Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Natsuki Takaya

Warnings: Rated for adult themes. Themes, because there is no porn.

For my dear Adi88, happy belated birthday! I hope you shall enjoy.

Ophelia

Shigure had opened the sliding door to let the sunlight in, probably to see the book in his hands more clearly. Akito had caught the sight of reading glasses peeping out of his pocket the other day as he pored over a particularly grueling text of college fine print.

The scene bothered her. Had Shigure merely opened the door to enjoy the fresh air, it would have been acceptable. But that he sat carelessly engrossed in his book meant he wasn't avidly waiting for Akito, a sentiment disturbingly close to not caring or needing her. And that could not be allowed.

She shut the door behind her as she came into the room, for the moment still as equally as pleased as affronted. "You came to see me."

Shigure hummed an acknowledgement, not bothering to look up from the pages. A slight frown crossed her face before she approached him and draped herself against one of his shoulders, sprawling elegantly as a contented cat. He still didn't pay proper attention when she pressed herself against him, so she wriggled under his arms instead to rest her head squarely in his lap.

He held the book higher to accommodate her, which was to be expected, but that meant Akito could no longer see his face. She ran her hands along his arms, every inch a needy child demanding attention or a sulking love-spurned teenager, but it still had no effect. She changed tactics, pulling his arms down to her and asking with only a hint of curiosity, "Is your book interesting?"

"It doesn't have any sex, if that's what you're asking," came the immediate response.

She scowled and tugged his arms again to break his concentration. She suspected the comment had been for her sake, and while she hadn't specifically voiced that particular sentiment aloud before, it irked her that he had read it from her mind. A bit petulantly she tried again, "Is it any good anyway?"

"It's an English play," Shigure elaborated. He turned a page idly, unconcerned, and tilted the book until he could read it properly again. "A Japanese translation," he added after seeing her eyebrows raise curiously.

She lifted her head enough to scan a few lines before pillowing it comfortably in his lap again. "It looks boring."

"You wouldn't like it," he agreed lightly. "It talks too much about death and morality, two things you hate to think about." Akito would have jerked his arms to make him lose his place again, but he smiled down at her after he spoke. Instead, she trailed her fingertips along the bare skin when she pushed up his sleeves.

He looked up thoughtfully, so that she could only see his neck and the underside of his chin. It bobbed as he spoke, "Though I suppose it isn't entirely unrelated to you. The mother certainly confirms your views of women."

"Oh?" It came out bitter, despite her intrigue. They both knew full well what the word "women" signified to her. Akito's hands stilled, the remainder of her good mood quickly evaporating.

"Yes. The main character was very fond of both—of his father," Shigure amended for the sake of practicality, "but he had been dead only a month or so before the mother remarried her husband's brother. For sex and power, of course."

"Of course," Akito echoed condescendingly. Scorn and hate smoothed her voice in the same way it did Ren's, Shigure noted. When the tone was sweetest, the words and intentions were most dangerous.

He closed the book and set it aside. "Is that so bad? She was only human, after all. Just like you."

Akito's face grew quickly livid. "Are you defending her?" she demanded. He knew by the tone they were no longer discussing the subject of characterization in English plays. "Why are you defending that woman?! And don't compare us—I'm nothing like her. I'm nothing like a woman, and I'm not human," she spat the word venomously, "I'm god."

He remained calmly unruffled by her reaction, replying after a moment of considerate pause, "Defending her? You should know by now that I'm not one to ask ethical questions of.

"And are you really not human at all?" Shigure smirked, a freed hand moving to the collar of her kimono and parting the fabric, his skin warmer against her own than the cloth had been. "You like to be held and comforted; you like to be touched;" she tried not to give him the satisfaction, the pleasure of knowing his suggestive tone had the same thrilling effect as his fingers, "and you have a very sexual appetite. Doesn't that make at least part of you undeniably human, instead of solely a god?"

She closed her eyes, refusing to answer. He stroked his thumb meditatively against her skin. "Does Haa-san know about your raging hormones?" Though teasing, a serious tone underlaid the words.

"I'm not out of control," Akito retorted.

Grimly victorious, Shigure replied, "I never said you were."

At her stubborn silence, he continued, "After you're so quick to accuse Ren and condemn her sexuality, you're just as fast to use your own womanhood hypocritically whenever you think it will benefit you. You certainly don't wait a month before crawling into my lap."

"That's completely different," Akito argued imperiously. "I love all of you, and all of you love me. That makes it alright. No one loves that woman, though; she has no right to try to steal them away."

"I think some of the maids in the house would claim to love Ren," Shigure disagreed. He smirked at her widened eyes, betraying that the teenager had obviously gotten recently fixated on the idea that love was synonymous with sex. He tapped her nose impertinently. "You're going to get into trouble very quickly if you keep thinking like that. Love has nothing to do with sex. Love has nothing to do with romance."

She scowled up at him, slightly cross-eyed as she glared at his offending finger. "What does that mean?"

"I love you," he replied simply. "But I also don't mind letting you take advantage of me now that you've discovered the wonders of sexuality." The corners of his mouth twisted up in an ironic smirk, hiding some other meaning in his words that Akito failed to catch. "Still, even though you love all of us, you honestly don't expect us all to sleep with you, do you? If Kisa-chan loves you, is it her duty to show it that way?"

She smacked roughly at his arms, thoroughly repulsed by the insinuation. "You're a pervert! Kisa is eight, and she's a girl!"

"You can have sex with girls," Shigure pointed out reasonably. He watched in amusement as her face screwed up, trying to picture that. Placing his hands on the floor behind him and leaning back, he smiled and taunted, "Anyway, isn't that part of the reason Yuki had to stop living with you? It was becoming too hard to keep your secret from him, yes, but I heard you had also started coming on to him as well."

She stiffened and echoed her earlier sentiment in abrupt tones. "Yuki loves me, and I love him. It was fine."

"He's only twelve, and boys mature later than girls anyway." Hatori had been the one to find out somehow, and he had been duly disturbed. Enough so that he had even permitted, in his worry, Shigure to draw the matter out of him before he decided to convince Akito to ask to have Yuki sent home for other reasons. Secure in his source of information, Shigure knew the accusations would sting even more for the truth in them. "You're lucky that neither of you had a clue what you were starting, Akito; no one has ever pried enough into how you treat him to interfere very much and stop you from doing what you please, but if you had started sexually abusing him as well—"

"Shut up!"

"—At least Kureno is old enough that he can understand what's going on, and is able to consider the possibility that he can get help for himself before he's scarred for life."

She arched her back to butt her head against his stomach, furiously. "I'm not sleeping with Kureno." The vehemence with which she spat out the statement underscored her offence at the idea that she was scarring her precious Juunishi for life, Shigure suspected, rather than distaste for the insinuation that she would sleep with the rooster.

"My mistake. I assumed since you were spending so much time alone with him, you were obviously using him for your pleasure."

Akito ignored the bitter, sarcastic tone and settled comfortably into his lap again. Sullenly she retorted, "Since when did you care so much, anyway?"

Shigure laughed. "You're right, I don't really care about them at all. But you're going to cause problems for all of us—for me—if you keep this up."

"Shut up and kiss me," she ordered. "I'm tired of talking about this."

He stayed silent, but he didn't oblige the first half of the demand. Akito closed her eyes and relaxed, confident that the matter had been ended. Shigure wasn't one to lecture, so his words cut the most deeply of all when he tried—and he always aimed to hurt. At least Hatori was gentle and respected her properly, even if his rules were too ridiculous to be complied with.

Shigure stretched, the muscles in his legs tensing under Akito's head. His tone not quite breaking the lull, he remarked thoughtfully, "'Get thee to a nunnery.'"

She opened her eyes and glanced questioningly at him. She didn't like what she saw; Shigure wore that expression where she couldn't tell if he was teasing her or was displeased and dangerous. Either way, she had no control over him now, and that was even worse.

Trying to reign in the situation, she masked her apprehension. "You sound like you're quoting." She turned her head to see the cover of the book he'd been reading previously and asked, "Hamlet?"

He didn't answer the question, instead continuing, "If you're going to be just as bad as Ren, you should go straight to prostitution and stop dragging the rest of us down with you. Otherwise, control yourself and stop copying every fault you accuse her of." At her sharp intake of breath, he swiftly and cuttingly added, "It's not about responsibility or morality—it's about using a little tact so you survive to the end of the game."

Akito grabbed his arms, furiously, tight enough to draw blood under her nails, and exploded, "Don't act so high and mighty, like you're an adult who knows any better! You'd sleep with anyone, and you do, and you're proud of it! You have no right to speak to me like that!"

With infuriating calm he replied, "Doesn't that put you in the same position, since you would seduce any man for your own pleasure?"

"You're horrible, you're always mean to me!" She sat up abruptly, leaving scratches on Shigure's arms as she flung them away. Standing and glaring poisonously, she pointed a condemning finger at him as she continued angrily, "You're never nice enough! You're always accusing me of things when you're no better!"

Her eyes fell on the book lying on the floor, and in her escalating tantrum she snatched it to throw at him. "You don't love me like you should! You have to love me, but you think the rules don't apply to you! Well, you're wrong. And when you realize that, and you want to love me again, then I'll tell you I hate you, and it will be true! And you'll be worth nothing if I don't love you!"

She spun on her heel before Shigure could see the irrational, furious tears gather in her eyes. Storming out of her own room, she slammed the door loudly behind her.

Shigure gave his arms a passing, uncaring glance before picking up the book again. He smoothed out the pages bent from Akito's rage and opened to the passage where he'd left off. In the backdrop of the sounds from the open doorway to the garden, the absence of her shouting was almost deafening.

"No, my Ophelia," he murmured into the feigning peace, "I truly love you… perhaps more than can possibly end well for either of us."

…
Owari
…

-Windswift