Disclaimers: As per usual, don't own characters or series but writing and content are my own.

Author's Note: Yes, bad of me to start a new one before I finished any of my other stories but it just suddenly popped into my head and I had to write it down before I forgot. To make up for the lack of face time for some of the characters in the other stories.


Ch. 1 Cat in the bushes?

Minako Aino sat on her front step, trying to ignore the rustling she heard from the bushes. She bit her lip wondering whether she should be annoyed or amused.

Hearing the hum of a vehicle, she perked up. She turned her head to see her next door neighbor get out of his car. She grinned as Motoki Furuhata waved at her. "What are you doing all by your lonesome?"

"Just enjoying the sun."

"You mean like that time you got horrible sunburn because you 'enjoyed' the sun for a good eight hours?"

Her cheeks colored. "I didn't intend to. I . . . fell asleep while sunbathing." She looked away, pouting.

He chuckled, crossing her lawn to give her a hug. She pecked him on the cheek in greeting.

The wind picked up, covering the heated whispers of an argument in the hedges.

"Can we go?" whined Zoisaito. "You promised to hang out with me today and play basketball in the park."

Kunzaito, known by everyone at college as 'Kunz,' glanced at his younger brother. Through clenched teeth, he responded, "In a minute."

"You said that ten minutes ago and half an hour before that."

"Yeah man. I don't think I can feel my butt anymore." Kunz deigned to give Mamoru a head-on indignant glare before returning his attention to the blonde on the porch steps.

Looking at him now, crouched in someone's bushes, no one would guess that Kunz had been unanimously nominated student body president. Of course, it wasn't just his sinfully good looks—although he had more than plenty of that—that got him the position. He had a head for business and with his take-charge-no-nonsense attitude, the students felt he would be able to answer their needs.

Too bad he couldn't seem to fulfill his own wants. Since that day she appeared in his homeroom as a transfer student, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her: not with the way the sunlight seemed to play in her golden hair, or the way she smiled widely before bursting into contagious laughter, or even the way she would grumble about something and then go into a rage if the same thing came up again.

It had been five years since then. The unrequited love wasn't really one-sided—although it might turn out to be—as it was unprofessed. She certainly couldn't turn him down if he didn't even confess to her. Every time he gathered the courage to ask her out though, someone either involved her in a conversation before he could utter a word or he ended up doing something horribly embarrassing in front of her. Like that time the janitor had just mopped the floor and he slipped on a wet spot, falling unceremoniously on his rump as his bookbag spilled its contents across the hallway or that time he tripped on his own pant leg and not only fell face first but also succeeded in pulling down his own pants. Crawling into a really deep hole would not have been enough to save his ego or erase the echoes of laughter rolling across the hallways in every direction. It still gave him nightmares.

A chill rolled down his back at the thought. It quickly disintegrated into vein-popping fury as he watched his Mina in close proximities with a—decently good-looking, he had to admit—guy and she didn't seem averse to it. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snapsnapsnapsnap.

Mamoru and Zoi wrestled the poor twigs from his grasp and struggled painfully to keep him away from the rest of the bushes. Mamoru grunted and wheezed out, "How did you drag me into this?"

What started as a trip to the nearby park turned into a stakeout. Except that they weren't cops and they weren't watching an illegal transaction. If anything, they were the ones doing something that at the very least felt illegal if it wasn't in fact actually illegal. It left an acrid taste in his mouth at the thought that he had been turned into a voyeur.

Mamoru did not expect Kunz of all people to get him into such a mess. As the younger of the two, he had always looked up to Kunz as the older brother and mentor. He had known him ever since he was a snot-nosed kid, being the Shittenous next-door neighbor.

Sure they had gone through a number of escapades together but this had to take the cake. He supposed it was the first time that it had ever really involved a girl—all their other romps had been setting up chalkboard erasers or buckets above doorways at school to see who would the first victims. Of course their pranks hadn't stopped at that. They had once even stolen the vice principal's backup toupee from his 'hidden' desk drawer and then accidentally gotten food in his hair while he was talking to another teacher in the school cafeteria.

Yep, the five of them were entirely too much for the hearts of some. Having no siblings of his own, Mamoru was glad that Kunz and his brothers had taken him into the fold. He had had no one in his life during those first years after the car crash and he had become something of a cynic by the time he met Kunz. His foster parents worked night and day and he tried to become something of a poster child for them. They knew, even if they didn't know how to tell him, that he needed others around him because they could help him move on. So they were glad when the Shittenous had moved into the neighborhood because Mamoru finally got to be like any other kid. They tried their best to not be elated when a homeroom teacher would call and tell them about the trouble that Mamoru had caused again.

In his reverie, Mamoru's stance wasn't as balanced as it should have been. Kunz only struggled a little and Mamoru fell backwards into the bushes they had been trying to keep him away from. He grimaced, growling as he tried to remove leaves and dirt from his clothes and hair, before putting most of his weight onto Kunz's shoulders and neck. Damn, he's gotten much stronger. He must be working out every day at college.

Motoki looked towards the bushes in askance. "Did you guys get a pet?"

" . . . You could say that." Minako almost snorted out amused laughter but tried her best to school her face into an innocent smile.

"Oh really?" Motoki held a childish grin as he started towards the bushes to see what kind of pet the Ainos had bought. "Awesome! We can never get furry animals since Reika is allergic. I bet you got a cat."

Minako's eyes widened in shock. No matter how weirded out she might have been, she didn't want Motoki to kill the poor guy in the bushes.

And Kunz had stopped struggling the moment he saw Motoki headed towards their cover. Oh they were so fucked.


The other boys had turned to see what was going on when Kunz had stiffened and were now glaring holes into his head.

Minako sprang to her feet. "Hey—"

"Motoki! You gonna make me put away all the groceries?"

He paused comically mid-step before swiveling his head towards his wife. Grinning that Cheshire-cat grin of his, he answered, "Why would I ever do that to you?"

Reika laughed at his antics, a becoming blush gracing her face as she pulled two bulging bags of groceries out of the car and proceeded up the walk to the front door, greeting Minako in the process. Motoki shrugged at Minako, waving to her as he jogged over and hefted a few more out. "I'll come over another time to see the cat!"

Minako smiled disarmingly as she avoided that topic altogether. "Bye!" Once he had disappeared inside, she let out a breath she didn't even realize she had been holding. One of these days her 'cat' was going to give her a heart attack and it wouldn't be in a good way.

Sighing, she wrung her hands together before bringing her arms above her head in a stretch. Kunz could only stare, watching the rather innocent display with growing angst. How did he get himself into these things? He saw her shirt ride up her sides as she twisted her back slightly to feel it crack. He gulped. He felt the awful urge to jump the hedge and kiss the living daylights out of her.

Getting some of the kinks out of her system, she turned around on the steps and started to climb. She paused as if in thought and turned, looking him in the eyes. He almost scooted backwards in shock and probably would have if Zoi and Mamoru didn't have him in a death grip.

Her eyes burned into him and he wanted to be anywhere but there. In that moment, it felt like she understood exactly why he was hidden in her bushes, being wrestled down by two guys. Unbelievable as it was, his vision blurred with a slight film of tears. He was reminded of why Mina wasn't purely an obsession. It was something much deeper than that.

He blinked to clear his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone.