Ye gods. I am lost. Very lost. I mean. As I understand there are four groups here:
[Sohma Residence 1. Making dinner] Amaya, Saburo, Kaze (unconscious and therefore not making dinner, but in the same general vicinity), Junichi, Shujouteki
[Sohma Residence 2. 'Detective work'] Mayumi, Zenshi, Yazaki, Mariko, Joushiro
[Rufus's House. ???] Rufus, Kaoru (???)
[Walking home from grocery store] Mizuki, An Kang Mei
Corrections to this list are welcomed to aid my failing brain... oh, and I should post soon.. I think. I *better*. ARGH HERE I OFFER DRABBLEPOST that absolutely no one barring Kirstinius *cough*Young!Rufus*cough* is likely to read.

@Bulba-senpai: ... YI?! xD
@Wurzel: Look in PM inbox for full senseless chat/gripe/question x) ..oh, and I had an unlawfully good time writing our version of the Madubachi-trio. I apologize if you hadn't intended Rufus to be one of the 'higher-ranking' Sohmas.
@Vulps if reading: If your Cat is female we can pretend she has a male nickname! x) Um... I hope.
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Sohma Saburo
Rabbit, Male, Lawyer, Cruisin'
"How to have a completely ineffectual and space-filling flashback", or, "Indulgence in Theory"
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Saburo imagines there was a time when he first felt wanted. It was not a long time. It was fourteen days six hours twenty-nine minutes and forty seconds and each second counted out by the preciseness of his fastidious soul. Saburo was seventeen and he had never met any of the young masters of the mansion, not face to face; sometimes he bowed low and saw imperious-looking feet clad in tabi socks of the finest cotton.

This young master had not been imperious at all. In fact Saburo had made the appalling transgression (to Saburo, not the young master in question) of imagining that the amiable red-haired rake before him was an errand-boy from the printer's bringing some important manuscript to the head of the house. The deception was aided further in that the youthful Rufus Valerius Sohma was holding a stack of paper covered in a messy and not inelegant handwriting. As he was later to learn, that had been a draft for a novel Rufus had been writing: his first and only novel.

Dressed unkemptly and unconventionally, an extraordinarily disreputable hat crowning his coppery locks, the young Rufus Valerius Sohma had merely grinned at Saburo when the boy had politely asked to point him the way to the old master's rooms. He grinned wider, more like the Cheshire cat than any dog Saburo had ever known, when the boy impressed severely upon him the need to bow several times before the master and only look up when commanded to. The master at the time was doubtlessly not Shujouteki, but rather his father, then already ailing from a disease he would never recover from.

Rufus Valerius Sohma twinkled at Saburo, at the serious young boy with tame yellow eyes better suited to another, tipped his disreputable hat and replied that he knew exactly which procedure he was required to follow.

It was not till later, when he was summoned by an annoyed Sohma-sama to the hall where punishments usually took place, that he found out who the printer's errand-boy really was.

Rufus Valerius Sohma was there, still twinkling, as the head of the house chastised Saburo for daring to rebuke one of a much higher social standing of himself, and threatened beating, though it was not carried out since it was clear even to the clouded eyes of the elders that Saburo would soon be an asset to the family, with his great interest in law. After the haranguing was done, Saburo walked stooped and deferential out of the room only to be stopped by the slightly (only slightly) repentant cause of his lecture.

"Sorry about that, the old git does tend to get the wind up. ...Saburo, was it?"

Introductions were made. Saburo was won over all too quickly.

For the two weeks that Rufus Valerius Sohma stayed in the Sohma mansion, while the Dog looked about for a new place to stay (he had been turned out of his previous apartment for not paying the rent and, scandalously, flirting with the landlady's pretty daughter), Saburo found that it was hard not to be friends with him, or the other, the thirteenth, the left-out that they welcomed and made their duo a trio.

His memory of that time is glowing and golden. Though they are not able to meet as often as they would wish, now that they are all grown with different vocations and different responsibilities, he believes that nothing will ever dim their friendship. It is the crutch that supports him when Shujouteki rages, and says the hurtful words though he does not mean them, when he accuses and pinpoints and bullies Saburo and makes him feel unutterably lonely.

Strange, that Shujouteki now trusted Saburo, as Saburo had trusted Shujouteki, though Saburo more out of desperation and hope. Rufus also had a foster child - what was the name - an ambiguous name - a girl's name? Kaoru, that was it. And Saburo had the excellent Mizuki. And Mizuki was becoming, to be most frank in Saburo's lawyerly mind, a burden.

Saburo picks up the phone and dials Rufus, then; Rufus would be able to make him laugh. Rufus would be able to make him feel wanted for what he was, a thoughtful worrier with a nevertheless logical and fully functioning brain who said the most outrageous things when drunk (he had not meant to but Rufus and the other one had been so persuasive and they said midori was sweet and melon-flavoured and oh Sabu-chan we know how much you like sweet fruit drinks, but they didn't mention the alcohol content, and oh he'd had the most terrible hangover) or in confidence (something grown out of having had to be mild-mannered in front of everyone except two). Rufus wouldn't consider getting him into trouble if he didn't want anything to do with it (discounting persuasion). Ah dear Rufus.

His thoughts wander towards the missing link in their three.

The other one...

Messeur Whiskers, or properly called, the Cat...

*

Saburo helps Amaya convey the swooned Kaze to a sofa. Shujouteki is frowning. His displeasure snakes like little boughs, of jealousy twined with something approaching disapproval. His gaze burns holes into Amaya's back, Amaya's lovely white-frocked back. The young woman is aware of his stare, her movements stiff as she puts a warm towel on the head of the boy. Saburo would have stayed, but the doorbell goes and he knows it is probably Mizuki, though the very smallest hope that it might be Rufus

(...or Mr Whiskers)

raises its head.

Saburo does not go bingo, he does not strike lotto. It is Mizuki and an odd lady both together. An odd lady with too blue eyes and beautiful tanned skin and outlandish clothes. And Mizuki wants him to help keep the odd lady a secret.

She does not listen when he tries, quietly, to reason with her that nothing is a secret from Shujouteki, who has spies in every corner. The odd lady, with a Chinese-sounding name (Yi An Kang Mei was it?), begins to apologize for imposing upon the hospitality of the Sohma, how wonderful and large-hearted a clan, how lovely the decor of the house-

Saburo wants an aspirin.