#furuba fic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

daryascurse · 2 years

Text

𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 - 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐡𝐦𝐚 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

He kisses against the back of your neck in a way that makes your shoulders squirm, lets his tongue wash over your skin, sticky and tepid in comparison to the silky warm water enveloping the rest of your body.

“Excuse me,” comes the call of the innkeeper from somewhere behind the rocks. “I’ll lay out dinner now.”

You try to hide your breath under Shigure's, hands scrambling against the ground. One hand splashes into a puddle, and you whimper again just as he pushes his hands on your back. He clears his throat to mask the noise, but doesn’t cease his movements. He carefully leans forward just over your back once more. The strength pushes your stomach into the stone, and he breathes his words to you: “open wide.”

Shigure lets his fingers roll into your mouth, index and thumb hooking from your lip to chin. His next, jagged order of, “suck” is unnecessary.

ɴꜱꜰᴡ | ᴍɪɴᴏʀꜱ ᴅɴɪ

pov : second person, AFAB reader, feminine pronouns ✧ tags: smuτ, light dοm/ sub (dοmιnant Shigure Sohma), water, semi-public, thigh-fuckιng, fιngerιng, biting, spanking, sεx ✧ word count: ~4.7k ✧ ao3 link ✧ recommended mood playlist: marzipan

I have a very strict adult-only interaction policy. Ageless, blank, and clearly minor-run blogs that interact will be blocked. If you have questions about what that means, please read the byf in my pinned post.

Author's note: While I try to keep my work as close to canon-compliant as possible, this does require that Reader is aware of the Sohma curse (and somehow… not punished for it, or at least not yet), so that both parties do their best to avoid, well, a literal dog. Side note, it’s very hard to write sex and avoid embraces. Also, I tried to make this as close to an authentic onsen experience as possible, but - we all know Sohmas can just make anything work for them they want, so, that's my excuse for crafting this very unrealistic situation.

Spring hangs heavy in the late evening air. The blooming florals along the mountainside create a perfume so heady you can taste it on your tongue, just as the wind breezes through with a sting to remind that, no, summer isn’t quite here yet. Purple stains the horizon as the sunset settles. You shiver, sinking further into the steaming pool of the onsen, watching ripples curve along the surface.

“How’s the water?” comes the call from the other side of the inn’s wooden door, and it makes you shake in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature of the air or the hot spring.

“It’s wonderful,” you say back, turning to peer through the rising steam to the hands of the clock above the bathing stations. Five more minutes. He must be getting impatient.

“Perfect,” he says, and just as you began to lean back against the rock, the sliding door opens. You jolt forward, knees raising and breaking the surface of the water, heart suddenly pounding at the sharp sound.

“Oh,” you say, and in the moment of blustered surprise, you find yourself choosing to lean forward and cover yourself with the black glass of the water. Shigure Sohma, yukata untied and held closed only by a casual palming of his hand over his hips, walks towards the pool.

“I – sorry, I thought we said, um…”

Panic clouds your mind at the smirk rising easily to his otherwise impassive face, and you try to shrink further into the water. Shigure cocks his head to the side, eyes gleaming, giving you a chance to gather your thoughts.

“Sorry,” you manage at last, casting your eyes down to look frantically for your own covering at the edge of the rocks. “I thought we’d said I’d have the bath for half an hour before you came in. Am… did I remember wrong?”

“No,” Shigure says, smoothly, and he lets go of the untied yukata, hand moving in your periphery vision. The folds begin to drape open. “But isn’t it nicer to bathe together? Isn’t it more awkward to play prim and proper and trade off like an old couple?”

The flush rises under your skin, nothing to do with the heat of the hot spring, and a strange, fearful thrill goes through you when he says the word couple - though he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t mean it like that. Shigure may be able to keep you so easily on his leash, but you aren’t stupid.

Not stupidly hopeful at least.

You begin to relax, slowly, letting your feet settle off the seat and back down into the soothing water. “But won’t the innkeeper disapprove, even in the private bath?” you ask, one last attempt at propriety. "I thought co-ed bathing was only allowed if we have bathing suits."

He gives you a side-eye glance, an amused smile pricking at his lips as he turns slightly to shrug the yukata from his shoulders. “My dear, haven’t you learned by now not to underestimate the power of the Sohma name?”

Especially the Sohma money. It doesn’t need to be said. "So this is another family business," you say, feeling the water lap at your shoulders.

“Relax. You know it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says as he begins to pad closer to the water.

It makes you flush more, the heat pounding acutely in your face. “I think the water’s getting too hot,” you say, and you aren’t faking the faintness that creeps into your tone.

Shigure steps into the water. His skin is shaded grey in the falling sunset. His frame is lean but toned, with shadows of muscle lines on his thighs visible through the steam and dim twilight.

“Is that why your face looks so warm?” he asks, and his voice is dangerously soft. “I don’t think so.”

You turn your face away. Sweat is beginning to bead across your forehead, and he’s right, it has nothing to do with the heat of the pool. And he’s also right that it’s absurd to be shy, when you’re so used to being with him like this, when you’re so used to his demanding desires. You fight the urge to rub your legs together, to press against that growing heat under his eyes.

He terrifies you, intrigues you, owns every part of you whenever he wants to.

“You just surprised me,” you say lamely.

“Come here,” Shigure says in that terrible voice, a voice that shakes you and that you can’t turn away from. You extend your arms into the water, staring at the ripples disappearing across the black surface, and turn towards him. The light smirk has dropped from his face, his eyes glinting iron, his chest rising and falling easy in the water.

The two of you are silent for a while. You let yourself float a little closer to him, and turn your eyes back to the circle of rocks around the spring, breathing shallowly in a pocket of cool air. The steam is thick, rising slowly, languid, from the pool. You stand facing each other, feet flexing unconsciously against the ground and pushing through the water. The lanterns glow, nestled in little wires among the stone gardens. In the thick of the pool, something stirs against your leg, and you look up at Shigure. He’s gazing down at the darkness settling over the mountainside view. His fingers twitch and elbow slightly bends, stroking your thigh, and he turns his head to you.

“You’re so soft,” he says quietly, and it’s almost genuinely kind.

“This is a lovely hot spring,” you say, and his fingertips graze over your skin again. It’s the same; you can barely feel a difference between his flesh and the water, the velvety moisture of minerals tempering even this cold man.

“The water is nice,” Shigure agrees, and he tilts his head against yours. You close your eyes and sigh, his breath beating into your neck. The steam rises over the two of you like an embrace, and your hands stir in the water, helplessly unable to fling your arms around him.

His head leans almost into your neck, chest so close to yours that you can feel his body heat even without that forbidden touch. He slides his hand along your thigh, higher, and you clench when his hand urges your legs to part. You bend a knee forward, almost between his, clenching your useless hands into fists.

“Oh!”

You let out a quiet gasp, and Shigure hums as his finger slips right between your folds. His skin is hot to the touch. A fluid thicker than the water begins to cloud and gather where his fingers meet your body, sliding with the movements over your cunt.

“This is nicer,” Shigure breathes, and his fingers turn, dancing along you as he strokes up. “I don’t know why you always try to play so hard to get. Doesn’t this feel good?”

Your guard is completely down, and you nod, moaning when he rubs against your clit. His head turns, hair tickling rough along your cheek, and his tongue dances light circles across your throat in a matching rhythm of his fingers. Your knees begin to shake.

“You’re controlling yourself well,” Shigure says. His words are a murmur on your skin. “But I can feel how hot you already are.”

“Shigure…”

You reach forward, blindly dancing your fingers along the water, and feel his cock begin to rise. He rolls his tongue in another circle along your throat and closes his lips. It’s insistent, endless movement on your skin. He sucks as you stroke him.

“I knew you were eager,” he says heavily when he breaks from the love bite. “I told you, I don’t know why you act coy.”

You moan, his fingers tightening to roll in a small circle right over your clit. You begin to move faster, the hand wrapped around his cock bringing it to the surface with nonstop motion. Water slides between your fingers, and something smoother begins to come as well.

Shigure sighs, and lifts his head from you. You open your eyes, vision briefly spinning in the steam and heat, and see only the hollow of his throat and chest centimeters from yours in the dim dusk, as he kisses your forehead. His hand stills between your thighs and rises, wiping against your hips and stomach. Your own strokes falter, and you let him go as he steps away.

“Get over there,” he says in a husky whisper, turning his head. You follow his gaze to a curve of the pool behind a larger wall of rocks.

“It’s cold,” you say, straightening your shoulders as a gust of wind blows over the spring.

Shigure’s hands move to your waist, gently but firmly turning you towards the pointed direction. “No, no, we’ll stay in the water. Just do what I tell you.”

The silky command sends another thrill through you, and you let his hands fall to your hips and move you towards the wall. Behind this half-cover of rocks, the water is shallower. You shiver as you rise partway from the pool, stomach, hips, completely bare, as the water laps only just above your knee. But Shigure’s hands are commanding, hard on your hips, sliding back up along your ribcage with the lightest of touches. His breath is hard on the back of your neck, hissing, and you wonder if he enjoys watching you shake.

“Lean over.”

Bending over like this is humiliatingly exposing. The water moves tauntingly against your thighs. Droplets on your hips, on your ass, dry quickly under Shigure’s hands as they draw together, stroking down your back, urging you lower to the stone. You hesitantly slide with him, hands on the outer edge of the spring, so cold as the wind whips up through the mountain again, but here so low to the ground, the boulders hide you from the gleaming windows and sliding doors of the inn.

“Good girl,” says Shigure, his voice thick. His hands slide further down, all you can feel of him, and you moan when he sweeps over the curve of your ass. He pauses, squeezes you, a rough massage. When you let your breath relax into a sigh, he lets go, spanks you sharply. You yelp.

“You’re loud tonight.”

“Sorry.” You barely choke the word out, but that’s when the side of his hand slides between your thighs. Your feet totter, scraping against the bottom of the pool as your stance spreads, and you moan – perhaps again a little too loud. Shigure’s hand drops back to the water, and it’s cold, wet, a rough slide up your inner thigh back to your folds. You feel your back muscles tighten at his touch, at the heat of his hand, of the water, sliding with the slick already gathering at your inner thighs.

“And wet,” Shigure murmurs. His hand pulls away to spread open across your ass, stretching and moving up at your hip, pulling you open. Your knees buckle and you whimper, biting back the cry just as his cock eases its way to your entrance.

“How dirty, you’re already dripping.”

His cock brushes against you, back, and forth again right at your folds, as his hand slides back across your ass. He spanks you again, a slap too harsh to hold back this next yelp. “Please…”

“Looks like I missed,” Shigure says with a contrived air of amusement. He moves further against you. The head of his cock pushes through your slit, grazing barely below you, and his hips press hard into yours for just a moment before he slides back. It leaves your skin cold and wet, your arousal and his precum making a mess right at your inner thighs.

You moan at his ministrations, tensing your muscles in response. He moves slowly, pushing his hips against you again, and the slick slides from you right to the head of his cock. Looking down, panting, you can see the glistening round tip peeking right between your legs, teasing right up against your folds. You twist your hips back. Bothered anxiety rises in you, your cunt throbbing, and you turn your head to look at him.

His face above you is hidden in the cut shadows of moonlight.

“Fuck me,” you hear yourself beg, breathlessly.

“Already?” Shigure pushes against you harder, and when your drop your head again, shivering, you can see his cock come fully below your cunt once more. The sound of his withdrawing is lewd and wet as he rubs his skin along your thighs, and his breath is hot on the back of your neck. “But this feels nice. Just a little more for me.”

You whimper, and he pushes on your legs again before pulling out between them. Somehow, the absence leaves you pulsing harder. You rub your thighs together, but his hand hard at your hip stills your movement. His cock presses to your entrance again.

“Oh,” you force out as quiet as you can, but the second “oh!” is sharp, loud, as he finally slides into you. Your elbows begin to bend, coming closer still to the ground, and Shigure pulls out, thrusts back in, thighs slapping hard into yours. You catch sight of his hands, dripping, clutched right against the edge of the pool’s wall.

Faster, faster, the water splashing around you, up onto the rocky edge. He doesn’t embrace you, doesn’t wrap his arms around you and pull you into the spring. He can’t. But the force of the water splashes terribly loud with each thrust of his thighs, his hips pushing so rough against your own that you gasp each time your body moves, helpless driftwood, into the side of the pool. In the morning, you’ll be as scraped and bruised as if he had flung you into the stones with the full weight of his body.

The sliding door suddenly grates open, and you choke on your next gasp.

"Sorry, I told them to tell us when dinner was ready."

“Shh,” you whine, desperately, as the clatter of sandals comes closer and closer.

But Shigure’s hands tighten on either side of you, knuckles white on the stones against the moonlight. “Then you should keep still,” he whispers.

You roll your eyes back and whimper, sliding a hand to slap on your mouth, but the sound still slips through.

“Did you want to be interrupted?” Shigure says, lowly, and his next stroke pulls out completely before thrusting in with a half-strangled groan, his cock forcing back through your slick, swollen cunt. Your thighs shake.

“No,” you say, turning your face desperately towards him.

The sandals move closer still, and stop.

He doesn’t kiss your mouth, even as the soft sounds come anxiously from your parted lips, but he moves down with those same vicious bites. He kisses against the back of your neck in a way that makes your shoulders squirm, opens his mouth and lets his tongue wash over your skin, sticky and tepid in comparison to the silky warm water enveloping the rest of your body. Right over your shoulder blade, you feel his teeth graze in a light bite.

“Excuse me,” comes the call of the innkeeper from somewhere above the rocks. Your heart pounds, and you resist the urge to crane your head and look for just how close he is. “I’ll lay out the dinner table and futons in your room now.”

“Oh,” Shigure says. You almost feel the laboring in his chest hovering above more than hear his voice as he raises it to respond, “I don’t think we’ll be eating in the room after all.”

“Of course, sir. Our pleasure. Please don’t hesitate to contact the front desk if you require anything else.”

You try to hide your breath under his, hands scrambling against the ground. One hand splashes into a puddle, and you whimper again just as Shigure pushes his hands on your back. He clears his throat to mask the noise, but doesn’t cease his movements. His hips jolt straight into yours, as he leans back, driving his cock deep inside you, and rubs, shifting, as he carefully leans forward just over your back once more. The strength pushes your stomach into the smooth stone, and he just barely breathes his words to you.

“Open wide.”

Shigure lets his fingers roll into your mouth, index and thumb hooking from your lip to chin, and thrusting the other fingers faster and faster with his cock. His next, jagged order, “suck” is unnecessary, as you eagerly strain your tongue against his fingers in a sucking caress.

He rolls his hips into yours again, and your knees go limp in the water.

“You can leave the lights off inside when you’re finished, thank you, again,” Shigure says again, his voice sickly courteous to the innkeeper. A seductive tone hiding pure loathing, painfully familiar to your ears.

“Yes, sir. The dining area will be open for one more hour, if you choose to eat in our restaurant tonight.”

It’s so hard to keep your voice back, even as the sandals begin to retreat, and you whimper around his fingers.

The door slams shut.

Shigure strokes his thumb along your cheek as he pulls his fingers from your mouth with a groan of his own, his knees crashing into yours below the water. “Filthy, filthy girl,” he says, his voice still grating, low and rough as his strokes pick up a fevered pace again. “You should have felt how tightly you were clenching around me when he was here. You can’t stop screaming and squealing, I think you do want to be caught.”

You scramble to pull yourself back on your elbows. With one hand clutched against the rocks, you absently reach back for him with the other before remembering - no - and letting it fall back to the stone. He grunts. Your fingers flex anxiously as his cock rubs through you, with moans of garbled nonsense.

The next thrust is hard, and then Shigure pulls out of you and leaves you unsteady. Your legs tremble, slick and hot, and you’re panting as you turn around. He takes a step back, breathing as hard as you. You swallow, grabbing at the wall in support. It’s hard not to drop back in the water’s buoyancy.

“Move,” Shigure says, dragging his hands around you through the water. In the moonlight, his fingers drip with diamonds as he lifts them to his face, rubbing briefly before pushing up through his hair, gelling back his haphazard fringe. He sighs, shaking his head, and the steel-colored spikes settle into the usual haphazard mess.

You slide weakly to the side, and Shigure moves forward, running his hand along the wall until he moves against the steps half-hidden in darkness. He takes a step, another, and finally turns at the last one. You let your own hands float, your breath mixing with the steam as you watch him. His knees rise above the water as his feet rest on the step below. With another sigh, he leans back on his elbows, hands just barely dipping over the surface as he spreads his knees. One hand reaches forward, and he wraps his fingers around his cock, eyes even on yours as he begins to slowly stroke.

“I didn’t think you were satisfied yet either,” Shigure says.

You shake your head before you realize it, and that smile – that devious, cold smile – settles across his face as you begin to step towards him.

“Ride it,” he says.

The water feels heavy against your body as you push through, the steam and darkness hiding the quiver of your legs. Your cunt aches in the water, the rippled motion of the natural spring teasing whispers of Shigure’s touch swirling over your skin. His eyes drive into yours, haughty, careless, and you almost stop your slow, sliding steps as it sends a cold, anxious shudder through you to your core. It takes strength to walk up the steps yourself and kneel in the water, straddling him with trembling thighs.

“Keep your hands on the rocks,” Shigure warns.

You nod with a faint whine in your throat, rolling your hands on the stone on either side of his shoulders. You hesitate a moment, adjust your grip further, trying to rid the temptation to fling your arms around his neck and pull him to you.

It’s never easy to keep this rule in mind, the most important of all, and harder still when you begin to sink yourself down over his cock. Your hands tense on the stone. The barrier of his knuckles holding himself slides away, and he draws his arms up along the edge of the pool with a harsh moan. His dark eyes, shining and deep as the black water below the moon, never leave yours.

The head of his cock slides into you with ease, but your inner muscles clench so desperately around him that it’s tight, it’s fucking tight, and you groan lightly as you sink fully on him. The weight of the water tugs at you, resistant on your calves, but you fall into the rhythm of the circulating waves and rock against the water without his hands on your hips to control you.

"Ah..."

But the water helps you move fast, the desire and heat within you uncontrollably urging your motions forward. The arousal leaking from you only makes your body squirm harder, the heat of Shigure’s cock and precum sliding down your thigh an enticing urge to keep bucking your hips and ride him. You moan, and he sighs.

“Fuck,” he says, low.

Beneath the surface, his thigh muscles tense, and he begins to jerk his hips up into you just as you come crashing down.

“Oh!”

He forces up harder into you, and you feel your cunt flutter and clench over him at the sudden increase in strength. You almost go completely limp in response. Your hands slide dangerously low on the rock, so close to him, and you swallow thickly to steel your muscles and fuck him right back. Your elbows bend as you push yourself higher up again.

Shigure leans forward with his hands still bracing against the wall and kisses your neck once more, opening his mouth to suck, a ragged love bite as you jolt up and down on his cock.

You groan, your head falling to the side, and Shigure’s mouth follows down your throat. These kisses are rough again. Another scrape of his teeth on your skin and you shudder, bucking backwards in the water away from him. Leaning like this pushes his cock deeper inside, rubbing, hard.

“Shigure!”

He chases you, doggedly, determined, opening his mouth around your collarbone. His tongue laps over the skin, and he sucks hard enough to make you arch your back and push your hips again and again. You shake your head. The steam settling over your body is so heavy, uncomfortably warm against the fire below your belly. “Yes, yes, yes,,” is all you can force out in elation.

And then you scream it – “Shigure, yes!” – when his hand drops, sliding into the water, and pushes once more against your clit. He moves fast, frantic. Slumped back, riding him and moving with the water, you stare dumbly down at his silver fingers in the moonlight, at his thick cock moving in and out of your swollen cunt.

“I’m close,” Shigure breathes, leaning forward. He pushes his forehead against your chest and arches his back away from you. His fingers rub, and you whimper half-formed encouragement in response, tensing your fingers as the urge rises over you once more to rake your fingers through his iron hair and hold him close.

“Yes, yes, fuck…”

Your hips move in tight quick circles, rising off his cock and back into the water, just as his fingers move with you. He pushes his hand against your body and sucks in a hard breath, straightening his shoulders and leaning back on the wall. Between your clenched muscles, you feel him twitch, throbbing hot.

"Mmnn.."

He comes hard, pumping through your body hotter than the bath. Your knees clench, thighs digging desperate into the side of his legs as he rocks his hips firmly up into you. With one last thrust up, he begins to lower, the pressure of his hand lightening from your clit.

You desperately push your hand against his, shaking your head. “Please,” you say, surprising yourself with the boldness, “please, I’m so close…”

Shigure says nothing, but the breath hisses hard from between his teeth. His eyes narrow on yours, and under your hand, his fingers twitch. He presses himself to your clit again, and you moan, riding your hips on him again even as he begins to soften inside you.

Two fingers, rolling in a hard circle, bring you swiftly closer and closer. When you lift your hand back to the rocks, he continues without your guidance. Your mouth is parted, the air around you too hot to fill your lungs comfortably, and your head spins with the heat pressing all around you.

“How do you feel?” Shigure asks, and you shake your head.

“It’s so… hot… it’s so… good…”

“Are you close?”

You can’t even bring yourself to nod anymore eyes rolling back. The stars above you literally spin, so cold and so distant, and Shigure presses against you again.

“Oh!”

Even if you closed your eyes. It would all still be spinning as the tight, hot coil below your stomach finally unravels. It aches to come, as Shigure keeps moving his fingers, coaxing that release from you. You slam your hands into the rocks with a soft cry as they scrape at the heel of your palms and shudder over him. He slows his circling motions as the ripples pulse through you, slower, slower, and receding.

You lift your knees shakily as you slide off him, feeling the mix of fluids slide down your thigh. Shigure slumps with a satisfied groan, submerging deeper into the water. You lean on the wall, sliding onto the lower step as well, letting the spring water rise over your still trembling body. The stars settle, twinkling silver and unreadable above the pool.

It’s a peaceful moment shattered by Shigure suddenly rising, sending droplets splattering through the air as he shakes his head.

“Where are you going?” you ask, slipping even lower beneath the soothing water.

“You heard him, dinner’s only available a little longer.” Shigure speaks casually, so nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just been fucking up into you and rubbing against you clit. He steps out of the pool and you watch water stream from his legs into a puddle as he bends for the forgotten yukata. “I’m hungry. You better hurry up if you want to eat, too.”

“Right,” you say. You begin to push down on the step to force yourself to rise. Shigure has his back to you now, wrapping the fabric around him once more carelessly. He tilts his head back, shaking his hair as water clings to the spiking strands.

No, he doesn’t care if you actually eat now or not.

“Oh,” he adds, thoughtfully. “And I should apologize to the innkeeper after all.”

“I thought the Sohma name was enough to forgive a social faux pas or two,” you say, shivering as you lift yourself from the pool. In the darkness, you squint, scouring for your towel.

“It is, but I think you were loud enough to catch the attention of some other guests.”

The words are cold, but Shigure sounds amused. You pause, reaching for the towel, your blood running colder than the air when you look up and follow his gaze.

High above the hot spring, two figures stand silhouetted in a window. A window that shouldn't look down to the baths, shouldn't be lit like a looming beacon sneering at the moon. But this is, of course, a Sohma enterprise. When Shigure raises his hand, the short-haired one turns away. Surprisingly, the one with long, pale hair waves.

Shigure waves back.

“Yes,” he muses, more to himself than to you as you slowly clutch your towel around yourself, heart hammering in your chest. “I might have to go talk to my cousins later."

fin.

#ao3 crosspost #fruits basket #fruits basket x reader #shigure sohma x reader #shigure sohma x you #shigure x reader #shigure sohma x y/n #shigure x you #sohma shigure #sohma shigure x reader #furuba x reader #fruits basket smut #fruits basket fic #daryafics

583 notes · View notes

cinderella-ish · 5 months

Note

For the Fruits Basket asks: 2, 3, 19, and 18/20 for Momiji!

Oh, yay! I'm so glad you asked! (ask game here)

2. This might be the hardest question of all, because all the characters are so richly developed and I genuinely like (almost) all of them! I have a certain soft spot for Yuki and Momiji, of course, as the characters I relate to the most, and a similar soft spot for Ayame and Arisa, because I relate to them in a way as well, though to a lesser degree.

I've been writing a lot of Kyo, Saki, and (weirdly) Hiroshi, so I feel really attached to them right now. I mean, Kyo is a character whose happiness genuinely healed me. Saki's unapologetic weirdness is just the best (and uhhh my friend group in high school had a few people who shared several traits with Saki, so I was bound to like her). And Hiroshi and Yusuke are literally the best part of every scene they're in. (Especially Hiroshi in Cinderella-ish. Seriously, his narration is top tier!)

And Machi and Kakeru have a special place in my heart, too, partly because of their roles in Yuki's development, but also because of the ways I relate to each of them. And, of course, Tohru. I mean, there's so much to say about her, but her deep, deep empathy and the richness of her arc and development are just gorgeous.

I do keep coming back to Yuki and Momiji, though. They're central to two of the scenes that I found most surprisingly powerful; Yuki when he tells Kakeru "that isn't what I want!" and Momiji in his speech to Akito, when he says "a happiness might exist for me!" Outside of the major plot points of the series (which are nearly all centered around Tohru and Kyo), these two moments are, I think, some of the most satisfying developments for any of the characters, period.

(Oops, that turned into an essay 😅)

3. If we're sticking to named characters, I think Katsuya is the only choice. I know Takaya couldn't develop every single character in the series, but Katsuya is one whose development would have enriched not only him, but Kyoko, Tohru, and Grandpa Honda as well.

I think that the Katsuya-Kyoko relationship can be read as problematic and even predatory exactly as written. It reads as romanticized because it's told from Kyoko's point of view. But Katsuya himself remains kind of an enigma, and it's just really hard to like him when we don't even know what made him think pursuing a middle schooler was okay.

19. Oh gosh. You're going to get a few long answers, I fear. 😅

I have several favorite fanworks! Off the top of my head:

Ripples, by @proseprincess

So, canon divergent AUs are probably my favorite type of fic, and I especially love fics where one canon event changes, and everything that follows changes due to something like a butterfly effect. In this two-part series, Tohru never met Kureno in the park, which changes everything that came after in a big way. I love that this tackles some massive changes to canon, yet they all feel grounded in the world and characters we all know. The second installment is incomplete, but still very worth the read IMO, not only because part 1 ends with a massive cliffhanger, but because it's just so inventive and unlike anything else I've read. Maybe my very favorite fanwork.

I'll be Standing There By You, by Eboni_A

This is a beautiful, devastating AU told from Yuki's point of view where he finds out in the final weeks of her life that Tohru has terminal cancer. We see Yuki drop everything to come and support Kyo and be with Tohru in her final weeks, we see Tohru die, and we see Kyo and Yuki (and everyone else) try to keep going afterward. It's heartbreaking yet hopeful, and the author made relatively recent comments about a potential sequel! Fingers crossed!

Inertia, by miss_coverly @lesbian-kyoru

This is another canon divergent AU where Kyo and Tohru become friends with benefits before the curse breaks. It's honestly shocking how beautiful this work is. The prose is gorgeous, the angst is dialed all the way up, the sexual tension is dialed even higher, the characterization is crystal clear, it's honestly a masterclass in POV, the sex is sexy, and I could go on and on. I never thought a blowjob scene would make me cry, yet it did.

The Pursuit of Repeating History, by RiddleAfar @mistergrass

So, when I first started reading fanfiction, I stuck strictly with canon-compliant works. Then, I dipped my toes into canon divergence AUs like those above, but I heavily resisted reading anything with alternative pairings.

Then, I got curious about that one really popular Yuki/Kyo soulmates AU fic, and gave it a read. By the end of the first chapter, I couldn't put it down. And when I was finished reading, I knew I had to check out everything else by that author, which is how I ended up reading The Pursuit of Repeating History.

This story honestly showed me the power of fanfiction. The author legit crafted lore for the Fruits Basket universe. And the "lore" chapters (I think they're referred to as "intermissions") are each beautifully-told stories in their own right. But the author also grappled with how the curse might work, and I think they did an incredible job. I'm actually rereading this beast right now!

We'll Work it Out Together, by inheritanceofgeek @mrsmarymorstan

Okay, I'm a sucker for anything with lots of Hiroshi and Yusuke, and this story is probably the most Hiroshi-and-Yusuke-focused story on Ao3. (Probably worth mentioning the author's sideblog, @2d-iendfrays which is an absolute treasure!) In it, Kyo figures out he's asexual, then figures out he's demisexual, all with the help of his two wholesome buds.

Like almost all the authors on this list, inheritanceofgeek has some other really fantastic works that are worth checking out, from sexual humor to Yuki/Machi smut to a touching piece about new parenthood.

How Can I Thank You, by SharkFairy77

Another brilliant Yuki/Kyo piece, in which Yuki hosts Kakeru and Komaki for dinner (at the apartment he shares with Kyo), and at the last minute, Kakeru asks if Machi can come. (Machi is Yuki's ex in this universe)

The piece starts with dinner prep, and then dinner, and the character writing is just incredibly spot on. I loved the arc of the story through the dinner, and the way Kyo and Machi come to an understanding.

But then, we get into some A+ YukiKyo smut.

I'll Be Here, by Blanche2023 @biancanekoyokai

(Full disclosure - I beta read this work!)

This is a very sweet and sad piece about Kyo's first few days in Kazuma's care after his mother's death. Blanche's characterization is outstanding, and she handles tricky things (like writing a young Akito who's also performing head-of-the-family duties) in a really clever way.

I don't think there's enough pre-canon fic out there, nor enough gen fic, and this piece is just beautiful.

Escaping the future, by Modzy78

I really love the way Modzy78 thinks about the Fruits Basket universe, and her take on the canon-divergence of "what if Tohru never confessed to Kyo" is inventive, suspenseful, fluffy, and just such a fun read! I also really love her other canon divergent AU Cursing the Cursed. And Modzy78 is honestly a superhero for the fandom.

The Talk, by Geoduck @drgeoduck

Honestly, Geoduck has a ton of works you should read, but I'll mention this one because it's probably the funniest thing I've ever read. And then it somehow gets even funnier!

The Ones Who Walk Away From Sohma House, also by Geoduck

If you're a fan of Ursula K. Leguin (my very favorite author!), then you are probably familiar with her famous short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, and this short fic is an absolute must-read.

no one is lost, by emphasis

Momiji bumps into Ritsu in a gay bar. Not a pairing I ever imagined, but an excellent fic that puts Momiji in the position of "elder queer" to Ritsu. (Honestly, I wish there were more Momiji-as-elder-queer fics!)

Some other favorites:

The Night We Met, by pettyimperfections

Hold On, by Danyu

Heart Strain, by Kitty0430

I think about you all the time, by lucybeee @riceballcatfb (incomplete)

Making Nice, by Itsalreadyhalloweenright @riza-rin-rose (incomplete)

What's a White Lie Between Friends (& My Family)? by AnxietyAvocado

My Hands on You is Just a Fantasy, by unscheduledmakeouts

This Air is Blessed, by KyoDoodles

Please, Let Her Live, by @goldfishoflove

And that isn't even touching the dozens of phenomenal Yukeru fics! Just a small selection of Yukeru favorites:

fit back in, by @luftballons99

woebegone, by a-bigail @yunsoh

The Other Side of Paradise, by reconquer @yukisohmasmokesweed

If I Ever Feel Better, also by reconquer

if i do anything i regret tonight, no i didn't, by sacrificialParsnip (another fic where Momiji is an elder queer!)

i wanna be dyed with your colors, by halfhope

Like Fireworks in the Night Sky, by Princely_Hairdos (incomplete, currently being updated!)

President Perfect, by draebelle

tongue tied, by b_o_i (note: heed the warnings!)

And if you're familiar with OnigiriCat4Ever's canon continuation series, Always and Forever, some of my favorite works from that series include My Brother, Truth and Consequences, You Don't Understand, I Want to Understand, and all of their smut (collected in a separate series called Tohru and Kyo's Amorous Adventures, plus one explicit Hajime/Mutsuki fic).

And, of course, I'm really proud of my longfic, Bloom Within Us, and wrote it because it's the sort of thing I'd want to read. It's currently in progress, and I took a break from writing due to a family emergency, but I'm back at it and hope to start regular posting within a month.

uhhhh so I think I'll have to make my Momiji headcanons another post (hopefully tomorrow) because this got long! 😅 Thank you again for asking!

28 notes · View notes