Kaoru sighed as she slid down into her desk chair. Cleaning the kitchen the second time had taken the last of her energy and she just wanted to sleep. She put feet up onto the desk and leaned back. Within seconds, she was swimming through the cotton candy ocean that was her dream. In what seemed like no time at all, the cotton candy turned into a merry-go-round that was spinning too fast and a loud voice from above was screaming at her. She was being shaken awake. "KAORU!"

"Ash..." Kaoru mumbled sleepily. "Stop..."

"You need to wake up...now!"

"Shouldn't you be building your tree house, Ash?" Kaoru muttered without opening her eyes.

"THAT'S WHY YOU NEED TO WAKE UP! I'M DONE!"

"Ash, contrary to what you may believe...I, and the others, don't exist to be your own personal toys and do whatever you ask of us," Kaoru said as she sat up and yawned.

"...You don't?" Kaoru narrowed her eyes to slits when she realized that Ash seemed genuinely confused and shocked by this statement.

"Ash...What do you want?"

"I finished my tree house! You have to come to the house warming party!"

"What? Party...Ash...I'm not ready to party," Kaoru yawned again. "Can't this wait until tonight?"

Ash's face went blank and she tilted her head, "It is tonight..." Kaoru's eyes widened and she whirled around to look out the window. Indeed, stars filled the sky, but she saw a curious bright light outside. Ash grabbed Kaoru's hand and pulled her out of the room. "Did you know that you snore?" Ash asked as they climbed down the stairs.

"I do not snore," Kaoru said stubbornly.

"Yes you do~" came a reply. "Also, did you know you smell like Japanese Cherry Blossoms?"

Kaoru smiled silently to herself, "Didn't I ever tell you how I got my name?"

Before Ash could answer, she pulled Kaoru in front of her and covered Kaoru's eyes with her hands. "Drum roll please!" Ash made an obnoxious sound with her mouth.

"What was that noise you were doing?"

"A drum roll..." Ash said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Huh. It sounded more like a helicopter..."

"YOU SOUND MORE LIKE A HELICOPTER!" She took her hands off of Kaoru's eyes.

"Whoa..." Kaoru was astonished. In her mind, Kaoru had seen a simple, little tree house, but this was for from it. Turning her head, she saw where the curious light had come from out of her window. "Ash...where'd did you get the Spot Light Robo?" Ash smiled brightly and pulled Kaoru into the yard to get a better look at the tree house.

The tree house was built around the tree instead of just poking out to one side. In fact, the tree seemed to go straight through the tree house. The front wall was painted to look like a beach sunset with a submarine window that was made to look like the sun. The door looked like an old classroom door, the number B146 was on a little brass plate near the top of the door. Next to the door was a large painted sunflower. The front wall was surrounded by a balcony made of broken, chipped wood and pieces of metal. On the side wall, was a window that had the glass punched out so that a large branch of the tree can reach through. The roof was a blue tarp tied down with a little string which gave the tree house the strange look of it wearing a hairnet. On the trunk of the tree were ladder steps, which were also made from broken and chipped pieces of wood that seemed to run up into the middle of the floor of the tree house.

Kaoru stared up at the balcony for a few seconds, "Are you sure that thing is sturdy?"

"OF COURSE IT IS! I BUILT IT MYSELF!" Ash screamed, though more out of excitement than anger.

Kaoru squinted up at the balcony and one of the pieces of wood caught her eye. "Ash...Is that my ruler?" Ash only laughed and Kaoru shook her head. "You're the one that has been stealing all our stuff, aren't you?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

Kaoru took a few steps back to get a better look and saw where all of the cheese mysteriously went to. "Um...Ash...Why is there cheese nailed to the tree?"

Ash laughed, "It's a cheese tree!"

"...It's an apple tree..."

"The apples aren't in season...but the cheese is~!"

"Right..." Kaoru said, "Well, how do we get inside? You don't have a ladder leading to the front door."

"We use the ladder on the trunk, silly."

Kaoru stared at it for a few seconds, "And what? Hit our heads on the bottom of the tree house?"

Ash pulled Kaoru by the arm, "Just come on."

They climbed the ladder which led to a trapdoor that would let them enter the tree house. Kaoru hesitated, "Does it open up or down?" She asked with one foot ready to step back down.

"Both," Ash pushed the door upwards and pulled herself through the hole. Kaoru counted to twenty and when Ash didn't fall through the floor she climbed in after her.

The first thing Kaoru noticed about the room was the tree trunk that cut through the center of the room. It came into the floor and straight through a large hole in the tarp. There were many branches coming out of the trunk and most went through smaller holes in the tarp. One branch had a few bandanas tied to it. "Ash, are those Amy's?" Ash muttered something in Italian that sounded like 'L'ho trovato' and Kaoru smiled, "You know, we speak about the same amount of languages... We've both spent most of lives traveling." Ash muttered something again and nodded toward the tree trunk. On the trunk there was a small sign that said 'chao crossing' and above the sign in the nook of the tree was a large glass jar with a chao egg. "Where did you get that?"

"I found it." Ash answered

Kaoru turned around and looked at a small table that held what looked like a bomb. "Uh...Ash, is that safe?"

Ash looked at the bomb and smiled, "That's something Bokkun brought me. It never blew up, so look at what I did to it." She turned it around and the front of the bomb had a clock on it. Kaoru also noticed that what she previously thought was a separate lamp, was actually connected to the bomb. She shook her head and looked around some more. There was a bookshelf with various random things on it and next to i, sat a soccer ball.

"Cream's?" Kaoru asked, raising her eyebrows. Ash muttered 'L'ho trovato' again as Kaoru continued to look around. The more and more she looked, the more things she noticed belonged to other people. "Ash..." Kaoru sighed shaking her head. Suddenly, she saw something sparkle in the corner of her eye. She turned her head to look and she saw one of the prettiest stained glass windows she had ever seen. "Where'd you steal this from?" Kaoru asked.

Ash laughed loudly, "I made it myself from a bunch of broken glass. Blow torches are our friends." Kaoru shook off the uneasy thought of Ash with a blow torch as Ash ran to the other side of the room and pointed at something. "Look at this," she ordered. Kaoru walked over to where she stood and stifled a laugh. There was a snail like creature with legs and a TV as its shell. "My favorite," Ash sighed as she petted it.

Kaoru took one more glance around the room crowded with different objects and strange things hanging from the ceiling and didn't bother to keep in her laugh this time. She threw herself back onto the hammock that stretched from the trunk of the tree to another wall and giggled to herself. "This is exactly the kind of place I'd expect you to live in."

"Huh?" Ash said absently as she walked to a wall full of shelves filled with candles and began to remove several red and black candles. Ash suddenly gasped loudly, went to the trapdoor, flung it open, and jumped through the whole. "I FORGOT SOMETHING!" She called over her shoulder as Kaoru stepped tentatively onto the balcony.

A/N

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