Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket. This is just fanfiction for which I make no money.

I forgot to mention this last chapter, but this story will be primarily from Yuki and Kyo's points of view with other characters thrown in now and then for plot purposes. Also, to clear something up, no one is going to actually die in this fic. There's going to be a lot of angst and such, but no deaths, okay?

Chapter 2

Yuki

I couldn't focus. The problem in front of me may as well have been written in Swahili for all I understood. Numbers swam before my eyes before my vision blurred and my eyes crossed. I pushed away from my desk, leaned back against my chair and closed my eyes tightly against the exhaustion.

I shouldn't be so tired… I thought, letting out a long, slow breath. I'd slept as well as I ever managed to the night before and had even gotten out of bed earlier than usual to work on an essay. My mind kept wandering to the red-head in the room down the hall. I felt tension collecting in my shoulders and angry thoughts swirled around in my mind.

It had never occurred to me that fighting with Kyo was such an affective stress relief until it was no longer an option. The whole ordeal was bothering me to no end. As days went by with Kyo ignoring me and not raising his voice or otherwise reacting to my attempts at provoking him, I became more and more agitated. The stress was taking its toll and not for the first time that week, I found myself pacing in my room, analyzing every moment of my interactions with Kyo. I hated that he wasn't paying attention me. I hated that I hated it. Most of all, I hated the crushing realization that the reason being ignored bothered me was that I was spoiled and liked attention.

Kyo had always said I was happy with the attention the fan club gave me. To be honest, at first I thought it was endearing. However, having people adore me for how I look and the façade I put up every day at school felt shallow and lacking in merit. Kyo, on the other hand, treated me with unapologetic feeling. He knew me well enough to hate me and he didn't censor how he felt. It was almost comforting to know that someone saw the real me and reacted to it without faltering. He was honest.

I sighed and let myself fall backward onto my bed. I recalled the day when Nii-san told me that he was truthfully happy when I yelled at him. He'd laughed and said "It's better than being ignored." I felt a sort of kinship with him at that moment. I knew how horrible being ignored and abandoned was. A shiver ran down my spine at the memory of my mother disregarding my pleas to be taken home. Now, Kyo was ignoring me and it felt worse than anything else. I didn't understand; I hated him so why was it so painful for him to brush me off?

If I was completely honest with myself, I missed him.

I was filthy. The self inside, under my mask and false nature was the true, disgusting me. I needed Kyo to remind me of just how rotten I was. I needed him to show me my place and tell me that I was filthy. I needed his constant insistence that I was everything I thought I was. I wanted Kyo to tear down my resolve. It was distressing not having him to knock me down. The honest and irrefutable truth was that I wanted him to hate me. It proved that I was right.

I'm filthy.

To be destroyed by someone I aspired to be was the greatest liberation I could know. I admired Kyo's spirit and I wanted to claim some part of it as my own but I couldn't. His abuse was a constant reminder that I would never be at his level. It was easier to hate him than to admit to myself how much I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be his friend. Even after all those years of resenting him for the way he'd reacted at our first meeting, I still wanted to tell him his hair was pretty and seek understanding by a fellow cursed Sohma.

Kyo

I was restless.

Everything was just so stupid! One minute, I was anxiously pacing my bedroom being angry at everything around me, the next; I was lying on my bed, completely frozen in pain. I was starting to think something was seriously wrong with me. Like I was sick or something.

And then the memories came back. The steady mantra of it's all my fault was blasting through my mind as I remembered the pain I'd felt while looking at a bloodied and dying woman lying in the street. I curled in on myself, clutching my stomach and fighting back sobs. I'd really wanted to believe that it wasn't my fault. Even if believing it meant I had to blame Yuki for all of my problems, I had to believe something.

Yuki, why did my thoughts keep going back to Yuki? Why couldn't I get a break without thinking about him? It was better, I guess, than thinking about how fucked everything was. My heart couldn't handle so much blame and guilt. My brain was trying to save me by focusing on something else.

It was stupid, really, to think about Yuki. Him and his stupid fake smile; his annoying grace and perfect look; his flawless skin and beautiful eyes; they all pissed me off. And what pissed me off even more was that when I thought about insulting him or trying to start a fight, I'd look into those beautiful fucking eyes and I couldn't say it. I guess I should have been worried about how I kept thinking about how beautiful he was but I was just so happy to be thinking about something other than how much I hated myself.

I shouldn't have blamed him in the first place. It would have been better if I just let myself be destroyed by the whole thing. I shook my head, pleading with the thoughts to leave me alone already. I buried my face in my hands and took several deep, calming breaths.

When I exited my room, I was weirdly relieved to see Yuki's back as he headed down the stairs. He was like a reminder that I was still alive and walking around, or something. I liked that he still acknowledged my existence even though I knew he was annoyed with how much I'd been brushing him off lately. That's just stupid. He doesn't care one way or another. He's probably glad I'm not yelling at him and causing trouble. The thought caused my heart to thud uncomfortably and I felt like my brain was starting to melt.

"You couldn't just FUCKING LET ME BLAME YOU!" I shouted before I could stop myself.

Yuki whipped around, halfway down the stairs. He stared at me, shocked, which was not what I'd been expecting.

"You should have let me! I'd be okay, I'd be fine! BUT I CAN'T EVEN BLAME YOU FOR GETTING MAD BECAUSE I DESERVE IT!" I collapsed onto the top step, shaking with anger and misery. "Because it really is my fault. And it sucks." I buried my face in my hands, trying not to cry.

"Wh- what?" Yuki stammered. "What are you yelling about?"

"It's not your fault! It's not, I shouldn't have blamed you. It's my fault! It's all my fault…"

I glanced up and saw that Yuki was kneeling in front of me, looking puzzled. "What's your fault?" he asked.

I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't even answer. I'd just exploded and Yuki had no idea why. It was stupid. I looked over Yuki's shoulder and saw Shigure and Tohru standing at the foot of the stairs looking completely stunned. I stood up and pushed past Yuki. As I stomped down the stairs and out the door, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the misery much longer. So I ran. I ran as fast as I could, trying to leave all the pain and guilt behind me.

I guess I should have known that it would follow.

It felt like years before I finally stopped running. I was out of breath and sweating head to foot. I couldn't think straight. My brain was a tornado of half-formed thoughts and images of blood. I even felt like I could taste it in the back of my throat. I looked ahead and saw a steep cliff over-looking a river. I walked over and stared down at the rushing water, the sudden breeze chilling my skin. It looked so… easy. I could fall by accident and just… die. I took a step closer.

"That's dangerous," a cold voice said from behind me. I jerked backward, losing my balance but Yuki grabbed me by the collar and dragged me back before I could fall over. "Don't be stupid," he hissed in my ear. My back was pressed firmly against his chest and I was too stunned to pull away.

A moment later, Yuki tossed me into a nearby tree. Instead of leaping back up, I let myself crumple to the dirt and stared at my knees. "I'm pretty pathetic…" I muttered, mostly to myself.

"Care to explain that little stunt? Were you really about to… jump?" Yuki whispered the last word.

"It's less dramatic than throwing myself in front of a train…" It was a stupid thing to say but there's no way Yuki would make the connection.

"It's just as cowardly. Whatever you're blaming yourself for is not worth throwing yourself off a cliff. Don't. Be. Stupid."

"How do you know it's not worth it?"

"NOTHING IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR LIFE!" Yuki screamed.

I looked up, shocked at the sheer volume. Yuki was not a person who screamed or yelled. Everything around us went silent, Yuki's words were ringing in my head and I felt sick. "Why do you even care? It's not your problem. You'd be better off if I was gone. Everyone would be because it's my fault."

It took me a moment to realize that Yuki was kneeling in front of me again. I stared at his shoes. I couldn't look him in the eye. I was so ashamed of the whole thing. It was one thing to even think of doing something so weak; it was salt on the wound to have Yuki see me thinking about it.

"I wasn't gonna jump," I said. I didn't know why I felt the need to tell that to Yuki.

Yuki grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head up so I'd have to look at him. I let out a yelp of surprise and pain. "Good," he snapped. He let go of my hair suddenly. I was struck by the intense look of… something in his eyes. It looked like recognition. He sighed. "Normally, I would allow you to be miserable. I suppose I don't hate you enough to want you dead."

My eyes widened in shock.

"I'm not heartless. No matter how much you claim that I have no heart, I assure you, I do. Whatever you blame yourself for is not your fault. You haven't done anything horrible enough for that."

"You don't know that. HOW COULD YOU KNOW THAT?"

"I just know you wouldn't do anything worth dying over." Yuki stood up. "You're not heartless either. It's not your fault."

To my complete horror, my eyes brimmed with tears. Yuki looked down; the same surprised look he'd given me on the stairs was etched across his features. It would have been funny if I wasn't so embarrassed and crying my eyes out. He doesn't blame me! The words it's not your fault played over and over in my mind. For the first time ever, I felt like I'd really been forgiven. A glimmer of hope bloomed in my heart and I wondered if that meant I'd be okay.

No, the absolution was crushed by the sudden wave of truth. It's still my fault. He just doesn't know. I discarded the feeling of lightness in my chest and replaced it with the agony and unrelenting longing for forgiveness. The only people who could forgive me were dead. And I wanted to be too.

I stood up and stalked off back toward the house. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to get back. Maybe I'd run in circles. Or maybe I hadn't been running as long as I thought. Either way, I was disappointed that I didn't get the chance to think about what had happened. I'd needed that time to figure out what to say to Tohru and Shigure. As it was, when I walked up the porch steps, Yuki a few paces behind me, I could barely manage to give a half-assed explanation about being stressed out and needing to relax. Tohru took a little convincing, but after a while, she seemed to accept that I was okay. Shigure didn't believe a word of it. I could tell he wasn't fooled by the look he gave me before walking into his office. I heard him say "Hatori, I think it's started already," into his phone before he shut the door.

"Are you hungry, Kyo-kun?" asked Tohru. "I was about to get started on dinner."

My first instinct was to tell her I wasn't hungry, but I realized that it would probably worry her if I said it, so I nodded. "Yeah, I'm hungry."

Tohru smiled and glanced over her shoulder at Yuki. "Welcome back, Yuki-kun!" she greeted him.

I glanced back and saw Yuki give her a smile. "Thank you, Honda-san," he replied. "I have some studying to do; I'll see you at dinner."

Yuki walked past me without sparing a glance. He seemed almost determined to ignore me. That was fine. He was probably still freaked out by how I acted in the forest. "I gotta study too," I told Tohru. "I'll be down in a bit."

Tohru smiled. "Good luck with your studying!" She gave me a cute little wave and I headed up the stairs, trying to be energetic and look happy. When I got into my room and shut the door, I sank to the ground, leaning against my closed door and took a deep breath. I didn't think it would be so hard to pretend to be okay.

Yuki

Confusion was such a rare emotion for me. I didn't usually get the chance to experience it. I couldn't fathom for the life of me why I had reacted to Kyo's behavior and words the way I had. All I knew was when I saw him standing at the cliff and staring down at the water below, my heart had stopped. The thought of him falling to his death terrified me. When he didn't immediately deny that he'd been considering it, I panicked.

Yelling was even rarer than being confused. I rarely yelled at anyone besides Manabe-san. He was the only one who'd ever managed to get that much of a rise out of me. Aside from Kyo. Dark looks and low, threatening tones worked better on the stupid cat. At first, Manabe rubbed me entirely the wrong way. I began to have a seething hatred for him. Then he'd told me I was "a pretty interesting guy" and my view of him softened. I began to feel a sort of fondness for him and eventually started thinking that he was rather attractive.

The minor crush didn't last long. When I discovered he had a girlfriend, I pushed it aside and it disappeared entirely. I wasn't desperate for companionship. I certainly wouldn't lower myself to pining after a man who clearly wasn't like me in my tastes.

Even after such a long time of suspecting I might have been gay, I still couldn't bring myself to easily think the word. I struggled with it for a very long time and I had finally accepted it but I knew that many of my family members would be appalled by the very idea. I would never confide in Shigure about it. Perhaps I'd tell Ayame. But I wanted to tell Tohru before anyone else. I knew that she would accept it. She so readily accepted Haru's strange crush on me –I refused to believe he was still in love with me; he was in love with Rin, after all. Yes, Tohru would have no difficulty accepting it. I knew she didn't see me as a possible boyfriend; she clearly thought of Kyo that way.

I twirled my pencil between my fingertips. My thoughts had returned to Kyo in spite of my best efforts to think of other things. I smiled to myself thinking that Kyo was the very last person I'd ever tell about my… difference. Gay, Yuki, just think the word. It can't hurt you. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I was surprised when I didn't hear Kyo moving around on the roof. Usually when he was upset, that would be his hiding place. Kyo rarely stayed in his room for long. It nagged at me in the back of my mind. Not that I was worried about Kyo, it just bothered me when things changed.

I liked consistency.

Shigure

"Hatori," I said into the receiver. "I think it's started already."

"What do you think has started?" Hatori asked.

I was about to answer when I realized that I'd left the door open and closed it with a snap. "Kyo. I didn't think that would start until New Years. If it started at all. I was hoping that since the Rat was a boy…"

Hatori paused. "I know that it has happened before. There have been instances of the Cat and Rat being of the same gender and the Cat never failed to fall in love with the Rat."

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "My precious house."

"I'm more worried about Kyo," said Hatori. "He seems unstable enough already."

"Yep. He's probably more messed up than anyone I know."

"I was referring to how his mother died."

I felt the color drain from my face.

"You're aware of how much such a thing raises the likelihood that he will die the same way?"

My heart constricted. "Kyo is too stubborn to go out like that."

"Are you sure? Maybe you should keep a close eye on him. I'm not sure how he'll handle the worst part of his curse."

"Yes, yes, I'll watch him." A thought suddenly occurred to me. "Does Kazuma-dono know about this?"

"I told him myself. He asked quite a lot of questions about his grandfather after he took Kyo in. He was determined to protect Kyo's emotions as much as he could."

I rubbed my head; the whole thing was giving me a headache. "I don't want to be the one to tell him it's started already."

"Why do you think it's started?"

"He shouted at Yuki earlier."

"That's not unusual."

"The things he was shouting were."

Hatori didn't speak for a while. "I have to attend to Akito," he said. "Make sure to look after him and call if something happens."

"Right," I agreed. "Good bye Haa-san."

The sound of the line going dead was the only response I received. So stoic, but I suppose I should expect it.

Well, what do you guys think? Reviews would be nice. :D