DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Fruits Basket.
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Mythology
Part Three: Introspection of a Makeshift Bride
Nine: Inconvenience
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She'd gotten lost.
She'd had nothing to do on the weekend, because they had servants at the main house, and didn't need her to cook or clean or do any of the menial work she enjoyed. So she'd decided to go exploring because the main Sohma house was just…so big.
She'd meant to go looking for Momiji-kun or Hatori-san or Kagura-san or – or anyone she knew who lived at the main estate. She was just so lonely, after all…
She hadn't found anyone.
Instead, Tohru had gotten lost in a corner of the building where she didn't recognize anything and where there weren't any people that she could ask. The servants were invisible, as servants should be, and there was… no one.
So she'd sat down in that corner and wrapped her arms around her knees to wait for someone to find her. A woman had been assigned to care for Akito-sama's bride-to-be, but she always seemed like she would rather be elsewhere.
Tohru hoped that the woman would notice that she was missing. Preferably soon.
Sitting in this little corner of the Sohma house wasn't physically uncomfortable, of course. But it – the house – was always so… dark. Not actually dark, of course, because there were lamps and windows located throughout the entire house, but…
The atmosphere was so dark, so crushing, so heavy, as though Death held the entire house in its palm…
"Honda-kun?"
Tohru looked up at the source of the softly-spoken words.
"Eeh? Ah! Hatori-san!" she exclaimed, and jumped up quickly, dusting herself off and greeting the doctor with a bow.
"What are you doing here? Did you get lost?" he asked her, and she nodded, smiling hopefully at him.
He smiled back, a bit thinly, and said, "That's not hard in this house. Come along. I'll take you back to your room."
"Thank you so much, Hatori-san! I was so afraid that no one would find me and that I'd be stuck here and that…that it might not be best if Akito-san knew I was missing…" She murmured the last part to herself, not meaning for the doctor to hear. Hatori heard, though, and looked back at her sharply, but she brushed the words away quickly.
"Ah! I'm not inconveniencing you, am I, Hatori-san? You probably had something else to do, didn't you? I'm sorry for taking you away from tha—"
"It's all right. I was just taking a walk around the complex," he told her. "You're never an inconvenience, Honda-kun."
He sent her a half-smile over his shoulder, and this one was so much more real.
"O-oh. Okay. Thank you, Hatori-san."
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Author's Space:
Er…
I've been neglecting my baby! And my readers! And I'm so, so, so sorry! (And I'm even sorrier for the Folding Cranes people – that's next on the list, I promise.) But. Er. I'll try to keep up. It's not easy, really, because I'm failing both math and chemistry (or I'm going to be) and. Uh. Okay. No more excuses, I promise.
Next Chapter: Chapter Ten: Dress.
Review, please!