A/N: Don't worry. Katsuharu and Teppei will redeem themselves as usual. Teruo will also show up at a later stage…but I'm not too sure about Chiaki right now. I've used Katsuharu's and Teppei's surnames from Yami no Tenshi, Hikari no Akuma, ie. Kobayashi and Yamaguchi respectively.
The Curse of the Cat
016. Fight
The arcade was nothing like Koji had imagined it. Somehow he'd expected more physical contact – something he'd been understandably apprehensive by. But while there were a lot of small crowds, they didn't really mingle with each other, instead collecting around a pair of boys racing or a girl shooting her way into the record books. That left several other games almost completely empty, and Takuya instantly dragged him over to one as Shinya went over to another where only a single boy, roughly the same age, was gunning down a space-ship with a black eye.
'Why do you have a black eye?' Shinya asked immediately, plopping down beside him and taking the other set of controls.
The other mumbled something.
Takuya frowned and abandoned the joystick he had been making for, going over to his brother and the other boy instead. Koji, at a bit of a loss but nonetheless refusing to admit it, followed.
'What happened Tommy?' He sounded serious; a first in Koji's knowledge.
The swollen eyes lifted, the look in them embarrassed and rather nervous. Luckily, he had the foresight to press pause before his little spaceship was blasted off the screen. 'I…got into a fight.'
'You mean some guys were kicking you around again.' Takuya sighed.
Shinya scowled. 'You should come to me,' he insisted. 'I'd beat them up for you.'
'And get into trouble,' the other two brunets said as one. 'Not to mention you're probably no match for them both,' Takuya added, much to his brother's chagrin.
'It's okay,' Tommy interrupted before the Kanbara brothers escalated into an argument. 'Someone helped.'
'Oh? Who?' Even Koji was interested; there weren't many people like Takuya (and apparently Shinya Kanbara was one of those people), and he could imagine very few others stepping in to stop a bullying situation at the risk of being inconvenienced or hurt themselves.
'I think he's in your class.' Tommy twisted in his seat. 'Koichi Kimura?'
They both shook their heads. 'Maybe Zoe's,' Takuya suggested.
JP was obviously not an option, having moved on to junior high the previous year and before Koji had transferred to the school himself. He only knew the other through Takuya and Zoe; they had been and still were close, even with an entire academic year between them.
'Katsuharu hit him though,' Tommy admitted, continuing with his explanation. 'Then I told him to stop, and then everyone disappeared because a teacher was coming.'
There was a pause, before Takuya clapped him on the shoulder. 'Good for you,' he complimented. 'Nice to hear you say something to them.'
Tommy still looked nervous though. 'But they'll make me pay for it later.'
Takuya looked at Koji. He gave an expressionless look. The brunet turned back and shrugged. 'You don't know that,' he pointed out. 'Most bullies are just cowards.'
'But fighting back's just as bad,' Tommy cried, half-standing before losing his nerve and seizing the joystick tightly with both hands.
Takuya looked a little uncomfortable at that. 'Oh, look. The racing cars are free.'
And he grabbed Koji's elbow and steered him away, leaving the pair of nine year olds to blow up space aliens together.
017. Naked
As Koichi had expected, his mother had been worried about the bruised cheek he carried home with him, fretting needlessly for a good ten or fifteen minutes before allowing him to go off with a nicely soaked dish-towel to reduce the swelling some more.
'After all,' she said. 'A paper towel can only do so much.'
But she took pity on the other after a little while and let him surrender the compass when the large lump had faded into something manageable. After all, no cat liked being wet, even if the cold water was a welcomed relief. Comfort for discomfort; it was another thing assessed by the cost to benefit ration like his medication. Only, with that, there was no clear-cut answer as wetness had to be tolerated, even if it did leave him feeling lethargic and his math homework taking twice as long to complete.
But things were still a little tense, even if math homework provided a good distraction…if only because he needed to give it his full attention and that was difficult to do when part of his brain was complaining about the moist towel pressed against his cheek.
All things considered, he was lucky the skin broke so easily; it would only be red by the following day, instead of purple or black as most others would have sprouted.
But that didn't stop the atmosphere from sharpening, even as he finally finished his worksheet and began on something easier, his mother turning the gas stove off at the same time.
'Koichi,' she said finally, sounding both disappointed and concerned, before sighing. She knew her words were useless in such situations. 'Are you feeling okay?' she asked instead. 'Would you like to go to bed early tonight?'
Koichi shook his head. 'I'm fine,' he said quietly.
His mother looked at him, before suddenly coming over and embracing him, tightening her grip when she felt the human form morph into the black feline. The abandoned uniform slipped off the chair and onto the floor; paws scrambled uselessly for them.
'Forget the clothes,' Tomoko scolded her son. 'I've told you this before; I don't care if you're the Cat of the Zodiac or not. You're my son, and I don't want to see you unnecessarily hurt.'
Fur gently nuzzled her cheek, but the touch was still tentative, still hesitant…and it hurt her more than a vicious wild monster ever could.
I wish I could have protected you…or made you forget…
But she had been able to do none of them, and it appeared she was even too late taking him away from that life, for it had marked him too deeply, enough to make him completely apathetic to his own wellbeing. All she could really do was warm him in her embrace and nurse him back to health when he fell…if even that.
But nothing and no one was going to deny him her embrace.
018. Push
They heard a crash around the next bend of hallway, and even though both were late (thanks to Takuya attempting to shoot another goal before the bell), they stopped to investigate.
Or rather, Takuya stopped as anything that sparked his curiosity was, for him, more fascinating than sitting through a forty minute lecture on magnet properties. Koji followed simply because the obstruction was blocking their way. Crashes were common enough when hundreds of students collected in a confined area.
It was not however common to find an asthma inhaler skidding along the floor, and thus Koji was watching it hit the opposing wall as he rounded the corner…and crashed into Takuya who had stopped walking, jaw open.
The Rat was perfectly prepared to none-too-politely shove the brunet out of the way when another crash, accompanied by a started yell, pierced the air.
'Pinch me,' Takuya muttered, before exclaiming when Koji did just that. 'I didn't mean literally.'
'You shouldn't have said it then,' Koji hissed back, taking in the scene before him. The only one standing – seemed a tad younger than the pair of them – was backing away, wide-eyed with jaw fly-catching. A second (or third if on included the spectator) brunet was half slumped against the wall, evidently shoved with quite a bit of strength as he was wincing and rubbing his head amidst the shocked expression he sprouted.
The third, with hair black but appearing somewhat bluish under the microscope light, was on his knees, clutching his chest with one hand as he gasped for breath, curtain of short-cropped hair concealing his face as his other fumbled forward. When nothing came under hand, he crawled – or dragged was perhaps a more accurate term – himself forward until his hand enclosed around the inhaler and the cool plastic was touching his lips.
The inhaler cluttered to the floor again when the Vice Principal's voice suddenly boomed out.
'Just what is going on here?'
Takuya jumped. Koji just managed not to. Katsuharu, the brunet who had hit his head and who also happened to be a classmate of theirs, also managed not to but his side-kick had no such restraint.
The fifth, also unfamiliar, was just slumped bonelessly against the wall, attempting to even out his breathing. The Vice Principal's gaze immediately focused on him.
'Minamoto, take Kimura to the infirmary.'
Takuya made to move as well, but an arm swung out to hold him back.
'Hold on Mr Kanbara.'
'But I had nothing to do with this,' Takuya protested.
'Kimura's the one who shoved me,' Katsuharu muttered at the same moment, sounding rather sour.
'You knocked his inhaler out of his hand when he was having an asthma attack!' Takuya yelled back at him.
'Kanbara, Kobayashi,' the Vice Principal barked before a second fight – if the first could be called a fight – broke out. He amended when catching sight of the third. 'Yamaguchi. My office, now.'
019. Alive
When the inhaler was struck from his hands and fell out of sight, Koichi's first instinct was to shove all opposition away and find it. The tightness in his chest had snuck upon him with little warning (as they sometimes did), and when it did it obliterated every other thought and instinct from his mind. Humanity became drowned in the animal; survival rose to the forefront. He scrambled – shaking, panting, combing the darkness – till his hands closed around the cool plastic and he brought it up to his lips in a well practised motion.
Three puffs later, he slumped against the wall, feeling the vapour opening up his cramped airways and letting air in. A tremor quickly set in; his head spun in dizziness, but that did not stop the thirst for air. Light slipped back in, along with snatches of voices, sounds – someone carrying him –
None of that fully registered, save the air passing through the lungs and the pain in his now expanded chest, telling him that, for the time being, he was alive.
As he lay a little later in a small cot in the infirmary, he realised it hadn't been a particularly bad asthma attack; his post-attack tablets and a nap had him feeling better and a trip to the hospital was mercifully not needed. Sadly, his mind didn't quite agree; it had been a while since his last asthma attack since the glucocorticoids were a preventative measure to such events. Of course, they weren't perfect, but he had been rather young when he had been hospitalised for a few weeks because of a series of detrimental attacks.
But when one's chest tightened and that precious air was stolen, the mind found it very difficult to differentiate between a mild asthma attack and a life-threatening one. After all, even a low-grade attack could kill in the time it took for the puffer to take effect…if it did…
But it had worked for him, and he was grateful for it. At that moment, he was still seeing things in black and white, and so it was very easy for him to think he was glad to be alive.
020. New
Koji usually avoided people; Takuya had been the first exception, and things had rolled downhill from there, leaving him helping someone he didn't even know to the infirmary and then returning to class without a note explaining his absence.
The teacher looked both surprised and disapproving; avoiding company meant he was rather punctual so it was unusual to find himself late for anything. Unfortunately, that inexperience also meant he had not thought to ask the nurse for a slip.
He was just lucky Takuya showed up with a note excusing the both of them for their lateness, elsewise he would have wound up with a detention on his record. Another first.
Of course, that one would have had to go through his father as all detention forms needed to be signed. That left him thinking how his father would have reacted to the anomaly…but reconsidered. He had fought hard enough to be allowed to go to an ordinary "school", even as he thought the effort would be wasted and nothing accomplished thereof. Now that knew he was wrong though, he was not willing to give up that opportunity.
And it wasn't like he had transformed at school. Yet.