Yuki peered around the door to the empty classroom that he had unceremoniously dashed into. He looked up and down the corridor; were they gone? Seeing a bare corridor, devoid of screeching junior girls, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief and continued walking to meet Kyo and Tohru outside Momiji and Haru's (always late to be let out) class.
"Hey, Prince Yuki!" Automatically, he turned to the sound of the voice calling his hated nickname. Then he heard the scorn and laughing mockery and he rocked back into a defensive stance, knees slightly bent, up on the balls of his feet, arms loosely by his sides. Fists already tense with alarm, his breath caught slightly in his throat. Even as he reacted, he was scolding himself, trying to calm down. It wouldn't be anything to get worked up over. He did get hassle sometimes, generally over the fangirls and his popularity, the very things that he spent most of his life scrupulously avoiding.
He had been on edge for the past few days – Shigure had commented only this morning how "twitchy" he was, while Tohru hovered round him with a perpetual look of nervous worry and Kyo just looked at him askance and glared and frowned. They hadn't fought in nearly a week and while Yuki knew that it was Kyo's odd way of trying to help, he could really do with the excuse to beat someone up.
Then maybe he could convince himself that he was angry, bored, frustrated, ill – all of those things that he was with one massive omission; scared. Anything but scared. Anything but stuck in his personal hell of reliving a childhood that shouldn't even qualify for the word.
"Hey, your highness, aren't you going to talk to us?" There were four of them, around the same age as Haru maybe, he couldn't tell. He squinted against the sunlight coming in through the glass, trying to make them out further, but couldn't. They had done it deliberately, that went without saying, and smacked of much forward planning.
Normally he could talk his way out of this, but his tongue was leaden in his mouth. Normally he could fight his way out of this without batting an eyelid, but he was tired and jittery and breathless, and at the same time too stubborn to back down. He stayed there, crouched slightly, haloed by the same sun that was blinding him.
They were all around him now, silhouettes blocking out the light and seeming to tower blackly above him.
"I thought it would be harder than this," one of them said, sounding disappointed.
"And here I was wondering whether you could think," Yuki replied coolly, recklessly.
"Watch it, girly," the same boy replied aggressively. He lunged forwards to slam Yuki against the wall, only to find himself pressed painfully into said wall, one arm twisted up behind his back.
"Count yourself lucky I'm lazy today." Yuki's voice was silkily threatening, and he couldn't suppress a shiver at the resemblance he heard to Akito.
Momentarily distracted, suddenly cold, his breath left him with a thud as the remaining three boys piled into him at once, crushing him against the wall and using the surprise to force his grip loose. The boy that he had pinned stood upright unsteadily, panting, eyes alight with hatred.
Yuki could feel his breath coming faster and faster; it was taking too much of his energy just to get half the amount of oxygen that his brain screamed he needed. He should have sent these guys packing, one way or another, by now! Adrenalin was racing like ice around his body but there was nowhere for it to go; what use was fight-or-flight when to fight in his state could be fatal and fleeing was impossible?
He hadn't taken a beating since the room. He had trained specifically so that no-one could ever do that to him again, but now one stupid asthma attack and a bone-deep phobia of his childhood torturer had undone all of that!
A door opened at his back and he turned into it, clinging to the wall, confused and grateful, slamming the door behind him too quickly for them to follow.
Safe now. He tried to sigh as he sat pressed to the door, but couldn't fill his lungs enough. The blind panic that had begun to flood him receded. He knew how to deal with an asthma attack, after all. Just stay calm.
Laughter filtered through the thin door. Why were they laughing?
"Of all the places to back him into, you piece of crap!"
What place had he been "backed into"? He reached out tentatively – and his fingertips brushed a wall.
Fear flashed black spots before his eyes and he stumbled up, fell down, got on his knees and crawled around the "room", checking what he had instinctively known to be true.
He was shut inside a cupboard. An enclosed room, with tormentors waiting outside to punish him. And he couldn't breathe.
Desperately, he flung himself against the door. Facing the bastards was better than this tiny, hot space where he couldn't move and he couldn't breathe –
The door wouldn't open! Dimly, he could hear them laughing again. They'd blocked it!
Panic crashed over him in a wave. As he was drowning under it, feeling ghostly whips cut his feet, he heard the familiar poof! and saw his clothes grow giant-sized around him.
What felt like hours later he managed to force himself through a gap near the hinges. No-one was around to hear him eventually transform back, or to mumble a curse and hurriedly open the door to get his clothes.
---
"Yuki! Are you feeling ok? You don't look so good."
Light-headed and breathless still, he forced a smile for her.
"I'm fine, Miss Honda. Thank you for worrying."
Haru caught his gaze, but Yuki broke it. The cow couldn't meddle this time.
Momiji turned wise young eyes on him and stared understandingly until Yuki stood, unable to bear the curiosity of the rabbit.
This was something he would handle alone. That was how it had always been.
No-one had protected him from Akito; why should they want to start now?
