Greetings and salutations all those out there in the rest of the world. Please enjoy the next chapter and stuff.
*~*~*~*
23.10.03 6.52 AM
I'm getting up bright and early today, partially because with Tohru under the weather I have to cook breakfast, partially because after staying awake most of last night surviving on water and air, I am exceedingly hungry. My neck hurts like I've slept on it badly, but I'm fairly sure I got to bed unscathed. Ah well, I plan to hit the pillow some time this afternoon, and if anyone wakes me up before tomorrow morning, limbs will go flying.
*~*~*~*
I really can't be bothered getting dressed, so I shuffle out of my room and downstairs to start breakfast in a singlet, boxers and socks. I open the door of the fridge, peer inside, and pull out my carton of milk, lifting it to my face and drinking from it in an attempt to wake myself up, enjoying the cook liquid down my throat, waking me from the inside out.
"Enjoying yourself?"
I cough, milk coming out my nose in a show of distinct grace, and turn with a hand over my lower face to glare daggers at Haru. "Whadda ya want?" I mutter, muffled by my hand.
He shrugs his thin shoulders. "Nothin'."
I growl, slam my carton back down on its shelf and collect a cloth from the sink. "Why are you up so early?"
There is silence from behind me, and I guess that means he's shrugged again.
I clean my hands in the sink, wipe the shelf and objects which I accidentally sprayed, and throw my sponge back into the basin.
I pull a bowl out of a cupboard, and turn on an element, warming it so I can start cooking, ignoring the boy behind me. As I am topping up the water in the rice cooker, constantly in the background my cousin hovers. Some things I simply can't take so comparatively early in the morning.
"Haru, why are you here?"
Haru pauses for a moment, and I turn to see him leaning heavily on the counter. "Um… About Yuki?"
I go into defensive mode almost immediately. "What about the damn rat?"
Haru looks angry when I call him that, and the look of anger doesn't move from his features as he starts to talk, and I realise that Black Haru's come out to play. "So how long have you been fucking him?"
My face flares up like a light bulb, and I eventually manage to stammer out "Wha-what the fuck are you talking about? The rat?" I force a laugh, and glare at my cousin.
"Hmm." Haru says, looking devious. "Not as protective as I'd thought… does that mean that he's fucking you?"
If it is possible my face goes even redder, and I lean on the bench for support, resisting the urge to push past him and run as fast as I can into the forest. "You're kidding, right? Haru, nothin's been going on… I mean…"
"Oh please, give me more credit than that," he snarls before I can finish, "You were sleeping with your head in his lap last night, and he was stroking your hair!"
What the fuck?!
"Oh god, I feel asleep? Fucking hell… shit almighty… His lap?!"
Haru aims a fist at my face, and I duck it and twirl around until I have my back to one of the side-doors. "Fuck off, Haru, I'm warning you…"
"Both of you fuck off! Tohru's trying to sleep! If you want to fight, then fight outside!" Yuki whispers harshly, giving the impression of raising his voice without doing so.
Haru catches me off-guard by tackling me in the chest, and we go flying literally out the back door, breaking that, and end up on the lawn outside. I use my position to manoeuvre myself so that I could break his arm if I want to, but Haru breaks out and scrambles to his feet as I do. His foot is aimed at my side and I block it, before I feint a punch so I can kick him in the groin then, as he keels over, knee him in the face.
Haru blinks up at me from the ground, his black and white hair tousled, and nose bleeding slightly, and I can tell that the normal Haru is back.
I offer my cousin an arm, and help him back to the deck before disappearing inside. I pull some ice out of the freezer and search for a cloth to put them in.
The thought crosses my mind to use the cloth I used to wipe up my nose-milk with, but restrain myself long enough to find a clean one.
I step over the remains of the door and had the icepack to Haru before disappearing back into the house to start on breakfast.
"…And further more, you two can fix the door." Shigure informs us after a long-winded lecture and a brief bout of mourning.
I guessed that would happen. Whenever Yuki and I rip the walls or break a door (which is getting less and less frequent), he always made us fix it together.
Yuki drags me off to the side, and starts interrogating me, and I try to ignore the looks that Haru keeps throwing us, while not seeming too jumpy and nervous around Yuki. It's difficult. "What were you two fighting about?"
My eyes connect with Haru's for a second. "What do we usually fight about?"
Yuki frowns, a small crease forming in the middle of his brow. Haru and I usually fight about anything and everything, so it could easily be something as simple as what I was making for breakfast.
"Couldn't it have waited?"
I stare straight at the ox as I reply. "Only to some."
Shimo and I are sitting in comfortable silence that afternoon, in the recesses of my mind. I'm listening to the rain on my bed, my hands cushioning my head and staring up and my ceiling, and Shimo is perched on the edge of my desk, and looking rather out of place.
The twilight is calming to my frazzled nerves, and I finally have time to think.
"Jealous people are stupid." I finally say, more to the silence than to anything else.
"Only because you don't have anything to be jealous of right now, Kyo. You've accepted your role as the cat, and therefore you've stopped fighting with Yuki. This confuses Haru, who is used to you being at each other's throats. All he can think of is 'what does he have that I don't?' and so he's jealous." Shimo rattles off, managing to compress an emotion, usually a very fickle thing, into very logical sounding words.
"He completely misinterpreted the scene."
"Only because you let it happen, my dear."
Unable to stop myself from feeling incredulous, I turn my face to my guardian. "So you're saying it it's my fault that I feel asleep on my cousin?"
Shimo raises a perfect red eyebrow at me. "Isn't it?"
"I'm not complaining, but you're making it sound like it was a conscious decision. Like I thought 'I know, let's fall asleep on my enemy's lap and see how much shit I can stir up! Yes! That would be fun,'"
"Didn't you? You let yourself become comfortable with what has been happening, so your defences slipped. This allowed your system to lull, and you fell asleep."
"I was tired!"
"You could have gotten a second chair,"
"That's not the…. Ugh!"
"Is anything wrong? Are you ill?"
"No," I grumble. "Just annoyed. Why would he do that? Or was Haru just exaggerating? You live in his head, you should know…"
Shimo smiles slightly. "I think he would prefer that you asked him, not his parasite."
"You're not a parasite, you're just there."
"It all depends on your view, my dear." Shimo stares up at the ceiling, pulling one of his legs up onto my chair and wrapping his long arms around it.
I close my eyes, and quickly move over to where Yuki is slumped.
The door slides open ahead of me as I carry Yuki towards my door, then slides shut behind me. Trying not to get too caught-up in the smell of his hair, I open the door to Yuki's room with my mind, and deposit him on his bed, carefully removing his shoes and closing his window and curtains. I leave the room and shut his door quietly behind him to run head-on into Haru. He looks at me suspiciously as he realises where I just came from, then sidles past me to sneak a peek into Yuki's room.
"He asleep." He murmurs eventually.
"Yes, I know. He's also fully clothed."
My point made, I head back into my room, and don't emerge until I have to make dinner.
*~*~*~*
23.10.03 8.34PM
Tohru got up for dinner this night, she appears to be over her flu, but she's still very tired. I suspect that it's more the build up of having so many things to do around the house that has contributed to her condition, as well as her part-time jobs. I don't know how she does it, but I intend to help where I can. Tohru was on the phone tonight, and tells us that Uo and Hana are coming around tomorrow. Whoo. The tom-boy and the freak. I know that I shouldn't be so mean, but it's hard not to resent Uo when she keeps threatening your life, and it's hard to see Hana as an actual person when she keeps staring at you with her bland eyes like you've done something… I don't know what it is, but like I've done something. Creepy.
*~*~*~*
Uo and Hana arrive bright an early, when I'm washing up the dishes. Uo sticks her head through the door, and I tell her over the noise of running water that Tohru's in her room. Uo stops to smirk at me as she passes, her blonde head cocked slightly to one side.
"How very domesticated of you," she leers.
I snarl at her "Get lost, onna."
With a smile, she moves past me, and gives Hana room to pause. Her hands clasped in front of her, her demeanour doesn't seem to match her vaguely Mortisha-like black dress. She squints slightly, then takes a step forward, her body only inches away from mine. I press my body back against the bench, my soapy wet hands clutching desperately at the sink.
"Your aura looks different."
The air between us almost seems to sizzle, but I refuse Fauna's request to allow itself to become a wild-cat and savage the 'outsider'. For an Elemental that chased me through the forest as an elephant, it seems to be one of the ones who most want to stick up for me. My Elementals near the surface of my skin, I can feel Breeze floating around the back of my mind, and Fauna raging in my chest, all are prepared for an attack. Tempest collects itself in the middle of my body, and in a spark that only I catch, strikes Hana.
She blinks like coming out of a trance, and walks away like she's in a trance.
Tempest tells me that all it did was temporarily dissolve the static around her body, and that she couldn't 'read me' any more. I briefly wonder how it is that the spirits which inhabit my body are so much more clued-in than I am, but eventually turn back to my work, mentally calming my tense Elementals, and thanking Tempest. I pull the plug and wipe my hands on a dishcloth before heading back upstairs so I can take my place on the roof.
Yuki is emerging from his room as I go past, but I refuse eye contact and try to sidle past.
He grabs my trailing hand with his thin by surprisingly strong one, and stares at me sternly.
"Why are you avoiding me?"
"I'm not avoiding you… heh… why would you think that?"
I enter deer-caught-in-headlights mode, and stare stupidly as Yuki runs his violet eyes quickly up and down my body. I can't help but feel almost naked under his stare. He takes a step towards me, closing the distance between our bodies, and I step back again, stupidly pining myself to the wall as Yuki steps forward again.
My breath quickens as I start feeling the heat from his body, but I refuse to look up into his eyes. His other hand grasps my chin, and he forces my eyes up to his.
"What is it?"
"Um… about last night…"
"What about it?"
Over his shoulder, I see Haru come to the top of the stairs, and instantly panic. "Na… nothing!"
I dance away and disappear into my room as I hear raised voices from beyond it. I open my window with a thump and stare out at the sky beyond, deciding not to go onto the roof, but frustrated with nowhere else to escape to. I turn away from the grey sky and walk over to my desk to pick up my pen with a shaking hand.
*~*~*~*
24.10.03 9.21AM
That's it, everyone is officially being avoided. The world is acting crazy, so I'll do the crazy thing myself, and become a hermit and live in the woods in a tent like Tohru did. Well, that's probably an exaggeration, but this is getting out of hand. Yuki and Haru have just stopped yelling at each other, and Yuki's screen door just made it's best attempt at a slam. Wait, there we go, Haru just slammed the door to the guest bedroom as well… I'm stuck in between the bedrooms of two psychopaths. That's it! I know where I can go, how could I forget?
*~*~*~*
I place my notebook down, lie on my bed, and finally find solitude and peace in my own mind.
There. No actual card-y-ness in this chapter, but I still enjoyed the tension between Kyo, Haru and Yuki. Jealousy can be an ugly thing. ^-^
Thanks to all my reviewers, please continue to do so, all that have so far, and anyone else is welcome to do so as well. Reviews make my world go round; without them, I might be stuck in the dark.
