Hello minna! Just a quick note, angst ahoy. I didn't mean for there to really be any significant breakdown, but I guess with the unresolved mother-angst still hanging around, 'twas inevitable. Enjoy no da.

I roll over in the night, and I can vaguely feel my lower left leg complain as pressure is put on it. I don't know how long this new injury is going to take to heal; when I tripped, the stick was driven quite deep into my leg. Hatori left a pair of crutches for me, so I'm guessing that I'm not supposed to be putting much weight on my leg for a while.

It's a problem, because I need to know.

I need to know why I saw her.

I need to know how to make her go away.

I slip my feet onto the floor, and hobble over to my desk.

11.57 PM

I hope Yuki forgives me for having to go. If he checks my room while I'm not there, he'll come after me, and everything'll be screwed. I need to get back to where I saw her. Heh, I can't even say who she is, who she was. The word 'mother' is a term I don't want to use. She… I need to know.

Damnit, my beads are really itchy. I think I have some sort of rash because my skin can't really breathe, but I know that I shouldn't scratch them. Anyway, they're under the bandages. I can't keep procrastinating. I have to go.

All I do is sling on a coat over my pyjamas before going downstairs and putting on my shoes.

The night air wraps around me and greets me like an old friend as I limp, one leg bent to keep it off the ground and keeping my weight on my crutches, off and start to retrace the steps of the morning before.

I know I must look so odd, with my pin-stripe flannel clothing, huge puffy coat over it and crutches. I must look like I really have gone loopy, or like an escapee from a mental institution. But I need to do this, and now is the opportune moment. No one knows, so no one can stop me. A small piece of my mind berates me, saying that if no one knows, no one can know where to find my corpse, but I push it aside. Now is not the time for logic. Logic would only cause me more aggravation, and besides, I feel that this is something that I have to do alone. She's my mother.

There. I said it.

It's hard to balance most of my weight on two metal rods on uneven ground, and it's even harder to keep up a steady pace. Uphill is torture, and downhill sets my teeth on edge, because I feel that at any second I'm going to topple ass-over-ears and roll my way to the foot of the hill. The path becomes familiar as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I can make out the usual potholes that I have to avoid. I don't particularly want to spear my leg again. Once in a week is good enough for that.

My breath mists in front of me, and my body starts to almost tingle. I feel like I'm about to go into battle. It's that old feeling that I used to get whenever Yuki glared at me stonily as I yelled at him, knowing that soon one of us would throw the first punch. Adrenaline keeping me on my toes.

I've resigned myself to this, and I don't think I can go back any more.

The corner that I had turned around seems to come too soon, and I pause, my underarms starting to ache because of the badly-padded support shoved under them. I take a deep breath, and limp around the corner.

The path ahead of me stretches on like it always has, a strip of gunmetal-grey surrounded by black trees and black sky.

Nothing but silence. No crickets, no light, no mother. I let out a breath I hadn't realise that I had been holding, and start moving forward again, taking my time to pick out the edges of decaying leaves etched in the shadows on the ground. The night is beautiful, really, and I find myself calming down and paying attention to it.

I guess it was just my imagination. It has a tendency to conjure things that I don't want to see. I stop and stare down at the place where I tripped, still seeing my own tread marks in the dirt. I absentmindedly scuff them out. Slowly, the world comes back to me, and I start to even feel a little foolish. I don't know why I even came.

A breeze sweeps down the path and rattles empty tree branches against each other.

'Kyo?'

I scramble around, instantly alert. "Who's there?" I call uncertainly, not wanting to accidentally freak-out and pull the smack down onto Tohru or something. Well, as much smack down as I can muster.

'Kyo, I'm so happy to see you.'

I whirl around again, trying to catch a glimpse of where the voice is coming from.

Ghost fingers whisper over my face, caressing, then lifts my sleeve up like my mother used to do so often. All I can do is stand, paralysed.

"Go away."

A figure starts to form out of the shadows in front of me.

'Kyo, I love you.'

"No you don't, you hate me. Go away." I clutch my hands to my head, oblivious of my crutches falling away from me. My calf pangs, and something warm starts to dribble down the back of my leg again.

'I love you.'

My legs give way again, and I stare at the ground, my hands sinking and wrapping around my hair.

"No you don't! You've always hated me, because I'm the cat! No one can love the cat."

Something deep inside me knows that I'm regressing back past the day that Tohru saw the cat's true form and back into the pit of self-hatred that I used to live in, but I can't stop it now. My head sinks forward until it's inches from the ground.

"Kyo?"

"Go away!"

Yuki kneels in front of me, concern written across his features.

"What's wrong?"

'I will always love you.'

I look up past the ash-grey hair of my cousin into the glowing face of the woman who raised me.

"Leave me alone!"

"Kyo, listen to me," Yuki commands, wrapping his arms around me as a thrash against him, "She's not there."

"Yes she is! She's there, and she hates me! I killed her, so she hates me!"

"Kyo, listen. I love you."

'I love you.' My mother echoes.

"I'm here for you."

'I love you.'

"We'll get through this together."

'I love you.'

"I need you."

'I love you.'

I shove Yuki away with strength that only comes from desperation, and half scramble, half run into the undergrowth at the side of the path.

"Kyo!"

Why is it I always try to solve my problems by running? I know that I'll have to face her eventually, either when I stop running or when I can't run any more, because she's everywhere I look.

'I love you, Kyo.'

My legs give way, and I collapse onto my hands and knees. "Fuck off." I mutter.

'I'll love you forever.'

"You're dead, I killed you. I saw you buried. Why won't you go?"
'I love you.'

"You can't be here."

'I love you.'

"You're a figment of my imagination."

'I love you.'

"YOU'RE NOT REAL! YOU'RE JUST A MIRAGE!"

The forest is suddenly silent again, and I cautiously lift my head up in time to see the body of my mother explode into shards of light. They enter into my chest like slithers of insubstantial ice, and I curl into a protective ball, suddenly feeling empty. The pit is gone, and I'm back where I am supposed to be. Confused.

It was just an Elemental. Mirage did it. My mother was never there.

The point that Mirage was trying to make rushes into my conscious as the new being starts to make itself at home. The reason behind the form that it took.

I can't commit, because the last person to tell me they loved me died. I run away, because I don't want to accept my problems. I let the past control my actions. I hold myself back without knowing or meaning to.

I roll onto my back and stare up through the silvery limbs of the trees at the night sky. Away from civilisation, without any lights, I can see the stars clearly.

I feel empty, but resolved. Emotionally drained, but like some weight has been lifted off me.

'Yuki, come and find me please. I don't think I can walk.'

I don't cut off the connection, even though I know that Yuki can't reply, and am comforted by his consciousness running over mine like waves over sand. As he innately heads in my direction.

Yuki finds me within minutes that seem to pass like an eternity, and he pushes past a bush and pauses.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Are you alright?"

I nod my head on the frozen ground, and beckon with one hand that my cousin join me.

"Shimo says to tell you that you're a petty, insolent, sad excuse for a human being."

"Tell him that I'm glad he was concerned for my safety," I mutter wryly, one corner of my mouth twitching slightly.

"Are you going to lie there all night?"

"Did you mean what you said before?"

Silence stretches out through the night.

"Do you really love me?"

Yuki sits gingerly down next to me, pulling his nightrobe further around his thin frame. "That's a bit of a stupid question, don't you think?" he asks gruffly, "If I didn't, I wouldn't have been running around in the undergrowth after you at half-past-midnight on a school night."

I snort, and roll over to wrap my arms around his waist, and put my head in his lap. "Just asking."

There's a moment of nothing but the wind through the trees, before Yuki asks "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Should I be?"

Another pause.

"Baka. You made us worry."

"I needed to see. I had to go alone."

"I know."

I sit up, ignoring my complaining leg, and peel off my jacket. "Here. You're the one with the lung problems here. I only have mental ones."

Yuki shrugs on the jacket, which is a little too short for his arms, then pulls me into his lap gratefully.

"How did you know where I was?" I enquire, ferreting myself into a more comfortable position, my head under Yuki's chin and pulling his arms around my waist.

"Shimo, of course. He knows all and sees all."

"But not enough, if you ask me. He interrupted a perfectly good moment to ask me where he could find Haru's number! What is wrong with him!"

I feel Yuki's chest muscles ripple as he shrugs behind me. "Maybe he was feeling protective."

I raise an eyebrow. "Weird thought."

"Did you really have to lie down here? I think a stick's going up my ass."

"What?" I cry, feigning shock, "another one?!"

Yuki growls, and I turn my head to kiss where his neck and chin join placatingly.

"We're going to have to head back to the house soon," he says and I almost purr, enjoying the way I can feel his chest rumble as Yuki talks. "Quite alright there?" he asks, sounding amused.

"I don't wanna move."

"We'll have to sometime. It's getting late, or should I say, early."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Well?"

"What, now?"

"Now's as good as any time,"

I groan and sit up. "Fine, slave driver."

I shuffle off my cousin, and he stands up first, brushes some debris off his back, then holds out a hand for me. I grab his wrist, haul myself upright, then abruptly fall over again.

"Are you alright?"

"Not this time. Remember? My leg was bleeding."

"Oh, yeah."

"'Oh yeah?' I'm just bleeding half to death, but it's okay, so long as you can cop a feel! Honestly." I fume, then in my best impersonation of a stoned person, "Oh yeaaaaah…"

"Do you want me to help you or not?" Yuki quips, his eyebrows lowering a fraction.

"Try again." I command, holding out an arm again.

Yuki hauls me to my feet with more force than necessary, and grabs a handful of my ass as he attempts to keep me upright. "Oops." He says dryly, an evil smirk across his features.

"Try that again and I'll…"

"You'll what? Hop me to death, garrotte me with bandages?"

I sling an arm over the slightly taller boy's shoulders so I can lean on him, and point my other hand at him threateningly. "You watch your back."

"Yes, kitty-chan."

"Rrrr! You really do want to be beaten senseless, don't you?"

Yuki shrugs and I grunt, my arm being lifted a little too high to be comfortable.

Yuki sighs. "Now what?"

"Don't move. You practically dislocated my shoulder!"

Yuki starts moving back the way we came with me hoping next to him. "Not my fault you're short."

"You really do want to be hurt! Bastard rat!"

"Stupid cat."

"Just you wait until I have all my facilities back in working order! Then you'll know pain!"

"Keep doing stupid things, and Hatori might just keep you wrapped in cotton for the rest of time, baka. Just hope that your leg isn't so bad that we'll need to call in for a doctor."

… He has a point.

"Just get me home."

Ooh, angst-bunnies alert! Sorry if that was a bit wiggy to anyone else, but my friend just lent me the last two episodes of Fruits Basket (even though they're still in Japanese with Chinese subtitles --;) and with my increasing knowledge of Japanese, I did manage to understand some of it! Oh yeah, I feel proud. Ahem. Either way, let me just say…. No. In case people haven't noticed, the dream card, or equivalent thereof, is messing with Kyo's head. Eriol hasn't made his move yet, but he will soon. And no, Shimo and Haru is the pairing that I'm determined to have. Shimo's human form (he gets one of those soon as well) is also featured in the dream-section. I have shit planned for those two, and although I realise that Shimo having a crush on Kyo would indeed be cuteness personified, and I have indeed considered this pairing myself, I found that the Haru pairing will be more fun to work with in the long-run (plus, I realised it would be like having a crush on your brother). Besides, we can't have everyone lusting after our poor Kyo-kitty, now can we?