"Come on," Sasuke muttered to the cat under his car.
He could now feel the hard snow biting at his knees, soaking him. His outstretched hand burnt from the cold, but he still tried to touch or shoo the cat away. He had circled his car twice already, the cat always moving out of his range, yellow eyes flashing.
Sasuke groaned and glanced at his watch. He was already late for work, on his last day before the holiday break of all days.
Because of a cat, he thought dryly.
They stared at each other, the black cat undisturbed, its paws neatly folded underneath it, while Sasuke's face was contracted with annoyance. He could barely feel the tip of his ears now.
Sasuke sat back on his heels in the middle of the driveway. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat to draw some warmth, but it stung. Eyes half-closed, he regretted parking in the driveway instead of the garage. He regretted not getting any grocery that could have tempted the cat enough to get out from under his car.
Sighing, he dropped back down to make eye-contact with the cat. He glared at it.
"I'll run you over. Move."
The cat blinked at him, then closed its eyes.
Somehow, now, in the middle of his driveway, shivering from the cold, Sasuke remembered how his mother loved cats. Of all things, of all days, he remembered how she cooed at their two cats over her morning coffee, draped in sunshine. Somehow, now, in the middle of his driveway, with his pants soaked through, he remembered his brother had begged and begged their father for one, then a second cat.
Sasuke clenched his jaw.
At first, Itachi would slip out of bed to make sure the cats were still here after their father had begrudgingly agreed that "the second cat would be the last one".
"Hn."
Sasuke stood up briskly, almost panting. His pants rubbed, rigid and uncomfortable, against his skin as he opened the door of his car.
He closed his eyes, nostrils pinched, almost dizzy. And the wind howled. And the cat still didn't come out. He puffed out white, cold and wet, and frozen in time. He didn't know how he could have forgotten any of that; Itachi and the cats. His mother and the cats. His father holding out two fingers: "Two cats. That's it."
His hand stiffened around the edge of the door.
Sighing, Sasuke bent over the driver's seat to retrieve his thermos of coffee and wallet from the cup holders, and his bag from under the passenger's seat. He groaned holding up his full hands, before setting his thermos on the roof of his car to pocket his wallet and shoulder his bag.
He slammed the door shut and waited, hoping this would be the trick that would finally scare the cat off.
He hesitated, but the cat didn't spring from under the car. He picked his thermos up.
Before he left the edge of his driveway, he glanced back, narrowed eyes, lips disappearing in a frown.
One hand deep in his pocket, one hand holding his thermos, he thought again of the distinct memory of his mother he had in the morning glow, coffee and cats by her side in the living room. Then, he thought of his brother, something he had rarely allowed himself to do since he died eight months ago.
He walked to the bus stop, readjusting his bag over his shoulder, grim and resolute and annoyed.
He wondered how many lives he went through- nine lives, nine family tombs- every time he remembered everyone he had lost.
After work, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the cat waiting by his front door.
In the scorched red sunset, he could see it more clearly now: Its black fur was dotted with white, his yellow eyes wide. Sasuke breathed hard through his nose. In the teachers' lounge, Naruto had spent the five minutes before school started teasing him about his soaked pants.
"Did you fall down, Sauce-jerk? Hey, I'm talking to you!"
Then, his students had asked him what had happened while he distributed their exams ("Did you fall down, Mr. Uchiha?"), from first to last period, and now the cat was in front of his house, and Sasuke was not in the mood.
"Move," he ordered coldly and waited.
The cat blinked at him.
"This isn't your home."
The cat lowered its head and licked its paw before lying down in front of his door. It had the audacity to stretch. Sasuke glared at him. In two steps, he was close enough to grab the cat in his arms. To his surprise, the cat didn't fight. It purred, its eyes drifting closed as if it was going to sleep.
"This isn't your home," Sasuke repeated roughly, growing still, all of him growing taunted. He meant to lower the cat back away from his door, but he couldn't, frozen and hesitant.
He gulped with difficulty.
Itachi had named both of their cats; the memory resurfaced, both opaque and crisp. He couldn't remember how and why, or what the cats were called, but he remembered that Itachi named them. He remembered his brother had taken the task seriously, looking through books in their father's study. He remembered there had been a list of names and he had been asked to vote. His parents also voted.
Then, Itachi introduced the cats and told them, his tone, his manners solemn: "This is your home now."
Sucking in a sharp breath, Sasuke unlocked his front door. The cat struggled, its meows sharp. He felt its claws through the sleeves of his coat. Sasuke nudged the door open with his foot, his heart pounding, before he let the cat go. He could only breathe again when, contrary to his expectations, the cat pounced inside.
He could only breathe again when he entered the living room, and the cat was lying underneath the Christmas tree.
There were no gifts, just the cat.
"Hn. I've nothing to eat," he said to himself or to the cat, he couldn't be sure. His voice echoed, rough, and he thought he heard Itachi say to each cat, brows furrowed, serious: "This is your home now."
In another life.
The next morning, Sasuke groaned, pushing the purring cat off his face. He turned to his side, and the purrs grew louder and closer now that the cat could occupy the warmth of his pillow. Its fur tickled his ear and the back of his head.
"I hope you don't have fleas," Sasuke groaned, cheek pressed against his mattress.
The cat rested his paw against his face when it stretched.
It mewed sharply.
Sasuke pushed paw and duvet back and reached for his phone. When he saw the time, he winced. He had planned on sleeping in. He groaned again and fell back on his bed. He rolled on his other side to face the cat. He patted its head, carefully, awkwardly.
The cat closed its eyes, content.
Sasuke looked at his hand on the small head. The cat pushed back against his hand when he stopped patting it.
Slowly, he scratched it behind the ears.
He had improvised on both the cat's food and litter box last night, unsure if the cat would still be here in the morning. He had expected meows directed at the door. He had expected it to want to leave.
Like Itachi did with their cats.
His hand stilled on the cat's head.
As a child, Sasuke never understood why Itachi would wake up in the middle of the night to check on the cats. He didn't understand his anxiety over the cats leaving, as if they were borrowed. As if they weren't good enough for them to want to stay.
Sasuke's hand slid to the cat's tummy, his ice-cold skin against the warm, fluffy fur.
He wondered how his brother instinctively expected family to leave before they went to their first funeral.
Sasuke closed his eyes.
He wondered what happened to the cats when their parents died.
Sasuke fell back asleep, dragged and pushed back and back, until there was a tree full of gifts and Christmas decorations in the corner of the living. And Itachi and he were laughing and chasing one of the cats that had escaped with one of the bulbs. It bounced against the wall of the hallway, plastic against wood, and the cat ran faster, claws against wood.
And their mother was making gingerbread, and the house, the memory, was draped in spiced warmth.
And their father was watching them over his newspaper from the couch.
"I told you boys not to decorate the lower branches."
"Honey, it's fine!" Their mother shouted from the kitchen, with laughter in her voice. "It's fine."
"It's fine."
Sasuke's eyes fluttered open. The cat had retreated to the foot of the bed, licking its leg. Sasuke grabbed his phone again and put his feet on the floor. He scrolled through notifications of his students' parents wishing him happy holidays and Naruto's usual memes and incoherent texts.
He cleared off his notifications.
Sasuke stood up, still smelling his mother's gingerbread.
The cat jumped off the bed and walked back to the kitchen. There, it mewed, wagging its tail. Involuntarily, Sasuke's gaze flicked to the cupboard where his mother kept her recipes. When they had redone the kitchen, Itachi and he had paused at the tin box in the cupboard. They had both forgotten about it.
"When was this?" Itachi whispered with a soft smile. "A lifetime ago?"
The cat mewed louder, circling his legs to demand his attention.
Sasuke rubbed his temples and opened the refrigerator.
"You're hungry?"
Sasuke looked down at the cat. It only mewed in reply, exposing its pointy teeth.
"It's fine, there's some tuna left from last night."
His smile stiffened.
"It's fine."
His eyes returned to the cupboard. They burnt. He ached. He could almost smell her. Warmth. Gingerbread. Cats.
He wasn't fine.
Sasuke closed the refrigerator door, his movements automatic. He emptied the rest of the can of tuna into the clean bowl he had used last night.
The cat jumped at the bowl when he lowered it to the ground. After one last meow, it started eating.
Sasuke leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest and watched the cat eat.
He wasn't fine, and it was both uncomfortable and comfortable to speak aloud to someone else. Instinctively, he spoke to the cat like he had not spent the last eight months in silence. 'But he could still leave,' his instinct whispered back to him. 'Don't get attached. Think of Itachi, and his fear of the cats leaving.'
He clenched his jaw.
'Don't think of Itachi,' another part of him pleaded.
He didn't want to think about his brother being hospitalized for so long. He was gone even before he was gone.
"When was this? A lifetime ago?"
After three days, Sasuke brought the cat to the veterinarian. He had no microchip or fleas, so he bought a litter box and proper cat food.
All the while, Sasuke thought, part-arrogance, part-hope, that the cat had chosen him. He wouldn't leave.
He had chosen him.
So Sasuke named him Weasel.
'This is your second life,' he told his brother silently. 'You should make it up to nine.'
Once he put the gingerbread inside the oven and set the timer, Sasuke turned his attention back to Weasel. He narrowed his eyes at the cat. Weasel was sprawled on the kitchen table, sleeping in the sunlight.
"Down," he said before reaching for the spraying bottle.
With the sound of the bottle alone, Weasel jumped off the kitchen table, the pile of letters he had put there earlier sliding off to the floor.
From the entrance of the kitchen, Weasel mewed his disapproval before strolling into Sasuke's bedroom.
He sighed and picked up the letters from the floor. He froze when he saw the name of one of his distant uncles on one letter. Earlier, he had not paid attention when he had retrieved the letters from the mailbox.
Every year, Uncle Obito invited his brother and him on ridiculously grand Christmas escapades that involved too many activities over the course of a week for Sasuke's taste. Itachi went skiing with Uncle Obito and his friends a few times, but Sasuke could never stomach his eccentric uncle who slipped from serious CEO to utter clown in a blink of an eye. Uncle Obito had only found them because Madara, his great-uncle, had tracked them down after their grandparents died.
Madara had been more level-headed than Obito, but he had also strangely never said no to any of Obito's shenanigans, and had been known to encourage them a few times.
Sasuke turned the letter in his hands. The last time he had seen Uncle Obito was at Great-Uncle Madara's funeral.
Weasel mewed, rubbing against his leg. Sasuke startled. He hadn't heard him come in.
"I hate him, he's bunkers."
Weasel lay down on his slippers.
"Hn. It's true. And you're heavy," Sasuke added, but only sighed before he picked up Weasel.
He brought the cat and card to the living room.
When Sasuke sat down, Weasel jumped into his lap and began purring almost immediately. The afternoon sun lit up the entire room in a pallid glow.
Sasuke opened the letter carefully. Obito had once sent them his usual Christmas invitation with glitter letters that spelled out Merry Christmas in forty languages. It was one of the few times Sasuke had heard Itachi curse.
For months, they had found glitter between the couch cushions and on the floor.
Sasuke smiled sadly, and he slipped a hand between the couch cushions. There was nothing now.
"When was this? A lifetime ago?"
Slowly, his hand reached back up and took the card out of the envelope.
This year, the invitation was written with a glittering golden fountain pen. Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. It listed over twenty activities, ranging from building snow forts to skiing. Sasuke tossed the letter to the side.
Weasel rubbed his head against his master's hand, still purring. Distracted, Sasuke started scratching him behind the ears, his eyes on the card.
"He's my only living relative," he mused out loud.
"It's fine."
He wasn't fine.
"Why did he have to be so insane?" he grunted before picking up the card again. "Hn. Maybe I'll go skiing," he continued. "I'll tell him I'll only do the skiing."
Weasel purred.
Sasuke could smell the gingerbread now. It smelled like his childhood: Warmth. Gingerbread. Cats.
"It's fine," his mother laughed from the kitchen.
He wasn't fine, but at least he didn't have to be alone anymore.
He closed his eyes, sinking into the couch, and petted Weasel as he waited for the gingerbread to be done.