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Title: Cat
Series: Yami no Matsuei
Pairing: Tsuzuki + Hisoka
Rating: G, probably
Notes: For

sephyelysian, since she said "write about kittens!" and I did. Despite all efforts, despite the topic, the characters still angst. I think this is proof that I'm incapable of fluff.

Hisoka didn’t suspect a thing until Tsuzuki’s coat meowed. Tsuzuki coughed quickly, trying to cover up the sound, but it was a wasted effort. Hisoka glanced up from the book he was reading and stared at Tsuzuki who, rather obviously, refused to meet Hisoka’s eyes.

“Why is your coat meowing?”

“Huh?” Tsuzuki said, pretending to be focused on the TV he was channel-surfing at a disturbing speed. He was sprawled on the hotel room’s bed, belly-down, but he turned to look at the coat as if to prove his point. “Coats don’t meow, Hisoka.”

Hisoka rolled his eyes. The coat twitched, sliding a few inches further off the back of the chair Tsuzuki had left it on- he’d been atypically careful in setting it down, Hisoka recalled. “Where did you even find a cat?”

Tsuzuki hurried off the bed, managing to catch the bottom of the coat before it hit the floor. He cupped the contents of the lowest pocket in his hands, the long black material of his coat spilling out across his shoulder and his arm and the floor. He drew a tiny kitten out of the pocket, letting the coat fall as he stroked two fingers across the kitten’s head. It was so small it barely looked real, its coat of dirty brown and black mottled fur tangled and sticking up in places. It blinked in the light, then opened a small red mouth to meow pitifully. “Right after we’d interviewed the third woman- you know, the one whose apartment smelled like Thai food because of the restaurant the floor below, and she had that weird ceramic thing on her table- do you know what that was? It was bright pink, but I think it was supposed to be a cow, even though cows are brown or black or white and I think maybe red, but definitely not bubblegum pink-”

“The cat.”

“Right. In the alley, outside that building. It had just finished raining, remember, it rained all morning, and she was all wet, soaked, and she’s so small, and I couldn’t just leave her, not like that.”

Hisoka looked down at his book, but didn’t see the words. He ran his thumb along the edge of the pages. “Tsuzuki… we can’t…”

“I know. I know. I just thought… I thought that for one night, she could be warm and dry and fed and happy. And that would be something.” He’d settled the kitten on his lap and was petting it. It purred, sounding more like a tiny engine struggling to turn over than anything alive, and turned to Tsuzuki, standing up and hooking its front paws into his shirt. Tsuzuki smiled wistfully down at it, rubbing its tiny ears through his fingers. It pushed its head into his hand, hungry for any affection, for a touch.

Hisoka closed his book, setting it in his lap and spreading his hand wide across the cover, smoothing his palm against its slick coolness, the raised letters of the title indecipherable Braille against his skin. He said nothing.

“I had a pet cat, once. When I was alive. It was Ruka’s, really, she was the one who feed it and took care of it, but she always said it was ours, not hers.” Hisoka could hardly hear Tsuzuki, he was speaking so quietly, almost to himself, but he didn’t dare say anything to interrupt him. Tsuzuki so rarely was willing to talk about anything serious, to even mention his life before he’d become a Shinigami. “She didn’t have a name. We just called her ‘Cat’.” He laughed at himself. The kitten dropped down from Tsuzuki’s chest, leaving one small tear in his shirt. It hopped off his lap to circle around him, rubbing its head against his sides and back to mark him.

“I don’t know what happened to her. We still had her, the day… No one probably thought to check on her, or take her in.”

Hisoka stood up, emotion moving faster than thought, just wanting to be closer to Tsuzuki, but of course nothing could shut up the other man faster than proving he’d been listening. “Tsuzuki-”

“Never mind. Look, Hisoka, isn’t she cute? Come here and pet her, she’s so soft you won’t believe it. And look at her little tail, she keeps swishing it back and forth, it’s just like-” Tsuzuki twisted around to try and follow the kitten behind his back, ignoring Hisoka kneeling in front of him. “Like a, a clock pendulum. Except fuzzy.”

Hisoka grabbed his wrist, pulled Tsuzuki back to face him. “Asato, don’t.” Tsuzuki looked at him, a carefully chosen puzzled expression on his face. “Go ahead and call room service, get it all the food it can eat.”

“And then we’ll abandon it when we go home tomorrow?”

“We can’t take it with us. It’s still alive, it’s not meant to be in Meifu.”

Tsuzuki sighed, and slid his hand through Hisoka’s, curling their fingers together. “I know. I said I knew, didn’t I? I didn‘t even mention taking her back with us.”

The kitten meowed, butting at Tsuzuki’s hip to get his attention back. He dropped his free hand to its back, stroking. It arched, pushing harder into his touch. “But you want to.”

Tsuzuki paused. “Yeah. I do.”

Hisoka squeezed his fingers, which was something he was still learning, the simple joy and reassurance Tsuzuki took at just being touched. It felt awkward for him, and he was never sure of the unspoken rules, how to tell the difference between a good time to touch and an unwanted time, but now Tsuzuki just squeezed back. Hisoka reached out to the kitten, touched the top of its head lightly with one finger. Tsuzuki was right. It was softer than he would have believed. It put a paw on Tsuzuki’s thigh, stretching up to Hisoka’s hand. Tsuzuki stopped, letting Hisoka pet the kitten alone, but he kept his fingers tightly intertwined in Hisoka’s hand.

And the next day, when it took them over an hour to find a shelter, Hisoka never once complained about the waste of time they really didn’t have to spare, and as they left the kitten in the arms of the receptionist, Tsuzuki was holding his hand.