On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Vincent Seifert wrote:

Coming in late on this, sorry...

	No problem! Better late than never.

"DAMN YOU, ARISA! You gave me your flu! Nnnnnrgh."

{ heheh!  Had me going for a minute there... }

	Good, it worked. :)

And he'd had to put up with Shigure the whole time. It was enough to make
him wish for death--his own and Arisa's.

{ Shigure: "How delightful!  A captive audience!"

  Editor: "Shigure-san!  You promised!"

  Shigure: "Dang.  Be right back."  :) }

	Precisely.

nourishing soups were absolutely great. Though he did have to draw the
line at leeks, no matter how good they supposedly were for sick people.

{ Leeks: first of several little character-cliches that worked well for
me, injected smoothly into the flow as they were. }

	Thanks. Wanted to include these things without drawing overt
attention to them.

was it. He couldn't stand her before, and she drove him out of his mind,
and now...well, she was still driving him out of his mind, only she didn't
have to be in his presence to do that.

{ Uotani: "All that time spent hanging around Hanajima wasn't wasted." :) }

	Quite so.

Then came the sound of salvation: the front door opening and muted voices
from downstairs. Tohru, Angel of the Soumas, was back from school. Yuki
probably was as well, but you learned to take the good with the bad.

{ suggest } the bad with the good.

	Hm, you're probably right there.

"What do you want, Mouse?"

{Suggest trying "mouse" without capitalizing, as it's more of an epithet
than a name or title, and seeing if it works better for you that way...}

	Well, for these two, Cat and Mouse are both titles and epithets.
:)

Infuriating, that look on his face. Smugness asking for a punch; Kyou
added to his mental tally of how many nosebreakers he owed Yuki, currently
running in the high hundreds.

{ He's never going to catch up, you know.  :) }

	Likely not, but a lad can always hope. Gives him purpose.

disappointed? "You know, your place is pretty bare. Wouldn't be able to

{suggest} "Y'know,

	Perhaps.

She shrugged, a rather interesting motion. "I dunno. I've always gotten
over illnesses pretty quickly, even if they hit me hard at first. Guess
I'm lucky that way. Though I still have a little bit of the cough." She
cleared her throat, as if to demonstrate. "But otherwise...."

{ Perhaps there's room here for the superstition that you can get rid of a
cold by giving it to someone else? }

	But that would just feed Kyou's 'hate'.... ;)

She tsked. "Such little gratitude. And I'd brought you some medicines,
too." Said items were pulled out from her bag and placed on his
nightstand.

{suggest} And I brought you some medicines, too," she said, pulling things
out of her bag and placing them on his nightstand.

	Hrm.

{ Would he have a nightstand?  He has a futon, not a raised bed, right? }

	I actually have no idea. n.n; You're probably right, but I'll
leave it as it is, I think. It's not that important.

"No! No. Um...stay. Please."

{ A little too soft for him, I think, especially flustered as he is;
suggest perhaps something like }

 "No!  No.  Um... I don't mind if you stay."

{ before capitulating with the next line: }

	You think so? Hm.

Now she smiled, the same smile he'd seen only a few times before. "All

{ suggest another adjective than "same"... insufficiently descriptive. }

	Will think about that.

Writer-boy in here to...okay, that look tells me you don't want them
around.

{ My, how sensitive she is... or maybe she has her own reasons? :> }

	We shall see. :)

"Could borrow one from us." He accepted the mug from her and sniffed
cautiously at the steam rising from it. A bit lemony. He sipped and
grimaced.

{ Ginger & lemon tea, I'll bet.  Mmmm. }

	One of those powdered cold remedies, actually. Like Theraflu.
Kinda nasty.

thoughts ran out, and he struggled. "You know. Well. Thanks." He drank
what remained in the mug to try to hide his sudden discomfort at saying so
much, perhaps too much.

{ There might be room here for Uotani to thank him for giving Tohru a
place... well, maybe she wouldn't, and maybe that thanks is more due to
Shigure and Yuki. }

	Hmm, not here, I think. The thing is, something like this stuns
her slightly, that Kyou could think like this. Which is why she reacts the
way she does.

out and brushed his hair away from his face, making his eyes go wide, and
bent over and placed her lips against his forehead.

{ Of course, this is pretty cute, too. :) }

	Exactly. :)

He smiled, and slowly drifted off to sleep, to the sound of rain hammering
on the roof. And his dreams, while still interesting, were rather
innocent.

Mostly, anyway.

{ Heh.  Fever dreams can get pretty weird... }

	Quite so, but I'll be kind to him. ;)

Yes, I know I'm taking things slow. I'm vaguely frustrated myself, but
I've always been a believer in love not being an easy, fast thing; if
you've read my other fics, that much is rather obvious. While things can
move fast believably (one of my favorite Uo-Kyou stories moves much more
quickly indeed; check out Firsts, in my Favorite Stories section), I
prefer to take my time and develop them gradually.

{ Pacing seemed OK to me. }

	Cool.

Thanks for writing and sharing!

	It's been my pleasure! Hope you enjoy the conclusion and following
stories as well.

Andrew Huang...Shizumaru@KawaiiMUCK
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~alhuang/
NAC MAC FEEGLE!

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