Heyy! Chappy numba three is here! I am actually really enjoying writing this. –Well, I expected to. I am all alone in my house, and it is very very quiet here. I get really lonely sometimes… BUT I HAVE MSN messenger too! So that helps… But all I have is Yuki to keep me company.

Note to Fanfic people on the disclamatorial side of things…: Don't panic, keep your shorts on, I don't own Fruits Basket. –If you don't wear shorts then fine, don't lose your leggings.

Oh, and I like people who read my stuff, so I drew you guys a Yuki pickle. I take it there are Yuki fans out there to read this Yukiru. (Yes, I know in furuba does phantom I screwed it up royally by flipping from Kyoru to Yukiru until everyone was plotting to lasso me, so I am saying this now- YUKIRU POWER! And no question about it! –Makes it a kyoru.)

Note: No Sohma Curse. Yay! I can hug Yuki as much as I like!

Well, here we go.

First Rain

Chapter 3: Waiting For Blue

Tohru couldn't sleep. She couldn't even close her eyes. It was as if she was entering his world of darkness. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get out. Just like he couldn't.

As she lay restlessly in her small bed in the building next to the Palace that was reserved for the staff, she thought of all the things she should have done, if she had known. When she walked into that little room and saw him with that fly. If she'd known she would have comforted him. She would have known how terrifying a creature other than human would be to someone who knew nothing of that life.

Finally she could no longer stand it. She got dressed again and left the staff building. In the freezing winter night air, she found her way across the gardens and into one of the easier-to-open side doors of the palace. She was almost scared at how silent it was.

She took off her shoes at the door so as not to make any sound as she walked, and began to climb up the massive spiralling stairs once more. The windows send small sheets of light onto her back and the marble stairs.

She breathed a sigh of relief as her foot left marble and touched carpet. Her feet were now as silent as the night air.

She passed the first four rooms. Momiji and Hatsuharu had both left their doors open. She smiled a little as she saw Hatsuharu half hanging out of bed- tangling himself up in his own sheets, and Momiji curled up in a little heap hugging his pillow. She walked past the vacant two rooms, the first looked roughly the same as Momiji and Haru's and was probably Kyo's old room, but the fourth she saw was bigger, and a lot more decadent. She assumed that was the King's bedroom. She wondered if maybe one day Yuki would get it.

Finally, after her long walk, she reached the fifth. She hesitated, not sure if her idea was quite as brilliant as it had seemed originally. But her feelings of remorse and pity overpowered her, and she opened the door.

She had expected him to be asleep still, but she had been mistaken. Instead he was once again at his window. But this time he was kneeling at it, with one hand flat on the cover, and the other arm flat on the window sill, his head buried in it.

She hesitated once more, wondering if he needed to be alone. But she dismissed it as an idiotic notion; of course he didn't need to be alone. It was the opposite.

"Um… Y-Yuki-san?" She took a couple of steps towards him and chanced putting her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her. The silvery trails had repeated themselves, drops of salt pain running over the already damp skin he'd cried over earlier.

"Y-You opened my window…?" He said.

"Yes, that was me." She knealt down beside him. As the seconds ticked by she watched as his face suddenly grew more optimistic.

"You…" He tried a smile. Tohru was almost surprised. For someone who spent most of his life alone, the smile was very becoming on him. It made him look even more handsome. "You… Thank you." His eyes started brimming again, but just as the first time, she expected they were tears of happiness. He took her hands in his and kissed both of them, his tears running down her wrists. Then, shocked as she already was, she was even more surprised to have his arms wrapped around her. He buried his head in her shoulder and she managed to put her hands on his back.

Eventually he pulled away, but they were still very close. She could even hear him breathing. "S-Sorry… I… I just, don't, get to see people very often." He said quietly, letting go of her shoulders and looking at the floor. "I don't… Really know how to act…In front of people."

It was obvious that it had been a long time since he'd had any contact with his brothers. Any human contact at all, probably. Had he hugged her because he was that relieved to have someone else in that prison with him? The tears in his eyes said yes.

"That's OK. I do embarrassing things like that too."Tohru laughed a little as she thought of some of these things. "Um… There was this one time, not long ago actually, I was walking and I was talking to my friend, but I wasn't watching where I was going and I walked straight into a tree…" She rubbed her forehead, smiling, as she remembered where it had hurt.

"Um…" Yuki looked up from the floor, puzzled expression on his face. "W-what's a… T-Tree…?"She looked back at him, an equally puzzled expression on her face. She had been half joking when she mentioned the fact that he wouldn't know what a tree was to Haru, but she hadn't even tried to imagine what it would be like if he really didn't know. How could someone not know what a tree was? Dung-beetles have seen trees before. And yet a 17-year-old Prince doesn't have a clue. And surely when talking to the others the words would just slip out of their mouths, like they had just done with her.

"Um, well, it's hard to explain… It's like a tall thing which grows out of the earth."

"Earth? What's that?"

This was going to be hard. He really had no idea what she was talking about. "OK, I'll show you then." She stood up, closed his still open door, and opened his window again. Luckily the sun was just starting to come up, so the light was shining on the trees ahead. There were a couple of the taller buildings visible, but beyond the edge of the Palace gardens there was a small patch of forest. The trees were huge, with thick trunks, so thick that even if you linked arms with someone else you couldn't make a hoop around one of them. Beyond the forest, there were just a couple of domes and spires visible. The sky was a glowing orange-pink colour.

"It- It changed!" Yuki was kneeling again. "How… They have really fast painters…"

"No, that's not a ceiling, Yuki... That's the sky." She smiled, and then realised she'd just called him Yuki, "Oops, sorry, Yuki-san…"

"You can call me Yuki if you want to."

"Oh, OK… Well, that's the sky." She said, worrying about calling a Prince by just his first name.

He tilted his head to one side, and then to the other. "What is it?"

"It's, well, i-it is a little like a ceiling, but you can't touch it. And in the daytime it's normally blue, and at night it's almost black. And between those two, it's this colour."

"Night… Day…" He thought for a moment. "I know what those are! Haru told me… Daytime is the one when everyone's doing things, and night is the one, when everyone sleeps, right?"

"Yes, that's right. But it's nearly daytime now, so I should go and do things, I suppose." She stood up and started to close the window, and sighed as she realised she hadn't yet explained the tree concept to him.

"But the sky isn't blue yet." Said Yuki, holding onto the bottom of her skirt. "You… You can stay with me until it's blue if you want to."

She blinked. He really was lonely. "I… Guess so..' She sat down next to him again. He blinked to. Without the sun, trees or anything else worldly like that, there was almost no topic of discussion to be had.

"I'm sorry… I'm not very… Good at talking to other people. I don't really have anything to talk about." Said Yuki, so softly she hardly heard him. She looked at him. He had his head down. She wondered if he was crying again, but saw that he was blushing instead. "The only person I really ever poke to was Kyo… But he's gone." So, the only friend he had left him. She could remember Haru saying that Kyo had been betrothed to another cousin, and that's why he left. The royal commands again The rules that had been set down the day they were born. From the way Haru said it, it didn't sound like y was enjoying himself much being married to Kagura. She wondered if maybe he was as alone as Yuki.

They sat together in silence, and watched through the glass of the closed window as the sky started to glow a cold Wintery blue. Yuki leant her head on Tohru's shoulder. "I guess… Liking this isn't normal then?"

"Oh no. Loads of people love sunrises and sunsets even though they can see them all the time."

Yuki smiled. Tohru knew he didn't understand what a sunrise or a sunset was, but he was learning. It was going to take time, and effort, but eventually he'd get there. She would show him everything there was to know, until he was the one teaching her.

Yuki smiled to himself. He couldn't get over how pretty she was. He should have been concentrating on what was in front of him, but every now and then he would glance at her to see if the glow of the sky's colour had changed how her face looked. And it didn't. Every time he looked he saw the same face. And was glad for it.

Tohru relaxed. She had been afraid that if she said the wrong thing to Yuki she would get into trouble, him being a Prince. But nothing had happened so far. He didn't mind what she called him or how she acted around him at all.

"I don't know what your name is…" He said quietly. Tohru tempted to look at him, but he had put his head on her shoulder so she didn't want to move her head too much or she might push him off. "What is it?"

"It's… Tohru."

"The sky's nearly blue." Said Yuki, yawning from lack of sleep. She smiled.

"I'd better go then."

Don't leave… You don't have to go. Yuki reluctantly lifted his head up from it's comfortable position on her shoulder. Tohru smiled as she stood up. Please don't go yet. I have so much more to see...

"I'll come back later if I can, OK?"

"Yeah…" She closed the wood covers, and turned to head out. Don't go.

Tohru sighed as she closed the door behind her. She didn't feel right leaving him now. But she knew that if she stayed any longer someone might find them with his window open, and then the worst would happen. She would lose her job and never see him again, and he would be locked away forever if not killed. But surely being kept away from the world he had now seen, surely that would be a fate worse than death?

She walked on in a sort of daze, considering these things, and was startled to walk straight into Haru.

"Oh!" She jumped, and then slipped on the carpet and nearly fell. Luckily there was a quick arm behind her, and Haru's face was directly above as he was holding her up.

"Morning." He smiled. Tohru attempted a smile too. How was she going to survive in this place when she was constantly surrounded by cuties!

AN: OK, in this chapter I was downloading some more music, and a thought suddenly struck me:

I know what the theme for this chapter can be; Yuki can burst into song and sing Out There from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. I then downloaded the song, and although the words were perfect, I really don't want to turn this into a musical, much as I love them. ; But I came very close to having him jump out the window and sing that song in particular….-Imagine Yuki as Quasi Modo…

AN2: I think I have come to a decision on the matter of Yuki cleaning himself, but what if he needs to use the John? Where shall he go? My first thought was: Out the window… Duh! He can't open it! Second thought, he holds it in. My poor prince Yuki holding it in for 17 years.. He'd explode.

Conclusion: He sweats it out.

AN3: How does Yuki eat?

Conclusion: He has a little vegetable garden which he has cultivated in a drawer. (Squee, Yuki's veggies!)

AN4: In the line that goes: 'As the seconds ticked by she watched as his face slowly grew more optimistic.' I was so tempted to write 'It was like a light switching on in the mines of Moria.' Who is n LOTR fan? I love Lord Of The Things. Especially Legolas…. But Orlando Bloom is a cloth eared toe-rag in real life. He brought his chef and nutritionist to a dinner party for goodness sake!

AN4: Hope you enjoyed this chap. More later! Actually if I get more lunch I might have the energy to finish by this evening. Lots of ANs… You guys must be sick of me huh?