Cat Cafes and a Decision

Hengawa stared at Himeko from behind her book, a hard light construct hovering above her to provide her enough light to read by. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” said Himeko, putting her bag down on the dusty floor before sitting on a plastic stool, a juice box in hand. “Didn’t Kōrō say we weren’t meeting today?” Hengawa nodded. “Then why did we both show up?”

“I like it here.”

“Maybe I do, too.”

Hengawa shrugged and kept reading her book. Himeko plugged a single earbud in, listening to a playlist of her own making – not Hanami’s – and the sound of pages turning for a while. She looked at Hengawa a little later.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said.

“Like?” asked Hengawa.

“Somewhere we can get a bite. A café, maybe. Or a boba shop?”

Turning a page, Hengawa frowned, brushing her long green hair from her eyes. “I don’t boba. Too chewy.”

“There’s popping pearls, too…” Himeko trailed off before popping up to her feet. “A café sounds great! Do you have any recommendations?”

With a soft thump, Hengawa closed her book and slid off her stool. “Yes. Do you…have allergies?”

“Allergies?”

Hengawa led Himeko past the amusement park, past the neighborhoods and train station, and stopped on a little street tucked between them both. Brightly colored shopfaces made up this street and soft brown tile seperated the road from the sidewalk, though it didn’t matter much as people walked on both. It was obvious that Hengawa wanted to slip into the bookstore, but steered clear of it to open a door to the café.

The first thing Himeko noticed was that it was pink and white and very, very cutesey. The second thing she noticed was the cats, everywhere. They meowed and cried and pawed at Himeko and Hengawa as they entered, curling their tails around their ankles and swarming them like a pack of wild beasts. The green haired girl reached down to stroke one, spotted and cream colored, between its ears and got a hearty meow in response.

Himeko looked around. “A cat café? I wouldn’t expect that you’d like a place like this.”

“We don’t know each other very well yet,” Hengawa murmered. “Let’s take this as an opportunity to remedy that.”

Petting the cat once more, she carefully weaved between their incessant selves and the two girls ordered. Hengawa stayed behind to grab their food, sending Himek off with a mission to chose a place to sit. She ended up chosing a small alcove in the corner, half-bathed in sunlight. Fake vines were strung over it like fairy lights, and some cats batted at their leaves.

The tray the food was on was just as cute as the rest of the café, striped pink and blue and with two cat ears poking out from its top. The two drinks sat in those ears, boba for Himeko and a small latte for Hengawa, and their food was arranged below. Himeko got a sandwich carefully cut to reseamble a cat, with a little face and whiskers drawn onto it and a jiggly pudding shaped like the mascot of the café with a tail-shaped spoon. Hengawa’s food was similar, though instead she got a pile of small pancakes, each made to look like a different cat, and a miniture raspberry tart. Her fork was shaped lile a paw print. She neatly arranged the food in front of their respective parties, and carefully cut the ear off of one of her pancakes as a cat came up to pester them. She began to rub its yellow fur.

“The food isn't the best, but everyone really comes here for the experience.” She said, taking another bite.

Himeko followed suit, then a sip of her boba (matcha with mango popping pearls.) “I don’t know, it tastes pretty good to me.”

Hengawa smiled. “I think so, too.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes, preoccupied by the animals and their attempts to steal their treats, when Himeko set her spoon down. “Tell me about yourself, Hengawa?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Anything. Anything you feel like sharing.”

Hengawa peered at her from the shield of her book a moment before lowering it. “Let’s see…My name is Hengawa Midori. My favorite color is jadiete, my blood type is A, I’m an Aries since my birthday is March 30th, and I like to read. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

Himeko stared at her a second, then giggled. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone talk about themselves like that, Hengawa!”

“It’s sufficient, isn’t it? Straight to the point.” She ate some of her tart. “It’s much more interesting to get to know someone through branching conversations that result from natural interaction, don’t you think?”

“I’d have to agree, but do you want me to say the same to start? It feels a little onesided if I don’t.”

“Do what makes you feel the best, Zaiyabōto.”

“Hehe, well if that’s the case: my name is Zaiyaboto Himeko, my favorite color is…blue, my blood type when I was alive was AB, my birthday is May 30th, so that makes me a Gemini, and…I’m not entirely sure what I like now that I’m alive again. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

“The twins…” Hengawa said thoughtfully, putting her book down. “Very fitting for you, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so, but the stereotype is the same person with two completely different personalities! I like to think I’m relatively the same person I was before.”

Hengawa shook her head. “No-one can remain the exact same person, especially not after such a long time, and not after there’s too versions of you alive, right? Your paths will eventually, inevitably, diverge.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“You’re here, and New Urania still exists within the HCIP. It’s not difficult to put those pieces together.”

“I see…and how does that make you feel?”

“Hm, I think it’s very cool. You always have someone who knows you best, who understands you. A perfect reflection of yourself. Someone like that…would make a person like me very happy.”

Himeko stared into her drink, watching as the subtle movements on the table made ripples on its surfaces. She looked up at Hengawa. “And if you didn’t understand each other?”

“Then you do everything you can to understand,” said Hengawa, her voice soft. “After all, if you don’t have yourself, you have no-one.”

She picked her book back up, seemingly disinterested in continuing the conversation, and began reading again. The cats curled around their ankles and jumped into their laps. Himeko ate her food and played with the cats until there was nothing left but empty plates and mere drops left in their cups, and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt after she and Hengawa cleaned up after themselves.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“Back to the lighthouse? Yes,” answered Hengawa. She nuzzled the spotted cat goodbye, slipping it a small, fish-shaped treat as the two girls left the café. They began to slowly walk back the way they came.

Himeko fiddled with her phone to find the perfect song. “Why the lighthouse for you and Kōrō? What makes it special?”

“Because it’s the lighthouse.”

“But why is it ‘the lighthouse?’ Could anywhere be the lighthouse?”

“I suppose so. The lighthouse is where the two of us intersected. Maybe in an alternate universe, the lighthouse is that café, or the school, or a park. Maybe the lighthouse is a game, or a job, but either way, it would still be the lighthouse. And now you’ve intersected there, too.”

“And ballet?”

Hengawa smiled behind her book. “You wouldn’t expect it from either of us, would you?”

Himeko shook her head.

“That’s what makes it so fun. It’s a chance for the two us to be something else beyond who we usually are – just like how you aren’t just ‘Zaiyabōto the scientist,’ but rather ‘Zaiyabōto the friend,’ too.”

“We’re friends?”

“If you’d like to be.”

“I would,” Himeko whispered back.

“Then that’s all there is to say about that,” Hengawa said softly, smiling. “Isn’t it?”

“Dr. Nakamura,” began Himeko as she and the scientist enjoyed a tv show together. “Did you mean to split the mind of ‘Zaiyabōto Himeko’ into two when you made me?”

He stopped, putting his drink down – today a smooth and pungent smelling thing made with vodka – and looked at her as the show kept playing. “No. My goal was to extract all of you into that body. It just…didn’t work out like that.”

“What part of me was left in the cube?”

“I don’t know. That’s something only one of you can answer.”

“Did you know about Shusoin? That she was once part of the HCIP?”

“I did,” Dr. Nakamura sighed. “I used her reconstruction as a basis for you. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I tried to adhere to it to keep you whole and keep a ‘dummy’ system in place for the HCIP, but when it came time to kill it, I couldn’t. That’s why you split…and that must be why Shusoin is so incessant on recombining you.”

“I think we can both exist in one world without killing the other, but I don’t know if that’s what she wants,” Himeko stood up so fast she almost fainted, and stared Dr. Nakamura in the eyes. “I need you to take me to the Cube right now!”