Disclaimer: I own a kitty! o.O Nothing more than a kitty... o.o

Author's Note(s): Heh... Hi guys! I really should be ducking for cover or something, right? Yeah... it's been... quite a long time hasn't it folks? Yup, sure has. I'm not even going to start making excuses, because all the excuses I have wouldn't add up to the laziness that came over me. I have been writing though! Just not for this fic here. Now that all my holiday inspirations are done with, I decided to settle down and come back to my old love. This chapter isn't as funny as ones before, but it is a tab bit more romantic. I apologize for any errors in advance, and for my extremely late update.

Enjoy!

Chapter 7:

Sirens Of Unanswered Questions

All they heard was sirens as they rounded the corner in the opposing direction. The squeal of scorching rubber steaming on the pitch pavement. The pitter-pat of the loud, stomping footsteps, fleeing the sirens in a deadly game of pursuit. Curious glances from innocent citizens watching the event unfold followed them, before returning to their usual tasks.

Naota stumbled, and his breath caught in his throat as Haruko yanked on his arm, pulling him backward and down to the rocky ground below them. He crawled up to her, and settled his back against the peeling spinach green paint of the ancient dumpster nestled in the dark alley behind the old Chinese restaurant. He leaned his head back against the over sized garbage can, pressing his raven hair into the rusted metal.

The sirens drew closer. Naota held his breath.

Closer. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Yet still closer, until!... They flew right pasted them. Haruko smirked.

"Heh, stupid cops! Run littles piggies, RUN!" Haruko laughed after the sirens had faded. Naota heaved his chest up and down, trying to regain the strength to breathe.

"Are you crazy!" he finally blurted out between hard, labored breaths. The cold air hitch-hiked a ride down his tongue to his throat, where it created tiny icicles that slowly melted and dripped down to his heart.

Haruko cocked an eyebrow and gave him a blank look.

"Oh, right. How could I have forgotten?" Naota rolled his eyes and mentally slapped himself upside the head. She actually was crazy. Insane was a better word though.

"Hollow head," she murmured, tilting her head toward him and smiling sweetly.

"Ugh, whatever!" He turned his head away from her and by the time he looked back, he only saw her white boot that snugly fit around her tight black nylons. He gazed up to her face, which was pointed toward the sky. She's probably thinking about Atomsk again... Naota thought to himself with a sigh. He locked his focus onto a rock that lay on the ground next to him, not wanting to think about his competition.

He stood up next to her and started walking away.

"Where ya goin' Ta-kun?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.

He stopped, and she noticed his head droop.

She raised an eyebrow, gave him a long look. From the back she could see right through him. He was empty and saddened by that emptiness. It was the same hollow soul she had left him with seven years before. She then walked past him.

"C'mon, we gotta find a phone," she said.

"Huh?"

"Need to call Mon-Chan so we can get our stuff outta the hotel," she replied.

"Whattaya mean we can't sell any tickets!" Kitsurabami screamed into the telephone receiver, her straw yellow hair a mangled mess, and circles under her eyes from a lack of sleep. She had been up all night on the phone, arranging Canti's next performance. All night. No pain, no gain, she kept reminding herself.

Canti patted her on the shoulder as her eyebrows drew closer together, then she let out a howl of frustration as she slammed the phone onto the table.

"It'll be okay," bright words were typed out onto Canti's T.V. screen.

"No it won't!" she retorted. "We need to find a way to sell out our next show, or we'll be canceled!"

Canti nodded. Then, for the first time in a long while, a light bulb went off inside his head.

"Let's find Mamimi."

"What?" Kitsurabami asked through her relentless pouting lips, staring up at the robot.

"A motel?" Haruko questioned in an unimpressed tone, her hand on her hip with a snotty turn to her lips.

Naota lugged mounds of suitcases through the door passed her, lifted them off the dingy tan carpet, and shoved them onto the neatly made bed that was liable to be infested with an overly friendly family of cockroaches.

"This place smells," she commented in a nosily voice, pinching her nostrils together with her forefinger and thumb.

"Shut up Haruko," he said over his shoulder at her. He took a whiff of the same smell she was talking about, and he recoiled noticeably, scrunching his nose into his face. "Ew... " He realized he was agreeing with her, and turned his back to her once again, trying to shield himself from the stench, and from her knowing glance. "Well, it's your fault that we're here anyway."

"Always my fault, huh?"

"This time it is at least." He sighed and sat down on the dirty flower designed bedspread. The springs complained with a fury against his weight. "If you hadn't gone berserk over that dumb game then we'd still be in the hotel. Why'd you freak out anyway?"

"Just to annoy you Ta-kun," she said, plopping down next to him.

He grunted and stared at the floor.

"So, you were 'going to break up with her anyway?'" she asked, looking at his profile.

"Hmm?" he muttered, looking at her lazily.

"You and Eri-San," she said.

He groaned and rubbed his temples. "I took care of it."

"Details please."

"I said that I took care of it!" he snapped in frustration.

Haruko placed her slender hands on his shoulders and kissed his neck. "Fine don't tell me. But don't expect answers from me until I get answer I like out of you," she said persuasively. He mumbled an unintelligible word under his breath. She smiled.

"What question would I ask you?"

She whistled, looking away and pretending to be ignoring him.

Naota sighed. "What ever."

"So... next subject," she changed her voice slightly away from her previously sexual tone to her casual speaking. "Why didn't you come get me?"

He blinked and raised an eyebrow, turning to face her, with confusion contorting his face.

"I mean... it's not like it was impossible," she added, ignoring his question.

"What are you talking about?" Naota inquired, completely lost. He was staring directly at her, and he had no clue where she was.

"How long did you have the Vespa, Ta-kun?" she mumbled so he could barely hear her.

He thought about this for a long moment. He didn't understand why her line of questioning was on this topic, but answered anyway. "About four years."

"Then why?" she asked in a neutral voice that scared him.

"Then WHAT!" He stood up off the bed with a jolt and whipped around to look at her, his breathing reckless and sharp.

"Then..." Haruko spoke softly. Her gaze retreated from his face and focused on the carpet. "Then why didn't you come get me!"

"What are you talking about!" he exploded with a fiery eruption of frustration and confusion.

"You didn't even try..."

"What the hell was I supposed to do!" he screamed with fury.

"Anything," she said plainly, lacking any emotion behind her voice.

"You expected me to come and get you!" he yelled, flabbergasted.

"I expected you to try."

"So what?... I was supposed to hop on my Vespa and run around the ENTIRE universe, looking for you!" She was insane. He knew she was crazy. Everyone was crazy. How could they expect so much from him? Why would they expect so much from him?

"Something like that, yes." The inter-workings of Haruko's complicated mind were shown out to him in a cluster.

"You're crazy, you know that?" he asked, a serious note ringing in his tone. "I mean it. You are."

"I know it better than anyone." She laid back on the bed, snatching a pillow and placing it under her head. She sighed and stared at the ceiling in a daze.

"What do you want from me?" He swallowed hard, not really wanting to know the answer. For all that was holy and good, he prayed that she wouldn't say what she had before. He pleaded with god that she wouldn't say she came all the way back here... just to use his head.

"When I left here, you were just a kid Ta-kun," she rambled. Though... her ramblings usually had a hidden point, but you had to be a detective to scope it out.

"What does that have to do with anything?" He glanced down at her next to him, her flat midriff revealed as she stretched out on the bed.

"I couldn't stay and watch Atomsk get away." She yawned and cracked her knuckles, still too stubborn to provide him with the satisfaction of looking his way.

"Answer my question!" he ordered in a stern matter. He would have no more of her games. Of her lies. Of her tricks. Of her... false love.

"I couldn't take you with me, you would have only got in the way."

"What the heck is wrong with you!" he demanded, staring down at her like she was a patient in the hospital. What was up with her now? Why was she acting so strange? Where was her mind now?

"You see Ta-kun... I did you a favor," she continued on in her own little world, her eyes glazed over as she mentally noted that the dots on the ceiling did not follow a pattern.

"I don't care!" he exploded and shook her arm in a desperate struggle to bring her out of her current state.

"That's all I wanted," she said. She looked at him, straight in the eye for the first time that whole day. For the first time in what seemed like forever to him.

"What?" he asked, finding his breath catching in his throat.

"I wanted someone who cared." The glint in her eyes as she spoke was different from any he had ever seen in her before. The dim lighting of her face highlighted the soft features of her baby-lie cheeks and milky clean skin.

"All you wanted was someone who cared," he repeated like he was in a dream. She was different from any other he had ever laid his eyes on. He swallowed and closed his eyes momentarily, just long enough to pin her face at that very second down into his memory banks forever. He opened his eyes, and to his surprise, and great gratitude, she was still there. The same twinkle in her eyes that was there in truth.

For the first time in their relationship, she had shared something with him. Something dear to her. Something that no one else knew. Something that made everything come together like glue.

"But Haruko..." he started, his voice as delicate as a flower petal in the rain. "I do care about you."

She once again, turned her gaze astray.

"And you don't believe me..."

He stood up.

Her eyes followed.

He extended his hand to her, and blindly, she took it in her own.

"Come with me."

Yeah... anyway, I'll do my best to pop the next chapter out ASAP! Oh yeah, while your reading this fic of mine, why not go and check out my reviewers fics? How about checking out my new FLCL High school fic I just started? Hmm? C'mon! Give 'em a chance! w00t.

As always, a big, huge, GI-normous Thank you to all my faithful reviewers out there!

Review please.