"Let's start with the important details, where did you last see your cat?" Luck asked, still seated.
"I left him in front of my room on the 4th floor then told him to go inside and lock the door before I left."
"But when I came back, the room was locked but he wasn't inside."
'Left him in front of the room? Is this girl actually an airhead?' Luck wondered, beginning to feel more skeptical about helping her.
"Hmmm, okay. Then shouldn't you be looking for him on the third floor?"
"I started there but someone I came across said they saw him go down the stairs."
"I see. Is this the first time it has gone missing?"
"Actually, no." She said feeling a little embarrassed about her confession.
But Luck was actually happy about this. Since this was not the first time the cat was going missing, chances are it won't be too difficult to find.
'The little guy is probably just running around the building having fun while we suffer searching for it.'
"Let's search this floor first then go over to the last place you saw it."
They both started at the beginning of the floor down to the end looking around plastic plants, checking closets, behind desks and even knocked on a couple of doors to ask the residents if they saw any cat.
They found absolutely nothing, not even a clue or a sign of the cat ever being on the 4th floor.
"Where did you find it last time it went missing?"
"I found him on the roof the last time he went missing, I also found him stuck in a bucket on the fourth floor on another occasion."
Luck had two things in mind.
First of all they would search all floors starting from the third floor down to the first floor where they would ask the security at the lobby if any cat managed to escape the building.
'I doubt any security guard will allow a cat to leave the building, he should obviously know that it belongs to someone.' He thought.
'But that doesn't mean they will go out of their way to catch it.'
After clearing the floors they would go to the last area where she saw the cat. He wanted to avoid doing a thorough sweep of the building starting from the 6th floor down so he would try this method first.
Normally the roof would have been the best area to search first but the roof was on the 6th floor!
He would have to climb up all those stairs and if the cat wasn't there he would have to climb back down to check the lower floors!
"This is what we'll do," Luck began.
"We will thoroughly search all floors from the 3rd floor down and then move to the roof if we don't find it while looking."
"That sounds like a reasonable plan."
"There is another thing though," He paused. "I can't run too far or walk too fast because of a certain 'workout' session I had, so I'll be pointing out areas you should search and when the cat pops up it will be up to you to catch it if it runs."
"Is that okay with you?" He asked.
"That shouldn't be a problem," she responded.
"Alright let's go."
After searching the third floor they went down the stairs to the second floor, Luck taking care to not intensify the pain in his legs.
Searching the third floor made searching the second floor easier because they already knew where and where to check.
Luck lagged behind while she searched forward looking for the cat, he on the other hand looked for signs that the cat was ever on the floor.
Then they finally found it, their first clue!
By the side of a room was a seemingly abandoned cleaning bucket. But that was not the thing that caught Luck's eyes, it was the little trail of wet footsteps that lead away from the bucket.
He bent down despite the protest of his sore legs and observed the drops better.
"Did you find something?" Emilie asked wondering what was so interesting about the moping bucket Luck was intently staring at.
But Luck hand had found what he was looking for.
"Footprints!" He said out loud. "Except there's another cat roaming around, this footprints most definitely belongs to it."
"That means he has to be close right?"
"Yes…"
"And I think I know where it is." Luck answered.
"Really?" She asked, bubbling with excitement. "Where do you think he is?"
"There is no need to go any further, he's on the roof."
She looked skeptical about his conclusion. "Didn't you say we should check the first floor before going to the roof?"
"I did, but now I am very sure he is on the roof. First of all you mentioned that the last time you found him was on the roof right?" Luck asked.
"Yes but before that I found him in a bucket on the first floor. When I asked he said buckets are like oversized food cans so he couldn't help but explore."
Normally Luck would have considered this weird but as someone who holds conversations with his stomach he wasn't much different.
"It seems your cat has a bad recurring history with buckets."
"He really does, he is normally very nimble and graceful but it seems he can't help himself whenever he sees a bucket. He just jumps straight in."
"Sounds like a defective cat." Luck mumbled to himself.
"Come again? I didn't get what you said."
"Uhum," he cleared his throat. "Let's get going, I'll explain on the way."
•••
When they were now on the staircase heading straight to the roof, once they had the cat within their grasp he would finally be able to have home cooked food!
Just the thought of it brought a smile on his face as he walked up the stairs.
It was so close that he could almost taste it.
It would have been a pain if he had to go through the whole building, he might have even given up on home cooked food at some point but luckily for him the cat would be on the roof, he was sure of it!
"The reason I believe it's on the roof is because of the wet paw prints we saw on the second floor."
"When you are around you're always there to dry it up anytime it takes a dip, cats hate water you know?"
"Now that you weren't around and it's
adventurous spirit got it into another bucket. Where do you think it will go to dry up?"
It took a second but it finally clicked. "So that is why it was on the roof last time!"
"My guess is we'll find it next to the Air conditioning enjoying the warm air while drying off."
It took a while for them to get to the roof because Luck kept complaining about the elevator being out of service and sometimes he even paused for 30 seconds just to reconsider the whole cat finding business.
But finally they made it to the roof and just like Luck expected, the cat was right there, chilling right next to the Air conditioning.
'Finally.'
"SPARK!" Emilie yelled joyfully as she ran to quickly pick up the cat but when the cat saw her the strangest thing happened.
"Ahhh! Nani? How did you find me?!"
Luck stood bewildered.
"Did that cat just, Speak?!"