collapse.

'I'm still waiting for your damn answer, you stupid girl,' Kyo ground out, his teeth clenched and grinding. When he blinked to rid his eyes of the angry spots clouding them, he found himself, to his utmost alarm, that he was pinned to the ground, a slender knee into his stomach, and a pointed elbow at his throat. He was instinctively careful to keep his arms away from her.

'I don't think you'd like to repeat that,' Adriana whispered, her voice now silken, dangerous and hot, so close to Kyo's face, his lips. Her eyes had darkened, and Kyo blinked, confused at the sudden alteration of subject and mood and atmosphere and how the hell did she attack so damn fast?!

At the stricken fear catching on Kyo's face like a broken net would dead fish, Adriana's face softened, and she snorted, bursting again into peels of uncontrollable laughter. She rolled off Kyo, completely relaxed, and again clutching her sides.

'Oh, god, you're such a bloody sissy,' she gasped out, having only the energy to look at him once, then burst into bigger waves of mirth. Her head was beginning to ache from all the laughing, but it was just too funny to pass up. It wasn't everyday you got to scare the living daylights out of someone on an unfamiliar roof.

Kyo was beginning to get annoyed. Not only did this girl scare the crap out of him – and every other bodily fluid for that matter – she attacked him without even breaking a nail! And not only that, he didn't know that she was going to attack him! And not only that, her full strength must make that damn rat look like a turtle if she could attack and laugh at him at the same damn time!

'Are you done yet?!' he shouted, glaring so ferociously that his face contorted. His hands gripped the sides of his shirt as his arms stuck rigid like planks parallel to his leg.

Adriana took one good look at him, and burst out laughing once more, so uncontrollably this time, that she rolled, rolled and rolled – right off the roof.

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