‘3. Pick up the orange tabby cat that attempts to cross your path.’
Eito stroked the creature between the ears gently as he recalled word for word the third task. So far as he could tell, the task was complete. The gum from the second task only rested on the park bench for a moment. Did he need to do anything else with the cat at this point? The fourth task involved changing the channel of the television in the window display of the town’s electronics store, and it didn’t seem like Garfield or whatever the cat’s name was would be any help in completing that. From what he understood, he could just set it back down now and continue on, but there was no way that would affect the swim meet, was there?
As he was debating, he heard the sound of running footsteps coming up behind him. “Hey you!” called out a voice he had heard only a minute before. Turning in place, he saw the girl who had confronted him over the gum. For a brief moment he saw a look of outrage on her face, but as he watched she skidded to a halt. Her angry eyes went wide with… fright?
“A c-c-cat? When did you?” she asked. Saito Komon despised cats. It was bad enough that she had severe allergies around them, but they encapsulated everything she hated. They were lazy, good-for-nothing leeches on society. The very idea, that something could coast by on the hard work of others without contributing anything… worse they expected to be pampered! If it were up to Saito Komon, all cats would be rounded up and put to work doing… well honestly she hadn’t thought it out that far. Nor had she considered just how much her irrational behavior around felines conflicted with the image of self-confidence she consciously tried to project all of the time.
Eito looked thoroughly confused as the girl backed away from him quickly, as though he were cradling a live grenade in his arms. Saito hadn’t been fast enough; her eyes were already red and watering up. “W-What’s your name?” she shouted from a safe distance, punctuating the question with a loud sneeze.
“I’m Eito,” he shouted back.
“You’re going to regret this day, Eito! Mark my words!” With another sneeze, the extremely odd girl ran away deeper into the park.
“That was… weird. I wonder if she was one of Koemi’s teammates?” he asked the cat, who seemed completely undisturbed by Saito’s reaction. More curious than before, he turned back around to continue his walk.
“Aah!” he shouted as he discovered someone had been standing directly behind him. It was another girl… at least she seemed to be one given the, ahem, size of her assets. Otherwise, there was very little to indicate the person’s gender. She was half a foot shorter than Eito, and wore a baseball cap with a long black ponytail falling behind her. She wore a matching Furinkan Fighters baseball jersey and jeans, neither of which seemed to have been washed in the last week, or perhaps month.
Eito felt uneasy as the quiet girl stood slightly within his personal space. Her head was downcast, obscuring her face completely with the bill of her hat. Eito took a couple steps back as the stranger said nothing. Finally as Eito put a normal conversation’s distance between them, she lifted both arms towards him.
“Cat,” she said, in a voice that was barely audible.
“Oh… is he yours?” Eito asked. The girl nodded her head once, but otherwise did not move from her spot. “Okay, here you go.”
The orange tabby didn’t seem to have any qualms about being passed to the short girl. She took him into her arms and cradled her against her shoulder.
“So… what’s the cat’s name?” he asked, attempting to break the uncomfortable silence.
The girl kept her head downcast, but shifted her hold on the cat so that she could have a free hand, then fished around in her jeans pocket. Without answering Eito’s question, she pulled out a crumpled up scrap of paper and thrust it out ahead of her towards him.
“Reward.”
Eito accepted the dirty gift and unfolded it to find… a flier advertising 10% off oil changes. “Um, thank you,” he said uncertainly, looking up from the paper to see that the girl had already begun wandering off. The orange tabby at least was watching him from its position on the girl’s shoulder.
Thu Dec 30 12:23:35 2010
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