Case 05: The Cat Mystery (1)

I was following my usual routine that day: I did my work translating research materials on the Fafrotskies phenomenon, then I returned to my apartment to prepare a meal before leaving for my part-time job in the evening. I was sitting in front of my dining table with a steamy hot bowl, put my palms together in thanks, and was just about to take a bite when I heard a knock on the door.

I looked towards the door, and it burst open by itself, revealing the grinning face of Mitsuru Ooki.

“Yo, Nagito! There you are.”

“Oh, if it isn’t Ooki. What brings you here?”

“That looks delicious.”

“Well, I ain’t sharing.”

“That’s alright, I’ve eaten already.”

Saying that, Ooki brazenly took off his shoes and entered inside. Taking the large bag off his shoulders, he flapped the T-shirt around his neck, causing his pungent body odor to waft throughout the room.

I frowned in the middle of my dinner, and glared at Ooki’s blood-red face.

Mitsuru Ooki was a freshman like me, an acquaintance who I met in the western club building of the university.

It was mid-September and the university was still on summer break, but I was extremely busy spending my days in the western building translating English research materials. One day, when Krishna-san wasn’t around, I had left the door fully open to allow the fresh air in, and this guy, dripping in sweat staggered in. My first impression was that he was a weirdo, but after talking to him I found out that he was also a scholarship student, and like me, one of the few poor students from the countryside at our campus, who also lived alone – From then on – the conversation went well. During the summer vacation, this guy was drawing paintings silently alone in the art club room, and when he’d get lonely, he’d come to where I was, and then I started going to the art club room as well. Soon after that he started showing up to my apartment uninvited.

Mitsuru Ooki certainly had the personality of an insolent and rude guy who was used to scrounging off of others – but this guy still had a dream of becoming an artist. Whenever I would ask him about Housui Yamamoto or Johannes Vermeer he would get so fired up that I’d get fed up listening to him. And I liked this kind of guy. In fact, I would say that meeting people like this was what I was looking for.

“So, what brings you here?” I asked him while sipping the ramen.

“You sure have a nice room, as always.” Ooki spoke as he took a scrutinizing look around at my empty room.

“Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”

“No, I really do think that. The best part of this room is that there’s nothing in it. Not even a TV or a computer. Just a dining table and a few books. Young men should hold pride in their poverty.”

Ooki said that with a happy tone. Certainly, when I visited his apartment, it was a 7.5 sqm tatami room with nothing but oil paints.

“Well, that’s all fine and good, but do you already get why I’m here?”

Ooki smiled complacently as he asked me that. It’s annoying that this guy believes I’ll understand what he wants to say just with a smile. I’m not psychic, I won’t know unless you tell me directly.

“I’m not lending you any money.”

“I’m not so feeble minded as to ask money from you.”

Ooki then grabbed his bag, unzipped and opened it. A meow sound suddenly emanated from the inside, and I braced myself.

“I want you to take care of her for a few days.” He took out a cat as he spoke.

Moreover, it was a white cat with quite an adorable face.

“You were keeping a cat?”

“Actually, I found her about two weeks ago. Her name is Miiko.”

“What’s with that name? Anyway, It’s a problem for me. Pets aren’t allowed here.”

“It’ll be alright, it’s just for a few days. She’s well behaved and barely ever makes a sound.”

“Didn’t she meow just now?”

“It almost never happens. It was just because I’d kept her in my bag for so long, it was a meow of relief.”

“No, I can’t do it. Cats aren’t allowed.”

I spoke firmly, but the white cat had already left Ooki’s grasp, sniffed the aroma of its surroundings, before eventually her nose twitched at the bowl of ramen I was holding. After that it scrambled up to my lap in a friendly manner.

“See? She likes you already.”

Ooki spoke with a complacent smile as always. It's been a long time since I'd felt the soft touch of a cat, and the faintly sweet smell of a beast stirred my heart.

“It’s a problem. I can’t keep a cat.”

But Ooki was acting as if he didn’t hear me.

“Actually, one of my relatives from my mother’s side passed away, so I have to go back home. I’ll probably return in two days, so I want you to take care of Miiko while I’m gone.”

Then he patted the white cat's head and smiled contently once again.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Got it, Miiko? Remember to behave, and take good care of the house.”

The cat meowed in a quiet and lovely way at Ooki’s remarks. That face was really quite lovely. After that, I couldn’t really say anything anymore.

Cats.

Their bodies are soft and warm, and they’re so cute that you want to rub their cheeks when they purr in your arms. In the modern world, everyone recognizes that they are a rival for dogs as two of the most popular pet animals in the world. I'd always been a fan of animals in general, so I'm more than willing to take care of my friends' pets. I wouldn't usually mind, but there's a reason I'm a little daunted by cats.

It was back when I was in the sixth grade at primary school.

We had a female cat called Momo.

Momo was originally a cat that my older sister, who was in her third year of junior high school at the time, had found; she was a pretty smart and friendly cat that got along well with humans. She was already an adult cat by the time she came to our house, but she learned where her litter tray was at once, and quickly learned what not to do – If you’d get mad at her once, she would never do it again. She would rarely ever meow, and she’d humbly appeal for food with her eyes whenever she wanted to eat. My sister, the one who found her, got busy around those days -- dying her hair red, forming a gang of ladies that would later terrorize the Fujieda area, so in the end it was mostly up to me to take care of Momo. Out of everyone in my family, I think Momo felt the most attached to me.

And in those days, there was a girl in my primary school that I liked.

Her name was Saki-chan; she wasn’t particularly beautiful or anything, but she was kind to everyone, and she was always smiling. You could say she was my first love. The first thing I’d end up doing in the morning when I’d get to class was to look for her, no matter how far away she was, I could recognize her laughing voice. In those days, I naturally didn't understand what love was, and I agonized over why I was suffering so much. Anyway, all I knew was that it was not something I could discuss with my sister or any other family member. That’s why, I felt I had no choice and started talking to Momo about it.

After I came back from school I’d straight away go and lie down on the balcony with Momo, I started by telling her “There’s a girl called Saki-chan”, and “It’s painful in my chest”, “I wonder if she hates me?”, those sort of things, When I thought about it now, I must have been a pathetic sight talking so devotedly about such embarrassing things, yet Momo gazed at me kindly and silently.

And then on a certain day – I ran across Saki-chan while going home from school, we both swung our school bags, talked about childish things as we walked the path alongside the paddy fields. And that's when I suddenly saw Saki-chan’s hair glittering golden in the setting sun. Isn’t she actually very beautiful? And then, the fool that I was, said it out loud.

“Saki-chan is beautiful!” I shouted that out loud -- what were my feelings back then? How should I describe it? I felt that the profile of Saki-chan’s face that I saw from the side was miraculously beautiful, but it wouldn’t last for forever. For this one moment, many things meshed together perfectly to show the world the true value she possessed. And if I didn’t scoop it up now, it would disappear. That’s right, wistful—was a perfect match for how I felt in that moment.

However, in society that would normally be interpreted as a love confession, and girls in the sixth grade were much more mature than boys.

“What do you mean?”

She asked me in a somewhat troubled tone, and I had nowhere to run to after that. That’s why I answered her honestly even as my voice shook.

I liked Saki-chan, I’d liked her so long, and so much so that I couldn’t sleep at night.

There is nothing more painful than the feelings of love held by a primary school kid. I wondered what would happen after I confessed. Even if she shared my feelings, we weren’t allowed to marry by law, and there would be a long, long path to adulthood from here. In that process one would gain, and lose various things as well. There would be all sorts of joys and sadness, and many changes one would go through. At the end of what seems like an infinite amount of time for a child, will that innocent love remain unchanged? Even primary school students have some sense of the difficulties that lie ahead. No, it’s because they are primary school students, that they feel it even more so. That’s why, I don’t know. After hearing my confession, Saki-chan spoke.

“I am normal.”

After that, she hung her head down, and restated in a small voice.

“From here onwards… being normal would be for the best.”

“Yeah, Hahaha”, I laughed in response, despite the sharp wound I received from her words.

Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Those words were all I could muster, and I ran home from there.

Even as I ran, the tears never stopped flowing. The only thing I was sure of was that tomorrow would never be the same as today. A gap that could never be bridged had been created between me and Saki-chan; we would never be able to talk normally again, thanks to my foolish confession. Only a feeling of despair remained, as if the only girl that I had felt closest to in the world had moved to the furthest place.

I barged in to my home crying my eye’s out, and immediately ran to my room and started cowering and crying again; before I had realized it, Momo was there, by my side. She kept staring at me with an affectionate gaze. Suddenly I realized that Momo was a female. Just with that alone, I was saved from the feeling that there wouldn’t be any females appearing around me anymore besides my family.

“Hey, Momo.”

My face soggy with tears, I reached out and stroked Momo’s chin and spoke.

“Marry me someday.”

For a moment, Momo stared motionlessly at me, then suddenly let out a cry.

A meow.

That was an extremely rare thing to happen.

For this reason, I thought Momo had accepted my stupid proposal.

I got happy, hugged her tightly, and smiled through my tear-stained face.

...Ugh, embarrassing. Just by recalling this much makes me so embarrassed it makes me want to jump off a cliff and spill my spinal fluid on the jagged rocks below. But there is an even worse ending to this embarrassing story.

In my second year of high school, I finally got a girlfriend.

She was a first-year junior, a girl who had joined the basketball club as a manager. She was somewhat blunt and had a tendency to speak out boldly, even to her male seniors, but I think that quirk of hers was liked by everyone. She would speak to me frankly: “You’re an idiot”, or “You need to practice cutting in more”, she would arrogantly point out. That's why, unlike the other girls, I was able to say things like, "Shut up!” and “You just stick to your own damn job”.

And on a day like that, I stayed behind in the gym to practice my three-point shot, she came by and suddenly spoke “Your hand placement is bad.” We had just lost a practice game, and one of the reasons for our loss was that I missed a three-point shot at a crucial moment, so I was feeling deeply responsible. That’s why I unintentionally ended up yelling out in anger, “Shut up.”

However, she didn’t stop.

“You only need to shoot it with one hand, but you keep using both hands most of the time.”

“I know that, dammit.”

“I already told you that in spring, but you still didn’t fix your game.”

“If I could have fixed it sooner, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“You don’t seem like you want to fix it.”

“The hell did you say?”

I dropped the ball down and glared at her; without backing down she glared back at me in defiance.

“How would someone like you know that?”

She pursed her lips tightly as she replied:

“I know it because I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

‘Watching you for a long time’, Feeling a strange indication in those words, I got flustered.

After that I ignored her, and began to practice my shooting once more.

“You really are an idiot.”

Leaving me with those words, she ran off.

Well, I’ll leave out the details --- but after that, we started to become aware of each other’s feelings, and we started dating. I was the one who confessed to her. All she did was nod her head in a shy way; then when I realized that for the first time in my life, I had made a "girlfriend," I hopped back home and reported it to Momo straight away.

“I made a girlfriend.”

Momo merely raised her eyes.

“She’s a little arrogant, but she’s not a bad girl.”

I spoke somewhat embarrassed, but I was grinning broadly as I said it.

In fact, I kept bragging on about her after that. That part of her is cute, and such; when she smiles, the pit of my stomach feels all warm and fuzzy, and such. All those foolish words of mine, Momo kept listening to them in silence. At this time, I had completely forgotten. The fact that I had once proposed to Momo. And that on that day, at the end of my absolute loneliness, I had been saved by Momo's consent to marry me.

Most people would agree that the early period of a relationship is like heaven on earth. I was one of them as well. Every day was fun, it was like I was slightly floating about thirty centimeters above the ground, frolicking around like a fool. I kept reporting about those days to Momo. Momo looked up at me with her clear, slightly orange eyes and listened intently to what I had to say.

And then finally, it was less than a week later.

I felt Momo’s cry from somewhere while I was asleep and woke up. In the dark room, Momo wasn’t present. I thought she had gone off to drink some water, so I dozed off again.

The next morning, I discovered Momo’s body getting cold in the kitchen. I took her to the vet in a panic, but he told me that it was probably just her life expectancy.

According to the vet, Momo looked to be around twenty years old. I didn’t know anything. Without ever getting ill, Momo already had a previous owner and was surgically sterilized, never having copulated. In any case, she was a cat that didn’t cause trouble for others, and I never worried about how old she was, or what kind of disease she might have. I felt she would keep on living forever.

And finally, when I was burying Momo in the yard – I suddenly remembered.

I had proposed to Momo.

And she had accepted.

Didn’t Momo -- live this long as though she were my wife?

Momo -- who would refuse to eat anything until I had eaten, who would come up into my futon when I went to bed, and purr happily. Whenever I called out to her, she’d immediately come running from anywhere, and would hear out any story to the very end.

I was…I was…I was— So boastful in telling her that I had a girlfriend.

I was going on about it almost every day. And that’s why, Momo lost the place she belonged, and died, right? Of course, she’s just a cat, right? A person would naturally laugh, it was just simply her lifespan. However, despite being saved once by her in the past, I had forgotten that and kept saying things that betrayed her every day – then, I cried and cried and apologized.

After that, I began to avoid cats, even stray ones on the street. It was a mixed feeling of nostalgia, guilt and fear, and I was too scared to even look them in the eye. The reason being that sometimes cats would look at you as if they are thinking deeply. They would seem to be walking much closer to the truth of the world than I was. The look that says, "I know exactly what you're thinking”.

Whenever I saw a cat in town, or at someone’s house, I’d think to myself…

Momo must have resented me, right?

Did she think I betrayed her?

I’d always thought that if she did, I couldn’t blame her.

That’s why –

To this day, I'd never kept a cat after Momo, and I thought I'd never keep another one in my life.