I have nothing left to say... I honestly have no excuse for waiting this long to update... But I can't do anything about it now. There were several things that turned my life inside out, as I think y'all can imagine. Life is sometimes too big to escape. But thankyou for encouraging me to do my best ;). All of your positive feedback makes me laugh so much, I don't know why! My goal for this story is to have it uploaded fully by the end of June. During July, I will be in Japan! So when I return, I hope to be able to write more culturally accurate fanfiction - more realistic - and I also want to pick up some really great Fruits Basket merchandise. Oh, and if anyone's interested, I've put together a playlist of songs that were inspirational/instrumental to my writing this story (and Plants); if you'd like to know what it is I'll send you a copy. Some of the songs are really obscure, though! If a lot of you are interested I might just post the songs on a webpage or somesuch. Alright -- don't forget to review -- and enjoy the update!

Rating: Pg-13. Slash - sensuality - violence - light incest.
Category: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Kyou/Yuki
Length: 16/18

Ache
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

Chapter Sixteen: Airing out the Laundry

- - - -

There was a crack in the doorway. Like it was a magnet, or as though it were bait on a reel, Kyou found himself drawn towards it with uncontainable curiousity. In the back of his mind, he realized it was dangerous to look beyond the slit of light that led to his cousin's room. But, he placated himself, desperately, that it was an observation, not an invasion of privacy, an urge that wasn't instinctive as much as it was expected in this situation. So what if it was inapproriate to watch people when they didn't know it, so what? The air of the hall was thick, humid, stagnant. Anyone who walked by and found the door like that would've done the same thing. It wasn't his fault that the quiet, empty hallway amplified the vibrance of every sense outside of it. The crack in the door of Yuki's room had glowed too radiantly to be ignored. It was too curious.

It was hypnotic, too; the sounds and the sights that he could barely see from behind the bundle of shirts and pants that he'd gathered in his arms. But Kyou watched until his eyes glazed over and he listened. He listened to the stifled pants of breathing, the result of some aerobic madness that had seized the cursed rat. Through the crack of the door, Kyou held back his breath.

He listened so hard that it drowned out the bundle of thoughts that he'd been carrying, and he forgot about the laundry that was jumbled in his arms. He didn't think. He couldn't think. He just watched, stealing the moment and sealing it with a deeply delicate gaze.

And he watched the turns of Yuki's wrists carefully. And he smelled, too. The scent of fabric softener tickled his senses, all at once revealing a memory of an old one: unfolding shirts, unfolding pants, folding hands. Them, together. Laundry.

In the shadows of the doorframe and the hall light clashing against the softer glow of the bedroom, Kyou stood, unmoving, and thought of how he'd seen this before. How he'd felt this before. He remembered Yuki tearing apart his room, searching for something he'd hidden, with tremulous grey eyes and cheeks flushed --

-- and he remembered that time when Yuki had been searching for that hidden part of him, underneath the deception of clothes.

Kyou stumbled backwards, suddenly overwhelmed by an inexplicable, stifling heat that burnt beneath his cheeks and down his neck. He pulled the clothes tighter in to himself; suddenly overwhelmed by the too-sharp sound of his pounding heartbeat.

He stumbled backwards.

The emptiness broke with his clumsy footfalls and his quick and shallow breath. His mind raced. His gaze darted across the dimly lit hallway, refusing to settle on anything and certainly not the light. He could still see the memories clouding the corners of his mind, and his eyes. He wanted to be fearless, to face this challenge - and just respond to it, good or bad, as long as he did something. But instead - like always - he was afraid, and resentful of his own pointless fear. He wanted to be fearless.

A voice from the past flickered to the forefront of his mind. I want to be... more like him.

Kyou's back was now pressed against the opposite wall and the crack in the door taunted him from across the hall. He shook his head, knowing that there were some things he could never accomplish. He would never be able to have that unnatural grace. He would never be able to have that wit and never run out of things to say. He would never be able to stand up against Akito. He couldn't even stand up to his own memories and his feelings that were so strong that it scared him.

He was afraid.

And he was so damn afraid of Yuki, he was sure that it would take him over if he wasn't loud enough to scare it away.

- - - -

When Kyou slid the door open to his room, he didn't expect to hear a lilting song coming from the balcony. Kyou turned his head to the soft voice. Tohru, facing away from him, had two clothing pins in her hands and stood on a chair. She leaned slightly, and a wind tilted her like a sapling tree. Her song - punctuated by an exclamation of surprise, when the wind pushed a fluttering, white bedsheet into her face - was sweet and happy in the cloudy sky. She's making me soft, Kyou chastised himself lightly. Even so, a smile tweaked at his lips.

It became a full-fledged smile when the wind pushed her off of her chair and into the laundry basket.

Perkily, she popped up and turned around to face Kyou.

Then he remembered the awkwardness and the day grew silent.

"Kyou-kun," she asked softly, her eyes darting from her feet to his face in awkward intermissions, "Kyou-kun, I'm sorry - I hope you don't mind - could I do my laundry here?"

Kyou looked up to Tohru, startled. He blinked in the afternoon sunlight and his mouth opened hesitantly. "Uh, no," he said, pausing for a moment, unsure of what else he ought to say. He doubted that there was anything left to say. Or maybe it was the other way around; maybe, there was a lot he needed to say to Tohru but... He wasn't sure he could bear it, hurting her again.

returning to rest - propped up by his elbow, with his head in his hand. She walked past him and her sharp shadow moved on his skin, mingling with the soft-shadow-edges of the laundry. Kyou's eyes followed the invisible link between the shadows and the white sheets on the line.

The hair in Tohru's ponytail whipped around her face. She smiled through the strands that caught at the edges of her upturned lips.

"I'm sorry."

Tohru looked over to Kyou, who was sitting at an angle that concealed his face from her. Even so, she could see the blush that had crept from his face to his neck, and the hand that partially concealed his mouth, as if he was embarassed by his mouth rather than his words.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about! I'm okay, it wasn't, um, a question, you really didn't need to say anything anyway. But it's okay because I understand and the curse-"

"No," Kyou interrupted, his voice soft. "I'm sorry. I can't. Ever."

She bit her lip. "Okay," she whispered. "But Kyou-kun... I just want you to be happy, so much. You have to know that. I understand if I can't do that, I'll never be able to understand everything about you and the curse. I know that, but, it's important to me that you find that person. And whoever it is... I'll be okay. As long as I see you smiling."

Her pale fingers unsnapped the clothespins from the line. She cradled the soft linenes in her arms and brought them tightly to her chest. A far-away smile came to her lips as a breeze picked up. "This one time, when I was young, some girl from my school had been making fun of me for being gullible. We were supposed to be friends, so she would tell me to do all these things and I always would do them.

"Then one day, she told me that my Sensei would be very happy if I put fish sauce on all her food, because she liked fish sauce. So when the sensei left the room one time during lunch, I tried to surprise her and put the sauce on her box lunch. Well, a little while later, her face began to get very red. Little blisters started appearing on her skin and at first, it was funny. But then, suddenly, she couldn't breathe anymore. She dropped on the ground and suddenly everyone was scared.

"That girl and her friends immediately blamed me for what happened to Sensei. I remember the school principal calling my mom from his office. When she got there, I just couldn't stop crying.

"I told her through my tears that it wasn't my fault and that I was so sorry and thought that those girls hated me for what I did. And But you know what she told me, Kyou? She said, 'Tohru, Tohru. I know that you weren't trying to hurt anyone. But if you want people to like you, you have to be honest with them. Tell them how you really feel. I know that they'll appreciate you for who you are and they won't tease you like that again.'"

Tohru smiled with tears in her eyes. "My mom was right, Kyou-kun. I went to those girls and they never teased me after that. And, one of them, is now very important to me. So you see... Sometimes... It can hurt, trying to find a person who wll make you happy. But it's worth it in the end. So, Kyou-kun... please try to find that person."

Kyou could barely speak.

A crack of sunlight broke from the edges of cloud-cover. In the same moment as Tohru and Kyou squinted, and Tohru lifted her hand to shield her eyes, beneath them, the shoji door clicked and was rolled open. Several blinks later, Kyou refocused his eyes to see Yuki Sohma appear in view of the balcony. His eyes widened, stretching the bright spots across his field of vision. Tohru, also, turned to follow him with her eyes, watching as he made his way into the forest. Kyou sucked a breath from the suddenly-thin air around him and tensed. Something about simply seeing his cousin had calmed him and alarmed him all at once. He didn't know whether he felt relieved or riled by the sudden sight of the person who he...

Kyou snapped his head back to Tohru. He reddened, realizing that she'd been watching him. For a moment he tried to understand what her eyes were telling him. Then, it clicked: Of course... It's Tohru. Tohru, who accepts me. Kyou opened his mouth in an unspoken question, Tohru gave a nod of approval, her mother's words still heavy on her tongue.

Kyou placed a hand on the balcony rail and swung himself over it. The moment before he let go, he saw Tohru raise her hand to her face and wipe away a tear that didn't fall.

The sky, murky with clouds, let out a moment's hope, and the white flags waved in the wind.

- - - -

The authoress, in a fit of maniacal laughter, assumes a vampiric accent.
"I veel droop Akeeto eentoo eh peet oov aceed iv vyu don levioo! Eetz breeliont!"