Weee! I got two reviews. Thank you, my two fans, I hope that you like this chapter as well as the second one. It's told from Kyo-kun's POV, and is nice and melodramatic.

Once again, I do not own fruba, etc etc.

LIGHT MOMENT

Yuki: I feel depressed after the last chapter. Do you think this one will be a little happier?

Kyo: Are we really THAT happy, you stupid rat?

Yuki: I guess not... Though Tohru makes me smile.

Kyo: Well, maybe things will BE happy when she comes into the story.

Yuki: I don't know... after all, she is also finding spring...

(Kyo rolls his eyes)

Yuki: STUPID CAT!!

BIFF BASH BAT SMASH

Kyo (Waddling around in body cast): HEY, THAT HURT!! I DIDN'T EVEN PISS YOU OFF THAT TIME EITHER!!!!

Yuki: That was to make people laugh, Kyo. We can't have them going away being too depressed...

Kyo: Since when did me being beat into a pulp make people laugh??!!

Author: LMAO

Kyo: SHUDDUP!!!!

Author: Ahem. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

CHAPTER 2: COLD LAVENDER

I've been watching the snow collect on the windowsill for the past few days. It doesn't make me as tired as rain does, but still, it makes me want to shake something off of me. It's like the cold clings to my neck or something.

I'ts stopped snowing now, though, and a patch of sunlight has drifted onto the floor of my room. Standing in it, I fee like it's hot outside. Sweat is collecting on my upper lip as I punch, kick, stretch my vertebrae like an accordion, and twist sharply on one leg, hooking it behind me.

I practice a lot, and though my practicing usually starts off with, "I want to win against that damn Yuki", usually it doesn't end up like that. I end up closing my eyes, and feeling my body flow without restraints. I feel more alive then, more fluid than when I'm actually fighting. I mean, it makes me feel free. I'm gonna be so cramped up in a couple of years. I gotta stretch out while I can.

It's funny, though. Even with snow on the ground it doesn't feel cold. Probably because I always move enough to keep relatively warm. I mean, even when I'm studying, I have to move about and stretch.

Even that's not it though. To me, cold isn't a feeling, it's a smell. Cold smells like lavender.

I hate lavender.

When I was a kid, Akito asked me to visit him so we could play. No one had really asked me to play with them before, except for Hatsuharu, and that was probably only because he lost his way going somewhere else.

My mom checked my beads at least 20 times before she let me leave, carrying a basket of freshly baked rolls for Akito.

Akito was already a big thing to me. He sat at the head of the table, and they lit a bonfire behind him every year before Hatori herded me out of the room, as was tradition. I remember that when I first saw him at the banquet, I thought that his hair was the same color as mine because of the flames.

"I have a present for you, Kyo."

"Really?" My eyes grew large. I had already learnt that thought the rest of my family got presents from each other sometimes, I never did. I was still pretty stupid back then, and never suspected that a present from Akito didn't mean something happy.

Akito took my hand. It was spring, and the gardeners had planted lavender all along the walls of the Sohma property. It was still early morning, Akito's burgundy robe was dark around the hem from the dew of the grass. He grabbed the wrist with the beads, squeezing them against my flesh, pinching my skin. When I yelped, he let go. He waved his hands around at the houses grouped around Sohma house. "Those all belong to the creatures of the zodiac and their families."

I looked at them indifferently. I had seen those houses before. "And back here," he pointed to a small shack that had a what looked like an aviary made out of bamboo bars in the back, "Is where you are going to live".

"Wow!" I was excited. To me, it looked like a secret fort. I ran through the front door, and looked with awe at the small bed with a scrap of cloth for a blanket. "All of this is mine?"

"Yes."

"This is so cool!" I ran out the back and into the aviary, climbing on the bars, and pretending I was in my other form, trying to break out of the bars. After scuffling around in the dirt, I came back into the other room, and smiled up at Akito. "Thank you!"

I walked outside to get a look at the aviary from the outside, and Akito wrenched my arm behind my back, and pressed his thin, pale face into mine. "I don't think you understand, Kyo-kun. In a few years, this is going to be your home forever and ever. You'll never see your mother again. You'll never see Hatsuharu or me again. You'll never go outside. It will be like you're a pet in a zoo, Kyo-kun. You're other form will be so frightening that no one will want to come near you, except to give you food."

He let go of my arm, and pushed me so I fell on my face. My hands stung as I put them out to catch my fall. I scrambled up and walked backwards as he advanced on me. My lip was trembling, and he reached out and slipped off my beads, holding them, dangling in front of my nose. As he did this, I stepped back into a patch of lavender. There was a wet crunch, and the sickly sweet smell permeated my nostrils.

"Do you know who Yuki is?"

"I had a vague notion of him. I remembered seeing him sitting in the window of his house, and had thought he was shaped just like a doll that I could play with.

"He's the rat. You're the cat. He is the reason why you're going to be trapped in that cage, forever and ever and ever."

I wrenched away from him, and started to run away through the bed of lavender. With each step I crushed more lavender; it smelt so sick and sweet and cold, I felt that I would pass out from it before I reached my house.

I put on my clothes, and walk downstairs. Tohru-kun's making dinner, and the winter snow outside seems warm. I'll sit at the table, drink milk, and keep one eye on the clock. When you watch the clock, time stands still, and I like to drag my time out for as long as possible. Only two more years and then I will be buried in cold.