Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Acting ❯ Beautiful colors in picturesque places ( Chapter 12 )

Hey, guys! I managed to finish another chapter before I went back to school! I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who continue to read and enjoy my story. Also, I should say that while the mountains they went to are real, I'm making up everything except the ski ground. So yeah, thanks and enjoy.

 

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Chapter 12: Beautiful colors in picturesque places

 

“Ok, so which trail do we do first?” Momiji asked excitedly as they all stepped out of the lodge.

 

Hatori, Ayame and Shigure had gone back to their room after breakfast to “plan the best route to admire as many of the stunning sights as possible in such a short time” as Ayame had said. Kyo snorted, fairly sure that the `stunning sights' Shigure had in mind were of a different nature from the ones the snake was thinking of.

 

“The Dog is a fairly base creature; though I suppose I am not one to talk.”

 

Kyo stiffened a bit, but decided to try and ignore this voice. If he did that maybe it would go away.

 

“Did you bother to get a trail map?” Yuki asked Momiji.

 

“I have one!” Tohru said cheerfully as she pulled out the little pamphlet. “It said that a lot of the trails cross a few times close to the lodge and then go separate places farther away.”

 

“Is there a waterfall nearby? I love waterfalls!” Momiji said as he bounced over to look at the map.

 

“I think there were a few, but we need to find a nice trail that won't cause Yuki-kun or Kyo-kun any problems.”

 

“Ok! Let's see…”

 

The two put there heads together over the little paper.

 

“We could try sneaking away now you know,” Kyo whispered to Yuki.

 

“Too soon, they'd just look for us.”

 

“Feh…”

 

Kyo stalked off to sit at a nearby picnic table, still annoyed about this latest development. Yuki followed him after a moment and only had minor trouble sitting at the table.

 

“I still think that we should have a doctor's note that gets us out of this,” Kyo grumbled.

 

“As do I, but we don't so we have to deal with it. This could be worse,” Yuki said as he rubbed his shoulder. It was the one that had dislocated and it was sometimes just sore for no apparent reason.

 

“How could it be...oh, yeah, everyone could be here.”

 

Yuki nodded. They fell into silence and were joined not too long after by Tohru and Momiji.

 

“We've narrowed it down to a few choices,” Tohru said as she placed her little map in front of them. “We can go down any of these three trails.”

 

“I thought you wanted to see a waterfall,” Yuki said to Momiji as he looked at the choices. Only one got them even close to a waterfall.

 

“Yeah, but all of those trails look pretty steep. I kinda wouldn't mind seeing this tree though. The pamphlet says it's supposed to be huge!” Momiji exclaimed happily.

 

“And it's pretty close so we wouldn't be walking for too long,” Tohru added.

 

Yuki glanced at Kyo who shrugged.

 

“All right, that sounds fine to me.”

 

“Alright, let's go!” Momiji sprang up from the table and hurried off.

 

With a laugh from Tohru the other three stood and started walking around the lodge. The trail they had picked started near the hot springs and lead into the trees. They found Momiji waiting for them just inside the woods.

 

“It should be about two point four kilometers from here,” he informed them happily once they'd caught up. Then he pulled Tohru down the trail telling her that he thought he'd seen a fox. That left Yuki and Kyo to wander after them, even though it was very tempting to slip away. Neither of them wanted to worry Tohru. She was too much that sweet little sister that everyone loved, so the two of them just continued to follow Tohru and Momiji up the trail.

 

They wandered through a clearing or two before coming to a bridge over one of the larger streams.

 

“The map said there were three streams and a shallow river pretty close to the lodge,” Tohru told them as they watched the fish.

 

Once they were bored of that they started up the trail again. Everywhere they looked, plants were showing their best spring colors. Trees were in full leaf, the grass was a vibrant green and everywhere there were colorful flowers.

 

“We should have brought a camera!” Momiji said as they passed another beautiful clearing, this one with a little shrine set up. “Everything looks so pretty!”

 

Not to long after that the arrived at the meadow that the ancient tree grew in.

 

“Wow!” Tohru exclaimed, “I've never seen a tree this big!”

 

The boys all agreed. This tree was positively huge. Three of them holding hands might be able to get all the way around the trunk and the first real branch was at least ten feet above them. The tree's branches spread over most of the large meadow, casting it in dappled shadow. Flowers grew in abundance in the shade and they could hear birds singing in the branches far above their heads.

 

“Come on Tohru-chan, let's get a closer look!”

 

Tohru laughed and let Momiji grabbed her arm again to pull her closer to the tree. Yuki and Kyo followed them at a more reasonable pace.

 

“I have to admit that I rather like this,” Yuki said quietly.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Mmm, there's a calmness here and it's almost…soothing in a way.”

 

“Ah, then maybe this is where we should come to practice lines.”

 

Yuki raised an eyebrow at Kyo, who was looking around and didn't seem to be paying a lot of attention to the conversation.

 

“Why not the room?” he asked the distracted cat.

 

“Hmm? Oh, well we can be interrupted in the room and this place is just, I don't know, in the spirit of things I guess?” Kyo said, scratching his cheek.

 

Yuki had to smile a little. He suspected that Kyo simply liked it out here and was wishing that he could attempt to climb the tree. He turned to look up into the large ranches. The breeze made the leaves dance and the tree itself seemed to make a low sound. It made everything seem a bit surreal, maybe even magical. Kyo was right. This place could have been a place for fairies to gather.

 

“Why not?” he whispered. It would certainly be better then trying to hide in the lodge and they had met so few people walking down this trail that it might be nearly as private.

 

Suddenly Momiji was back, ruining the calmness that had settled over them.

 

“Hey Kyo, Yuki, where should we go next? There are two trails that we can take from here. One of them goes by a ravine and back towards the lodge and the other heads for the deeper forest. Me an' Tohru-chan wanna go into the forest.”

 

They both stared at him for a moment.

 

“You want to move on already?” Kyo asked in an annoyed tone.

 

“Yeah, there's lots more to see!”

 

Yuki sighed. There was no way he was going to be able to keep up with those two for long, given how excited they were. While he was fond of both Momiji and Tohru he was quickly becoming fonder of the idea of finding the little bottle of pain killers that were back in his room.

 

“Alright, lead the way.”

 

Momiji cheered and raced back to Tohru who was waiting by the start of the next trail. While he told Tohru, Yuki followed after him slowly. His shoulder was rather sore today and it was making using the crutches painful work. Kyo, after a sigh and a small growl, hurried after both of them. He'd rather just wait here for them all to get back, but he didn't like the way Yuki kept trying to favor his shoulder so he'd have to go just to keep an eye on him. At this rate, Yuki was going to need to call it quits for the day long before Kyo was.

 

“But that's part of why we want to escape,” Kyo muttered to no one in particular.

 

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In the end, they walked around for nearly three more hours before returning to the lodge for lunch. By that time Kyo was limping a bit and standing rather straight. Yuki was walking very slowly and somewhat stiffly because of the pain in his shoulder. He figured he should probably mention it to Hatori.

 

“Are you guys alright?” Momiji asked when they sat down to eat at the café.

 

“Do you want to stay here after lunch?” Tohru added.

 

“That might be for the best,” Yuki said as he alternated between massaging his shoulder and eating the lunch Kyo had brought him.

 

Kyo just nodded.

 

“But don't think that doesn't mean you can't go back out,” Yuki told Tohru. He honestly didn't want the fact that he and Kyo couldn't move much to spoil her fun.

 

“Are you sure? I don't mind staying.”

 

Yuki shook his head. “It's fine. You two should go and have fun looking around.”

 

“Yeah Tohru-chan, we can explore some of the higher places and then come back and tell Yuki and Kyo about them,” Momiji said. “We could even get a disposable camera from the gift shop so they can see them later!”

 

Tohru's eyes brightened at the idea. “Yeah! That would be fun.”

 

Yuki smiled. “I'd like that. Where are you thinking of going Momiji?”

 

“Well…” He pulled out the trail map and they started going over the various places. Finally Yuki pointed to the one that they hadn't taken earlier at the tree.

 

“How about this one? It leads up to a spring and a series of pools that feed the stream at the bottom of the ravine.”

 

“Oh, that sounds pretty! What do you think Tohru-chan?”

 

She nodded enthusiastically.

 

“It's settled then,” Yuki said with a nod.

 

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After they finished lunch everyone went their separate ways. Tohru had said she'd have liked to walk Kyo and Yuki back to their room but they declined and Kyo gently pushed her in the direction of the gift shop telling her to go ahead and have fun.

 

Back in their room, Yuki went straight for the bathroom to find his bottle of pain medicine. Kyo settled stiffly on the couch. He knew he should probably take his shoe off but the idea of bending in anyway to remove it was horrifying. He closed his eyes and with a moan lifted his damaged ankle onto the opposite knee. He opened his eyes just in time to see a pill bottle nearly collide with his face. It was only trained reflex that kept him from being beaned with it.

 

“What the hell?” he rasped.

 

“Shut up and take your morphine you stubborn cat. You'll never be able to practice if you're trying to breathe that shallow,” Yuki said as he hobbled over to the couch with a glass of water.

 

Kyo didn't argue. He just downed the medicine, finished taking of his shoe and propped his ankle up on a pillow on the coffee table.

 

“How the hell are we supposed to get through nearly a week of this?” Kyo groaned. “Even trying to get away as soon as possible every day won't help. I can't walk for half a day with out being hopped up on morphine and you were favoring your shoulder before we were even an hour into the hike.”

 

Yuki sighed. He knew Kyo had a point. His shoulder hurt pretty bad today and if resting it for the rest of the day didn't help then walking tomorrow would just aggravate it.

 

“Look at it this way,” he said, “tomorrow we probably won't have to walk all the way to the picnic ground and once we get back we can escape and return to that tree clearing we liked.”

 

Kyo smiled a little. “You got a point. Alright then, let's get to those lines.”

 

Yuki groaned. Acting was pleasant. Playing a girl was embarrassing.

 

“Very well, which scene?” he asked, grabbing their scripts from the coffee table where he'd put them that morning.

 

“How about our lines at the beginning of Act II? I still don't have those down word for word.”

 

“At least those are better then the one's I have to say later to Bottom,” Yuki said with a grimace.

 

Kyo chuckled.

 

Yuki glared at him. “Shut up. You get to stand around talking to Puck and laughing at my expense.”

 

“But I do take pity on you and lift the spell.”

 

“Just read.”

 

Kyo grinned, feeling victorious. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”

 

“What, jealous Oberon! Fairies skip hence: I have foresworn his bed an company,” Yuki read with a sour look on his face.

 

Kyo rolled his eyes. “You know Yuki, it'd sound better if you threw some haughtiness with that disgust.”

 

Yuki scowled, “Thank you director, now instead of commenting on my reading why don't you stick to your part?”

 

“Alright geez, just trying to help!” he cleared his throat. “Tarry, rash wanton: am I not thy lord?”

 

“Ah, that I had remained by my own lord's side, perhaps I would not be in this state.”

 

Yuki continued to read his lines mechanically, but most of his attention was focused on the sad echoes bouncing around his mind.

 

This is getting annoying.

 

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Alright that's the end. Please, please review `cause it makes me feel all happy and fuzzy! I'll do my best to get you guys another chapter a.s.a.p and not let my new ball joint doll oriented hobbies interfere too much.

 

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Do any of you have bal joint dolls?