It wasn't long before Haruka was parking her car back in the hotel lot again. This time she was greeted only with a warm smile from the receptionist as she followed Michiru through the lobby. During the elevator ride she pondered the aqua haired musician. Michiru was nice, and seemed very excepting, but still Haruka knew nothing about her. Oddly though she was starting to feel like they were old friends.
Minutes later she was standing in the main room of Michiru's hotel suite, listening to a muffled, one-way conversation through the door. She continued to stand as she was, staring at a wall while the other woman's voice floated softly through the door.
"T-kun, you better be nice or no treat tonight." Michiru's voice said in a soft command. Haruka tried not to think too much about the comment as she heard Michiru call through the door to her. "Ready?"
"Um, okay." Haruka responded, clearly confused. Barely had the words left her mouth when the door opened and a large, mostly brown looking blur shot over to tackle the blonde. She was on the ground looking up at a very friendly German Shepard as it braced two paws on her shoulders and its tail wagged happily. Michiru's giggling face appeared over the dog as Haruka started to realize what just happened.
"He seems to like you, Ten'ou-san." Michiru stated as she started to shoe him off their guest. She gave a concerned look toward the blonde sprawled across the floor of the suite. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, thank you Kaioh-san." Haruka got up to knell in front of the dog. It wagged its tail even faster as she ruffled the fur on its head and scratched behind both ears. "And what, sir, if I may ask is your name?"
"This is Triton." Michiru smiled as she knelt next to Haruka. She took over scratching behind one ear, as Triton seemed to be on cloud 9 from all the attention. "He doesn't normally warm up so quickly to guests. He is very friendly but normally he sniffs people for several minutes before letting them pet him."
"I must be special then." Haruka smiled and looked back at Triton. Her next words, though spoken as seriously as possible, earned a new set of giggles from Michiru. "I'm honored, T-kun."
After an entire day spent with her new employer Haruka drove home. As she entered the house she couldn't help but grin, things just seemed happy today. She walked into the kitchen, looking for Jill. When there was no sign of the other woman there she looked into each room. In their bedroom she found a note on the covers.
"Went out with a friend, don't wait up. Jill." Haruka read the note out loud. She sat down on the bed, discarding the note. "Well, she has been doing that a lot lately."
Almost as if to answer her statement a meow was heard from under the bed. Haruka looked down to see a bluish-gray cat now sitting between her feet. The cat was eight years old, but in many ways she still looked like a kitten.
"Hello there, Wind-chaser." She smiled as she picked up the cat, placing it gently on her lap. Wind-chaser curled up and began to purr. "Did you behave for Jill today?"
Haruka laughed when the cat stopped purring and tensed. For some reason her cat seemed to hate her wife. Jill refused to even try to feed her anymore, since Wind-chaser wouldn't eat anything she'd touched. It had been like this ever since she and Jill moved in together. At first Jill tried to bribe the cat with everything from fish to ice cream. She even bought toys and put catnip on them, but Wind would not touch anything Jill gave her. For some reason the cat just didn't like her. After about a year or two Jill just gave up.
One of Haruka's friends compared it to a child and a new stepparent, saying that maybe the cat liked a pervious woman Haruka had been involved with. Haruka shook her head again, knowing that she had gotten Wind just months before meeting Jill; there were no women in that time. Wind seemed to dislike all of Jill's friends as well. Of those friends Haruka introduced her to Wind only watched females. She showed neither like nor dislike, but avoided touching them. Her male friends however, they all loved Wind-Chaser. She would gladly jump into their laps and purr to her hearts content.
Recently, however, Wind had gone beyond dislike or distance with Jill. In fact one morning she'd actually bitten Jill. Haruka groaned at the thought. She had argued with Jill after about getting rid of Wind. Haruka wasn't willing to just throw away her pet of almost eight years, just because it misbehaved when it was around Jill.
"What is it you dislike about her so much, Wind-chan?" Haruka spoke softly. She gently ran her hand over the cats fur, electing a new round of purring. "And why do you like her even less recently?"
After another few minutes Haruka finally gave up trying to analyze Wind's behavior. She stood, placing Wind on her shoulder as she got to her feet, and walked back down stairs to the kitchen. Opening a cupboard she first retrieved a can of cat food for Wind's diner, feeding the hungry cat first, then started to look around.
"Ramen, spaghetti, chicken soup, potato soup?" She looked back down at Wind, the cat looked up from its food to give its master an odd look. The cat didn't seem to like those choices either. "To the fridge!"
Across the city Michiru followed Triton down the side walk as the famed nightlife of Las Vegas began to come out. She was in a relatively quiet area of town, and was glad to be away from most of the casinos. Still, as she walked she heard sirens and stopped to watch a police car barrel down the street toward an unknown location.
"You know T-kun, I think I read some where that Nevada has the highest crime rate in the US." The aqua hair woman commented to the German Shepard before they continued their walk.
As the sun fully set in the distance Michiru began to think over the events of the day. She was still very surprised by Triton's reaction to Haruka, after all Triton tended to be protective of his mistress. He wasn't a mean dog by far, but even as they walked down the street he strayed from any stranger who stopped to speak to her. Triton stayed just out their reach as they complemented him, watching their every move for any threat to Michiru.
When Howard had entered the suite that morning he had sniffed the older man for nearly ten minutes, and that was having seen him just the day before. It was very much like having a four-legged bodyguard. Yet later that day he'd even tried to play with Haruka.
"You'd like it if Ten'ou-san joined us for the tour, wouldn't you?" She asked the dog as they waited at a light. His answer was one short, happy sounding bark, leaving his mistress to wonder how much he truly understood.
As they were crossing the street a woman bumped into Michiru and she nearly lost her balance. They were in the middle of the inner section and she had to grab onto the American's arm to stay on her feet.
"I'm sorry." Michiru said quickly as the woman helped to steady her, a slightly taller young man stood behind her. "I was distracted."
"Don't worry about it." The American woman smiled, her brown eyes glancing down at Triton who was growling at her. She spoke to the dog a bit nervously. "Nice doggy."
"Triton!" Michiru scolded the dog and he became quiet again but still watched the other woman with strangely suspicious eyes. She looked back up as they reached the other side of the street. The woman and her companion turned a different way and Michiru started back toward the hotel. She kept wondering why that woman seemed so familiar to her but couldn't come up with an answer.
AN.
I am going to bring this chapter out early, due to the fact that it is mostly about their pets and I want to move on to the next chapter. Sorry if I seem to have rambled about Triton and Wind-chaser.