Iris: "Well, I just wanted to get away from all the people I see all the time...! Well, not all the people... one person. I wanted to get away from one... guy. An ex-boyfriend who just got engaged and forgot to tell me."

Arthur: "So, he's a schmuck."

Iris: "As a matter of fact, he is... a huge schmuck. How did you know?"

Arthur: "He let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out."

The Holiday

x

Tuesday 10th December 2012: Reasons

"Hey, Lou?" Toto popped his head into the lounge where the young Cat was curled up against the window, book in hand as she idly watched the people below. "Could you keep an eye on the cooking while I pop out for a moment?"

"Hm?" Louise realised she hadn't listened to a word her host had said. "Sorry, what?"

"I need to pick up some stuff, so can you make sure nothing explodes in the kitchen while I'm out?"

Louise dropped the book to one side and stared over at Toto. "Is anything likely to explode?" she asked.

"...I don't think so," Toto answered. "But if I'm not back in... oh, half an hour, can you turn the oven off? Otherwise the apple crumble is going to be nothing but crisp."

"Sure." As Toto pulled his coat on and headed towards the door, Louise remembered something. "Hey, when is the plumber going to fix Haru's house? Didn't he say Monday?"

"He did, but more problems have turned up. He's promised to get it done by tomorrow or the day after." Toto peered back into the lounge, grinning at his guest. "Why? Are you really so eager to be rid of me?"

"Quite the contrary. I was worried you were getting sick of me," Louise replied, grinning despite her words.

"Oh, you know that's not true." Toto headed back towards the door, but not before Louise spotted a good-natured theatrical rolling of eyes on his part. "Really, you only said that to fish for compliments."

"And if I did?" Louise called out. "You're no better than me."

"True. But I am infinity more charming."

"I think you meant big-headed."

"That too. Keep an eye on the oven for me, please?" he reminded her, cutting across whatever retort Louise had been about to throw back at him. And before she could pick up from where she had been interrupted, the door clicked shut, indicated that Toto had already left.

Louise rolled her eyes and picked up the book from before, but she didn't start reading it again. Instead, she watched the pavement many stories below, watching for a familiar head of dark hair to exit the building. Louise had discovered that, she too, enjoyed people-watching from that vantage point and often forgot to read in favour of watching the world pass by below her.

Eventually, she returned to her book, but had barely turned a page before a familiar chiming rang through the apartment. The telecrystal which Louise had brought along sat upon the lounge table and it was pulsing with each new ring. Deciding that she wasn't going to get anywhere with her novel today, Louise forsook the book entirely and answered the crystal. Haru's face swam into view.

"I see you've discovered how to use the telecrystal," the Cat said.

"Only after a lot of trial-and-error," Haru replied flatly. "I think I may have accidentally called your great aunt..."

Louise waved it away. "She's so blind she probably thought I had just dyed my fur. How are things going your end? Is everything under control?"

"Oh, everything's fine." Haru paused, and Louise got the impression that she had acquired a few stories to tell in her short time in the Cat Kingdom. "I just wanted to see how you were doing – wait, is that...?" Haru leant towards her telecrystal, frowning at Louise's surroundings. "What are you doing at my brother's?"

With a start, Louise remembered that Haru had no knowledge of what was going on with her boiler. As of such, the sudden change in surroundings was probably a bit of a shock. "Oh, your... um, boiler broke. So Toto offered to let me stay here while we waited for the plumber to get around to fixing it..."

Guilt crossed Haru's face. "Really? It broke? I am so sorry – I had no idea–"

Again, Louise waved away Haru's words. "It's no trouble. Your brother has looked after me just fine."

"Ah, yes. Toto always did fancy himself as a bit of an old fashioned gentleman."

Louise thought of someone else who fitted that description. "Not half as much as Baron," she murmured.

Haru caught these words – or perhaps she only caught Baron's name – for she grinned at Louise's words and added, "True. He still calls me Miss Haru, despite the fact I'm not exactly a lady."

"You've met him then?"

"You... could say that."

It was Louise's turn to lean into the crystal. She could smell a good story a mile away – or a world away, as the case was. "Tell me."

She didn't fail to notice the blood rushing across the young Human's bare cheeks.

"I... may have thrown a bucket of water over him..."

"You... may have?" Louise repeated.

"I thought he was Machida!" Haru burst out. "No one told me what he looked like, so when Baron arrived, I just assumed..."

A wicked grin was slowly spreading across Louise's face as she tried to picture the image Haru was painting. "Brilliant," she breathed.

Haru paused. "You're not mad that I soaked your neighbour?"

"Mad? Why would I be mad? I'm only mad that I didn't get to see it happen!" Louise laughed back. "Oh, if only I had seen his face... How did he take it? Like a gentlecat, I'm sure."

"Like... a gentlecat, yes," Haru admitted. It didn't help her embarrassment levels much. "I didn't give him much chance to defend himself–" None, now Haru thought about it "–but when I went to see him about it a few days later, he was kind enough not to return my welcoming gift." Although, she had been soaked through at the time, so an extra bucket of water really wouldn't have made much difference...

"That does sound like Baron." Louise grinned. "When I was younger, he was the only kitten in the neighbourhood–"

'Not that Louise's neighbourhood is your average one,' Haru mentally interrupted, thinking of the huge estates along the road, compared to the busy streets of the city and villages Haru was accustomed to.

"–so we sort of grew up together. Of course," Louise added, and her bright demeanour faded just a notch, "time happened and we grew apart later on, but he's always been a good friend. If he wanted to, he could sweep many a young Cat off her paws."

Haru mumbled something distinctly vague that Louise felt she wasn't supposed to catch, and moved the conversation on. "Oh, I met Jiro yesterday, by the way."

Louise raised one furry eyebrow. If Jiro's name reminded her of Machida, she made no show of it. "Jiro? What was he doing there?"

"One of your rabbits broke free and he came round to return it." Haru paused, and grudgingly admitted, "I may have threatened him with an animate broomstick."

"Dare I ask why?"

"I... uh, asked Muta what Machida looks like, and he told me he was a black Cat, so when Jiro came round..."

"You assumed it was Machida," Louise finished. Her grin had slowly been growing wider throughout the conversation and now it was threatening to spread the entirety of her face. "You've got to stop scaring off my neighbours, Haru. Else the whole area is going to think I'm a mad Cat who lets rabid Humans live in my house."

"Hey, I'm just trying to defend your turf. From what Muta told me, it sounded like Machida was going to turn up at some point–"

"So you were going to give him the blunt point of the broomstick?" Louise finished again. Her other eyebrow joined the first one. "Remind me not to get in your bad books."

"It was an honest mistake to make."

"Once, maybe. Twice...?"

"He forgave me... I think."

Louise laughed and waved it away. "Don't worry, Jiro definitely will have forgiven you. He may not be quite so refined a gentlecat as Baron, but he's one of the kindest Cats I know. He won't hold your response against you."

"Well, I did ask him to stop for a cup of tea, but he seemed awfully uncomfortable, so..." Haru trailed off and, after a brief moment in which she didn't quite know how to react, she shrugged. "I know he's Machida's brother, but is there anything else going on? It's just that he said he wasn't welcome, but surely he's not responsible for Machida's actions...?"

Louise shook her head sharply. "I don't blame him one bit for Machida cheating on me. But..." It was Louise's turn to pause and trail off. "Jiro is so sweet – I guess he's blaming himself for not realising what his brother was up to until it was too late. He was... well, he was the one to tell me that Machida was cheating..." She laughed weakly. "I didn't believe him – or anyone else – at first, so in the end he organised it so I would have undeniable proof. I guess he might blame himself for that, although it was the best wake-up call I've had in a long time."

"Oh. That explains it then."

Louise's feeble smile wavered yet more. "Jiro is a Cat who can't bear to think he's hurt someone, even if it was for their own good. I hope he's not still beating himself up for what happened."

"If I see him again, I'll ask him," Haru promised. "I'm sure that..." She trailed off and, for the second time that conversation, peered into the telecrystal. "Wait... is that... smoke?"

Louise's head shot up. Sure enough, smoke was wheedling its way up from the oven and coating the ceiling in a rapidly thickening layer. Louise had been so caught up in the conversation that she hadn't even smelt the change. "Bastet," she muttered under her breath. Forgetting about the call entirely, she jumped to her feet and rushed to the oven, switching it off, but it was too late.

She pulled out a very blackened, and very ruined, apple crumble.

"Oh, this is not happening, oh, this is not good..."

There was a high-pitched whine and Louise glanced upwards. A strange, flat, round device attached to the ceiling was flashing what could only be described as a red warning light, the flash quickening as the smoke covered it.

Louise got the distinct feeling something very bad was about to happen.

"Oh..."

The whine abruptly died away, but something else clicked.

Water rained down from another strange contraption, almost instantly soaking the Cat to her fur. The click gave way to an insistent beeping that only made the indoor rain worse as the kitchen and lounge was treated to its very own personal storm.

Louise closed her eyes. Toto was going to kill her.

"Oh, it can't get any worse, can it?"

Fate always likes a challenge.

The telecrystal, which was still online and still giving Haru a full view to the pandemonium crashing down on her brother's flat, sparked dangerously at the flood of water. Magic, like science, doesn't always react well to a soaking – and science doesn't react well to temperamental magic. The crystal flashed again, definite arcs of lightning-like magic spiralling from the centre and leaping to the ceiling and walls.

At this perfect point in time, Toto returned into the apartment. "Hey, Lou, I'm back! How's the – holy flipping mulberry pie!"

Louise leant into the hallway, her face framed by the lightning emitting in fitful sparks from her telecrystal. She grinned nervously, her fur plastered to her face in wet locks. "Hello, Toto," she greeted. "Funny thing happened while you were out..."

The telecrystal flashed again, and this time the magic made contact with something electrical. There was the bang of something breaking and the whole flat was thrust into darkness.

Through the gloom, Toto's voice came.

"I cannot wait to hear this story."