Chapter 5 – The Cat Café (Definitely Not a Date)

It’s Saturday.

Which means two important things.

1 : I get to sleep in.

2 : I have a “not-a-date” meeting with the girl who used to ruin my life.

My alarm rings at 8:00 AM.

I stare at the ceiling for five full minutes.

“Do I really need to do this?” I whisper to myself.

The alarm rings again, like it heard me and said “Yes.”

I roll out of bed like a doughnut and get ready.

At 10:00 AM, I’m standing outside the cat café.

And there she is.

Airi Fujimoto.

Wearing a light pink hoodie and a pleated skirt, hair bouncing as she waves at me.

“Good morning, Yuuji-kun~!”

“Morning,” I say.

She looks bright. Like sunshine.

I look like I crawled out of a laundry basket.

“Let’s go in~!” she says, pulling open the door.

A bell jingles as we step inside.

Instantly, I’m hit with the smell of coffee, fur, and the deep judgment of several cats.

“This place is cute,” Airi says, looking around.

One of the cats looks at her and walks away.

We sit at a corner table, and a waiter brings us drinks.

The moment I sit down, two cats jump onto my lap.

Another curls up by my feet.

The fourth sniffs my hair and purrs.

“…Yuuji-kun,” Airi says, blinking, “are you made of fish?”

“No? I used shampoo.”

“Maybe they think you’re one of them.”

She reaches out to pet a cat on the floor.

It glares at her.

Then walks away.

“…Okay,” she says, hands frozen mid-air.

I try not to laugh.

Another cat climbs onto my shoulder and meows happily.

“I think this one claimed me,” I say.

“I think they all claimed you.”

Airi pouts.

A tiny pout. Cute.

After a while, she takes something out of her bag.

“I made these,” she says, placing a small box on the table. “Cookies. Try one?”

I blink.

“Like… homemade cookies?”

“No, I summoned them from the cookie dimension,” she says with a straight face.

I stare.

She cracks a smile. “Yes, homemade. Geez.”

I take one. It’s round, soft, and smells like vanilla.

I bite into it.

It’s… good. Too good.

“W-wow,” I say. “This is amazing!”

She looks pleased. “Told you.”

“You baked these yourself?”

“Yup.”

“Like… you didn’t bully the dough or anything?”

She rolls her eyes. “I was nice to the dough.”

A cat starts hitting at the box of cookies.

“Hey!” she yells at it. “Not for you!”

It hisses and walks away.

“Why do they all hate me?” she mutters.

“They can sense the energy,” I whisper.

“WHAT energy?”

“…nothing.”

She narrows her eyes. “I will throw a cookie at you.”

After we finish the snacks and get cat hair all over our clothes, we leave the café.

The cats follow me to the door. One of them meows as if saying “come back.”

Airi watches them.

“I swear, I’m the outsider here,” she says.

“Maybe you smell too clean?” I said.

She sniffs her arm.

“Do I smell weird?”

“No, you smell like… uh…”

I stop.

Danger.

She tilts her head. “Like what?”

I panic.

“Like… spring.”

“…Spring?”

“You know. Fresh air. Like grass. New beginnings. Allergies.”

She blinks.

Then she giggles.

“I guess that’s not bad.”

I mentally high-five myself for not dying.

“Wanna go shopping?” she says next. “There’s a store nearby I like.”

“Sure. I’m already broke inside, might as well be broke outside too.”

We head to the shopping arcade. She drags me into a cute clothing store.

Everything is pastel.

Everything sparkles.

There’s a bear costume in the corner.

Airi picks up a white blouse and holds it to her chest.

“What do you think?”

“Uh. Very white.”

She glares. “Try harder.”

“It’s… nice?”

“Better.”

She picks a few more things, then disappears into the fitting room.

When she comes out, she’s wearing a light blue dress with ribbons.

I blink.

“…That looks really good.”

She blushes just a little. “Really?”

I nod.

“You have… normal person taste, Yuuji-kun.”

“…Thanks?”

After she buys two outfits (and I cry financially), we leave the store.

The sky is cloudy now.

And then, just like a bad drama—

Drip.

Drop.

Rain.

Airi and I look up.

“…Did you bring an umbrella?” she asks.

“Nope. You?”

She pulls out a tiny pink umbrella.

“…This won’t cover both of us,” I say.

“It will if you walk normally.”

We squeeze under it.

Her shoulder presses against mine.

I try not to explode.

We walk slowly down the wet street, sharing the small umbrella.

She hums a tune.

I try to walk like a normal person.

After a while, she says, “Today was fun.”

“Yeah,” I say honestly.

“…We should hang out more,” she says.

I look at her.

She smiles up at me.

I feel weird again.

Like something is changing.

But before I can say anything—

“Hey! Yuuji!”

A voice calls from the other side of the road.

It’s Kenta.

Wearing a raincoat with frogs on it.

He points at us.

“Are you two on a d—AAAAAAA!!!”

He slips on the wet sidewalk and crashes into a bush.

We both stare.

Then Airi starts laughing.

I laugh too.

The umbrella wobbles.

The rain keeps falling.

But weirdly…

It doesn’t feel so cold anymore.

Yuuji’s Mental Diary – Day 5 (Saturday)

Airi Fujimoto Status: 🍪 Cookie Queen

Damage Taken: 1/10 (Emotional whiplash from the spring-smell question)

Confusion Level: 9/10

Note : I survived a cat café, homemade cookies, and clothes shopping. And I didn’t explode when she got close. Progress?

Bonus Scene
Location: One table away from Yuuji and Airi.
Mission: Observe target couple.
Agent: Mika Kuroda, undercover (kind of).

Mika sipped her hot cocoa grumpily.
She wasn't technically spying.
She just happened to be at the same cat café. Alone. On a Saturday. With binoculars.
Mini ones. But still.

She peeked over the back of a large cat-shaped cushion.

There they were.

Yuuji and Airi.

Sitting together. Sharing snacks. Laughing.

She’s laughing again. Grrr. What’s so funny, huh?
He never laughs like that when I trip and fall into the trash can. Which has happened three times. This week.

Mika took out her emergency sketchbook and doodled a scribbly Yuuji with a sparkle in his eye.

Then she drew Airi with devil horns and the word “Suspicious” in bold red letters.

“He doesn’t even know she’s evil. She's got Evil Main Heroine Aura written all over her!"

She peeked again.

Airi leaned in to offer Yuuji a cookie.

A homemade cookie.

Mika’s jaw dropped.

“Oh no she DIDN’T—” she whispered.

A cat jumped into her lap to calm her. She ignored it.

Another cookie. This time, Yuuji smiled and took it.
Airi smiled too. One of those smug, I-win smiles.

Mika felt like she just got hit by emotional truck-kun.

She bit her lip and scribbled in her sketchbook again:

Code Orange: Airi has fed him. This is now cat-level courting.

But just then, Yuuji bent down and picked up a sleepy kitten that had waddled toward him. It curled in his arms like it belonged there.

Mika blushed.

Even the cats like him…

She hugged the cat in her lap. “You get it, right? He’s just… really gentle. And his tie is always a little crooked. That’s… kind of cool, right?”

The cat meowed and immediately jumped off.

“TRAITOR!”

She turned back toward Yuuji and Airi again.

Airi now had a cat on her shoulder.

The cat looked like it wanted to jump off.

Mika snorted.

Even the cats know she’s evil. I KNEW IT.

Then Airi suddenly turned in Mika’s direction.

Their eyes met.

Mika froze.

Airi gave a tiny smirk… and a wave.

Mika slowly sank behind the cushion like a submarine going underwater.

Operation: Get Yuuji to Notice Me = Failed.

She sighed.

But in her heart, a new fire was lit.

Next time… I’ll bake the BEST cookies. Turtle-shaped. Cute. Sweet. Just like me. Probably.

And just like that, Agent Mika retreated.

For now.

Writers note : 
I like cookies.