Strange Happening's

By SAL-Chan

Part Thirteen: Mini Chapter 2 - Yuki

"There is no black or white. Only shades of gray..."

Yuki

I settled down on the part of the deck that sat facing the field out back, letting my legs fall over the side. There was a blue spiral notebook laying limply on my lap, tea stains flowering on the top right corner. I stared down at the paper - my own neat handwriting lined up across the little lines, each letter the same as the last one before it. I knew that all the information I had gathered from the student council was written down in that repeating script through the entire notebook.

And somehow, that made me feel very pathetic.

I sighed and flipped backwards through the pages, looking at the dates on the top of each. They year ran backwards until I reached the 14 of October last year. I flipped forward a few pages, then back to that same page. The letters were written with more pressure in some parts, while in others the pencil lines were so light that they couldn't be read. Flipping forward through the year again, I noticed that lately the same script has desecrated my student council book.

I was troubled; and lately I've caught myself not listening to anything the younger grade representatives have been saying. It's all that damn Cat's fault.

I slipped the book shut and looked out into the yard, which was still naked from the last snow fall. Spring lurked in the air, just waiting for the time to unfold on the world and bathe it in green glory. Winter air was still crisp - fresh and cold in my lungs. Frost will still wrap around everything in the morning's, but it would be thawed fully by the time nine o'clock rolled around. The only reason I noticed these things was because I was lost in thought, but I couldn't help my mind from wandering. Once again, that's the Cat's fault.

I'm questioning my own mortality now. I often wonder that if I were to die right then, what would happen? Would I come back and haunt my family, would I go to wherever one goes when death has called them, or would I just cease to exist? Dow does it truly feel to die? How will I die: gallantly and nobly, or will my life be taken in a instant like his was? I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about these things, and truthfully…it scares me to death.

I could die in a instant. In fact, I believe I almost did. If I had been standing wrong or holding something else when that car hit me, I would be dead. No if's, and's, or but's about it, I would have died. It's because of pure luck that I'm sitting here now...

So I don't waste time on thinking to hard about things anymore. I realized that I overanalyze and over exaggerate everything in my head. Once again, I believe I must blame that on the stupid Cat...

The cold wind played with my hair and pulled it toward the field, the golden grass stretching toward the horizon of bare brown trees. The sky stretched colors across itself, pale colors before night even starts to fall - as if the blue of the sky was lifting off the earth altogether. I saw more then felt a smile fall across my face - as if I had detached myself from my body and was floating above it, looking out with different eyes.

That's what my entire life felt like now, like I was detached from everything and looking at everything with different eyes. Kyo's visit opened a part of me that had never seen the light of day beforehand, and it gave me more courage then I had ever had before. That's the reason I actually did what I had planed to do for years now.

Two days ago, right before lunch break was over, I asked Honda Tohru - our resident maid and the glue that holds the Jyuunishi together - to go to prom with me.

I wasn't sure who had been more surprised at the action - myself, Tohru, or Kyo- but I had done it, and I wasn't going to take it back. There had been a moment of total quiet as shock and surprise exploded behind both of their eyes, and then Tohru smiled and politely said 'I would love to.'

I had said alright, and we went our own ways - Kyo following me, still ogling at my courage. I had turned the corner and my steps had started to rush each other. I all but burst into the empty boy's bathroom and threw myself toward one of the toilets, and proceeded to empty the remnants of my lunch into it. My body had started to shake as I leaned my forehead on the cold marble and concentrated on just breathing. I felt as though the tips of my fingers had become numb, and the numbness was prickling up the nerves in my arms. I felt like a pit had opened out in the middle of my chest and sucked my heart and my stomach into it. Realization smacked me in the back of the head and I groaned, pulling myself onto my feet.

I then turned around and found myself in a instant eye lock between my cousin - whose eyes were crimson red, but shaded black toward the pupil. Dead eyes. Eyes that held such covered emotions that I could only blindly guess what they were.

I had clutched the door jam of the stall I had thrown myself into and just stared back at him, apprehensive. There was nothing I could read in his eyes, nothing that would have clued me in on what was racing around his mind. Calmly I let my barriers down and let my nervousness and that bottomless feeling envelop me whole. I let myself look like someone who asked the girl they loved to the prom, then upon receiving an answer of 'yes' had remained calm until they physically threw themselves to a toilet and upchucked their entire lunch, shaking life a leaf on a windy day…all because their nerves were shot to hell.

I let myself be human. And still he stared at me with the piercing crimson gaze and let nothing show. Then - ever so very slowly - he dropped his head and extended a hand out to me, his body becoming solid with effort. I looked at him like he had grown another head.

Slowly he lifted his head and locked eyes with me again, looking up to compensate for the years he spent dead. I saw pain, loss, and pride swell in his eyes, and a thin smile lacing itself on his cut face. It was that instant that I knew what Kyo thought of me - and that if I was going down in a flaming wreck, he wouldn't grab the last parachute and bail on me.

I let a thin smile form on my face as I extended my hand out as well - unable to touch him. Instead he wrapped his cold hand around mine, and we shook. It was the first time I ever felt like we were equals, both in mind and in sprit.

"I'm surprised you had it in ya, ya damn Rat," he said, his grin widening. The handshake, I could tell by reading between the lines, was congratulatory, and if his congratulations for winning was really true, it also meant that he was throwing in the towel for the running for our Angel's heart. Unacceptable - I snickered.

"A hell of a lot better than what you would have done," I was hooking him, and I saw the glint in his eyes that meant he caught it. The prickling coldness relished my hand in a wave of cold. A wicked glint grew in leaps and bounds by every millisecond, and that glint captured his entire face.

"A challenge?" His voice was rough, but it was Kyo's - that damn Cat.

"What challenge?" I asked, looking down my nose at him - like I once did. After that I had straightened myself in the mirror and simply walked back to class. No regrets...

There's been a weary awkwardness that has been following me around since then. I can't seem to meet either of their eyes, or Shigure's for that matter. I mean, that awkwardness was here before but since New Year's it has grown by leaps and bounds. And for some reason I can't find the solution to it, find a way to make it stop...

I sighed and dropped the council notebook next to me and leaned back, letting the muscles in my back relax against the cold wooden floor. I flung an royal blue sleeved arm over my eyes, worry churning my stomach.

Were we all really avoiding each other? No; we all need breathing room. Too much has happened to quickly, and we're drowning. Shigure's smile is fading, worry lines are etching themselves in Tohru's forehead and around her eyes, Kyo's being unexplainably quiet, and I'm growing a ulcer.

The last year of high school is suppose be special. Tokyo University already accepted me, the prom plans are going smoothly, classes are slowly winding down - so what in the world is bothering me so?

Kyo: okay, beside that. Actually going to collage: okay, but that's not the main reason. Family: okay...yea, that's it. That's needs to be it...

But...

I blinked and sat up again, letting my arm drop to my side, eyes wide. It wasn't just the entire family, it was one person. That's why ever since New Year's I've been jumpy and stressed.

Akito, I'm worried about Akito. God's punishment for not attending the banquet hasn't come yet - in fact no word from Akito at all has come. That's probably the reason everyone else is pussyfooting around the compound and escaping to Shigure's house whenever they can. Kagura's been here four times this week alone, and Hatori comes over with Haru every other night for dinner.

Shigure. It's Shigure's fault. His little war with Akito is freaking us all out. Damn it, I should have picked up on it before.

But what can I do? Make peace with him willingly? Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

God, I can't believe I just realized this. Akito's been uncharacteristically nice in his own twisted way for a long time now. We haven't been scolded for not coming to the banquet, I've been allowed safe passage to Tokyo U without a problem. Ever since Kyo showed up...

I blinked again and rubbed my temples. Does Akito know about Kyo? Yes, most likely. He probably would have been the first person to accept the fact that the Cat's dead, but would Akito cry for "the monster" - as he put it? No. He would willingly die first...

"What the hell are you doin' sittin' outside?! It's freezing!" Kyo's voice reached me before he did. He slid out of the wall with great ease and took a breath of cold air, exhaling in a cloud of smoke. I stared at his cloudy breath for a minute and acknowledged it as another step for coming back to life, then let my eyes slide back over to the sky line. Color was in the process of being stolen by black from the sky, pinpricks of light just barely visible in the darkening sky.

"How would you know?" I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to hit my head against something for saying it, but I didn't let that feeling show. I let the cold around me sink into my body. I felt his gaze on me, but I didn't turn to look; I couldn't meet his eyes. See, detached...

Quiet wrapped around the porch, and I saw him move to sit on the other side of the notebook, letting his legs hang off the end of the deck. He didn't say anything back, just staring out in to the darkening sky. I sighed quietly and gathered my courage to say something.

"I was murdered..." I turned quickly to him, never in my life expecting to hear something like that come from him. I blinked at him, not believing my ears.

"What?"

"I was murdered." He was quiet, eyes dropping for the sky to his knees. "Someone was hired to kill me..."

Shock wasn't the word for what I was feeling, but it was the closest thing I could have to describing what captured my brain - my being. There was a moment of totally foggy miscomprehension, then clarity broke through with a strange clear calm. Someone had killed Kyo...

"Who?" I wanted to know. For some reason, I had the worst sinking feeling in my chest. I heard him sigh.

"Akito." And everything fell into place. The reason we were being left alone, why we were allowed to do what we wanted. Akito knew that this - or something like this- would happen. He wanted to see what we would do, how we would react.

"Who else knows?" Autopilot. My thoughts had become still, my breathing calm and quiet. I don't think I could have hated Akito any more than I did at that moment.

"Tohru, Shigure...I think Hatori has an idea to...I'm just waiting now." That made me look at him. Okay, so I wasn't the first. I could handle feeling like a idiot for not thinking Akito has something to do with it in the first place. But I hated having to be told.

"Waiting for what?" I watched him grin slightly, the cut on his cheek stitched together and healed well enough so the skin didn't move. Dark violet clouded his bright red eyes with veins of color.

"Revenge." The one word was breathed with so much hate and determination that I knew it was true. Kyo would have his revenge, even if it wasn't by his hands. Strangely, I felt the slightest twitch of a grin grow on my face.

"How long have you been planning this?" That's right, let everything develop into a joke. That way you won't go insane. It was the way Kyo had been living as a ghost - through sarcasm and laughter. Anything less and one would snap - I know from experience. Kyo's grin widened.

"For as long as I've been dead." I dropped it there. I didn't want to know what he would do, but I had a few ideas. Knowing Kyo, it would be something that would hurt Akito so deeply...but I couldn't put my finger on what. I didn't have a year to plan it the way he would do it, but I had my own ideas of torture. My favorite would be locking him up in that damn box and just leaving him there...

I shut my mind off. I stopped it all together and let the night take me over. I let the quiet surround me, and I let the hatred seep out of my into the night. It wasn't worth thinking about if I knew I wouldn't do it. On the other hand, I knew Kyo would do whatever he had planned in a instant if he could. I would help him if I could - God help me I would - but for some reason I couldn't see myself doing it alone.

I didn't owe Akito my life anymore. He took one of ours, so I could have mine now.

"Hey Rat..." His voice made me jump. I looked at the ghost of my former-...my cousin and blinked. He grinned at my surprise, shifting his position so that his legs were tucked to his chest and he could loosely wrap his arms around them. I glared at him and leaned against a wood pillar that was near me.

"What?" I snapped at him, eyes sharp. Slowly that humor that glinted in his eyes dissipated, and they were left a dull crimson color- empty and open. I felt the hate drain away from my face and just looked at him calmly.

He then asked me something that I would have never expected him to say to me in a million years.

"Can I ask you for a favor?"

(Chapter End)

Ranting: Look how quickly I did that! Okay, okay...it's short, but that's how little a mini chapter should be. I had a day off, so I wrote. I finished this in two days. This and two books. Go me...

Life goes on with the Sohma's, how ever twisted it's becoming. And I guess you're all going to wait for baited breath until the prom, aren't you? Don't worry, you don't have that long...

There are 9 chapters left, plus the epilogue. Were slowly getting closer to the end, aren't we? Cackles evilly

So...let me have you comments!! Fire away!!

P.S.: Start looking for the new fic that I'm going to put out called The Collector. The preview story for the last chapter was a part of it...it should be a good AU -

Question of the Chapter: Has anyone read any of Laurell K. Hamilton's stuff?

Favorite Line: I let myself look likes someone who asked the girl they loved to the prom - then upon receiving an answer of 'yes' had remained calm until they physically threw themselves into a toilet and upchucked their entire lunch, shaking life a leaf on a windy day all because their nerves were shot to hell.

Favorite Character: Stupid question...I like the interaction b/t Kyo and Yuki though.

Date Finished: July 4th, 2004. 9: 44 p.m.

Date Edited: July 12th, 3004. 1: 22 p.m.

Moving along...

Ana Denali/Adria: Your very welcome, and it was my pleasure. Sorry, typo's were fixed of after you reviewed. My fault on that...Glad you lined the preview, and I hope you read that (once it's up) as well as the rest of SH. LOL! I'm a tease! Giggles

HelloKat: Yep yep! Plot's nice and confusing. Scrambles you brain just a little bit. Yep yep -other Jyuunishi. Yep yep they were best friends. What happened between them...that's a little complicated. But remember the story of the jyuunishi and how the rat tricked the cat...we just don't know the reason for why he was tricked - I'm saying to much. Bad SAL-Chan...Anyway, hope you liked this chapter and that you come back for the rest!

V-chan: Lol! That's what I think the Sohma family would be like in a kitchen together; warm, friendly, and chaotic. Jumps around happily I got a cookie!! YAY, lol. Glad you like the ancestors, for they are important. Gush! Please gush! It's everyone input that motivates me to write. Glad you like those moments, and I hope you liked this chapter too.

HanaTenshiHimeko: You like the scary lady? She was meant to be weird. I don't know...will he come back!? that's what we need to find out, right? The main goal? Well, we will see...

yamatoforever: There was a reason for Kyo's scratched to heal so fast. Remember the energy Tohru saw around Kagura. Yeah, you know it's a bad thing when Tohru is scared of you, and Kyo would be destroyed if he knew she was scared of him. If anything he needs her more then anyone else. And there's always more about the past Jyuunishi, and I'm pretty sure they're show up in the next chapter. Sweat drops Yama-Chan...that was Kyo.

Sorry, nothing to snack on this time. Oh yeah, remember that story tidbit that was at the end of the last chapter - it's gone. The another of the series that the story derived from didn't want anyone writing fiction about her series, so I hade to take it down. But I'm thinking of modifying the plot, and then we'll see where it goes.

By the way, I don't own FruBa. This plot and original characters are mine, but not Fruba itself. Any twisted, enhanced psychotic tendency, morbid reactions, deep and well deserved brooding and/or beating ones self up that happen to appear in the story are mine and I stake full claims with some help and idea's. Please review, and any flame will be laughed if not ignored.

Ja!

SAL-Chan