Chapter 6 – Our First Meeting
Danial left his rented room in search of a stray cat. He was not sure if he would succeed but he decided to give it a try.
He was resolute in making cat videos as his side job and thus, he decided to give this a try. Whether he would find a suitable cat was unknown.
"Let's look at nearby alleys," Danial had already planned on where to look for a stray cat.
From his common knowledge, he could find stray cats around narrow alleys or streets. He also knew that these cats would usually go to the garbage bin or hang out around the food court area.
Danial went to the dumpster area for his flat building. This was the closest to his home. He did not mind a dirty cat as he would clean it once he adopted it.
Danial arrived at the dumpster area and there were two huge garbage bins there.
"I wonder if there are any cats right now?" He approached the two huge garbage bins and the stink scent of garbage invaded his nose.
"…" Danial stopped in his track. He wanted to take a deep breath to calm his mind but he knew it would be a stupid move.
Thus, he used his hand to cover his mouth and nose. He approached the two garbage bins and stopped again.
He did not hear any movement inside the bins. There was a high chance that there was no cat inside them.
He wanted to check the garbage bins but they were too smelly. Even with blocking his nose, he could smell them.
Danial steeled his heart.
"No pain, no gain!" He muttered. Since he wanted to do this side job, he needed to work hard. No matter if it was stinky or not, he had to do it.
Danial approached the first garbage bin and looked inside it.
There were many plastic bags inside filled with wet waste. Some of the plastics had broken and the wet waste inside poured out into the garbage bin.
Danial could also see maggots swimming and swarming around inside the garbage bin.
"Wuek!" Danial wanted to throw out. It looked super disgusting. He was complaining in his heart to those who did not throw away their garbage properly.
"These garbage bins were not this disgusting a few days ago. Who is doing this?" He shook his head. He threw away his garbage bin there but it was not this disgusting a few days ago.
Danial looked at the other garbage bin and there was no cat inside either.
He left the dumpster area for his building immediately and went to the next building. Luckily, the next building's dumpster area was cleaner.
Be that as it may, there was no stray cat there. He went to the next dumpster area and it was the same.
After checking all the dumpster areas nearby and found no cats around, Danial decided to jog around the flat building's vicinity and maybe he might find a stray cat or two wandering around.
Unfortunately, he did not meet any stray cats. He did find a few cats but they were owned by someone as they had collars on them.
Danial decided to get out of the flat's vicinity. He got to the road and jogged around. A few minutes later, he was wheezing.
He was not an athletic person and a bit of jogging was enough to tire him out.
Danial walked slowly and entered a food court area. This area was the closest to his flat building.
This food court was also nearby another five residential areas and thus, there were many small-time hawkers opening a stall here.
Also, it was usually packed with people from the nearby residential areas.
The food sold in this food court area was cheap and affordable for people around the area and thus, it was a bit popular around the area.
As for the food's taste, that depends. There were some good ones with cheap prices and there were some bad ones too.
Danial had only come to this place a few times since he started renting the room at the flat building.
He was new to the area and since he wanted to save on money, he rarely ate out. He would usually eat instant food at home.
Although Danial went out early, there were already many people in this food court area buying breakfast.
There were many delicious foods around but Danial ignored them. His target was the stray cats, not the food.
Danial looked around and he finally found a few street cats. However, there were too many people around and he was a bit shy trying to approach the cats.
Be that as it may, he decided to ignore them and approached the cats.
His first target was a white cat with a few big black spots on its body. This cat was not from the long-haired breed because it had normal-length hair.
Still, due to his shallow knowledge about cats, Danial did not know about the cat's breed in front of him.
Danial approached the white cat but suddenly, the cat's ears twitched and it looked in Danial's direction.
Danial stopped and stared at the cat back. He smiled and spoke, "Hello, little friend."
He tried to give the cat a friendly feeling with his smile. Danial squatted and continued approaching the cat.
"Hiss!!!" the white cat hissed and Danial was stunned.
'Umm, make sense. He is wary about me,' but Danial did not give up and continued forward but the cat lowered its head and continued hissing.
Danial was stunned. He knew what the cat's pose meant. It was preparing to attack.
*Gulp* Danial swallowed his saliva. He put both of his palms towards the white cat and said, "I am leaving. I am leaving," while backing away from the cat.
As the cat saw him retreating, it stopped hissing and its body relaxed but the cat did not stop staring at him.
"…" Danial was silent. He thought that it would be easy but this experience told him otherwise.
Even so, he did not give up. He continued with other cats but he failed all of them. All the cats that he approached either became hostile, scared, or directly attacked him.
He spent the whole morning without any progress. The only progress he had made was that he had 'jogged' too far from his flat building.
Due to fatigue, he ended up taking a bus home and wasted his money. As it was already afternoon, when he arrived home, he immediately took a shower and prepared to go to work.
His morning ended like that.
That night.
Danial did not have much energy left on his body. He was too tired and could not wait to go home that night.
"Why is it raining tonight?" Danial looked outside the convenience store and it was pouring heavily.
An hour later, his shift ended but it was still raining heavily. Danial borrowed an umbrella from the convenience home and went home.
On the way home, he suddenly heard something.
"What is that sound?" Danial looked around.
*Meow… Meow… Meow…* He heard a cat's voice. It was not a normal meow as it sounds desperate and sad. Also, the voice did not belong to a big cat. Danial was sure of this.
He looked around and saw a wet brown box beside a utility pole.
"No way…" Danial approached the box and inside it was a wet gray kitten.
The kitten felt Danial's presence and stared at him but it did not stop meowing. Danial stared at it too.