Author's Notes: Referring to the story: I've decided to up Nagi's age from twelve to thirteen. It gives him more time with Esset and should come to about the right age to the anime when Weiss comes in.

Referring to the rest of life: I've take up watercolor painting for lack of any other mediums. I've also been doing a lot of abstract, virtually meaningless, but beautiful works with pencil, charcoal, marker and pen. All of this, plus studying my Political Ideologies textbook, reading a couple of the many half-finished recreational books, and writing is to avoid working on the comic.

I really hate my writer's interest in a plot. We don't even have all the characters up yet, my drawing still hasn't improved much, and I'm rather more interested in one-liners and comics with amusing punch lines to draw in readers. A plot, in my belief, would simply bore the public.

I'm too lazy to do it myself, though. I think I haven't 'fired' her because she constantly reminds me to work (which I'm grateful for, even though at the time you wouldn't think so) and maintains the site. I'm not computer-friendly beyond managing minor, simple things, like a Xanga, a MySpace (cringe), a Gaia account and and my enormous collection of bookmarks to nearly a hundred different webcomics.

Yeah, its summer and I have no life. Just wait until the school year starts, and then I'll have too much.

Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to Scotty, my writer. Love ya, babes, no matter how much I complain about you. That and you refuse to read this shit. (laughs)

2

Me and the Minibar:

Bring two Pre Fix dinners up
I'll unwrap the plastic cups
It's just us my love
It's just us my love

I will make the room up nice
Put your insides all on ice
It was real true love
It was real true love

Close all the windows
Put signs on the handles
And strip down to my dun-dun-duns
You have gone so far
You have gone so far

And tonight
Its just me and the minibar

Candles from the Wal-Mart that
Every city's got to have
That I bought last night
That I bought last night

I was so excited to
Do such normal things with you
When you left last night
With your toothbrush dry

No such details will spoil my plan
That is the kind of girl I am
HA HA HA

Can you hear room 318?
Man they're really happening
They're a wild bunch
They're a wild bunch
But if they just knew
What my night was coming to
God would they vomit and run
You have gone so far
You have gone too far
So tonight
It's just me and the minibar
Nobody else
And I sing at the top of my lungs
Happy birthday us
Happy birthday us...

Dresden Dolls
"Yes, Virginia…"

February, coldest damn month of the year.

Why on earth do people celebrate Valentine's day as a romantic holiday when people are the most unattractive (turtlenecks are not sexy, no matter what anyone says (who says that, anyway?)) is beyond me. Personally, I think the practice of beaheading would be more appropriate according to Catholic legend.

After all, St. Valentine was beheaded.

Now that is romantic, much the same way shooting someone with your lover's hand wrapped around your own is romantic. After that you go home, have a good fuck and go to bed happy. You wake up the next day and pretend the other doesn't exist.

About as romantic as a married couple.

Ugh, no wonder Schuldig sleeps around so much. Well, the more power to him.

If he brings some parasite home I'll kill him.

February is also the month of Nagi's birthday. Congratulations, boy, you've made it one more year. You'll be rewarded with zits, voice changes, immortally incompetent hair growth, hormones out your ear and a brand new gun to take it all out on humanity. It's a Beretta and beautiful in its simple, small existence. You'll also get a shirt you'll never wear and, of all things, a trip to the pet store.

I wanted to get him a puppy. I like dogs. Dogs are sweet pets, a little demanding, but every boy should have one, shouldn't they? I used to have a dog in Ireland, a terrier-based mutt that had simply followed Valerie and me home when I was six. His name was Malcom X in a spur of the moment pick out of a history book leftover from my father's college days. I never did get the context until after my fifteenth birthday, when we got our first computer and I did a little research.

Malcom X…no wonder my parents looked on in horror whenever that dog ran a cat up the tree in our front yard.

Brad drove us to the store and dumped us. Apparently he had a meeting, or maybe he just wanted to go home and work on schematics…or meditate. It didn't matter. He told us not to get anything that could be potentially caught in the wild and nothing too expensive. Schuldig immediately suggested we pick up a bunch of snakes and dump them in Crawford's dresser drawers and got a stern look for his audacity.

Nagi, shy boy that he is, had to be literally shoved into the store. He really doesn't like people. They think he's so adorable (their words, not mine), and they can't get enough of his eyes. The attention just makes him withdraw more, especially when two Gaijin are escorting him. I'm bad enough as it is, I have yet to see anyone else in the world who looks even remotely like me, but Schuldig's red hair is the fascination of almost every single being on the island. He just soaks up the attention, thrives like a weed and demands more. He adores crowds that admire him.

I get lost in the store, even though it isn't very large. I'm tapping on the glass of a black lab pup when Nagi comes up to me and grabs my hand, dragging me off to another, smellier part of the store. He points into a glass cage at the fluttering wings inside and I smile. Perfect. Nagi does seem a bit of the bird type.

A pretty little cockatoo whistles at us and I ask the attendant to bring it out for Nagi to see. She nods and holds the animal out for Nagi to pet. It bites him and flinches when Nagi yelps in surprise, but I tell him it's supposed to bite.

"It's just tasting you," I explain, holding my finger out for the bird to nip. Once it realizes I'm okay it lets me pet it. Nagi cocks his head slightly.

"Why?"

"I guess it's how they see if you're a good person or bad. I don't know much about birds."

Val liked birds…

"Good or bad?"

"Just try again. It's very soft."

He reaches out but the bird bites again and he pulls his hand away and shakes his head. I thank the woman as she puts it back and she smiles, telling us they have many other birds.

"I don't think I want a bird, Farfarello," he says softly, ignoring the woman entirely simply because she is unfamiliar. I nod to her slightly, thank her again and led the boy away from the cages of squawking birds.

"I would like a pet," he continues once we've gone to another part of the store, "But I really don't know which."

I look over at the tanks lining the walls, filled to the brim with bubbling, brightly colored fish.

"We'll narrow it down then. No birds. We've already done that one. I refuse to clean a fish tank, so no to that too. How about a dog?"

"We'd have to take it out in all kinds of weather," the boy reasons. I sigh and nod, not liking the idea either.

"A reptile?"

"I hate snakes. They used them at…"

I nod, shuttering at the thought of what they'd done with them…

Those poor snakes, those poor boys…

"How about a tarantula? Schu hates spiders. It's a guarantee he'd stay out of your room if you got one."

"No…just no."

I laugh.

"How about a cat?" Schuldig's voice asks as he emerges from behind a layer of shelves, "Farfarello has always had a fondness for cats. I have to admit, I rather like them too."

"Emulate and like are very far apart on the spectrum, Schuldig."

"I saw some rather nice-looking ones just a minute ago. Plus they're on sale."

'On sale'…something in that phrase sets a little animal-rights advocate off in my head and it makes me smile. I look to Nagi.

"Well, care to look?"

He nods once and we follow Schuldig over to the plate glass, behind which is a room full of dim cages with a different cat in each. They come in every color they could possible come in: orange, gray, black, calico, red gingham…

I open the door to the room and Nagi follows behind me and kneels by one of the cages on the distant side from the wall. A tiny little paw snatches out from between the bars, dainty and white with little black pads and opal-colored claws. Nagi holds his hand out for the cat to smell and smiles slightly when a little pink tongue licks him.

I move over toward him and blink down at the little white kitten, huge blue eyes remarkably like Nagi's looking calmly back at me. The label says the kitten is a few weeks old, the last of the litter that was found somewhere near the store, abandoned by its mother.

Schuldig is picking on a little gray cat when I open the cage and pull out the kitten. It sedately crawls into Nagi's lap and licks its paw to wash its face. I see Schuldig's face when he looks at the cat and it can only be described as disorientation. I'll bet he wanted something black, just to make fun of our group's name. Nagi looks at me with almost hopeful eyes, almost because emotions still just barely crawl across his face.

"Can we get this one?"

I turn to check the label again. The amount of yen it costs is close to sixty American dollars, cheap according to cat pedigree, if I know anything about felines. It's a male, apparently gets on well with a small family unit and other cats and is 'friendly and like to sleep'.

"Sure. What do you want to name him?" I ask as we get up, the kitten cradled in Nagi's arms. It looks as if it never wants to move, the way it's settled in his clutches.

"I don't know yet."

"Koshu toire!" Schuldig laughs, making flushing motions at the cat.

"We are not naming it that!" I snap back.

"Well, what would you call it?" Schuldig purrs at me, "Macavity?"

"You've been watching way too many musicals, you're starting to turn gay," I grouse back. He laughs and shells out the money for the cat. I take the carrier, litterbox, litter and catfood since Nagi won't let the damn cat go.

"Poe."

"Kurt."

"Freddie Mercury."

"Henry the eighth."

"Frankenstein."

"George."

"Salvador."

"Bast."

"Karl Marx."

"Would you please shut up?" Nagi hisses at the two of us. He's already stolen Schuldig's cell phone and dialed for Crawford to come and pick us up when the car arrives.

Prompt as ever. It's nice having a psychic chauffer. You never have to wait for a ride.

Schuldig just smirked conspiratorially at me and gets in.

Crawford looks at the cat and raises an eyebrow at us.

"Interesting choice," he murmurs. Schuldig and I look up at him, curious.

"Why is that, Crawdaddy?" Schuldig asks, beaming those annoying waves around the car. Crawford puts the car in gear and glances once more at Nagi cuddling the tiny white furball.

"Later."

"Weiss?" Schuldig suggests. I groan.

"You couldn't come up with something a little more original?"

He just smiles.

NS

The kitten remains nameless for nearly a week before Nagi comes up with a name. We refer to it as 'cat' or, more eloquently 'goddamn, flea-ridden, varmint'. We've discovered that Crawford hates cats, was bitten as a child or something. He's also allergic, but only mildly. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen from him, running around with a tissue on hand at all times, just in case the cat comes in and dares shed on him.

Crawford doesn't have the heart to send it away, though, not when it makes Nagi so happy. Especially not when Schuldig and I nearly threatened death when he first suggested it.

"Tennyson," Nagi says proudly, manipulating the English words efficiently.

"Like the poet?" I ask. Schuldig just frowns at me, having never been fond of poetry and thus uneducated in the more famous ones.

"Hai. The poet."

"You like his poetry?" I asked, a little surprised. His was from the romantic era, and probably the more boring shit I've ever read. It was too idealistic for me, so I gave it to Nagi. I didn't actually expect him to read it.

A pause.

"Okay then," I say, still a little weirded out. I sit back on the couch and go back to patching buttons on Schuldig and Crawford's shirts. Expensive as those shirts are, they're always falling apart.

"Tennyson the cat…to be honest, I liked Macavity better. Now he had some personality," says Schuldig as he walks in, spoon in one hand and a pint-sized carton of ice cream in the other. Ben and Jerry's; cookie dough. I jealously wonder where he got it.

"Oh, shut up, Schuldig."

Nagi throws the cat a string of yarn and watches him dart about the room trying to catch it.

Fin Chapter 2

Please Review

Author's Notes:

Koshu toire: Some very demonized Japanese, translating to 'public toilet'.

Macavity: From T.S Elliot's poem, 'Macavity: The Mystery Cat'. Also from the musical, 'Cats'.

Poe: Edgar Allen Poe.

Kurt: Kurt Cobain from Nirvana. Could also be a Star Trek reference.

Freddie Mercury: From Queen.

Henry the eighth: That guy with six wives and the Protestant Church, mentioned to piss Farfarello off.

Frankenstein: Because Mary Shelly was mentioned in the Political Ideologies textbook because of her mother's role as the 'first feminist'.

George: For Emily.

Salvador: Salvador Dali, a famous Spanish painter known best for his painting "The Persistence of Memory" and other surrealist works. He is also one of my favorite painters

Bast: Egyptian Mythological Goddess of cats (according to the most generalized definitions).

Karl Marx: Father of Marxism.

Weiss: Translation from German meaning 'white'. Also the name of the soon-to-be rival assassin team. No, the references weren't coincidence.

Tennyson: For Alfred Lord Tennyson, author of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', among others and is also one of my favorites. I guessed about the 'Romantic Era' crap.

Others of Dali's works I especially like is "Ordinary French Loaf with Two Fried Eggs Riding without a Plate, Trying to Sodomize a Heel of a Portuguese Loaf", "Girl at the Window", "Cubist Self-Portrait", "Fried Eggs on a Plate without the Plate", " Mae West's Face Which Can Be Used as a Surrealist Apartment", " The Temptation of Saint Anthony", and " Animated Still Life".

I also really love Pablo Picasso's works, everything from the Blue Period and some of his cubist works as well. Among other styles I like Cubist, Surrealist, Dada and Abstract (but not so abstract it's a stripe of white on a black canvas). Basically, a lot of the modern stuff you hand to me I'll like. The classical paintings beyond the masters I doubt I'll ever really understand.

Not that I'm claiming to be an expert. I'm just in an artistic mood today.

Best painting in the world? "Guernica" 1937, Oil on Canvas, Pablo Picasso.

To My Readers:

Rori Barton: Was it you who gave me the blender threats? Anyway, I was impressed by the adamant (understatement of the month) denials to my ending, so I started a new one.

What can I say, I'm a review junkie, just shoot me up with some and I'm happy for hours. (dazed expression)

Anyway, Thank you! (hugs) now review some more!

Morbid Knight: I love Gir! (glomps) (replying Gir voice) I loooooove candy!

As I told Rori-san, I'm a review junkie. I'll write anything to pull in the readers.

I don't speak French, German, Japanese or Pig Latin. I'm the atypical American suburban kid, although eventually I'll take a verbal basics German class…maybe next semester? Not like it'll help me with anything, but it'd be cool to say I knew some. And it might help with translations for my Hellsing fic 'Umber', in which the main character is German. I got a couple of reviews saying my use of Babel Fish wasn't cutting it. (shrugs)

You know, I saw a girl at Otukon with a Gir-dress. I never got a picture, but it was so cute I wanted to snatch it right off of her.