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Chishiya, like often, is exceptionally bored.
His days blend together. Against his hopes but as expected, there’s nothing especially riveting about his residence. None of the patients he’s encountered have pulled at his heartstrings yet, making him more sure nothing will ever manage that, no matter how much he tries.
He wonders if that’s why he takes the injured cat to his apartment.
The animal in question is familiar to him. He barely paid it any attention before, of course, but it was often stretched out in a sunny spot in the lobby of his apartment complex. He’d been informed it belonged to one of the residents when he asked, not pleased at the idea of stray cats and the filth they bring with at the place he lives.
This cat seems calm. Most would call it friendly, having often walked up to him until it learned Chishiya would always ignore it.
Except today, when it approached him again, meowing desperately as it limped.
That did not pull at his heartstrings either.
But he’d been bored. And well, he might be trained to treat humans only, but that would just make a cat a challenge, wouldn’t it? And he wouldn’t mind the owner owning him a favour either. Still, if he’d been less bored he’d likely have ignored it.
The cat is trembling in his arm as he takes it into the elevator, scrolling on his phone through an article about differences in wounds between cats and humans, staunchly ignoring the big letters warning him to always take them to a vet instead of trying to treat the animal yourself.
It doesn’t seem too difficult.
He hesitates about leaving the animal behind on his table, but it’s been docile this far. Surely it won’t jump off and mess up his apartment.
Still, for hygiene, with the cat still on his arm, in lue of a plastic sheet he spreads out tinfoil to protect his table.
“Stay.” He tells the cat, not sure whether cats know that word, so he stays a moment within armreach to make sure it will. When it stays, watching him with large pathetic eyes, he leaves to gather his supplies.
Whether the animal knows the word or not, it stays still, keeping its eyes keenly on him.
It even stays surprisingly still as Chishiya works, even though it lets out low hisses of pain. He doesn’t own any cat-friendly painkillers.
If he’d had to guess, the injury is a scratch caused by a dog. The cat must’ve been lucky to get away.
Yet it does seem grateful. Pushing their head against Chishiya’s hand or arm whenever he pulls back.
Mostly out of habit of having to explain his moves to his teachers, Chishiya calmly talks the cat through what he’s doing. Animals like calm voices, don’t they?
Still, he’s surprised by how cooperative the cat is, he’d expected to have to hold or tie it down.
It’s not like he knows anything about cats. Maybe this is normal for some of them?
It behaves better than a lot of the patients he’s come across.
It’s easier than he’d hoped. The fur makes for an obstacle, sure, and the cat does feel more fragile under his hands than a human but flesh is still flesh.
The cat only hisses at him once he’s done. Or, more specifically, once he’s done and tries to pick it up with the intent to drop it outside in the lobby on its usual spot, where the owner would be able to find it.
He tilts his head, studying the animal. It seems tired, eyes half lidded and its movements sluggish as it curls into a ball, likely with the intention of sleeping.
He should probably keep an eye on the cat, shouldn’t he? Just to make sure there won’t be any complications?
He sighs before gathering some towels from the bathroom to lay on the windowsill. This time the cat lets him move it, again doing that thing, weakly, where it buts its head against his hand, a move Chishiya is now quite sure is meant to portray gratitude.
He keeps an eye on the cat for the rest of the evening, checking its pulse in regular intervals. It stays strong, at least, what he thinks is strong for a cat.
He contemplates whether he should let the cat stay the night. It does have an owner, but he’s seen the cat out at night before. If he’d known the owner, he would’ve contacted them. He’s sure he can find out, but currently just can’t be bothered.
That morning, he wakes up to a cat loudly meowing on his chest. Irritated, just aware enough to be mindful of the injury, he pushes the cat off, glancing at his alarm.
Just half an hour before it goes off. At least the beast didn’t disturb his sleep too much.
The cat keeps meowing, this time out of reach. He sends it an unimpressed glare it promptly ignores.
Is something wrong?
He’d likely have spent the remaining thirty minutes in bed, except that the meowing is grating. With a sigh, he gets up and steps closer to the cat to give it a once over.
Might as well get over it.
This time the cat isn’t as still, even if it has stopped the noise, fidgeting as he checks the wound. But Chishiya can spot nothing wrong, so he doesn’t bother trying to restrain it.
As soon as he steps back the cat slips away, meowing again. Chishiya watches it as it walks to the front door, looking back at him and insistingly letting out another meow.
Ah. It wants out.
Chishiya has no reason to let it stay now that he knows for sure he’s treated the injury well.
The cat buts his leg one last time before disappearing down the hallway of the apartment complex.
He’s still irritated at being awoken early, but he can put the cat from his mind now.
Still, he notes the cat isn’t to be seen as he returns from his residency. He doesn’t particularly think of that as special, it wasn’t there daily before and the owner might have kept them inside if they’ve seen that the animal is hurt.
A logical conclusion, yet not what has happened. Chishiya is very unimpressed to find the cat stretched out on his couch, basking in the light of the sun that reaches that small spot.
“How did you get in?” He muses as he empties his bag. Once he’s done so, he attempts to reach out to the cat to put it outside.
It lifts its head to hiss at him, ears flattened, and Chishiya pulls his arm back, which the animal reacts to by laying their head back down with what seems a satisfied expression to Chishiya. He has no interest in being scratched.
“You’re getting hair on my couch.” He tells it disapprovingly. Unfortunately cats, even if they could hear him, don’t care.
Still, he can’t really be bothered. So he just continues his evening ritual, even though he does try to figure out how the cat could’ve gotten in. He comes up empty.
He ignores the cat for the rest of the evening, only telling it that it does need to leave before he goes to bed. He has zero interest in being woken up early again. This time the cat lets him pick it up, purring for the first time since he’s met it at the contact.
It keeps visiting him. Instead of seeing the animal in the lobby, he’ll find it in his home. He has no idea why, but it seems to like it there. Not daily, just one or two times a week it’ll appear in his apartment, out of nowhere as far as even he can figure.
He’s actually surprised to not mind it. It fills the emptiness a bit, this small purring creature seemingly enjoying existing in his perimeter.
He does put up some cameras to find out where it gets in, but instead immediately the absence of the cat is notable. He spots it in the lobby again, an old empty feeling of rejection nestling in his chest.
Ridiculous. She’s a cat.
The cat does come up to him, pressing itself against his legs which he, as always, ignores.
It doesn’t follow him.
It has to be a coincidence. A cat doesn’t know what cameras are, and wouldn’t care even if it did. Yet still he takes the cameras down when the cat doesn’t appear for three weeks.
The cat still doesn’t show up again.
He glances at the cat when he notices her up on a windowsill in the lobby as he’s about to leave for his residency. Hadn’t he said out loud that he’d bought the cameras?
He notices that the cat is up on a higher windowsill than it would have been before. Did the injury happen in the lobby? How irresponsible for someone to let a loose dog inside.
The next time the cat comes up to him, he kneels down, murmuring that the cameras are gone as he gives her a single scratch behind the ears. Her purrs are so loud.
Still, it takes a week and a half for the cat to appear in his apartment again, smugly looking at him from the top of a closet.
Long enough that it could definitely be a coincidence. Short enough that it stays as an oddity in his mind.
Of course it’s a coincidence. What else could it be? It’s a cat. A coincidence is the only logical explanation.
Still, he stores her oddities in his mind.
He dislikes her owner. He’s watching, with some amusement, as the cat pulls her new basket (a light grey that fits in cleanly with the rest of his apartment) into a sunny spot. He’d bought the thing in hopes of fewer hairs and outside filth on his furniture, and the cat visibly lit up when she first sighted it.
It makes the thought appear, not for the first time, that it’d be easier if he could just keep her inside.
It’s nice, not being completely alone anymore. Even if it’s just for one or two days of the week. And the cat isn’t as disruptive as he’d always assumed pets would be.
He’s never had anyone who seems to actively search out his companionship, animal or human.
But she has an owner. Who’s not him.
An owner who thought it acceptable to let her outside of their apartment just the day after she must’ve come home clearly injured, treated or not.
In Tokyo, most people keep their cats indoors for clear reasons. In a metropolis, there just are too many risks for cats outside. Especially considering the busy street right outside of the apartment complex.
Yet this cat is allowed to roam. Yet she doesn’t wear a collar nor has he found evidence of a microchip. It irritates him.
He considered getting a cat of his own. He’s never had a pet before. Maybe they’re interchangeable? But he enjoys this cat. His research claims it’s rare for her to be as well-mannered, as smart, as she is.
Because she is smart. Another oddity. By now he can read the cat’s body language to see it respond to words or phrases that seem above the ability of an average cat like the internet claims.
He, for once, has no idea what to do with that information. Except that he knows it makes her not easily replaceable.
Still. The cat isn’t his.
While he’s sure he can convince the landlord to tell him who the cat’s owner is, the easiest way is just to follow her one day as she leaves his place.
Indeed, while it does have him climb down stairs, the cat disappears into a cat flap into an apartment on a lower floor than his.
He calmly rings the doorbell.
It takes a bit for the door to open. Notably, there’s no surprise in your eyes, instead you smile awkwardly at him.
You’re awfully familiar. More so than someone he’s only seen around the building.
Did he interrupt something? He introduces himself. “Your cat has been visiting me.”
“Oh!” Still, you don’t seem surprised. You open the door further. “Do you want to come in? I could put up some tea. Is she bothering you?”
He has no desire for small talk, but accepts anyway. He wants to see where the cat lives.
Unlike his suspicions, the apartment is well equipped for a cat. There’s a cat tree, a basket and some shelves on the wall for the animal to climb.
No bowls, but those might be hidden away in the kitchen.
No cat either. You must’ve noticed him glancing around. “She went straight to my bedroom.” You nervously tell him. “She often goes straight to sleeping there.”
You’re a bad liar. But he can’t exactly press on seeing a stranger’s bedroom. He has no interest in friction with the landlord if you’d decide to report him.
“What’s her name?” He asks you instead as you lead him to your couch.
You give him a shortened version of your family name, before introducing yourself when you realise he doesn’t get the joke.
It’s not particularly funny. He doesn’t see how it’s anything but impractical.
“She’s not bothering me.” He tells you. He, selfishly, won’t bring up that you let her roam free. If you’d stop that, he won’t have that presence in his space again. “I was just… concerned for her health.”
That finally surprises you, your eyes widening. “Her health? She’s fine.”
“She has no collar with a tag or microchip.” He tells you calmly. “If something happens, you have no way of knowing. I already had to lap her up once with no way of reaching you.”
You immediately become defensive, your earlier open face closing off. Then, forcibly, you soften it.
“I know I should. But I can’t.” You tell him. “She’s not mine. Not technically. But my grandmother is in the hospital and she’s not from the city. So she doesn’t understand the risks, not really.” You avert your eyes and rub your arms, giving off the image of sadness. “She cares for her. She truly does. But she also has some… strange ideas about microchips, so staunchly refuses them. She doesn’t have long anymore, so I’m trying to respect her wishes while she’s still here.”
What a touching story.
Too bad it’s all a lie. Said in a way that makes him assume you’ve rehearsed it.
It’s a good lie. Who, aside from him, will confront you about a dying grandmother’s wishes? Unfortunately, calling you out will only make you completely shut down. And might make your cat stop visiting him. He hasn’t forgotten her reaction to the cameras.
So instead he’s rude in a different way. “Is that more important than your cat’s safety?”
For a moment, it looks like you’re about to laugh at his boldness. Then you repress it, returning to that sad state. “No. But if my family finds out, my aunt will take her. And she has dogs.” It’s likely the animal is scared of dogs after how she has gotten the injury. Clever woman. He does like your lies.
He has no idea why you’re lying though. Why go that far just because you don’t want to chip your pet? Are you just a habitual liar?
He tests it by, unfortunately, engaging you in small talk. Just like your cat, you seem glad to just spend time with him. He doesn’t even have to say much to keep you talking.
And somehow, he can’t find a single lie as you talk about your studies.
You’re an odd woman.
He takes the time to think about you on his commute to work the following day. You and your cat are just full of oddities, aren’t you?
He stops thinking about you when, moments after he spots fireworks in broad daylight, everyone around him disappears.
He’s still irritated after the Ten of Hearts is over, after Kuina told him persuasively to leave her alone, when he pushes open the door to his old apartment complex. But when there’s movement in the corner of the lobby, his hand immediately goes to his hidden taser, only to relax it again after a moment.
He kneels down at the one living being who seems happy to see him. The cat purrs as she presses herself against his hand.
Miraculously, some of his irritation melts away. “So you’re here too, huh.” He murmurs, giving the cat a single pet, before getting up. He hasn’t seen any other pets in the Borderlands.
To his satisfaction, she follows him to his apartment, and stays with him during the interlude. She’s curled up against him on the couch when the tv turns on, which startles her to his amusement.
She watches the screen alongside him with her ears pointed towards the tv.
She’s gone the next morning.
He doesn’t notice immediately. Why would he have? There’s no reason to immediately notice how his apartment is a lot emptier. Nor would his eyes go to her basket first thing in the morning.
She’s not in the lobby, nor in your apartment.
But your apartment clearly is lived in. Recently. There’s some dust in there, as if you haven’t been there for a few days, but there are stacks of canned food on the counter and some playing cards carelessly strewn on the coffee table.
Did you die? It must’ve been the last day of, or close to, the end of stage one.
It doesn’t matter, even if it is unfortunate that he’ll never get to dig deeper into you.
He makes for the roof. He should go and observe what this stage two will bring.
When the blimps come, he makes sure to keep track of the Jack, Queen and King of Diamonds’. The moving King of Spades might prove annoying. He’ll have to stay away from it in case of a freeroamer.
A freeroamer would be logical. It’d force people to play the other games instead of sitting it out while letting others solve them.
The cat isn’t to be seen when he makes his way back to his apartment. Why would it have left?
He won’t risk his life to fruitlessly search for it. Still, he finds himself irritated.
It’s with that irritation that he looks up when you come stumbling into his apartment, clutching your wounded side.
“I don’t do walk-ins.” He tells you coldly. How do you even know where he lives?
“Chishiya!” There is desperation in your voice. “I need help!”
“I can see that.” He shrugs, not particularly seeing how that’s his problem.
“You’re a medical student.” You pant as you hoist himself on his table, on the exact same spot he’d treated your cat, heightening his irritation. “I don’t know what to do. I tried bandages but… I think I need stitches? I’m not sure?”
He glances at you. You’re likely right, considering the amount of blood sipping through your jacket and onto his furniture. “Where is your cat?”
“What?” You blink. “She’s fine. Should be at my place.”
Something bitter curls up in his gut at that lie.
He gets up, purposefully taking his time as he makes to stand carelessly in front of you, hands in his pockets. “You’re a horrible liar.”
There is nothing preventing him from calling you out now.
You pale, which is impressive considering you’d already been pale from the loss of blood.. “Chishiya, I… C’mon. You helped my cat.”
“I enjoy your cat. Where’s she?”
“Gosh, you’re an asshole.” Why do you sound fond? “Would you help her?”
Wasting supplies on an animal in a post-apocalyptic landscape is idiotic. “Sure.” But his apartment is so empty.
You don’t hesitate. “I’m her. So you should help me.”
He… what? He studies your face. How is there no hint of a lie to be seen?
“I can shift into a cat.” You continue, a bold note in your voice that dares him to detect a lie. “You always ignored me until I got hurt by that fucking dog. And that was only to soothe your own boredom. You kept me until morning when I woke you up so I could get back home in time for work. I’ve been visiting weekly since. You spend most of your time studying, but you also keep an eye on the news or deepen yourself into philosophy. You like putting on music in the background, which ranges from classical to rock music. You told your project member he was a waste of carbon.”
“He was a waste of carbon.” Chishiya tilts his head. Well. It’d surely explain your oddities, but…
C’mon. A human changing into a cat?
How fascinating.
“There’s an easy way to prove that.” He reminds you.
“Not while I’m freshly injured. Shifting puts stress on the wound.” You object. “Please just help me.”
He likes having the cat around. Fine. He removes his hand from his pockets to gather his supplies. “You’ll owe me.” He warns you. “And you’ll properly prove this later on.”
The relief on your face is palpable.
Your wound turns out less severe than he expected, even if it did need stitches. He’s watching you sleep as he fondly thinks of your dramatics.
You’d been an easier patient as a cat. Then you hadn’t complained.
Fondly? Where does that feeling come from?
Does he believe you?
He tilts his head.
How else would you have gotten that knowledge? And you’d already shown your tells to him: he’s sure you at least believed what you said.
So why not let you prove it?
But why would you have visited him so much if you were the animal he’s grown to enjoy?
“You’re interesting and if a dog can get to the lobby once, it could get there again.” You shrug the following morning. “What’s for breakfast? I’ve got food in my apartment if you need some.”
“You really are horrible at the social game. That was an obvious diversion.” He’s amused as a part of his head wonders why he bothers handling you a bowl of plain rice with some canned vegetables.
“Fine. What was it you said? I enjoy you.”
He glances at you.
“I do! You’re great!” You protest. You mean that? Huh. “But I liked that I could exist within your perimeter without you bothering me. It’s a great way to unwind.”
Tch.
“Using me, were you?” He needs to stop feeling that damn fondness. He doesn’t know you. Not really. No matter how much you’ve invaded his life.
“Using is such an ugly word.” You dismiss. “You enjoyed me too.”
It’s that evening you consider yourself not ‘freshly’ injured anymore, and shift in front of him.
And, well.
It’s undeniably true then.
He silently picks the cat up, but she, you, hisses.
Not at him. A sign of pain.
He frowns, carefully parting the fur on your side. There is the stab wound you’d shown up with yesterday, smaller but further identical. And with droplets of blood dripping out between the stitches.
“Shift back.” He tells you. Had you been too hasty?
A moment later he has you, a human you, in his arms. He stills. You don’t move away, smirking at him as you lean closer. But then your smirk falters for a moment of pain and that makes his train of thought return.
You said shifting would stress a fresh injury, and yes, it clearly does. He calls you an idiot as he takes out the stitches to redo them. You clearly shouldn’t shift with those in.
You’re for once silent as he works on you, watching each movement.
It’s only when he’s done that you speak. “You’re acting like I just told you the sky is blue. Not that I proved to you I’m…”
“Did you expect me to act dramatic?” He asks you as he cleans his tools.
“No! Well- maybe? I expected something. You’re a medical student. I’m something science can’t explain.”
“So? If you wait a few days a laser will shoot through your head from the sky.” Chishiya shrugs. But then he gives a little. “I didn’t expect this. But I already knew something was off. And I know how to adjust to the cards I’ve been handed.”
“So? I can change into a cat. That’s completely different from any of the bullshit from the Borderlands! I could already do it in the real world! You should at least be disgusted that the cat you spent time with was a human all along!”
Oh? You sound downright insulted. How… endearing. Amusing. “Less surprising than the Borderlands.” He lies.
“The Borderlands make sense in a dream-logic kind of way!” You argue. “I don’t!” You get up from the table, making you wince.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you should go to sleep. If I’d care I’d suggest no more shifting until that wound is properly healed.”
That sets you off more, your eyes flashing. But you hesitate, your hand examining your injury in a way that he probably should advise against. Then you make back for the couch, grumbling something under your breath as you lay down.
Obviously, you’re right. Your ability is… extraordinary. Had he been anybody else, he might’ve silently gaped at you, shouted a lot of extremities or do something drastic.
But he’s not.
He just finds himself satisfied to know the why for your unusual lies back in the real world. That itch about your catform’s oddities is now scratched.
And he enjoyed your presence. Those past hours, he enjoyed your presence when you’re human too.
That is what his brain lingers on.
“Others haven’t always reacted as… well as you.” Your voice sounds vulnerable.
“People will always be idiots.” You’ve shared it before? “You shouldn’t share again.” In a world like the old one, you really don’t want the wrong people learning about you.
“Wasn’t planning to.” You grumble. “But you just had to be a bastard.”
He’s pleased to discover your presence doesn’t turn grating as he expected. Your human presence is a lot louder than you are as a cat, but it fills the void in him.
It’s nice.
You make clear that you disagree with being stuck in human form. Apparently it’s like some kind of itch you can’t scratch that worsens the longer you go without shifting.
But you’re injured. He didn’t go through the trouble of fixing you up, thrice now, to have to do it again just because you got impatient.
You don’t leave for your own apartment. Instead you stay in his, on his couch. He’s curious to see whether you’ll stay if you know the worst of him, so he tells you about the Beach. About Arisu and Usagi.
You have the naive audacity to just shrug it off. “Everyone does what they can to survive here.”
You spend the next few days reading some of the philosophy books on his shelves, mocking some of their ideas. You’re not entirely wrong, but Chishiya enjoys giving calm counterarguments without giving away whether he’s serious.
You’re easy to aggravate. It’s fun.
He himself has an itch too. The Jack and King of Diamonds sit unbeaten. It takes him until the sixth day of stage two to scratch it.
As he lays on the ground, bleeding from the two gunshot wounds, it’s you he’s thinking about.
He wonders whether you’ll care. Logically, he knows you will. But it’s difficult to comprehend.
He’s proven right by a frantic meowing. Moments later he feels your soft fur against his hand, pushing.
He lets you, opening his hand while letting himself for a first enjoy just how soft your fur feels. “The Queen of Hearts is being played.” He ensures you. “I’ll be fine if they win.” Then he scolds you. “You shouldn’t have shifted yet.”
Which, of course, you take as a sign to shift back to human. You worriedly look him over, but he tells you there’s nothing you can do.
You end up helping him upright against a car, letting him sag against your side.
It really is nice not being alone.
He meets you again in the hospital, neither of you remembering the Borderlands. Still, he definitely notices the way his eyes linger on you when he spots you in the hospital’s garden. The way he feels satisfied when you immediately make your way towards him when you spot him.
How familiar you are.
You’re itching to get home, claiming your cat to be the reason. He’s pleasingly surprised to be relieved to hear that the animal will be okay.
You hang out a lot around him after that, complaining about the hospital while trying to pull reactions out of him.
But at the hospital he’s busy with his own health. It’s when he’s released that he starts to contemplate your oddities.
Especially when you come over without him having told you his apartment number. You somehow enjoy spending most of your time at his. He finds himself enjoying it too.
Especially when it becomes noticeable he never sees you in the same room as your cat. Something in his head tugs at him, as if he already knows the answer.
The idea that pops up isn’t as ridiculous as it should be. He tests you by asking you to get him a band-aid.
You open the right cupboard immediately, obviously knowing its location, handing him one from his medical supplies. You roll your eyes as he puts it in his pocket.
You shouldn’t have known that.
When your cat visits, the animal often curls up against him when he’s on the couch. Today, he decides to test his ridiculous theory.
By teasing you, of course. “You always do that in this form. Too nervous to do it as a human?”
Your head shoots up, and you stare at him in a very uncatlike way for several moments. Then, as always when he provokes you, you fall for it. A second later instead of a cat he has a very human body leaning against him, resting your head on his shoulder.
“This better?” You tease, but he can hear your satisfied yet nervous voice.
“It is.” He leans his head against yours. “You should do it more often.”