Tiny, fluffy, chestnut and white fur, big gleaming eyes, too cute to be real. And Yusuke had found it. Lucky day!

Only Yusuke hadn't been the only one to find it.

"Give me the kitten, now!"

Yusuke looked up at the carrot-haired boy towering over him. He had seen the kid before. They were in the same school, same year even, but different classes. In the corridors they had glared at each other a couple of times, but not long enough to make it a proper acquaintance.

The kitten was so small! It almost fit completely in eleven year-old Yusuke's hand. "Buzz off. It's mine."

"I bet you don't even know how to care for cats," the other boy growled.

And he didn't. His mother had never let him have any pets. She wouldn't let him have this kitten either, and he knew it. But that didn't mean he had to leave the cutie with the first loud, idiotic bully that yelled at him.

More to the point, Yusuke hated to be yelled at like that.

So he shrugged, gave the boy his most disdainful glare, and walked away.

Or started to. He hadn't put one step between him and the bully when a closed fist hit his cheek, throwing him on the hard concrete of the sidewalk.

The next moment the two boys were wrapped in a ball of kicking legs, punching fists, biting teeth and cussing words, rolling rabidly on the ground, while the frightened kitten hid behind a hydrant.

Balls are to be played with. Some balls are to be kicked. So when the kicking, punching, biting, cussing ball rolled to meet a pair of long jeans-clad legs, the two boys shouldn't have been so surprised at the powerful kick that knocked them both down and apart.

Yusuke shook some dizziness off his head and looked up to those legs' owner. Tall, slim, brown-haired, seventeen-year-old, glaring daggers, a bouquet of yellow flowers seeming terribly out of place under the left arm.

And female. Yusuke grimaced, disgusted.

"Kazu!" spat the girl.

"Ne... Nesan?" the carrot-haired boy stammered, his braggart attitude gone.

"What Kaasan will say when you show up to your birthday party looking like you were run over by a herd of buffaloes?"

Yusuke saw the boy blush and stutter something unintelligible to his older sister.

She ignored his mumbling, ignored Yusuke's glowering, grabbed her kid brother by the back of his collar and dragged him away. And she seemed a lot more natural at that than at carrying flowers.

A soft mew. Gently, Yusuke captured the scared kitten in his hand again, and examined it. Really, it was too cute to be real.

Grunting, Yusuke stood up and sneaked after the two siblings. He would leave the kitten at their door, ring the doorbell and run away.

"Ofukuro will never let me keep it anyway," Yusuke sighed. "And that's an almost kick-ass fighter. He deserves a better birthday present than some crappy flowers."