Disclaimer: I, Tori the Fanfic Fan, hereby testify that I do not under any circumstances own the story or characters of the anime or manga known as Fruits Basket. All of those rights belong to the author Natsuki Takaya. I do however claim ownership over the character known as Kaoru.

Dedication: This chapter is dedicated completely to my friend Francis, who I am honored to say was my first reviewer! Thanks Francis! And to everyone else, please enjoy!

Chapter Two

Blame It On the Weatherman

The sudden roaring of thunder and flashing of lightening lit up the gloomy world that served as the home of one Dr. Hatori Sohma. Sealed away in the dark, the depressed doctor sat quietly at his desk prompted over a large file folder overflowing with charts, prescriptions, and weekly, sometimes daily, health reports. A lit cigarette and the occasional flashes of lightening served as unintentional light sources.

If one was to listen closely, you could make out the faint sound of a scribbling pen moving hastily over yet another health report concerning the well-being of a certain Sohma family member.

Saturday, 19 Aug. 2006

7:58 pm

Subject: Sohma, Akito

Patient complained to suffer from frequent pains in the chest and lower abdomen earlier in the day. Mild medication was prescribed and the patient was sentenced to bed rest. Later in the afternoon, a fever of 101.3 degrees had arisen and immediate precautions were taken to comfort the patient and lower his temperature. At 5:36 p.m., the fever went down to 100.7 degrees. Currently, the fever is still above normal but precautions are still being used. Bed rest is still heavily advised for the next few days.

Hatori Sohma, M.D.

Finally finished with his report, Hatori snuffed out his cigarette and leaned back into his chair. Sighing heavily, he felt his eyes drift up to the vacant space on his shelf where a picture of his beloved Kana once stood. After his conversation with Shigure and Ayame at the lake house last Golden Week, Hatori began taking small steps into moving on with his life, without Kana. Removal of the photograph was the first, and the most painful, step he had taken. The second step was a little less planned… and involved dreaming about a young girl with bright baby blue eyes...

A suddenclap of thunder shook the small apartment and turned Hatori's attention away from the now vacant shelf and towards the rain covered window.

'It's coming down really hard,' he observed. 'A person would have to be crazy to go out on a night like this…'

Kaoru stood quietly at the base of the windowsill, watching intently as the rain continue to fall harder and harder, making it nearly impossible for her to go home. Though she would never admit to it in front of her cousin, Kaoru didn't feel very comfortable being around the Sohmas, much less the idea of having to spend the night with them due to the unexpected change in weather. To put it bluntly, dinner didn't go so well.

It took time, several minutes in fact, before the three men were finally put at ease over their unexpected guest's appearance. But still, Kaoru couldn't help but notice a slight tension form in the air as Tohru announced that she was indeed a relation of hers, from her mother's side to be exact. It made her wonder if there had been some sort of dispute between the families concerning a safe environment for Tohru. Possibilities at this point seemed endless.

As the evening progressed, the weather outside grew intense, as well did the weather inside. When it became certain that the roads were too bad to travel on, Tohru was granted permission by the eldest of the three men, Shigure, for Kaoru to spend the night. In return, Kaoru tried to display her thankfulness to them by hugging them. But oddly, they all backed away. At that moment, the deep feeling of displacement grew larger.

It was about to reach its maximum when Kaoru asked to make a phone call to grandmother, just to tell her not to worry. The entire time she was on the phone, she could fell inquisitive eyes watching her from behind the corners and perked ears listening in on the conversation. In the end, she was granted permission to spend the night.

But one thing was for sure, Kaoru did not feel the least bit welcomed.

The sound of creaking steps turned Kaoru's attention away from the window and towards the tall, masculine figure of one Kyo Sohma. Summoning up all her courage at once, she took in a deep breath and began forming within her mouth friendly words of acknowledgement that would, she hoped, lead to an equally friendly conversation.

"Good evening Kyo. How are you?"

Her words were met with silence. It seemed her luck had abandoned her this evening. She tried again.

"It doesn't look like it's going to let up does it? But thank you for letting me stay the night, I don't know what I would've done without the kindness of your family."

Again nothing. The orange haired boy gave a grunt in reply and continued his way down the hallway, not even bothering to turn around and face her before slamming the door to his room. Kaoru sighed in defeat and shuffled quietly into the brightly lit quarters comfortingly labeled as Tohru's room. She didn't bother closing the door behind her; she was suffocating enough as it is. Sitting down softly at the edge of the bed, Kaoru drew her legs up onto the mattress and hugged them tightly to her chest. Her head swam with the memories from earlier that evening; desperately she tried to piece together a conclusion to explain the odd behavior shown to her by the people her cousin had been praising none stop throughout her letters for the past eighteen months.

'Is my presence here that uncomfortable? Do they think that I'm here to take Tohru away from them? What is it? What did I do to deserve to be treated like some sort of outsider?'

"Kaoru, are you okay?" The sound of Tohru's soft, concerned voice quickly broke Kaoru out of her trance and threw her back into reality. Trying desperately to reassure her cousin, Kaoru quickly dropped her legs to the floor and plastered a fake smile onto her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you. But um…what've you got there?"

Taken back by the other girl's question, Tohru quickly looked down at her chest where she was clutching somewhat tightly to a large fleece blanket. Remembering the details of her earlier mission, the girl quickly recovered and answered Kaoru's question.

"Oh, I brought up an extra blanket. I remembered how cold you use to get at night when we were kids and I thought that you might want it." Gently, Tohru let loose of her grip and welcomingly offered the soft material to her older cousin, smiling the entire time.

"Thank you." A real smile now spread across Kaoru's face as she graciously accepted the offering of the blanket. This was one of the few acts of kindness she had received all evening. Now that she thought about it…"Hey Tohru, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Kaoru didn't really want to ask this question, in fear of offending her cousin. But she just couldn't help herself.

"Are the Sohmas usually that quite at the dinner table, or was it just me?"

The smile on Tohru's face slowly disappeared upon hearing the question. Looking down at her feet, she moved quietly over to the edge of the bed and sat down next to Kaoru.

"No, but…" her voice was a little shaky, "I didn't really think that they were that quite. I mean…Shigure talked to you!"

That fact was indeed true. Although some of the questions he asked seemed to her more like the kind a police officer would ask a suspect at a crime scene. Minus the usual "Where were you when this incident went down?" routine.

"Yeah… sure… There were actually a couple of times I was afraid that he was going to ask me for my credentials as well as my fingerprints!" Kaoru laughed quietly at her own joke but quickly stopped when she saw a pained expression form on Tohru's face.

"Oh, Tohru, I'm so sorry." Kaoru brought her hand up and placed it on Tohru's shoulder, giving it a gentle and, hopefully, comforting squeeze. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I know how much living here and being with them means to you."

"Really?" Hopeful teal eyes peeked out at her under a mop of dark brown hair.

"Yeah. Believe it or not Tohru, you have a knack for writing your emotions down on paper. Maybe you should become a writer or something."

"What! Oh no, I could never become a writer! I'm really not all that good at writing! They were just gibberish, random scribbles! Half the stuff I said probably didn't even make sense! I ah…!" The gentle press of her cousin's finger upon her lips quickly silenced Tohru and helped her regaining her normal breathing pattern. Though she felt comforted to see her cousin's sudden change in emotions, Kaoru didn't want to risk Tohru hyperventilating over a silly thing like writing abilities.

"Well whatever they were, they truly showed me how much you love staying here. And if this is where you're happy… then you have my deepest and most heartfelt blessings, little cousin."

Silence filled the room. Everything, even time, seemed to freeze for that one split second as Tohru contemplated the words just spoken to her by her older cousin.

"You… do you really mean that Kaoru?"

The light of hope shinning in Tohru's eyes grew even brighter at the very mention of receiving her cousin's blessings in her decision to stay with the Sohmas. It was like a huge burden was suddenly lifted off of her chest and she could finally breathe at ease again, knowing that the one person she always counted on to play the roll of the older sister had no intention whatsoever to take her away from her new family simply because one gloomy evening full of misunderstandings.

"Mmhmm. And… maybe in time, I'll be able to fall in love with them too. I don't know, maybe they were just nervous tonight and they need to get to know me a little better. But whatever it was… I am more than willing to give them a second chance. Besides, to me, tomorrow always seems brighter than today."

In a sense, Kaoru was indeed lying through her teeth. Of course, she had no intention of just giving her okay and back away from the situation. One of the main reasons she came back to Japan was to be with her cousin and to watch over her until… a certain point in time. She had made a promise to Kyoko to always be there for Tohru whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on. Of course moving to the United States for a few years with her grandmother had indeed made keeping that promise a little hard. But with the adding of Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima to the equation, Kaoru couldn't help but feel just a tad bit more relaxed about the situation. But even now, no matter how much she felt out of place with the Sohmas, Kaoru couldn't help put feel that this was indeed the environment her little Tohru needed to be in; that they were the ones that she needed to be with.

Kaoru felt the wind suddenly being knocked out of her as Tohru forcefully leapt at her, hugging her waist and crying into her shirt. But even though tears were falling from her eyes, the little riceball never lost her smile.

"You don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that, Kaoru."

Kaoru felt tears gently working their way up into her eyes as she gently stroked Tohru's head. In the end, she was able to pry the girl away from her and the both of them spent a few minutes drying their tears.

"Even when it rains, it seems I'm still a very sentimental person."

The two girls broke out into a burst of laughter. Taking this chance, Kaoru gently tackled Tohru to the floor and began tickling her like when they were kids. Tohru giggled and tried to squirm away from the other girl but to no avail. Kaoru smiled and laughed along with her baby cousin, suddenly recalling all those times when they were together as children. And here they were again, almost completely grown up, but still they were together. This was indeed the first time Kaoru had genuinely laughed and smiled in a really long time.

Yuki stopped in the middle of the hallway, right in front of Tohru's room, when he heard the sound of joyous laughter coming from inside. His curiosity winning over his sense of chivalry, Yuki crept quietly over to the door and slipped it open just enough to catch a glimpse of the other side. Through the crack, the young rat could see the little riceball rolling around on the floor laughing gleefully while her older cousin was kneeling over her tickling her mercilessly. Both of them wore a smile and looked deeply content in their own little world, together where no one could ever bother them.

Smiling at the scene before him, Yuki gently slide the door back into place and just stood there in front of it, soaking in the happiness that seemed to radiate from the room. Suddenly, a painful clenching grasped his lungs and Yuki felt himself on the verge of coughing. Quickly making his way toward his room, he opened the door, closed it again, and let lose a horrible wind of painful, raspy coughs. The rain and the dropping temperature were indeed having a gloomy affect upon his asthma.

Author's Note: Chapter two is now up! Please feel free to review. I would be very much obliged!

Sincerely,

Tori the Fanfic Fan