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"Yana-sal..." came a groan. "...What time is it? What are you doing?"

The mouse stared up at the ceiling. He hopped out of the bed and into the baths before he dared to breathe. Not even bothering to turn on the lights, he turned on the shower fast. He had to get rid of the evidence.

He was so focused on the sound of the water he didn't hear the door open behind him.

"Chero-san...the place smells...what happened?"

How well could the panther see? Didn't they have excellent night vision?

"I couldn't sleep. I'm fine, go back to bed."

Chero's night vision was still adjusting and he felt the heat of a black body before seeing it. The voice came low and deep with an accent that couldn't be heard in sunlit hours.

"Why are you always washing, yana-chan?"

The mouse didn't answer hoping. He couldn't pray, but he silently willed Dante away. Instead, he felt a paw touch his back.

The mouse pulled his paws to his chest and tightened. "Dante...what are you doing?"

A bar of soap and a pair of paws came to his back and slowly circled. One went up to his neck, the other to his shoulder, and then they switched in rhythmic time. "Just helping you out."

Only his paws touched, but that was all Chero needed to become fully erect again.

"You don't have to do this," he whispered. "I can wash myself."

"I used to do it for my grandmother. Just helping a buddy out."

Chero didn't know what to do. He stood perfectly still as paws move down his back to his tail, around his buttocks and down his legs and paws. The touch was firm and there were slight calluses that only amplified the shivers up his spine. Then the panther turned him around and washed the front in deep circles.

"Your ribcage is long," Dante noticed. "You've got girl hips too, yana-chan"

Chero hoped for a miraculous intervention, but none came. There was too much water coming over his face and down their fur to witness it.

"...You like girls at all? I mean, you don't want them at all?"

"Just the glamorous ones," Chero answered.

Then Dante came too close to his groin. Chero clenched his fists as the soap moved within a hair's breath of his scrotum and down the thighs.

"Did you like Velta? She thought you were hot." Dante moved down to Chero's feet and between his toes. "She asked about you. You scared her, but she liked it. Weird, huh?"

"What are you saying?"

The soap came away and the shower nozzle was moved for a rinse. "Just talking."

The water stopped. Then a towel came and draped over Chero's body.

"I can do this part myself."

Dante mumbled in agreement. Chero hated himself for hoping that the panther would stay, would ignore him and come closer this time. He nearly stood on his toes hoping his body would meet another.

But no.

The panther ambled back, brushing Chero's leg with his tail. Nothing.

When Chero returned to the bed, Dante seemed fast asleep. It never occurred to Chero to thank him at all.

***

The next morning the world seemed normal. During morning meditations however, Chero noticed that the gate in his chest opened a little more easily than yesterday. The midnight bath must have opened up his sinus passages better, and he moved more easily.

Another two days in the office passed, but the time passed quickly. When they began to see repeating faces in the reports, Dante suggested they take a break and go sightseeing. After a short bout of argument, Chero wouldn't admit how relieved he was to be in the fresh air again.

They continued Chero's tour of parks, playgrounds and recreation centers for another two days. Between neighborhoods, Dante pointed out some of the better neighborhoods, fountains where the university students liked to loiter and smoke flowers, late-night cafes and movie dens with discounts during the week they could take advantage of.

Against Chero's inclination, they went to the movie Crack Down. The protagonist was a lone Wolf rebelling against the powers of a totalitarian society. Armed with unbelievable insight, muscles and sex appeal, he weathered explosions, high-speed chases and a Snake assassin that lay waste to every obstacle it his path while barely missing the hero. He walked out of the film and filed a complaint with the manager that ended in a shouting match and Chero storming out of the movie den.

On the drive home that night, Dante was chagrined. "You really hated the acting that much?"

"No." Chero was still fuming. "It was blatant propaganda and it's portrayal of Snakes and Reptiles was grossly inaccurate."

"It's just a movie. Just for people to have some fun and take it easy. Nothing serious."

When Chero didn't answer, Dante laughed.

"I thought you were going to say all the fight moves were all wrong, eh?

"As a matter of fact, they were," Chero added. He counted the errors on his fingers. "Horse-stance and Sand-stance were horrible for deflection of blows at the beginning of the movie. A simple Rock-stance or even a child's Tail-stance would have been more efficient. Those five minutes should have been five seconds frankly. What? Don't look so surprised Dante-san, gymnastics and self-defense are the same discipline for different results."

***

The dust of the city had been held down by the rain of the season. The skies were gray and bright with oncoming clouds from the horizon.

Finally, in the middle of the afternoon of the third day, Chero walked deeper into the park than he had in any other. Dante called to him with no reply, then rapidly parked the car to follow. The ground was wet and shimmering from the drizzle that had started earlier that day.

"Over here!" Chero yelled.

Dante jogged over the playground to where Chero was kneeling. The paint had worn off the swing set and the jungle blocks and rust had begun on hinges and posts of the play cages and moon seats. It was easy to spot the white form among the faded landscape.

Chero was down at a seesaw that was chipped and cracked at the edges.. Chero was touching a spot near the axis with the tips of his claws.

"It's faded, but I can still make it out," he said. "Look. You see? See where my finger goes? Follow it. This is where my sis and I used to play!" He laughed with delight and caressed the wood. "We put our initials here one day. I'd forgotten it!"

Dante shook his head. "Chero-san...it just looks like scratches to me. Like all the other scratches on the wood."

Chero went rigid. He checked again and bent down to check still a third time. He more jerkily ran his claw along the grooves of one character and then the other.

"This is it. This is where it happened. I'm sure," he said as he hardened.

"Where what happened?"

The mouse did not answer him. He was still preoccupied with the carvings in the wood and dug his claw deeper. He gouged out the characters until they were fresh again and all the child writing was replaced by something more permanent.

"Wait...wait, Chero-san...you mean here? This place?! Are you sure?" Dante's tail thrashed. "There are lots of these all over the city, they all look the same. Cheap wood and treated plastic and stone and rubber, how can you be sure?"

The mouse took a breath and smelled Time. Here the materials was found in blends of pine and fresh cut grass, neatly trimmed to the edges and found exactly where Chero had left it.

"It happened in the summer," he said. "I remember now. There were ice vendors and it was hot that day. There were lots of us here," he said looking around.

He stood up and began to walk. Each step made the fog melt and brought the sun back around the planet to when it stayed higher longer and the nights were shorter like he had been.

There were faces he could not distinguish and sounds far away. Another white mouse carried flowers she had just woven together into a bracelet, one for her and one made of honeysuckle for her brother. He wouldn't take it and she became cross. If he didn't wear it, she wouldn't play with him. She was so bossy!

At last he relented because they needed a fifth for the game and the other children weren't allowed to play with them. Their mother would be upset with them. Why? They wanted to play too, they could run and hide just as easy. At least they agreed their mother was a pain. They had to wait until school to play bigger games.

One, two, three, four....twenty, fifty, a hundred! Here I come!

Chero had to hide. He could be seen across the world he was so white, but he had to try! He hated being caught every time.

"....I ran over there," the not-yet-adult pointed. "They cut back the bushes now. There used to be more of them."

He walked the curves of the stone path with strides that a younger mouse would have had to take two for. "The snack cart was too obvious, and the vendor didn't like me I think. The latrines...there used to be a building there. See where the foundation was? They've torn it down. The doors were locked all the time though, so we couldn't go in. So out here."

The rain was coming in now but Chero did not lift his hood.

"Over here." He came to a large open lot. "There were festivals coming. They would set up rides and stages here, for public concerts, only none of the equipment was here and there was no place to hide. Except one."

The little mouse stared up at fresh, shiny new vehicle. It was the biggest he'd ever seen and for someone very rich. No one he knew owned a car. He forgot the game and instead explored the grates and the silver enameled handles. Even the windows were made of something silvery and special, not like the yellow glass in the trolley stops.

"Right here," Chero said. He stood on a piece of pavement with a crack under his feet. "He was older, but he didn't look scary. He was orange with yellow eyes and he held a cane."

"Do you like it?" Chero was delighted. "Do you want to see inside it?" Of course! What a wonder! He wouldn't mind getting caught in the game if he could tell his friends something even better he'd found!

After he'd explored it and touched everything, the Cat came inside.

"Are you hungry?" Yes, running around had made him hungry. Mmm! Peanut butter. Fresh bread and there was plenty of it. He could eat his fill and bring one back for Mani.

Chero smirked and touched his lower lip with a single finger. "You can't taste genshi with nuts because it's naturally salty, but if you take too much, it's lethal. He just kept letting me eat and eat not knowing when I'd stop." [1]

Soaked with rain, Chero smiled broadly. "I'd never felt so happy. I didn't notice feeling very sick until later, but I got sleepy and wanted to lie down and he offered me to sleep on the cushions for a few minutes."

He took a step to the curb of the road and lifted his foot.

In the yellow dusty haze of time and the smell of grass, Chero watched what might have been a beautiful car driving away.

Then it was gone. Nothing left but the rain.

His limbs and his fingertips were numb and he had not noticed. He glanced up at Dante and giggled. "You look silly bolli-san. Why are you looking at me that way?"

He turned his head away and couldn't take the image out of his mind. The wide-eyes, the loss of color, it was all extremely amusing. The panther had been washed out and bleached and flattened into a caricature like one his cards. How funny!

Giggling turned to uproarious laughter that avalanched across the grounds until it echoed and drowned in on itself.

He hadn't laughed so hard in years.

***

[1] Common name for a medication prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks. Similar to Gamma-hydroxybutyrate