WARNING: This chapter contains a rather significant spoiler from the latest manga chapter released in Japan, revealing a dramatic secret about one of the main characters. At first I was planning to ignore it, seeing as how I haven't read most of the manga and only learned that particular spoiler by pure circumstance, but now that I know, it's kind of hard to ignore. Like, really really hard to ignore, even though it has very little affect on the plot of this story itself. So I'm including it. This is your warning.

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Chapter 6

in which the littlest prince grows up

Hiro Sohma almost smiled as he watched Kisa eat her cake across the room. It wasn't a complete smile—Hiro Sohma never smiled completely, even on a day dedicated solely to him and in which he was the complete center of attention—but it was something close to a smile, and had Kisa turned to see it she her face would have lit up at the sight. She was always like that, and he still loved her for it. Hiro stabbed a fork into his own piece of chocolate cake, and leaned back in his chair as he examined all the relatives filling the reception room.

This was a private ceremony; Kisa had already thrown him a smaller ceremony with some friends from his school. Now she was talking with Haru about something or other, and dozens of other Sohmas wandered about the residence, occasionally stopping by to congratulate Hiro on growing another year. Hiro himself maintained an attitude of unusual politeness in the face of people he would normally, on any other given day, brush off completely; he didn't like a great deal of his family that he did know and the ones that he barely knew had no business, he felt, to be at his birthday party. But he was one of the cursed, which meant he was special and thus deserving of lavish get-togethers, and besides it made Kisa happy.

Making Kisa happy not only remained one of Hiro's major goals, it was nearly a full-time job at this point. She was prone to slide into depression, and if they weren't careful to remind her she often neglected to eat as well. She still spoke, and she didn't run away like when they were a little younger, but she was showing her hurt in other ways. It made sense, he supposed: a different way of grieving for a different kind of sadness. But it worried him often, because unlike the first time, when she had only stopped talking for a month or so, Kisa had now been drifting radically in and out of clinical depression for over a year.

Hiro's not-quite-smile sank back into a neutral stare, and he ate another bite of cake. If nothing else, at least Hatsuharu helped. The older boy was a college freshman now as was Momiji, but he still made time for Kisa, a high school sophomore, dropping by regularly to visit at the main house. Hiro had long ago given up being jealous over this because had it rudely pointed out to him by witnessing Black Haru in a rage that Haru needed to keep ties strong as much as Kisa needed to. His alternate personality reared itself more often these days, and the little tiger could bring him down faster than any of them. The events of a year and a half ago had hit these two the hardest of the younger generation, and already being of delicate psychological condition it inevitably showed most dramatically in them. In a way what shocked Hiro the most, in those moments when he sat down to consider the matter, was that of all of them it was Momiji who remained the most calm and the most adaptable next to himself. Momiji, usually the most emotionally driven of the younger Sohma set, had faired better than all of them on the outside, and then, as soon as he had the opportunity, applied for a university as far away from the clan as Akito would allow him to go short of leaving Japan completely. Hiro recognized the attempt at running away from all the pain and fear, but he didn't hold it against the rabbit. After all, it was his nature, and Hiro knew he would be back eventually.

"Are you enjoying your birthday, Hiro?" Akito asked, voice floating through the din of partiers to crash with sudden violence into the boy's awareness. Hiro stiffened instantly, and turned to the side where the paragon of their clan stood in a gentleman's suit, affecting a smile much wider but more disingenuous than that which Hiro had been trying out earlier. Akito looked tired, of course, but Hiro knew Akito when she was tired was Akito at her most dangerous, because it was when she felt vulnerable. She was supposedly sick today; why was she here and not staying in bed? He didn't want Akito here, of all the people in the Sohma family he wanted Akito at his party least of all.

"It's fine," Hiro answered, working to keep his voice even. "The cake is good," he added, taking an extremely large bite and filling his mouth with it in the hope that he wouldn't have to talk if his mouth was full.

"You have grown up quite a bit when we weren't looking," Akito continued, approaching Hiro's chair and then passing it by in a series of soft, measured steps, voice now drifting back. "Fourteen is a special year. I am pleased you reached it in such fine form."

Hiro dropped his plate onto the table and ran to the bathroom where he retched up every morsel of cake he'd eaten.

Hatori found him a few minutes later, and handed him a cup of water to rinse his mouth with. "Are you alright?" he asked after a minute or so.

"Yeah," Hiro replied, refilling the plastic party cup. "I'll be fine. You can go away now." A rare frown, small but noticeable, creeped across Hatori's expression.

"Whatever Akito said to you, take it with a grain of salt." The older Sohma tucked his hands in his pockets and stared coolly at his cousin. "She would like nothing better than to know that a few mere sentences engendered such a strong reaction from you."

Hiro stood up from the ceramic bowl and wiped his face with a wad of toilet paper. "She said that she was pleased I 'reached' the age of fourteen in such fine form." Hatori said nothing. "What she meant, though," Hiro continued, "was that she was pleased I reached fourteen at all. And as if she deserved credit for my doing so."

Hatori scowled. "Don't read too much into anything Akito says," he retorted.

"Shove it Hatori. Akito was talking about Shigure and Yuki."

"You don't know that."

Hiro yanked open the bathroom door. "Like hell I don't."

The youngest member of the zodiac curse darted his way through the crowd of the party, intent on finding Kisa and making sure Akito hadn't said anything to upset her too. But in the back of his constantly active, constantly circling mind, the smartest member of the zodiac was nursing a new idea. It was a thought that he had never considered before, certainly not when he'd been twelve and terrified. But for the moment he allowed it to take shape, to curl about in his mind and root itself.

I wonder, Hiro thought as he searched out Kisa's tawny hair in the crowd, if Akito knows something about why they died.