Fruits Basket
Slight Yuki/Kyo
Summary: Yuki gets contemplative on a gift he receives from Tohru.
Tohru was smiling. This was nothing new, but for the very first time, Yuki found himself unable to smile back.
"T-thank you, Honda-san," Yuki said feebly. "Thank you very much for your…gift," he said. Yuki's voice caught slightly on the last word.
Tohru watched him with her bright eyes. "I thought it was important that Sohma-kun should have it," she said. She smiled again – like a warm beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds – and exited the room. Yuki was left alone with what Tohru had given him only a few moments before.
It was a photograph. Hatori had taken it not so long ago, during the school festival. It was not just any photograph, of course, but that one. The one with Yuki in a dress. The one with Kyo beside him. The one of the two of them together, "smiling".
When Tohru had placed the photograph into Yuki's hands, his first instinct was to tear it apart. It was a reminder of the day he had been forced to wear a dress and endure the looks he received from his fellow students and his teachers. Yuki shivered. This picture was not worth a thousand words – it was worth being torn into a thousand tiny pieces. It was, however, a gift from Tohru and so Yuki was loathed to destroy it. He swallowed his feelings of revulsion and tried his best to thank her for her kindness.
And it was a kindness, really. The photograph had not reached Akito's hands. Yuki feared what kinds of dark things would be whispered into his ear if it ever reached him. The rat-cursed closed his eyes and tried to will away the shadow over his heart.
"Hey, damn rat!"
Yuki was rudely startled out of his thoughts. Stupid cat.
"Answer me, dammit!" Kyo yelled through the closed door of Yuki's bedroom.
Yuki grimaced and then reluctantly asked, "What is it, stupid cat?"
"Tohru said that dinner will be ready in ten minutes. So get down here, because I'm not coming back up to you tell again," Kyo growled.
Yuki sighed as he heard his cousin loudly stomp downstairs. Kyo was always so angry and brash. He was the polar opposite to the ever-optimistic Tohru. She was always kind and caring. She smiled at him sometimes.
Yuki blinked at that thought and found himself looking at the photograph again. He couldn't bear to look at his half of the photo – wearing a dress was humiliating – and instead focused on the other half. Kyo's half. There, in that photograph, he seemed to be smiling.
Yuki caught his fiery-tempered cousin smiling more and more often recently. Never at him, but at Tohru. She would say something or do something that would cause Kyo to drop his guard for a moment. His sharp red eyes would soften, his shoulders would relax and – just for a second – his perpetual scowl would be replaced by a reluctant smile. Yuki could only ever watch him smile out of the corner of his eye. He knew that if the cat-cursed ever suspected that he was watching, his smiles would disappear forever.
Yuki thought that when Tohru smiled, it was a little like the sun shining down on him on a bright day. It wrapped him in warmth and made him forget his worries for a short while. He couldn't help but smile back - it was instinctive.
The cat's smiles, however, reminded Yuki of breaking dawn. They were a delicate balance between light and dark, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Kyo's smiles only lasted for a second, but for that moment in time, Yuki's world would stand still. Through his stolen glances, the violet-eyed boy would try his best to imprint that smile upon his memory.
Yuki hoped a day would come when Kyo would smile at him, for him, with him. For now, he could only wait for those rare moments when Tohru would coax another hesitant smile out of his cousin. No matter how dark the night, though, dawn would always break. Yuki was more than prepared to wait.
The rat-cursed sighed and eyed the photo once again. Despite the dress, despite the bad memories, despite everything, it would be worthwhile to keep this photo. Just to see a semblance of a smile on Kyo's face, and to remind him of what it looked like when the cat-cursed truly did smile.
Very carefully, Yuki opened the top drawer of his desk and placed the photograph in the very back. He didn't want to ruin it. It had been a gift from Tohru, after all.
Originally written in writersfunk. Any comments and criticisms are much appreciated.