One fic glory...

-sniff- Well, the fic finally draws to a close. It was like my child...and now my child is growing up and moving out after only...what? Eight chapters? Well, this is my first fic that was done write-as-post, and I'm glad I started doing it this way. It gives me more of a connection to you, my loyal readers, reviews, flamers, and French people. Well, I will be writing one more, follow-up chapter as a bit of an epilouge, but this IS basically the end...the epilouge will mostly be comic relief.

Did you know that you can't say "I'm full" literaly in Italian by translating from English or French because if you do you'll wind up saying "I'm fed up with you" or "I'm pregnant"? I heard about this girl in a Spanish class who wasn't talking, so her teacher asked her why and she tried to say "I'm embarassed" in Spanish but what she said was "Embarazado" which means "I'm pregnant"...in short, don't talk in other languages or people will be asking you who the father is.

Bailey...it was the tiger cub, wasn't it? Buffalo-koi will be very disappointed in you.

By the way, if you're reading this and you haven't even submitted one review, I would like you to, because I just only broke the thirty-five mark for the first time and that is pretty damn sad, I think you'll agree. I'm very sorry, because Kyo goes kind of crazy in this chapter, and it seems very Deathly Hallows, and I also realize that it's a very bad time to put up new chapters on the day after HP7 came out, but I finished it by the midnight after it came out (11:33, actually) so I had time to.

I swear, Gwen Stafani is gay. Ever heard her song Harajuku Girls? And ever notice the alliteration between 'neko' and 'nezumi'? And in English, 'cat' and 'rat' rhyme...so...SUBTLE CLUES!

Kyo darted wildly through the trees, his movements devoid of a point - he was searching, searching in vain. He knew Yuki was somewhere out here - martial artist that he was, he could feel the presence. Aside from being a fighting fool, it was as though Kyo's...waves...were tuned in to Yuki's, alerting him of Yuki's presence while maddeningly refusing to help find him in any other way.

"I DON'T HATE YOU!" The words came out, strangled, through his choked up throat, as though they would bring Yuki to him.

"Oh, really?" The whisper came whistling through the trees in the form of a wind, playing with Kyo's hair, teasing him. He swatted away the playful breeze, ignoring the way the taunting whisper sent chills down his spine, helplessly reminding him of Akito. Kyo's vision blurred for a moment, before focusing desperately on the space between the two trees in front of him, as though Yuki would materialize there and come to Kyo, crying, but happy to be found. Nothing happened.

"Really...I don't hate him...I..." Kyo was having a conversation with a breeze. So this is what it feels like to be crazy...

"You wished he was dead, didn't you?" Akito. Akito was here. The breeze swirled, tossing up leaves, combining with Kyo's tears and the rain to form a vision of the Sohma family head, standing before him, a malicious grin adorning the sharp, cruel features. "You said you'd be better off without him...you said you'd kill him, I heard you say it...a book does not change fifteen years of anger, Kyo-chan...your mother killed herself, and it's all his fault..."

"Shut up! No, just shut up!" Kyo swung around, but Akito was there, too. He was everywhere. He was curling around Kyo, curling like a snake, constricting Kyo until he felt as though he would throw up. Akito's smile was twisted, cruel, and almost had a seductive quality about - Yuki's degrading sneer seemed almost sexy by comparison. Kyo swung his fist foward, in what would have been solid contact, but the Akito-mist twisted away from him, hissing in dissapointment.

"We can't have that, now can we, because, my dear Kyo, you have absolutely no right to hurt me, you don't even have the right to speak to me...you're just a filthy monster," Akito curled back in, drifting ghost-fingers across Kyo's chest, floating upward to caress his collarbone - he could not feel the apparition's touch, but the thought of the real Akito touching him like that chilled him to the bone. "You have no right, but I shall grant you one privilage." The Sohma head's cold, non-existent hand turned, softly gripping his chin, and bringing Kyo's head foward to kiss him -

Kyo snarled a wordless exclamation of disgust, hands thrusting straight through the ghostly nightmare, which swirled into the nothingness it had been all along, dissipating what had not existed. Kyo, staring around at the rainy mess that was the woods at that moment, had a sudden sense of déja vú. When I felt like I had no worth whatsoever, like I might as well die, Tohru came after me, and she braved Akito for me...and now I'm doing the same thing for Yuki...Yuki, of all people!

"Life's a bitch," Kyo said out loud. "But it's a bitch worth holding on to." He liked that idea, but now was not the time for romantizing, he had to find his lost mouse. His beautiful, scarred, frightened, lost mouse. Kyo's expression was grim as he tried to brush aside curtains of rain, peering around trees, chasing shadows...it was like trying to find a contact in a black hole.

After what might have been hours, or what might have been minutes, Kyo felt as though he has exhausted the woods around him - he had certainly exhausted himself! He could feel Yuki's presence tingling warmly in the back of his mind, but every time he tried to follow it, it eluded his capture, like smoke. Kyo had already checked the "secret base", it was the first place he'd gone, but where else would Yuki be, unless he was wandering around the woods randomly, which seemed quite likely, since Kyo himself had been doing that for a considerable chunk of the afternoon.

In desperation, and, not knowing where he himself was, how to find the main house, Shishou's, or Shigure's, Kyo turned to the sky, and howled, like a possessed man...which, of course, he is. "YYYYUUUUKKKKIIII!"

The hunger/lack of sleep/stress-caused apparitions were back, in the form of a white-blond girl in a blue dress floating behind Kyo's anguish-closed eyelids, who smiled benignly at Kyo, and spoke in a soft, dreamy tone. "It's not going to snow...it's September..." Kyo swatted at her, and she obligingly floated away, muttering something about "Stubby Boardman-san".

Kyo could feel Yuki's presence slipping away from his range of sense, staying within the general area, but he could no longer sense Yuki. Kyo began wandering randomly around the woods, straying further and further from the area he knew well, in the hopes that he would cross Yuki's path by chance. He mumbled things under his breath, everything from prayers to curses, hitting on extraterrestrial life and Edgar Allen Poe in-between. He was just talking to himself about The Village Voice, when it hit him with the force of a truck.

Yuki hardly ever went out into the woods, while Kyo spent most of his free time here, and when Yuki did come out here, it was mostly just to that garden of his, but he wasn't there, so where else would he be? What was a place he'd be likely to remember? What was most important to Yuki? It was a long shot, but...Kyo was desperate. Anything, anything that might lead him that much closer to finding sad, self-hating Yuki, despite the fact that Kyo was the reason for most of Yuki's depression. Kyo sped up.

At last, the trees ahead of him thinned, leaving only a clearing and what had obviously once been a landslide's after-effects, but what was now just a pile of wet, muddy ground with various sharp-looking objects sticking up from it at random intervals - the remainders of a tent. Kyo took none of this in, just the boy kneeling on top of this once-magnificent pile of crap, his hands imersed in the mixture of dirt and biodegraded objects, sparkling tears spilling from his half-closed eyes, blood trickling down both his arms, mouth half-open in a sob that wracked his frail frame.

Kyo's lost nezumi, lovely through the rain.

Kyo padded foward, footsteps making a slight squelching sound on the rain-soaked ground, quite alerting Yuki to his presence. Yuki raised his head, moving as though the effort of that movement would cost him a great part of his life force, magenta eyes shining with tears and fear. "No," the boy whispered through the stream of tears. "No...you c-can't see m-me l-like this..."

"You mean I can't see you when you're acting human," Kyo replied, no less softly. "When you're not acting like a snot or a perfect little prince...but...I like it when you act human..."

"No...n-no...this c-can't be h-happening..." Yuki was scared, Kyo could see. He was scared out of his wits, he was recoiling away from Kyo, who was a mere five feet away and wishing to be closer, but not wanting to drive the boy away. Yuki was huddling, curling in on himself, trying to hide again behind his front, but that front was torn away, leaving him bare and shivering. "Y-you know...you k-know...y-you h-hate me, n-now?"

If you were to study a subject's pattern of behavior for a month, and careful make notes upon this pattern, and graph this pattern, you would most likely find that a subject's given pattern of behavior does not change unless given a very long period of time, or unless drastic lifestyle changes are involved.

"Know what?" asked Kyo, being dense as usual.

Yuki let out an exhasperated part-laugh, part-sob, part-wail. He was practically screaming-sobbing now, hysterically hiccuping, his already mud-incased fingers were tearing viciously at the mud, an outlet for his frustration, anger, and pain. Kyo longed to rush to his side, but he had the feeling that if he tried to physically comfort Yuki right now, Yuki would tear off into the woods, possibly commiting suicide.

"H-how I f-feel...about y-you..." Yuki managed to choke the words out. For a moment, they hung heavily, chock full of meaning, in the air, before crashing down to Kyo's ears as the rest of the world came crashing down around them as well, turning his mind inside out. Kyo was never much of one for inferring, and so he had passed over all the "I love you"s in the poems, while now he was only beginning to realize that they were talking about him. From Yuki to him. Oh gawd.

"I think I need to sit down..." Kyo proclaimed, and did just that, the mud splattering to tie-dye his shirt brown. Two teenagers, sitting on a humongous mound of mud, during the middle of a storm, at twillight. Yuki's face had softened from his mask of fear, giving Kyo a sad half-smile that made his heart ache for the rat. Kyo longed for that face to smile a real smile, not his princely cool-dude smile, not his sneer, but a true, genuine smile.

"I'm s-so sorry, K-Kyo...now y-you know, a-and it's got to b-be awkward for you, th-this, coming from m-me, your s-sworn archenemy, w-when you don't -" Yuki let out a little, hoarse, humourless half-laugh, but Kyo cut him off. Yuki had to stop this, this apologizing, when he didn't know how Kyo had felt when he'd finally realized it was Yuki behind the poems. Kyo didn't know how he had felt, but just let the words pour out.

"I was so worried...I was frightened out of my wits...when I finally, really connected the dots...when, this afternoon, I realized it'd been you writing all along...it'd been you, also, I'd shouted at this morning, you I'd told to die...you, who might take me seriously..."

"I wanted to, t-to, uh, e-end it, but I w-wimped out -" Yuki started up again, but Kyo shushed him with a finger against his suprisingly-soft mouth, an Ayame-like guesture he'd never thought he would lower himself to perform. Yuki had been communicating to him, unknowingly, through his art, and Kyo would respond in kind.

"It's a tough time for you

But I never knew

I never knew you had it this tough

I didn't want to know you had it rough

All the time you would suffer

And I thought I had it tougher

He'd torture you, he was so vicious

And all the while, I was oblivious

I couldn't - wouldn't - see your pain

There was nothing I could gain

But not, I can finally see

Who I've been, who you'll be

I see through the rain

I see through your pain

I see only your face

In all your glory and grace

You're beautiful, through the rain

You're beautiful through your pain

You've got a right to be vain

You've got to stop this destruction

I admit, you're not only an obstruction

You've got to believe in yourself

You've got to find help

I'll be here if you need me

You say you're worthless, I disagree

I take it back, what I said

Listen to what I'm saying now instead

You've been my enemy, you've been his slave

All along I've been trying to dig your grave

But now I finally realize

I know it's you I idealize

But beyond that, it's more

Beyond that annoying boar

It's really, really tough, but you'll make it through

You've said it to me, I know you still do

These words I'll speak, I swear they're true

I've known it all along, I love you..."

Kyo wasn't reciting his poem, he was singing it, singing it, not as a soft, sweet, it'll-be-all-right lullabye, but as hard, painful, Your-Eyes-type lament. Yuki's tears were salty, filling the air around them with a substantial tang, bringing a stinging feeling to Kyo's cheeks. Kyo reached out a hand, at last, to touch Yuki, to caress that soft, pale cheek, to wipe away the glistening tears that were falling, and for once, Yuki let him, relaxing his tense shoulders at last, and collapsing into Kyo's arms. Kyo lifted Yuki's arm, brushing away the layers and layers of mud to reveal a razor scar, a sort of pinwheel of scars, forming a snowflake, on the wrist.

"You've got to stop," Kyo told Yuki, who's head was buried in his chest.

"I know," He lifted his head, gazing up into Kyo's eyes with such trust that Kyo felt as though his heart was breaking. "I will...I-I'm bad at giving up...you'll help me, won't you?"

"Of course, idiot. I'm glad you didn't kill yourself. So don't."

"I-I was going to, b-but...like I s-said, I'm bad at giving up..."

"Thank God for that."

And with that, Kyo's hands drifted up to the rat's jaw, gently bringing Yuki's head foward, their lips meeting in a gentle, yet passionate, kiss - two boys, surrounded by a humungous mound of mud and tent debris, both drenched and splattered with mud, both hungry, both exhausted, both scarred, locked in a kiss that ended the eternal dance of cat and mouse.

YAAAARG! RIN HAS SHORT HAIR! ZOMG! Well, actually, I like the long-haired Rin better, but she looks less like a hooker with short hair...although, she looks more grown-up. I don't like that. I miss the old Rin. I will keep on writing Rin with long hair.

Well, anywaysies, just clear things up, this is pretty much the end, although there will be one more chapter...and I'm very sad. I'm sure y'all are too...

-coughcough-

Ahem.

Uh.

Er.

Macarana everyone!