Disclaimer: Natsuki Takaya owns Fruits Basket, and anything else you recognize also doesn't belong to me.
Chapter 5
The arrival of the ghost wolf meant that the true nature of the dzuni curse, unknown to Asheno, had finally started to awaken after being manifested in a tamer form for five centuries. The days of the old curse were truly gone. Before long, the other members of the dzuni would feel their powers awakening more and more strongly. Until then, there were only a few more days of relative peace, and the remaining eleven outside of Haku and Hatsuharu would continue to live out their daily lives during those last few days…
Late that same afternoon, while Haku and Hatsuharu were facing down the ghost wolf, Ahame Khosure took the bus to the Ghunene district, twenty minutes away from Mhagenu School. The Ghunene district was the skid row of Lhasa, where all the prostitutes, hopeless drunks, and bitter people in dead-end jobs lived. The residential areas provided a sharp counterpoint to the spacious homes with large yards in the more affluent areas of Lhasa. Here, the "homes" were really nothing more than dilapidated, oversized concrete and wooden one-room shacks leaning on each other, as if for support. It was a miracle that the houses hadn't slid down the hills in windstorms and rainstorms.
The roads, choked with potholes, wound their way up and down the rolling hills in between rows of homes, grimy convenience stores, and sleazy bars. In Hoth, money went first to the storm maintenance of homes and buying warm clothing. The denizens of Ghunene had the minimal amount of storm maintenance and solid clothing, but little else, just enough to survive. The government wasn't doing much—the well-to-do inhabitants made sure they stayed well-to-do. The people of Ghunene had gotten more or less used to that fact of life by now.
Khosure got off the bus, and walked to his hovel a block away. He never felt out-of-place in Ghunene—there were plenty of bums who dyed their hair every color under the mountains and looked like aliens from drug and liquor abuse. Then there were the prostitutes in their gaudy outfits, standing on every corner. Khosure casually brushed off one as he turned onto the muddy track that went up to his front door. His shoes sank into the mud, and with great difficulty he made it to the flaking door. He turned the lock and the door opened with a high-pitched groan.
Khosure
As I walk in, what do I do but slip on an empty liquor bottle right away? I caught myself in time, but I could've broken my neck! Cook shouldn't leave bottles where people could slip and forever harm their gorgeous looks! Neck casts do not go with long, supple silver tresses such as mine.
Ah, but I am Cinderella, and Cook is my evil stepmother. Well, she wasn't evil when she first took me under her wing, when I was five. Tori always tells me to stop exaggerating, and I suppose I should practice. But I so do like exciting stories better than accurate ones. Anyway, Cook works at a subpar restaurant as a cook, hence her name, Cook. Well, I'm sure that's not her real name, but that's what I've always called her. She probably has some ugly name like Hemana, which means "hog." She's certainly fat as a hog, in any case. Oh, that's another thing Tori's always telling me to do, to stick to the point.
As I got older, Cook got unhappier and began to take to the bottle. She's never paid much attention to me, but she doesn't hit me and she feeds me well. Still, I miss the days when Dzerina took care of me. Dzerina may have been a whore, but she had a heart of gold. It was a tragedy that she died. I loved it when she dressed me up in costumes she borrowed from her friends at the whorehouse. They were a fabulous group, Dzerina and her girls. They loved my yellow eyes and silver hair—they didn't stare like most people do. We used to pretend that I was a prince from a land of silver-haired people who had accidentally been carried to Hoth by a harithe, and the girls would pretend to be my subjects, and Dzerina would relay my "orders" to them. I don't see the girls anymore; new management took over their establishment.
I tossed the empty bottle with a perfect flip of the wrist onto a pile of others next to the door. My shoes were absolutely soaked in icky mud—off with them! Then I walked into my room. Our house has two rooms, luxurious by Ghunene standards. But my room really isn't big enough for someone of my tastes. A camp cot and a rickety bookshelf. That's all. The shame, that a prince should have to suffer this!
I dropped my bookbag on one end of the cot, sat down, and wriggled my treasure chest out from underneath the cot. My treasure chest has my most prized possessions—a picture of Mother, my sewing kit, some embroidered swaths of silk, and my pair of snakes.
"Hello, Mother, how are you? It's a positively dreary day outside! So rainy, and I nearly sank up to my knees in the mud…and I nearly died when I slipped on one of Cook's bottles!"
I always talk to Mother for a few minutes every day. The picture is a photograph of a little girl in a red satin dress, which I fortuitously discovered one day in a park when I was eight. The girl has silver hair and yellow eyes like me, and I'm certain she's my mother. I always look for someone with silver hair and yellow eyes whenever I'm out in the city. Someday we shall have a joyous reunion, and I shall go live in a castle and live happily ever after with her and introduce her to Tori, Haku, and Hatsuharu, my dearest friends in all of Hoth, Gogotha and Zi Alda. But until I live in a castle, I'm not letting any of my friends see this place or Cook or her empty bottles.
My sewing kit is my arsenal of weapons against wear and tear. If I may say so, I am quite proficient at mending and patching my uniforms, coat, and three robes. Sometimes, an idiot throws out a stray bit of silk or beautifully colored fabric, usually from the windows of whorehouses, and I pick them up and practice my embroidery and stictches on them. I would dearly love enough money to buy a length of cloth big enough to make a hekasho, a traditional Hothan robe. I have just the color in mind…I am absolutely certain that a rich red would be gorgeous with my hair and eyes. I shall go into the tailoring profession after high school.
Then I have my darling little snakes, She and Ku. I created She out of some silver satin, and sewed on some old amber buttons as eyes. I've always like snakes, and I really can't say why. I made Ku as a companion for She, who was devastatingly lonely, what with my long hours at school and socializing with my dear friends.
"She and Ku, someday we won't live in a hellish pit overflowing with bottles. We shall live in a castle. Oh, dear, I suppose I should start studying, I couldn't bear facing Tori and telling her I'd neglected our mean old math teacher's dreadfully oppressive assignments…"