Chapter 8 - Kazuma POV-I do not own Fruits Basket-I'm running behind on responding to reviews again! Sorry! I appreciate each and every review I receive and I will make an effort to respond to them all this week. I'm pretty much done with the entire story except for the last chapter. I'm having trouble with just one section of it, but I am hopeful to have it worked out to everyone's satisfaction by the next few weeks.
I felt skeptical. Denpa waves. As a martial artist, I had heard mention of denpa waves, but most books and teachers that I was familiar with dismissed denpa waves as superstition, the exaggerated tales of an uninformed public responding to things they didn't understand. Now this young woman was sitting here, holding my hand which was throbbing with inexplicable qi, and she was claiming that it was the result of our denpa waves touching. I cleared my throat nervously.
"Are you implying that both of us have the ability to manipulate denpa waves? With all due respect…" I began but she gently interrupted me.
"Kazuma, reserve judgment for a moment and let me demonstrate. I know denpa waves are real, and I know that both of us have the ability to work with them. I want you to remember a memory from your childhood. Something I could never know from any of these photos or from my friendship with Kyo, and I will relay it back to you." I looked at her skeptically, but she put a finger over my lips before I could open my mouth. My lips tingled softly from the energy of our contact.
"What do you have to lose, Kazuma? If you are right, I won't be able to tell you what you are thinking and your doubts will be vindicated. If you are wrong, you will have your answer about the energy when we touch." She smiled mischievously at me and returned her hands to her lap.
I thought back to the time I had seen my grandfather, sitting isolated and alone in his cell at the Sohma compound. I remembered the sad smile on his face as I ran away from the candy he offered me. I chose that memory, having no particular concern that she would actually be able to read my mind. I looked at her somewhat smugly I'll admit, waiting to see what vague story she came up with to try to convince me of the denpa waves.
"A dark room…bars on a window. I see a hand sticking through the bars holding a piece of candy…you run away in fear…a sense of regret and guilt settle permanently over you…" she looked up at me with compassion. "It's okay Kazuma, you were only a child and didn't…"
"Enough" I said quietly, my mind reeling as I realized she could just look right into my mind and see my thoughts. In hindsight, I didn't know why I hadn't given her claims more credence; Saki did not impress me as someone who would exaggerate or lie. But the idea of denpa waves being real had seemed so far-fetched. I centered my scattered thoughts; obviously Saki had the ability to read the denpa waves. However, that didn't necessarily mean I did too. I had never been able to pull thoughts out of anyone's head before. I knew that I had an innate ability to listen and understand others well, but that did not make me a psychic.
"You have convinced me of your own abilities. But I still don't know that I can accept that I too have the ability to manipulate the denpa waves. I would think I would have noticed at some point if I suddenly had the ability to read minds…" I let my sentence trail off as I suddenly became aware of hearing her voice, but coming from within my mind and not from my ears. I looked at her, my face frozen in a blank expression as I listened to her.
"You can hear me can't you? You look as though you are a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle." She smiled at me, but I just sat there, my mouth most likely hanging open in an expression of surprise. She reached over and put her hand on my arm, and I absentmindedly noted the buzzing. "Are you okay, Kazuma?" Her thought sounded as though it held some gentle concern. I tried to shake off the mind numbing aspects of my surprise and I attempted to think back at her, not wanting her to worry too much; I was surprised, but not afraid.
"I'M FINE, SAKI-CHAN," I answered, frowning as I concentrated very hard on projecting my thoughts at her clearly. She winced in pain.
"Kazuma-kun, you don't have to try so hard, I can hear you easily when you think at a normal volume," her voice sounded pained, but amused. I flushed in consternation and inwardly chastised myself; of course Saki could hear me if I thought at a normal level of concentration. I didn't see her screwing up her face or creasing her brow with concentration as she directed her thoughts to me.
"I think it is only fair that I warn you that I can hear all of your thoughts and feelings as they go through your mind," Saki thought quietly to me. " Sometimes I get an image, sometimes I only get a flash of an emotion. You will need to learn how to keep your mind closed off when you wish to think something privately. You project very clearly without trying." Her mental voice held some amusement as she thought the last sentence. I felt some real alarm at her admission, and I desperately tried to think about something innocent which of course made all sorts of inappropriate thoughts spring into my mind. Saki began to laugh softly as I turned several shades of red in rapid succession.
"Kazuma-kun, use the metal discipline you have developed from meditating and apply it to your thoughts. It is the same principle," she smiled mischievously and added, "although I have to admit some curiosity also about what would happen with the energy between us if we were to be intimate." I felt the color spreading across my face deepen to magenta as I realized she had heard my thoughts and she was curious about making love too; but I followed her advice and I stilled my mind as though to meditate, which also had the added benefit of quieting the rampant embarrassment that was threatening to blot out my conscious mind. I felt on the edges of my consciousness something trying to enter my mind, but it felt as though it was encountering resistance and unable to penetrate the wall of focused thought I had erected.
"Very good," she said. "When you still your thoughts in that way, not only do you block your thoughts from being read, you also block others from inserting their thoughts into your mind." I looked at her quizzically and I wondered if that was what I had felt when I had been stilling my mind.
"Inserting thoughts in my mind? Do you mean to say that someone could influence me to do something against my will by getting inside my head?" I asked, somewhat skeptically. She shook her head, smiling softly.
"No, no one can make you do something you wouldn't do otherwise. I could not direct you to kill someone or commit a crime; however, should someone suggest to you that you should do something you already want to do…" she let her sentence trail off.
Suddenly I had the most overwhelming urge to take her into my arms and kiss her. It felt as though my normally logical brain retreated into a far corner of my mind and all I could do was feel my desire to pick her up and carry her into my bedroom. My brain fogged up completely and I found myself leaning over and pulling her into my arms.
Her hands slid slowly over my chest and rested on the back of my neck. The energy between us raised its frequency to a fevered pitch, and I felt like I was drugged with desire. She looked up at me with the most beautiful, liquid violet eyes and her lips were slightly parted as though in anticipation of my kiss. I leaned down and I pressed my lips firmly into hers, drowning in the explosion of energy between us. I let my kiss trail down her neck and I sucked at the flesh there, blind to everything but the sensations of pleasure coursing all over me. She arched against me, moving her hands down to the cords that held my haori shut and she began to untie them.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt as though I should not be acting in this way with a girl who had not yet graduated from high school, but my mind was lost in a swirl of sensation and feeling; I felt myself hardening in response to the feeling of her warm body pressing against mine. I was flushed with desire, but also with tenderness for this beautiful woman whom I embraced, and my eyes wanted to roll back in my head from the force of the love and affection for Saki that I felt swarming through my mind.
Suddenly, I felt the compulsion to kiss her dissipate; but not the desire or the love. The throbbing energy did not weaken, and it was only with great effort that I convinced my arms to gently release Saki from my embrace. I noticed a sense of reluctance in her as her arms slid off my chest and neck. I slowly tied my haori shut and then I looked up at her.
"You make a powerful point," I said huskily. "For both our peace of mind, I have to ask that you don't do that again. It was difficult to stop myself, even when your influence diminished." She blushed and looked down; I could sense in her some shame over her actions, but also the echo of the love and desire that was resonating within me.
"I want you to learn how to determine when you are being influenced and how to successfully resist it, Kazuma," she said quietly. "When the thought originates with you, it should not have the ability to blot out all your other thoughts. When I compelled you to kiss me, it was as though I magnified and amplified your desire to kiss me to the point that it pushed all other thoughts out of your consciousness. Normal thoughts and desires should be able to co-exist simultaneously."
An unpleasant thought suddenly arose in my mind as I remembered how overwhelming my feelings were that day we kissed in the park; how I couldn't think about anything but Saki, and I had wandered outside just in hope of finding her. I looked at her and I heard her in my mind, confirming my suspicion, "I don't ever want you to think that you only are attracted to me because I used the denpa waves to influence you."
AN: Okay…kind of a cliffhanger type ending…sorry for that, but it really seemed the way this chapter wanted to end.
