O~o~O
"I'm home!" Peach called out, wrestling with several bags of groceries in her arms.
She held on to everything as well as she could, but her pinkie was losing grip on one hand, and the door swung shut faster than she thought it would. The door struck her back. She went stumbling into the kitchen, fumbling with all the bags. Just as everything was about to spill out onto the floor, she ran right into the counter.
The bags all collapsed, but everything stayed on the counter. Peach blinked once and watched a lemon roll in a small circle. "Well, that was close."
Certain that nothing was set precariously near the edge, Peach started picking out groceries from the rumpled mess of bags. "You know, the weirdest thing happened today." she said, raising her voice a little to be heard. The milk and juice went in the fridge, the noodles and rice went into the pantry. She stopped short of sticking the ice cream in the freezer. "My shopping list had "ice cream." I don't remember writing down ice cream. But I bought some anyway; I kinda got excited for it." She glanced out the window. It was dark, and late. Again. And cold, but at least she was indoors. Why did she buy ice cream if it was so cold out? "I'll just make egg over noodles," she murmured, shrugging off her jacket.
While she waited for the water to boil, she frowned at the slight noise from the living area. She must have left the TV on by accident before she went out for the day. Her favorite show was going to be on; the first rerun of the episode she had missed last week had played while she was at work, but she knew it would be on again at night. She cast a furtive glance around the kitchen. Then, slipping off her shoes, she padded into the living area, and crept up to the couch.
"Boo!" she yelled, and stood up with her hands in the air. There was nothing on the couch. The light from the TV danced in dim blue shadows across her floor. Peach frowned and turned to check down the hall to her bedroom. She stalked to the door, gently placed her hand on the knob.
She whipped it open and leapt into her room. "Aha!"
Nothing stirred. Her bed was made, her desk was sort of a mess like usual. The floor had been picked up before she left that morning.
Peach crossed her arms with a huff. "Playing hide-and-seek, huh? Well. I know how to find you."
Back in the kitchen, she pulled one bag out of the fridge. She deliberately moved it while she closed the door, crinkling the bag, and then started to open it. The room quickly smelled of pepperoni.
"Mrr?" she heard from the end of the kitchen, along with the jingling of a little bell.
Peach grinned. "There you are."
She turned to stir the noodles in the water, and turned down the heat so she could add in the flavoring. Something soft brushed against her ankles. "I know, I know, Pancake." she hummed, gathering the little packets to throw them in the trash. "Let me finish making my ramen."
When she managed to step around Pancake to throw the packets away, she grabbed the bag of pepperoni off the counter and sat on the floor. "Okay, alright, come here, you silly kitty." Pancake was more than happy to saunter over to her and accept her offering of a single pepperoni slice. Peach giggled while he chewed at it on the floor. "You know, I'm not supposed to let you have these. They're very unhealthy for you."
Pancake continued to chew his pepperoni several more times than he needed to, and when he was done, he just looked at Peach.
Peach just sighed with a smile and gave him another slice. "Well, I guess you also know I can't say no to that face. Chubby boy." she stroked his back and gave him a scratch between his ears, before she stood to finish making her dinner. She knew Pancake would probably beg for a bite of her own food, as well. And she would happily let him have some of her noodles.
The ramen was about to boil over. Peach scrambled to take the pot off the stove, and sighed when she just saved it from spilling.
She finished up making dinner. Her food was warm, and would certainly help her warm up since the apartment was a little chilly. The TV was on, the dishes could be put off until tomorrow, and Peach sat down on her sofa to eat her ramen and stare mindlessly at whatever was on the television. "I'll need to call Daisy soon. I will once the new episode ends." she murmured to Pancake, who had leapt up to sit on the arm of the couch to watch her eat. "She'll be awake by now."
Peach sighed, and remembered she was sitting at her apartment, eating ramen, living alone. She felt a little sad, and set her fork down in her bowl to stroke Pancake's face. At least she had Pancake to keep her company.
Pancake shut his eyes and rubbed his head into her hand. His purrs rumbled like a goofy little machine. "You big beast. You absolute monster. You chubby, chubby baby." she pet him for a little longer, before she started to eat her ramen and watch the TV again.
The day caught up to her while she consumed meaningless commercials, waiting for her favorite show. A rubber tray that wouldn't ever spill, because by golly how annoying was it to constantly spill your guacamole all over the floor? A blanket with sleeves! How cool is that? A set of the sharpest, most professional knives, that the most well known chef in the country used. And if you call now, they'll double the offer, and throw in a free, exclusive, never-before-seen mug with a quirky kitchen quote. Who wouldn't want it?
Pancake was persistent with his efforts to get her attention. As soon as she set her empty bowl on the coffee table, he clambered into her lap, purring insistently. "Silly boy," she cooed, and he settled down, kneading the blanket she lay under.
In less than an hour, Peach was in tears. The episode was emotional, moreso than she thought any show ought to be. Of course, she knew the show was fictional, she knew that none of the characters were real, but she had to go and get attached and now her favorite character was gone forever. "Pancake," she sniffled, and the cat rubbed his head against her chin with such force that she was moved backward a little. "What do I do now?"
Then, Peach remembered she had bought ice cream. Her favorite flavor, butterscotch, sat patiently in the freezer, all because of a bullet point at the end of a list that she didn't remember writing. She was always forgetting things. Always losing track, always having to think to remember why she walked in a room. She could have sworn she hadn't written ice cream, for how could she have known the episode would be so sad? Maybe it was just some last minute foresight.
"The old lady down the road is rubbing off on me, Pancake." she sighed and wiped at her eyes while she got up to seek out her sweet, frozen comfort. "She's always telling me she can see into the future. She wants to read my tea leaves and stuff. But what does it matter?" She returned with the carton and a spoon. No bowl. She was miserable enough, and no one cared except Pancake. The old lady probably saw this in her future. Peach sat on the couch, shakily eating ice cream straight from the carton, her dead and wet eyes glued to the screen that had ruined her night.
"Hey, Daisy, what's up?" Peach shouldered the phone to her ear while she was trying to put on her pajama pants. Pancake had mysteriously disappeared from her room while she was getting ready for bed. She walked back out of the bathroom after brushing her hair to flop on her bed.
A yawn answered her. "Good morning," Daisy groaned, and Peach laughed. "Hey, did you see the episode yet? What did you think?"
Peach stuck her free hand in the air, stretched out her fingers, swiping mindlessly at nothing. The edges of her eyes still felt a little cold, a little wet. "Eh. It was okay, I guess. The plot was a little dry."
Daisy scoffed on the other end. "I know, right? I mean, what were they thinking? Obviously they're getting desperate to shock the audience with whatever they can. That little bit at the end there was clearly an ex machina, and relating it back to the first episode was cliche and not very well executed." Daisy went on about the devices and mechanics of the show, and Peach agreed at all the right times. She wasn't sure how to tell Daisy that sure, the show had flaws, but she still enjoyed it quite a lot. It kept her on the edge of her seat, it drew her in to characters who she liked and related to, and the plot was long but she liked keeping up with it.
Finally, Daisy's rant trailed off, and she yawned again. Peach could hear running water in the background. "So how've you been?" Daisy asked, and Peach knew by her voice that she was brushing her teeth.
"Oh, I've been good! The same old, you know. I had some friends over after work." Peach looked around her room, to the door that led into the living area. She hadn't had people over since she moved in. She wasn't even sure if anyone she knew at the village could count as a friend, maybe the old lady, or her boss. Except she could never remember the old lady's name because it was a little hard to pronounce. "The old lady down the road is trying to tell my fortune again. She keeps insisting she knows something about my love life." she smiled at the ceiling.
She heard a choking sound, and realized Daisy was laughing. "Just a moment," she said, and Peach smiled when she heard clattering and water. Finally, the phone was picked up again. "Sorry about that. So the old lady? She wants to predict your love life?"
Peach found herself shrugging, and then remembered Daisy couldn't see her. "I guess. She wants me to look into her crystal ball and tell her what I see. Every day, she asks what I dream about so she can interpret it."
Pancake leapt up onto the bed with Peach, and she scratched his head. She smiled at him, and listened to Daisy chuckle on the other end, halfway across the world.
"I think you should do it." Daisy said, and for a split second, Peach thought she was serious. "I think you should just indulge her. You said there weren't very many people in that village over there, right? Maybe it's how she makes money, and everyone has already had their fortune told. She needs new blood, more business. You could ask some of your friends about her, probably."
"Oh, yeah, for sure," Peach laughed with a wince, thinking of the complete lack of anyone she could comfortably ask.
She heard shifting on the other side. "Speaking of love lives," Daisy started, a grin sneaking its way into her voice. Peach couldn't help but break into a smile herself, already able to guess what Daisy was going to say. "Remember that guy I told you about? The one who looked like he was about to pee his pants when I called him cute?"
Peach laughed. "How could I forget?" Daisy had described the ordeal in hilarious detail, recounting a conversation with some poor unsuspecting man. Peach already knew Daisy could be overwhelming to those not used to her sheer energy; Peach considered her to be a force of nature. So it was always funny to hear about people who didn't quite know how to handle her. "Why, what about him?"
Sounding like she could barely contain her excitement, Daisy took a deep breath before she spoke. "Get this- he showed up yesterday in town, I guess he must have figured out that I like to eat breakfast at the bakery most weekdays. You should've seen him, he was sweating so hard I thought someone had dumped a bucket of water over his head! He came up to my table, shaking like a leaf, and kinda just stuck a bouquet in my face without saying anything." she stopped to gather herself, because she was giggling. Peach only shook her head with a fond smile. "And then, I guess he remembered what he was supposed to say. He stammered for a bit, and finally managed to ask if it was okay if he went out with me on a date."
Daisy paused for dramatic effect, and then they both burst out laughing. "What?" Peach asked. "He- he asked you, if he could-?"
"I know! He was such a mess, it was the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Of course I had to say yes. Poor guy, I held off teasing him, but he's not going to hear the end of it when I see him this weekend." Daisy snickered.
"Wait, so you…" Peach remembered a time when she would have been the first to know about this guy, when she would have been there with Daisy when it all was happening. She tried to keep her voice light so she wouldn't betray the lack of a smile. "You're actually going to go out with him?"
There was a pause. "You know, I think so. I mean, I only agreed to the one date, but I think I might actually like him. He's an angel! A bumbling, clumsy angel, but an angel. He managed to ask me out without losing his nerve, sort of. I just think he's a great guy, too. I know you'll like him."
Realizing she was about to sigh, Peach tried to cover it up by forcing a smile and talking. "Well, send me pictures! I can't wait to meet him, what's his name, again?"
"Luigi."
Peach tilted her head. "Louis G.?"
"Yeah! He's Italian, he's got an accent and everything. In a way, he kinda reminds me of the Jumpman, you remember that guy? He might also have a brother, I have to ask him. Maybe I could introduce you two, huh?" she teased.
Frowning, Peach thought that 'Louis G.' sounded more French than Italian. And she knew why Daisy was teasing; when they were little, Peach used to obsess over Europe. She always thought her dream guy was some exotic fellow in a distant country, far from the Mushroom Kingdom. Peach had also been quite fond of listening to tales about the fabled Jumpman. She had grown up since then. She likely wouldn't be able to marry for love anyway, so what was the point? "That's okay," she declined.
Daisy sighed, and was quiet for a moment. "So, when are you coming back home? It's been almost a year now. I know you've made friends over there, but your home is still here, right?" Her voice had become low, serious. Peach bit her lip and rolled onto her side.
She felt Pancake lay down, his back to her back. "Yeah. My home is over there. I'll come back soon." She didn't know when she would go back. She had left because she felt smothered at home. As a Princess, she had grown up constantly surrounded by people who knew her, who wanted to be her friend, who wanted to be on her good side. As soon as she had graduated from university, she wanted to escape the political mess by living alone for a few months. She wanted to be as far as possible from her Kingdom. She wanted to go to a place where no one knew who she was, that she was a Princess. Her crown continued to gather dust in a shoebox in the highest corner of her closet.
The problem with starting a new life was that she didn't really know how to talk to anyone who didn't already know her. She had chosen to live in a small town in a country where she had a decent grasp of the language, but most of them spoke hers anyway. There wasn't a single soul in the village who knew she reigned over a Kingdom across the world. She found a job, she got a cat, she managed by herself. But she was always by herself.
"May- maybe when the lease expires in June," she offered, taking a deep breath to disguise how her throat had suddenly closed off. She was alone. The apartment was always empty. The only friends she had were the ones she had left at home, but she couldn't quite bring herself to go back yet.
Daisy let out a long sigh. "Alright, whatever works for you, girl. We miss you. I better get going; I'm supposed to meet Pauline and Rosalina in twenty minutes. And you better get to sleep. I'll say hi for you!"
Her friends. Peach smiled faintly at the thought of the other two.
Rosalina, a friend who had returned to the Mushroom Kingdom after being gone for several years, quickly found her way into their group. She was quiet and mysterious, but also very wise. Peach wasn't quite sure how old she was exactly. She loved to sit and discuss philosophy with Rosalina, and listen to her perpetually profound outlook on the universe. She missed those soft mornings when they would sit together to have some tea and watch the sunrise. Rosalina taught her to enjoy the silence.
Pauline was a friend who she met at the University, and they had all been students together up until they graduated. She was bold, and probably the most confident person Peach had ever met. She was also wildly smart. Peach missed those exciting nights when Pauline would help her disguise herself and take her to some real parties, not political banquets. Pauline taught her to appreciate the noise.
An interesting thing about Pauline was why she came to the Kingdom. A gorilla had kidnapped her in her city and taken her to the top of a precarious building that was under construction. She recounted the tale many times, of the man who came to her rescue. The Jumpman, they called him. Peach had heard of some of the Jumpman's other feats, and found herself sort of starstruck. She had never personally met him. But she would have loved to meet a real hero, someone who would stare down the face of danger just to save a stranger. Peach had always had a romantic notion of someone appearing out of the blue to save her from injustice.
For a little while, Pauline and Daisy especially were under the impression that Peach had a crush on the Jumpman. She had fervently denied it all.
There were a few reports after that, of the Jumpman doing good for the world. But Peach realized she hadn't heard anything in awhile. She wondered what he was up to these days. Still saving damsels? Wrestling gorillas? Maybe it was giant turtles now.
Peach realized she had been quiet for a moment too long. "Alright. I miss you guys too. Goodnight." she tried to hold a smile for her friends, for the people across the world who she missed so much.
"Goodnight!" Daisy said, and Peach had already buried her face in her hands before she hung up.
She took a deep breath in. "I'm fine." she told herself, and blinked and relaxed her jaw. "I'm fine." she pushed herself up and slid under the covers, careful not to disturb Pancake. She switched off the light and pulled the blankets over her head. "I'm just fine."
O~o~O
"That'll be two-hundred bells." Peach stuffed the donut neatly into the paper bag, and passed it across the counter along with the coffee she had just brewed. The man offered her the payment, and she gave him his change. The bell above the door rang once he left, and a cold breeze wandered in like it was lost. "Oof." Peach shuddered and dusted off her apron.
From the back, the owner of the cafe came up to the sink and started washing coffee mugs. "...It seems the customers have all been taken care of." he said, without looking at her. "Good work. Why don't you call it a day?"
Peach nodded, but quickly wiped down the counters and put away some trays to lessen the work for him. "Thank you, Mr. Brewster." she smiled.
Just as she had hung up her apron and grabbed her bag, Brewster looked up from the sink. He had a hard face, a sharp nose that reminded her of a bird. "Why don't you take some coffee? It's cold out there. Take a pastry, too." His voice was low, his expression was always dull, but Peach knew that he had a heart as soft as the pastries he made every morning.
"Thank you," she said again, and left with a wave, armed for the cold with a hot coffee and a danish.
There was a chance of snow. Peach walked along the sidewalk toward her apartment, seeing the building in the distance. She had a bike, but it was far too cold for her to want to ride it. When she had first moved to the village, she had locked it to a pole, or kept it in her room out of fear of a thief making off with it. However, it only took a few weeks for her to learn that everyone knew everyone, and no one could be bothered to steal her bike. It leaned against the side of the apartment near the front, not locked to anything.
A car would be nice. But she had no need of it when the village was so small. The walk would take less than twenty minutes. Though, looking down at her boots and shuddering inside her jacket, she wouldn't have complained about driving every now and then.
She clutched her coffee with both hands, and wrapped up the rest of her pastry, thinking Pancake might like it.
Just as she was about to cross a street, Peach glanced to her left and noticed the tea shop where she had met the old lady. Below the sign for the tea shop was a smaller, older sign that advertised fortune-telling services. She glanced to the coffee she was holding, but figured no one would mind.
When she walked in, the owner smiled at her from across the counter, while her son played games on the floor behind her. Peach gave a shy wave, and looked around for the old lady.
"You are looking for Katrina?" the owner asked her, and Peach turned, startled.
She blinked for a moment. "Err, yes. Is she, is Katrina the, um, the fortune teller?" she gave a strained smile, and then felt very silly for even coming in the shop, for thinking about it, for opening her mouth. Why did she think she needed a fortune? Maybe she should just turn around and walk back out.
But the woman merely smiled, and gestured to Peach's left, where a door led to some other room. "She is in there."
"Oh." Peach stammered. "Uh, thank you."
She hesitated before she headed to the door, aware of the woman watching her out of the corner of her eye. The little trills of a videogame from the little boy filled in the silence.
The room was dark when she walked in. Peach blinked and squinted, trying to will her eyes to adjust faster, when she saw the old woman sitting on the floor. She had something in her hands. Peach wasn't certain of what, it looked like a tool in one hand and something about the size of a bar of soap in the other. The woman wore a dark scarf over her head. "Ah, yes," she rasped without looking up. "I have been waiting for you."
Peach blinked several times. "You...You have?" she dared to ask.
"Yes, of course, my dear. Please, have a seat." the old woman, Katrina, finally looked up at Peach, and Peach found that she could relax when she saw her eyes. Those eyes held no malice. Peach finally got a closer look at her hands as she moved to sit across from her, and saw she was carving a piece of wood with a small blade.
Katrina's expression was grave, and she looked into the crystal ball that sat between them. "Your timing could not have been better. I suppose the stars had a hand in it," she spoke, as if the stars had a hand in any last minute impulse. Peach wasn't sure she knew very much about that sort of thing.
After a moment of silence, Peach wondered if she was supposed to inquire about what Katrina meant. But Katrina merely gazed into the crystal, her old eyes reflecting a silvery glow.
"Disaster looms upon you." when she spoke, her voice had risen against the gravity of her words. Her eyes blazed in the light, and for a moment Peach saw power in her face that she had never witnessed before. "There is impending disaster upon your health and upon love. I see...Yes, I see it. I can see a chance as it washes down the drain. Nothing new to you, I suppose. I see a great scare in the night, but that should be the least of your concerns. You should be far more worried about the chances as they fall, one by one, like the rains that have plagued your land in your absence."
She looked up, right into Peach's eyes, and Peach found herself frozen in her place. She felt a cold rush through her chest. "You must be brave. You must not be afraid of the shadows; they wouldn't dream of hurting you. The shadows, you understand what I mean, the things that go bump in the night. The shadows hide a truth that you may never know if you don't take that chance."
Chances? Shadows? Scares? Peach wasn't sure if Katrina was speaking some metaphorical, symbolic language that she didn't understand. But her searing eyes lifted their pressure, softened like wax to a flame. With a tender smile, she passed the wood she had been carving across the table.
"For you," she said. Turning it over in her hand, Peach recognized it was a Maneki-neko. A lucky cat.
It must have taken ages to carve such a piece. Peach grasped it gently, feeling the smooth wood in her palm. "Thank you," she told Katrina earnestly, though she still felt her blood running cold and hot through her all at once. "How much for…?" she started to ask, but Katrina merely shook her head.
"For free." she smiled, but Peach passed five hundred bells across the table anyway. As Peach started to stand, Katrina folded her hands. "Be brave, my dear, take all the luck that you need. And remember, bad times are just times that are bad."
Her mysterious smile would stay in Peach's mind for the rest of the day.
O~o~O
"Louis G., huh?" Peach asked, laying on the floor of the living room in front of Pancake. She absentmindedly twirled a string with a feather at the end of it, and Pancake absentmindedly batted at it. She had showed him the little Maneki-neko that Katrina had given her. Pancake didn't seem too interested. "He sounds nice, I guess. Maybe I should go back soon."
Pancake strained for the feather, but gave up. His bell jingled softly. He was flopped sort of on his side and sort of on his back. When he just lay there, he did look quite like a pancake. "But I don't think you would like riding on an airplane very much, huh?" she asked him, and he blinked at her.
She sighed. "I don't know why I don't just go back. I just feel like I'm not really done here, you know? I think I came here to prove a point. But I haven't really proven anything." Giving up with the feather string, she folded her arms underneath her and rested her chin there. "Well, I proved that I don't really know how to talk to people, I guess."
Nosing the air, Pancake squinted at her. Peach smiled sadly at him and reached to scratch his head. "You know, I wasn't even planning on getting a cat. Everything just felt so strange and new here. I wanted this place to feel like a home. What better way to do that than getting a pet?"
The tip of Pancake's tail twitched across the floor. He always had a funny way of maintaining eye contact with her, like he knew she was talking to him.
Peach narrowed her eyes at him. "I remember picking you. I picked you because you were watching me. The other cats could care less whether or not I was there, but you just sat there, looking at me with your big eyes. Most of the other people there wanted kittens. I think they overlooked you because you were fully grown."
She wondered if he remembered when she brought him to the apartment. Did a cat's memory go that far? It had only been about a year ago, so it still felt fresh to her.
Pancake had tried to run away. She had caught him standing along the fence just as she was returning from work, his little bell alerting her. At the time, she had felt liberated, as she was still fresh from her escape from the Mushroom Kingdom on her little quest for independence. She had sought freedom. The way she had understood it, so did Pancake. And if he felt confined in her home, then so be it. Still, she was sad to see that he wasn't happy with her.
"You can go, if you want. I understand." she remembered telling him, holding her bags and her self assurance close to her chest. She had tried to hard to smile.
He looked at her for a long time. Then, bell ringing, he leaped down close to her feet, and followed her back into the apartment.
Pancake had never been a very noisy cat. Sometimes he ran around at night, and Peach could have sworn he was bouncing off the walls. But usually, he was quiet and affectionate. She remembered it had taken the longest time to let her pet him. Once she had made it past his initial barrier, he couldn't get enough of the head scratches and the back strokes and the chin scritches. He always seemed to be purring.
"Rrow?" he asked her as she stopped petting him, and started to pick herself up.
"Sorry, silly kitty." she gave his big belly a pat just to mess with him, and he scrambled to get on his paws. "I have to go take a shower. If Katrina thinks there will be a 'great scare in the night,' I at least want to be clean."
As she was grabbing her clothes to take into the bathroom, she picked up her phone to play music. She wondered if her neighbors ever heard her. Usually, she sang quite loud in the shower, but she never received any noise complaints. "You've been hit by-" she pointed at Pancake as he leapt up to her bed. "You've been struck by- a smooth criminal."
She danced her way into her bathroom, in a rudimentary attempt to remake Michael Jackson's performance. With the water steaming, she stepped into the shower, and used her hairbrush as a microphone.
"Annie, are you okay? Will you tell us, that you're okay?" she implored, moving as much as she could without slipping. The water felt so nice compared to the cold outside. She looked down at her feet, and tried not to think about how Katrina had warned her about chances going down the drain. Could chances be washing off her now, cleaned off her soul like dirt? Peach wasn't sure she wanted to think about things like that. She tried to focus on Michael Jackson and nothing else.
Just as she was scrubbing and rinsing the shampoo out of her hair, she thought she heard a faint sound over the song.
"Pancake?" she asked, opening the shower door just a crack so she could reach to turn down the music. A moment later, she heard a soft thump on the door. Pancake pressing his paws against it.
She heard him meow loud, and she laughed. "Oh, baby, just give me a minute! I'll feed you as soon as I'm done." she promised him.
He only answered with a louder yowl, and Peach frowned. When she reached, the phone slipped off the counter, and landed on the bath mat. Michael Jackson sang soft, muffled words into the floor. "Pancake?" she asked.
There was silence. Pancake had never really called for her outside the door before; she had thought he was weird for not crying for food like other cats did. He must have left again. Peach shut off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. Just as she was about to open the door to check on him, she heard a loud bump from what had to be the living area.
Peach felt her blood go cold. She froze with her hand just above the doorknob.
Was there someone in the apartment? There were a lot of other subsequent sounds, like footsteps, far too heavy to be Pancake just running around. Peach let out a silent, shaky breath. Was there a person out there? She made out more noise, could have sworn there were voices. Were there people? Did someone break in?
She didn't know what to do except lock the door. Once the door clicked, she flinched, because it sounded so loud compared to the blaring silence. Peach stood there, wet and shivering. She tried to strain for any more sounds.
After a moment, she wondered if she had just imagined it. Maybe the fortune had just scared her. That made sense, she tried to tell herself. She was just freaked out because of whatever 'looming disaster' Katrina had been going on about. Nothing terrible. She had left the Maneki-neko on her nightstand.
'Be brave!' she told herself, and moved, one foot in front of the other. Slowly, she was able to get to the counter and put on her clothes. She heard Michael Jackson on the floor.
"Pancake, am I okay?" she whispered to herself, picking up her phone and turning it off. "Am I okay, Pancake?"
"Rreow?" Peach nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Pancake at the door again. Her heart rate shot up. For a moment, she thought she could hear her blood running in her ears.
Reminding herself to breathe, she reasoned that Pancake wouldn't be meowing at the door if there was any danger. So, steeling herself, she reached out to open the door.
He sat there while she crouched in the doorway. "Hey, kitty kitty." she greeted him breathlessly, and realized when she went to scratch his ears that her hands were shaking. "Something happen?"
"Mrr." Pancake blinked at her, and then walked away.
Peach felt like she was acting out Mission Impossible when she darted through her own hall, pressed against the wall just before she got to the living area. Her hair still wet, cold on her neck. She dared to take a peek.
"Oh, stars." she covered her mouth with a hand. From where she stood, she could see several books had been knocked off her counter, all sprawled in the entry. One of her bowls that she had left by the sink lay in pieces on the kitchen floor. It looked like more things had been knocked down or broken in the living room. Peach had seen the cat videos. She knew cats were capable of reckless destruction, but this? Pancake couldn't have made such a mess in such a short amount of time, could he?
Just as she looked for him, he came walking out from the kitchen to the front door. Peach's suspicions were confirmed. "O-oh." she said, and came to see what he was sniffing. Her front lock lay broken on the floor. Pancake couldn't have done that. Someone had broken in.
"But what did they take?" she asked him in a small voice. "When did they leave? Did they know I was here?"
She started walking around, looking for anything that might be missing. But her mind had gone blank. She thought she should call the police. Could they help her? What could they do about a break in? She couldn't figure out if anything had been stolen. Sitting there with the phone in her hand for about twenty minutes, with her hand hovering over the numbers, she eventually decided against calling.
Peach didn't really know how to fix a lock. She sat on the floor trying to figure it out. But she didn't think she could do anything about splintered wood. There wasn't anyone else for her to call; she didn't know her neighbors well enough to ask if she could stay with them. And there wasn't a single person in town that she felt comfortable asking. She was on her own. Pancake rubbed against her arm repeatedly while she sat there, trying not to cry.
She opted to shove a chair against the door and turn off all the lights. Then, scooping up Pancake, she locked herself in her room.
"Hey, Daisy! How are you?" Peach asked, plastering a smile on her face and hoping it sounded more real than it felt. She kept her voice conversational, but was conscious of how loud she was speaking.
"Hey, girl! I'm doing great, I just had my coffee. I can't wait until the date in a couple of days." Right. The date with that boy, Louis G. Daisy had sent her some pictures on social media, and Peach thought he looked nice enough. "So what's new with you?"
Peach curled up in her bed, with nothing but the moon lighting up the room. She was petting Pancake a little too hard. "Oh, nothing. Just the usual. What are you doing today other than waiting for Louis G.?" she thought she heard a sound outside. "Wait just a second. Oh. No. Sorry, it was nothing."
She heard Daisy let out a happy sigh. "I don't know just yet. I guess I'll figure it out. It's getting pretty warm, I'll see if Pauline will go swimming with me." she said. "Hey, isn't it kinda late over there? Did you stay up to watch something?"
With a big breath, Peach glanced over to her window. "I guess it is a little late. Sorry I didn't call earlier, I got distracted by something. You know me."
"That's my Peach." Daisy agreed, and Peach laughed half heartedly with her. "Well, I'll let you get to bed. You have work tomorrow, right? You need your sleep. Give Pancake a kiss for me!"
Peach nodded, and then said "Yeah, okay, I will."
"Alright. Goodnight, Peach!"
"Night."
Peach put her phone on the nightstand, the blue light briefly illuminating the little wooden Maneki-neko. When the light died, so did Peach's vision, and she curled up under her covers with wide eyes. It was only after she settled in that she realized she had forgotten to feed Pancake. He was curled up close to her side. She stroked his back and whispered an apology in the dark room.
She wasn't able to fall asleep for hours.
Instead of wanting to rest, her mind was racing, all sorts of horrible scenarios flying through her head. Every single one ended in a terrible disaster. In each one, she was reminded just how alone and helpless she was inside her little apartment. Her heart rate wouldn't come down no matter how she tried to breathe.
Eventually, she must have horrified herself to exhaustion. She must have fallen asleep at some point, because it was darker in her room when she opened her eyes.
A bleary glance to her phone showed her it was almost three in the morning.
She let out a sigh that was still heavy with sleep. Without thinking, she instinctively moved to pet Pancake, because she knew he'd still be sleeping at her side.
What her hand touched wasn't fur. She touched something much bigger than her cat, something warmer. Something cotton?
Peach dared to raise her head. There was someone in her bed.
"Oh my stars!" she yelled out. As she kicked out, trying to sit up and get away, the person jerked awake.
She heard him yell out when he tumbled off the bed and onto the floor. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. Was this how the break-in was supposed to happen? Some man was supposed to just come in and terrorize her as she slept? What sort of psychopathic monster did such a thing?
Peach tried get off of her bed while she heard him scrambling on the floor. She thought he was coming back to attack her. Blindly, she backed off, only to stumble and knock a lamp down. The light came on as it hit the floor.
She froze. All she could see from where she sat was a big shadow on the wall.
Shadows. The fortune should have been the last thing on Peach's mind, but Peach found herself remembering what Katrina had said. You must not be afraid of the shadows; they wouldn't dream of hurting you.
Peach let out a quivering breath. Could she really trust some old lady's words in the context she stood in? She got her feet underneath her, and started to stand. She rose into the light to see the shadow for herself.
There was a man. He was still on the floor. He had backed up to the far wall. Peach breathed hard and squinted, trying to make sense of him. He blinked at her with as much fear in his eyes as she felt.
"Who- who are you?" she demanded, and she hated that her voice shook. "Are you the one who broke in?"
He was also breathing hard. The man looked down at his hands, and then to the floor and the door with pain. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Peach realized he was avoiding eye contact.
She tried to glance around her for something to weaponize, something to defend herself with. She didn't quite feel safe with just the bed as a barrier between them. "Answer me!" she raised her voice, and the man flinched.
He held up his hands as if she had raised her own to strike him. "Princess-Princess, please," he started to say, and Peach's eyes widened. "I'm not-no, I didn't break in. That wasn't me."
How did this man know she was a Princess? The cold rush of fear turned into something hot and defensive. She watched him, and started to realize that he was more afraid of her than she was of him. He was looking around desperately, for escape, she thought. He kept eyeing the area underneath her desk, or the space between her dresser and the corner of the wall.
She took a deep breath, and marched around her bed across the room, toward him. His eyes widened. "Who are you? How do you know who I am?" her voice still betrayed her fear.
As she got a better look at him, she didn't think he looked like the kind of man who would break into apartments to terrorize young women. He had big eyes, big, honest eyes that looked familiar to her somehow. You must not be afraid of the shadows, she remembered again. They wouldn't dream of hurting you.
The shadows hide a truth that you may never know if you don't take that chance.
Was this the chance Katrina meant? Give the strange man a chance to explain himself? Give herself a chance to understand him? Peach wasn't sure what sort of chance she was supposed to take.
She squinted at him. The man really was familiar to her, she must have seen him before. It had to be. Where else would she know that face? The answer was right on the tip of her tongue. It was something about his eyes. If she could just put a finger on it.
Before he could answer her, she slowly knelt down in front of him. He looked at her with those big eyes in silence. She no longer felt threatened by him; she knew somehow that he wasn't going to hurt her, that he would never hurt her. He was a friend. There was something golden around his neck, that jingled when he moved.
And then she placed a finger on it.
"Pancake." she breathed. "You're Pancake."
The man blinked at her, and then nodded.
Peach was startled when he agreed. Was she going crazy? Did she really just ask a strange man if he was her cat? As odd as she felt, she couldn't deny the uncanny resemblance between the man and Pancake. She didn't even think it was possible for a human to look like an animal. And yet, somehow, the man looked exactly like her cat. Even with a mustache. She opened her mouth to ask something, ask everything.
With a deep sigh, the man, or Pancake, finally relaxed. "It's-It's a very long story." he let out, answering her soundless question. He might have meant to try to lighten his words with a smile, but his expression was worn. She knew by his tone that the story he had was going to change everything.
His accent, she recognized that, too. But she could only really ask him to answer one thing at a time. "Do you…" she started awkwardly. She couldn't remember the last time she had someone at her apartment, and could hardly remember what she was supposed to do. Even if it was three in the morning and her guest was actually her cat. "Do you, um, want some tea or something?"
He must have seen the worried edge in her face, because he gave her a tired smile. "Sure." he answered.
Peach couldn't help but hesitate before she unlocked her bedroom door. The man behind her wouldn't hurt her, she trusted that. But what was on the other side? She didn't want to let the guy, Pancake, see her hesitate. He couldn't know how afraid she was. How unsafe she felt in her own home. So she pushed open the door with a sharp breath in.
"Have-have a seat," she told him, gesturing to the sofa while she went to the kitchen. She tried to keep authority in her tone, but she was worried that it was obviously fragile. Some impulse, some remnant of her home instilled by her advisor, Toadsworth, led her to believe that a cup of tea would do her a lot of good. She put on the kettle and tried not to look at the door.
Her eyes were wide open. She didn't know what to do except stand there while she waited for the water to boil. Hugging herself, watching the kettle, and leaning against the cabinets, Peach tried to sort her thoughts.
When she came around into the living with the only two clean mugs she could find, she saw the man eyeing the door. Not the door exactly, but the chair in front of it. The lock on the floor. When she came into view, he turned quickly and sat down, like she had asked him to.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to sit. So she set his mug on the table before him, and held her own in her hands while she stood. He watched her, warily.
"So," she started, pacing around the room and holding the cup close to her. It was hot. The rest of the space was cold. Dressed in nothing but her thin pajamas, she felt very vulnerable, and nothing she did helped. "How-how is it that you're…? Why are you…?" she didn't exactly know what she was trying to ask, she wanted to ask too many things that could be answered with a single question. "Is there a, um, beginning to all of this?"
He was taking a sip of his tea, but his head jerked back. It was too hot. He blinked at it, and set the mug back on the table. "Yes." he answered her. He placed his hands on his knees and looked up at her. Those same eyes must have looked at her the exact same way a thousand times.
Peach nodded, and waited. When he didn't look like he was going to say anything, she hesitated to address him. "...Pancake?" she asked, and he looked away from her.
"Yes. I am...Pancake." he said the name slowly, like he had never said it before. "I am-I was your, er, cat. But I'm not..."
Peach raised her eyebrows, and the man took in a big breath. "There is a lot. I'm sorry. It might take me a little while to say everything." he gave an apologetic look, but then folded his hands and looked at the floor.
Maybe she had made him nervous. Maybe she was making her own agitation obvious, and she was putting him on edge, too. She tried to sit down on the chair across from him, but she couldn't bring herself to put down her tea. "It's okay," she said, and she wasn't sure if she was saying it for him, or for herself. "Just tell me what's the most important first."
He gave her a small smile. "Yes. It's late for you, Princess, you should be asleep. But I understand that you can't really rest. I'll tell you as much as I can right now." he looked up at the ceiling, and then his eyes fell back to his cup on the table.
"I'm not a cat. I've been your pet for almost a year, but I...This is so hard to explain. I'm sorry." he rubbed his head. "I'm a man. I've always been a man. My name is Mario. I came to this village a little over a year ago with my brother. There was a lady… I think you know her. I had picked up a bell, and she tried to warn me about it. This was a while back, I remember she tried to tell me that there was some sort of disaster to do with the bell. I think I forgot about her warning as soon as I left. I'm not...sure about very much. But I think I was cursed. All I know is that I was taking a shortcut through an alleyway, when I fell. When I opened my eyes, I was a cat. My own brother didn't recognize me. I tried so hard to get his attention, but he thought I went missing. After a while, he had to leave without me. So I was stuck here."
Mario looked down at his shoes, absentmindedly fingering the bell around his neck. Peach only had half the mind to wonder why he was fully dressed. Didn't magically turning into an animal leave a person naked? Maybe Peach had seen too much anime. "You were stuck here." she repeated, and he nodded.
He reached for his tea, and then thought better of it. He stared at the table as he spoke. "Yes. I couldn't turn back into a human. I didn't know how. The people of the village, they thought I was a stray. So they picked me up. I couldn't leave, I couldn't tell them I was human. But I was only there for a couple of days." he said, wringing his hands.
Peach blinked, and a little more of his story came together. "Because I showed up and adopted you," she assumed, and he gave a sheepish nod. Then, she thought back. She remembered choosing him, she remembered taking him home. She remembered hearing the bell and seeing him almost escape. "...That was why you tried to run away."
With the way Mario flinched, she would have thought she had thrown something at him. "Yes." his answer came after a moment.
Her mug was starting to burn her hands. Peach reached forward to set it down, and then narrowed her eyes at Mario. "So, why did you stay?" she asked him. She remembered when he tried to run away, when she saw him outside. "That day when you were on the fence, you looked right at me. You could have gone. You could have been free."
She must have struck something. Mario wouldn't look at her. "Yes. I could have gone." he agreed. Peach watched him carefully, saw how he searched the floor. "It had only been a few days since you brought me home. I mean, here. Since you brought me here. I really wanted to leave. I didn't know what I would do or where I would go, but I thought if I could escape that I could figure something out. I didn't know how to change back into a human yet. A cat is very limited...When I finally opened the window, and when I did start to leave, you saw me. And the way you looked at me…"
Peach frowned, uncrossing her arms a little from her chest. She noticed his choice of words, the way he spoke. He spoke like her apartment was his home, too.
Mario let out a sigh, and only glanced at her for a moment. He rubbed the back of his head. "There were...a lot of reasons I decided to stay." he said, and he winced. But he didn't elaborate.
When he fell quiet, Peach could have sworn she could see a slight blush on his cheeks. Trying to distract herself, she noticed his use of past tense. "You said you didn't know how to turn back into a human. I guess you do now?" she asked.
He was taking a sip of his tea. When he set the mug back down, he looked at his hands folded in his lap. "Yes. I figured it out by accident a few months ago. By that time, it was too late for me to really do anything about it. Sometimes, when you were at work, I would turn back just to walk around and remember how to be human. But after a while, I just accepted my life. It was more trouble to turn back and forth than to just stay a cat. It's something about the bell. But I can't take it off." he demonstrated by trying to pull the red band over his head, but it was too small. He tried to break it, and she assumed he had tried cutting it too.
Hearing him talk about her daily life was a little disorienting. Peach could barely wrap her mind that she had been living with a strange man all this time, and she wasn't sure if she was very comfortable with it yet. But, he was obviously considerate of her. He was really trying to explain everything, trying not to scare her. He knew her. Peach suddenly felt a small hint of warmth for him. She really couldn't call him a stranger anymore; he had been here with her all along.
She must have been quiet for a moment too long, because Mario sat up and put his hands on his knees as if he were going to stand. "Thank you, for the tea." he said, and looked at her with a sad smile. "The lock isn't too hard to fix. Your neighbor next door can help if you ask him. I should go."
Just as he got to his feet and started toward the door, Peach narrowed her eyes. "Wait," she said, and she started to follow him. She noticed she was quite a bit taller than him than she had thought. "Where are you going? Where can you go? It's freezing out there, and it's almost four in the morning."
He stopped, and his eyebrows creased. "I...well, I thought about this. What would happen if…" he trailed off, and she knew he meant what would happen if she found out he was human. For a moment, he just wrung his hands and looked away from her. "...I didn't think you would be very comfortable. I thought you would be scared and angry, which is very fair. So I think it would make you feel better if I left."
Peach folded her arms across her chest, because she was cold. He was right; she was scared. But she didn't really feel any anger toward him; the situation was much too complicated, and he wasn't really to blame. He didn't really answer either of her questions, and she thought he might be avoiding exactly that. For her sake. She considered him for a moment, and as she hesitated, he started to turn to leave again. "Pan- I mean, Mario, wait." she reached out for his shoulder to stop him again. "It's too cold outside. You don't have a jacket. There's nowhere for you to go."
He didn't have a jacket, just the shirt he was wearing. He didn't really have anything. "I can figure something out." he assured her with a smile, but Peach shook her head.
"No. Look, I am scared. With Katrina, and the shadows, and the break-in…" she touched her temple and sighed. "This is all very strange, but I can't just let you leave. I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. But, I know that you don't mean any harm. Besides, now that I know who you are, maybe I can help you. Why don't you just stay here?"
Mario turned to face her, with wide eyes. "Princess, I can't-I don't want to ask any more of you than I already have. I already made things worse." he said, and he almost reached up to touch her hand. Almost. He stopped just before he could. The gesture had seemed so natural to him.
She was almost as surprised as he was when she reached the rest of the way to his hand. "You don't have to call me Princess," she rested her hand on top of his, and gently urged him away from the door. "You call this place home too, don't you? It's not fair to just kick you out now."
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but at her look, he lowered his head. "Okay. Thank you."
She led him back into the living room, and she sat across from him on the chair again. The late hour was starting to catch up to Peach. Her eyes were feeling heavy, and her whole body felt sluggish. She wanted to pick up the mugs to put them by the sink; Mario had finished his tea, and hers had gone cold. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.
The time. She looked up at the clock, it was nearly four thirty-seven. When she looked back, she realized Mario was still standing. He had followed her gaze.
"Yes. It's very late. You should really go to sleep." he said, he knew exactly what she was thinking. The suggestion was gentle, his tone mild. "You have work. And I know you will feel too guilty to sleep in."
She could hear a smile in his voice. And she knew he was probably right; she would feel bad for skipping out on Mr. Brewster without warning. Mario really did seem to know her well. She blinked at him while he came around the coffee table to her chair.
He was just about to offer his hand to her, when she looked at the door. The lock on the floor, the chair shoved under the knob. Her heart skipped a beat with the cold rush of fear. Peach folded her arms to her chest again and looked up helplessly at Mario.
"I'm scared." she said, and she felt very small and alone.
Mario nodded, and held out his hand. "I know. I'm sorry." he pulled her up with surprising ease, and held her hand in both of his while she looked down to him. His tone was soft and earnest. "I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe here."
When Peach looked at his face, she saw hard, uncompromising resolve. His hands were warm. He looked at her with those eyes that she had seen a thousand times, and suddenly she understood every moment that Pancake had looked up at her the same way. There was tenderness, a gravity she had never fully recognized. No one had ever looked at her that way before.
His eyes flickered down at their hands, and he slowly released her. "I will watch the front door while you sleep." he murmured, and stood back so she could walk toward her room.
Peach rubbed her eyes and tried not to think about how her cheeks felt warm. "Wait, so, the break-in…" she started to say. "How-how did-? What happened?"
Shaking his head, Mario just shepherded her toward her room. "We can talk more about everything tomorrow. I will be here." he promised her.
"Okay." Peach murmured, and covered her mouth to yawn.
When she glanced back, Mario was smiling at her, his eyes shining in the dim light. "Go to sleep. You need to rest." he gestured to her door.
Peach walked in her room, but stopped just before she closed the door. She turned back. Mario stood back, making clear that he had no intention of following her. He was giving her the most space he could. She gave him a shy smile. "Goodnight, Mario. Thank you."
He hesitated. "It's nothing. Goodnight." he finally answered, and she closed the door as soon as he turned around.
Before Peach could lay down, she had to pick up the lamp she had knocked over earlier. Once she switched it off, she crawled into bed, and curled up under the covers. Sleep was weighing down on her.
Her cat was actually a man, she thought.
At least he was a nice man. He seemed to really care about her. She remembered that Pancake would always sleep with her, and felt a slight discomfort at the thought. She wondered if he was missing the bed. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask him. She hoped he didn't think she was weird for singing in the shower.
She fell asleep, and dreamed about Maneki-nekos beckoning her across the sea.
O~o~O
This story is a result of finally finishing 3D World. Every single star, every flagpole, and with every character. It was hard, but it was also a lot of fun! I wanted to write a story where Mario was a cat, but I had to try all kinds of crazy things to justify it. This silly story is the result. Thanks for reading!