Phenomeno:Case 05

Case 05: The Cat Mystery

As a stereotypical student living in poverty, I’ve developed several cost-effective dishes, but the one I’ve taken the most liking to is the Hundred-yen ramen. Made from cheap noodles, cheap eggs and cheap bean sprouts at the cost of a hundred yen; the aroma of pepper and sesame oil was really appetizing. It was my specialty. It's a little tricky to make in my single room apartment with a single burner stove, but once you get used to it, anyone can make it while everything is still piping hot.

I was following my usual routine that day, I did my work translating research materials on the Fafrotskies phenomenon, then I returned to my apartment to prepare a meal before leaving for my part-time job in the evening. I was sitting in front of my dining table with a steamy hot bowl, put my palms together in thanks, and was just about to take a bite when I heard a knock on the door.

I looked towards the door, and it burst open by itself, revealing the grinning face of Mitsuru Ooki.

“Yo, Nagito! There you are.”

“Oh, if it isn’t Ooki. What brings you here?”

“That looks delicious.”

“Well, I ain’t sharing.”

“That’s alright, I’ve eaten already.”

Saying that, Ooki brazenly took off his shoes and entered inside. Taking the large bag off his shoulders, he flapped the T-shirt around his neck, causing his pungent body odor to waft throughout the room.

I frowned in the middle of my dinner, and glared at Ooki’s blood-red face.

Mitsuru Ooki was a freshman like me, an acquaintance who I met in the western building of the university.

It was mid-September and the university was still on summer break, but I was extremely busy spending my days in the western building translating English research materials. One day, when Krishna-san wasn’t around, I had left the door fully open to allow the fresh air in, and this guy, dripping in sweat staggered in. My first impression was that he was a weirdo, but after talking to him I found out that he was also a scholarship student, and like me, one of the few poor students from the countryside at our campus, who also lived alone – From then on – the conversation went well. During the summer vacation, this guy was drawing paintings silently alone in the art club room, and when he’d get lonely, he’d come to where I was, and then I started going to the art club room as well. Soon after that he started showing up to my apartment uninvited.

Mitsuru Ooki certainly had the personality of an insolent and rude guy who was used to scrounging off of others – but this guy still had a dream of becoming an artist. Whenever I would ask him about Housui Yamamoto or Johannes Vermeer he would get so fired up that I’d get fed up listening to him. And I liked this kind of guy. In fact, I would say that meeting people like this was what I was looking for.

“So, what brings you here?” I asked him while sipping the ramen.

“You sure have a nice room, as always.” Ooki spoke as he took a scrutinizing look around at my empty room.

“Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”

“No, I really do think that. The best part of this room is that there’s nothing in it. Not even a TV or a computer. Just a dining table and a few books. Young men should hold pride in their poverty.”

Ooki said that with a happy tone. Certainly, when I visited his apartment, it was a 7.5 sqm tatami room with nothing but oil paints.

“Well, that’s all fine and good, but do you already get why I’m here?”

Ooki smiled complacently as he asked me that. It’s annoying that this guy believes I’ll understand what he wants to say just with a smile. I’m not psychic, I won’t know unless you tell me directly.

“I’m not lending you any money.”

“I’m not so feeble minded as to ask money from you.”

Ooki then grabbed his bag, unzipped and opened it. A meow sound suddenly emanated from the inside, and I braced myself.

“I want you to take care of her for a few days.” He took out a cat as he spoke.

Moreover, it was a white cat with quite an adorable face.

“You were keeping a cat?”

“Actually, I found her about two weeks ago. Her name is Miiko.”

“What’s with that name? Anyway, It’s a problem for me. Pets aren’t allowed here.”

“It’ll be alright, it’s just for a few days. She’s well behaved and barely ever makes a sound.”

“Didn’t she meow just now?”

“It almost never happens. It was just because I’d kept her in my bag for so long, it was a meow of relief.”

“No, I can’t do it. Cats aren’t allowed.”

I spoke firmly, but the white cat had already left Ooki’s grasp, sniffed the aroma of its surroundings, before eventually her nose twitched at the bowl of ramen I was holding. After that it scrambled up to my lap in a friendly manner.

“See? She likes you already.”

Ooki spoke with a complacent smile as always. It's been a long time since I'd felt the soft touch of a cat, and the faintly sweet smell of a beast stirred my heart.

“It’s a problem. I can’t keep a cat.”

But Ooki was acting as if he didn’t hear me.

“Actually, one of my relatives from my mother’s side passed away, so I have to go back home. I’ll probably return in two days, so I want you to take care of Miiko while I’m gone.”

Then he patted the white cat's head and smiled contently once again.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Got it, Miiko? Remember to behave, and take good care of the house.”

The cat meowed in a quiet and lovely way at Ooki’s remarks. That face was really quite lovely. After that, I couldn’t really say anything anymore.

---

Cats.

Their bodies are soft and warm, and they’re so cute that you want to rub their cheeks when they purr in your arms. In the modern world, everyone recognizes that they are a rival for dogs as two of the most popular pet animals in the world. I'd always been a fan of animals in general, so I'm more than willing to take care of my friends' pets. I wouldn't usually mind, but there's a reason I'm a little daunted by cats.

It was back when I was in the sixth grade at primary school.

We had a female cat called Momo.

Momo was originally a cat that my older sister, who was in her third year of junior high school at the time, had found; she was a pretty smart and friendly cat that got along well with humans. She was already an adult cat by the time she came to our house, but she learned where her litter tray was at once, and quickly learned what not to do – If you’d get mad at her once she would never do it again. She would rarely ever meow, and she’d humbly appeal for food with her eyes whenever she wanted to eat. My sister, the one who found her, got busy around those days -- dying her hair red, forming a gang of ladies that would later terrorize the Fujieda area, so in the end it was mostly up to me to take care of Momo. Out of everyone in my family, I think Momo felt the most attached to me.

And in those days, there was a girl in my primary school that I liked.

Her name was Saki-chan; she wasn’t particularly beautiful or anything, but she was kind to everyone, and she was always smiling. You could say she was my first love. The first thing I’d end up doing in the morning when I’d get to class was to look for her, no matter how far away she was, I could recognize her laughing voice. In those days, I naturally didn't understand what love was, and I agonized over why I was suffering so much. Anyway, all I knew was that it was not something I could discuss with my sister or any other family member. That’s why, I felt I had no choice and started talking to Momo about it.

After I came back from school I’d straight away go and lie down on the balcony with Momo, I started by telling her “There’s a girl called Saki-chan”, and “It’s painful in my chest”, “I wonder if she hates me?”, those sort of things, When I thought about it now, I must have been a pathetic sight talking so devotedly about such embarrassing things, yet Momo gazed at me kindly and silently.

And then on a certain day – I ran across Saki-chan while going home from school, we both swung our school bags, talked about childish things as we walked the path alongside the paddy fields. And that's when I suddenly saw Saki-chan’s hair glittering golden in the setting sun. Isn’t she actually very beautiful? And then, the fool that I was, said it out loud.

“Saki-chan is beautiful!” I shouted that out loud -- what were my feelings back then? How should I describe it? I felt that the profile of Saki-chan’s face that I saw from the side was miraculously beautiful, but it wouldn’t last for forever. For this one moment, many things meshed together perfectly to show the world the true value she possessed. And if I didn’t scoop it up now, it would disappear. That’s right, wistful—was a perfect match for how I felt in that moment.

However, in society that would normally be interpreted as a love confession, and girls in the sixth grade were much more mature than boys.

“What do you mean?”

She asked me in a somewhat troubled tone, and I had nowhere to run to after that. That’s why I answered her honestly even as my voice shook.

I liked Saki-chan, I’d liked her so long, and so much so that I couldn’t sleep at night.

There is nothing more painful than the feelings of love held by a primary school kid. I wondered what would happen after I confessed. Even if she shared my feelings, we weren’t allowed to marry by law, and there would be a long, long path to adulthood from here. In that process one would gain, and lose various things as well. There would be all sorts of joys and sadness, and many changes one would go through. At the end of what seems like an infinite amount of time for a child, will that innocent love remain unchanged? Even primary school students have some sense of the difficulties that lie ahead. No, it’s because they are primary school students, that they feel it even more so. That’s why, I don’t know. After hearing my confession, Saki-chan spoke.

“I am normal.”

After that, she hung her head down, and restated in a small voice.

“From here onwards… being normal would be for the best.”

“Yeah, Hahaha”, I laughed in response, despite the sharp wound I received from her words.

Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Those words were all I could muster, and I ran home from there.

Even as I ran, the tears never stopped flowing. The only thing I was sure of was that tomorrow would never be the same as today. A gap that could never be bridged had been created between me and Saki-chan; we would never be able to talk normally again, thanks to my foolish confession. Only a feeling of despair remained, as if the only girl that I had felt closest to in the world had moved to the furthest place.

I barged in to my home crying my eye’s out, and immediately ran to my room and started cowering and crying again; before I had realized it, Momo was there, by my side. She kept staring at me with an affectionate gaze. Suddenly I realized that Momo was a female. Just with that alone, I was saved from the feeling that there wouldn’t be any females appearing around me anymore besides my family.

“Hey, Momo.”

My face soggy with tears, I reached out and stroked Momo’s chin and spoke.

“Marry me someday.”

For a moment, Momo stared motionlessly at me, then suddenly let out a cry.

A meow.

That was an extremely rare thing to happen.

For this reason, I thought Momo had accepted my stupid proposal.

I got happy, hugged her tightly, and smiled through my tear-stained face.

...Ugh, embarrassing. Just by recalling this much, makes me so embarrassed it makes me want to jump off a cliff and spill my spinal fluid against the jagged rocks below. But there is an even worse ending to this embarrassing story.

In my second year of high school, I finally got a girlfriend.

She was a first-year junior, a girl who had joined the basketball club as a manager. She was somewhat blunt and had a tendency to speak out boldly, even to her male seniors, but I think that quirk of hers was liked by everyone. She would speak to me frankly: “You’re an idiot”, or “You need to practice cutting in more”, she would arrogantly point out. That's why, unlike the other girls, I was able to say things like, "Shut up!” and “You just stick to your own damn job”.

And on a day like that, I stayed behind in the gym to practice my three-point shot, she came by and suddenly spoke “Your hand placement is bad.” We had just lost a practice game, and one of the reasons for our loss was that I missed a three-point shot at a crucial moment, so I was feeling deeply responsible. That’s why I unintentionally ended up yelling out in anger, “Shut up.”

However, she didn’t stop.

“You only need to shoot it with one hand, but you keep using both hands most of the time.”

“I know that, dammit.”

“I already told you that in spring, but you still didn’t fix your game.”

“If I could have fixed it sooner, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“You don’t seem like you want to fix it.”

“The hell did you say?”

I dropped the ball down and glared at her; without backing down she glared back at me in defiance.

“How would someone like you know that?”

She pursed her lips tightly as she replied:

“I know it because I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

‘Watching you for a long time’, Feeling a strange indication in those words, I got flustered.

After that I ignored her, and began to practice my shooting once more.

“You really are an idiot.”

Leaving me with those words, she ran off.

Well, I’ll leave out the details --- but after that, we started to become aware of each other’s feelings, and we started dating. I was the one who confessed to her. All she did was nod her head in a shy way; then when I realized that for the first time in my life, I had made a "girlfriend," I hopped back home and reported it to Momo straight away.

“I made a girlfriend.”

Momo merely raised her eyes.

“She’s a little arrogant, but she’s not a bad girl.”

I spoke somewhat embarrassed, but I was grinning broadly as I said it.

In fact, I kept bragging on about her after that. That part of her is cute, and such; when she smiles, the pit of my stomach feels all warm and fuzzy, and such. All those foolish words of mine, Momo kept listening to them in silence. At this time, I had completely forgotten. The fact that I had once proposed to Momo. And that on that day, at the end of my absolute loneliness, I had been saved by Momo's consent to marry me.

Most people would agree that the early period of a relationship is like heaven on earth. I was one of them as well. Every day was fun, it was like I was slightly floating about thirty centimeters above the ground, frolicking around like a fool. I kept reporting about those days to Momo. Momo looked up at me with her clear, slightly orange eyes and listened intently to what I had to say.

And then finally, it was less than a week later.

I felt Momo’s cry from somewhere while I was asleep and woke up. In the dark room, Momo wasn’t present. I thought she had gone off to drink some water, so I dozed off again.

The next morning, I discovered Momo’s body getting cold in the kitchen. I took her to the vet in a panic, but he told me that it was probably just her life expectancy.

According to the vet, Momo looked to be around twenty years old. I didn’t know anything. Without ever getting ill, Momo already had a previous owner and was surgically sterilized, never having copulated. In any case, she was a cat that didn’t cause trouble for others, and I never worried about how old she was, or what kind of disease she might have. I felt she would keep on living forever.

And finally, when I was burying Momo in the yard – I suddenly remembered.

I had proposed to Momo.

And she had accepted.

Didn’t Momo -- live this long as though she were my wife?

Momo -- who would refuse to eat anything until I had eaten, who would come up into my futon when I went to bed, and purr happily. Whenever I called out to her, she’d immediately come running from anywhere, and would hear out any story to the very end.

I was…I was…I was— So boastful in telling her that I had a girlfriend.

I was going on about it almost every day. And that’s why, Momo lost the place she belonged, and died, right? Of course, she’s just a cat, right? A person would naturally laugh, it was just simply her lifespan. However, despite being saved once by her in the past, I had forgotten that and kept saying things that betrayed her every day – then, I cried and cried and apologized.

After that, I began to avoid cats, even stray ones on the street. It was a mixed feeling of nostalgia, guilt and fear, and I was too scared to even look them in the eye. The reason being that sometimes cats would look at you as if they are thinking deeply. They would seem to be walking much closer to the truth of the world than I was. The look that says, "I know exactly what you're thinking”.

Whenever I saw a cat in town, or at someone’s house, I’d think to myself…

Momo must have resented me, right?

Did she think I betrayed her?

I’d always thought that if she did, I couldn’t blame her.

That’s why –

To this day, I'd never kept a cat after Momo, and I thought I'd never keep another one in my life.

---

Miiko was actually, a pretty adorable cat.

Like Ooki had said, she rarely made a fuss, would only ever meow while eating, expressing her happiness. She was pure white, her long tail was always pointing up towards the sky, and was quite thin. However, she wasn’t thin because of poor health, but being well-knit gave her that sort of nice physique. And, you couldn’t really tell from her name, but Miiko was indeed a female. Momo was brown with a white streak, so she didn’t resemble this pure white cat in any way -- but still, the sensation of having a female cat near me reluctantly reminded me of Momo's existence. However, Miiko was quite good at keeping my attention, which helped dispel my past trauma.

If I held out my finger, she’d come over and sniff it. And just like that, she’d rub her face on it. No matter where I’d be sitting, she’d come over and get on my lap; Forcefully curling up just after. She’d always sleep with some part of her body in contact with me, and when I stroked her, she’d purr happily. When I’d be leaving for university or my part-time job, she’d follow me up to the door seeming lonely as she’d look up to me, but she wouldn’t make a sound. When I’d return, she’d welcome me happily in an adorable way, and I gave all her all the love I could.

I got fussy about the nutrition and taste of her foods, I got her a litter box, and I even ended up buying her one of those cat teaser toys. My already meager spending money just about disappeared, but that was okay. I’d just ask Ooki to pay for everything when he returned. In the end, my life started revolving around Miiko, but—

But the promised two, three days passed, and Ooki didn’t show his face.

---

At the end of September, my second semester had started, my daily life became even more hectic than usual. I had wholeheartedly swallowed my senior's advice to take as many credits as I could in my first year and ended up taking a boatload of classes. I was doing my part-time job at the Italian restaurant in order to pay for my living expenses and fulfill my debts. The formality of having to attend beatnik society meetings, and in the shadows of that, posting articles for the occult site Ikaigabuchi. In particular, more than half of the Fafrotskies literature was yet to be translated, I felt I had become a staff member of the English literature club rather than an occult website.

“Hey, Nagi-kun. Don’t push yourself too much.”

Unable to see me suffer, Krishna-san said that to me every time we met.

‘I’m fine’, I’d reply with a laugh as I shrugged off her concern. It was definitely tough on my body, but my heart felt fulfilled. I took heart in the fact that my life had finally truly begun. No, maybe it's more like a sense of relief that I finally have a foothold in Tokyo, a place where I didn't know a single person. In any case, a person is able to breathe deeply only after they have a place where they belong.

There was no development regarding the Strange rain in Musashino, and there weren’t any new stories about anything raining down. In the end, we still didn’t find a solid reason for that occurrence. Though I could surmise a somewhat sinister guess as to the reason the blood was falling around the clock tower, but –

Anyway, my everyday life was so busy, I didn’t even have time to think about that.

And then, on a certain day…

I was dragging along my mama-bike towards the school gate as I was about to leave, and I noticed Yoishi Mitsurugi in her school uniform. I checked my watch and saw that it was apparently end of the school day at the high school as well.

Yo -- I thought I’d call out to her – but my feet stopped. Come to think of it, Krishna-san had made me vow not to associate with Yoishi. That was the condition she put forth for letting me join the Beatnik research society, but despite that, I ended up exploring the clock tower with Yoishi just the other day. And at the end, it leaned violently towards the terrifying world beyond, whose presence I ended up feeling right next to me. No matter how you put it, it’s not good to learn even a little bit about that. Shouldn’t I take care of myself just a little bit more?

Thinking that, I watched Yoishi as she kept her distance from the group of high school students leaving the school.

Ugh—She was walking along gloomily as always. Her shoulders drooped down, she kept staring at the ground as she walked. She’s like a human black hole that drags you to a world of darkness when you look at her.

---Come to think of it, could something be troubling her?

That day, I did end up telling her that I would speak to her in a bright place somewhere in the daytime. As I stared at her lonely figure, which stood out from the countless high school students laughing and acting cheerfully, I remembered that, clicked my tongue, and ran.

“Hey, Yoishi!” I called out to her.

“…Oh”, She turned her pale face towards me and gave a small nod in acknowledgement.

“Hey, how have you been?”

“…”

“…Well, I guess you’re not doing so well.”

That day, on that night -- the thing I saw in the gym storehouse.

The moment I looked back at the end, the feeling of something peeking out at me from the hole in the clock face.

And Yoishi’s words, “After all, there were two people inside.”

When I recalled those words, I could feel something cold crawling up my back once again.

There were many things I wanted to ask her, but even so, when I looked at Yoishi’s dark and gloomy figure, I couldn’t bring myself to say them.

In the late summer’s sweltering heat, I was rendered speechless as I got swallowed up by the atmosphere around her, as if she was trudging through a world of absolute zero.

Then –

“You have the stink of an animal.” She spoke abruptly.

Is that so? Flustered, I sniffed my clothes.

Out of all things, it was completely unexpected of her to be complaining about someone’s smell.

“I’m taking care of someone’s cat.”

“Cat?”

“Yeah, she’s white and pretty cute. Do you wanna come see it?”

If a cat were to snuggle up to her lap she might feel better. Thinking that, I had unintendedly said that out loud, but – when I think about it, she’s a high school girl. Inviting a girl her age to my apartment alone is problematic. I thought that, but Yoishi nodded silently in agreement, and began to follow me. She might actually be a cat lover; I assumed that and spoke.

“Miiko is actually a medium-sized cat, but she gets along great with people.”

“Hmm.”

“Have you ever kept a cat before?”

“I haven’t.”

“Do you have an interest in cats?”

“I'm not interested in animals in general, humans included.”

With that flat retort, I was about to say, ‘Oh, that’s right, your specialty is ghosts, after all’, but I gulped down those words.

“Well, just try stroking her. She’s soft and cute.”

After I told her that, Yoishi and I rode together on my mama-bike and reached my apartment.

Whereupon we arrived at my apartment and I opened the front door with my key. But Miiko, who usually dashed up to me the moment I arrived, was nowhere to be seen. Huh? I wondered as I took off my shoes and entered inside my room to find her rounded up into a ball in the back of the room.

“Miiko, I’m home?”

I called out to her but she was acting different than her usual self.

Rather than being afraid of something, she stiffened her body as if on guard against something.

“Sorry for intruding.”

Yoishi muttered politely as she entered my room, at the same time, Miiko growled as her fur stood on end.

“Whoa… Whoa, Miiko… It’s alright. This girl is named Yoishi.”

I tried to hold her up in my arms, but she offered unusual resistance and darted off to a corner of the room.

“Are you being haunted by something?” I looked at Yoishi and joked.

“Perhaps.” She nodded without much emotion in her voice.

I thought I’d comment – but, for the time being I boiled some water. After serving tea to Yoishi, there was nothing more to do but sit under the same roof in silence – just me, Miiko and Yoishi. Miiko kept staring at Yoishi from the corner of the room. I too was starting to feel a little creeped out by how frightened she was. I mean, what the hell is she dragging around?

“Don't you think you should at least get an exorcism or something?”

I couldn't bear the silence any further and said so, but Yoishi just sipped her cup of tea in silence.

“I mean look, you’ve been hanging out a lot at haunted and other dangerous places, after all. And on top of that, you’ve been seeing things, right?”

“There are some I can and can’t see.”

After muttering something like that... Yoishi suddenly gazed at me.

“Say, I wonder if cats really can shapeshift.”

These words pierced deep into my heart.

“Cats just open the door, but the monster cat closes the door at the end – that legend is often spoken of, but to begin with, why did they start saying that cats transform into monsters in the first place?”

Yoishi kept speaking with indifference.

“Is it their fickle nature? Or their uncanny eyes that shine in the dark? Or is there another reason altogether? In China it was said that if a cat was kept for three years, it would transform into a monster, and in some regions of Japan, it was decided that a pet cat would be killed after seven years. There’s a famous legend that says that older cats start to speak in human tongues, and in the illustrated Sino-Japanese encyclopedia from 1712, it is said that when a cat starts to lick oil, a strange phenomenon begins. But in any of the anecdotes, there is no basis for a cat to be able to transform into a monster. Not even in "Saga no Yozakura" or "Saga Kaineko Den," which caused an uproar and were famous as cat monster media. Cats are described as being able to transform from the start. Strangely enough, this is the case all over the world. The more Yoishi spoke, the more Miiko growled from the corner of the room.

Well, certainly, there are a lot of cat related legends and ghost tales around the world.

Bakeneko, Nekomata, Cat Sith, Kasha, Gotokuneko , Kinkabyou – Those were all the ones I could remember for the time being, however, I suppose those legends came to be because cats have been around humans for a long time. They've shared so many stories with us that they've become a part of our folklore.

I spoke those thoughts to Yoishi -- That’s right, she nodded.

“However --- for this reason, cats are full of features that can inhabit the human heart.”

After chatting about such things for a while –

Yoishi stuck out her finger towards Miiko, who was cowering in a small corner of the room, but Miiko didn’t sniff it. Poor thing, she's scared out of her mind.

To even scare cats, she’s the real deal when it comes to being a walker in the world beyond.

As I began to think about such ominous things again, Yoishi suddenly looked towards the corner of the room.

From there on she abruptly began crawling on all fours and moved closer to the wall.

“Say, what is this?”

What Yoishi was pointing to curiously was a hot water dispenser.

“What do you mean? The hot water dispenser? It’s to keep the boiled water from getting cold.”

Hmm, replied Yoishi as she then pointed to the stand type vacuum cleaner I had just bought.

“And what is this?”

“It’s a vacuum cleaner.”

“And these?”

“Those are all purpose hangers used to hang laundry with – wait, don’t you know what these things are? What kind of house do you live in, anyway?”

“What kind? An average one room apartment.”

“Huh…wait a minute.”

I stared at Yoishi’s face as I asked.

“Is it possible… that you live by yourself?”

Yoishi silently nodded.

What about your parents, I was about to ask, but, I desisted from doing so.

And the scene drew itself in my mind quite spontaneously.

No desk.

No clothes.

No cooking utensils, not even a curtain.

The view of an empty room, as if someone had just moved in. Yoishi lay coldly on the floor, illuminated by the moonlight. The image of Yoishi, living such a daily life as if it was normal, without feeling any pain – or rather, by cutting off all her emotions -- spread in my mind as if it was almost certainly true; I hesitated to inquire any more about Yoishi’s personal life.

--Something’s been troubling you; did you manage to take care of it?

Maybe if I had asked cheerfully, everything would have been solved easily.

But the person I was at this moment, just couldn't do it.

This girl has some kind of unique – extremely unique, family environment.

For some reason or other, I had a feeling about that. In the past, something happened to her -- Fear, the organ that’s supposed to feel it, died somehow. And in search of that lost forgotten emotion, she abandoned herself to the mysteries of the occult. That's what I learned in the depths of my warped dream. What in the world was it, that robbed you of the feeling known as ‘fear’? But I couldn’t inquire that from Yoishi, who was right in front of me. I was hopelessly afraid to step into it. It was almost like it was as close to the word forbidden as you can get, something impossible for a person like me to get involved in, an absolute barrier that I would never be able to overcome.

‘To save a girl like her, a half-hearted resolve won’t do’, I recalled Krishna-san’s words.

And yet, here I was, having brought Yoishi over to my apartment. Even though I was told not to associate with her, I ended up doing it anyway.

I suddenly realized that Yoishi had finished her tea and was idly staring at her cup.

I took the empty cup from her hands, stood up, washed and cleaned it, put in a tea bag, and poured in some more hot water from the dispenser.

After I handed it to her, Yoishi quickly took a sip and simply muttered, “Delicious”.

---

Yoishi Mitsurugi went back home right away after finishing her second cup of tea.

I'll get ready for my 5 o'clock job, prepare food for Miiko, and clean the bathroom. When I patted her head, Miiko had started to be coy and sweet to me again, probably because Yoishi was gone.

“She’s always difficult to deal with, so please forgive me.”

Miiko just raised her eyes in response.

I patted her on the head once more and left for work.

At any rate, I'm still a struggling student, and I still have to earn my keep.

I was working at the Italian restaurant part-time at an hourly wage of 870 yen, five hours a day, and about five times a week. Even after doing that much, I only managed to make around 100,000 yen per month. But despite all that, this job was fun in its own way. At first, I had applied for the position to help with living expenses and to get some free food, but now I was quite fond of the time I spent there. The restaurant was just under a ten minute bike ride from my house, located just a ways off from Kichijouji station. My main task was to assist in food preparation, doing everything from peeling garlic, chopping tomatoes, preparing herbs, replenishing all sorts of seasonings and washing dishes. Well, long story short, I’m doing various chores in the kitchen, but if I’m late, I get shouted at, and if you slack off, you’re likely to get your ass kicked. When it gets busy, I have to go out to the dining area. That’s how I learned about the history and taste characteristics of Italian wine and how to skillfully use a sommelier knife to pop the cork. The manager was tough on the part-timers, but he was much tougher on himself, he fervently researched on Italian food every day and the restaurant flourished as a result. Particularly around early evening time, the restaurant was a veritable battlefield. There was no time to relax, and I had to move fast, almost by conditioned reflexes or else I wouldn’t be able to handle things. The high school girl who was a senior to me at work would often insult me, saying I was in the way, and there was a lot of incomprehensible Italian being spoken in the kitchen.

But I got used it by now --- I think. It’s way better than a part time job with a lot of free time. Anyway, time passes by in the blink of an eye as ‘It’s closing time, thanks for your hard work!’ rings out from within the store, I can’t help but feel a little moved whenever that happens. In the dimly lit restaurant with all the lights off except for the spotlights, I see the cooks opening a bottle of wine for tasting and saying, "Good work!”, it makes me really think, Dammit! Chefs are so damn cool. I often end up wondering I should just quit university and aim to be a chef, but, I think of my parent who paid a high cost for my university fees, and it would be bad if I didn’t at least graduate.

Well, anyway, after finishing an exhausting day of fulfilling work, I was going back to my apartment late at night as usual. And then, as always, while enjoying the pleasant night breeze pedaling back home on my mama bike –

Was when I noticed.

Someone’s cold, emotionless gaze.

I stopped my bike, and looked around.

I was in the middle of a residential area; it was late at night so there were only a few houses that still had their lights on. The street lights are bright, the moon beautiful and there’s no creepy atmosphere. But I could feel someone’s gaze clinging to me from somewhere.

“Is it just my imagination?” I wondered. I’m sure I must be feeling that way because I ended up meeting with Yoishi in the afternoon. Her creepy presence is still lingering somewhere within my unconscious. After the recent incident, I mostly stopped using the shortcut to my apartment that was next to the sports ground. I hated seeing that clock tower aka earthen storehouse even from a distance, so I did my best to return through a well-lit street. I knew I definitely had to stay away from dangerous places. I had learned my lesson on how to deal with the occult.

When I returned to my apartment and opened the front door, Miiko quickly came running to my feet. She snuggled her face up against my jeans and continued purring.

“Hey, you seem to be in a better mood now.”

I stroked her face, then took off my shoes and changed into more comfortable clothes.

As I washed my hands and face, I heard Miiko starting to eat her food. Waiting to eat after I return, she’s just like Momo from back then -- I thought to myself, as I watched her continue to eat in delight. Suddenly I realized, the area around where Yoishi had been sitting in the evening was faintly wet. When I crouched to confirm, a stripe of water remained, as if it had been wiped with a cloth whose water hadn’t been wrung out properly.

“What the heck is this?”

Could it be that Yoishi, had once again been dripping wet like that one time? Or could Miiko had drunk some water, and slept here with her jaw wet? In any case, I didn’t pay it too much attention at the time, gently wiped it off with a cloth and went off to take a shower. I dried my hair, and my eyelids soon became heavy, without eating dinner, I went and lied down.

When I got in my futon, Miiko also joined me. Even though it isn’t cold at this time of year, she was like Momo in that she liked the warmth of a human. I tucked Miiko inside the futon and opened the mystery book I had borrowed from the library -- when I noticed something. The bookmark I had stuck inside had changed its position. It had moved further ahead from where I had left off, I had almost read a spoiler.

“I guess I forgot to put the bookmark back.”

I returned it to the point I had read up to, when my eyes fell on the page but—

I felt extremely exhausted.

Without even turning off the lights, I fell into a deep sleep.

Outside my apartment, I thought I heard the sounds of cats moaning together in heat.

---

“Did you go off to a strange place again?”

It was when I showed up at the beatnik research lab after my lectures were finished the next day. As soon as I saw her face Krishna-san said that to me, and I vigorously shook my head in response.

“No, I haven’t been anywhere.”

“Is that the truth?”

Krishna-san’s big round eyes glittered behind her red glasses as she glared at me with suspicion. For a moment, I thought, “Oh shit”, to myself as I panicked.

Huh…? Is it about the clock tower?

I thought so, but I’ve met up with Krishna-san many times since then. If she was talking to me about that, she would have told me much sooner.

“I don't like it. Am I being possessed by something?”

I daringly spoke out in a cheerful tone, Krishna-san pushed up her glasses, and stared at me with a serious expression.

“No, it’s a somewhat strange sensation – Different from being possessed directly. It's like you're alone in the middle of an abandoned building, and I'm staring at you from a distance, and then I find someone else staring at you from the top of an old building.

Those words filled me with horror. Her words kind of described the clinging gaze I had felt last night.

“D-don’t scare me like that. You certainly can’t see ghosts, right?”

“That’s true.”

Krishna-san gave a deeply regrettable shake of the head.

“Biophotons, at best. I’ve seen things that resemble ghosts a few times, but you could call it something else entirely, and as someone who runs an occult website, it’s certainly shameful, but I’m not someone who sees ghosts everywhere.”

She then took off her red glasses, and began to wipe off the dirt with a cloth and added.

“But recently, I’ve begun to think of it as a blessing in disguise. If I could see them all the time, I might end up turning out to be like Yoishi. Well, I don’t know if she turned out to be that way because she could see them, or if she’s able to see them because of how she turned out to be.”

“But can you tell if someone’s possessed?”

Krishna-san nodded with a very serious look on her face as she replied.

“I think I can sense it. And right now, I don’t think you’re being possessed by anything. I know that, but…. Ummm… I wonder what this feeling is?”

“I don’t really feel like my shoulders are heavy or anything, and I haven’t been having any strange dreams.”

“Is that so? Well, I guess it’s fine then.”

She said somewhat unconvinced.

“It’s not really nice to pry, sorry about that.”

Krishna-san put her glasses back on and gave a sweet smile.

After that she said, ‘well then’, as she puffed up with pride and changed the subject.

“The second half of semester classes are about to begin, and it's a critical time for the Beatnik research society as well.”

“…Huh?”

“Next month, during the Koumei institute school festival, there’s going to be a Mary festival. We have to organize it as part of the Beatnik society, and on the other hand, we can’t take a break in posting updates on Ikaigabuchi. In short, we have to finish translating the Fafrotskies research material within two to three days.”

“T-Two to three days?”

“I’m very sorry to ask you to work even harder after everything you’ve done so far, but it’s a reality of the schedule.”

Well, even if you say that –

Right now, no matter how hard I work, I can only manage to translate a page per day. There are still dozens of pages left. Moreover, the mystery of the Fafrotskies phenomenon has only deepened even after I’ve been working so tirelessly on the translation, making me question if it’s even worth it, and slowing down the pace of translation lately.

“Well, you know, the occult is the occult precisely because of its incomprehensible nature, that’s the fascination around it.”

Krishna-san spoke as if she read my expression.

“I still don’t have a complete picture of the Strange rain phenomenon --- but somehow, I do know one thing.”

“…Huh?”

“The Fafrotskies phenomenon, which has been documented countless time since before the common era – a phenomenon in which something impossible suddenly falls in an unlikely place. Those falling objects include small animals such as fish and frogs, large animals like alligators, and even giant creatures like whales have been reported. Not only that, but there are also reported precedents for blood, nails, mere meat, coins and hair. It's hard to see the truth that should be at the center of the story because it's an extremely wide range --- but, isn’t there a truth hidden somewhere that we’re overlooking in between the seemingly vast variety of falling objects?”

“Which is?”

“According to those who follow conventional wisdom, the Fafrotskies phenomenon can be explained scientifically through the mass outbreak theory and the tornado theory among other things, but the mass outbreak theory is based on the natural condition that the life form cannot occur in the vicinity of the site - and the tornado theory is based on the assumption that the falling objects will be of the same kind.”

“…Oh.”

“In short, even within the cases we’ve been translating, if the falling objects are not of the same type and if the site fulfils the condition for having an outbreak of the life form, in that case the possibilities of it being a paranormal event is low.”

I understand. Of course, it’s a conversation to be had after finishing all the translations, but if we statistically leave out all the cases that have even the slightest scientific explanation, we would only need to research the ones that can’t be explained.

Thereupon, I decided to ask Krishna-san something I had been curious about.

It was about that story Yoishi had muttered in front of the clock tower.

“Krishna-san, what do you think about ghost stories with the warps in space-time?”

“…Warps in space time?”

“You see many of them on the net, right? You pass through some place and when you come back, you’re in a different world. Multidimensions and parallel worlds, you think those sorts of things really exist? And if they do --- could a hole to one of those multidimensions open in the sky, and strange rain fall from there?”

“I see.”

Krishna-san put her finger on her small chin as she pondered.

“The pioneer in the study of the Faftrotskies phenomenon, Charles Fort advocated a similar a theory as well, that a ‘Super Sargasso Sea’ exists above the sky. The possibility of parallel words is certainly an interesting theory that has not been ruled out by modern physics, but, there’s not enough evidence to connect it to the Strange Rain phenomenon.”

Krishna-san then muttered with a look of nostalgia on her face.

“Now that you mention it, didn’t that person also mention something similar once…?”

“….Huh?”

“No, never mind.”

Krishna-san cleared her throat and smiled again.

“At any rate, isn’t it just fascinating? There are certain areas and ideas we can only hit on because we researched such a vast number of cases. A journey to the unknown begins from a single step, as they say.”

...Wait, wasn't that 'a journey of a thousand miles'?

That said, part of me feels like "journey to the unknown" actually fits her better.

The reason why this petite occult website administrator named Shiina Kurimoto does not seem to be gloomy in her research of ghosts is probably because she continues to hold fascination in this unknown. And that's exactly what I was trying to do. I also wanted to keep feeling something akin to excitement and hope in the occult. There was a part of me that would rather have things left ambiguous. If a day might come where science advanced to a stage where things like the composition of ghosts and their origin would be revealed, I’d end up thinking of them as completely boring. Isn’t it good that they’re so vague? I’d end up thinking to myself.

And—

And in that respect, me and Krishna-san are distinctly different from her.

Yoishi Mitsurugi would dig up and expose everything. Even if there was a reason for something to be sealed, she’d end up exposing it in broad daylight. No matter how brutal the truth would be, she’d step into any forbidden territory with her dark, shining eyes, and as long as we are attracted by the unknown, we can’t help but feel an irresistible gravity in her words and deeds. That’s why Krishna-san told me not to associate with Yoishi. I’m sure that Krishna-san herself must have felt drawn to the presence of the world beyond that clings to Yoishi. But it's a ticket to a deeper world where you can't come back if you go too deep, and you have to put a stop to it somewhere.

“It’s fascinating, is it? I understand.”

Well, if it’s just that, I’m convinced. I felt as if I had realized the basic attitude I would need to take toward the occult from now on.

“I got it now! Then let’s finish it in two days! I’m gonna stay overnight in the club room today!”

Krishna-san became flustered at my enthusiasm.

“Wait, I mean, it’s good to be enthusiastic and try to do it faster, but you don’t have to go that---”

“No, just leave it to me. It’s fascination, after all!”

Completely regaining my motivation, I slapped my chest.

Being a woman, Krishna-san had a curfew, commuting to school from her home. It seemed her father was strict in such matters, unless it was a something serious, he wouldn’t let her stay overnight somewhere else. So, if I, as a man living alone, doesn’t persist here, then who else is gonna do it?

“Ugh…In that respect, I’m really jealous of you being a guy who lives alone. I've always wished I was a guy myself.”

“It’s fine. I mean, even after you’ve returned home, you’re still working on updates for ‘Ikaigabuchi’, after all.”

“Well, that’s true, but...”

“Besides that, if you were a guy, I’m sure that would make Ikaigabuchi fans all over the country weep in sorrow.”

“…Eh? No… I don’t think that’s true…”

I laughed as I patted the shoulders of Krishna-san as she squirmed in a small voice.

That part of her was quite cute, but above all else, I was happy that my stance towards the occult had been clarified. I was feeling quite ecstatic.

That’s why, I ended up overlooking it.

That night --- That strange ‘gaze’ I had felt.

And even now, I could still feel that dark gaze staring at me from somewhere.

I wish I could have at least discussed it properly with her back then, but –

It was already too late.

---

The western building was crowded as ever late at night.

I returned once to my apartment after my part-time job to look after Miiko, and returned to the club room once again.

In the three-story concrete building, I could see the windows of the club rooms, most of the lights were turned on. Originally, the club building in my university was supposed to close at 10 pm but, that rule was difficult to enforce. In particular, Building A, where all the club rooms for the humanities department are located -- a place where idiots with inexplicable dogmas belonging to the drama, film, newspaper, art, radio, and other clubs would spend their days discussing theories of culture and art.

Mitsuru Ooki, who had entrusted me with Miiko, was also of course, one of them. Culture is born at midnight, he would always say.

“...In the end, I guess I ended up joining those idiots.”

As expected, my body felt heavy after working for so many hours.

I muttered to myself as I parked my mama-bike in the bike parking, but that feeling somehow went away when I saw how lively the club building was. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to continue translating without sleeping, and that I won't be able to continue with lectures, my part-time job, and translation the next day. But, once a man says something, he has to go through with it. I recalled my father’s favorite pet phrase as I entered the club building in a light mood.

I bought a canned coffee on the ground floor and went up the stairs. Crossing the noisy corridors, I unlocked the doors to the empty beatnik club room and entered. With the late-night radio as my companion, I was going to devote my full time to translation work from then on.

With powers of concentration I wasn’t even able to display during my exams, hours passed by in the blink of an eye—

At the break of dawn, I thought I heard a cat’s voice, and I looked up.

Light had begun to seep in from beyond the window. wherein I heard what felt like a cat fight. Loud Meows, and growls; ah, what the hell? Are they mating? I laughed to myself. Momo, who I kept in the past was castrated, so I never saw it first-hand, but I heard seeing two cats mating is a pitiful site to see. My high school teacher, who was a cat lover, told me, "You can't let children see that.”

--I guess I’ll have to get Miiko castrated someday too.

I suddenly thought that to myself. And, I wondered, if I had kept Momo from when she was a kitten, would I actually have chosen to castrate her? I stopped my hand for a moment and thought about it while listening to the dreadful cat growls coming from outside the window - but I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Castration is an act of selfish convenience for humans. It’s such a cruel thing for the creatures living in this world to be deprived of their right to bear and raise children. It’s true that modern society cannot afford to let cats do that every day in residential areas in their season of heat. But that is for the convenience of humans, not for the happiness of cats. We love cats, but we are cruel to them. No, it’s just not only cats, it’s the same for dogs and other animals as well. We exterminate them to the point of extinction, and when it gets to the point where they’re in danger of extinction, we start their conservation. From their point of view, they would probably say that it’s all for the convenience of humans.

Sometimes, when I see a gruesome incident on the news, I suddenly feel like quitting humanity. And that bitterness develops into aimless self-questioning, eventually leading to dark and gloomy criticism of humanity. Even so, a half-hearted person like me can never figure out what should be done. Just being depressed means you won’t ever be able to move forward. That’s why, for the time being, I guess I’ll just have to be as sincere as I can to the ones I met through fate, which is Miiko for me right now.

“After a while, I have to go back home and feed her.” I squinted my eyes at the morning sun as I muttered to myself.

Ooki didn’t show up on that day as well.

He might be relaxing at his parents’ home after a long time or something. What was he going to do about Miiko? I wondered, but it was true that I was able to concentrate on translation thanks to her.

However --- two, three days later, the translation was yet to be finished, and there was no contact at all from Ooki.

“The hell is up with that guy?”

His absence had been pushed to the back of my mind since I’d made a big deal of finishing the translation work that I had yet to finish, but it’s been a week already. I got worried, and visited the art club at lunch break on the very same day.

“Is that guy Ooki around here?”

I tried asking but, all the club members there just shook their heads.

“Now that you mention it, we haven’t seen him around for a while now.” Was all that they said.

Could he have possibly decided to drop out of university altogether? I worried, but he was an artist by nature. That was impossible to deny.

Even though I carried reservations about his disappearance, I was busy with my own life.

I was going to my classes, my part-time job, helping out with posting regular updates on Ikaigabuchi. And I was staying overnight in the club room almost every day, I would often doze off on the beatnik study’s table, then Krishna-san would come and wake me in the morning.

“That’s enough. I’ll do the rest.”

Unable to just stand by and watch, Krishna-san said that, but I insisted.

“Just let me finish it to the end, please. I’m fine.”

“But if you keep going like this, you won’t be able to attend classes anymore. That was never my intention, it would be inexcusable to your family,.”

“I’m fine, I can keep attending class.”

“But you don’t look fine.”

“I’m alright.”

I put on a brave front, but I was dozing off during lectures, continuously making mistakes in my part-time job and earning recrimination as a result. But despite that, I was making good progress with the translation, and work on posting updates was going smoothly as well, and in between, I’d return back tot the apartment and take care of Miiko. I’d try to return to my apartment at least three times a day to check on Miiko, and every time I did, she would happily jump up to me each time, and that was the only thing that kept me going.

When I hugged her, she would lick my face, and her sweet smell soothed me to the point where I almost swooned. It’s like we’re a married couple. I imagine her as a devoted wife who married into poverty – We are poor, and love is the only thing we have.

No, no, no—

What the hell am I thinking?? She’s a cat. It’s not a good thing for Miiko to be treated like a human.

“I still can’t get in touch with Ooki at all.”

Returning to my apartment between classes and work, I lay sprawled out alongside Miiko as I told her that. Miiko stared at me as if she understood what I was saying,

“Well, it’s because he’s a careless guy, he’s probably slagging off somewhere, but just wait a while longer.”

I informed her as I played with her through a cat teaser toy.

However, I was beginning to have a feeling that I would continue living with Miiko like this.

Life at university is like that. Unlike middle school or high school, everyone suddenly finds their own path to follow one day and ends up disappearing.

Mamiya from the linguistics department got crazy about surfing before summer vacation, in the morning. If he knew there was gonna be a good wave coming in, he’d leave for the sea clutching his surfboard in hand, before long he quit university and ended up working at a surf board shop along the seashore. Okamura from the film studies department seemed to have gotten a part time job at a movie set, he slowly stopped coming to university, last time I heard he dropped out during the summer vacation.

“He’s an artist, so I dunno.” I muttered as I turned to face up at the ceiling.

If Ooki doesn’t come back to university, will I have to keep her?

Well, I guess that’s not such a bad thing after all, I thought to myself. Reflected in my tired, weary eyes, was Miiko staring back at me with kindness, like Momo had once done. I was experiencing that after a long time, the tranquility of someone’s protective gaze watching over me as I slept.

That’s why, I thought it was probably a dream.

Sleeping next to me was, a woman. Dressed in white, watching over me quietly as I slept as she were my wife. I’d never married before, and it wasn’t something I could Imagine, but it felt like the oft-reported happiness of a newly married couple.

--Eventually…

• Diiiiiiiiiiiiing* *Diiiiiiiiiiiiing* I suddenly woke up hearing the alarm ringing from my phone.

“…Damn it.”

In a panic, I washed my face, cleaned Miiko’s litter box and prepared her food, and stroked her face.

“I’ll see you later. Sorry, Momo.” Saying that, I left for my part-time job.

“Yamada, you don’t look so good.”

Even the manager even said that to me but I replied with, “I’m A-okay”, as I gave a bright smile, and went off to change into my uniform.

It was the second opening of the day in the evening as it suddenly started to get crowded. From there, it's just the tension of the job that gets me through it. “What is your recommended wine?” “We have some excellent Barolo available today.” “Hey Yamada, we’re almost out of garlic.” “Yes, On it right away!” “This spaghetti aglio is too spicy.” “I’m deeply sorry, we’ll make it again for you right away, sir.” “This isn’t the dish I ordered.” “I'm sorry, sir. I'll be right with you.” “It was delicious.” “Thank you very much, I’ll be sure to convey that to the chef!” Voices flying around, voices, voices. Mixed in with the aroma of olive oil were emotions, excitement, angry voices, echoes of laughter. All I could do was desperately keep up with them, and before I knew it, closing time had arrived.

In the night breeze, I ride my mama bike back to my apartment with a pleasant sense of fatigue.

When I opened the front door, Miiko ran up to me and started clinging to me.

As I picked her up and stroked her, I suddenly felt something strange about the room. What was it? I thought but couldn’t come up with anything. It seemed like nothing had changed, but something felt slightly different since the time I left. While Miiko was eating her cat food, I went close to the wall to change the sand in the litter box, when I finally noticed it. The peeled off poster on the wall which I had been neglecting due to my busy schedule had been fixed.

“Huh….? Err, the pin on the corner did fall off, and I picked it up, but I didn’t… stick it back in…right?”

I tilted my head in puzzlement, wondering if I had fixed it unconsciously. I had no clue.

For the time being I spent another thirty minutes with Miiko, and stood up again. One way or another, I want to finish the translation work by today. If I could finish that, I’d be able to free up a lot of time in my life.

Under the moonlight, I pedaled my bike towards the club building.

The lights were on in western club building as usual. I climbed the stairs up to my club room. I unlocked the door and turned on the lights inside, On the top of a neatly organized table, I found Krishna-san’s personal laptop, which could be called the data bank of ‘Ikaigabuchi’, and a bundle of manuscript copies on top of it.

“…Huh?”

I noticed. There were a lot less manuscript copies than when I had left the club room in the evening. There were only about five pages left. And, there was a small note there. {To Nagi-kun. There were only a few pages left but I couldn’t finish them! I’m really sorry, I’ll leave it up to you! --Shiina Kurimoto.”}

While reading that memo, I wondered…

Krishna-san had been undoubtedly working hard because she was worried about my health. Moreover, she translated the Fafrtoskies case from the 1600s, which was the hardest in terms of English literature used. What remained was a comparatively easy present-day document. If it’s just this much, I could finish it by the morning if I work hard enough.

“Didn’t she leave it to me on purpose, though?”

The thought occurred to me. To let me taste the feeling of completion, of having made it through all the way to the end, Krishna-san must have intentionally left me with the easy part - the most appetizing part of the work. She’s capable of doing anything, after all, the thought of that moved me to tears. But, well, it was still pretty hard with my English skills - though it was true that I felt pretty encouraged.

“Alright.”

Flexing my neck, I sat down on the desk and began to work on the last part. I opened the text editor on the computer, and with a dictionary in one hand, translated sentence by sentence, and typed it. English is not my forte or anything, but I have learned a lot from translating so far. Even in long, incomprehensible sentences, if you can find the subject and verb you can somehow manage it. I also learned that words that are not in the dictionary are often adjectives made up by the author. Morning is ‘Morning’, but when I saw it written as ‘morn’, it confused the heck out of me -- but apparently, it seemed to be used in the context of ‘Morning like’. I got the hang of it in this place as I diligently struggled with English. Maybe human beings really do make an effort when they can envision things. I didn’t even turn on the late-night radio which I usually listened to, and absorbed myself in work. I diligently identified the subjects and verbs, and then translated them as if I were expanding my world from there. And then finally, as the sun had begun to rise – I finished translating everything.

As I typed the last sentence and saved, I leaned back against the chair, extended my elbows and exclaimed:

“…I’m dooooooooone.”

The sunlight pouring in from the window, felt like heaven. Where was the feeling of sleepiness I had been feeling lately? My body, which had been as heavy as iron, was feeling so light that I could go out to play right away. I stood up and turned on the radio to hear an unfamiliar western song play. It was a country-style song with a guitar as the main instrument, and had a steady and distinctly cool bass sound. And in order to further savor my feeling of fulfillment, I headed outside to buy a canned coffee. Leaving the radio turned on, I locked the door and trotted down the hallway. The lights still shined through about half of the club rooms on both sides of the hallway. I would occasionally hear laughter from within. Some of them were playing instruments. Some of them were washing their faces in the bathroom, probably after an all-nighter. Seeing those kinds of sights absent-mindedly, I arrived at the lobby on the ground floor, I bought a canned coffee from the vending machine, and sat down on the bench.

Why is it that the air in the morning feels so clear? There’s a saying that it purges the darkness, but I once again keenly felt how great the strength of the sun’s light was. In an instant, the traces of yesterday are painted over. It washes away all the impurities and makes me feel like I can step into a new day.

“I guess this university isn’t so bad.”

I muttered to myself as I let the bitter sweetness of the coffee soak into my tired body.

A somewhat closed-off university for the elite. A place filled with the same kind of people. With a prejudiced attitude, I had labeled this university as such; now I saw a different side to it. But that’s not it. There are as many truths as there are people, and the world is always multifaceted, that’s why it’s supposed to be interesting. I’d been looking down on this place based on one aspect alone.

Maybe it was because I was from the countryside; I think I felt lonely in the city’s university, where it’s difficult to form a small and tight-knit community. Superficial associations, superficial smiles. I felt disgust at such things. But that's not the case. Nothing in university, nor in a city filled with good and bad people, is prepared from the start. Anything and everything has to be chosen by your own self. The place you belong, your job, your friends, your way of life.

And right now, I'm sure I'm feeling this way because of this western club room building. This concrete building, where you can devote yourself to something. People who are into painting, people striving to train their guitar skills, people devoting themselves to editing movies. People who are just drinking sake while debating art and their world views – and probably some couples flirting in a club room somewhere.

Still, there are only people here who do what they love.

Liable to themselves, they do what they like.

I was never even able to notice such things when I was just taking lectures, leaving the university immediately afterwards, and going to my part-time job. In that sense, it was all thanks to Krishna-san and the occult. I’ve been through a lot since I came to Tokyo, but thanks to ‘Ikaigabuchi’, I’ve been able to live without boredom. People everywhere, their futures broaden when they have things they like. Bonding over shared interests, it really gives people's lives something precious... Yeah, that already sounded like amateur philosophy drivel, so I just brought the canned coffee to my lips once more.

“…Huh?”

I suddenly felt as if I heard Miiko’s fawning voice from somewhere, and stood up.

No, that can’t be. Miiko is in the apartment. The sound just now must have been from a stray cat somewhere.

And, I heard it again.

This time it was screams, as if two cats were violently fighting each other.

Come to think of it, I've been hearing a lot of cats in heat, fighting with each other lately. I guess that’s how things are at the end of summer? Thinking that, I stood up. And then, was immediately startled.

--There is, no sound...

The silence was deafening around me. I went outside through the ground floor, and looked around the entire club building. All signs of human life had completely disappeared from the club building. As if someone had pressed the mute button on a TV remote, sound had disappeared from the world all together.

Shaking off the bad feeling, I walked back inside the club building. Immediately afterwards, I climbed up the stairs. Before reaching the Beatnik club room on the third floor, I was sure of it.

I was the only one in the building.

The club building, which had been so noisy a few moments ago, now just felt like an empty concrete box. Unknowingly, I began to run. I was running up the stairs to the third floor and then in the corridor. I tried to knock on the clubrooms with the lights still on. But there was no reply from anywhere.

My heart started to beat faster, and in the terrible silence, my ears were ringing.

“…Calm down, calm down and just breathe.” I told myself, catching my ragged breath.

And I continued forward in the corridor with no one present.

All the club rooms still had their lights turned on.

The only thing that remained was the feeling that people were making noise until just now, but there was no one in sight.

It was like – just like, the Mary Celeste incident. The mysterious incident that occurred in the Atlantic sea had been recreated in the western club building. Unbearable fear engulfed me, and I stopped in my tracks to think. Is this a dream? Night after night, I’d been fatigued doing translation work, and did I start dreaming in the club room unawares?

As someone who had once experienced an extremely realistic lucid dream, that was my first suspicion.

Once again, I’d lost sight of the boundary between dreams and reality—

No.

No, no, no--

I frantically brushed off the thought that popped in my head. Acknowledging that would be dangerous. The moment I would acknowledge that, everything would begin to collapse. I'd finally started to stand and walk on my own, but my life itself would no longer carry on. I'm supposed to be cured by now. I’m supposed to firmly stand tall on my own two feet. The childhood curse was lifted, and I was sure that I had already firmly grasped reality, a reality that I could walk towards. All my instability was born from that inconsistency in my memory, the thing that was messed up from the start, and which was supposed to have been fixed properly. But in the darkness inside my head, which was so dark that made me want to look away, that had begun to glow dimly. No matter where I looked, it was the only thing that seemed to be true, and its presence grew heavily.

That was, in short –

The doubt, that I had not yet been cured.

But to acknowledge that, would be unbearably scary. The fear of being uncertain about your own existence. An absolute fear of there being a domain inside me that I couldn’t control, of an unknown darkness squirming inside me.

That moment – I heard something.

It was a western song. It was coming from the club room. From the Beatnik research society – that’s right, it was the song from the radio I had left turned on. Suddenly, my spirit, which was on the verge of collapse, rapidly regained its strength.

Get yourself together, man. So what if everyone had disappeared? That’s a possibility that could always happen, right? It could just be that they all went back home at the same time.

Finally regaining my composure, I ran to the front of the club room. Then, at the door, I took the key out of my pocket, with my trembling hands, I was about to insert it into the keyhole, when I realized.

Behind the frosted glass of the yellow door, the shadow of a person flickered and swayed.

“…Krishna-san?”

I unconsciously muttered that, but my hand on the doorknob stopped as the alarm signal inside me reverberated loudly.

--No, it’s not her.

This figure does not belong to Krishna-san. It was someone a little taller, and thinner. Awfully thin. In the first place, Krishna-san doesn’t come to the club room at this time.

Then…who is it?

A gulp of saliva falls down my esophagus, and a nasty sweat runs down my armpit.

I felt helplessly afraid, but I couldn’t avert my eyes away from there.

My eyes naturally drew themselves to the figure behind the frosted glass.

I knew it was the figure of a woman. Her clothes were white. She stood in a very peculiar manner, leaning at a slight angle, swaying slowly. It felt as if she were a paper doll, flowing in the wind. Her eyes were unnaturally hollowed out, as if an empty hole stared at me.

---It’s her. ---She’s the one… who’s been watching me all this time.

I became convinced of this, as tears welled up in my eyes.

Only the sounds of the song from the club room, and my heartbeat, echoed in the corridor.

It’s slipping away. Something is noisily slipping away.

And I knew this feeling all too well.

In that house that made me anxious. In the abandoned hospital in Hachiouji. And – in that clock tower.

The feeling I felt in all of them, the feeling of the world slipping away, drifted from behind the door.

---The real thing makes you feel uncomfortable.

Yoishi’s Mitsurugi’s oft repeated words.

It felt like they were seeping in.

That’s right, I couldn’t feel any life from the one behind the frosted glass.

“…W-who is it…?”

It was the moment I whispered in a shaky voice. The shadow suddenly moved. It approached me, and then it put its hand on the frosted glass and peered intently at me through the glass. The area around her eyes were truly dark and hollow.

As I recoiled backwards, the girl spoke:

“Meow.”

---

The sound of someone’s footsteps.

Breathing. A noisy conversation.

The hustle and bustle reverberated in my whole skull, waking me from my slumber.

It seemed I had lost consciousness. I was slumped over in the corridor, my body lying spread-eagled.

A couple of female students with badminton rackets in hand were looking at me with disgust. I could feel the cold, hard concrete floor on my back. Slowly getting up, I could feel the gritty dust clinging to my hands.

I grunted and stood up, and the female students moved away.

I checked the time on my wrist-watch, it was still seven in the morning. Those girls likely came to the club room for morning training. They probably thought I had passed out drunk in front of the club room or something.

The noise had returned in the club room building.

I could hear the chirping of the birds outside, and from a far-off distance, I could hear the enthusiastic shouts from the members of the sports club being zealous in their morning training. For the time being, I brushed off the dirt clinging to my T-shirt and jeans, and turned around to face the Beatnik research club room. I unlocked the door and checked inside. The place looked exactly the same as before. The lights were still turned on, and the computer had switched to sleep mode. A cheerful pop song was playing on the radio.

There was no one inside.

The woman resembling a paper doll was nowhere to be seen. I shut down the computer, grabbed my bag and staggered out of the club room.

Pedaling in a meandering manner, I quickly biked back to my apartment.

I opened the door; without a moment’s delay, Miiko coiled around me.

I hear her small meow, and I bury my face in her warmth and sweet scent. I savor the feel of her fur as it calms my anxious mind. But at the same time, I remembered. I was reminded of the paper doll-like woman from this morning, didn’t she also ‘Meow’? And before that as well. Didn’t I hear something that sounded like a cat’s voice when everyone’s presence disappeared?

An uneasiness assailed me as I looked around the room.

I felt something in the room had changed once again since I left.

I entered the room just as Miiko began to eat her food, looked around at everything from the low dining table to the small bookshelf -- and then I realized. The position of the books had changed. I'm not a particularly meticulous person, but I’ve been arranging my magazines in order of size. That's simply for appearance’s sake, not classified by type. Instead, they were now arranged according to publisher type. Is it a coincidence? Did I just half-mindedly cram them in there and they turned out to be like that?

From then on, I opened a drawer in a cabinet next to the kitchen.

Inside, there were supposed to be just disposable chopsticks and seasonings, but the disposable chopsticks were grouped together and the seasonings were organized by type.

My head started to feel dizzy, and I opened the door of the modular bathroom to wash my face anyway.

And there, I saw it.

There were signs that someone had taken a bath.

Shampoos, conditioners, and other products that I only remember placing haphazardly had been neatly arranged. A towel that was messily hung on the towel rack was now hanging in a tidy manner. The hair that should have been clogged up in the drainage was now gone.

It was as if -- someone else besides me lived here, and everything was different.

In a daze, I stepped out of the modular bathroom.

And I stared at Miiko, grooming herself after she had finished eating.

Perhaps feeling my gaze, Miiko also looked up at me.

Then, with gentle eyes reminiscent of a new wife --

She gave a complacent smile.

---

I took the day off from class.

I pedaled my bike as fast as I could towards Ooki’s apartment.

It’s already been more than ten days since he entrusted me with Miiko. No matter how you look at it, it’s been way too long since I’ve had contact with him, and there were a lot of things weighing on my mind.

What’s been happening to me lately?

A sense of uneasiness, as if I’d ended up in an ominous series of events. I thought it was all just my imagination, and that I’d get through it, if I just let it be, but it really does seem like I’m caught up in some deep shit after all.

Someone’s traces in my room. And the figure of the paper doll like woman in the club room. And what Krishna-san spoke of, the presence of a gaze staring at me from afar. Somewhere along the line, I had felt that feeling too, but I tried to ignore it. Because I thought it was the same thing I felt whenever I would read a scary story. But did it all have something to do with it? Did everything connect to a root cause?

No – no, I should have realized it by now. And even when I admitted it to myself, I knew that I couldn’t solve it on my own.

All of the strange things that have been happening to me lately. They all started with a cat’s voice. The cat in question being, Miiko. Everything began after I started taking care of Miiko.

“Say, I wonder if cats really can shapeshift.”

Yoishi’s words sprang to mind.

Did that mean she figured it out from the start?

The fact that Miiko was an existence that brought about some strange phenomenon.

No – no, that’s not true.

That’s not true, I can say it with certainty.

Even if Miiko’s not a normal cat, she’s definitely not a monster cat. She holds no malice towards me. Because, she’s the reincarnation of Momo. Because this time, she was born again to be my wife.

Now I was on my way to Ooki’s apartment, and in my bag, Momo -- no, Miiko, was crammed inside.

If Ooki was in his apartment, I’d give her back to him.

I wasn’t giving her back because of fear. If she inherited Momo’s memories after being reborn, there are lots of things I want to say to her. There are things I have to apologize for. But regardless of that, in this life right now, she is Ooki’s cat. If he doesn’t feel like keeping her anymore, then I’ll think about it, but if he still wants to keep her, then there’s nothing more I can do.

I can’t make anymore mistakes. She’s a cat, not a person. I had once ended up making a promise to give a cat a human’s happiness. That can’t happen. A cat deserves happiness as a cat. I failed to make that distinction, and that’s where everything went wrong.

Eventually, I arrived at an old apartment constructed from wood that was on the verge of falling down.

It was Ooki’s boarding house. I had visited him only once before, so I only had a faint memory of the address, but I somehow managed to make it. I walked into the common entrance of the building which was way older than my apartment building. Good afternoon, I greeted from outside. There seemed to be a few signs of life in the apartment, but no one came out.

“Sorry for intruding.”

I humbly call out, and take off my sneakers before entering. Stepping on the creaking floor, I head towards the stairs in the back. The interior was dim even though it was the afternoon. The narrow corridor is only wide enough for one person, just like an old-fashioned boarding house. I could hear the cicadas cry from outside. It was the only thing that reassured me that there was a connection between here and the outside.

As I examined the door to Ooki’s room on the second floor, I heard a sound from the inside.

“What? He’s here, after all.”

With a sigh of relief, I moved to knock on the door, when…

--You’re going to throw me away?

I heard a woman’s voice from somewhere.

In a panic, I frantically checked my surroundings.

--Are you going to throw me away again?

I shook my head at the voice.

“…No. That’s not it.”

I looked around once again, but there really was no one in sight.

I was alone in the dark corridor. And right now – my feet were trembling. They trembled enough to make the floor creak. Inside the bag I was holding, it felt like the weight had increased tremendously.

With my shaking fingers – I motioned to open the zipper – but then, I stopped myself.

--I shouldn’t look at the thing inside my bag.

It was the voice of my instincts warning me.

Without knowing why, something told me that what was inside the bag was neither Momo, nor Miiko—but the woman I had seen in the club room -- the one with warped, black eyes.

---

In the end, I couldn’t even knock on Ooki’s door.

I staggered back to the university carrying the bag with Miiko inside.

The sun was already high in the sky. I chose a less crowded part of campus and sat alone on the edge of the lawn.

I put my fingers in my hair, and tore my hair out. Not knowing what to do from now on, I unconsciously took out my phone. There was a message on my phone. It was from Krishna-san.

《Congratulations on finishing your work. You’ve done well.》

I should have felt jubilant at being praised, but my heart remained still and heavy as iron.

My dead cat has returned to me.

I thought about replying that way, but decided not to.

I don't know where to begin the story, and Krishna-san might recognize Miiko as a monster cat and start working to exorcise her. But I felt that wasn’t true. She hasn't done anything wrong. She simply returned to be by my side, to fulfill the promise she kept with me.

A light breeze blows past me.

I guess summer has ended, I surmise as I look up to the sky.

In front of the main school building, lots of students were laughing as usual. They were all dressed in clean, trendy clothes, laughing happily together and having fun as if they alone exemplified youth. It really wasn’t the kind of atmosphere I could join in straight away, but even just being around so many students, I felt the fear clinging to my body slowly dissipate. After watching them for some time – I finally gathered the courage to open my bag.

I took a single breath, and outstretched my trembling fingers – towards the zipper.

And in a single breath, I opened the bag.

There was no such thing as a monster inside.

Nor was there any sign of the slanted woman.

There was only Miiko, who pushed her face out of the bag with a small meow.

Miiko wasn’t smiling anymore.

She merely looked up to me with a single-minded look of trust on her face.

With a sigh of relief – I stroked Miiko as I inquired.

“Are you… Momo’s reincarnation?”

I felt like an idiot. If she were to answer ‘That’s right’, what would I do then?

But I couldn’t help but ask.

Miiko merely looked up to me with clear eyes. She neither made a sound, nor spoke.

It really must have been an auditory hallucination back then. I had half-heartedly tried to return Miiko to Ooki, and my reluctant heart had ended up hearing that auditory hallucination.

But --- all of a sudden, I felt it again, a gaze.

It was that gaze. The gaze that had been haunting me lately, as if I were confronting an unfathomably deep hole.

--Where is it? Where is it… coming from…?

I tried to trace that presence as I looked around me, and… I noticed it.

On rooftop of the building of the main school building, someone was there.

It was a thin, young girl. She was tall, wearing white clothes. Her shoulder-length hair danced in the wind. She was swaying like a paper doll. Her face was too far away to make out, but --- but the edges of her eyes were dark and hollow. Only the area around her eyes remained unnaturally dark. But I knew that those hollow eyes were fixed on me.

“…Ah.”

Suddenly, I felt as if the girl smiled – and it was the next moment.

Without warning, the girl… jumped.

Gradually, As if in slow motion.

Like a dream, she falls down to the ground from the roof.

As I reflexively flinched and looked away -- I heard a crunching sound.

I couldn’t move from that spot.

It was as if I couldn’t comprehend what had just happened in front of me.

Someone had jumped. From the roof. I heard a crunching sound. The sound of something being crushed. The sound of something bursting. However --- no one made a commotion. The students continued to laugh, as if nothing happened. They were laughing and murmuring, as if there was something fun going on. Apathy. Indifference. insouciance. Even though someone fell. They paid no attention to events that didn’t concern them. To the very end, they shut themselves in their community. A community that I, and only I, could not enter. That's not true, is it? Even though someone fell down, why isn’t anyone coming to help?

Feeling a cold isolation -- I timidly turned my eyes to face the spot where the girl had fallen.

However, there was no one there. There was no body. There was no blood. That spot was just a stone floor with not a single piece of trash on it.

“…What…?”

The scenery blurred. I stared at the crowd of students, feeling like I wanted to cry.

--Something… was wrong with me.

It's not that they're coldhearted, it was I who was messed up.

It’s all because I’m not normal. It’s because I still haven’t been cured. That’s why, I couldn’t associate with those guys over there. It wasn't their fault, it wasn't that they were bullying me, it was just me who was broken.

I heard a voice say, ‘Meow.’

As if to gently comfort me, by saying, "It's okay.”

And then, I finally realized.

“So that’s why, huh?”

I spoke to Miiko – or rather, to the white cat reincarnation of Momo.

“So that’s the reason you are white?”

--A garment with a Saiwaibishi pattern. A white short sleeved kimono. The Uchikake that was worn--

It reminded me of the only wedding I’d ever attended, the traditional Japanese wedding of my paternal cousin.

My cousin was so beautiful, with a silent joy and a trace of nervousness on her white face.

Momo’s pure white fur, served as a white kimono.

To become my wife. To be my bride. To be my companion for life. And thenceforth, share in all my hardships. And if that wish couldn’t come true – she had demonstrated that she would simply die again.

Something inside me, something that was barely holding me together, broke away.

“Alright, I get it.”

I declared to that white kimono wearing woman.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I remember my promise. I was about to say those words – when...

“Momo-chan isn’t thinking that at all.”

Hearing that familiar voice – I looked up, and saw -- Yoishi Mitsurugi.

In her usual Koumei school uniform, her black tie was swaying in the wind.

With her usually sickly pale face, her dark eyes shined, as she quietly started at me.

Miiko immediately began to growl as she leaned out of the bag.

But Yoishi didn’t care, as she bent forward.

“Get out.”

She brought her face right in front of Miiko’s, and asked.

“Who are you? What are you trying to do?”

With each word, Miiko growls became louder and angrier.

“You seem to be interested enough to live together and observe him – but why is that?”

However, I perceived it. Miiko wasn’t making a voice out of precaution or fear. Miiko was…laughing. She opened her red mouth in delight, as if she had found a being of her own kind. Yoishi continued to speak as if they had known each other for many years.

“Yes, that’s true. This person will certainly join his heart with anyone. Be it the living or the dead, as long as there's room for compassion, he'll do it. He can’t abandon others to their pain. Even if it has nothing to do with him, he can’t use that as a justification. That’s why he gets involved. That's the interesting thing about this person, he's helplessly foolish.”

I didn’t know if I was being praised or disparaged harshly -- but I continued to stare at Yoishi.

“However, if you intend to associate with this person any longer, I won’t show you mercy.”

Yoishi paused for a moment, gave Miiko a cold stare, and said:

“This person is a friend candidate of mine.”

---Friend… candidate…?

The hell is that? I wondered, as Yoishi suddenly outstretched her hands.

In the next moment, *Slap*, Yoishi slapped her hands in front of Miiko’s eyes with great force.

In an instant –

I felt something break. As if time quickly began to move again, a feeling of warm air seeping out of a crack in the ice. And then the strange air cleared up. Somewhere along the way, I realized that something heavy must have wrapped itself around me. Even Miiko gave a blank stare, and stopped growling.

“It seems that Nekodamashi is really effective.”

“…Nekodamashi?”

I remained dumbfounded at Yoishi’s words – before long, Miiko began to look around her surroundings restlessly, and started struggling to get out of my bag.

“H-hey, Miiko!”

However, it seemed like Miiko didn’t recognize me at all. As if she were surrounded by strangers she’d never seen before, she couldn’t understand why she was shoved into a bag. She squirmed and wriggled, eventually slipping out of my arms, and ran off somewhere at breakneck speed.

““H…hey, Miiko!”

In a panic I stood up, and Yoishi spoke to me.

“That cat’s probably not named Miiko.”

“Huh?”

“I think it’s just a stray cat.”

“No, what are you saying? That’s Ooki’s cat I was taking care of…”

“That’s not it.”

“I shouldn’t have kept ignoring her, that’s why the girl ended up turning her eyes to you.”

“…Huh?”

--A girl? Turning her eyes to me?

“Something resembling a stain that remained in this school. And the other ghost inside the clock tower.”

With those words, I recalled the thing I'd seen that night when I'd left the clock tower -- something clinging to the old woman's leg. ‘Because it’s funny, isn’t it?’ The whisper like voice reverberated in my ears once more.

“It certainly is a slightly troublesome ghost.”

Yoishi spoke with a sigh and turned back. Just like that, she put her hands in her pockets and walked away, looking somewhat pained.

---

It was a few days afterwards.

I couldn't find Miiko no matter how hard I looked for her. Afterwards, I went to visit Ooki’s apartment again. I had lost the cat he had asked me to take care of. I was going to get down on my knees and apologize. As a token of my apology, I had even bought an expensive package of sweets with my full allowance this month. However, when he opened the door and came out, Ooki said something unexpected.

“Hey Nagito, it’s been a long time.”

“…Huh?”

“Well, I’ve been cooped up in here for a while now. I've been working hard on finishing my artwork for the school festival in the fall.”

I looked inside, the small room had an easel with an incomplete painting, countless art supplies on the side table, and it was filled with the pungent smell of turpentine and painting oil.

“Look at this. It’s gonna be a masterpiece, don’t you think? It's been a while since I've been on a roll like this.”

“Uh…Yeah it’s good, but… I wanted to talk about Miiko.”

“What the heck is Miiko?”

“…”

The conversation didn't go well, and I somehow took the long way around to find out that Ooki hadn't been to my house that day. In fact, he bluntly stated:

“I didn't leave my cat with you, and I never had a cat in the first place.”

…No, wait a minute.

Then who was the Mitsuru Ooki who came that day?

And worse yet, what was the Miiko he gave to me on that day?

“Do you think I even have the composure to take care of a cat? I might end up eating it if I get careless.”

He laughed at me with a dumbfounded look on his face; I tilted my head in contemplation and left Ooki’s place.

I returned to my university right away, and encamped outside of the affiliated school’s gate.

If I didn’t get an explanation from Yoishi, I’d be having nightmares about cats in my dreams.

Eventually the high school classes ended, and I found Yoishi coming out with her head dropped down, as always, she had the aura of death around her. I rushed over to her and started interrogating her.

“What the hell was that all about? Do you even know?”

With a vacant gaze Yoishi looked at me and spoke.

“Oh, it’s you.” She muttered her usual line.

"Don't 'it's you' me. And at least tell me your phone number for once. Why do I have to wait outside the school gates every time I want to meet you like some kind of flunkey?" Yoishi silently took out her black phone in response and displayed her phone number on the screen. Ohhh, I hurriedly typed it into my own phone and rang her number once.

“That’s my contact number.”

I told her, and then I felt pathetic, wondering why I finally did it after all this time.

“Anyway…that’s all and good. But about that cat. That white cat named Miiko. Ooki told me he never owned it, but what does it all mean?”

Yoishi then replied in a bothered tone of voice:

“Didn’t I tell you? That was just a stray cat.”

“No…surely, that’s not true. That cat was named Miiko, or rather, it was really Momo…”

I was mid-sentence when I suddenly realized.

That time – she definitely said: “Momo-chan isn’t thinking that at all.”

“Y-you, how did you know that name….? I mean, how did you know the name of the cat I had when I was a kid?”

“Because, you’ve always had a brown cat with a white streak by your side.”

“Huh?”

“I saw most of her memories: That she was called ‘Momo,’ that she often used to sleep by your side, and how much you cherished her.”

“I…is she here, now?”

When I asked her that, Yoishi shook her head quietly.

“She disappeared to try and get rid of the girl inside that cat. The Nekodamashi was certainly effective, but Momo’s help from the inside was essential.”

Saying that, Yoishi began to walk away.

--Wait a minute.

To get rid of? What do you mean she disappeared to get rid of the girl?

Confused, I ran ahead of Yoishi and turned around to ask:

“Hey, what are you saying? You mean to tell me that Momo’s been next to me ever since she died?”

Yoishi gave a small nod.

I --- I….

I never even… had the faintest clue. Why couldn’t I notice her existence in the least? Shaking my head in complete disgust at my own insensitivity, I once again asked:

“Say, Yoishi. Tell me…”

There were many things I didn’t know, like the troublesome ghost inside of Miiko, and why she was gazing at me. But right now, there was a thing I had wanted to know far longer than anything else. No, it was something I needed to know.

“Didn’t Momo…didn’t she resent me?”

Yoishi stopped in her tracks. Then, after looking me straight in the eyes, narrowed her eyes slightly and said:

“The only thing in Momo-chan’s mind, were treasured memories.”

“…”

“She said that she loved you. That you always treated her like a person, not a cat. From the bottom of her heart, she was happy to disappear for your sake.”

…Damn it all, it’s no use.

The moment those words reached my heart, I forgot that I was standing in front of Yoishi, and... I burst into tears.

---