The opposite of love

"Manabe, Kimi, can you both please stop teasing Nao, we have work to do" Yuki said in a soft but demanding voice, he was of course ignored. Yuki sighed, and he thought people listened to the president.

"YUKI!" the drawn out whine drew everyone's attention to the doorway as a certain half German half Japanese blonde boy stood looking worried.

"Momiji?" Yuki asked, surprised "What on earth are you doing here? What's wrong?"

"Yuki!" Momiji repeated and began to drag the purple eyed boy out of the student council room, followed by everyone else "It's Kyo and Haru, they're fighting again!"

The rat groaned inwardly, it was break-time now so there were still plenty of people around to see them or get hurt intervening "Those idiots" he muttered as he sped up a bit, keeping pace with Momiji as the other council members tried to keep up "I'll assume Haru's gone black" he continued much to Manabe, who was in earshot's confusion.

"Yep" the small boy nodded "And Tohru's there too, I told her not to do anything while I went to get you but…"

"I know" the purple eyed boy sighed as they reached the large crowd that had gathered by the lockers where the fight was apparently taking place "Miss Honda wouldn't think before trying to break up a fight in any way she can"

The other council members arrived slightly out of breath just in time to hear Hatsuharu yell out a string of

Insults at Kyo with the words "Pansy" thrown in every few moments.

Yuki sighed again "Excuse me" he said politely to the nearest person to him "Can I get through please?" he asked softly while Manabe snickered

"Yuki!" the boy recognized and the crowd split like the red sea, leaving a pathway for the prince

"Thank you" he smiled sweetly and strode straight into the centre of the fight –Kyo was winning- neither of them seemed to notice his arrival or the deadly aura around him.

"Yun-Yun!" cried Manabe when Haru narrowly avoided kicking him by accident "It seems a bit dangerous for you over there! I'll break up the fight for you!"

"I think I'll be okay" the rat replied and grabbed the fighting boys by their ears before slamming them into the wall.

Tohru gasped, and Yuki thought he vaguely heard Uo laughing. Other than that everyone was silent

"Yuki!" Haru smiled brightly as he hugged his pissed off cousin apparently back to white Haru. Kyo yelled for a full two minutes before realizing that not only was his enemy not responding but the black aura around him was steadily growing bigger and when Haru finally released him his eyes glowed purple

"No fighting at school" He stated coldly "Is that really so hard for you two? Someone could have been injured"

Everyone looked on in awe of their president as the cow and cat shrunk back. Well not quite everyone, Manabe was laughing that Yuki looked like a mother scolding her children

"I wouldn't have injured anyone, I'm better than that pretty boy" Kyo managed to sneer

"Right, like how you managed to not injure Miss Honda when you lost your temper and accidentally hit her with a table" the rat retorted coolly

"You what?!" Growled Uo who was suddenly in front of Kyo and Haru as well with Hana.

"Oh it didn't hurt that bad!" Tohru reassured her dangerous best friends "And Yuki already punished him by kicking him so hard he flew through a wall and landed on a rock in the garden so there's no need for you to do anything…" she trailed off

"Wait, Yun-Yun did what?!" Manabe exclaimed and everyone's eyes were back on Yuki who had calmed down

"Yes, yes, Yuki is a surprisingly violent child"

"Oh no not him" Yuki and Kyo muttered in unison

"Kyo, it's bad enough that you keep destroying my house, but to do it at school as well? Tsk tsk, I am ashamed" Shigure moaned dramatically as he stood with Miss Mayuko

"What the hell are you even doing here?!" Kyo hissed

"I called him when things started getting out of hand" Mayuko explained when Shigure just laughed and made fun of Kyo

"Thank you" Yuki told her sincerely as it didn't look like anyone else would do it "I'm sorry for the trouble my cousins have caused"

"What's with you acting all high and mighty?! Who said you're allowed to apologise for us?!" Kyo snapped

"Well he is the closest thing we have to an adult" Haru reasoned as he draped a lanky arm over Yuki's shoulder

"Hey, that's cold!" Shigure complained "And Kyo might have a point, Yuki" he teased "I mean I'm surprised Kyo can still walk what with all the times you've kicked him through walls or stood on his head or slapped, punched etcetera … am I leaving anything out?"

"Shut up!" Yuki and Kyo turned on the dog at the same time

"He starts the fights, maybe if he either gets stronger or just gives up you wouldn't have to worry about your house being destroyed" Yuki huffed

"That's it pretty boy, let's go now!"

"No"

"Ahh you two fight like an old married couple" Shigure sighed

"We do not!" they yelled again in unison, Yuki standing stiffly and Kyo looking wild in his fit of rage

"It's completely opposite, I hate that damn rat"

"The feeling's mutual" Yuki replied icily "Now try not to be a complete idiot for the rest of the day" with that the purple eyed boy turned heal and left with a quick goodbye to Tohru.

"Wow, I've never seen Yun-Yun so riled up!" Manabe grinned "You are a master!"

"I know the right buttons to push" the dog accepted graciously "Well I suppose I'm done here, Good day everyone" he sang "And Kyo, try not to jump out of any windows or walls or ceilings, the main house is eventually going to stop paying for the damage!"

"I hate that bastard!" Kyo crossed his arms childishly while the crowd dispersed and Tohru tried to comfort him

"I miss Yuki" Haru sighed as he looked out the window up at the clear blue sky

Later that evening it rained. Kyo had decided to help Tohru make dinner since he couldn't sulk on the roof. Meanwhile Yuki had confined himself to his room

"Is there something wrong?" Tohru had asked

"No" he had smiled back reassuringly "I just have a lot of student council work to do since we were delayed earlier by Haru and that idiot"

He had disappeared into his room before a fight could start

"That Yuki" Shigure had sighed wistfully "He's grown so snide. When he first came here he had practically apologised for breathing, and now this"

Kyo had given out to Shigure for… well Tohru wasn't quite sure what about what Shigure had said made the cat angry. Maybe he just needed to vent but Tohru had been more worried about what he'd said about when Yuki had first come to stay at Shigure's house.

"Kyo?" she asked softly while peeling some vegetables

"Hmm?" he grunted as he peeled vegetables as well.

"When did Yuki move in here? do you know?"

"Sometime when he was a kid, I don't know, don't care either"

"Oh" Tohru replied dejectedly "It's just about what Shigure said earlier about Yuki being afraid to breathe when he came here and Yuki's also said things like that he's "un-liked by people" and I always thought he was just being modest but now I'm not so sure and-"

"I get it" Kyo snapped "You're worried about that damn rat, I don't see why. Shigure was just exaggerating. Yuki's always freakishly polite around new people"

'New?' Tohru thought to herself but didn't voice it sensing that Kyo didn't feel quite in the mood to take about his arch nemesis, even so…

'I think Yuki is definitely one of the Sohma family's more confusing mysteries'

Upstairs

Yuki couldn't get what Shigure said earlier out of his head "like an old married couple" this was of course wrong, because if you marry someone then you love them and Yuki and Kyo certainly did not love each other. He then remembered what Kyo had said "It's completely opposite, I hate that damn rat" Yuki didn't think that was right either. He didn't doubt that the cat hated him, the feeling really was mutual, it's just that he knew that hate wasn't the opposite of love. After years of practically living in that dark room, with Akito's frequent visits he'd almost began to think of love and hate as the same thing.

Yuki ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. He really didn't want to remember Akito, or that room… Unfortunately, the memories that he had tried so desperately to supress wormed their way to the forefront of his mind

' "You're pathetic" the words were dipped in poison "You're a waste of space, so weak, so desperate to be saved" Akito's words got more and more vicious as he continued, a sadistic gleam in his dark eyes as a young Yuki covered before his wrath "Saved from what, Yuki?! Are you afraid of me?! ARE YOU?!" He screeched the last part and slapped Yuki, hard enough to knock him over "You're even more pathetic than I thought" he sneered as Yuki sat himself up again, kneeling honourably before his God. "No wonder you don't have any friends. You're not very fun to play with" suddenly Akito kneed Yuki hard in the chest and watched as the child doubled over in pain "You break too easy" effortlessly he put his foot atop Yuki's bowed head and applied pressure as Yuki whimpered.

Akito cackled with apparent glee as for the next few hours he beat Yuki and called him every nasty name he could think of. Which was a pretty extensive list. And then he fell to the floor out of exhaustion and lay next to Yuki who was taking in slow, deep breathes as he tried not to have another panic attack. They almost always led to asthma attacks and Akito hated when he had asthma attacks.

"Everybody hates you" he whispered into Yuki's ear "Your mother, she hates you, your father, your brother –well he doesn't even acknowledge your existence- and the other zodiac, they all hate you and that filthy cat,he hates you even more than anyone else hates you"

He leaned even closer "I hate you too" Yuki shut his eyes against the cruel words but it did no good as each syllable echoed about his brain "But that's okay because even though you're a horrible excuse for a human being" he scoffed "You're even a horrible excuse for a rat, and the world would be better off without you, I still love you, and you're mine. My precious Yuki" with that Akito kissed Yuki once, lightly on the lips before falling asleep. But Yuki was left wide eyed and restless.'

Present day Yuki felt like he was going to be sick 'I'm unravelling' he realized 'and when I become completely undone, what will be left of me?'

"But if the opposite of love isn't hate, then what is it?" he wondered to himself aloud, the answer stuck him like a bolt of lightning and made him feel cold as he placed his heads in his hands.

'Yuki sat in the corner of his room. He was waiting for Akito to come. That seemed to be what his days consisted of these last few weeks. Sometimes he'd be lucky and Akito wouldn't come. And sometimes he'd be very lucky and Haru would come and visit him. He always loved those times, few that there were, even though pity and guilt for having misjudged Yuki shone in the cow's eyes whenever he saw what Akito had done to the overly polite boy.

Of course more often than not Haru didn't come. Akito did.

Yuki heard footsteps outside and stiffened. Who would it be today? Haru? Akito? Maybe Hatori since he was the doctor of the zodiac and Yuki was almost always sick. Always weak. He knew better than to hope it was his mother to come and take him home.

But the voice outside didn't belong to Haru, or Akito or even Hatori.

"Oh Gure-san you make me want to dance, naked in the rain!"

"Oh Aya, if you were to lead I would follow!"

'Brother and Shigure?' Yuki thought, a bit confused as to why they were around this part of the house. 'To visit me?!' he wished for a second. But the footsteps kept going and the cursed boy was suddenly overcome with the urge to reach out to his brother so without thinking he un-crouched from his position on the floor and ignored the pain it brought his as he darted towards the door a slammed it open with all his might.

"Brother!" he called desperately and the pair turned around.

"Oh, Yuki what I it?" Ayame asked, obviously hoping his kid brother would just go back inside. Shigure frowned thoughtfully and wondered what Hatori would do in this situation. Suddenly inspiration struck

"Well, I'll be off, have fun you two!" he sang as he left

"Why'd Gure-san have to run away?" Ayame pouted "Anyway, what is it you wanted?"

"I just…" Yuki faltered, what did he want?

"Whatever" Ayame sighed and turned "Gure-san, wait for me!" he called

"Wait!" Yuki cried and ran up and grabbed Ayame by the elbow "Please take me with you! Akito's scary!" the rat could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. It was his first time really admitting it out loud. Akito scared him.

Ayame tugged his elbow loose and just walked away leaving young Yuki to fall to his knees with tears streaming down his pale face'

Present day Yuki knew he was crying. His sobs were silent and the tear streaks that rolled down his face to meet at his chin made him look even more beautiful than normal, in a tragic way.

'The opposite of love isn't hate' he thought 'it's indifference'