The lesson: you shouldn't bathe a cat without pet-specific shampoo. So the self-declared first-time cat owner Origami collected her very first piece of cat care wisdom... or was it her second?
Last night she'd tried to sleep as usual, but had been cursed out by the honey-tongued cat until around midnight. Tossing a ball of yarn at the cat had bought immediate silence.
It was the weekend, but she was still woken at the crack of dawn by a phone call—admittedly one she'd brought on herself.
"Hello, am I speaking with Amagi-san?"
"My name is Tobiichi."
"I... you should be Amagi-san, right?"
"My name is Tobiichi."
"Please think carefully—don't you have a nickname, 'Amagi-san'...?"
"My name is Tobiichi."
A sharp inhale on the other end of the line, then practically a shout: "Are you 'Tenguu City's Number One Vixen'?! Your delivery is here!"
"That's me."
The girl hung up, walked downstairs to sign for the packages with perfect composure—noted the sizeable crowd of onlookers that had already gathered—then carried it all back inside with equal composure. Her sheer impenetrable dignity left both the delivery worker and the assembled audience blinking.
She'd ordered basic pet supplies from local shops online yesterday. Having never owned a pet, she'd defaulted to a simple rule: when in doubt, buy the most expensive.
Living alone, with AST's generous salary, she'd managed to save up quite a bit.
"Achoo!"
She sniffled. This wasn't a cat-hair allergy—it was the price of standing in the rain last night finally catching up with her.
Origami set down the crate of canned food—heavy enough to give a grown man trouble—and looked over at Yimi, who was still sleeping at the foot of the bed as though someone had switched her off. She'd been out since settling down last night and hadn't stirred since.
Origami opened a can.
"Mrow!" Yimi was on her feet at the sound, not entirely awake yet—she tottered over and started shoveling food into her face.
A close call. One second later and she would have starved to death.
"..."
Origami stroked the cat's smooth fur.
Apart from the yowling last night, no real complaints. Didn't scratch, either.
Ding-dong.
A very inconsiderate doorbell for a Sunday morning. The intercom camera showed it wasn't another delivery or the notorious NHK fee collector—it was Shiori, the only contact in her phone outside colleagues and teachers.
Origami opened the door.
"Morning, Origami. I came to see the cat."
"Come in."
She pulled Shiori inside and immediately shut the door behind her, as if afraid something in the apartment might escape.
The first thing Shiori saw upon entering was Yimi enthusiastically demolishing her breakfast—which gave her complicated feelings.
Clearly she hadn't encountered much real food, if she was this devoted to a can of cat food. This child deserved better.
Shiori sat down beside Yimi. "Does she have a name?"
"Rolly."
Decisive.
At the sight of Shiori, Yimi abandoned her meal and trotted under the bed.
Figured. This cat dealer was going to sell her to the terrifying Shiori after all. To think she'd actually believed the woman had kindly offered her shelter from the rain.
Origami didn't go after her. She explained to Shiori: "She's usually not this shy."
Usually... you only picked her up yesterday.
"I thought Origami would give her some strange name."
"Strange?"
Shiori offered an example. "'Ultimate S-Grade Sadistic Leather Queen' or something like that."
The two looked at each other for a long moment. At last, Origami produced a single sentence:
"Shiori's a bit perverted."
"..."
That's your line, not mine!
"So how did you end up picking her up?"
Back at the meeting they'd anticipated that the guileless Yimi might get carried off by any passerby who showed her a small kindness. Contingency plans had been drawn up—having Reine-sensei, who she liked more, approach as the cat's owner to retrieve her, among other options. No one had anticipated it would be Origami.
Then again, the Yoshino situation had also ended with Origami taking her home. You really couldn't tell just by looking at her.
"She came on her own."
"Mrow!"
Shiori could have sworn there was a protest in that meow.
She scratched her cheek. "Speaking of which, Reine-sensei also has—"
"This child was abandoned." Origami reached over and scooped the cat into her arms, stroking the small head. "I found her multiple times, in different places at different hours. Living off food she begged from strangers. Nowhere to go even in heavy rain."
"..."
She couldn't say a word. Saying anything would make Reine-sensei look like an irresponsible person.
But Origami herself was hostile to Spirits...
"Still, Origami—are you sure you're okay with keeping a pet?"
The truth was that not many people in Tenguu City kept pets at all. A Spacequake could strike overhead at any moment and reduce a mortgaged building to rubble. If the owner happened to be out when it hit, a cat or dog left inside would have nowhere to run. So pet owners were mostly retirees with the mobility and free time to take their animals to the shelter when the alarm sounded—or the kind of people wealthy enough to drop their pet at a boarding facility every day.
Spacequakes weren't especially frequent disasters in recent years in a broader sense, but Tenguu City experienced them constantly, as though it had won some terrible lottery—and it kept everyone on edge.
"Well... it's a bit awkward to say this now that you've already bought all of this, but if Origami ever finds it too much to manage, you can always hand her over to me. You remember the child named Yoshino staying at my place? She gets lonely at home by herself..."
"Hermit." Origami used Yoshino's Spirit codename.
It was partly addressed to Yimi as well—the two had already met once, and from what Yoshino had said, they'd gotten along well.
Origami looked down at Yimi, who had apparently understood every word and was now burying herself behind Origami's back, only half a head visible, watching Shiori with a wary eye.
The moment she realized Shiori was looking back, Yimi pulled her head in entirely, leaving only her tail visible.
"She doesn't want to go." Origami stated the fact, the cat now settled in her lap.
"...Then what if there's a Spacequake?"
"I'll take her to school."
"What?"
"I'll take her to school."
"..."
You can't bring a cat to school. That's what Shiori wanted to say. But she thought about their completely ineffectual homeroom teacher and vice homeroom teacher, and about how much it would cost her in front of Yimi—so she let the subject drop.
With no reason to send Origami away, the only thing she could do was drop a subtle hint: "By the way—if you were to run into that Spirit again, the one that glows white and can redirect her own misfortune, what would you do?"
"Mrow?" Yimi blinked.
"I don't know."
Shiori gave a small nod. "I know it's not really my place to say this, Origami—but if you do see her again, I hope you can try to talk to her properly. She's not a bad person. There must be more to what happened back then..."
She knew the hint was painfully subtle. She hadn't even managed to surface Origami's hostility toward Spirits. But there was nothing she could do—say any more and she wouldn't be dropping hints for Yimi's benefit; she'd be tearing open Origami's wounds.
The only response was silence. Visible awkwardness crystallized in the air between them.