Side Story: Lost Kittens (Kasha’s Perspective)

 My mother was a beautiful long-furred cat with blue eyes. Her name was Momoko, and I would later learn that she was a ragdoll. I just knew that my siblings and I looked different from our mother. The resemblance was there. One of my sisters inherited her blue eyes, but her markings were wild. My other sister had one blue eye and one green eye. Her fur was mostly white, but she had dark tabby markings were the black ones should be. One of my brothers was brown tabby on the back and white on the belly. The two colors met exactly in the middle, so he looked a rice cake coated in red bean paste. His eyes were copper, and had the aura of mango pudding. My other brother was brown tabby with white paws. (His eyes were yellow.) I was all black except for a white tear mark on my nose. (I also had yellow eyes.)

We were our mother’s kittens, but we were clearly a different kind of cat then she was. Mother loved us, but Mother’s human didn’t. She didn’t want us; no human would want us. At least that is what she said. She left us in a box on the sidewalk when we were nine weeks old, and I alone escaped from the box. The others tried (kinda), but I was the only one who was successful.

My first attempt at hunting wasn’t the best. Neither was my second…or third.

“You’re doing it wrong,” a voice said. I wasn’t sure were that voice came from. Was it mocking me?

“Well, maybe I meant to do it that way?” I said.

“Sure you did,” the voice said. A sleek tuxedo she-cat appeared from the shadows. “I’ll show you how to hunt.”

“I’ll have you know,” I said. “That I am perfectly capable of hunting by myself.”

“At least let me give you a tip. Humans leave food for the gods at shrines, and they sometimes leave food for the ancestors at graveyards. These offerings may include little filets of fish.”

She is helping me. “Thanks.”

“Also, next time you hunt live prey, crouch low to the ground like this and slowly creep forward. Pounce only when the prey is ready.”

When the prey is ready? What the heck is that supposed to mean? “Thanks.” I began to walk away to see if I could find more prey to hunt or a shrine were people left some sashimi.

“I’m Koki,” the sleek she-cat said. “What’s your name?”

“Kasha,” I said. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have one, so I chose my own.

“Kasha?” said Koki. “That’s a fierce name for a little kitten. I hope you grow into it.”

So did I.

I found food. I ate some for myself, but I brought most of it to my siblings. Koki was helpful, but I felt that she was too reliant on others. Schoolgirls would feed her in the park. Human girls! Does she not know what humans are like?

The second stray I met was Tomi. Tomi hated me from day one. After meeting Tomi it didn’t take long to meet the colony leader, Akitaro. I told my siblings I was trying to convince Akitaro to let us join the colony, because I thought it would reassure them. My wild sister especially seemed to believe me. My siblings disappeared after a few days. The box was still there, but my siblings were gone. I didn’t know where they went. I suddenly wished I was a real kasha, so I could get back at those pesky humans. Let’s face it, I wished I was a kasha since the day my siblings and I were left in that box, that’s why I chose the name. I just wished it more now.

I may not have been ready to get back at the humans or Momoko, but I could go after the next best thing. I decided to challenge the colony leader.

“Fight me,” I demanded.

“Why?” asked Akitaro.

“Because you’re the biggest and baddest cat around.”

“And you look like you’re still young enough to be suckling your mother’s milk.”

I hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment. I may have been young, but I wasn’t that young. “You just don’t want to admit you’re afraid to fight me!”

“If you honestly think I’m afraid of fighting you, then you are certainly not ready to fight me.”

What is he trying to say? “Humph.” I charged at him. He grabbed the scuff of my neck with his teeth, and I pawed at the air.

“Challenge me again when you’re a cat,” Akitaro said. “I don’t fight kittens.”

I challenged Akitaro again the next day (twice). Again, he refused me (twice). After my third attempt to challenge him, I got a reputation among the stray cats of Akitaro’s colony. I challenged him a few more times after that, and he continued to refuse me. After a while, I gave up trying to fight him, the next time I approached him, it was to ask a different question. However, he spoke first.

“Why do you want to fight me so much?” Akitaro asked.

“I, um.” How could I explain I’m not here to challenge him again.

“Someone was looking for you,” Akitaro said. “He smelled of yōkai, but I’m not sure what kind. I’m not even sure it was you he was looking for. He found some abandoned kittens, and claimed to be looking for their brother. He also said the brother was trying to join a colony of stray cats. Was it you he was talking about?”

I wasn’t excepting this. “Possibly,” I admitted.

“You don’t need to fight me to join the colony, you know?”

“I told my little sister I was trying to join the colony. Although, it wasn’t my intention. I thought telling her that would make her feel better. I didn’t start challenging you until after they disappeared.”

“Why challenge me then?”

“Because, you were here.”

We were both silent for a minute. Finally Akitaro said, “I understand.”

“So do I,” I said. “You were right; you’re a full grown cat, and I’m a kitten. I went about this the wrong way. Instead of challenging to a fight, I should’ve asked you this.” I paused. “Will you teach me how to fight?”

“I’ll think about it,” Akitaro said.

We went our separate ways. I was hopeful that he would come back with a “yes.”

A few hours later, I was approached by a grey tabby cat I never met before. “Did Akitaro kill your parents?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Huh. He said the same thing when I asked him.”

“That he didn’t kill my parents…”

“Exactly! He also said he didn’t know who your parents were. Which, made me skeptical. How can he know he didn’t kill your parents if he doesn’t know who they are? So I figured I would ask you instead.”

“Has he killed anyone?”

“I don’t know. That’s a good point. Why do you act like he did then?”

“What do you mean I ‘act like he did’?”

“You know, challenging him to fights, and then asking him to teach you to fight. Classic, ‘you killed my parents’ stuff. Do you plan to kill Akitaro when you became an adult?”

“No…why would I—Wait, how do you know I asked him to teach me?”

“He told me. My name’s Shinobi, by the way.”

“I’m Kasha.”

“I know your name, Kasha. How could I not? Every cat in the world probably knows who you are.”

I certainly hope not!! “I just wanted to learn how to fight, and thought Akitaro would be a suitable teacher.”

“Well,” said Shinobi. “How about me? Do you think I would make a suitable teacher?”

Was she offering to teach me? “Sure…” That was how I began my fighting training under Shinobi. Who, despite her introduction, was a good instructor when it came to fighting, hunting, and many other useful feline skills. It was with Shinobi that I grew from a kitten to a cat, and Shinobi became my sudo-adapted mother. I thought I knew everything about the world of stray cats when Shinobi let me on my own, and I was a little over six months old. I was wrong. I would learn that when I was about nine months old and briefly met the Tiger. She wasn’t an actual tiger; so was a calico. I was on a casual prowl when she stopped me.

“How long have you been a stray?” Tora asked.

“Since I was a two-month-old kitten.” At that point in time, it was only the cats who knew me when I was young (or at least about me), who knew I was born a house pet. Most of the cats I met as an adult (well, adolescent) had assumed me to have been born a stray. Because of the question I thought maybe she was also an abandoned pet, so I asked, “What about you?”

“Since I was born,” Tora said. “And I can tell from that walk.”

My walk!? “How is it you notice something no one else seems too? What is it you see?”

“I cannot see anything at all. The sound of your footfall is not entirely that of a stray. It’s more of the sound of an imposture. Not to mention your smell. I’ll give it to you that you smell as if you’ve been a stray for a while, but you still have a faint trace that stench of house pet on you.”

Faint stench of house pet? Those words made me flinch. She must have felt it, for she continued.

“Don’t worry, others may not have noticed. I, myself, probably won’t have noticed back when I could see. But since then I have trained my body to pay attention to nothing but sounds and smells.” She said that as if sounds and smells weren’t important to cats anyway.

“How much better can you hear and smell compared to other cats?” Really!? That’s what I chose to ask!

“I don’t know.” Tora walked away.

I told my friend, Hachi, about the experience. (Hachi was the eighth kitten in his mom’s last litter, so she named him Hachi.) “Sounds like you met the tiger,” said Hachi.

“The tiger?”

“My mother’s littermate. Personally, I’ve never met her myself, but Mother’s said she’s never been much of a conversationalist.”

“Why is she called the tiger?”

“Same reason you’re called Kasha, and I’m called Hachi. Her, name, is, Tora. Anyway, according to Mother, ever since Tora lost her eyesight, she’s been living with a nekomata named Kuma, whom I’ve also never met. I’m not even sure if Kuma’s his real name. They don’t really let themselves be noticed by other cats, so you’re really lucky that Tora spoke to you. It’s unknown why the Tiger’s so invisible or why she hangs out with the Bear. Some theorize that Tora’s a yōkai herself.”

“Interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“Can I ask you something else? Do I smell like a house pet?”

“No. Why would you smell like house pet?”

I told him my story. When I got done, he said, “Oh. I thought you were Shinobi’s son. I was wondering why she had a litter of only one.”

I wondered why Shinobi never told me about Kuma and Tora. Did she not think they were important? I tried looking for Tora or Kuma, but I never found them. There was, however, another cat I had a chance encounter with. A less mysterious cat that I hadn’t seen since I was a two-month-old kitten.

We didn’t recognize each other at first. She sat in the window of a human house licking herself. She wore a blue collar with a bell on the end, and she had markings like a ragdoll except she had brown tabby were the black should be. She was long-furred, her right eye was blue, and her left eye was green with a blueish tint. Out of my siblings she was the one who looked most like a ragdoll. That’s right, I would finally learn the fate of my siblings. She recognized me first.

“Brother?” she called out. She told me her story, and I told her mine. Her name was Chiika now.

“Chiika,” I said. “What a lovely name; it suits you.”

“So does yours,” Chiika said.

“Oh, please. I share my name with a fearsome monster.”

“And whose fault is that, Kasha? You said you chose it yourself.”

“And you said it suits me. Do you think I fly around with my cart of flames, conjure lighting storms, and steal corpses from funerals?”

“No, I’m just saying that you’re made differently.”

Made differently? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I wondered if names could define fate. Tora appeared to me for some reason, and Koki said she hoped I grew into my name. Maybe by naming myself Kasha when I was a two-month-old kitten, I somehow fated myself to become a kasha.

Maybe Chiika was simply saying she couldn’t live my life. I certainly couldn’t live Chiika’s life. Have an odorless sandbox be your dedicated bathroom, a food dish that’s filled with hard dry stuff daily, and humans that touch you when they come home. EWW. That’s the lifestyle my sister enjoys. She claims the hard dry stuff they feed her tastes good, and that the stuff in the box is not sand. She says she enjoys sitting on Reina’s lap when she comes home from school, sitting on Reina’s dad’s lap as he reads a magazine or watches TV before he goes to work, and teasing Reina’s mom as she cooks breakfast and dinner. A cat who enjoys that couldn’t live my life. I was a stray cat, and Chiika was a house pet. We may have been born littermates, but (whether I was fated to become I fearsome yōkai or not) we were … made differently.