Like a Switch [Fruits Basket]

Chapter 9

Like a Switch

Chapter Nine

Yuki tapped his pencil in a quickening beat as he stared at his math revision. He had a test coming up soon that he didn't want to fail. Of course that went without saying but this one in particular felt like a challenge. He hadn't spent nearly the same amount of time studying this last month as he should have. Especially on the days when he went to see you. For all intents and purposes he had blown off his academic revisions to spend time with you. It wasn't like he would have had a reason to approach you at a reasonable time of the day. Your work only really started when most people should be at home. It wasn't like he could talk to you outside of that without seeming like a stalker either.

"Yuki~!" Shigure sang from the door.

The high schooler turned his head to look at his cousin. For such a lazy slob, Yuki always thought he looked well put together. Granted he was almost always in a lounging yukata where the obi seemed to just be tight enough not to fall off. He at least kept his face clean and his hair brushed. That was all Yuki could ask from his reclusive cousin.

"What do you want?" Yuki prompted.

"I've past your room three times already and you haven't noticed," Shigure started talking, setting up the scenario like it was a word problem someone else had to solve. "Naturally I thought you must have been hard at work. Imagine my surprise when I realized that your paper is still blank."

"What's your point?"

"Who is she Yuki? The look on your face says you're thinking of a girl. Is it Tohru?"

Yuki narrowed his eyes at Shigure. He didn't care for people to try and invade his privacy. Especially when they started to get too close to the truth with their guesses. Granted it really only was Shigure that ever really did anything like that to him.

"No," he said shortly.

While she was an admirable person to think about, she had never actually distracted him from his studies this badly. It was such an odd thing but he couldn't get what happened with you last night out of his head. Try as he might there were various of thoughts moving about in his brain which he couldn't shake.

"Who?"

He knew his cousin better enough than to try and lie to him. Yuki wasn't sure if it was part of being the dog of the zodiac or whatever, but Shigure always seemed to be able to tell when he was lied to. Then like a dog with a bone he'd push the issue until the person he was confronting finally snapped and told him the truth. Yuki wanted to avoid any embarrassing reactions to his cousin's netling.

"I went to see Anita last night," the gray haired boy admitted. "She knows about the curse."

He didn't feel comfortable telling his cousin how he had found out that you knew. That was a very serious and private matter. It also felt like something he should feel guilty over but he just didn't. Maybe that meant that he had been living with a pervert for too long. After all, he could still remember every detail he saw underneath your skirt. It wasn't a sight he was likely to forget any time soon.

Shigure' eyes widened far enough as it was already. "Did she already know? Or did you expose yourself to her?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Yuki practically snapped at Shigure's obvious innuendo. "She's known about the curse the whole time. She even guessed that you were the dog."

Shigure tilted his frame in the doorway, taking up all of the observable room to do so. "That's interesting. How did you find out that she knew?"

Yuki instantly closed his mouth into a firm line. He should have expected that his cousin would ask more questions than he was willing to answer. It was in Shigure's nature to be nosy and for the most part that had worked well for them in the past. Yuki had figured out some time ago that it was Shigure's persistent and nosy nature which led to him being able to move away from the main estate. Yuki was grateful that Shigure let him stay as well but what he was asking felt like a very private topic.