Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ A Battle Lost ❯ Negotiations ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: Do I own it? No. Do I wish that I did? Certainly.

A/N: Part 2 of 3 coming your way. If you can get through the angst I assure you it's worth it! ^_^

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A Battle Lost - Part 2

By: Mizaya

Swings and kicks flew through the air at an alarming pace, deftly targeting the invisible opponent. An open-handed chop to the neck was followed by a roundhouse kick to the head from the other side. If it had been a real opponent, one who couldn't move, he would have been paralyzed or unconscious.

Kyo could admit that he was skilled. After practicing marital arts his whole life it felt as natural to him as breathing. Any day that didn't start out with morning training just felt wrong somehow. He also knew that when he faced real challengers, his emotions often took over and he lost his smooth abilities. Sure he could take Hatsuharu down at any time, but he should be able to beat anyone. That damn rat should be easy to best, not impossible! His next blow was badly miscalculated and he stumbled to regain his balance.

Frustrated that his anger inhibited him again, he ran his hand over his forehead and into the messy reddish hair, making it stick up with a morning's worth of sweat. He was officially exhausted.

The whole night he had maybe two hours of sleep, and it was fitful. So, before the sun had even begun to rise, Kyo tossed the sleeping cats off of him and grabbed his shoes so he could go to the store. His clothes had been rumpled from laying in them all night, but he didn't much care. He wanted to be to the all-night supermarket and back long before Tohru woke up.

Walking around under the glaringly fluorescent lights he felt even more upset about his actions. What right did he have to kiss Tohru? All he had wanted was to spend the remaining days of freedom, eighty-eight now, in her presence. He should have left well enough alone. He should have restrained himself better. He should have done a lot of things differently. If he could go back and change everything, he would. He would have been nicer to her from the start.

"I didn't know," he gritted out angrily, crushing the box of crackers in his hand. A tired-looking man backed away from him, eyes fearful. Kyo glared at him and continued with his shopping. He didn't know how special she would end up being to him. That he might come to care for her - that he might come to love her - wasn't something he thought about at that disastrous first meeting.

But there she was, a tiny, cheerful girl. She would probably laugh and deny it if he told her she had immense power over him. It was true, though. When she asked for anything, a situation that arose very rarely considering her nature, he had no strength to say no to her. He could admit it to himself that he would give her the world, but there was no way he could tell her out loud. Words always got in the way of his feelings and feelings got in the way of his brain. Tohru made him feel like a stammering, lovesick fool. The scary part was he didn't even mind it.

After paying for the groceries and returning to the house, Kyo had hurriedly put all the food away and begun making rice. The least he could do to make up for his lecherous actions was fix her breakfast. The problem was that he wanted to be done and outside training before she woke up. That way, if she didn't want to see him, he wouldn't be in her way.

The onigiri he had cooked up for her meal might have been perfectly shaped, but they were pretty dull. Kyo tried to arrange them on the plate in an interesting pattern but to no avail. He had no artistic talent. Frowning at the monochrome balls of rice, he had just decided to stick some vegetables on the plate and write a note:

---I went to the store already. You can have these if you want. I already ate---

Then he had set the plate and the note on the counter and made a beeline for the yard so she wouldn't have to face him. Meditating for a bit had helped him focus his mind and after that the forms came easily to him.

That was an hour ago. He couldn't practice all day, not when he had only slept minimally and she was awake to distract him. While his hand still remained in his damp hair, he used his arm as a shield to hide the fact that he was looking at her through the window. He watched as she padded into the dining room, Bonesy in her wake, carrying the tray of riceballs. The little gray cat seemed to like her, at least. Kitty Pants would hiss at anyone that wasn't himself or his Shishou, even Kunimitsu, but Bonesy was friendly with everyone.

Tohru's face was long and dreary as she munched on her breakfast. Kyo knew why, though. He had violated her personal space, scared her, and now their friendship was ruined. He knew Tohru well enough that he could admit he meant something to her, but this changed it all for the worst. Even if she had wanted to, even if she had liked it, it was still all so unfair. His time with her was so limited. He could categorize it in hours and it wouldn't even seem that far off that he would be sent away for eternity. What would that do to her? He couldn't kiss her and give her the hope of something more if she got the impression that he would be there always.

How he longed to be, though.

Something warm brushed his ankle and he looked down to see Bonesy's female counterpart staring up at him with round green eyes. "What do you want?" The cat said nothing, but she dragged her head over his leg again. "I'm taking a shower and then a nap." As if she understood, Kitty Pants ran ahead of him to the door and meowed insistently.

Kyo followed and, taking a deep breath, quickly walked into the house and across the open space where Tohru was still eating. He couldn't even bear to see her this closely. It would tear him up forever if he saw that hurt clearly. He muttered almost to himself about the shower and then ran off down the hall and into the bathroom. Once he was there, he let out that breath and began undressing. Maybe a nice warm shower would help him get to sleep. He could just sleep all day everyday until graduation. It would be better than the constant reminder of whom he had hurt.

After his long, hot shower, Kyo finally changed into all new clothes. The clean feeling made him more relaxed, and that brought his exhaustion to a head. As soon as he found a comfortable position on the bed he was fast asleep.

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Darkened shadows played on the walls and it took him a few minutes to recognize his old bedroom. He felt muddled and fuzzy after so much sleep, not to mention famished. His stomach rumbled to echo that thought. A dazed look at the alarm clock and an even more dazed calculation of numbers told him he had been sleeping for ten hours. Realization set in like molasses. Ten hours!

Jumping out of bed, Kyo was caught in a lengthy yawn. He stretched and mussed his hair before stepping out of his dark room into the well-lit hallway. As he made his way into the dining room, he squinted and blinked, getting adjusted to the sudden brightness. Tohru was sitting at the table, one of her textbooks in hand. By the time he noticed her sitting there, it was too late.

Tohru looked up, her face startled and confused. "Ah." Her pause filled the air, as if she didn't know what to say to a lecher like himself. "I have dinner ready. Let me go get it." Her voice was timid, shy. That he had scared her to such an extent made him lose most of his appetite.

She returned a minute later, carrying some miso soup and codfish. It was his favorite meal. She probably made it so he would be happy and not attack her again. Kyo drank the soup quickly, almost choking because it was still hot off the stove. He wanted nothing more than to eat and get out of her hair. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her again. Everything was hopeless.

"Kyo-kun?" His name was so faint on her lips that he imagined that hearing it was a dream.

Dreadfully, he brought his eyes up to meet hers and shriveled inside because of the hurt there. How could he steal that happy glow from her face? He didn't want to hear whatever it was she was going to say. Possibilities ran through his head, everything from her crying because she was scared to angrily telling him to stay out of her life. He knew better, though, that her words would be kind and barely tinged with the fearful sadness she had to be feeling. He couldn't deal. He left the salmon on the plate and stood up from the table. Working his jaw to try and think of something to say, he finally gave up and just left the house.

Outside, he growled loudly and struck his fist into the side of the house. It stung and he could feel where his knuckles were gashed, but it was most welcomed. He deserved more pain than he could inflict on himself. He deserved his punishment of being locked away. Maybe everyone was right about the cat. If he couldn't control his emotions enough to be with the one person he loved above all others without abusing her, he had no place in society.

The roof of his Shishou's house wasn't easily accessed like the one at Shigure's. High places had always been his refuge of choice, however, and he had learned how to access the roof only three days after he had moved in. All he had to do was scale the small pear tree on the North side, and then leap a short distance from the branch to the ledge, then lift himself up and over. It seemed so easy now, where as at age five it had been an adventure.

He reminisced about his childhood as he ascended the tree. At his parents' house he had often climbed out of his bedroom window on the roof to stare at the stars at night. Something had seemed so right about looking up at the world and seeing nothing but open sky. At such a young age he had no idea what it was, but he knew now that it was relief from the weight of the curse pushing down on him. His mother made almost a prison for him herself. Once she had caught him lying out on the roof after he was supposed to be in bed and she scolded him worriedly until his father nailed the window closed. That was the end of that luxury. It was only weeks before she died. At the time he thought it had something to do with her death, that he had scared her so much by being out on the precariously high roof that she couldn't handle it anymore. His current situation reminded him of that. He terrified people he loved so much that they ran away from him, frightened to even be around him.

Once he moved into Shishou's house, he felt the roof pulling again. He thought that if he climbed onto the roof again that she would get scared and come back to him, to pull him in and touch his cheek like the time she caught him. She never did, though. All he had was the stars overhead.

Shishou let him go to the roof whenever he wanted, because he trusted Kyo and knew he was an agile climber. He also knew that it was Kyo's sanctuary away from the trials and tribulations of life. Even so, before Kyo had lived there a week the ground below the pear tree, which was originally sprinkled with rocks and some prickly bushes, was replaced with soft grass and eventually wildflowers. That was Kazuma's way. He always let Kyo be himself and only gave him advice about what to do, never ordering him, but he looked out for Kyo at all times.

The roof was cold and sharp against Kyo's back, delightfully so. Air was better and cleaner when he was on the roof. The roof was familiar. The stars always looked the same, no matter where he was or how old. Kyo hoped for one thing in his cell; he hoped that he had a window where he could see the stars at night. Never would he voice his desire for that, in fear that Akito would deny him any pleasures, but he thought it to himself all the time. If he could see the stars, his life might be tolerable. His memories of Tohru would somehow drown without them twinkling in the sky like her smile.

He had no idea how long he laid on the rooftop. It seemed like an hour but he knew it had been several. His hands were red and chapped from the cold mountain air and his breath hung like a ghost in front of him. The last light in the house, that he could see only by the stream of yellow that played on the leaves of the garden's trees, had gone out some time ago. He had waited, though, to come down, because he wanted to make sure she was asleep. It was only two more nights of having to be with him until Shishou would come back and he could take her home. He would have offered himself, but he didn't think she would want to walk through the woods with a molesting pervert. And he certainly would never suggest she walk home alone. He could manage to stay out of her way for another day.

In lieu of shimmying down the tree, which had proved difficult in the past, Kyo just jumped down off of the roof. He landed lightly, using his hands to balance the impact. It was one of the few reasons he could be thankful for having the spirit of a cat. Brushing off the knees of his khaki pants, he acknowledged that the lights in the house were in fact out. His sensitive ears could hear no sounds as he walked in the door, either, so hopefully she really was asleep.

As quietly as possible, Kyo crept to the kitchen and finished the salmon that Tohru had left in the refrigerator for him. After that, he brushed his teeth and stripped off his clothes until he was clad only in his boxers and undershirt. That was how he slept most nights, regardless of how he had just passed out fully dressed the night before. He stretched out on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't tired at all after his prolonged nap, but in his room he was alone, out of her way.

Minutes passed like hours before his eyes. Right as he thought he might actually fall asleep, he heard a piercing cry from Tohru's room. Not even thinking about anything except her well-being, he dashed from his bed to her door and threw it open.

Tohru sat hunched over herself on the middle of her futon. Her soft brown hair trailed over her arms and back and she trembled with pitiful sobs. He couldn't just leave her in that state, no matter what had happened between them.

"Tohru," he said hesitantly from her doorway.

Looking up at him with glistening eyes, she began to cry even more. "I'm so sorry, Kyo-kun. I didn't mean to wake you up." Her words were barely intelligible because of her tears.

Kyo crept closer to her, as he might approach a deer in the forest. He was slow, making non-threatening, calming gestures with his hands. "I was already awake. What happened?" He swallowed. "Do…do you want me to leave?"

"No!" He was surprised at her pleading tone. "Please, Kyo-kun, I wanted to talk to you."

Sitting on the floor, several feet from the edge of her bedroll, he nodded at her. He was prepared for the worst.

"Kyo-kun," she started, "I don't understand what happened. Last night when…we kissed." She blushed and bowed her head shamefully. "I'm sorry if I did something wrong to offend you. Today, I felt like I was in your way, and you didn't want to be near me, and this is your house and I'm always so selfish. And now I woke you up with my bad dream. I really am a burden. I should go back home." Still not meeting his eyes, she began packing her things in her bag.

Kyo was completely stunned. Her words meant that he had been wrong all along. He was thinking the same thoughts that she was, about offending him and scaring him and getting in his way. He felt even more like a fool now. His method of showing her that he always wanted to be near her had miserably failed, but not in the way he had thought. Unless she was lying to him, which he couldn't ever believe, he had just acted like the biggest idiot the world had ever seen, and now he was being even stupider as he idly watched her pack her bags to what? Walk back to Shigure's in the middle of the night?

"Tohru, stop." He was on his feet in a heartbeat, at her side and pulling her up by her arm. He arranged her so that she faced him directly, her eyes unbelievably wide as she tilted her head up to stare at him. She was his fragile little flower. He swore to himself at that moment that he wasn't going to trample her anymore. "I'm a dumbass." She shook her head but he put his finger to her chin and stopped her. "You could never do anything to get in my way. I want you in my way forever. Don't you understand?"

"But I'm such-"

She never finished her sentence. Kyo kissed her all over again, only this time he was sure of what he was doing. If she didn't despise him for it then he could never hold back.

Tohru tensed and then quickly relaxed at the contact. Her lips pressed back into his and he felt her hands brace on his shoulders. She was still careful about the curse, even in the middle of being kissed. Kyo's own hands cupped her face and his thumbs, lubricated by her drying tears, swept up her cheeks to rest beside her gorgeous eyes. His kiss was short and tender, with no presumption of anything more. He pulled back with his mouth slightly open, and tried to find some answer in her gaze.

She seemed to sparkle with an inner beauty that everyone could see but no one could ever define. He could have looked at her like that, a deep blush darkening her cheeks, forever. "I want to stay with you for as long as I can," he told her.

"I want to stay with you, too, Kyo-kun."

Her conviction shook him to his very core. Her effect on him never lessened no matter how long he spent in her presence or how many idiotic things she did. He loved her for all of them. He loved her. "Tohru," he said, still cupping her face. "You're really dense, and you apologize too much, and you need to learn to speak up for yourself more often." Sighing at the way her eyebrows rose worriedly, he rushed on. "But I don't want you to change. You are my… most special person."

For good measure, he kissed her again as the words suck in. He didn't know what he was doing anymore than she did, but he knew it was right to try. This time she seemed to be more frozen, so he stopped quickly to look at her again.

"Kyo-kun, you are my most special person, too." Her hand traced over her own pinked lips and she blushed, only this time he could tell by the accompanying smile that it was out of happiness, not embarrassment or shock.

Something that she said earlier nagged in his mind. "What did you have a bad dream about?" he inquired seriously, frowning at her to emphasize his concern.

"Ah, it was nothing, really." He glared and she looked down. "I had a dream that you transformed into a cat and I was running after you, but you were too fast."

"Then why did you scream?"

Her eyes met his through her long eyelashes. "It was awful, Kyo-kun! I chased you so far that you ran out in front of a big truck, and I was scared that it would run you over so I yelled out to you. That's when I woke up."

He half smiled at her dreaming about him. If only she knew how often she graced his dreams. Those weren't nightmares, however. Those were usually much more detailed. Just thinking about them made him blush himself.

"I'm sorry, Kyo-kun, for chasing you like that."

Rolling his eyes at her, he grabbed her hand and led him from the room. "Don't be so dumb. Apologizing for a dream," he grumbled into the air.

"You aren't having anymore nightmares tonight," Kyo told her with great resolve. Guiding her into his room and to his bed, he pointed for her to sit down. "You are going to sleep on my bed for the rest of the night. It's more comfortable than that old futon so you'll get better rest. I'll go sleep on that."

"No, I couldn't do that!" Tohru shot up from sitting on the bed and gave him the most horrified expression. He would have to be as stubborn as she was.

Crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes, Kyo stood his ground. "I'm not taking no for an answer. I won't be to blame for you having bad dreams."

Tohru just blushed and nodded, settling herself into the covers. Kyo waited until she looked tucked in and then he turned the light off and started to close the door.

"Wait. Kyo-kun?" He paused for her question. "Will you stay with me? I feel so guilty taking your nice bed from you, and it would be nice to have some company."

Her question caught him completely off guard. She wanted him to sleep in the same bed as her? She probably didn't even know what that implied. He still couldn't say no, though, and honestly he didn't really want to. His brain swam erratically as he reversed his direction and closed the door with himself in the room instead. Despite his attempt to stay cool, his hands shook when she scooted over and let him join her on the suddenly tiny bed.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a broken voice.

"Sure, Kyo-kun!" Her smile was contagious, although he figured he was more grinning like an idiot than smiling.

Both of them rolled onto their sides to face on another, an awkward silence settling over them now that they really realized how close they were in the bed.

"Do you want to get under the covers, Kyo-kun?"

Her question was completely innocent, since obviously she was thinking about him being cold, but his mind found the implications in her words. "No." He cleared his throat. "No, I'm too hot to get under the covers." Boy was he ever.

Tohru seemed pensive for a moment. "Kyo-kun, are you scared to sleep in the bed with me because of the curse?"

"No, it's just…. Tohru, do you know what the implications of this are? I shouldn't be here."

Her hand closed over his and he wound their fingers together thoughtfully. "It's okay," she said with a warm smile. "I want to stay here like this." The smile was replaced with something else, something indefinable but entrancing. "Kyo-kun, I don't want to lose you anymore."

How those words hit him. Her tone was utterly serious and sweet. "I don't want to lose you, either," he whispered. Talking in a normal voice seemed out of place now, like the words would break if they were spoken too loudly. "Tohru, do you know?"

"Know what, Kyo-kun?" she whispered back.

His free hand reached across the space between them and sifted into her fine strands of hair. His words had double meaning. "That I love you," he mouthed, barely adding any sound to the words.

Tohru only smiled and closed her eyes. "I love Kyo-kun, too." With that, she drifted off to sleep.

Kyo continued to stroke her hair in a lulling rhythm, stopping every once in a while to brush a finger over her lips or her cheek. He had to keep touching her or she would disappear. It almost seemed that she was a figment of his imagination, but that little smile on her sleeping face reminded him that she was really there. The other meaning of his question, that he would be leaving in almost four months, was for a different time. Right now he only wanted to be by her side.

He lay awake for a long time, letting her words imprint themselves in his mind. He wanted that memory, of her telling him that she loved him, to last for all eternity.

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A/N: See? I'm not THAT mean. If you thought this was fluffy, just wait until next chapter! Fluffy citrus for one and all!

Thank you to those that have reviewed so far. Any and all feedback is appreciated highly!