Cat

   That morning Hao Hao, while she laid in bed waiting for the morning grogginess to go away, thought about Sally’s words. She shouldn’t feel like she belongs here, but why not? The mermaid hadn’t been specific enough for Hao Hao to put weight to the threat.

Life on the school campus was great, in Hao Hao’s opinion. Everyone got their own room. It was small, but it was all her own, and she preferred it that way. Not that she would’ve minded too much if it were Alice, or maybe even Cleo or Kirai. All of them were quiet enough, but Mae or Sumi? She loved them just as much as the others, but that didn’t mean she wanted to share a room with them.

She got ready for the morning all in privacy, and as the sun rose. You couldn’t really see it from here, with the tall trees and fog blocking it, but the world did lighten ever so slightly. She came out of her room and into the hallway. Early enough that no one was awake yet. She’d sneak through the courtyard and straight to the garden, where she’d talk to them and check their leaves and soil. Afterwards she swept and such until it was time for breakfast. It was an alone time she very much enjoyed. She did it every single day since they planted the seeds.

But as she made her way through the girls dorm, she froze. Yellow eyes stared at her from the other end of the hall. Bright pink ones.

“Hello,” Cleo said.

“Ah, hi.”

“Did I scare you?”

“Well…”

Yes, but only a little. Cleo apologized and otherwise looked away, to the thing she was holding in her lap. Hao Hao came forward. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw that the thing she was holding was a book.

“You can read in the dark?” Hao Hao asked.

“Yes.” Her answer was short and simple, and her tone implied she was busy reading. Hao Hao walked on.

Hao Hao sat with Taeyang, Alice, Mae, and Sumi at the cafeteria that morning. Emily and Daichi sat at a different table piled over schoolwork and note pads. Joy and Kirai were absent. One jogging and other sleeping in, probably. Cleo was at the other side of the room, asleep. The others eyeing her suspiciously.

“I can’t believe she’s sleeping there,” Taeyang said, “I don’t think I could sleep with the lights here.”

Hao Hao agreed silently. If Emily was here, she would’ve been quick to wake up Cleo for sure. As was, the students continued to gossip.

“Isn’t she reading a lot lately?” Mae asked. She sat with an elbow on the table and her head leaning over her hand.

“Yeah,” Sumi agreed, “I feel like I never see her lately.”

“I almost feel like it’s a problem.”

Taeyang said, “I don’t usually like to push on people’s hobbies, but I’m worried too. When was the last time she had breakfast?”

“She’s missed it the last eight times or so.” Alice said. Taking a careful tone, not wanting to accuse like the others were.

“Maybe we should ask her?” Taeyang said, but as he glanced over to her table he took back his own words. He said, “I can’t do it. She’s… she’s a little scary sometimes.”

“Oh, yeah, no. I won’t approach her either,” Sumi said.

“But aren’t you two like best friends?” Mae asked.

“We share reads sometimes, but even I can’t keep up with her! She reads like five books a day.”

“And she snaps at you if you interrupt her.” Alice snapped her fingers as emphasis.

As the others talked, it became obvious where the conversation was going to go. Hao Hao spoke up first, “I can try to talk to her.”

“Would you?” Alice asked, “We’d really appreciate it. I just want to know she’s like, drinking enough water and such.”

“And not cutting herself off from everyone.” Mae added.

Hao Hao nodded. It was a rhythm she was comfortable with. She liked being useful and reliable to them. She liked being able to say that she was helping them and not just being an annoyance. She fell right into place here. Ignoring what Sally said before, she planned on continuing how she was here. She could be shy, but she respected herself enough to allow her own happiness.

Over the next couple of days, Hao Hao could be found stalking the library, pretending to be interested in non-fiction gardening tips but actually looking to Cleo from behind the shelves. She’d tried to approach her a couple of times only to have her tell her, point blank, to go away.

“She is eating right now.” Shui said. Bobbing nearby per the usual.

Cleo was eating chips. Earlier she had ramen and a soda, and took another nap in class. Despite the poor food choice, it was obvious that she was taking care of herself. The only thing was that, as the others described, she was reading a lot. Hao Hao spoke to Cleo’s spirit. A lovely pink colored cat spirit with ears and a tail (just like the human counterpart) named, aptly, Book.

“She loves Book,” Book said, and Hao Hao wasn’t sure if she was talking about herself or if she meant books in general until she clarified, “She’s read five this month so far!”

It was the middle of the month. Does that mean she might get up to ten by the end of it? It was hard for Hao Hao to imagine. Aside from schoolbooks, she only read one or two books a year. That didn’t necessarily mean that Cleo’s habit was a problem though.

Hours passed. Hao Hao grabbed a book a took a seat to look a little suspicious, but she still worried. With every bit of time that went by, Hao Hao suspected they might not need to do this. “Do we keep watching her?” Shui asked.

“I don’t know.” Hao Hao said.

She might’ve had more to say to her own spirit, but Cleo suddenly rose from her seat and walked off. Hao Hao followed behind quickly with her own book in hand. The cat girl could walk faster than Hao Hao could sprint; she’d actually lost her a few times, and so far had not caught when the girl goes to bed. Stalking didn’t feel great, but she felt she owed the group a fair answer to their question.

Just one more time, she decided. It wasn’t fair to Cleo if she went on longer, and that’s why she couldn’t lose her right now. She had to see that last couple of hours. Even if what she was doing was obvious from the book in her hands. The pink bookmark sticking out; pink anime eyes seemed to almost stare back at her as she proceeded through the halls.

Cleo turned the corner. Seeming to circle around the halls like a fleeing criminal. Was that just her being cat-like, or was it her knowing someone was pursuing her? Still, Hao Hao kept at it. She wanted to deliver the group a confident answer so that they could stop worrying about her if nothing was wrong. It was for Cleo’s sake too. However, as Hao Hao turned the corner, the cat girl was long gone.

“Dang it.” Hao Hao said.

“No reason to be upset.” Shui said.

“I know…”

But it was still saddening to her. She felt if she couldn’t do this, maybe she was a little useless after all. She knew it wasn’t true, but the voices inside her were hard to quiet as they stirred underneath her skin. Her fear’s bubbling and trying to boil over as her eyes started to water just a little bit.

“Hao Hao,” Shui said, and it floated down. Hao Hao followed it to a pink bookmark on the ground. She picked it up and looked it over. A cute thing with a picture of a girl with big eyes holding a cat. A show or just a piece of art, she wondered. It took her mind off of her own failure. She dried the tears that never quite fell.

“Excuse me.” Cleo said.

Hao Hao jumped. The girl had appeared behind her, staring with that blank stare she always held, but her eyes fell to the bookmark in Hao Hao’s hand.

“Is this yours?”

Cleo nodded, and Hao Hao handed it back to her. “Thank you.” Cleo mumbled quickly.

“Hey, um… I saw you walking before. You’re fast. Where are you going?”

“That’s my business,” she said.

“Right, sorry.”

For just a moment, that stare in Cleo’s eyes left, and she asked, “The others put you up to this, didn’t they?”

“Oh, well, um…”

“They did. You wouldn’t do this otherwise,” she said. Hao Hao looked away from her, finding it hard to deny or lie about it. They were friends. What she said was the truth. Cleo nodded and said, “You have a book. What is it?”

Happy for the change in topic, she showed the book in her hands. “I decided to try a book about gardening.”

“Don’t you know enough about gardening already?”

“You can never know too much.” She said, and that was at least true. Refreshers were always nice. Confirmation that she actually knew what she was talking about when she taught the others.

Cleo nodded. She said, “Follow me.”

And so, they walked together. Through the halls and outside into the courtyard. They walked into the garden. Hao Hao asked, “Is this where you usually go?”

“Yep,” she said. She sat down by the growing cosmos flowers that had not yet bloomed, and she opened her book and started to read aloud.

“You read to them?” Hao Hao asked.

“Yep.”

Not only that, but Hao Hao hadn’t even noticed how big her bag was. Cleo laid out its contents one by one. A taco wrapped in plastic and a jug of water. So, she was eating healthy; just overnight, mostly.

“How long do you stay out here?” Hao Hao asked.

“All night.” Hao Hao was worried by that statement, and Cleo saw her ruffling her sleeves and explained, “Cats are nocturnal. I didn’t used to have these hours, but ever since coming here…” She shrugged and let the sentence trail off.

“You… you weren’t like this before?” Hao Hao asked.

“I wasn’t a cat before crossing the border of Shigo.”

Hao Hao usually tried not to stare, feeling it might be rude, but she did now. There was nothing attaching the ears to her head. No headband or anything else you might expect a person to wear. “Wait, the cat ears are real?”

“Yep.”

Her tail whipped back and forth. Hao Hao tried to imagine her without it and the ears; just a normal high school girl. It was difficult. This was how she’d always seen Cleo, and she couldn’t strictly separate it.

And what Sally said came to her again. She asked Cleo, “Do you wish you like that? That you could go back home?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have any friends back home, and living with my family was difficult, so… I don’t mind being like this.”

Hao Hao nodded. She hadn’t realized before that she’d gotten lucky being able to talk to spirits, and thinking of Taeyang’s somewhat discomfort around them, it was lucky that the ability ended up with someone that didn’t mind it.

“I’m going to read now.”

“Right.”

She got up. Cleo said, “I didn’t mean you have to leave. I just don’t like to be interrupted.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” That was her favorite way to say yes, apparently.

Hao Hao sat back down. Her parents weren’t the sort that read to her; it would be a different experience. She wanted to see if the plants reacted to it too. Oleander had said they respond to love like they would sunlight. This was probably wonderful for them. Cleo started to tell the story of a girl not completely unlike herself. A hunter with a sharp tongue that could hear the voices of the forest in an almost similar fashion to Hao Hao’s conversations with spirits…