Sunbeam - 1

Sayuri’s writing on the blackboard, her clammy hand struggling with even the short and simple strokes. It’s a torrid day, the early summer swelter wafting through the open window, but that’s nothing compared to the heat of everyone’s gazes beating on her back. Honestly, she’s thankful she’s not hyperventilating too. Just being in front of the class has always been a surefire way of triggering her fight or flight, while the two presentations she’s had to give over the years have definitely shortened her lifespan. But it couldn’t be helped: there was no way she’d leave Asami to brave this all on her own.

Almost a full minute after picking up the chalk, she’s finally done scrawling the title of today’s homeroom highlight: Catgirl Q&A. A bit on the nose – Anna’s idea, of course – but Sayuri didn’t mind it, and Asami didn’t hate it, at least not at the time. With how her tail is trashing behind her right now, it’s probably not unfair to assume she’s since cooled on the whole thing.

“You okay?” Sayuri mumbles under her breath, loud enough for only Asami to hear.

“Do I look okay?” Flushed, sweat dripping down her brow, breath shivering in and out.

“It’s natural to be anxious, you know?”

“I feel like I’m going to hurl.”

“You better aim away from me then.”

The corners of Asami’s mouth twitch in a meek grin. “I’ll get some on you too, don’t worry. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out.”

“Are you two ready?” the teacher butts in, half-eager, half-annoyed. Sayuri rolls her eyes; just a little, so that he can’t see. When she asked him if he could help moderate, he shrugged his shoulders, citing ignorance as his reason for refusing. And while she doesn’t have any trouble believing that, it left her with no choice but to step in and oversee the whole thing herself. There’s nothing she wants less than a repeat of the last time people asked Asami questions without anyone filtering them.

Asami nods. Sayuri nods back, retreating to a spot by the door, where Takuya greets her with a smug smirk. It bounces right off her listless grimace, but still she can’t ignore the chill running down her spine. He’s always been nothing but trouble, and while she’s under no illusion that her presence will put him off anything, she doesn’t lose anything by keeping a close watch on him. Maybe she can shut him up before he gets a chance to chirp. If not with her words, then with something a lot more physical; no slapping, though.

“Hi, umm,” Asami starts, voice squeezing through a nerve-racked throat. Though she quickly clears that out, a hint of unease still dangles from her every word. “Guess I should give you some context for all of this. Coming to Hakuin, I was hoping that I could just pass under the radar. Bit of a hard ask with two fluffy periscopes on top of my head, but a girl can dream, can’t she?” A gauging pause. No one as much as snickers.

“But,” she hesitantly continues, “turns out keeping a low profile was only doing everyone a disservice, myself included. You’ve all heard things about me. Some of you might have come up with some theories of your own. But in the end, I never let any of you know about all of this.” She flings her tail forward, clutching it tight. “Today, I’m hoping to address that. So, without further ado, here’s a primer on all things catgirl – and yes, that’s the proper term.”

From there, her speech begins in earnest. It’s a little clumsy at first; no matter how many times she’s rehearsed it, being your own case study is nothing if not awkward. That most people couldn’t care less about learning anything doesn’t help much, but it doesn’t harm either: disinterest is better than malice, after all. But, though not many and not too candid with it, do seem to care, a keen glimmer shining in their eyes. It’s those people that Asami is speaking to; those people that give her the strength she needs to carry on.

She talks about the obvious stuff first: her tail and ears, and how they feel and often move of their own accord; her senses, and how much sharper they are compared to the average human; her obligate carnivore diet, and how it suck she can’t even taste, let alone enjoy most foods. But then comes the nitty-gritty: she doesn’t like baths, yet her personal hygiene is flawless; she has a startle reflex and it’s a lot of effort to not jump at every surprise; physical touch feels amazing, but only from close friends.

Sayuri can’t help a mousy smile. None of these things are new to her, and she loves that. She loves that even if they’re all hard to explain, and harder still to hide, Asami’s never kept them a secret from her. She’s trusted Sayuri with all this knowledge way before she had the courage to share them with everyone else, and she loves that even more.

It’s not long before Asami finally exhausts her bullet points, leaving the floor open to questions. And to her and Sayuri’s surprise, a hand rises right away, meek and shy, but present nonetheless.

“Sorry if this is a little w-weird, but does your tail ever get in the way when you sit down?”

Asami chuckles, “Not really, though I imagine it’s different if you caught NekoFlu later on. I’ve heard there’s a lot of things you need to relearn: walking, sleeping, brushing your teeth. In a way, I guess I’m lucky to have skipped all of that. I’ve only ever known how to live this way, after all.”

Another hand pops up, this time bold and tall. “Can you talk to cats?”

“I wish! Wouldn’t that be cool? But even if I can’t understand them, I kinda know what they want most of the time. It’s all about body language, and well – we’re not all too different in that regard.”

Though slow and tepid, the flow picks up from there. Soon enough, there’s a queue forming, two hands up, then three, then four, the power of a taboo made open and transparent. And much to Sayuri’s delight, no one asks anything untoward; it’s just innocent little curiosities: Can you see in the dark? Do you always land on your feet? Are you afraid of cucumbers? Do catboys exist too? Yes, yes, no and sadly no.

But then, in the corner of her eye she spots it: Takuya propping his elbow on the desk, palm lazily stretched. Sayuri plants herself right in front of him, earning herself a snicker.

“Playing defence, aren’t we?”

“What are you gonna ask?”

“Does it matter? I thought this whole shtick was about getting to know her.”

“On her own terms. Are you gonna give up if you don’t get an answer?”

“As if that’s going to happen.”

Sayuri presses on every syllable, “Watch it.”

“Ooh, scary.” Takuya scoffs. “Relax. And pay attention. You might learn a couple things too.”

“K-Kageyama-san?” Asami says, seeking Sayuri’s approval. A moment’s quiet appraisal. Whatever his track record, they can’t single him out like this, not now, not during a teachable moment. But all the same, they can’t ignore who he is either, how he can bulldoze his way through every boundary, and come out none the worse for it.

“Keep it respectful,” Sayuri warns him, her tone dribbling menace. “You know what I can do.”

“As if that’s gonna happen.”

“Try me.”

“Will do,” he says, gazing past Sayuri and locking eyes with Asami. “There’s a couple rumours floating around campus. Silly stuff for the most part, but some of them got me thinking. For instance, is it true that you can purr?”

The whole class hears Asami gulping, sees the glance she exchanges with Sayuri, the blush colouring her cheeks. “Y-yeah… It’s a bit embarrassing, haha. It mostly happens when I’m really happy, but I also do it when I’m hungry, or anxious, or even just going to bed. It’s self-soothing like that.”

“Interesting, interesting. On a related note, are you possessive?”

“Sorry?”

“You know, like, with your things. My cat gets very feisty when I pick up his favourite toy. Or if I just sit down next to my sister. He loves her, y’know. Rubs himself all over her if she and I so much as bump shoulders. It’s, what was it called again, scent-marking. D’you do that?”

The red on Asami’s face deepens to an all new shade of embarrassment.

“You don’t have to answer if it’s too much for you,” Sayuri reminds, cutting Takuya a glare.

He leans back, balancing on the hind legs of his chair. “Yeah, I mean it’s your choice. But silence is an answer in and of itself.”

“It’s fine.” Asami chews on her lip. “I… used to do that a lot when I was little. Back then, mum would leave me in the morning and come back right before I went to bed. Still, every night, without fail, she’d cuddle me to sleep, and I would nuzzle up to her chest. Apparently, if I was still awake when she peeled away, I’d hook my claws around her to keep her from getting up. I guess you could say I was pretty clingy back then.”

Sayuri hides her mouth behind her wrist. She’s never heard this story before, and just picturing it inside her head is enough to get her gushing, a warm fuzzy river spilling through her chest. And scanning the classroom, she finds she’s not the only one whose heart is fluttering, spots of sympathy blossoming within an ever-shrinking field of indifference. Whatever nasty spin Takuya tried to weave out of Asami’s quirks not only didn’t land, it struck the opposite note.

And yet, he doesn’t seem all too displeased about that. “Aww, that’s cute. Wonder how that feels – bet it’s like snuggling those fleecy pillows.”

“Really?” Sayuri whispers, fluster peeking out from under her frustration.

“Like you’re not thinking about it too.”

She cringes, stirs, disarmed, distracted, her mind going to places she wants to be in, but doesn’t want to go to. And profiting from that, Takuya sneaks another question past her. “One last thing. I’ve read about this online, so it’s probably anecdotal but: is it true that all catgirls like girls?”

There is no wind, no birds outside the window, the lawnmowers aren’t running, the city looms quiet in the distance. Lonely, the clock tick-tocks into the stiff-still classroom. Stranded under a shower of prying stares, Asami crumbles into her shoulders. And for a good while, Sayuri joins everyone else in waiting for the answer with bated breath.

Does it matter to her? Of course not. Whether she’s queer or not, Asami will always be her friend. But she could be so much more than that too, and it still wouldn’t be bad. Looking back on everything they’ve been through, all the moments they’ve shared, the high highs and the low lows – it would feel so right.

But not here, not now, not with all their classmates watching. The frisson in her stomach moulds into a queasy spike. Whoever or whatever Asami likes is no one’s business but her own – and asking her to divulge that is nothing short of evil.

“You asshole…” Sayuri mumbles.

Takuya arches his brow. “Hm? I was just curious.”

“Oh, don’t try and pull that crap now! I don’t know if you’re still salty about the first day of school or you’re just a petty, small-minded jerk – but to think that you came here, and looked at someone so brave and beautiful and fragile opening up to you, hoping that she’ll earn at least a shred of the respect she deserves – and all you could see was a target… How can you do this? How can you say these things and then go home and go on with your day as if nothing happened?”

“That’s enough, Hayakawa,” the teacher’s voice drones.

“No, it’s not!” Sayuri shrieks. “H-how – aren’t you going to at least apologise for trying to out someone like that?”

He takes one long look at Takuya, then another at Asami, before directing his attention to Sayuri. Lightly, he shrugs. “Nothing wrong with asking questions. It was your idea, after all. If you can’t deal with this much, maybe it’s best we stop here before anyone gets in trouble.”

Sayuri clenches her fists, her anger slowly subsiding into a simmering contempt. It happened with her, it happened with Anna, but it’s only now when it happened with their homeroom teacher, that she finally gets it. It doesn’t matter what she does, how many ways she tells him off or appeals to his better nature. Takuya will never change, and he’ll always come out on top. How rich is he? What dirt does he have on the school? Who knows, who cares.

Resigned, defeated, embittered, she ambles back to her seat, head so hot that a thin column of steam eddies from her hair. Asami follows right behind, expression tinted with apprehension. They both collapse at their desks; it’s not even the first period and they’re already exhausted.

“Sorry,” Sayuri mumbles in her chin. “I should’ve never let him talk in the first place.”

Asami lets her gaze fall in the empty stretch of floor between them. “It’s me who should say that,” she mutters back. “I wish I didn’t make you say all those things.”