Challenge #3
I know I got this challenge like six months ago. But hey, at least I finished, right? :D Majorly revised from the original intent, but I like it a lot. :3
Family Matters
Challenge:
Kaidou/anyone
A marker, a pair of shoes, and a stuffed cat
Word Count: 2,070
It was cold outside, fall just on the brink of becoming more like winter, and the air was crisp. Kaidou was running, as he did every night, his five kilometer jog after training with Inui-senpai by the river, after tennis practice. His shoes slapped angrily against the pavement. Practice hadn't gone well. He'd lost a match with Momoshiro, and was still sulking.
Well, not sulking. Just a bit resentful. A lot resentful.
Kaidou pushed the thoughts from his mind as he passed the four kilometer mark. His runs were supposed to be cathartic. It didn't matter if Momoshiro had beaten him this time, anyway. Next time, Kaidou would crush him.
He was less than half a kilometer to his house when he heard it. It was a sound that Kaidou had learned to detect very easily--the sound of a cat's meow.
Stopping short, Kaidou looked around to try and find it. This part of the neighborhood was dim, as one of the streetlights was broken, but it wasn't hard to see the enormous, fat cat, perched precariously on a low wall across the street. And by enormous, he meant enormous. The cat looked positively stuffed, as if it had eaten several large fish whole.
Forgetting his run, Kaidou crossed the road and tentatively approached the cat. A hot blush spreading across his cheeks, he furtively glanced to each side to make sure no one was there, and reached out to gently scratch the fat cat between the ears.
"Do you live near here, kitty?" he asked quietly. The cat meowed at him and rubbed its head against his fingers. Kaidou noticed the collar around its neck, but the cat was moving too vigorously as it was petted for him to grab the tag without perhaps accidentally hurting it. The cat continued rubbing its head on his fingers, rubbing up to his palm, his wrist, up his arm to his elbow, until it had leaned far enough forward to topple off the wall. Kaidou attempted to catch it, alarmed, but missed.
The cat, however, seemed no worse off from the fall. It settled its bulk over his shoe and rubbed its head all over his ankle. He was faintly surprised to feel exactly how heavy it really was.
Reaching down to scratch its neck again, Kaidou’s fingers at last encountered the collar. The cat meowed again when he pulled on it softly, but stopped as soon as he had twisted it enough to see the little metal tag.
Blubber
Kaidou felt faintly appalled, and accidentally let out a shocked fsshuu. The cat hissed right back at him, and batted at his shoelace. But Kaidou couldn’t help himself-who in the world would name their cat something like Blubber?!
...Though, looking back down at the horribly obese cat, he was reminded that it was an awfully appropriate name...
On the back of the tag, there was a return address. Kaidou vaguely recognized the address as being in a section of the neigborhood a good fifteen minute's run from his house, in the opposite direction as he was now. Kaidou guessed he’d have to return it tomorrow, after practice. He wondered for a quick moment how the cat had gotten so far from its house. It looked like it could barely walk, it was so fat.
But by now his parents were probably wondering where he was, since he’d been out on his run for a good ten minutes longer than normal, petting the cat. He’d have to take it home with him. They would understand--he had to return it. He couldn't just leave it here.
Kaidou levered the plump creature off his shoe and bundled it in his arms, still surprised at how utterly fat it was. How much did its owners feed it?!
He managed to get the cat home with little incident and few scratches, though he was sure he was late for dinner. He let himself in quietly and toed his shoes off in the entryway without untying them, still holding Blubber in his arms.
"You're late," his little brother said, poking his head in. "Mom and Dad are--what is that?!" Hazue jumped back at the sight of the fat cat cradled in Kaidou's arms.
"I found it on my way home," Kaidou said, hissing quietly. "I'm going to ask Mom if we can return it tomorrow."
Hazue was too busy sneezing to answer.
"Of course we’ll let you return it, Kaoru," his mother said as she rubbed Hazue’s back. He sneezed again, jerking under her hand. "But for tonight you’ll have to keep it in your room, and clean up before Hazue can go in there. I had no idea his allergies were this bad..."
Kaidou winced as his brother was again wracked with sneezes, and held the overweight cat a little tighter in his arms. "I’ll return it right after tennis practice tomorrow," he said.
"What about your training with that senpai of yours?" his mother asked.
Kaidou thought about Inui-senpai, about running until his chest and calves burned, and the focused repetition of towel through swift water.
Hazue sneezed four times in a row, so hard he was gasping for breath at the end.
"Inui-senpai will understand," Kaidou muttered.
That afternoon, Kaidou had trouble concentrating during practice. He kept thinking back to the cat, which he’d had to lock in his room, and his brother, who had glared at him with watering red eyes all through breakfast. He felt terrible about it, especially after hearing his brother sneeze himself to sleep the night before.
As soon as practice let out, Kaidou was approached by Inui, adjusting his glasses in that way that Kaidou had figured out meant he was thinking about something.
"Kaidou," Inui said, "there is a 89 percent probability that something is bothering you. Would you like to talk about it?"
"Actually, senpai," Kaidou said, looking down at his shoes, "I need to take care of something at home today. Right away. Is it alright if I train by myself later tonight, instead of with you?"
Inui was silent for a moment, but then adjusted his glasses with his middle finger. "That’s fine. You should be fine as long as you don’t skip training entirely."
Kaidou hissed quietly. "I don’t intend to, senpai," he said, and left.
The address wasn’t terribly far from Kaidou’s house, and he was able to make the trip with Blubber hugged carefully to his chest. This time, the fat cat seemed to find it too much of a bother to squirm, and sufficed with kneading its claws happily into the boy’s chest. Kaidou wasn’t happy about that, but he wasn’t sure how to carry the overweight animal any other way.
It started scrabbling at his arms when he reached the front walk of his destination, so he pet it gently in an effort to make it calm down. It probably smelled its home and wanted to be inside.
At the same moment he raised his hand to knock, he caught a glimpse of the name adorning the side of the house. His hand stopped in midair.
And Momoshiro opened the door, a black marker in one hand and a thick stack of lost pet fliers in the other.
They gaped at each other for a long moment, each equally surprised to see the other, before Momoshiro seemed to regain a scrap of his composure. Not a very big scrap, but a scrap nonetheless.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked, bewildered.
Kaidou hissed. "Returning your fat cat," he replied, shoving Blubber at Momoshiro.
The cat meowed in protest, but Momoshiro took it from Kaidou. They stood there, glaring, Momoshiro’s arms too full of cat and fliers and marker to close the door on his rival, and Kaidou too stubborn to close it on himself.
"Takeshi?" his mother called from further inside. "Have you left yet?"
"I don’t need to anymore, Mom," Momoshiro said, eyes not straying from Kaidou’s. "Someone just came by and returned Blubber."
"Oh, is that so?" her voice asked excitedly, closer this time, and they looked away from each other at the same moment, putting things on hold. Momoshiro’s mother appeared in the front hall then, a charming woman with eyes very like her son’s, and felt it her duty to invite Kaidou to dinner.
Kaidou refused politely, at first, but she insisted. And so he, not wanting to argue and still very aware of Momoshiro’s heated glare on his back, accepted.
Dinner was an awkward affair. Kaidou was seated with Momoshiro on his left and Momoshiro's two younger siblings sitting across from them. The boy directly in front of him could have, if his eyes were a different color and he were older than eight, been a carbon copy of his older brother. Momoshiro's little sister, about eleven, had her hair in two braids, and kept smiling at him in a thoroughly unnerving manner.
He wasn't wearing his bandana; he'd removed it before coming to the table and put it in his pocket, just like he would have at home. It was impolite to eat at the table with any kind of headwear on. One could not enjoy a quiet meal dressed improperly.
Unlike dinner at his own home, however, dinner with the Momoshiro family was loud, noisy, and disruptive. The youngest Momoshiro was wearing a baseball hat, and kept kicking him under the table. Momoshiro's sister wasn't looking at her plate, but rather at Kaidou, eyes shining. When Kaidou quietly asked Momoshiro's mother to pass the carrots, Momoshiro elbowed him in the side and glared so hard at the back of his head that Kaidou could feel it burning through his skull. Momoshiro-san had passed him the carrots anyway, smiling, before yelling at her oldest son to be nice to their guest. Momoshiro had complied by telling Kaidou loudly how much he had enjoyed their game the day before and that maybe Kaidou would do better next time. Momoshiro's father chewed with his mouth open, just like his son.
The meal had ended with Kaidou's composure in shreds and his shins covered with bruises. He didn't want to see another Momoshiro ever again.
"Takeshi, you really should invite him over more often!" Momoshiro's mother told him, patting Kaidou on the shoulder familiarly. "Your friend is so polite! Kaidou-kun, you simply must come over for dinner next week. It wouldn't be any trouble. What's your favorite food?"
"Kaa-san," Momoshiro protested, but she shushed him violently.
"Uh..." Kaidou began, distinctly uncomfortable, especially knowing that Momoshiro's sister was eavesdropping from the stairwell. "I like yam soba, but I wouldn't want to impose--"
"Yam soba it will be, then!" Momoshiro-san squealed, hugging Kaidou. "Takeshi, I don't know why you haven't invited him over before! He's so polite, it's absolutely adorable!"
"Kaa-san!" Momoshiro protested, trying to shove her off so he could kick Kaidou out.
She let go before her son had much success, and patted Kaidou once on the beet-red cheek before turning and fluttering back into the kitchen. Kaidou took a deep breath to try to get rid of his blush, but the sudden sight of Momoshiro's sister staring down at him from the top of the stairs with adoring eyes only caused him to pink further.
"This is all your fault, Mamushi!" Momoshiro said angrily as he pushed him out the door, sparing him only a second to slip his shoes on. "If you'd have just left after you gave Blubber back, this wouldn't have happened!"
"You're the one who lost him in the first place, you big ape!" Kaidou growled, trying not to trip on his laces. "If you kept a better watch on your fat cat, I wouldn't have had to return it in the first place!"
"Blubber is not fat!" Momoshiro shouted defensively. "He has a medical condition!"
Kaidou snorted.
"And who are you calling an ape, anyway?!" Momoshiro snapped.
"You," Kaidou told him.
Momoshiro punched him in the shoulder, and Kaidou swung back at him.
"Takeshi!" Momoshiro's mother yelled from inside.
"...Hmph," Momoshiro said, and swung the door shut on Kaidou's face.
Kaidou took a deep breath. Strangely enough, that final exchange had left him feeling oddly calm.
No matter what kind of madhouse Momoshiro lived in, Kaidou thought to himself, turning to begin the walk back to his home, some things would always be the same.
Family Matters
Challenge:
Kaidou/anyone
A marker, a pair of shoes, and a stuffed cat
Word Count: 2,070
It was cold outside, fall just on the brink of becoming more like winter, and the air was crisp. Kaidou was running, as he did every night, his five kilometer jog after training with Inui-senpai by the river, after tennis practice. His shoes slapped angrily against the pavement. Practice hadn't gone well. He'd lost a match with Momoshiro, and was still sulking.
Well, not sulking. Just a bit resentful. A lot resentful.
Kaidou pushed the thoughts from his mind as he passed the four kilometer mark. His runs were supposed to be cathartic. It didn't matter if Momoshiro had beaten him this time, anyway. Next time, Kaidou would crush him.
He was less than half a kilometer to his house when he heard it. It was a sound that Kaidou had learned to detect very easily--the sound of a cat's meow.
Stopping short, Kaidou looked around to try and find it. This part of the neighborhood was dim, as one of the streetlights was broken, but it wasn't hard to see the enormous, fat cat, perched precariously on a low wall across the street. And by enormous, he meant enormous. The cat looked positively stuffed, as if it had eaten several large fish whole.
Forgetting his run, Kaidou crossed the road and tentatively approached the cat. A hot blush spreading across his cheeks, he furtively glanced to each side to make sure no one was there, and reached out to gently scratch the fat cat between the ears.
"Do you live near here, kitty?" he asked quietly. The cat meowed at him and rubbed its head against his fingers. Kaidou noticed the collar around its neck, but the cat was moving too vigorously as it was petted for him to grab the tag without perhaps accidentally hurting it. The cat continued rubbing its head on his fingers, rubbing up to his palm, his wrist, up his arm to his elbow, until it had leaned far enough forward to topple off the wall. Kaidou attempted to catch it, alarmed, but missed.
The cat, however, seemed no worse off from the fall. It settled its bulk over his shoe and rubbed its head all over his ankle. He was faintly surprised to feel exactly how heavy it really was.
Reaching down to scratch its neck again, Kaidou’s fingers at last encountered the collar. The cat meowed again when he pulled on it softly, but stopped as soon as he had twisted it enough to see the little metal tag.
Blubber
Kaidou felt faintly appalled, and accidentally let out a shocked fsshuu. The cat hissed right back at him, and batted at his shoelace. But Kaidou couldn’t help himself-who in the world would name their cat something like Blubber?!
...Though, looking back down at the horribly obese cat, he was reminded that it was an awfully appropriate name...
On the back of the tag, there was a return address. Kaidou vaguely recognized the address as being in a section of the neigborhood a good fifteen minute's run from his house, in the opposite direction as he was now. Kaidou guessed he’d have to return it tomorrow, after practice. He wondered for a quick moment how the cat had gotten so far from its house. It looked like it could barely walk, it was so fat.
But by now his parents were probably wondering where he was, since he’d been out on his run for a good ten minutes longer than normal, petting the cat. He’d have to take it home with him. They would understand--he had to return it. He couldn't just leave it here.
Kaidou levered the plump creature off his shoe and bundled it in his arms, still surprised at how utterly fat it was. How much did its owners feed it?!
He managed to get the cat home with little incident and few scratches, though he was sure he was late for dinner. He let himself in quietly and toed his shoes off in the entryway without untying them, still holding Blubber in his arms.
"You're late," his little brother said, poking his head in. "Mom and Dad are--what is that?!" Hazue jumped back at the sight of the fat cat cradled in Kaidou's arms.
"I found it on my way home," Kaidou said, hissing quietly. "I'm going to ask Mom if we can return it tomorrow."
Hazue was too busy sneezing to answer.
"Of course we’ll let you return it, Kaoru," his mother said as she rubbed Hazue’s back. He sneezed again, jerking under her hand. "But for tonight you’ll have to keep it in your room, and clean up before Hazue can go in there. I had no idea his allergies were this bad..."
Kaidou winced as his brother was again wracked with sneezes, and held the overweight cat a little tighter in his arms. "I’ll return it right after tennis practice tomorrow," he said.
"What about your training with that senpai of yours?" his mother asked.
Kaidou thought about Inui-senpai, about running until his chest and calves burned, and the focused repetition of towel through swift water.
Hazue sneezed four times in a row, so hard he was gasping for breath at the end.
"Inui-senpai will understand," Kaidou muttered.
That afternoon, Kaidou had trouble concentrating during practice. He kept thinking back to the cat, which he’d had to lock in his room, and his brother, who had glared at him with watering red eyes all through breakfast. He felt terrible about it, especially after hearing his brother sneeze himself to sleep the night before.
As soon as practice let out, Kaidou was approached by Inui, adjusting his glasses in that way that Kaidou had figured out meant he was thinking about something.
"Kaidou," Inui said, "there is a 89 percent probability that something is bothering you. Would you like to talk about it?"
"Actually, senpai," Kaidou said, looking down at his shoes, "I need to take care of something at home today. Right away. Is it alright if I train by myself later tonight, instead of with you?"
Inui was silent for a moment, but then adjusted his glasses with his middle finger. "That’s fine. You should be fine as long as you don’t skip training entirely."
Kaidou hissed quietly. "I don’t intend to, senpai," he said, and left.
The address wasn’t terribly far from Kaidou’s house, and he was able to make the trip with Blubber hugged carefully to his chest. This time, the fat cat seemed to find it too much of a bother to squirm, and sufficed with kneading its claws happily into the boy’s chest. Kaidou wasn’t happy about that, but he wasn’t sure how to carry the overweight animal any other way.
It started scrabbling at his arms when he reached the front walk of his destination, so he pet it gently in an effort to make it calm down. It probably smelled its home and wanted to be inside.
At the same moment he raised his hand to knock, he caught a glimpse of the name adorning the side of the house. His hand stopped in midair.
And Momoshiro opened the door, a black marker in one hand and a thick stack of lost pet fliers in the other.
They gaped at each other for a long moment, each equally surprised to see the other, before Momoshiro seemed to regain a scrap of his composure. Not a very big scrap, but a scrap nonetheless.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked, bewildered.
Kaidou hissed. "Returning your fat cat," he replied, shoving Blubber at Momoshiro.
The cat meowed in protest, but Momoshiro took it from Kaidou. They stood there, glaring, Momoshiro’s arms too full of cat and fliers and marker to close the door on his rival, and Kaidou too stubborn to close it on himself.
"Takeshi?" his mother called from further inside. "Have you left yet?"
"I don’t need to anymore, Mom," Momoshiro said, eyes not straying from Kaidou’s. "Someone just came by and returned Blubber."
"Oh, is that so?" her voice asked excitedly, closer this time, and they looked away from each other at the same moment, putting things on hold. Momoshiro’s mother appeared in the front hall then, a charming woman with eyes very like her son’s, and felt it her duty to invite Kaidou to dinner.
Kaidou refused politely, at first, but she insisted. And so he, not wanting to argue and still very aware of Momoshiro’s heated glare on his back, accepted.
Dinner was an awkward affair. Kaidou was seated with Momoshiro on his left and Momoshiro's two younger siblings sitting across from them. The boy directly in front of him could have, if his eyes were a different color and he were older than eight, been a carbon copy of his older brother. Momoshiro's little sister, about eleven, had her hair in two braids, and kept smiling at him in a thoroughly unnerving manner.
He wasn't wearing his bandana; he'd removed it before coming to the table and put it in his pocket, just like he would have at home. It was impolite to eat at the table with any kind of headwear on. One could not enjoy a quiet meal dressed improperly.
Unlike dinner at his own home, however, dinner with the Momoshiro family was loud, noisy, and disruptive. The youngest Momoshiro was wearing a baseball hat, and kept kicking him under the table. Momoshiro's sister wasn't looking at her plate, but rather at Kaidou, eyes shining. When Kaidou quietly asked Momoshiro's mother to pass the carrots, Momoshiro elbowed him in the side and glared so hard at the back of his head that Kaidou could feel it burning through his skull. Momoshiro-san had passed him the carrots anyway, smiling, before yelling at her oldest son to be nice to their guest. Momoshiro had complied by telling Kaidou loudly how much he had enjoyed their game the day before and that maybe Kaidou would do better next time. Momoshiro's father chewed with his mouth open, just like his son.
The meal had ended with Kaidou's composure in shreds and his shins covered with bruises. He didn't want to see another Momoshiro ever again.
"Takeshi, you really should invite him over more often!" Momoshiro's mother told him, patting Kaidou on the shoulder familiarly. "Your friend is so polite! Kaidou-kun, you simply must come over for dinner next week. It wouldn't be any trouble. What's your favorite food?"
"Kaa-san," Momoshiro protested, but she shushed him violently.
"Uh..." Kaidou began, distinctly uncomfortable, especially knowing that Momoshiro's sister was eavesdropping from the stairwell. "I like yam soba, but I wouldn't want to impose--"
"Yam soba it will be, then!" Momoshiro-san squealed, hugging Kaidou. "Takeshi, I don't know why you haven't invited him over before! He's so polite, it's absolutely adorable!"
"Kaa-san!" Momoshiro protested, trying to shove her off so he could kick Kaidou out.
She let go before her son had much success, and patted Kaidou once on the beet-red cheek before turning and fluttering back into the kitchen. Kaidou took a deep breath to try to get rid of his blush, but the sudden sight of Momoshiro's sister staring down at him from the top of the stairs with adoring eyes only caused him to pink further.
"This is all your fault, Mamushi!" Momoshiro said angrily as he pushed him out the door, sparing him only a second to slip his shoes on. "If you'd have just left after you gave Blubber back, this wouldn't have happened!"
"You're the one who lost him in the first place, you big ape!" Kaidou growled, trying not to trip on his laces. "If you kept a better watch on your fat cat, I wouldn't have had to return it in the first place!"
"Blubber is not fat!" Momoshiro shouted defensively. "He has a medical condition!"
Kaidou snorted.
"And who are you calling an ape, anyway?!" Momoshiro snapped.
"You," Kaidou told him.
Momoshiro punched him in the shoulder, and Kaidou swung back at him.
"Takeshi!" Momoshiro's mother yelled from inside.
"...Hmph," Momoshiro said, and swung the door shut on Kaidou's face.
Kaidou took a deep breath. Strangely enough, that final exchange had left him feeling oddly calm.
No matter what kind of madhouse Momoshiro lived in, Kaidou thought to himself, turning to begin the walk back to his home, some things would always be the same.