ToRA (Kekkai Sensen Fanfic)

Chapter 7

He stayed with me that first day of silence. He moved me to the living room after awhile, and let me just watch the TV out of boredom. He also made sure I drank a lot of water, though I didn't eat.

The next day, he left me with... this... being. Veded. She tells me that she's his housekeeper, and has two children of her own. I stay in my child form the entire day, mostly curled up in the living room watching the TV again. She repeatedly will try to turn it to children's channels, and I change it back to the news when she's not looking.

This quickly becomes a game. She starts to put the remote places she thinks I can't reach, and the second she isn't looking, I grab it. By the time that he returns, she's a little out of breath.

"Mr. Steven, he seems to insist on watching the news... Every time I change it to a child appropriate channel, he somehow changes it again."

"Ah, just let him be, Veded. He came from a dangerous place."

I tune out the rest of their conversation, watching as some guy on the news shows an outbreak of pink creatures. It's not too long before I hear her leave, and then I feel his presence behind me. I shift, turning my head to look up at him as he bends down. I turn it back to the screen as his arm wraps around me and lifts me out of the chair. I frown, not sure I enjoy being sporadically picked up. He moves to sit where I was, promptly placing me in his lap once he's settled.

"You're in my spot."

That is his only explanation before I'm handed a small whiteboard, a pack of markers, and a grey cloth. Oh. He did say that he would find a way for me to communicate.

"Did you have fun with Veded?"

I take out one of the markers, fumbling a bit. The red one. I like the color red.

She kept changing my channel.

"Normal children, even Beyondians, don't really watch the news. I'm sure she'll get used to you soon."

You're awfully 'used' to me.

"If being relied on by someone violently ill is not a bonding experience, then what is?"

I wasn't even conscious.

"That's irrelevant. I've decided to keep you."

I'm not a pet. I'm just Kuja.

"Did I say you would be? You'll have to pose as a tiger child I found for Veded and some of my coworkers, but to me you're still a grown adult."

You just picked me up like a child.

"Hard not to. You're awfully cute like that."

I scowl, moving off of his lap to sit on the floor. I move my attention back to the news, letting my tail flick here and there.

"You seem pretty interested in that."

I've never owned a TV. I only viewed them from work or a coffee shop.

"Then why only watch the news?"

Maybe it's boring somewhere else. But not in this city.

"You have a point. But maybe you should watch something else when it's just Veded."

Like what? I'm not watching children's shows.

"What's something you'd be interested in?"

Interested in? I've never really thought about that sort of thing. It was always studying, then work, and then surviving.

I like moving. Working, doing things.

"You don't have to watch the TV then."

There's nothing to do.

"Well what to do want to do?"

Anything. Something.

He hums in response, but offers no answers. I turn my attention away, listening and watching the news again. I feel pretty tired... I haven't eaten anything today. I flop myself right over onto my side there on the floor, and curl up a bit to get comfy. It's not hardly even thirty seconds before my eyes close, and I begin to doze off a bit.

I don't know how long I lay there for. I wake to the TV multiple times, on a different channel, and vaguely register being a little warmer the first few times. The longest time I'm briefly woken, it's to silence. The TV is off, and I'm being carried back towards the bedroom. I remain somewhere between awake and asleep as I'm tucked into soft sheets, my hair and ears ruffled by a large hand.

"Are you sure you're not a kid, Kuja?"

The words, I know, are not exactly meant literally. Even so, I make a noise somewhere between a hum and a grunt, the best protest that I can manage. Before I can register a response, though, I'm already asleep.

Sometimes being part tiger has its perks, I suppose.