The Curse of the Cat

131. On My Mind

The twins sat: one on a low branch, the other below the shade of the tree. They'd left the others elsewhere in the park, or they'd left them. That awkward air that hung around them… Maybe it was time to sort out their own thoughts, their own feelings, before the door to opportunity clamped down.

'Why didn't you say?' Koji asked, eventually.

'I wasn't even sure you didn't know,' Koichi replied, though in part it was more an excuse than a reason. 'I mentioned it more than once before.'

And Koji, thinking back, realise the other had: casually, unsuspectingly, and he'd let those words brush him by. 'I don't know what I was thinking,' he confessed. 'Maybe I thought you meant family in a more general sense. All the members of the Zodiac are related, after all. And the cat and the rat's is most temperamental, amongst them. Or maybe I just hadn't been paying enough attention to note the exact words.'

They fell silent again. Koji looked up. Koichi looked up too: skyward, where the leaves and branches parted.

'We wound up wasting a lot of time.'

'We did.'

And now there was less than a month left.

132. Mirror

Koichi looked down. It was strange, still, seeing how similar his brother's face looked… and how different. 'Do you think Fuyuno will allow this?'

'Allow…' And then Koji caught on. 'Can he do that, though. Erase our memories, as members of the Zodiac?'

'Possibly.' Koichi wasn't sure himself. 'But he certainly can erase the others. And that power… isn't it just hypnosis, at the end of the day. Nothing inexplicable like our curse… but a curse all the same.'

'Maybe.' Koji frowned. And it was petty enough that a young god-like figure would pursue it, however… 'If he could, wouldn't he have just kept Chiaki around?'

'I wonder…' Koichi hadn't thought of that himself. 'Maybe memories and emotions aren't so closely tied together.'

'Then I don't think you'll need to worry.' Koji, this time, was forcing his smile… but there was a sliver of hope to hang on to regardless. 'If Fuyuno does erase our memories of you, they'll probably gravitate towards me again. And family love, a mother's love… no way hypnosis is going to win over that.'

'That's a lot of faith to put in bonds.' Then Koichi smiled. 'Sounds like just the kind of thing I'm game to bet on.'

Though, the reality was he had very little choice. He could either hope or despair; it was as simple as that.

133. Kneel

There were twelve animals at the banquet, the cat who'd been shut outside, and then the god. But even amongst the twelve, there was a hierarchy and that hierarchy was a double-edged sword. Because by pushing to the front of the line, the rat had resigned itself to a life of grovelling at the feet of that god, and by being the unwitting mule to carry said rat, the cow had a resentment that continued for years to come.

And then amongst the faster animals: the horse, the dragon, the rooster, the dog and the boar… they'd lost the race to a lumbering cow. And the snake had slithered amongst all those feet, prevailing itself to a life on the ground, alternating between grovelling and dodging and attempting to not get crushed.

And even a dog's undying loyalty was bitterly tested.

It was ironic that, in their generation, there was no rooster to give them a wake up call. It was ironic that, in their generation, it was the dog who'd died first, who'd chosen death instead of a life with the curse.

And when the twins thought about it, they could not recall a time where it had been anyone other than the cat who'd died before the god. That told them little, though. Only the tales of the cats of the Sohma family were well known amongst the Zodiac. If there was any deficiency in the others, it was tucked away and hidden. Only the cats… and, in outside circles, the god: the public figurehead of the Sohma family. Always physically weak, always ill, yet always imposing and ruling with an iron fist that never seemed to relax even after they were gone.

It was a curse that had plagued their family for generations, and they knew nothing about how to break it, about how they might set themselves free of it and all the concessions they gained were fleeting and temporary…

And, all the way, the clock continued ticking towards the end.

134. Locked

Some grew old in the cage. Once, it was a brittle cage of bamboo. It had been preserved, even though now it was more a locked room than a cage, made of sturdy enough walls that their screams couldn't be heard outside.

Koichi knew this well. Even Koji knew this a little, for while it lay vacant, it was also the punishment room for any disobedient zodiac child. They'd all learnt to fear the room: fear its windowless walls and the musty smell of dried blood that always seemed to be in there.

The last cat had died young and horribly. Went mad in its cage and clawed at himself until infection claimed him. And all that knowledge served was exacerbate the fear and the despair. But there'd been cats that had died old as well, and sometimes they'd spared an entire generation their misfortune.

That went true for all the zodiac members, but the cats were the most vulnerable and also the safest.

But, Koichi knew, it must have taken a person of unimaginable mental fortitude to live in a locked room until old age, even if the bars then had slightly parted and allowed the sun to sneak in.

135. Punch

Koichi nearly fell out of the tree when Koji punched the trunk.

'Sorry,' the other muttered, after, but Koichi neatly jumped down anyway. 'I just wish there was a way around it.'

'There are plenty of ways around it.' And maybe it was unnecessary flippant of him, but he shrugged those ideas away. 'Don't you think Mum and I haven't thought this through? It's not worth the trouble it will cause for everybody else.'

'Doesn't mean you need to sacrifice yourself for it,' Koji snapped.

'I'm not sacrificing you,' Koichi snapped back.

Koji felt silent at that, because what else could he say. They couldn't run away, either, because the curse would follow them and Fuyuno likely had enough resources at his disposal to follow them as well.

'You said you'll sneak in,' Koichi said, eventually.

'Easy enough,' Koji replied, with a bravado he didn't quite feel. 'I live in the compound, after all. And I really don't think hypnosis has the power to remove us from each other's lives. If it could, Fuyuno could have made us all be what he wanted without any arguments or hassles. We wouldn't have conflicts, or tragedies. We wouldn't need the hierarchy. We wouldn't long for a life outside of the compound.'

'Or that's just the illusion of free will.'

And they had no way of knowing, really, which one of those it was.