Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket or any related characters or objects. Rats! …No offense, Yuki!
A Note on Flashbacks: Flashbacks will begin with two close parentheses and end with two open parentheses. Like so – )) Flashback ((
A Note on Censorship: "Hi," Yuki Sohma smiled. "No, the story hasn't started yet. Please be patient. Lihau just wanted me to tell you that, instead of putting swearwords all over the page, she has decided to censor the stupid cat's language."
"Don't call me 'stupid'!" yelled Kyo Sohma. "-CENSORED- mouse! Hey… what's going on?"
"I repeat: Lihau has censored all of the stupid cat's foul language from this page."
"I'm not stupid, -CENSORED- it—whaaaa?! You can't censor me, -CENSORED- it!"
"Too late… stupid cat…"
Thanks Yuki—
"What about me, you -CENSORED- author?!"
—And Kyo. Now, on to the story!
Life
Chapter Five: Camping
"I have an idea!" Shigure exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen.
Now if he'd burst into an empty room, this wouldn't be a problem. However, Kyo happened to be standing right in front of the door, so the cat was sent flying across the kitchen until he finally was stopped by the opposite wall. The Kyo-shaped outline impressed into the wall—quite an aesthetically pleasing touch—was revealed when he slid to the floor.
Not only that, but the canine's cry also startled Tohru, who dropped an entire bowlful of hot rice on her feet, and Yuki, who cut his thumb with the knife he'd been using to slice salmon. Tohru was too mortified by Shigure's sudden entrance to so much as notice the hot food beginning to burn at her sock-clad feet, but Yuki was all too aware of the throbbing flesh that he rapidly thrust under the cool water he made the faucet dispense.
As soon as the little dizzy marks stopped swirling around Kyo's head, the neko and the nezumi shouted their cousin's name furiously and lunged forward with murderous gleams in their eyes.
"AHHHH!" yelped Shigure, spinning around to frantically dash off. They ran around the lake house a few times and finally returned to the galley, where the writer promptly hid behind Tohru. This put him between the onigiri and the counter. "Protect me, my beautiful flower!"
"She's not your flower!" Yuki, struggling to get at Shigure without hurting Tohru, yelled.
"Get out here, coward!" bellowed Kyo, clawing viciously at the dog's head. "Get out here so we can BEAT YOU UP!!!"
"Tohru-kuuuuuuuuuun!" whined Shigure desperately. "Help meeeeeeeee!"
"SHUT UP!" Kyo and Yuki shouted.
Tohru, frenetically racking her brains for a way to calm everyone down, finally resorted to forcing a smile and commenting, "I-isn't this wonderful? Yuki-kun and Kyo-kun are working together!"
The two mentioned Sohmas froze briefly before staring at each other.
Clearly relieved, Shigure unwisely piped up, "Yes! My princess! I am indebted to you!"
'Unwisely' because Yuki and Kyo, at this remark from the author, apparently made a silent agreement to kill him together. Then they'd go back to killing each other.
"I'll knock his head off!" Kyo hollered as they went back to trying to get at Shigure. "You hide the body!"
"Not until after I kick him a few times myself," Yuki retorted.
"YUKI, MY DARLING BROTHER!"
The darling brother stood stock-still for a moment, then told the cat, "Let me know when he's dead," and stormed off, perhaps to find a shovel, perhaps to plot a second murder—that of a certain serpent.
"YUN-YUN!!!" boomed Ayame, dancing after the rat.
As we leave Ayame to initiate the brotherly bonding thing with Yuki, Shigure is making one last attempt to dissuade Kyo's obvious intentions to spill blood.
"D-don't you wanna hear my idea, Kyon-Kyon?" stuttered the dog.
"DON'T CALL ME 'KYON-KYON'!" roared Kyo.
"Ah!" Tohru squeaked. "P-please stop, Kyo-kun!"
"Yes, Kyo-kun, please stop!" Shigure agreed. "Just let me tell you my brilliant idea before you do me in!"
Kyo, deciding to be generous and grant his cousin the customary final request, took a step back and, fists still clenched, grunted, "Fine. Talk fast."
"I was thinking that we could all go camping together!" blurted Shigure. "Wouldn't that be fun?" he laughed nervously.
"Tohru, go to another room and clean the stupid rice off your feet," Kyo ordered. "I don't want any witnesses."
With the oh-so-traditional sweat-drop, Shigure wondered, "Ah, you didn't change your mind?"
WAM!
No, that wasn't Kyo punching Shigure. That was Ayame, floating through the air (with the greatest of ease) and bowling over the cat.
"Yun-Yun! How marvelous! We have made a connection!!"
So it was a connection between fist and jaw, but hey. A connection was a connection!
Yuki moved to stand in the doorway, fists clenched, as he ground out, "Leave me alone."
"But do you not want to strengthen our brotherly bond?!"
"No," replied Yuki, as Kyo stood up and muttered to himself, "What bond?"
Ayame ignored Yuki's response, instead electing to answer Kyo's question with, "The glorious bond that my most precious of all little brothers is forming with me! Even as we speak!"
"Most pre—Ayame," Yuki sighed tired, rubbing his temples. "I'm your only brother."
"All the more reason for us to strengthen our bond!"
"Will you shut up with the bonds, already?!"
If Yuki's face got very much redder, Tohru's temptation to call the fire department just might have overcome her.
Wait… was that steam seeping from the rat's ears?
Kyo, who all this time had been debating whether to kill the dog first or the snake, was having one heck of a time figuring out how he could dispose of both of them at once. Not patient enough to work this out right now, the cat concluded that the one who ticked him off most recently would die first.
Meaning Ayame.
Tohru saw that the two older Sohmas were both running the very real risk of sudden death and, not wanting anyone to be murdered in cold blood, decided that the best way to stop it all quickly would be to do a little strategic hugging.
Thus, there were two puffs of smoke, one orange and one violet, signaling the transformations of Kyo and Yuki.
"I-I'm sorry!" she called out immediately. "I-I just don't want Shigure-san and Ayame-san to get hurt!"
Shigure wasted no time in picking up rat-Yuki by the tail and laughing.
"I won't be like this forever, you know," Yuki pointed out as the writer set him back down, still giggling gleefully. Turning to Tohru, he said, "Miss Honda, I'm going to my room until I change back. Could you please bring my clothes for me?"
Cat-Kyo snorted. "-CENSORED- rat. You're so puny and weak you have to ask someone to carry your clothes for you."
Yuki seemed to ignore this as he walked to his room but, while walking past Kyo, stopped just long enough to bite the orange feline's paw.
Kyo howled and dove after Yuki.
You've heard of cat and dog fights? Well, change a few letters and you'd get what this was: A cat and rat fight.
"Ha!" the neko exclaimed soon enough. "Now I'll make you say 'I'm sorry'!" He had the nezumi pinned down under one paw.
"Yes, you certainly are. In fact, you're just about the sorriest living being I've ever met." Yuki was just about to bite the cat again, but before that—
POOF!
—he changed back.
As Tohru squealed and quickly turned around, Yuki promptly pulled his clothing back on. Just when Yuki informed the riceball that it was safe to look again, the curse conveniently decided that it was about time Kyo reverted to his human form.
"Well, well, well," Shigure commented as Kyo got dressed. Looking at the clock on the wall, he continued, "It's about time we get started. Tohru-kun, is the food ready?"
"Yes, Shigure-san!"
Kyo blinked before staring at Tohru and demanding, "You knew?!"
"Ah…" began Tohru anxiously. "Yes! I-I'm sorry, Kyo-kun! Shigure-san wanted to surprise you and Yuki-kun! Oh, I should have told you! I'm so sorry!" And she began bowing frantically, repeating, "Sorry, sorry, sorry…!"
"Okay! I get it!" Rubbing the back of his neck and looking intently at the ground, Kyo agreed, "Fine, I'll go."
Yuki glanced around and finally asked the riceball, "What are you talking about?"
"We're going camping!" Tohru exclaimed. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"…Camping," echoed Yuki. He pointed at Ayame while still looking at Tohru. "With him?"
"Yes!" Ayame boomed, sliding an arm around his brother's shoulders. "Fear not, little brother, we will share a tent! And I shall tell you stories of the Mabudachi Trio's high school days! It will be SUCH a marvelous experience for you!"
Kyo began smirking before he suddenly wondered, "How many tents are there, anyway?"
"Three," stated Shigure. "Oh, but you can have your own tent, Kyon-Kyon—I'll share quarters with our beautiful Tohru!"
As Tohru's face turned several dozen different shades of red, Kyo and Yuki, who'd now apparently decided to beat Ayame up later, yelled, "You will not!"
"And I'm not sharing a tent with you!" Yuki added to the snake.
Shigure butted in, "Alright then! Tohru-kun will have a tent to herself, I will share a tent with Aya, and Kyo and Yuki can sleep together!"
Deciding to temporarily ignore the perverted implications Shigure was certainly making in the last part of his speech, the rat and the cat glared at each other.
"I'll sleep outside," they chorused. Glaring harder, they said together, "Then I'll sleep in the tent."
"Not with me, you won't," Yuki stated.
"Then you keep the stupid tent!" shouted Kyo.
"And not be able to see you if you decide to bother Miss Honda? No, thank you."
Glowering at each other a moment longer, they proclaimed, "I'm not going!"
"Y-you aren't?" Tohru whispered, immediately making the boys feel bad for upsetting her.
"We'll go, Miss Honda," Yuki finally decided after a moment of awkward silence. "Neither one of us will use the tent."
"'Cause someone has to make sure those two idiots don't start bugging you!" Kyo added, glaring threateningly at those two idiots.
"Oh, how noble of you, Yun-Yun!" Ayame exclaimed, eyes watering as he proudly placed both hands on the rat's shoulders. Kyo would have commented that Yuki wasn't the only one acting noble if it wasn't for his desire to let Yuki have Ayame all to himself.
Yuki smiled at the snake-cursed. "Get your hands off me or you'll be driving us home with your feet."
…
"What a wonderful idea!" sang out Ayame. "I can show you that I am so talented and dexterous that I can drive a car with my feet!"
Simultaneously hitting the silver-haired fashionista on the head, the two teenaged Sohmas yelled, "Don't you dare!"
As Ayame went crying to Shigure for comfort, Kyo scowled at Yuki, "Don't go giving your stupid brother any more stupid ideas, stupid rat. My knuckles might start getting sore."
"It's so sad," Yuki seemingly-randomly commented.
"What is, Yuki-kun?" Tohru piped up.
"That the only descriptive word that he apparently knows is 'stupid'… well, I suppose it's fitting that the only adjective in his vocabulary describes himself…"
"THAT DOES IT!!" Kyo bellowed, "WE'RE TAKING THIS OUTSIDE… later. It's gonna rain."
Shigure, still soothing Ayame, looked up. The author retorted, "No it's not. The weather this morning said that there would be clear skies and a warm breeze—perfect camping weather."
"They lied. It's gonna rain, and I'm gonna take a nap." And the cat-cursed accordingly slouched off to do so, already seeming a bit sluggish.
"It—but—it can't rain!" blurted Shigure. "I had it all planned! And Tohru-kun has so much delicious food prepared!"
"That's alright, Shigure-san," Tohru replied. She smiled, "We can camp inside!"
"…"
"We can set up the tents in here, and we can toast marshmallows over the stove, and Kyo-kun won't have to go out in the rain!" She beamed.
"Excellent!" Ayame cried. "Yun-Yun, call Kyonkichi down so that we may begin!" Shigure nodded happily in agreement.
Yuki frowned at his brother and cousin before grudgingly shouting, "Hey, you stupid cat! We're going to camp inside! Get down here!"
Sweat-dropping, Shigure and Ayame thought, I could have done that…
After a minute passed with no reply, Tohru walked over to the kitchen door and called, "Kyo-kun?"
And from the cat came the reply of…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!"
A/N: I hope you liked this extra-long chapter that I put together for you and, since I do have an idea for a sixth chappie, expect weekly or every-other-weekly updates until completion! Thanks for your patience and your readership:-)