Author's Note: Feeling better?

Chapter 17 (A Balanced Diet of Pain Pills, Vitamins, and Birth Control)

Kita groggily opened her eyes. Her face was mashed against the smooth cotton of her light blue pillowcase with her hair spread out around the perimeter. I don't want to get up, she thought. I don't ever want to get up again. I'll live out the rest of my life from this bed.

Without leaving the comfort of lying between her sheets, she opened up the drawer to her white nightstand and extracted a small medicine bottle. She had taken the bottle of pills for various body aches out of the bathroom a few weeks ago when her chronic muscle pains were getting particularly bad and she had decided to keep the pills in her nightstand in case she ever woke up hurting in the middle of the night.

She carefully shook out two oval-shaped white pills into her palm, closed the container, and shoved it into the back of her drawer. Then she reached into the bottom shelf part of the nightstand to grab her water bottle. As her fingers wrapped around the thin plastic bottle she realized that the servants had forgotten to refill and freeze it last night as the bottle felt warm, not icy like it should.

In the process, she had knocked over a small medicine measuring cup that had been placed next to the bottle. She reached back down and saw that the cup had been holding her daily vitamin. She wasn't sure who had suggested that she needed to start taking them but she had a feeling it was Kureno. He probably thought that since she barely eats, let alone barely eats anything nutritious, that she would need a pill to make sure she gets all her necessary vitamins and minerals.

Not really caring that the water was stale, she took a swig of the liquid and chocked both medicine pills down in one gulp. The water tasted like tree sap but nonetheless she took another large gulp to get the vitamin down. The different drugs slid down her throat towards her stomach, making her feel sick and reminding her that you technically aren't supposed to take pills on an empty stomach.

Kita reached across her nightstand to try to find her clock even though she was pretty sure it was sometime in the afternoon. Along the way, her hand brushed against a foreign container that was mingling amongst her foundation bottle and the blue mosaic vase of tiger lilies. She picked up the container, recognizing it as a prescription bottle and brought it closer to her face. Birth control pills prescribed for Sohma Kita by Sohma Hatori.

Great, Hatori knows, she thought swallowing down one of those pills too. She could imagine Akito asking Hatori to get birth control pills for her, a satisfied smirk on his face as he asks. She hid her face in her pillow and groaned, her now empty water bottle getting lost under the covers.

The silent room filled with the sound of the doorframe creaking. Kita rolled her head over to face the door and saw Akito leaning against the frame watching her. She turned her whole body away from him to show her disgust in hopes that he would go away. She was actually expecting him to slip back into hiding after what happened yesterday. Instead, his loud footsteps echoed through the room as he walked over to the foot of her bed. He laid down on it horizontally so that he would have been on top of her feet if she wasn't curled into a fetal position. He held his head up in one of his hands so he could look at Kita's face as he talked to her.

If I were to kick him, he would fall right over the edge, she thought angrily. He'd probably break something, his hip or his neck. The thought overwhelmed her with guilt. He's dying, she thought, and I'm thinking of kicking him. Not only have I stooped down to his level but I'm also completely unsympathetic to someone who can't handle his anger and will be cold in his grave before reaching thirty.

"I heard something interesting from Kureno yesterday." Akito said, apparently expecting her to ask what. Kita didn't ask. She didn't want to know. She wanted him to go away so she could be alone to wallow in self-pity.

"He told me that he overheard your conversation with Shigure and that he had said he doesn't have feelings for you." Akito said, ignoring the fact that she didn't ask. "And he told me that you dated that Raidon boy three years ago but you didn't have any romantic feelings for him and you're just friends."

"I told you the truth." Kita muttered. "I never lied to you."

Akito shifted his position so that he was sitting up and he moved next to her on the bed.

"I guess...you didn't deserve the punishment I gave you." he said, having a hard time getting the words out. It was the closest thing to an apology that he had ever said and Kita was aware of that.

Akito laid down next to her, sliding underneath the sheets and accidentally hitting her water bottle. He held up the bottle to her.

"What's this for?" he asked, remembering when he had seen the bottle on the bottom shelf of her nightstand when he had 'tried to find out more about her.'

She took the bottle out of his hands and ran her index finger over the place where the label used to be before she ripped it off out of boredom one day. "It's one of the only things that's keeping me alive." she said glumly as she put the bottle back on the nightstand shelf. Sadly, I think one of the other things may be you, she thought to herself.

Akito wrapped his arms around her waist and placed a gentle kiss on her nose as if he was trying to tell her everything was okay now. She had a hard time believing him.

"I only did it because I love you so much that I couldn't bare the thought of you being with other men in a way you haven't been with me." he whispered. "I want you all to myself."

Kita stayed quiet. She didn't know what to think, let alone what to say. He was always confusing her. First assuming the worst of her and punishing her violently and then saying that he loves her and would do anything for her. It was New Year's all over again only on a much greater scale.

Akito drifted off to sleep beside her, looking as innocent as a newborn child. Kita couldn't look at him like that so she turned away and uncontrollably began to cry softly, the sound almost completely muffled by her pillow.