Evening's Girl-Child

The rat had gone to the library. The cat was outside, somewhere. The dog could hear what sounded like someone kicking a tree over and over, grunting angrily. Well, he thought, that was fine. As long as the cat wasn't kicking the side of the house.

The dog was hungry, so he meandered out into the hallway and into the kitchen. Tohru was there, chopping vegetables. The radio was on and she was humming to it, slightly off key, in a high-pitched cheery sort of way. He watched her before going to the refrigerator and rummaging through it to see what there was in terms of leftovers.

"Are these edible?"

"Of course they are," Tohru said, not turning around. She sounded amused, and then she said, "Shigure-san, I'm making dinner. You'll spoil your appetite."

That was the signal to sneak away, pretending to be mortified, tail between his legs. Instead, he poked at the tonkatsu from yesterday's lunch, and said, "But I'm hungry now."

"You sound like Kyo."

"Ouch," he said reproachfully. "That hurts."

She laughed and slid a tomato over the counter at him. "Here you go. This should fill you up until dinner's ready."

"Oh, Tohru," the dog said. "Didn't you know that tomatoes are 90% water? I need something more substantial."

She threw him a mischievous grin and he swallowed the tomato in one gulp anyway, padding softly out of the kitchen and into the common room. The tatami mats were cool and slightly scratchy under his feet. The television was on, something about a bombing in a city that was far away from here. Humans were funny creatures, he thought, tucking his legs neatly under him and daydreaming against the wall.

"Shigure-san?"

He focused on Tohru's sweet face hovering there in front of him, and smiled. Her hair was just a little bit disheveled, tiny strands hanging in curlicues around her face, like the boar-child's when she was small. She looked concerned, her eyes like the rat's eyes, large and soulful, filled with the goodness of the world.

"I'm just resting," he said. "Call me when the food's done."

"If you're really hungry-" she began, and he batted her away playfully.

"You're too nice."

"Ten minutes," she promised him, and bounced out of the room.

He sat there listening to the hum of the television in the background, thinking about the ones who were not there and how he perhaps was not the best man in the family to act as a father figure, but it was too late to regret that now. The sky deepened to a dark-violet, like the inner whorls of budding flower petals, and the scent of good food drifted from the kitchen.

Far above, over the garden verandah, something twinkled through the clouds - an airplane? A shooting star? He could see the girl's slight form through the doorways linked in a square of light that darkened to shadow as she passed from one side of the kitchen to the other, carrying jars of sauces and plates and spoons in her hands.

It would be nice, the dog thought, to just sit here like this for a while in the blue glow of the television, and fall asleep to the music of her light form dancing through the spaces of the house. He heard her singing again. Curry sauce, his nose told him, and he took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of this house and this family, which she'd somehow become a part with or without their permission.

"Shigure-san?" she called out, and he did not answer, thinking to himself, just a little bit longer. He heard her moving to the kitchen doorway and sighed. As she crossed the hall, he unfolded himself from the floor, reaching out to her as she came into the room, one hand outstretched to the daughter, the sister, the mother, the bride he'd never had.

"Dinner's ready," Tohru said.