AN: Okay, so I hope you've all forgiven me for doing that to poor yun-yun but it was necessary.
Thankyou for my reviewer and I hope people review if they like!
Please enjoy...
Kaytii/
DISCLAIMER: I do not own fruits basket.
Hatsuyuki Shinderera
"Do you not find that wig annoying Yuki-chan…?" Akito walked up to me and gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "I know I certainly do…"
"Yes, Akito-sama… I do find it annoying… but if I didn't wear it then they would easily realise that I wasn't a guy and…"
"That would not be acceptable." He finished strongly, as I knew he would. Akito had always been strict in that respect… in the respect that I never told anyone my true gender…
… That I was a girl…
"No master… it wouldn't be…" I whispered in return as Akito led me gently into his chamber and I sat down in the soft chair that was always reserved for me, directly opposite him. "I… I'm sorry…"
I never knew what made me submit to Akito like that so reverently… but I always did… I couldn't help it… maybe it was the Nezumi spirit inside me bowing down to my 'lord and master'…
… Or maybe it was the bond that forced god and his first together, no matter what the circumstances were…
"So… my Yuki… how has your day been today…? Has everyone been respectable to you…?"
I knew automatically what that meant.
It meant 'had anyone called you a girl, even as a joke?'
It meant that Akito still wanted me kept on a leash…
… Not that I needed to be kept on one…
… After all, I had nowhere to go if I ran away – nowhere whatsoever to run to…
… Nowhere for me to truly call a home…
… Not really…
"Yes Akito-sama… No one has found out the secret… either of them…" While in the company of Akito, or any of the others who knew my secret, I always let my voice slip into its natural, higher tones, constantly feeling relief that I could feel free of pretence even for just half an hour – to me anytime being my true self was bliss… a bliss that I couldn't really afford…
… Not in a cruel world such as this…
… Never in a world like this…
"Good. It's good to know that everyone is behaving as they should… Did you know that stupid cat Kyo came over to the estate today…?" As he spoke, I did my best to keep a completely unmoved face – there was no way I could let him know my feelings for that strange boy in my class… the one I envied… and the one I loved… but the one who regarded me as a rival… because he didn't know the truth… "Something about a bet… you know he really hates you Yuki-chan… I still don't understand why you are always trying to make an effort with all the other people at that school… Why don't you just drop out of there and be home schooled…? It won't kill you…"
Every single day since the one I had decided to make my mother enrol me into the public co-ed school near the estate Akito had been having a go at me to leave. Was it just because he needed to have his zodiac around him constantly…? I mean… I know Kureno and Shigure are always hanging around… but he doesn't demand to see them every single day…
Was it just me then…? Had he really wanted me to stay in the cage, even though he had acted all graceful when mother had asked him…?
… Had he just been pretending when he said to her that I could choose to do what I wanted to do with my life…?
… Had he just said those things to placate me… to calm me down...?
… To tame me…?
"But Akito-sama… I like going to this High school… and… you said it was okay… no one will ever find out what I really am… and there are other Sohma's there who can cope with the whole 'cursed' part of their lives… Isn't it easier for me to go about unfounded… especially when the boys think I'm a boy as well…?"
It was the argument that I always used… and it was the one that he couldn't dispute, that made him hold on in his onslaught for another day…
"Fine Yuki. You can go now. Just don't leave the premises. Be in your room for 9."
And that was it; I was dismissed from the "god's" presence.
I walked up silently and went out of the room, by back not facing Akito until well after the door had closed behind me.
"At Akito's again, eh Yuki-kun…?" I turned around sharply to see Shigure standing there, smirking as he saw me in a girl's kimono, with my hair down. "Wow… you sure look an awful lot better dressed like that rather than in that silly wig… quite attractive…"
He squealed suddenly as I chucked a book on the side of the corridor at him forcefully, causing him to step back a few times, regaining his balance. Officially Shigure doesn't know about my… situation… but, due to being near Akito so much, I can easily assume that he knows that I'm living some kind of a lie… to any Sohma that lived on the inside it was obvious… unfortunately… that was why I couldn't let anyone get close to me, why I had to always put on a mask and pretend that I didn't mind that people always admired my from afar… Only Tohru really understood that I hated it all… and that I wanted to live a life without all the pretences and lies…
"Piss off Shigure! It's none of your business what I wear or don't wear. OR what I do or don't do. So just leave me alone."
My voice remained calm – it always did when I was around people who thought I was a boy – after all… boysdidn't have hissy fits now, did they? Boysdidn't scream when someone came onto them; if it was another boy and they weren't like that, then they'd probably do something like that… I don't know, seeing as…
I'M NOT A BOY MYSLEF!
I sometimes wish that I could just scream that out… but I know full well that I can't… so I have to just make the best I can with what I can…
Even though I wish it could all be out in the open…
And so that Kyo would know me for what I really was.
Not a rival, not an enemy…
… Not a person to hate…
… Not just the Nezumi…
But a fellow human being, a fellow person who could share in all of his laughter, and help him in his pain… and protect him from when 'god' was angry…
… A person who wouldn't judge him based on what position he was in the Juunishi… but on who he really was… because I knew how it felt to be judge based on what spirit possessed me…
… And not to be judged because of whom I was myself…
As I ran away from him, I felt bitter tears creep up in my eyes, and when I could no longer see for the whelming tears streaming down my face, I sat down, in the middle of that dark, deserted corridor, and allowed my emotions to take over me, to let me weep in peace, to sooth myself down in my own special way.
I couldn't cope in a place like this for much longer; in a place full of pretences. It truly was destroying me.
But I knew I couldn't escape; there was no way that Akito would allow it… and there was no way the Nezumi spirit within me would allow me to abandon everything either, trapping me here, to my master.
Forever.