#ratlings

The house was so quiet, so comfortably quiet. Ogata sat at the low table, with two bowls before him: one with peanuts, and the other with the shells. The silence is filled with the soft cracking of the shells, the plucking and peeling of them occasionally harmonising with the sound of the peanuts within being eaten, and Mikan the cat purring in his lap.

They were purchased at his request, the peanuts — something he could enjoy in the quiet solitude when he was feeling particularly both melancholic and nostalgic. There still were some days where he missed home.

Mikan's fat orange head popping up is the first thing alerting him that something or someone was approaching the home. Ogata pauses, the shell just breached in his hand, but the sound of a horse neighing and his children's voices make his shoulders relax. He resumes opening the peanut shell.

The sound of the sliding door being opened a few minutes later and both Takeru and Mizuki's simultaneous daddy! echo in the small house. Mikan only rolls more onto his side when both children come running up to their father but they stop short after seeing his hands full.

"Did you even take your shoes off?" is the first thing Ogata asks. He can't see it well, but he knows both children look down at their feet because they then meekly shuffle off to go remove their shoes.

"Hyakunosuke!" Rat's excited voice from the entryway makes him flinch — his quiet time… all interrupted. "Oh, I was wondering when you were going to eat those."

Ogata glances up in the direction of her voice, his expression blank. She wonders what kind of mood he's in, given the silence. He even took the time to put in his glass eye.

Rat drops to the floor next to him, leaning in to give him a kiss before pausing. He raises a brow — he can tell there's something in her hand, and that she's looking down at the cat in his lap.

"You're sneaking Mikan in, now, too? Mizuki was wondering where he went."

"It was cold." It wasn't.

The sound of running feet breaks the conversation, and Ogata feels the little arms of his daughter wrapping around his neck from behind. Whatever she held in her hands bops him in the face — though he makes no acknowledgement bar a subtle flinch.

"Look what we got!" Mizuki's shrill voice rings in Ogata's ear and startles Mikan, who leaps up and darts out of his lap. Mizuki replaces the cat, careful not to knock the table. Rat chuckles, and from the vague sensations of her arms moving against his, he knows Takeru had taken her lap as a seat.

"Tell me," he says, pushing the peanuts and their shells further onto the table, and out of knocking distance. Mizuki thrusts the object in his face, where it brushes against his chin. He takes it from her, and squeezes it. "Another doll?"

"I think another American has moved in and opened up a shop in the city," Rat interjects, leaning against Ogata as she places the doll she held between his chest and Mizuki.

"Why?" He asks, picking up the other doll. The silhouette is not one he's seen before, not in a doll at least. It's flat, but feline shaped.

"I had one of these when I was a bit older than Takeru." The excitement is tangible in her voice, there was no mistaking it. "They got really popular in the States. It's a cat."

"It's Mikan!" Mizuki shouts, grinning like she had just solved the world's hardest puzzle. When he held it closer, he could see the orange in the plush.

"Mama got one, too," Takeru chirps up, and hands the third plush now towards his father. This one seems to be a black and white cat, the one that was Rat's was a grey and white one.

"You? Why did you get one?" Ogata balances the three Ithaca kitties in his arms before Mizuki plucks hers out of the bunch.

"I told you, I had one as a kid. It just… I don't know, reminded me of back home."

Ogata remains silent, even as Mizuki clambers out his lap to go bother Mikan. Takeru politely asks for his back, and only joins Mizuki after the plush is returned to him. Only Rat's remains in his hands. His head is angled down but he isn't looking at it, rather the peanuts upon the table. His shoulders feel tense, very tense, again.

"Is it the same?" He asks, his voice quieted, and Rat leans in his direction to hear him better.

"Hm?"

"Is it the same cat," he mutters, brows furrowed — he hated repeating himself.

"No… they were still pretty new when I got one; back then, they were all the same cat." Rat shuffles closers, enough so that they were hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder.

"Why this one, then?" Ogata asks, flicking his blurred gaze to the bowl of peanuts once more.

"Looks like the cat I had back home. It… might have been a waste to buy one for myself, but I can make the money back." Rat takes the plush from Ogata. His hands linger in the air before slowly lowering, his chest feeling awfully, awfully tight.

"They were expensive," he concludes.

"Hm. No. Mizuki's was." Rat props the Ithaca kitty in her lap, against the table. Ogata cannot see the bittersweet look on her face as she looks at it. "The kids wanted one, quite badly. I'd be lying if I said I did not want one terribly as well."

The silence stretches — interrupted by the intermittent laughs of both their children — Ogata wasn't certain what to say, exactly. The entire day was uncomfortable from the start, and the new addition of the toys in the house did not help. Rat's admission of nostalgia had certainly made it worse. Ogata raises a hand to his head, and smooths back his hair. Noticing this, Rat sits up, and changes the subject.

"I bought these weeks ago," she comments as she slides the bowls closer to them both. The kitty plush slumps over, half into Ogata's lap. "I was wondering when you were going to eat them."

"Haven't been in the mood," he replies, not looking at Rat as she breaks a peanut shell open, but rather the cat plush. He strokes his hair back again.

"You don't seem to like them much," she keeps the conversation moving despite how increasingly uncomfortable Ogata looks. He does, however, part his lips for her to feed him one of the two peanuts in the shell.

Ogata chews the nut slowly, trying to focus on the earthy flavour rather than the memory of sitting at the table, eating the same thing while his mother stood silently in front of a bubbling pot. His eyes narrow marginally as he stares blankly at the bowls on the table. The hands he sees before him are not his adult ones, but the tiny ones of a child.

"Why have me buy them if you don't like them?" Rat continues, oblivious to the exact turmoil within the man next to her.

She flicks the flakes of the shell stuck to her fingers into the bowl of the other broken shells. Ogata turns his head to look at her, at the blurry mess of skin tones and muted earthy colours that made up the woman constantly glued to his side and the mother of his children.