"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Sasuke's eyes continue to stare at Tohru as he remembers the event that occurred over a year ago.
FLASHBACK
Sasuke has just gotten home, when his father, Kimihiro, confronts him. Sasuke's about to greet him with a hello, but notices the sadness and seriousness in his face.
"Dad? What is it?" Sasuke asks with concern.
"Sasuke, yesterday there was a terrible accident." His voice was very soft and can easily tell that something horrible has happened.
"What happened dad?" Just then, a tear went down Kimihiro's eye.
"Remember your aunt Kyoko, mom's half sister? She died in a car accident just a few hours ago." Sasuke's eyes widened and tears begin to form. Hiro then tries to comfort him.
"Even though your brother and sister really didn't like her, I knew that you were close to her, even if she was a former gang member."
"How about mom? Will she be okay?" he asks with great concern for his dead aunt's younger sister.
"I'm not sure. You're mom never really did talk to Kyoko, but I knew that she loved her." Kimihiro then takes out a picture from his wallet and shows it to Sasuke.
"Sasuke, this is Kyoko's daughter. I was never told her name, and we don't know what happened to her after Kyoko's death. We tried contacting Kyoko's father-in-law, but he has doesn't know where she is. We wanted to invite her to stay with us, but couldn't find her. She should be I high school by now, so if you every see her, please tell her that she still has a family to live with." Kimihiro puts the picture in Sasuke's hand. Sasuke then puts it into his own wallet and hugs his dad.
"if I ever see her, I'll tell her. I promise." He says with a little more happiness in his voice and hugs his father again afterwards.
END FLASHBACK
AN: The flashback sucks, I know. But hey! How else am I going to explain what happened to Kyoko.
"(It really looks like her, but I have to be sure. I can't just say 'You're my cousin!' I'll try and talk to her alone later.)" Sasuke thinks to himself, trying to figure out what to do next with his long lost cousin right in front of him.
"Uh, Sasuke. Are you all right?" Tohru's big eyes concentrate on him more.
"Oh, yeah! I'm fine! Oh, and I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm Sasuke Toko." Sasuke reaches out his hand to shake Tohru's.
"And I'm Tohru Honda. Please to meet you." Tohru introduces herself also, giving one of her heart warming smiles.
AN: Also, if you must know, Sasuke doesn't know Kyoko's last name, so Tohru giving her full name doesn't tell Sasuke anything.
"And this is part of the Sohma Family." Tohru says while swinging her arm to show Sasuke all of the Sohmas in the house.
Momiji steps forward first. "Hi! I'm Momiji Sohma, and I'd like to be your friend!" he happily announces.
Then Haru, "Please to meet you, I'm Hatsuharu Sohma." He then bows down.
After that, Hatori, "Greetings, I'm Hatori Sohma." With an arm to his waist and a small tilt of his body and his introduction is complete.
Next, Yuki, "Welcome to our home. I'm Yuki Sohma." He bows.
After getting nudged by Yuki, it was Kyo. "Huh, oh Kyo Sohma." He waves his hand towards Sasuke a little.
"And I'm sure you already met Shigure, Ayame, and Kisa, right?" Tohru asks in a very happy tone.
"Hai! They were very nice to me." Sasuke replies with a smile that resembles Tohru's a lot. Tohru quickly notices it, but decides not to let it bother her.
"It seems that Sasuke has stumbled upon our secret. He now knows of the Zodiac curse." Aya states.
"What?!!!" They all yells, except for Momiji, Hatori, and Tohru.
"How did he find out?" Yuki asks after pulling Shigure towards the kitchen, while all the other Sohmas follow, leaving Tohru and Sasuke alone. Sasuke and Tohru sweatdrop begin wondering what was happening.
After the door was shut, Kisa steps up and tells everyone how Sasuke found out about the Sohma family curse. "Well, I was at school. Sasuke knew me for a long time and knows how I'm always with Hiro. This morning he had asked me where Hiro was. I told him that he was sick and that Hatori was taking care of him. He asked me if I needed company, but I told him that it was okay. Then he walked off. At lunch, the girls began picking on me again, since Hiro wasn't there to protect me. Then Sasuke came and drove away all the girls. Before he did that, I ran away. He caught up with me after I tripped near the school dumpsters. I transformed when he picked me up to help. He freaked out a little, but tried to take me home. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to catch anyone's attention. He covered me with his clothes when we ran into Grandpa Ayame. After that Ayame took us here to Grandpa Shigure's."
"So someone else knows our secret?" Kyo asks as if he didn't hear a word Kisa said. Yuki then gets the strongest urge to knock him out but resists.
Back in the living room Sasuke pokes Tohru a little to catch her attention. "Um Tohru?"
She quickly turns to him and answers, "Yes Sasuke?" She focuses her big eyes towards him.
He hesitates a bit, but quickly finds his voice "I've been meaning to ask you." He starts fiddling with his fingers.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" Tohru's big eyes blink at him a lot, making him even more uncomfortable.
He clears his throat and sits up straight, "No, nothing really, but what's your mom's name?" his head went down a little from thinking that he just asked someone a stupid question.
"Why do you ask?" Tohru then asks sounding a little suspicious on where he's going with this.
"I'm just curious." He shrugs his shoulder and tries not to sound like he was getting into her business.
"If you must know, it's Kyoko Honda." Sasuke then mentally freaks out. He takes out the picture of Tohru that was given to his over a year ago and looks at it, then at Tohru. He jumps up and hugs her. Tohru then flinches in shock.
"I finally found you!" he yells very happily, but not loud enough for the others to hear, while hugging her even tighter.
"Nani? W..what are you talking about?" Tohru says quickly while hesitating, because of the fact that she's being hugged by someone she barely knows.
"This!" He holds up the picture of her to her.
"What is this?" Tohru asks taking the picture from Sasuke's hand. "Nani? This... is... me." Tohru says while blankly staring at her ten-year-old self in the picture. "Where did you get this?" she says in a very confused voice.
"My dad gave it to me over a year ago. The day after Aunt Kyoko died." He says with a happy face, except for the part where he said Aunt Kyoko died.
"AUNT KYOKO!!" Tohru yells in shock.
"Yes Tohru. Your mom and my mom both shared the same dad." Sasuke blurts out with ease.
"NANI?!!" she screams with her entire body moving back in shock.
"Tohru, we're cousins. Well, technically half-cousins, but who cares." Sasuke confirms to try and make it clear to his dense cousin.
"I can't believe it. All this time I thought me only family was my aunt's family on my dad's side." She puts her hand on her head and nods it a bit, while trying to comprehend everything that has just been told to her.
"Now you know." He shoots out to her.
"So were my mom and your mom close?" Tohru says, wanting to continue the subject of her dead mother and living aunt.
His voice gets serious and the happiness from his face gets wiped away. "Not all at, that's why we never visited you two. My mom didn't like my being with a former gang member. My dad had no problems with it, so we tried are best to see Aunt Kyoko, but because of my mom, we never met you."
"So, uh, why were you looking for me?" she wonders with a curious tone.
His cheerfulness then returns. "We wanted to tell you that if you want, you could live with us. We are more than willing to accept you in our home. Um, are you happy here?"
"Yes I'm very happy living here, and thank you for offering." Tohru tilts her head in gratitude with the 'thank you' she said.
He then resorts to compromising. "Could you at least stay with us for a while?"
"I don't think I could. Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure need me around the house." Tohru sadly informs him, while tilting her head away from Sasuke.
"Doushite?" Why? Wondering why two teenagers and one grown up might need a teenage girl for.
"Because I do almost all the cooking and most of the house cleaning." She informs him.
"What! That's no way to treat you. That's very rude of them to make you do all that by yourself!" Sasuke nearly yells with a stress mark on his head.
"No, no! It's not like that at all, and I don't mind really, it's okay!" Tohru responds, waving hers hands trying to calm Sasuke down.
"Well, if you say so." He sits down with big mad eyes and his nose nearly disappearing.
Tohru then gives a better idea. "You could stay with us for a while."
Sasuke's head then shoots up and looks directly at Tohru. "Really?"
"Yeah, whenever I met another member of the Zodiac, they'd stay over for three days or more." Tohru explains, while sounding like it wasn't a big deal.
"Arigato!" Sasuke jumps up and hugs Tohru again.
"Ahhh!" Tohru hugs back and rubs Sasuke's head.
--------Back in the kitchen the Zodiacs are trying to figure what to do with Sasuke.
"So what are we going to do with Sasuke?" Yuki asks, hoping the right answer comes out.
"We could try and let him keep our secret, like Tohru." Ayame suggests.
"Let him! I like him! I want to be his friend!" Yells guess whom.
AN: if you're too dense or don't know anything about Fruits Basket, it's Momiji.
"No! We can't continue to let him know about the curse." Hatori says straight out coldly.
"Why not?" Momiji so innocently asks. "We let Tohru keep her memory of the secret, why can't Sasuke?" his expression getting a little sad.
"Because he's too young." Hatori replies with the same emotionless expression.
"So you want to erase his memory?" Kisa sadly asks.
"I'm sorry Kisa, but we have to. He's just too young to carry a burden like that. The reason we let Tohru keep her memory was because we could trust her and she was like part of the family. We knew that keeping the secret was a major priority to her. But with Sasuke, we barely even know him, he's probably twelve or thirteen, and has a family of his own. Tohru also had no choice but to live with Shigure, making it easier for her to keep the curse a secret. I highly doubt that we'll even see Sasuke again. Only Kisa and Hiro will know him because they're in the same school. So I'm sorry to say that his memory of everything that has happened today must be erased." Hatori clearly states without a hint of hesitation.
"(Hatori's so mean!) Ooh! I guess you're right." Shigure says with his eyes closed and his smile gone.
"Aww." All but Kyo and Yuki sadly moan.
--------Back in the living room
"(This is such a big event today! I was able to meet a cousin of mine that actually cares about me!) So Sasuke, what are you going to tell you parents?"
"That I've found you." He directly says with no confusion.
"Do you think that'll let you stay with us?" Tohru asks.
"Maybe if you're with me, they might." Sasuke answers with excitement.
"Come on, let's ask Shigure first." Just when they get up, the kitchen door slides open.
"Sasuke, there's something we need to tell you." Shigure says with a low serious tone and a sad face.
"Really? There's something we wanted to tell you also." Tohru says happily.
"We'll let you go first. (It might make it easier for him before we tell him that he can't keep his memory. I bet he's already good friends with Tohru now.)" Shigure sighs to himself. "So what is it Tohru?" Shigure raising his voice back to its cheerful tone.
"This here is Sasuke Toko, my cousin! And we were just going to ask you if he could stay here for a while." Tohru and Sasuke smile together. Kisa, Momiji, Haru, Yuki, Ayame, and Shigure then smile. "(So that's why we like him so much.)" They all think.
"(This can't be happening.)" Hatori mentally hits himself.
"What the..." Kyo yells until Yuki grabs him and covers him mouth. They all step back and close the kitchen door. Sasuke and Tohru stare at the door and sweatdrop.
"That was weird." Sasuke blankly says.
"(I wonder what's wrong?)" Tohru, well, wonders.
-----------
"That's Miss Honda's cousin?" Yuki asks.
"He is! Ha! Hatori, are you willing to erase Sasuke's memory now, knowing that he's Tohru's cousin." Shigure says in a 'in your face!' tone.
"..." Hatori's response.
"Look at them! They already becoming close, and I think they want to get closer. That's why they wanted to ask Shigure to stay over." Aya states.
"Well knowing that that's Tohru's cousin, I don't want Hatori to erase his memory. It might hurt Tohru a lot." Kyo informs them, finally speaking.
"And I don't think you'd want to hurt Tohru, right Hatori?" Haru says.
"I have no comment on that right now." He answers with no expression in his voice, but a concerned look in his face.
"Then just let Sasuke keep his memory!" Momiji cheerfully says while jumping up and down.
"We'll have to trust him now. I hope he could do as good a job keeping it like Tohru did."
Shigure calmly says.
"I'll explain it to him." Yuki says.
"Why would that damn rat want to tell anyone anything." Kyo annoyingly says.
"Because I want to, you baka-neko. Besides, I could probably tell him without making him feel uncomfortable," He glares at Shigure and Ayame "threatened," He then glares at Kyo and Haru "or frightened." He shoots a glare at Hatori "And I don't think Momiji or Kisa could explain it well enough." He turns around and leaves.
"Damn rat." Kyo says to himself. Yuki walks out of the kitchen to talk to Sasuke.
"Sasuke, could you come with me for a second in my room, I want to talk to you. Don't worry about Tohru, she's going to prepare dinner, while the others discuss the big news of your relation with Tohru." He motions Sasuke to follow him.
"Whatever you say." Sasuke and Yuki quietly walk to his room.
"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Sasuke asks Yuki, not knowing what to expect.Yuki's voice gets serious, and his eyes become hidden in darkness of his hair. "The curse, our family secret."
"Oh, that. Is you're wondering, then yes. I can keep it secret. I'll be very good about it." Sasuke tells him straightforwardly while tapping his chest.
"As you know, when we are hugged or in direct contact with the opposite gender or under a lot of stress, we transform. It is a great burden for us to have this curse, but also for the people who know about it. Are you sure you are able to hold this responsibility? Because if you're not, there are consequences." Yuki explains to him, trying really hard to hope that Sasuke wouldn't blab their secret.
"Like what?"
"If you are incapable of keeping this responsibility, then everything you know about the curse, and Tohru in that matter, will," he pauses for a second, then "be erased from your memory." He finishes softly.
"What? If I can't keep your secret, you're going to erase me memory?" Sasuke asks, getting a little freaked by all of this.
"Oh, not me, Hatori will." Yuki tells him in a 'it's not me' voice.
"That sucks. Fine then you can count on me." He assures him while turning away, like that expression people get when they find out something crappy is going to happen, then immediately turns up and makes his promise.
"Are you sure? Do you realize what Tohru had to go through because of this?" Yuki asks to make sure that everything is clear with Sasuke.
Sasuke goes from determined to curious. "No. What happened to her?"
"Uh, I don't think I should tell you. I wouldn't want to frighten you, especially since you just met us." Yuki answers.
------Downstairs during the conversation
"It's such a surprise to have a relative that you never knew just come by. Isn't it Tohru?" Momiji asks Tohru in his same tone and look.
"Of course. I'm so happy I met him, and he's so cute! How long have you known him Kisa?" she turns to Kisa for an answer.
"About four years now." She answers with a heart-warming smile.
"So you're like his long lost cousin." Momiji jokingly announces.
"Well, uh, I guess I am." She laughs a little.
"What's taking that damn Yuki so long?" Do I really have to tell you who that is?
"Patience Kyo, is a virtue." Shigure says while twirling around his finger at Kyo.
Kyo towers over Shigure with an anger mark on his forehead, "Urusai Shigure!"
Ayame with his fingers touching his chest and closing his eyes, "I can't wait! I'm still trying to do some brotherly bonding with Yuki."
"It's not bonding the way you do it Ayame." Haru comments.
"Well I think it's sweet how Ayame tries to be an older brother to Yuki." Tohru says with a smile.
"But what about Akito, what will we tell him?" Momiji suddenly asks. The room becomes quiet. "We have to tell him, don't we?"
"I think we have to..."
Hatori then cuts off Shigure, "No we won't."
"What?" They all turn to him in shock.
"Akito doesn't have to learn about this. This will be our secret to him."
"But why Hatori?" Momiji innocently asks.
Hatori goes from serious to concerned. "Think of Tohru, what Akito did to Tohru. Do you want that to happen to Sasuke?"
"No, I don't want him to go through what Tohru did." Kyo says.
"Kyo, do you care for Sasuke?" Kisa asks.
Kyo attempting not to sound sad, "It's not that. What Tohru had to go through was worse than a nightmare, and if her cousin had to go through that, it'd break her heart. She'd probably lose him forever." Kyo explains to them.
"(Wow, I didn't think Kyo could show this much compassion.)" Shigure thinks to himself with a small smile.
"That's why Akito mustn't know." Hatori repeats once again.
"Everyone! Dinner's ready!" Tohru yells.
-------Before Tohru's dinner, back with Yuki and Sasuke
There's seriousness surrounding the room and Yuki and Sasuke are sitting by each other. Yuki makes sure that Sasuke is one hundred percent going to keep the curse a secret.
"So are you willing to take on this responsibility?" Yuki asks, while looking directly at Sasuke.
Sasuke flinches back a little while sweatdropping, then answers "Yes, I am."
Yuki continues to asks to see if Sasuke is taking this all seriously, "Can we all trust you?"
"Yes you can." He answers in an annoyed tone.
"Good, but if anyone were to find out, we will have no choice but to erase your memory, even if it means forgetting your meeting Tohru." Yuki stands up, while still looking at Sasuke.
"I understand." Sasuke stands up and Yuki's about to walk out his room. "Um, one more thing."
Yuki turns around and responds, "Yes."
"Are all of you members of the Zodiac?" Sasuke says letting curiosity do the talking.
"Yes we are. I'm the..."
Sasuke then cuts him off, "Don't tell me. I want to find out on my own."
"Sure." Yuki closes his eyes and smiles.
"Dinner time!" Tohru's voice from downstairs.
"Now prepare for one of Tohru's delicious meals." Yuki informs him before they head downstairs.
"I can't wait." They both run down the stairs and into the dining room.
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AB-Angel: Finished! Only with the chapter unfortunately, but more chapters to come! I'm still figuring how to expand this story. I got most of it down but it's not enough!
Kyo: Why don't you try quitting and leaving us alone?
AB-Angel: I'll leave you alone with Kagura if you like?
Kyo: I'm good!
Sasuke: Whose Akito?
AB-Angel: Wait and see, oh wait! You won't. I'm making sure that the Sohmas wouldn't let Akito know about you.
Sasuke: Why?
Shigure: Let's just say that you won't be sleeping well when he gets through with you.
Sasuke: No more details. I'm happy you're not making him know me.
AB-Angel: Of course! I hate Akito, no reason for you not to like him.
Momiji: Sasuke, you want to play?
Sasuke: Sure! They exit the room
AB-Angel: Kids. I wish I was still one.
Kisa: When will Hiro return?
AB-Angel: I absolutely have no idea Kisa. You'll just have to wait. Why don't you go and play with Sasuke and Momiji for now?
Kisa: Okay! She skips away
AB-Angel: They're just so adorable.
Haru: I don't like the fact that I don't get to talk much in this story.
AB-Angel: And your point is? (Oops! Did I just say that? This is Haru. I'd better not say anything worse.) Don't turn black yet. You'll get your moment soon. I'll assure it. (Now how am I going to give Haru an important role in the story? I'll figure something out later. I have a story to write.) I'm not asking for reviews yet. Only at the end of the story. Have fun reading!