[Now I will tell you what I've done for you Fifty thousand tears I've cried]

Yuki belongs to Akito. He has known this since he was very small and it has never bothered him, the thought of being a belonging, a toy to be played with and discarded as it becomes boring. In his little world, this is his place, and he does not yet connect it with the feelings he suffers when he comes upon the periods in which Akito would rather play with Shigure or Kureno, but Yuki himself is still not allowed to move from his lonely spot on the shelf. The life of a Jyuunishi is isolation, Akito says, and Yuki should get used to it. Yuki does not know any better than to try and endure.

But in the dark of Akito's room at night, there is no one there except the two of them, and Akito's dark eyes glitter in the light from the moon while he whispers smug mantras of the way things are. Yuki exists for the God, Akito says. When he is happy, it should be because he finds happiness in his service; when, deep beneath his covers, Yuki cries himself quietly to sleep, that is for Akito too. Everything he does is for Akito, whispers the voice in the dark, until even when Akito himself is not there, Yuki can still hear his words echoing in every thought or breath.

Still, though he feels the all-powerful presence of the older boy pressing in on him at every turn, his heart knows that Akito feels the same. Something, some unknown presence even more powerful than the God himself, boxes in and torments the Jyuunishi's master, fills him with hatred and despair and an all-encompassing need to escape. The tears which Yuki sheds are for that pain, for Akito, but they are also for himself. Somehow, the knowledge that even the God cannot hide from the effects of the curse makes it all the more stark a reality that no one can.

Yuki is one of the Twelve, and he will never be anything else.

[Screaming, deceiving, and bleeding for you And you still won't hear me]

Yuki loves Akito, but not in the same way he loves his mother, or the warm sunshine, or the pretty garden. Loving Akito is painful, and scary. Darkness roils just below the surface of the older boy like rot growing inside an apple, and even when he is not angry, there is always the bitter poison of hatred close by, giving off its fumes through the thin curtain of distraction caused by whatever has gotten Akito's attention at the moment. In spite of, or perhaps because of this, there is always the helpless feeling that Yuki should be able to do more to make his patron, his God, happy and content. It hurts when Akito is having one of his tantrums because Yuki can feel the despair, pain, and fear which prods the anger into an explosion, and he knows that it is his place, and that of all the Jyuunishi, to serve until every want or need is fulfilled. Anything less than happiness is failure, and failure is unworthy of love. And yet somehow, no matter how hard Yuki works or how much of his own wants and needs he sacrifices, Akito can never have enough to be content.

Even so, Akito is generous; he loves Yuki in spite of his shortcomings. But Yuki wants to be worthy of it. Maybe someday, if he is truly worthy to be loved, Akito will no longer be the only one who cares. This can't be all there is.

It can't.

[I'm going under]

As Yuki grows a little, the unconditional love which he felt for Akito as a toddler begins to fall away. He understands now that there is more to the world than the four walls of Akito's room; that there is something wrong about being caged against his will; that the total submission Akito asks is not normal in the eyes of the rest of the world. The other children at Yuki's specially chosen school speak of vacations, of outings with their parents, of soccer in the park and violin lessons and birthday parties. Yuki finds himself wanting, not the things, but what all of those things represent. He wants to be, like his classmates, so used to having friends that he doesn't think twice about it. He doesn't really notice when he begins to be friendly with a few of the boys, and then a few more, and by the time he realizes that he's made friends of quite a few of the girls in the school as well, the simple normalcy of having them treat him like a real person feels too good to let go of. He knows Akito will be angry if he finds out, but surely, if Yuki's very careful, nothing bad will happen... if he's careful...

Later, as Hatori wipes the last of the forbidden memories from the minds of Yuki's frightened friends, the Rat finally understands what the Curse is.

That evening, Akito takes Yuki out onto the porch and forbids anyone to interrupt. In a low, deadly calm voice he begins to explain, from the beginning, all the laws that the Jyuunishi exist under, and Yuki sits at his feet with his face obediently upturned and tries desperately not to listen. It's an exercise in futility. Akito's voice seems to swell and expand until it fills Yuki's whole consciousness, each word drilling itself into his brain. They are hurtful words, and they are meant to be: Akito's voice is still soft, and would be almost soothing to someone who knew less about him than Yuki does, but Yuki knows that quiet from Akito can be far more dangerous than his loud tantrums. Quiet means that the God is beyond anger, that he's courting the edges of murderous intent, that he will cut and remind and belittle until his fury is appeased.

Somewhere in the middle of this tirade a little red and white bird flutters down out of the sakura trees in the garden and, as innocently as only a true animal can, alights on the arm of Akito's chair. Akito pauses. Seemingly forgetting Yuki (almost... thoughtful?), he invites the tiny creature into the palm of his hand. With a mindless devotion that reminds the Rat painfully of himself, the bird accepts.

Yuki watches Akito's distant eyes as the older boy crushes the animal in his small hand, and for one dark moment as the colorful creature's life drains away, the Jyuunishi wishes that he could go with it.

The bird, at least, is free.

[Don't want your hand this time, I'll save myself Maybe I'll wake up for once]

And one day, he does go. He snatches a moment when no one is looking and he steps for very first time outside of his family's grip; outside of the compound.

Later, not yet quite lost on the streets of the city, Yuki feels an exhiliratingly terrifying mixture of freedom and loss pounding through him. He doesn't know where he found the courage to run away; something inside laughs at him that it wasn't bravery, it was sheer stupidity. Akito will be furious (and hurt), and where will Yuki go if not back?

He ignores the voice. Short legs pumping, he tries to put as much distance between he and the Sohma house as possible before they realize that he's gone.

Then, he sees the girl.

She's a cute girl, some distant part of him thinks - his mother's part, always preoccupied with beauty and status. She's not beautiful, but she's cute, and her big eyes are full to overflowing with heartfelt tears. She's not faking, like Yuki has seen Momiji do sometimes (though never when he's really hurt, which makes Yuki wonder). It suddenly occurs to the little boy that he's not the only one who got lost tonight. The difference is, he doesn't think she did it on purpose.

He's stopped, staring at her, and now she looks up. His mind races to find a way to help her before he can even think why. He can't go up to her - she might touch him, hug him, and then she would see and run away and he wouldn't be able to help her at all. No, he has to keep his distance, as Akito has reminded him so many times. But she's watching him, and he can't think, and then suddenly it occurs to him.

Slowly, hoping she's a girl who catches on easily, he turns around and begins walking away from her, stopping every so often to look back. At first she seems not to understand, only watching him go with those wide, wet, lost eyes, but before long she's trailing after him, alternating between running to keep up and hanging back to stay out of range. Satisfied that she's caught on, he hurries up, his sneakers pounding once more on the pavement in uneven rhythm. He doesn't know why he's helping her; he should be running farther away, not winding through city streets and getting thoroughly lost (which would be the best time for grown-ups to catch him). But he was sure he saw her mother earlier - how many little girls can get lost in one city at the same time? - and he knows: somehow he knows that what she's feeling now is akin to the abandonment eating at his own heart.

No one should ever have to feel like he does now.

[Not tormented daily, defeated by you Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom]

He goes back to the Sohma house. He doesn't know why he does that, either, and he doesn't blame the girl, but maybe she had something to do with it after all. She was so happy to be home... maybe, he thought...

But none of that matters now. He's locked up again, lost in the darkness of the room he shares with Akito, the darkness of Akito himself. Naturally, Akito and almost all of the grownups who know about his venture are furious with him, but their anger doesn't hurt half as much as their indifference to his reasons. They're only angry, not even wanting to know why he ran. No one cares.

His throat tightening soundlessly, he wonders. Is he even human to them? They, like Akito, think that he shouldn't have feelings or wants of his own, but he's watched the other Jyuunishi from the sidelines, and they all show their own personalities, their own griefs and happinesses. Don't the others, the uncursed, don't they see that? Or is it only him they see differently, locked away forever like a carefully guarded doll, considered an oddity even among the Twelve?

[I'm dying again]

Now he's feeling sorry for himself. He struggles to push the self-pity back, listening to the soft hiss of his own breath in the otherwise empty room as he thinks of all the things he should be grateful for. He has more than the cat...

The cat.

He can't help the sudden surge of anger, disgust, and despair which surges through him. What more than the cat does he have? Kyou isn't even aware of how lucky he is, loved and understood by his master, free to go where he pleases and live as he chooses to. Yuki knows what his past was, and what his future holds for him, but at least Kyou has today in which to live and breathe! He doesn't even see what a chance he's been given!

The familiar flavor of despair floods Yuki's mouth, and with it, a bitter hatred which he has not known before. For a moment his heart constricts with the overload of dark feeling, twisting and tightening until he can barely breathe, his eyes blinded by the white haze of fury, his mouth open in a silent scream.

As fast as it came, it's gone.

What an irony, he thinks, his hands relaxing from fists as the spasm passes, leaving only a deep, emotionless lethargy. All those times he was so close to death that he could taste its bittersweet breath on his tongue... and now, now that his body is getting better, he wishes that he would sicken and die.

[I'm going under Drowning in you]

The years pass by in darkness. Yuki and Akito grow together in the darkness, like pale mushrooms feeding desperately off of each other and everyone they touch, and as Yuki nears the teenagehood so recently reached by his elder, he finds himself clinging more and more to every shadow of a change he can find. Hatsuharu visits him in secret now, Rin hovering sullenly in the background as he and Yuki share soft conversations which drive away the emptiness, if only for a few stolen minutes. It does little real good to know that Hatsuharu and Rin feel the same isolation, that Yuki is not the only one... but somehow, the knowledge feels better than being alone.

Yet even in this newfound friendship, there is no peace. As Akito grows, his anger settles into a far subtler and, if possible, more menacing form. The helpless, furious tears of his childhood are no more. Now he can hurt, and hurt he does, taking pleasure in his newfound strength and in the more convincing height of his still terrifying glance. If he finds that Hatsuharu has been visiting Yuki, breaking whatever power of isolation he wants to keep the Rat under, the penalty will not be a simple tantrum and the scorn of the elders, like it would have been in their childhood days. Hatsuharu will pay with blood. And Rin... all of the Jyuunishi know that Akito holds in his heart a special hatred for the female of the species.

In his heart, Yuki knows that he's smothering: that they're all smothering, all of the Twelve, under Akito's perversions of love. He says nothing.

Hatsuharu already knows, and no one else will listen.

[I'm falling forever I've got to break through]

Desperation breeds like biting insects in Yuki's heart, and as it multiplies, so multiply his many small, half-hidden rebellions. Inside, he knows that every visit with Hatsuharu, every peek into the garden when he knows Akito has locked him up on purpose, is only a futile gesture of childish disobedience, but with his waking mind he crushes these resigned thoughts. Each of Akito's favorites has to have something to hold on to, to push back the brink of insanity which often feels so close. Kureno has his promises; Hatori has his quiet acceptance; Shigure has the twisted camraderie which he and the God share. Well, that and the fact that he's somehow gotten himself kicked out of the Inside. But Yuki has nothing, nothing more solid than his own frail will to not obey, and if he lets go of that...

[I'm going under]

But Yuki should know by now that, whenever it seems like things couldn't get worse, his life will only become more tangled. Another year opens, and with the coming springtime the flower of puberty begins to unfold, bringing to the household and its occupants nearly as many subtle changes as Yuki used to wish for. Some are welcome; some are not. He recalls a time, in the distant fog of his childhood, when he would wait with ill-disguised loneliness for Akito to return from playing with Kureno, but now it is the exact opposite. Akito's sudden interest in spending hours alone with the Bird is something close to a relief for Yuki, because Akito has also acquired a strange new penchant for touching. Even as a child he was prone to petting, holding hands, but this is something different, and it only adds to Yuki's confusion that he doesn't know whether it is Akito's touch which has changed, or Yuki's own reception of them. Either way, he doesn't like it. It makes the hair rise on the back of his neck, and yet as always, Yuki's discomfort seems only to amuse Akito and encourage him. He only smiles and goes on as he pleases, acting as though he knows something that Yuki doesn't.

Maybe, Yuki muses as he kneels in a corner of the empty room... maybe he does. Questions seem to tease from every shadow of Yuki's universe, casting up to him the many things he still doesn't know: though the Curse inhabits his own body, he may never see beyond what Akito lets him see of its many mysteries. It's cold comfort to know that, beyond even that, there are still secrets that the God does not understand.

[Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies So I don't know what's real and what's not]

Yuki doesn't talk about these worries, not even to Hatsuharu, who is the closest thing to a friend that the Rat has. Now that Akito has become enamored with the company of the older set Hatsuharu can come for longer visits, and there are times when Yuki can feel the questions trembling on the tip of his tongue, wanting to take advantage of the contact with someone who would understand. But in his heart, he knows that it wouldn't do anything. Hatsuharu, like Yuki, lives on the Inside; not only on the physical Inside, which was set up long ago to keep outsiders from suspecting by keeping them away, but also on the non-physical. Whether it is the Curse itself at work or the Gods' interpretations of it over the generations, there is something within a Jyuunishi that wants to trust, to obey, and to be loved by the God. Yuki doesn't know if it is something taught over time or inherited upon birth, but he does know that it's a hard urge to fight against. Some, like Rin, cannot stomach their own desire to submit, and so spend their whole lives fighting; others, like Kureno, give themselves up from the first. Most are like Hatori, and settle somewhere in between, wearing themselves down daily by trying to juggle their own lives and their loyalties to the family... to the Curse.

Of course, then there is Ayame, but Yuki doesn't think that his older brother adheres to any rules except the ones he makes up as he goes. So Ayame doesn't really apply.

Yuki doesn't know where he will end up. He hopes to be something like Rin, but fears that he may be drifting towards Kureno's way. That's what makes it so hard to realize that he too is on the Inside, blinded to the realities of his life by his close proximity, and by his own need to trust that Akito knows best. He can see that it is himself as much as Akito that he's fighting, but for the life of him, he can't see any way out. Akito says that it's the Curse; that it's inevitable; that the Curse is something he cannot win against. But what if it isn't the Curse that's keeping him trapped here? What if it's only his own unconscious clinging to the traditions ingrained in him since his childhood? Is what Akito says the truth, or some convoluted doctrine?

What if he listens to Akito, and never finds a way to leave?

[Always confusing the thoughts in my head So I can't trust myself anymore]

And so life goes on, the way it always has, and he continues to learn as little about himself as ever. It's easy to learn rote words in a room alone, but it's never half so easy to learn meanings until the words can be put into practice. It's hard sometimes even to know his own mind, with no one but Akito to tell him the way things are meant to be, no variety of choices, no sense of living except the traditions which Sohmas have always followed. To some, this stiff march of existence caged might be comforting, but to Yuki it is only another bewilderment to fight through, with Akito as the crowning puzzle - being what he is, doing what he does, mixing Yuki's greatest love with his greatest hate. Because even now, Yuki cannot help but love Akito. It's not a choice; it's something ingrained into his very fibers, twisted together with the thread of the Curse, forcing him to harbor love for someone who will never satisfy it.

The Curse itself is a confusing thing, but that of all Yuki's confusions matters least. Confusing it may be... but it serves its purpose too well to care.

[I'm dying again]

Day by day, Yuki goes on fighting, but there are times when he wonders if it's worth the pain defiance brings. In addition to this, there is now the daily struggle of puberty - or a lack of it. Like most of his male relatives, Yuki will never reach true physical manhood; part of the Curse or just part of the bloodline, he doesn't know, but that doesn't matter for now. A mutation among other mutations has no reason to be ashamed.

Shivering, although locked again in the warm closeness of Akito's room, Yuki pushes that thought quickly away. That's Akito talking, he reminds himself, shutting his eyes tightly against the oncoming headache. Akito's voice in his head is always bitingly realistic, which makes it harder to escape; Yuki has to constantly separate the threads of truth in the words from the dark edge of pessimism. He can't think of things in that tone, not if he wants to save enough courage to keep trying to get out.

Only sometimes, it feels like it would be so easy just to give up... and the frequency of those feelings is enough to send his courage plummetting.

[I'm going under Drowning in you]

Fourteen passes, and he goes every day to the all-boys' middle school which Akito designated for him, enduring the open jibes of his classmates about his looks, pretending not to see the secret, humiliatingly appreciative glances which they cannot seem to help giving. Fifteen, and the teacher is talking about highschool, urging the students to think of what profession they want to pursue as they enter into this final stage of their education. Yuki sits quietly in his seat and waits for the talk to be over. He knows what he will be when he grows up, and what highschool he'll attend to earn it. Akito has it all planned out: has, perhaps, since they were children together in the garden behind the house. And, though he has known about each aspect of his future since practically the day he was born... somehow now, looking at the earnest faces of the more serious students, he cannot help but feel how sad it is that he'll never have to worry over what he'll become.

[I'm falling forever I've got to break through]

It's not until later, at home, that another idea occurs to him. He thinks on it for a long time. Then he gets up and goes to find Akito.

[So go on and scream Scream at me I'm so far away]

For the next few days, Akito's anger rules the household like a living thing. The servants flutter from one chore to another, looking constantly over their shoulders, and it's not any better for the Jyuunishi or the other Inside family members - the luckiest of whom stay as far as they can from the main house while the less fortunate tend to their fuming leader and try not to make things worse. Yuki remains in Akito's room, locked in, wondering where he found the courage to defy Akito to his face.

To most people, it would be a simple thing; a request to attend a different highschool from the one planned. But Yuki knew going in that it would not be so simple to Akito. Especially not since Yuki has decided he doesn't want to attend an all-boys' school this time around. He wants to go for the real thing, the kind of highschool any normal teen not part of a secret curse or a huge, wealthy family would attend; something which, though perhaps only in his heart, will bring him closer to his goal of separation from the family.

But Akito, for all his self-centeredness, is not stupid; he, maybe better than anyone else, knows the fine line between imagination and reality. Just distancing himself in his mind can make Yuki courageous enough to distance himself in the real world, and that's something Akito won't even chance.

Yuki knows all that. And yet, for once in his life, he's found something that he's not going to let go of without a fight. He's given up everything for his God, like a coward letting Akito take and take until there is so little left except the obediently conniving Rat, and he doesn't want to be like that anymore-always scraping behind Akito's back for whatever crumbs of comfort he can find. Even if it's only a choice of school, he has to stand up and keep something that is his alone.

He will not go to the pre-chosen school.

[I won't be broken again]

He tells Akito this every night for the next week. His left cheek is bruising where Akito slapped him on the first night, and there's a mark on his shoulder where his dinner dish shattered after Akito threw it at him on the third night; one of the shards caused the cut on his right heel. The scrape on his right forearm is where he fell against the wall, trying to get out of the way of flying furniture on the fourth night. Hatsuharu hasn't visited in ages, and Yuki isn't sure whether he's happy that the Ox is out of range or just lonely for company other than Akito's, but he knows that there's nothing Hatsuharu can do about it. He'd be a fool to risk a visit in the midst of this.

Night after night, Yuki clings to his resolve. Day after day, locked in the dark, he builds up his courage for the following night, and back the circle goes again...

Until suddenly, on the tenth night, Akito comes into the room smiling. The expression sends chills up Yuki's spine. Briefly, as so many times before, he wonders what dying feels like.

But there's no veiled violence in Akito's gaze. He seems genuinely amused, and... self-satisfied?

"I think," Akito says in his soft voice, sitting down on the edge of his futon with his legs tucked up under him, "that a change of scenery would do you good... Perhaps, if you had a chance to see what things on the Outside are like..." He trails off, but Yuki thinks he knows what he means. He tries not to look terrified, confused, or over-eager, all of which is hard to do. Breathless, he waits for Akito to go on.

But Akito is enjoying his teasing, and there is a long pause before he finishes his thought.

"I've decided to let you live with Shigure for a while," he says finally, nonchalantly smoothing the edges of his yukata against the floor as if he hasn't just made one of the strangest announcements ever to come from his mouth. "He has agreed to keep an eye on you, and manage the money that will be allotted to him for your care. You will attend the highschool nearby. As to when you will return..." His mouth curves into a faint smile. "I will know when the time is right for that."

Still smiling happily, he glances up into Yuki's dazed stare.

"It will be an eye-opening experience for us all..."

[I've got to breathe I can't keep going under]

And so Shigure takes him in, and Yuki enrolls as promised at the, surprisingly, co-ed highschool in the town nearby. He feels simultaneously proud and apprehensive after this little discovery. He knows that Akito has allowed this... but for the life of him, he can't figure out why.

More and more, as he gets to know Shigure, Yuki is not sure that he wants to know why. Something about the way the man smiles when he refers to Akito makes Yuki feel unnerved. He knows that there must be an ulterior motive on Akito's part, but he cannot help but feel now that there must be one on the Dog's part, too, and he settles without thinking into the old routine: he is the little trapped fly, and where once Akito was the spider, now Shigure takes his place. Yuki's seen how tenderly the Dog treats Akito. He cannot trust someone who can stand to put himself so close by their God's side.

He comes, over time, to realize that being in Shigure's house is not much different from being back at the compound. It's not a very comforting thought.

Nothing is very different. He has a little more freedom to go where he will, but there is no one to fill that freedom; even though he's gotten his co-ed highschool, it doesn't make him any less separated from the other students. His face keeps him aloof from the boys, who can't see him as one of themselves at all. His fear keeps him apart from the girls, whose squealing passion over his looks gives him constant worry lest one of them sneak up. But most of all, it's his own inability to be friendly that fences him off from the others. He's sabotaging himself, and he doesn't know how to stop it.

Somehow being so close to companionship, yet still so unable to achieve it, makes him even lonelier than when he had no chance at all. He begins to think... maybe, just maybe, this was what Akito meant to show him. Driving him out into a world where he can never be close to anyone is as good as driving him back home.

He's thinking these dark thoughts to himself as he gets ready for another day of school, another day of being a stranger in a crowd, when all at once, his ears prick up. He can hear Shigure's voice out on the porch, speaking to someone in his usual overly cheery tone. Wondering who would visit at this time of the morning, Yuki listens closely for the reply.

It's a girl.

Blinking in surprise, he slides the door aside.

the end