Happy Valentines, everyone! I'm happy... I got so many kind reviews. And I tried to get back to more people this time. Hahaha, this new chapter will not have as much romance as you might find in high school hallways, but I hope it has enough to keep you wanting more? The next chapter will have the three memories... But I didn't think they were ready yet. I'm actually somewhat excited, but I don't know what to say about my writer's block. It's more like life block, actually. So thankyou for being so supportive. Until next time!

Ache
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

Chapter Thirteen: Pressed and Dry

Rating: Pg-13. Slash - sensuality - violence - light incest.
Category: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Kyou/Yuki
Length: 13/18

- - - -

Hunger woke him.

At least, that's the way Kyou chose to define it: a twinge in his stomach, or somewhere around there. A feeling of need, of wanting, of sharp and nagging discomfort that grated against his thoughts.

Kyou untangled himself from the bottom sheets that had wrapped around his legs, and the comforter piled at the end of his bed. He could feel the dry sweat sticking to him from his dreams.

He turned to look at the clock.

Midmorning, Thursday, and the room felt empty around him. It was too lonely. Too much the same as before, and yet different in ways that didn't make sense. Like when he slept with his ear tucked against his pillow, and he moved, the air made a noise as if it were crinkling around him. Sometimes the noise seemed to come from beneath him, as if its' very essence was suffocating.

Kyou sat up and leaned into a wall of sunshine. He turned his head away quickly.

Blinking back the white dots in his vision, he found himself looking at his chest of drawers. His eyes scoured the top shelf, a comfortable vision of familiarity. A couple of books had been shuffled around, there was the wrapper of an energy bar, but besides that, it was normal. But, then again, his whole like seemed familiar, except when he looked closely. He remembered opening his closet, and finding that - dress, and as disconcerting as the experience had been, it was important.

He'd needed to find that dress. Somehow, Kyou knew it meant something to his past, and since his past had caused the future, in a way it meant that the dress was just as important now as it had been, then, during the time he couldn't remember.

It was a sudden clarity, then. Warm fingers of sunrays tickled Kyou's back and cast the rest of him in a long shadow. Through the thin papered windows, shadows of laundry on the line waved in the wind. prodding him to a decision that he couldn't appropriately define.

It may have been the sheets on the clothesline, fluttering in the wind, the edges of their shadows pointing everywhere but the floor. Maybe it was the hunger in his stomach. Maybe, it just happened because it had to, because the memories were too strong for him to stay in bed any longer.

It was some sort of ache that redefined the laws of nature, the feeling that drew Kyou from his bed at last.

Even so, the ache didn't go away. It had become stronger, more forceful now that he was on his feet, and Kyou, moved as if in a dream. He began to look, for answers, suddenly and uninhibited. He surveyed the top shelves of the bookcase, and then he rifled through his chest of drawers, missing nothing and scattering his socks, his boxers, his shorts and shirts... everywhere but where they belonged. All the clothes were familiar, all the way through the pile and to the bottom of each drawer. He couldn't decide if this comforted him or disturbed him. Even so, it was thrilling to look for answers. At least he was doing something.

The shelves weren't too different. They were filled with Shigure's books, anyway. The room had been Shigure's study, after all, and the varying thicknesses of the dust over their pages made Kyou cough several times. The only unfamiliar things that Kyou recognized were several study packets from school. He didn't feel like touching them.

He felt tired. Just from standing and looking, and he didn't even want to look in his closet anymore. Kyou bit back his lip, frustrated. That meant he was getting sicker, didn't it? Wasn't he resting enough to get well?

Kyou collapsed onto his bed. He wrapped his arms around his pillow and buried his face into it. He squeezed it, and then he heard the noise.

The crunching noise of thin paper -- that he had thought to be the air -- repeated itself, but it activated a second sense. The backs of his hands had brushed against something and Kyou couldn't explain, specifically, what the feeling was. He let go of the pillow and sat himself up onto his knees. He moved back his hand and stared at his palms in wonder. Then, he moved the pillow aside.

Petals, petals, petals.

Three memories beneath his pillow.

He reached out to touch them.

- - - -

They were pressed and dry, when he put them inbetween the pages of some ancient tome. A bit of the petals' edges had curled in and broken off, in the time that they'd rested beneath his pillow. Kyou gathered the bits and carefully replaced them on the page.

Only once he'd closed the book could he remember how to breathe. How to speak. How to feel.

Rationally, Kyou came to a conclusion. Certain plants had to have healing capabilities, something supernatural about them, something that stirred up a part of human psyche that no one realized. These dry, golden brown petals, they smelled like food, mostly. Like some sort of soup had been mixed with his pillow and the essence of the earth. It wasn't the smell, however, that moved Kyou from his room, to the hall, to the kitchen, with his hand gripping the edge of the refrigerator door. He remembered finding the petals and then he was staring at the heads of cabbage and the rice cake and the endless jars and containers of food, and he had no idea why he was there.

It took several moments before Kyou unbent and slammed the refrigerator door shut.

"Kyou?"

The cat's head jolted and he turned it to the man sitting at the breakfast table.

His face was thick into the local newspaper, and his bangs rubbed against and molded with the rich, black color of the newspaper ink. Resting on the crest of his nose were a pair of reading glasses that had apparently slipped.

"Morning," said Kyou turned his head away and stuck it inside of the fridge.

"My, my. Feeling better?" asked Shigure.

Even if Kyou had felt like talking to his cousin, his head was stuck inside of the refrigerator. He made a non-commital noise, not actually affirming his cousin in any greater way than by the manner in which he pulled out a container of milk, and drank.

- - - -

The Authoress on 2 Hours Of Sleep Says:
"If you write my history essay, I'll write you the next chapter. Right now. Seriously."