Chosen Too Late

A Fruits Basket oneshot by: Ayame-chan

 

 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hello, everyone! I hope all of you are doing well! Anyway, this takes place about a year or so after the anime series, spun up while I was watching Gundam SEED again. You would think that watching Gundam SEED would sprout a Gundam SEED fic but nope: Fruits Basket instead! The series is very beautiful and was the first to make me stuck in between which main character pairing I liked more -- Yukie and Tohru or Kyo and Tohru?

Ah, but what if she chose neither? This is where this random oneshot comes in. I ask that all of you keep an open mind -- I love Yuki and Kyo to bits but my mind can often sprout up very dangerous ideas. It's been a year since I've re-watched the anime so I might be a bit OOC but hopefully not too much...If there is anything horribly wrong, please do kindly say so. It's been a whiel since I've actually written a oneshot, being caught too much in my other fanfics.

After this, I'll never torture the fanfare and rivlaries again, promise!

Unfamiliar words, words that are not in English, will be in italics and a summary of what they mean will be at the end.

Enjoy and R&R!

DISCLAIMERS: Nope don't own Fruits Basket. That belongs ot Takaya Natsuki and a company. Hell, even if I did own it, why in the world would I be writing this weird oneshot of mine?

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet not know of.

---William Shakespeare

She had finished slipping on her shoes and stood up, straightening out the pale yellow sundress she wore and turned around to the two men watching her with a smile. It was always much easier to leave with a smile.

"Then, Shigure-san, Yuki-kun, I'll be going now," Honda Tohru said to them as she picked up the white sandal bag he had given her.

Shigure instinctively smiled back at her, something that he had gotten quite used to over the three years she had lived in his home. The novelist was leaning against the doorway that led to the kitchen with one hand tucked inside the yukata resting on top of the obi. The other hand he held up and waved at her.

"Mm! Have fun with Tetsuya-san, Tohru-kun !" he said to her cheerfully.

Yuki managed to force a small smile on his lips as the brunette cheerfully replied back to his older cousin before her enrancing blue eyes met his.

"Aa, have fun, Honda-san," the rat softly replied as his mind began to wander elsewhere. Deep inside, he didn't want her to go -- to go to the man who had taken her heart and a piece of her that had changed the Souma clan's secluded lifestyle.

Just where did he go wrong? Why didn't he notice the change in her sooner? They lived in the same house for three years; he should have seen it sooner. He should have told her sooner, but he never realized it. With the duties as the student body president and the added burden of taking over as leader for their clan and the jyuunishi after Akito's death, Yuki barely found the time to be home. When he was, he immediately tended to the needs of his garden or slept to recover from exhaustion.

However, that wasn't an excuse to himself for Tohru to fall in love with someone else.

"Where's Kyo-kun ?" was the next set of words she said that filtered through his train of thought.

"Probably still on the roof sulking," Shigure answered. "You know how he is when he's in a bad mood."

Yuki wasn't hte only one who blamed himself. Ever since Tohru started dating Tetsuya, Kyo had suddenly refused to see her off. Sometimes Yuki wondered if his hot headed cousin had taken the news much harder than he did since Kyo was around Tohru more often than he was.

"Oh..." There was a tint of disappointment in her voice.

Kazuma Tetsuya. The man who had taken their Tohru away from them. He had transferred to their school at the beginning of their final year after something had happened at his old one. There wasn't anything surprising when he introduced himself in class. He was quiet and oddly distant with cropped black hair and light blue eyes. He joined the archery club, continuing the sport he had left off at his former high school, and was very observant when it came to questions in class. He and Yuki crossed paths many times since Yuki was the student body president, but there was nothing striking in their covnersations that would make him feel jealous. Yuki did notice that Tohru often did talk to Tetsuya a lot, but she was always very considerate to her classmates because that was just the way she was. He didn't think much of it until Kyo pointed out to him one day when he was home for the weekend:

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

"Oi, nezumi, have you noticed that Tohru and Tetsu-what's-his-name act a bit weird when they're together?" Kyo asked him out of the blue while taking a seat on the floor as they watched TV.

"Honda-san and Tetsuya-san?" Yuki's eyes were glued to the screen although he wasn't paying much attention to what it was blurting out. "You mean Kazuma Tetsuya-san?"

"Yeah him," Kyo frowned. "They...act weird when they talk to each other."

Well, this was new. Kyo was actually noticing small details about something? Yuki tore his eyes away fro mthe screen and looked at his cousin in confusion although he was very tired after having made the funeral arrangements for Akito -- becuase he was nominated to -- who had just died the week before. All that Yuki wanted was some peace and quiet, not having a strange conversation about the woman living in the house with them with his bitter yet mutually respected cousin.

"What do you mean?"

"What the hell do you think I mean?" Kyo lashed out. "Don't tell me that you haven't seen it before when they talk to each other! Tohru's already flitty and ditzy and all but she looks happy when she talks to that Tetsuya guy -- the transfer student -- and he's got this relaxed look on his face that only appears when he talks to her --"

Before Yuki could retort back, Shigure popped his head into the living room with a fan in his hands.

"Hm? Hm? What's this noise all about?" he asked them with his typical playful tone, fanning himself. "Tohru-kun's found a boyfriend or something?"

The two young men immediately stared at him with anger written over their faces. "WHAT?!?"

"Oh my, I'm just having fun with you two --"

"Tadaima!" her voice filtered through the home as the front door slid shut.

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

About two weeks after that day, Tohru announced to them that she and Tetsuya liked each other and they were officially going out.

After the announcement there was a noticeable change in the brunette as time passed. She had an extra bounce to her step as she walked, hummed more of her made-up songs when she was in the kitchen cooking, and more importantly she looked happy. Eight months since that day and she still possessed the happiness that Tetsuya brought her. And the happiness she brought to Tetsuya made the transfer student more outspoken in his opinion.

It was a world that neither Yuki nor Kyo would enter in; and they didn't know when it would ever open because it looked like their relatioship had no ending in sight. Whatever place that Kazuma Tetsuya had in their Honda Tohru's heart, it was in a much different and deeper place than the rat and the cat of the current cursed Souma family were in.

And so the cat blamed himself and hid his displeasure and sorrow up on the roof whiel the rat blamed himself and dug a hole deep within his heart with no chance of getting out. They had lost their beautiful and kind onigiri that changed their lives to a complete stranger without having the chance to admit and state their own feelings towards her.

She smiled at them again before bowing, "Then please, tell Kyo-kun, too." The smile widened as she set to leave. "I'll see you later!"

"Mm! Later!"

"Aa..."

And that change might never come.

---Fin---

List of unknown words:

[name]-san = the typical polite ending used with people that you are unfamiliar with, or just out of being respectful and polite if you know, particularly to people outside of your family although it really depends on the person that you're talking to

[name]-kun = ending that's a bit less formal than -san, typically used with young men and boys (although Shigure uses it with Tohru in the anime...)

jyuunishi = the general group name of the Chinese Zodiac that's used in Fruits Basket; "juu" (ten) plus "ni" (two) equals 12

nezumi = rat

tadaima = an equivalent to "I'm home!"