The Curse of the Cat
171. Divided
People kept on ringing him. People he didn't know, didn't recognise. He told them politely at first, but soon enough they grated on his nerves.
He wasn't quite sure why.
And they kept coming. There was a persistence that had to be driven by something more than the indifference he gave them in return. They told him all manner of odd things, at first, and they made little sense to him – when he stopped to listen – at all. But then they backed off a little, gave him a bit at a time, and only when he could see the glaring bites of Swiss cheese in his memories could he believe their tales.
Not lies, after all. But secrets locked away, and throwing it all at him just made it sound like lies.
But as they picked at the lock little by little, it began to creak open.
And they persisted throughout it all.
172. Victory
It hadn't taken them long to realise what had happened. The moment Koji didn't recognise them. The moment Koji never called them back. The moment they lost their cover for getting into the compound, and to Koichi.
It was bad enough the phone wouldn't go through. Was the battery flat? Was it in a reception black spot? They didn't know. They couldn't find out. And neither Teruo nor Chiaki would help them. In fact, they seemed to force a distance between them.
All Teruo did was confirm what they'd suspected. All Chiaki did was shrug and tell them to either take the risk and fight, or give up, as though it had nothing to do with her.
But the way she watched them after… maybe she was a little more committed than she'd appeared.
And they persisted. The hidden danger didn't rear its ugly head. Nobody came to stop them, except Koji himself. And they picked at the locks, at the memories that didn't quite tie together –
And finally, finally, he started remembering the things that filled in the gaps.
173. Delivery
It wasn't until, in the middle of a conversation, that Koji froze, then bolted, that they'd broken through.
They caught him fairly easily, though by then he was shaking and muttering his brother's name amidst a trial of confusion.
'Fuyuno,' he said finally, and gritted his teeth. And then they just stood there, because the head of the Sohma family had never been the sort of person one could just walk up to in a temper.
And now that they'd been caught out once, how much longer until it was safe to try again?
How long, now, would he have to pretend he didn't know about those raw holes torn into his heart?
174. Ballard
Fuyuno, unsurprisingly, saw through him almost straight away. Maybe it was the curse of being the Rat, the animal closest to god and, therefore, under the most scrutiny. Or maybe it was his relation to the Cat… or maybe it was both, or neither, or something somewhere in between.
Surprisingly, all he did was call Koji to him.
And Koji, heart hammering, had gone.
They stood together, by the window. This one faced the Cat's compound but it was so far away: a mere speck in the distance. All the residences were far from Fuyuno, and in the winter the snow piled between them, making it seem even more isolated.
In the summer, it was the sticky heat and flies.
Always, it was the division of the curse: the cursed gods and the animal guests at his banquet and the eternal ballad in the background.
And now, it was a division of family as well.
'Forgetting would have been easier,' Fuyuno said, finally. 'I suppose there are some things you can't let go of, though.'
'I guess so.' Koji didn't know where Fuyuno was going with this. Couldn't read the mood. Was he mad? Or was he just commenting as though they were talking about the weather.
All that time they'd spent together, and all the time they hadn't, and he couldn't put his finger on it still.
'I should have erased it all. Your friends. Your father.'
He couldn't rebuke that, or else Fuyuno might just do it out of spite. One never knew when he was going to fly into a temper.
All the gods were unstable like that, apparently.
'It would have been impossible, I imagine.'
Koji blinked at that. 'Impossible,' he repeated. That word shouldn't exist in a god's dictionary, he thought.
But hadn't someone said once that Fuyuno was as human as the rest of them?
Didn't Koichi, who had the least reason to, sometimes look like he pitied their family head?
'Impossible,' Fuyuno repeated. 'Tell me, which side of the door is harder to unlock?'
'The side without the key?' Koji replied. It sounded like a trick question though. 'Unless you mean the person who holds the key and is on the side where the key fits into isn't supposed to open the door, but isn't sure if he can help himself.'
'The latter,' said Fuyuno, 'so which is it?'
Koji shook his head. He was sure there was no right answer, no answer that was going to get that door open.
175. All I Ask
In the end, Fuyuno send Koji off without doing a thing. There was no point. He had a feeling he would only entangle himself further into a web he was trying to struggle out of.
But out of sight didn't mean out of mind. Not when he had to be vigilant. And how the other heads did it, he didn't know.
Actually, he did know. Maybe he'd made the mistake in thinking sixteen was the cut off, and not when they knew their time was almost up. Instead of being a stab of final spite to drag out the curse, it was backfiring on him.
Or maybe it was because he was acutely aware of the prison of his own making, and how a measly cat with pride he didn't know the other possessed had gotten the better of him.
He hadn't locked up the cat. The cat had chosen exile. That made the difference. Was playing mental games with him and he knew he was weak and he could only cover it up so well.
If the rest of the world just forgot, it would be easier.
There was no way the rest of the world could forget. Even if he wiped all their memories, they'd wonder where the cat of the zodiac was, or somebody else would have to take their place.
They survived in a cruel hierarchy that needed someone, something, at the bottom after all. But the one at the bottom wasn't supposed to look up. They were only supposed to keep staring at the ground.
But if he threw away the key, let go of the power that key gave, then he'd doom someone to starvation and death and that was a line he couldn't and wasn't allowed to cross.