Fruits Basket: Yuki Ptsd

Chapter 27

"Hey Lesley, Jason, Yuki said it was fine, if you want to talk to him, but I'm not sure how good his english is, especially now, so try to speak slow."

Which translated to, go talk to Yuki, the twins knew that. "I'll stay and help you cook, you go and meet Yuki"

And so Jason went to meet Yuki.

He knocked on the door, even thought it was open, just to anounce he had arrived.

Then he looked into the room.

On the bed, there was a boy propped up by pillows. He had grey hair and grey eyes, an odly feminine face, but he was clearly a boy. He was very thin, his cheekbones left gaping holes underneith them. His skin was white as a sheet and seemingly paperthin. Lines of exhaustion and sickness were clearly visible under his eyes. He was wearing a mask to help him breathe and there was an IV hooked to his arm, probably for hydration or maybe for the pain.

All in all he looked deadly sick, if not like a corpse. Pitiful Jason noted, but he didn't make it visible on his face.

Yuki on the other hand was surprised, how normal the boy looked at him. There were two options to how he looked, either 'Prince Yuki' Style, which he highly doubted, or he looked like someone who was about to roll over and die. So why was the boy looking at him, like he was the most normal thing in the world?

"Hey, I'm Jason, you must be Yuki" Jason said, there was a surprised look on Yukis face.

Right, english, Machi had told them she didn't know Yukis capability of english.

"Yes, I'm Yuki. Pleased to meet you" And there was a surprise for Jason, against his  expectations, Yuki spoke english without an accent. And he spoke in such a polite way, he almost sounded like someone of high standart, a couple of centuries ago, one would have said, noble.

How right Jason was about the nobel part, he didn't know and probably never would.

"Ehm, are you alright, Jason?" Yuki asked. Oh, he must have been staring.

"Yeah, I'm good, sorry. I was just surprised, that you speak such good english. Machi said we should speak slowly, cause she didn't know how well your english was"

"Oh, don't concern yourself about it. I have been taught ... english since I was very young, so we wouldn't embarass the clan. ...  I'm very capable of speaking english and ... I can understand everything"

"Oh, wow, that's great, that'll be really useful to you here." Jason answered. He could hear the rattling in Yukis breath, the raspy voice, how he took each breath, his voice was strained, raspy and very quiet, almost simply a breath, he had to focus in order to hear what he was saying and the longer the sentence was, he noted, the worse it was.

He was ripped out of his thoughts by a cough. He had been informed of Yukis respiratory disease, therefore he was standing next to Yuki within a second. But Yuki held up his hand to signal it was fine.

The coughing didn't take quite that long, it was less than 10 seconds, still Machi was standing in the door.

"Yuki are you alright?" She asked in japanese, which left Jason out of the conversation
"Yeah, it's just the cough, an aftereffect from the asthma attack."
Machi put a hand on his forehead, he still had fever, but not as bad as the weeks before. She was surprised just how much Akitos presence really seemed to affect him.
"You still have a fever, I'll give you something for that when the food is ready. I'm making you soup, is that alright?"
"Yes"
"Are you ok with the english thing? I wasn't sure how good you spoke english, so I told him to speak slowly, is that enough or should I tell him to use a translater and have it read the sentence out in japanese?"
"No, english is fine"
"Ok"

Then she turned to Jason "I'll be in the kitchen, if you need anything, just call for me, the food should be ready in half an hour."
He nodded then she left.

"I'm sorry, if I scared you. The coughing ... is nothing unusual. Also, ... I apologize for my appearnace, from the way you all are looking at me, I must ... look even worse than two years ago."

"No, no. It's alright. I was simply informed that you had asthma and I don't know how it looks or sounds when someone has an asthma attack, all I know is that depending on the severety those can be fatal. Also, please don't apologize for your appearance. It's not that bad, besides, you are clearly not well, so you have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry if we made you feel that way."

"Well then, alright, I won't apologize. ... Although I have to assure you, if I have an asthma attack, you'll know. ... I have a rather bad case, so usually they get pretty bad ... though I don't know how that will be from now on." Yuki said, trailing off and getting lost in thought about how.

"So, anyways. Machi already told you everything about your new school and stuff right?"

"Yes, she has filled me in, ... mostly at least. I wasn't awake longs enough ... yesterday, so she couldn't tell ... me any details"