Disclaimer: I don't own nuthin', but I own meh own dreams of a certain pairing (I swear, I dream of Furuba at night!).

Fallen from the sky: Yay, first review! -hands a cookie- Well, yeah, they're all acting weird. But this Friday IS indeed different to them, since they're cursed. It's like being sick and feeling like shit all day long, that makes people go nuts. -grins-

kitsuneoriginal: Thankies for the review! Well, the idea of a crying Shigure just popped into my head, I don't know where I got it from. But hey, don't get depressed yet, this chapter's more drama-like (I think).

Chapter2: before midday

Tohru Honda trudged through the rain, looking for any sign of a little girl called Kisa, or a stray Tiger. She had been looking for an hour now, and she was worried about the boys she had left behind at the Souma residence.

She was about to turn around and go back to the house, when a startled yelp from the other side of the road attracted her attention. When she looked at where the yell had come from, she didn't quite know whether to laugh out loud or be very concerned.

On the pavement near a flower-shop stood the family's doctor, Hatori, soaked in dirty street water with a bundle in his arms that looked a lot like a very displeased little tiger. While watching out for cars that passed, Tohru ran up to him, calling his name to get his attention.

He only really noticed her when she was right next to him, because he was busy trying to wipe the dirt off his face. Apparently, a car had driven into a muddy puddle and as a result sprayed a wet shower over the 'dragon'. When Hatori saw, her, the usually stern doctor blushed fiercely and didn't know what to say.

"Hi!" Tohru greeted him. "I see you found her! Great! I was about to go back and call you, because you see, the others are all acting weird and…"

"Say no more!" Hatori interrupted her, a lot louder than he usually spoke. "We need to get to the Shigure's house quickly!" he said. "This day is driving me crazy!"

'Him too…? Oh no.' Tohru thought. 'Well, better hurry up, then.'

……

Half an hour later, Tohru had managed to get Hatori and Kisa safely to the house. They both complained about the same symptoms as the rest of the present family (actually, Kisa refused to speak again, but Hatori could confirm that she was extremely grumpy due to the 'weather', too), and Hatori seemed to suffer from a tick that caused him to say 'you know 'all the time like a little shy kid.

As soon as they had arrived back home, Tohru had offered the dirty wet dragon to take a hot bath, and she had taken a towel and dried Kisa, while trying to avoid rousing her too much.

Like when they first met, the tiger was pretty stressed, only this time, the whole family seemed to suffer from an unusually stressy day. While Hatori was in the bathroom, the Soumas were quiet. They were still sitting at the table, while Kisa had crawled into a corner.

She had gruffly accepted the warm blankets Tohru had brought her, at least. Now that things were a bit quieter, Tohru went to console a (again) sobbing Shigure. Kyo and Yuki were still apathic.

"Now, now…Shigure-san, don't cry…" Tohru said, nearly-hugging him. "Why don't you go to your room and try to write something?"

"NooooooOOOOoooo…." Shigure wailed, even louder than before. "That's –sob- my problem-sob-"

"I've got-sobsob- a writer blooooOOooock!"

With a last wail, he bumped his head into the table and lay still, sniffing silently. It was a really sad sight for Tohru, seeing the ever-happy and always laughing dog being so sad. The only thing she could do was pat him on the head and stroke his back gently, whispering softly that such things don't last forever and stuff like that.

After a while, Shigure stopped crying. With a still sad face, he moved his arms onto the table and laid his head to rest on them. Then he only stared blankly into a void before him at something only he could see.

Tohru hesitantly moved away from him, and when she saw that he wasn't going to cry again, she hurried upstairs to get some more blankets. When she crossed the bathroom door, she heard a muffled 'ouch' from inside.

Out of habit, she opened the door hurriedly, and she saw Hatori standing over the sink, half naked, lower half covered by a towel. Blushing in a deep shade of red, the girl turned around again, when he called her.

Slowly, she turned around, and only then she noticed some mean-looking cuts on his hands.

"Oh my god what happened!" she nearly yelled at him.

"Eh…you see, I took a day off, you know, because of…today, you know…"

"Get to the point!" Tohru exclaimed, busy looking for antiseptics in the medicine box, exactly what Hatori had been doing, judging by the bloodstains all over the box. Even if she was a nice girl, and the Soumas were usually nice people, she was becoming more and more stressed.

"Ah. Well, I was planning on putting my scalpels in my safe, just to prevent…accidents, you know. And then, the box fell out of my hands and I cut myself. Then I couldn't find any antiseptics (Tohru frowned at this, the guy was a doctor for goodness' sake!), and then I left my office you know…I hope I locked the door. On the way to the pharmacy I ran into Kisa, and later into you when I was going to the main house to deliver her."

"And now you're here…"

"Yeah…But I was coming over anyway…you know, being alone on a day like this is dangerous…"

"Ah, gotcha!" Tohru triumphantly held up a bottle of antiseptics.

"Oh! Thanks, Tohru –san…but might I suggest going to get some more over at the store?"

"Why? Are you guys planning on killing each other today?"

"Nah, just a hunch…you never know. Besides, I think I'll have to, you know, use all of what's left…"

Hatori grinned sheepishly, and his grin was so wide he gave Tohru the creeps, she had never seen him this embarrassed;

"Eh! …right. I'll go right away, ok?"

" …You do that."

Tohru looked at his injured hands again. "You're gonna be okay?" Hatori only nodded.

Right before she left the bathroom, Tohru noticed a huge bruise on his back. She was about to ask, but a look at the room itself answered in his place: a bar of soap lay on the ground, and there was a dent in the edge of the bathtub.

Tohru closed the door and sighed 'This must be the first time they don't need each other to get hurt…'

…

When she passed through the kitchen, she saw that Kyo had stood up. By the looks of it, he had just checked the fridge, because he had left it open. Tohru went to close the door, noticing by the way that Shigure and Haru had fallen asleep on the table, and then looked inside the fridge.

Great…they were out of milk. Kyo had sat down again, and had laid his head on the table, looking pitifully dissatisfied.

"I'm going to the market. I'll bring milk, okay?" Tohru addressed him.

Much to her relief and pleasure, the cat responded by closing his eyes and smiling contently. She could've sworn she heard a purr. She took her bag, crept silently past the sleeping pair, patted the still oblivious Yuki on the back and affectionately stroked Kyo's hair on her way out.

When she was finally outside, she looked back one last time, and then hurried to the mall.

…..---….

Meanwhile, eleven thirty, in Ayame's shop…

"But boss! You can't expect me to go! There's still plenty of things to create before the weekend!..."

"Mine-chan…I'm serious!" Ayame yelled, before he could hold himself back. From the moment he realized how harsh he had sounded, he looked at the floor in shame. He had never yelled at his assistant before.

Well, he had tried to explain that he really couldn't work at a day like this, that it was a miracle that he had managed to get up in the morning at all. The snake had done his best to get some work done, but by now he had a terrible headache.

Damn that weird noise…and damn that weird light…Why does this have to happen at least once every year?

So he had decided to quit for today, and he had told Mine that she could take the rest of the day off. Unfortunately, she wasn't going to leave before they had finished 'that last thing' they were always busy on.

Usually, when they should quit in the evening, Ayame enjoyed working for a couple of hours into the night with her to get their current item finished, but today was different.

And now he had yelled at her…she looked so hurt…

"I'm sorry for bothering you, boss…"

Mine bowed politely, and made her way to the door with tears in her eyes. She had been trying to cheer him up a bit, and she was worried about him, but when she irritated him…She could better go home and relax, just as he had said.

But how was she supposed to relax when she knew he wasn't okay…he had been acting strange for the whole morning.

Ayame watched her turn her back to him, about to leave. Inwardly, he sighed. He hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, after all she was always so sweet to him, and she was a real delight to work with. There's no reason anyone would want to harm her…

The snake turned around to get his things to pay the other Souma's a visit, after all it was dangerous to stay alone on a day like this. He had barely made one step, when he heard Mine gasp loudly.

In a split-second, he had turned around, and found himself face-to-face with a group of five pretty dirty -Ayame sniffed disgusted – street-thugs. One of them had grabbed Mine and held his hand over her mouth to prevent her from yelling. The brunette's eyes were wide with fear behind her glasses.

"Whoa, whoa. That's pretty fast, miss." One of the boys said in a mocking tone, mildly surprised at Ayame's fast reaction. "Afraid we might break your doll?" He pointed at Mine with his thumb. The other four laughed gruffly.

Ayame immediately saw the danger. They were looking at the counter in the back end of the shop.

'They're after the money! I wonder what'll happen if they notice that there's no money there...I never keep the money in here, it goes straight to the bank or to Mine's salary…'

In a flash, he knew what they were going to do...'They'll tear the shop to pieces, and then go after me and Mine-chan…' But the snake wasn't going to let them…

Before any of them could react, he had punched the first one straight in the jaw, breaking it effectively, and kicked the second one to the floor.

In a matter of seconds, Ayame was fighting three of them while the fourth was trying to get up and the fifth holding Mine. The agile snake hadn't fought for months, but his body rapidly remembered every drilled movement from his younger days, when the Soumas of his generation had trained martial arts.

He ducked, occasionally kicked one of them and dodged their punches, but he knew he couldn't keep this up. By executing a sly maneuver, he managed do slide under one of the guys' legs and run to his counter. In one fluid motion, he kicked himself into the air against the table and landed a hit with his heel against the back of one of the men's head, knocking him unconscious.

When he landed again, he jumped over the desk and took the chair that stood there. With it, he knocked out number two, by crashing it against the man's skull.

As he fell, his comrade took his place. Ayame bounded out of his reach, but the one with the broken jaw, intent on revenge, had gotten up and grabbed his left arm. Grinning, he used pure force to throw the much lighter Ayame into the wall, spraining the snake's shoulder in the process.

Gasping from the sudden jolt of pain, Ayame could see the two of them coming at him. His eyes widened in fear for a moment, but the thought of leaving his Mine-chan to these men made him hiss in determination.

Indeed, that certain determination that made him so able to slither out of any situation. His eyes glinted. He waited for the right moment….

"I order you to stop! How dare you defile this place!" He shouted at them in his famous 'I'm-the-lord-and-master-of-drama'-voice. Today it felt awfully weird to speak like this, he didn't feel like playing drama at all, but he was a good actor.

In the moments they looked at him strangely, taken aback by their victim's odd reaction that only sparked their anger even more, Ayame managed to roundhouse-kink one of them to the ground and escape through the gap.

While jumping over the fallen man, he kicked again, this time at the neck. The guy went still.

'Only two left…' Ayame thought, switching his focus frantically from the remaining attacker to the one holding Mine and trying to regain his breath. His shoulder hurt terribly, and his headache had worsened.

When the last man standing threw two punches at him, Ayame got hit on his head by the first, injuring his forehead and barely blocked the second with his right hand. After a short lock, he managed to twist the guy's arm behind his back and with a quick –snap-, he broke it. The wail was soon stopped by a punch in the face from a very pissed off Ayame.

As soon as the fourth man had dropped to the floor, he abruptly turned to face Mine's attacker.

The huge man shivered involuntarily at the snake's piercing glare. He felt that the guy they had all called a 'woman', had locked onto a target, and that target was him. But when he saw that his buddies had managed to injure Ayame, he became more confident and risked loosening one arm around Mine to punch him.

Mine seized the opportunity now that her mouth was free and bit the man into his arm, and she bit hard. He gave a startled yelp, and dropped her. Before she ran from him, she turned around and bluntly kicked him in the nuts. Also hard.

The guy's eyes widened, and with a low grunt, he dropped to the floor. Mimicking Ayame, she kicked his head, rendering him unconscious. "Hmmm… serves you right!"

Now that she was free again, Mine ran to Ayame, who was by now pretty pale. She hadn't noticed that one of the thugs had stood up again. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the middle of the room, uttering something that sounded like "You foul witch… you'll pay for this!"

He tightened his fist, and swiped at her. Mine squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for the blow to come, but instead, a blur of silver flashed in front of her.

Ayame took the blow. His ribs cracked.

As a counterattack, he rammed his knee up the guy's guts. They both fell.

But one of them landed on the hard floor, while the other one was caught in a caressing embrace by Mine-chan. For a split-second that lasted forever, cloudy olive eyes locked onto warm brown teary ones.

-PoP-

...TBC

R'n R please, constructive criticism more than welcome, youmay suggest what'll happen now that Mine has witnessed Ayame's transformation, there's a chance I'll use your idea, cuz' I'm using my own one only as a backup (I don't think it's that original, you see...).