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Enji did not have a cat.
Well.
He did not own a cat.
There was a cat that lived nearby, and often inhabited his front garden, but it was – obviously – not his.
He didn’t have the time or patience for pets. He barely had the time or patience for people, but that was just a necessary evil of life, especially as a pro hero. Cats were, by their very nature, quite unnecessary creatures.
They were also loud, he was swiftly discovering.
He’d always assumed cats were quiet animals, like fish or hamsters. Certainly quieter than dogs or – worst of all – birds. But it turned out that cats (or at least this cat in particular, he was no expert) could be very loud when they wanted to be. This cat liked to yowl as though it was horribly suffering whenever Enji passed by. Sometimes it did it when other people passed by, too, which inevitably led to the awkward question of, “What’s wrong with your cat?” or “Why isn’t your cat friendly?” and then he had to explain that it wasn’t his cat, it was just a cat, and it lived nearby and sometimes in the garden, and he had no control over its yowling, and…
It was an entire ordeal.
He could only imagine that life wasn’t too bad for the semi-feral feline who loitered on his property. There were probably pests to eat and bushes to hide under in case of bad weather and no angry dogs in the area. It was a good life for a cat, he thought, so he didn’t understand why it had to complain so loudly whenever he came in or out of the house.
The cat was light grey in color with prominent whiskers, bright blue eyes, and a long, bushy tail. Not that he spent very much time looking at the cat. He could see it from the kitchen window sometimes, perched on one of the ornamental rocks in the yard or sunning its fluffy belly in the middle of the sidewalk on warm days.
Today was one of those sunny days, and the damn cat was lying right in his path as he attempted to leave for the agency. He stared down at the tiny creature – scowling – but it only rolled its floppy little body around on the pavers, paws kneading the air. He considered stepping around the cat, but he’d be damned if he gave up ground to a furry freeloader on his own property. Instead, he resolutely stepped over the cat, but it immediately swiped sharp claws upwards to nick his ankle through his socks. He cursed loudly and stumbled forward, stepping on the creature’s tail in the process, which caused it to hiss and scream and run off into the bushes.
Good, he thought firmly. Serves it right. Maybe it’ll learn not to sleep in the middle of the sidewalk.
The tiny cut on his ankle stung as he stomped off towards the train station.
The cat did not, in fact, learn anything from being stepped on. In fact, it seemed more determined than ever to sit, stand, or lay directly in Enji’s way whenever possible after the tail-stomping incident. Whether that was in the middle of the driveway, the sidewalk, the path to the front door, or the entrance itself, the cat always managed to be exactly where Enji intended to step. It also always managed to loudly complain whenever he accidentally kicked it, stepped on it, or even so much as attempted to nudge it out of the way. It’s not that he meant harm to the damn thing – he was no animal lover, but he was also no animal abuser – but he was a large man and often distracted by a flurry of whirling thoughts and concerns related to the agency or the general state of the world. He couldn’t help doing a little bit of damage just by existing as he was.
The cat seemed unbothered by the promise of danger to its furry little form, and no matter how many times Enji stepped on it, it kept returning to loiter around the garden like it owned the place.
The rainy season began to pick up in late spring, and Enji thought that perhaps his cat problems would be solved by the heavy hand of Mother Nature herself. The cat no longer lounged out in the open, but instead it found new and interesting places to hide – under his car, in the hedges, inside the storage shed, underneath the mailbox. It would stare hatefully at him the entire time, as though he had any control over the weather.
One day, he returned from the office late in the evening, entire body weary and aching. The storms were less of a nuisance and more truly troublesome now. Even his Hellflame had difficulty under the constant deluge, so he had to resort to dealing with villains the old-fashioned way. He didn’t see his resident annoyance immediately but brushed it off without a thought. The cat had its own life.
The next day, the cat still hadn’t appeared. Enji told himself he was happy about it. Maybe the animal had moved on to some other house, one with little kids who would pet it and play with it. Maybe it had drowned in a storm drain. He didn’t care either way.
On the fifth day, he began to search the garden and the surrounding neighborhood. He didn’t have any name to call because the cat was just Cat to him. He wasn’t confident cats came when called, anyway. Wasn’t that a dog thing? He investigated all of its usual hiding places around his property and even snooped near some of the other homes where he thought the cat might like to hide. He was a hero. He could pretend it was part of an investigation.
When he came up empty-handed, he had to admit to himself that the cat was probably gone, and he was probably just a little bit disappointed about it. He’d just gotten used to the cat being around, that was all. He was often alone in the big, empty house and having some other living creature there was a comfort in a sad, strange way.
How pathetic.
He forced himself to go to sleep and not continue looking for the cat.
In the end, the cat found him. After nearly three weeks of being missing, it showed up on his doorstep looking dirty, bedraggled, and painfully skinny. It also smelled a little.
He brought the cat inside.
The cat was not grey, as it turned out. It was a pure white that beautifully matched its sky blue eyes, although he’d only discovered this after forcing it into the bathtub, which earned him a patchwork of nasty scratches that were still bleeding sluggishly into his shirt sleeves. The cat was also ravenous and apparently did not care that he didn’t have any cat food. It was happy enough to gorge on canned seafood.
The internet told him that this was not an appropriate diet for domestic cats, so he ordered a pallet of cat food, along with bedding and toys to be delivered as soon as possible.
After a few days of resting in late summer sunbeams and consuming more food than Enji thought was possible for a creature of its size, the cat was right back to dozing in the middle of his path and getting underfoot like usual. Now, however, whenever it yowled, he simply let it inside. He decided that it gave him something to think about – something to do with himself that wasn’t work or worry. It looked very – cute? – he thought, curled up in its little bed or playing with some feathered toy in the kitchen.
He decided he liked that.
“Endeavor, I didn’t know you had a cat,” Aizawa commented in his usual bland tone. “It was very upset with me last time, so I assumed it was a stray.” He reached out to scratch the little animal under the chin, and this time it purred and kneaded the ground under its paws instead of yowling. Enji was not jealous of the affection at all.
I don’t, sat on his tongue – the obvious response.
“Yeah,” is what he said instead. “It’s a pain in my ass.”
Aizawa nodded like he knew what Enji was talking about as he continued to stroke the cat’s soft white fur.
“The loud ones always are.”
Fin