CHAPTER TWO
Fallen Angel Eyes

The Moon filled the whole room with luminous vapor, and all the living light thought and said: 'You shall suffer forever the influence of my kiss.

You shall be beautiful in my fashion. You shall love that which I love and that which loves me: water, clouds, silence and the night; the immense green sea; the formless and multiform streams; the place where you shall not be; the lover whom you shall not know;

flowers of monstrous shape; perfumes that cause delirium; rats that shudder, swoon and curl up on pianos that groan like women, with a voice that is hoarse and gentle!

&-&-&-&-&-&-&-&-&

She reminded him of a faery for some reason. Perhaps because, aside from Tohru, they were the only creatures he had ever been curious about. He was curious about her. The fact that she was seated just where he could see her from the corner of his eye didn't help. His attention was drawn, but to turn his head and look directly would be not just rude but embarrassing. So he was given snippets of her form, the hint of movements so that sometimes only parts of her were visible to him, the rest obscured by the limitations of peripheral vision.

She had her chin propped on the back of her hand, the mate of which held by the spine a hard cover book whose jacket had been removed. Her hair feathered against her cheek and her neck and when she tilted her head just so to focus on the words of the nearer page the light gleamed on her face and made her eyes shine in a lunar manner.

They were such a strange color.

Like vapor.

Or some sort of mist.

It was like….

Like….

He'd turned his head after all, involuntarily and the droning of the teacher had become a humming in the back of his mind like the whisper of a ghost. The same sort of chill must have imbued the girl because her head lifted and her gaze swung in his direction. Her faery eyes fixed on him with speculative intensity. Her eyebrows lifted in the parody of inquiry and she smiled a siren's smile. It looked to sweet to be real but he felt the blush rising none the less.

What was he thinking? What was he doing? That girl…

A thump sliced through the air like a fist through a screen door—the slam of Kozue's book against the top of the desk. The teacher broke off in the midst of his lecture, widening dark eyes with confused apprehension. A piece of chalk trembled in his fingers, a vibrating white wand.

"Yes, Miss Amatsuka. Do you have a question?"

"Not exactly." Her chair scraped with a shrill sound like dogs being dragged to their death as she rose, stroking fingers through her torrent of hair. "I was simply wondering if you realized that you translated that noun wrong. It's piety not pity. Righteousness by virtue of being religious devoted. In which case you've misrepresented the entire poem. The speaker is questioning Eros religious responsibility to the loveless individuals and not his sympathy for them. "

"I…well I…" a quick look was flashed around the classroom in search of a savior. There was non forthcoming, the class was silent and each eye was fixed on Kozue's unbent form.

"Also, Eros wasn't the god of love. Where Aphrodite was the goddess of love between a man and a woman, Eros was the god of love male love. Therefore, the poem is inadvertently an expression of passion between two men. I'm not sure that's the proper thing to be teaching in school. Unless, of course, it's your way of telling us something sensei?"

"Miss Amatsuka I….you…"

"I really don't think there's anything I can get from this class, today." She gathered up her things, walking up the line of desks towards the door. "Have a good afternoon, sensei."

Yuki watched in blank shock as she strolled pass the teacher. He didn't move, frozen to spot, eyes wide, his hand rigamortis clutch of the piece of chalk. His expression was frozen in a pose of awed horror and it seemed as if he no longer saw the class. He made no attempt to stop Kozue as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. He pushed to his feet without thinking and went after her. She'd gotten half way down the corridor when he called out her name. Her steps slowed and she paused for a moment before glancing back over her shoulder at him.

"Yes?"

"That's was pretty mean, don't you think. Embarrassing the teacher like that."

"It's not my fault. I only corrected his errors. If he hadn't made them then I wouldn't have said anything. He embarrassed himself, really."

"That's not fair."

She stared at him thoughtfully then. "You're Sohma Yuki, right?" He nodded. "They call you The Prince. Why?"

He flushed again in embarrassment. "It's just a nickname."

"Hmm. Let's go for a walk!"

"A walk? We still have classes."

"Well, alright then." And she turned away dismissively again, starting away down the hallway.

"You should apologize to the teacher."

She stopped but didn't turn back to him. Her hair rippled against her back, casting a tarnished wreath of light about her head. Like a crown. Or a dark angel's halo.

"I'd never apologize to a teacher. Particularly not one like him. What's right does he have to my respect when there's nothing I can learn from him? He's like all the rest. They think they're so smart, that they know so much wiser then everyone but they baulk away from being shown anything new. They hate it. They're like rats."

Yuki felt ice slip into his veins, race through his body and chill him throughout.

"Rats?"

"Vermin. Good for nothing. So I have no intention of apologizing. But it was cute of you to try and convince me to." She started walking again, the heels of her shoes clicking with deafening din against the floor, echoing through the empty hall way. "Goodbye. Sohma Yuki."

He watched her go and didn't stop her this time. She moved like a pixie. Like a queen. Regal, arrogant, assured. But she had fallen angel's eyes.

Rats. Vermin.

He should hate her for that. But he had fallen angel's eyes too.

Sohma Yuki. Prince Sohma Yuki. Prince Yuki.

Lord of the school. Dominus of high school hearts. Proper family. Polite bearing. Perfect demeanor. Adored. Admired. Wanted. Loved.

She hated him. She wanted nothing more then to bring him low just for the petty crime of existing. For having a place when…when she didn't.

The moon said, I like this child.

I like this child.

I like…

The ringing was a low drone in her ear as she crossed the school yard at an easy stride. The vibration of the cell phone sent a dull throb through her wrist, up her arm. A block away from the school. The phone connected on the other end.

"Nakamora Laboratory; how can I help you?"

"Good afternoon. Would you please tell Amatsuka Chikako that her daughter's been in an accident?"

"Just a moment, please." The hold music the played reminded her of the carousels she'd seen at fairs and amusement parks. Cars rushed by her, rising in number as she turned onto the main streets. The phone line clicked again. "Miss Chikako is busy at the moment; however she requests that you leave an address and number where you can be reached."

Kozue ticked off the address of the hospital, she didn't know the number. She heard the scratch of the pin as her mother's secretary took down her dictation.

Then she disconnected and stepped out into traffic.