Yeah, I forgot to put in a disclaimer all this time. So Fruits Basket is not mine.


His head hurt. That was the first thing Momiji registered as he cracked one eye open, still lying on his bed where he collapsed earlier in the afternoon. He raised his aching head up and noticed that his room had fallen into a dim light. Glancing outside his window, Momiji realised that the sun had almost set and was throwing long shadows of trees all across his house lawn. Momiji gazed at surreal scene outside his window, his lying his head down on his soft cow stuffed-toy that he still held in his arms. The shadows swayed and tangled around each other as a wind blew past, making the leaves rustle.

Momiji registered the all too familiar musky scent of the stuffed-cow as it invaded his nose. Momiji had gone visiting Haru one day as usual and had 'picked up' some of the boy's cologne on the way out. He smiled, recalling that small, but nonetheless, triumph.

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They were going to be late for school if they didn't leave soon. Momiji had just spent the better part of the last twenty minutes trying to rouse an especially sleepy Haru and prodding him (literally) to get ready for school. He entered the room once again just as Haru pulled his shirt over his naval and smoothed the creases over the fabric. The little blond blushed as a thought passed his mind on how he should have not waited that extra minute and just enter the bedroom a little earlier. He shook his head to rid him of that dirty thought and glanced at his cousin, forcing his blush down as Haru straightened his collar and sprayed on good amount of cologne that would last him throughout the whole day before dropping the almost empty thing into the bin right beside his desk with a sharp 'thuck' that brought Momiji out of his daydreams.

A sudden thought struck Momiji as Haru strode pass him, his newly sprayed-on scent assaulting the little rabbit's sensitive senses. As Haru stepped out of the room, Momiji rushed towards the bin and reached down to the bottle, hoping against hope that the glass wasn't cracked. It wasn't. He quickly stuffed it in his school bag and dashed out the door and after Haru before the cow could even notice the delay.

Hours later, when Momiji arrived home, he spent no time in pulling out the almost empty, almost, bottle out of his bag and practically showering his little cow with it. Now he could imagine Haru to be with him even when he slept...

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Momiji buried his nose into the soft, furry, stuffed-animal as he giggled at the memory. It still smelled sweet...

Slowly, what happened earlier that afternoon seeped its way into Momiji's brain and another memory, more recent and definitely less pleasant the previous one, returned. Now Momiji remembered why his head hurt.

The small boy sat up, ignoring the bout of nausea swept over him as he did so. He hated crying himself to sleep.

Standing up and walking towards the door, intent of finding something to eat, maybe something cold that could numb his headache and fill his stomach at the same time, Momiji steadied himself against the wall with his right hand and grabbed onto the doorknob. Then he remembered, it was Saturday. Momiji always had dinner at Akito's on Saturdays. He turned around and squinted at the glowing hands of his rabbit alarm clock sitting on his bedside table. Great, he was already ten minutes late, and he looked like a bunny in rabbit-hunting season. Wonder what Akito was going to say about it.

Momiji stumbled out of his room and into the bathroom right across the hall. Akito was going to smother him. Taking a quick shower and checking his eyes for any puffiness (it was a little pinky still, but not that bad), Momiji swallowed an aspirin from the medicine cabinet. Only one. He hated depending on medicine but in such desperate cases, he had no choice. He then ran back across the hall, hardly bothering to even fasten the towel around his waist as he threw it in the corner once he was back in his room and threw on his clothes.

As he raced out of his house, and pass another Souma mansion on his far right, Momiji thought of how miraculous it was that a dinner at Akito's every week had become so much of a habit, so casual, that he even could forgert about it. Just a year back, nobody would even go to Akito and suggest a snack together if they didn't want a horrible scar left on their body or just a simply torturous day together with the head of the Souma clan. But something changed, about a year ago when two people had pried open the doors to Akito's heart and melted the ice within. those two people were namely, Senri and Momiji.

A/N: I know you're probably asking who the heck Senri is now but.... he is a made-up character from a related story about AkitoxSenri that I have not written yet. But I will...if I want to. For now, just read the story and understand.

Momji just wanted to make friends with Akito and Senri just wanted... Akito. And after much beating around the bush (and beating) they both got what they wanted, not surprisingly, softening the clan head along the way. Aktio's health even began to improve due to his change in attitude and much love and care directed towards him, though many are still uncomfortable around the thin, pale man who caused more than one of those under him scars too deep to be so easily forgotten, But they'll get over it, soon. Even one of the weakest and most fragile of the twelve jyuunishis was the closest to him, though it couldn't really count as Momiji was one of the two who opened the cold man up in the first place.

But now Momiji didn't have time to think about that as he arrived at the doorstep of the main house where he was to have the usual meal with the aforementioned Akito and his koi, Senri. Momiji knew he was late by about twenty minutes and, boy, was he going to be in for it.