Kiss Kiss
By Lady of the Ink
Pairing: Kyou and Kagura Sohma
Fandom: Fruits Basket
Theme: #6- The Space Between Dream and Reality
Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket, but you knew that ...I hope. But I do own this story and all the twists that it takes.
Kiss Eleven: This kiss is the third chapter of a multi-chapter AU story, with each chapter fulfilling a different theme.
The Life For Me
Chapter Three
First Impressions
They were up to something.
If there was one thing Kyou knew, it was his crew. He'd been sailing with them for more than five years, had known most of them for longer than that, and was related to a third of them to boot. That was why he had noticed instantly when that final group had begun to act strangely.
First he'd caught Hiro actually volunteering to do below deck chores for an older crew member. When the sixteen year old had first come on board as a cabin boy, barely a day went by without Kyou needing to threaten him into doing his duties. His naturally brooding attitude and his distaste for any sort of authority figure had made it an uphill battle. Five years later, he had progressed to doing his work well and on time but still balked at requests and kept his distance from most of the others. His sudden helpfulness was definitely suspicious.
Then there was Momiji. The cheerful blonde was usually underfoot everywhere that he went, bouncing and humming and talking incessantly. If his navigation skills hadn't been exceptional for his age, Kyou would have dumped him overboard long ago. The younger man had a knack for finding fast routes and hiding places just when they needed them that was almost instinctual to him. As it was, Kyou managed to grit his way through the encounters that he wasn't able to avoid. The fact that he hadn't seen Momiji since his return would usually have been a welcome event but paired with Hiro's odd behavior, it was just worrisome.
Not wanting to jump to any conclusions, Kyou had been taking careful notice of his shipmates through the afternoon. Most seemed to be acting normally but something about Shigure came off as slightly more sly than usual. The smug smile that he wore so often was a bit wider, his deceptively easy-going attitude a bit sharper. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on was telling Kyou that if something was up, Shigure was in on it.
To top it all off, what should have been a simple meal had been unusually trying. Ritsu had managed to top his personal best of three freak outs for one evening by two. That included the hair-pulling fit that had sent half of the meal that he'd just delivered right into Kyou's lap.
And he'd really been hungry, too.
A heavy sigh escaped him as he leaned against the railing on deck, his back to the rippling expanse of water. He was glad to be leaving the crowded city behind and heading home and yet he couldn't be satisfied. The task that he had gone to accomplish was no where near complete, which meant that a return journey was inevitable. He was so tired of it all. Every trip seemed longer, every problem more bothersome. Facing the various quirks of his family members had never been fun but lately, it took everything in him to deal with them.
His eyelids drooped and his shoulders slumped. He just wanted it all to be over with, to have the problem resolved and in the past. But it had been so long already, year after year of trying to absolve his inherited sin, that he had lost hope. The mental image of success that he had used to inspire himself was gone, long since faded by failures too numerous to count. He was starting to believe that his father had been right all along.
A low rumbling noise pulled Kyou from his rapidly darkening thoughts. Realizing that the sound was coming from his stomach, he placed a hand over the offending area. It was no wonder he was hungry again already; he'd left before breakfast to go into town and had gotten back hours past noon. When he did have lunch, more of it had wound up on his pants than in his mouth.
His eyes moved to the sun's position to judge the time. Deciding that he was too hungry to wait until dinner, he prepared himself to brave Ritsu and raid the galley.
He was two steps from the door when he caught the sound of a conversation. Recognizing Momiji's voice, he automatically slowed to a stop. As close as he was, he couldn't help but overhear some of what was being said. One word in particular caught his attention and had him moving quietly closer.
"So how has out guest been doing?" Shigure was asking.
There was the sound of a utensil being laid down before Momiji answered. "Pretty well, I guess. Everything was quiet when I checked before I came here. I thought that I heard some noises an hour or so ago but it was so faint, I might have imagined it."
Guest? Kyou repeated silently to himself. What the hell were they talking about?
"If the room gets wrecked, I'm telling you right now that I'm not cleaning it up. It's bad enough that you've got me playing errand boy for the whole ship." Hiro, of course.
"Don't worry; it won't be for much longer. First thing tomorrow, we'll tell Kyou."
"Are you sure that it'll be safe, Shigure?" Momiji asked. "He's going to be really mad."
"By then, he'll have no choice. What's he going to do, toss her overboard?"
Kyou didn't wait around to hear any more. Moving to the far side of the hallway, he crept past the galley door without alerting the group inside. In seconds, he was striding toward the section of the ship that Hiro had been running to and from all day. Now that his suspicion that his relatives were up to something had been confirmed, he wasn't going to wait until they brought that something to him. He'd learned long ago that it was never a good idea to let them have the upper hand in any situation.
His mind flashed through all the possibilities for what he was about to face. While there wasn't much that he would put past Shigure, the list of things that both Hiro and Momiji would get involved in was thankfully much shorter and less frightening. Ritsu didn't even enter into his consideration since he was pushover enough to be talked into just about anything, especially by Shigure.
From what had been said moments earlier, they were obviously keeping something living in one of the cabins. Momiji was playing caretaker while Hiro's sudden bout of helpfulness kept away unwanted witnesses. The most logical conclusion that his mind found was that Momiji had smuggled a new pet onboard to add to his already considerable menagerie back home. Hiro would have been relatively easy to bring in on it. If questioned, he'd likely say that he was just enjoying causing trouble but in truth, he had a hidden weakness for cute things that Momiji was rather talented at reaching. Shigure, on the other hand, really would be in on it just to watch the drama that would surely ensue when they were found out.
Kyou began checking rooms as he passed them, bracing himself each time for anything from an injured bird to entire family of stray cats. His only hope was that Momiji had taken his absolute ban on rodents as seriously as it had been meant. He shuddered at the thought of the vermin anywhere close to him, with their nasty little tails and whiskers and diseases.
The first four rooms revealed nothing out of the ordinary and Kyou allowed himself to relax a little. Maybe he had misheard and there was something else going on. Or maybe his relatives had seen him in the hallway and put on an act to rile him. It wouldn't be the first time that they had all gone to such lengths just to make him angry.
The fifth door was locked from the outside.
All thoughts of it being a sham fled from his mind. Since only he and Shigure had access to the keys, Kyou was certain he'd found the room he'd been looking for. Pulling his own set of keys from his pocket, he quickly found the correct one and inserted it in the lock. The moment that he heard the telltale click, he yanked open the door …only to have something hard meet his face with enough force to send him bouncing off the opposite wall and into oblivion.
x
Kagura stared down at the unconscious body at her feet with a mixture of emotions running through her mind. The strongest was very close to fear that she had done more damage than she had intended. All she'd wanted to do was let her captors know that she wasn't going to take her imprisonment peacefully. But as she looked down at the sprawled man who, she noted with regret, wasn't even the man that had grabbed her, she felt a little guilty.
Don't lose your nerve now, she admonished herself. If your own safety isn't enough of a reason for you to use force, just remember that Tohru was their real target. It could have easily been her locked in that room, at the mercy of these men.
The anger that that thought evoked carried Kagura several steps down the hallway with the intent of finding some means of escape. She might have made it further if she hadn't looked back.
Even with the dim lighting she could make out the man's crumpled form. She winced in sympathy as she noticed the awkward angle that his neck was bent at against the wall. Her gaze moved on, taking in the uncomfortable looking position that his left leg was in, twisted beneath his body.
With a sigh, Kagura turned back the way she had just come. It simply wasn't in her to leave him there like that, no matter the circumstances. Of course, had it been the grinning idiot who'd knocked her out, she would have had no problems leaving him behind. She probably would have kicked him as she danced past him with no regrets.
She turned a critical eye toward her unconscious victim, trying to figure out what she was going to do and how she was going to do it. While she hadn't had enough time to really notice how tall he was before he'd fallen, it was obvious that he would tower over her own slight frame. Although there didn't seem to be much fat on him, he was well muscled enough that she knew lifting him would be no easy feat.
Kagura's gaze swerved to the bunk six or so feet away and she quickly decided that it would be her best bet. The small dimensions of the room would now work in her favor, allowing her to brace herself against the wall all the way to the bunk. That left actually lifting the man as the last obstacle to absolving her guilt.
She dropped to her knees at his side, belatedly realizing that she should make sure that he had no other injuries. He seemed to be breathing okay and aside from a rapidly darkening eye and a bump on the back of his head, she didn't see anything wrong with him.
Her focus quickly shifted from healing to hefting. The lessons that she had been forced to sit through suddenly came in handy as a lecture on leverage popped into her mind. She lifted the arm closest to her knee and looped it over her shoulders before sliding her own arm beneath his back. A few moments of wiggling and carefully timed shifts of weight later and Kagura had managed to pull the man into a sitting position. That was when the really hard part began.
Reaching out with her free hand, she grabbed the door frame in a tight grip. She pulled and started to rise at the same time, the effort drawing an unladylike grunt from her throat. She made it to her feet but unfortunately for her, the extra weight on one shoulder threw her balance, causing her to sway forward. Her hand slipped from the doorway and slid along the wall until her upper chest and forehead slammed into the wood.
Kagura gasped at the sudden flare of pain. Sheer determination kept her grip on the unconscious man tight. There was no way she was going to let go and have all her struggles be for nothing.
The next few moments passed in a haze for her. She barely let herself think as she fought to ignore the pain and work her way forward. By the time she reached the bed she was panting from her efforts and the steady throbbing that had kicked up in her head. It was with no small amount of relief that she shifted her passenger into a position to get him onto the bunk.
After all that had happened, she reasoned, she could be forgiven for being somewhat less than gently. She'd been taken from her home, drugged, and locked in a small chamber on a departing ship. Her one act of revenge had quickly been followed by regret and an attempt to make up for what she had done. Since those efforts had bought her a more than equal amount of pain in return, she was feeling less than generous. That was why she had decided to simply let the man drop onto the bed rather than spend time tediously lifting him onto it.
It would have worked had the arm still slung around her shoulders not tightened at that exact moment. For the second time in less than five minutes, Kagura found herself thrown off balance. Thankfully her second landing was considerably softer than the door; she was pulled down with the falling man, landing in a sprawled position across his chest.
Kagura remained still as she fought the wave of dizziness her sudden movements had caused. Her vision turned fuzzy and she feared for a moment that she might faint. Slow, deep breaths and closed eyes helped the lightheaded feeling recede, although the headache stayed, stronger than ever.
If she hadn't been lying so completely motionless, she doubted that she would have felt the man shift beneath her. The movement was slight but unmistakable and accompanied by a quiet groan. Her eyes flew open as she froze in shock.
Realizing the position she was in, both literally and figuratively, Kagura quickly tried to get some distance. She slammed both palms into the mattress and pushed up, raising her upper body off of the man's. Her hair tumbled forward to make a sort of tunnel, directing her gaze straight to his face. It moved over his square chin and wide mouth, past his straight nose, and onto the dark lashes that lay fanned against his cheek. The lashes that fluttered open as she watched.
The moment that she saw his eyes, she was lost. Maybe it was the hooded look of someone still caught in the web of their dreams, maybe it was childlike expression of a person completely at ease, or maybe it was a concussion from smacking into the wall. Whatever the reason, her breath caught in her throat and her heart seemed to thump especially hard in her chest.
The man seemed equally dazed, drawing in a deep breath as he blinked up at her slowly. If it hadn't been for the polite cough from the doorway, who knows how long they might have stayed like that.
As it was, the unexpected noise had both their heads shooting to the hallway and the three people standing there. Kagura looked questioningly at the two unfamiliar boys and then immediately forgot them as she recognized their companion. Looking just as cocky and confident as he had in her parlor, the dark haired man was leaning casually against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. She could almost feel the touch of his gaze as it moved from her bruised forehead to his friend's shiner and back again.
"Well, it looks like we missed the explosion," he said, the hint of pouting in his voice belied by the twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Wiggling his brows, he let loose a wide grin. "So who won?"
