An abjectly miserable social circle

Despite my fast healing, Ryou insisted I spend the first couple days of our planning time recovering. As much as I tried to argue that we’d be more efficient with two of us, she made the point that I’d end up slowing her down if we were forced into combat, and since I had no rebuttal I begrudgingly conceded and decided to remain inside.

As much as I’d like to say ‘it gave me time to learn my way around the apartment,’ there was hardly anything to actually learn. It was several times larger than the shack I had been staying in, but to say that made it ‘big’ would be on the same level as calling arsenic healthy because it’s less poisonous than cyanide.

It was two main rooms, a bedroom and a living room, with a small bathroom attached to the bedroom and something you could vaguely call a kitchen on the edge of the living room. Now that I was no longer unconscious, I had been relegated to sleeping on the small sofa crammed into the corner. Higgs had an old cat-bed at the foot of Ryou’s bed, and Time had to sleep with me since there was really nowhere else in the apartment for her.

It was a damn sight better than the squalor I had been surviving in, but as a place to be locked inside of for 48 hours? I could hardly breathe.

“You seem a tad claustrophobic here, my lady. Is our abode not to your liking?”

Higgs' voice startled me. I had been sitting on the sofa, staring off into space when they materialised in front of me.

“You know, you’ve got a real habit of scarin’ the shit out of people.”

“Apologies, my lady. I’ve been with Ryou for so long that she hardly reacts when I appear in front of her. I forget that others aren’t quite so… accustomed.”

“Anyone who can grow accustomed to a talking cat appearing out of thin air ain’t exactly normal themselves.”

“But a talking cat who can see the future is the picture of normalcy, hmm?”

“Eh, touché I guess.”

It had been some six or seven years since Time had first approached me and offered me power, so I suppose I had become desensitised to just how strange her existence was. Though she wasn’t exactly a prophet, her own precognition completely outshined mine, and as much as I hated to admit it, so did her way with words.

An eloquent future-seeing magical black cat. Putting it all together, she sounded completely absurd.

Higgs was still weirder though.

“Speaking of our black-furred friend, I cannot say I’ve seen much of her today. I had thought the two of you practically joined at the hip,” said Higgs in their aggravatingly snooty voice. They were pacing up and down in front of me, though they never broke eye contact.

“Ah, well, she and I aren’t… exactly… seeing eye to eye right now.”

“Is that not because you’ve removed it from its socket?”

“Not literally, your pompous arse. I mean we’ve been… uh… disagreeing a lot? I guess? I mean, that’s not out of the ordinary for us, but this time she seems a lot more upset about it.”

“Ahhh, a familial fallout. I’m quite familiar.”

“What, you and Ryou get into arguments too?”

“We certainly used to. Almost as if ‘twere routine. Though, we’ve come to understand each other well enough to know it’s hardly worth arguing anymore. I suppose the two of you have yet to reach that point.”

“Actually, I think you and her are just kinda weird.” I sighed and sank back into the sofa cushions. “So? What sort of stuff did you argue about?”

“The very same as you and Ms Time, my lady.”

“What? You tried to talk her out of dangerous missions? You seem just as suicidally determined as her. No offence.”

“Offence not taken. I can hardly say you’re wrong. If Ryou sets her mind to a mission, no longer do I try steering her away. I merely… prod her in the direction of survival, so to speak.”

“You are a cryptic motherfucker, you know that?”

“I’ve heard similar things before, yes.”

I laid my head back and rested my forearm over my closed eye. Trying to talk to that cat could hardly be called an illuminating experience. Learn to say shit straight, you feline fuck.

“Well, I’ll give you this one at least,” I said flatly. “I’d rather that than have Time try and talk me out of every damn thing I try to do.”

“You truly struggle to see any side other than your own, don’t you, my lady?”

“Huh?” I had expected them to get all smug and braggy about it, not to turn it into a lecture.

“Ms Tokiko, tell me, throughout your week, how many people do you speak to on a regular basis?”

“That’s… uh…” it felt like a strange segue, but I had learned to stop questioning Higgs and just roll with the punches. Every question yielded another ten in return. “Well, other than you guys there’s… old gran at the dry cleaning place, shop clerks and retail workers, the MPs that I interrogate… I guess that’s really about it.”

“What an abjectly miserable social circle you have. And yet, something about it you have yet to consider? Those few daily interactions are still leaps and bounds greater than what Ms Time has.”

“I… don’t follow.”

“Ms Time and I are talking magical cats, Ms Tokiko. Our very existence is both absurd and secretive to all but a select few. Before you met Ryou and I, I can hazard a guess that Ms Time had not so much as spoken to a human in months or perhaps years. None other than you, Ms Tokiko. If you, heaven forbid, were to lose Ms Time, I am certain you would be crushed. But there would be others in the world for you to speak with, even if only about dry cleaning. Ms Time has none but you. Even Ryou and I are virtual strangers to her. You are the entire world to Ms Time. Can you fault her for wanting to see you safe?”

“Of course I can’t. But she has to understand that the life we’ve chosen is dangerous, whether she wants it or not. She can’t protect me from everything by forcing me to live like a damned hermit.”

“And she does understand that. How could she not? She is living this life with you, no? But still she seeks to avoid risk where possible, because each and every mission you take threatens her sole tether to this world. It is not only your life that you are gambling, Ms Toki. Ms Time’s life is as much in your hands as your own. You would do well to remember that.”

“Of course I remember that y-”

Before I could even finish my sentence, the damned cat disappeared right in front of my eyes. I know you can still hear me when you’re like that, jackass.

Still, I can’t say I didn’t understand what they were saying. Time’s constant concern for me wasn’t exactly a mystery. She cared for me deeply, in no small part because she would be isolated from the people of the world entirely without me. Of course she’d be a panicked mess when I plan to do something as apparently suicidal as raiding a damned military base.

I groaned out loud to myself.

I guessed I should probably fix this.