The Sohma Institute
By Lady of the Ink
Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket, but you knew that. I hope. I do own this story, and all the plot twists it contains.
Dedication: To all the really nice people who take the time to review. I really do appreciate it.
Chapter Twelve
Playing Games
"Miss Tohru!" Momiji cried happily as he caught sight of her. Leaving the game pieces to fall as they would, he leapt to his feet and bounded over to her. She almost lost her balance when he launched himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Tohru hesitated for only a moment before giving him a quick squeeze in return.
While Momiji's unbridled enthusiasm lifted her spirits a bit, her mind was still troubled with worries. The smile she offered the blonde was a bit dimmer than it might have been, but he didn't seem to notice. From the moment he knew he had her attention, Momiji began a lighthearted conversation, making random statements that more often than not didn't require answers.
As he talked, he led her back tot the table where an unmoving Haru still sat. Urging her into the chair that faced the doorway, he took his former seat.
"You're just in time, Miss Tohru. We didn't start yet 'cause everything was mixed together and I had to sort it. But I'm almost done so you can play with us!" He laughed, bouncing in his seat as if that news made him the happiest person in the world. Before she could form a reply, he had put all the pieces in their places and handed her the dice. "Roll!"
Shaking the dice in one hand, she let them tumble to the board. When they came to s stop, she had a two and a four.
"Si-ix! Miss Tohru got a si-ix!" Momiji said in a singsong voice. "Now it's Haru's turn." The dice were passed along and rolled, earning another little song. "Haru got a three! Haru got a three!"
Momiji's roll netted him a seven and determined the order for the game. Tohru decided that she had walked into the perfect setup for asking questions. If she were careful, the distraction would keep them from getting suspicious. It was essential if it turned out either or both of them were involved in the Institute's secrets.
The safest action in her eyes was to start simple and build to the more important things. With that thought in mind, she turned to the white haired boy on her left. She cleared her throat, then waited for him to look her way.
"Your file says that your name is Hatsuharu, but both Ms. Almont and Momiji call you Haru. Is that your nickname?"
There was a long pause while he studied her, but when he answered, there was no impatience or anger in his voice. "Yes."
His voice was a lot softer than she had expected it to be, a realization which sidetracked her for a moment. She had been expecting a somewhat gruff or cocky attitude to go with his appearance, but that didn't seem to be the case. Tohru mentally berated herself for jumping to conclusions before forcing her mind back to the task at hand. "Um, so which would you rather I call you? Hatsuharu seems kind of formal, but I don't want to use your nickname if it makes you uncomfortable."
His mouth quirked a bit in what could have been a smile. "Haru is fine."
A spurt of triumph went through her as she nodded in response. She hoped that it meant he was willing to see her more as a person than just another worker. Although allowing her to use his nickname was a small thing, it was possible that it was just the first step towards acceptance. "Okay, so Haru it is. You can both call me Tohru if you'd like. I've never really been comfortable with formalities."
"Tohru, Tohru, it's your turn." Momiji sang out. Tohru quickly rolled and moved her game piece the correct number of spaces. As she finished and Haru reached for the dice, she moved onto her next question.
"Do the two of you spend a lot of time together? You seem pretty close."
Momiji answered. "Yeah, almost everyday, except when Haru gets in trouble or after Hatori comes."
Hatori. Dr. Hatori Sohma? The same one the files she had been given listed as the only doctor allowed to see patients on the twelfth floor? She longed to ask what those visits entailed, what the doctor was like, and whether there was anything unusual about their checkups. Hr worries about their level of involvement and her decision to work up to the more weighted questions kept her from speaking her thoughts. She focused instead on the first half of Momiji's statement.
"Do you get in trouble a lot, Haru?" His reply was an absent shrug, but Momiji was more than willing to elaborate for him.
"Not a lot, really. And not for anything really bad. It's usually when he's around Kyou."
"So Kyou and Haru don't get along?"
"Sometimes they don't, sometimes they do," Momiji said as if that explained it all.
Sensing that that line of questioning would only make her more confused if she pursued it, Tohru changed the topic slightly. "So, besides board games, what do you guys like to do?"
"We play cards, and draw pictures, and sometimes Ms. Almont brings us movies." It was Momiji who answered again. Haru seemed content to take his turns and listen to the conversation. The level of easiness that both he and Momiji had maintained throughout her questions made her hopeful that they saw her curiosity as ordinary. After all, she was a new staff member who'd be working with them often, so it was reasonable that she would want to get to know them.
With that in mind, Tohru went another cautious step forward. "What about before you came here? Did you have any special hobbies?"
Momiji's expression flickered, seeming almost sad for the first time. The look then vanished so quickly she would have thought she'd imagined it if it hadn't struck her so deeply.
"I used to play the violin." His voice was soft, hinting at a fond but distant memory. All other purposes were forgotten for the moment when Tohru heard that tone from the usually happy boy.
"You 'used to play'? You don't play anymore?"
He looked at her with a shadow in his formerly bright eyes. "I don't have my violin; it's still at home, I guess."
Unable to bear the loss of Momiji's usually cheerful demeanor, Tohru strove to lighten the moment. "You must be pretty talented and patient to learn to play an instrument. I tried a couple of times, but I never managed to stick with it long enough to get good at it."
"Oh, it was easy! It was one of my favorite things to do." His smile was back, but not quite the same as before. "I liked to practice, so I picked it up pretty quickly."
Tohru smiled her biggest, brightest smile at him, hoping to ease his pain from moments before, if only just a little. Before she could say anything, though, Haru spoke up voluntarily for the first time.
"How's Yuki doing?"
The question was so unexpected and off topic that it took Tohru the space of several heartbeats to gather her thoughts enough to answer. "He seems to be doing well. In fact, I'd even risk saying that he's doing better now than when I first started. We looked at some magazines together yesterday."
Tohru froze as she realized how that statement might sound. Not wanting them to think that she was bigheaded or anything, she rushed to explain more fully. "I don't mean to imply that I'm the reason he's doing better. I've hardly done anything at all, so if it was something someone did that made him better it was probably someone else who did it.
"Oh, but I don't mean to say that Yuki didn't have anything to do with it, either. I'm sure that id he wanted to get better, he wouldn't need anyone's help to do it. Not that I mean that he's still ill because he doesn't want to get better . . ." Recognizing that she was just digging herself deeper, Tohru stopped to catch her breath. It was during this pause that she realized that her two companions were chuckling, and quite loudly at that. When they noticed that she had stopped, Haru looked at Momiji and cocked his eyebrow with a wider smile than his earlier one.
"She sounds just like Ritsu, doesn't she?"
Momiji laughed harder and nodded in obvious agreement. Tohru's head turned from side to side as she looked at first one and then the other. "Wh-who's Ritsu?"
Haru slowly glanced her way before he answered. "He's a cousin."
Momiji picked up the explanation, something she had begun to understand was a common action. "He apologizes for everything, even when he didn't do anything wrong. He goes running around the room, yelling that he's unworthy and things like that."
Tohru frowned. "That sounds kind of . . .sad."
"No matter how many times the people around him try to make him feel better about himself, it never works. He's set in his ways." After uttering his longest sentence yet, Haru casually scooped up the dice and sent them spinning back to the board.
Before they had finished tumbling, Tohru caught a flash of movement at the door out of the corner of her eye. Looking up, she saw Ms. Almont enter the room. Her normally neat hair was a bit rumpled, with one blonde lock hanging down over her forehead. As she crossed the floor, she lifted an arm and attempted to smooth it back into place.
"Whew, that was hard work! Every time I got a pile cleaned up and tried to stick it back on the desk, I just knocked another section down. Looks like I can't put that cleaning job off any longer." The face she pulled showed exactly how much she wasn't looking forward to that particular task.
As Ms. Almont slid into the last available chair, Tohru found herself looking at her closely. Even as she was returning the older woman's smile, a part of her mind was replaying what had happened in the office earlier. She was seeing again the hastily hidden rulebook as it was shoved into a drawer. Te easy trust she had felt since their first meeting was gone, replaced by a weariness and faint hope that she was wrong about Ms. Almont's level of involvement.
"How come your desk is so messy and you still won't let us leave anything out of place?" Momiji asked with a tilted head a raised eyebrow. "That just doesn't seem fair."
"Hmm, did you ever think that I spend so much time cleaning up with and after you that I simply don't have time to keep my office neat?"
"That's a copout if I've ever heard one!" Tohru's head whipped back to Momiji at that comment. His voice had lost a bit of its high, childish quality. For that moment, he looked much more mature and closer to what she knew from his files was his actual age.
The moment passed as Ms. Almont huffed and tossed a handful of money from the game spread out in front of them in his general direction. Momiji's expression quickly reverted as he slid out of his chair and dodged around the table, giggling all the while. Ms. Almont laughed.
"Okay, I guess that means the game is over for now." At the same time, Ms. Almont, Tohru, and Haru began gathering up the game pieces and shoving them back into the box. Momiji watched from by the window. As they finished, Ms. Almont glanced at the watch fastened around her wrist.
"Well guys, it's time for you two to get back to your rooms now. Oh, come on," she added when Momiji groaned. Haru rose obediently to his feet.
"Goodnight."
It took Tohru a moment to realize that he was talking to her. She just managed to stammer a response before he disappeared through the doorway.
Momiji dashed back to the table, bending slightly to wrap his arm around her shoulder. "G'night, Tohru."
"Goodnight." Tohru smiled after the blonde as he skipped from the room. Ms. Almont followed them, only to return a few seconds later. She leaned inside from the hall, gripping the doorjamb for balance.
"While I get these guys settled, would you mind doing me a small favor?"
Tohru stood. "No, not at all. What would you like me to do?"
"Well, the doctor is coming to see Kyou in a few minutes since it's time for his checkup. But before he gets here, I think you and Kyou need to talk. So if you'll just sit with him until the doctor arrives, it'll give you a chance to get to know him like you did Momiji, Yuki, and Haru. Is that okay with you?"
"It sounds fine," Tohru managed, a bit dazed by what Ms. Almont's words meant. She was going to get the chance to meet Dr. Hatori Sohma face to face in just a few minutes. Her mind racing, she had only taken a few steps forward when Ms. Almont spoke again.
"The rest of the day is going to be pretty slow. After the patients are settled in their rooms, there's just a little bit of paperwork to finish up the week's work. I have someone from upstairs coming to help me start moving my things to my new office. Since we'll be monopolizing the office, you really wouldn't be able to get anything done here. So why don't you just knock off a bit early today?"
"Oh, but . . ."
"No buts. It's Friday, all the work is caught up, and you've worked hard all week. I'm sure you can find something else to do that's a lot more fun. Or maybe you can catch up on schoolwork or sleep. I remember a severe lack of time for those two things when I was in college. So just smile, nod, and say 'Thank you, Ms. Almont,' then get moving to Kyou's room."
"Th-thank you, Ms. Almont."
"See, that wasn't so hard, now was it?" With a quick smile and wave, she vanished from sight.
Tohru followed at a more sedate pace. Her thoughts were whirling as she headed down the hall to the room two doors away. She knew she should be grateful for the extra time off, but something just didn't feel right. Maybe she was just being suspicious. Maybe she was letting her doubts and worried color her feelings. For all she knew, Ms. Almont was just being nice, going easy on her after her first week.
But it felt less like Ms. Almont was giving her a break and more like she was trying to get her out of the way.
