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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀┋ P4: FELINE REUNION ┋
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The brown cat walked as if it were his own house and sat in the aisle, looking at the whole "show" in front of him, in a similar way to Jhon, who slowly approached it with a really confused expression.
He was annoyed... but, just a little. The feline's vulnerability made him calm down regarding his doubts if it was a threat, however, he was strong enough to avoid being stunned by her strategies of tenderness.
Likewise, he couldn't behave like a lout in front of someone like that.
He reached out his hands towards this one and tried to pull it out, however it was big enough to really get stuck in that tiny space.
Jhon sighed, still holding the feline's paw.
"Why are you still here? I clearly told you to leave."
"...Meooww..."
Hearing some noises down the hallway of her house, she turned to see how the brown feline had taken to sniffing around the house curiously.
"Hey, this isn't your house! You've been following me around all day, you'd better leave!"
"Meooou, meoooou!"
<
Finally, and after several attempts, he managed to make her leave, leaving the three of them facing each other in the living room.
Jhon kept his gaze on the feline's eyes, not knowing what to do or say to her. However, he could see her trying to remove something from her neck. That weird necklace she was wearing.
For the moment, he waited for her to take it off to talk to her, if she could be reasoned with perhaps, however, it looked complicated for her to take it off.
And little by little, his face was turning purple.
"You're choking! Well, say something!"
The collar was just as small as the box for someone her size, so she did her best to carefully pull back. A brief moment later, this one backed away taking a big gulp of air, putting her paws against the back wall to steady herself and take a few more breaths.
Finished with the fuss, she looked up at Jhon, smiling apologetically.
"I still...don't know why you're here."
Out of the corner of her eye, she would also observe the brown feline, who was looking in the same confused manner at the feline.
"You two... know each other?"
They both smiled, in an embarrassed tone, and gathered next to Jhon. They both sat down and made a space for Jhon across from them to sit.
It seemed as if he himself was the guest in his own home.
But, he went along with them. This was all just too weird.
"So... what are you guys, are you really even cats?"
"MEOW!"
"MEOUU!"
"I get it. Sorry."
He shut up immediately at the growls of the two, and crossed the fingers of his hands, watching with concern their sheathed claws which, while not some danger at the moment, between the two of them could easily kill him.
First, a six-foot cat had invaded his house to make him breakfast, and now a brown cat was chasing him around the school and even into his house.
And with both of them in front of him, there wasn't something solid he could tell them to ask them of all the commotion they had caused him.
"Meoow. Meooow, meooow."
"Meooooooooooooooou. Meow."
However, the only one excluded from the conversation was this one apparently.
Both felines started meowing exchanging words, making it more uncomfortable.
"I seriously want to know how to... come to an agreement between you two. I don't know if I did something or if you're a revolution of cats that wants to conquer the planet or who knows what, but I don't want to get caught up in this."
The feline instantly turned away, standing perfectly still, silent.
"Meow..."
"I just... I want to live my life here, in peace. I don't want to be the protagonist of anything important, okay? You're disrupting my day too much and... I don't want that."
He had ducked his head, chagrined in a way.
He took the feline's paw, however, and smiled at her.
"The morning meal... it was delicious. Really delicious, but I don't understand any of it. And the more the day goes on, the more confusing it is for me to want to imply that everything is going normally."
"M...Meow..."
The feline would open her mouth slightly, as if trying to say something, but fell silent as she heard Jhon again speak.
"It's wrong... to barge into strangers' houses, yes?"
And, after only a slight moment, a bolt of unease and despair had fallen upon the feline, who began to gush saliva from her mouth and tremble, throwing herself to the ground as if she had been given the worst disease in all the world.
Jhon stepped back, frightened and worried, looking down at the brown feline as he tried to reassure her.
"Meooou! Meooou!"
It pointed at the feline and began to growl, growling louder and louder.
Not knowing what to do, he knelt down in front of it and held it, but the feline growled more.
Jhon swallowed saliva, and hugged her. And just like this one, he received a strong shock throughout his body as he breathed in the scent of this one, remembering the same impact he received in his childhood.
He remembered... the feeling that had invaded his heart the day he asked the heavens for a miracle.
From the garbage, from where he kept hearing the meowing of a small feline, and the concern that this marked in his fragile heart back then, invaded him again, now stronger, when he heard in his arms the feline crying and meowing while hugging him.
He began to blink rapidly, pulling all the wires together, and without realizing it, his tears also flowed from the encounter he had been searching for a whole day.
The feline kept meowing, and the brown feline began to growl at her; but, the noise stopped for a few moments, when Jhon held the feline with a greater force than this, as if giving her the tightest hug he could give, with the longing and desire of more than five years held in a single body and moment.
And lying down on the floor with it, he rolled her to the ground, holding her underneath him with teary eyes.
Jhon took a big breath of air, and blurted out:
"YOU... YOU'RE HER, AREN'T YOU!"
The feline he had never given a name to, and had never been able to call by one, which had caused him so much trouble when looking for him last afternoon....
The same one that had been in his life for only a year but that had marked an important point in his life, and one of his hidden reasons for returning to his true home.
It was that same feline that was in front of his eyes.
The dazzling golden eyes that let out tears like the first time they met, and a tender, goofy voice when she was scared or afraid of something... it was the same.
It was her.
He had found her.
The feline, who stopped crying, nodded with slight twinges of her chest smiling with a slight laugh, and this time hugging him to her, even with a greater force than the one he put on in the first place, making the young man feel like his back could break at any moment.
The brown feline stared at both of them, somewhat uncomfortable.
The feline went from crying to laughing, and in a matter of seconds to purring with a strange thrill of virtue and pleasure, filling him with licks at the boy who was trying to free himself from her paws before they snapped him in two.
"Meooou."
Hearing the serious meow of the brown feline, the feline released Jhon, who fell to the side trying to regain all the air that had escaped him.
He tried not to vomit the food that wanted to come out of his stomach, and went to the bathroom for a moment. The feline meowed at him and he told her to wait, while the brown cat approached her to bite her paw as a scolding.
The room was silent, only for a few meows between the two cats that were left alone in the place. And as the minutes passed, they remained the same.
Jhon was slow to return, now much calmer and less pale-faced from how close he had come to drowning.
He sat down across from them both and looked at them intently, all the while scratching his nose a little at the hairs of the cat that was still lingering on him.
"Well... ehmmm... this is more uncomfortable now."
The feline was still teary-eyed, and Jhon felt utterly sorry. About everything.
"This... This I didn't expect. It's been so long... really, it's been like five years since we've seen each other. How come time has gone by so fast... And how come you've grown up so much?"
The feline let out a slight chuckle, and gave a sidelong glance at the brown cat, who growled at her. However, she didn't let this bother her.
"Meoow. Meoooww, meooooow."
"I still... I don't understand them..."
She would stand up for a moment to walk over to her backpack. From it he would bring a couple of pens and some papers, dropping them in front of them both.
"How about this, can you write?"
Approaching the material, Jhon hoped he could discover the answer to the whole mystery. However, these, within seconds of holding the gift in their hands, began scratching and biting at them.
Jhon handed them to them, laughing slightly, even more confused.
"Cat instincts... I guess."
He searched with his gaze for something else that might do, but the brown cat beat him to it, stepping forward to meow at him.
"Meoou. Meou."
He glared at the feline, who was still chewing on the pen and began to play with it, tossing it back and forth.
"She... what does she have?"
"Meooou. Meooooou."
Jhon remained silent, trying to decipher what the man was trying to tell him.
In an attempt to solve everything that had happened, he began to see the situation outside the box and recount the facts to decipher the enigma.
First, yesterday morning she had returned to her hometown and, consequently, to her home. There was no sign of his friend anywhere, so her friend could not have been here until that time. Nor was any cat watching him, so none of this would have happened up to that point.
Soon after, he started looking for the feline all over the city, perhaps from it making a strange word-of-mouth echo of people that could have reached the feline. But, as she could see, she doubted that the feline was known to the people of her town, so she must surely be living in hiding. But, not desolate, because she knew the brown feline that accompanied her.
Then she gave tuna to the cats in the park. Maybe they could have informed her friend or the brown cat, and from there, when she went home... she could have come to visit him.
But, that means, she was nearby at the time. Between the walk from the park to his house there wasn't that much distance, and when he was about to sleep, heavy footsteps had landed on his roof; most likely it was her.
It all fit.
However, he couldn't understand something.
<
Other than that, there were still hundreds of unknowns flooding his mind.
The brown cat meowed again in the same way, while the feline was still distracted.
Jhon analyzed again, this time more focused on the current scenario.
< He had to analyze deeper. They could understand his language, but he could not understand them. He was at a crossroads, but he had to try harder if he wanted to do his best not to give himself a freak out the same day he got his friend back. < I look sideways at the feline, who meowed patiently. < Jhon pointed his gaze to his backpack, then to the dining room and finally to the feline, who would have put down her pen by now and stared in confusion at the boy who had stood for quite a while in silence. < Finally, he had understood. Putting together a few more clues, and observing the behaviors of both of them, she was able to create an idea of what was going on. He put his hands on his legs and put his hand to his chin. "She... wants to stay with me and I'm expected not to say anything about her to anyone?" he commented to them, looking at them seriously. They both fell silent, and looked at each other, finally nodding. <> This time, he covered his eyes and took a few moments to think about what he was going to say next. "...You found out I was here in town and that's why you came back to find me?" The feline, without any delay, nodded frantically, ignoring the background meow of the brown cat. Jhon remained silent. It was easy for him to accept her into his home and be able to live with her without any problems, having a comfortable and happy life as if it was a fantasy he had wished for deep inside him, never mind his current aspect of it. However, he was aware of what the situation really meant. When he was younger, he had already tried to hide it from his father, and he had tried hard at it. And still, he had been discovered. That was exactly why he had lost her, for not being able to hide her well enough. And if now, he allowed her to live with him again in the same house, then the situation would be the same but even more complicated. The neighbors would not ignore her so easily if they saw her on the street or in the garden. And it would not only be bad for the rumors, but also because someone interested in probably hurting her could come along if they found out about her. To him, just her looks and beauty alone was already quite a marvel, and he would hate for anyone to harm her. He would hate it more than anything in the world. <>. Jhon swallowed saliva, and looked at his childhood friend. He felt all his muscles contract, trembling from his lips what he refused to say, and that he would hate to say something like that to her. But it was for the best. It was the best thing for both of them. The best thing for everyone... ... ... ........... Right? "I..." "Meow...~" Without hesitation, this one approached in a quick silent step towards this one, purring into his chest, closing her little eyes to rub her head against this one, not letting him finish his sentence. They could both feel each other's sentiment, as if the connection from years ago had never been lost. She could feel the tension and concern in his words, and he, in turn, could feel the full trust and love she felt for him. Jhon decided to cut off his own words, and avoiding a tear as he wiped his eyes, he stroked the feline's head. He smiled quietly, and looked down at the brown feline, keeping his hand steady and gentle between his friend's ears. "I'll take care" with a gentle smile, he hugged and attached the feline's head to him, "I'll take care of her with my life, I promise." The brown cat looked at the two of them cozied up against each other, and let out a meow of distrust. "Meoooou!" Jhon opened his eyes in confusion, thinking that was it. Without giving him a chance to ask him anything else, the brown cat walked towards the boy's bathroom, leaving him alone with the feline. She took advantage of the moment to throw him to the ground, licking him all over again, making him laugh this time, allowing him to let out all his joy. He was just as happy, but it was difficult for him to express it with so many things happening. His energies were almost completely depleted, and the excitement for his new mission did not make his new day to day life any easier from now on. After a few minutes, the brown cat appeared again, this time bringing with him from the bathroom a large book, dragging it from its plastic bag. He set it down in front of her, and both the feline and Jhon were taken aback and confused as to what this one had brought. "That... was in my bathroom?" The feline let out a growl, and held the book up for him to read the title. "猫人词典 如何在一年内学会猫语." But it was in a language totally different from his own. Chinese, from what he sensed. The brown feline, without further ado, walked out of the house, leaving them alone. He let out a farewell meow and walked to the bathroom again, but this time he didn't reappear. "... So is he coming back or...?" commented Jhon, shortly before being caught again in the paws of the feline, who wouldn't let him go for quite a while all night.