Sojiro stood behind the counter of Café Leblanc, sipping at the cup of coffee he'd made for himself to wind down the day. He idly tapped a pencil on his chin while he considered the crossword puzzle in front of him.
He looked up when he heard a commotion outside. It was about time for Akira to be getting home from his job working with working with representative Yoshida, but he almost never heard the usually reserved young man before the bell that sounded when he opened the door to the café.
Listening a little more closely, he could start to make out a voice. It was definitely Akira's. He sounded more annoyed than angry, but Sojiro had gotten to know him well enough to recognize that Akira was truly upset.
"I told you to stay in my bag," Akira said, his face looking down at the bag that was slung over his shoulder.
A defensive sounding meow came out of the bag and Akira continued. "I know I said that I didn't want to bother going back across the office for the report, but –"
More meowing ensued, and Sojiro could only shake his head.
"Hey kid," he greeted Akira. The man in question turned, seeming to have just noticed Sojiro's presence. He gave an apologetic smile.
"What happened?" Sojiro inquired.
"I said something about needing a report that I'd left in my office and this guy," he used his head to gesture towards Morgana, who was now poking his head out of the bag that doubled as his travel carrier, "thought he'd just pop over to my office to get it, ignoring the fact that there were dozens of people in the office who could see him and that I'd explicitly told him to stay in my bag."
Morgana gave a loud meow and Akira let out an exasperated sigh.
"Anyway. Tora saw him in my office and told me that I couldn't have him at work anymore. Tora doesn't mind, but he said that the rest of the office would. He also said it wouldn't look great for a brand new assistant to be flaunting the rules banning pets a week after starting."
Morgana mewled softly.
"No, I'm not going to claim that you're a service animal just so you can come to work with me. If anything, I'd be your service animal, carrying you around everywhere."
Morgana gave a hiss that Sojiro could only describe as offended. He jumped out of Akira's bag and onto the counter, walking the length of it before laying down at the far end, staring out the window.
Akira ran a hand through his hair. "Anyway, now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with Morgana all day."
Morgana gave a loud meow from the end of the counter, still staring out the window.
"I know you're not just some housecat that I need to take care of. I just don't want you bored out of your mind stuck at home all day."
Sojiro watched their back and forth quietly, taking occasional sips from his coffee. Even if he couldn't understand the cat, he could pick up the gist of things.
If Sojiro were honest with himself, he'd felt more than a bit of trepidation letting Akira take Morgana in. A delinquent that he'd let stay in a room above his livelihood taking in some stray cat that could have all kinds of diseases. It was a textbook example of a bad idea. Not to mention the health code violations that Sojiro assumed could ensue from having a cat in the restaurant. He'd never checked the book since Akira kept Morgana out of the café most of the time.
Really, the only reason he'd said yes was that he thought it would give Akira something to focus on other than his probation. Taking care of a pet might help him take care of himself, or so his thinking had gone. And Sojiro hadn't been the only one who thought that way.
"You know," he said, putting down the pencil and crossword. "It's honestly a miracle that you've gotten this far with him."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just surprised that Yoshida was the first person to speak up. All your teachers at Shujin knew you had him with you. And I can't imagine that your teachers back home last year didn't notice."
"They knew?" Akira asked, sounding truly surprised.
"Of course they did. It would be hard to miss. He's not exactly quiet, and you're not subtle about sneaking food to him when you eat."
For such a bright kid, he really can be oblivious about some things.
"Why didn't they say anything?"
"Your homeroom teacher noticed the second day you brought him to school. She called the house and asked whether I knew you had a cat. I said yes, and she asked whether I knew you were sneaking him to school. When I told her that I did, she asked me what the hell I was thinking.
"I told her that taking care of a cat could be good for, given the probation and all. She said, 'that might work,' and hung up. I bet she spread that story to the rest of the teachers and they just ignored it as long as you weren't being too obvious about it. No clue why your teachers back home didn't say anything though." He shrugged.
"Anyway," Sojiro continued. "You can leave him here while you go to work. Just remember that he's not allowed down here while customers around."
"Thanks, Boss," Akira said gratefully. "C'mon Morgana. We'll think of something for you to do during the day."
Apparently over whatever anger he'd been feeling, Morgana leaped off the counter and walked towards Akira. The two disappeared up the stairs to Akira's room and Sojiro shook his head, picking up his pencil and turning his attention back to the crossword.
The next morning Sojiro opened up shop before Akira left for work. As he got the shop ready for the day he could hear one side of a soft conversation from upstairs, punctuated with the occasional meow.
Akira came down the stairs dressed for work, the bag he usually used to carry Morgana conspicuously absent. "I'm heading to work. See you later Boss."
Sojiro gave Akira a wave as he walked out the door and returned to his preparations for the day. Soon, the morning regulars started filing in and he busied himself taking their orders and making sure their coffee was of the quality he provided himself on producing.
Slowly, the morning gave way to the afternoon and customers started coming in for lunch. Things were busy enough that Sojiro went through multiple batches of curry. A few of his customers had to wait while he whipped up the new batch, but none of them seemed to mind.
That was what he liked about his customers. They weren't just there for the food and drink, though he knew that his was some of the best around. They came to enjoy the quiet atmosphere that his café produced. Café Leblanc wouldn't be Café Leblanc if it was packed to the gills like a fast food restaurant or chain coffee shop.
Sojiro made it through the lunch rush, though he wished that today was one of the days that Akira was there to help him out. By late afternoon, the last lunch-seeker had walked out the door, leaving Sojiro alone in the café for the first time since the morning.
Taking a breath to relax himself, Sojiro sat down at the counter and started working on that day's crossword. Once the lunch rush was over, the place was usually quiet until dinner. Sometimes, he'd close up shop for a few hours to buy some supplies, but he'd just gone shopping the day before. Instead, he decided to take the afternoon to just relax with his puzzle.
He was trying to figure out the clue for number eighteen across (a nine letter word for "a knife user's tool") when he was distracted by a banging noise coming from the kitchen. As he stood to investigate he heard another crashing noise, followed by a soft thunk as the broom he kept behind the counter tipped over. He got behind the counter just in time to see a small black shape pounce on an even smaller, grey shape.
Morgana meowed triumphantly and turned around. It was then that he noticed Sojiro staring at him.
Sojiro took in the scene in front of him. Morgana standing there, as sheepish as a cat could look, holding a mouse, which was still struggling to escape, between his teeth.
He'd say that his exposure to the kid and his friends meant he was used to seeing pretty unusual stuff, but this was a bit weird, even to him.
That was why all me managed to say was, "Oh. A mouse."
Sojiro grabbed a cardboard box that had held some curry ingredients and held it out for Morgana to deposit the mouse into. As soon as the cat dropped the mouse, Sojiro closed it tight. He went outside and walked a ways down the street before releasing it back to the wild.
Sojiro returned to the café to see Morgana sitting on one of the booths' tables, looking at him.
Sojiro had always known something was unusual about Akira's cat. It seemed far too well behaved for some stray that the boy had taken in. Still, he wasn't one to make problems where there weren't anyway, and Akira cared for it well enough.
Things had become clearer when Akira and his friends had explained about their Phantom Thief activities and how Morgana actually had the intelligence of a human, but Sojiro always had trouble picturing Morgana as something that could think and communicate as well as any person.
Still, when the cat stared at him intently like that, he couldn't deny that it clearly had more going on between its ears than the average cat.
"Thanks," he said, giving Morgana a nod. "Wouldn't look good if a customer had seen a mouse in here."
Morgana meowed at him.
"Yeah. You were a big help." Sojiro knew that the cat was prideful from hearing Akira and the rest of his friends talk, so he took a guess at what the cat was trying to say. Clearly, he'd guessed wrong as the cat gave an annoyed chatter.
Morgana jumped off the table and walked towards the stairs, turning to look at Sojiro, meowing again.
"Yeah. Head on up. Dinner customers should be turning up soon."
Morgana shook his head and made a frustrated kind of growl. He jumped back on the counter and stared at Sojiro, meowing at him a few times.
Sojiro just looked at him blankly. "Sorry. I don't know what you're trying to stay."
Clearly exasperated, Morgana looked around the café. His eyes landed on the crossword puzzle that Sojiro had been working on and he bounded over to it.
With some effort, Morgana picked up the pencil with his mouth, ignoring Sojiros protests. After a couple of minutes of effort, he managed to scrawl the word 'follow' at the bottom of the page in a barely legible script.
Sojiro read the word, then looked at Morgana. "Okay, okay. Show me what you want to show me."
Morgana hopped up the stair to Akira's room, Sojiro following close behind him. He walked over the Akira's bed, slipping under it.
Sojiro sighed and got down on his hands and knees to look. He had to turn on the flashlight on his phone, which Futaba had just shown him how to do, but he was finally able to see what Morgana was so annoyed about.
In the wall, there was a small hole, just large enough for a mouse to slip through. It was almost like the mouseholes that you would see in the old cartoons.
Sure enough, probably surprised by the sudden light, a mouse poked its head out of the hole. Morgana hissed and pawed at it, but the mouse was too quick and it escaped out of sight.
Sojiro groaned as he stood up. "I'll need to call someone to patch that up and take care of those mice. Thanks."
Morgana gave a pleased sounding meow in response.
Sojiro went back down the stairs and walked over to the public telephone. After a short conversation with the local handyman, he was all set to have the hole patched and the ice relocated the next day.
Sojiro returned to his crossword puzzle at the counter, which Morgana had settled himself down next to.
"You know. You're pretty handy. It might not be the worst thing to have a cat around the café."
Morgana gave him an upset look, jumping and snatching the pencil out of Sojiro's hand. Again, ignoring the man's protests, Morgana spent the next few minutes scratching out a few words on the paper.
'Not a cat.'
Sojiro gave him a deadpan look. "You certainly look like one. And hunting mice ain't doing your argument any favors."
Morgana hissed at him and used the pencil to underline the sentence for emphasis.
Ignoring the absurdity of holding a conversation with a cat for the moment, Sojiro asked, "in that case, what are you?"
Morgana paused, looking down at the page. He took quite some time before he began working his muzzle to move the pencil along the page, taking another long pause after writing 'I.'
Eventually, Morgana moved away for the page, which read 'I don't know.'
Sojiro gave Morgana a soft look.
Over time, he had come to look at each of Akira's friends as a member of his family. In truth, they were all such good kids that it hadn't taken long for him to start worrying about them like they were his own. It was only natural when they were practically living under your roof and clearly didn't have any parental influences of their own.
He hadn't ever given much thought to Morgana, which was understandable given that he had no way to speak to the cat. But seeing the look on the cat's face, Sojiro understood that Morgana was just like the rest of the Thieves. No real family of his own, not really certain of his place in the world. Now they were all finished with school and moving on to the next stage of their lives, but Morgana was stuck in a sort of stasis, unsure of where he stood and where he could go.
"It must be tough, not knowing who you really are," Sojiro said.
Morgana nodded in response.
"Have you tried to figure it out?"
Another nod.
"What happened?"
Morgana tilted his head questioningly. He pawed at the crossword paper, which was now filled with barely legible writing, and Sojiro flipped it over. On the blank sheet, Morgana started slowly writing. After about ten minutes, he'd finished.
'The Metaverse is gone. Not sure where else to look.' The cat looked somewhat depressed.
"Well, I'm sure that we can think of something," Sojiro said. "But first, we're going to need to find some way for you to communicate better. It's gotta be tough with just those kids for conversation." He recalled a few occasions where Akira's blonde-haired friend had quarreled with Morgana, in a friendly way, and took a guess. "That knucklehead Ryuji isn't exactly a great conversationalist, is he?"
Morgana made a chittering noise that Sojiro could only interpret as a laugh. He was slowly getting over the weirdness of holding a conversation with a cat and starting to really think about how he could help. He'd already done his best to take care of the other Thieves. He wouldn't shirk his self-imposed duty now.
Morgana was looking at him expectantly, blinking slowly. After a moment's thought, Sojiro had an idea.
"Hey, do you know Morse code?"
Morgana looked at him curiously before shaking his head.
"Huh. That would have been something useful for your extracurricular activities I bet. Anyway, back when I used to work for the government, everyone still had to learn it, even if they were never going to have to use it. Some old regulation. Of course, nobody learns it these days with all the newfangled technology making communication so easy."
Sojiro grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and a new pencil – he wasn't going to use one that the cat had held in its mouth – and started writing. After a few minutes, he slapped down the sheet down on the counter in front of Morgana.
Each letter has a pattern attached to it. You can signal in Morse code using darn near anything. A light, tapping or even blinking.
At the last word, Sojiro saw a look of understanding settle on Morgana's face.
"Cats—" Morgana meowed in protest, "I know, I know. You're not a cat, but you look like one to everyone else. Cats blink weirdly all the time. It wouldn't be strange for you to be blinking a lot, and nobody knows Morse code anymore, so no one will notice you communicating like a human."
Sojiro pointed at some of the symbols on the page. "See, the dots are for short. The dashes are for long. Put them together and you can make a letter. Pause between letters and put a long pause between words."
Morgana studied the page intently for a few minutes before look Sojiro straight in the eyes. He blinked in a short pattern. Sojiro was a bit rusty at interpreting Morse code but was able to figure out what the cat was saying quickly enough. 'Like this?'
"Exactly like that. Isn't that easier than trying to write with a pencil in your mouth?"
Morgana gave a triumphant meow, snatching the sheet of paper off the counter. He looked at Sojiro and purred, which Sojiro wasn't sure he'd ever heard him do before, and practically sprinted up the stairs, sheet of paper in his mouth.
Sojiro chuckled quietly to himself. It wasn't how he expected to spend his afternoon, but he felt good about having done something that had clearly made the not-cat happy. If he took to studying Morse code with half of the dedication that he had put towards bullying Akira into getting enough sleep, he'd be practically fluent in no time.
Sojiro mused quietly as he picked his crossword back up. Having someone to talk to at the café during the quiet times would be nice. Thinking on it for a moment, he put the puzzle down before opening an app that Futaba had installed on his phone, bringing up videos of people signaling in Morse code.
With the amount of energy that cat has, he'll be trying to talk at lightning speed. I better try to knock off that old rust.