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It’s almost five am, two hours before opening time, and Yosuke is almost finished stacking the canned tomato sale display when something unexpected entangles his feet and sends him (and the rest of the display) tumbling down. He manages a “What the—“ before he hits the floor with a thump, cans scattering all over him.
“Man…” Yosuke sighs, checking his headphones for any damage. He scans the area quickly, praying that none of the other employees saw his blunder—typical move, Yosuke thinks—and sees…
…a cat? “How’d you get in?” Yosuke mutters, looking at the dumb thing lash its tail back and forth. It looks incredibly smug. “Get over here,” Yosuke snaps, reaching out.
The cat steps back delicately, twitching its whiskers. It still looks smug, which would piss Yosuke off if he was fully awake. “Damn cat,” Yosuke mutters. What does it think this place is, the Samegawa flood plain?
The cat pads around the cans before climbing onto Yosuke’s lap, purring all the while. Yosuke eyes it suspiciously before picking it up, checking it for a collar. “Of course you don’t have one,” Yosuke grunts, and yelps a bit when the cat licks his fingers. “That’s gross!”
“Yosuke? What’s going on?” Yosuke hears his father calling from the other end of the grocery department. Damn, Yosuke thinks. If his father sees the mess and the animal there will be a hell to pay, or even worse, a paycheck cut. “Nothing! Don’t worry!” Yosuke shouts back, and staggers to his feet, yanking the cat with him.
“Don’t move,” Yosuke hisses, lifting it to eye level. “Don’t move from here until I say so, get it?” He considers, briefly, that it might be a little weird to be talking to a cat, but dismisses the thought quickly. The cat meows and bats at his nose.
It’s cute. Yosuke hates himself instantly for thinking it. “I mean it, cat,” Yosuke says sternly—or tries to, at least—and gets up to restack the cans. “Wait until I’m done.” The cat makes some sort of purring noise and settles down on the tiled floor, watching Yosuke with wide eyes.
It sits in relative silence, making an occasional mewl or two, as Yosuke restacks the pyramid. Once he’s finished, the animal pops back up, weaving around Yosuke’s feet. He totters, casting a nervous eye at the pyramid, before lifting the cat up again. “Ugh, you’re heavy for such a furball. So: what are you doing here?”
The cat doesn’t offer any useful answers and instead snuggles into Yosuke’s arms. Yosuke groans at the fur that sticks to his apron. “You don’t have an owner or anything? I guess I could ask around the neighborhood…”
This elicits a faint protest, and the cat wraps its tail around his forearm. Helplessly, Yosuke notices that its grey fur is a similar shade to Yu’s hair—and that’s dumb, Yosuke decides, and begins to walk in the direction of the back door. “Alright, I don’t know how you got in here, but you’ve got to go.”
The cat begins to emit some high-pitched mewl.
“I mean it! I can’t keep a…a cat, I don’t have time for you.” Yosuke reaches the back and hefts it open with his shoulder. He sets the cat down outside into the balmy spring air, and sets his hands on his hips. “Go, shoo!”
The cat looks up at him, and in a horrifying moment, Yosuke thinks that it reminds him of when Yu looks…used to look…at him, when Yosuke used to kick Yu out of his room so that they could look semi-presentable before Yosuke’s parents. And in this moment, Yosuke knows he has lost. “Fine!” Yosuke reaches down and pats the cat forcefully. “Just—come back here, okay? I’ll feed you. At lunchtime.” He stutters out, and the cat purrs before stalking away.
(Yosuke thinks, fears, that this will be the last he sees of the thing, but—no. It’s there at lunchtime, and then again when his shift is over.)
The first thing that Chie says when she sees him with the cat is this: “Really? You miss him that much?”
“W-what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Yosuke shouts. The cat leaps up on the table at the food court and peers at Chie briefly, before deciding that she’s acceptable.
“I mean…doesn’t it kind of remind you of Yu?” Chie pets it cautiously, which the animal seems to enjoy. Yosuke narrows his eyes at it. Traitor.
“Not really,” Yosuke lies.
“No, that’s right—remember, he was always feeding something like this one on the flood plain!” Chie picks the cat up and sets it in her lap. It looks ecstatic now, and Yosuke decides to never trust the damn thing again—it obviously has no sense of loyalty.
“How should I know?”
“You do know! And even if you don’t, I do—I saw him too, you know.”
“Whatever.” Yosuke stands up and stretches. “I gotta get back to work. Keep an eye on the thing while I’m busy, wouldja?”
“Can’t you get Teddie to do it?” Chie complains, but strokes the cat idly all the same. She looks at Yosuke critically. “It’s okay to miss him, you idiot. We all do.”
“Don’t call me an idiot,” Yosuke mumbles half-heartedly, and walks away.
That night, Yosuke tries calling Yu’s cell, but it goes direct to voicemail. He considers—maybe, calling back again? But that would be weird; he doesn’t want to be the clingy girlfriend or anything. Doesn’t want to be the annoying one anymore. So instead he throws his phone against the wall and reluctantly goes to sleep.
Teddie is the next one to notice, of course. He tails Yosuke when Yosuke’s not looking, and pops up behind him when he’s feeding the cat. “What are you doing, Yosuke?” He screeches.
“Gah! Don’t do that, you shitty bear!” Yosuke shoves Teddie and as per usual, Teddie flops over in his bear suit and struggles to get up.
The cat just keeps eating.
“Yosuke is so mean!” Teddie bawls, and Yosuke rolls his eyes before hauling him up. “Yosuke, why are you so mean? Now that Sensei’s gone, you’re even meaner than before—“
Yosuke quickly clamps a hand over Teddie’s mouth. “Stop screaming, idiot, the customers will hear you!” He hisses. Muffled wails still manage to come out of the dumb thing’s mouth. He waits until Teddie has subsided before carefully removing his hand. “I don’t need my dad finding out about this—“
“Oh, what’s that?” Teddie shouts, immediately forgetting about Yosuke’s supposed “mean-ness.” Teddie bounds over to the side of the cat and pokes at it. The cat endures it patiently, continuing to lap up shreds of canned chicken with its tongue. “A kitty? Is it Yosuke’s?”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Yosuke whaps Teddie on the back of his head, and miraculously, Teddie only totters a little bit.
“Is it…is it Junes’ new mascot? Am I out of a job?” Teddie’s eyes fill with tears, and Yosuke detects an incoming emergency. “Do you not need me anymore?” Teddie’s voice goes higher and higher with a wobbly effect of unshed tears.
“No, and don’t cry!” Yosuke jabs an accusatory finger at the cat. “You honestly thought that this cat was our new mascot?”
The tears are gone as suddenly as they appeared. “Oh, good!” Teddie beams. “So this is Yosuke’s new partner, huh?”
“What?” Yosuke blinks slowly before Teddie’s (frankly disturbing) grin hits its mark. “NO! Why does everybody think that? The cat has nothing to do with—with—“
“It’s okay to miss Sensei,” Teddie nods. “It’s okay, Yosuke!”
“I DON’T MISS HIM!”
And this, of course, is when Yosuke’s dad sticks his head out of the second level window and shouts at them to “stop screaming before all of Inaba comes to see what’s wrong,” and earns Yosuke unpaid overtime.
“I don’t,” Yosuke mutters as he stumbles back inside, following Teddie’s skipping. “I don’t.” The cat mrows behind him and Yosuke turns back for a second to watch the cat lick the bowl clean before walking away, without even some sort of thank you purr. Yosuke is disgusted at how cute he finds it.
The cat comes up again when he’s watching the newest kung-fu flick with Chie (and unfortunately, Teddie) at 30 Frame in Okina. “Hey,” Chie whispers to him—which is still louder than most people’s talking volume—“Doesn’t the animal sidekick in this kind of remind you of your cat?”
“It’s not my cat,” Yosuke mutters back, sparing a moment to glare at the guy in front of them who shushed them, “and no, not really.”
“Yosuke’s cat reminds me of Sensei,” Teddie declares loudly, spilling the popcorn as he flails. The entire movie theater turns around to give them a Look. Yosuke shrinks down in his seat and thinks about popping his headphones on.
Chie pauses, for a beat, and then: “You’re not replacing Yu with the cat, are you?”
“Damnit, stop talking about the cat!” Yosuke snarls, and proceeds to hate himself as the usher comes over to tell them to sorry, could you please be quiet, and if you continue to disturb the audience, we’ll have to ask you to leave.
The two don’t even drop the subject when they’re out of the theater, blinking quickly in the sudden sunlight. “You guys should really talk,” Chie admonishes, “I mean, if it’s gotten so bad that you’ll even take an animal as a substitute.”
“We don’t need to talk,” Yosuke sniffs. “We’re not girls or something—we don’t need to spill our hearts out to each other.”
“Oh yeah?” Chie snaps. “And that's what you think girls do? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing: acting like a really annoying, clingy girlfriend.”
“I am not—“
“Yosuke, look!” Teddie interrupts them, and runs over, holding some sort of doll. “Look what I got from the crane game!”
“Yeah, Ted, that’s great,” Yosuke huffs, all the fight in him lost. “Look, Chie, just—leave it, will ya? He’s only been gone like a month, and he’ll be back for Golden Week.”
“Which is why you need to talk to him!” Chie shouts, stamping her feet. “Honestly, you are such an idiot!” She marches off towards her scooter. “I can’t believe you guys sometimes!”
“You’re overreacting!” Yosuke calls after her as Chie mounts the bike.
“And you’re being stupid!” Chie calls back and drives off.
“You guys shouldn’t fight,” Teddie mumbles, clutching the plushie. “Fighting is bear-y bad.”
“Quit it with the bear puns!”
Still, Yosuke thinks, Chie might have a point. It’s not like he’s—pining for Yu, or anything gross like that, but it would be nice of Yosuke to keep their leader updated on what’s being happening on Inaba. Like a status report. Yosuke thumbs through his contacts idly before giving up and hitting speed-dial on his phone. It’s not being clingy if Yosuke’s calling to inform their leader, right?
This time, the phone rings before going to voicemail. Yosuke swallows, hearing Yu’s steady voice message over the phone, and then hangs up. “Dumb, idiot, shit,” Yosuke mutters, and ignores Teddie's concerned face the entire ride home.
“You don’t even look like Yu,” Yosuke says to the cat, on Yosuke’s lunch break. “I mean, c’mon. First off, you’re a cat. And he’s…not.”
The cat finishes eating the overstocked kombu onigiri (seriously, who eats that stuff) and wipes its whiskers with its paws. “Mew?”
“Yeah, okay, it sounds stupid,” Yosuke huffs. “You’re only here because I feel sorry for you, get it? Not because I…uh, miss anybody or anything.”
The cat blinks at Yosuke slowly before taking another lap of water.
“And so what, even if I did miss him…which I don’t! It’s not like something to make a big deal out of!” Yosuke rants.
“Mrow.”
“Yeah, you get it! Who cares if I miss the guy? It’s my own damn business!”
This, of course, is when his phone rings. Yosuke jumps and fishes his phone out of his pocket. He eyes it suspiciously, and the cat looks like it’s laughing at him. Of course.
The caller ID reads “Partner,” and Yosuke spends five seconds fumbling it nervously in his hands before taking the call. “Uh, hi?” Yosuke blurts out, trying to sound like he hasn’t just been ranting at a cat for the past five minutes.
“Yosuke,” Yu laughs back, voice breathy and a bit crackly in the phone. “Did you call?”
“Uh, yeah. Like, just to check on you. You know.” God, it sounds even dumber when Yosuke says it out loud.
“Mm.” Yu says, and there’s a pause. “Chie told me that you’ve replaced me.”
“I—what? No! I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
“Something about a cat?”
“Oh, what? Yeah, I, uh, I’ve been feeding this cat recently. It’s got nothing to do with you, though, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Right,” Yosuke says, suddenly nervous. “I, uh. It’s a pretty good cat.”
“That’s good.”
“So, yeah,” Yosuke finishes lamely. A beat, then:
“I’m glad you have something to take care of you.”
“What? You’ve got it completely wrong: I’m the one taking care of it!”
Yu’s laugh through the phone is just as Yosuke remembers, if a bit static-y. “My bad,” Yu drawls. “But I’m happy that you’re not alone, even if you’ve replaced me.”
“I haven’t replaced you—nobody could replace you, partner,” Yosuke says, and tries not to think about how girly that sounds.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
Yosuke sits there for a moment, listening to Yu breathe in and out. “I miss you,” Yosuke blurts out.
“I miss you too,” Yu says. “I can’t wait to come back for Golden Week—do you have any plans?”
“Me? Uh, no. Just—we could hang out. Like old times.”
“Sounds good,” Yu says. “It’ll be nice to spend alone time with you.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Yosuke hisses, feeling his face flare up. The cat looks at him inquisitively and Yosuke flaps his hand at it, making a shooing motion. “That is so gay.”
Yosuke can almost hear the shrug. “We are pretty gay.”
“Well, yeah.”
Yu laughs, again. “Yosuke, I have to go, but will you call me later tonight? It’s nice to hear you.”
“Oh—yeah! Definitely. Call you later,” Yosuke stammers out, and hangs up.
“Mrow,” the cat butts its head against Yosuke’s legs.
“Quit that, I don’t have any more food,” Yosuke grumbles, but lifts the cat up into his lap all the same. “You are kind of like Yu, I guess,” Yosuke concedes, and pets the cat’s back.
The cat purrs, and burrows deeper into Yosuke’s lap.