Twill: I've been bitten by the Furuba bug and am now starting yet another story. Oh well, gives me lots of choices as to what to write. Anyway, I won't bug you with lots of talking except READ AND REVIEW!
SPOILERS!
This fic contains spoilers for the manga, speciffically around chapter 97. If you don't want to ruin the story for yourself, come read this fic after that point.
Disclaimer: I do not own Furuba, but with all the glompable guys it holds, I wish I did.
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Silence
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For as long as he could remember, Kureno had never missed a sunrise. The instant the sky would begin to lighten, his eyes would snap open and he'd sit up, inhaling deeply. Even when he was an infant, Kureno would wake at dawn, crying and squirming, unable to understand what the trails of gold outside his window meant.
This morning was no different. He sat in one of the many windows of the Sohma estate, pane up and wind ruffling his brick red hair. The bright line of light on the horizon was slowly creeping up, getting bigger second by second, while the rest of the world slept on. He was the only one awake, the only one gazing into the future of the morning.
Or so he thought.
"Why do you always rise so early, Kureno?" A soft, deceptively quiet voice traced fingers into his mind. She would never fail to capture his attention.
Turning his eyes from the flames outside, he smiled warmly at the figure before him. Too small and pale for the volumes of linen draped about her body, Sohma Akito stood in the shadows of the doorway, leaning against the frame.
"I suppose it's because of the rooster in me. I've always greeted dawn." Kureno turned his head in profile to her, one side of his face washed in the ever warming tones of a new day, the other enveloped in the shadows that hung heavy about Akito.
Like a sigh of wind, she seemed to float across the room to his side. Her dark eyes were a perfect mirror for the rosy glow beyond the window, yet the light did not seem to touch anywhere else. Kureno shifted slightly and brought an arm around her shoulders, unobtrusively pulling a wayward robe or blanket higher on Akito's shoulders.
Slowly, her head tipped until it rested on his chest. He hugged her instinctively, with little thought, and continued to watch the sun rise until her probing voice once again cut his thoughts short. "You're not cursed anymore."
"No, but," he smiled once again, "I suppose old habits die hard."
"Does that mean you still crow, or fly, or scratch at the ground?" She pulled herself closer to him, reveling in his warmth.
Gently, Kureno tugged Akito away from the window and toward the quiet of the house. "You know I never did that." She followed him without a sound, trusting him as her guide, blinking slowly in the darkness. "I think only roosters, or former ones, should be up this early."
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Kureno carefully tucked Akito back into bed, covering every inch that wasn't her face. She sighed, rustling as she shifted beneath the covers to look at him sleepily. "What do you think about," Akito yawned airily, " when you watch the sun?" Her eyes closed.
He sat silently near the foot of her bed for several minutes, thinking. When he could hear that Akito's breathing had evened, Kureno finally spoke. "I think of you when you were young, so full of life." He watched her sleep, a deep sadness settling over his features. "Before you became so preoccupied with death, before your sun stopped rising, I can remember your innocent smile. That's what I think about when I see the sun."
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Twill: Aww, wasn't that fluffy? Anyway, I might not update this very often because I have several other projects on the go, both irl and in fanfiction. HOWEVER, if you review and I get lots in my inbox, I think I will be very pursuaded to continue this before anything else owinko