He didn't know for how long he'd been out, but his side ached from having spent some considerable time lying on the hard floor. With a muffled groan, he collected himself, stood, and peered through the crack in the door. Voices floated up the staircase to him, and he could make out excited shapes rushing around the cafe floor.

Kurogane checked out the window to see what time it was, as it seemed too early for Fai to be getting up for his morning routines and he doubted that the magician regularly cooked and danced at the same time. Though, considering that this was Fai he was talking about...he paused and gave the idea some serious thought.

A quick glance beyond the curtains told him that it was indeed still very late in the evening. Well, that cut the dancing chef out of the picture. But then what was happening downstairs?

Had someone broken in? He dismissed the possibility. Why would the voices seem so happy if they were being robbed? His companions were strange, but not so much that they would welcome thieves and give them a tour of the place. Could it be an assassination? But why did it sound so joyful? He berated himself for even considering that. What other reason would there be to be up late at-- Kurogane stopped for a moment, transfixed by a thought, then, a grimace firmly in place as he came up with another, infinitely more likely situation, he swept down the stairs.

As it turned out, he was right.

A pink blur darted past him as he made his first foray across the Cat's Eye's main floor, closely followed by a larger, much taller, white shape. Somewhere to the side, a sluggish brown mass tried to follow their movements, with little success.

"Big Puppy-san! Come join the fun!" drifted the melodious and amicable voice of Fai, as he continued to chase Sakura around the room. The girl wove through the tables and chairs with graceful ease, giggling as she ducked under a table every once in a while to throw her pursuer off track. Kurogane glanced at the cafe counter. A few bottles of sake stood at attention, surrounded by several glasses.

He frowned irritably. Then, he knew what he had to do.

Grabbing the mage by his collar, he pulled him out of the path he was following through the tables. There was some resistance, but eventually he complied.

"Oh, Kuro-pin, you always spoil my fun." Fai pouted, still struggling playfully after the girl, yet unable to break Kurogane's firm grip on his neck. "All we wanted to do was to celebrate a successful week and Syaoran-kun's speedy recovery!"

Kurogane threw a glance at the brown lump, who was hastily trying to pick up the chase where Fai had been forced to leave off. Sakura, though, was proving too agile for her new playmate, and, to make things worse, Syaoran's depth perception appeared to be significantly affected by drink, causing him to frequently knock into tables. Kurogane doubted very much that this sort of behavior would be terribly beneficial to the boy's continued recovery.

"You don't have to do this every single week, you idiot. I've had enough of chasing you down and picking up after your goddamned messes while you sleep it off." The words were harsh on his tongue, as his eyes followed the two free shapes, brown and pink, as they ran their course around the room.

"But, Kuro-ruu! Think of the children!"

"I am thinking of them. I'm thinking of how horrible an influence you are on them. This is over. Haul your sorry ass up to your room now and I'll be sure to bring this up again and yell at you tomorrow when you start making sense again." He paused. "Or when you're less drunk, anyway." He hustled the mage up the stairs and made sure he heard the click of the door before turning his back. Well, that was one down, two more to go.

Collecting Syaoran was easy. As the kid could barely keep pace with Sakura, let alone outrun a full-fledged ninja, Kurogane made quick work of him. Syaoran's constant entreaties for swordsmanship lessons aside--why the kid would even be thinking about that when retaining balance was much more of a pressing issue for him was beyond Kurogane-- he proved to be a fairly easy, albeit annoying catch. He'd brought the kid upstairs after Syaoran had collapsed, whether from too much liquor or over-exertion when still recovering, and made sure to lock the boy's door.

Honestly, if the kid could just learn to move a little faster, maybe he could have given him a run for his money. It's not like he was slow or a hindrance in battle or anything like that, but agility, as his most recent injury had shown, was not his absolute best quality.

Sakura was another story

Darting and sliding around the counters, over chairs, and surpassing any obstacle that came her way, the princess was a pink blur wooshing amongst the tablecloths and tiles. Kurogane watched her progress with a mix of vexation and begrudging satisfaction. He hated the fact that she was running amok in the cafe at odd hours of the night, but couldn't say that she wasn't putting into practice what he'd taught her about movement.

He sighed. Curse that wizard for bringing back sake on a night like this.

He was tired. It was late. Why did he have to be the only responsible one around to deal with this? At Shirasaki, other people were willing to step up and look after things when it got too strenuous for one person to handle without reprieve. Here, it seemed like he was the only around to restore order whenever everyone else went nuts. What would happen when his need for a break surpassed his willingness to keep people in order or, if he finally lost it himself? Would there be anyone to pick up the pieces? Gods, what he would have given for a time when he was free of these people...

And with that thought still resounding in his mind, he went into action.

He adopted a strategy of knocking over certain tables and moving things that would impede movement and limit the places that the girl could run to, but to Sakura, things were just the same as when Fai had been chasing her. She giggled and eluded his movements, keeping one step ahead of his reach.

Eventually, though, he began to close the net of tables and chairs, narrowing the accessible area bit by bit, siphoning off little slivers of its radius so that the princess wouldn't realize what was going on. Kurogane was of the belief that he could have reached the same goal by simply moving faster and grabbing the girl, but he wanted he to exhaust herself. This would lessen the likelihood of her making a second run later, which, Kurogane knew from first-hand experience, was a real possibility.

Finally, he managed to acquire a position close enough to her to grab her about the middle--a fairly safe place, he reasoned, but also secure enough that he would be confident that she wouldn't slip away. Sakura struggled half-heartedly against him, then wobbled a bit as Kurogane tried to escort her back to her quarters.

Just when they reached the stairs, she abruptly lost her balance, and had it not been for the ninja's quick reflexes she might have ended up as a frilly, dizzy heap on the floor. She did, however, end up as a frilly, dizzy heap in her companion's arms.

Kurogane hastily wrapped an arm around her waist, and did his best to help steady her, as she seemed to still tremble slightly from her run and the sake. As he did this, he couldn't help but notice how the contours of her body struck fire through his fingertips as she breathed in and exhaled slowly, face still flushed from the effort of the chase.

What was he thinking?

He was on the verge of relinquishing his hold and storming upstairs to fume at his lack of self-control when she tottered to the side again. Putting all thoughts not pertaining to finally getting away from this situation out of his head, he scooped the limp, slightly woozy princess up and began carrying her to her room. Near the top stair, he heard a faint voice.

"Kurogane-san?" She sounded exhausted, like someone who's just given their last ounce of strength and has nothing more to spare. Her eyelids lingered between closed and half-closed stages, and her breathing was easy. Yet, her features still portrayed an unmasked sense of contentment. To Kurogane, she seemed the very picture of comfortable repose.

"Yeah?"

"Why do cats and dogs run after each other?"

Kurogane's eyebrow raised in a look of abject confusion. So what did she think she'd gain by waxing philosophical with a ninja? He saw her eyelids droop and remain shut for longer periods of time. They reached her door, which Kurogane deftly opened without jarring the bundle of girl he was carrying.

"It's just their nature. Dogs and cats never did tend to get along very well, at least, not in my world."

Sakura's brow furrowed in concentration, or maybe confusion, as he gently deposited her onto her sheets and slowly wrapped her coverlets around her. She looked as though she was on the verge of saying something terribly important, something that she absolutely must not forget or fall asleep before broaching...

"But couldn't there be some cats and dogs that didn't fight? Couldn't some just--" she yawned widely as he tucked her in "--be friends?"

Kurogane stepped back, shadows at the point of engulfing him as he made his way out. "Anything's possible. There must be some out there that are, though they'd be pretty rare."

If he'd stayed a moment longer, he would have seen the worry wash off her features, her lips spread into a small smile, and her face gradually slip into the sleep of the just as her breathing slower and became regular. If he'd chanced a glance back, he might have noticed the effect his words had on her, or the way her hair splayed intricately out on the pillow, or how the soft light from the nightstand illuminated her in a golden glow before he turned it off on his way out. Had he really looked, he would have seen so many things, the answers to so many questions,questions that everyone in the universe it seemed wanted to know, and questions that one person was too afraid to ask. For a single moment, it was all there.

However, Kurogane didn't stay a moment longer, or steal a fleeting glance as he shut the door, or notice these things. He merely closed the door and was on his way up the rest of the stairs to get either to his room or the roof, when he was met with a very unpleasant surprise.

"Kuro-pon!"

Kurogane could feel a headache blossoming through his mind. No, not this again...

Fai D. Flowright waved at him merrily from the landing, swaying from side to side as he did so.

Crap. He must have forgotten to lock the damned door.

With a groan of fatigue, he stuffed the still-tipsy mage back from whence he came and then thrust the lock in the door with more force than was absolutely necessary. Slumping down the stairs back to the cafe floor, he then began the long process of righting tables and disposing of excess sake, eventually becoming too tired to do any more. His crimson eyes followed the flickering light from candles and lanterns outside and, as his mind drifted off into thoughts about what the changing shapes might mean, he gradually fell into a much-needed slumber.


Thanks for reading! I'm currently feeling kind of sick (stomach flu) so it might be a bit of a delay on the next chapter.

KuroSaku :: Thanks very much! That's a high compliment to receive.

Karuri :: He's wonderful. Having him around makes writing character interactions a lot more fun. Thanks!

Until next time,

--cy.