Paru Café's t/n: Please read and comment, either here or on the original story "Le chat".
Edit 06/25: Thanks to Sarabeka for letting me translate her One-Shots, and to GodofDualWield who made a great beta job! I can't thank them enough.
Sarabeka's a/n: It came to me like that. As I was asking myself, "What is my cat thinking when he sees me and my girlfriend kissing on HIS sofa?" You'll soon see how far this kind of thoughts can lead...
Have a good read.
The cat lives there. The cat is black and white with rings along his tail, his mistress' latest fad. The cat spends several hours a day grooming. The cat's house is called the Domain.
The cat often sleeps, much to the distaste of his little mistress. The mistress of the cat is called Hatsune Miku. The cat sometimes wonders how such an odd color of fur could exist. And why did his mistress only have fur on her head?
He thinks that this may be a weird disease.
In fact, the cat doesn't care. The cat care about nothing until he gets milk every day.
The world may crumble and the cat wouldn't move a bit.
The cat wonders why her mistress has returned with another girl in the house… in the Domain. The other girl is apparently named Luka, from what the cat overheard.
Even if he likes the caresses of this, "Luka," the cat doesn't care. He believes she won't be completely useless. At the very least, she could be used as a support for his nap. The cat has a knack for lying on anyone's lap, which greatly bothers Miku because of her inability to sit still.
But the cat asks himself questions, when Luka shoos him from her knees to make room for Miku to sit on her. The cat thinks it's unfair. Then he meows a little, purposely bitching, and retreats back lapping milk. He doesn't understand what they are doing when their mouths are stuck that way. They're going to choke!
And at the last moment, they part away, they take a mouthful of air, and restart again… tirelessly. The cat thinks these humans are crazy, playing these strange games. Would he do the same thing to the neighboring female cat? No. Impede her breathing and at the last moment release for air, only to do it again? That would be torture.
Of course not. With the female cat next door, he has other games.
Then he rolled into a ball on the couch, ears perked and alert, beginning to hear them saying words that sound like caresses to his ears.
He listens to them as they make promises of eternal love, of living together, of major projects... They remake the world in front of his eyes as he decides to rub a paw behind his ear. They entwine their fingers and dreams.
The cat doesn't care.
Often, when they are both alone in the Domain, they take all the space. Whether on the couch, on the armchair or even the chairs. They can't sit still, they heckle, they jostle gently, they play catch and kiss...
With all the noise, the cat has trouble sleeping. Then he goes upstairs and curl up on the bed of his mistress. Generally, he is left alone and he can spend the afternoon napping without anyone coming to disturb him.
But, during an afternoon like this, he hears them climb the stairs, laughing. He has just enough time to jump out of bed before they both fall on the covers.
The cat didn't like it. Not at all.
He climbs on a shelf, looking like the various plushies from his mistress, and he watches.
The cat doesn't move. While under his eyes, they look like they are fighting. They seek, they find, they scratch or chew the neck or throat.
The cat meows for attention. Luka take back her hands from his mistress and just grab him by the scruff of the neck.
The cat goes limp, bringing his paws under his body. It's been forever since he was carried like that.
He heard his mistress groan, Luka tells her that she isn't interested to be observed. She puts him out, scratches his ears and closes the door. He waits a moment, sitting in front of the door, which seemed immense. To pass the time, he licks his paws, plays with his tail, sometimes he scratches at the door... But they make so much noise that surely… they can't hear him.
They make strange noises. As if they were both running. He hears them call each other, of this soft voice that becomes increasingly hoarse by the passing of the minutes. He hears them breathing hard, he thinks he even hear the beating of their two hearts together, which are answering each other in the sweetness of this afternoon.
And then suddenly, there is a loud noise of falling. He guesses that one of them fell from the bed.
There is the silence all at once, and the cat's ears are perked. Then there is a low complaint and Luka asks if everything is alright with a slightly panicked voice. She then pushes a sigh of relief. The cat hears laughter.
He gets up on his hind paws and put the front ones on the door, meowing. He wants to know what happens there.
Someone opens the door and he slips inside the room to jump onto the bed. It is his mistress who opened. And he widens his eyes as he see them, both half naked. In these strange pieces of fabric they call underwear.
Couldn't those humans wear fur like everyone else?
Miku joins Luka under the blanket and snuggles into her arms. The older woman welcomes her warmly with a kiss on the forehead and a few words of apology. The cat watches them, purring. They play with each other's hair, sometimes they slide a finger on the curves of their faces and kiss again. On the shoulder, on the cheek, in the hollow of the neck, on the lips.
The cat is convinced that if they were more feline, they would also purr.
He finds a comfier position and begins to close his eyes, seriously considering taking a nap. Which is clearly not to the taste of everyone. He feels the bed move under him and opens one eye. It's Luka who forces her feet under his body and tries to dislodge him.
He stands up slowly, stretching out full length, sits under Luka's stunned gaze and Miku's amused one, licking a paw in order to put on a phlegmatic pose, and leaves with a dignified step.
He doesn't even bother to close the door. Serves them well, he thinks as he goes to the sofa on the ground floor.
Since that afternoon, his mistress is happier, more cheerful. Sometimes she talks to him, convinced that he doesn't understand. And he, oh so attentive ear, pretends to listen while his mind wanders elsewhere. Of course, he is happy for his mistress, but she often comes to spoil his nap with her incessant palaver about Luka. Especially as she gives him details that he would care less. Except for the fact that Luka loves fish, just as he does, there is nothing in common that he has with her, and he doesn't care.
Strangely, when the parents of his mistress are present at the Domain, both girls remain calm. Way too quiet.
On the contrary, when her parents are absent, they stay most often on the floor in the room. In these cases, he can spend all his time sleeping and nobody will scold him.
He joins them sometimes when he hears hurried breaths or languishing sighs. He finds them generally exhausted, in the arms of one another, short of breath and eyes shining. In these moments, they're the ones who don't care.
And then, one night as he woke up from a long nap, he heard no parents nor short breathes upstairs, only choppy cries. He easily recognized cries since he lived with humans, and those weren't cries of joy.
His mistress was crying on a chair in the kitchen. As he approached, he tripped because of something that looked like fur without being fur. Looking up, he saw that his master had cut her hair. She still held the scissors in her clenched fist.
He had rubbed against her legs, hoping to get a hug or a kind word, but she continued to sob without paying him attention.
He disliked it.
When she was sad, his mistress took no interest in everything around her, including he himself. When she wasn't taking care of him, the cat did care.
He planted his claws in her faded jeans, reached the chair and waited for a response that never came. He meowed until he broke his vocal cords, then jumped on the table near his hunched mistress.
He heard her chanting Luka's name as if it was a sutra.
After several minutes without improvement, he went upstairs and laid down on Miku's bed. She would join him, at least to sleep. Humans often slept at the same place.
He was not mistaken. She came late, but she came all the same. She slipped under the covers and he came to snuggle against her, sharing her warmth. She passed her hand on his fur mechanically. At least she had stopped crying.
The cat fell asleep.
He was returning from hunting, a mouse in his mouth, when he found them both, holding hands and standing in front of the parents of the Domain. It was odd to see his mistress with short hair.
Luka had a faraway glint in her eyes, while not detaching her gaze from both adults who stood still. She was determined. Miku, meanwhile, was setback.
The cat fled to devour his prey outside. He didn't like the atmosphere.
They talked for a while. When the humans were done, he had finished his mouse and considered to get another one. Luka walked in front of him without noticing the cat. She stopped on the porch and heaved a sigh which carried with it all the tension that had been accumulating.
She saw him and then gave him a beautiful smile. One that presages a bright future. Full of mouse hunt, of cushions, catnip and caresses. But perhaps humans didn't see things from the same perspective. After all, he had never seen a human eat a mouse...
She left and the cat returned without even casting her a glance. That night, when he joined his mistress in bed, she told him that she was afraid these days, because Luka had made up her mind to tell Miku's parents about their relationship.
The cat pretended to listen as he groomed. There's nothing like a good shower before going to bed.
The tension that the cat felt when he returned from hunting was enormous. Miku told him what happened the evening. Luka's confession, the amused smiles of Miku's parents who had taken their relationship very well.
The cat didn't even know what a relationship was… and didn't care.
He didn't understand why his mistress was so afraid. You're afraid when you're about to cross the road, or when you find yourself in front of a snake during a hunt or when the dogs down the street weren't attached to a leash because they could easily crush between their huge jaws. But you aren't afraid in front of the parents as you tell them that you date Luka and love her. You don't have to be afraid to love. That was what the cat thought. Would he hide when he played with the neighbor's cat? No.
What's the point to hide that you love and are loved?
Miku would always be the girl of her parents. her hair is slowly growing back, she always gives him a bowl of milk in the morning, and she still spends her afternoons in bed with Luka. She will always love Luka.
About even that, the cat thought as he rubbed a paw behind his ear, he didn't care.
