Coming in late on this, sorry...

All comments strictly my opinion, enclosed in {}, and offered in good
spirit.

On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Andrew Huang wrote:

On Names, the Flu, and Other Things

A small FB fic from Oddzilla Productions that was only going to be a
ficlet, but life is like that sometimes.

{ Funny how that happens. }
 

Chapter 3

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

Kyou realized one thing: he hated that Yankee.

He really hated her. He wanted to kill her. He'd go and find her, and
strangle her, or beat her into a pulp, or something violent. He wouldn't
usually hurt girls, but hell, she was barely a girl, more like a gorilla.
He--

He sneezed.

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

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

Kyou flopped back down on his bed heavily. He'd started feeling strange
the day after walking her to the nurse and then home along with everyone
else, and now, here he was. A wreck. Bedridden for two days, on orders
from Hatori--not that he'd have the energy to defy the family doctor
anyway. Maybe three days if he didn't get better by tomorrow.

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."  :) }

At least, when she was home, Tohru was wonderful. Making sure he was
comfortable, changing the moist cloths regularly, and keeping the crazy
dog away as well. And while his appetite was mostly dead, her hot
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. }

It was also getting a little bit boring. Spending several hours straight
cooped up in his room with no one around--Shigure didn't count, and
fortunately was being chased around by his editor today

{ nice little CC #2 }

 --was really
starting to get to him. He was actually starting to miss school and the
people he'd be around while there. Tohru, of course. Yuki...well, maybe
not. Hana...hm. Scary, but occasionally made for good company and a card
game. Momiji and Haru--they were tolerable, as long as Momiji wasn't
acting stupid and Haru did not turn to the Dark Side.

{ A couple more... }

And. Er. Well. Arisa, too, when it came down to that. Except that he
wanted to murder her at the moment of course. He'd reach out for her neck,
her long, slender neck, with its smooth skin, leading up to the
surprisingly delicate line of her jaw, one that you could easily trace
your finger along to the point of her chin, set just below her mouth, her
full pink lips that could be so very harsh or so very gentle depending on
what she wanted to be, and above that her nose, a well-shaped nose, not
that he paid much attention to noses anyway especially when just above her
nose were her deep blue eyes that alternately burned like ice or enveloped
you like a pool of deep ocean water...all in all, a face that was--

NO! It was the fever talking again, the fever making him delirious!

{ That was my first guess.  :) }

 Her
neck, that was his focus, her long, slender neck, with its smooth skin,
leading down to her toned shoulders, evidence of her quietly impressive
strength, a part of her well-built frame, of course she wasn't a girl, she
was a young woman, her very well-built frame indeed, just the right shape
and....

Kyou whimpered, pulling the sheets over his face. He was going mad. That
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." :) }
 

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.

 He'd
now be distracted from strange and unusual thoughts by her comforting,
peaceful presence.

Sure enough, there were footsteps coming up the stairs, and now
approaching his room. Kyou smiled and sat up slightly. The door opened,
and...the smile disappeared.

"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...}

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.  :) }

Arisa strode past Yuki into the room, her long legs carrying her quickly
within. She took a quick, appraising look at the contents, and appeared...
disappointed? "You know, your place is pretty bare. Wouldn't be able to

{suggest} "Y'know,

tell that anyone actually lived here. Well? Aren't you going to welcome
me? At least offer a greeting or something."

"How the hell are you already recovered like that? You were half-dead a
couple of days ago."

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? }

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.

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

 "Some things my doctor recommended. He knows his stuff, too.
Worked pretty well for me."

Kyou looked at the powder packets and pill bottles a bit dubiously. Then,
he said again, "...thanks."

She rolled her eyes. "What is it with you? Tohru told me you needed some
company, that you were getting bored. So here I am. Or should I go?"

"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: }

He sighed, sat up, and tried to clear his
head, such as it was. "Sorry. I...I do appreciate you coming. It helps."

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

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

right, that's better. So! Wanna play some cards?" She flourished a deck.

He blinked. "Um...what should we play?"

She pursed her lips, another interesting thing, and considered. "Can't
play Dai Hin Min with just the two of us...we can get the Prince and
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? :> }

"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. }

"Yeah, it doesn't taste that great, but you get used to it." She now put
the bowl back down where it had been and dropped a towel into it. "Tohru's
been taking care of you this whole time?"

Kyou stared at the mug in his hands. After a few moments of silence, he
nodded and said, "Yeah. The...the three of us, we're really lucky to have
her with us now. Shigure and Yuki, they...well, I didn't come to live here
until about the same time that Tohru did, so.... But I guess they must
have had it a lot harder before she arrived."

"That Tohru, she's really something."

"Thank you, Arisa."

"Huh?"

He frowned, wondering why he said that. But in truth, he did know why.
"For taking care of Tohru before we ever met her. Especially when her
mother died. I mean...I can't blame you for not taking her in, it was her
choice to hide that from you and go live in a tent near this house. And if
she didn't do that, well--" Kyou shook his head. Tohru not being in their
lives now was something he didn't want to contemplate. "You and Hana
protected her before, the way that...that we try to protect her now. Maybe
she'd be the same person she is now if she'd never met you. But I know she
did meet you, and I know she's a wonderful person, so I guess...." His
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. }

She took a step forward from the chair, bringing herself right up to his
side. He felt paralyzed, pinned down by her gaze. There was a slight
wrinkle on her brow, as if she were slightly perplexed. Then she reached
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. :) }
 

She smiled at him faintly, touched her lips, touched her own forehead.
"Well, I could say I was checking your temperature. The lips are a more
sensitive part of the body, after all. You're still running a temperature,
I do believe."

{ "The fact that you're babbling deleriously is another dead giveaway." :) }
 

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... }
 

End chapter 3.

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

Erm. I still am not quite done, I think. There'll be a short epilogue. Or
so I think. When I finish the next part, that's when I'll know for sure,
eheh.

{ Take your time, get it right...  }
 

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. }

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

Thanks for writing and sharing!

Vince Seifert    Fanfic Analyst
Prime:  seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.



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