Am I a Cat?

Am I a Cat?

Chapter 1: The One Who Never Came Back

The first task of the morning was to face what had begun ending yesterday.

The shopfront was still dim, the shutter only half raised, and cold air drifted slowly in from outside. Mariko retied the strings of her apron and looked down, one by one, at the buckets lined up near the entrance. The gerberas that had stood so straight yesterday were tilting their heads ever so slightly this morning. Fallen pollen floated at the edges of the water, and even the dryness at the tips of the leaves varied from one stem to the next.

Flowers never wore the same face two days in a row.

She had known that almost to the point of disgust ever since she started working at the flower shop. Cut flowers were like that. Of course they were. You changed the water, trimmed the stems, stripped away the excess leaves, and still they weakened little by little. Even so, every morning, whenever she noticed how they had changed since yesterday, something somewhere in her chest grew rough.

“Mariko-chan, should I put the mimosa out first?”

Her senior coworker’s voice came from the back.

“Yes, please.”

As she answered, Mariko cut the stem of a carnation on a slant. Moisture beaded from the pale green cut. She sorted the ones that could still go out on the floor from the ones that would have to be taken down by the end of the day. The difference was slight. But if she misjudged it, the flowers would lose their brightness at once.

She had always noticed small changes like that too much.

Once she noticed them, she could never pretend she had not.

The sweet smell of ranunculus filled the shop. The yellow mimosa looked so bright and cheerful, yet if you let your guard down even for a moment, its tiny blossoms would scatter and fall. Mariko caught one that was about to drop with the tip of her finger and narrowed her eyes a little at how weightless it was.

What falls does not return.

She saw that every day, and still there had never been a day when she got used to it.

　　　　　＊

A little before lunch, her phone vibrated once.

Mariko looked at the screen by reflex, then immediately turned it facedown. It was an ad notification. She had known it would be, yet her heart had leapt before she could stop it.

No message had come from him for months.

Even so, every time her phone made a sound, some part of her still expected one, just for an instant. It was stupid, she thought. And it really was very stupid.

“You checked again?”

Her senior coworker smiled wryly, holding a paper cup of coffee.

“I didn’t.”

“It’s written all over your face.”

Mariko gave a small shrug. Her coworker knew just enough about the situation not to make things awkward. She knew that the man Mariko had been living with had walked out after a fight and never come back. She knew that at first Mariko had been angry, and that as time passed, anger alone had stopped being enough.

“Still nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s been almost half a year, hasn’t it?”

Hearing the number spoken aloud by someone else made it feel strangely cold.

Mariko pressed her fingers against the lid of her coffee and gave a vague nod.

Half a year. She no longer knew whether that was long or short. It was more than enough time for the heat of an argument to cool, and not quite enough time for worry to rot away completely.

If he had really meant to break up with her, he should have said so. Cutting off contact was the most cowardly way to do it. That was what she thought. And yet, despite thinking that, at night she would wonder if he had been in some accident.

Anger and fear did not divide themselves neatly.

“It’s not exactly something you can go to the police about, either…”

“No.”

That was the most troublesome part. He had left with his wallet and his phone. It was not methodical enough to call it a disappearance, and not suspicious enough to assume he had gone missing because of an accident. As ways for a living person to run away went, it was unpleasantly plausible.

Mariko only touched her lips to the paper cup and lowered her gaze without drinking.

The cause of the fight had been small, if one chose to call it small.

But it probably had not been about that day alone.

Mariko had only wanted to talk properly about the future. She had not been asking to get married right away. But what was he going to do about work? About money? Did he intend for them to keep drifting along in the same room, somehow, and grow older that way? She had wanted at least that much put into words.

But whenever the conversation turned that way, he always laughed it off.

“It’ll work out.”

“There’s no point deciding that far ahead now.”

“If we’re going to have a heavy conversation, can we at least do it after dinner?”

He said such things lightly. That lightness had piled up.

And that day, finally, something inside Mariko had snapped.

“But you’re worried, aren’t you?”

Her coworker’s voice was gentle.

“…I am.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m angry.”

“Yeah.”

“Very angry.”

“Yeah.”

Mariko let out something that was almost a laugh.

“But if he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere, I don’t want that either.”

Her coworker said nothing clever. She simply offered a quiet “I see.”

There were surprisingly few people who could answer like that.

　　　　　＊

On the way home, Mariko bought milk and cat litter. In the grocery aisle, for one fleeting instant, she almost calculated the amount for two people. She caught herself and stopped. Mistakes like that had become less frequent than before. Less frequent, but not gone.

She opened the front door.

“I’m home.”

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.

Even so, some part of her waited for one, just a little. Mariko bit her lip lightly as she took off her shoes.

From the room beyond, Raymond came slowly toward her.

His gray coat was still beautiful despite his age, and depending on how the light struck it, it almost looked bluish. He had the slender face of a Russian Blue and slightly nervous-looking eyes. He was a cat with a faintly warm, pleasant smell that made her think of sunlight.

Raymond was the only cat Mariko had ever had, so she did not really know how he compared to other cats. But at the very least, he had always been a very catlike cat.

He was well-behaved. He did not require much care. He did not meow unnecessarily. He did not particularly like being held. He rarely came to her to be petted. He rarely asserted himself, and he was quiet in a way that seemed almost indifferent to human beings.

Russian Blues were sometimes called voiceless cats, and Raymond truly had almost never meowed. Even when he stood before his food dish, he would simply look at her in silence and consider the matter settled.

But lately, he was different.

Maybe it was age. Maybe this was simply how cats changed when they grew old, and Mariko did not know it. She had even half-jokingly wondered whether, like in old stories, cats who lived long enough slowly became more human.

Since he had gone away, Raymond had begun staying much closer to Mariko than before. He walked around her feet, and whenever she noticed, he was nearby. He still hated being held, yet sometimes he pressed himself against her of his own accord. He even let out small sounds now and then, as though trying to tell her something—sounds she would almost never have heard from him before.

As if he had chosen, of his own will, to be involved with her.

“All right, all right. I’ll feed you now.”

When she crouched down and stroked his head, Raymond narrowed his eyes as though this were only natural.

This cat, at least, was still here with her, just as always.

The moment she thought that, a small warmth rose somewhere in her chest.

In a room where one person had disappeared, someone else had moved a little closer than before.

Mariko felt faintly guilty for taking that as a kind of salvation.

She set the groceries down in the kitchen. Deep in the cupboard, the dark-colored mug he had liked was still there. Beside the refrigerator were the books he had left half-read, a receipt carelessly folded between the pages as a bookmark.

She could put them away if she wanted to.

She could. But she could not.

If she put them away, it felt as though he would truly be gone. He was already gone enough, and still she hated herself for thinking that. She no longer knew whether what she wanted to throw away was the objects, or the part of herself that was still waiting somewhere.

When she looked at that dark mug, she even remembered an ordinary weeknight when he had come home from the convenience store with a single cup of pudding. He ran from conversations about the future, and yet he was strangely good at useless little kindnesses like that.

She remembered how he had set the bag on the table as if it were nothing and smiled. “They only had one left. Want to split it?” On nights like that—nights that meant nothing—he had been oddly gentle.

That annoyed Mariko all the more. And at the same time, she missed him a little.

When she wanted him to be responsible, he had not been responsible. When she wanted him to face things, he had escaped into jokes. And yet the memories that came back to her were always of those small, useless kindnesses he had offered in all the wrong places.

She was angry. And yet she could not let go of those memories. That was what made her the most difficult person of all.

She poured food into Raymond’s bowl. He sniffed it once before he began to eat. The way he did not gobble it down was strangely elegant, and Mariko smiled a little.

“You’re much more reliable than he was.”

The moment she said it, she knew exactly whom she was comparing him to.

Dinner for one always tasted a little empty. If she cut corners, no one complained. If she cooked properly, no one praised her. Even so, with Raymond sitting at her feet, the kitchen did not feel completely empty.

　　　　　＊

That night, after she finished washing the dishes, Mariko picked up her phone.

There was no need to look. Even so, her fingers opened his contact before she could stop them.

His name was still there. So were the chat history, the call log, and the last short message she had sent.

Where are you?

It had not been read.

At first, driven by anger, she had typed longer things. You’re the worst. I don’t understand. Talk to me properly. But she had erased every one of them before sending.

What remained now was that painfully brief question.

Where are you?

She could no longer tell whether it was an accusation or an expression of concern.

If a call came from him now, what would she say? Would she shout? Cry? Fall silent? She certainly could not pretend nothing had happened.

As she thought about it, she began to feel angry that she was the only one thinking such things.

The moment she turned the phone facedown, something soft and heavy touched her calf.

It was Raymond.

He came to her feet, turned in a small circle, and curled up there. He had always done that. On nights when Mariko sat for a long time, he always made a bed at her feet.

“…Isn’t it cold there?”

When she asked, Raymond gave a rare, faint meow.

It was a short, restrained sound. She did not know whether he meant it as an answer or a complaint. But she had the feeling that the old Raymond would not have meowed like that.

“You really have been talking a lot lately.”

When she said it without thinking, Raymond opened just one eye a sliver, then closed it again.

Selfish as ever. Selfish, and yet he was always exactly where she wanted him to be.

Mariko slid down from her chair until she was sitting on the floor. Raymond gave his tail a single annoyed flick. Even so, he did not run away.

When she touched his back gently, the warmth of the old cat’s body seeped slowly into her palm. A faintly toasted, sun-warmed scent tickled her nose.

“…You’re all I have left now, aren’t you?”

Once spoken aloud, the words sounded far more helpless than she had expected.

Raymond did not answer. He was simply there.

Not as a substitute for anyone.

But as something that had been here from the beginning.

Tonight, that was unbearably precious to Mariko.

Outside the window, a late car passed by once, its sound like someone coming home. Mariko found herself listening for it without meaning to. Then, disgusted with herself, she pressed her forehead against Raymond’s back.

He was warm.

Was she angry? Worried? Did she still love him? Did she hate him now? She did not know any of it.

The only thing she knew was that in this room, right now, there was herself and this old cat.

Raymond shifted a little and pressed the side of his body firmly against Mariko’s leg.

There were nights when that small weight alone was enough to make her want to cry.