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Kuroo looked out the window again at the old cat walking along the fence between the houses. It was mostly black, but had white ‘socks’ of various lengths, and most of its long tail was white as well. It was scrawny and scarred, missing half an ear, and glared balefully at him as it caught his eye. Then it was gone, leaping down on the other side of the wall with a flick of its tail.
“I said don’t look,” Kenma grumbled. “You scared it away again.”
“It didn’t fall for the fish?”
“No.”
Kenma had been trying to befriend the stray for a few weeks now, since he’d noticed it skulking around the neighborhood. He usually had a way with cats, and when this one shunned his attention, it had turned into something of an obsession. He’d been leaving various things to try and attract it to his yard, but nothing had worked yet.
“Have you considered that it isn’t a normal cat?” Kuroo meant it as a joke, but Kenma responded to his grin with a serious expression.
“There’s one thing left to try.”
“After practice?” They had a friendly match coming up against Ubugawa soon and he was hoping to run some receiving drills.
Kenma sighed. “I guess.”
It went well enough that he was feeling more confident about the game, and didn’t object when Kenma asked to stop by the market on the way home. He’d assumed he was grabbing some energy drinks or maybe some kind of limited- edition branded snack of some kind, and was blithely chattering on about the practice despite Kenma’s apparent disinterest. He stopped when he realized what section they were in and what Kenma was reaching for.
“Wait – is this for the cat?”
Kenma answered only with a sly look at the time. When he got home, he grabbed a bowl and filled it with the fish oil, carrying it carefully outside and setting it on one of the shorter rock walls inside the garden.
“Are you trying to attract every cat in the neighborhood?” Kenma just directed Kuroo back into the house, where they could observe the garden from a window. For relative levels of observe, anyway. Kenma was playing a game on his phone, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. “That stuff’s probably not even good for cats.”
“~Have you considered that it isn’t a normal cat?~” Kenma threw his own words back at him without even looking up from his game.
He could have just left, but even if he wasn’t as obsessed with this particular grumpy cat, he didn’t really want to. Ostensibly, this was study time, and he should have nagged Kenma to crack open his books instead of the next level of whatever mobile game had captured his attention of late. He decided to let it slide, and to refocus his own thoughts away from more pleasant things like volleyball, and Kenma, and onto his upcoming chemistry quiz.
Just as he was starting to wrap his head around the new material, Kenma pawed at his arm. “Look,” he hissed.
Kuroo looked. Out in the garden, the old cat was standing on the garden wall, long tail twitching. Unlike with previous temptations, it hadn’t immediately turned up its nose and moved along. Kenma’s grip tightened on his arm, and they both stayed very still as the cat scanned the area for witnesses. Then, it very delicately dropped off the wall and sauntered towards the bowl. Briefly, it stood up on its hind legs, and seemed to peer directly into the window, its golden eyes flashing. Then, it settled its paws against the stone, and lapped at the offering. Eyeing the window one more time, the cat quickly dashed back the way it had come.
Kenma didn’t relax his grip until after it was gone. His grin mirrored the cat’s. “Bakeneko,” he said.
“What?” Kuroo blinked.
“They drink lamp oil. Only people used to use fish oil for lamps, so of course cats did. But that’s the only thing it came for.”
“Uh, aren’t they supposed to kill their owners, too?” Had Kenma looked this up somewhere? Or learned it from a game. He could be pretty obsessive, and he did like cats, so either was possible.
“Well, I’m not its owner, so it’s fine.”
Kuroo shrugged. Fair enough. “Now what?”
“Now we’re just grinding. Once we level up in trust…. I’ll get to pet it.”
“Adorable.”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and Kenma’s own golden eyes looked up at him immediately. “What is?”
“Uh.” He scratched the back of his head. “You know, seeing a bakeneko is supposed to be a sign of something unusual happening, right?”
“Yeah – why?”
Now or never. “Do you wanna go on a date with me?”
“A date?” His eyes widened slightly, but Kuroo couldn’t read anything more than surprise in Kenma’s expression. But he hadn’t laughed or flat out refused, at least. The fact that he was still making eye contact was probably a good sign, even if it was a bit distracting.
“Yeah – a date. I thought maybe we could go try the new ramen place near the school, and then check out the arcade.”
Now Kenma did break eye contact, but his cheeks were flushed. “I guess that could be alright – if it sucks we’ll just come back here and play videogames, or something.”
They settled on a time the next week (after the Ubugawa game), and Kuroo practically floated home. He didn’t notice the flick of a long white tail hanging over a garden wall as he passed by, or the satisfied gleam of golden eyes in the fading light.