"Well, isn't this nice?" Shigure asked jollily.

"Peachy." Kyo muttered resentfully, his face twisted in rage. The car they had finally gotten to pick them up (after forty-nine minutes of waiting in the chilly autumn winds,) wasn't exactly a luxury vehicle. In fact, Kyo had long ago begun to wonder if it was indeed a vehicle. The cheap, moldy "leather" interior was peeling and covered in mysterious stains, the driver was oddly hidden from view by a dark glass screen (the only part of the entire car that wasn't broken or stained.) The air inside the car stank of vomit and rotten fruit.

"Ah, I could go for some nice peach cake! Couldn't you Usa-Chan?" Asked Honey, who had woken up from his nap several minutes after Ritsu had tearfully proclaimed him dead.

"Yeah, we never got ice-cream either!" Momiji said mournfully.

"Come now Momiji, brighten up! We can have some ice cream once we get to the hot springs –which, by the way, shouldn't be too long now!" Shigure said temptingly, trying his best to keep Momiji's thought process on sweets so that he didn't complain about the putrid surroundings.

"May I have some ice cream?" Honey asked; his eyes widening at the thought of watching his new friends eat ice cream while he had none.

"Of course," Shigure replied. "Say, do my eyes deceive me or is that the Sohma Hot springs, right there, not far away at all. Why, we'll be there in no time." Honey and Momiji squealed with joy, as the car ride had been quite long and quite vile. As the car pulled up to the hot springs, the Sohmas and Honey practically leapt onto the pavement. The car pulled away faster than any of them thought it was capable of, reaching a mind-blowing speed of nearly fifteen miles per hour.
"Oh, so now it goes fast! I swear it was only going like ten miles per hour all the way up here! Unbelievable!"

"Yes, we definitely would have saved a good bit of time if it had gone the speed it's going now, however we shouldn't complain about the driver if he was kind enough to pick us up!" Shigure argued, mysteriously bent on defending the faceless driver. Just as Kyo opened his mouth to reply, a robed figure came hurtling across the lawn.

"Mother!" Ritsu cried as the woman ran to embrace him.

"Ritsu, my child!" The woman screeched, practically knocking Ritsu over as she leapt upon him. "I've missed you so! How was your week at the Sohma's?!"
"Very good, mother! We did so many fun activities," Ritsu proclaimed. Shigure snickered, his perverted mind up to its usual tricks.

"And this must be the guest you spoke of! The one who read about this place by chance and decided to come here! The one who doesn't know about the family curse-"

"Shouldn't you be preparing food?" Shigure asked hastily.

"Oh my… OH YES! I SHOULD BE PREPARING FOOD! I'M SO SORRY! I'M A MAR IN THE HUMAN RACE! I ALMOST GAVE AWAY THE SECRET!"

"Secret?" Honey asked innocently before anyone could feed him some bogus story.

"Ah, yes Honey… The secret is that… Yuki and Kyo here are homo-sexual! We often refer to it as 'the secret', or 'the curse'." Shigure said smoothly.

"WHAT?!" Yuki and Kyo demanded in unison.

"They're just embarrassed, right guys?" Shigure inquired, praying they wouldn't spoil the story he was feeding Honey. Yuki and Kyo glared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before they responded.

"Yes…" Yuki said quietly, speaking for them both. "Kyo and I… Came out of the closet several years back and we've been in a happy relationship ever since…"

"C'mon silly-heads, I knew that from the moment I saw you!" Honey giggled. Kyo turned a shade of scarlet greatly resembling an angry tomato before turning away and storming into the house. Yuki simply sighed.

"It's alright Yuki, it's really good that you and Kyo aren't afraid to show who you really are. My mom always used to say to be yourself. She would be proud of you two! If you and Kyo have feelings for each other, then I'm happy for you!" Tohru declared, attempting to make Yuki feel better about himself.

"Miss Honda…" Yuki whispered, realizing Shigure had most likely just destroyed any future Tohru and he could have together.

"Yes?" She asked brightly. Yuki couldn't bring himself to speak, so he simply followed Kyo's example and fled into the house.

"Ooh, I wonder what those two scoundrels are doing in there! Flirting? Holding hands? Smooching?" Momiji made a kissing sound. Tohru blushed and Shigure turned his laughter into a long, suspicious cough.

"MASTER SHIGURE?! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! COME INSIDE, OUT OF THE CHILL! I SHOULD NEVER HAVE MADE YOU ALL WAIT IN THE COLD! I'M SORRY!"

"I… I think I'll make it inside… Maybe" Shigure whimpered pitifully, becoming mysteriously ill. "Perhaps" (He coughed loudly) "I'll feel better if you were to… Say, make me some nice rice balls… it's the only way to cure me."

"OF COURSE MASTER SHIGURE!" Ritsu's mother cried, dashing indoors with the others following soon after.

"So are you liking the Sohma Hot Springs so far Honey?" Momiji asked as he led Honey to the hot spring.

"It's great! I wish I could live here with you and my other new friends forever and ever," came Honey's reply as he sunk into the soothing depths of the hot spring.

"Hey, your life sounds pretty nice! I mean, you're rich, and you get to talk to pretty girls for a living!"

"Yeah, it's great!" Honey exclaimed, his face immediately lighting up like a light-bulb.

"Sounds like it! I wish I had your life… Hey, Honey! I have a really great idea!"

"Yeah?"

"What if we were to, like, switch places, only for like, a week or two! You could get to know everyone better, and I could try my hand at being a host! It'd be really fun, and we can see if anybody would figure it out!"

"Well… okay! But, Takashi will be picking me up at sunset. Is that enough time to figure out what how we'll do it?"

"Oh, sure, if we hurry a little bit! I'll start!"

"Okay!"

"Alright, so there's something you should know. My family has a curse on it, so when we're hugged by someone that's a member of the opposite sex, we transform into animals of the Chinese Zodiac! Pretty nifty, huh? I'm a rabbit, Shigure is a dog, Yuki is a rat, Kyo is a cat, and Ritsu is a monkey, and so on."

"Wow, really! That's so neat!" Momiji gave Honey a sideward glance.

"You think it's... Neat?"

"Totally! Not everyone has a family secret, ya know. I think it's cool!"

"Well," Momiji said, bursting with pride, "I think it is too! Not everyone does though" (Momiji thought of his Mother), "that's why we need to keep it a secret! Promise you won't tell?"

"I promise," Honey said solemnly. "I'm real good at keeping secrets! Like, this one time, I was playing hide-and-seek with Takashi, so I hid in a closet. And it turns out it was Hika-Chan and Kau-Chan's closet. And I looked through the cracks in the door and saw them kissing! It was scary! But I haven't told anyone."

"Who are they?"

"Oh, my friends! Wow, I really do have a lot to tell you! Okay, where to start, where to start… Well, my favorite color is yellow!"

Chapter Three