Wretched moon. So knowing, so calm, so romantic, and my life is this way. These were Haru's thoughts as she stared out the car window, elbow against the door and chin against the ball of her hand as she sighed with resignation. She wasn't driving, so that she was watching the moon rather than the road wasn't a problem. Tsuge was driving. He and Hiromi had fought earlier that day, so the car was silent except for the radio, which Haru had set, so it was being left alone. After all, she was the one who was stuck in the middle.

"Haru, will you please tell Tsuge that…" or "Haru, will you please inform Hiromi…" That was her job. She was the person stuck in the middle. The couple weren't talking to each other, but as long as there was a third party there for them to pretend to be talking to, they could continue the fight. No arguments in the car though, not while Tsuge had to drive. For that, Haru was grateful.

Care to know what they were fighting about? This time it was that Hiromi had wanted to dress up to go to a free concert in the park, and Tsuge had insisted that it wasn't that kind of concert. Hiromi tried turning to Haru for backup, but Haru had held up her hands in the traditional "leave me out of it" motion, rolled her eyes conscientiously and backed away carefully. She was wearing a pair of jeans that had spray paint on (in very interesting patterns), and an old school shirt that still fit and was starting to wear thin from all the washes over the years since she had graduated. Perfect for a warm night that was going to be spent surrounded by bodies.

Tsuge had tried to suggest that Hiromi wear ¾-track-pants and a tank top, but Hiromi was bent on wearing a dress. She had given way, but she wasn't happy about it. She wouldn't forgive her boyfriend for making her dress so plainly until after the concert, at the very earliest.

The car came to a halt, and the pair in the front seats got out. Haru sighed once more, looking dejectedly up at the moon, before she too removed herself from the car. Giving them the five-second head-start had been a good choice, it made it easier to loose them in the crowd, and as much as she cared for her friends, all she wanted right now was to sit in a small, dark, quiet place and mope to herself.

Skirting the crowd, Haru headed for a part of the park with more shadows. Following a path, she reached a bench with a pale glowing lamppost beside it, then headed beyond and into the inky backdrop. The first tree she came to, she climbed. It wasn't hard. It was the sort of tree that people plant deliberately for their children to climb, and Haru was five metres off the ground in next to no time flat. Up, she proceeded to find a comfortable fork in the branches and settled herself down to watch the stars through the leaves while some great pop sensation she had never heard of droned in the background.

They were probably very good, but Haru preferred swing, jazz and blues. From this distance, well beyond the scream of the crowd, she was safe from finding out just what this band – and all it's support acts – sounded like.

A shadow above and to the left of her shifted.

"I wouldn't have picked you for the nocturnal type, Toto," she commented after glancing at the changed quality of the shadow.

"Crows aren't normally," the large black bird agreed, hopping a little closer to the girl's branch. "But I'm a special case."

Haru just nodded and turned back to the gap in the foliage above her. She didn't need to be told again, she knew. It had been almost five years now, since she had gone to the Bureau for help that day. A lifetime ago… it felt longer than five years… sometimes she felt like it had been just yesterday that it had all happened, that her world had gone so suddenly cat-shaped, and barely just righted in time.

Only, it hadn't been righted. If it had just been righted, it would have gone back to the way things had been before, but it hadn't. The world had changed again after that. Machida had broken up with his girlfriend, and she hadn't cared, she had even told him that she thought it wouldn't work between them halfway through their first – and last – date. She doubted she would have done that before. She had graduated from high school and gotten a part-time job, and she was doing a bachelor degree in art history by mail so that she could stay and take care of her mother. Naoko would spend all day quilting, and by suppertime, that didn't pay the bills quite as efficiently as her previous, office-job had.

Oh yes, and sometimes Muta or Toto would appear like this, just checking up on her. Baron never did though, and she rather wished that he would – she missed his eyes.

Okay, that was the denial talking. She didn't just miss his eyes – though they were cool. She missed all of him. From his refined manners to the way he swept her off her feet and saved her humanity.

It was his eyes mostly though; the way they seemed to wrap her up in warmth and make her feel safe.

She sighed then, and realised that she had just interrupted Toto, who had been talking.

"I didn't realise that I was that boring," said the crow, a little surprised and just a tad miffed at the idea.

"No Toto, I was just lost in my thoughts. I'm afraid I wasn't actually listening, sorry. Hiromi's been complaining that I'm spacing out more often that usual too," Haru explained, sighing again as she wrapped her arms around herself and wished that there was someone else there wrapping his arms around her as well.

"Well, you know the Bureau's doors are always open for you Haru, and I'm happy to listen if you want to talk about it," said the bird, hopping and flapping his wings until he reached the young woman's shoulder.

"Thanks Toto, it's good to be reminded. Hiromi talks so much, it's hard to talk to her, and even if I did try it, if she were able to listen for two minutes together she'd start blowing everything out of proportion before I had time to blink twice. Ach!" Haru cried, hastily covering her ears with her hands, inadvertently dislodging Toto with the action. "The main band must have just come on stage," she muttered, hands still over her ears as she tried to block out the noise of a thousand people screaming their appreciation.

Haru waited for the screaming to die down before she clambered back down the tree, jumping out when she was near enough to the ground. Pulling a note pad and pen out of her pocket, she leant against the bench-back to write something before heading back to where Tsuge had parked the car.

Tsuge, Hiromi,

Sorry, I couldn't bear the volume, and I'm walking home. See you, Haru.

The brunette lodged her note under the windscreen wiper on the driver's side of the car, shoved her hands into her pockets, and lengthened her stride. Over the years since the Cat Kingdom incident, Haru had developed this new walk. It was quick, it was easy, and it took no effort whatsoever to shift into a run that carried her away very fast.

Toto flew ahead, almost invisible against the night sky, but she could see him, so she followed him, just absently, for want of anything more interesting to do.

The crow led her to the Bureau. On some level, she supposed that she knew the bird was going back home, to the refuge, but she hadn't really connected the dots until she reached the stone arbour.

"Hey Chicky, what brings you here this time of night?" asked a fat cat over the top of a newspaper. It was dark, yes, but the light was on outside the Bureau, and cats don't need a lot of light to be able to see.

"Not much Muta. How are you?" Haru enquired, letting her legs fold up beneath her as she reclined against Toto's pillar. The cobbled courtyard wasn't as comfortable as the tree branch had been, but such was life.

"Same as always," the old criminal answered, folding up the paper. "Hasn't been anyone here since you, you know, which made life kind of boring for a while, but I think we've all gotten used to it again."

"Want a back-rub?"

The fatso was out of his chair and in Haru's lap with speed, and soon purring. They'd all run out of words, but that was alright. The kind of relationship a person had with an animal – even ones that they knew could talk and understand them – didn't need words, so the silence was comfortable more than it was oppressive or awkward.

"Ooff!"

The sudden sound from within the Bureau caused the three outside to look up, all in a sort of disembodied surprise; as though they were so near sleep there could be no surprises, because it was probably a dream anyway, and anything could happen in a dream.

A small figure stepped out of the Bureau, and then started to glow. When the light eventually faded, the small figure had grown to about six-foot-five, and where Haru knew he was supposed to have the general features of a cat, he had those of a human instead.

"You're beautiful," she said, dreamily, looking up at him, certain that she couldn't be awake and seeing this, so accepting it to be something that her mind was coming up with while she was snuggled up in bed.

Baron blushed. It was a new experience for him, it was something humans did, and up until just a moment ago, he had been a statuette. The ex-cat, but still gentleman, swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing clearly.

"You are beautiful Haru," he said, kneeling down before her and taking one of her hands in his, bringing it to his lips and kissing it gently.

This is a nice dream, Haru thought, I'll be sorry to wake up. She slipped her hand out of his hold and let her fingers trace the Baron's jaw-line. When she reached his ear, now shell-like, she twisted some of his hair around her fingers before shifting so that she could more easily draw him to her.

It was her first kiss, and his lips tasted like apple crumble.

It was his first kiss, and he was so stunned by it, so electrified by the simple, warm, slightly spicy touch of her mouth against his that he couldn't move.

Haru sighed, closing her liquid brown eyes, one hand still rubbing Muta's back, and the other caressing Baron's cheek.

Goodnight Baron, it was a nice dream while it lasted, the young woman thought to herself as she drifted off, sleep claiming her, though she thought it had already.

Haru opened her eyes, blinked against the sun a few times, awake in her bed, just as she had expected she would be. She sighed, remembering the dream that she had had, and wished that it hadn't been. She rolled over, turning her back on her window, Haru blinked again. She sat up suddenly, very awake from the shock.

Here he was, in her room, just as he had been in her dream, his head on the side of her bed and the rest of him draped down and across the floor. He was sleeping too.

It had just been a dream, hadn't it? Haru thought back… no. The answer surprised her; it hadn't been a dream. It was her first kiss, and she had thought that she was dreaming.

She reached out, shy, and ran her fingers through his hair again, letting her eyes roam his face, drinking in the sight of him.

He opened his eyes, blinking a few times himself, before he looked up to see who was touching him so gently.

"I love you Haru," he said when his green eyes locked with her brown ones. It was the first thing he could think of to say, and he needed to say it.

"I love you too," she answered, leaning down to kiss him. She wanted the taste of his lips against hers again.