Chapter Six
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Sundays were laundry days in the Sohma household. Tohru had advertised this schedule so many months ago, that Yuki wondered how such routines had never been part of his life. On these Sunday mornings, he would gather his clothing from the past week and entrust them to Honda-san's tender care. She had never proven unfaithful in her safekeeping with his clothes; she had even salvaged some messes that were clearly beyond repair. Most of those examples were results from his gardening.
Yuki sat on his bed, calmly evaluating the status of the pants he'd worn on Saturday. They weren't his best pair, nor his utter favorite, but they stretched and fitted perfectly when he knelt to care for his garden. So he did not want the dirt stains to be there forever.
There was something else about these pants that Yuki remembered, unexpectedly. He'd pulled a couple of his herbs and put them in his pocket. The prince reached over and pulled out a couple of semi-fresh leaves. They were difficult to distinguish as any specific plant leaf, and he mulled over this for a moment before putting them into his current pants pocket, and walking outside with his old laundry in his arms.
Yuki had hardly opened the door when it bumped into something very solid. And, apparently, violent.
"Damn!" exclaimed the hot-headed cat, carrying his own armful of laundry - or at least, he had been carrying an armful of laundry until he had dropped it, so as to clutch his injured head.
"Watch where you're going, you damn rat!" shouted Kyou.
Yuki narrowed his eyes. "You ran into me, you clumsy idiot."
"I didn't-" Kyou's eyes widened, suddenly, and he bit his tongue in surprise. Slowly, his eyes fell shut and he pushed his nose forward into the air. Yuki watched in confusion as the cat took in a deep whiff of the air, and twitched the tip of his nose.
"... Hey, do you... smell that?" Kyou whispered slowly.
"No," replied Yuki, uncertain. He shuffled out from his doorway. "...What are you doing?"
The cat didn't respond, but simply inhaled the air again, this time in Yuki's direction. Something about Kyou's actions looked strange, detached, unnatural, and sent warnings crashing through Yuki's mind. He didn't know if Kyou was about to faint or to attack or to open his eyes and ask him the very same question. But Kyou was definitely about to do something that wasn't part of his typical behavior.
Abruptly Kyou leaned in, sniffing the air in front of his cousin deeply. The boy's nose had wandered, as if on its' own accord, towards Yuki at a distance of a foot, and closing. Kyou kept coming closer, and closer, taller than Yuki butbending down as if to evaluate a mystery; he was barely inches away and breathing deeply, his eyes still closed in some sort of meditation.
Yuki found, to his digust, that he was trembling. Anxiously, he dug his fingers into his palms.
Kyou's senses pricked at the moment. He had found his target.
Immediately, much faster than Yuki had ever seen him move before, Kyou was on his knees and Yuki's laundry was scattered about the ground. Kyou's face had dropped as well and had was burrowing itself into Yuki's shirt and hands, into Yuki's hands. Kyou rubbed his nose against the shivering digits and his soft lips brushed againt the heel of the prince's palm. Yuki let out a gasp of surprise. Part of him was shocked at how it felt as if the cat were worhsipping his very fingers, and the sudden thought frightened him into reality: Kyou was doing something that he would regret. Yuki's eyes widened and he swiftly pulled his hand back. Yet somehow, it became caught again with Kyou's desperate grip on his arms.
"Let go of me," Yuki demanded, his voice wavering only slightly. He craned his neck left and right in the hallway, wondering if he could shout for help. Wondering if he could bear the embarassment of shouting for help. And wondering if he could bear being under such strange minstrations, without responding in kind.
Kyou growled possessively, clinging to his captive and smiling with that strange, sedated look in his eyes. He pulled Yuki's hand back to his nose more forcefully, sniffing it once, before sliding his tongue between his lips and softly licking Yuki's palm.
The pleasure that racked through Yuki's body was unbearable to contain.
"You stupid cat," he moaned in a bumbled mush, his entire body hyper-aware of the lovely feeling of Kyou's soft and nubile tongue, lapping at his palm and fingers. At one point, Kyou's tongue darted inbetween two of his fingers and he began to suckle the area needily. A pleasured growl escaped the cat's mouth, and suddenly Kyou had withdrawn his head to a couple inches back. He tilted about woozily before he went completely limp in the prince's arms.
Yuki threw out his hands to break the cat's fall. It was uneccesary. The prince could barely even see what was happening, and was entirely unable to think at all when Kyou swept his arms around Yuki's backside. Kyou pressed his shoulder up against Yuki's thigh and dipped his head into the rat's soft, yielding flesh, and began intently nuzzling his hipbone.
It didn't matter to Yuki that there was cloth over his burning skin. He had never felt an ecstacy like this before and found himself desperately eager to continue its' temporal presence. Yuki moaned in surprise and pleasure, his hands reaching for something steady and launched out in all directions until finally grabbing at the firey swirls of Kyou's hair. The boy continued to rub his chin and forehead against Yuki's leg, his hands resting on Yuki's stomach, chest, and back. At one point Yuki could have sworn that there was a throaty humm that vibrated against his flank -- a purr. Yuki indistinctly moaned something in reply, and an aching need built deep from below his bellybutton, rose unbidden with a searing heat in his groin.
And then, just as unexpectedly as it had started, it stopped. Everything stopped.
Kyou threw himself back onto the ground with wide, dark crimson eyes. No longer balanced by Kyou, Yuki fell back as well, his legs sprawled out and his breath coming in pants. Kyou was panting also. Most disturbingly, they were breathing in the exact same time. Yuki shut his eyes and blocked out the offending image. This whole... thing... that did not make sense. His thoughts ran amuck with the hurried effort of putting pieces together, trying to put himself back into the here and now and into consciousness again. And worst of all, Yuki had no idea what would happen when he reopened his eyes and was forced to look Kyou in the face.
And Yuki knew there was no way to deny the feelings that had been surging up in him throughout the past week, and all those feelings from before then. Because this had happened and left no room for question that he had no control over his body or who he decided to care about, because it would be so, so much easier if he felt this way about Tohru. But it was the cat, and Yuki - as much as he hated himself for it - was glad that it was the cat.
He opened his eyes.
In front of him lay the upstairs hallway; empty but for himself and for two piles of laundry. He found himself covering his mouth, shocked, for just a moment. With trembling footsteps, he backed against his door and eased through it, forgetting the laundry, but forgetting nothing of the encounter.
A/N: The weekend from hell is over! I was called in to cover two extra 8-hour shifts this weekend. I had four hours of sleep last night and tomorrow is summer school. Ack! I will do my best everyone. I am sorry for the delay. This new turn is thrilling, no?