Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Fan Fiction ❯ Family Pet ❯ Saito ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

“Aaaaa….Achoo!” The human sneezed violently and rubbed his nose. “Cats…all this talk about cats is making me sick. Why the hell do they have to be curious about cats? Achoo! Jees!” Batou glanced over at his friend.
“You catch a cold?”
“Nah, Achoo! Got an allergy to …Achoo…cats! Talking…with Tachikoma about…Achoo…don’t know where they would have gotten the Achoo…idea that cats have ghosts…hate nasty, dirty cats…ah, ah, ahCHOO!” He absently rubbed his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. Batou chuckled.
“I never thought of you as the type of person who’d be allergic to cats.”
“Meow!”
“What?” Togusa shrugged.
“I didn’t say anything.”
Batou had a suspicion. He switched his eyes to thermal optics and immediately found what he was looking for. The cyborg couldn’t help himself; he had to laugh.
“Togusa, when was the last time you emptied your pockets?”
“My pockets? What the hell…” Then suddenly the coat started moving on its own. “What the… you don’t mean… the Tachikoma…” Out of the human’s pocket leapt a bundle of orange and white fur. “CAT!! …ACHOO!” Immediately Togusa was up on top of the desk. “Get it away!”
Chuckling, Batou scooped up the kitten. “It’s just a cat Togusa.” The detective backed away.
“Damn…achoo…BATOU! Take the damn thing away!”
“But it likes you.” He set the kitten down on the desk and immediately it rubbed up and down the detective’s ankle. “See, you two make a cute couple!” The human could feel the hives breaking out on his leg. He tried to use his book to shove it away but the kitten would not be deterred. It clawed its way upward until it could nestle in the long brown hair. Frantically Togusa tried to claw the thing off his head but only managed to topple off the desk and land in a kicking, undignified heap on the floor. The cat responded to these antics by curling up on the full human’s chest and going to sleep. “It thinks you’re its mother. It’s not so bad.”
Togusa glared up at the white-haired cyborg. “If the others hear about this…”
“Hear about what?” Saito stood in the doorway looking back and forth between the two, one on the floor, the other towering over him, laughing uncontrollably. “Do I even want to know what is going on in here?”
“Togusa has cat issues.”
“I do not…achoo…have cat issues! There’s a …Achoo…” Saito spotted the kitten.
“How did you get it in here without Major knowing!?”
“We suspect Tachikoma involvement.” Batou managed with a straight face before dissolving into a second round of laughter. Luckily for Togusa, Saito had pity on his predicament and picked up the purring kitten.
“Friendly, isn’t he? Well I think we know why Major’s pissed this morning. She’s tearing apart the hangar looking for this thing.”
“Then give it to her…achoo.”
“She’d probably eat it for dinner. Maybe that why she’s such a tight as…”
“So what do we do with it?”
“We?” Togusa looked at the other operatives incredulously. “Why we?”
“Like it or not you’re in on this now.” Batou grinned at him. “Besides, you can’t let the Tachikomas down. You’re practically their family…and apparently the cat’s mother. We’ve got to hide this thing from the big bad Major.”
Saito’s human eye glittered with mischief. “I think I know one place she’d never look…”