This was the result of a fifteen-minute word challenge. The challenge word is stated at the end of the ficlet.
Play With Me? (Prince of Tennis)
By Haruka (haruka at ymail dot com)
Karupin awoke from his nap and blinked lazily at the empty room. He yawned and stretched languidly then stood up and padded toward the bed. Standing on his hind legs, his paws on the bedspread, he saw that Ryoma was not there.
He wanted someone to play with. If Ryoma wasn't around, he would have to seek out someone else.
As the Himalayan cat left the bedroom, he thought he heard the sound of dishes clinking in the kitchen. That meant someone had to be in there, and maybe _they_ would play with him. He hurried downstairs.
In the kitchen was the dark-haired girl who often filled his bowls and petted him gently. She was at the sink, taking wet dishes out and placing them in the plastic holder next to her. Karupin walked over and sat beside her, then meowed loudly.
She looked down at him and smiled. "Ah, Karupin! I'm sorry, Ryoma isn't here. He's at school."
Karupin didn't understand what she said, but when she turned back to the sink, he knew she wasn't going to stop what she was doing to entertain him. He started out of the kitchen, sniffing at his food bowl along the way. He had eaten breakfast earlier, and wasn't really hungry yet.
The door was open, so he went outside. He didn't see anyone else around, but there was a small flock of birds across the yard, picking at some food they'd found at the base of a tree. Vaguely, he had a feeling that birds were for eating, but he never went hungry in the house, so it didn't occur to him to make a meal of one just now. However, perhaps he could at least amuse himself for a few moments.
Stealthily, he crept across the grass, staying low to the ground. When he came within leaping distance, he raised his haunches slightly, poising to jump. At that moment, one of the birds up in the trees twittered an alarm and the rest scattered into the air. Karupin leapt, but it was a moot point, as all his playmates had already left the ground. His tail swished back and forth impatiently. It wasn't as if he was going to hurt them – at least not today. He just wanted companionship.
He heard a noisy yawn and turned to look toward the bell platform. His ears perked up. There was the man Ryoma called 'Oyaji.' He was stretched out on the platform, his face hidden behind one of those paper squares he was always holding – the ones that the women in the household yelled at him for having. His knees were raised, legs crossed, and one bare foot bobbed tantalizingly up and down.
Karupin closed the distance between himself and that foot in record time, pouncing on it with claws extended, receiving a loud bellow as his reward. He should have known that in the absence of his young master, Oyaji always made the best playmate.
(Word challenge – Quest)
(2005)
Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi.