Chapter eight has arrived. :3

I'm sorry I'm not updating Railway Cat's Advice, but almost nobody's read it anyway, and I'm really eager to work on this story. So, maybe if I get some more reviews on RCA, I'll work on it. Or I'll just write that chapter after I write this one. Or something.

WARNING! This chapter contains just a little unintentional OC pairing on behalf of the OC. :3

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Rounding a mound of broken sofas, I let my eyes fall on the rocking chair behind which Pouncival made his home. Too lazy and still too injured to climb up the pile it rested atop, I simply tilted up my chin and yelled out as loud as I could manage, "Hey Pouncival! Get down here, will ya?!"

More of me being me. Don't you just love that?

I waited a few seconds before I heard a voice in response, high-pitched but still masculine; a tom-kit's voice. Pouncival. A smile flitted briefly across my face when I spotted him – he made a great show of jumping up on the chair like always and looking down at me with hazel eyes. The smile returned now when he grinned at me, my mood immediately lifted. Though I couldn't say I felt the same way for him Electra reported he did for me, he was my friend, and gosh, was he cute. In a sort of kittenish way, y'know?

"Hi," he called. "What's up?" Laughing a little, he leapt from the chair and started to run down the pile of junk, only to trip, fall, and come rolling to my feet like a tin can falling down a hill. Typically himself, his eyes glittered with cheerfulness anyway as he laughed at his own clumsiness. I couldn't help but laugh as well as he clambered to his feet and briefly dusted off his fur, standing quite a bit taller than me at full height. Then again, everyone was taller than me. I thought we'd already established that.

"I'm bored," I declared. "So I thought I'd come see you."

He looked genuinely honored.

Well, not really genuine, but that innocent kitten look he's inexplicably still got going for him (even if it's completely fake) makes it look that way. Of course, he was really just being a sarcastic little arse.

But I'm telling you. It totally worked for him. I still threw my arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug, squeezing his torso as hard as I could until he gasped for breath and yelled, "Okay, okay, mercy, mercy!"

However, when I let go, I fell off my crutches like I've almost been doing for two days.

Luckily I fell on my butt, and the rest of me stayed intact like I could only wish it had last week. Pouncival laughed at me, and even though he was kidding, I lunged at him and knocked him onto his tail as well, my face playful and mock-vengeful, like a little kitten. A wide grin split his face, and he jumped at me with a growl, his green-brown eyes screaming mischief as he sent me straight onto my back. He stood triumphantly over me for a few seconds, and then he seemed to remember I was injured, as well as the compromising position he was now in, crouched over me, and he scrambled off, his face redder than a strawberry.

"What?" I demanded, scrabbling to my feet as well. He handed me my crutches, which assisted me in standing upright once again, but I still glared at him. "Scared to play-fight with a girl, Pounci?" One of my eyebrows arched.

"No!" he exclaimed in an overly defensive voice. "I was just afraid of hurting you, that's all." He turned his back to me, his face still red, and I was tempted to jump on his shoulders out of spite...before my body started almost-screaming at me for playing rough, even if only for a few seconds. "Besides, aren't you a little old to be playing with toms, Luva? People get ideas nowadays, about that kind of stuff."

"'That kind of stuff?' We were just messing around, Pounce. Besides, nobody's around, anyway." I crossed my arms at my newest friend, elbows resting on the sticks helping support me.

"Yeah, but if someone saw, then..." He was totally making excuses. He would've played with me if it wasn't for whatever he was making excuses about, I just know it. I was still young enough to play with toms! Who did he think he was?

Okay, so maybe I was a little bit old to roughhouse with someone of the opposite sex. But just a little.

"I came here to hang out with you, Pouncival. What am I supposed to do no that you're too embarrassed by something nobody saw to even look me in the eyes?" My voice was cold and demanding, and I noticed a slight hunch in his shoulders as I spoke. "FYI, I saw your face and I know you're blushing, Tomato Head, so no use hiding it. Now, turn around and come over here and tell me you're sorry."

He turned obediently with his head ducked like a kicked puppy, and I'd noticed the blush had receded to just two rosy patches on his cheeks as he shuffled towards me. "Sorry," he muttered.

I narrowed my eyes. "Sorry for what?" I almost laughed at myself in my head; I was such an asshole.

"Sorry for pushing you over, and sorry for not playing with you because I was embarrassed, and sorry for liking—" He cut himself short and blushed a deeper shade of pink again.

"What was that last thing?" My eyebrow raised again.

"Er, nothing," he muttered. "I was gonna repeat myself."

"'Liking' doesn't sound like 'pushing' to me," I noted, looking skeptical.

"Well, I was rephrasing, but then I realized I was saying the same thing," he tried to explain, looking nervous, eyes flitting back and forth. Noticing the sweat forming on his brow, I stopped, thinking I'd tortured the brown and white patched tabby enough for now.

"Whatever." I slung my arms back over the crutches and turned to leave, dissatisfied. "Well, I almost had fun, Pounce. Maybe next time." And on that note, I began to hobble away, my tail swishing lightly through the air behind me.

I'd almost gone two yards when Pouncival called out to me. "H-hey, Luva, no fair, don't go yet!"

I stopped, looked over my shoulder. "Well, it seemed like you didn't want me around," I said airily, but I didn't start walking again. "So I started leaving. Convince me to come back, Pouncival."

"I do want to play with you," the tom began. "Just maybe that game's not the best idea. But we could play something else, I'm sure nobody would care if we, like...played hide and seek or something."

"Hide and seek?" I liked that game. Mostly because I always won.

"Yeah," he said emphatically. "Or we could play Pollicle versus Rumpus Cat. Did you ever play that game?"

"No, but it sounds fun," I admitted, though I kept my face calm and my thoughts collected.

"Or, or," Pouncival continued, "or we could gather up some other cats and play tag."

"If we play hide and seek, you have to go first," I insisted, though I was smirking now, my arms folded. "And I'm really hard to find." It was interesting how my personality worked; one second I was fighting (or rather, trying to fight) a bad guy, the next having a deep conversation about my forgotten past with Mistoffelees, or an angry gossip-resembling one with Electra, or giving a pep talk to Jemima, and now I was playing hide and seek with Pouncival. Wow. Diversity in the everyday life much?

"Count to twenty," I said.

"But shouldn't I count longer? I mean, you are on crutches –– "

"Count to twenty," I repeated firmly, already turning to shuffle off on my crutches. "Start counting, Pounce!" I called over my shoulder when I didn't see him turn around to cover his eyes and begin.

"Allright, but I'm gonna win," he teased. "You won't get far on those crutches." I frowned as he turned, covered his eyes, and began to count off numbers. "One...two..."

Sweet Everlasting Cat, he was counting so slow I'd be halfway across the junkyard before he got to ten. Still, all the better for me, so...

After a few seconds of shambling along as fast as I could manage, a plan hatched in my mind just as I spotted two good hiding places; one obvious, the other not. The first, the apparent one, was under a large red sofa, but that was quite visible, and it looked like it was pretty easy to get under, though my sticks wouldn't fit in with me. The second one was actually to the right a little bit; it was hard to see, as I actually had to take a few steps closer to notice it fully. A mound of old clothing and such piled up behind an old bureau, and beneath, in sort of a little area between the two and under the big wooden cabinet, was a little indent in the ground, small and partially covered by the bureau. If I shifted the clothes a little, it'd be almost invisible.

In the background, I heard the drone of Pouncival's slow countdown. "Eleven...twelve..."

I was starting to run short on time, so I set my plan into action. Delicately, I slipped off of my crutches and placed them at odd angles in front of the couch, as if they had been thrown down in my hurry. A makeshift silhouette was made beneath it by my shoving of a broken toaster and old plastic wastepaper basket into place, where a cat could have been. As I heeded Pouncival's reaching of fifteen by the time I was finished with this, I carefully meandered over to the sneakier hiding place, feeling unstable and vulnerable off my crutches, where I burrowed under the clothes and shifted them around so as to completely disguise my little hollow, stuffing some into it just so the bureau wouldn't fall on me.

After several more moments of (im)patient waiting beneath the rags, I noticed the sound of counting, muffled by the mound of fabric stifling everything about the outside world besides the big wooden cabinet above me, the smell of human and dirt, and the dark little hole filled with kitchen appliances and broken electronics, had stopped. I froze, quieting my breathing, straining my deep gray ears to hear Pouncival's footsteps nearing my false hiding spot. I felt exhilarated, as I always did during competitions; exhilarated at the idea of another victory for me, and I almost – almost – snickered. But that might have given me away, so I didn't.

It seemed like forever until I heard Pounce's distinct footsteps shuffling along in the dirt. (It was probably a little over five minutes, but it felt like hours.) Briefly, they stopped, as I assumed Pouncival spotted the two abandoned sticks on the ground, and then a remote evil chuckle. Perfect. He fell head over heels for it. I was such a genius.

But we already knew that, right?

Gosh, I've just been feeling positively conceited today.

"I wonder where Luvarium could be," the tomkit said, in an over-exaggeratedly loud voice. "Her crutches are right here, but maybe she's tricking me..."

The idea of Pouncival mentioning I could be fooling him with the crutches made my heart lurch. Failure was not an option. Still, it made me realize something, something I vaguely knew but had never really had a chance to see before.

Pouncival was not stupid at all.

However, he wasn't enough of a brainiac to not fall for my trap. Or was he? I shivered in anticipation, feeling prickles down my spine.

I heard shifting as I assumed the young tom crouched and looked under the couch, and then a whisper of, "Damn."

So he'd fallen for it.

I was such a freaking genius.

However, as I supposed he stood back up, I didn't hear him walk away. I remained frozen solid, unmoving, barely breathing. Had he discovered me? He couldn't have. You couldn't even see the little nook beneath the bureau anymore, with all the raggedy old clothes.

His footsteps reappeared, but coming towards me. Louder. Oh, Rumpus, had he really figured it out? I felt my breath coming in short and quiet little gasps, my heart hammering against my broken ribs (which already were not enjoying the fact I was doubled over in a space too small for a human kit to crawl into). He was in front of the bureau now, and my breathing had stopped briefly, caught in my throat.

Then...shff.

The sound of wood against wood; the opening of one of the drawers. I almost sighed in relief, didn't, found out I really needed to from holding my breath so long, shifted a little, and breathed out into a balled-up shirt, a little louder than I'd liked. And it was in that fleeting moment that light filtered in from above me, and I saw the brown-patched face staring down triumphantly at me through a tunnel in the clothing.

Pouncival grinned so wide and happily that I almost smiled, even though I fiercely hated losing.

"Found you."

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Admit this chapter made you smile. :3 One of the longest yet!