Kotatsu, after returning with the spoils of his little hunting adventure, is now curled against the warmth of the freckled pirate's torso, rumbling away contently like the engine of a motor vehicle. Ignore the mangled bodies of dead rodents scattered around his boots, maybe.
✖ ╟ ♠️️ ╢ ✖ When one shares their residence with a creature of the feline nature, it is to be expected that, at some point during their lifetime together, they will waken one morning to an unforeseen ‘gift’ delivered the night prior from the sharpened claws and pointed teeth of their furry companion. It’s very rare for these particular presents to have been previously requested, with the exception of when there has been a particularly unpleasant infestation that needs to be swiftly dealt with, and expert paws are needed to take care of the matter in a timely fashion to see that it does not continue a day longer than is absolutely necessary.
This, however, was not something Ace had asked of his beloved lynx nakama. There had been no mouse or rat problem on the ship; the corpses littering his bedroom floor were freshly obtained and brought in from an outside source — namely, the island they had been docked at for several days now. Kotatsu had taken it upon himself to carefully acquire the small treats for his crewmates to savor among themselves at their leisure, making particular effort to spoil Ace especially, it would seem.
Well, perhaps to call them gifts would be a slight misconception. Generally, when a cat brings in dead bodies to its family, it is to deliver a meal to those those cannot otherwise catch their own prey, and to simultaneously feed them whilst also teaching them how to do the same.
In other words, it wasn’t entirely a selfless good deed done by sheer kindness on Kotatsu’s part. More likely, the cat’s mentality would have been something along the lines of… ❛I love you. I will care for you because I want you to live. But you’re a terrible hunter, so I have done this to help you.❜
Partial gesture of adoration, partial insult towards his animal trapping abilities, it would seem.
Ace’s left eye notably twitches as he tackles counting the exact number of dead rodents littered throughout the room. It’s a rather cumbersome task, as they are all in pieces, and it’s relatively difficult to assemble them all inside his head and make out the precise number. Bits of chewed feet and ears are smeared as far as the eye can see. It’s not a sight for the faint of heart. A mouse massacre, you could say.
He probably shouldn’t praise the behavior lest he inadvertently encourage it, but for all his initial vexation and irritability at now knowing he’s going to have to spend half the day meticulously searching for any fragments of tiny, semi-eaten organs that have been widely distributed and hidden under the furniture (because Lord knows the smell will be like Hell on Earth in a few days time if he doesn’t), he can’t bring himself to punish the soundly sleeping Kotatsu. He looks too tranquil. Too non-belligerent for the sole source of this mass destruction. He must have thought he was doing something charitable for his crew. His intentions were performed for what he considered to be the greater good, gruesome as they may have been.
Sighing from the deepest part of his chest, Ace cautiously tiptoes his way through the battlefield of dismembered corpses to his resting nakama with the poise and grace that could rival any expertly trained ballerina with decades’ of practice behind them. He squats down and gives the snoozing lynx a light scratch on the top of his head, but doesn’t exert enough pressure to intentionally wake him.
❝Thanks, but… You really shouldn’ hav’ bothered…❞
He supposes it can’t be helped.
This calm and passive reaction with inevitably come to an extremely abrupt end when the sole of his foot later finds a carefully hidden decapitated mouse body neatly delivered inside one of his shoes.
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