<div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e327/steusloffa/Junk/9b4c67d7-5e06-4750-8d35-191de0acc40c_zpsagryk5tp.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 200%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #BF0000">I Z U</span></span></span></div><br/><br/><br/>As Izu shut the door, Marmalade took off into the apartment to do her task. Izu was pleasantly surprised by just how smart the kitten was. While she wasn't about to start doing tricks for treats, she already knew how to discern what certain words meant. Lowering the cup, Izu took in a deep breath of the fresh spring air. Generally speaking, Izu had somehow become a much more tolerable person since Alida came into his life. His boss would also joke that he was much more happy now that Izu had a woman in his life, but the young man would just scoff and change the subject. Truth be told though, Izu was in a pretty happy state these days.<br/><br/>With the addition of Alida joining the world work force, Izu found that having the extra income to be very helpful. He was, however, still a little uneasy with Alida just giving him her paycheck every time she got it. After the first two weeks of having extra money, Izu had set up a bank account for her over the phone one day and has been making small online deposits into it every time she gives him her paycheck.<br/><br/>“Izuuuuu!!!” she called out in a sing song voice as she walked outside. Marmalade followed her, never going beyond two feet from where Alida was. When Alida saw Izu, she gave him a peck on the cheek, then a pout. “Izu woke Alida with Marmalade…” she accused playfully as she took a sip of her coffee. His eyes briefly cut to her, but then back to the image beyond them. She followed his gaze; the sun was still rising. "If it had been me, you would have told me to let you sleep more," said Izu as he watched the sun rise. It seemed to stir up and odd mixture of sadness and contentedness all at once in Alida. She didn't remove her gaze from the sunset as she spoke to Izu, “Alida love Izu…”<br/><br/>Izu didn't say a word, but instead just put his free hand on her head and gave it a pat, taking another sip of his coffee. “Izu…” she said suddenly, breaking the silence once again, “Izu…tell Alida about Izu’s family…please?” This caused Izu to spit out whatever amount of coffee was in his mouth. "My family....?" Izu asked with obvious reluctance in his voice. The young man furrowed his brow before finishing off his coffee with a few large gulps. "Well, I guess they are just a normal family? They both run a bakery about twenty minuets from here, my younger sister is probably in college right about now though." Izu finished. As the sun passed the horizon, Izu let out a satisfied sigh and then opened the door to his apartment, "Let's get some breakfast." he decided, then headed to the kitchen.<br/><br/>Izu moved around with a hidden passion, grabbing all kinds of vegetables and fruits for their morning meal. If he recalled correctly, Alida wasn't much for eating meat and such. It wasn't that she wouldn't, but the girl was more than likely just from a place that didn't eat meat all that often. Because of this fact, Izu had taken it upon himself to learn to cook a large amount of different vegetarian dishes, which he often prepared for Alida. Even when he decided he wanted to cook meat, he would ask Alida if she wanted something else. Today, however, it seemed like they would be having a basic salad for their morning meal.<br/><br/>After laying out the food and getting it ready to eat, Izu smacked Alida on the butt before she sat down, the two of them digging into their food. "So, why the sudden interest in my family?" he asked after swallowing some salad.