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“You know if you just wanted to look at cats, we could have stayed home and just pulled up some YouTlube videos, right?”
Ivy laughed sheepishly at Yummy’s teasing. It was true that, in the five minutes or so since walking into the cat cafe she had taken them and their two kind-of-siblings to in celebration of the early offseason after season 19, they hadn’t really done anything other than stand a bit awkwardly near the door and watch. “I know. I’m getting there, okay? I just…” They trailed off. The reason they were standing here was, they were aware, silly and slightly embarrassing when they put it into words.
“You just what?”
They sighed. “I don’t want the cats to think I’m rude!”
To her credit, Yummy didn’t laugh at them. “Okay, uh… what are you afraid you’re gonna do that would be rude? …To the cats?”
“I don’t know what cats think is rude, that’s the problem! What if I go up to them and try to play with them and they think it’s too… too forward or something? And then they don’t like me? So I was thinking I would just stay in one place, and the cats can come up to me if they want, like they’re doing with NaN, but it’s not really working for me and now I’m worried that means they actually don’t want to, and it turned into a whole thing in my head.”
“…I think you’re the first person I’ve ever known who has cat-specific social anxiety.”
Ivy made a face at zir. “I guess I’m really talented. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Well, yeah, I didn’t come over here just to make fun of you. Um… I know! Will it help if I introduce you? I’ve been here before, so they already know me, so that will make it less awkward for you, right?”
“…Yeah. That will make it less awkward.” They were still embarrassed to need a formal introduction to- and they could not stress this enough- a housecat, but it would help, and they didn’t come all the way here from Dallas to not pet cats. They came here for a distraction, mostly from the fact that they were in Dallas in the first place, and standing in the corner doing nothing wasn’t a very good one.
“Okay…” Yummy looked around for a cat that didn’t seem to be busy doing anything else. “Oh! Over here.” Ze led Ivy to a sofa where an older orange cat was sitting. “Ivy, this is Pumpkin. All she does most of the time is nap and wait for people to give her attention- and it works, because she’s adorable- so she’ll love it if you sit here and pet her.” Ze scritched Pumpkin behind the ears, and she angled her head into the touch and squinted her eyes shut for a moment contentedly. “Pumpkin, this is Ivy,” ze continued, gesturing to them with zir free hand. “They want to pet you! Sounds good, right?” The cat obviously didn’t have any idea what ze was saying, but she was enjoying the attention anyway.
Ivy sat down next to Pumpkin. She looked at them, seeing what they would do next, and they felt a little bit put on the spot. “Um. Hi, Pumpkin.”
“Let her check out your hand first,” Yummy suggested. “That’s good if you wanna be polite.”
“Oh, okay. See, I told you there were gonna be cat manners I didn’t know about.” They held their hand out and let Pumpkin investigate. She smelled them a bit, then nudged their hand with her forehead, apparently wondering why they weren’t petting her yet. “Oh- okay! I guess we’re doing this now!”
Yummy grinned at their surprise. “There you go! That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“That wasn’t so hard,” they reluctantly agreed. They pet the cat’s head the same way Yummy had been doing. Her fur was soft, especially right behind her ears, and what they were doing seemed to be making her happy, and Ivy could already tell this was the kind of repetitive activity they could get sucked into for hours without realizing it, if not for the fact that they only had a reservation to be in here for another 50 minutes or so.
“Are you good if I leave you to it now?”
They nodded. “Thanks.”
She left them and went to grab a ball to roll across the floor, attracting two different cats chasing after it. Ivy watched for a few seconds before turning their full attention back to Pumpkin. They moved on to petting her whole body rather than just her head, and she made a sound like “mrrr.”
“Mrrr,” Ivy mimicked. The cat gave them a startled look, and they tried not to laugh. They repeated the sound again, because it was a good sound to make and because they wanted to see what she would do, and she stared at them for another moment before apparently deciding not to hold sounding exactly like her against them. After all, they were still petting her.
They kept doing that, but they also looked up from their task after a minute to see what the others were up to. Yummy was now allowing what looked like practically a kitten to attack her hand, which didn’t seem like the smartest choice, but Ivy obviously couldn’t claim to be an expert. MaX was playing with a brown tabby, waving a feather wand for the cat to chase after. They watched for a while, smiling, but when xe paused for a break and it seemed like xe might look up and see them, they hastily pretended they’d been focused on Pumpkin the whole time.
…It sucked. They didn’t want to avoid MaX. They were usually so close, there was hardly anything going on in their lives they didn’t share with each other. If they ever had a problem, xe would be there to help, no matter what it was. Except… well, this time, xe kind of was the problem.
No, that wasn’t right. The problem was them. Not really- they didn’t do anything wrong- but they were the one who had just been traded in the election. To the Steaks, and more importantly, into the same division as xem. Every time they looked at xem now, they couldn’t help that be reminded that, once the next season started, they would both more than likely be static within the year.
At least NaN was doing fine, aside from worrying about them. Even better than fine, actually! Their moving back home, for however long they would stay, was part of the reason Yummy had invited them all to do something fun with her. Ivy looked around for them and had to stifle a laugh. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor, and apparently, the cats were more interested in them than Ivy had initially realized when they’d noted that they didn’t have any trouble attracting them. Maybe a little too interested, even. At the moment, one of the smallest cats was determinedly climbing up the back of their hoodie, and they were petting another one that had wandered over while trying to distract a third from their shoelaces with a stuffed mouse. It wasn’t working very well.
As Ivy watched, the one that had been climbing them made it up to their shoulder. They realized what the little cat was doing- crouching down and swishing its tail back and forth, eyes locked on the floating bits of reality-glitch where NaN’s hair would have been if they weren’t a void in the shape of a person- a second too late to call out a warning before it pounced. NaN yelped and tried to catch it before it tumbled to the floor.
“Geez, be careful! What were you even doing up there, anyway?”
Ivy couldn’t keep from laughing at them this time. “Sorry, I was about to warn you- I think they’re trying to play with your, uh…” They gestured vaguely at the general idea of NaN and tried to imitate the movement of the glitches that emanated from them with their hands. “I guess it kind of looks like how you would move something around to get their attention?”
“Huh?” NaN looked at them, then back down at the handful of cats gathered around them. As if on cue, one of them tried to attack their arm. It didn’t do anything, luckily- this could have been a problem if NaN were capable of being scratched- but they still reacted just the same. “Hey, I’m not a cat toy! I guess you’re right,” they said to Ivy. “You don’t also know how to get them to stop, do you?”
“I don’t. Sorry.” They weren’t all that sorry, though, since it wasn’t hurting them and it was pretty funny to watch. “Hold on, I’m taking a picture of this.” They got their phone out and tried to get a decent photo. It wasn’t going to happen, obviously, because it was NaN, but there were a couple where it was halfway possible to tell what was going on, so that was good enough.
They picked up the little cat to stop it from climbing them again and looked around sort of helplessly. “Well- do you think Yummy might know? Because this is getting ridiculous.”
“Maybe. You should ask,” Ivy suggested. Ze’d mentioned wanting a chance to bond with NaN, since the two of them didn’t really know each other yet, and this seemed like a good enough starting point. Ze had apparently gone out to the cafe area at some point, so they waved NaN through the door to find zir and ask for advice. It was only after they were gone that Ivy realized that left them alone with MaX.
Pumpkin meowed at them, annoyed that their hand had stopped moving. They absently meowed back and kept petting her, but they were still distracted. They knew they should say something, but they couldn’t figure out what, let alone actually talk themself into doing it. While they were still thinking- stalling, more like- a different cat made an impatient noise across the room. They looked over to see MaX as still and pensive as they were, loosely holding a cat toy which, after another second, the cat xe’d been playing with decided to just grab out of xer hand and run off with. Xe jumped and laughed a little, and Ivy had to smile, too, and then xe noticed them watching, and they remembered about how they didn’t know what to say.
“Uh. Hey,” xe said awkwardly, which at least saved them from having to make the first move. “...How’s it going over there?”
“It’s… good,” they replied, equally awkward. “I’m… This is Pumpkin. Yummy introduced us.” Before they could second-guess themself, they added, “You should come over and say hi.”
Xer eyes widened. Ivy felt bad for having been so weird about talking to xem that xe was surprised by that invitation. “Oh! Yeah, sure!” Xe hurried over and sat down with the cat between them. She purred happily with two people giving her attention at once, oblivious to the uncomfortable tension between them. It faded a little, at least, as they sat together instead of avoiding eye contact from opposite sides of the room.
After a minute, MaX got that determined look on xer face that usually meant xe was getting psyched up to throw xemself at a problem. Xe took a breath, and Ivy found themself speaking first just to avoid letting the conversation start off in a direction they weren’t prepared for.
“Sorry for ignoring you,” they said quickly. “You- you… you didn’t do anything wrong, or… anything.”
“Oh.” Xe hadn’t been prepared for that and took a second to regroup. “It’s okay! I get it. I was just worried. Is there- I mean, I know what’s wrong, obviously, but…”
They shook their head. “I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m, uh, kinda trying not to think about it.”
“Oh,” xe said again, and paused. “Is that why you were avoiding me?”
Ivy winced and nodded.
“...Did it help?”
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. If they said it had, xe’d probably take it as a cue to leave them alone. They didn’t even have to think about it, though. “No. It was stupid. Just made me feel worse.”
Xe looked relieved. “Okay, good. Um- that you’re not doing it anymore, I mean.”
“Yeah.” They didn’t know what else to say, so they left it at that.
The brief silence was much more comfortable now than before. Ivy glanced up at the window to the rest of the cafe and saw that NaN was now holding a mug of something and having an animated conversation with Yummy. They were in the middle of smiling to themself about it when a sudden noise made them turn around. MaX was now a few inches further away, blinking like xe was as surprised about it as anyone, and Pumpkin’s fur was gently standing on end with electric charge. They tried to smooth it down and got their hand shocked, and they were just about to ask what that had been when xe sneezed again and clipped through the arm of the sofa onto the ground.
Ivy sat up straight and looked down at xem. “Wait a minute. You’re allergic to cats,” they said in an accusing tone.
“I noticed,” xe deadpanned, visibly glitchy at the edges in xer equivalent of breaking out in a rash.
“Why would you-”
“It was fine as long as I wasn’t touching them!” They gestured in the direction of xer decision to sit right next to one and pet it for the last several minutes, and xe added more quietly, “I just really wanted to talk to you.” And… it was hard to argue with that.
It was easy, though, to pull xem off the floor and drag xem out of the cat room and make xem go wash xer hands and get cleaned up before xe got any more miserable. They also didn’t have any problem telling the other two exactly why they were doing that when they asked and lightly making fun of xem about it. Xe didn’t seem to mind that, anyway- barely even pretended to. It was just nice to be acting normal again.