AN: For dedication and disclaimer, see first two chapters.
I figure this'll be easier than explaining bit by bit where everyone's sitting, so here's my invention of the seating chart of the banquet. Pretend it's a table with Akito at the head. And I swear I didn't put my darlings across from each other, or Rin and Hiro, or any of the conveniences there ended up being, on purpose. It's just in order of their zodiac forms, going right to left. Or left to right, looking at the page. And since this thing isn't going to let me space them, pretend the edges of that table are very close together... Yuki and Haru are supposed to be on opposite sides, for example.
Akito
Yuki Haru
Kisa Momiji
Hatori Ayame
Rin Hiro
Ritsu Kureno
Shigure Kagura
Sometimes I envy you so much it chokes me. And sometimes I think I got the better deal. To be that close to her and not have her. To be all alone, even when you're holding her.
- Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Into the Woods"
Chapter Eight
Present
I used to love New Year's. It used to be… fun. I wasn't supposed to associate with the others, ever – my place has always been at Akito's side – but it didn't matter so much, years ago.
Until he was nine, it was Ren who insisted on my isolation. After that, for perhaps five years… it was just habit. Those years, along with Akito's earliest, are my fondest memories. Habit, tradition – it's a powerful force in this stagnating house where nothing is allowed to change, but it doesn't have the authority that here-and-now always does. Habit wasn't enough to keep me away from them completely.
But before his fourteenth year, New Year's was still my favorite time, even above others. No matter how bad the year had been, at its end he could relax, and everything seemed a bit easier, a bit brighter. I could see the others, talk with them.
I love him. So much that it frightens me, so much that I have never even tried to live without him, though I know that part of him would be happier if I left and Shigure could…
If ever I would leave – but I can't, and in another way, it would destroy him. He has to own us or he's nothing.
So I stay, and love him.
But life, unfortunately, is not a romance tale. There is more to life than love, and staying here, with one person, always… it isn't enough. And I'm not the only one it's driving insane.
God, I miss it. I miss Nii-san, miss the other older ones. Talking to him, laughing with he and Aya-san as they dream up outrageous schemes to make Ha-niisan smile, as if he were one of the guards in London, even before it was that hard. The younger ones… I can't truly miss, as I never knew them.
Still, I remember watching Yuki and Hatsuharu as babies when one of the others was already taking care of them, remember being with Nii-san when both of us loved Akito and neither of us had him, making it more of a bond than a point of contention. When we both knew he'd win, as he did at everything.
I wish…
It's sad that my idea of escaping the Sohma cage doesn't even extend to 'outside' members of the same family, much less leaving the compound, but such is my life. And a body can get used to anything; even to being hanged, it's said.
Now, though… New Year's… I almost hate it.
The older I am, the more I have to do with the planning, the more disgusted I am with our clan. The whole family, backstabbing and ingratiating, manipulating and climbing – and it all only compounds with everyone here at once.
He truly is the Jade Emperor, complete with royal court.
Then, there is the fact that since he turned thirteen or fourteen, I've not had nearly as much leeway even then, and sitting with them, unable to truly talk with them… And then when Shigure left – since then, he's been openly cruel in his adherence to my isolation.
So I sit one seat away from opposite Gure-nii, and watch. Akito torments Yuki, and flaunts his relationship with me just enough that Gure-nii's eyes are cold and hurt beneath the laughter and I feel like nothing but a means to an end.
"… look absolutely ravishing tonight, Gura-chan," Nii-san is saying to the girl. He is not, I don't think, doing anything more than making conversation, but that will not be the only affect it will have, by my guess.
"Oh – you think so?" She asks hopefully before her face falls. "I don't know if –"
"Kagura," he interrupts before she can bring up Kyo, "I know without doubt that your beauty is enough to make any sane man weep."
She blushes and grins, saying, "Thank you, Shii-chan!"
He coughs, covering his grin with a hand. Normally, probably, he would follow that through with a proposition of some kind. He does still do that, doesn't he?
I wish…But not in front of Akito, so he turns to Ritsu, and Kagura turns to me. At the end of the table as she is, Shigure and I are the only ones she can easily converse with.
No one wants to ignore me (unless Nii-san does, but he's… hard to read), but they all know that a misplaced word could tip Akito's increasingly arbitrary scales. And Kagura is not known for her tact, making conversing with her a bit nerve-wracking. I don't want her in trouble because of me, and with how miraculously kindly Akito usually treats her, it feels like pushing already delicately balanced luck.
On the other hand, she's so genuine, so incapable of deceit, it's a relief. And no one could suspect her of flirting, not with anyone but Kyo.
"So, Kureno-san, how have you been?" She asks with genuine interest.
"Very well, thank you. And yourself?" I say the same thing every year. She never minds. She'll tell me about her own year, and I'll be grateful.
But my eyes will be on Akito. The way his fondly proprietary gaze sweeps us all - Momiji and Ayame chattering away with each other and Hatori; Yuki and Hatsuharu's nearly wordless communication on either side of him; Kisa on Yuki's other side, smiling quietly; Isuzu and Hiro on either side of each other, smirking and raising significant eyebrows as we make fools of ourselves in their opinions.
And the way that gaze breaks to linger on Yuki just until he shifts or flushes, waits an extra moment on the dancers of the year.
Most of all, the way it stops to caress me fixedly. Amazing, the way he can turn an expressionless look into something obscene.
I'll cling to Kagura's chatter, focusing on her like a lifeline, as if it will save me from the burning black eyes that rake across me without ever seeing anything but the pain in Nii-san's eyes, hidden beneath layers of laughter.
Fourteen Years Earlier
"Akitosama-kun!" Shigure cries, dropping his school bag and a hasty bow. "Gura-chan!" He stretches out his arms.
Kagura leaps up from where she and Akito are playing and throws herself into his arms, and he tosses her into the air before catching her in a warm embrace.
Akito, for all he's the same age as Kagura, watches them with clinical interest, and when Nii-san looks at him inquires, "Do you expect me to do that?"
Gure-nii pouts. "Ah… I'd forgotten you're five going on forty." He sets Kagura down and turns to me, startling me slightly when he addresses me. "Kureno-kun, however do you manage twenty-four/seven with such a precocious child?"
Akito sniffs wordless scorn as I hide a quick grin.
"Really now," the twelve-year-old insists, wrapping his arms around Akito from behind, "I dare you to act your age. Beg me to teach you a swearword or something."
Akito twists to face him, expression considering. "Very well. Teach me a swearword, Shigure."
Nii-san lifts our god into the air and spins him around. "Your begging skills could use work, Akito-kun! But you're too cute to resist, so repeat after me: fu –"
I smack a hand over his mouth as gently as possible. "Nii-san, are you sure that's the best id – yuck!"
"Ptooey! You taste like soap, Kureno-kun," Shigure announces.
"Ooh… what were you going to say?" Kagura asks eagerly.
"Yes, Nii-san, what were you going to say in front of Kagura?" I press, wiping my hand off on my pant leg.
"Mm… the boy has a point. Let's do something else," he agrees.
"Yes," Akito acquiesces with a proprietarily protective glance at Kagura, who has clasped her arms around Gure-nii's leg.
"Anything to keep my imagination from stagnating – as if such a thing were possible – and to prove that you, Akki-san, are a child… a game of make-believe!"
"I want to be the princess!" Kagura volunteers, clapping her hands.
"And a princess you shall be!" Nii-san declares. "A princess of unrivaled beauty and power." He looks speculatively at me. "So… Akito, you will be the king and Kureno, your bodyguard. And I shall be the scheming grand vizier! When Ha-san gets here, he can be my assistant."
"Kagura's my age. How could I be her father? Anyhow, you're too young to be a grand… grand vizier," Akito points out, tongue wrestling with the unfamiliar words.
"Akito, my love," Nii-san says with a melodramatic sigh, "that is where imagination comes in handy. Most people would scoff at the idea of a boy turning into a dog, you know."
Akito illustrates the epitome of the meaning of the word scoff as he says, "Outsiders."
"Exactly! That's the whole point. Imagination lets you be an insider anywhere. Use it."
"Kureno's not old enough to be a bodyguard, either."
"Oh!" Nii-san groans, dropping his head onto one of my shoulders and slinging his free arm around the other. "Alas, I fear the boy needs more help than only I can give him, despite all of my incredible powers."
I'm not used to anyone but Akito touching me, and almost flinch back. But Akito is sandwiched between us, and I instinctively put an arm around him as well.
And the pause is enough that I realize I don't want to move. With my arms around them both, the most important people in my world… it's warm.
AN: Review-candy! I live on it, you know. Must havey.
So cute! Those three, I mean. I could just cry every time I read a scene about them in the manga. It's all so exquisitely unfair.
Okay, important notice: On the twentieth, I am leaving for another state. I will probably be able to keep up basic e-mail a bit, but at least until I get back on the first of June, there will not be updates, the way it looks now. I know I brought this up before, but here are exact dates and… I really don't think I'll be able to type there.