Chapter 1: A change of realities

I do not own The cat returns/repayment ect. Only my OCS and plot.

"It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how."
― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

I awoke to myself with my face stuffed in papers and a kitten on my back fast asleep. I groaned and shook letting him to jump off my back as I stretched from the ruff and old red couch as my feet landed on grass like mat. Muttering nonsense under my breath, I stumble onto my feet as I pull away the paper from my cheek and thrown it with the rest of the lot on floor that trailed into the only two rooms.

Getting to the kitchen was like trying to get on top of mountain on the heaviest day of rain. Sloppy and trip-able and sadly, waiting for a moment to fall flat on my face into it was what I never asked for in my mornings. I should really clean up I thought as I ice skated into the kitchen and making myself some waking and warm tea.

"A tea a day! Tea a day!" Cried a girl with blonde pigtails and huge ruby glimmered smile, "That what my mother used to tell me."

I sighed as the kettle boiled and wheezes and clicks, my hand gripped the handle in an almost over used action. Spilling the hot water in the cup, my eyes watched the fat puff ball of orange lapping up his bowl of water. Putting the kettle back and spun the spoon in the cup that all the ingredients needed before, and then with a flick I let the tea bag drop into the sink.

"What did I tell you, huh Jess? Stop wasting your tea bags!" A man shouted as his arm was wrapped around a woman with blonde hair from the living room hearing the splashes of the bags from afar.

"I know Elliot! God shouldn't you be moaning at your girlfriend instead of me?"I replied as I arrived through the door with a tray full of multiple cups. The two blushed heavily like the cute couple they were. I giggled, "No need to be shy."

"We're not shy!" He yelled as I rolled my eyes at him, before setting the tray on the table and sat beside the blonde who giggled as well.

"Jess, you know, why haven't you, umm, you know?" the little girl with pigtails grown up as a shy woman, Now she blushed as her lips stuttered over her words, unlike the rowdy girl I used to know.

I sighed as I stopped myself from reaching my tea like the two. "You know me, no one works. I, I can't connected with anyone like I used to when I was young, and then no one could connected with me then."

They both groaned annoyed with my reply, their eyes flashed sadness, before they whispered "We won't be here forever."

I awoke from the daydream from the feel of the cats painful claws in my legs, I smiled softly. "Thanks Pal." I whispered to him as he looked up at me and let go before looking at his empty bowl of food, I let a dry chuckle leave my lips. "Alright, alright, I'll get your breakfast then!" I told him cheerfully and reached the box of cat food and letting the last lot into his bowl which he went to eat right the moment the first piece tapped into his bowl.

Putting the box away, I remember hearing a whisper echo from the walls for a spilt of a second. I shook my head, no one here, no one around, just me and my cat. I shrugged my shoulders as my cat mewed at me in wonder. "Nothing puff ball," I muttered "Just hearing things again."

A orange umbrella face stared up at me with his bright green forest eyes as if to say you know that not true. I just chuckled in reply and pondered away with my steaming cup in hand, it was all in my head and that was that.

Tap. A cup toppled over and smashed into the ground, letting me squeak in surprise. I gripped my heart out of fear before groaning in annoyance as I let it be heard "Hatfield if you-"

Bang. My eyes widen as the paper started flying around me, fluttering and flittering in a circle like plain white squared butterflies dancing around a lonely rose. I was trapped in that of my own findings and work. People I had saved and helped over the years bounced around me in blurry black and white images and words. Too fast to neither see nor read, but yet I could recognise each one with their own special story.

However, the strangest of things was a blank figure that sat in the corner of each image, almost glowing out as it was the only things that stay the same in the images. Who was it?

Crash. The lights flickered, the curtains flew above the windows as a hurdling wind blinded of what was happening outside. I felt as if I was being flown into Oz itself. Yet that was a silly and stupid thing to think simple because it wasn't real, nothing that was fiction ever happen and wouldn't now. Right?

Boom. The tea toppled from my fingers as it sprinkled into dust, the papers turned blank as they stopped and the room disappeared into a never ending white. A whiteness of white, that only can called white, a truly pure white that even closing my eyes couldn't stop it from leaking through.

Then darkness soon took over leaving that a small mew as my cat try to reach out at me in vain. Failing miserably as his howling was the last thing to reach my ears before the world vanished before me.

Haru? Haru, wake up! It lunch time, Hey? Are you listening to me?

Smack. "Ow." I groaned as I rubbed the back of my head, my eyes blinking at the bright and warm sun light echoing through the window. I looked at the girl beside me in confusion, she seems familiar yet the same time she looked wrong as if she wasn't 3D.

Wait a minute, she look like an animated person. She chuckled as if she knew my own thought process however most likely at a funny face I was making in my muddled thoughts.

This doesn't make sense.

"Haru, you're cracking me up." She giggled, a big smile plastered upon her lips. Hiromi.

"Ah, sorry, got lost in my thoughts is all." I replied, smiling nervously back. Just go along with it, it only a dream.

Her light brown hair bounced as she laughed while her fingers dropped a bento box onto the desk as she turned her chair towards me. "Isn't you always? What did you dream about this time? Machida maybe?" He caramel, hazel eyes sparkled as she teased me of some unknown person.

Yet my cheeks blushed red in recognition of the name I've barely heard before. "I wish." I replied jokingly, "But no. It was just weird."

The chatter continues like that as we slowly eat our lunch. It was refreshing to be in someone company that didn't need your help with something and once that story over it doesn't continue. They act like you barely met after that. A shadow of the past, a mare memory in their doubting moments.

However before this girl, I was alive and breathing, she thought something good of me. Or Haru, the girl who I now lived as in this odd dream. Was this a way for my mind reminding me off what I wished for? What I had and what I didn't?

This girl lived in a world that I never could grasp. Never have and here I'mliving it, breathing it.But still it didn't feel right, this isn't me. This isn't the place I grew up, these the people I never heard of with their odd sounding names. The fake crush that myself didn't have however the body of Haru knew. I was living in a lie of someone else easy and normal life that didn't fit the crazy one of my own.

What was my mind telling me?

"Haru?" Hiromi asked, her voice wavering in worry. "Are you okay?"

I smiled softly, "Yeah, just got a lot on my mind is all."

"And what would that be?" she asked as we walked along the pathway.

"Just how lucky we are." I told her, her eyebrows raised up as she looked at me questioningly.

"You know Haru, you've been acting weird all day!" she exclaimed as she nudged my shoulder slightly. "What happen? Is your mother okay? Did-"

"Nothing happen." I interrupted her from continuing her train of thoughts. "Just that dream I had today just made me feel grateful of the life I have."

"What was that dream about?" the other girl curiosity building as she looked at me.

"So much, yet so little." I told her before we split paths promising to tell her more of this dream tomorrow.

I am going to meet Haru mother. What are mothers like?

Fingers scraped the rough, red brick walls that held the gate in place, gripping the metal and pushing outwards in the front lawn. Hands started to sweat madly, fingers trembled as I looked at the humble little home for just a mother and daughter, I was sacred for I never entered into place with someone inside waiting for me for such a long time. Hatfield came everywhere with me and it was odd without my little companion.

Slowly, carefully I reached for the door handle. Fingers touch the cool metal before fully gripping it. Don't be sacred, it be a nice dream it won't turn just yet. The door creaked open as I walked in before shutting it behind me. "I'm home!" I called however instead got an echo back instead.

Slipping my shoe of and plopping my bag down, I turned to investigate the other rooms to find them empty until I found a small, neat note hanging from the fridge door.

Haru dear,

Just to remind you that I have a crochet convention for this week and won't be back until the next Saturday. The food in the usual place, please look after yourself. Call me every two days at least.

Love you.

I sighed, I got panicky over nothing. Oh well. Notting the number underneath the neatly written love you, I couldn't help smile at the small note. This is a nice dream, I wish I had more dreams like this. I pondered as I walked up the stairs.

However the dream never ended, it just keep going, going and going. Days passed and I couldn't wake up from this blissful dream, a dream that felt so wrong. I don't deserve this life I had muttered under my breath every time I awoke in the soft bed with the ringing of smoothing alarm reminding I'm not at home yet.

I soon met Miss Yoshioka, who was a busy and caring mother. It felt weird to be around so many people who cared I existed, yet guilt soon settled in as I soon came to realised that this was no dream as I had been hurt by my usually clumsiness that both myself and Haru shared. Pain means reality, especially when it doesn't wake you up.

This meant either I took Haru place for a reason or we just swapped places, which in hope we hadn't as my life wasn't meant for a teenager. Especially her kind, the kind who live this luxury that I only could dream off. Through her journal is odd. Filled with tales of a cat kingdom and how she can understand cats, which did help to explain that one time.

Then there the story of some 'cool' cat like figure that help her out some mess with the cat kingdom. I wondered if he could help with this unique situation of mine, then again could any of this fairytale be true even if most of the journal talks of her basic boring days. It doesn't make sense, not one bit. This life, these people, nothing. I just want to go home.

"Nothing makes sense!" I screamed at the day-care worker as she turned from me, her step echoing in the empty hallways as children huddled away from me.

She shrugged, shaking her head "Nothing ever does, Jessica." She murmured back, her fingers telling me to follow and leave the fear-stricken children in their cramp corner.

I sighed as I follow the young woman silently. She never hugged, kissed or touched a child even so, she gave us advice or listen us when needed. Mainly myself at that time when my friends got foster off and the children feared me stay away for an unknown reason. I had been begging them to tell me, the words were always stuck in their throats as if they had been warned to tell me of my fate.

"Why won't you tell me?" I ask the lady as we rounded another corner.

A small smile tugged at her pearly lips. "Only you can answer that question." Her brown hair wavering as she walked, soft golden honey eyes looked down at me. "For we swapped places, in a way but not exactly."

Word count: 2,212