DISCLAIMER: We claim no ownership of Fruits Basket.
Chapter Three: Cranes and Coffee
September
Thursday
New Tokyo General Hospital
New Tokyo, Japan
--
--
Tohru sat on her hospital bed, her eyes darting between the two older men in her room.
"Oh, where are my manners?" Shigure was saying. "Haa-san, this is Honda Tohru-kun. Tohru-kun, this is Sohma Hatori, our elder cousin. Have you seen him around? He's a doctor here."
"Oh. No. It's very nice meeting you, Sohma-sensei," the girl said, smiling and bowing her head politely.
She was an earnest-looking girl with long, straight black hair and unusually bright brown eyes and a smile that was oddly sincere. She couldn't possibly be that old, judging from the structure of her face, which was not yet as angular as a grown woman's but not quite as round as that of one in early adolescence.
Overall, she seemed rather… plain.
"It's nice to meet you as well, Honda-san. I hope my cousins haven't been too much of a bother. Come along now, Shigure, Yuki." Hatori moved towards Yuki's chair.
"Oh, no! They weren't a bother, really!"
"See, Haa-san! Why must you think so negatively of me?" Shigure sniffed in mock offense, drawing nearer to Tohru, almost as though to extract sympathy from her.
"Because you haven't given me reason to think otherwise, Shigure," Hatori replied blandly.
"Aaah! Haa-s—"
"Did I do it right, Honda-san?"
Shigure and Hatori turned, the sound of Yuki's quiet inquiry drawing their ears and their eyes to the source.
Between his fingers, Yuki held a small piece of colored orange paper, folded and folded over and over into something that resembled a—
Crane, Hatori's mind supplied numbly.
Honda-san reached over and gently took the figure from Yuki's hands, inspecting the figure, with its sloppy folds and bent wings and its too-narrow beak.
"It's perfect, Sohma-kun! But, see, if you do this—" she undid a few folds before refolding them a different way, "—then the beak is easier to fold."
She smiled, displaying the crane in her hands and holding it out to Yuki.
"Your first crane, Sohma-kun. Keep it forever," she whispered, eyes bright.
Yuki took the origami bird from her hands with faintly shaking fingers and peered at it curiously.
And then he gave her a smile—real and warm.
"Oh, my," Shigure murmured quietly to Hatori. "Do you feel Hell freezing over somewhere beneath us?"
Hatori didn't see the smile that was playing so mischievously on Shigure's face and he didn't hear the words that the two invalids were exchanging. His eyes were fixed on the delicate crane between Yuki's fingers.
--
"Hmm. It's perfect, Hatori-san! But… You shouldn't let the crease go all the way down to the bottom. The beak is too hard to fold that way, see? Like this, Hatori-san!"
Fingers, delicate and long, pressed down on the creases newly put into place on the tiny green figure.
"Look, here's another paper. Try it again, Hatori-san."
A groan, good-natured and teasing even as he took the square from her offering hands…
"You know I'm not good at this, Ka—"
--
"My lunch break is over, I believe." Hatori glanced at his watch. It wasn't.
"Hm. Are you sure you're not just being a killjoy, Haa-san? Do you think he's being a killjoy, Tohru-kun?"
Tohru seemed to panic.
"Eeh? Oh, no! Um—That is—"
"Shigure, stop teasing her," Hatori commanded. Shigure pouted.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Honda-san. I'll come by later to pick Shigure up, all right, Yuki?"
The boy nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from the blue square between his fragile fingers.
"Good-bye, Hatori…"
--
Later that evening, thankfully, Hatori was not obligated to go on a wild goose chase and instead found Shigure in Yuki's room, watching the boy as he slept curled up in the hospital bed.
"I don't think I've ever seen him so calm… warm," Shigure remarked, his dark eyes meeting Hatori's own.
"Sleep does that to people," was the bland reply. "Ordinary people, anyway. You tend to look more sinister than ever once you're asleep."
Shigure let out a short, quiet laugh.
"You know what I'm talking about, Hatori. With that Tohru-kun. How could you ever forget that smile of his? I think… I think our little Kyou-kun likes her."
"Shigure… For one thing, they met today. And for another—You know as well as I do how things work in our family these days. It would be dangerous for Yuki to form any outside attachments. If Kaname finds out that his favorite…"
The younger man simply leaned back, a quiet smile gracing the corners of his lips.
"I know precisely how dangerous it is, Hatori."
And the doctor knew—felt—the way Shigure's eyes were boring into his face, into his eye, and judging him—judging his inner strength against Yuki's.
Hatori shifted his eyes to the bedside stand that was visible now that Shigure had moved back. And it was… familiar. The way that paper cranes were set neatly around the single picture that stood on the surface, and the way that the bright colors contrasted and seemed to melt together if the colors were similar enough, and the way that the shadows fell into the folds and created new shades of a single color…all of it was familiar.
So familiar it hurt in the deep recesses of Hatori's chest, where he had once believed was a heart, but… he knew better now.
There was nothing.
"Let's go, Shigure," he told his cousin, standing and shrugging on his coat. "It's getting late."
"Hmm," was all that Shigure murmured—a non-committal sound that meant absolutely nothing other than I heard you.
He got to his feet languidly.
"And what did you think of Tohru-kun, Haa-san?"
"I don't know. Nothing."
"Is that so?"
Hatori led the way out the door.
"Yes. That's so."
"Oh. I thought she might have reminded you of—"
"She reminded me of no one."
"…I see."
And Shigure suppressed a triumphant smirk. They didn't speak until they were almost at Hatori's car and the younger of the two felt something cold and wet splatter onto his head and seep to his scalp. Shigure blinked and looked up.
Another droplet hit his face, then another one, and another, and another.
"Ne… Haa-san… It's raining," he said.
"What are you waiting for, then? Get in the car," was Hatori's response before he shut his door. Shigure glanced up at the sky again before hurriedly following his cousin's advice.
Then they were driving towards the heart of New Tokyo, where Shigure's house and Hatori's apartment were. Droplets the size of Shigure's pinky nail were spattering down onto the windshield only to be whapped away by the wipers.
"This is quite a summer storm, isn't it?" he asked, nervousness only a quiver in his words.
"…What's your point, Shigure?"
Blue-white-silver lightning bolted from the sky, lighting up the drear of the rain for the merest of moments.
"…A lightning-and-thunder storm, Haa-san."
In his peripheral vision, Hatori watched with masked curiosity as Shigure edged away from the side of the vehicle.
"Oh! And I will be alone in my new h—"
A bashing of thunder interrupted him. Shigure jumped, edged as far away from the window as humanly possible without crawling into his cousin's lap, and clutched at the armrest of his seat nearer to Hatori.
"I thought you outgrew your fear of storms," Hatori stated, his tone only barely hinting at humor. "You seemed fine a year and a half ago."
"Eh… Haa-san. You'd be surprised at what changes within the span of a year and a half."
"Do you still want to go to your house?"
"Er… Not really?"
Hatori sighed inwardly.
"Have you had dinner yet?" he asked blandly. His cousin blinked only once before becoming his usual self.
"Haa-san! Are you offering me food and shelter in my time of need?"
"Yes."
Shigure's eyes shone.
"Dearest cousin, I would hug you were it—"
"—acceptable within this society," Hatori finished. "Shigure. Stop."
The 26-year-old complied.
"…Hey, Haa-san. Maybe we can call Aaya—"
"No."
"But—"
"But he'll fly over." He'll book the next flight from Granada to New Tokyo.
"Oh. But that's not so bad, is it?"
"He'll try to see Yuki. We can't afford to have him upset." Hatori revised that. "We can't afford to have either of them upset."
And Shigure just leaned back in his seat, frowning and contemplating what Hatori just said.
Then:
"I get the bed!"
"No."
"But I'm the—"
"No."
--
Early Friday Morning
The night was quieter than most, after the storm had moved on.
Shigure, at least, was taking advantage of the quiet to sleep quite deeply. Hatori was assured of it when his cousin began to breathe so shallowly that he just barely resisted the urge to go grab his stethoscope and press the cold disk to Shigure's chest and verify that the idiot was still alive.
But then again, Shigure had been loud and cheerful and able to sleep like a log since they were children—all three of them: Shigure, Hatori, and Aaya.
Just like Hatori had been quiet, reliable, responsible, and always taking care of the others—though also a too-light sleeper—ever since they were children.
Finally, resigning himself to a sleepless night, Hatori dragged himself out of the living room, where Shigure had fallen asleep on the couch, and into his tiny bedroom with its very masculine-looking Western bed and its half-empty clothes closet and its sparse amount of photographs.
And Hatori just stood there, in the doorway, his eyes sweeping over the room so familiar and yet so detached, like he lived here but, really, he didn't.
Finally, he went over to the bed and, rather than getting into it (why? He was still fully-clothed, after all…), he bent down on his knees and reached under it, groping through the dust and the darkness until his fingers skirted the edge of a cardboard box about the same depth as a shoebox, though it was substantially larger in width and overall area.
Without even bothering to blow or wipe away the layers of dust that had collected on the lid, Hatori opened the box, his fingers creating little imprints as they took away so many months' worth of grime.
A flood of fading colors filled his vision.
And Hatori just sat there, with the box of colored cranes lying on his knees.
--
Shigure woke up early, as he was wont to do, and stumbled from the living room into the bathroom and from the bathroom into the kitchen.
"Hatori?"
The other man glanced up from the morning paper and put down his coffee on the countertop.
"Up early as usual, Shigure." He poured another mug of coffee and handed it to Shigure. "Shall we drive back to your house?"
"Mm. In a moment. Let me savor the coffee."
"Did you sleep well?"
Shigure took a long sip of the coffee and smiled into the swirling liquid within the mug before searching the countertop to see what brand Hatori used.
Something a little more (oh, fine, waaay more) expensive than what Shigure got—it figured. It really did.
"I haven't had real coffee in a long time," he muttered before answering the question with, "Yes. I slept absolutely marvelously. And you?"
Hatori only took a sip of coffee from his already half-empty cup and shrugged.
"Let's go."
--
Notes
By rogueicephoenix
Does Shigure's fear of storms have any impact on the story? Not in particular. Just character development of a sort.
:sigh: That part about Hatori opening the box of cranes… That's probably my favorite part. Fluorescent's favorite part is yet to come, though…
A word or two about breaks: Two dashes signify a dream or the start of a chapter,one dash signifies a flashback, and anything else is just a representation of a lapse in time and/or place, or else a change in terms of which character is being focused on.
Sorry (AGAIN) for making all of you wait such a horribly long time for us to update this, but fluore-chan and I become sophomores on Thursday (squeee!) and we had to prepare for the big day—back-to-school day, that is. Plus, fluore-chan's feeling kinda sick lately, so... At least we finished chapter six! Really!
All responses are now going to be on a livejournal that we set up. Read them at livejournal(dot)com/users/foldingcranes as soon as you review (please review?)!
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4/15/06
Revised and reposted... Yaaay!