Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Note: Request fic for Fudebusho at LiveJournal, who wanted something with Furuba characters and Tanabata. Information on Tanabata and related traditions can be found quite easily online at places such as Wikipedia.

Tanabata

As he was returning from yet another afternoon spent at the dojo, Kyou found his cousin's girlfriend standing just outside the front door of Shigure's house. She seemed very preoccupied with what she was doing, which was stepping in and out of her geta sandal with her left foot. She did, however, look up as he approached, and settling her foot into the sandal, she bowed politely.

"Hi," Kyou said.

"Hello," Kuragi answered, her face quite blank.

"Waiting for Yuki?" he asked. "He would keep you waiting, wouldn't he?" he added, probably more out of habit than any real opinion on whether that was something Yuki would do or not.

"The phone rang," Kuragi said.

Kyou blinked. "I didn't hear anything," he said doubtfully.

"When we were just leaving," she added. "He went to answer it."

"Oh." That explained it, of course. Kuragi could have a fairly odd way of saying things sometimes, he knew, but he'd never really bothered to learn how to decipher or respond to it. He'd only ever really talked to her when Yuki was around as well before, so he'd never really had to think about it all – and Yuki seemed to get her just fine, anyway.

Looking at her again, the fact that she was dressed up in a yukata suddenly dawned on him as well. In fact, she was really looking rather pretty. This was another matter Kyou had never given much thought – really, unless a person happened to have the distinct advantage of being Honda Tohru, whether someone was pretty or not was nothing that registered on Kyou's radar. But looking at her now, without Yuki there to distract his attention away from forming an opinion on her only as herself, he realised that his cousin's girlfriend, in addition to sometimes saying odd things, also wasn't ugly.

"So you're going to the festival?" he asked, drawing this clever conclusion from her outfit.

"We're... going to wish that my sewing doesn't get any better and that handwriting doesn't improve," Kuragi said.

Well, that was not what he had expected, if he'd expected anything. Kyou knew he wasn't the most attentive person in the world, and that sometimes he missed or misunderstood things, but he was sure that was not the way the old Tanabata tradition went. In the end, what he managed to react to it with was a "huh?"

There was no further explanation, though, since just then, Yuki appeared, looking mildly put out. "I'm sorry, that took a lot longer than I thought," he explained to Kuragi. "Apparently another one of Shigure's manuscripts is late. It took me a long time to calm Mitsuru-san down. Especially since Ritsu was there too and kept interrupting to inform Shigure of just how cruel he is. I'm still not sure whether either one of them actually realised it was me and not Shigure they were yelling at."

Kyou snorted. "Poor you," he said sarcastically.

Yuki favoured this only with a fraction of an indifferent glance, and walked up to Kuragi instead. "Are you ready to go?" he asked, smiling at her.

She nodded, and turned to Kyou with another polite little bow. "I will see you tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow?"

"Machi is coming over for dinner tomorrow," Yuki told Kyou over his shoulder, but still with his attention turned to his girlfriend. "You still haven't told me what you want so I'll know what to make."

Kyou blanched. "You're going to try making something? What are you, crazy? Are you trying to scare her off?"

"I'm not that bad!" Yuki said. "I helped make dinner at Machi's place just the other day, that went okay!"

"Well, she probably did everything else while you cut yourself while chopping some salad or something then," Kyou said impatiently. He turned to Kuragi. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

"I'm really not that bad," Yuki insisted, at the same time as Kuragi said, "I don't mind." There was an odd little smile on her face, and her cheeks were a little flushed, matching the red and pale pink of her yukata. Yuki turned to her and looked at her for a few moments,

"Fine, whatever," Kyou said, watching the two with eyebrows raised in confusion. "Just don't burn anything this time!" Deciding it was probably best to just give up on the two of them, he headed for the house.

As he was about to close the door he could hear Kuragi's voice drifting after him. "I don't think... that I would dislike something spicy," she told Yuki. He looked back and saw them walking off, hand in hand and their backs to the house.

Kyou shook his head, and headed for his room. He'd shower and get a change of clothes, and then head for the festival himself. Tohru had gone ahead with Uotani, Hanajima and Hanjima's creepy little brother earlier, but they'd agreed to meet up later.

Tohru's weirdness, at least, he got; Kuragi's and Yuki's was none of his business, so he'd just leave them to it.