Author’s Note:  So you all have found my blog.  Take a poke around and let me know if you find something you like.  All updates for “Empty Spaces” will come here first.  Please follow my blog to get alerts about new chapters :).  Okay, so without further adieu, here is the prologue to “Empty Spaces”.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket or any of its characters.  (Though I wish I did!)

Click to read: “I’ll Be Standing There By You.”

“Empty Spaces”, A Fruits Basket Fan Fiction

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship/Tragedy

Characters: Kyo Sohma, Yuki Sohma

Summary: After Tohru Sohma lost her battle with terminal cancer, Kyo must learn to live without her.  Determined to complete a list of things “To Do” that Tohru left behind, Kyo and Yuki travel to the United States to meet Kyo’s maternal family for the first time.  Kyo learns more about his mother’s past, exposes more Sohma secrets, and latches on to his “new” family with a need that worries Yuki more than the Kyo’s decision not to return to Japan.  Alone in a foreign country, Yuki doesn’t know what to do or who to call to help Kyo and bring him home.

Prologue

“I tend to dream you when I’m not sleeping”—PM Dawn.

“Are you crying, Baby?”  Tiny hands touched either side of his face and soft lips kissed the tears from his cheeks.  “Didn’t I do enough of that earlier today?”

            Kyo sniffled and pressed his forehead against hers.  “Yeah, you did.  You’re gonna look like a tomato in all of our pictures.” He chuckled as she tickled him.  Her fresh scent of wildflowers and honey teased his nose, and he buried his face in her long, soft hair.  The ruffles of her wedding dress chaffed at the bare skin of his arms.

            “Kyo-chan, you’re terrible!” She wailed; then giggled.  Her arms wrapped around his back and she squeezed; then gasped as Kyo’s arms went around her, searching for the zipper of her dress and sliding it down.

            “We’ve had a busy day Mrs. Sohma; I think it’s time for a bath and then bed,” Kyo purred in her ear and she moaned, crushing herself against his chest.

            “Y—yes, I think that sounds wonderful.” 

            Her little fingers unbuttoned his silk shirt, and Kyo felt the soft fabric sliding down his shoulders.  He gazed into her wide brown eyes, drinking in her blissful expression and rosy cheeks and glossy brown hair.  He ran a hand through her hair, loosening the white silk ribbon that held half of it bound.  Chocolate waves cascaded over her shoulders.  She was an angel.

            He hefted her into his arms and got to his feet, laughing as she gave a small shriek of surprise.  She kissed his neck and pressed her soft cheek to his chin.  He kissed her temple.

            “I love you Rice Ball.”

(~*~)

Kyo snapped awake, sitting up and whipping his head around.  “Tohru?”

A hand closed over his bicep.  Kyo blinked several times, eyes focusing.  He was sitting in a cushioned chair, on an airplane.  Cold air blew from a small fan overhead and a dim light shone a beam onto his neighbor—the person who held his arm.

“Are you all right?” Yuki asked.  He laid the paperback novel he had been reading across his thighs.

Kyo cleared his throat and reached up to turn off the fan.  “Fine.”

Yuki looked dubious.  “Were you dreaming about Tohru?”

“It was our wedding day,” Kyo said.  “It was… It felt so real.  I guess I thought I should be waking up in bed in that hotel… with her.”

Yuki rubbed his shoulder.  “You want some water?”

Kyo shook his head and rubbed his temples.  He pulled the shade on the portal window beside him and gazed out into the dark night.  He’d lost track of how much time had passed.  He’d known the flight “across the pond” was going to be long, but sitting in one place for 12 hours was torture.  The plane was supposed to touch ground at Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas at 10:30 PM.  It was hard to wrap his around the fact that it would be lunch time in Japan, when it was bedtime in America.

“How much longer, Yuki?” Kyo asked.

“Two hours,” Yuki said, picking his book back up.  “You had a good nap.”

“I can’t believe you been awake this whole time,” Kyo said, shifting in his seat and grunting at the stiffness of his neck and shoulder muscles.

Yuki turned a page in his novel.  “I can’t sleep surrounded by so many people.  It makes me nervous.”

Kyo smirked.  “You should have sat by the window.  Then you’d only be surrounded by me.”  He knew why crowds made Yuki nervous, because it was the same reason they made him nervous as times.  Though it had been years since the Sohma curse was broken, it was still reflex to shy away from mixed sex crowds to avoid collisions with females.  Nothing said “Hello, how are you?” like turning into a fuzzy, talking animal in front of a stunned audience.

“I wanted you to sleep,” Yuki said.  He set his book down again.  “You haven’t been sleeping well.”

Kyo sighed and looked away from Yuki, staring out the window again.  “I know what you said and what Tohru would say, but what if they don’t like me anyway—ow!”

Yuki pinched him, hard.  “Damn Rat, what the hell!”

“Every time you say something negative, I’m going to pinch you as hard as I can,” Yuki said.  “So, unless you want to be black and blue when you meet your grandmother and aunts and cousins, you’ll smile and be positive.”

Kyo blinked at Yuki then grunted, “It’s always the quiet ones.”

Yuki laughed.  “If you ask Machi, she’d tell you I’m not quiet.”

“Too much information,” Kyo said.  He cracked his knuckles and relaxed in his chair. Two more hours until he saw what the rest of his family looked like and find out why he’d never heard from them, not even after his mother had died.  They hadn’t attempted to come to her funeral, didn’t send flowers.  He hadn’t wanted to talk about it on the phone to his grandmother, didn’t know if he wanted to talk about it ever, but it was something he needed to know.

“I’m so glad your family speaks Japanese,” Yuki said.  “My English is rusty and yours just plain stinks.”

Kyo opened his mouth to retort and snapped it shut.

“What were you going to say?” Yuki asked.

“Nothing, or those vice-like pinchers of yours will come after me again,” Kyo said.

“It was negative?” Yuki asked.

“Only toward you.” Kyo grinned and yelped as Yuki pinched him again.

“Stupid Cat!”

“You love me.” Kyo continued to grin.

“I love you too, Kyo-chan.”

Kyo closed his eyes, feeling her eyelashes tickling his lips and smelling the honey and wildflowers of her hair.  His fingers gripped the armrest between he and Yuki and he swallowed.  Two more hours.

I wish you were here, Rice Ball.  I need you.

PM Dawn.  “I’d Die Without You.” The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations of Love and Anger and the Ponderance of Life and Existence).  V2 North America, 1993.  CD.