Well, this has been in the making ever since episode 107, when my brain manifested a desire to see Bruno adopt the kitten he keeps coming across. The idea took hold of my mind and refused to let go until I'd written it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's

Notes:

1. Hiroshi can be written in many ways. Three possible ways are 浜 (coast), 海 (sea), and 洋 (ocean).

2. This fic takes place at some undefined moment after episode 110, so expect spoilers for everything up until that point.

Cat's Call

"There's got to be a better place," Bruno mused out loud, looking out over the ocean. Delta Eagle was hidden safely under the water, and it had proven to be resistant to salt water, but he still didn't like the idea of leaving it hidden here. Taking it back with him wasn't an option, though. He entertained the notion of revealing his identity for a second, but dismissed it almost immediately. It wasn't the right time. Maybe later, after the WRGP. He still owed Yusei a duel, after all.

But for now, his D-Wheel was safe, and he needed to head back home. He'd promised Yusei he'd help out with a new program he was creating. He'd seen part of the designs, and his interest had been piqued. Whatever Yusei had come up with, it was surely going to be interesting.

A plaintive sound shook him out of his musings. Something was brushing past his ankles. A very familiar something.

"Oh, you again?" Bruno smiled and lifted the kitten carefully. He got a wide-eyed look in return. "We keep running into each other, don't we?"

But his smile didn't stay for long. The cat's once-white fur was now off-white, while the gray spots were doing their best to look black. That wasn't what worried Bruno, though. Even though the kitten had to be at least three months old now, he had barely grown since he'd last seen it. Was there no one to take care of him?

"Come on, you," he said softly. The kitten meowed and tried to hide in his jacket. Bruno let him. It wasn't much of a choice, really. Here was a kitten who needed food badly, and no one seemed to be feeding him. He hadn't saved him from being run over only to see him die from starvation.

"You caused me a lot of trouble, do you know that?" he said when he walked away from the beach. The kitten snuggled deeper into his jacket and started purring. How did such a tiny creature make so much noise? "But you couldn't have helped it. Let's get you something to eat."

The walk back to Neo Domino was a quiet one, with the kitten falling asleep not long after they left the beach. He could get back in less than a minute with Delta Eagle, of course, but where was the fun in that? It was a nice night, he enjoyed walking, and right now, Delta Eagle was more trouble than it was worth.

Bruno found the house almost deserted, except for Yusei, who was working busily on his computer and barely looked up when he entered the room.

"Bruno, could you look this over?" he asked, frowning at the screen. "Something doesn't seem right."

"In a minute," Bruno said as the kitten meowed pitifully. He walked past Yusei to the kitchen, ignoring the surprised look he got. "Do we still have fish left?"

"Top shelf, on the left," Yusei replied, sounding puzzled. He got up from the computer and followed Bruno just as Bruno found the fish. "Wait, is that a cat?"

"I found him near the coast," Bruno said, holding out a bit of fish. The kitten gulped it down and tried to steal the rest of the fish. "He needed help. I couldn't leave him behind."

Yusei nodded understandingly and followed Bruno back to the living room, where he took his seat at the computer again. Bruno sat down onto the sofa, the kitten in the crook of his arm. He made another valiant attempt to get the fish and Bruno fed him another bit.

"Do you have a name for him?" Yusei asked. He was ignoring the computer screen in favor of watching Bruno feed his newly-acquired kitten. The cat was attacking the fish with a fervor that suggested he hadn't seen a decent meal in days.

"Not yet," Bruno said absent-mindedly. Yusei was right, he decided, pulling his hand away when the kitten got a bit too enthusiastic. If he was going to keep a cat, the least he could do was find a suitable name. He'd found the cat near the sea, so…

"Hiroshi," he said finally. Hiroshi, newly-named, made another attempt to get to the food Bruno was holding, and Bruno winced when tiny teeth sunk into his finger.

"Be careful," he chastised. Hiroshi looked at him in the way only cats could: partly innocent, partly accusing, and completely self-assured. Bruno put him on the ground and gave him the rest of the fish, then took his seat next to Yusei.

"Where's Jack, by the way?" he asked. "And Crow?"

"Out." Yusei made a gesture that Bruno interpreted as 'getting groceries', but could just as well mean 'preventing the world from being consumed by a blazing inferno'. He turned away from Hiroshi and bent over to look at Yusei's screen.

"What did you want to show me?"

"Here." Yusei pointed at the screen. "I'm sure the idea is sound, but the simulation won't run properly."

"Send me the file," Bruno told him, booting up the second computer. A few minutes later, he was fully engrossed in the program Yusei had created. If it worked, it would increase the power of their D-Wheels substantially. He just needed to…

"Got it!" he said triumphantly. Yusei leaned over. "You forgot the input values here."

"Must've overlooked it," Yusei said, shaking his head. He changed the values and relaxed, satisfied, as the simulation started working.

"It's a great idea!" Bruno told him, going over the data once more. It was simple, so simple that he couldn't believe he hadn't come up with it himself. With Yusei's new program, they'd get a definite increase in power and speed. Maybe he should adapt it for Delta Eagle. Not without Yusei's permission, though. It was his program.

Sharp claws in his leg shook him out of his thoughts, and Bruno looked down to find Hiroshi trying to climb up via his pants. He winced and detached the kitten from his leg. Hiroshi snuggled into the crook of his arm and started purring right away, as if someone had pressed a button.

"Enjoyed your food?" he asked. Hiroshi just purred louder and started washing his tail. A good sign.

"Are you going to keep him?" Yusei asked, leaning over and petting the cat. Hiroshi looked up for a second, then continued grooming himself.

Bruno frowned. He didn't like the idea of giving up Hiroshi, especially not if the alternative was letting him go without food again. "Can we keep him? Is there enough room?"

"I don't see why not." Yusei shrugged and saved the data on his screen. Bruno gave him a brilliant smile as downstairs, a door slammed and Crow loudly announced his return.

OoOoO

Rua and Ruka, predictably, loved Hiroshi, as did Crow, not so predictably. Jack, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic.

"What's that?" he asked, eyeing the white-and-gray bundle sleeping in Bruno's lap. Hiroshi lazily opened one eye and gave Jack a long look.

"It's a cat," Bruno replied, his smile almost bordering on the edge of cocky. He continued typing with one hand, the other holding Hiroshi in place.

"I can see that." Jack eyed him suspiciously. "Where'd you find it?"

"At the beach. He needed help."

"Leave the cat alone, Jack," Crow piped up. He and Yusei were working on their decks. "Give us a hand here. We're trying to figure out this Accel Syncro thing."

Bruno hid a smile as Jack huffed and took out his own deck. There wasn't much to figure out, really, but he wasn't going to tell them that. He shifted carefully to reach the far right of the keyboard without disturbing Hiroshi. It didn't work. The cat opened his eyes and gave him an accusing stare, then jumped down and trod in the direction of the kitchen, looking for food. Bruno shrugged and continued working.

He was interrupted a few minutes later, when Hiroshi returned and decided that Jack's hands made a good toy.

"Your cat is attacking me," Jack said in clipped tones, dropping Hiroshi next to the computer. Hiroshi made another bid for Jack's hands, then found that Bruno's would do just as well and finally concluded that Bruno's work would be vastly improved by a long string of commas.

"Don't do that," Bruno said, then to Jack: "He just wants to play." He tapped the kitten on the nose with one finger and reached for the delete key to salvage the code he'd been writing. Hiroshi abandoned the keyboard, but lunged at Bruno's hand again. Kitten claws were sharper than they ought to be, Bruno decided, wincing and shifting Hiroshi to his right hand so he could continue working.

The next week passed relatively quietly. Once Hiroshi had gained some weight, he'd started growing again and was now finally looking his age. He'd ended up in a stage where his legs were disproportionally long, which led to a couple of accidents Crow referred to as 'descending in style'. Jack called it falling down the stairs.

Bruno realized he'd lost track of the kitten early one morning, when the clock had just struck eight. Usually Hiroshi slept with him on the sofa, but that particular night he and Yusei had worked all night to improve Yusei's new program. Hiroshi had spent the day playing with the twins and Aki, who'd come by to have her D-Wheel checked, but had ended up staying until after dinner.

"Have you seen Hiroshi?" Bruno asked, getting himself a glass of water and passing the bottle to Yusei. Yusei shook his head.

"He's not on the sofa?"

"I didn't see him." Bruno frowned. Hiroshi was never far away when he was home. Where'd he gone?

"Hiroshi!" he called softly, trying not to wake up Jack or Crow. He didn't get a reply.

"He'll show up," Yusei said soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He's probably just asleep somewhere."

It didn't help. By the time Crow woke up Bruno had searched most of the house, looked underneath all the furniture, and even, in an act of desperation, gone back to the beach on the off-chance the kitten was there. It was past nine when he finally returned. He'd searched the beach, had looked in the streets he'd gone through, and had even considered calling Rua and Ruka before realizing that the twins were probably at Duel Academia right now.

He returned to find Yusei fast asleep on the sofa, and Crow making breakfast for himself. He was as exhausted as Yusei after the night they'd spent awake, but he couldn't go to sleep before he found Hiroshi.

"Have you asked Jack?" Crow suggested, eyes not leaving the egg he was baking. Without waiting for a reply, he added: "Just kick him out of his bed. Breakfast's ready and I don't need him lazing around all day."

Bruno, too tired and too worried to argue, trudged up the stairs and knocked on Jack's door. He didn't get a reply, so he knocked again and opened the door.

"Jack, have you seen-"

Jack, fully clothed and sitting on a chair near the window, shushed him and pointed at the bed. "Do you want to wake up your cat?"

Hiroshi was sleeping on the bed, curled up tight so Bruno only saw his back and the tip of his tail, wrapped around his head. He opened one eye when Bruno let out a relieved laugh, and turned sleepily, so his belly was exposed.

"Where have you been?" he murmured, stroking the kitten's head with one finger. Hiroshi purred lazily and tried to bat at his finger with one paw.

"He came in last night and refused to leave," Jack said gruffly, but with a surprising amount of fondness. "At least he didn't try to attack me ."

Judging by the amount of small scratch marks on Jack's hands, that was a blatant lie. Bruno didn't call him out on it. He threw a fond look at Hiroshi and turned to leave. "Thanks."

"What for?"

"Just, thanks." Bruno smiled. "Crow says breakfast is ready."

Comments, questions and concrit very welcome!