It was not very calm in the Hiruma household, for such a misleading soft and yellow-warm afternoon. As usual, the twins were romping about, shrieking in key with the cats they so frequently pursued. The sun and its adverse heat seemed to have no effect on the two scrawny little girls or the cats that fled in scattered patterns. Naphtali and Knika, with their stubbly legs, could never seem to catch any of them. Of course, cats were not ponderous creatures by nature, so it was perfectly ordinary for them to remain alert and wary, and to flee at the slightest provocation.
Hiruma snorted to himself as his daughters' names rolled across his mind. Naphtali… Knika… What names, what absurd names, and what a ridiculous figure of a matriarch their mother cut out as well. He remembered sitting on the thin carpet, back set comfortably against the couch and head tilted towards the ceiling, with the two babies toddling about and their babbling mother consulting a long list. All her names flew out from a worn paperback book, ricocheting off the stained walls and resounding in his sensitive ears. The new little children didn't cry then, despite the noise. The cats had been quiet, too. They sensed something important was happening.
"How about Dolly? Keiko? Desi? Anna?" She had been very excited, seemingly bursting at the seams with baby names. Hiruma had frowned slightly at their sounds.
"Desi? That's your name," he had pointed out.
"So?" she replied. "You're allowed to name your children after yourself. We could name one of them Yoichia if we wanted to." She snickered.
Hiruma rolled his eyes. "Whatever you want. They're your daughters whenever they're awake," he had said; scowl shifting into a wry grin.
Their mother had ignored him, happily plowing on with her list. "How about Kara, then? Kayleigh? Shira? Leah? Ginger? Pepper? Oh!" She had suddenly vaulted into a peal of laughter. "Oh, they could be the Spice Girls, Pepper and Ginger! They could sing and dance and be perfectly ludicrous!" She had clutched her knees in the hilarity of it all, rocking back and forth as she giggled. Americans were the most bizarre of peoples, he had concluded.
Fortunately, post-partum stress and depression passed quickly afterward. However, its effects were doubled in their oddity with the standard disorder of the female mind, and unfortunately, there was no real relief from that.
-o-
Their older daughter had stopped coming home. Hiruma missed her in these bouts of idleness, with the twins outside and their mother at work. Occasionally, the outstanding misery at the loss of blood forced him out of his usual spot, consuming him with vigor. He would tear about the nearby buildings that lay empty, scratching his way through the overgrown bushes that bore no fruit. He knew he would find her eventually, when the time came, and this knowledge kept him awake in the night and the afternoons and mornings and afternoons to follow, and the mournings after that, as he listened to her mother lament when things were too quiet. Sometimes, she sorrowed too loudly, and the twins came dashing inside to comfort their mother. The dishes lay unwashed, as dirty as the girl probably was, out on the street with the harsh lights and hungry eyes, clamoring mouths with money changing filthy hands—
Breathing came slightly easier for him a few moments later, as Hiruma chewed viciously on his gum. There was no point in worrying about her when he didn't know what was happening. She would come back, eventually. Until then, there were the twins.
"Kitty! Come here, kitty cats!" Duplicate screams drew nearer to the door, then the sounds swerved away again once more, the lazy yowls farther ahead. "Kitties!"
Hiruma listened to the cries for a few moments, then stood, traveled into the basement, and emerged with a large firearm.
The screen door, upon opening on its squealing hinges, displayed quite a scene. Naphtali and Knika charged about, brandishing small brushes. Calico, striped, and spotted tabbies streaked across the yard, ears flattened against their skulls. They all sought the same hiding place: A large, refrigerator-shaped box lay near an obscuring pile of brush, with plenty of outlets and gaps between the stiff branches to dart through and reside within. Hiruma shouldered the weapon, took careful aim, and fired.
The fusillade of blanks struck the box, the sound of their impact resonating through its cavernous depth. There was a myriad of varying vocal cries to narrate the cats' escape as they bolted out in several directions.
Both twins shrieked in newfound delight, rallied by the startling noise.
However, the cats had had quite enough of the pursuit. Emboldened by intense fright, they dashed under the high fence, sliding through the little girls' short arms and small hands along the way. Stringy blond hair clung to their round faces as they began to sob, and dirt began to cake under their pink nails as they dug at the shallow tunnels the cats had fled along.
"Hey, hey." Their father strode over, pulling the children away from the fence by their collars. Naphtali threw her hands into the air, wailing in despair. Knika clung stubbornly to the earth.
Hiruma sighed, using the firearm's long barrel to dislodge one of his daughters from the clump of soil, while encircling the whimpering Naphtali with a comforting arm. "Those damn strays aren't worth it, anyway." The children paused in their sobs to look up at him. "They're filthy, and probably covered in fleas."
Naphtali scratched her scalp vigorously. "Oh."
"We're going back inside now," Hiruma said firmly, lifting them with ease and starting back towards the house. "What?" he asked a moment later, as both girls stretched out an arm towards the fence. "No, no more cats."
Angry protests rose afresh.
"I said no, dammit," he growled, but Knika managed to choke out the word "brushes", so he was duty-bound to retrieve the grooming tools.
"Here," Hiruma said, more gently this time, setting the twins down and handing them the brushes.
They stroked the bristles with their fingers, glancing solemnly at their father and each other.
"No more cats," Naphtali said slowly, dark eyes protuberant with forboding.
"No," Hiruma agreed.
"We were trying…were trying to brush them," Knika said, also staring at her father.
Hiruma raised an eyebrow. "Brush them? They'll scratch the hell out of you if you try."
"But-but they looked messy," Knika continued haltingly. "And we're really, really, really, really bored."
"Bored!" Naphtali shouted, unwarranted.
Hiruma looked unhappily at the twins. "I know. What do you want me to do about it?"
As if on cliché cue, the twins glanced at each other.
"Could we brush you?" Knika ventured.
"What?"
-o-o-o-
Someone tell me if any of that's good. I wrote something to rid myself of the writer's block, but it may have still interfered. The next chapter will center around the humor genre more, so the readers can look forward to that. As for the twins' names…I have no earthly idea…