Despite Fate

By Starhopper

DISCLAIMER: AHHH! These characters are not my own, they are indeed the property of someone else. I merely manipulate them and hopefully use enough tact to convey my message without tearing the moral fibers of the characters apart.

Chapter 4:

"But She Does Not Cut"

Tohru stared at the figure standing motionless in front of her. She wasn't sure how to even begin. How do you tell your best friend that you love them?

Setting her mouth into a determined pout, she started to say his name. It was the most logical first step conceived in a mind brimming full with questions. –

"Honda . . . san,"

– And was immediately interrupted by her own name and a coughing fit.

"Yuki-kun!" she cried as she rushed to his side, arms spread for a warm embrace. An outthrust hand halted her progress. Her eyes turned fearful as he righted himself, painfully drawing in much too ragged breaths. The gaze holding him in place immediately dropped to the abnormal swell of his left ankle, and brought Tohru one more step closer to him. Yet another hand, and even a moan escaped the Prince, sufficiently stopping her from going any further.

"But you're hurt, how did you - ?"

The sopping wet bangs did a fine job of hiding his red eyes, but certainly did nothing for the tears that fell from them. "Silly me, went out without my boots and tripped over a root." Yuki sniffed, trying to cover the sting with a coarse laugh. "I thought you two might need some time alone, and I needed some air anyway,"

Tohru's thoughts whirled to a halt. 'Time alone?' What did he mean by that?

"You don't need to hide anymore Honda-san. If you know what can make you happy, then for all the hope in the world, you must do what makes you positively ecstatic,"

"Yuki-kun, I think you might be,"

For the first time since she'd arrived, he looked at her and she gasped. What was once so vibrant and peaceful was now drained and wracked. His eyes, his face, even his soul – they were all jumbled up into a distorted mess that seemed to run like an oil-painting under hot lights.

He coughed, twisting the hacking into a wry fit of chuckles. Pathetic and ill, the nezumi was never good at acting for her sake. "I must seem a mess tonight, forgive me for interrupting you,"

"No!" Tohru took another step forward and winced as he withdrew back, edging towards a tree. He nearly toppled over if not for the safety of the barrel trunk which he braced himself against. "It's not like that at all,"

"But it is," the twenty-one year old sniffed again, rubbing at his eyes, clearly fighting any desire to look at her. "You have no idea how happy you've made me by falling in love, Tohru."

Tohru stopped trying to get closer and instead shifted away. Somewhat voicelessly, she mouthed the word, 'what' several times.

"Strange, how . . . we always . . . meet in the rain," Yuki said without a thought between her voice and his. "And I admit, I entertained the notion," his eyes now focused steadily on the spot directly in front of her. Tohru gathered her hands at her throat, trying to soothe the burn left from the absence of his gaze. It stung to be cut out from his sight.

"But, I was selfish," his slide down the bark ended as he hit the earth's floor, but it did nothing to keep him from turning in on himself. His knees went to his chest, and a hand covered his face, trailing the droplets of rain as they crossed over his cheeks.

Something was swirling madly in the bottom of Tohru's stomach. Her tone took on the twist as she boldly crossed the distance between them, "Yuki-kun, what are you saying?" Settling beside him silently she quietly considered the impossible. Could he –

He looked up, slightly surprised that she had finally shattered any of the barriers. Rain, mud, self-imposed distance, all were gone and running down his face in a strange salty mist. Starting immediately at a slow grate, he began to explain himself, "I was so very selfish back then. I still am. But . . . but I can't help the fact that when I'm around you, I feel lighter inside. I always have. I'm free when you're next to me, guiding me. And though you don't see it, you are."

Yuki paused to take a breath and Tohru leapt in, feeling unsteady on such grounds. Her legs, though tucked to her side, shook uncontrollably. "Yuki-kun, there's also something that you don't see, but I'll gladly show it to you,"

"What?" The prince looked confused and somewhat disappointed. A shiver passed between them. Whether it was from some intuitive anticipatory sense or sheer cold, Tohru couldn't tell, but she used the obvious shake to scooch in just close enough so that she could feel the heat from his body, no matter how hidden it was under such a lithe frame.

The onigiri started to formulate the question she was dying to and at the same time squealing in fright of asking. But she stopped short as his voice replayed fragments in her mind. "You mentioned before that you had 'entertained' a notion. Tell me please, what was that notion?"

Even the rain, now sheeting at a diagonal slant couldn't screen the blush that so rarely dusted the Prince's cheeks. He looked again to the side, focusing on her right shoulder. "That you could possibly . . . feel the same way about," suddenly rich velvet caught her startled blue in a gaze that longed for some other way to answer what she questioned. On some level she understood with a dragging awareness that there was a reason the Prince was out in the woods, while she and Kyou had been warm in the comfort of the kitchen.

"Anyway," he convulsed as another fit of hacking gutted the smoothness of his voice. "There's no reason to think the way I did then. I was – scared? Healing? No, that's not right at all. I was," Yuki's lips moved as if to smile, but instead decided to grow tighter. "Healed" His eyes narrowed in an unmoved response that Tohru just couldn't read. She held her breath and felt her stomach lurch forward in sick confusion. "And now that you and Ky-"

The tears that were slowly screwing themselves behind her eyes suddenly started to trickle at his admission. As usual Yuki caught sight of them and immediately shook his head in repent. "No, please don't cry Honda-san. You know how much I can't stand to see you cry. You don't deserve to cry, you have no reason to. I'm very happy that you've found something so wonderful,"

'And I have, it's with you!' her heart screamed, leaving a soft ring in her ears. On the outside, she just sniffed and looked down at her knees.

"I'm fine, really," he continued in that placating whisper she'd heard so many times before. "Even though it's painful, your eyes are brighter than I've ever seen them before, and your laugh is lighter, more willing to carry. Shout it to the world, though I can see it. You're excited and surprised and happy. Just knowing that you're happy is enough to make me happy."

She suddenly felt fingers underneath her chin and heard herself inhale sharply. They traced the line of her jaw, as words that she knew were being thought filled obvious pause.

'Even if I am not the one to cause it.'

The words floated in front of her mind, then withdrew along with his fingertip. It took all her willpower to keep herself from reaching out and pulling his hand back. Touch was all she had between them. All words were becoming exhausted.

"You can go back, and let them all know I'm ok where I am. Because I am." He added the last point a little too forcefully. Tohru's head snapped up.

'I'm such a coward.' The onigiri hastily threw the thought at herself, hoping that would get the words going. Even after talking with him, she still didn't know where to begin. He wasn't the Yuki she knew well, this was the Yuki he kept hidden under such a careful exterior. But they were the same Yuki when it came down to it. There was nothing to be frightened or even wary of. With an inner-nod, Tohru swallowed all her fears and said, "No,"

Yuki said nothing, just readjusted his gaze to settle over her determined face. But he couldn't keep his lower jaw from dropping slightly agape, as if about to say something, but thought better of it.

"You're entirely wrong about everything Yuki-kun," she said brightly, grinning from ear to ear through some stubborn sniffles. "And it's good, it's so good. Because I don't ever want to go back either. Not to the house, not to Kyou-kun, not even back to the first day we met. It took longer than that, but it was such an experience. I want to say thank-you for that before I possibly forget what I'm about to say or say something that doesn't make any sense. But I do mean it all, please believe me, Yuki-kun."

"I will believe anything you say," Yuki replied breathlessly, the blush deepening at her gratitude. "Just say what you feel,"

"I feel hurt and guilty," the smile turned down, "I think I've lost one of my best friends and it hurts to know that he's upset when I feel so," she fought to find the words, but shook her head and let it pass. Why try to find the words for something that was inexplicable? Like wanting to run barefoot in the grass after a rainy day, it was just what you felt was right and had to do. "And I hurt because I wish I could make him understand. He tried to kiss me, but I never returned it. I ducked, and I feel guilty that I couldn't make his dream come true. But mine has. For a long time, I didn't know what my dream could possibly be. But then,"

She paused, watching the Prince's look of concern wash away into dissolute uncertainty . . . It was true, she not only felt guilty about Kyou-kun, she also felt guilty for putting this man through so much fretful anxiety. In the silence, his voice edged on the brink of nervous outbreak. "I assumed it was fate, but - "

"I never tried to make myself favor anyone in particular. To love and respect you all for taking such good care of me was all I could do. Shigure-san offered me a place to stay when all I had was under a landslide, Kyou-kun opened his heart to me to fill and you," she trailed off, tilting her head to the shoulder he had admired previously without intention. "You, Yuki-kun, allowed me to know you. Like a timid flower, your heart also opened to me, but you gave me something different. You became one of my best friends so fast, I almost couldn't see it until one morning. I'm sorry, I don't even remember when it was, but I guess it doesn't matter now. It happened and I was so happy and also so afraid." She shivered and his fingertips glided over to her hands. His own were like ice, but as they settled over her clasped ones, she felt a deep warmth flood through the connection.

Yuki felt it too, smiling slightly as she blinked some old tears away, looking down at his slightly blue skin framed against the dulled pink of hers. "Honda-san,"

"Please, call me Tohru, Yuki-kun," the onigiri nearly choked on her tears as he turned towards her, sliding his right hand under her fingers, sandwiching her hands between his. Carefully moving his legs in front of him, Yuki nodded slowly, the smile still small but glowing.

"Then you must call me Yuki," he whispered again, leaving no chance for a cough to escape. His attack had seemed to diminish as she talked, though now his entire body was shaking with something Tohru couldn't quite place. His teeth even chattered, and she only wanted to hold him and make him stop.

"Yuki, through it all, I found myself truly loving only one person. It wasn't Kyou-kun, no matter how much he wanted it to be. I first tried not to show it by devoting all my attention to him after your fights. I guess I was stupid and was trying to make it up to him somehow. But I was slow and completely discounted his reactions." She shook her head and attempted to break their mutual gaze, but Yuki pulled their hands apart and held each one in his.

"I wondered before about my strange past with Kyou-kun, and hoped that with our friendship, he'd take the rejection I was eventually going to give him . . . um . . . better than he would have previously. I didn't even mention a name until I blurted it aloud, and then he started to list off why I shouldn't feel this way. The hat, my role in turning him back from the beast, and most surprisingly, my power to make him blush. But I just shook my head and told him that I'm in love and there's nothing that can change it. I don't want it to. I just want to be in love and even if that love is not returned, I don't care."

Leaning slightly forward, the onigiri smiled and Yuki had to remind himself to take a deep breath. "Because despite fate, I fell in love with you."

A sudden gust of wind threaded her hair behind her shoulders and the Prince bowed his head. Tohru felt her face fall in mild-shock as she became more a-tune to a damp stillness clinging to the air between them. It suffocated the ensuing silence until its death grip was broken by an immutable tug at her right hand.

"Tohru," The last part of her name came mumbled over her knuckles as he pressed the most lace-delicate of kisses to the back of her hand. Softly, he set it back down between them, his fingers curling about hers in the slightest of holds, the most minute of touches. If she blinked, the affectionate gesture might have been missed.

But Tohru had never found herself more rapt with the whisp-like attentions. She nearly forgot to look at the Prince when he began to speak. Yuki swallowed hard, obviously summoning up some an amount of courage for whatever he was about to do next. The onigiri brought her lips together firmly so as to not let her mouth fall open in surprise. For as he rose to one knee, letting the left leg remain straight and slack to the side, the handhold grew in intensity.

"From the moment you accepted me, for nezumi and Sohma," As their hands folded in the thin channel of air between them, Tohru found herself being drawn up and nearer to him. She too sat up on her knees and eagerly leaned forward to hear the words:

"I've been yours."

The declaration ended in the soft offer of a kiss from Prince to his Princess, one that Tohru, gowned in a yellow rain-slicker and muddy boots as she was, accepted without complaint. Like the rest of his body, the backs of his hands were icy. But his lips were so warm. And soft, like the down from a feather, or a rose petal. Tohru couldn't quite decide which for the first second, but promptly forgot about what it felt like to what it was. She inhaled the sweet politeness of it, and found that fact in itself to be incredibly endearing. Her first kiss, given to her by her best friend and now, love of her life, Sohma Yuki. What she didn't know was that it was Yuki's first kiss as well, one that he had dreamt of but never planned on giving to her ever. The tentativeness was directly linked to his excitement and patience with himself by not overpowering such soft confessions made in a rainstorm.

The tremors that had wracked his body with a fury only minutes before were now thinned and smooth to a startling peace . . . in his body only. Tohru's knees were now shaking at haphazard angles, threatening to ruin her balance and hence ruin the moment. She swayed to the side slightly, and knew for sure that the kiss would end too abruptly for both their likings. Especially Yuki: he'd fall to catch her, and she'd inadvertently hug her savior out of primal instinct alone. And then? A gray rat would be in the rain and disappointed beyond belief.

As she teetered, Yuki pulled his head up and quickly pulled his left leg in to land on his knee. Tohru saw him wince as the jolt rippled along his leg and hit the broken ankle. A fresh splash of mud sounded and she wondered if she'd fallen, that maybe she'd been out in the rain too long and had gone numb. But, as she lay tilted over the bend of her arm, Tohru suddenly realized that the Prince had countered her sway by folding his left arm behind her back, his lower arm lying parallel over hers.

Having assessed the situation to her sense of gravity's content, Tohru looked into deep purple eyes and, not bothering to reflect his look of concern, but opting instead to give a little giggle, smiled back into their depths. "Why – do – we always meet in the rain?" she asked quietly, laughing a little as the level of intensity in his features started to wane a little. "It's actually pretty wet and cold, don't you think?"

Yuki smiled and let his mouth break into a grin of relief. "I'm soaked, so I have to agree with you on that, Hond - eh, Tohru," he blushed slightly at slip, but Tohru pulled her hand free from their hold to the side and moved it to lightly finger the longer bangs that framed his face.

"Lives are changing, a name isn't that important," she intoned sweetly, taking a deep inner breath at how extremely thankful he was to her for not taking things personally. His blush had stayed about the same, but it was impossible not to keep blushing when someone you care for is mindedly running her fingers through your hair, then turning them over to cup your cheek.

He gently touched her own cheek, tickling her cheek bone then continuing a path down the applet's curve to the chin. He pinched it affectionately. "I am happy that you fell in love though,"

"If you're happy, then I'm happy," her chortle was voluntarily cut off as Yuki leaned down to kiss her again, perhaps making this one last a bit longer. His lips hovered over hers, quietly mouthing the words so that she didn't hear but rather felt them.

"Being in love has this kind of affect on me. I never knew I could feel this happy and anxious, and peaceful all at the same time. Once again, you've guided me, and opened me up to feel whole and healed. It is my turn to thank you," Pressing his slightly breathless mouth to hers, she enjoyed the downy warmth all over again. Only this time, the kiss itself was more assured of its footing on such uncertain grounds. Just as both were melting into the rain and the soft emotions falling beneath it, Tohru heard the most familiar of voices trailing through the trees. Opening one eye, she studied the area behind the trunk with little or no concern, just curiosity. She caught sight of a white and red blur and made a distant connection the very same moment Yuki lost his concentration.

More like it shattered into tiny sharp little fragments in the back of his mind, the lovely floating feelings dissipating into a thick bar of annoyance that he hadn't felt since he was a child. Not since he'd gotten the doctor's permission to play outside and – he – had to ruin it by showing off a new coat. An extremely gaudy one with a purple leopard pattern . . .

It all happened so fast. The snake popped into view behind a bush, Yuki fell flat on his back, Tohru was carried by gravity to rest on top of him, the nezumi reached with pain for his twisted hamstring, the onigiri reached out with him, Yuki went wide-eyed with shock at the sight of her arms curling about his body in an accidental embrace, and then a very loud and distinctive, sickenly familiar, painfully suggestive:

- pop -

A/N: NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! Why would I do that to you all? WHY?! GOMEN NASAI if you thought I would do such a heartless, Akito thing.

No, there's still WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much fun ahead to stop now! What about a night with the Mabudachi trio? OR how about more Kyou angs – er – acceptance? AND WHAT ABOUT MY NEZUMI OHJISAMA?

So, if you must all know, I'll have the next chapter out ASACP (As Soon As College-ly Possible). I shrugged off a DHC paper to finish this, don't tell me I'm not devoted to making you guys hap-pay!

Now that you've read it and went all gooey (I see those goo-puddles on the floor fellow-fangirls) let's just hear how I did. REVIEW please, always appreciated, never . . . um, well not appreciated I guess. And do check out some of my other stuff . . . ya know, the stuff at the bottom that no one reads because it has like 5 reviews. You can CHANGE all that! (End Shameless plug that had no warning to begin with).

So yes, please review, I wanna hear the nitty-gritty and the good stuff too. I strive to be true to the characters, but keep in mind, they're all 4 years older.

Luv and peace to all

Starhopper