A/N: I totally forgot I had it on my drive.

"The Cat Show"

"Hey, Okumura!"

Rin blinked, surprised. It wasn't all that usual for Konekomaru to start the talk on his own and even less usual to find him without Suguro or Shima hanging out nearby.

"Did something happened?" Rin asked.

"No, no!" The little monk said quickly. "Why would it?"

"Well," Rin scratched his cheek. "You're usually not alone, you know. The other guys didn't ditch you, right?"

"No, why even would they?" Konekomaru gasped. He would feel offended but the other boy sounded like he was worried about him and not just being nasty. Just the usual lack of subtlety.

"I don't know," Okumura shrugged. "So, you ditched them?"

"That would be a "no" too."

"Then consider me lost."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

Rin was right, Konekomaru wasn't exactly the one to start conversation with other exwires. He was always pointing things out or answering questions, but that was it. He was just going with the flow - or whatever Bon decided to do.

So, him being alone could be read as rather strange. But he didn't want the other guys to hear his awkward stutter, when he was trying to do something that was important only to him.

"Um, well..." Konekomaru mumbled, shyly looking away. "You see, I have that tickets for the cat show tomorrow, you know, that thing were people are showing off their cats and they won medals and all, but these works only together... Anyhow, you have a cat, so you must like them, right?"

"Kuro is not exactly a cat," Rin chuckled. "Besides, why are you asking me?"

That made Konekomaru even more nervous.

"Shima would just get on my nerves," he explained quickly. "All these dirty jokes he would drop around..."

"And what about Suguro?" Rin tilted his head. "He doesn't like dirty jokes."

"Yeah, I guess I could," Miwa mumbled. "And he probably would go with me, but he don't like cats that much. So I don't want to bother him."

Besides, he already lived through that and wasn't in hurry to repeat the experience from two years back any time soon. It wasn't really bad and he knew Bon really was trying to act nice – he never even raised his voice while inside – but it was easy to tell that after the first hour Suguro really wanted to get out and as far away from pretty furry kittens as possible. Wandering slowly around and melting over every single cat just wasn't his thing.

"Have you tried to ask Izumo?"

Konekomaru blinked.

"Why would I ask her?"

"Well," Rin scratched his cheek. "Kuro told me that he meet her a few times and she was always making these funny squeaky noises... So I think she likes cats more than I do."

"Huh," Miwa blinked. "I never thought about asking her... you think she would like it?"

"Well, no point in guessing, just go and ask!"

"Thanks," Konekomaru smiled. " And sorry, I guess."

"You're sorry?" Rin blinked. "For what?"

"For before," Miwa shrugged, again looking away from him. "I was really acting like a jerk. I should've know better."

"Huh," Rin mumbled, feeling quiet for a moment.

Konekomaru bit his lip, waiting to hear… something. He had every right to tell what was on his mind, after all and there was no doubt it wouldn't be nice.

"Don't worry," was what Rin finally said with a wide, toothy grin. "You reacted way better than I did! And anyway, what's in the past stays in the past. Don't worry so much!"

Konekomaru wanted to protest, but he bit his tongue before he actually said anything. If Okumura said to forget, then he should... well, not exactly forget, because people should remember their mistakes to learn from them, but just let it go. Rin after all, had every right to decide when this particular issue was over.

"Okay," he nodded.

"Anyhow," Rin eyed him curiously. "How did you manage to get away from these two? One would think you guys are all attached by hip, or something."

"I usually shop for cat gadgets by myself," Miwa shrugged. "And Shima is doing his shopping alone too."

"That's still odd..." Rin mumbled, chewing in his thumbnail.

"And can you really imagine Bon browsing with Shima for his... books?"

Okumura blinked, trying to imagine just that.

"Okay, no." He just had to agree on that one. For all his dangerous looks that screamed about him being a nasty thug, Suguro happened to be kinda innocent. He wasn't even getting most of the manga references and that was just sad.

xxx

Konekomaru understood that asking Kamiki to go to the cat show with him looked almost like he was asking her on a date only after he started talking to her about it. And it was awkward.

"Why are you so red all of sudden?" Izumo, naturally, wasn't making it any better.

"I, ah...!" he stuttered. "I want to ask you about something, but I don't it to come out wrong?"

"Well, it's already awkward, so you have nothing to lose," she shrugged.

Miwa grimaced. She was right, he already sounded dumb.

"Well then," he sighed and started to explain. "You see, I have these tickets..."

Izumo actually listened through the whole thing instead of telling him to get lost and stop wasting her time, so it was going rather well, all things considered.

When he finally finished, she said only one word.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Konekomaru repeated, blinking.

"Yeah, okay," she huffed, slightly irritated. "I like cats."

And that was it.

They've meet up after school, dropping the school uniforms. It wouldn't be a good thing to get these covered in fur, after all. Normal clothes worked best at things like that, especially if they weren't anything fancy. A stray paw here, after all, and things could get destroyed.

Walking at comfortable pace was nice and talking about favorite cat toys was fun too, even if they disagreed completely upon the importance of mice toys stuffed with catmint.

"Wait," Izumo suddenly stopped, jest when they were about to enter the building where the show took place.

"Did something happened?" he asked, turning towards her.

"Just..." she bit her lip, looking away for a moment, then her gaze meet his eyes once again. "Whatever happens in there, stay in there, you get it?!"

"Sure," Miwa nodded, laughing nervously. He had no idea what got her all that worked up. It was just a cat show, nothing too serious. They went here to have fun, after all.

"You know, if you really don't want to go..." he started. Because if Izumo never actually liked cats then there was no reason for forcing her to go through all of it.

"But I want to!" she protested loudly, stopping hi train of through.

"Really!" she continued, now blushing slightly. "I just... I don't like people thinking I'm not serious."

"We are just going to stare at cats, you don't even need to be serious in there," Konekomaru said with a small shrug. "Besides, I'm going to be so occupied with all these cute furballs that you'll have to drag me around the place anyways."

"You promise you won't told anybody?"

"Promise."

She nodded and he smiled back. Then, they went to wonderful place full of pretty, furry cats.

It was fun, the cats were cute and Konekomaru was sure Bon would drag him out of there way sooner than they actually walked out. Izumo really shared his sentiment for cute little animals and this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Or at least a very intense internet correspondence, with tons of cat photos.