Suzume was very nearly skipping all the way back to work, and why shouldn't she? A huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, so it was only natural that her body felt that much lighter. Being able to talk to someone, anyone without fear of being mocked was such an exhilerating experience that she feared that she might well break out into song and dance. She restrained herself, but only barely. The rain wasn't helping. Had she thought to bring an umbrella with her, then she might well have discarded the last two years of therapy and engaged in a certain classic famous musical piece that she would not even think the name of lest that set her off down the street, singing in the -
Deep breaths, control yourself, count to ten and just for good measure stop skipping because that's dangerously close to dancing. You are in control of your own body, you are alright. Right? Okay! Off we go! Slow yet steady pace, get there in your own time, no need to rush and certainly no need to worry about the cat sitting in the tree. Which, it was. Of course. Staring at her, staring at it. Unblinking. Unmoving. Just... staring. Suzume backed towards the door, keeping the cat within her line of sight as she pushed the door open and stepped inside, only turning away once she was entirely within the building. The door closed behind her like a sigh of relief. She felt safer in the cafe, as if it somehow sheltered her from the gaze of that weird cat.
The instant that she stepped into the employees only area, she was hurled back against the door by an impressively fast and accurate flying tackle. "Suzume-chan!" the tackler said, rubbing her cheek playfully against the tacklee's neck in what was supposed to be a playful manner, but instead came out rather creepy.. "Where did you gooooo, it was so lonely without you and - hey!"
"That's quite enough of that, Mio!" said Masami, the owner of the hand that had extracted the ditz with effortless ease. This was hardly surprising given that she dwarfed the rest of them by some considerable amount. "Such rude behaviour! To tackle her to the ground like this is no way that a lady should behave."
"Wah but, but she vanished as soon as lunch started and I wanted to play!" Mio whined.
It was then that the last of the waitresses working today spoke up. "Not that I care or anything," Koiso began, in that way people do when they actually do care but would rather not admit it, "But that was a bit weird just runnin' off like that. I mean, you usually stick around for lunch, you know?"
"I suppose that is a good point," Masami mused, tapping her chin in idle thought before pointing in a really overly dramatic manner right at Suzume, who really didn't need this right now. "It is impolite to keep secrets from your coworkers!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Mio bounced around the room as though punctuating each iteration of the word with every landing. "Tell us, tell us, tell us!"
Suzume didn't like the look in all of their eyes. In their own ways, each of them were frightful gossips, and now they'd smelled blood in the water! Each of them, even Koiso who was looking over her shoulder, was looking at her with a glint in her eye, waiting for the slightest sign of weakness so they could drag the truth out of her. Suzume had to find some way to satisfy their curiousity, some way to put them off the trail!
Curiousity killed the cat...
Suzume shook her head. What a strange thing to think. Then again, now that she was thinking about it... there was something catlike in each of her coworkers. Masami behaved as though she was better than everyone else, Mio played around like an adorable kitten, and Koiso was naturally lazy. And then there was the glint in their eyes again. Something about that. Now that she was looking, really looking she could almost sort of see something in them that was... catlike?
Fortunately for Suzume, a distraction burst into the room with all the force of a tornado. All eyes turned towards their boss, Ryo, whose presence put your attention in a headlock and refused to let go no matter where she went. "Greetings, slackers! I bring good news! As you may have noticed, customers have been a little sparse these last few weeks." It was a sad truth. Their customer base had dwindled for some reason, and none of them had been able to figure out why that was. Their service was excellent, so it couldn't have been that. A rival cafe? No, nothing new had been set up. "And I've figured out just how to get them all back!"
With a maniacal grin, she threw the door open and dragged out three small boxes, placing them on top of a table in the middle of the room. "Change out of those uniforms!" she ordered. "We're no longer a maid cafe!"
"If you will forgive my asking," Masami fixed her glasses as she asked "Then just what are we?"
But Ryo just waggled one finger and tutted. "Open the box to find out!"
Mio was already ahead of her as she tore into the box in a manner very much like some kid on christmas day, and extracted... Something. Suzume couldn't see. Masami was standing in the way, but she could hear Mio even if she couldn't see her. "Look at this!" she moaned, "So cute! I can't wait to try it on!"
"Hey, hey, come on now, wait a minute!" Koiso declared, having opened up her own box. "I ain't wearing this! I mean, look at it!"
"Koiso is quite correct," Masami said, in agreement with Koiso for the second time today. Must be some kind of record. "This would be most inappropriate to wear in public! It leaves virtually nothing to the imagination, and -"
"We don't get paid enough for this!" Koiso interrupted. "I mean, I ain't parading around in some skimpy.... soft, surprisingly soft..." her voice trailed off into a satisfied sounding noise that reminded Suzume of... Purring? Koiso was purring?
"Um, Koiso, are you feeling alright?" Suzume asked.
"Feel... good!" Koiso purred.
Suzume reached out and pressed the back of her hand against Koiso's forehead, then recoiled instantly. "You're burning up! Masami, we have to get her to a doctor, fast! Masami?"
"Cute..." Masami mumbled. "It's so... adorable!" she said in a much louder voice, reaching forward to pick up something and put it on top of her head, turning around to face Suzume with a glazed expression on her face, and the thing on her head was -
Suzume was already running for the door before her brain fully processed what it was. As her hand fell upon the handle, her brain caught up with just what it had seen and compelled her to move just that little bit faster. She had to get out of here! The door was jerked open, and she took just two steps into the main portion of the cafe before stopping dead because directly in her way was something that, to anyone else, would have seemed completely unthreatening, completely innocent, completely mundane.
It was a cat. Not just any cat. The cat. Staring at her from the middle of the cafe floor. All colour drained from Suzume's face, and she turned around to see all of her coworkers wearing cat ears on their head, mewling like moving like -
"Come and play, Suzume!" Mio purred. "You'll look so cute as a kitty!"
She was trapped, or at least felt like it. Somehow, she knew that even if she passed the cat and reached the door, it wouldn't matter. In many ways, feeling trapped was the very best prison of them all.
"Midnight not a sound from the pavement," she began, just before they reached her.
Fri Feb 10 01:25:38 2012
1 comment Last updated: Fri Feb 10 01:28:01 2012