What hurts the most

I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house,

that don't bother me.

"Tecchan…"

Tetsuya raised his head from his book – a manga which Koganei-senpai lent to him, with an high school basketball club as protagonist – when he heard the calling from his granny's voice, looking like a reprimanding but full of badly hidden worriedness.

The little phantom was sitting on his window edge, back resting against the frame and knees bent against his chest to make the perfect lectern, and was still wearing his school uniform because the story took him so much that as soon as he got home he used just a little of time to greet his family before shutting himself in his room and resume his reading. It was raining, even if not that much to worry anyone or to cause black-outs, and the drops ticking was similar to a clocks chorus against the glass at his side, creating on it little arabesques with their tails which after reflected themselves into the dark light, azure, square on the floor. The light bulb on the ceiling was off, Tetsuya had fun using the light coming from the street lamp and so staying in the dark, in the shadows. He felt much more at ease this way, in his 'natural habit' practically. His mother, laughing, always said that he was crazy and he answered that she was probably right, but never stopped feeling more at home in the darkness than in the light, there were nobody was visible and he was perfectly the same as everybody else.

"Yes?" he politely asked, putting a paper strip as bookmark within the book pages before shutting it, "Do you need any help, obaa-san?"

Kuroko Kimiko heavily sighed, dramatically, while entering his nephew's bedroom and closing the door behind her. Tetsuya hurried up and got down of his sitting to move the ball in the middle of the room, making it rolling cautiously near the with sport-bag with a black and red 'SEIRIN' written on, to allow his granny to reach him, but when she sat over the desk chair he was fast in coming back to his window.

"That damn perch!" the woman muttered seeing him taking his position, but the boy simply smiled to her with his only eyes.

Kimiko was an old woman, but who emitted a dense aura around her. As a secular oak which had overcome centuries with not a single scratch, she induced the same chills and respect of a knight, with wrinkles as scars and little sharp azure eyes as blades. Her armour was a sky-blue kimono, of the same colour of her son's and grandson's hair, of hers before time painted them in white and silver one by one, and her war paint was a long air pin with a big carved black rose which showed from the top of her chignon. Black and azure were their family colours and she always wore them, at least in a detail. Kuroko suspected Kagami, if he'd ever meet her, would have said she 'smelled like strength'. A strength mixed with some kind of vague wisdom and the ghost of melancholy which seemed to be dancing in her eyes in that moment.

Tetsuya guessed where the talk was going to go and sighed deciding to lay his book on his futon, right under him.

"Your mother is sure I'm stressing you too much" Kimiko began, snorting, "and your father says the more I push you to do something and the more it is probable you won't do it. Those two think I don't know who I'm dealing with."

Tetsuya kept for himself the thought that, in the end, his parents proved to know him very well despite being overseas for most of the year because of their work. On the other hand, even living with her, he didn't see his granny very much since he was quite always out training for basket, both with his team or on his own.

"You do know why they're back to Japan, don't you?" The glare Kimiko gave him from behind her long pitchy black cilia said clearly that she wouldn't have accepted a silence or a monosyllable as an answer.

Tetsuya moved his gaze from the windows, because the answer was shining on the calendar on the wall, right behind his interlocutrix head. It said it was the thirty-first of January.

I can take a few tears now and then

and just let them out.

"Because of my birthday." he answered, even trying to keep a neutral face.

Twelve months ago, his sixteenth birthday had born in front of middle school third year Winter Cup, Ogiwara's tears-stained face, Generation of Miracles' dull eyes and a period for him full of nightmares, pain and resignation, a desperate tunnel from which he thought he wouldn't have been able to come out without renouncing forever to his beloved sport. Maybe he was a superstitious fool, but he had preferred to hide his seventeenth birthday's arrival and he had told nobody, not even Kagami, about it. He had forgotten it would have not been so easy to convince his family to ignore the event.

"Tecchan, you have to go out…" Kimiko's voice was strong, unbendable, it didn't leave room to refusals or disobediences of any kind, it was abso-…

Kuroko shook his head, stopping his own thought – and the lecture his grandmother was still giving – in the middle. He wouldn't have allowed himself to think about it again. What was done was done and he had already promised himself to stop thinking about the past, to quit lying between remorse and regrets and to focus only on his present and future. That slice of his middle school time, especially, was definitely off-limits.

"Tecchan…"

Kimiko stared confusedly, but with no surprise, to the pained expression suddenly born on his usually apathetic nephew's face. She knew that boy had, yes, just a few scars but a lot of still open ready to bleed out of the blue wounds too; she knew even that it was not her power, not in her duties, to mend any of them and that it was up to Tetsuya and Tetsuya alone to prevent those signs from attacking his soul, but when she saw him like that… She would have never admitted it with the boy, but she feared the infection was already taking place in him. She sighed.

"I don't care who you call. I don't even care if you don't call anyone and wander alone for a bit." the woman said, provoking the nephew's shock since he well knew her overprotective side, "But, Tecchan, make your parents and me happy." The wrinkled hand of her stretched out to grab the boy's one, turned it up and after a moment closed it on some folded banknotes, "Try to make yourself happy only for today. Take yourself a present, buy a basketball or a camion of those milkshakes of yours, but, please, at least try to do something just for your own good. Okay?"

"Obaa-san…"

"No obiections!" Kimiko interrupted him standing up. Smiling, the grandma winked at him. "Even shadows turn seventeen only once in a lifetime."

"All the birthdays come only once in a lifetime." Tetsuya pointed out, but the old woman shook his sentence away with her waving hand while already exiting the room.

The phantom sighed opening her hand and looking at the money – too much for just a ball or some milkshakes – wondering how much his family must be worried over him. He folded again the banknotes carefully, got up and reached for his desk, then opened the drawer and put them attentively into an enveloped with the word 'University' on it.

Gomen, Obaa-san to Okaa-san to Otou-san., he thought bitterly, I just can't do it.

Silent like the shadow he was, he came back to sit on his window, took his book again and resumed his readind.

Silent like the pain which was their father, poison tears slipped from his eyelashes per his cheeks to the comics pages, full of guys playing basket, all together, laughing.

I'm not

afraid to cry

every once

in a while

even though

going on

with you gone

still upsets me.

Tetsuya was used to scare people, but he wasn't to the reverse so, when his mobile began ringing in his pocket, he jerked and jumped on his feet letting the book falling on the ground.

When he realized his exaggerated reaction, he sighed and hurried up in taking his phone, but he frowned reading 'Private Number'.

He hanged up, snorting, because it was certainly some mobile company.

On his feet in his room and into the light squander broken by the rain, he turned toward the windows and lowered his eyes on the water which seemed to be running over his arms, left uncovered by the rolled up sleeves. If only he truly was outside, under the rain, he could have believed the weather was the reason for the coldness in his veins. He turned his palms up, stared at the blue and green lace of the vein that was embellishing his flesh's snow, he imagined the drawings made by the shadows and pretended to be one of them, only a little bigger and paler. He imagined being the rain and slipping in the whole nothing, running away into the ground interspaces, getting into the narrowest opening and being absorbed by something else. He imagined running on a boy's cheek and cleaning him from his sins, freeing him from his sadness; he imagined being dried up by a little, but really a little, bigger hand, warm and protective, able to make him only a sad memory.

He bitterly laughed of himself and passed an arm on his face. There were no hands to dry him, otherwise.

There are days

every now

and again

I pretend

I'm okay

but that's not what gets me.

A lamp, in the grey sky, made his skin shine and drew the black figure of something else, something hidden under the wardrobe.

Tetsuya turned his head immediately, but the lightening must have already hit the ground because the room was already again in its half-darkness and the borders of the object had already mixed to other shadows, vanishing into nothing.

He hesitated, aware that he was only hurting himself, but in the end he reached for the object and knelt down, moved aside his sport bag and the basketball then he reached with his arm for the depth of the darkness until his fingers wrapped around a cold metal cylinder, vitreous, then he took a deep breath and pulled.

It slipped meekly out of its refuge, as meekly as it had passed from hand to hand until it got stuck into his, and sparkling despite the dust it stared at him naively, unaware of the pain it had caused. The writing "Teiko Middle School Basketball team. Winter Cup. First place." stood out elegantly under the three-storey trophy, which held triumphantly the golden statue of a player in the middle of slamming a dunk.

Kuroko had not a single idea about why he had kept that trophy. It was of his second year in middle school, his first Winter Cup, and of a beautiful time, but that victory's joy was not even slightly comparable to the suffering of the following year. It was Aomine who gave him that cup, under the good-tempered eyes of Akashi and between the smiles, or half-smiles, of the other three prodigies of the Generation of Miracles. For making it., he had said. Making it…what exactly? Kuroko didn't even know it anymore.

He had once again seen Ogiwara-kun at that year final match, but when he had looked for him after it he was already gone, simply. A little rapidly hand-written note was all that he had left behind: Let's re-make our promise; let's play togheter.

Kuroko's hands rose a bit and then ran toward the ground. The trophy's columns between his fingers crushed immediately into pieces, the various storeys fell on the floor, the marble carved plinth thudded against the wood and the golden player miserly rolled again under the wardrobe.

And Tetsuya stood still sobbing, knelt into the sharps.

What hurts the most

was being so close

and having so much to say

and watching you walk away.

Basket. Fatigue, sweat and vomit, are you sure you can do it, Tetsuya? Popsicle. Strawberry, anise, lemon, orange, they're all good, Kuro-chin. 'Loser', 'loser', 'winner', what a fucking luck, Tetsu. Laughs. Me too, me too, me too, Kurokocchi. Nanodayo. Shoes, streets, zebra crossing, beware of the traffic light, Kuroko. Ice. Slips, snowballs, frozen hands and red noses, thanks for the scarf, Tetsu-kun.

It's alright. I prefer vanilla. It's just a coincidence. You're annoying. I'm not a child. It's nothing, don't worry.

Don't kiss me when someone can see us. Don't ruffle my hair. Don't run like this. I don't need my lucky item. Don't shout. Don't strangle me.

Kiss me as long as nobody's here, until you swell my lips and dried my mouth, leave bites and hickeys where everyone can see them even if I wear high-necked T-shirts, so I can scold you and hear your laughter. Raise me like a child, weightless, so I can see you interested in something. Run until you lose your breath, become fast enough to reach the sun-set and leave me behind so I can chase after you until I feel sick and smile at you when you'll be back to check on me. Bring me all the strangest things in this world so I'll know that every morning you listen to my sign too and that every single day you do your best to keep me safe. Shout, laugh, whimper, behave like a child so I can keep on taking care of you without being scared of seeing you overcoming me. Keep saying the world you're my girlfriend, so I'll know that you're not hating me because I can't return your feeling and that you love me enough to protect me while I love someone else.

And never knowin'

what could've been

and not seein' that lovin' you

is what I was tryin' to do.

Air entered his nose and exited silently from his half-open lips.

Kuroko got up. With his feet wrapped into white socks he walked carefully to the door, bypassing the sharps as if they were mountains, and entered the corridor. He passed over the kitchen ignoring his parents' and his grandma's figures which were sitting at the table, he pretended not to hear his mother's voice asking what was happening and kept his back at his father's body which was appearing out of the door asking what the noise from before was. He reached for the entrance and bent to open the little cabinet – which was kind-of the house storage-room –, with strong fingers that didn't show his mind state he looked for a dustpan to clean the disaster – a vaguely refreshing one – in his room, but again a ring scared him.

The phone? No. The door.

He hesitated.

"Otou-san, are we expecting someone?" he asked in a loud voice, his eyes lifting to the wall clock on his right.

"Sweety, can you open the door, please?"

His mother's answer didn't reassure him, but he obeyed the same, meekly, and pull the door without looking at the peephole.

It's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere I go,

but I'm doing it.

It's hard to force that smile when I see our old friends and I'm alone.

Nobody. There was absolutely nobody.

Just, on the ground, a plastic white glass with a big A written on with a black marking pen and a note attached on: To Kuroko Tetsuya.

The boy took the object suspiciously and with even more suspect he opened the cover when he realized it wasn't full. Infact, there was just a little of the liquid. A little of a white and dense substance he would have been able to smell even from miles apart.

[It's a common knowledge that the Kurokos are really smart creatures. As long as they're not dealing with a Vanilla Milkshake. Then, they become really stupid and reckless.]

Tetsuya looked around, to his left and right, while he instinctively sipped greedily from the straw his milkshake 'till its last drop.

His cornflower irises spotted immediately the second glass, always candid but with a black letter and with a little note on.

"Obaa-san, I'm going out."

Just the time to put on his shoes and to shout that words and Kuroko was already near his second clue, marked with an R. Vanilla Milkshake again, only a sip again. Tetsuya made a face at the idea of so many milkshakes left and raised with his second glass put into the first.

Like the Holy Grail, a third glass was waiting for him at the end of the stairs, showing off proudly a big pitchy I on itself and the Tetsuya Kuroko belonging marking card. The azure-haired guy was aware of his foolish appearance while he trotted along toward the object and promised himself he would have scolded his grandma for that poor joke: there was surely her hand behind that vulgar trick to make him going out, he knew it, but the woman should have been ashamed in using his nephew's weakness against himself. Not that Kimiko was famous for her integrity: Kuroko well remembered her peeking between her fingers when they were playing hide-and-seek.

Without his jacket, the little sky-haired phantom kept on chasing after his Milkshakes.

Still harder

getting up,

getting dressed,

living with

this regret,

but I know

if I could do it over

I would trade,

give away

all the words

that I saved

in my heart,

that I left unspoken.

The fourth glass, a G, was on his house landing. The A at the corner of the road and Tetsuya had to fight with a cat, curious about the smell, to defend the milkshake, which was his by right. A T had been incautiously left in the middle of the zebra crossing and Kuroko had a little faint at the idea of a car running over his treasure. An O was at the corner of the basketball court where he used to play and the boy finally took a relieved breath seeing it in a safe zone.

He bent, took the eight glass and drank the last sip, counting happily that he had almost quite finished an whole milkshake, then he turned to look for the next clue.

And he froze on the spot.

What hurts the most

is being so close

and having so much to say

and watching you walk away.

"You're really like Hop-o'-my-Thumb with his breadcrumbs trail, uh, Tetsuya?"

Flames and embers like hair and eyes, slightly lighter coloured but definitely hotter lips, a malicious and tempter smile, which was the door for both Hell and Paradise.

"Damn, how fast can you be when you chase after these things, Tetsu?! You almost caught us every time!"

A thin line of oceanic blue hair, ruffled, over a white-coffee-skinned face and a sulky expression, but with a sparkle in the navy eyes.

"You're a fool, nanodayo. I can't believe you made a fuss with a cat because of a milkshake, I thought you were more…mature."

Green locks a bit ruffled, green glasses that made emerald irises stood out and long wrapped into snowy bandages slight fingers caressing a nose.

"Kuro-chin's milkshake must be really tasty, but I'd be scared to ask him a sip."

An outrageous height, long purple locks, amethyst eyes and a chips pack into enormous hands.

"Neh, Kurokocchi, are you okay? You're pale…"

An Adonic look, a bright slightly-uncertain smile, dense hazel eyes, soft blond strands and the glim of a silver earring.

"Hem… Tetsu-kun? Could you breathe, please?"

Long pink hair and eyes like little quartzes of the same colour, a flourishing body that could have made every man fainting and a sweetly worried expression.

Tetsuya's eyes widened, his mouth half-opened, the blood in his veins froze suddenly and a voice inside his head started yelling him to escape, to run away the fastest he can and to never stop.

And he obeyed.

And never knowing

what could've been

and not seeing that loving you

is what I was trying to do.

The Milkshake cat stood in the middle of the sidewalk, his paws well balanced on the ground and a challenging expression in his feline eyes, then he swell his fur and began blowing threateningly when he recognised the figure of the human, which just a bit before had invaded his territory and taken away an interesting prey, running again toward him. Sure of himself, he loudly and dreadfully meowed before jumping on his enemy.

What hurts the most

was being so close

and having so much to say

and watching you walk away.

Kuroko moaned for the pain that suddenly burned his leg, stumbled and fell forward on the cold sidewalk. He managed to cushioned the impact with his hands, but the pain didn't seem to be decreasing and when he managed to roll on his back and take a look at the aching part he spotted an evil damn white cat with nails deep into his jeans – now all ripped – and with the little sharp fangs left visible from the opened mouth which was blowing at him.

"Away!" he tried to order, waving his hand to move his enemy, but only obtaining that the animal got ready to jump from his leg to his chest – or even on his face, if he managed to reach it –.

The boy raised an arm and closed his eyes seeing the feline reaching for him and…nothing happened.

Kuroko raised his eyelids, but he needed to blink a couple of time because he was unable to realize the situation.

"Bloody bitch!" Aomine exclaimed, straightening an arm toward the outside to bring the damn cat – which he had grabbed by the scruff – the farthest away from him, just in time to prevent that beast from disfiguring his friend, "What the hell is this?!"

"He must still be mad because of the milkshake theft, nanodayo." Midorima commented, staring with suspect to the cat and staying a step away from the friend keeping the animal.

"It was mine…" Kuroko muttered, before being able to stop, but a little pink tornado prevented the birth of a quarrel over the property rights for the precious drink.

"Are you okay, Tetsu-kun?" Momoi, worried, knelt to check his loved-one's trouser and to look at the red stains forming on it, "It'd be better to hurry up and disinfect these cuts…"

"Here, Kurokocchi."

Kuroko raised his gaze from her friend to find Kise's outstretched hand practically in front of his face, waiting for his. Thanking him in a low voice, he took it and let himself being helped on his feet.

The sound of continuous snaps, until then unnoticed background, stopped immediately when the big body of Murasakibara bent a bit over the azure boy, staying next the blond one.

"Neh, can you walk, Kuro-chin? Do you need me to carry you?"

Tetsuya politely refused, but then his attention came back to his ex-light when this one cursed again.

The little evil cat had not given up and was now trying to make Aomine's arm suffer the same end of Kuroko's leg, waving his front paws with his unsheathed claws directed toward the nearest skin he could find, luckily still unable to reach it.

"Ohi, what am I suppose to do with this thing, now?!" the boy exclaimed, clearly annoyed, glaring at the animal, "I can't fucking stand him even just by looking!"

"Is your mother happy as always for your vulgarity, Daiki?" Akashi reched slowly for the animal still dangling and approached him despite the half-warning to be prudent that Midorima gave him. The red one stared attentively at the cat. "Interesting." he concluded, after a long analysis. Then he took a pair of scissors out of his jacket pokets. "You should be enough as a legwarmer for Tetsuya, since you attacked him."

"AKASHI-KUN!" Momoi exclaimed jumping on her feet and running toward the red boy at the same time the blue one brought the arm with the animal at the opposite side of his trunk, in order to get the beast away from the scissors, but that allowed the cat to sink his nails in Midorima's pullover, to cling on his chest and swell his fur again like a ball.

Kuroko observed with a neuter expression Shintarou starting screaming for the 'satanic beast' to be taken away from him, Aomin grabbing said beast for its sides and putting a foot into the green stomach to leverage and to be able of detatched it from him – taking away even shards of the pullover –, Momoi and Kise trying desperately to block Akashi's path while he was keeping on opening and closing his scissors and Murasakibara, uncaring of the situation, eating his chips while staring at the scene with a bored expression. Then the sky-haired boy did something he would have never expected to do, that night and with those persons.

He burst out laughing.

Not only an evanescent smile, like the other rare times in which the Generation of Miracles had been able to surprise him with their idiocy, but a true laughter, noisy and so loud that it forced him to hug his stomach because of the pain in his abs and so clear that he had to closed his eyes because they were full of tears.

When, after some few moments – he was still a shadow –, he suddenly stopped, he discovered that all the other had frozen and were looking at him. Even the cat.

"What?" he asked, lowering his arms and bending his head to a side.

There was a moment of silence, but the first one to recover was Kise. With just an amazed 'tsk', the blond made a crooked smile and scratched his nape with a hand.

"Always the same Kurokocchi." he commented, almost to himself, and then even the others lost their immobility.

Kuroko stared at them.

He stared at Akashi, on the left, putting his scissors again in his pocket with an elegant smile – a thin and light one, but soft, eyes closed – and Momoi giving him a grateful look before bringing her wrist behind her back and smile toward her crush; Kise crossing his arms over his chest and shaking a bit his head and Midorima – his pullover all ripped and his chest pale and hairless skin showing from the holes – adjusting his glasses on his nose with a 'tsunderical' upset snort; Aomine smiling widely, brightly, despite the cat still in his hands – the poor animal was kept by his sides and was forced to face Kuroko showing him his belly, but that didn't stop him from shaking all his four paws toward him – and Murasakibara smiling with his lips closed and mouth full. And then he realized something.

"Minna…" he murmured, unsure on how to continue, but Akashi stopped him shaking his head.

"Don't worry, Tetsuya." he whispered coming near the phantom with hand in his pockets. When he was in front of him, in a really Out Of Character gesture, the red one laid his forehead against his. "Everything is alright, now."

Everything is alright, now.

Everything is alright, now. Everything is alright, now. Everything is alright, now. Everything is alright, now. Everything is alright, now.

Everything is alright, now.

"Oh! Right!" Kise's voice, happy, made Akashi step away and to a side, letting Kuroko meet everyone's gazes and smiles.

"Tetsu!" Aomine exclaimed with a grin.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" echoed, unanimously.

And never knowing

what could've been

and not seeing that loving you

is what I was trying to do.

"Seventeen. Years. Old. I'm only saying this."

Kuroko strived not to snort nor to roll his eyes in front of his grandma's scolding and he limited himself into thanking her politely when the woman had finished bandaging his leg and had gotten up, but she ignored him and exited the room still muttering with herself. Kuroko tried to move his ankle to see if the bandages would have resisted his calf movements, but an amazed voice caught his attention.

"She's right, Tetsuya." Akashi declared, clearly sarcastic, "You're seventeen now, you shouldn't be doing these childish things anymore, come on! Picking up a fight with a cat…"

Kuroko glared at his captain slightly more threateningly that the usual.

"And whose fault should this be?" he retorted, getting up from the desk chair to go and sit on the window. Doing this, he passed in front of the wardrobe Akashi was laying against – and under which was laying the head of the trophy he had destroyed just a bit before – and he mentally took note to thank his mother for cleaning the mess he had made before the Generation of Miracles brought him home by force – literally, in Atsushi's arms – so that his leg could be taken care of. He didn't want his friends to see the proves of his outburst, especially since things were going better lately.

Kise and Murasakibara had to go almost running, because of the trains, and Aomine and Momoi had left with Midorima in order to cover him and avoid people to notice his clothes state. Akashi, instead, said he would stayed in Tokyo for a couple of days before coming back to Kyoto and so he had stayed a bit more, saying he wouldn't have moved before seeing the finished bandage.

Now, a smile on his lips, he was moving toward the azure boy and sat near him on the windowsill. He raised even a leg to put it on the fixture, slipping his foot under Kuroko's tight, definitely close to his bottom. The sky-haired one didn't react.

In the end, what reason did he have for doing it? He had experimented with Akashi a kind of intimacy that was far deeper that then, so there was no reason for him to behave as if he was embarrassed. And most of all, he didn't want to: he was comfy, it wasn't worth to move because of some silly pride.

Therefore, he limited himself into staring at the red with apathetic eyes. Akashi, as always, understood his unexpressed thought and shook his head.

"No, Tetsuya." he declared, laying and hand on his cheek and making him raise his chin a bit, so that they were face to face, "Thank you."

And so, he pecked his lips.

Not seeing that "loving you"

is what I was trying to do.

THE END

Okay, for us who fell in love with that damn angelic smile -it might seems an oxymoron but it's true!- today's an important day: Kuroko Tetsuya's birthday! :D

On my part, I wish I could do something so I ended up writing this right after hearing the song whose lyrics intersperses the story: "What hurts the most", by Rascal Flatts. I don't really know how the story turned out to be, but that's for you to judge :)

Well, as always, reviews are surely welcomed and...read you soon!

Sincerely,

Agap

P.S.

If you're interested, there's a little EXTRA right under this notes: hope you enjoy ;)

EXTRA:

Kuroko blinked a couple of time, shocked, but it was Aomine who voiced, with a vaguely desperate exclamation, his thought. Surely the same of the whole Generation of Miracles, together at the Akashi's Mansion in Tokyo.

"YOU ADOPTED THAT DAMN DEVIL IN DISGUISE?!"

Daiki's scream earned him an irritated meow from the said beast, which then came back to sleep on his new owner's lap.

Akashi gently caressed his back

"His name's Yokai." he warned and with that sentence they all knew it was over, there was no way left to change the situation.

"I approve only the name choice." Midorima muttered, laying against the wall on the opposite side of the room from his ex-captain.

And while they all muttered, with themselves or with others, about the new couple Akashi-Yokai, Kuroko felt the anger raising – until he felt the desire to have Nigou with him – while he stared at the cat. Or better, at what the cat was sittin on.

Mine., he thought, irritated and jealous.

Much for everyone disbelief, Akashi Seijuro burst out laughing apparently with no reason whatsoever.