Disclaimer:I do not own Fruitsbasket, that is owned by Natsuki Takaya. This fanfic writer cannot figure out how I can remember names like Shirow Masamune and Rumiko Takahashi, but I have to look poor Takaya up every single time. OiVey!. Since I am obviously not Natsuki (one would hope if I was, I'd remember my own name), this is a fanfic and I have no financial gains from it.

Chapter 7: Full Frontal Assault

Friday was a beautiful, rainy day. Tohru walked home with the boys from school, splashing in puddles with her galoshes. She looked at both of her beautiful men. She'd ignored them for a couple of days just like Hatori recommended, and she felt like she could possibly handle being around them without bad thoughts.

However, neither of them were speaking to her.

"Ano…Kyo, Yuki." They turned to look at her, but they didn't look happy. "Have I done something?"

Neither responded, they just turned and started walking again.

She ran ahead of them and stood staring at them. "I've done something. What have I done?"

Yuki looked at her while Kyo just shook his head and walked on. Before he got more than two steps, Yuki grabbed his arm and stopped him. "Kyo, she asked. Surely we can be adult enough to tell her."

"Is it bad?" Neither of them would look at her. She fell to her knees in the rain, Yuki grimaced at the sight, and Kyo sighed in disgust of himself for intentionally hurting her. She looked at both of them. "Please, I don't know what I've done, but don't be disgusted with me."

Yuki knew what had to be done, but he didn't want to do it any more than Kyo did. "Honda-san, I don't know who you are anymore. You used to be this really sweet girl who cared about all of us with this deep unselfish love. However, in the last couple of months, we've both seen you look at us strangely. We also feel like you're being selfish with your time, not using it properly to take care of the family that took you in when you had been abandoned by your own."

Tohru looked at Yuki in amazement and shock. "Am I really like that?"

Kyo turned back to her. "Then I go to comfort you, and you make me uncomfortable by staring at me as I'm dressing. What kind of sick person have you turned into?" He looked at her, disgust clearly written on his face. "I can't stand to look at you anymore." He turned away and started walking down the street. I can't stand to look at you Tohru, because I know that everything I just said has been twisted from the truth. I cannot stand to see the look on your face and know that I helped to put it there. When he reached the corner, he started running for his safe place.

Tohru was kneeling on the ground, shoulders shaking with merciless sobs. Yuki stood staring at her bowed body, hoping they hadn't completely broken her. If they had, she would never believe the truth when they presented it to her. Knowing he had to finish it, he took a deep breath. "Honda-san, there are days in which I know my life would be much simpler if you hadn't shown up. You complicate things for me." That's the truth. Since she entered my life, it has ceased to be the simple breathe and eat life. It is now full of things that make it rich and meaningful. As she took what he said the wrong way, he wanted to punch himself. "Go home Tohru. Get away from me." He walked off, leaving Tohru stranded in the rain. As it started getting dark, she stood and slowly made her way home, never seeing the grey-headed boy who watched to make sure her journey was safe.

sssss

Shigure was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of tea and smoking when Tohru walked in the door. "Ah, our flower is ho…" he never got the sentence finished. Tohru was a drowned onigiri, and her eyes were dulled. The fire and spirit that always bubbled inside of her had been drained, and he was very afraid he was left with a breathing corpse. "Tohru!" He knocked his tea over in his haste to get up and rush to her. Grabbing her arms, he led her over to the couch. "Sit!" He took in her state. "Wait, don't sit. You're soaking." He started stripping her clothes off of her, not paying any attention to the flesh under the cloth. When he had her down to her wet underwear, he whipped his kimono off and threw it around her. "Okay, now sit." He walked into his office to grab another kimono. Not that he was indecent in a pair of boxers, but he wasn't the only man who lived in the house and if the others walked in on the two of them in that state of undress, they'd kill him.

When he got back, she was still sitting there, hands gently laid in her lap. She turned and looked at him with those empty eyes, and he was reminded of Yuki when he first came to live here. "Please Tohru, tell me what happened."

She looked at her lap. "I'm selfish."

Gure smiled, but didn't figure it was the time to tell her everyone was selfish on occasion. "Why are you selfish?"

"Because I don't spend my time properly taking care of the Sohmas that live here. I spend too much time by myself and not making sure everything is alright with you." She hiccupped a sob. "I've made everyone's life here complicated by moving in." She stood and ran to her room. "I'm so sorry for ever making you let me stay!"

Gure just stared at the spot she had vacated. "What the hell?" Oh well, he'd ask the boys when they got home. Turning, he spotted her wet clothes on the floor. Damn, I had her naked, and I wasn't even paying attention! How am I supposed to get material for my next book if I don't do research?

Shigure was still sitting on the couch, two cigarettes down, when he started hearing banging upstairs. "What now?" He stubbed out his blunt and headed upstairs. It was coming from Tohru's room. Sliding open the door, he stared in horror. Tohru had everything that she'd originally arrived with packed, and was trying to sneak out the window. "What the hell are you doing?" He grabbed her upper arm and hauled her back into the room.

"I'm leaving so that I don't hurt anyone else in this house."

"Oh no you're not! You're the best damned thing that's happened to this house in years and I'll not let you go just because someone got his tail in a bind." He looked at her. "Who told you this?"

"What?" Her eyes were puffy, and she was so tired from crying.

"Yuki or Kyo? Which bastard told you all these horrible things?"

She looked at him, sorrow deep in her eyes. She'd told her mother she'd keep smiling; but he saw nothing except grief there today. "They both did."

He let go and backed away. "Both of them?" She nodded, thinking his reaction was because she'd also hurt him. She tried to get past him, but he put a firm hand on her shoulder and stopped her. "You're not going anywhere until I get to the bottom of this."

Shigure was sadly disappointed if he thought that the problem would be resolved that night. Neither boy came home. Finally he gave in, told Tohru not to think about leaving, and sent her to bed. He dozed off around 3am.

sssss

Two bodies stealthily climbed the ladder that had been propped next to Tohru's window. When they were both in the room, they played ro-sham-bo (rock/scissor/paper) to see which one of them got to wake her, and which one kept her from making any noise. Kyo lost, so he had to hold her down.

Tohru woke to someone poking her shoulder with a quick jab. When she started to move, she found she couldn't. Opening her eyes, it took a second for her sight to adjust. Leaning over her were both Yuki and Kyo. She started to struggle, but Kyo held on tighter and Yuki put a finger to his lips to show that she needed to be silent. Not sure what they wanted with a pitiful selfish Onigiri such as herself, she nodded. Yuki pantomimed walking and climbing down a ladder and she again agreed. They found a warm robe to wrap her in, and when she got to the bottom of the ladder, they had a pair of shoes for her.

The three of them walked on in silence for what seemed like forever. Finally, they came to a tree. She looked at both of them, and Kyo made a step out of his hands and boosted her into the tree. Once she got situated, the two boys climbed up after her.

"Tohru." Yuki started, he figured it'd be better if he explained it. "Can we talk?"

"Please." She wasn't sure her voice could handle any more. They had gone to a lot of effort to talk with her in private, so she knew it was very important.

"We found out something really bad last week." She looked at them. "It has to do with you, but it's not your fault." She was afraid.

Kyo couldn't stand it any longer. "You aren't selfish. We had to do something to make you hate us."

"I could never hate you."

"We know, but we needed a reason to hate you too."

"You want to hate me?" She started crying silently.

Yuki took her face in his hands and looked at her. "No. We could never hate you. Kyo and I both need you to understand that. We could never hate you. Ever. Regardless of what the future brings."

"Then why? Why did you tell me I hurt you?"

He released her face and thought of how best to word it. "You know that Kagura started school this year. She's a third year at University." She nodded, not understanding. "Akito made her go back to school with us to keep an eye on us."

"Why?"

"This is kind of confusing, so ask questions if you get lost." She nodded, than looked at Kyo, who was being uncharacteristically silent while Yuki explained. "We think Akito is jealous of the love and attention we get from you. We no longer go to see him for anything, and he's jealous of that. So, we think he sent Kagura to watch us interact and report back to him."

"What will happen?" Her eyes were very large now.

"We think Akito will have your memories erased if he finds you are a threat to him."

"How do we stop it?"

"Well, we'll have to quit being around each other." She looked at both of the boys. "Tohru… Kyo and I both care deeply for you. In order to keep you safe, we picked a fight with you to give all of us an excuse not to talk with each other."

"But…" Yuki touched her lips, stopping her words while giving her a warm tingly feeling.

"We did it so Shigure would see that we are not getting along. I know he'll ask us tomorrow what our deal is, and both Kyo and myself will just have to act like spoiled brats and say things about you that we don't really mean." She looked at both of them in confusion.

Kyo finally spoke up. "We don't want to lose you, so we are going to play a game of cloak and dagger with Akito and everyone else. We pretend like we can't stand you, and they will leave us alone."

"So you aren't mad at me?"

Both boys gave her incredibly gentle looks. "Of course not. But you have to play the game too."

"How?"

Yuki spoke again. "Just be yourself. Act like yourself. Give us the attention you normally do, don't change anything." He looked at her with all seriousness. "But we're going to ignore you and say mean things to you. Act like it hurts, act like we're telling the truth. Don't EVER let on that you know we are lying."

"I don't think I can do that." She looked them both in the face.

"You either play the game, or eventually Hatori won't just be stopping by to visit." All three of them shuddered at the thought of Tohru losing all knowledge of them.

"Okay. But if I don't do well, say something really mean."

"We'll tell you that your mother would be ashamed to call you her daughter."

Tears started rolling down her face again. "That'll work."

It was a very somber trio who stealthily made their way back to the house, unnoticed by anything beyond the moon and the trees.

A/N: You still have all that rotten fruit I told you to collect? Go ahead and throw it if you must. Especially the tomatoes. Little known fact: In the 1800's and early 1900's, people threw tomatoes at bad performers/actors/politicians because it was believed that since a tomato is neither a fruit nor a vegetable, it was actually poisonous. Makes me wonder how pizza ever got to be such a big item back then.

I'm absolutely sure this won't happen; but as a reminder, this is based only up through book 7. If you know the ending of the series (and yes I do), PLEASE DO NOT put any spoilers in a review. Assume everything is written as of Chapter 42.

If you do feel the need to post spoilers, I will not put your name in this fic to say that I don't appreciate it. I'll just click that little "report abuse" button and take care of it through the proper channels. There is an awfully large group of people who haven't had it told to them, and it ruins some of the suspense if someone tells you the ending before time (I've only read through book 8, so I know what I'm talking about).

Thank you to everyone that has reviewed to-date, it's a treat to read everything that people have to say about my stories (both positive and constructive). Reviewing is an art-form in itself, and I appreciate all of you that take the time.

Have a great week everyone, and I'll probably be back on my regular day next week. I have to finish studying for a complicated exam tomorrow night, so you get this one day early.-TK