Title: Could'a, Would'a, Should'a

Summary: I'm an idiot.

Author's Note: I'm even worse with Yuki than I am with Manabe, but since Pink Eraser asked ever so nicely… Here.

(Also: Did anyone else notice that Manabe called Yuki 'Yuki' when he said he was lucky? I sure did. And, seriously people, go read Chapters Seventy-Three and Seventy-Seven from Volume Thirteen. Inspiration!)

I'm an idiot.

I had a chance at having a friend outside of the Sohma family. Maybe a slightly zany friend, but a friend nonetheless, right? Manabe even stayed after, waiting for me. Has anyone done that before? Tohru can't even do that, not with her job.

No, he probably wasn't waiting for me. I'm thinking of it all wrong. He waited around for a few minutes so that he could ask me about Tohru, not to see me.

He saw me talking with her and immediately assumed I was sad. That Kyou had won her. I don't even know how he could have seen something like that. He's supposed to be oblivious. He's not supposed to be observant.

So he wrote me off as unhappy and kept walking after I stopped.

Unhappy?

Sure, I'm not bubbly, I'm not happy all the time, but unhappy means that I've lost. And I haven't. The Rat beats the Cat and he might not win her yet. He won't. Can't, even.

I got angry. Maybe I slipped into a lecture, but I just--

I was right there. He knew, knew that I liked Tohru. He knew that, and told me -- to my face -- that Kyou had won, and won enough that a moron like him thought it was obvious. Of course I got angry!

His happiness might be winning. And if I've lost, I'm unhappy.

But I don't have to think like that. Even if I-- Even if I really have lost to Kyou, at least I can still consider myself happy to have her nearby.

I haven't lost yet. I won't, either. Can't.

But if I do… Then, by his standards, I can't be happy. And that's just not fair.

I don't know why, but he got mad at me for getting mad at him and -- just a few minutes after I'd been so happy to see him -- I was about ready to punch his lights out.

He didn't know anything! Not about Akito, about my mom, about Kyou, Tohru-- Not about anyone in my life. He didn't know anything about me, and he still judged me!

"Yeah, well, better that than a prick who acts like he knows everything!"

And I'd just done the same to him.

I backed off and looked away. I'd judged him, labeled him as an idiot, as someone that people liked, as someone who could extinguish me.

I'm an idiot.

But he called me lucky, didn't he? And I wanted to cry, to just break down in front of him and see what he'd make of me. I'm not lucky. I never have been and I never will be.

He says he fights evil, but if there's evil inside of me, does that make him my enemy?

"You're lucky, Yuki. You understand."

But I don't understand at all.