Inside the taxi.
Sakurai sat in the back with the white-haired Hayasaka-san. After telling the driver the destination, the car slowly pulled away from the curb.
"Meow Meow meow meow" Hayasaka Ai sang.
Sakurai had never heard the song before. She was just drunk—but the tune was oddly catchy. A one-drink wonder. This was undoubtedly the worst possible physique for a bar. It was a good thing he was there; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
Judging by her behavior at the bar, this was probably her first time drinking.
Combined with today's superpower—luck—perhaps this was also a manifestation of his ability? Strolling down the street, he coincidentally encountered a white-haired woman who meowed, and now she was drunk. She was going to stay at his place for the night. Over the course of one night, it wouldn't be strange for anything to happen.
"Little brother" Hayasaka Ai swayed her head slightly, her black mask nearly slipping off. She hadn't even removed it while drinking. "Your name. Tell me, meow"
"We probably won't have any further connection." Sakurai didn't want to be entangled by her. "Let's skip the name."
"Meow?" Hayasaka Ai tilted her head. After a few seconds of drunken deliberation, she said, "Brother, you can call me Cat Sister."
"Cat." Sakurai didn't like calling strangers 'sister.'
His current irritated mood was like the result of ten divided by three—endless.
That quote was from Natsume Soseki, from I Am a Cat. Quite fitting for the current scene, wasn't it?
"...Ha" Hayasaka Ai yawned. "I'm sleepy, meow"
She lay sideways on Sakurai's lap. The taxi was small; there seemed to be no way to avoid her. Sakurai didn't choose to. She gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
By the time she woke again, they had arrived at Sakurai Saki's apartment building in Setagaya Ward. He paid the fare, then helped Hayasaka Ai out of the car. She seemed much more sober.
"Brother." She steadied herself against his arm. "If you bring a cat home like this, your girlfriend will be angry, meow. Won't she?"
"She's very magnanimous." Sakurai wasn't wrong.
Hayasaka Ai was indeed very magnanimous on the surface. Last time, she had even let Sakurai Saki take Fujiwara Chika to the infirmary. As for whether she would be jealous behind his back—Sakurai wasn't sure.
"Your relationship is really good~" Hayasaka Ai asked, "What do you like about her?"
Sakurai had been asked this question before. He thought for a moment and remembered who: that young man named Hasaka. He no longer took that rival seriously. He was confident the other party couldn't take Hayasaka Ai from him.
But this time, the questioner was different. A woman. A woman he had just met. It seemed he could tell her more.
Sakurai Saki longed to share his feelings with someone. But with people too close, he would be too shy to speak.
"I like everything." He helped the seemingly still-drunk cat upstairs. "There's nothing I don't like."
"The moonlight is beautiful, meow." The cat glanced at the moon in the sky.
"No one uses such old-fashioned lines anymore." Sakurai chuckled softly.
Natsume Soseki's famous phrase would have been very romantic twenty years ago.
"Liking everything and such is too perfunctory, meow." The cat mumbled. She pulled down her mask slightly and blew a breath toward Sakurai. It carried the scent of alcohol and the fresh aroma of mojito.
"Our first meeting was at the bottom of the teaching building," Sakurai said.
One year ago. Two months after school started.
Sakurai Saki was walking toward the supermarket next to the cafeteria to buy some bread. He had just moved to Tokyo and didn't want to spend too much of his mother's money. Recently, he had been working hard to earn his own. Bento boxes were expensive and time-consuming. Buying bread at noon was more economical, and eating staff meals at his part-time job in the evening saved even more.
"It's so annoying. I only get five or six hours of rest a day. I really can't keep doing this job."
A voice drifted from a dead end around the corner.
Sakurai walked over expressionlessly and looked at the person inside.
Uniform. Golden single ponytail pulled to the left side. A classmate from his class.
Hayasaka Ai.
The popular gal. Very well-liked.
Sakurai Saki didn't care about any of this. He had no one he cared about at school. More precisely, he didn't care about anything around him. If someone bothered him, he'd crush them. Cold sarcasm behind his back didn't matter. A superpower user didn't care about the opinions of insects.
Upon seeing Sakurai—
"Sakurai-kun?" Hayasaka Ai instantly put away her troubled expression, becoming lively and cheerful again. "What a coincidence, meeting you here."
"Hayasaka-san? Good afternoon." Sakurai stopped his steps.
"Good afternoon, Sakurai-kun." She smiled—the practiced, cheerful one. "Are you going to eat?"
"Yes."
"Then hurry up. The bread is almost sold out."
"Okay. Thanks for the reminder."
"You're welcome."
Apartment. The entrance to Sakurai Saki's residence.
"...And then, we gradually became familiar with each other."
The cat listened to his statement, her face full of question marks.
What was this person saying?
And that last part—"Thanks for the reminder. You're welcome." Would anyone actually use such strange, stilted phrases in real life?
Their first meeting a year ago had been similar in the first half, but the second half of the conversation had gone very differently.
Her memory:
"Sakurai-kun, what a coincidence, meeting you here!"
"Who are you? Are we close?"
"We're classmates, Sakurai-kun. Don't you recognize me?"
"Can you stop being so overly familiar? Is there something wrong with your brain?"
"Sakurai-kun, that's too much!" (Covering face, crying)
"Brain-damaged. Complaining to yourself in a dead-end alley—what else could it be but brain-damaged?"
"You're the one with a brain disorder! Dare to say that again?"
"Idiot."
After that last insult, he had left. Purely an emotionless, straight-laced jerk.
Hearing the cat's complaints—Sakurai had apparently reconstructed history—he continued: "I couldn't just ignore her. Later, I had a long 'talk therapy' session with her. I told her not to take work too seriously and not to doubt herself. Soon, we hit it off."
The cat rolled her eyes.
Talk therapy?
Thinking of this, the cat wished her main body would break up with him.
Hit it off? Yes, but unfortunately, on a physical level. And when she hit him, he hit back! That's right—when a girl hit him, he would decisively hit back. He wouldn't consider anything else. He wouldn't take a loss.
Sakurai opened the door as he spoke, then led the cat into the rental apartment. They changed shoes in the entryway.
"As for what I like about her..." His voice softened. "It's probably as numerous as the stars."
"This is Tokyo." The cat's voice was dry. "You can't see stars in the night sky, meow."
She had replaced 'can't' with 'meow' again.
Sakurai turned his head and looked at her. "It doesn't matter."
He paused.
"Just looking into her eyes is enough."
"Meow?"
"Do you know? There are actually stars in her eyes." His gaze was distant, warm. "As long as you gaze into her eyes, you'll realize how much I truly love her."
Sakurai looked directly into the cat's eyes—those sea-blue eyes, so familiar, so haunting. His voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
"It's quite a coincidence. Her eye color is the same as yours." A pause. "An unforgettable sea blue."
He waited.
The white-haired Hayasaka-san lowered her head.
"Huh? Why aren't you talking?"
"Nothing... nothing."
You can say a little more sweet talk.
I can bear it.