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Izana was walking home from getting some groceries when she heard a bunch of collective meows coming from around the corner of a nearby building. Curiosity getting the best of her, she turned the corner and followed the now growing louder meows. A few feet in front of her she sees a bundle of very small kittens, probably about two or three weeks old. Some of them venture away from the others in a very unstable walk and fall over. The little bundles of cuteness wrap themselves around her heartstrings and pull on them, making her walk over towards them.
Upon a closer look, she counts five kittens and a foot away from the little ones, she sees something that almost makes her cry, the dead mother lying on the ground with flies swarming the body. She knows that she just can’t leave the little things outside to die. She takes a look near the dumpster where the kittens were found and looks around hopefully to find a box or something that she could carry the kittens inside safely. Luck seems to be on her side today because on the other side of the dumpster is an empty, slightly dirty box.
“It’s okay little guys, you’re going to a new home where you’ll be loved by everyone there. I won’t leave you alone out here,” Izana assures them as she puts her groceries down on the ground and puts each kitten delicately inside the box. The journey home was difficult, especially while carrying two bags of groceries and a box of kittens up a whole bunch of stairs without tripping, falling, or having any of the little angels crawl out of the box.
She enters the house mentally thanking Nagate for leaving the door unlocked for her. “I’m home!” she calls out as soon as she nudges the door closed with her hip.
“Hey, welcome back,” Nagate greets her as he enters from the doorway, walking towards her to get the bags of groceries. “What’s in the box?” he asks her once the bags are in his hands.
“Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll tell you. They’re getting kinda heavy. And where’s Tsugumi?”
“Oh, she had an inspection and a medical check up and stuff. Sadly she won’t be going to see us today. And who’s ‘they’?”
Izana follows him into the kitchen when one of the kittens lets out a small ‘mew’. He stops unloading the bag of groceries and turns to look over at her. “Izana,” he says in a slightly parental scolding tone, “what’s in the box?” he repeats even though he’s sure he has a pretty good idea.
She puts the box down and opens it for Nagate to look inside. “I couldn’t just leave them!” she defends. “They were all alone and their mother was dead.”
Nagate walks over and looks inside. He counts five small kittens of various colours inside climbing around over each other.
“Izana, I’ll admit that they’re absolutely adorable and cute, but we can’t keep them.”
“What?!” She sounded completely shocked and hurt. “Why?”
“Because, firstly, we already have a cat,” Nagate says referring to the calico cat that Izana already owned before they moved in together. “Secondly, 6 cats is way too much. Thirdly, how are we going to take care of the kittens? And lastly, what if we both die fighting and then the kittens are left alone to starve?”
Izana gives him death glares at every reason that he rattles off. “Firstly, Smooch would like some company. Secondly, 6 cats is not too much. Thirdly, we will bottle feed them of course or Smooch will produce milk for them. Fourthly, don’t be so dark. We won’t die. And even if we do, Tsugumi, Yuhata or even Smooch can take care of them. Also, there are three residents here; you, me, and Tsugumi. And I know she’ll say yes to the kittens, so, two beats one. The kittens stay.”
“Izana, no.”
“Please～” Izana begs him with wide eyes, pouting out her bottom lip.
Nagate stares at her for a few moments distracted about how absolutely adorable she looks. When he snaps out of it he knows he’s not gonna make it out of this. “...fine,” he grumbles looking away over towards the floor beside him.
“Yes! Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” she says with a wide smile. Without thinking she leans in and gives him a small and quick kiss on the cheek. Nagate blushes furiously, his heart rate speeding up making him think that it’ll jump out of his chest and his stomach feels like butterflies are crash landing onto his stomach walls. She leans towards the kittens and says, “Do you hear that, little angels? Nagate says that you guys can stay here!”
‘Only because I was out numbered and you’re cute,’ Nagate thinks.
Nagate’s brought out of his thoughts when Izana informs him that she’s going to buy some things they’ll need and that he needs to watch them and make sure they don’t hurt themselves. While she’s gone he brings out one kitten at a time and plays with them in his lap. The first one is mostly white with big black spots covering the ears and half the eyes in a sort of helmet, four spots on the back come out like oval shaped wings and has a black tail with a ring of white around the middle of it. He turns it around and checks it butt. ‘A girl,’ he realizes. He lets the little kitten purr and cat rub his hands and fingers while he ponders a name for her. ‘Oreo.’
He puts Oreo back inside the box and brings out another one. This one is a washed out reddish golden tabby striped cat with a black forehead that fades on the back of the neck but continues down the length of the back all the way to the tip of the tail which is white, same as its toes. It has little black tufts of fur on the tips of it’s ears. He checks it’s bum and finds out that it’s a girl. He turns her back around and strokes under her chin. She begins to purr loudly as she flops onto her back exposing a white and grey stomach and chest. Around her mouth and neck, going halfway down her chest is pure very soft white fur. ‘Tabitha,’ he names her.
The next one is a very dark brown almost black girl kitten with golden ears and golden swirls decorating her sides. Starting from the ears, two golden streaks go down the back and shoulder blades all the way to the tail where they merge into one golden river of fur flowing the entire length of the tail. ‘Cleo.’
The fourth kitten is a dark coloured male tabby kitten with a small chip missing in his ear. He is mostly black and a dark and light brown. The black starts at the top of his head and re-begins on the shoulder blades in a T shape, leading all the way to his tail. ‘Whiskey.’
The fifth kitten is the most beautiful cat he’s every seen. She is grey and silver coloured and extremely soft with a beautifully shaped face. Her tabby stripes remind him of Whiskey’s but what strikes him the most are her eyes. They’re golden and slightly green and in one eye, the iris stretches over the pitch black slit in a sort of shattered glass illusion or spider web. He’s awestruck as she sits in his lap and blinks sleepily while purring up at him. He tries to find a name suitable for her and comes up with nothing.
He breaks out of his trance like state when he hears Izana call out his name. “Nagate? You okay? You’ve been staring at that kitten for like a minute,” she informs him as she takes out a small baby bottle for kittens and other well needed items.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that she’s really pretty and I can’t find a name for her like I could with the others.”
Izana walks over behind Nagate and leans down making her head level with his. The closeness makes his stomach do that weird butterfly feeling as he admires her beautiful profile. “You’re right. She is beautiful. Maybe ‘Artemis’ could be her name? And what did you name the others?”
He tears his eyes away before he’s caught staring and opens the box and brings out each cat one after the other.
He introduces each cat and their names. When he’s done, she gives him an evil smile. “What?” he asks cautiously.
“You named them...that means you like them and now we’re definitely keeping them.”
What had he gotten himself into?
-x-X-x-
Over the next few days, when they’re not out in space defending Sidonia from gauna threats, Izana spends a lot of her time playing with the kittens she rescued. One particular day, she’s on the living room floor with a string playing with Tabitha. Nagate’s relaxing on their couch pretending to read a book Tsugumi recommended when in reality he’s spending more time admiring Izana as she smiles and laughs when Tabitha does something cute. “Aww, you’re so cute. Hehe…” Izana softly laughs when Tabitha catches the string and falls over on her side with a soft thud.
The sight brings a small smile to Nagate’s face as he forces himself to go back to reading before he’s caught staring at her with a love struck gaze plastered on his face. At first, he really enjoyed to see her so happy are carefree, but the more that the days went on and on, he started to fell a little ignored. When she would spill out sentences of love towards the little things, he started to feel a little jealous. Not that he wanted Izana to call him ‘cute little angel’ or ‘so adorable I could die’, he just wanted to hang out with her as much as they used too.
As the days go by she spends most of her time playing with the kittens then she does hanging out with Nagate. Now he understands how she felt every time he left Izana to go hang out with the other girls or when they flirted with him; completely ignored and jealous. At first he didn’t understand what they were doing because he hadn’t met anyone growing up other than his grandfather, but now that he’s spent more time with other people he understands.
Almost every time he sees her she’s with one of the kittens either playing with them or one of them is sleeping on her. And every time she says ‘I love you’ or when she compliments the kittens on how cute they his jealousy flares up and grows stronger. Even before Izana was a woman and when they would touch each other accidentally or on purpose he would always get little sparks in his gut. He didn’t know what they meant at the time. But now that she became a woman, he finds her even more attractive than before and the sparks have ignited into a fire that burns even more brightly everyday.
On the second week of his intense torture of jealousy towards the little angels of soft fur and cuteness, he feels like he’s about to burst in flames at how much of jealousy is running through his veins. One day, he snaps.
One late afternoon, Izana was leaning on the armrest of the couch with Whiskey in her arms going crazy with the amount of love she’s giving him as she strokes all the right places. “Awww, aren’t you just the handsomest little man. Awww. Ohmygoshyou’resocute,” she baby talks to the soft fuzz ball as he plays with her finger as she rubs his stomach. When the little kitten gets ahold of her non-robotic finger he tries to bite it in a playful manner. She chuckles and her smile becomes warmer.
The golden light coming in from the window shines down onto her perfect pale skin glow warmly, making her look absolutely gorgeous to Nagate. He’s been caught up in a turmoil of emotions. It was a mixture of the same feelings he had for Shizuka Hoshijiro but intensified with a whole ton of jealousy, attraction to her and her new now female body, and just general fondness towards her. Everything was so confusing. He didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her or be angry at how much attention she was giving the kittens. It made his head hurt and kept him up late at night.
She picked up the little fuzzy ball and kissed his soft neck before she gave him hug. “You’re so adorable. Gosh, I love you so much. You’re so cute,” Izana coos towards Whiskey. All of those lovey dovey words towards a cat, a freaking cat, should not be the flame that sets fire to the oil of jealousy that took its place inside his veins instead of blood. His whole body burns ablaze with it.
As he makes his way towards her, he remarks how she looks absolutely drop dead beautiful with the sun shining in, the way she’s smiling, the way that her hair falls around her perfectly shaped face, the way the emotions of love and happiness appear on her face towards the kitten, the way she just is.
After everything that she’s done for him, being his first friend above ground, the way she was an amazing friend to him and helped him with no matter what he was dealing with, the way that she risked her life to save him when he was falling towards the giant pod of gauna that swallowed an asteroid after he had defeated the Crimson Hawkmoth. All of these things make him wonder how absolutely stupid he was for not noticing how perfect she was and for not falling for her in the first place. Izana looks up to see Nagate walking towards her with an angry face.
“Naga--” She’s cut off when he leans in, placing one hand on the back of the couch and one on the armrest. He presses his lips on hers and kisses her. It’s a very tentative kiss, obviously his first, but full of emotions that just emit off of him. When the shock wears off, she closes her eyes and gently kisses him back. His hand raises from the armrest and he brings it up to gently cup her cheek and neck area. Maybe it wasn’t so bad of an idea to keep those kittens after all.