Work Text:
One Rainy Afternoon
There were few things in life that could divert Koushiro’s attention away from whatever complex problems chewing through his mind.
Today, he found himself captivated by one of those few things.
The rain puddles by his feet, they resembled, in almost perfect symmetry, the splotches of pattern found on Kabuterimon’s wings. Koushiro could recall them with sharp clarity: the translucent patterns and oblong shapes, bringing him back to those life-defining adventures of his youth, during moments that captivated him enough to tear his sight away from the bright glares of his computer screen.
For a moment, he became absorbed in the shapes of the puddles. He questioned and wondered the probabilities of it settling into the shape it did. He hypothesized its origin and mapped out the path of its descent, not realizing the shape and colour of the traffic signal before him had changed, and what ensued was an onslaught of pedestrians pushing and muscling their way past him, damp clothings brushed past him with disgruntled force.
Get out of the way.
Move it or lose it, idiot.
“Sorry, sorry,” Koushiro mumbled, before readjusting the grip on his umbrella and bag of bottled oolong tea, then making his way to the other side of the street.
Once over, Koushiro whisked himself into one of the smaller side streets, sighing in relief at the quieter, calmer atmosphere it offered. Without warning, the rain overhead picked up its pace, prompting Koushiro to do the same. The oolong tea bottles in his bag somehow grew heavier in tandem with the rain all around him.
He only had the comfort of his dry apartment in mind when through the pitter patter of rain on pavement, he heard it: a sound as fragile and delicate as breaking glass, shooting through dense, humid air to pierce his attention. He whipped himself around, his feet nearly slipping on wet concrete, but through the grace of Qinglongmon, he managed to hold steady, eyes searching and scanning his surroundings while his ears honed in on the empty streets around him.
Then, he heard it again, and this time, the sound sharpened into a familiar call.
Meow.
Koushiro gasped, with careful attention to the dripping umbrella and his sacred haul of oolong tea, he maneuvered himself until he was low on the ground, scrutinizing holes and crevices with narrowed eyes.
Meee-owww.
He flinched. This time, there was an infliction to the call, a long drawn out syllable indicating discomfort…or pain. He doubled his effort to scan the area until finally, a spark of something shiny caught his eyes. There was but one logical course of action, he followed the light, only to find a soggy cardboard box tucked behind a crowded bike rack.
“Meow”
He stood frozen for a moment, not daring to breathe lest any outburst might scare away his caller. But in spite of his fear, the sound came forth again, this time with obvious desperation.
“Meeeee-ooowwww!”
“Here, here,” he cried out instinctively. His bag of oolong tea hit the wet floor, but he barely noticed in his attempt to squeeze closer to the box, and upon lowering himself, he finally laid eyes on his feline caller.
By no means was this the first time he had seen a cat. He spent many afternoons and evenings over at Taichi’s apartment, where Miko would hiss at him from afar or threaten to claw out his eyes if he dared walk too close. But this was the first time he had seen this cat, and he was struck by the visible fear in its large green eyes, its rail-thin body drenched with rain, the matted black fur betraying just how skinny it was.
“Uh…hello?” he attempted. The cat looked up at him with an unblinking gaze, the only response he received was a quick twitch of its right ear.
“Uh…” he fumbled through possible courses of action in his mind, parsing and sorting them by logic and sensibility.
“But I know nothing about cats,” he mumbled.
He could call someone who had more experiences with cats. He pulled out his phone from his soaked jacket pocket, but the only person he had in mind was Hikari, but he sensed it might be awkward to call her just to talk about his current predicament.
The cat opened its mouth, and from the depth of its emaciated body, it cried out again.
“MEEOOWWW”
Koushiro flinched, then the situation escalated to a point where he could no longer parse through the possibilities, for the cat emerged right then and there. It was smaller and thinner than he could ever imagined, and it swayed more than it walked, betraying how exhausted and weak it must really be.
“Uhh…What are you…?”
It plopped down on wet concrete, right before Koushiro’s frozen body and looked up at him with pleading eyes, and suddenly, Koushiro was transported back to when he was ten, when he locked eyes with the dark round ones of Mochimon’s for the first time. He understood now…
“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”
The cat did not change its stance, but merely lifted its head up a few millimetres higher, waiting for Koushiro to make his move.
Koushiro sighed, “I guess…the least I can do is bring you home to give you some food,” he mumbled in resignation, then scooped the cat up with his free arm and made his way home, the bag of oolong tea long forgotten behind him in the rain.
—-
There were still a myriad of questions in Koushiro’s mind as he walked into his building with the newfound cat tucked in his arm.
What do cats eat?
How often do they eat?
How often do they drink water?
Are some foods dangerous for cats?
What happens if they need to use the bathroom?
Where can he find a litter box?
But although he could not find clear answers to his questions, it did become clear to him that his feline refugee was in worse shape than he thought. It shook and shivered the entire way home, Koushiro could feel the hard edges of its bones poking through as he held it in his arms. Occasionally, it emitted a pitiful mew, but otherwise kept quiet as it laid in Koushiro’s hold underneath the cover of his black umbrella.
Once he returned to his apartment, dry and warm and safe, he rummaged through cabinets and shelves in search of suitable food for the cat. Unlucky for them both, he wasn’t the best at keeping his pantries stocked, his diet on a good day consisted of an unhealthy amount of bottled oolong tea and premade sandwiches he picked up from any convenience store he stumbled across. The best he could offer was a leftover tuna onigiri he picked up for lunch two days ago. But despite the questionable expiry date, the cat devoured it all, digging into the tuna filling at a speed that put him on edge.
“Hey…um…slow down…uh…you’ll get a stomachache,” Koushiro chided, albeit he felt a little more than silly speaking to a cat the way his parents spoke to him when he was a child.
The cat was a little more than halfway through his meal when its entire body went rigid. Koushiro’s eyes widened, his hand flew towards his chest as he gawked at the cat, wondering if he inadvertently killed it through food poisoning. But before he could take action, the cat pounced away, scurrying underneath his sofa before three knocks sounded out at his door, followed by the chime of his doorbell.
He scurried towards the door, his hand barely on the knob before Taichi’s voice boomed out on the other side.
“Koushiro, it’s me”
Koushiro opened the door hurriedly to reveal a drenched Taichi, rainwater dripping from the top of his brown hair to the soles of his shoes, a brown parcel tucked underneath his arms.
“Here,” he asserted before handing the parcel to Koushiro, “It’s that package you wanted from your office”
“Oh!” Koushiro cried out, then accepted the package with glee. His memory came back to him bit-by-bit, of the project he was working on before finding out he was out of oolong tea, of the frantic message he sent Taichi just moments before he stepped out to the grocery store.
“So…What’s in the package?” Taichi questioned
“A new book published by a Digimon researcher I knew in India. I needed to look something up to help me with this project I was working on before…” his voice trailed off, remembering his trip to the grocery store, remembering the cry that distracted him from his route home.
“So…aren’t you going to invite me in?” Taichi asked, his voice breaking through Koushiro’s reverie.
Koushiro blushed. Any other day, he would have, especially knowing Taichi marched across the city in a torrential downpour to bring him this book. But today, today his heart and thoughts were preoccupied by different priorities.
“Actually um…I’m kind of…maybe not today.”
“What? I walked forty minutes in the rain to deliver the book to you. Can’t you at least let me wait out the rain in your apartment?”
“How about…um…how about I call you an Uber?”
Taichi narrowed his eyes, his gaze now directed to the inside of his apartment, to the glass of water he left for the cat before Taichi’s entrance interrupted its meal.
“Do you have guests over?” Taichi inquired, in a somewhat salacious voice.
Koushiro winced, “No…no it’s not that”
Taichi burst into a rambunctious laugh, then winked obnoxiously at Koushiro, who stood like a deer in headlights.
“Say no more, Kou, I’ll leave you be, but…you have to tell me all about it at work tomorrow”
“What? No no no no no, I…it’s not that…I swear!”
Taichi pursed his lips and shrugged, “Listen, Kou, you don’t have to be embarrassed about it. We’re all adults here.”
Koushiro sighed, “No, it’s not what you think…it’s…alright fine, come on in, you might be able to help me with this…given that you have experience in this field.”
Taichi gave an uneasy stare, but the prospect of a warm and dry shelter was much too enticing to pass off, so he entered Koushiro’s apartment and closed the door, shedding his wet outerwear onto the foyer floor.
“Should I be scared?” he demanded in a hesitant voice.
In response, Koushiro beckoned Taichi over to his sofa, putting his fingers on his lips as he pointed to the darkened space beneath.
Taichi eyed it cautiously, then emitted a nervous giggle while he stared Koushiro down.
“What are you setting me up for?”
Koushiro jabbed his finger towards the space, “I think it’s better…if you see for yourself”
They bent down to their knees and pushed their heads into the small space. It took awhile for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once it did, Koushiro saw the cat huddled deep into a corner, its large green eyes widened with fear.
Taichi gasped and drew his head out immediately, prompting Koushiro to follow suit.
“Is that a…cat?” Taichi inquired.
Koushiro nodded, “Yeah…I found it on my way home from the store. I couldn’t leave it on its own so…”
Taichi laughed and shook his head, “Had no idea you were a cat person, Kou. Did Miko awaken something in you?”
Koushiro rolled his eyes. Both he and Taichi knew he had a very strained relationship with the Yagami cat, but he chose to ignore the statement and moved on with his question.
“So…can you help me out with this?”
Taichi took a step back, “What do you mean? Like….take the cat?”
Koushiro shrugged, “Well…I think it’s best since you’ve owned a cat before…”
“No. Nope, no, no thanks. I did my share of cat caring with Miko growing up”
“Okay fine…don’t take the cat, but…can you at least tell me what to do? You have experience, so…how can I care for it? What do I feed it? What does the cat need?”
Taichi stroked his chin thoughtfully, “Let’s see…you’ll definitely need cat food, both the dry and wet ones, which leads to…food bowl, and a cat fountain, and you’ll definitely need a litter box, a cat bed, and maybe some cat toys…”
“Wow, there,” Koushiro interrupted. Cat toys? “I’m not…I’m not keeping the cat, I just need some small supplies for until I bring it to a proper shelter”
Taichi raised one eyebrow, skewering Koushiro with a stare he could only describe as doubt.
“Oh yeah…how long are you planning to keep it?”
Koushiro pursed his lips, “I don’t know…a few days? But not longer than a week.”
Taichi shrugged, “Alright…whatever you say,” he bent down and studied the cat with one eye closed, “What type of cat is it?”
“I don’t know…black?”
“Really? Like it’s all black?”
“Yeah, why? Is that…is there something significant about that?”
Taichi chuckled, then stood up again with his gaze still locked on the space beneath Koushiro’s coach, “Actually…yeah…black cats are…well…okay, let me tell you a story, but you can’t tell Hikari this, swear to me you won’t tell her.”
Koushiro scrunched his face in confusion before finally nodding, “Alright? I mean…I don’t know how anything you tell me could come up in my conversations with Hikari, but…let’s hear it”
Taichi shot him an annoyed look, but obliged and continued his story.
“The truth is…Miko was originally a black cat, an all black one like the one you found but well…when my Dad and I brought him home from the shelter, my mom freaked out and demanded that it be taken back and ask for a different one instead…that’s how we ended up with the Miko we had.”
Koushiro gasped, “No way…why?”
“Well…a lot of people are scared of black cats. They’re really superstitious about these things. I still remember my mom’s tirade when we brought the first cat home, about how Hikari was already a sickly child as she is, and bringing in a black cat will only give us bad luck.”
“But…they’re just cats, what difference does it make what colour they are? It’s not their fault they were born with black hair”
Taichi gave a wistful smile, “That’s just the way it goes sometimes. I heard black cats are usually the last to get adopted, and there are so many left in shelters that sometimes, they have to put them down to make room for other cats that get brought in.”
Koushiro’s chest tightened, he looked down at the space underneath the sofa and thought of the round green eyes that honed in on him in that drenched cardboard box, of the way it shivered in his arms as he walked it home, and the way it devoured the leftover onigiri with a desperation that made his heart ached.
It was just looking for a home, a place to belong to…how could anyone hate it for such empty reasons?
“Is that…are you really telling me the truth?”
Taichi snorted, then walked away and entered Koushiro’s kitchen, opening the fridge without an invitation.
“It’s up to you if you want to believe me or not, but…just keep that in mind before you bring it to the shelter, that’s all.”
—
One week later, it was still on Koushiro’s mind.
Taichi’s stark statement echoed in the recesses of his consciousness each morning, jostled awake by the cat bunting its head against his cheek.
“Wha…what…?” he grumbled groggily. But of course he already knew the what, he had somehow inherited a personal alarm clock, one that runs on a need for a morning feeding at 6:30 in the morning, every morning.
In response, it rubbed its head against Koushiro’s mouth, transferring a good helping of black cat hair onto his tongue.
“Oh…okay…okay I’m up, I’m up…I’m going, I’m going…”
He rolled out of his bed, stumbling out of his bedroom and into his darkened apartment, where subtle changes had slowly accumulated over the past few days. He dug up old pillows and cushions to lay around his minimalistic apartment, creating perfect nap nooks for his new - and as he continued to insist, temporary - roommate.
His feline friend zipped past him and bounded onto the kitchen counter, circling twice before parking itself down and fixing its large green eyes on him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Koushiro mumbled in between yawns, opening up his cabinet to retrieve a can of unopened cat food.
Immediately, the cat reacted, jumping down to the floor and weaving in-and-out of Koushiro’s legs.
“Hey now, that’s not helping me move any faster,” Koushiro groaned, but to no avail. The cat continued its dance between Koushiro’s limbs, rubbing against him while purring in ecstasy.
Koushiro couldn’t stop a satisfied smile from seeping out between his lips. The first time he heard the cat purr was the first morning he woke up with it in his apartment. He fell asleep to it huddled beneath the sofa, even hours after Taichi had left, but he woke up to the cat laying beside him on his pillow, its purr reminding him of the old school heater his grandparents would wheel into his room during his visits. He had assumed purring was a good sign, but after looking it up, he learned a purr can be as enigmatic as a smile, and somehow, it fascinated Koushiro even more. Only a week in, and he had devoted hours to deciphering the cat’s purrs and eye movements, hypothesizing what thoughts could dance in its mind while it rubbed its head against Koushiro’s arms.
After heaping a mountain of cat food on an old chipped plate, he placed it on the floor beside the cat, then kneeled down and watched it devour the offering at breakneck speed.
“Jeez, you haven’t learned to eat any slower, have you?”
It ignored Koushiro, or perhaps…it didn’t hear him, Koushiro wasn’t sure. Only after it licked the last of the food from the bowl did it finally move closer to him, then bunted its head once again against Koushiro’s shin as if to say thanks.
“You’re welcome,” Koushiro chimed off.
The cat gave a satisfied mew, then parked itself down on the floor before closing its eyes and opening them slowly. According to his research these past few weeks, this gesture was much less ambiguous than a purr. When a cat engages in slow-blinking, it feels safe and comfortable enough to let down its guard, and although finding this out thrilled him to a surprising degree, it also left something else in the depth of his heart as well.
Guilt.
Beyond researching cat behaviours and cat caring strategies, Koushiro was busy looking up other things as well.
Cat sanctuaries in Tokyo
Safest animal shelters near me
Black cats
Black cats adoption rate
Black cat superstition
Do shelters put down black cats because there are too many of them?
Every result he pulled up added to his uncertainty and doubt, swaying him back-and-forth between his choices.
“Don’t give me that look,” Koushiro sighed, albeit with a hue of sadness staining his tone, “You know you can’t stay here much longer.”
The cat turned away, as if understanding every word Koushiro spoke, and ambled off towards his makeshift litter box - an old wash basin Koushiro found filled with the cheapest litter he could buy from the grocery store. Koushiro sighed in defeat, watching as the cat kicked up a storm of dirt, no doubt voicing its displeasure at Koushiro’s intentions.
“Although…” he mumbled, before his thoughts were cut short by a series of chimes from his phone.
He turned his attention to the screen, unsurprised to find his mother’s name appearing on the caller list.
“Hello? Mom?” he greeted.
“Good morning, Koushiro,” came his mom’s usual cheerful voice through the receiver. He let loose an unbridled smile, imagining his mother bustling through her balcony garden, her phone in one hand, the other with her purple watering can to sprinkle just the right amount of water on her beloved flowers.
“I’m calling to see if you’re awake,” his mom continued, “And to remind you to eat your breakfast, and oolong tea is not breakfast, don’t try convincing me otherwise. I don’t care how much vitamin the labels say it has…”
Koushiro held back a chuckle, his thoughts drifting away as he listened to his mother retell the harrowing account of securing the last batch of fresh salmon at the fish market yesterday, beating old Miss Suzuki from a few doors down.
He recalled, with fondness that pinched his stomach, how his mother used to take him to that very fish market, teaching him the marks of a fresh fish, and the ones to avoid. There were passersby that cast adoring gazes upon both of them, and he remembered the old fisherman vendors asking the question with toothless grins.
Is that your son?
And even in his youth, he remembered catching the subtle twitches of his mother’s lips, the way her fingers would stiffen with his palm in hers.
Yes, yes it is. This is Koushiro, my son, and I’m…I’m his mother.
Koushiro inhaled deeply, feeling the question fill his lungs without his consent, but nevertheless, he welcomed it anyways.
“Mom?”
His mom paused his story, there was a slight hesitation, then a response.
“What is it?”
“What made you and dad decide to adopt me?”
Koushiro heard the gasp emanating from the receiver, then a dull thud indicating his mother had dropped the watering can in shock. But he bit his lips and waited, and waited, and waited, until his mother finally responded with a small chuckle.
“You know…everyone always speaks of adoption as if it was a one way street.”
Koushiro froze. Unbeknownst to him, the cat had made its way back to where he stood, as if sensing the tension in his body. It bounded onto the kitchen counter and squeezed itself close, its head desperately pushing up against his palm, begging for attention.
“When we told people we had plans to adopt you, it was always wow, how kind of you and that boy is so lucky. They talked about us doing some great favours for you, as if we were saving your life.”
“Well…you did…in a way…”
“I don’t know about that, Koushiro, but…”
Finally, Koushiro noticed the cat by his side. He looked down at its wide green eyes, remembering the first time it called out to him, desperate for a place to belong.
“I guess…now is as good a time as any to tell you the full story…”
Koushiro’s face contorted in confusion. He remained silent as his mother continued her story, which was preceded by a heavy sigh.
“Originally, we…intended to foster you, at least until Social Services figured out a long term solution for your future. I had thought of adopting you right then and there, but we didn’t think it was a good time since your dad was still travelling a lot for work, and I was working nights. So a week went by, and Social Services was sending messages about a potential family that lives in Nagoya that was eager to meet you, but…when it came time to make plans to bring you there…I couldn’t…we couldn’t do it. I kept remembering the way you laughed when your dad played with you, the way you nestled into my arms when I held you, the way you babbled like you were talking to us, asking us questions…Even when you were a baby, it seemed like…you were already asking questions and wanting to learn everything about the world.”
His mother’s voice broke, the crack of her syllables shattering his own heart. Koushiro clutched his chest and backtracked, until his back made contact with some corner of his apartment. Without missing a beat, the cat hopped off the counter, following Koushiro until it was close enough to rub up against his quivering legs.
“So you see, Kou,” his mother continued, “It’s not so much that we chose you, it was that you chose us.”
“I…I did?” Koushiro questioned in a soft voice.
“Yes, yes you did. If there’s anything we learned, it’s that…adoption is a beautiful bond forged through reciprocity, it’s about both parties opening up their hearts, and accepting one another…as family. In the end, we chose each other.”
Koushiro smiled. His vision became blurry by burgeoning tears, but he held them back, building mental levees with the will of steel. He bent down and bundled up the cat in his arms, then brought him close to his chest, feeling its purr vibrate against his chest.
“Thanks, mom,” he acknowledged.
“Anytime…my son”
Once his phone conversation ended (after a few more stories from his mother about Old Miss Suzuki down the hall), Koushiro decided to fix himself a cup of coffee, and as he sat by his window watching the morning unfold, the cat leapt up to the table with a graceful bound, reminding him of the grasshoppers that fascinated him as a child.
In his research, he learned that grasshoppers are a symbol of good luck, and spent hours building contraptions to catch them in his backyard. He never succeeded, but perhaps it was the start of his fondness for insects.
“Batta,” he mused, and scratched the spot between his ears, where Koushiro knew his new cat loved to be scratched.
The cat responded with a soft meow, then bunted Koushiro’s hands affectionately like it always did when it seeked his attention.
“Yeah…Batta, I think that’s what I’ll call you,” he said with a smile, “Now…let’s see about buying you some supplies, since you’ll be staying with me from now on, maybe a proper bed, and…some cat toys.”
Batta closed its eyes, then opened them again slowly and purposefully, and that was all the confirmation Koushiro needed to understand.
They had chosen one another, and they were now each other’s forever homes.