Yo~!! And Welcome to My Little World of Weirdness!

I state for the record that, despite the fact I really, really wish I did, I don't own any of the official characters that will grace this story; the wonderful creator of Fruits Basket, how I love thee! How can I show my appreciation? By borrowing your characters and putting them in weird situations, of course!! And since this is a mere fanfiction, I shall make no money from it, and therefore shall not be sued!! Or at least that's the theory, but honestly, who'd sue a poor student like me? NO-ONE ANSWER THAT QUESTION!! Oh, oh!! I do own the small poem that is in this though . . . it's dedicated to a close friend because I love her, and she doesn't know! [winks] between us, ne?

[Laughs] Also I don't pretend to have any Mastery over the language of Japanese or any clue as to correct grammatical structure. I put it in and hope it gets across the point I'm trying to make! And I don't pretend to be able to write any sort of accents so please don't hate me!!

Anyway, this IS my first piece of non-sucky FB fiction that I've had the guts to put up, bear with me okay? This was meant to be a one shot . . . but it kinda. . .*grew*. . . anyway, it's almost completely from AKITO'S personality . . . and I ignore flames, so if you disagree with my sympathetically Akito views but can't find a constructive way of telling me other than 'Akito Sucks [censored], Kyou is mine, die Tooru die' why waste time . . . mind you, it does add to my review tally . . . [gets idea] Flame, flame like you've never flame before!!

"Speaking"

*Stress/emphasis*

//Thinking//

++Titles – timewise ++

Poem

~ Just a Little Something ~

By Doctor Megalomania

Part One: Reflection

++Springtime++

Well then.

I glanced over at the only other person in the room. Well then, wasn't this a pretty kettle of fish. Here I was finally on my deathbed and the only person who could come to my aid was Honda Tooru. I won't bore you with the details of how I came to be here; suffice to say that I'm dying a lot sooner than I thought I would. I mean I knew I was dying, it's just I didn't think that my death would come at the hands of a reckless driver, a bright red car, and my own stupidity.

Yes, I'm going to admit it, I think.

Now with my right eye bandaged, and my body covered with lengths of the tight white material, I think I will finally admit I have been very foolish for a very long time, I've been a child and worse . . . no one is sad to see me finally admit this. Even SHE isn't sad to see me shuffle off this mortal coil. I bet the idiot girl hasn't even realised I'm actually awake. She's sitting by the window, facing me, but ever so often she'll glance out the window. Her hands are restless as she flicks through a book, plays with a bit of sewing.

She hums, and then stops as if she thinks it's the wrong thing to do, but then starts up again because it's in her nature to be so.

She can't be sad to see me go, what she thinks is that the dark presence over Yuki and the rest of the family is going now, and now everyone's going to be so very happy. Well then, hooray.

Hooray, the witch is dead the wicked old witch is dead.

I liked that movie. It's not often I see something that makes me smile for real, but I like that movie.

It made me feel a little better once when I was very young, once when I was very ill. My mother showed it to me. I feel a smirk quirk my lips, anyone who looks at me seems to think I didn't have a mother, I did.

I had a very beautiful mother.

She was funny, she made me smile and she made me happy. She had dark, dark eyes, and very pale skin. I looked a lot like her, and sometimes she would pretend that she was looking in a mirror when she was looking at me. She'd brush her hair, and wonder aloud why her reflection wasn't doing the same thing. My uncle and auntie, who lived with us since my father died, thought we were crazy. I guess we were, we were deliriously happy, I can't tell you what happened to the outside world during this time, because my mind was always focused on her and she was always focused on me.

I think that's why I can't stand the outside. My mother was left very wealthy after my father died, so she quit her job so she could look after me. I had a very comfortable childhood . . . even though the three closest family members I had were all cursed. My mother was, her brother - my uncle, and her sister – my auntie were all cursed by the spirits. My grandmother committed suicide after she realised that all three of her children, triplets in fact, were all very, very cursed. Yet still, I lead a very happy little life then thanks to my beautiful mother.

I think she was trying to make up for the fact that I would one day – much sooner than anyone else my age – I would one day be lying here, in a bed, my life slipping from my grasp.

How melodramatic. Well then, what do you expect?

I am dying, you know.

My mother wrapped me up in a blanket, and held me tight; she taught me to read, and how to write, she even taught me to paint, although I never really cared for it much. It's far too messy for my tastes, and I prefer to work with pencils, pencils are easier to control than paint, you don't have the unpredictability that colours will dry and turn a lighter shade, or that the colours don't set properly, and will run into the next colour you paint in. Pencils you don't have that problem, you can control what shade they are, and they stay that way, there is no drying period where they change their tone, no mixing.

Primary colours that stay that way unless you decide to mix them.

I like to control things. When everything is controlled, then nothing goes wrong, no body dies when everything is controlled. That's why I used to love fast rides, not because they were so scary, but because there was a ride that was going so fast and yet it was all under control. Nothing happened unless the controller deemed it so. The only time something goes wrong is when an outsider, say an engineer, or some dumb kid comes along and messes about with the track. It's the dumb kid, or that stupid engineer who disrupt the ride, not the controller. 

I don't go on fast rides any more.

Hatori wouldn't allow it, and my body is always too frail for them, but my mother and I . . . she almost bought a fairground for me, had my uncle not advised against it. My uncle was a very wise man, though you would have never have guessed it from the way he acted. He was very excitable, and dizzyingly energetic, he preferred women's clothing, and was wildly eccentric because he never felt like he fit in, he was the only boy in this set of triplets so he tried to hide and blend in with them. It hurts to look at Momiji, because my uncle was the last rabbit. Looking at Momiji is like turning on the lights after you've gotten accustomed to the dark. I can't see him without seeing my uncle, so I chose to keep the rabbit away.

The fairground would have been easy enough to buy, but employing all the people and all the cost and expenses in the upkeep of the place would have drained the last of my mother's savings.

Pity. I would have loved to have my own fairground; mother and I would have raced to the roller coaster every morning before breakfast. I think I would share it with my family, if I had one, and she was still here. Nothing is any fun anymore without her.

Without her, the sunshine is no longer golden rays, it's just light.

Without her, the nighttime is filled with nightmares, not dreams of the next day's game.

Without her, staring out the window is just seeing a world . . . not seeing a sad place that has no chance of ever joining our games.

My mother was a wonderful woman, without her, I don't think I will ever know another happiness.

Do you wonder what happened to her?

I try not to.

She didn't kill herself, she wasn't run over by a car, she didn't get a cancer and lose all her hair, she didn't get depressed and just fade away, she didn't die saving a child from a burning fire, she didn't fall from a helicopter, she didn't die from a heart attack, she didn't die choking on a bone, she didn't fall asleep in the bath and drown, she didn't get eaten by a lion, nor did she get blown up in a bomb.

She died in a mousetrap, laid down by the idiot maid.

My mother was the last mouse of the Souma family.

She died in a mousetrap when we were playing hide and seek one sunny afternoon. Fairly stupid, such a big trap from her point of view could hardly have been missed, and yet . . . somehow she did. And that's why my mother died.

My mother died in a mousetrap because some idiot maid forgot the rules.

She died because the Curse trapped her in the form of vermin.

She died . . . and left me alone, to see the rest of my short life out staring out into a world without her.

I suppose . . . I suppose if I'd gone out more, maybe been a little kinder, maybe I would have been forgiven for my insanity after she died . . .

The way I tried to punish everyone.

I call it 'insanity', others will call it 'calculated abuse'.

I'm actually a nice person.

I don't like the little bits in jam, but I like raspberry ripple ice cream with all the little bits of raspberry in it. Chinese Lemon chicken with plain boiled rice is my favourite dish, but I can't make rice balls very easily. Mine fall apart, or I can make them but they are small round blobs, rather than perfect triangles. I was born on the floor of a empty bus, with the bus driver tired and ranting, my Uncle trying to pursued him to drive them to a hospital, my Auntie, and Father coaching my mother as she tried with all her might to push me out. She said she wanted to hold me more than anything else, that's why she pushed so hard. I was a little slow to cry at first, I was a quiet child. They knew I was cursed as soon as my Auntie – the last Cow, a woman with a high pile of white hair coiled on top of her head, and two braids of black hair trailing down her back – commented quietly on my unusually blue eyes.

My father glanced at his sister-in-law with concern, and hesitantly handed me over to my mother. She turned into mouse, and almost dropped me, but for the few seconds she held me before turning into a small grey furry rat, she said were the best seconds in her life.

I like to believe her.

She seemed so sure, the way she waved her hands as she told me about the way they flagged down the bus on the way back to the depot.

My mother was so nice.

Idiot maid, idiot outsider.

All outsiders are idiots, look what they do to my family, and even if they are some distant relative to the family, they cause pain. The rabbit and his mother . . . look at the pain she caused him, no child should find out his mother regrets his birth . . . Hatori and that outsider Souma, they might have thought they were happy but I . . . I couldn't allow it, no, I won't allow them to hurt my family. They are mine, my family. Mine alone, and if they trust me, I can colour their lives just right before I die. I can fix it so they will all lead lives that they will be happy with, I can!

I've made some mistakes, losing my temper with Hatori, Kisa and Hiro, and Yuki . . . yes, yes . . . mistakes, but I could change that too. I am the Souma Clan head, I could make sure that they are happy, and no idiot outsider is going to change that.

Without me, their sunshine would be nothing but . . .

I miss my mother.

The way she sang on rainy days.

I'm crying?

The way she'd play the mirror game.

. . . Why am I crying, I've never . . .

The way she would hug me, turn into a mouse and just scamper over my shoulders and tickle me.

Now that idiot outsider girl's noticed. I . . . I don't want her here, I turn my head. No idiot outsider will change the way my family are, no idiot outsider is going to kill my family . . . my only family . . .

I want my mother.

"Akito . . .-sama?"

I look up at her, "What?"

It's hard to speak, when things you forgot about your mother decide to come back, reminding you painfully of the day you found her, her naked body bloody and crushed.

I hate idiot outsiders; I hate mice for being so foolish.

They both think they can be so clever, but really they just can't see the bigger trap. I close my eyes, I just want to protect everyone, is that so much to ask?! I don't want Shigure to get run over by a car one day because he was turned into a dog, and didn't see when the lights changed from red to green. I don't want Hatori to suddenly drown because some idiot outsider put him in a tank of the wrong kind of water. I don't want Kisa to be shot because some idiot outsider thinks she's a dangerous animal. I don't want Hiro to be eaten, because some idiot outsider suddenly gets a craving for lamb. No idiot outsider is having Momiji for luncheon, with half a loaf of bread for dipping into stew. I don't want some idiot outsider to capture Ritsu and earn some money as an organ grinder with a dancer monkey. No gilded cage for the bird, no riding spurs for the horse. Ayame will continue to run his store for perverted men, and their 'men's fantasies' and will not end up as some idiot outsider's boots. Yuki . . . Yuki will never suffer the same indignity as my mother.

Even the stupid cat.

I even feel I should protect him. Because when everyone finds out what he really is, who he really is, no one else will understand him.

They think I don't understand what it's like to be rejected by everyone who you love.

They think I don't understand what it's like to stand out in a crowd of people because of the way you look.

They think I don't understand what it's like to be one of them because no one is allowed to touch them . . .

They think I don't understand . . . I do, I just don't care.

I've been rejected by everyone in the family, even though I love them, since my mother died in a mouse trap, my uncle's car was hit by a truck driver on the wrong side of the road, and my Auntie tripped over a stupidly placed towel at the local swimming pool, and cracked her head open.

I stand out in my cursed family because I look the most normal, I may have startling blue eyes, but I have dark hair, dark black hair. Not a startling orange like Kisa or the stupid cat. Not a subtle purple, or dark green like Yuki or Hatori. My hair won't grow to an astounding length like Ayame or Ritsu, nor will it be a strange sort of blonde like Hiro or Momiji. Even Shigure's hair flashes dark blue when you catch it in the right lights. When I am amongst them, it hammers home the fact that I am completely drab looking compared to them.

And more than any of them I understand what it's like not to be touched . . . only in my case it is not because no one is allowed to touch me, but because no one wants to touch me. For some, I am a cold thing; I'm too cold to touch. For others, I'm a hot item; I will burn you if you try to handle me. But to most, I am a sharp object; press too hard and I will cut you.

They think I don't understand . . . I do, I just don't care.

Well then.

If they don't want to see the real me, they can't . . . if they don't try . . . they won't. And even if they try, I won't let them. All they'll ever see is this angry, cold, sick twisted little bastard, and serve them right for not even trying!

If they don't want to see me as I really am, the Akito that spends ages searching his chicken fried stir fry for shrimps, and pulling out the scrambled egg . . . or the Akito who can sing every song from 'The Wizard of OZ' and 'The Sound of Music' . . . or the Akito who likes fast rides and scary movies but gets squeamish about splinters . . . then fine. I'll keep him all to myself.

I don't need anyone else.

I don't want anyone else.

And now I'm dying . . . I'll never want to need or want to need anyone else as long as I . . .

Just a little something,

Just something to warm your cold heart.

Just a little something more,

To give you a smile.

----------------------------

And Now It's Time to LEAVE IT TO DOCTOR MEGALOMANIA!!!
DrM: Konnichiwa!! [waves] I'm Doctor Megalomania, and this is my first 'Fruits Basket' fanfiction . . . is it good? Do you think I should continue? [big chibi-watery eyes] Please tell me!! Please press the review button!!