AN: Right then. Rin's eight, Haru's six, Kyo's seven… Ooh, and I was right about an age for the first time in my life! I was guessing Rin to be two years older than Haru and then in the manga there was a note that said that right out straight! I rule. This is after Haru explodes at Yuki and gets his adorable crush.

Okay, this is important: SPOILERS for Rin/Isuzu's childhood. Lots of them. Virtually the entire first and second scenes are taken from the… bugger… fifteenth volume, I think it is. Could be fourteenth. The one with lots of stuff about Rin's childhood.

And these are in reverse chronological order. So, the last scene happened first, then one day later the second scene, and then two weeks later the first.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine but the exact phraseology, and sometimes not even that.


The Little Girl Lost

"Mother! mother! where are you going?

"O do not walk so fast.

"Speak, mother, speak to your little girl,

"Or else I shall be lost."

The night was dark, no mother was there;

The child was wet with dew;

The mire was deep, & the child did weep,

And away the vapour flew.

I'm swimming, lost in blue waves and white caps. Or am I flying…?

"Haru… Haaa-ruuuu…."

I drag my eyes away from the sky and clouds that have been holding my attention for what I realize now must have been a bit long for Momiji, and look at him.

"So do you know?"

"Hm?"

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you, Haru?" Momiji grins.

I shake my head regretfully. I hate to drift off on Momiji. He has enough people who ignore him.

Then, so do I… and Kyo… and Yuki and Rit-chan and…

So this time I fasten my eyes on Momiji's and give him every bit of my attention while he repeats his story and question.

When he's done, he goes to play with Kyo, who has the same recess as us for half an hour even though he's a year ahead of us. I wonder vaguely if "play with" means enjoin in playful activities with or tease.

Normally I'd be with them, because they're kind of my responsibility, but without thinking about it I wander over to the sidelines and climb on to the wall around the playground.

Yes, here works. I can watch them better, though I'm not close enough to help… ah, I should go back…

The ragged breathing behind me makes me turn. A slender form in the uniform of the girls' school near our boys' counterpart… Dark hair that swirls around her in its own wind, hair that always reminds me of what it looks like when you pour milk in tea, only in reverse.

That hair…

The girl's head is down, and she's leaning against the wall helplessly. Her breathing isn't just ragged; it's being sobbed from deep inside her. Gasps.

She drops to her knees and retches, the contents of her stomach making a rebellious bid for sunlight.

I only see it from the corner of my eye as I drop down and come around the corner of the wall.

She's crumpled on her side on the walk, looking like a bird shot from the sky. I touched a bird once, after it was dead. It felt so warm and soft… light. Like it could still fly.

I drop on my knees, and turn my head sideways to meet her eyes, the drawstring of my sweatshirt clattering on the paving stones. A puff of sour air hits my face, and my heart slows down a little.
It's been beating, I realize, in my throat like a hummingbird's wings.

"Ah… good. You're still breathing." I think you're supposed to talk to people when they're like this. "Just… wait a minute."

Isuzu's chocolate eyes fasten on mine in a moment of quizzical recognition before they go hazy and filmy.

"Teacher… teacher." I'm not quite yelling, but I'm running and I'm loud enough that the nearest recess monitor notices and frowns. "My cousin's out on the sidewalk and she needs to go to the hospital right away," I announce. On the edge of my vision, I note Kyo and Momiji turning away from their game.

Playtime's over.


"Hatsuharu?" Kazuma-dono looks down at me, puzzled. "What are you doing here?"

"I rode with her," I say calmly.

The hospital is too loud and smelly. Probably Rin isn't going to like it here when she wakes up. They won't let me in her room yet. She's still unconscious and they won't tell me what's wrong because I'm too little to understand.

"That was very thoughtful of you." He looks at the door I'm crouching outside of. "Kyo and Momiji had them call me… Hatori-kun should be along as well as soon as Akito-san can spare him."

Spare him? Rin's sick.

Kazuma-dono rests a hand on my shoulder. His hand is very warm and heavy, swallowing my whole shoulder under a blanket of calm.

"Her parents, though?" I nudge.

He looks at me silently, and I realize Rin hasn't been out to play in too long, not once since that day. I should have noticed. I shouldn't have been so slow…

"Isuzu's parents… we weren't sure they'd show up." He looks at me sympathetically. "They've had a falling out."

Her too. Them too.

And in a family of one hundred and fifty immediate members, one adult could be counted on to show up.

I look back down. Kazuma-dono's eyes are nice and warm and liquid, but the lights behind them, on the ceiling, are too bright.

Then the doctor shows up, and looks relieved to see a grown-up. "You're here for Sohma Isuzu?" He asks hopefully. He's a nice guy, probably. But knowing there's someone to turn Rin over to is going to make his life just a little easier.

It's okay; I'd feel the same in his position. If she wasn't my cousin, if I didn't know how magical she is, like a candle dancing in a dark room.

But she is, and I do.

"…Her weakened state also…" The doctor and Kazuma open the door, and Kazuma-dono steps in to keep and eye on her. "If we could have been made aware of her situation a little sooner… For the time being we should probably arrange for her to be hospitalized. Her parents will be contacted about her condition, although they can't see her until she recovers –" something catches Kazuma's eye and he turns.

"Aah… Isuzu," he says, "how do you feel?" There's a pause, and presumably off her look, he offers, "This is a hospital." The doctor glances at me, summons up a smile, and retreats.

I picture Rin opening her eyes here and curl up tighter in my seat. A blink from dark to light, and nothing there but strangers. No reason to bear the light.

"Who…" Her voice is scratchy and choked.

"Sohma Kazuma… I wonder if you'll know who I am if I tell you I'm Sohma Kyo's adoptive father. Does that help?" Nothing for a moment, and his soothing voice continues, "Hatsuharu found you where you had fainted and –"

Blankets rustle and springs creak. "…I have to go back!" She sounds terrified. "I… have to get home…!"

"I've already called your house," Kazuma-dono says gently. "We'll have a talk about what happened to make you weak later, but now, Isuzu, you must rest." His voice never strays from its comforting tracks, not even for a moment, but there's something… a inflection, a dip in the road…

They hit her. He knows they've been hitting her…

How could they… they were so happy, they were perfect, they…

loved her.

"Wh – why… Stop it! What are you - ! Just stop this! Leave me alone!" Desperation pulls her voice tight like a rubber band about to break, and I turn, frightened.

Rin never sounds like this. Never.

Rin is happy.

"I'm so bad…"

I stand.

"Because it's all my fault…"

I stand in the doorway and watch my Rin with broken glass inside her. I can almost see through her to the pieces, and she's hitting with limp fists at Kazuma, who has his hands on her shoulders to keep her from falling off the bed she's kneeling on.

"I've got to get home…!" Kazuma-dono's face looks like I feel inside, I notice. Like he's going to be sick from tears.

There's someone standing behind me, and I look back and up. Short, wavy blond hair and a long brown skirt.

Rin's mom.

"It's okay," she starts, and I pretend for the split second it takes her to continue that this is all going to go away, "if you don't come back anymore. It's fine. Go somewhere where I can't see you anymore. Because I… don't understand anymore." She sounds lost, but more than anything else… she sounds cold. "I just don't see how I can possibly love you anymore."

"No…" Rin's face is blank with fear. Her hands drop away from Kazuma's face like she can 't remember to pump blood into the muscles, can't remember to breathe. "Mother, please don't say…" Don't say it, don't say it out loud.

The words are heavy and hot, uncomfortable, like swallowing something too big and feeling it going down, too slow. They hurt, they're wrong.

But they lie there and they can't be unsaid.

To her face… cruel, unnecessary…

"How…" Inside me, something goes black and I can stay calm, the way I should be, and not blame anyone.

I'm really fucking pissed. That bitch – so she doesn't love Rin, does that mean she has to tear her into little pieces?

On the bed, Rin is nothing but little pieces of torn paper, thrown and scattered.

"…can you say such a thing so easily? What are we supposed to do when our own parents tell us something like that! Even though Rin thinks she's 'bad,' you people, you people won't even think that things you've been doing are wrong! Venting your angers on us, hitting and laughing at us, looking down on us, you're hurting yourselves by hurting your children - "

Kazuma has moved around and has an arm across my chest. "Haru…"

The woman looks at me and nothing I say makes a dent in her shell. Nothing. Because she doesn't care and never did.

"How can you not understand something so simple!"

I try to throw the interfering bastard off, and now he's holding onto me in earnest. "Haru…"

"Say you're sorry! Apologize…!" She's backing away, expressionless. "Apologize to Rin!" The door closes behind her, and I stop struggling, though Kazuma still holds my shoulders.

I hate them, hate them all… Is it such a fairy tale to just have someone care? A little? What is he afraid I'm gonna do?

"Hey! I told you to apologize!" I yell futilely, helpless, useless, unneeded.

"Haru…" It's Rin this time, on her hands and knees on the bed, tears falling from her eyes and her milk-in-tea hair hanging limp. "Haru… Th – thank you…"

But it isn't enough, because she doesn't believe it.

How can she think she's worth anything when they tell her she's not? How can… any of us…

And her tears keep coming, not because she's getting rid of them or even because she can't hold them in anymore, but because she can't be bothered to. Can't bring herself to care.

Why should she? They don't.

She's alone.


Two Weeks Earlier

A happy home.

Sometimes I feel bad for how happy I am. How happy we are. All of us together, us three. A little circle no one else can break in to.

The other juunishi look heartbroken. Kagura and Hiro have love, but all the others… Well, some of the others are loved, in a way, but always it's not enough, or it's the wrong kind.

I don't know how they do it. My world… My parents are my world, my little family of protection inside the Sohma cage. I may be in a cage, but my view is beautiful.

I'm happy.

Because they love me, and I love them. I matter to them. I matter. I am someone important, not because I'm a wealthy Sohma with a curse, a bond to a sad little boy who's even younger than I am.

I matter because they love me.

We always have fun. We always smile and laugh together. We're happy.

I sip from my teacup and watch their faces, watch them laugh at a joke Daddy's told. It's not really funny, but that's why we laugh, really. Because he does try.

So we have to laugh.

"I'm mad at you!"

I wish I could not ask this, but I have to know. I have to know that they aren't masks in a play. No one could do this, not for eight years.

I would know.

I have nothing to worry about.

But as I open my mouth, I start to feel alone for the first time in my life.

"Why? Why are Mama and Papa always having so much fun? Are you really having fun?"

Life isn't fun, Isuzu, and night always follows day

"Is there nothing you're sad about?"

All it needed was those words…

The table our tea is on, on the back porch of our house, clatters. It's so light. It takes so little for Mama to push it over.

One little push, and everything it was holding up breaks.

"For whose sake do you think we do it! For whom do we try so hard every single day…"

Papa just looks away.

He doesn't say anything. Maybe if I'd just asked him we could have kept playing.

But Mama doesn't like this game anymore.

And that's the worst thing. It's ugly of me, but if they can't love me, couldn't they have pretended to? Was it that hard? Could hollow happiness be so much worse than this…

I hate them for not being better liars.

I burn inside with shame at the thought. No wonder… no wonder they don't love me, can't…

Not their fault.

"Don't mess with me!"

And the play was over.


One Day Earlier

I sit and watch.

Akito, Yuki, and Rin are playing chess, and I am as well. We're on teams, Rin and I against Akito and Yuki, which is a vastly unfair match if you think about it, but none of us are paying attention to the game, really.

We all know well enough to let Akito win, anyway, so it doesn't much matter.

"…that doesn't make sense," Akito is saying, frowning at something Rin said. "And… Isuzu… you should cut your hair. It's getting too long."

She glares. "My Mama thinks it's –"

"Kagura!"

We all look up at the sharp sound and a moment later, Gura-neechan comes racing in, glaring and near tears, to throw herself down between Akito and Yuki, who move to make room for her with wide eyes.

Then Kagura's mother comes in, lips pressed tight because angry isn't something you should be in public.

"No!" Kagura exclaims. "Go away! I'm mad at you!" She hides her face in Akito's wide sleeve even though they're both ten and, in some people's opinions, shouldn't be acting quite like this.

I tend to think those people are wrong. Just my opinion.

I watch the little lines on Kagura's mom's mouth spread. She kneels and bows to Akito. "Akito-sama…"

"You are dismissed," he says without looking at her. His eyes are on Kagura's head, and he runs his fingers through her hair, watching it flow between his fingers with something like wonder.

"Yes, Akito-san. I'll be back for Kagura by three." She bows again and stands, sliding the door shut behind her.

I contemplate things to make sure they're holding together. Yuki looks frightened, but not too much. As long as I smile at him and keep Akito in a good mood, if that's possible, he'll calm down soon.

Kagura pops back up, already smiling.

Akito smiles at her, his truly-happy smile that he gets when we come to him, when he perceives us as having chosen him.

Rin is staring at Kagura like someone's died, all dark and cold, but don't know yet and are still walking around.

"Kagura…" she breathes.

At her tone, everyone turns to look at her.

"What? Isuzu-chan, what's wrong?"

"Your mama…"

"What about her?"

"She – she's being mean like…" she looks at Yuki and me and tries not to look at Akito, whose eyes narrow.

"Oh!" Kagura laughs, mood, as ever, flipping from worry back to happiness like a spring breeze changing directions. "Isuzu! She wanted me to wait for her and I ran out ahead, so she's mad. When she comes back I'll say sorry and it'll be fine." She flips her hair and adds loftily, "I mean, I am ten. It's about time she wasn't so clingy."

Just a mood, just a snatch of breeze to be blown away by the one that follows. Gura-neechan is like that. Soon she'll be clinging to her mother's skirts again, and then she'll swing back this way once more.

But Isuzu is frowning. "But… fine? She yelled at you."

Kagura blinks, looking to Akito and Yuki on either side of her for help.

They can't. They're kind of in agreement, if not so strongly. Yelling is bad. It means they don't love you.

"Maybe," I try, "Gura-neechan means that it's good they pay enough attention to yell."

"Yeah," she says, grinning. "Haru-kun sees! And…" she frowns, groping for words she doesn't know to express something she's never had to name. "And… if you love someone… you can yell at them and it's okay. It's all right for there to be clouds, because the sun always comes out." She grins, pleased with her explanation, looking to Akito for approval.

He's watching Isuzu.

"But, no – if you love someone you don't yell at them," Isuzu says.

She looks scared still.

Akito leans forward, eyes glinting. "Maybe…" he says softly, "maybe what Isuzu is afraid of is that the floor she's standing on is made of glass. I think you're afraid to throw stones, Isuzu, and find that what you thought was stone could shatter so easily."

He leans away again, his smile looking more like that of a cat who's gotten a bird. Content.

"You think they're really that happy? You think that's natural? You've never seen their faces for the comedy masks they are?" His voice is low, words nearly chanted, making my eyelids heavy.

"Life isn't fun, Isuzu, and night always follows day."

"You're wrong." Isuzu's voice is rough, but stays below the line between speech and whisper.

"Am I? Then argue. Throw a stone. Prove that your house is stone, that they can possibly love you…" the way I do. For real. "That they're telling the truth."

Rin stands, nostrils flared and hands in gracefully curled fists. She looks like a wild mare, made of wind and fire.

"I will. You don't know. How could you? You're wrong."

How could you?

Akito opens his mouth, eyes dark, and I say, "Hey… check." His gaze slices through the air and burns into me. "I think we've got a check," I shrug.

I tug Rin's hand and she sits back down, and Akito surveys the board. "No…"

"Oh." I blink, confused. "It's gone. A mystery…"

"This game is boring anyway," Kagura announces, tugging on Akito's sleeve. "Right? Right, Yun-chan? Let's play something else. Let's go outside. I'll push you on the swing, Akito-kun, okay? And then you push me?"

Attention sways in another direction, the dam holds.


I push Yuki and Kagura pushes Akito, once Shigure drops by and convinces him to swing at all, and they hold hands to see how close together we can keep them while in the air.

Gure-nii is talking to Rin, facing us. He's smiling the same as ever, but…

We go home eventually, and with Akito on the edge of a bad mood, I don't get to talk to Rin that day any more.

Then I don't see her again for a while, but I didn't think…

I thought they loved her. I thought she was safe from him, just a little.

And it's only when I see her falling to the ground that I remember how her back looked while she was talking to Gure-nii.

Head and shoulders hanging like a thread holding them up had been cut. Like there was something she'd lost.

Like something I thought was hers forever had been taken away.

Worst, taken away so easily. She barely had to try, and then they just stopped trying.


AN: Need I say it again? I must have reviews!

And just as an aside, there's one more planned. This happened to go quickly, it being my little two-day vacation and all, but chapter six will certainly take longer. Possibly weekend after next, probably this coming weekend. Mm... and just as a little aside, I love Kazuma. He so damn sweet. And his face is so expressive... I mean, the same person draws them, so they should all be equally emotive, but there's just something about seeing tears in his eyes that makes me want to cry. And when he smiles I want to smile. Go figure.