Cat Returns - Unfinished Stories

Far From Perfect pt 1

Chapter 1 – The Little Girl and her Kitten

Naoko looked up as a loud screeching noise echoed through the house.

"What on earth...?"

She stood from her position in her chair, hunched over her newest quilt, and picked her way around the scraps of fabric scattered around the floor. She descended the stairs quickly, having heard her husband moving around in the bedroom. If he came out...

Naoko sighed. As soon as Hasho agreed to let her continue her quilting career, instead of insisting that she stayed at home with her daughter where she 'belonged' then Naoko would forgive him. But right now, the only words ever exchanged between herself and her husband were screamed accusations and angry insults, and she didn't want Haru to hear that today, which meant she needed to put a stop to the screeching before Hasho came down.

As her foot hit the bottom step of the stairs, her mouth fell open in astonishment. "Haru, what on Earth are you doing?!"

Her eight-year-old daughter looked over at her from her place on top of a chair next to the kitchen counter. "I was just-"

But Naoko didn't give her child a chance to explain. She walked over and firmly lifted her off the chair, noting how heavy her child had grown. "Yoshioka Haru, I thought I taught you better than this! Standing on a chair, at your age? If you'd have fallen and hit your head, you could have killed yourself!"

Haru wriggled out of her mother's arms, hoping her mother wouldn't notice the bulge in the pockets of her pink overalls. "Mother-"

"Mom," Naoko reminded her daughter, internally reminding herself to talk to Hasho about his insistence that Haru call them Mother and Father. It was growing into a bad habit.

Haru's face turned pink as she started again. "Mom, I wouldn't have died. You know I'm too careful for that."

Naoko could feel her face growing hotter with anger. "Haru, you have klutz attacks every second day! You can't even walk up the stairs without tripping, so how am I supposed to react when you're standing up on a rickety chair, hmm?! What were you even doing up there?!"

Haru looked down as her little bare feet, her eyes growing huge and watery. Naoko felt a twinge of guilt, but then shoved it away, determined to get rid of her child's habit of standing on chairs before it became a problem.

---------------------------------------

"Well, Haru? Why were you up there?" her mother insisted.

Haru bit her lip before answering in a quiet voice. "I just wanted to get some food, Mom. I didn't mean to make you worry."

Even though she was still examining her bare feet, Haru could feel her mother's disbelief radiating off her in waves.

His green eyes glowed, the gratitude radiating off of him in waves as he grinned at her, the picture of a perfect gentleman.

Haru's cheeks flushed even hotter, although this time it wasn't from shame. It was from happiness.

But that happiness evaporated when her mother looked at her. She didn't yell, or scream, or scold her like Haru had expected. She just looked at her like she didn't even know her, and the look of blank disappointment broke Haru's heart, but she tried her hardest not to cry. He was watching, she could feel it. She had promised herself to be brave for him.

"You are very brave, Miss Haru," he praised, holding his top hat to his heart in a gesture of respect and bowing his head, letting some of his tawny locks of hair fall over his eyes.