"Mukuro!" Tsuna squeaked in alarm, nearly dropping the plate he was drying as the cat casually trotted past the kitchen with a live rabbit held in his mouth. "What on earth…", he trailed off incredulously. "Hold on a second!"

Mukuro actually paused, and so did Tsuna, blinking at him in surprise. That was a rather rare show of obedience. The cat was obviously in a good mood despite the impatient side eye he was directing Tsuna's way.

Tsuna licked his lips nervously. "You're-", he started hesitantly, "-You're not gonna eat it are you…?" He felt obliged to ask, but was instantly chagrined at the flat look the cat turned on him. He cringed apologetically. "Okay, yeah, right…uh-" Tsuna glanced down at the plate and tea-towel he was still holding and turned to put them aside.

He crouched down with an encouraging smile as Mukuro brought the rabbit over for inspection.

It was tiny, either still young or some kind of dwarf breed. Or both. He wouldn't know until at least a few weeks had past. The rabbit didn't seem distressed anyway, which was good. It simply hung there, docile like a scruffed kitten. Which was appropriate, he guessed.

It was quite a pretty rabbit -white, with an oddly familiar pattern of black patches. Its little pink nose twitched as it blinked up at Tsuna with round, inky black eyes. Or rather, eye. The right one was missing, Tsuna noted with a little concern, though it didn't seem to be a recent injury. Still, very cute.

Tsuna smiled back at the rabbit and then looked up to meet Mukuro's heterochromatic gaze. "Boy?" he asked.

Mukuro twitched his head to the side.

"Girl?"

A nod.

"A girl, huh?" Tsuna propped his chin up on one hand. "Didn't take you for the adopting type", he said contemplatively, glancing over the pair.

Now that he looked closer there were actually quite a few similarities. And those markings… no wonder they were familiar, they almost exactly matched up with the cat's.

A grin of delight slowly stretched across Tsuna's lips. "Feel a connection?" he teased good naturedly.

Mukuro narrowed his eyes dangerously as a low displeased sound rumbled in his chest. He immediately turned and continued on without any other acknowledgment, head held up primly and new charge swinging slightly in his grip.

Tsuna giggled after them.

His bob-tailed cat had totally imprinted on a rabbit. How sweet.

…Now he just had to hope that whoever Mukuro had stolen it from didn't come looking for it…

Tsuna opened the door.

The cow waiting on the other side gave a plaintive low.

Tsuna closed the door.

…

… A cow.

There was a cow at his front door.

Last he checked they didn't own a cow.

….

"Mu-m", Tsuna called back into the house.

"Ye-s?" Came her cheerful reply.

"You didn't happen to buy a cow at some point did you? Like, an actual, whole, live cow?"

Nana's laughter floated down the hallway. "Not that I remember, no", she said.

Right. So, just a random passing cow then. Tsuna nodded to himself and cracked the door open again. He peered out at the animal through the slight gap.

The cow turned its head back at the movement and lowed plaintively again, longer and more insistent sounding than the first time.

Tsuna eyed it warily and opened the door just a bit wider. The cow unfortunately seemed to take this as some kind of invitation because it took a sudden step forward as though to enter the house.

Tsuna panicked, and quickly shut the door again, perhaps a little more forcefully than needed.

The cow gave a wounded sounding call from the other sided.

Tsuna frowned guiltily and scrubbed a wary hand over his face. With a sigh he carefully opened the door once more and then quickly slipped outside, closing it behind him while holding a staying hand out at the cow. The animal eagerly butted the end of its nose into his palm. Tsuna squeaked in surprise and jerked the hand back. The cow stepped closer, so Tsuna stepped back, pressing himself against the front door.

The cow was shorter than him – thank god – so it had to tilt its head back to look up at him. Or at least, he assumed it was looking at him. It was covered in long, shaggy black fur from head to toe and the fur fell in a thick fringe over its face, completely obscuring its eyes and making it hard to judge where its attention was at exactly. A pair of relatively short horns curled sideways and up out of the mop of curls, ending in points just sharp enough to make Tsuna nervous as he looked the animal over.

He didn't know anything about cows so couldn't really say but, because of the horns he was going to go ahead and assume for now that it was a male. It was pretty cute, actually, despite the slightly intimidating size.

Tsuna didn't think he had directly interacted with anything larger than his dogs in… well, ever. He had a vague memory of avoiding a pony at a petting zoo after it had started acting skittish at just the sight of him, threatening to throw the kid riding it. But that was about it, since he hadn't felt like testing his luck and started to deliberately avoid anything that would bring him into proximity with larger animals shortly after that.

The cow – Bull? Calf? - pressed its nose into his stomach, and while it snuffled curiously at his T-shirt, Tsuna tentatively laid a hand on top of its head. The cow titled its face up to look at him again and gave a happy sounding huff. Tsuna smiled back at it.

"Sorry about before", he said. "You kind of surprised me. We don't exactly see a lot of cows around here", he informed it conversationally as he glanced down the street both ways. It was just the two of them. "Seriously though-", he looked back down at the cow, "-where did you come from?"

The cow just tilted its head and then butted its snout into him again, presumably asking for more pats. Tsuna obliged with a sigh.

It was relatively easy to coax the animal down the side-way and into the back yard. Then, once it was safely enclosed, Tsuna made a quick retreat through the back door and straight into the kitchen.

"Mum, we have a cow-I mean, a problem. We have a problem, and it's a cow", he stumbled out.

Nana paused what she was doing and turned to look at him properly. "Is that why you were asking about cows earlier?" she asked curiously.

Tsuna nodded. "Yeah. There was a cow out front, alone. I waited a few minutes but nobody came so I took it around to the back yard and I have no idea what to do now", he confessed in a rush.

Nana laid a hand against her cheek. "Oh my, that is a problem."

Tsuna nodded again in agreement.

"I don't know if we have anything that cows usually eat," Nana continued to say and tilted her head with a thoughtful frown. "Hay?"

Tsuna spluttered. "No, I mean, yeah- hay, probably. But I don't think that's the main problem here, mum", he said disbelievingly.

"Oh, you're right. Where's it going to sleep? It wouldn't be practical to keep it indoors." Nana turned back to the countertop and reached for the telephone. "I'll call Miki-san. I think she'll have a good idea of how much space a cow will need to be comfortable. Her auntie had a small farm with some livestock."

Tsuna could only watch mutely as his mother continued to muse aloud about arrangements.

"Mum?" he said weakly.

"Yes?" She smiled, hands pausing on the address book she had been flipping through.

"We can't keep a cow. I mean. We don't even know where it came from", Tsuna reasoned with a slightly strained smile back.

"Of course we can, silly. It's hardly illegal", Nana said, flopping a hand dismissively and resuming the search for her friend's number. "Besides-", she continued to say, "-I was already thinking about finding somewhere a bit roomier. We've been getting tight on space for a while now."

Tsuna stared as she began dialling her friend's number.

Nana paused at the silence and glanced up at him. She smiled softly at the look on his face. "Even if we can't keep it, it wouldn't hurt to ask. You never know. I have a feeling that our family is going to continue growing regardless, and if we have to find a new home so that everyone can be happy, then that's what we'll do."

Tsuna blinked and slowly tilted his head in understanding.

"Okay", he agreed.

Nana beamed and held the phone up to her ear. "Oh, hello? Miki-san-"

A/N: Meryl "Lambo? As a cow? Groundbreaking."

Chrome: broken black mini rex (mini rex is the breed. the broken black part just refers to the marking type)

Lambo: black highland bull (When it comes to highland cattle I'm pretty sure both cows and bulls have horns actually, but Tsuna doesn't know that)

Mukuro: japanese bobtail

also side note, just in case, rabbits are not designed to be carried around by the scruff. I've been bending the rules in this fic for convenience. Like, I mean, obviously? But yeah, please never attempt to pick up a rabbit like that in real life. Not good.

Shout out to all the people who have shown this fic love over the years! And a big thank you to everyone who has stuck with it despite my ridiculously inconsistent updates! Your continued support really does give me the motivation to keep writing, so seriously, thank you.

Here's another chapter, I hope you enjoyed it.