Case 05: The Cat Mystery (4)

Breathing. A noisy conversation.

The hustle and bustle reverberated in my whole skull, waking me from my slumber.

It seemed I had lost consciousness. I was slumped over in the corridor, my body lying spread-eagled.

A couple of female students with badminton rackets in hand were looking at me with disgust. I could feel the cold, hard concrete floor on my back. Slowly getting up, I could feel the gritty dust clinging to my hands.

I grunted and stood up, and the female students moved away.

I checked the time on my wrist-watch, it was still seven in the morning. Those girls likely came to the club room for morning training. They probably thought I had passed out drunk in front of the club room or something.

The noise had returned in the club room building.

I could hear the chirping of the birds outside, and from a far-off distance, I could hear the enthusiastic shouts from the members of the sports club being zealous in their morning training. For the time being, I brushed off the dirt clinging to my T-shirt and jeans, and turned around to face the Beatnik research club room. I unlocked the door and checked inside. The place looked exactly the same as before. The lights were still turned on, and the computer had switched to sleep mode. A cheerful pop song was playing on the radio.

There was no one inside.

The woman resembling a paper doll was nowhere to be seen. I shut down the computer, grabbed my bag and staggered out of the club room.

Pedaling in a meandering manner, I quickly biked back to my apartment.

I opened the door; without a moment’s delay, Miiko coiled around me.

I hear her small meow, and I bury my face in her warmth and sweet scent. I savor the feel of her fur as it calms my anxious mind. But at the same time, I remembered. I was reminded of the paper doll-like woman from this morning, didn’t she also ‘Meow’?

And before that as well. Didn’t I hear something that sounded like a cat’s voice when everyone’s presence disappeared?

An uneasiness assailed me as I looked around the room.

I felt something in the room had changed once again since I left.

I entered the room just as Miiko began to eat her food, looked around at everything from the low dining table to the small bookshelf -- and then I realized. The position of the books had changed. I'm not a particularly meticulous person, but I’ve been arranging my magazines in order of size. That's simply for appearance’s sake, not classified by type. Instead, they were now arranged according to publisher type. Is it a coincidence? Did I just half-mindedly cram them in there and they turned out to be like that?

From then on, I opened a drawer in a cabinet next to the kitchen.

Inside, there were supposed to be just disposable chopsticks and seasonings, but the disposable chopsticks were grouped together and the seasonings were organized by type.

My head started to feel dizzy, and I opened the door of the modular bathroom to wash my face anyway.

And there, I saw it.

There were signs that someone had taken a bath.

Shampoos, conditioners, and other products that I only remember placing haphazardly had been neatly arranged. A towel that was messily hung on the towel rack was now hanging in a tidy manner. The hair that should have been clogged up in the drainage was now gone.

It was as if -- someone else besides me lived here, and everything was different.

In a daze, I stepped out of the modular bathroom.

And I stared at Miiko, grooming herself after she had finished eating.

Perhaps feeling my gaze, Miiko also looked up at me.

Then, with gentle eyes reminiscent of a new wife --

She gave a complacent smile.

I took the day off from class.

I pedaled my bike as fast as I could towards Ooki’s apartment.

It’s already been more than ten days since he entrusted me with Miiko. No matter how you look at it, it’s been way too long since I’ve had contact with him, and there were a lot of things weighing on my mind.

What’s been happening to me lately?

A sense of uneasiness, as if I’d ended up in an ominous series of events. I thought it was all just my imagination, and that I’d get through it, if I just let it be, but it really does seem like I’m caught up in some deep shit after all.

Someone’s traces in my room. And the figure of the paper doll like woman in the club room. And what Krishna-san spoke of, the presence of a gaze staring at me from afar. Somewhere along the line, I had felt that feeling too, but I tried to ignore it. Because I thought it was the same thing I felt whenever I would read a scary story. But did it all have something to do with it? Did everything connect to a root cause?

No – no, I should have realized it by now. And even when I admitted it to myself, I knew that I couldn’t solve it on my own.

All of the strange things that have been happening to me lately. They all started with a cat’s voice. The cat in question being, Miiko. Everything began after I started taking care of Miiko.

Yoishi’s words sprang to mind.

Did that mean she figured it out from the start?

The fact that Miiko was an existence that brought about some strange phenomenon.

No – no, that’s not true.

That’s not true, I can say it with certainty.

Even if Miiko’s not a normal cat, she’s definitely not a monster cat. She holds no malice towards me. Because, she’s the reincarnation of Momo. Because this time, she was born again to be my wife.

Now I was on my way to Ooki’s apartment, and in my bag, Momo -- no, Miiko, was crammed inside.

If Ooki was in his apartment, I’d give her back to him.

I wasn’t giving her back because of fear. If she inherited Momo’s memories after being reborn, there are lots of things I want to say to her. There are things I have to apologize for. But regardless of that, in this life right now, she is Ooki’s cat. If he doesn’t feel like keeping her anymore, then I’ll think about it, but if he still wants to keep her, then there’s nothing more I can do.

I can’t make anymore mistakes. She’s a cat, not a person. I had once ended up making a promise to give a cat a human’s happiness. That can’t happen. A cat deserves happiness as a cat. I failed to make that distinction, and that’s where everything went wrong.

Eventually, I arrived at an old apartment constructed from wood that was on the verge of falling down.

It was Ooki’s boarding house. I had visited him only once before, so I only had a faint memory of the address, but I somehow managed to make it. I walked into the common entrance of the building which was way older than my apartment building. Good afternoon, I greeted from outside. There seemed to be a few signs of life in the apartment, but no one came out.

“Sorry for intruding.”

I humbly call out, and take off my sneakers before entering. Stepping on the creaking floor, I head towards the stairs in the back. The interior was dim even though it was the afternoon. The narrow corridor is only wide enough for one person, just like an old-fashioned boarding house. I could hear the cicadas cry from outside. It was the only thing that reassured me that there was a connection between here and the outside.

As I examined the door to Ooki’s room on the second floor, I heard a sound from the inside.

“What? He’s here, after all.”

With a sigh of relief, I moved to knock on the door, when…

--You’re going to throw me away?

I heard a woman’s voice from somewhere.

In a panic, I frantically checked my surroundings.

--Are you going to throw me away again?

I shook my head at the voice.

“…No. That’s not it.”

I looked around once again, but there really was no one in sight.

I was alone in the dark corridor. And right now – my feet were trembling. They trembled enough to make the floor creak. Inside the bag I was holding, it felt like the weight had increased tremendously.

With my shaking fingers – I motioned to open the zipper – but then, I stopped myself.

--I shouldn’t look at the thing inside my bag.

It was the voice of my instincts warning me.

Without knowing why, something told me that what was inside the bag was neither Momo, nor Miiko—but the woman I had seen in the club room -- the one with warped, black eyes.