Fruits Basket: Give me wings

Chapter 15- Consensus

Hello people, hope you enjoy chapter 15. Things are getting kinda serious now; be prepared for a few chapters of 'family issues'... Oh, and excuse any small errors... I am very tired and will edit it later after I've gotten some sleep.

Chapter 15: Consensus

So, they had gone away as sort-of couples, and have returned as actual couples. All in all, Haruhi had to hand it to Sora; the whole double date thing was her idea. As horrified as she was in the beginning, she now felt a small twinge of guilt for chastising Sora for the suggestion.

 As Sora’s amber head rested on Ben’s shoulder, Haruhi, for some reason, felt a strange smugness welling up inside her. She wanted desperately to cry from the rooftops that she knew Sora and Ben were meant for each other, right from the start! She glanced down at her hand, which was clasped firmly around Tsuneo’s, and realised that she felt entirely contented with this. Tsuneo noticed her beaming and squeezed her fingers, smiling back. It felt like this blissful ether of happiness couldn’t be ruined.

The taxi pulled up outside the dojo.

“Is this it?” the driver asked for clarification. “I haven’t been this far into the middle of nowhere in a while.”

“Yeah,” Ben nodded. “The dojo’s a great place to live, if you don’t mind not being within walking distance of… well, anything.”

Haruhi handed the taxi driver the fare, and they climbed out into the darkness. The dojo was barely visible- the only clue they were there was the dim light of the lamp, providing a glow to see a small area of the decorated gates.

“Oh, I’m so tired!” Haruhi said, and she yawned as if to prove her point. “It’s the middle of the night; I should be asleep.”

Tsuneo glanced at her in slight concern. “If we don’t get some sleep soon, we might get weak and transform.” He nodded. “Especially Sora. It was raining earlier. She must be quite exhausted.”

“Really?” asked Ben, intrigued.

“Didn’t you know?” Haruhi stared at Ben. She remembered that they had forgotten to mention it to him. “Sora always gets tired when the weather’s bad like this.”

Ben clapped his hands together. Haruhi smirked as she imagined that, if this was an anime, there might be a flashing lightbulb suspended above his head.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “So that’s why she…” He trailed off, and looked sideways at Sora, whose face flooded with crimson embarrassment.

“What now?”

“It was nothing. Forget it.”

“What happened?”

“Fine,” Ben snapped, blushing himself. “If you must know, after we kissed, she fainted on me and transformed. She was knocked out when she changed back, and I didn’t know what to do, so I sort of, put her clothes back on, and, well I tried my best, honest!”

There was a pause, and then Haruhi burst into gales of laughter. Tsuneo couldn’t help himself, and he stifled a chuckle.

Ben cleared his throat. “So, what’s all this about you transforming then? You don’t have a weather excuse.”

“In the main house, I used to have an unusual sleeping pattern, all broken up and irregular. Time flows differently when you are confined. Because of that, I couldn’t tell what was night and what was day, or when to sleep, so sometimes I would become so tired that I transformed,” Tsuneo explained. “I don’t know how it was for the others. Maybe it happened to Sora, too. She was the only other one who didn’t have windows.”