06/27/15

In honor of gay marriage being legalized in all 50 states yesterday I wanted to celebrate a little.

Love wins.

Chapter 21

Karina and Ivan were nice enough to help clean up after dinner before they left and even once they were gone Bunny seemed content to stay in his tank. This gave Kotetsu a chance to look over the bag of non-food items Kotetsu asked the interns to pick up for him.

There was the basic six pack of crayons with black, brown, red, blue,green and yellow right on top which Kotetsy put aside to give to Bunny tomorrow. He hoped Bunny would be interested enough in them to try talking for them, if not at least practice making sounds. Right under the crayons were a drawing pad, a booklet for practicing cursive and a few children's books about countries, animals and a collection of short stories. Hopefully, at nine, these wouldn't be unreasonable as gifts for Kaede if someone were to question why Kotetsu had them.

Everything went back into the bag and with with Bunny content with the dictionary again, Kotetsu went to the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed. Though halfway through brushing his teeth, still marveling at how easily his shoulder could move again, he realized he had forgotten to grab clean clothes.

Well Bunny would be too preoccupied with the book to notice, Kotetsu reasoned, immediately proven wrong when he came out of the bathroom, with only a towel around his waist, to find Bunny waiting for him; Bunny also naked, and sitting on the bed staring at him.

For a bit, Kotetsu stared back. He couldn't tell if Bunny was being perverted or simply oblivious. Despite whatever it was that happened in the tank it was too soon, in their "whatever this is" relationship, for whatever it was that Bunny was doing.

Not saying a word, Kotetsu went to his dresser and grabbed out a pair of sweatpants, tossing them at Bunny before grabbing a pair for himself. Much to Kotetsu's embarrassment, Bunny watched Kotetsu dress but luckily Bunny was able to dress himself, even managing to put the sweatpants on in the right direction on the first try.

"So I guess this means you want to sleep with me?" Kotetsu asked, resulting in making himself blush. "I mean sleep beside me, fully covered, with no funny business."

At Bunny's confused look, Kotetsy thought that maybe he was the perverted one rather than Bunny.

"Nevermind," Kotetsu sighed and crawled under the covered, holding them up until Bunny joined him.

Getting comfortable took a bit of work; the last time they slept together was when Kotetsu had been sick and already asleep when Bunny snuck in. The first problem was that Bunny seemed to really like the blankets, trying to wrap himself in them like how he covered himself with sand in the tank. Kotetsy had to chuckle at the cute "Bunny Burrito" but then had to convince Bunny to share the blankets if Kotetsu didn't want to freeze in the middle of the night.

Then there was the problem of Kotetsu having not shared a bed in such a long time, he had, over time, migrated to sleeping in the middle of the bed holding a pillow. They tried keeping to their own sides but Kotetsu ended up rolling out of the bed and Bunyn stole the blankets again. After the second roll out, Kotetsu returned to the center of the bed, hoping Bunny would still have enough space, but Bunny just scooted closer, taking the place of Kotetsu's hug pillow. Too tired to care, Kotetsu just hoped he didn't end up squishing Bunny or trying to kick him out of the bed like he sometimes did his pillow.

As it turned out, Bunny's body temperature was a little lower than Kotetsu's, probably why he kept trying to steal the blankets before. But, with Kotetsu beside him, Bunny soon warmed up and dozed off, Kotetsu not too long after him.

In the morning, Bunny was slow to wake up, even after Kotetsu slipped out of the bed to make breakfast. As Kotetsu suspected, Bunny turned his nose up at the eggs but really enjoyed buttered toast with strawberry jam, getting it all over his face in a way that reminded him of Kaede when she was younger. Kotetsu even let Bunny lick off the spoon with some extra jam on it before he got a wash cloth to wipe Bunny's face off with.

After Kotetsu cleaned up breakfast, he presented Bunny the crayons, barely able to keep Bunny from trying to eat them. The look on Bunny's face when Kotetsu demonstrated the red crayon was absolutely priceless, looking at the crayon as if it was gold.

"Okay Bunny, I know you're familiar with being rewarded for good work, just like you got oatmeal and kisses when you were learning the alphabet," Kotetstu started, holding up the crayons but keeping them out of Bunny's reach when the merman tried to grab them. "For each lesson you complete today I will give you one of the crayons."

Kotetsu nearly caved when Bunny pouted at him but managed to hold firm; just barely.

For the red crayon, Kotetsu had Bunny recite the alphabet, which Bunny seemed to remember the order right but had some problems making sound. Once Bunny had the red crayons, he lost interest in the others for a bit, completely absorbed in studying the red crayon, not even interested in using it to color. Bunny felt over the paper, the wax and stared at the words on the wrapper and sniffed it, luckily not trying to eat it again.

About a half an hour passed before Bunny seemed to remember that there were other crayons.

For the green crayon Kotetsu held up samples of Bunny's writing of the alpabet and pointed to the letters out of order, having Bunny say the letter's name and sound. Again Bunny seemed to know them well but had an easier time making sounds this round.

As Bunny gave the green crayon the same treatment as the red, Kotetsu gathered a few items that Kotetsu was confident Bunny knew the words of. When Bunny was ready to try for another crayon, Kotetsu held up an apple and asked Bunny to say what it was.

Though Bunny tried he didn't seem able to mesh the sounds together. Thinking the word was too hard, Kotetsu tried to get Bunny to say "lamp" or "plate" and a few other simple words to no avail.

"You were practicing something the other day, what was that," Kotetsu asked, "Cat soup?"

Again Bunny tried, the sounds not forming right together but Bunny was determined to get this one right.

"Cas-su. Ca-tu. Ko-to."

Bunny swallowed and concentrated a moment before trying again:

"Ko… Te… Tsu…"

Such a bright, proud smile spread across Bunny's face, Kotetsu could only stare at him for a moment. When he recovered enough to breathe, Kotetsu surrendered the remaining crayons and turned away before he died of cute.