Late again, but since I'll most definitely miss the upload on Sunday, I'll just shift the upload dates for the next week or so by one day further. Might be a bit rocky over the holidays, we'll see if I can keep it up!
Thanks for the continued reviews, and to Ryu_no_me for the beta-reading!
Luka didn't go to the group therapy session at the end of the week. She preferred to take a few quiet afternoons after work to rest, delighting in the comforts of her own home, in her possessions, and the familiarity of it all.
She was also atrociously nervous about the meeting with Miku that weekend. She wasn't sure what to expect at all, between her reaction to the apartment, and what they would want to discuss, in Gumi's potential presence no less. She would likely have to meet her new cat, and Luka had no idea how she would react to being confronted with a domestic feline again. The last ones she'd met were all people. And she knew how they perceived the world, but didn't have a clue about how they thought.
There was little certainty in anything.
Still, Luka researched her address, finding that it wasn't too far away, though it would have been a miserably long and confusing walk had she still been a cat. And still, she bought her a pretty bouquet of flowers the day before; she had never seen her drink, so wine felt more like a burden than a gift. Still, she got up on time, got dressed, put on her favorite clothes and perfume. Still, she got in her car and drove there, giving herself plenty of time in case she got lost or had to find parking, and to be somewhat early.
All that done only to find that she was still poorly prepared. Or at least, she felt like she was. Just like she felt empty-handed, despite grasping the bouquet in one hand, her cane in the other. It was psychological. Anxiety. Irrational and, ultimately, temporary. With only that as her comfort, she emerged from her car—parked across the street, directly under the building—and punched in the memorized code to enter.
Luka had been ready to brave six flights of stairs by foot, since she remembered Miku walking them herself. But there was an elevator, so she pushed the button for what she hoped was the correct floor, and waited nervously, the rustle of the paper around the bouquet her only companion.
The moment felt eerily similar. Was it the bouquet, so much like the first bouquet she had ever bought with carefully saved tip money, which she had been so nervous about, but which her girlfriend at the time had ended up enjoying tremendously? Or was it the elevator, so much like so many other elevators, traveling up to places she once owned, once visited frequently, or only once, in a barely-sober state, with a virtual stranger in her arms?
Elevators all were too similar to one another. Different button layouts, different doors, but all were a box flooded with artificial lighting and unsettling noise; either the chorus of machinery or elevator music.
Luka apprehensively stepped out of the elevator when the doors slid open. She didn't recognize the hall at all. She hadn't recognized much of the building, in fact, but she couldn't recall ever seeing it properly. Not from a distance, not any of the colors, none of it.
It was a lot warmer than she had expected. The lighting outside of the elevator was surprisingly gentle, from wall-mounted sconces, with a large, and perhaps artificial, plant sitting between each.
The names of tenants were written on a pretty little sign under the doorbell, white on black. When she read 'M. Hatsune', there was no mistaking it.
Luka took a moment to breathe. She was still early, after all. And, part of her argued that the longer she'd stand there, the more it would help her in the moment that she would inevitably look at the technician and her world would start to shrink. The apartment itself might be worse, but maybe, just maybe, if she established a proper baseline, out there in the hall...
She scoffed to herself, softly, so Miku wouldn't hear she was there. She was making excuses for herself. She was as anxious as she'd ever been. Miku had seemed friendly the previous time they'd spoken, but Luka still had no idea what to expect, exactly. Was she going to voice a desire that they would never cross paths again? Or perhaps it would be as simple as having a few questions answered? She would imagine any other option. But she wasn't in Miku's mind, or in her situation. She might be after something completely different. Maybe something as simple and cute as spending more time with her mutual crush.
Luka gulped, wondering what exactly was pushing her there, herself. There was the medical excuse. It was legitimate, to a certain extent; if she'd topple over at the mere sight of the technician, it could get dangerous. But the therapist had been right in that it would, eventually, go on its own. Luka didn't need to do this, to put herself through this.
Deep down, maybe she was the one who wanted to spend time with her new crush. Not even to learn more about it, to test its validity in a sane situation. Just because she could. To indulge.
After telling herself that she definitely needed private therapy to some degree, she bit the bullet and knocked on the door.
Seconds later, it split open. Just a bit, letting her see only one of Miku's green eyes.
"Hi!" the technician said. "Glad you could make it!"
Luka took a moment, taken aback by the eye contact that didn't send her mind spinning. Was the door frame to thank? She found herself smiling, unsure of what Miku had said at all.
"Uhm, my new cat is far more insistent on exploring the big outdoors."
"Ok."
"So, I'll go pick her up, and when I say it's safe, you can come in," Miku went on. "Just close the door real fast behind you."
Once the message sunk in, Luka lowered her eyes, nodded, a little embarrassed. "Right."
"Ok. Gimme a sec."
The door shut again. Luka found herself staring at the seam between the door and frame, feeling her cheeks redden. She had no right being so smitten. She was too old for such childish behavior.
"You can come in now!"
Luka steeled herself and entered quickly, shutting the door behind her as soon as she was able.
"There we go," she heard Miku say. "Alright, I'll let you down, your Highness."
A moment later, there was the muted sound of paws hitting the floor. After making sure that the sight of the floor itself didn't warp her sense of reality, Luka glanced in that direction, finding a large cat so fluffy it looked like a mockery of a rain-swollen cloud. It looked up at her with large yellow eyes, the ears slightly tilted back.
"Her name is Rookie," Miku said. "But I can move her if it would help? Are you feeling ok?"
Luka gulped, unable to move her eyes from the cat. The hand around her cane clenched, and the one around the bouquet felt so awkward all of a sudden.
"I am fine. I'm just..." She chuckled. "To think I was so small."
"You were quite a bit smaller, actually..." The technician trailed off. Luka didn't dare look at her, hearing only the faint shuffling of her feet. "Gosh. It's so weird, the more I think about it. Now that I see you two side-by-side."
The doctor hummed, placing the end of her cane on the floor. "Is the couch where it always was...?"
"Yeah."
Luka lifted her eyes from the cat just barely enough to look where the couch was, finding it much closer than anticipated. But yes, that was the same couch, the same TV cabinet, the same...
The door was right behind her; she still felt it against the back of her arm. But it was all too close. Wasn't the room far bigger? The space between couch and door, she'd paced it more than a few times. And the couch was so small, actually? It could barely fit three people, seating only two comfortably.
She'd hidden under it. She'd been under it, keeping her eyes on the edges as Miku tried to get her out of her hiding place. No wonder the vet had grabbed her so easily. It was so small.
When two hands grabbed her arms, she realized she'd been caught off guard so badly that it had almost knocked her off her feet. She stuttered, leaning on the door, her cane, but the hands holding her were the only real strength keeping her up.
Miku was so strong.
"Gosh, I'm so sorry," Miku said, her voice so far away, yet so close. "Do you need to sit..."
The rest of the question wasn't allowed to register. Neither was the fact that the voice wasn't coming from somewhere above her, as it had been for so long. Luka's entire brain was focused on the iron-strong grip around her arms. It kept her up on her feet, from falling over entirely, but it didn't hurt at all. The grip was so controlled, so present, that Luka could almost count the fingers, measure the warmth of her palms, without suffering the pressure or the burn. She felt her own bicep, squeezed between the technician's thumb and her own bone, which extended awareness all the way up to her shoulders, from where the rest of her mass practically hung like a dead weight.
Miku started gently dropping her. The angle changed, the grip weakened. Luka blindly grabbed at her, finding strength in her limbs because yes, she had legs, she knew these legs. They were attached to the rest of the body that she knew existed, hanging as it did, so heavy and large, but so real. And Miku's forearms felt real too, strong in her hands.
She had closed her eyes, shutting out the room, and right then, everything somehow felt right.
"Hold on," she managed to stutter, barely managing to get her feet under her. Miku hesitated, holding her up. "Don't—"
"Should I go grab a chair?"
Luka wanted nothing more than to hold the technician, hold her and learn how she should have felt, all those weeks prior, with limbs of the right length and no whiskers in the way and no tail to mind and no fur and no fear and all color...!
Instead, she managed to whisper, "The couch is fine."
Miku helped her stand upright, then Luka followed her guiding pull towards the couch. The grip wavered once the technician noticed that she was no longer unsettled, the grasp melting into a comparably ghostlike touch. Luka didn't voice any complaints, merely sagging into the couch once the tealette came to a stop.
She didn't dare take in the room, especially once Miku took a step back. Hands off of her, she was once again untethered, left to float in a space she couldn't make sense of.
"I'm sorry," Luka eventually muttered.
"No, don't worry. It's fine, I think I expected something like this? I can get you something to drink?"
After a deep breath, her eyes still closed, Luka said, "Water, please."
"Ok. I'll—"
"Wait...!"
Luka weakly extended the arm holding the bouquet. She felt the blush consume her whole, and she couldn't pin whether it was due to the crush or the shame.
"I wanted to thank you for doing this. But I wasn't sure what to bring."
"Gosh, thanks," Miku said, lifting the bouquet from her grasp. "They're gorgeous..."
"I made sure none of them would be poisonous to cats," Luka managed to add. "So if... If Rookie gets to them..."
"Oh, she's wonderfully counter-trained, unlike her door manners. She doesn't jump on almost anything. Except a lap, sometimes."
Luka felt herself smile. "Good."
"But first, water! I'll get you that right away."
"Thank you."
She heard Miku walk towards the kitchen. It was the same number of steps the technician usually took to cross her living space, but how did that look, now that her perspective had changed? Luka tried to imagine it, tried to piece the geometry together, but her mind couldn't wrap around it. Making the room smaller was one thing, but seeing everything from above rather than below, to see the tops of the tables and counters rather than their feet, that also made her head hurt and her anchor float.
She heard Miku pour her a glass, return, and set it down on the coffee table. It was in front of her, about the height of her knee.
Somehow, it felt like the floor had to exist somewhere at the level of her navel. None of it made sense.
"Gumi couldn't make it today, by the way," Miku muttered. "So if you need some time..."
"Perhaps a little," Luka admitted. She had yet to open her eyes.
"It's cool. I'll work on the flowers. Take all the time you need."
"Thank you."
Miku walked away once again, leaving Luka blind and disoriented on the couch. Part of the researcher wanted to beg her to return, to ask permission to hold her, to better sense the scale of the world around her through touch, to finally have an anchoring point, a compass, some kind of magical tool that would make the room around her make sense.
But it was too cruel.
Instead, she breathed deep, feeling the texture of the couch with her hands. A somewhat soft, but ultimately strong material, with little bounce. She felt for the armrest, which was totally standard in proportion. When she leaned back, the pillow was slightly more plush, perhaps more worn, and quickly warmed beneath her.
Seconds later, there was a soft thump to her side. Luka counted to three before opening her eyes, just a little, to see Rookie's huge, cloud-like body standing next to her.
The couch was a neutral, dark tan color. A warm shade, something she never would have seen. Just like Rookie's sun-like eyes, which felt like they bore into her very soul.
Luka rested her cane in her lap, then extended a hand for the cat to smell. She did so slowly, knowing how blurry it all was to the poor feline—though, having grown up with such vision, she probably better knew how to make sense of it all than the researcher had—comforted by the knowledge that the whiskers would warn her if she got too close. The cat squinted, sniffed, licked her nose, then stepped forward, bumping her forehead into Luka's fingers.
She was soft and warm to the touch. To Luka's own surprise, she didn't even hesitate before stroking her, letting the cat approach, then sit by her side, her eyes taking in the rest of the room.
Luka watched her quietly, then followed her gaze.
The coffee table was also a warm shade. It was the size of a regular coffee table, and was so standard that Luka barely even recognized it as a specific piece of furniture she had once only seen from below. A step behind it, there was the TV cabinet. Luka remembered with a shudder that she'd sat on the corner, if only a few times, but that space was so small. And it looked so frail; it would surely buckle under her weight now.
She forced her eyes to keep moving, finding the TV, a rather large one, but not obnoxiously so. The dark surface was one she had peered at for long hours, in an attempt to escape her mind and the boredom around it.
In fact, the view before her was rather familiar. Eerily so, if it weren't for the sudden abundance of color. The white TV cabinet didn't change much, but the warm coffee table was new, and so was the faint warm tone to the cream walls. The various consoles, boxes, and books under the TV were like an array of new items and lights, though barely distracting.
"I used to sit here, and watch your TV," she said out loud.
"You did?" Miku replied from across the room, yet she sounded so close.
"Yes. I would press the buttons on the remote until it sounded like a channel I would enjoy, and then I would sit here, and watch..."
Miku chuckled, and Luka briefly listened to the snipping, the clatter of scissors being put on the counter, and then more noise.
"What was that like?" Miku hesitantly asked.
"Difficult," she admitted. "It turns out, cats can't focus their vision."
The noise from the kitchen stopped. "What?"
"Our lens is flexible, and its focal point can be changed."
"Cat eyes don't do that?"
"No. Or if theirs do, I never managed to get mine to work."
After a beat of silence, Miku said, "Sheesh. I had no idea."
"There's no color, either," Luka went on. "Or very little of it: nothing compared to what we have. The only thing that made watching TV possible at all was that cat vision has, to compensate, a huge sensitivity to movement. Plus, at night, everything is startlingly clear."
"I guess that makes sense. Cats aren't looking for red berries in the day, they're trying to find little camouflaged animals at night," the tealette said.
Luka hummed, breathing deeply, evenly. She didn't look at Rookie, who sat at her side. Her head wasn't even a full foot lower than Luka's; the perspective change really wasn't so major. As long as she didn't look at the couch, at the rest of the room...
But she had to.
"How are you feeling?"
"Right now? Fine. This is a view I'm acquainted with."
"The couch wasn't?"
"No. Not from above." She gulped, before adding, "I'm scared to look at the rest of the room."
The movement from the kitchen stilled again, but for a lot longer.
"It scares you?"
"It does. I've spent the last few weeks reconquering myself. I never thought I would have trouble existing. Being independent is something I've regained only recently. To think that a couch could send me to the floor..."
"Can I help somehow?"
Luka couldn't help but laugh. Not boisterously, but not sadly, either. It was surprise more than anything, somewhat delighted.
"'Help somehow'?" she asked. "You're already helping more than I should feel comfortable asking."
Miku was quiet for a moment, though the rustling did continue. "I mean, I don't think it's so much, asking to come back here. Especially if it'll help you get better."
Luka gulped, felt for her cane. Next to her, Rookie decided that she had better places to be and jumped from the couch.
"It felt cruel to ask you if I could come here."
"Cruel? Why would it be cruel?"
"I don't know. I don't want to abuse your feelings for me..."
Miku didn't hesitate. "Ah, yeah. I guess that's something some people might worry about. But my therapist and I kind of wrung it all out. You're not mean. And you're just trying to get better, right? And it's not like you've never been over to my place before; you lived here for a solid two weeks I think."
Luka let the words sink in before turning towards the technician. She was standing at a pace from the couch, and while she was still strangely large, she was taller than the researcher. This single detail somehow helped to keep her anchors, yet still she reeled at the color, and the rest of the room around them.
Fortunately, she could keep her wits about her.
"Is it really so simple?" she asked.
Miku shrugged. "It doesn't have to be any more complicated." After a beat of silence, she said, "You don't want to hurt me."
Luka struggled with the reply, but only for the phrasing. After a second, she managed a diplomatic, "Not if I can ever help it."
"There. You're finishing treatment. This helps."
"You did mention closure for yourself."
"Ah, yeah. That." Miku shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I just worried about a few things. Uhm, you're ok like this?"
"As long as you're taller than I am, it would seem so," she said. "But if you want to speak, you can sit."
"You sure?"
"Of course. I'll look away if it becomes too much."
Miku obliged, sitting next to her on the couch. Rookie followed suit, immediately jumping up into her lap. Luka watched as the cat tucked her paws under her body, wrapped her tail around it all, closed her eyes, and started purring.
"She adores you."
"Ah, yeah. She's been in the shelter for ages," Miku said, softly petting her back. "Now she's an old lady for real. Still more spry than you were."
Luka chuckled. "I was terrible at being a cat."
"Yeah. It all makes sense in hindsight, now." Miku inhaled deeply. "You're ok, still?"
She swallowed the realization that their legs were close, virtually the same size, meaning that Miku was smaller than she was supposed to be. Or was she bigger...
After closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Luka tried a light-hearted laugh, her hands wringing her cane.
"I will be," she managed. "Sorry. You had questions?"
"Ah, yeah. Uhm." It was Miku's turn to chuckle. "It's all weird to say out loud, you know. Talking about it with friends really highlighted how weird it is."
Luka nodded. "Without the context, the first group therapy sessions must have sounded like absolute lunacy."
"I can only imagine. Dang. Uhm. Sorry, I'm stalling." After another deep breath, Miku asked, "I guess I'm just wondering if, well... There's no not-weird way to say this. I know we kind of talked about this. You said you appreciated everything I did for you. But... Gosh, I'm wondering if I have to apologize for anything. Or explain a decision I made. I... I think about the vet visit a lot."
Luka was smiling, gently, until she mentioned the vet. "Ah."
"You were..." Miku trailed off, eventually finishing the sentence. "You were petrified. Even when I thought you were just a cat, I felt so bad putting you through that. I thought about it often. But after realizing? When you mentioned it, I thought I could die."
She wrung her cane again, opened her eyes. She couldn't meet the tealette's green gaze, but she wanted to somehow be more open and honest; remaining with her eyes shut seemed too closed for such a conversation.
"I had never been more scared in my life."
Miku let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Gosh, I'm so sorry."
"Don't worry," Luka whispered. "You didn't know who I was. Objectively, you were being a good pet owner."
"It feels so obvious in hindsight. Only cat that couldn't be a cat, that knew what a vacuum was—"
Luka rested a hand on her knee, briefly. It worked, silencing her, and she pulled her hand back, noting that her fingers felt strangely gummy.
"You made up for it," she insisted gently. "Making sure I would have food and water without leaving my sanctuary? It meant the world to me."
Even though she couldn't see the technician, the anxiety practically released out of her like a burst dam, leaving her audibly relaxed, almost like a rubber band that had been stretched too far.
"Oh. Ok."
"You did your best," Luka went on. "It was obvious behind every one of your decisions." With a smile, she added, "It helped that you said everything out loud."
Miku groaned, but ended up saying, "I intentionally choose to believe you when you said that it helped you, otherwise I'd lose sleep at night."
"It did. In so many ways, it did. I never had to wonder what your intentions were. I could know without hesitation that you kept your word. And some back-and-forth conversation was always a good change of pace."
"...It really helped on so many fronts?"
"Without a doubt," Luka said, pushing her cane to the side. She dared glance at the technician, if only for a moment. "You said that you would knock before coming in, and from that moment on, you always did. When you were upset, confused at my incessant meowing, you readily admitted it. Even if I was scared because I felt particularly...vulnerable, and weak, I never feared that you would try to hurt me. And that helped me sleep at night."
Miku digested the information for a while. "Ok. Uhm. The vet didn't hurt you, did he?"
"Not physically. The blood draw stung, as one would expect."
"Ok..."
"I won't deny that being so easily subdued by a towel hasn't been the source of a few nightmares. And the way that..." Luka cut herself off.
"What?"
"I'm not sure if this would be particularly helpful to mention."
After letting her think for a bit, Miku simply said, "If you don't want to talk about anything, it's totally fine. I know we're both here for closure, but you don't owe me anything."
Luka smiled, though it shook at the edges. "Being so small and weak was one side effect of being a small little animal. One hand around my whole leg..." she trailed off, making a fist, easily imagining how a small little cat limb would have effortlessly fit in it. "But being an animal also means that people treat you as such. And while animals certainly have boundaries of their own, those boundaries and their privacy isn't nearly as respected. And yet... You were far more respectful at any point in time than the vet was when he had felt for spaying scars," Luka quickly assured her.
"Still! To think, looking at you now, that I had you in a tub...!" Miku turned away from the researcher. "Gosh. I'm sorry. You sure you don't hate me?"
"I don't hate you."
Miku took a moment to squeak, "Even after all that? The vet, the tub, the incident with the jar? You don't hate me at all?"
"The incident with the..."
"I mean, I did want to ask what that was about? But knowing you were—"
Luka held up a hand. "I can explain. But first..."
After a few deep breaths, Luka stood, leaning on her cane. Then, with a determined march, she went straight for the door around the corner. Behind her, Miku rose to her feet as well, Rookie meowing in protest when she was gently placed to the side.
"Do you need help?" Miku asked, only a step behind her.
"Uhm..." Luka hesitated, her hand on the handle to the bedroom. She swallowed down her confusion and anguish at how painfully small the whole place actually was. "May I go in?"
She heard the rustling of the technician's clothing as she shrugged. "Nothing you haven't seen before."
Luka wouldn't say it out loud, but she preferred to see as little as possible; the cat's vision meant that she felt like she hadn't actually seen any of it at all. Still, she opened the door, keeping her eyes on the floor, trying not to think too hard about how a short walk had become a trek of three steps.
When the edge of Miku's bed entered her vision, she sank to her knees.
"Wh—"
"One moment."
Seconds later, Luka had her cheek to the floor, and only then did she dare look around with all the energy she could muster. There wasn't much color to behold under a bed, even if it had been almost perfectly vacuumed. But there was the warm wooden flooring, the pale mattress, and the dark frame of the bed. That was it.
Except there, in the corner, hidden in the thickest clump of dust she had managed to find back then, there was a glimmer of red.
Luka reached out, her fingers closing around a tiny little metal box. She felt the profile of buttons, even a headphone jack.
"I'll admit that I'm a little confused," Miku mumbled somewhere far, far above her.
Just where she was supposed to be.
But Luka shook off the temporary comfort, rising to her knees again, then to her feet, leaning on the cane.
"I was the one who had gotten my own head stuck in the jar. It was my own mistake," she said, turning to face the technician. She ignored the brightly lit room to the best of her ability; curiosity was difficult to tame at first, but once her eyes landed on Miku, it was easy. There was no missing her green eyes, her honest, open expressions. The world started swaying, the room spinning, but Luka held her gaze, holding out the box. When Miku extended her hand, Luka gave her ipod back to her, saying, "So don't worry. I don't hate you."
Miku's eyes went as wide as Luka had ever seen them when she recognized it.
"Wh— You...?"
"I felt awful. So I went to retrieve it myself. I know I made a mess, but... It felt like this was important to you."
Miku turned the device over in her hands, her fingers tracing the edges of the screen. It didn't light up when she pushed the buttons, but Miku shook slightly nonetheless.
"You..."
"I really don't hate you," Luka repeated. "Some parts were unpleasant. But you saved me from misery; from other potentially less-caring adopters, from my own whiskers, from this noise... In the end, even from my own mind. You say I don't owe you..." She faltered. "But there's a reason why I care for you..."
The hands were at her arms, stopping her from falling over once again.
"If you owe me anything, it's a warning for when this gets bad," Miku said, a watery smile audible in her voice. "Come on, let's get you back on the couch."
Luka couldn't help but smile. She wanted to hold her, look at her, soak her all in, but she closed her eyes and smiled, letting Miku help her back to the living room.