Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ All I Ever Needed ❯ Slipping Through My Hands ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter 7: Slipping Through My Hands

 

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"round here we talk like lions but we sacrifice like lambs
round here she's slipping through my hands”

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-Counting Crows, "Round Here" August and Everything After

 

“Hold on, hold on, Tohru, please hold on.” Kyo pleaded desperately. Most people would never imagine this desperate, almost in tears version of himself that was apparent now, even existed. It was because he was with Tohru, and Tohru was in trouble. She was delirious with fever, he'd decided. At least she was still breathing.

The bargain he'd whispered to the trees earlier whirled around and around in his mind.

“If I find her, and she's okay. I'll tell her everything. I promise. I promise I'll tell her everything.”

What should he do? Kyo's mind raced rapidly. She would be really hard to carry back to the house, though it could be possible if it came to that. He could run back and tell Yuki and Shigure and get them to help, but there was a chance that he couldn't find his way back to her. And besides, he couldn't …no, he wouldn't leave her alone like this. He gathered her head and shoulders into his arms, and kissed the top of her head.

“Tohru, hang on, please!” Her breathing was slowing continuously, and her heart rate was jumping all over the place. She was getting colder by the second, despite Kyo's raincoat which he had taken off and put onto her. They were both completely covered in mud, and the groceries scattered throughout the nearby woods had long since been forgotten.

Kyo couldn't decide what to do. It was like a never-ending circle of “what if”, “what if”, “what if”. He couldn't stand it. Here he was, Tohru in serious danger, and he was just sitting next to her, telling her to hold on while he did nothing about it.

Tohru's breathing slowed down another notch, so that he could barely hear her breath above the rain. Kyo felt her pulse and it was beating like crazy, he almost couldn't distinguish one “thu-thump” from the next.

“No, Tohru, it can't happen like this. You need to know what happened! You need to know…you need to know…” his voice dropped down to a hoarse whisper, more towards himself this time than Tohru. He hung is head, his eyes squeezed shut. “You need to- You need to- ”

“Kyo…kun” A voice said. Kyo gasped.

“Tohru?!”

“Kyo-kun, where am I?” she whispered, barely audible.

“You have a really bad fever, and you're out in the woods and it's raining, and you didn't come back, so I came out to look for you…” It all just came babbling out, and then Kyo realized what he sounded like. “I mean, uh…” he said, trying to put back up the “tough guy” illusion. “We- I mean I-” Tohru just smiled, her eyes open the tiniest bit.

“You came to find me again.” she whispered.

“Again?” Kyo asked in confusion, forgetting he still had his hand on the back of her neck, pillowing her head with his knees.

“Like when you got me from Grandfather's house. You came and found me and brought me home.”

You brought me home…

“And now you came out to find me again.” She closed her eyes, and smiled, and then coughed hard, her whole body shaking.

“Tohru, you've got a really bad fever. You were unconscious for a while, and you've got a really bad cough, and you pushed yourself to the brink of exhaustion! What the hell were you thinking?!”

“I-” she sighed, and slowly raised a hand, and Kyo took it, squeezing it hard, as if to reassure himself that she was really there. “It was just rain. I thought I was no big deal. I thought I could get through it-”

“You idiot! You had us all worried sick! There were all sorts of awful things could've happened to you.”

“I was all right.”

“All right?! You collapsed in the middle of a dark forest in the frickin' pounding rain while it's minus a bajillion degrees out and you say you were all right?”

“I was okay. Mom was here. And I heard everyone's voices saying such kind things to me. Everyone was here with me.”

“Oh, now you're hearing things. This is defiantly not good. No one was talking to you! You were alone out here!”

She was alone…

Tohru's eyes widened.

“I was alone?” Kyo saw tears form in her eyes. She turned to him, eyes wide with fear. “Am I seeing things now? Are you really here?” Kyo squeezed her hand tighter.

“I'm really here.”

“Stay with me…” she whispered, her voice catching in her throat as if she was trying to keep down a sob. “I- I'm scared to be alone. Being by yourself is scary. Being alone…it's a frightening way to live.” She sobbed, reaching out towards him, whispering harshly, “Please…please don't…”

“Tohru, it's okay. I'm here now.” He leaned down, pulling her the closest he could without setting off the curse. And she whispered into his shoulder:

“Please…don't leave me alone.”

* * *

 

Yuki's candle had burned down to a stub, the light dimming with each passing minute, and they still weren't home. Tohru or the cat. Yuki gazed for the millionth time out the window, hoping, imagining, visualizing Tohru and the cat walking out of the dark trees back into the house, which was surprisingly still warm after hours of the heat not working.

Shigure still slept; as usual, oblivious to everything going on around him. Yuki sighed. The worry was like a constant knaw at the place where his ribs met, and sometimes got so bad he felt like he was going to be sick, but pushed it down, and assured himself that everything was fine. That everything would be okay. That everything would turn out all right.

He got up to get another candle. It was a sort of reassurance for him. If he left a candle burning in the window; they would come home all right.

* * *

“Hey, Rin?”

She looked up, startled.

“Haru? What are you doing here?” He shrugged one of his famous, passive “…a mystery…” shrugs.

“I came here to talk to Kagura about something and she said you'd come back for a while. Not permanently, though. I hear…” he hesitated, “I hear you're living back at the main house again.” She was silent. He walked over and sat on the side of the bed. “Rin….are you okay?” He reached out for her hand which was resting on the bed sheets. She yanked it away, seeming to surprise herself more than anything. Haru only lifted his eyebrows the slightest bit.

“I- I'm fine. Everything's fine.” He could see her eyes growing distant, and could almost feel her pulling away into herself.

“Rin. Nothing is ever okay. Especially when you're living in the main house again.” She was silent, her eyes growing cold and hard. He sighed and grabbed her hand before she could snatch it away again. “Rin…I'm worried about you.”

Again she said nothing, her hand tight and tense in his. He squeezed it as if to make her realize he was still there.

“You can't live there for long, Rin. That place sucks the life out of you. You just dissolve into nothing when you stay there, Rin.”

He could already see some of the signs of her face. The protruding bones that meant she was getting not eating well and steadily thinner. The black liquid eyes full of pain. The bags under her eyes, making the skin purplish grey without the aid of make-up. The pale skin that seemed to glow even in the darkness of her room.

It was bright day-light out; a little after two, but Rin's room seemed about ten or eleven o'clock at night in the winter. The curtains were drawn shut, and no lights or lamps were turned on. Haru looked up, seeming to notice the complete lack of light in the room for the first time.

“Rin, why is it so dark in here?” She paused, as if bracing herself to let the answer out.

“…because being in the dark is easier.”

“Oh, Rin.” He said, scooting sideways along the bed so that their thighs touched. He put his free arm around her, and she put up no resistance. To his surprise she offered more explanation.

“Light is cruel. It reveals even the things you try to hide most. When I'm in the dark, it feels like I don't have to hide because the darkness is doing it for me. Even though I know it's a lie. Those imperfections are still there, but I can get away from them for a while. I feel like I can put down my defenses and just…” she paused considering, searching for the word, “…melting.”

“Melting?”

“That's what it feels like. Just melting away. Like a candle that's burned too low, and the melted wax drips over the flame and puts it out. That's why the dark is easier. Because I can just melt away.”

Haru tightened his arm around her frighteningly slim shoulders, and kissed her lightly.

“Don't melt.” Haru whispered to her, caressing her hair. “I need your flame more than anyone else. Don't let it go out. Whatever you do. Please don't.” She replied by pulling her the hair, from around the base of her skull, into her hand, and pushing it behind her back, so the stray hairs wouldn't annoy the skin at her neck.

“Haru?” Kagura's voice called from the hallway. “You wanted to talk to me about something?” Haru looked back to Rin, and she looked away.

“You know,” he said, getting up from the bed. “Shihan always says you're welcome to come stay at his house by the dojo. Why don't you? It's better for you there. You don't burn out as quickly.” He closed the door softly behind him.

 

Rin shivered without Haru's warmth beside her, and wrapped her thin arms around herself, trying to warm herself up with no great success. At last she just lay down on the bed in the darkness, closing her eyes to make the illusion of cover more real, imagining that Haru was still lying there beside her.

 

Haru closed the door behind him and walked down the hallway, his hand feeling very cold without her small, fragile one. It's strange… he thought, as he replayed the moment in his mind when their hands had slipped apart. It's like I could almost feel her slipping through my hands…

 

End of Chapter 7:

“Slipping Through My Hands”

A/n: I'm sorry! I love Rin and Haru too much! I just had to bring them it! Don't worry, all the stories will come together by then end, so it's not like I just threw it in there because I had pages to spare. But the Kyo-Tohru thing isn't really going anywhere, and I realize this. It's just so fun to write drama scenes in the rain. But I promise they will make some progress in the next chapter. -_-. Anyway. This story is getting longer than I thought it would be when I first thought it out! ^_^ at this rate, right now, it might take…mm…2 or 3 more chapters to finish it, but I'll probably draw about some scenes and make it longer. So, you can at least count on 10 chapters or more. Okay, see ya! ^_^

 

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Fruits Basket is the creation of Takaya Natsuki, and is licensed in North

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