A light cherry blossom danced through the wind, slowly fluttering past Yutaka Watari's window. Watari followed it with his eyes for a brief moment before he held his hand out of the open window and caught the petal deftly between two long fingers. With a crooked smile, Watari walked back to his cluttered desk, and unscrewed a jar sitting on it with his free hand. He dropped the petal in it, screwing the cap back on and lifting the glass jar eye level.

The jar, which Watari dug out of his lab supplies, was filled with the delicate pink petals. It held a little note taped to the side, scrawled on which was the number "999" The scientist ripped the note off, and wrote a new number upon the jar, "1000"

"Yutaka, that was about time" Watari mumbled to himself, throwing himself in the comfortable chair in front of his computer. He turned the jar over in his hands, admiring the collection of petals, looking still as if they had just broke free of their branches. He waved the jar in front of his dozing owl. "003...1000 petals, just as I have promised!" Watari informed his owl triumphantly.

003 opened an eye, ruffling her feathers with irritation. She gave a hoot sounding like "Good for you" and promptly returned to her dozing. Watari eyed her indignantly. "Well, you be that way 003, and I'll tell you what happens when I get back, all right?" he told his owl.

"But..." he continued, turning his eyes back to the jar. "Tatsumi told me to collect these ages ago. He'll probably just shrug off any promise he made, but it's worth a shot I suppose, eh 003?"

She hooted sleepily again, telling him to get going.

"All right, I am off" Watari told her, hastily rebraiding his hair and cleaning his glasses on his labcoat. Grabbing the jar, he gave his owl a cheery wave and exited the lab.

Turning the jar nervously over in his hands, the scientist entered the staff room, quickly taking inventory of all the people inside. Terazuma was there, complaining to his partner Wakaba, who just nodded in silent responses. Tsuzuki and Hisoka sat a couple of chairs away from the other pair. Hisoka sipped a cup of tea wearily, writing figures down on his paperwork while Tsuzuki ate busily, dropping crumbs on his own late work.

All four looked up when Watari stepped inside, either waving cheerfully, or nodding their greetings.

Watari waved back, and sat inbetween the two pairs, thumping the jar down with a flourish. Tsuzuki raised an eyebrow, leaning over to look at the jar more closely. "Hey, Watari" he said, wiping crumbs off his mouth, "what's that for?"

"This jar will allow me to get answers from Tatsumi" Watari said brightly. "I asked him what he wanted or missed the most, and all he said was":

Watari leaned back from the table, sitting up with impeccable posture, and throwing his braid over his shoulder. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Trying his best to put on a look of irritation, Watari said stiffly, without his kansai accent "When you put one-thousand cherry blossom petals in a jar without them losing their color will I tell you anything. Back to work"

Tsuzuki giggled, "That's a great impression Watari!"

Watari leaned forward again, grinning mischeviously. "So, I did. And hopefully he will remember, and tell me"

Wakaba smiled. "It'll be an interesting response" she said. "Good luck with getting Tatsumi to tell you!"

"Tell you what?"

The employees spun to see the topic of their conversation standing irritably in the doorway. One arm was across his chest, the other was pushing his glasses up his nose, above suspicious eyes.

"I don't remember having staff breaks this long" the secretary said stiffly. "Nor do I approve of them being filled with gossip"

Tsuzuki gave Tatsumi a wide stupid grin. "We weren't gossiping" he said brightly. "We were just...conversing"

Hisoka caught himself nearly snorting in his tea, with his partner's response. Gaining composure, he coughed politely. "I apologize, Tsuzuki and I were just on our way back to complete our paperwork" Hisoka stood, draining the remainder of his tea. Grabbing his parter by the arm he dragged him up and toward the exit. "Let's go, you idiot" he mumbled lowly.

Tatsumi stepped aside to let them pass, and turned his eyes on the remaining employees. "Well? Have you completed your work?"

Wakaba smiled "Yes, we have. We'll drop it off by your office right now" She stood. "We better get going, Hajime-chan"

Terazuma grumbled, but stood anyway. After they had passed, Tatsumi turned to Watari, who lounged on a chair smiling nervously. Regardless of the friendship he had with Tatsumi, the secretary was still a man never to be crossed. Watari decided not to beat around the bush as he usually did, but just go straight to the point.

"Watari, you aren't getting paid to sit here and be idle" Tatsumi barked. He noticed the jar in Watari's hands. "What's that? New experiment?"

The scientist shook his head, and stood, extending the jar out. "Remember you told me you would tell me what you most wanted or missed if I collected 1000 cherry blossom petals?"

Tatsumi looked down at the jar suspiciously, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I don't recall" he replied stiffly.

Watari pushed the jar into Tatsumi's hands. "Well, I do!" he exclaimed. "Here, 1000. I'll get back to work now, but you promised me a response!"

Watari emphasized the word 'promise'. He already knew Tatsumi was quite noble when it came to things like that.

With a nervous grin, Watari avoided Tatsumi's stern blue eyes as he made his way toward the exit.

Tatsumi frowned, turning the jar over in his hands, thinking. Finally he looked up. "I'll think about it, Watari. Now back to work, I don't have time to idly sit by and collect petal s and you can't afford such time either!"

Watari grinned, and walked briskly out, down the hall to his lab again. Tatsumi remained behind, frowning. He held the petals to his eyes for a moment before briskly turning on his heel back toward his office, muttering "If there aren't one-thousand petals in here, Watari is getting cut from his paycheck"

Ill get the next chapter up in a couple of days. If you have any comments, please review. It would really help me out, thank you ;;