Ho ho ho.

[moonsheen]

Me thinks (because finals are coming up, because I am a masochist, and because it is that time of year) I'll be climbing aboard that holiday drabble meme. You know the drill. Gimme a concept/characters/pairings/whatnot and I'll see what I can do. Series are (in no particular order and prolly missing a few) Naruto, X, Yami no Matsuei, Puchi Puri Yuushi (for the obscure), Shamanic Princess (for the more obscure?), Saint Seiya, and, ah, hell. Toss in Fruits Basket. I'll give that a shot. Will try to get these done in a timely manner this time around, too.

Well. Here goes.

Comments

[moonsheen.livejournal.com]

Until Christmas came that year, around the time the woman gave out candy canes, and the husband incited a snowball fight of (the boys reported) epic proportions, and their nearest neighbor—poor An, the librarian, who’d kept herself very private after her divorce—had gotten a call late that evening: Your daughter is here, she got a little lost, would you like to come get her? And An had driven up the hill, not sure what to expect. She’d heard the husband was a gang-member, who’d dyed his hair, and been kicked out of school. She’d heard the wife was a woman who’d been disowned, for whatever reasons, and moved to escape her tarnished reputation. An didn’t know what to make of all of that. She just knocked on the door.

"Sohma-san?" she called uncertainly.

"It’s open!"

And she’d found her daughter on the couch, covered in a blanket, fast asleep. She’d found Sohma-san sitting over her in a chair nearby, pressing a towel to her forehead, and looking as a whole, relieved. Her other hand rested on what An thought was some sort of pillow, until it swiveled its head around and glared balefully. It was large ginger cat, with a narrow, mean looking face, An thought—but then she’d never really been a cat person. Not that it really mattered. Her daughter had a fever, Sohma-san told her, not too serious, but the girl had been exhausted and if An felt better not moving her it was all right for her to stay the night there was doctor friend who could be called and it was really, really all right--but the offer was politely refused.

"I understand. You want her home before the weather gets too bad," Sohma-san said, with an understanding nod. It was beginning to snow, after all.

"What about your husband?" An had asked, with a frown. The man was nowhere to be found.

Sohma-san had stroked the cat’s head and smiled.

"He’ll be home soon," she said fondly. "Please, take care."

It was only after An the Librarian had made it home and gotten her daughter to bed that a funny thought occurred to her: No one had ever said anything about her neighbors having a cat.