Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ A Caged Heart ❯ There Arose Such a Clatter ( Chapter 21 )

Author's Note:

 

Well, howdy-do.

 

Due to the complication of cheeky little semi-chapter 17.5, every chapter after is numbered wrong by the website (no offence meant!), if that makes sense. So, Chapter `19' was actually Chapter `18', and THIS is actually Chapter 20.

 

Yeah. Just thought I'd clear that up for you.

 

PS. Just in case anyone still doesn't get it, Fruits Basket and all its characters do not belong to me in any way, shape or form.

 

PPS. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED!!! AND WHO ADDED THIS AS ONE OF THEIR FAVOURITE STORIES! YAY!! EGO-BOOST!! Hahaha~

 

PPPS. Bonus points to one `Alex E. Tracer' for being able to understand my sound effects!!! (Or maybe it was just logical thinking...)

 

PPPPS. I just realised that there are three chapters in this fanfic with the word “moment” in it. Let the voting begin - who thinks that I should change the title of Chapter 19? That is, to: “Kssssshhhhkshkshkshkshkshkshkrrshkrrshkrrshkrrshkrrssshhhfffwwboo mphshphshh.”

 

Chapter 20 - There Arose Such a Clatter:

 

After that, all was silent.

 

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, it was more of a rat really, if anyone wanted to get technical about it. But either way, no one was particularly bothered about him at the moment.

 

The obvious reason was that that which had not so long ago constituted a kind-of house (and, just a bit longer ago than that, had been an actual kind of house - namely the kind without any overly broken bits) was now -

 

Well.

 

There was... a single bit of wall.

 

Surrounding it, on varying levels of elevation and completeness, was an assortment of debris - drawers of drawers, stairs that now led to nowhere (unless you considered irregularly scattered somewheres a specific destination), what was once a working plumbing system, and sliding doors that were now completely redundant (bar fuelling a sacrificial fire to deities whose followers were rudely uncaring of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) - all lying somewhat askew under a patchy coating of roof tiles.

 

Generously, Fate, or gravity (or perhaps it was even the mass of roof tiles that had decided, by a landslide vote), had appeared to have left a little doorway in the wall, possibly to provide shelter, or safety in case of an earthquake - but as usual, no one was really in the mood to be appreciative. Or maybe it was because, like any ray of hope, the doorway was barely noticeable over the newly formed fort of sorts. Of course, any observer would most likely replace the word `sorts' with `broken stuff', so as to produce a more accurate depiction of the scenario. The more pedantic of them would probably just dispose of the whole metaphor and say instead that it was a bumpy heap of rubble, but that would just be plain boring.

 

However, yet again, most of the Sohmas weren't particularly bothered about that at the moment either - and that was because, more importantly (that is, if you were to rate things on importance by interest factor) Shigure had just gone entirely limp.

 

Which rarely ever happened.

 

Tohru and the others could do nothing but watch.

 

Actually, in theory, they could have comforted him with hugs, apologetic murmurs and promises of high school girls to rebuild the house, or at least watch in empathy, considering that most of them had lived in the house too - but no, the onlookers had subconsciously decided instead to wait until that inevitable moment, when there would not be enough electronic devices in the entire world to emit enough bleepy sounds to suitably censor the words that were soon to rampage out of Shigure's mouth.

 

For the benefit of those with sensitive ears, or eyes, as the case may be, the next fifty-eight words or so will be summed up into one neat little sentence.

 

“Uh-oh, it looks like my house has fallen down.”