Another prompt from the ZIP (Zexion/Ienzo prompts) tumblr. This time it's prompt #44: Ienzo loves kittens but there's a little problem: he's allergic. Kairi ends up getting him a plush kitten for the fun of it.
That's it, that's this story. Would you review even though it's dumb fluff?
Little tortie and calico bundles of fur jumped and rolled and tumbled over each other inside the cosy, dry box the mama cat used as her nest. Ienzo crouched by the entrance to the alleyway, blushing bright pink as he observed the playtime. Tiny pink paws batted at tiny pink noses and their tails were so tiny they may as well have just been little triangles of fluff. Their fur was so soft it looked like they could just be blown away on a breeze. Ienzo clutched his cheeks, warming his fingers on them and gazing enamoured at them.
"Oh!" someone gasped behind him. He jumped, so startled that his back slammed into the brick wall as he turned around. He looked up to the big, blue eyes of a redheaded girl staring down at him. "Hi Ienzo. I didn't realise anybody else knew about them. The kittens, I mean."
Ienzo gulped but his lips may as well have been glued shut for all that he could move them. He just nodded, even as he screamed at himself internally. That response didn't make sense in this situation. He pried him lips apart to answer: "Hey Kairi."
"Have you come here to visit them before? Are you feeding them too?" she asked. Ienzo looked down at the bright purple box of cat food she had in her hands. That wouldn't be for the kittens, they were too young for solid food. Perhaps she might have seen her actions as feeding them by proxy. Nourish the mother and you nourish the kittens. Sure enough, there was a loud meow as the mother cat eagerly approached the girl, rubbing herself all over Kairi's legs and purring. Ienzo tried to push himself further away but was hindered by a wall behind him.
"If you like them so much, why don't you come and play with us?" she said, grabbing him by the wrist and forcing him to stand up. She talked as she dragged him into the alley. "I even started giving them names but they don't have to be permanent if you think they're stupid. I would feel bad if it turned out I gave one of them a really dumb name."
"I-I can't!" Ienzo blurted out. His eyes were already starting to itch.
"Of course you can! You're really smart so I bet you can think of all sorts of sophisticated names for kittens. We can't rename the mama, though. She's already been Mrs Noah for a while so it would be weird to change that."
Kairi crouched down beside the box, bringing Ienzo down with her. She poured a liberal amount of cat food into a cracked dish and the mother cat dived on it, gobbling the meal greedily even before Kairi had finished pouring.
Something so soft it might as well have been a cloud brushed Ienzo's knee. He looked down. One of the kittens arched its back as it rubbed against him, rubbing its face on his trousers. Another one sniffed his other knee and then batted it curiously. He could smell the distinct scent of kitten fur even above the ambient stench of the alley. One of them climbed onto his lap and rolled around, so light and soft. Ienzo began to wheeze as his throat tightened and his eyes watered.
"Ienzo?" Kairi said, turning his face towards her. She stared at him in concern. "Are you okay?"
He pushed her hands and turned away, sneezing so loudly that the kittens all scrambled back into the box in fright. Even the mother paused her frantic eating and stared at him with her fur fluffed up.
"I…" he said, taking huge breaths through his mouth while his congested nose was dripping. "I'm allergic…"
He tore himself away from Kairi's grasp and ran out of the alley with his hands over his mouth and nose, mortified. Kairi watched him go with her mouth agape.
That afternoon Ienzo sat by himself on the edge of the bridge over the violet-lit waters of Fountain Square. He carried with him a box of anti-histamines and some tissues almost all the time since he had similar allergic reactions to several other things but even after the reaction died down and he'd cleaned up his face his eyes were still a bit puffy and his nasal cavity itched. He sighed miserably in the aftermath of his embarrassment, watching his foggy reflection in the water so intently that he didn't notice someone approaching until their footsteps thudded on the bridge. He looked up.
Kairi smiled back down at him and titled her head to the side. She had both hands behind her back even as she came closer and crouched down beside him. "Here you are. I've been looking for you for a while. Do you feel better?"
Ienzo nodded glumly. "Sorry…" he said in a small voice.
"Don't be. I kinda ruined things for you," Kairi apologised, casting a guilty look to the water where her reflection joined his. "You were having fun watching and then I made you sick…"
"You didn't know I was allergic."
"But I don't feel okay about it. It's also sad. You know… about how you can't cuddle kittens and stuff, so I found this at the marketplace."
Her hands came out to the front and she held something white and fluffy in front of him. He flinched upon seeing the big, blue eyes and tiny pointed ears but after a moment he saw that the eyes were glassy and the creature was completely motionless. Kairi gazed at him expectantly. He took the toy from her hands.
"Is this for me?" he asked, running a thumb over the soft fibres of the fake fur. It smelled of new fabric and also faintly of lavender.
"Yeah. A life without kittens is kind of terrible, so I thought you needed to have one."
"My life was perfectly acceptable without being able to have close proximity to cats," Ienzo retorted, a little miffed.
"But kittens definitely make it better, right?" Kairi grinned and sat down, dangling her legs over the bridge next to his. "So, what do you say?"
Ienzo laid the stuffed kitten in his lap, stroking it as if it were real. What was there to say? He just slipped one of his hands under hers and gave a gentle squeeze in thanks. She squeezed him back and leaned her head on his shoulder. They spent the next hour sitting on the bridge and kicking their legs together while the kitten somehow ended up between them.