Yuki clenched his fist in rage, standing on the front porch of Shigure's house. Very seldom before had he felt such a horrid mix of shame, guilt, and unbearable anger. He would've given anything just then to make the rain stop so he could go off to his little garden and think things out, but it seemed God had decided otherwise, for it poured on obstinately, if calmly –there were no thunderclaps or lightning bolts or anything- and stubbornly prevented him from leaving the dry safety of the veranda.

Yuki was used to feeling ashamed of himself; he knew that familiar knot in his stomach was the very mechanism due which he managed to keep up the constant checking of his every move that gave him his cool, perfect exterior; yet this time the weight on his heart was a hundredfold than ever before. And mixed therein were rage and fury unparalleled, the kinds of which are only brought about by fear or love.

What had he done?

The day had started off very nice, school was perfect as always, an he'd come back as he was wont a few minutes before that stupid cat –they always went out of their way to take different roads back home, God, he hated that boy!-. Dinner had been fine as well, and Yuki had secretly grinned at how Kyo discovered, to his horror, that there were leeks in his dish, and he and Kyo, as well as Shigure, had pretty much kept out of each other's ways for the rest of the afternoon, what with their respective homework and writing to do.

But all the trouble started when, as he was solving an algebra problem, Yuki heard the running water of someone taking a bath downstairs. About ten minutes later, Shigure called him and his rival –or at least the person who considered himself his rival- downstairs for supper, and Yuki quickly discovered, in the following manner, that the person who had been taking a bath was Kyo:

He and Shigure were sitting at the dinner table, calmly waiting for the always-late cat-boy; and then, said cat-boy pulled aside the sliding door and entered, fully at ease, with water dripping from his hair and only a towel wrapped around his waist:

"Hey, Shigure," he asked casually "Are there any clothes left?"

"Hm…" said Shigure "I think my eye caught something laying around in your room, but I'm not sure."

Meanwhile, Yuki was glaring at Kyo with his usual cold, despising stare. Kyo's hair was even flatter now that it was wet and the drops of water calmly rolled, with one or another occasionally falling to the ground, down his neck and his body which, Yuki had to admit, stood testimony that if Kyo's training hadn't yet managed to help him defeat the rat-boy, it had at least very pleasantly toned his body.

Then, the Cat's fierce, vengeful, bitter, angry eyes turned away from Shigure and pinned their gaze on Yuki:

"What are you looking at, you damned rat?" Kyo asked, almost mockingly.

Yuki here managed to keep his outer demeanor of extreme indifference.

"Well, Kyo" he answered in a deadpan voice "Usually people get dressed before they get out of the bath. I know you probably aren't aware of this, what with your not being forced to look at it every day and such, but your half-naked body is by no means a sight for the dinner table."

"Say what?" Kyo said, a bit taken aback.

"For goodness' sake, Kyo," Yuki clarified "put some clothes on."

Kyo grinned.

"Yeah, right," he said, "As if you didn't like seeing me like this…"

His grin grew even more triumphant; obviously, the cat-boy was very satisfied at his jocular retort. But little did he suspect that he'd hit one of Yuki's very sensitive heart strings.

"What did you say?" aksed Yuki, getting up.

"I said," Kyo continued, clearly happy that he'd managed to get his rival mad "That you're more than happy to see me like this."

Then, Yuki snapped. And, before Kyo could even manage to pull together a halfway-decent block or Shigure could say something about how they shouldn't fight at the dinner table, he lunged at him with all his strength.

This time he wasn't just annoyed at Kyo for taunting him, or just letting out the steam of all his pent-up rage on the cat boy; this time Yuki didn't think, he didn't even hold back; he was feeling the same foolhardy rage he supposed Kyo always felt when he attacked him, only multiplied to a thousand: and with all the blood in his veins boiling, as if every ounce of hatred inside him since the very first day he'd met Kyo had suddenly lit up, he punched the cat-boy.

Kyo shouldn't have said that.

And he hit him so hard that he'd knocked Kyo unconscious.

Hatori of course was immediately called over to tend to the case, and Kyo's wound was properly taken care off.

But Yuki was nowhere to be seen. He hadn't spoken a word to the flabbergasted Shigure after the incident, and once he'd acquired reasonable cetainty that Kyo wouldn't die or anything, he'd left the

There was a reason Yuki was that angry; there was a reason the comment had so incised him; there was a reason why in the twinkling of an eye he'd lost all self-control and let himself become a beast:

Because what the cat boy had said was true:

Yuki was in love with Kyo.

It was already night, and the rain hadn't stopped. But Yuki finally thought "screw it," and went off to his garden anyways. He'd get wet, but God knew he preferred that to meeting anyone now. Already, with all the different emotions inside him, Yuki felt that looking into his own psyche, which he usually had under firm, sober control, was like talking to a dozen quarrelling, bickering people.

A dozen people who were all madly in love with Kyo Sohma…