Of all the things that Tomiko has ever called herself, her mother was the one to call her the truest thing of all.
"Quarter-baked," Tomiko's mother had said, weary and only half-kidding as she sat at the table and watched Mama sew up yet another hole in her skin. Tomiko hadn't meant to break open again - she never did - it had just sort of happened, like the other thousand times, while she was playing. She had gotten excited, run a little bit too fast and pitched over onto her arm; her skin snagged on a little rock and whoops, she was open again.
It didn't hurt, not really. It might have used to, when she was just a baby and not nearly eight years old, but it happened to her so often that she just didn't even feel it anymore. Sometimes she wouldn't even notice something had happened at all until her mother scolded her for dripping red all over the floor or her mama stepped into view with a needle and thread and a very tired look on her face, and then Tomiko would sigh and sit down and let herself be patched back together like a ragged old shirt.
Tomiko's insides weren't very hard like her parents' were.
They had given her (intentionally or not) two very different explanations for it; Mama had spit something like "Damn that woman, damned monster, damned horror-eldritch-monster genes," late one night, red in the face, when she thought Tomiko was asleep. She probably wouldn't even have remembered it, except that Mama had said all that on the rare night that Mother was home and the resulting yelling match had dragged on until morning. Mother had pulled her aside about a month after that and had told her that she was - for one thing - not some common sort of monster, that she was a special kind of strong youkai like herself and that she was going to do amazing things one day, when she was grown up.
Then Tomiko had asked why she fell apart so easily and why the X-rays she got from the doctor looked so different from theirs, and her mother's face had fallen and a sigh escaped her.
"Because your mama is the most stubborn human I've ever met," she said, looking off to nowhere in particular, "And nine months was nowhere near enough time for a girl like you to finish growing. Sort of..."
Here she had paused. "Sort of like… taking bread out of an oven too early. You've got a nice-looking outside," she smiled, and very lightly poked Tomiko's belly, "but the inside is still raw. Does that make sense?"
Tomiko had nodded, because it did - but later, after dinner, she heard her mother muttering that she was amazed that her mama hadn't "ended up birthing little more than a monthly slurry" - and another late-night shouting match had started.
Her parents yelled an awful lot.
Tomiko had taken to wondering if they might have yelled less if she weren't… well, quarter-baked. She didn't like to think about it very much, though, because the answer she came up with was never anything but yes.
December 24th, as usual, was the most exciting night of the year.
Tomiko's mother was absent, although that was hardly unusual - there was little doubt in her mind that the reason her mother had made herself scarce was because she was out getting Tomiko's Christmas present from the other side of the border, a practice that Mama frowned upon, or at least had frowned upon until Mother started bringing presents back for her, too. She still looked a bit cross whenever Tomiko brought it up, though, so she just kept quiet and waited as patiently as she possibly could for tomorrow to hurry up and come already.
The day had been excruciatingly long, full of questions and drawing and running about and wishing and for once, Tomiko hadn't ripped herself at all, which was, as Mama would put it, "a Moriya-born miracle". By the time the sun had gone down and retreating underneath the kotatsu was the only way to keep comfortably warm, she had quite tired herself out, and she hummed, played with the hem of the quilt, and wondered what was for dinner.
"Well, that's a problem," Mama sighed, and Tomiko had hardly stuck her head up from where she'd been lying before Mama was at the door, grumbling a bit, pulling on a warm coat and red scarf.
"I've got to get some groceries," she explained, retrieving a hat from the closet, "Or we won't have much of a dinner tonight."
Tomiko's eyes widened. It was already nighttime, and they were going to go all the way to the village? "B-But," Tomiko stammered, starting to wriggle out from under the kotatsu, "But Mama, it's dark outside-"
"It's alright," she said, holding up a hand, "You can stay here. I won't be long, I promise." Mama smiled briefly at Tomiko, as reassuringly as she could. "Why don't you draw a picture, or play with those nice dolls your auntie made for you?"
Tomiko stayed still for a moment, looking quite conflicted, before nodding, sliding back down to her seat. "... o-okay."
Mama nodded back to her, turning to open the door and shivering for a moment at the cold outside. "Well, then, I'll see you in a bit. Be good, okay?"
"Yes, Mama."
"And be careful!"
"Yes, Mama!"
And with that, the door closed with a thud, and Tomiko was alone.
Being home alone was honestly much less fun than she had anticipated it being.
It was nice for the first couple of minutes, at least - Mother wasn't home to nag at Tomiko to clean up her toys, so she took her dolls and her ball and her blanket and her little train out of the toy box in her room and brought all of them to the kotatsu, spreading them out around herself and on top of the table. Mama wasn't home to worry about Tomiko getting cut or torn, so Tomiko could get out the loose paper and real scissors and her nice colored pencils to draw with, which all also went on top of the table.
This was all very liberating and entertaining, right up until the wind started to blow hard enough to rattle the windows and make a mournful howling noise. And even then - although Tomiko jumped and huddled closer into her blanket - she wasn't very scared, she told herself. Even though she was very small, very fragile, and all by herself in the middle of the woods. She wasn't scared of a little wind, no sir, she wasn't -
Something scratched at the door, and Tomiko gave a pitiful little squeak and hid herself underneath the kotatsu.
And she stayed there, huddled and thinking very hard about how she would very much appreciate it if whatever scary creature must be behind the door would assume nobody was home and go away, as the scratching continued, on and on.
It wasn't a very loud sort of scratching, really - it was more of a series of small, insistent scratches, which didn't match up very well with Tomiko's mental image of a huge, shadowy monster. Slowly, she peeked her head out from underneath the table, keeping the quilt tucked tightly around herself, and stared warily at the door.
The small scratches stopped for a moment, and a thin little wail of a meow came from behind the door.
Tomiko gasped, and she squirmed out from under the kotatsu all at once.
A cat!
She dashed over to the door, opening it just a peek, eyes wide, shining and expectant - and there it was, a small and sodden kitten, mewling in hopes of being let in from the cold. Tomiko, of course, let the kitten in right away, scooping it up and putting it down on the table with an excited little tremble in her hands.
A kitten! A little kitten!
Tomiko loved animals, but Mama had never let her have a kitten, even though Mother had one at her own house. "They're too sharp," she always said, "they have pointy little teeth and claws and you're…" Too fragile, was what she was probably going to say, though Mama never did end up finishing the sentence out loud.
But Mama wasn't home to fuss about that right now, was she?
Tomiko blinked out of her thoughts when the kitten mewed again at her, looking pointedly at her as if she'd forgotten something.
"Oh, right, you're still all wet!" She nearly smacked herself in the forehead - how had she managed to forget about that? - but decided against it, on the grounds that she didn't fancy making an indent in her face. Instead, she poked her head back under the kotatsu, and came back up with her blanket in hand. "Here, umm," she carefully tucked the blanket about the little animal, gently rubbing down its fur as she did so. "This should help, right? I know it's not really a towel…"
The kitten, white and tan fur now somewhat drier, made a bit of a purr in response.
"Well, I know where the towels are, though!" Tomiko moved to stand up, holding out a hand to the kitten briefly, "Hold on, I'll go get one!"
The towels were located a bit higher up in the hall closet than the girl had realized, though, so it was a good ten minutes later, with the aid of a tracked-down wooden stool, that she finally managed to snag a hand towel off the shelf and bring it back out to the living room.
"I'm back… uh?"
It was brought suddenly to Tomiko's attention that the little white kitten wasn't on the table anymore.
"H-Hey, where'd you go?" She nearly dropped the towel in her surprise, quickly stepping over to the table and looking this way and that for her disappeared guest. No cream-colored cat presented itself, though, and frowning, Tomiko decided that maybe she should check in the other room. She was so wrapped up in thinking about it, however, that-
"Ow!"
She didn't notice the toys she had scattered out on the floor earlier. She gingerly lifted her foot off the small tin train, glancing quickly at the sole of her foot to make sure she hadn't managed to puncture herself, before levelling a glare at the offending plaything. Harrumphing, she bent over to pick it up - thought for a moment - then gathered up most of the other toys as well, hefting them up and trotting off to her bedroom to dump them back into the toy-box.
The kitten wasn't in her bedroom, either - she had checked under her bed, the dresser, and even peeked into her closet - and, feeling mildly discouraged, Tomiko wandered back out into the living room.
"He~ey, little kitten…" she called, starting to pick up the pencils and paper still out on top of the kotatsu, "Little kitten! Where are yo~ou?" She kicked her ball out of her way as she headed to the art supply cabinet, and it rolled for a bit, then bounced gently off the wall and went back towards the quilted table. As it passed by...
A tiny tan paw darted out from underneath the kotatsu, and batted at the rolling ball.
Tomiko stared for a good minute before blushing nearly from ear to ear.
Of course it would have been under there!, she thought, rushing over to the table and peeking under the quilt. Sure enough, there was one pointed kitten underneath, looking quite warm and very pleased with itself. Tomiko sighed.
"You could have said something a little sooner." She huffed, trying her best to look annoyed - but she couldn't help but grin when the kitten nuzzled its face up against her knee, purring away. "Okay, okay, I forgive you!" The girl scooped up the fuzzy little thing, holding it gently against her chest.
"Now let's get you all the way dried off." The hand towel she had grabbed earlier was just the right size for a kitten, Tomiko found out, and soon enough it was completely dry and purring all the louder for it. She rather liked how warm and rumbly the little cat was, honestly, and she probably could have sat there and simply held it all night - never mind what Mama would say when she got home - if the kitten hadn't suddenly decided to start pushing its paws into her chest.
She could feel little tiny pinpricks even through her shirt, and she jumped a little bit, abruptly putting the kitten down onto the floor. She didn't much want her Mama to come back to find that not only had a little visitor come by, but that she'd stained yet another shirt.
"U-Um," she mumbled, pretending not to notice the kitten's somewhat… disappointed sort of mewling, "So, what do kittens like to play with…" It had batted at her ball earlier, right? But it was puppies that really liked playing with those, she remembered. Wasn't there something special that cats liked to play with, too? Her gaze roamed from the kitten, to the hallway, to the closet door, to the chair in the living room…
Oh!
Tomiko remembered now, and, beaming, she scrambled up from her seat and grabbed something out of a wicker basket sitting beside the chair, holding it up proudly - a rolled-up ball of purple yarn.
"Kittens like yarn, right?" She wondered aloud, glancing over at the kitten in question as though it would speak up and tell her its personal preference. She picked at the place where the yarn was gently knotted, pulling out a length about as long as her arms, then retrieved her scissors, carefully cutting the soft string free. Kneeling back down in front of the kitten, who this time was apparently interested enough to stay mostly put, she dangled the length down.
The little kitten perked up a bit, staring for a moment before batting once, twice, then jumping up at it in an attempt to capture this amazing, wiggly thing.
Tomiko burst into a fit of giggles, utterly delighted.
It had hardly even dawned on her that Mama had certainly been gone for more than a bit.
A bit, as it turned out, meant "about an hour, give or take ten minutes, and allowing for additional walking time in the case of bad winds".
By the time Mama actually made it back, Tomiko and her new little friend (who was now dubbed Marshmallow) had moved into her bedroom and were having a spirited little… er…
"Oh nooo~! Giant Kitty Marshmallow is climbing all over the table! Rie says that's very bad manners."
"Mrrow?"
… tea party, I suppose, although it had only recently become one after a pretend air-battle on the futon between three of the dolls, Marshmallow, and the toy train.
"Tomiko~o, I'm ho~ome!" Mama called out from the doorway, starting to take off her winter gear and rub some feeling back into her fingers. "I'm sorry I took so long, honey, there was such a long line at the store and I had to walk home because of the wind-"
Tomiko heard her footsteps coming down the hallway, and she only barely had time to toss her blanket over her lap - and her kitten - before Mama stuck her head in through the bedroom door, looking concerned (and more than a bit chilly).
"Are you doing alright? Nothing bad happened while I was out, did it?"
"Nope!" Tomiko beamed, shaking her head vigorously. "Everything went fine!"
"You didn't fall down or anything?"
"Nuh-uh! I'm 101% rip-and-tear-free!" The hand that was under the blanket gently rubbed the top of Marshmallow's head, and Tomiko had to - lightly - bite her tongue to keep from breaking out into a fit of giggles.
"Well, that's good." Mama looked relieved, and walked back off towards the kitchen. "I'll get dinner ready, and then you've got to get to bed! It's late, kiddo, and you want Santa to come, don't you?"
"Uh-huh! Okay, Mama!" Tomiko called back, and she finally let herself grin widely.
She had a kitten, and Mama didn't know!
"I think Santa already stopped at our house," she whispered to the kitten in her lap, and Marshmallow purred.
December 25th, as usual, was the most exciting morning of the year.
"Ma~maaaaaa~!" Tomiko shouted (at practically the crack of dawn), barreling into her parents' bedroom and throwing herself onto the futon beside them. "Mama, Mother, Mama Mother Mommy Mom Mom Mom wake up wake up wakeupwakeupwakeup!"
"Mnnnnn, Tomiiiii~," Mother groaned, pulling the blanket up to cover her head. "... five more minutes, please?"
Mama yawned, grinning slyly and giving Mother a light nudge. "Oh, come on, Yukarin, you can hold off on hibernating for one more day. It's Christmas, for Pete's sake."
"Yeah, it's Christmas!" Tomiko parroted, bouncing up and down a little bit.
Mother sighed in the most dramatic, mostly teasing tone she could muster, the same way she did every year. "But it's cold." She mumbled, still not moving from under the blanket.
Tomiko just giggled as Mama rolled her eyes good-naturedly, moving out from under the blankets so her daughter could snuggle into her spot. "Well, then, Tomiko," she said, stretching, "Why don't you cuddle with your mother to warm her up while I get the fire started?"
"Okay!"
"Mmn, sounds good to me~. C'mere, you!" And Tomiko was rather suddenly hugged close.
"Kyaa~!"
Mother's presents had always been the best surprises of the whole year, but this year, an especially surprising surprise awaited Tomiko after breakfast had been finished and the rest of the gifts opened.
Her parents had both mistook her slack-jawed amazement to mean something along the lines of 'wait, for real?!', and so for the past three minutes they had been explaining the reasoning behind it -
"Well, you've started to show a lot more responsibility this year-"
"Especially concerning your own safety, and-"
"We talked for awhile about this, and we finally decided-"
"That you would be able to responsibly handle a pet, and-"
"Cocoa!"
Tomiko blurted out, looking down at the light brown kitten her mother had nestled into her arms.
"... eh?"
The little girl blushed bright red, glancing up at her parents' expressions - Mama looked a tad confused, while Mother…
Well, as always, Mother looked like she knew something they didn't.
"Is that her name?" She asked innocently, resting her chin in her hand and smiling at Tomiko, who nodded slowly.
"U-Um, Mama?" She mumbled, "Mother?"
She smiled sheepishly.
"I, um, I have something to tell you…"