Stars and Moonflowers in Our Garden(Rusame)

Chapter Twelve: Letters and Reports

America hummed a little as he took the letter out of his bag, placing it on his desk. 

He read it again and smiled, getting a few ideas for his response. He pulled out a sheet of paper and started to write his response. He happily read each part of the letter, responding to it as best he could. He was just happy Nyx was willing to keep writing to him. 

Even if he'd met Nyx in person, he found himself happy to have the chance to learn more about him. Though he couldn't apply any of it, he was happy to know more about someone he'd met and might see as a friend. 

He took a last look over his finished response and smiled to himself. He'd look over it again in the morning, but as for now he was happy with it. He hummed quietly as he grabbed some night clothes before going into his bathroom. 

He undressed after putting his clothes on the sink counter. He ran himself a lukewarm bath and watched carefully as the tub filled up. 

He turned off the water and shifted into his half shift form, which his friend Japan called the "Neko" form, as he did need to wash his fur. He hated how heavy his fur got and how cold he felt when he did this, but using normal cat bathing methods never worked for him because of how dense and fluffy his fur was. 

He sighed, he dreaded doing this, but the sooner it was over with, the sooner he'd feel better. 

So he dunked his head first, starting with the easy part. He washed his hair, and scrubbed some of the mixture into the fur on his ears. He didn't mess with the fur protecting his inner ears, knowing that if he did he'd get one hell of an earache. Then he dunked his head again, carefully washing the mixture from his hair and fur. 

Once he was content with it being gone, he pulled his head out and wrapped his hair and ears in a towel. 

The mixture he used to clean his hair was Aloe vera, dried and powdered soapwort, and some lavender. The lavender was mostly for his own comfort, and how nice it smelled. 

He sighed a little and stepped into the tip, moving until he was fully in the water, making sure everything but his head was submerged. Then he stood getting more of the mixture on his hands. He then started massaging it into the fur of his tail. It took him a while to get it all the way through all of his tail's fur. 

He had a tail that was quite a bit longer than average, which was a feminine feature of his specialization's shift. His tail was 50 percent longer than it should be, it was something that his family thought he'd grow out of, but he never did. It was part of why he didn't like using his shift forms around anyone, it was embarrassing to him. 

He sighed as he finished and sat back down in the tub, starting to rinse his fur. It didn't take as long, and soon it was over. 

After that was over, he washed the rest of himself. And soon enough, the tub was draining, and he was drying his hair and tail vigorously. Once he was content that it was mostly dry, he used one of the abilities his shift had, the ability to self regulate temperature. He pushed it high enough to dry his hair and fur in a fairly short amount of time. He quickly lowered it to his normal before it ebbed away too much from his energy stores. 

He hummed and got himself into the clean night clothes before collecting the dirty clothes from the floor and putting them in his hamper, he'd wash it all after he got off work the next day. 

He then laid down, ready to at least rest his eyes a little. 

He wasn't going to sleep, not after the thought he just had. He'd thought back to the lack of teasing from the king and found himself wondering if maybe the prince was awake... That meant he'd either spooked the prince really badly by picking him up or had stunned him. He didn't like that thought, hopefully the king was just doing him a mercy because of the magic incident. He could only hope that was the case. 

Needless to say, he didn't get any sleep, and just laid there, with his eyes closed. 

He got out of bed at 6:30, and re-read his response letter. He promptly decided to strike through some of it. He didn't have time to re-write it, so he just hoped it wasn't too odd of a thing to leave in, even if it was struck through. 

He got himself dressed in his proper outfit for the day, gently folding the letter and putting it in an envelope. After sealing the envelope, he wrote "From Aku, to Nyx" on the back. He smiled and carried it with him, deciding after some breakfast he'd take the longer route that passed by the Chamomile flowers. 

So that's what he did, dropping the letter off under the Chamomile flowers. He then got up and casually continued his walk to his office. 

Once in his office, he checked the time, wanting to make sure he was showing up early or at least on time. It was just now 8:30, he was 30 minutes early. 

He sighed a little and smiled, first up was finishing up those reports. He may not be on the clock right now, but he did need to give those reports over to his boss, Soviet. 

He picked up the quill and inkwell from his drawer and started to write, hoping that copying information from loose paper into his notebook of reports wouldn't take too long. 

It was a boring task, but a necessary one. 

When he was done, he checked the clock again, finding that an hour had passed. He stared at the reports for a moment before getting up and stretching. He walked over to the herbs, snacks, and other stuff he'd put on the coffee table and started going through it. It was going to take a while for him to organize it, let alone get it put away.