Chapter 3; Seven Years Later
"Hey Mum, d'you think cats can talk?" Muta asked his mother when he got home from school. It was the last day for the year, and there were stains on his uniform from playing soccer with his classmates.
"You really have a terrible memory. Of course they can," Haru said, moving from the bench to the stove, making dinner. "Why do you ask honey?"
"Coz I just caught one that was gonna land on the road and get turned into road pizza, and it said thank you," he said, sitting down at the table.
Haru laughed quietly to herself.
"Saving cats just runs in the family," she said, loading two plates with food and bringing them, one at a time because she also had to handle her cane, to the table.
"When you were nine, remember? You grabbed a cat when it was just about to walk into a car," Haru informed him as they were finishing their meal.
"Yeah, I remember, you were so worried about it I just grabbed it up, and you talked to it," Muta said, the old memory resurfacing. "I'll clean up Mum, you get some rest."
"You're a good boy, Muta," Haru said, covering a yawn.
o0o
"MUM!" Muta yelled from the kitchen the next morning, shocked by what he was seeing.
"What's the matter dear?" Haru said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she slowly made her way to the kitchen window to stand beside her boy.
The lawn was covered in cattails.
"You dreamt of cats last night, didn't you?" Haru accused, jabbing a finger at her boy. "Show me the scroll they gave you, right now." The nearly-forty-year-old woman said, her brown eyes lit up with the fire of youth, an adventure she had had before, replaying.
Muta stammered. His mother had never been so sharp with him, but he was terrified by how much she knew as well, and ran to get the scroll she had somehow known about without being told.
"Check your pockets," she ordered, taking the rolled up piece of scrappy looking paper from her boy and unrolling it. "Cattails, catnip, mice, cat. Congratulations my boy, you just got yourself betrothed to the princess of the cat kingdom," Haru informed her son.
"What? I can't marry a cat – I have a date with Ishii tomorrow," he said, staggering under the impact of his mother's words.
"Good thing I have some connections then, isn't it? Though you may want to call Ishii and make it the day after tomorrow," Haru suggested, rolling up the scroll again and handing it back to her son.
"I recommend packing a lunch for us while I get dressed," she said, heading back to her room. "It's going to be a long weird day."
Muta could hardly believe that his mother was smiling when she said that. How could anything good come of this? What kind of connections did she have that would get him out of marrying a cat? Moreover, how the heck did she know what these weird little symbols meant? He couldn't ask her though, he knew his mother: she wouldn't tell him.
He had a decent picnic in his backpack by the time Haru returned, dressed – in Muta's opinion – very strangely, particularly given the circumstance.
Haru wore a pair of jeans when she usually wore skirts, and a white shirt, but a shirt shirt, rather than a t-shirt or normal top. It was almost like she was going for a job interview. Muta thought so anyway. His mother looked strangely formal, and he wasn't used to it, not at all.
"Ready to go?" she asked. She was even using her favourite cane, the one she used for fancy occasions like functions or his graduation.
Muta affirmed that he was, and followed her out of the house, locking the door behind them.
Haru moved with more spring in her step and greater speed than she had for years, decades even, as she lead her son to the Crossroads to find the fat cat he had been named after. A smile crept onto her face at that thought – they were both in for a shock.