Prettyinpinkgal: Well, I still have yet to receive any reviews, but I see some people have favorited this story, so thank you to those who did! I hope this chapter is enjoyable as well. I noticed a mistake in one of the previous chapters: Shibuya is a shopping district, so I'm not sure if it would have regular houses. However, since this is a fictional story and it has girls turning into ducks, why not make it so that you can live in Shibuya as well? So that's that.
By the way, I forgot to mention it last chapter but I finished the whole Furuba series. Although I said my obsession for it has faded, I'm still a fan. It's such a great series X3. But another series has achieved #1 in my mind: Dengeki Daisy. Look it up on manga fox. It's fantastic. They really need to release it in the U.S.
1) Nee-chan = a form of "older sister" which is more affectionate and close than respectful.
2) Kyo-nii-chan = basically means "big brother Kyo", since Kyo is older than Suki and Ai.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
TROUBLED LOVE
CHAPTER TWELVE: REJECTED AND DEJECTED
The next day, Tohru was absent. Kyo, upon realizing this, could not help but glare throughout the entire day, continually glancing back at "Tsuki's" empty desk.
"Hey, Kyon. What's with the long face?" Uotani asked once the final bell rang.
"Nothing, now shut up and leave me alone."
"Excuse me?!"
Hanajima smiled at her friend. "There, there, Arisa. He's only sulking because Nekono isn't here."
"HUH?!" Kyo cried.
Uotani stared at her friend. "I think you're off. There's no freaking way Kyon could be in love with Nekono. He didn't really care very much whether she was around before."
"You had a study group with her last night, didn't you?" Saki asked a frozen Kyo. "So something must have happened last night to make you so annoyed by her absence."
"Yeah? Well nothing did, so deal with it!" Kyo shouted at her.
"Is it because her face reminds you of Tohru's?" was Saki's response.
The class, who had been watching the squabble with great interest and had been commenting the entire time, fell silent. Yuki, who had not moved from his seat, stared straight ahead. Even Uotani averted her eyes.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Kyo asked.
"You were in love with her. Are you sure your interest in Nekono is for Nekono herself or for her resemblance to Tohru? Although," Hanajima said, thinking out loud, "her waves were strangely similar to Tohru's."
Kyo eyed her. Despite Hana's blunt nature, it was obvious that her eyes held more pain than usual. She missed her friend far more than she could say, and this made him feel guilty. But he did promise Tohru, and it was up to her to come clean or not.
Unable to determine a response, he got up and left without a word.
Kyo looked at the map in dismay. Although it was accompanied by written directions, he still could not make heads or tails of it. He had gotten the paper from Tohru the night before, just before she had left.
"Um," she had begun, taking out a notebook from her bag and ripping out a page, "in case you need something, or want to just talk, I live here. You're welcome to visit anytime. But my adoptive family has no idea of my real self, remember, so please be careful."
She still can't make any decent directions, he thought in annoyance, shoving the paper in his pocket and walking through Shibuya without the slightest clue as to where he was going.
"Uh, hey," he said to some passing gals. "Do you happen to know a Tsuki Nekono?"
The girls, who were slightly younger than him, grinned. "Do we ever! She's, like, so awesome! She fights for the peace in Shibuya!"
This is the kind of reputation she has as Tsuki Nekono?! "Do you know where she lives?"
"Onee-chan (1) is friends with her," one of the girls said. "She lives--"
She proceeded to give him directions, which were by far clearer than Tohru's messy attempt. He gratefully wrote them down and thanked her, heading off in the direction she had pointed to.
Fifteen minutes later, he arrived at a house with "Sunatani" written on the name plate. Just as he was about to walk towards the gate, an older guy walked out.
"Hey there, can I help you?" the twenty-year-old asked.
"Yeah. I'm here to see To--Tsuki Nekono. She wasn't at school today, so..."
"Oh! You're...Kyo?"
Kyo could not help but brighten up a bit at the thought of Tohru talking about him. "That's me. How'd you know?"
"Tsuki told us there was a guy at school with hair the color of carrots," he replied cheerfully, oblivious to the depression now on the visitor's face. He opened the gate for Kyo. "I'm Kimoto Sunatani, Tsuki's foster brother. She had a fever today; that's why she wasn't in school. She gets those when she overexerts herself, especially with martial arts. Mom would rather she quit, but Tsuki's pretty determined. She's a pretty nice girl (don't tell her I told you that), but she's stubborn as a mule if she thinks she's right."
He led Kyo inside and to Tsuki's room. "I'll get one of my sisters to send a snack up for you guys later. Oh, and if you do anything to Tsuki, I'll kill you if she doesn't kill you first." This was said with a bright smile which Kyo automatically detested--it was too much like that dang rat's fake-smile.
He knocked politely on the door. "Toh--Tsuki, it's Kyo. I'm coming in."
"Eh? Kyo-kun?! Kyaa!" There was a thud, and a light coughing fit.
"You alright? I'm coming in."
"Um, okay!"
He entered to see a fairly plain but still quite girly room. At the back corner was an unmade bed, and next to said bed was Tohru, trying to sit upright and fix her hair so she could at least slightly hide the fact that she had been sleeping the entire day.
"Don't get more brain damage," was Kyo's automatic statement upon seeing the black-and-blue mark on her forehead. He closed the door behind him and sat down at the table in the middle of her room.
"Meanie," she muttered, then gasped. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean that!"
"I liked the old you," he said, looking away, "but I like how you can express yourself more now."
"Th-thanks. Anyway, what brought you to my house?"
"Here's the work you missed," he said, handing her some notebooks and pointing out what was the day's assignment. "And I wanted to talk to you."
"Oh. Was there something I forgot to explain last night?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.
He stared at her.
"What is it?"
"Sorry. It's just that it's like you have personality disorder when you talk like...you when you look like...that."
She smiled, and he realized again just how much he had missed it. "I guess it is a little strange. But what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"Nothing." Kyo felt his cheeks redden. "I just wanted to talk, that's all. Oh, how are you feeling?"
"I'm a lot better now. My temperature seems to have gone down a lot. What happened at school today?" she asked.
"That yanki and the psychic girl are worried about you. Everyone is, I think, even those crazy fanclub girls that bullied you."
Tohru's brow crinkled, confused. "Do you mean they're worried about Tsuki or Tohru?"
"Well, they're wondering what happened with Tsuki, but they're mostly worried about Tohru. Man, it's weird talking like that."
Tohru laughed softly, only to end up in another coughing fit.
Kyo sat beside her and lightly hit her back in an awkward attempt to soothe her. Once it passed, she smiled and said, "It really is nice being able to talk with someone so freely again. I missed this."
He was silent for a moment, then said, "Why don't you end this?"
"Eh?"
"Who cares what happens to us?" He stared into her eyes. "You've done more than enough. You deserve some happiness too. I mean, geez, you even took on the curse for us."
"Yes, but I couldn't possibly let you all get hurt!"
"Screw it! This is hurting everyone more, not knowing where the heck you are!"
This surprised Tohru into silence.
Kyo took the opportunity to continue. "You've noticed it too, right? That stupid rat is more of a fake than usual. I acted like a zombie or something. Momiji isn't as happy as he usually is. Even Haru is quieter than usual. And Shigure's not as obnoxious as usual, Ritsu doesn't even apologize anymore--he doesn't talk at all, actually--while Hatori keeps looking up on the internet to find out where you are."
"But it's better this way!" Tohru tried to convince him. "I appreciate everyone's concern, but soon they'll forget about me and they just won't care! In fact, they should hate me!"
"And why is that?"
"Because I'm the one who messed everything up!"
"You did not!"
"Yes, I did!"
A knock interrupted them. "Nee-chan, we're coming in."
Tohru quickly put on her facade. "'Kay."
Two identical girls entered, carrying trays of food and drinks. "Thanks for visiting our sister," one said as they sat the trays down on the table.
"Sure," Kyo replied, struggling to be patient as he waited for the girls to leave.
"Kyo-kun, these are my sisters Ai and Suki."
"Pleased to meet you," the two girls said, bowing politely.
"Yeah, you too."
Suki and Ai glanced at the close proximity of the visitor and their sister and grinned. "Nee-chan!" Suki cried.
"You didn't tell us you got a boyfriend!" Ai finished excitedly.
Kyo and Tohru turned bright red and inched away from each other. "Nonononono," Tsuki laughed anxiously. "It's not like that at all; I don't like Kyo-kun that way."
"Eeeh? That's too bad."
"It'd be great if you got a boyfriend. Are you feeling better?"
"Mm-hmm!"
"That's good. Nice meeting you, Kyo-nii-chan!(2)"
The two girls closed the door behind them, leaving Tohru to relax.
"I'm so sorry about that," she said, still embarrassed.
Kyo stood, not looking at her. "It's fine. I'd better get going."
"So soon?"
He glanced at her, the pain evident in his eyes and the strained smile on his face. "Yeah, well, I think it's best since I just got rejected for a second time."
Tohru's eyes widened as she suddenly realized how she reacted to Ai and Suki's misinterpretation. Guilt automatically consumed her.
"Kyo-ku--"
"I already finished the homework, so you can give the notebooks back when you come back to school on Monday, alright?"
"Yes, but--!"
"See ya. And don't worry about it."
Before she could say anything more, he was gone.
Later that evening, Kyo laid on the rooftop, staring at the stars, deep in thought. He remembered that time, only a year ago, when he had just begun to accept Tohru and develop feelings for her. They had been sitting on the roof together, her trying pathetically to punch him, him laughing and trying to teach her the correct method.
"Right straight!" she had cried with vigor, punching his arm.
There was a moment of silence, and then a small laugh burst from his lips. "You suck," he informed her with a slightly-shy grin.
Instead of getting angry, she smiled, and for a moment he wondered if she was an idiot after all. Who would smile so sweetly after someone said that to them? Yet soon after that thought crossed his mind, he realized she was not smiling because he insulted her, but because she understood that this was the first time she had seen him really smile, the first time she had felt that she connected with Kyo in some way.
And he felt happy that she was happy.
"Hey, stupid cat. Dinner's here," he heard Yuki call in a bored voice.
"Shut up."
"Well, at least your sulking by yourself and not bothering us about it."
He heard Yuki slide the door open to go back inside. "Wait."
"Did you change your mind? It's too late; you didn't want it, so--"
"What if I said I knew where Tohru is?"
There was a flutter of wings as a bird took off nearby.
Suddenly, Yuki appeared on the roof, his eyes wide. "What...did you say?"
"What if I knew where she was; would you go get her?"
"Of course!"
"Even if she doesn't want anyone to find her?"
"What are you talking about?! How do you know where she is?!"
"If I did, it would have been yesterday that I figured it out."
Yuki fell silent, obviously considering whether to beat Kyo up almost to death and get the cat to use his last breath to talk about Tohru's location, or if he should just try to stay calm. He decided, for Tohru's sake, that he would go with the latter. "So," he said slowly, "if you did know, you would know why she left?"
"Probably."
"And what do you think might be the reason?"
"She probably was threatened by a certain someone we all know and hate and decided to obey him. He probably threatened our safety as well as her own in order for 'Tohru Honda' to disappear from our lives."
"Ak--"
"A certain someone."
Yuki gave up asking for specifics. Thie peculiar bond keeping the Sohmas connected with Akito might alert him somehow of their knowledge. "Hypothetically speaking, is she close to us now?"
"Not really close, but physically close to us."
"And she would be?"
"A kogal. I think."
Yuki sat down heavily.
Kyo continued, keeping his voice carefully apathetic. "She probably misses us, and I bet she wants to come clean but can't. She'll kill me if she finds out I told you. Hypothetically."
"I can't see her killing anyone."
"Guess that's true."
Yuki peered at him from the corner of his eye. "Why are you telling me this?"
Kyo sighed and started to walk down from the roof. He stopped and glanced at his cousin. "Because if she's in love with either of us, it's you. And I figured it'd make her happy if she knew you knew."
Without further ado, he hopped down to the balcony and went inside, leaving Yuki to ponder under the starry sky.
