Save the Cat

“Have you finished that manga I let you borrow, Kaneko?”

“No… I still need a few days.”

The girl next to Kaneko chuckled as she sat down on the curb. “So you haven’t started it? Come on! It's so good. I know you’re gonna love it.”

Kaneko sipped from her can of coffee and shrugged. “Sorry, Naoko. My mom said that if I buy my own bass, she’d think about getting me lessons. I’ve been busy finding somebody who might hire me for babysitting or something.”

Suddenly, Kaneko became aware. She had been there before. She was back in Japan. She had never left.

The girl to her left was Naoko. She was wearing their middle school uniform. She was a cute girl, barely younger than Kaneko, but a full head shorter. She had short black hair and these enchanting green eyes that gave an allure of vulnerability behind her youthful expression. Kaneko hadn’t seen her in years, but it didn’t feel like that was true. Was this a memory?

No. Not that.

“Oh. Well, read it and then get it back to me when you can. And look for my jacket too…” Naoko asked., “I feel like I left it in your room.”

Middle school Kaneko smiled as she said, “Yeah. Okay. I’ll read it, don’t worry. And I’ll look for the jacket tonight.”

Kaneko didn’t know why she was smiling. She didn’t particularly feel like she wanted to. In fact, there was something about this whole situation that was filling Kaneko with dread. It wasn’t something she was used to feeling.

As she looked around, everything seemed right. The sky was a bright blue, dousing the city in a vibrancy that Kaneko wasn’t used to anymore. Here were the same buildings that she gazed at every day, right outside of that convenience store. But they weren’t gray. They were yellow and white and purple and green and red and everything she hoped they would be every morning that she walked outside her door.

So, what is so wrong?

“Do those people go to our school?” Naoko asked.

Middle school Kaneko looked up from Naoko’s face. “I think they might be upperclassmen, yeah…”

Across the street, there were 4 kids walking and being loud, as kids often do. Suddenly, one of them says something to the others and they start to cut across the road, towards Kaneko and Naoko.

“Oh great.” Kaneko thought. She didn’t want them to interrupt her.

“Come on, Kaneko. Don’t be like that. You don’t know if they’ll even wanna fight.” Naoko said, patting her friend on the shoulder as if to tell her to slow down.

Kaneko was stunned for a moment at Naoko’s response. It took a couple more moments for her to realize that her body had actually said what she thought, only it was a lot more enthusiastic.

“I’m only gonna go for it if they ask.” Kaneko hears herself say.

Naoko gave Kaneko a nostalgic looking smile, the older kids arriving beside them, walking into the store.

The two girls sat nonchalantly for what felt like minutes. Naoko was either pretending to read a book or actually studying. Kaneko could never tell. And Kaneko herself was pretty enveloped with a strangely detailed capsule toy she found unopened on the side of the road.

Then, they heard some sort of commotion from inside as the group of older kids stormed out of the front door.

“Hey, you gotta pay! My boss is gonna kill me!” The store clerk, a skinny college-aged guy that Kaneko had almost completely forgotten about before this exact moment, shouted as the door closed, trapped behind the counter.

The punk kids all snickered as they passed bottles of soda to each other.

“Good.” Kaneko thought. “At least now you can’t fault me for trying to-”

“Hey, come on guys!” Naoko shouted, “Give that stuff back! Or pay! I’ll tell the school what you’re doing! I recognize those uniforms.”

“Naoko?” Kaneko let out in disbelief.

Within a beat, the older kids had circled around to the two girls.

There was a girl with faded purple hair, tied into 2 buns. She was wearing sunglasses and a long jacket over her shoulders and on top of her normal school uniform. She was a delinquent. The 3 guys behind her were definitely imitations of her overbearing presence and style, not nearly as fierce. Even though she was pretty much average height, her presence towered above everyone else in that empty parking lot.

She walked straight up to Naoko, who was now standing tall. Well, as tall as she could with her short stature.

“You wanna act tough? Look, runt, I get that you’re young, but you really oughta know not to mess with people like me… I mean, you never know what I might be capable of…” The delinquent smiled a devious smile as she pushed in closer to Naoko. She was obviously trying to intimidate her and Kaneko knew that Naoko couldn’t put up that much of a fight.

Kaneko attempted to jump to her feet, but someone behind her shoved her away. She tumbled a few meters across the parking lot as the 3 guys moved in between Kaneko and her friend.

The guy in back, already at least 6 foot in middle school, cracked his knuckles and grinned as the other two, only slightly less impressive guys stepped in front of him. The effect was clear. Middle school Kaneko was gonna have to fight her way through them to save Naoko. Andt she was grinning too, ready for a challenge.

“Ahhh!” She hurled a warcry, running straight towards the blockade of boys. The one on the left sent a punch her way, but Kaneko dodged. She used the opening to grab the kid by the collar and send him into the other on his right.

In another moment, she had taken their place, right in front of the biggest of them. Middle school Kaneko put up her hands in defense, putting her attention into her footing. The guy threw a surprisingly quick right hook, for his size, but Kaneko still barely dodged. She wasn’t ready for his next attack though, an uppercut from his other hand.

Luckily for Kaneko, the guy threw the attack slightly too forward, arching not towards her chin, but her stomach. She was able to barely move her arms down, making it connect with her elbows instead of her stomach. With a second of leverage, Kaneko managed to break her arms away, grabbing the muscular arms of the guy and pulling them out to either side. She knew she couldn’t hold him there for longer than a few seconds, so in a split second decision, she kneed him straight in the crotch.

He didn’t resist so much after that.

Middle school Kaneko threw him to the side. Next, she had to take on the final boss.

“Hey! Get off of her.” Kaneko yelled

It had only been a little over a minute between Naoko standing up to the punks and then. Now all the guys were either writhing on the floor or pretending to writhe so they wouldn’t have to deal with Kankeo again. The delinquent girl, in contrast, was patiently waiting with Naoko.

Again, Kaneko started to feel dread, yet her whole being seemed to work against her. Someone else was in the driver’s seat.

The leader chuckled, her face contorting into one of deep anger and rage. Her limbs seemed to wrap around Naoko like a net, pulling her into darkness. Kaneko looked between both girls, each changing before her eyes. The leader began to grow taller and more monstrous, while Naoko shrank into the dark shroud.

What came out of middle school Kaneko’s mouth next shocked her. “Come on. Don’t let this be easy. I wanted a real fight today.”

“What? How- am I supposed to fight that thing? Why would I ever want to?” She thought. “I don’t even have the tape gun, stupid! Why would I say that? Am I bluffing?”

Kaneko didn’t question why she knew what the tape gun was, even though she was in Japan. She wasn’t even truly worried about the fact that she wasn’t in control of her own body. No, the source of her fear, her frustration, her worry, was not the incongruity of the setting, nor the monster that had appeared in broad daylight, seemingly out of nowhere. There was an image that kept asserting itself in Kaneko's mind, and that was of the girl who was trapped in the monster's embrace. Naoko.

"Xxhxhshssxxh" A sound emanated from the monster, like something in between radio static and shoving your head under a waterfall.

"Alright!" middle school Kaneko responded.

It only took about a second. Kaneko felt herself pull back, building up for a single strike. In one motion she pushed herself into her fist, which managed to barely make contact with the inky black surface of the monster, less than a foot away from where Naoko's face was buried in the same material.

Kaneko closed her eyes, wishing she could wake up. When she opened them a second later, there was no monster. No real one. Only a girl, unconscious on the floor with her nose bloodied. Next to that girl was Naoko who has been knocked into the ground as collateral.

"Are you okay?" Kaneko asked, suddenly concerned. Kaneko reached out her hand, grabbing Naoko's and pulling her up. "Come on, we'll go."

Kaneko looked at Naoko. It seemed her lips were moving, but Kaneko couldn't hear anything. It wasn't her ears, she could still hear the sound of trees swaying in the wind and the odd rumblings from a passing car. Naoko was talking. There just wasn't anything coming out.

Kaneko wishes she could lean in, see if the girl was whispering, but instead, Kaneko turned. She took one step away from the store and there was already something wrong. Her foot didn't meet with the concrete.Instead, it pushed straight through, as though there was nothing there at all. Kaneko was falling.

Kaneko jerked her neck around, back at Naoko. She jerked her head around. Not whatever was controlling her body before. It didn't matter much though, she was still falling.

Naoko was still silently talking. She didn't notice what was happening to Kaneko. Before Kaneko could say anything, her mouth was covered in the concrete. She was nearly completely enveloped in the floor.

She wanted to scream and scramble and scratch her way out of the collapsing floor. But the floor wasn't collapsing. She was collapsing. The last thing she saw as she sunk through, was Naoko's brilliant emerald green eyes. Even as Kaneko's vision completely faded, she could see them burned into the light receptors of her retinas..

And then, Kaneko was awake. She yawned. She made sure there weren’t any major problems with her bedhead. She thought about getting ready.

In a few moments, she had nearly forgotten completely about the dream. Though the emotions continued to bubble up for hours.

〰

By the time Kaneko got to class, the dream was completely out of her mind. Her second day of school went about as smooth as the previous. Kaneko was bored, but at least she finally had something to look forward to.

Kaneko was going to meet up with Minny during lunchtime, which was about to start. Once the bell rang, Kaneko quickly packed up her things and left for the spot where Minny said she’d be waiting.

Minny was standing underneath a large tree, swiping around on her phone. She looked out of place, like she didn’t know how she should be standing to look “normal”. Maybe a little awkward.

Stepping up Kaneko gave an “Ahem.” to catch Minny’s attention.

She looked up quickly, “Kaneko!”

“What’s got you in such a fuss?” Kaneko asked, nonchalantly.

Minny thought about the question before responding, “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never waited on anybody before.” She said smiling.

Kaneko caught the meaning, but nodded and decided to move past it. “So, what’s the plan? Do you like to eat lunch here?”

“Not really. I just do it when I get out. Food’s not very good here.”

“Yeah,” Kaneko chuckled. “My old school didn’t make very good lunches either. I usually got something at the convenience store after.”

Minny started idly walking, which is something that Kaneko was starting to get used to at that point.

Minny smiled “I like to go to the mall after school a lot. There’s usually stuff to do and a bunch of different options for food. I haven’t gone as much recently though. Because of… the side job. *wink* *wink*”

“Did you just say ‘wink wink’?”

Minny gave a sly smile. “Yes.”

Kaneko rolled her eyes as she looked away. She was smirking too, but she didn’t really want to show it.

“We should go sometime. It’s actually pretty cool.” Minny explained. “Hopefully we’d actually get to spend time there though. The shifts at work have been getting more and more frequent recently.”

Kaneko looked at Minny’s face, trying to see what she thought about what she just said. Kaneko couldn’t glean anything at all. Maybe Minny just didn’t care all that much.

Kaneko prodded more with a “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Minny responded, before getting a little more excited. “So, what was your old school like?”

“Very different.”

“I bet. I mean, the outdoor hallways alone must be pretty weird. This is one of the only places that have so much outdoors. Like, all the hallways and stuff. I bet yours was the same as like, in anime, right?”

“Heh. Pretty much. At least in terms of layout. In terms of style it was kinda like those old Sukeban shows from the 80’s.” Kaneko explained

Minny responded with an inquisitive look.

“Um, Sukeban? You know… How would you say it in english? Delinquent girl show. Something like that.”

Minny’s look didn’t fade though.

“Well, they would have this good delinquent girl, and she would fight off all the evil delinquent girls. Kinda like a magical girl show… but with a very different theme and tone and… Well, the audience was the same, but you get it.”

“So you fought off a bunch of bad guys everyday? Like a high school Robin Hood.” Minny mimed out some fake martial arts moves to back up her point. “Sort of a precursor to being a superhero now!”

Kaneko didn’t respond to that. She didn’t want to have another argument over it. She wasn’t a superhero. It was as simple as that.

As a lull appeared in the conversation, Kaneko decided to actually take in her surroundings.They had made their way to the half of the school that was closer to the entrance. Minny was leading them towards a large building in the almost exact center of the school. None of Kaneko’s classes were over there and she didn’t see nearly as many student’s hanging around as the other side.

“Uh, what’s over here?” she asked after a moment.

Minny replied, “Oh, sorry. We’re going to the school library. I need to do something.”

Kaneko was interested to see what the library was going to be like. It wasn’t something she really would have bothered with unless she had to go there for some reason, like she did now, but it was another difference in culture that Kaneko was open to seeing.

“So, what are we actually doing in here?” Kaneko said as they stepped inside.

“Shh!” Minny whispered, “It’s a library. Show some manners.”

Looking around, Kaneko saw pretty much everybody around hanging out and talking normally. There were maybe one or two people who were actually doing any work and they were surrounded by their friends who were definitely not. It wasn’t exactly a sight she expected, things being very different whenever she went to the library in Japan, but that was honestly par for the course at this point.

“Come on, I gotta print off a paper for my next class.” Minny continued.

The pair walked over to a row of ancient computers that were set up by the back wall. She started to look around the small stand up desk and hit certain buttons, turning this and that on.

Once Minny was satisfied, she turned to her cousin and said, “Now we have to wait.”

“Really? Why didn’t you print it at home? Doesn’t your Dad work at a computer factory or something?”

“First of all, no, he just designs the cases, so it’s not like he gets free computers… also, I forgot to print it out.”

Kaneko shared an dubious look with her cousin, astounded that someone as uncoordinated and unprepared as her could successfully fight monsters for as long as she had.

“Okay…” Kaneko said finally.

For a few minutes, neither girl spoke. Neither knew anything to say. Minny was patiently waiting for the computer to finally boot up, and Kaneko had positioned herself facing the opposite direction so she could watch the rest of the library.

It wasn’t until Kaneko saw a familiar face that she turned to Minny and asked, “So, what’s the deal with her?”

Minny turned around and spotted who Kaneko was talking about. A blonde girl with designer clothes was walking around the library, handing out fliers to pretty much anybody she could. Sylvia.

“You mean the papers she’s handing out?” Minny asked. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“No, I mean yesterday. In class. She was fine until you showed up…” Kaneko said. “Did something happen between you two?”

Minny turned back toward the computer before responding. “She was… We used to be friends. Or friendly, I guess.” Minny let out a long exacerbated breath. “One day she started acting all cold and stuff. I kept on treating her nice, hoping she’d warm up to me, but… She hasn’t done that yet.”

“When did she start acting like that?”

Minny paused for a moment… “I guess, a while ago. I don’t really keep track or anything. It wasn’t like a specific event in my past. There’s honestly not that much of a story to it on my side.”

Kaneko glared at Sylvia as she made her way around the large room. She hadn’t known Minny long at all, but Kaneko could tell that she wasn’t the kind of person who would sour relationships so badly on her own. Sylvia seemed really excited to meet Kaneko until Minny showed up. It was bizarre and as far as Kaneko could tell, Minny definitely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment from somebody.

Again, the pair sat in relative silence until Sylvia inevitably made her way over to them. Minny didn’t turn towards Sylvia and Sylvia didn’t acknowledge her at all.

“Um, Kaneko, My cat’s gone missing. She’s an indoor cat, so I really want to make sure she’s okay…” Sylvia explained as she handed Kaneko a sheet of paper.

On it was printed a picture of a big fat ginger cat sitting in a box that was way too small for it. The picture was adorable, in contrast to Sylvia’s bleak expression. Beside that, there was contact information and an address where one would presumably return it.

“And you expect me to look for it?” Kaneko asked. “Look how big it is. All you have to do is leave some food on your porch and it’ll probably come running. As much as it could run...”

Sylvia looked a little hurt, genuinely worried about her cat. “Just keep an eye out. His name is Redd Butler. He should respond when called.”

Kaneko didn’t pay her any sympathy. She was actually about to say something to that effect when Minny surprised her by speaking first.

“We could help you look around. Y’know, after school.”

Sylvia dished out an arrogant look at Minny, responding backhandedly, “Look, it’s fine. Sorry for even bothering to ask.”

“Hey!” Kaneko exclaimed, a bit too loud, even for this library. “What did she even do to you?”

Sylvia failed to respond before Minny got another word in. “Come on, just let us help. Three heads are better than one, right?”

Sylvia narrowed her eyes at Minny before finally withdrawing, “Fine.I’m gonna be at the railroad tracks on Bellwood Blvd. I won’t be waiting for you or anything though.”

She then turned around and walked away, neglecting to hand out any more of the fliers to people in the library.

Kaneko was honestly baffled at what had just occurred. “What’s her damage? You didn’t do anything!”

“I don’t know.” Minny responded looking down, her voice only a little downtrodden.

“And why did you offer to help? She doesn’t deserve it”

Minny looked back up at Kaneko, her expression brighter than usual. “If I don’t help, then who will? We’re superheroes, right?”

Kaneko bit her tongue. She could think of a million reasons that she could argue with Minny, she wanted to. But, ultimately, she just wanted to look out for Minny. And it’s not like she could walk around thinking she’s a superhero forever, could she?

“Okay. Okay. Whatever. You’re gonna go anyway, so I guess I’ll tag along.” Kaneko relented, immediately regretting it and then getting the feeling that someone was watching her to make sure that she really did. She looked around for a moment, but the only people watching her were the kids that were hanging out in the Library before. “How close are you to being done? We’re getting a few stares.”

Minny’s energy immediately returned as she turned to look at the screen. “Ooh! Looks like I can finally log in.”

Kaneko’s jaw dropped. “So, how much do you need to do?”

“Oh… Well, I need to get onto the internet, then log into Googs and then I can get the document and wait for it to print.”

“So you just started?” Kaneko asked.

“Yeah, these computers are kinda slow. But it’s okay, they’re trying their best!” Minny smiled as she patted the top of the computer like it was a dog.

That feeling that someone was watching them wasn’t forgotten. Kaneko spent the rest of lunch looking over her shoulder, trying to make sure there was actually nobody following them. She only decided to give it up once she had to get back to class.