Disclaimer: After all this time... I still don't own it... waaah!

Here I am with my nightly update - I'll bet you're all so happy, no? And my gosh, I'm past 70 reviews! I didn't know that so many people would like Shigure x Kyo pairings o.o;. No, seriously, I'm surprised. Anyway, getting off this bit... I wanted to name the chapter something different. I wanted it to be Part Twenty-four: Fairy Tale, but that would destroy the pattern - yes, I am following a pattern - that I made... so I called it Literature instead... oh well...

And, for everybody who was reading about Australia Day, I asked my trusty teacher, and she tells me that it is the date of Federation - so blame her - or, well, my friend who agreed with her - if it's wrong! I went back to Kenjutsu today - not that anybody cares - and now my arms feel like jelly! JELLY, I TELL YOU! But, it was fun n.n! I was going to write something else... oh, yeah! After Cat's and Dog's Don't Mix, I've decided to start a new S-Cry-Ed story, an AU Kazuma x Ryuho pairing. So, like, if you've seen S-Cry-Ed, look out for it, and if you haven't... just read it anyway xDD.

Aw! Crud! I forgot to put my aircon on! -Panics-

Please enjoy and don't forget to review! -Goes to rescue self of the torture of a stinking hot room-

Part Twenty-Four: Literature

Kyo flinched as he poked his neck – it was going to bruise something bad. Cursing, he plucked the first aid box from the bathroom cupboard, rummaging through it to find the bandages – but they weren't there. "... DAMN IT ALL!"

To say that Kyo was pissed off was an understatement.

"Kyo-kun?" Tohru asked, poking her head around the open door of the bathroom, "Kyo-kun, are you okay...? Wah! What's wrong with the first aid box... WAAAAH! What's wrong with your neck!"

Even seeing Tohru go into a mad fit over the fact the broken first aid box and Kyo's neck didn't make Kyo feel any better, if anything, it made him feel worse. So, there he was, sitting cross legged at the table, with Tohru wrapping bandages – that she'd found in the kitchen, neither she or Kyo could explain how it got there – around Kyo's neck.

Tohru pondered. Kyo wouldn't tell her how he got a thick lined bruise – that was now a violent shade of purple, red and green – around his neck, but he did look hurt when the question was asked, so she'd stopped asking. "There." She said, smiling happily, "It's all better."

"Yeah great... what-ever... ... thanks."

"You're very welcome, Kyo-kun!" Tohru said, still smiling. "Oh, and I've noticed you haven't been reading much lately."

Kyo blinked. That was rather odd. In reality, Kyo still had a majority of the manga he'd brought on Shigure's credit card still in their packets in the cupboard, but just looking at the plastic bag that held them infuriated him.

"Neh, if you don't have anything to read, I just finished a wonderful fairy tale!" Tohru smiled, clapping her hands together. Tohru, being the typical girl, read anything about fantasy worlds with princesses that she could get her hands on. "I'll lend it to you, kay?" She then leapt in about how she wasn't sure who the author was, but she intended to find out and read more of their books.

Not wanting to be rude, Kyo accepted the book from Tohru, stashing it in his draw where nobody would think to look for it. He would not read that book. Right...?

Dinner was awfully quiet, and Yuki and Tohru exchanged suspicious glances to each other, watching as Shigure and Kyo glared at each other from over opposite sides of the table.

"Oh, my dear Tohru-kun, only somebody as lovely as you could make such a wonderful meal!" Shigure cooed, picking up some rice with his chopsticks.

The hairs on the back of Kyo's neck bristled.

"As I say, you'll make me a wonderful wife someday Tohru-kun!"

"Why, thank you Shigure-san... eh?"

"SHE WILL NOT!" Kyo beat Yuki to screaming the normal phrase, causing everybody to look at Kyo with wide eyes. Shigure looked especially blank.

"... I'm going to bed." Kyo muttered, before storming out of the room.

Kyo glared at his draw. He was bored, upset and slightly embarrassed that he'd gone to bed so early, as well as being able to hear Shigure's pathetic advances from downstairs. Yes, he wanted to drown himself in something to remove the dog's voice from his brain. Unfortunately, seeing as the cat didn't own a single CD, Tohru's book was starting to look like a good idea.

So, getting up, and locking the many locks to his room – so that nobody caught him reading a pansy book, he shut his windows, checked the room for peep holes, turned on his lamp, grabbed Tohru's book from on top of the pile of junk in his draw and sat up in his bed, his eyes lightly skimming the words.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away...

It started off the fairy tale way, and then leapt into the story about an orphan girl in a small destroyed town where people made a living from... prostitution...? Kyo blinked. Re-reading the sentence again to make sure he'd read it right. It then went on to say how the country that the girl lived in was constantly at war with a neighbour, and described all the horrible things that they did to the town folk.

So, Kyo read the – very graphic – fairy tale all the next day. Needless to say, he was completely hooked. Not by the storyline, but because he was sure that he recognised the writing style, and it irritated him when his brain couldn't divulge the information, so he'd kept reading until he figured it out. Or... that was what he had planned.

He finally reached the last page and the last sentence;

And they lived happily ever after.

Yep. It had started and ended like a normal fairy-tale, but Kyo was sure that even he had been scarred by the graphic level of the book, that happened to plant not very nice pictures in a person's skull. He shut the book. He still hadn't figured out who the writing style reminded him of, so he checked over the back and front of the book. And, on the front cover, in small scrawled Kanji in the bottom corner it said;

By Sohma Shigure

Go figure.

Tohru yawned, walking into her room. Something felt different, but nothing looked different, until she noticed the book that hadn't been on her dresser. Smiling at the fact that Kyo had actually read it, she picked it up, blinking as she noticed the sticky note on the front. It read;

Tohru,

I think you should check the name of the author before you go and look for more of his books.

-Kyo.

Tohru slipped followed the visible arrow that Kyo had scrawled on the note paper to the small scrawled kanji down the bottom corner. "By Sohma Shig... EH?"

Kyo sighed, again sitting in his room with nothing to do. He'd done so all afternoon, and it was again night time – he hadn't eaten all day, and he wasn't going to go downstairs either. He didn't know why, but he just felt like ignoring the pangs in his stomach.

Right now, he was trying to figure out how to get Shigure to remember. Unfortunately, the only way he'd thought of was beating the shit out of the dog until he remembered something, but he didn't really want to do that.

Wait a second... in the – highly graphic – fairy tale, the prince had awoken the sleeping princess with a kiss. And, Shigure's blocked memory was like it was sleeping... right? Wait... when in the hell did Shigure become a princess?

Thumping his head with his pillow that he'd yanked from his bed for thinking such thoughts, Kyo still pondered. "... I guess... it'll be worth a try..." Slowly, he lowered the pillow until he was hugging it like an insecure child. "I guess I'll give it a go..."

Taking a deep breath, Kyo set the pillow aside, Kyo stood, suddenly feeling rather light headed. Anything was worth a try, right? Keeping that in his mind, Kyo opened his door, and started in a dazed motion down the hall to Shigure's room.

When his hand found the sliding door handle, it froze, and it occurred to him that Kyo had never come on to Shigure. It had always been the other way around. Did Kyo really want to do this?

Even saying that, he forced the door open, stepping into the room and closing it behind him. He then started in the direction to where Shigure was, sitting up under the covers with a hard copy of yet another one of his published books in his hands.

"Oh, Kyo-" Shigure didn't even have time to finish his sentence.

Kyo had wasted no time on kissing Shigure, having just wanting to get it over and done with. But, now that he was leaning over the novelist and actually doing it, he'd wished he'd waited to savour the moment. In fact, his brain was in an overdrive of worrying.

Blushing, Kyo drew back...