Kiss Kiss
By Lady of the Ink
Pairing: Kyou and Kagura Sohma
Fandom: Fruits Basket
Theme: #2 - newsletter
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 Fourteen: This kiss is the sixth chapter of a multi-chapter AU story, with each chapter fulfilling a different theme.

The Life For Me
Chapter Six
Arrivals and Answers

x

The letter arrived in Yuki's hands just after noon on the fifth day of Kagura's absence. He was pacing in his office, his shoulders drooping with fatigue and dejection. The latest report from the detective lay on his desk, crumpled from his reaction to its lack of any new information. The summons to lunch had come almost ten minutes earlier but he'd ignored it, unwilling to face the family with continued dark tidings.

In the days that had passed, every one of the spare bedrooms had been claimed and seeing so many faces reflecting his own dropping hopes was becoming more than he could stand. He knew that they were looking to him for support and it was more pressure added to his already stressed state. It took him all day to dredge up a false air of confidence to wear to dinner; he knew that it would be no use trying to attempt it twice. Even if he could manage the company, his appetite had disappeared so thoroughly that he knew he wouldn't be able to swallow a single bite.

Yuki headed back toward his seat determined to accomplish something before the end of the day, even if it was just a single totaled column or scrawled memo. He'd only taken two steps toward his desk before the door was slammed inward without warning. Turning wide eyes to the now open portal, he saw a familiar looking man framed there, nearly bent double with his hands braced on his knees as he panted for breath.

"What the – Saunders, is that you?" Recognizing one of the clerks from the family-owned shipping offices, Yuki hurried across the room to the man's side. As soon as he was near enough, the older man thrust something in his direction without straightening. Taking it without thinking, Yuki found himself looking at a much-handled envelope. The surface was smudged and carried more than a few dirty fingerprints through which he could just make out his own name scrawled across the front.

His heart hammered suddenly in his chest as he recognized the handwriting, the looping letters and fanciful swish underneath. He'd been passed enough notes in school and read enough requests as an adult to know Kagura's writing on sight.

He stood frozen for a few moments as he fought the warring rush of hope and fear. That his cousin had written the letter made him want to believe that she was all right but he knew that the relief that he couldn't quite tamp down might be premature. The missive could have been written immediately after she was snatched, leaving plenty of time for something dreadful to have happened to her since.

Not ready to confirm one possibility or the other, Yuki turned his attention to the man slowly regaining his breath in front of him. "Where did you get this?" his asked, his tone a bit sharper than he'd intended.

"A man came into the office a little while ago with it, said that it was urgent and needed to be brought to you immediately. Apparently someone paid him to bring it to us so that we could get it to you."

"Why didn't he bring it here himself?"

Saunders hesitated. "He was the sort of person much more at home at the docks than in a …neighborhood like this one," he answered delicately, obviously trying to explain in the most unoffending way possible. Yuki wondered briefly whether it was the man Saunders was showing consideration to or if he thought saying that the missive came from a common sailor would bother his boss. Dismissing the thought as unimportant for the moment, Yuki thanked him for his quick action and sent him to the kitchen for some water after his run.

As soon as he vanished from sight, Yuki returned his full attention to the note. He hesitated for only the slightest moment before ripping it open. While he was sure the others would have wanted him to wait until they were present, he didn't want to have an audience should it be bad news. No matter what it said, he'd need time to present it in the best light. Besides, the information it contained might call for immediate action and precious time could be wasted by not reading it at once.

He read only as far as the first paragraph before his arm swung back to his side and his eyes fluttered closed. And for the first time in almost a week, he smiled.

x

Kagura stood on the deck of the ship, enjoying the warm breeze as it tossed her hair and tugged at her clothes. She knew there were a million things she ought to be feeling - homesick, guilty for worrying her family and not going home, some fear at heading into the unknown - but for the moment, the only emotion coursing through her was a liberating sense of freedom. Although she missed her family, there was something utterly refreshing about being away from them. She'd been apart from them before, of course, but never without at least one person monitoring her behavior and reporting it back to someone else. For the moment she was firmly in charge of her own life with no one to answer to for her choices.

One of the things that had allowed her to relax had been the posting of a long, informative letter to Yuki, telling him what had happened and that she was well. It had been hard for her to contain her excitement as she relayed the surprising information that Kyou had revealed to her. She knew that he would understand her need to go with them; he probably would have done the same thing if he had been in her place. As it was, she was sure he would calm everyone's nerves and relay the news that she was okay. And if what she passed along about Kyou's continuous ill treatment at the main office proved true, he'd have his own matters to deal with at home.

Imagine her stumbling on members of the branch of the family that had been missing for more than sixty years! And through a misguided kidnapping, no less. It was a dramatic tale worthy of a novel or stage play and quite the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She couldn't help but feel a sense of exhilaration at her adventure even while the logical part of her mind reminded her of all the horrible things that might have happened.

But didn't, she thought firmly. Tohru was safe from any further threats and she had gotten herself a vacation that would serve the duel purpose of solving the family's most pressing mystery. Then she could return home, tell her tales, and settle back into her normal life.

A dim twinge of disappointment assailed her at the thought. She loved her family, friends, and life, but there was something about it all that had become somehow dissatisfying, even before the appearance of Shigure. She felt like she was playing a part, acting like the person she knew she was expected to be. It was hardly a new thing; she'd been doing it since childhood and it was made clear that her …enthusiastic outbursts were unseemly. But lately the effort to be the perfect lady all the time, careful never to say or do anything to disgrace the family had been grating on her like never before.

Maybe, Kagura allowed, that had been part of the reason she'd been so quick to put herself in Tohru's place. Though it mostly was for the love of her friend, there could have been other ways of handling the situation. Although the majority of them would have put them all in danger instead of just her, that wasn't why she'd dismissed them. A part of her had wanted something to happen.

And maybe that was the biggest reason she needed to take the time and make this journey with her newfound relatives. She needed to get this desire for adventure out of her system in a reasonably safe setting before she found herself doing something even more foolish with much less pleasing results. She'd have her fun and enjoy her freedom and go back with an appreciation for the simple routines she had left behind.

Or so she hoped.

Forcing such heavy thoughts from her mind, she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, salty air. If Yuki or the others could see me now, she thought, looking down at the loose, faded shirt she wore over slightly tight trousers borrowed from Momiji. Her hair was loose and tangled from the wind, her feet bare and her nose undoubtedly well on the way to becoming sun burnt. There was no trace of the calm and dignified woman who headed charities and hosted balls to be seen.

Twisting around so that her back was pressed to the railing, Kagura let her eyes wander over the various crewmembers working about the ship. Kyou had told her that he'd given strict orders for them not to bother her. She could only assume that was why not a one of them had approached her or done more than nod to acknowledge her presence among them. While she appreciated the consideration, she was quickly getting bored with her own company. She didn't think it would be defying the captain's orders for them to have a simple conversation with her but so far, none had dared try.

'I guess I'll just have to make the first move,' she thought, pushing away from the barrier. 'The next person I see is going to talk to me whether they like it or not.'

That determination suffered a harsh blow when a familiar but not at all welcomed figure came into view sauntering her way. Shigure had his hands shoved in his pockets and was whistling like he hadn't a care in the world. Kagura had already turned to duck from sight when something that had been bothering her rose in her mind. Squaring her shoulders, she turned once more and strode in his direction.

He smiled as he saw her approaching, slowing his steps so that she could keep pace with him. "Good morning! I see you're out and enjoying the lovely weather. You'll want to make sure you're below deck before this afternoon, though. It smells like there's going to be a bit of roughness ahead."

Nodding distractedly, Kagura tried to decide how to phrase the question that she wanted to ask him. After a sideways glance from the corner of her eye at his lazy demeanor, she determined that he was unlikely to be offended if she just came out and asked directly. "I've been meaning to ask you something. I've been onboard for almost a week now and I haven't seen any of the men that were in my parlor the day you came to take Tohru. Why is that?"

He laughed. "Because they weren't crew members. I found them at a tavern not so far from the docks and hired them for an hour. Probably the most honest work any of them has ever done, too."

"Why did you need to hire men?"

"Well, it wasn't like anyone who actually worked on this ship would have come, my cousins excluded, of course. They all have what they call loyalty to Kyou that would have made them tell him about my plans, which would have ruined them all. Besides, they were hardly the type to inspire immediate submission to my wishes. They're much too clean cut to pull off being threatening, as you may have noticed."

Kagura resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "So you hired strange men from a tavern to come to my house and threaten a bunch of girls so you could kidnap one of them in order to force a friendly meeting for your captain, who wouldn't have wanted you to do any of that in the first place?"

"Exactly," he exclaimed, seeming pleased that she had grasped the situation and completely ignoring her obvious implications that the entire idea was absurd.

"But how did you know enough to find out that Tohru would be there with just a group of women and no men but not enough to know that I wasn't her? It seems a little odd …" She paused as she could have sworn Shigure gave a slight twitch beside her. In the next moment he had stopped, looking down at her with a hangdog expression complete with pout and what she could have sworn was a slight sheen to his eyes.

"Come now, be nice! I did my best; that's all anyone can ask, isn't it?"

Against her will, a giggle escaped her throat and all thoughts of the discrepancies in his information flew from her mind. It just didn't seem possible that he would have any ulterior motives or plans. He was too open and carefree to manage such a feat. He started walking again and she followed, readying her next set of questions. "So how did you guys come to own this ship? And why is Kyou the captain and not you, since you're older?" The answer to the second question seemed obvious to her but she thought it would be slightly rude not to ask.

"Well, it's kind of a complicated thing and all tied into what happened when the Sohma family split apart." It was his turn to give her a sideways glance. "How much of that story do you know?"

Kagura took a deep breath and repeated the tale that her grandmother had been so fond of telling her when she was a child. "It was tradition for generations that the first child of the oldest Sohma family line inherit the control of all the businesses and the power over all the lesser relatives. This worked out well as that family had a long propensity for their firstborns to be sons. Then the reigning head's wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Of the midwives present, one swore that the boy was the eldest and had the right to lead while the other said it was the girl. Since neither one would change their story and the mother said she had been in too much pain at the time to notice, there was no way of knowing the truth.

"Shortly after that, the father of the twins died. Their mother, temporarily in charge, gave the order that they were both to be raised as boys, with no one but herself allowed to know which was her daughter and which was her son. She might have done it to ensure that the choice of the next leader was an unbiased one, but it turned out to be a bad thing. Other relatives pitted them against each other as they grew up, rewarding the one that did better in their eyes and harshly reprimanding the one that failed. Knowing that one day a decision would be made, the twins became almost mortal enemies, campaigning against each other to win the approval of the most powerful sub-families.

"Just before their sixteenth birthday, the twins' mother died and the choice had to be made. Favor was definitely leaning one way until, as a last ditch effort, the lesser-liked twin revealed the other's identity as his sister. Suddenly most of the people who had pushing for her to lead switched their support to her brother just because he was a man. Saying she didn't want any part of a family that would think gender a better reason for appointing a leader than fairness and proved ability, the girl left. The handful of families that had maintained their support of her even after her exposure went with her. Her brother, fearing that she would return and retake the place even he knew should have been hers forbid anyone from having contact with or even looking for the ones who had left. No one saw any of them again and even their names were wiped from family records." She turned expectant eyes toward Shigure. "Does that about cover it?"

He smiled, a completely different one than she had seen before, with no hint of sarcasm or pretense. "Yeah, that's just about everything. So the families left and headed off to find a place to live beyond the Sohma influence. As powerful and well connected as the Sohmas were even then, they had to go pretty far. By the time they found a town where they could settle, more than a few were regretting leaving, realizing all the advantages they were going to have to go without from then on. They blamed their unhappiness on the one they had followed, even though she had never asked them to come."

Mentally filing that information away to tell the others once she returned home, Kagura frowned slightly. "That's interesting and all, but I don't see how it's related to this ship or Kyou being it's captain."

"Well, even though she hadn't asked them to come and she was a little angry at being blamed for their own choices, the forsaken Sohma leader felt obligated to try and take care of them. She couldn't help it, I think; it was what she had been brought up to do, after all. So she spent her life finding them jobs and promising that someday they would be able to return to the privileged existences they had abandoned for her sake. Unfortunately, she died before she could keep that promise."

"It's really unfair that they wanted to blame her. They left of their own free will; she didn't force them into it. If anything they owed her for getting them a way from the oppression of their family and her brother." Even though it had all happened long before even her father had been born, Kagura found herself feeling offended for the woman. She had stood up against an unreasonable situation and still gotten mistreated by the ones who had claimed to support her.

The mocking-free smile made its second appearance as Shigure nodded. "I completely agree and so did a lot of the people around her at the time. But that didn't change her mind about what she had to do. She worked herself to an early grave for them and it still wasn't enough. When she died, they started in on her husband and, when they were old enough to understand, her children. They all thought that her living relatives had inherited her debt and needed to restore them to their lives of leisure, one way or another."

He laughed a little, some of his usual humor returning. "Of course that was decades ago and things have changed. Most people have accepted their lives and there's hardly any violence over the so-called obligation anymore. It would likely have faded entirely if it weren't for the fact that her descendants inherited her streak of honor. Certain people can't accept the weight of a debt, real or imagined, riding on them. Those certain people would work any enterprise that would afford them enough money to take care of the people who depended on them while getting close to a place where they might be able to make more permanent repentance."

He fell silent after that statement, allowing Kagura to put the pieces together on her own. Kyou must be the descendant he was speaking of and the one who had started the shipping venture, which would explain his position as captain. It also explained his desire for a meeting with Yuki and most likely the reason why that meeting had been denied. There were plenty of traditionally minded people working under Yuki who wouldn't hesitate before continuing an old grudge and refusing to speak with a disowned family member.

"It's really stupid that some people are so willing to let old rules dictate their lives," she said softly, almost to herself. Shigure heard her anyway and replied cheerfully.

"Yes, it is. But then sometimes these things actually work out for the best in the end. Hard roads can lead to some good places, you know." Before she could show her surprise at being given homespun wisdom from perhaps the least likely source ever, his gaze shot to the sky. His brows drew lower as he studied the expanse, smoothing only when he returned his eyes to her face. "Looks like we've caught up with the storm. You should get below decks now."

He didn't give her a chance to argue as he gripped her arm and walked her back towards the opening. Kagura looked up, seeing that the sky had indeed darkened considerably during their conversation. The small strip of water that she could see was much rougher than earlier, the waves rocking the ship growing larger by the moment.

Just as she was descending the ladder into the depths of the ship, Shigure spoke again. His voice was so quiet she thought she had imagined it at first, his words lost within the gusting wind. She paused mid-step and cast him a questioning look but he had already turned a corner and vanished. Resuming her movements, she headed to her cabin to spend a restless night fighting off seasickness from the bucking ship and pondering what he might have said.

It was early the following morning when Kagura was woken from a sound sleep by a round of insistent knocking on her door. She rolled from the small bed and stumbled across the room, dragging a borrowed robe over her shoulders as she went. It took several hard blinks before she could see clearly enough to find the handle and open the door. When she did, Momiji's beaming face filled her line of sight. He was almost vibrating with delight as he made his announcement.

"We're here."