"Excuse me," Yuki said softly as he slid open the door and let himself inside of Akito's room.
"Come in, Yuki," Akito replied, kneeling at the low table in her room. She watched as Yuki quietly walked over and knelt down on the other side of the table, sitting formally in front of her. The boy kept his eyes down to avoid making eye contact with her. Akito watched him get settled and poured out a cup of green tea for him.
"Thank you," he said softly, taking the cup from her.
"I think you know why I called you here," Akito said, pulling her coat up after noticing it had slipped off her shoulder. "Spring will come faster than you think, so you need to start worrying about applying for high school. With your grades and family influence, you could go to any school in the area. Have you been thinking about where you want to go?"
"Y-yes. I was kind of hoping to apply to the public school in town." Yuki admitted, continuing to avert his gaze away from Akito's face.
"The public school? Do you mean the co-ed one?" Akito asked, looking over at her younger cousin.
"Yes, sir," Yuki replied, staring into his cup of green tea.
"I'm afraid something like that isn't possible," Akito replied shortly, sipping her tea and pushing an application towards Yuki. "I think it would be best if you went to the local all-boys school. There's less risk that way."
"But," Yuki started, hesitantly looking up at her, albeit only for a second. "Isn't the goal to blend in? Wouldn't it be weird not to go to public school?"
"Yuki, I didn't want to make all your elementary school friends forget about you, but when you make a mess, it needs to be cleaned up. Co-ed schools are a recipe for messes."
Yuki frowned. "The kids in elementary school were fine with me as I am. Maybe, if something happened, it wouldn't be as bad as you think."
"Children in elementary school believe in fairy tales and take things they don't totally understand in stride. They get crueler as they grow. At your age, if your peers caught you turning into a rat, you'd never hear the end of it. They'd call you a monster, an abomination, because, to be honest, you are. A human being shifting forms involuntarily when a member of the opposite sex embraces them? That's completely monstrous. You're not a normal person. You've never been a normal person, and you will never be a normal person, no matter how hard you wish it. You're a Sohma, a Cursed Sohma. The sooner you accept that the easier life will be."
Yuki sat quietly, still avoiding looking up into her eyes. His bottom lip was quivering, but he looked determined not to let himself cry.
"Is… the cat going to the all-boys school, too?" He asked.
"For the foreseeable future, Kyo will remain in the mountains in Kazuma's dojo. I don't think someone as dumb as Kyo would be able to get into any high school, even if he wanted to." Akito replied, sipping her tea contently. "Plans for him are still in the air right now."
Yuki nodded in understanding and took a sip of tea before coughing into the crook of his elbow.
"Ugh, stop! Your germs are going to go everywhere and make me sick. They'll need to sanitize my room again." Akito snapped, covering her nose and mouth with the side of her arm and her sleeve.
"I'm sorry, Akito!" Yuki panicked as Akito got up to grab him by the hair and pull him to his feet. He didn't fight back as she pushed him out of the room, shoved the high school application form into his hands, and slam the door shut.
Akito sighed and rubbed her temples to try and ease her growing headache. She drank the rest of her cup of tea and sat down in front of the small TV in the corner of her bedroom, her knees tucked up under her chin as she turned it on and started to flip through the channels. She only stopped when she got to a rerun episode of an anime about girls trying to become successful idols. She set the remote aside and watched the show, mouthing along with the upbeat opening song and quickly relaxing once again. She couldn't help but wonder what it might be like to one day wear flouncy skirts and frilly blouses and sweaters that were too big but highlighted how small and cute the person wearing it was. Maybe Shigure was onto something when he always tried to get her to at least stop binding her breasts.
"Akito? Are you feeling alright?" Kureno asked as he let himself into the room. Akito decided she must not have heard him knock. "Yuki said you seemed upset."
"Yuki was just being annoying again," Akito replied, turning her attention back to the anime.
Kureno said nothing and just took a seat on the floor beside her. Akito leaned her head onto his shoulder silently, only speaking again when a commercial break started.
"You, Hatori, Ayame, and Shigure all went to that all-boys school, right?" She asked, holding onto Kureno's bicep.
"That's right. Why do you ask?" Kureno replied, letting the girl grab and hold him however she wanted.
"Yuki was making a big fuss about it. It was really annoying, actually. He's got it in his head that he should have the right to go to a big public school full of girls." Akito replied before cracking a smile. "I guess it's only natural that he becomes a big hormonal monster. He's about that age. He probably only wants to go there because of all those little sluts who run around the public school."
Kureno didn't reply to the thought, and just let Akito relax back into him as the show came back on.
Yuki returned to Akito after she'd returned home from some business she'd had in Tokyo a week or so later. He'd been careful to stay out of her way and watch his step around the head of the family, in the hopes that it would foster a better mood towards him.
"What a pain. Americans come to Japan and expect us all to speak English, never even asking whether or not we speak it." Akito griped to one of the maids, loosening her tie and unbuttoning the top button of her shirt. "One of these days I'm just going to pretend I don't speak it. Watch the presumptuous little bitch flop like a fish on a hook."
"Tourists can be a pain, sir, you're right." The maid replied cordially.
Yuki swallowed when he saw Akito in a bad mood, watching the head come down the hallway. He wondered if he should hold off the meeting until a later date when Akito was more relaxed.
"Should I bring you some tea, sir?" The maid asked once they got back to Akito's bedroom.
"Chamomile would be lovely," Akito replied with a nod, sliding the door open and slipping out of his blazer.
"I'll bring it right away, sir." The maid said, bowing and excusing herself.
Yuki slipped back into his own nearby bedroom, smiling softly to himself. Chamomile tea would calm Akito down, giving him the opportunity he needed.
Akito sighed as she sank down on the soft tatami floor, trying to relax while the maid got the tea. It only took a couple minutes for her to come back with a tray holding a full teapot and a single cup.
Akito sipped the tea as soon as it was poured out, humming softly at the taste. Her cup of tea was about gone when she spotted a small figure near her doorway in the hallway.
"Yuki, I can see you lurking out there." She called. "If you want something, come in."
Yuki slid the door open, politely excusing himself as he walked into the room and lingered near the door. "I was hoping to talk more about high school with you, sir."
"Then sit down." Akito replied, gesturing to an empty spot at the table. "have you been thinking about what I said?"
"Yes, sir," Yuki replied. "I talked to my parents, too, and they said-"
"Ugh, your parents." Akito groaned, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "A couple of good-for-nothings if you ask me. Your mother's a social climbing snake, and your father's completely spineless. In short, I don't care about their opinions. What are your thoughts, Yuki?"
Yuki blinked, swallowing as he watched Akito stab one of the daifuku on a small plate with a toothpick before eating it. If he didn't watch his step, he could be the next thing Akito stabbed and ate whole.
"U-um, well, Akito, I sort of applied to the co-ed school early, and they already accepted me with a full scholarship. I was thinking I could go there and be really careful. And, since Shigure's house is much closer, it might be more convenient for me to move in with him, too." Yuki stammered.
Akito paused and looked up at Yuki, her brows knit in confusion. "Why would you want to go there? Of all the schools you could get into, why would you want to go there?"
"Well, um, it is closer to the main house than the all-boys school. I'd be able to stay on Sohma property. That'd be good, wouldn't it?" Yuki tried.
Akito thought over the argument and sighed through her nose. "And you'd move to live with Shigure, then?"
"Yes, sir," Yuki replied with a nod.
Akito thought over the possibility a bit more. Shigure didn't strike her as the type to be excited about sharing a living space with a pubescent boy. She could remember him gushing about his new 'bachelor pad' one evening after she'd kicked him out of the main house. Plus, the man had felt a little distant lately, citing work as his reason for not being able to come over the nights she called him. Putting a teenage boy in his bachelor paradise would be a good punishment, and might drive him out of the house more often. And when Shigure wanted to escape his responsibilities or his home, he almost always ended up by her side. He was addicted to her.
It was just science. Letting Yuki have his way with school and his living situation would ultimately drive Shigure back to her side more often.
Akito smiled to herself as she stabbed another daifuku with the toothpick. "Alright. You can go to that co-ed school if you live with Shigure. Of course, we'll keep an eye on things, just in case." she hummed, holding the daifuku skewered on the toothpick out to Yuki.
Yuki took the sweet from her, blinking in shock that Akito would ever go along with the plan that easily. "Thank you, sir."
"When you do move in with Shigure, tell him I said, 'You're welcome, bastard.' Until then, it can be our surprise for him." Akito hummed, smiling happily as she picked up another toothpick and stabbed the last of the daifuku, eating it like it was the most wonderful thing in the world.
"Um, I will," Yuki replied, moving to get up from the table. "Thank you again, Akito."
Akito smiled back at Yuki as the boy excused himself from the room and slid the door shut. In just a month or so, the school year would end, and Yuki would move in with Shigure, and her plan would fall into place on its own. Soon, Shigure would be on his knees, practically begging to spend just an hour or two by her side. There was no way he was ever going to survive sharing a house with a teenager.
Akito was still smiling when Hatori came over to check her health for the second time that week.
"You look happy." The man hummed as he knelt down next to her to check her throat, that had been so sore she could barely speak over a whisper a couple days earlier.
"I am. Shigure's been distant, and I found a way to bring him back to me." She replied before obediently opening her mouth to let him shine his flashlight into it.
"He's been distant with you?" He asked with a cocked eyebrow. "God, I wish I had that problem. Neither he nor Ayame will ever leave me alone."
"Every time I ask Shigure if he can come over, he says he needs to work, or he's busy with something." Akito sighed. "It's infuriating. He's been so cold and distant lately."
"I'll put a word in that he should come to see you again. No doubt it won't be long until I see him again." Hatori said, going through the routine actions of the check-up.
"Thank you, Hatori." Akito hummed. "He really gets under my skin sometimes. I think he might do it on purpose, really. He's the cruelest man I've ever known."
"You still want to sleep with him, though?" Hatori guessed, having had this conversation multiple times, with both Akito and Shigure at that point.
"I still want to sleep with him, though," Akito confirmed. "Can you blame me? He's one of those lovers who gets attached to you after you sleep with him once. It's a foolproof way to keep him by my side."
Hatori coughed awkwardly and just shook his head. "Make sure that guy wears protection. He's enough trouble as it is, we don't need him making more."
"I know that. I'm not stupid, Hatori." Akito replied.
"You aren't. He is." Hatori said.
Akito smiled at that and moved to hug the older man around the middle. She felt the man's hand rise to start stroking her hair.
"Hug me back, Hatori," Akito said. It was only then that Hatori wrapped his arms back around her to return the embrace. Akito couldn't help but wonder if he ever would have hugged her if she hadn't asked for it. "You won't leave me, right, Hatori? You'll never leave me?"
"I'm not going to leave you or abandon you, Akito. Has Ren been getting into your head again?" Hatori replied on cue.
Akito didn't reply. It felt as if her mother had a mission to find her nearly every day since she'd slept with Shigure, simply to tell her the same things she'd been saying to her since she was a child.
If it wasn't for the curse, all the people Akito was close to would abandon her.
Whenever she cried, they all got annoyed. Whenever she made any sort of fuss, they all got angry. If it wasn't for the curse forcing them otherwise, they'd all hate her and abandon her. If she died young as Akira had, they would barely miss her, if they missed her at all.
It was always the same argument, and Akito could never refute it because she had no proof her mother wasn't right.
"You need to stop listening to her, Akito. It's not good for the psyche." Hatori said softly as he held the girl close and tucked her head under his chin.
"It's easier said than done." Akito huffed, burying her face into his shoulder.
"I know it is." Hatori sighed. "I've always thought she should be kept away from you. It's not like she's ever given you any sort of parental guidance."
Akito said nothing, but nodded and let Hatori scoop her up into his arms and carry her off to her bed.
"Your throat is still a little inflamed. I say, just keep drinking your tea and get plenty of rest, alright? Maybe put on TV and watch something you like. Stress won't do your health any favors." Hatori said as he set her down on the futon and made sure she was warm enough.
"Okay. Thank you, Hatori." Akito replied.
Hatori smiled and tried to lift her spirits by ruffling her hair gently. "I'll see you soon, Akito. Hopefully not too soon."
"I'm not making any promises," Akito replied, pouring out another glass of tea and turning on the TV.
Maybe, with the right combination of chamomile and girly anime, she'd temporarily lose the ability to hear herself think.