Kyo looked at the clock on the wall
as it ticked the night away. He sat at the table in front of the
dishes full of food, which had now gone cold. He had made dinner
nearly an hour and a half ago for when Tohru came home, but for some
reason she was taking much longer than usual. Maybe she stopped to
shop a little, or maybe she had to talk with someone?
There had to
be a reasonable explanation for why she was over three hours late
from work.
Kyo tapped the table in front of him impatiently,
looking at the door to the apartment hopefully, but hearing no sound
of anyone approaching the room. This was going to drive him crazy if
he didn't find out where she was. He should at least check the
route she went to work on.
Kyo walked out of the room, his red
eyes scanning the area around him as he quickly walked down the
street toward the hotel she worked at. He looked around when he
smelled a strange scent, like some lingering smell of alcohol. He
looked to the ground to see a bag on the ground, a small orange cat
keychain attached to one of the zippers, and a black and white outfit
pouring out of its opened top.
"Tohru." Kyo said, his eyes
widening with horror when he realized that Tohru would never
leave her work uniform on the ground like this. She would never lose
the orange cat keychain she had been so proud of making.
"Tohru!"
Kyo yelled, looking around as panic started to rise in him, running
over to the nearby bushes and looking behind them, but saw nothing.
As he frantically searched, he realized what the smell had been in
the air where Tohru's backpack had been, and his throat constricted
with emotion at the thought. Chloroform. That meant someone had to
have knocked her out and taken her. "SHIT!" Kyo yelled, punching
the nearby building wall, which cracked under the force. "Who would
want to take her? Why?" Kyo said, trying to get a hold of himself
when he felt his eyes stinging. He was supposed to protect her, but
he had let her get hurt again. What kind of man was he that he
couldn't even protect the woman he loved? He didn't even know
where to start looking for her. Kyo fell to his knees in front of the
cement wall, hitting it again for good measure. He knew one thing: he
couldn't find her alone. He had to have help…
Hating to having
to resort to this, Kyo pulled out his cell phone and dialed Yuki's
phone number.
Yuki sighed as he put down his
textbook, looking over as the clock blared '1:15' in glowing red
letters. He looked up in surprise when his cell phone rang, and
looked at the name on the front screen. His eyes widened when he saw
it was Kyo calling.
"Yeah?" he answered quickly, needing to
tell Kyo the news from Akito as soon as he could.
"Hey Yuki."
Kyo said, his voice low and shaky.
"Kyo? What's wrong?"
Yuki said, shocked by the unhinged sound of Kyo's greeting.
"Um…
it's Tohru." Kyo said, closing his eyes tightly as he sucked in a
breath to calm himself down. "She's gone."
"GONE?!" Yuki
said, standing up in shock.
"That's what I said you damn rat,
GONE." Kyo hissed, too panicked for questions. "I need your help
to find her. I found her bad and work uniform on the ground. I think
someone used chloroform on her."
Yuki put his forehead in his
hand in dread, knowing this was exactly what Akito had been warning
him about. It had happened, and now Tohru was in terrible danger.
"How long ago?"
"I think an hour and a half."
"Alright,
she can't be too far away yet, then." Yuki said, then let out a
sigh. "We'll find her, okay? She'll
be alright."
"I was supposed
to watch her. " Kyo said, his voice soft, with the sound that he
had lost all hope.
"Don't start that shit again, Kyo." Yuki
said in a stern tone. "She'll be alright. She's probably scared
and waiting for us. Focus yourself on finding her instead of feeling
sorry for yourself. I'll call Hatsuharu and be in Hokkaido in the
morning. Just go home and try and get some sleep." Yuki said, and
hung up on Kyo. He quickly dialed Hatsuharu, and tried to think of
the best way to tell him what had happened.
Kyo looked up at the night sky above him, the phone resting on the ground beside his hand. Why did it feel like a part of him had died? He picked up the phone and stood up, walking home slowly, and closing the door behind him softly. He walked past the meal he had made and fell onto the mattress on the floor, yelling in anger and frustration into his pillow so he wouldn't wake his neighbors.
Tohru groaned in pain as she held
her head, her nose stinging and her mouth dry. She remembered what
had happened and became suddenly alert of the room around her, which
looked horribly familiar. Wooden floors, blank yellow walls and a
small window in one corner with strong bars to prevent escape.
This
was the room they put the cat in. She thought in horror,
attempting to stand up, but fell back down when her legs gave out.
"Ah, you're finally awake." A woman's voice said from the
other side of the window. Tohru supported herself against the wall
behind her as she stood up to see the face of the person who was
holding her captive.
It was an elderly woman, who looked strangely
familiar as she stood in front of the window with a smug smile. "I
see you recognize me." The woman said. "That doesn't surprise
me, since you were at the Sohma main house so often. Corrupting our
family and making them fight against each other."
"What?"
Tohru said, her voice weak and raspy.
"You little brat, don't
play stupid with me. You've turned the entire family against
tradition. Everything that was sacred is now desecrated. How dare you
even try to deny it?" The woman spat at Tohru. "I think this is a
just punishment for the girl who fell in love with a beast. Live like
the beast yourself, and see how you like him after that. If you live
long enough to see him again." The woman laughed.
"Kyo's not
a beast. He's human." Tohru whispered, not able to believe that
this woman was accusing her of such horrible things.
"Wench.
Must you be so stubborn? You're out of the Sohma family now, and
you'll never return. I raised those children from when most of them
were babies, teaching them to stay away from others, to keep to
themselves, and then you came along. You forced them to a corner,
took what you wanted and left them empty of their blessings from God.
You took them, somehow…" the woman said, her eyes wide. "And
now I'll find a way to take them back from you. Even if it kills
you."
Tohru looked down in horror as she realized this woman
must be insane. Was she alone out there? Was there a way to get out
of here? She noticed the woman had left and quickly made her way to
the window, only to see a large burly man look over at her from the
outside wall of the house, his expression filled with distaste as he
glanced at her. Tohru backed up again, realizing she had been caught
looking for a way out, and sat back down against the far side of the
wall. She thought about how worried Kyo would be when he found out
she was missing, and cried softly when she realized there was no way
for him to find her when even she didn't know where she was.
