Characters: The Cat King, Natori, a bit of Natoru at the end
Pairings: None, but I hope you're prepared for a tender heart-to-heart where one of the participants is the Cat King. Also the word 'sexier' is used to describe the Cat King in this chapter and even if you interpret it as being said in jest, I still apologize for what my hands have wrought
Notes: holy cow i actually finished this fic. Amazing. also i'm Mad that it took me like eight months or something to finish the second chapter and upload it, but then i finished the third one and posted it in. what. two, three weeks? makes perfect sense
Chapter 3: In Which A Torch Is Passed
It's relatively simple to divvy up their tasty treasures— all their time together has done little to meld their individual tastes in food; it's still as different as the day they'd met. The king is quick to pry the lid off his plastic bowl, eyeing the broth and plethora of vegetables and other soup fillings with a childish greed.
"Shoulda found a place nearby and just had a midnight picnic in the human world. 'S a little cold," he complains lightly.
"Or you could perhaps leave it sealed and refrain from sneaking a fish-cake every ten minutes," Natori remarks primly, if a little absently.
"Bah, let me live a little, Natty."
Natori gives a cool chuckle but otherwise doesn't outright respond, settling down beside the king with some chicken skin yakitori (which is, as the king had complained, not quite as fresh as one might hope) now that the bag is empty.
That this is a midnight snack is vastly more difficult to fathom in the eternal noontime of the Cat Kingdom, even in the normally frenzied kitchen which currently lies empty and abandoned, allowing the two of them to eat in peace.
It doesn't take long for Natori to pick up on the fact that the king wants to say something, but that he hasn't spoken up with his usual blunt observations means he's clearly not certain how to say what's on his mind, eyes lowered to a strawberry cake he's unwrapping (his bowl of oden lies near-abandoned off to his side). Natori doesn't rush him, content with leeching some of the warmth from the stove he'd settled against.
When Claudius does start speaking, that reservation doesn't dissipate.
"...was it something you said in the heat of the moment? That you'd join me in retirement?"
That's… quite at odds with any of the topics Natori had expected, and he's momentarily not sure how to respond. The yakitori is laid in his lap (despite the faint strings of protest that sound suspiciously close to his grandmother echoing distantly somewhere in his head).
"Well… i-it was fairly impulsive of me," Natori admits quietly. "But I wouldn't say I'm having second thoughts, I suppose."
Then, after regarding the king in silence for a timid moment, "...why do you ask, sire?"
Claudius lifts his head, but he looks past Natori, out at the wall through the open door beside him. His expression and eyes are unusually blank, leaving Natori no clues as to what he must be thinking to have chosen this topic. Eventually, he shrugs, picking up the bowl of oden again.
"Dunno. Felt curious about it."
Natori thinks for a minute. "Did you expect me to stay behind?"
"Yeh. Got kinda surprised when you said you'd quit with me," the king admits readily, nonchalantly fishing a radish out of his broth. "Thought you'd try to go for three or something, with Lune coming up on the throne."
"Ha," Natori says, but it's quiet and breathy, just a nervous space-filler as opposed to a bona fide laugh; his gaze is averted to fix rather obstinately on some imperfection in the stone floor (the edge of the rug doesn't match up to the line of the stone square, he notes absently).
It is something he'd thought of— that he could have been able to claim the spot of advisor through three different generations of the same family, and what pride such a claim would bring him! What prestige! ...but in the end, it hadn't been Lune that he'd seen needing his assistance, and he would always follow where he was truly needed.
So, hesitantly, unused to this amount of direct intimacy when speaking aloud to his employer (or, indeed, anyone), "You're my king, sire. I do believe it may stay that way, despite everything."
So much tends to remain unspoken between them; Natori thinks now that he may dare to say he's spent quite little time in the last several years even contemplating the ways in which their relationship works. Nor how it doesn't. What is simply understood. What and who gives and takes. All very important matters that must have been long decided and assigned. Like the tide, he supposes it's all quite a natural push and pull by this point. He has always been the one to dutifully trail after Claudius, to sweep up the unsightly disarray while simultaneously scrutinizing the path ahead. Natori has always been the keeper, the caretaker. And he's enjoyed his position, even during those times he's found himself struggling to keep up.
Now, though, something is... changing. He hadn't been able to quite identify it until the fiasco with Miss Haru and the baron's Cat Bureau. Not until he'd watched in frozen panic as his old friend scaled a castle wall with nothing but his own claws and an inordinate amount of unbridled determination, all to pick a fight he had little hope of winning. Not until he'd come across the king forlornly slumped in apparent defeat on one of the tower's catwalks, curiously half-shaven and passively, meekly waiting for someone to come fetch him.
Had he assumed that someone would be Natori?
Now more than ever, a keeper is necessary, and in a perhaps primordial part of himself, Natori realizes he is only too happy to continue playing the part.
Through this lengthy silence, the king has finished up the last of his broth with all his usual attendant... gracelessness. He seems to then set his sights on Natori's half-eaten yakitori (neglected during his rumination on the topic at hand), which the other cat resignedly surrenders. Instead, Natori turns to open the rice ball he'd requested.
"...It's good you're here, Natty," the king then responds abruptly, distracting him.
When it seems he isn't going to continue, to clarify or explain or even backtrack in a fluster, Natori only fixes the other cat with an almost helpless smile, an earnest one. Self-deprecating, even, though he doesn't explicitly mean it to be. "I'm glad you feel that way, sire."
Claudius sniffs once, working his mouth like he's uncharacteristically tasting his words before responding, and—
And one of the countless doors to the kitchen creaks open.
It's Natoru, evidently sneaking into the kitchen to get a 'midnight' snack herself. It's when she spies the two of them that her secretive manner drops, however, leaving her to simply stare at her two superiors and the array of food wrappers surrounding them.
"You went to the human world without me?" Natoru questions plaintively. "And you didn't even bring back something tasty for me? An' all this time I thought we were friends…"
"Sounds like a second trip in the making, babe—" The Cat King starts. Natoru lights up like a human child on their way to an amusement park.
Natori, on the other hand, glances to the still untouched onigiri in his paws (this one happens to be filled with aged salmon— his favorite flavor, of course), mourns it for a full thirty seconds, and then jumps in to be the ever-suffering voice of reason, quickly handing it over to Natoru.
"Please be reasonable, you two— I'm not certain Miss Haru will be amenable to lending her assistance any more tonight." Or ever again, if her reaction to the king's last words are anything to go by.
He ignores Natoru's shrill complaint of, "You guys went to visit Miss Haru without me, too?"—which is just as well, as her attention fixates on the rice ball shortly after.
At least this protest gets through to the king… for once. He yawns, picking himself up off the ground to stretch for good measure.
"Guess that's a good point." He sounds lost, at least for a moment, but it's vanished by the time he adds, "There's always tomorrow night, though. Heh."
Before Natori can linger on that for too long and inevitably argue against this habit-in-the-making, Natoru, having already gleefully devoured Natori's sacrifice favorite onigiri, pipes up.
"You know, if you guys keep running off to the human world on your own, you won't even need me anymore. I'll be all out of a job, poor me."
"Now, now," Natori starts primly. "You know as well as we do that the future of your position is out of our hands now." Then, relenting, "But the prince is bound to find other duties for you. Just because you'll have less opportunity to scope out the best ikayaki stands doesn't mean you're going to be unceremoniously fired."
"It's just too bad." Natoru sighs. "It's about to start getting cold in the human world— I can't bear to think of all the yakiimo I'm going to miss out on!"
Natori shakes his head in evident disappointment at her. "I just don't understand what it is about the way human street vendors cook their food that has you so enamored with them. There's no reason why Cook can't grill a sweet potato for you."
"It's just not the same," Natoru whines.
"You just don't get it, Natty," the king suddenly decides to interject, much like he had earlier with Haru. "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey." Spoken in a half-awed tone that tells Natori the other cat is rather pleased with his pithy adage.
Natoru certainly is, at least, poised perhaps to clap and nodding fervently in approval.
"...Yes. So they say," Natori eventually settles on, feeling under pressure to agree with the two who are now looking at him expectantly.
"Besides, my job security's nowhere near as secure as you make it sound, Natori— Lune's all grown up, and he has Yuki to keep him in line," Natoru retorts sullenly, in a way that was clearly meant facetiously, and yet... the reminder seems to give them all three pause. Natori stares at her from his spot on the floor, but he doesn't truly see her. His gaze feels wavery, flickering, remembering the hazy visage of a tiny, enthusiastic kitten who had so often run to him with dirty paws, clutching his latest squirmy find like a precious treasure. And now he's so tall. He's getting married, and taking on such big, big responsibilities.
He looks briefly to the king, noticing perhaps the same lost confusion in his own eyes, and quickly averts his gaze.
"Yeh," Claudius eventually responds, but his voice sounds clipped and thick. "Lune's all grown up, huh."
"He is," Natori agrees with something of a helpless laugh, still staring resolutely at the floor.
"We should toast to Lune. I meant what I said earlier, an' no one should doubt it— Lune's a five-star son, and he's gonna make a groovy king. He doesn't need the extra luck, but it can't hurt."
"Ooh, ooh, I saw some lavender wine in here the other day— let me see if I can find it again—" Natoru patters to one of the nearby pantries, tossing the doors open and… well, making a mess of its contents, most likely. When she comes back with the dark bottle, it's under the reproachful gaze of Natori, though as per usual she seems no more concerned with his disapproval than she might the distant noise of a truck backfiring. He sighs and lets it rest.
When they raise their mismatched glasses, it seems the three of them find themselves at something of a loss for words, glancing between each other and the misshapen triangle their glasses are forming. It's Natoru, eventually, who decides to throw her hat in the ring and get the ball rolling, and roll it certainly does.
"To Lune, who's all grown up—"
"And Miss Yuki, heaven help her—"
"What's that supposed to mean, babe..?"
"And also to us, because Lune grew up and we turned into old farts—"
"I'm not old," the king predictably protests.
"Okay, Natori became more of an old fart than he already was and you and me only got sexier."
"That's better."
And, with a faintly disgruntled noise from ever-tolerant Natori, the three of them down their shot.