Disclaimer: No money made, Fruits Basket is Takaya Natsuki's.
Chapter 3 – Angel
He stumbled over a stone and fell.
His knee was bleeding and he tried to fight the rising tears.
Even if he would call for his mother, he knew she wouldn't come. So he tried to not show his misery. Still he couldn't hold it in and he felt a sob wrack his small body.
"The ox… dumb and stupid. And clumsy", he could hear some adults laughing in the background. A tear fell from his eyes.
"Are you alright?", someone asked beside him and he looked up, staring in the eyes of an angel. He sniffed and wiped his tears away with his sleeve.
"Did you hurt your knee? You're bleeding…" The angel kneeled down beside him and pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket, carefully cleaning the wound on his knee. Did angels carry handkerchiefs with them?
"Who… who are you?", he asked, looking at her without blinking, afraid that she might just disappear if he looked away.
"I'm Sohma Isuzu. And who are you?". Isuzu... The name didn't fit her at all. It sounded so… distant.
"Sohma Hatsuharu." She nodded softly, gracing him with a smile, before she stood up.
"Can you walk, Hatsuharu-chan?", she asked and he got to his feet clumsily.
"You can… you can call me Haru", he said softly, lowering his head blushing, when she looked at him intently with those deep black eyes of hers.
"O-okay… Haru-chan. Are you…" She was silent for a moment. "You are one of us, aren't you?" He looked at her confused.
"One of… Oh! You mean the juushi… juu…" He fought with the word he heard recently. "You mean those animals?" She nodded slowly and he smiled.
"Yeah. I'm the ox. And you?"
"The horse", she simply said. "I knew you were one of us. I could feel it."
"Feel it?"
"Yes. The bond. Can't you feel the connection?", she asked and he was silent for a moment, trying to feel something.
And then he felt it. A tug between his heart, a whisper along his spine, a prickling sensation under his skin. And it all formed a string – no, many strings. But one lead to her. Directly to her.
It brought sudden tears to his eyes.
"You can feel it", she said smiling.
"We are… connected?", he asked.
"Yeah. We all are."
"Isuzu-chan!"
"That's my mother… I have to go." She turned and he gasped, feeling as if he was thrown into a pool of ice water.
"Wa… Wait!", he cried and she stopped, looking at him curiously. "What about… this connection? Won't it break?"
She stared at him in surprise before she laughed softly.
"Of course not. You can't break it. It's always there."
"Can I see you again?"
"We will always meet again, Haru-chan", she said and then she ran to her mother.
He stared after her, concentration on the feeling of belonging, that still whispered over his skin.
"Until next time, angel." And then he walked back to his own mother.
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The End
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