I'm so happy! The last chapter was a success, and now I have gotten over 100 reviews -- (blushes) So, thank you. Thank you so much! And, ah, rest assured, the furby has been sufficiently dealt with. On a sadder note, I have recently come down with a terrible case of the flu. But then I thought to myself, "Wait! Wait, this is good! Inspiration!" and I promptly wrote down a couple paragraphs pinpointing exactly where and how I feel terrible. Then I went and slept for 16 hours straight...

It's kind of funny, I don't always know how to respond to your reviews! Everyone is making guesses (sometimes correct ones!) and I have to keep saying, "No! Shh! Listen to the dialogue!"... But I don't know if that wil help. What I mean is, it's easy to misunderstand an unfolding story if you're working off of unconfirmed assumptions. Since I'm writing Ache in third person limited perspective; I'm only telling you what Kyou is seeing. And Kyou doesn't always see the things that are right in front of his eyes. He doesn't always understand why people say what they do. That's why his story isn't Yuki's. It's special.

After a little bit longer than usual, here is the next chapter! Yay!

Ache
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

Chapter Ten: Too Much Honesty

Suddenly, the shadows had shifted.

The flash of light had already passed, and Kyou lay in his bed, with his pale-knuckled hands clutching the sheets, and his heartbeat racing.

He was still in his bed, still wearing his shirt. Yuki's hands were in his pant pockets; definitely not inside of Kyou's pants or shirt or the cover of darkness. He was on the other side of the room, enveloped in the golden hallway light. He was wearing brown slacks. No navy blue sweatshirt.

He tried to make sense of it.

One moment, he had been laying in his bed, sick and disoriented; he asked a stupid question aloud on accident. The next moment, the scenery changed, and Kyou felt as if he'd popped his finger into a light socket. Then he blinked, he opened his eyes, and a memory emerged to answer his question.

What am I like?

The answer wasn't sufficient.

It couldn't be a decent answer, after all; it was just a piece of his whole memory, completely disconnected from everything else he'd known. It didn't make sense with his entire life. Kyou, sitting there, felt as if those feelings and remembered things may as well have belonged to a different person. But now, it simply rested in his mind, a comfortable dream that felt like it belonged.

Who was he? He wasn't the person he remembered being, and he wasn't the person from that single jigsaw memory

The memory, at that time, had belonged. The feelings -- they had belonged.

Not now. Not now.

What am I like?

- - - -

Kyou's eyes snapped from the edge of the bedsheet, but they didn't meet with his cousin's eyes. He looked at what Yuki was wearing, instead: a green shirt, with a mandarin collar. He was listening tothe word that still rang in his head, seizing his attention because in none of his memories, could Kyou recall Yuki speaking to him in such a familiar way. Not as 'the cat' or 'you' or even 'Kyou-san' or 'Kyou-kun'. It was a personal greeting. Like cousins should greet each other. Like good friends. Or lovers? No, no, no.

He clutched onto the distracting words that tumbled out from Yuki's mouth.

"Kyou, you're... What are you talking about? You're the the cat."

There was a moment. Silent, when Kyou let the "distraction" sink in. When he let the meaning of his words become clear.Wen he let the hurt take root. It was a spiteful thing to say, a way to describe a person; But, it was the way Yuki had always been. Honest. Something hot boiled beneath Kyou's skin in a way he could hardly comprehend.

The words, the memories, it was just too much honesty.

He curled his fingers into fists. "Yeah, well, damn you! Go to hell! I don't care what you think. You're wrong! I'm not just the cat. Maybe you want to make your whole life about the curse, but I'm not boring like you. I can-"

"Deal with it. I don't care."

Why did Yuki's opinion matter so much? It was pissing him off even more.

He took a deep breath, to respond, but midway through something rose up in his chest and he began to cough.

Yuki scowled at him. At his disease.

"You're the cat. So what? You're living your life about the curse. It's boring. You're predictable and stupid."

"I am not stupid!"

"Then don't act like it. You're talking too much, asking too many stupid questions for being sick."

Kyou gripped the sheets tightly; he hated how Yuki's expression was so hard.

"It's not just me, you know," Kyou said back, slowly. "Your life is about the curse too."

"I've accepted it."

The orange-head rubbed at his raw, dry eyes for a moment. "Then what IS it, huh? You're not any better a person than me! You're - you're cursed, too!" Kyou took a quick breath, "So what's the big idea spouting off that nonsense about me being a cat? Neither of us had a say in being part of the zodiac."

"So what if we didn't have a say in it? It's still there. That's why it's a curse," Yuki replied.

"But aren't curses supposed to teach a lesson? I mean, come on, that would be completely stupid. Curse our whole damn family and not even have a reason? And why were the zodiac picked like they were; what's the reasoning for that?"

"Don't ask me."

"Well I'm sick of it. I'm tired of it being there."

"You're sick of a lot of things," said Yuki.

He didn't know. Yuki, he didn't have a clue about any of it. He probably didn't have to think about it as much. After all, he was the rat, the 'gifted' member of the zodiac, who was smart and clever and strong. Maybe if he defined himself as the rat, it was a positive thing. But for Kyou...

"You're the cat" meant that he was cursed, not blessed; "You're the cat" meant that he was socially unacceptable; "You're the cat" meant that it didn't matter how he acted or who he was or what he felt. Nothing - nothing that had happened or would ever happen - would matter in defining who he was. It wouldn't change who he was fated to be. He was always to be lost.

And now, if he was tired of the curse, who could blame him for that?

Kyou sighed and hunched over from his place at the wall. He chose not to say anything. Hoping that maybe Yuki would leave.

Instead, his cousin spoke again, his voice sounding as if he'd been struck by a strange thought. "Why do you keep expecting things to be different?" he asked.

The question was so doubtful that even Kyou could see him biting back on his tongue, once he had finished speaking.

"I already said it, I'm sick of the curse," Kyou coughed into his sleeve, "I- I want things to be different..."

Hell, and everything was different now. That damnably pleasant-feeling, terrible memory that wasn't, wasn't real, it meant that the world had broken from its' orbit and was hurling itself through space; broken; everything he'd ever known or expected wasn't the same and there was no way he knew himself anymore, because, how could that have been him, doing - and feeling - those things? It was impossible. It wasn't natural. Things weren't the same.

Kyou found himself absorbed in the dark shadows on the walls. Illuminated beacons of the moon and the light from the hallway cast themselves on Yuki's face: cold, distant... Affectionately grasping onto his slender, lithe, and touchless body. The artificial light and the natural light tore at him from each side.

Things weren't the same. Even so...

Even so, he didn't remember what he had thought in the past. He knew one thing, one, and it didn't have to do with the curse at all. Were things an different?

"...But I'm not expecting much," Kyou finished.

Yuki turned around and walked towards the door. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and paused. "You shoudn't, you know," said Yuki, and at this, the moonlight let go of its' grip on his arms - and then Yuki was gone too. The draft resettled in the place where he had been, the encounter now only a fleeting memory, leaving Kyou to deal with feeling lost, and feeling things that he didn't remember feeling ever before in his life and oh my god, don't tell me that was a memory, because that never happened, it never happened, it's not even possible...I'm not like that...

Kyou looked down at himself on the bed, his tousled sheets, his problem that didn't exist. It may as well have been a completely different person, doing all those things in the strange shadows in that memory he wasn't sure he knew. He wasn't sure that he knew those feelings about Yuki, either.

And me, the one I know and remember? I... I hate him.

- - - -

Kyou couldn't sleep.

Not that he'd been trying to sleep anymore, he wasn't stupid after spending two hours turning restlessly in the stifling heat. It was frustrating, being sick. He had goosebumps all over his arms, and still his blood felt thick and warm. Kyou didn't get it. He didn't have a fever, but he'd been sweating, and he was hot, and sticky, and his throat was so tight that he needed a bath just the same.

He raised his arms and held the shower nozzle in his palms. Kyou closed his eyes, and felt. Sharp, tiny streams of water pummeled his skin. The fierce chill of water beneath chrome metal, practically vibrating in their forceful jets, led him to imagine that he held an incredible power in his hands. That he was strong somehow. It was an intense feeling, to freeze like this, to have goosebumps on his back massaged out by their very cause. He remembered the feleling of the quiet, stagnant hot springs. He hated it there. Kyou hated how the water there would soak into his skin, stagnant. He always felt so dirty when he would go to those bathhouses, and mostly, he hated being unable to sleep, being in the same room as him...

It made Kyou wonder what bathing under a waterfall felt like.

Cleaning, like this, felt good. It made him feel clean, even after all the soapsuds had slid down his legs and swirled into the drain. After the conditioner had long since left for the cold heat that made him both wet and dry. It wasn't steamy, the way Master would always tell him was best for a sore throat, but there were other reasons he needed a cold shower. More important things to take care of... A different kind of 'sickness'.

He wondered how strong a waterfall would make him.

- - - -

An addled note from the authoress, sick with the flu:
"Review for a quick recovery?"