Author's note: Another story inspired by Halrloprillalar, who has a Livejournal icon of some cheese and a mouse wearing Kaidou's bandana.

A Mouse's Life

Once there was a little mouse that was as cute as it's possible for a plague-carrying rodent to be. He didn't have a name, as he was a mouse, but if he had been human his name would have been Momoshiro Takeshi. He would have called himself Momo-chan because it's friendlier.

Momo-chan lived in a hole in the skirting board. He loved to eat all day and all night. When people dropped crumbs he would come out of the hole and gobble the lot. He would also raid the kitchen for anything that was available. The humans who lived in Momo-chan's house didn't like him eating their food, and sometimes they called in pest control to get rid of him. This didn't affect him in any way; they weren't allowed to use proper poison because it's not environmentally friendly.

One night Momo decided to have a bedtime snack. His mousy eyes lit up as he saw that there was cheese on the kitchen countertop. It was a long way up from the ground but Momo had devised all sorts of tricks to get himself to wherever food might be. When he finally reached the cheese he saw a most astonishing sight. Another little mouse was standing beside it!

"That's my cheese. I saw it first," Momo said. A mouse could understand what he was saying but a human would have heard it as "squeak squeak squeak."

The other mouse glared at him and made a hissing noise like a snake. Momo was shocked. He had never heard a mouse do that before.

"Did you just hiss at me?"

The mouse ignored him.

"You know you're a mouse, right? Not a snake," said Momo.

"Shut up, idiot."

Momo almost didn't care that the other mouse had been rude to him. He was finding himself attracted to the stranger's shiny eyes, glossy coat and scab-free tail. It didn't even matter to him that this was a boy mouse - mice don't go to school, so he hadn't had any sex education.

"What's your name?" asked Momo.

The stranger hissed again. "Fshuuu. Mice don't have names."

"I'm gonna call you Mamushi 'cause you make noises like a viper," Momo said.

"Shut up! I don't want to be called Mamushi!"

"That's the second time you've told me to shut up."

Mamushi glared. "I hate you."

"I hate you too!"

They engaged in a mouse-style bitch fight that involved lots of squeaking, biting and scratching at each other. Eventually they became exhausted.

"I can't fight any more," said Momo sadly. "I want some cheese but now you'll eat it all."

"I don't eat cheese. It's full of saturated fat."

"What? But it's so delicious!"

"Inui-senpai says that mice need a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables and grains," Mamushi recited.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you eat garbage and that's why you've got no stamina," said Mamushi.

"I do not eat garbage!" said Momo. "I'm a mouse, not a rat."

"Whatever."

"You're so cute, why do you have to be so annoying?"

If mice could blush, Mamushi would have turned bright red. "I'm not cute!"

"Oh yes you are!"

"I hate you. I want to go home."

Momo looked thoughtful. "You could live under the skirting board with me."

"No way!"

"Why not? It's not too bad under there."

"I'm not gonna live with you!"

"You can't really leave," said Momo. "There's a main road outside. You'll be squashed if you try to escape. Or the cat next door will eat you."

Mamushi shivered. He didn't want to be eaten by a cat.

"So why don't you stay here? We don't have to eat cheese." Momo crossed his paws over each other as he spoke, and looked longingly at the cheese, which he intended to come back for as soon as Mamushi was asleep.

"Fshuuu."

They took a moment to think about the ridiculousness of their situation. Both of them knew that mice don't talk, have names, or invite each other to move in. The whole scene was like something out of a Pixar movie.

"Does that mean you'll stay?" Momo asked.

Mamushi mumbled something.

"What?"

"I said, fine," Mamushi grumbled.

They rubbed their little mouse noses together in a cute gesture that's not actually found in the animal kingdom, and went squeaking back to the hole in the skirting board.

In a parallel universe, the human Momo awoke from dreams of Kaidou and got up to make himself a cheese sandwich.