Fruits Basket: Give me wings

Chapter 18- Heartbeat

Chapter 18- Heartbeat

Hi people! So close to the end now :’) Thank you for reading this far. Review with your thoughts please! This was a very complicated chapter for me (I kept forgetting where everyone was at particular points -_-) Anyways, enjoy!

Tsuneo was completely still, his hair swept to the side, with a tiny smile etched around the edges of his lips, which were slightly parted. His shoes were still on, his kimono was damp from the rain, and his face was flecked with raindrops. He was out of breath and flushed, and he was alive, there in front of her, eyes beaming down like he was seeing her for the first time in a thousand years.

“Haruhi!” he breathed.

Haruhi was totally dazed. She had thought that her world existed entirely within Sohma house. Sohma, always the Sohma. And now she realised that she didn’t exist solely for the Sohma, she existed for Tsuneo. She could hardly believe what she was seeing; it might have all been part of some ridiculous dream, a hallucination created by the shadows of madness that crept into her during her confinement.

“Ts-Tsuneo?” Her voice cracked from disuse.

“It’s me. I am here now, Haruhi.”

His musical voice took all tension away, and Haruhi felt a relief that consumed her.

She reached out tentatively, and touched his face. “It’s really you… You came!”

Tears began falling down her cheeks before she could choke them back. They rolled downward and spotted their united hands, a symbol of the relief Haruhi felt from the bottom of her heart. It was like Tsuneo had been sent by a real God, a guardian angel to rescue her at her lowest point.

He held her shoulders. Haruhi looked, bleary-eyed, up at him, and as she did so, Tsuneo allowed his own teardrops to fall. There was something even more relieving in watching him cry; it was the first time he was crying honestly, from happiness rather than childish fear. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

“You’re okay, you’re fine,” he forced out between hurried breaths.

“Hey, hey, I’m meant to be the one who’s more upset here, not you…” she said weakly. “Well, I’m crying too- a bit…”

“Oh, okay. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s really you!”

“It’s just that… Well, it has just sunk in that you’re in one piece.”

He glanced at the makeshift bandage around her head, and his eyes scanned her body, taking in each cut and bruise. Gradually, his face filled with grief and barely concealed anger.

“Hey, smile now, Tsuneo!” she said lightly.

He let out a sigh, and pulled her into a tight hug, and she put her arms around his waist, determined never to let him go again.

Haruhi did feel slightly ashamed of her thinness; she ruefully thought of how if must have felt to hold someone so skinny and insubstantial, and was amazed that he could still love her even in this state. Wearing a green kimono, with messy hair and a tear-stained face, she was less than inviting.

“Haruhi, please try to keep quiet,” he urged, speaking into her hair.

“I just can’t believe it…”

Tsuneo broke the hold, but he still held out his arm for Haruhi to link with and lean into him, as a reassurance that he was not going to abandon her again. He was sticking around, and Haruhi revelled in this new security, forgetting many important things in the process.