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It was the fourth day of heavy rains and the first day Tohru could remember Kyo ever skipping school.
For a person who had apparently stopped going to school for four months in favor of training in the mountains (Tohru still wasn’t sure exactly why Kazuma had suggested or allowed that, but she was sure he must have had a good reason), Kyo was a fairly consistent and motivated student. He studied hard –if not usually in secret— and was usually the first one out of bed in the morning. He had been sluggish all weekend, sure: Kyo had alternated between staying holed up in his room and laying across the floor of the living room with the television running in the background. But still, he usually went to school when it rained. Tohru had stood up after breakfast, ready to go check on him and make sure he hadn’t overslept, when Shigure said, “Be a dear and wrap up the rest of the food? Kyo’s staying home, but maybe he’ll mope his way down here later.”
“Kyo’s staying home? Has he gotten worse?”
“It’s hard on his body when the weather goes on so many days like this,” Shigure said. He smiled in that elusive way of his. “Besides, Papa Kazuma called and uh, strongly suggested it.”
She took that to mean “insisted upon it.”
So all day long, Tohru had sat in classroom and watched the rain outside. It fell in curtains and sheet, pooling in the grass of the soccer field and chugging along in streams towards the gutters in the street curbs. She hated to think of Kyo lying in bed, alone and weak, while she and everyone else was at school. She could feel the emptiness of his seat reverberating throughout the classroom.
By the time she came home, after work, it was dark out, and the rain hadn't slowed at all. She said hello to Shigure, changed out of her wet clothing, and, very tentatively, knocked on Kyo's door. No answer. She was still standing there when Yuki stepped out of his bedroom, a towel wrapped loosely around her shoulders. “Don’t wake him,” he said, his voice low. “After all, the house is so peaceful like this.”
Before she could reply, he smiled. She smiled back, encouraged.
“Yuki, do you know Kazuma’s number?”
An emotion passed over his face, a quick flash of something. He shook his head. “But I’m sure Shigure does. Let’s go ask him.”
Shigure’s face was much easier to read. He handed over a phone book. “Whatever are you planning,” he said, but in a way that made Tohru think he didn’t actually care very much either way.
When Kazuma came to the phone, Tohru said, “Forgive me for bothering you, Kazuma, but Shigure told me that you thought Kyo ought to stay home today—”
“You’re not bothering me at all, Tohru.” Kazuma’s voice over the phone was just as even-toned and pleasant as ever. It was a teacher’s voice, she thought. “Yes, that’s right. I know Kyo doesn’t like to stay home, but I also know it hasn’t rained for so long in a while. I thought he could use some rest.”
“Is that what you would have him do when he was young?”
“Sometimes,” Kazuma said. “But it depresses him too, so I liked him to go out when he was able. Is everything all right? Does he need anything?”
“Shigure says he’s been sleeping all day,” Tohru said. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to worry you! I was calling because I was wondering if there was anything else you did, when he lived with you, to make him feel better. I would like to help too, just like Kyo did when I was sick, but I know that he hates chives, and I’m not sure what other soups have medicinal properties, and—”
A chuckle, low and not unkind. “Jasmine tea is his favorite. I always brought him that.”
“Thank you, Kazuma!”
“You’re welcome, Tohru.”
She returned the phone to its cradle and went into the kitchen to boil a pot of tea and steep the tea. When she was finished, she returned upstairs and knocked again, slightly louder this time. After a moment, she heard a lethargic response: “Yeah?” She half expected him to go on and say something else, something like, this better not be that damn rat bothering me, but he didn’t say anything else, so she opened the door.
Kyo was half-sitting up in bed, supporting himself on one elbow. His hair was mussed up and he was blinking blearily in the light the hallway let in. With the blinds pulled tight, the room was otherwise dark. Next to his bed was a manga resting on it’s spine that he must have been reading earlier. When he saw it was her, he sat up all the way and scratched at the back of his head.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice still flat. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong.” She stepped inside, and after a moment’s hesitation, closed the door behind her most of the way. Her heart seized a little bit, listening to him. Despite his moodiness, he was normally so expressive. She hated him seeing him any other way. “I know you aren’t feeling well, so I called up your Shishou, because you were so kind to me when I wasn’t feeling well, and I wanted to do something to help, so I found out your favorite tea and I—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Kyo said. “Turn on a lamp, will ya, or you’re just as likely to spill the tea than serve it.”
Tohru complied, and then kneeled down next to Kyo. In the light of the lamp, she noted the circles beneath his eyes, and the peculiar pallor his face had taken on. Without thinking, she laid a hand over his forehead. Immediately, a blush crept over his cheeks. “What’re you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t have a fever –”
He swatted her hand away. “You know it’s not that.” She bit her lip, and the blush across his cheeks deepened. “Sorry – I mean – uh – it’s okay that you checked. It’s okay.”
She nodded.
“So – are you gonna give me the tea?”
“Oh! Right.” She handed him the steaming mug, and, after another pause, sat down next to him. He took a long sip. “How is it? Is it all right?”
Kyo lowered his mug, and after a moment, smiled. A warm sensation seemed to travel from her cheeks all the way to her toes. “Yeah, you goof, of course it’s all right.”
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
He took another long sip, and she wished suddenly that she had thought to bring a mug for herself. She felt awkward, sitting there without anything to do but watch him, but at the same time, she didn’t want to leave, not just yet. It wasn’t just that she had missed him, either, or that it was good to see some color return to his face as he drank and he blushed, it was – and she felt her own face start to lightly color just at the thought of it – it was the weird intimacy of being there with him, in the dim light. His bed and his room smelled like him, of his deodorant and the outdoors and some clean undercurrent that made her think of laundry. His room was meticulously neat, almost barren – she supposed a lot of things were still at Kazuma’s– but it was so undeniably his’s. She breathed in deep, and then, horribly embarrassed, knew she had to quickly speak to cover how strange she was being. She asked, “Um, Kyo?”
“Yeah?”
“What does it feel like? When it rains, like this.”
He paused with the mug at his lips. “Like I’m all worn out,” he said. “Sort of wrung out to dry, you know?” With his free hand, he curled up a fist, but not a very impressive one, Tohru noted. “I hate it, I hate laying around doing nothing, all cooped up, but – I don’t have any energy. I’m useless like this.”
“That sounds awful,” Tohru said. Unbidden, the real question rose up in her mind. She hadn’t even realized the question had been there, lurking in dark waters, until it arose like that. She asked, “And what does it feel like when – when –”
“What?”
“When you transform into – that other form.”
Kyo lowered the mug, and didn’t answer.
She backtracked quickly. “I’m sorry, that was too personal, and you’re already feeling unwell, you don’t have to –”
“No, it’s not that,” he said. “It’s just – nobody’s ever asked.”
She became aware, all at a once, that she wasn’t quite sure they were alone. The door was mostly closed, and It was impossible to see through the miniscule crack, but she could sense, rather than see, that someone was standing in the hallway, just out of sight.
Kyo, with his back to the door, and his normally sharp senses dulled, did not notice. He was looking past her, she realized, at the closed blinds, and the night hidden beyond them. He said, “It’s not like becoming a cat. That happens all at once, almost without sensation. One minute I’m in this form – my human form – and the next I’m not. It’s confusing, but that’s all.”
She waited.
“Transforming into my other form – the true one – is entirely different. It’s different than all the transformations. It’s slow, and it’s…painful. I can feel everything…shifting. Rearranging. It’s like something is…being revealed.”
“Revealed?” she repeated. “Kyo, you know –”
His eyes were soft in the lamp-light.
“You know you’re not a monster.”
He scowled a little, looking down at his mug again. “You sound like—”
“No,” she said, and she moved again without thinking, reaching out to touch his chest, where his heart was. “I don’t mean that it’s not scary. I saw. I remember. But that doesn’t mean you are a monster.”
“You don’t know all of me.”
“I know enough,” she said. “Kyo is great!”
He lifted his eyes. He was blushing again. Very carefully, he lifted his own hand, and pressed her’s against his chest. She could feel his heart, beating. He said, “Not everyone sees me like you do.”
“I see you,” Tohru said.
They sat there for a moment. Outside, the rain picked up. She could hear it hammering the windows. If she were to climb onto the roof right now, she knew that she would see an immense darkness, shutting out the stars. She would see a nothingness, gathering. But inside, although it was dimly lit, and a little scary, she was dry, and she was warm, and she was aware of all it, the sounds of the night, the smell of the pillow and the bedsheets, the feeling of the heart beneath her hand. The person outside the door moved away.
He let go first. “Thank you,” he said. “For—for the tea.”
She quickly removed her hand.
“Of course. Should I let you rest now?”
“I think I’ll try staying up for a while,” he said. He picked up his manga. “You can stay, if you want. I mean, if you have nothing better to do.”
“I would be so happy to stay!” Tohru said. She stood up. She was painfully aware, for some reason, of the fabric of her skirt against her legs, how it fluttered as she moved. “I’ll just go get my homework – “
“Yeah yeah.” Kyo was yawning again, but also smiling, a little. “It’s no big deal. Get your homework.”
She opened the door, and began walking to her bedroom. She felt over-hot, and very pleased, and also some other feeling, stuck in her throat, some emotion she couldn’t pinpoint, some sadness, or pain, that had everything to do with the look in his eyes when he took her hand, but she shook it away, best she could.
When she passed Yuki’s room, she saw that his door was open, and that he was standing near the window, looking out into the night.
“Yuki – are you okay?”
He looked at her. His eyes were unknowable. She had already known, who had been standing there. She remembered how he had been the day after Kyo’s true form had been revealed. She remembered how Kyo had been, that day in the woods, when Shigure had suggested he and Yuki might come to understand each other. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he spoke first.
“I’m fine – don’t worry about me.”
She hesitated a moment longer before continuing onto her room, and collecting her things.
When she returned to Kyo’s room, he had turned the overhead light on, and was out of bed, sitting against the wall. He still looked bleary-eyed and sluggish, but he was reading now, the tea resting besides him. He noticed her watching and smiled at her. “Are you gonna come in, or just stand there?”
“Coming!” She sat down next to him, her back against the wall, and opened a textbook. She could feel the warmth of his body, right to her. She remembered the feel of his heart. She remembered that night not so long ago, out in the rain, and how scared he had been, in his most fearsome form. How he had trembled when she touched him. She looked up, and noticed one last thing:
He had opened the blinds.