Author's Note: Zoh, Mi, GOD. LULZ. I have posted a chapter... Woooowww... Don't hate me for being so late. Please, please, please. Oh, and PLEASE read. And excuse any OOC because I think there is a lot of it in this chapter from Tohru. GAHH.

Disclaimer: This is the spot where I DIS CLAIM Fruits Basket. Hoo hoo hoo.

The Wolf and Lion: Predators of the Zodiac

Author: T hea R ea

-

Strangely Kind and Compassionate

"Tohru," the name was whispered sympathetically past the lips of Kyo Sohma as he approached the fallen girl. She was clutching at her chest with her head down on her knees. Her chocolate hair cascaded in little waves down her shoulders. The front strands hid her face like a curtain. Her sobs hit him like the cold waves of the ocean, making him feel the need to back away from her. The moment she was having was so private and emotional he almost felt compelled to back off, almost.

There was this wall of hesitance that nearly blocked him off from her. Perhaps it was what Yuki had said before he had left the school, the words that made him head spin with anger and pure frustration. He hadn't really thought over them as he walked out of the school, but now they were hitting him with a feeling he couldn't ignore. For once in his life he thought of actually listening to what the Rat had said, and it was unusual, he didn't like it. So he pushed away any rational thing that Yuki had said and came closer to the depressed girl.

With a conflicted face, Kyo had taken a few more steps towards her direction which had caught the girl's attention. Her head suddenly shot around to look at him, watery blue eyes directed on him. Her emotions were strung across her face, sadness and despair so clearly seen. She was also shocked, with had resulted in her sob to cut off and a gasp to be sucked in. Her shoulders shook for a moment before she turned away from him, grabbing her upper arms.

"Tohru…" he stopped mid-step and settled in the position that was semi-close to her. He reached out to her with a frown on his lips, searching for a shoulder to pat down on. His hand floated in the air for a moment before settling down upon her right shoulder. Almost immediately she pulled away and the jerk had landed her on her hands and knees. Her blue eyes trembled as she looked up at him.

"Kyo… no," she shook her head and tried to stand up, failing. She stumbled and was about to tilt over when Kyo grabbed her securely by the upper arm. She winced, standing in his grip with her head turned away from him. "Let go."

"Not until you tell me what happened," Kyo spoke strictly. "Who… died?" His voice had dropped to a sad whisper as the word was said. His orange eyes were focused intently upon her turned face, and he disliked how she wouldn't look at him. His other hand came up to turn her face in his direction. "Tohru, who died?" The serious tone of his voice made her throat constrict.

"No, Kyo, no," her eyes watered up again and she tried to turn her face to no avail. "Let me go, let me go." She struggled a bit, her voice a little tighter as she spoke the final phrase. Her eyes were wide and wildly desperate to be let go.

He hated to see her so hurt, but he needed to know who had passed, "Tohru, tell me now." Orange eyes peered darkly into her's; searching there for the answer he wanted.

"Eh…" she groaned and suddenly her knees gave out on her, causing her to fall down upon the concrete sidewalk. Her head spun with the thought of Saki and Arisa dead. She couldn't tell him, the simple idea of letting their names pass her lips made her dizzy with sadness. Her one arm was being held still by Kyo, and he had crouched beside her, he wouldn't let her go without the news. She knew she had to say it, even if it made her feel sick to even think about it.

"Saki and Arisa."

With that she yanked her arm away from him, causing him to stumble down upon his bottom and ran away. Her eyes were blinded once more by tears, and she had dropped her bag, but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was get away from the situation at the very moment she said those names. It hurt her inside to even think about them, and now that she had said them she felt extremely distressed. There was nothing she could do, she knew that… But it still hurt, it really hurt.

Kyo was stunned, being knocked so suddenly to the ground by the girl. His head swam with thoughts of her hurt and the death of Saki and Arisa, who he too had become close too. He felt hot tears climbing down his cheeks at the thought of both of them dead. He wiped them away and looked in the direction that Tohru had gone, but there was no sign of her there. The only thing left of he had at the moment was her bag, which she had dropped when she had fallen. He gingerly picked it up and stood, looking again in the direction Tohru had run. She wasn't there.

Kyo heard the sound of footsteps running in his direction and he peered behind him to see Yuki jogging over to him with a worried look in his eyes. Some strands of hair had fallen over his face, hiding parts of his eyes which were red from crying. He stopped a few feet from Kyo and looked at the object in his hand.

"What happened?" he coughed, looking back up at Kyo's face.

"She ran away," he muttered, placing a across his face. "I couldn't help her. Don't you just feel so great now, you were right." He clenched his teeth and looked off in the direction she ran again. "She went that way," he indicated with a jerk of his head, "run after her if you think that you can save her. She's going to get into trouble."

Yuki crossed his arms, looking at the distressed Kyo with equally distressed eyes. "What can either of us do? We tried for her, Kyo. We really tried, and look where's it's ended. She'll come back to the house, hopefully. We'll look for her when we get home if she isn't there. For now, there is nothing we can actually do for her."

"If only they hadn't gone," Kyo muttered with that lost look in his eye. "If only they could have kept living. They would have, if it was for her."

The cousins stood there at the edges of their school grounds, watching the sky with identical despondent looks, both wishing that Tohru Honda wasn't so lost and that Saki Hanajima and Arisa Uotani weren't dead.

-

Tohru ran for only a short amount of time before she was out of breath. The strains on her heart made her body feel weak, so she had to stop and rest for a while against an old building. There was no one mysterious around the neighborhood, so that was a good sign. However, quite a few cars were driving by and she worried for her own sake that someone might pull over and attempt a kidnapping. She huffed her breath as another car passed by, and her blue eyes slid closed as she slumped against the brick.

Today was frightening, her best friends die, she meets a strange lion-like boy, and another Sohma. She runs away from both Kyo and Yuki made her heart beat a bit faster. How could she have been so inconsiderate towards their feelings? They had only tried to help her and she had pushed both of them away for her own sake. She felt like slapping herself for letting go of them so quickly. They were the only friends she had now, how could she keep them close when she was pushing them away?

She opened her eyes with a hope to find herself in bed, just waking up from a nightmare. But as her eye-lids came open she only saw the vast blue sky like she had been seeing for her whole life. This was a sky that she would never be able to gaze at with her best friends again, a sky that now seemed lonely and too vast. The sky was consuming everything, and that blue expanse mad her feel sick and dizzy. Why was she the one left here, while everyone she loved was far, far away? Why was she the only one left looking at the sky, feeling so lonely and depressed? Why couldn't they have stayed here with her? She leaned her head back against the bright and wished the sky to consume her as well. What use was she here when no one was left to look at the sky with?

She left out the Sohma family by accident, only thinking selfishly of the past. She didn't stop and dwell upon how she still had them with her, how they still could gaze at the empty expanse with. She didn't think on how many good times she had with the Sohma's. She didn't want to. It was as if she wanted to feel the pain of loneliness stab mercilessly at her heart, not warm it by the thought of the people she had left. The people that loved and cared about, and who she loved in return.

"Why?" she muttered, bringing her head down to rest on her knees again. "Why did you leave me? Please don't go… don't leave me with the empty sky and lonely existence I have now. I don't want you to go… why won't you listen to me? Why won't you come back?" Tohru cried out in utter desperation for her friends to return to her, to come back and sit by her and comfort her. She needed them… she really needed them.

"God, you're really very loud," a voice she heard before broke her sad trance. Her eyes popped open to see the golden-haired boy from earlier. He was standing above her with one eye-brow raised to complete the expression of curiosity. He was still wearing his school uniform, both the sleeve rolled up. "I really wonder why I helped you. I should have just kept you laying there to die if you're just going to give up now."

"G-go away," she muttered, turning her expression from him with difficulty. She didn't want to look at this boy, but she couldn't help but find him amazingly attractive, he did look a bit girly though.

"I really don't think that would be such a good idea, I mean, what will you do when I'm gone? Sit here and sulk again? You need to be a bit more… I don't know, happy?" he watched her squirm unpleasantly under his gaze. "What, am I making you uncomfortable? Should I say sorry?"

Tohru looked up at him before standing, she came under him a few inches, but that was all. She looked up at him with a definite look in her eye, "I don't need your taunting right now. I don't have time for you." She sounded cruel, and it made her cringe inside. It, however, was a way to relieve the sadness that clenched at her heart. She narrowed her eyes, not looking very threatening. But she just couldn't do it, and she broke her glare into a sorrowful expression. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. And I'm sorry for glaring at you… I'm sorry for being loud. I'm sorry for bothering you earlier." She bowed her head and looked back up at him, his lip was twitching.

"You definitely cannot play the mean one," the boy said with a sigh. "And I was hoping to get a rise out of you. I failed in that point. Oh well. It doesn't suit you anyway, being angry. You're too much of a good girl. Well, at this moment, a depressing good girl." He smirked. "Anyway, are you going home or something?"

She nodded to confirm this before realizing something, "Aren't you cutting class?" She gasped when he nodded at her statement. "B-b-but, that's bad! You can't cut class! You're grade will drop! But, then again, I have no right to say what's right and wrong for you. But…" Her mouth was wide open as she jabbered on, and the boy had to place a hand over her mouth with an annoyed expression on his face.

"I saw you leaving so I thought I should come along and see why," he spoke with his eyebrow twitching. "You don't look sick. What is it; you're grief eating away at you?"

Tohru shuddered at the mere mention of grief. Her eyes blinked back tears and she bit her lip, looking to the right. She could feel the tingle of sadness stretching through her eyes and nose, the pain of her biting her lip far away. She couldn't understand how he could speak of her death so simple and easily as though it didn't matter at all. Then again, she didn't think he'd understand in the first place. His best friends weren't dead and he knew nothing about her past and how close she was to these people. He knew nothing, and his blunt and crude comments meant little to him, as they should to her. However, she was vulnerable to such verbal attacks and couldn't help but feel he was intentionally trying to make her remember their deaths.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she whispered, looking up at him with sad blue eyes. "I am dieing from grief, it feels like my insides are being torn out through my back. I can't stand it." Her teary eyes glanced up at him, but he worn an impassive face. She felt unwanted there under his gaze, as if she was just some bug that kept appearing in his life. "If you don't actually care, why do you continue to come and torment me?"

The boy narrowed his eyes and looked off to the side as she had done earlier. There was nothing he could really say to her, nothing that would ease any of her pain, and she knew that. Saying sorry to her was the last thing she knew he had on his mind. She also knew that it wouldn't help if he said he was sorry, she kind of wanted him to be displeased with her, for she was sick of everyone looking at her as though she were perfect and fine. Her blue eyes groped his figure as he stared away, she willed him to look at her with displeasure, annoyance, anything negative. She craved that attention that wasn't completely happy; she wanted him to feel frustrated with her.

"You, and people like you, are much too easy to find. I should have left you alone when I first saw you, but I couldn't help but be drawn to a new opportunity. And besides, you were the one who ran into me. Should I have been sympathetic and asked you what's wrong and then cooed and pitied your story? Perhaps, but, sadly, that's not who I am. So, torturing you is much better then sympathizing with you, or so that's my conclusion," he tilted his head to the side with a bitter expression on his face. "You people think you are the only one's who have had others die on you, it's kind of pathetic in all truth. If only you and your type of people would understand that you aren't the only ones with such pain and hurt in your life. If only you would understand that you aren't the only ones who have lost close people."

The smile was sadistic, the look in his eyes frustrated; wasn't this what she had wanted? She blinked back tears at his statement, but maybe it wasn't because he was so frustrated and angry, but because he knew her pain. She had gotten the reaction she wanted, but now she felt sympathy for the one who had abused her with his words. The sensation she could not ignore and she felt the need to give some kind of compassion onto the hurt one before her. Even as her own heart ached for her loss, she came up to the one who knew of it and abused it and held their hand within her's.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, bowing her head onto the smooth hand she held within her own. "I'm so sorry. I have been selfish and stupid and I acted so inconsiderate towards those around me, and to you. I acted so incredibly cruel to someone I had never met and I am deeply and truly sorry for that. I never thought you'd understand to what I was going through. I always thought I was alone in my grief and pain and I pushed away everyone because of it. It's you who has turned my thoughts around, and I know it's so sudden and strange. You have cleared my eyes, stranger, and I am so grateful for that fact. I am obliged to you, stranger. I am indebted to you and I will do anything for you. I give you this promise." Her fingers gently let go of him and she looked up with tears climbing slowly down her eyes. "I'm sorry for crying." She wiped away the tears, sniffling as she did so.

The lion-boy had gone still, his black eyes slowly stirring over the girl who had held onto him and thanked him. She had thanked him for his verbal abuse, thanked him for his cruel words. It made his head hurt that someone was so strangely kind and compassionate. He looked into those aqua eyes and saw the pain that still ate at her heart, but also that sweetness that had just been shown to him, that strange pull of comfort and beauty that no one he had ever known could have held. It made him feel welcomed and warm, but also small and lost. When he looked in her eyes he felt the pang of loneliness he could not ignore, it was the loneliness of not knowing her full kindness. After staring into her eyes for a few moments he turned his eyes in fear that the seclusion that he felt would consume him.

He couldn't respond to her caring words properly, his tongue felt dry. There was nothing he felt was right to say, nothing could show how shocked he was inside. He wanted to say something gentle, something just as considerate as she had, but there was nothing his mind could come up with. His only words were cruel and crude. He turned his eyes back and the words formed on his tongue before he could keep them away, "You're ignorant… you think that saying these things will make me feel good towards you. I have nothing but frustration towards you, you do realize. You can't change my thoughts with those sugar-coated words. Ha, I don't feel anything like that towards you. You are just a stupid girl who thinks she has the only pain in the world, and can separate herself from it by being kind to random strangers. You're kindness won't bring them back, stop running away from it. You're just trying to think of anything but what you should. It's inevitable to come back to those thoughts, you know. You're fear will catch up with you, and they'll be waiting for you there, waiting to tell you all about how it is to be dead. Yes, they are dead."

Tohru stood there, looking at the lion-boy with large and blank eyes. She felt the chill rush her again, the waves crashing down on her. Her blue eyes spilled tears like rain, and they slid down her cheeks to meet and join on her chin before dripping down to the ground. Her mind caved with the words that the boy had just spoken to her. How could she be so stupid as to think that he was going to forgive her? She should have been a bit more intelligent then that. No matter how much she apologized and spoke her feelings, he wasn't going to accept her words. She felt the tingle again as the other words came down upon her. Was she really running away? She saw herself in the hallway, the Nurse's office. Was she turning her back on the death of her friends? She bit down on her lip harder and she knew the skin would break under the pressure, but she didn't care. No pain could bring a candle to what she was feeling inside. She blindly touched her cheek, the dampness made her fingertips tingle.

"I know they're dead…" she mumbled, staring up at him with her blank eyes. "I know that they're gone. I'm not kidding myself. I'm not running away, because I know. I know, but that's different… that's different from accepting it. I-I can't accept it, but I do… I do know. It's different… but I know. I know."

The lion-boy widened his eyes at her respond, such true and honest answers she continued to give. She was crying again, and he sighed at this fact. He hated tears, and this girl had done nothing but cry for this whole day that he knew her. He ran a pale hand through his gold hair, dark eyes peering over the girl who was currently looking up at him with wide aquamarine eyes. She was staring so intensely up at him it made him feel quite uncomfortable. He shook his head and turned to the side, setting one foot out before the other.

"Yeah, so you know, and you don't accept it. That's not helping you, is it?" he muttered. "You're not gaining anything from not accepting it. You're just running away, it's the same thing. You have to know about something to run away from it. You have to solve this problem, standing here and telling me that you know isn't going to help it. Do something."

"D-Do what? They're dead; I can't save them, even if I accept it. I can't do anything for them now. I was so stupid as to let them die in the first place," she whispered this now, her eyes lowered as she looked at the ground. The tears stopped leaking, perhaps because she had no more tears to cry.

"Anything, but stop grieving, it's annoying. I've already said this; you're not the only one who has had someone die on you. Stop being such a baby and deal with it, expressing you're sadness like this is only going to make other people worry. And that's not what a goodie-goodie like you wants, is it? Unless, of course, you just like having all of the attention," he smirked, dark eyes narrowing before he began to walk back the way he had come.

Tohru watched the lion-boy walk away with bright blue eyes. Her face was damp with the tears they had spilled and her head beat the thought of everything he had said. It hadn't helped her as she had thought it did before, if anything it made her even more depressed. Her heart ached and her head pulsed. Next her eye-sight would go, she suspected. Her dark hair was clinging to her cheeks from the wetness, and she gently pulled away the strands as she turned away from the direction that he was going. She had to go home.

-

The Nurse's door opened and closed, though the closing was more of a slam then anything. The Nurse turned his head with a smile and quickly pounced upon the new occupant of the room. His grin revealed a set of perfect white teeth and canines that looked as though they had been sharpened. He patted the newcomer on the head fondly and pushed him into the closest seat.

"So, I heard that you met Tohru Honda-chan?" the Nurse said with his smile and bright green eyes.

"Yes," the other said with a faint growl in his speech.

"What, not a good experience?" the Nurse rose an eyebrow with a curious smirk. "I thought she was a delightful young girl, though a bit on the slow side."

"Hn," the other person said with a dismissing tone.

"Now, now, don't try to change my thoughts. You must think she is simply adorable by the way you act at her suggestion," Kei brightfully smiled, but got bonked on the head instead. "Hey! That was quite uncalled for!" He frowned playfully and rubbed his head. "Come on, Miyagi; tell me what you think of her!"

"Don't call me that," the voice hissed.

The Nurse smiled sadly and stood up. "Not until you tell me what you thought, Miyagi! Miyagi! Miyagi! MIYAGIIII!!"

And what followed was a lot of hitting and swearing and sing-song voices.