As promised, Chapter three!

Pichi pichi Japanese onomatopoeia for something bouncy… … like boobs.


Chapter 3: That is not a cat.

The first week of bonding ended. The house was unrecognizable. At some point the floor, disappeared underneath a pile of clothes, pizza boxes, food wrappings, games, and something neither of them could recognize but left because it might be intelligent life.

At some point they even ran out of clothes and resorted to their summer yukata. Kankurou remarked that they weren't being lazy since they had every intention of doing the laundry, but rather it was a perfect chance to experience something cultural. At that point, Gaara was too deeply entrenched into his brother's world of debauchery and didn't feel like doing chores if he were the only one to them.

They had taken to perching on the roof of their home, Gaara's usual haunt anyways but Kankurou soon discovered the merits of the isolated perch. One was that it was quiet and easy to hold a conversation; another more notable merit was that the attractive and single brunette two blocks away left her window wide open. After one particular night, a slack-jawed, red-faced Gaara had to admit that it was a merit worth considering. Though, for one reason or another, he never looked that way for long without blushing.

"I wish," Kankurou began, lying on his back. "I was like a superhero, with special powers like, X-ray vision."

"Hyuuga Neji," Gaara simply said.

"Or super strength."

"Rock Lee."

He stopped and thought harder… "The ability…to fly-y."

"Temari flies sometimes."

"Magical powers."

"Ninjutsu." Gaara pulled his knee up and rested his chin on it.

"Psychic powers."

"Genjutsu."

"Change shapes."

"Henge."

"Shit… What does that mean, Gaara? That we're some… special elite caste of high-powered individuals left to forever sway the forces in the cosmic battle of good and evil!"

"Um… we're… ninjas, Kankurou. That's what we do." They turned their heads towards each other and considered each other. At some invisible cue, they turned away and looked back up at the stars.

"Oh… yeah. That's kind of awesome." Kankurou chuckled then asked, "Do you remember a while ago when you pretended to be a baby?" Gaara gave a short laugh in response. "Evil little bastard."

"Yeah, that was kind of awesome."

They fell silent to reminisce on that event. Temari had somehow managed to convince Gaara that a game of pretend was a good idea. Gaara pretended to be some manner of infant and proceeded to torment Kankurou with a relived child-hood. In the end, the whole event, much to the amusement of Temari, brought them closer, paving the way for this two-week long event.

Kankurou reached out as if the grasp one of the stars, gave up, and put his hands back behind his head. "People are like stars. There's too many of them to count but if one suddenly disappears, it leaves a deep black space… a void."

Gaara looked at him. His brother's green eyes stared into the black spaces between the stars, his mouth seemed to always settle into a smile, as if there was a constant joke that only he was privy to. Over the years, he paid little attention to him but now he was acutely aware of how Kankurou was maturing. His face was losing its childish roundness and was settling into the sharp angles of manhood.

"That surprisingly deep of you, Kankurou," Gaara said softly.

And so Kankurou farted loudly and grinned. "That's gonna stink so hold your breath." And in one singular moment, the praise vanished and the notoriety took its gleaming place.

"I hate you."

Kankurou suddenly got up and proceeded to go inside the house. Gaara continued to sit outdoors, admiring the scenery (minus the east since a certain woman lived there) but soon followed his brother. Inside Kankurou was sitting on a mound of clothes like a bean bag, twirling the phone in his right hand, and flipping through a phone book with his left.

"What are you doing?" Gaara asked with trepidation in his voice. Kankurou knew by heart all the phone numbers to every restaurant they frequented and every friend he or Temari knew. So it was natural that he would be worried when Kankurou, a phone, and phone book were in the same space.

Kankurou pointed to one number and looked at Gaara, smirking. "Come 'ere, brat." With slow and measured steps, Gaara approached and knelt before Kankurou like he was a wild cat- loose and unpredictable. He began dialing a number and the phone began to ring. At the sound of the phone being lifted, he tossed it to Gaara and raised his fingers in a steeple.

"Hello, this is Haruka," a disembodied woman's voice on the other ended chimed.

"Now, Grasshopper, use everything I taught you."

Gaara's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, uh…a moment, I'm sorry." He clasped his hand over the mouthpiece. "Are you crazy! Who is this girl?"

"Pichi-pichi-chan, of course." Pichi-pichi was the name Kankurou gave to the attractive girl from their rooftop sessions, named for way her breasts bounced when she danced in front of the window.

Gaara cursed harshly under his breath, making an oath to kill his brother at the end of the call. "Ah, hello Pich-aaah, Ms. Haruka. This is…um Gaara, the… Kazekage's son…" He took the phone away and cursed vehemently.

"Oh! Wow, what an honor! I can't believe- Wait, am I in trouble?"

"No! No no no! Nothing like that it's just that…I…live nearby…"

"Oh yeah, you do! You sit on your roof!"

"Yes. Um…I can't see you dancing from my roof, so I wanted to warn you that you should close your blinds or something," Gaara ignored Kankurou's frantic attempts to steal the phone and kept him at bay with his foot.

"Oh wow, I'm so embarrassed! Thank you, Gaara-sama for warning me! Oh, I hope you didn't see me fall out of my shirt a few days ago."

Kankurou gave a two thumbs up at this and Gaara blushed but somehow managed to glare too. "Uh…No," he lied. "Luckily, I did not see that. I mean! Lucky for you but not lucky for me…" He yanked the phone away and delivered another long string of curses. He shoved the phone at his brother. "Pretend to be me!"

"WHAT?"

"Pretend to be me," he stated. "I need to recoup!" He gave the phone to Kankurou and began to bite his nails, sweat beading on his forehead as he contemplated what to say next. Damn Kankurou! Surely, he would kill him for this. Yes, a very painful death.

But the older boy was just as flustered as his younger brother when it came his time to talk.

"Hello?"

"Oh, sorry! I had to feed my…cat…" Gaara shot him a horrified look and took the phone away.

"'Feed my cat'? We don't have a cat!"

"What was I supposed to say!" The two panicked boys put their ears to the earpiece.

"-but I haven't had a cat in years. Can you guys drop by?

"Sure!" Kankurou exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Great! And bring your cat! Bye bye!" With a click the phone conversation ended.

Kankurou jumped up and performed a victory dance. "We are going to a hottie's house!" he sing-songed.

Gaara stood up and calmly hung the phone back onto its receiver. "Kankurou… We have no clean clothes and she wants to see our cat…"

He looked around and scratched the back of his head, contemplating Gaara's words. "So we'll find something. I'm sure we have something lying around here that doesn't smell too bad. We'll just use cologne or something."

"Okay… and she wants to see our cat. Our cat, Kankurou." He approached his brother and adjusted the collar on his yukata. "You know?" He gripped the collar firmly in his hands and pulled his brother down to his level. "The one WE DO NOT HAVE!" He punched him in the ribs harshly.

Kankurou grimaced and looked about the devastation that was their home for an answer. There were stray cats all over the village but they were mostly wild and vicious due to the harsh circumstances of desert living. Neither of them knew any genjutsu, so tricking the vixen into seeing a cat was out of the question.

When all seemed lost, Kankurou thought of something that had nearly escaped his memory. "I've got it." He rushed over to the TV and started tearing through a pile of garbage. Gaara watched certain that anything Kankurou had planned was doomed to fail. With an exuberant 'aha!' Kankurou spun around lifting a black mass of fur.

Gaara blinked. "What is it?"

"It's a cat!" Kankurou hesitated. "I think."

Gaara walked over to the bulge of fur and examined it. It was warm but it could be that the trash covering it had an insulating effect and it was lying by the TV. It had no discernible face or legs. To him, it was something that had just crawled out of the primordial ooze and had yet to decide what animal it should be.

"That's not a cat."

The ball of fur let out a noise. Kankurou nearly dropped the thing and Gaara reached for a shuriken lying in between the cushions of the couch. Again the thing affirmed its existence with a strange, grating "rrrroooowwrr". Kankurou twisted the ball around, failing to find a head.

"What the hell was that?"

Kankurou gave him an annoyed look. "It meowed stupid."

"That wasn't a meow! That is not a cat!" Gaara exclaimed, dropping back to look for clean clothes.

His brother shrugged and dropped the furball on the couch. It shivered then skittered across to the other side of the couch and lay still. The both watched it with horror before resuming their search for clean clothes.

Kankurou pulled out a pair of underwear and gave them a sniff. He puzzled over them, turning them around much like he had done the 'cat' and shoved them at Gaara. "Do these smell okay?"

"GROSS!" Gaara fell backwards and smacked the underwear out of his hand. "I don't want to smell your stinky butt! Smell them yourself!"

Eventually they found clothing, though they applied a spray of cologne just in case, and grabbed the awkward sounding 'cat' and headed out the door. The entire walk, Kankurou continued to coach Gaara on the ins-and-outs of girls and threatened him not to ruin this for him. Gaara quickly pointed out that Kankurou had called Haruka for his sake and that Kankurou should not ruin this for him. They were still at that impasse when they reached her door.

Haruka opened the door wearing a nice shirt and skirt and greeted them in. Gaara felt a twinge of guilt that Haruka's was the first clean house he had seen in a week, in spite of having hardly left his own. She encouraged them to sit around a low table and poured them tea. Kankurou set their animal on the floor beside him.

"I'm so glad to meet you!" She exclaimed. "It's a real honor. The girls won't believe that the Kazekage's sons called me up so suddenly." She laughed and started to lay out some pastries for them to eat with their tea.

Kankurou's eyes were firmly affixed to her chest and he did not hide his smile at all. "Oh, it's nothing. Our Gaara is actually a very caring person and he told me how concerned he was for you. Isn't that right, Gaara?"

Gaara sat rigidly in his seat, reciting jutsu techniques in his head to keep from blushing or even worse staring at the very things that gave Haruka the nickname "pichi-pichi". He gave a curt nod and uttered, "Uh huh."

She bowed at her seat and touched her cheek lightly. "I'm so sorry that you could see me. I practice dancing everyday and I never thought that anyone could see me. I wonder why no one told me until now." Kankurou and Gaara stole a glance at each other. Each was sure of the answer and certain that they would make quite a few enemies for spilling the beans.

"Don't mention it," Kankurou said waving his hand dismissively, though he certainly meant it.. "We just thought it was our civic duty or something. Say, do you have a boyfriend? Ow!" His hand went instinctively to his back. He could feel grains of sand retreating to the floor.

"Are you okay?" She asked worriedly.

"Yeah, fine. Just… a training injury," he said through gritted teeth. He stared hard at Gaara who continued to look forward.

"Ah. Oh! Your cat!" She scuttled over to the furball and lifted it. They watched her smile shake as she too tried to find the source of the pained 'rowr' but were surprised when she actually found it! "OH! It's definitely a longhaired exotic Persian! You're so lucky to have such a rare cat!"

The two brothers looked aghast that the thing had a proper name. It was a something now. Exotic was not how they would describe the beast. They looked at each other to confirm that they felt the same way and shrugged at the circumstances, while Haruka prattled away about her knowledge of cats.

"So what's his name?"

They hesitated. Kankurou's mouth opened and closed like a fish. "Fluffy," Gaara blurted out. "Because he's…fluffy."

"Yes! It's not creative but Temari named him," Kankurou agreed nodding. Haruka seemed pleased and held on to "Fluffy" for the remainder of the night.

The three talked well until three at night and reluctantly said their farewells- Kankurou and Gaara sad to leave Haruka and Haruka remorseful at sending off Fluffy.

The next day the two found themselves in their underwear on the couch, Fluffy perched a top Kankurou's head like a coonskin cap. Someone's stomach rumbled and it was agreed that somehow they had to find breakfast.

Kankurou rummaged under the couch and found a slice of pizza, cold and discolored and began eating it. Gaara scavenged the nearly empty refrigerator and came out with something left over that neither would touch. These were dire times and dire measures had to be taken.

The phone rang, startling Fluffy who made that god-awful noise in response. Kankurou grunted and scratched his gut. Gaara ignored the ring as well. Neither could find the phone anyway.

The answering machine picked up the call and they heard a familiar voice calling out to them. "Kankurou? Gaara? Where are you jerks? Well, anyway I'm on my way home. I'm about five hours away so the house better be clean, by the way or terrible…terrible things will happen. Bye bye!" Silence.

They looked around the room.

Fluffy made a pained mew and Gaara and Kankurou started to scream in terror.