demeter918: blue doraemon cat (Akito - Evil Ponderings)
[personal profile] demeter918
Title: "A Dream in White"

Author: Demeter

Disclaimer: All rights and privileges of Fruits Basket characters, objects and plots are property and trademarks of Takaya Natsuki and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work. The original story, relationships, and characters found within the fic are property of Demeter.

Series: Fruits Basket

Rating: PG

Characters: Akito

Warnings: Kind of like a what-if? But really more like an AU...? 0_0 Never mind. Spoilers set for anywhere before chapter 120.

Notes: Written for the New Year, though that's pretty obvious. Glad to start my resolution right away. ;) Mm, this doesn't conform to the storyline, but I suppose there's not really a need.


~*~



The new year looms and the snow falls quiet and kind onto a world frozen into sharp droplets. A hand reaches out, over the wooden sill, and snowflakes drift lazy-like for a pale hand smudged wine with bruises. One puff of warm air, two, three, they drift up in hanging castles and clouds and the air is so silent Akito thinks she can hear the stars twinkle.

Her thick robes slide off one shoulder and the skin stings, pickles up in tiny little goose bumps that look like mountains dotting a landscape of ivory white. It doesn't hurt like it used to, so she leaves it off for once. She can't see so well, but Akito doesn't bother lighting any candles or turning on any lamps because her legs have lost all feeling and it would truly be tragic if she tried to stand and couldn't.

Akito breathes, in and out, as steady as a flickering fire fed no fuel.

She rests her head against her forearm and thinks about Kureno. She thinks about Shigure. She thinks about Akira. She thinks about Ren and Hatori and Ayame and Yuki and Haru and Kyo and even Tohru and Rin. Akito thinks because the air is too crisp for fantasies and her secluded rooms are too quiet to pretend. A sudden smile bends the corners of her mouth up in an awkward curtsy to an invisible partner. The look is awkward on her face, too young, too old, an attempt to be sunshine on a beach in Fiji.

Her heart palpitates; the slight rhythm has no rhythm. Akito smiles her involuntary smile.

There are no birds at this time of year. The air is colder than her feet and the edges of the pond are catching crystals and painting glass balls with a thick brush. It hurts, she thinks, just a bit. The pain comes not from dying, oh no. She wonders why dying would seem so inconsequential now. All her life, she'd wondered, she'd feared, it was one of Ren's greater weapons (though it will never never never beat the other one) and now that it finally comes upon her and her legs, Akito can only think.

A skeletal hand caresses her cheek and lifts her head to look out at the frozen world. She sees frosted dancers and the chilled dust stirs in her cheek.

"Kureno..."

Nothing answers.

"Hatori..."

Silence presses a kiss to her neck.

"Yuki..."

It might be too late, she thinks, something sliding out of her head. Her father blinks with the sidewalk light she never follows and fades like an aging photograph. Akira is always eye-level with her in her carefully-guarded memories, but this time he walks away, slow and filled with direction and there is no Ren. He turns and he seems to be smiling.

Her head sinks down again, gentle and filled with her own purpose.

"... Shigure..."

Something soft strokes her cheek, and the winter settles into her skin.

"Shigure..."

All it had taken was one camellia.

"Shigure..."

The New Year sinks in. A bell rings. She hears the pattering of footsteps, of melting voices. Hiro makes fun of Kagura, Ayame sings off-key with Ritsu, Yuki pulls Rin and Haru toward forgiveness and, and... and Akito closes her eyes, is too tired to think anymore, dreams about a future where she wears a white sundress and dances to the chimes of the turning seasons.

~ fin ~

Date: 2006-01-01 12:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] flamika.livejournal.com
Oh, the pretty. *melts* I love the last line.

Date: 2006-01-04 11:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] demeter918.livejournal.com
Thank you! I figured starting out the New Year with an angstfic would spill me out of this writing block.

Date: 2006-01-01 04:38 pm (UTC)
ext_3743: (Arashi afraid (modoki_icons))
From: [identity profile] umadoshi.livejournal.com
That was really, really lovely. *^^*

Date: 2006-01-04 11:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] demeter918.livejournal.com
Thanks, love! Now I need to finish that Rin and Akito piece if it kills me...

Date: 2006-01-04 11:13 pm (UTC)
ext_3743: (Rose (shati))
From: [identity profile] umadoshi.livejournal.com
Yay to the finishing (buuu to the killing)!

BTW, your New Year's card arrived today! ^_^ It's really cool--thanks very much!

Date: 2006-01-01 07:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sleepdebtfairy.livejournal.com
*dies* So pretty. ;__; The last line is my favourite, too.

Date: 2006-01-04 11:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] demeter918.livejournal.com
Mwah! Thank you! I spent literally an hour agonizing over that last line, changing it, rewording it, erasing it; I almost scrapped the fic because I couldn't get it right. There's still something I feel missing, but it was the best I could currently do. ;)

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