Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Vae Victis (Woe to the Vanquished) ❯ Vae Victis (Woe to the Vanquished) ( Chapter 1 )

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Vae Victis (Woe to the vanquished)

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket or any of it's characters….. Blah,blah,blah…

It's my first fanfic ever read it if you've got nothing better do….

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I often wonder how I could possibly continue to exist. They say that life is life only when you live it. But how can a person live when the heart is numb to the point of apathy? Sure, I had once been indifferent to the things around me. I had perfected the art of aloofness that it had even become second nature to me. Detachment was a second skin to me. So what could be different now, right? What difference does it make if I slip back to the old “Yuki mode”?

Tohru.

There's a truth in what the old philosophers used to say. You only learn to know how empty your life really was until you find someone or something to fill it with. And then you find that what life you thought you had was merely a facsimile. A cheap imitation of the real thing…

So it was with her. All those hungry eyes and eager arms ready to comfort Prince Yuki paled in comparison to the concern in her deep azure eyes. A single word from her lips could do in a heart beat what a thousand hordes of those dreamy eyed girls couldn't do in a thousand years. Put simply, she made me realize that there is more to life than the fear and the pain that this curse and my own family gave me.

She was a glimmer of hope in my dark world. It was because of her that I learned how beautiful this world could be despite this curse and my sorry excuse for a family. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to be treated like a human being. With her I wasn't the scheming, cunning rat. I wasn't `Prince Yuki'. I was just who I wanted to be- Yuki. She was my sanctuary. I was whole in her company.

But now she's gone. That stupid cat finally got his wish. He has beaten me, though I doubt his brain cells could register that in his brain, if he ever had one. He finally had his revenge on the scheming mouse for tricking him out of his rightful place in the Jyuunishi.

And I never thought it could hurt this way. That it could hurt so badly.

I'd willingly spend my life by Akito's side than feel this pain. This time there's no running away from it. No way to hide from it. Sometimes I wish Hatori would eradicate my memories of her. Maybe then I'll find solace from this pain. But then again, I couldn't do that. I don't want to forget the happiest moments in my life. The moments I spent with her. Who could have thought I am capable of feeling this kind of pain?

That cat would never know how it feels like to have the light of your life snuffed out in the blink of an eye. To find yourself hurled into oblivion and realize that no matter what you do, no matter how much you try to fill that void inside of you, you will still remain empty. To bleed with every smile she gives him. Those smiles should have been for me. That stupid cat doesn't deserve her, and she doesn't deserve that idiot.

But what could I do? She loves him and no matter what I do nothing will change that. She's proven that when sensei Kazuma showed her the cat's true form. She'd gladly give her life for him. What could be better proof of her feelings for the cat than that?

I can still remember that day. She didn't even think twice when she ran after the reeking monster my stupid cousin had become. She called out his name as she did so, breaking the silence in Shigure's yard along with my heart. And I knew Kyu had won.

There was nothing left for me to do but go after her. I couldn't let her face Kyu alone. I couldn't let that dim witted cat hurt my light, my life. So I ran after her and had what's left of what ever hope I had washed away by the pouring rain. I forced myself to help that thick headed cat realize that Tohru wasn't like the others. That she cared for him. Nothing could compare to the pain that rent my soul as I did so. But I had to do it… For Tohru, for the person who showed me how to smile, how to care…

I couldn't stand to look at her tears. And I couldn't understand how that stupid cat could bear seeing her cry. Well, what can you expect from that dense cat? You can hardly credit him for intelligence.

Each tear that fell from Tohru's eyes was a knife piercing my heart. But it was what she said that shattered my heart, or whatever was left of it worth shattering.

She had told him that she wanted to be with him. To do things with him… She wanted to stay with us, with him, and share with him all the pain and happiness that life had in store for the both of them. She had taken him into her arms and told him that she wanted to go home to “their” house.

I wonder how it would have felt to be inside her arms and feel her warmth around me. I had never in my life felt so cold. So alone… The temperature must have dropped to zero that day. Well, at least in my soul it did.

That moment I wish I was in that moronic cat's shoes.

And like a big joke from above, the clouds parted and the sun came out. Making me realize how dark and empty my life would be without her. She was never more beautiful than in that instant, under the sun's bright light. I had lost her to the cat. I had lost my light.

I saw the two of them bathed by the sun like characters under a spotlight in one of those sappy school plays we have. If I hadn't known I had no place in the picture beforehand, that would have done the trick. It was like a celestial slapstick meant to wake me up and force me to come to terms with reality. I have no place in Tohru's heart, or at least that someone else is inside that place I had wanted to be in.

She had taken the cat in her arms and carried him back to Shigure's house. I was tired then, but I couldn't bring myself to follow them. I couldn't bear the thought of being so close to someone I wanted and needed so badly, and know that I could never call her mine. I needed to sort the muddle of thoughts and emotions inside me. I wanted to burst out but I felt so empty without her.

I needed time to pull myself together. I still had my pride and I didn't want her or that stupid cat to see me as I fall to pieces. I didn't know how long I stayed outside. I didn't even realize that that stupid cat had wounded me until Kagura came and bandaged the deep gashes in my arm. I thought that if I could see my heart then, it would have looked just like my arm.

Kagura had thanked me for `putting aside my personal feelings for Kyo and helped him'. It strikes me as something funny now. Maybe she even thinks that Prince Yuki had lived up to his noble title by doing the most noble thing: ending a cycle of aggression that existed for who knows how long between the rat and the cat. I wonder what she would have thought if she found out that I had wanted to strangle Kyu that very moment. I guess I'm lucky Kagura doesn't have Hana's psychic abilities. She would have as soon beaten me to a bloody pulp than bandage me, I imagine.

I have to grudgingly admit; sometimes that perverted dog is right. This is one of those times I wish I listened to him. Shigure had told me in that Shigure-style of his that if I didn't do anything soon, I'd lose her to the cat. I didn't take him seriously then, instead I had wiped out his smug grin and that gleam in his eyes with a clout on his perverted head. I chose to bide my time until I was sure of her. I was afraid that when I finally came around to telling her she'd turn away from me. Brush me away like the way my errant brother Ayame had done years ago. I was so afraid. I needed to be sure…

Courage is just not inherent to me, I guess. I wouldn't have ran away from Akito in the first place if I even had an ounce of it, and I wouldn't have let that stupid cat have the only person I truly cared about.

Now Tohru's gone, maybe not in the true sense of the word but she's gone all the same. I have lost the only person who showed me what it means to be happy to that stupid cat.

I can hear the two of them down stairs now. I can hear Tohru's laughter. Probably at something that stupid cat said. Her laughter is like water to my parched soul. But it drowns me as well because I know that her smiles aren't for me. I wish I was the one making her smile, making her laugh. I wish I could gaze into her great blue eyes and drown in there depths. I wish I was downstairs with her.

Now, I wish more than ever that I was Kyo.

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