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When looking at his desperate plan from the outside, Ogami Banri had assumed that the largest problem with it would be the fact that he was, technically, leaving the hospital under false pretenses. He had thought, in the few moments he spent worried for his future rather than Yuki’s, that if they had been so insistent on him going home to rest in a bed with someone watching over him 24/7, then selling all his things, using his life savings to make sure Yuki had a home, food, and electricity for the next few months, and then going to live on the streets until he could get a new job and apartment might be somewhat hazardous to his health. He did not look forward to those hazards, though he thought he could deal—an infection would suck, so he made sure to clean his wound in subway station bathrooms whenever possible, and permanent brain damage would upset Yuki whenever he managed to find Banri again, so he had to find ways to rest as much as possible, which he didn’t quite have a plan for outside of maybe sitting down on a bench whenever he had to.
He was varying degrees of prepared for all of those things, though, and even if his plan was closer to I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, at least he knew the bridge was there. What he had not expected was that, upon ducking into a hole-in-the-wall pet shop in order to get out of the cold and striking up a conversation with the only customer in the place, picking out food for the rabbit he’d apparently bought his daughter from here several years prior, the owner of the pet store would get offended that he was in here for the heating and not to buy anything, and then suggested he reimburse them for vet bills.
“Vet bills,” Banri said, “what are you talking about, vet bi—”
The world shifted. His voice vanished. The father buying rabbit food said, in shock, “Did you just turn a person into a cat ?!”
Banri fled—or at least tried to. He could no longer get the door open, so he settled for racing around the tiny pet store while the owner chased him with a broom and the customer continued asking questions about turning Banri into a cat (which wasn’t possible—something had happened, sure, but he wasn’t—he couldn’t be—right?) and whether or not Kinako, whoever that was, had used to be human too, and why the hell would the pet store owner do such a thing?
“It’s a temporary spell,” said the owner, “it’ll fade when the cat’s completely healthy, and then he’ll just pay the vet bills and adoption fees.”
“Why would you—?”
“A customer is a customer!”
There was a moment of silence; Banri tried to tell the shop owner that they were insane, but all that came out was an acerbic hiss. That was a problem—if he couldn’t speak, how the fuck would he explain this to Yuki?—but no, he’d left Yuki, he couldn’t be around him anymore because of that bastard Kujo’s brainwashing. He’d forgotten that for a second, which was concerning—clearly, his concussion hadn’t gone away. It might actually have been worsened by whatever the pet shop owner had done to him, which—which wasn’t good. He crouched lower under the shelving he’d taken refuge in as the customer quickly bought the rabbit food and then opened the door, stopping in the doorway to wish the pet shop owner luck. As he did so, door wide open, he met eyes with Banri and then flicked his eyes outside, and Banri realized what the conversation actually was—a means for an escape.
Banri shot out the door and raced down the street, and vanished into the snow outside without looking back.
It was late April when Momo first found the cat. It was late April, and nothing felt real yet—not his strange new partnership with Yuki-san, not getting kicked out of his house, not even dropping out of college, even though that decision had been looming for three years now. He had stayed for Ryo, because they were friends, but he hadn’t planned on doing anything with his degree, had only been doing the bare minimum of his coursework, had, in fact, been trying to figure out a way to work full-time for Re:vale after graduation.
Well, he was working full-time for Re:vale now, and even the briefest hints of excitement made him sick to his stomach. He had to pretend to be Yuki-san’s partner, and Yuki-san was even playing along with it, too, in weird and horrifying ways—at first, Yuki-san either rested in bed or tried to teach Momo how to sing, but now he was occasionally dragging himself out to cook Momo meals, and had even once made it all the way down to the street corner to try and get a part-time job, something that Momo was sure that Yuki-san had never done for Ban-san before (and not least because Yuki-san had clearly had no clue how to apply for a job). And the more Yuki-san played along with the facade, the more painful Momo thought Ban-san’s homecoming would probably be, because there would be so much more to explain about the deal they’d come to, and the parody of being partners, because if Yuki-san was acting like they really were partners when it was just the two of them, Ban-san might get taken in too. Ban-san might think it was real, and get hurt, and Momo would rather die than be the cause of that. Meeting Ban-san and Yuki-san had transformed him, changed him, down to the bone, down to his name— and he couldn’t help but feel like he was betraying Ban-san, even as he searched for him, even as he did his best to be a temporary patch for the Ban-san-shaped hole in Yuki-san’s life.
There had been no sign of Ban-san today either, though, and Momo didn’t want to go back to their apartment and face Yuki-san empty-handed again, so he’d been wandering around the streets outside until he saw the cat in the alleyway and, grateful for the distraction, immediately followed his first instinct and approached it.
The first thing he noticed was that the cat’s fur was the same dark blue as Ban-san’s hair and as Momo’s own natural color, and the second was that the cat’s fur was matted and bloody, and covered a too-thin body. Plenty of cats lived on the streets despite Momo’s best efforts to catch them and bring them home, and this one, he could tell, was different. This one looked like it had gotten hit by a car, and then picked a fight with the car, and then, upon the inevitable loss, had sulked back here to lick its wounds.
Momo inched closer, and the cat backed away and hissed loudly at him.
“It’s okay, kitty,” Momo said, and the hissing abruptly cut off in a distinctly non-catlike fashion. “I’m a friend. I’m here to help, see?”
Momo extended a hand for the cat to sniff, wishing that he had some form of treats on him, but he hadn’t expected to run into a cat today and he and Yuki couldn’t really afford to buy pet food anyway—some days, they could barely even afford to eat, because Momo was not Ban-san, and was not as good at doing things like managing money and performing well enough to turn a profit as his idol was. The cat, who probably wasn’t thinking about how much worse Momo was than Ban-san, did not seem to mind the lack of food, however. Despite its earlier unfriendliness, it moved closer at this, and then sat and tapped Momo’s hand with one of its paws, an action so much like a handshake that Momo couldn’t help but coo at it.
“Who’s a good kitty,” he said, moving his hand to stroke the cat’s body. “Is it you? Is it you? Yes it is, you’re a good kitty.”
The cat stared at him for a moment, and then moved closer. It rested its front paws on Momo’s knee and meowed loudly in his face, and Momo cooed again, and then meowed back. This went on for nearly fifteen minutes until the cat yowled in what looked so much like frustration that Momo couldn’t help but laugh despite how loud it was right next to his face.
“You’re very loud for how injured you are,” Momo told it, and the cat let out a sulky little mew that absolutely melted Momo’s heart. It got off of his lap and retreated to the back of the alleyway, curling into a tight ball, and Momo hesitated for a moment before following it. He tried to pet it again, but this time the cat moved away, wedging itself behind a dumpster where he couldn’t reach it, and it didn’t come back out no matter how much he called it. This wasn’t good—the cat was clearly severely injured, and it looked malnourished as well, and Momo couldn’t help but worry that it would die of exposure. He stayed in the alleyway, calling for the cat, until it got dark and he realized how long he’d left Yuki alone, and so, promising he’d be back tomorrow, he sprinted from the alleyway and back to their shared apartment to continue trying to find the line between serving Yuki-san and faking being his partner too much.
The next day Momo ate only half his breakfast and lied to Yuki-san about finishing it on the way to work. They had agreed to use some of their food budget for cat food, and that Momo would lure the cat in with it and then nurse it back to health, but Yuki-san hadn’t wanted Momo to eat any less because of the cat, so a little obfuscation was necessary, just for today.
He didn’t see that cat in the alleyway when he left the food there, and when he came back in the evening with the freshly-purchased cat food in tow, the food was still there, collecting bugs. Momo felt something icy crawl down his spine—he should have just grabbed the cat and brought it home last night when it was letting him pet it instead of leaving it out to the elements for the night. What if it got hit by another car? What if it starved to death? What if Momo had damned it by letting it crawl behind the dumpster? He would have killed an innocent cat—and they’d spent money on the cat food, too, money that could have gone towards Yuki-san and his needs, because he still wasn’t okay, and they still hadn’t found Ban-san, either, and—and—
Momo went back home, eventually, and continued leaving out food for the cat over the next few days. It was nearly a week before he saw it again, in the morning before work—it was trash day, and as he passed the alleyway the dumpster was being emptied from the other side, and he decided to slip in and see if any of the city sanitation workers had seen the cat around. They were busy with the dumpster at the moment, so he would have to wait until they were done, but—
“Oh, God, I think something crawled back here and died,” one of the workers said, and Momo stiffened.
“At least it doesn’t seem like it’s been too long—oh! It’s still breathing!”
“—Is it a cat?” Momo asked desperately, hurrying closer. “A blue one? Looks like it fought a car?”
The sanitation workers jumped and turned. “…Yeah, it is,” said one of them. “You’re not its owner, are you?”
Momo winced, thinking about the sorry state the cat was in and the type of person who would let that happen to their pet. “Not yet?” he said. “I was trying to lure it in with food, and then it disappeared a few days ago…where did you find it?”
“Back behind the dumpster,” said the sanitation worker, jerking his chin in its direction. “It looks like it got stuck back there, poor thing. You can take care of it?”
Momo nodded quickly. “Definitely!” he said. He approached the dumpster and squeezed behind it, eyes falling on a dark little patch of fur curled up in front of him. “Hey there, kitty,” he murmured. “Momo-chan’s come to rescue you, it’s okay. We’re going to go home now. You’ll like it, I promise.”
And maybe it would feel more like a home, too, with a cat to focus on, another distraction from the impossible weight of Ban-san’s absence. It was already a different apartment from the old one-bedroom that Yuki-san and Ban-san had lived in together for four years, which lessened the impact of Ban-san’s ghost just a little bit, but Momo couldn’t help feeling like it was Yuki-san’s home, and not his. He had stepped into shoes impossibly big to fill, and it was his own fault, but at least Yuki-san was still making music. Or, would be making music again soon, at some point, because he was having awful creative block with his songs and their new manager, Okarin, was getting pretty frustrated even when Momo managed to obscure the fact that Yuki-san couldn’t get out of bed a lot of days.
Maybe the cat would help with that, in a way Momo couldn’t. The cat wouldn’t be a constant reminder of everything Yuki-san had lost, after all, and Momo had heard somewhere that animals were good for trauma. It was Momo’s cat now—or it would be, once he got it home—but he would give it to Yuki-san if he wanted. He needed to give more to Yuki-san. He would carve his heart out of his chest and present it, still beating, to Yuki-san if he thought that might help, but the opportunity hadn’t come up yet. Or—if Yuki-san didn’t want the cat—then Momo wouldn’t be entirely alone once they found Ban-san. Even though his family didn’t want him anymore, and Yuki-san and Ban-san wouldn’t need him like Yuki-san needed him now, he would still have the cat.
He scooped the warm little thing up and held it against his chest as he backed out from behind the dumpster and thanked the sanitation workers before continuing on his way to work. It would be fine to bring that cat in with him for one day—probably—and it would let him keep an eye on it and not burden Yuki-san, who most of the time was struggling to take care of himself under the weight of his grief like stones in his pockets. And he was right—it was fine. Today’s job involved mainly moving inventory to be picked up by trucks, and he was able to keep the cat in the pocket of his hoodie without complaints from either his coworkers or the cat itself, who, unlike their last meeting, was extremely quiet today. It was sleeping, hopefully—sleeping probably, because it was still warm, and when Momo put his hand in his pocket he could feel its body moving, just slightly, as it breathed. He shared his lunch with the cat, and got it to drink a little water from the fountain, and rushed home the moment he got off work, cat in his arms.
It was hard work not to notice the flash of relief in Yuki-san’s eyes when he came through the door just a little earlier than usual, but it was easy to tell himself that this was because Yuki-san had been just as worried about the stray cat as Momo was and not for any reasons related to the partner illusion. Momo grinned at him, and held the animal up like it was a trophy prize.
“Found it!” he said. “Meet our new cat, Yuki-san!”
The cat moved in Momo’s hands like a live wire; Yuki-san reached out to pet it and then jerked his arm back as it hissed loudly and scratched him before trying with all of its strength to get away from Momo and out the door. It was, however, a severely injured, starving street cat, and so instead it ended up back in the pocket of Momo’s hoodie as Momo cleaned the scratch and fussed over Yuki-san until he recovered himself enough to crawl into bed and shut the world out a little further. Momo pulled the blanket over him and got him a cup of tea, and then took the still-struggling cat into the bathroom to be cleaned.
“You can’t do this,” he told the cat, once the door was closed and the water was running and Yuki-san couldn’t overhear them. “Yuki-san just lost his real partner, you know. And he can’t handle sharp things. It’s…it’s trauma. He’s not doing okay.”
The cat meowed sadly, either in response to Momo’s statement or to the running water that it would shortly be dunked into. Momo couldn’t help feeling as though it was the former, though, as if somehow the cat understood what he was saying and was trying to respond.
“Be nice, okay?” said Momo. “You’re our cat now. I promise, Yuki-san is a really, really, really great person. And you’ll love Ban-san too, once we find him.”
The cat hissed at that, and Momo, offended, put it directly under the faucet. The cat stared at him, unimpressed, and then lay down in the sink, which was strange, because most cats didn’t really like water. This one didn’t seem to mind, though, and even nuzzled up against Momo a little as he washed it once the conversation turned away from Ban-san.
It took three baths to get the cat completely clean, and those baths revealed the cat’s actual injuries: a deep cut across its skull, swollen and flea-infested, and nothing else other than what appeared to be malnourishment. Or, at any rate, hopefully nothing other than an infected, infested cut and malnourishment; he and Yuki-san could not afford the vet bills to confirm, so after some quick googling Momo cleaned the cut as best as he could and rubbed the cat dry with his own towel before carrying it back out to the rest of the apartment and doing his best to make dinner for the three of them.
Over the next few months, they got rid of the fleas and the infection and the cut started healing. Yuki-san was fascinated by this progress specifically; Momo wondered if he was thinking about the similar injury Ban-san had, but didn’t dare ask. After all, despite their poor introduction, Yuki-san liked the cat, which Momo was happy about. Unfortunately, the cat didn’t seem to feel the same way about Yuki. When its wound was still infected, it was happy to lay on top of him, purring, for hours; once the infection was gone, however, its attitude towards him fully changed, and it avoided him like the plague, and even tried running away whenever they were alone together in the apartment. At night, though, it would sleep on Yuki-san’s chest, and if Yuki-san caught it with its guard down then it was cuddlier and more affectionate for him than it ever was for Momo, until it jolted and then fled as far as it could. Momo couldn’t understand it. The cat adored him—it was always happy to curl up near or on top of him and purr loudly, and stuck by his side whenever he was in the room—and half the time it adored Yuki-san even more. What on earth caused it to change its mind so often?
“Maybe we need to get it fixed,” Yuki-san suggested one day, after he’d made the mistake of petting their cat a little too long while it was sleeping and then, after a good few minutes of cuddles, got bitten again for his troubles. The cat was now hiding on top of the refrigerator and hissing loudly; it screamed at them whe Yuki-san suggested getting it fixed, and Momo winced and covered his ears.
“Isn’t that expensive, though?” said Momo. “And I don’t know if that would fix its biting problem.”
“Its biting problem is that I’m the only one it bites,” Yuki-san grumbled. “Okarin said that a lot of the time pets have behavioral problems before you spay and neuter them. Maybe that would make it stop biting me.”
The cat hissed from the top of the refrigerator; Momo, not for the first time, wondered if they could train it to spell out words, like that one dog he’d heard about, just to figure out whether or not it could actually understand what they were saying.
“That’s a great idea, darling!” chirped Momo; the cat, who clearly disagreed but also clearly liked it when Momo called Yuki-san darling, began attempting to fit behind the refrigerator. “I’ll see if I can find a vet and reach out to them.”
“Or we could do it ourselves,” said Yuki-san.
There was a moment; the cat extracted itself from behind the refrigerator, and hopped down, making a beeline for Yuki. This was an exciting event, and both Momo and Yuki stared at it, enthralled, as it hopped up onto Yuki’s lap, put its paws on his shoulders, and screamed into his face.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Yuki-san.
“Maybe we should get the cat an IQ test,” said Momo.
“Yes, that too.”
That was, however, not to be; the day after the vet appointment, the cat vanished out of their apartment without a trace, leaving behind a shut and locked door and empty rooms. Momo’s Lost Cat posters turned out about as much as their search for Ban-san did, which was nothing, and to add insult to injury, the vet’s office called him a few days later, informing him that they could not legally provide medical care to his now-missing cat, as the cat had a curse on it and might not actually be a cat, might, in fact, have been a human person trapped in cat form.
And that was that—no cat, no hints about the possible curse, nothing except a fake partnership that felt more and more real by the day, and the terrible specter of the missing Ban-san over it all.