The Curses' Cold Touch

Disclaimer: If I owned Fruits Basket, this would not be a fanfic, now would it? I didn't think so.

Summary: It's one of the breaks during Tohru's second year of high school and she's already been through a lot with the Sohmas. What happens when an old friend returns to reveal a similar curse? A relationship between the Sohmas and the other cursed family?

In the last chapter, Hatori leaves when the three enthusiastic students come back from their day of school, but before Tohru and Yuki come in to see how Kristi is doing, the weak-bodied American receives a rather undescribable visit from her ever-so-cheery cousin arachnid Alexis who brings up what appears to be a mistake of the past. The Scorpio leaves before the two high school students come in and upon returning to the hotel room, both she and Kelly practice a little Spanish to dicuss Kristi without Leigh knowing. How clever.

15.:.Revolution.:.15

"Remember," Kelly mentally translated Alexis' words, "his abilities are good, but they are not that good."

Later that night, Tohru and Kristi, both having changed into their pajamas, were sitting on Tohru's bed, playing cards and just talking about anything that came up. "Hee hee," Kristi chuckled, "Sorry I never got a chance to teach you how to play Dai Hin Min. I'm glad you were able to learn, though." "Yeah, Uo-chan and Hana-chan taught me," Tohru said as she looked at her hand of cards for a moment before smiling up at Kristi, "Oh, and speaking of Hana-chan and Uo-chan, they said they wanted to stop by one weekend and see you!" "Ooh, great!" Krsiti smiled as well, "I haven't seen those two since...well, since I left. Is Uo-chan's hair still bleached?" "Yeah, it is," Tohru nodded as she picked up a card, "She really likes it." "For good reason, too. How about the long skirt? Does she still wear that?" Once again, Tohru nodded. "It's a good look for her. What about Hana-chan? Is she still scaring people with electromagnetic waves and such?" Normally, or at least with a stranger, Tohru would have been hesitant to answer, but since Kriati had already met Saki and Tohru knew that she would not pass judgement, she answered, "She has a lot of our classmates afraid, especially the Yuki Fan Club Girls." "Ha ha!" Kristi laughed, "Yuki has a fan club? Why does that not surprise me? I remember, in junior high school, Kelly tried starting a fan club for this guy at school. Didn't become much of a success, though."

"Li-san is a member of the Horoscope, too, right?" Tohru asked, referring to Kelly. "That she is," Kristi nodded. "Really?" Tohru blinked a few times before smiling, "What sign is she? What does she turn into?" "She's a Taurus. Normally, she'd turn into a bull like my great uncle Eli did a couple of generations ago, but since she's a girl, she turns into a cow," the Gemini explained, "You haven't met them, but my cousin Alexis is a Scorpio, she turns into a scorpion, my cousin Jennifer turns into a fish -- she's Pisces -- and so on." "But, K-chan..." the high school girl started, "If you're a Gemini...when you touch a boy...what do you turn into? What happens?"

Am I heartless?

Kristi looked at the cards in her hand for several moments before donning an empty smile and showing her hand to the other girl.

"Revolution."

Author's Notes: Once again, I'm suffering from writer's block, blah blah blah. Sorry this chapter doesn't have much substance to it, but I guess you can just call it a filler -- maybe a reassurance that I'm still working on it? I dunno. This chapter seemed necessary and now seemed like a good a time as any to publish it.

Also, I don't exactly know the rules and such of Dai Hin Min, but I remember that "revolution" is a term used in the game when a character has a certain set of cards or whatever. I dunno.

Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking with me. You've got no idea of how much it means.

PS: Hopefully I'll write more soon -- it's not like one can do much else when one is sick. x.x