The Curse of the Cat

161. Settle

It's their birthday, suddenly, and it'll be the only one they have together.

'Won't you fight me?' Koji asked, once again. 'It's not even a right, really. I'll let you win. We don't know Fuyuno won't count it as anything.'

'Haven't you read the records?' Koichi asked tiredly. 'It's a fight to the death. One time the rat said exactly the same thing. They were in love, or something. She let the cat stab her, but couldn't take that pain and fought back even though she said she wouldn't. Fought back with her bare hands and killed him instead. There weren't guns in those days.'

'A bunch of sixteen year olds in Japan aren't going to get guns easily anyway.' But Koji seemed to visibly droop. 'It was never going to be as easy as throwing a punch if it's never happened before.'

'Whether it's just differences in the way they're raised or something else, it just never happens.' Their cards are stacked three-fold, too, with the asthma and the blood relation.

'Still, the cat and the rat have never been twins before, have they.'

Who knew if that even made a difference, with the end result.

162. Treat

They have a small party at the Kimuras: their father, and their four friends.

Kousei was surprised to see their joint present, but he had to admit it was a good idea. A way in their modern era to not be completely isolated, and something small enough to be hidden under clothes even if more obvious things could be taken away.

He wished he knew more, himself. What restrictions Fuyuno would enforce. What that room would be like. Whether there was anything else, except the room… and why they couldn't be a little kinder and have a house instead. Once upon a time, it had been a cave on a mountain. That mountain had long since collapsed. And then a well. And then a cell made of reed sticks. And now a shed-like room. Maybe it would be a little cottage, one day, like long term psychiatry patients with no-where else to go. Maybe that was the sort of argument they used if anyone else wandered by and noted anything untoward.

But it's his sons' birthdays today and he didn't want to think of those things.

Instead, he watched the parcels being unwrapped, one by one.

Aside from the joint present, they brought individual things as well. JP had brought a few different decks of cards: two regular packs (one with a guitar, the other with a book), a tarot deck and Hanabi, and some sort of collectables. Aside from the tarot deck, they were designed to be played with others, and no doubt they'd be playing something later on, but it was a shame there were only days, left, now.

Zoe had brought a beanie and mittens, except the beanie had cat ears and the mittens had claws. 'I thought it showed off the inner cat,' she shrugged, when they stared at her. She passed a similar packet to Koji, who of course opened it to find a grey set with a black nose and smaller ears instead.

And Tommy quickly shoved his own package across, to reveal a warm knitted scarf of only a slightly different shade of brown and grey. 'I guess we kind of thought the same thing.'

Takuya's present was also somewhat similar for both twins. For Koji he'd brought some kind of a computer game. For Koichi it was a book of mind puzzles.

And Koichi's present to Koji turned out to be a sketchbook with drawings.

Kousei hadn't even known he drew.

163. Notice

There was a lot he'd missed, in sixteen years, and watching Tomoko's friends as the kids played Hanabi showed him she was thinking the same.

'I was wondering…' she said quietly, so the others didn't overhear, 'how it would have been if we'd lived together, after all. We were so afraid, then, that they would have been ripped apart somehow anyway.'

'Whether Fuyuno would have put his foot down and forced one or both of them out of the house, or whether they would have grown to hate each other…' There'd been too many possibilities, and they'd been too horrible to think about.

But now they looked at their children, and how much each of them had missed, and how much they'd continue to miss. And what could they even do about it, now?

'I'd marry you again, you know.'

'You can't.' And it wouldn't do any good. Fuyuno would never let her inside again. 'I'll still visit, though.'

The way she said that made him look at her. 'You don't mean to…'

Her eyes were hard. She certainly did.

And all he could do when she got that sort of look in her eyes was try to protect her through the aftermath. Her, and her sons' friends as well, because they'd said the exact same thing.

Wasn't it too much to hope, though, that Fuyuno wouldn't catch them all sneaking about?

164. Least

The day ended, as all days did. And the days that followed after were too heavy, too sombre. It made Koji almost stir crazy. Made him want to march up to Fuyuno and shake him until he changed it. But however wrong Fuyuno's decision was, Koji knew he would not be able to sway it. He was their Clan Leader, their God. They were bound to obey him.

They'd been conditioned too well. Maybe if they'd been born before… but then what excuse did the older Zodiac members have? The noose of the Sohma family was so tight that the ghosts of previous generations kept them in line. It wasn't fair. They'd done nothing to deserve it and the poor cat of the Zodiac had done the least. It was the rat who had cheated. The cow who hadn't thrown the rat off its back. The god who decided to be stingy and shut the door in the cat's face.

Their birthday party ended, and then so did all the remaining time they had together, no matter how they tried to fill it up.

165. Exception

It could be, Koichi knew, his last night to feel his mother's embrace. He forewent his homework; there was little point in completing it should the worst occur, and should what he hoped for come true, he would have all the time in the world to make up such things. He didn't have that with his mother; even if he was not locked away, her frail body and ill health were drawing her life to a close.

Tomoko had not gone to work that day, the same thoughts permeating her mind. Instead, she waited silently for him in their small apartment, and as soon as he came with his book-bag hurriedly slung over his shoulder and cap noticeably absent, she took him into her embrace.

The school uniform slipped to the floor in a heap as the black cat curled around her arm. She tightened her hold, sitting on her own mother's rocking chair as she cuddled the warm fur close.

They stayed like that until it became too cold, and then they went under the blankets of her bed together, lying awake until the pale dawn sifted through high windows, pink like blood.

Koichi, a cat still, clung to his mother's embrace. A mother's embrace, wherein no harm could ever come to him. But it was an embrace he would soon have to leave. Perhaps forever.