"That's what my music is like for me,"

Oh that was right. She heard him singing or humming something earlier. "Do you sing? I wish I had a talent for that kind of thing." Instead her talents lay in more mundane venues. Like cheering the melancholy out of a new acquaintance's voice. "Maybe instead of a Coke you could sing me a song."

Natural beauty? Ghost waved him off as she pulled the laundry basket out into the open. "Tokyo-to tokkyo kyokakyoku-cho." She was reminded of the tongue twister that was essentially gibberish. Something about a patent office in Tokyo. "Tokyo was nice place to live, but I have far fonder memories here." Far scarier ones too.

Of course Ghost clapped for his laundry detergent. So he wasn't hopeless! "Now comes the hard part, where are your washer and dryer? Would you prefer to hang your clothes up to dry? If you don't have a washer or dryer, do you want me to take you to a laundry mat?" Ghost fished her phone from her pocket to check the time. My goodness it was already tomorrow! She sighed and rubbed her forehead somewhat wearily. If they kept moving, she'd be less likely to fall asleep. "This city never sleeps. I bet there is a 24 hour place somewhere."

Ghost eyed the laundry. It didn't look too pleasant a weight to carry so she traded Juka's undies for the detergent.

((ooc: *slides into thread* Couldn’t find a graceful way to fabulously intrude upon your hum-drum apartment with my glorious self, so go ahead and post until you come to me. As is the natural order of things. *grooms behind one ear, with dignity*))

A twenty-four hour laundry mat. Indeed, they existed in this fine city. Over the years, they had even developed their own ecosystem.

Down the block from a certain Caleb Swartz’ apartment building—and a certain other individual’s—there was a pale white light washing out onto the street. Clunk, clunk, scree sang a single cycling drier in the subdued row of machines. Inside the glass door, propped open by its own broken lock, was a sleeping bundle of clothing, beard, and man. In the man’s trailing hand was a smear of oily liquid. On the floor below was a half-eaten burger from McGrease King. Above the burger was a rat. Above the rat was a cat.

He was a cream and ginger striped tom, with blue eyes deep enough to have earned him the name Sinatra, when he deigned to have a name. His admirers numbered in the millions; most had yet to met him, but that was hardly an issue. They would learn. Each hair in his luxuriant coat gleamed; every whisker roved at jaunty angles from his handsome cheeks as he stalked forward on velvet paws.

This could not end well for the burger. It could not end well for the rat. And, when the cat’s First Retainer caught up with him, on this first meeting after a certain brawl in which he may or may not have tried to eat her teammate, it could not end well for the cat.

It couldn’t end well for Juka, either. The cat, after all, was simply too fabulous. And a cat.

"Of course I sing," Juka announced happily and proceeded to sing a verse from one of his old Ukime songs. "I had a small amount of notoriety back in Tokyo and soon I will be truly famous. How could the masses not love me?" It wasn't said, so much with massive ego, but more a statement of fact. In his mind the masses couldn't help but love him because he was Juka Miami and he was therefore amazing.

Juka thought long and hard about laundry and how the servants back home used to deal with it. He seemed to remember them hanging some of the laundry from clothe lines rather than just putting it in a machine, though he had no idea why they would do such a thing. "Wash and then hang," he announced, pleased that he had remembered and come to such a monumental decision.

Juka went searching in a closet for a bag and emerged a couple of minutes later, successful in his quest. He hummed to himself as he put all of his dirty clothes into the bag. He wondered if it was dark enough and late enough to bubble the heavy bag of laundry to the laundry mat, or at least most of the way there and decided that it was. With the bag of laundry safely in his arms he stepped out onto the balcony and summed his bubble. "Well, are you coming my dear Ghosty?" he asked expectently.

Ghost blinked tiredly at the red hair that was singing to her. Really it was nice. So very nice that had she been sitting, she would have fallen asleep right there. He said something about being awesome that was so very IronMouth that she just nodded dumbly along. Nothing she could say to him would convince him otherwise. Maybe it was a preforming arts thing? She would probably never have the kind of confidence required to sing in front of strangers. Her talents lay elsewhere in this life. After hearing Juka's opinion of himself, maybe it was better that way.

Juka managed the dirty clothes, something Ghost was worried his Fabulotisty might try to shirk off on her. Maybe he'd realized clean clothes were more fabulous than dirty ones? In any case, he was waiting on her. She brought up her end of the deal with the detergent box. Two steps out onto the balcony later, Ghost gulped in the night air and was instantly a part of it.

"Let's go then." Ghost rubbed at her incorporeal eye and drifted off the ledge. It seemed that she'd seen a laund-ro-mat somewhere recently. If they just floated around for a while they were sure to find it. And sure enough, not even a whole block away was a perpetually seedy looking place. Not even her reduced sense of sight could keep her from telling that. "Be careful, Juka. People may try to take your wonderful clothes. You must be vigilant at all times." She'd heard horror stories from the girls at work about panty thieves. Hopefully there were none of those here.

Ghost made herself solid again carefully, very carefully before she pulled open the door for herself and for the Jukanator. A chime sounded to announce their entry, but no one seemed to be home at first. Just a scutter of some unseen animal. Ghost would show Juka how to make change and how to separate and load laundry before she would find a table to snooze. To her dismay, someone had beaten her to the most comfortable looking one. She took another moment to look forlornly at the sleeping man and wibble. She wanted to be doing that.

One sigh and a shake of her shoulders later, Ghost was leading Juka to an empty table where she could show him how to sort. She had been asked for help and by golly she'd give it. "Okay, so the first thing to do is to section out the dark things from the light things. If you have enough for three loads, you may want to make a pile of all whites too."

No no, First Retainer, no no. The first thing to do—the absolute first thing—was to check in the dark spaces between washing machines and walls for a pair of light-reflecting blue eyes.

Slowly, so slowly, they emerged.

Swiftly, so swiftly, silken silent paws swooped side-wise around a drier.

Closely, so closely, did staring eyes observe, head tilted into sight, tail swishing out of sight.

The one was the First Retainer. This was a good one. The other? The other smelled of unwashed clothes. Or perhaps unwashed clothes smelled of it. Female it appeared, but male it smelled. Smelled it loudly. Dangled its clothes.

A sleeve, a sleeve, over the edge of a table.

Vehemently did the feline surge forward, between or through intervening feet, to teach that sleeve its lesson.

The lesson?

A shirt should know its proper place. On the floor, being rolled in and kicked, by himself. Let there be claws.

And it was good.

Juka nodded most definitively at Ghosty's advice to be careful. He could plainly see that the laundry mat wasn't the most upstanding of places and he knew that there were people out there that were jealous of him and his perfection. And besides, he had his beautiful ever helpful goddess Ghosty to help protect too. "I swear to let no brigand accost either you, my beautiful one, or myself," Juka announced valiantly.

Juka landed beside Ghosty and hefted his bag of laundry over his shoulder, dismayed that he had to carry it by hand, though only a short distance. He watched and listened with great intensity and interest as he was explained the ins and outs of how to sort laundry and all that was involved in a successful clothes washing endeavor. It was strangely fascinating to him, having never had to deal with such mundane tasks before. How did people manage it all, he wondered.

So intently concentrating on his laundry washing lessons was he that Juka almost failed to notice the cat that had suddenly appeared and doubtless would not have noticed at all had the shirt he was about to pick up in order to properly sort wasn't suddenly pulled to the floor. And that's when he noticed the most beautiful ginger and white striped tomcat who had taken a liking to said shirt. He grinned and let out a happy little eep type sound, not even caring that it was currently using its claws on his precious shirt. Cats were the only creature allowed to commit such an act because he knew, without doubt, that cats were the only creatures just as fabulous as himself.

Juka crouched down, laundry completely forgotten, and tried to coax the cat to him. It was only right that he should give it every bit of the attention that it so rightfully deserved. He wondered if it had a home or was in need of a good home. It looked far too well groomed to be wild, but one just never knew.

Silken flowing muscle darted between her feet. "Whup!" She didn't wobble, the creature that had darted through her legs had adroitly managed to slip between her ankles rather than run into them. A shirt, the first casualty of war, disappeared off the table and Juka made a a joyous 'eep!'

The palm of her hand made a lovely smack as it collided with her forehead.

"Juka? Juka. Focus." She snapped in a waving motion before his face, but he was gone. He had abased himself to the cat as all smart people do. A few ginger swipes of the paw and she knew it was a cat, but not that it was her master.

Ghost wrangled the shirt from the creature that seemed more claw than animal at times. The best she could mange with a pluck at the shirt here and a tug on a sleeve here was to expose the wriggling booty of an orange cat. Now, Ghost had been fooled before. She'd adopted a bookstore cat because she was once afraid that it might be Calley wanting in her back door, so she just had to ask the creature if it was her master or not.

"Master?" She would accept a retraction of claws, playful chirrup or snuggle as an acceptable answer. What was this cat's name again? She had to think for a moment now. She'd usually seen him when he was damp. She approved of the dry look. This non-wet form was much less ominous. "Master Sinatra?"

Focus? Focus, his First Retainer scolded. Yet this ‘Juka’—a possessor of clear and distinguished taste—was focusing precisely where he should be: upon the cat. Coaxing coos declared his desire for the cat’s attentions. This was well within the natural order of things. The cat’s focus, in turn, was upon the shirt. The shirt that would soon die die submit to the Will of Claws. His First Retainer, therefore, had no need for worry: all was clearly well with the world.

The shirt began fighting back. This, too, was good. It moved and twitched, as if plucked from the outside by worrying hands—yet the cat was not to be fooled. Clearly, these movements were of its own making. Clearly, it was not yet dead. Fiercely did he seek to rectify this situation, right up until a cold wind graced his most noble bottom.

A tail twitched into the air, free of the shirt’s dastardly confinement. Twitch, twitch, flick—turnabout of death!

Thus did a pair of deep blue eyes with wide black pupils stare out from under the shirt. Thus did the Master ferally observe his First Retainer, for that moment it took to classify her interloping hands as Not-Part-Of-Shirt.

“Master? Master Sinatra?"

Purr, purr. Purr, purr. Purr, purr, “Indeed. Fine evening, is it not?” The cream and ginger tom asked, with all the sophistication befitting of his station.

Focus? How could Juka possibly focus when there was a beautiful kitty standing there right in front of him demanding his attention? He couldn't' possibly ignore such a wonderful creature as it could he? No, that wouldn't be right at all. Everyone knew, or at least should know, that kitties were the only creatures worthy of as much worship as Juka himself and his laundry could surely wait until he had given the requisite amount of attention to his new furred friend?

And then the kitty talked and Juka jumped back in startlement, staring at the little furred creature. He hadn't just imagined that had he? "Kitty?" Juka asked in confusion. He gave it a long and appraising look. "Talking kitty?" He then looked to Ghost for affirmation and reassurance that he wasn't crazy. Then he looked back down at the kitty that maybe wasn't quite as kittyful has he had first thought? After all, he had yet to meet any kitties that could actually talk.

"Meow?" Juka asked. After all, the kitty had just spoken human so perhaps it would work both ways and Juka could now speak kitty back to him.

As surprised golden eyes peered into the depths of dilated kitten pupils, Ghost began to understand what true danger was. And just as soon as she'd swallowed and decided that her end was near, a sophisticated, slightly truncated quip edged out of a kitty mouth.

Juka managed to ask if it was really a talking kitty before Ghost let out a glorious yelp of "Calley!" that was loud enough to startle the hobo into turning over on his bench.

She dove forward in a much less dignified way to scrabble that ginger into a hug. No matter how fast the cat, she would catch some part of him and hold on before he got too far away again. For Kat, she could take a few claws! "You slip in and out, but you must remember to warn me when you decide to be gone for so long and Kat, you'll break the dear one's heart, but I can't believe you swarmed Luke, I bet you had your reasons, but I'm still mad at you!" Most of this increasingly long unbroken sentence was spoken against the the poor cat-boy's fur. It was curious that Ghost didn't seem to have to stop and breathe. "You weren't really standing on their side because you believe in Haywire, were you?"

Poor Juka meowed. For attention, Ghost decided, because she had most decidedly forgotten the flamboyant man for a moment. "Juka, meet the Master. Master, Juka... uhm..." How did she get roped into doing his laundry again? "We met in the sky..." But even her tone wasn't wholly convinced.

>> "Kitty? Talking kitty?"

“All kitties talk,” the ginger and cream tom began, with the rumbling tones of a mountain sage, from under his protective cave of shirt. “But only to the worthy. And only when we feel like—

>> "Calley!"

Villainous hands invaded the sanctity of his sage-cave. The tom started to skitter off out of completely dignified carefully-calculated non-reflex, but he chose not to allow his own capture. A capture by lecturing arms, that slipped around his fur warmly. Purr/

>> "You slip in and out, but you must remember to warn me when you decide to be gone for so long and Kat, you'll break the dear one's heart, but I can't believe you swarmed Luke, I bet you had your reasons, but I'm still mad at you!”

Purr, purr. Purr, purr.

>> “You weren't really standing on their side because you believe in Haywire, were you?"

A cheek of tickling whiskers rubbed itself against his First Retainer’s face. “Of course not. I just lost my chew toy. Luke was graciously providing me a new one.” This was true on two counts. Count one: he really didn’t know where the lime green squeaky hedgehog was. It had gotten itself misplaced, in some move or another, in some pair of pants or another. Not to say that he had wibbled remorsefully over his laundry hamper upon realizing this: that would not have befitted a cat. Count two: Luke had made a delightful replacement. A disappointing lack of actual squeaking, though...

>> "Meow?"

>> "Juka, meet the Master. Master, Juka... uhm... We met in the sky..."

The cat turned a pair of deep blue eyes upon the Asian man. They stared deep within his soul, and his sense of style. Only then did he declare his approval: Meaw. His was with more of a Brooklyn accent, though.

Juka was entirely contented with the meeting of the talking cat. There was something fitting about it, really, something right. He had always wished for a talking kitty and now, it seemed, his wishes were being fulfilled. Obviously some higher power or another had seen how wonderful and deserving he was and had sent him this amazing gift. His very own talking cat, even though one could never really posses a cat, let alone a talking cat. It was more like cats owned people but he had no problem at all being this cat's person. He smiled happily down at Master kitty. "So good to meet you Master."

Juka turned towards Ghost and grinned. "We did indeed meet in the sky, its not so strange when you really think about it. You can fly and I can float so its really only natural." In his mind it was at least, but of course his mind didn't always work the same way as the minds of others. It was one of the many things that made him so amazing.

Juka clapped happily as Master Kitty returned his meow in kind. No matter that he didn't have any idea what said meow actually meant, he took it as a sign that the cat approved and that he would, indeed, become the cat's new human. He gently scratched behind Master Kitty's ears, seeking that spot he knew all cats to love, determined to make a most worthy human.

The ginger vibrated against her chest in a dignified way that spoke not of captivity, but of victory. Oh no. It was not the cat that was captured. It was the Ghost. He purred away most of her questions and warnings. And that in itself was sort of an answer.

“...I just lost my chew toy. Luke was graciously providing me a new one.”

Ghost gave the cat a little squeeze. "You can't just take out your aggressions on people, Calley. Well, you can but it doesn't mean you should..." It was the soft and slightly disappointed tone that made the statement sounds so serious. Luke had been hurt. He had somehow exhausted his mutation and doubt had seeded in his mind.

Calley didn't kill him. And maybe that was on purpose, but it was a little too close for Ghost's comfort. On both ends of the deal. Ghost had seen Calley on the ground. She'd thought she was borrowing pants from him at the time. "I didn't know you had a brother either."

She loosened her grip on him. It wasn't her place to berate him. She wasn't his mother, only his friend. His secrets were his own. She just thought that he was her friend too.

If he wanted to wriggle out of her arms she would let him now. It wasn't fair to keep the fabulous Sinatra away from the floaty Juka.

>> "So good to meet you Master."

This was the well and proper way to greet him, yes. The ginger and cream tom rumbled in Ghost’s arms, his engines set to Full Approval. “I shall call you,” he declared, “Third Retainer. Do you accept the privilege of answering my demanding merrows, at any and all hours of the morning, evening, and night? You shall be reimbursed handsomely in my affections, when and if I choose to bestow them, and blessings of ginger and cream fur upon your clothes, when and if they are cleaned to standards fit for my rolling.” Not as Firstly as a First Retainer, but a respectable number, to be sure. Particularly given the lack of obvious Second Retainer, in the world at large. (Though it was always best to keep the plebeians wondering, truly.)

Oh, le ear-behind-scritch. Oh, le lean into the hand, and le purr. The volume of his rumbles was nearly enough to pretend he did not hear his First Retainer’s words.

>> "You can't just take out your aggressions on people, Calley. Well, you can but it doesn't mean you should... I didn't know you had a brother either."

A long tail flicked against her arm, tickling pale skin lightly, as his purrs rumbled on with only a brief hitch.

His brother. Yes. Tail flick, tickle. He had one of those. And he didn’t. And Kat knew the full story, and that was about it. His Third Retainer was sufficiently fabulous, but, perhaps, a bit new; his First Retainer was best told all the details alone. If he could tell. If he would tell. Deep blue eyes blinked, half-lidded, up at a Ghostie. “There’s a lot to tell. Clearly, you shall have to come by my apartment sometime.” All modern independent talking felines owned apartments these days, you see.

His paws wiggling loosely in the air towards Juka. He was a loose bundle of kitty fur, kitty muscle, and ears-being-scritched happiness. There was no will in him to jump arms: this situation was quite comfortable. But he would not protest a catnapping by his new Retainer.

Even Juka, as profoundly oblivious as he normally was, caught a hint of the serious nature of the words Ghosty spoke to Master Kitty. But, as he didn't really understand anything about what was going on and he was pretty sure a kitty couldn't be all that dangerous anyway, he smiled on and didn't let on that he caught onto anything unusual.

"I would be most honored to be called Third Retainer, Master Kitty." Juka beamed happily down at the furred purring form. He bowed formally and dramatically. "And I will be sure to be the best retainer ever and answer all demanding merrows to the very best of my ability."

Juka made the attempt to gently raise Master Kitty from Ghostys's arms, careful to be aware of exactly what his new Master most desired. If there were the slightest resistance he would certainly leave him be as any good retainer should be aware of his master's every desire. It didn't' seem odd at all, somehow, that a talking cat should have an apartment though at the back of Juka's mind he recalled something about laundry and the exact reason he was here. But that couldnt' be all that important could it?