First Brush - END

I had a feeling she was going to follow me the moment I shot up from that damn table. I hoped I could outrun her – I was born quick, and she doesn’t strike me as the athletic type – but my body is working against me. My heart’s pounding against my ribcage like a bull ramming its corral, and with every clumsy step I take I feel like I’m getting closer to painting the alleyway with my lunch. I can barely see a metre ahead of me, that’s how blurry my eyes are, and all I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears. Yet somehow, I know she’s right behind me.

I feel her gaze sweeping over me when I finally manage to stagger my way inside school. Her footfalls trail behind me as I climb down to the basement, and I can feel the worry and nerves in every single one of them. Even when I don’t venture out into the dimly lit floor, instead hiding in the shadows beside the staircase, she still doesn’t lose track of me. Is she that good at reading me, or am I just that predictable?

“Hayakawa.” I load my tone with all of my frustration, even if none of it is her fault. I don’t want to think that it is, I just want her to leave me alone, to not waste her time with the likes of me. But even if my growling catches her by surprise, she doesn’t turn away.

“How did you know it was me?”

Because even in this dark catacomb, I can see her clear as day. I recognised the sound of her breath before she even said a word. And much as it disgusts me to say this, she has a very powerful scent, like she drenches herself in antiperspirant. But she doesn’t need to know I know this. “Who else could it be?”

“I guess I’ve made a habit out of pestering you, eh?”

I hug my head to my knees without a reply, and Hayakawa lets out a soft groan. She probably thinks she’s upset me more, but instead of backing off and cutting her losses, she comes even closer. Her skirt brushes the floor as she lowers herself to my level.

We sit in silence for a good while. Her eyes bore into me with a disquieting intensity, as if she’s trying to peer all the way inside my mind and figure out the best way to approach me. I don’t want her to do that, though. She’s too kind and well-meaning for me to spread my particular brand of misery unto her. But I guess I can’t really help it. Even when I tried, all I did was get her even more riled up.

“So,” she hesitantly starts, “was any of that true, or were you just exaggerating to make a point?”

In other words, how weird are you really? “…What do you think?

“Doesn’t matter what I think.” She chuckles, but she’s not amused. Just trying to reconcile her feelings. “Y’know, even if Kumiyama-san and Ichinose-san were totally out of line with all their questions – I actually wanted to learn some of those things too. I still do. The more I think about it, the more I realise I don’t have the foggiest clue what you’re going through and how you feel about your condition. And I don’t really wanna make any assumptions. I’ve seen how much being wrong can hurt you.

“So, yeah. Doesn’t matter what I think. I wanna hear it from you, or not think about it at all.”

If I were any less numb, I’d be drowning into a pool of my own tears right now. But even so, it takes a concerted effort to keep my composure in front of her. I don’t understand Hayakawa. I’ve changed classes and schools so many times I’ve lost count, and even if I ran into some nice people, none could hold a candle to her.

Still, a part of me struggles to believe that this is all real. That it’s all just for show, a ploy to get me to let my guard down, so she can pull the rug out from under me when it hurts the most. And I hate this side of me. I hate how it’s been around for so long that it metastasised into a fundamental part of my personality, a pathological distrust. But that doesn’t mean I have to make Hayakawa suffer because of it.

I can take another blow if this goes up in flames; I’ll never forgive myself if I hurt her when she was perfectly candid with me.

“It didn’t hurt me because they were wrong.” I sigh, drawing up all my courage along with my breath. “It hurt because they were right.”

“How do you mean?” Hayakawa asks when I struggle to continue. Her voice is so low, it’s like she’s unsure whether that’s even a thing she’s allowed to say.

“I’ve got… instincts. A lot of urges, impulses and catlike behaviours that I need to consciously suppress, unless they get the better of me. I’ve been told this is normal for people like me, that we all experience this to some extent. But in my case it’s… quite pronounced. Don’t know if it’s because I was born this way or I just happened to draw the short end of the stick, but… it’s hard. And I hate it. I just – I just wish I was normal.”

Hayakawa’s hand twitches up, then curls closed as if she’s thought better about reaching out. Her brow knits itself into a pensive frown. I don’t blame her; if I were in her position, I’d have trouble parsing through all of what I said too. I worry about what she’s thinking about. Even if she’s been understanding so far, there’s always a limit to someone’s empathy – be they in the same boat as you or not.

Finally, she opens her mouth, and I can feel a chill running down to the tip of my tail. “When you sniffed me earlier this morning. Was that…”

“Yeah. I was being, erm, territorial.”

I’m really pushing my luck now, and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s equal parts self-sabotage and limit-testing, seeing how far I can go before she finally calls it quits on me. But instead of sketching even the slightest of grimaces, Hayakawa cracks a smile. “I see.” When she follows it up with a snicker, my concern redoubles.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I guess I’m just wondering if it bothered you that I smelled like another cat.”

I look up, ears as flat as my expression. Of course, Hayakawa sees this as an absolute win, seeing as she got me to lift my chin up and make eye contact with her, realise the full extent of her cheekiness. My lips purse into a pout, but that has no effect on her. She’s seen it enough times by now that she’s not fooled by it anymore. “Dummy…”

She lets out a giddy, “Heh,” which then devolves into her humming a happy sequence of random notes. Seeing her so relaxed is oddly comforting, so much so that it circles all the way back to being disturbing. I feel a low rumble in both my chest and my stomach, and the memory of my nausea comes back with a hypochondriac vengeance. But before I get to even begin to panic, Hayakawa sets her phone on my lap.

I look down, then back up to her, then down, then back up again. Her grin’s all but stretching past her face.

“What’s this about?”

“Well –” Hayakawa unlocks her screen “– I figured that since you want so hard to be the only cat in my life, I might as well make it easier for you.”

I read over the text fields.

Name: Kitora-san 🐯

Phone number: …

God, this girl is going to be the death of me. Still, I can’t really pass on the easy out. I make a point out of rolling my eyes. “A tiger emoji, really?”

“What?” She leans over, cheeks blanching. “Stupid autocorrect… Anyway, erm, what do you say?”

“I’m curious how you can go from overconfident to bashful in the span of a couple of seconds.”

“… fake it till you make it?”

“Right. Here you go.”

It’s only a split second delay between the moment I hand Hayakawa her phone, to the moment when my own rings. She’s sent me a text, a sticker of a bunny waving hello, because any feline would’ve been far too cliched. Not that the animal mattered all that much; I would’ve laughed either way, and she would’ve laughed with me too.

Still, there is something about her choice of words, The only cat in my life, that bugs me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s one of those things I get sometimes, a feeling that I can realise, but not interpret, as if it’s just the faint contour of a fish swimming deep below the sea level. Even so, I don’t have too much time to think about it. The chimes ring the end of lunch and Hayakawa and I, the same distress on our faces, rush up the stairs together to make it to fifth period on time.