Author: Tsumi666
Disclaimer: Fruits basket is copyrighted to Takaya Natsuki.
Rating: PG-13, angst

A/N: This is in response the the fic challenge put forward by Crystal-dono. I'm using #3 off the list, which is Kyou finding pictures of himself in Shigure's possession. I've been told it's not a good ending (and I don't think the entire thing is very good), so I *might* do an omake (lemon?), but that's dependant on time I have free. Might be very late coming if I do write an omake, be warned. ^_~ Oh, and strange things seemed to have happened to my indents when I copied and pasted this on, so be prepared for random spacing indent- wise. *cries* It's being weird to me. I hope I fixed most of it, I have the sneaking suspicion though that technology hates me. >_<;;;

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Kyou left Shigure lying motionless but snoring gently on under the thin covers of the bed, and stepped silently through the almost- light of the room as the sun crept slowly into the sky through the window behind him. Trails of light weakly fell to the floor before him, and acted as a guide for the cat in his journey across the room while his naked form trembled in the cool breeze that accompanied the gentle sunbeams, making the curtains flap and shudder gently in the wake of he breezes.

The room was a sombre grey; a pale yellow; now a gentle tangerine, as the thin figure stood watching the sun rise, watching the man he longed for sleep, so close and so far out of his reach. It was irrelevant that he had just emerged from those tousled sheets and strong arms only a short while ago; already as he stood there he felt aged one hundred years, cracked and withered and sore. He felt he had found more wisdom in this best-forgotten tryst with the older man than he would ever find in a century of living. But it was a tainted wisdom, jaded by moments that crept upon him now in this stillness and asylum of reason that he had unwittingly stumbled into.

The entire world seemed asleep outside of Kyou's mind, and he felt like the only living being anywhere as the heavy silence of peaceful dreaming permeated the atmosphere around him. Somewhere outside, a songbird struck up a lazy chord in preamble to its first song of the day, but with it came Kyou's trepidation about recent events. He had so been trying to bury these merciless thoughts, far behind walls of ice so that even the sunbeams that touched and surrounded him couldn't melt.

The breeze whispered through his thick orange-hued bangs and trailed across his face in a cruel parody of a caress as he felt his demons surfacing inside him, preparing to strangle his newfound hope. The demons that haunted him longed for his blood and tears; he heard it whispered in his ears in the guise of a puff of wind from some unseen being. He knew this wouldn't last, just as surely as he knew hemust flee from the man that had shared the deepest secrets of his body, of his very soul.

He turned upon hearing the mumbled sound of a half-word from the sleeping form still in bed and felt a pang in his chest at leaving the slumbering man before he could awake, even after such a night as that which they had found together. Kyou squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what exactly had led to him admitting his feelings to his older housemate when he couldn't be sure of his own well-being of mind, let alone account for Shigure's. He had had no idea of what the older man felt for him, and had been nursing his own emotions for the dog for some time now, long before he had even come to the conclusion that he should never admit them to anyone, let alone the object of his desires.

But he had been foolish and young and, dare he say it, in love with the older man, resulting in his common sense finally being overcome by his heart's desires without his consent or knowledge.

He had been foolish in confronting Shigure about how he felt, he knew that now. Hell, he'd known it before, but had just been so love-struck and inexperienced to not realize when to back away. Stubbornly, he heard a voice inside his head whisper that he would never back away, that he would never surrender and let himself be forgotten, that he would fight for what he believed in. He was steel inside, he told himself, but even as he recited his new axiom silently, his eyes were uncontrollably drawn to the figure before him. His gaze traced the fine contours of what of the man's body that was visible above the covers, the hard lines and smooth planes that he had so eagerly in his innocent yearning traced with virgin hands and mouth and tongue only that past night.

Kyou felt so strongly for this man, felt his heart ache just to be near him like this, but he had no idea what might have been going through Shigure's mind or what he might have felt for the cat in return. His doubt and uncertainty showered him with unwanted shivers and his fists clenched at his sides where they hung uselessly from limp arms. He couldn't count on Shigure being there for him in the wake of his stupid confessions, not now that his doubt plagued him so.

Just because Shigure wanted his body one night didn't mean he wanted his heart for eternity, Kyou decided. He would have to be the one to move away before Shigure woke and tore his heart out with a smile and a lecherous comment, or even worse, complete and utter dismissal until the next time he caught Kyou down and soul-beaten to take advantage of his feelings. He wouldn't let things escalate to himself being used only as a plaything to be taken whenever the dog wanted, he would do something to make his feelings known that he utterly despised the thought of submitting that easily to the older Juunishi. He would do something drastic and final, something that would make Shigure realize he should never have looked upon the cat so lightly in the first place and disregard his feelings.

He heart hurt so much that he felt black inside with pain. Or maybe it would be a sombre grey; a pale yellow; now a gentle tangerine, his soul echoing the sky and reflecting his pain and anguish. There was no question as to what option he had left, since he only had one. In Kyou's mind, he could not live on with the knowledge that he had fallen foolishly for the dog and been used, so the only alternative was not to live on at all. He wouldn't be Sohma Kyou, he wouldn't be cursed by the Cat spirit, he wouldn't be in love with a pigheaded bastard who didn't know how to reciprocate utterances of love and devotion. He bit back a moan and blinked his eyes quickly to clear the blurriness, glancing around even though there was no one there to see him at his weakest.

He could be sure that if anyone had looked into his unguarded eyes at that moment that they would see how deep this new scar lay on top of the layers of others, so many events colliding and collapsing on each other that they finally must fall. He would fall; Kyou envisioned himself slipping off the lip of some distant mountain cliff, sliding silently through the air and finally, after a desperate, heart stopping moment, into the roiling, white-capped waves below without so much as a scream or sigh. He would fall gracefully. Cats always landed on their feet.

He was resolved now, his conclusion drawn and his decision made to teach Shigure a lesson he would never forget in his lifetime. His anger helped to ease away the tears and pain into a safer place inside of him as he turned and stepped over to the closet to borrow a yukata from Shigure's collection to wear to his room. No matter that this was his house and that it was still only dawn, Kyou would not take the chance that someone should see him leaving the resident pervert's room in nothing but the flesh he was born in. He would drop the yukata back in Shigure's room after the laundry, one day when the man was out bothering Ayame or Hatori, or hiding out somewhere from his traumatized editor.

He opened the closet door as silently as he could, straining his keen hearing for the sounds of waking but he found none and continued in his search for suitable attire. Kyou dug around with one eye on the figure on the bed behind him, looking for something small that would most likely not fit the taller man any longer, his quest ultimately leading his hands blindly up to the top shelf that rested above the main racks of clothing below. His long fingers closed around a length of fabric of a yukata that rested in-between a long narrow box and yet more clothing in a pile, the pattern one that he had never seen before, and he pulled slightly to try to ease the clothing down. The garment he had found would, predictably, not cooperate with him, and so his tugging grew more insistent as his irritation grew proportionately.

It was with one brutal, sudden tug that the yukata jerked free, pulling with it the narrow box, which lost its lid on the trip to the floor, and several other pieces of clothing all to fall on top of the startled cat in a pile before the open closet doors.

Before him lay the yukata that he had been trying to free, the perfect size for him and one that Shigure had not worn in years and so would not be likely to miss, but that was not what had caught Kyou's wide-eyed gaze. Seemingly hundreds of pictures lay mingled and entwined with the lengths of cloth, and more still spewing from the box that was now tipped on its side. Curiosity had always been Kyou's downfall, and it had not failed him even this time, as he stooped down low to examine his find.

He saw himself in summer festival attire, clasping a broad fan in his hand, his hapi coat a startling blue against the yellow background of some generic stall of the market that night. Next to him stood Tohru and Yuki, also decked out in festival clothing, but around his shoulders was Shigure's arm, winding around him and pulling him close as if for the sake of space in the picture. They were all smiling and they looked like they were having a good time, but Kyou could not recall when this event had happened. Perhaps it had slipped his mind in the midst of all his internal anguish regarding that same man that held him close, even in this picture. He looked away.

In another, he saw himself in profile: his eyes were closed and his body was leaning slightly against the wooden frame of the door, the moonlight steaming in the open screen to streak his hair with moonbeams and starlight. His head was slightly tilted, causing his sweatshirt to pull and leave a wide expanse of his neck and shoulder open to view, but he could tell in the photo, he had been unaware of being photographed. He looked peaceful. He looked away from this picture as well.

In yet another photograph he was in the kitchen drinking straight from the milk carton, his head tilted back and his throat bared as his hair trailed down and lay lightly against his shoulders, shocks of bright orange against a black shirt.

In one, he had been caught in mid stomp, out by Yuki's garden, his lines of his body tensed with anger as he most likely made a strategic retreat from some lost fight.

His eyes blurred again as images of himself filled his head, so many pictures, so many photographs of himself, found in a box in Shigure's room. Tears slid down his eyes as he tried to get his sudden surge of emotion under control, and he dragged a hand violently across the pictures strewn out before him, dispersing the pile and uncovering yet another image of himself and the dog, but this one was different.

This was an image of Kyou lying on his side, his eyes closed once more in sleep, and his body held in the grip of dreams he would never remember. There was a slight perforation around the image of the body behind him, with one arm loosely thrown over his waist, an
image of Shigure pasted onto that of himself. He was in shock. His mind whirled at the implications of this put together scene and he nearly jumped out of his skin when a warm body curled around his back, strangely echoing the photo he held in his hand.

"Kyou…What's all the racket for?" Shigure whispered in his ear, the ghosts from before returning to haunt him.

Wordlessly, Kyou held on to the photograph in his hand and he knew by the tightening of Shigure's arms around his body when the older man recognized his own handiwork. Shigure laughed lightly, sounding embarrassed, and took the picture from Kyou's motionless hands, murmuring, "You weren't supposed to see this…you weren't supposed to see how pathetic I can be, eh?"

He laughed again, but Kyou was perplexed. How could Shigure find this even remotely funny? He had a hoard of photographs of Kyou hidden in his room, some even pasted together in artistic ways, like some crazed psychopath, obsessed and stalking some pop star.
Actually, now that he put it that way, Kyou could see how funny this all could be. Shigure was the one that was supposed to be pathetic, after all, Kyou had told Shigure so himself so many times in the past.

But he needed to know.

"Do you love me?" The question broke through Shigure's laughter, stopping him dead as he had to strain to hear Kyou's whispered words despite his close proximity.

Kyou felt the puff of breath on his ear a split second before the words came: "Of course I do."

The tears streaked down Kyou's thin face and he stood up abruptly, causing the form behind him to break off, washing waves of air across his back and echoing laughter in his ears. He didn't dare to turn around, he didn't dare to let his ghosts and demons have this moment of his pain, he didn't dare to look back and see the nothing that he knew was there, only to see the shape of the man he loved under the covers of his bed, where he had always been.

He ran and didn't look back, he ran, snatching up the yukata that had brought all this new pain and didn't care that he wasn't alone in this house, but he ran for all he was worth and didn't stop until he was sure the echoing in his ears was only his hectic, useless thoughts (…he was steel, he was made of steel and couldn't be hurt by this shit…), and not the ghosts coming back to haunt him
more on this day when he wasn't sure if he was right to know who he really was.