"Why is the floor wet again? I appreciate the enthusiasm for cleaning this specific part of the hallway but at least put a sign down or something!" Pururu grumbled to herself as she rubbed her sore, bruised tail after slipping for the third time this past week. She couldn't understand why this patch of hallway was constantly being swabbed for apparently no reason, and no-one seemed to know anything about it. Either that or they just wouldn't fess up.

Pururu was long past bothering to try and get a confession out of anyone. She just wanted there to at least be a warning next time the floor was cleaned. Whoever was doing it should learn to use less water, too…

Watching from the confines of the air vents, Zoruru fought the urge to tell Pururu about the culprit. He'd made a promise for that idiot, and he wasn't one to break promises…

It first started happening two weeks ago. After the first two sightings of the wet floor, Zoruru decided to keep watch in the ceiling to apprehend whoever was inconveniencing the platoon with their shoddy cleaning job. He didn't think he was going to have to wait until the ungodly hours of the morning.

A viscous, maroon fluid was suddenly splattered on the floor, making the assassin jump, despite himself. At first, Zoruru vaguely wondered if one of his platoon members had been attacked, but the unmistakable voice of the culprit spoke up.

"Damn it, not again…" was the hissed curse from Taruru as he dragged the buckets of paint, or what was left in them, towards his room. His hands and face were absolutely coated in the stuff. What the hell was he doing?

After a few moments in his room, Taruru visited the broom closet and brought out the mop, sloshing water all over the floor in a very haphazard way that, even though it somehow cleaned the paint off, managed to leave a bigger mess.

This didn't appear to be his concern though, as he quickly put the mop back where he found it and retreated into his room. Little did he know that Zoruru was creeping through the air ducts above him. Well, not until he leapt down into his room and scared the life out of him.

"A-AGH! Zoruru! What-"

"What's the big deal about the mess you're making, huh? It's very dangerous to walk in the halls when it's that wet!"

Taruru observed him for a second.

"I can't say" he said, before adding "Why would you care if it's slippery? Tororo doesn't go down that hall all that often"

Zoruru's cheeks reddened slightly

"What's that supposed to mean, Private? In fact, I don't want to know. What I do want to know, however, is why the hell you're carting paint back and forth and making huge messes while you're at it?"

Taruru pouted.

"I can't help having poor coordination…" He squinted at the cyborg slightly "and as for why I need the paint… I'll only tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else"

Zoruru stared down at the stubborn young lad carefully. Just what sort of secret did he have planned? And if it was such a big secret, why was he so bad at hiding the evidence, other than the fact he's Taruru?

"Whatever"

Taruru hesitated before nodding, showing that he accepted Zoruru's promise. Reaching to a large, navy sheet in the corner of the room, he pulled it away to unveil something that left Zoruru utterly baffled.

"What… is that?"

The thing beneath the sheet was a reasonably size model of a Space Cerberus puppy. It wasn't perfect, but if it had been hand carved as it appeared, then it was actually rather well done. The only problem was the hideous paint work on it. It was as though someone handed paint brushes to several tadpoles that hadn't learnt how to coordinate themselves at all. What on Keron was it doing here, anyway?

"It's… something I'm making to apologise to Tororo. We were having a light hearted squabble, and I got too animated and smashed this little glass ornament she had… it was probably only a couple of inches smaller than this. She got so upset with me, said it was a glass model of a Space Cerberus her father had given to her for her first birthday, and that she treasured it a lot… I'm trying to make a sort of replica of it… I've been working on it for months and only just started the paint job…"

Zoruru furrowed his brow and widened his eye in wonderment. Taruru had used up all his free time away from training and work to carve and paint a replica of a glass sculpture by hand just because he wanted to apologise for breaking something of Tororo's? Zoruru hated himself for thinking that it was all… rather noble and sweet.

"You… made this?"

Paying more attention to the paint job, he couldn't help but wince. Painting probably overtook cooking as the thing Taruru was worst at. He couldn't believe what he was about to say, but didn't hesitate.

"Taruru… paint a new bottom coat over that… interesting design you have going on there. When you're done… I can't believe I'm saying this… I'll help you paint the details"

Taruru's brows rose right up.

"You want to help? You can paint?"

"Look, I'm doing this for Tororo's sake, yeah? I couldn't care less about your screw ups. And as for the painting… I used to be quite arty as a child"

Taruru let out a disbelieving puff of air and watched Zoruru incredulously, causing him to glare in return.

"Well?"

Taruru's gaze remained unchanging for a while before a bright smile broke onto his features and he gave an exaggerated thumbs up.

"Hey, you ain't so bad after all, Scraps! I'll accept that offer!" He said before looking at the current paint job rather embarrassedly.

"Whatever. Just tell me when you're done and I'll get started on the details"

Taruru nodded amiably, and with that, Zoruru zipped back up into the ceiling, wondering if he's made a bad decision or not…

…

"Why do you have so many massive cans of paint for a sculpture that size?!"

Just as his train of thought came to an end, he noticed that Taruru was peering up at him from his partially open bedroom door, making a 'come hither' motion with his head and paint saturated hand. Zoruru rolled his eye but complied, creeping through the air vents and dropping into Taruru's room. The sculpture actually looked salvageable now, the main body now a consistent light slate grey with neat stripes of comet to represent where the armour would be when it was finished. Taaruru had obviously worked hard to make it as neat as possible… it was obvious by the amount of paint he had on his face from leaning in to close.

"Not bad…"

Taruru whipped out a photograph of a Space Cerberus litter. Zoruru winced at the sheer twee of the image, but who was he to question Tororo?

"I got a reference image right here. Do you want me to help, or…?"

Zoruru took the image in his hand, contemplated a moment and then sighed.

"If you don't get in my way too much, I would appreciate some assistance…"

Taruru grinned at him, showing off the bizarre sight of his paint covered left molar. Zoruru refrained from questioning how it got there and sat down at the makeshift work bench, and got swiftly to work.

At first, Taruru was just content to watch. Zoruru was actually a lot better than Taruru had expected. He didn't expect such gentle, precise brush strokes from such a hardened man like Zoruru, with both hands even, as the cyborg proved to be ambidextrous, probably from training his mechanical left arm with its sword.

Considering Zoruru only had one eye, his depth perception and precise aim with the brush was quite astounding, and he seemed to have quite an eye with light and shade. He found himself wondering what Zoruru could be doing had he still been interested in art.

Eventually Zoruru must have gotten annoyed at having Taruru stare at the back of his head for so long, as he handed him a brush and instructed him to CAREFULLY work over some of the larger areas of flat colour.

After a few hours' work, Zoruru and Taruru decided that they had completed the sculpture, and Zoruru instructed Taruru in the correct sort of environment best suited to allowing the paint to dry, and suggested adding a coat of paste wax the next day.

Leaving the youngest platoon member's room, Zoruru decided to quickly peer into Tororo's room on the way to his own quarters. The young hacker was fast asleep in a bizarre position where she was almost folded in half with her backside in the air and one of her arms draped awkwardly over her back as the other was crushed beneath her knees. Zoruru shook his head with an inaudible chuckle before leaving, actually looking forward to tomorrow, to see how Tororo would react to Taruru's present.

Early the next morning, Zoruru snuck back into Taruru's room and helped him apply the paste wax, and then search for the appropriate means of gift wrapping it while it dried.

Finding a slightly oversized shoe box (Zoruru wondering why on Keron Taruru had one when he was a member of a species with small, bare feet…) and some rust red tissue paper, they first cleaned off the wax and inspected the quality of the sheen, before carefully wrapping it in the tissue paper, enclosing it in the plain cardboard shoebox and finally tying a striped red and black ribbon round it (one that Taruru had kept from a Pokopenian Easter egg because he thought it looked 'bad-ass').

Staring at the box for a few moments in anticipation for his apology, Taruru nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Zoruru pat him on the back.

"Good work, Private" he said with a strangely contrasting frown, making his uncomfortableness with the situation rather obvious. For the sake of Tororo, Zoruru's charitable help and his own forgiveness, Taruru swallowed hard and lifted up the box, leaving the room to take it to Tororo.

Pausing outside the door to her room, Taruru fidgeted nervously. He had no idea how Tororo would react. What if she took the replica as an insult to the original, or to herself? What if she kicked him out simply for bringing up the incident? Taruru dithered for a few moments longer before he felt a burning sensation in his back. Zoruru was watching him. Straightening up, he knocked on the door, not wanting to let the assassin down for all the help he'd given and the patience he had.

Opening the door, Tororo peered out, noting Taruru before eyeing the box in his hands

"Do I want to know what's in that box?" She asked sceptically.

"I hope so. I worked hard on it… as an apology"

Tororo stepped back, letting Taruru enter her room. She sat on a stool at one of her work benches, and invited Taruru to sit with her.

"What is this an apology for, exactly?" She asked as Taruru passed it to her.

"You'll know when you open it"

Tororo looked at him with marked suspicion for a few moments before attending to the ribbon on top of it. Taruru watched in nervous anticipation as she unpackaged the sculpture, time seemingly slowed as he awaited her reaction.

Sliding off the last of the tissue paper, Tororo inspected the sculpture for a moment before gasping and covering her mouth with her hand. She stayed frozen in the position for a few moments while Taruru watched silently. Eventually, she placed it on the table, gently rotating it in order to take in the entire piece. Reaching the end of her inspection, he shoulders began to visibly shake.

"You… made this? For me?" she asked in a quiet monotone.

"Y-yeah… well, Zoruru helped me paint the fine details…"

Looking up from the sculpture to Taruru, silent tears were revealed.

"You… why…?"

"I felt so bad about breaking your treasure from your father… I had to make it up to you. I'm so, so sorry for what happened back then…"

Tororo was silent for a moment before she let out a silent gasp from her crying.

"You have… no idea how much it means to me that you did this. You…"

With little warning, she sprung forward and clung to Taruru in a crushing hug.

"Th-thank-you so much! Both you and Zoruru… This is the best gift I've ever been given" She said, her face reddening at her embarrassing actions, though she knew Taruru wouldn't tell. He gently returned the hug smiling slightly. Tororo was happy, and he didn't have such a heavy guilt to bear anymore. Again, he felt the sensation of being watched; only it was less intense. If Zoruru thought so, Taruru believe that he did good for once.

A/N

Da da na da naaaaaa *Guille Theme plays*

I'm so freaking happy about this ARGHH I finally forced that seemingly immovable writer's block away! I love writing for this story so much XD

*dances along to Guille theme*

Seriously though, I had some extra time on my hands after college, I found that some Internet guy who'd been arguing with me on youtube actually APOLOGISED and said he would reflect on what he said, and then I found a perfect prompt to replace the one that had me stumped for so long… today was a good day!

Okay, so the original theme was 'Rivalry', but that category has been so over done with the three titular characters in this story that I just couldn't think of anything knew or interesting to write about, nor could I get inspired. After asking for advice, I scoured DeviantART (XD) for more 100 theme challenges to replace theme 4 with, but I didn't like any… but then I was inadvertently reminded by Johnny Cadet of their version of the 100 theme challenge – and number four was Paint Splatters, which like instantly spawned the idea for this chapter in my mind, so thanks for that!

This was actually rather inspired by a film I saw a long while back, no idea what it was called (Edit: Googled it - it's called 'Bicentinnial Man'. No wonder I barey remember it – it came out about 15 years ago XD) , but I remember near the beginning, a little girl gave her favourite model horse (made of glass) to the android belonging to the family so it could examine it. The material of its provided little friction, so it dropped it and it shattered. The girl was so upset that the robot used the embedded memory of the model to create a wooden replica X3 And that is like the only scene from that movie I remember XD

Really hoped you liked it, sorry it's sort of short, but it's actually longer than I expected it to be XD

Toodles for now 83