by Hiro Arikawa
In the book, the father had forgiven his son, but caught up in Satoru’s blind enthusiasm, Kosuke didn’t feel able to say what was on his mind, namely that his father had a very different personality, and he doubted that the plan would succeed.
As they whiled away the time playing with the cat in the park, a few people, out for a stroll, called out to them, among them a woman walking her dogs.
‘What are you doing out this late? Your family will be worried,’ she said.
They were too well known in the neighbourhood. Kosuke started to wonder if they’d chosen the wrong spot, though Satoru didn’t seem at all concerned.
‘Don’t worry about us,’ he told the woman. ‘We’re running away!’
‘Is that so? Well, you’d better go home right now!’
After a fifth woman had come up to them, Kosuke finally raised an objection.
‘Satoru, I don’t think this is how you run away from home.’
‘I know, but in the book the father came looking for them in a park.’
‘Yeah, but this doesn’t make any sense.’
At that moment, they heard a voice calling through the cool air: ‘Satoru!’ It was his mother. ‘It’s late, and enough is enough. Come home now! You’ve got Kosuke’s family worried, too!’
Satoru flinched. ‘There’s no way they could have found us so quickly!’
‘You didn’t think they’d find us?’
Had Satoru seriously believed they could hide from their parents when there were all these strangers around who seemed to know them?
‘I’m sorry, Mum!’ Satoru shouted. ‘But we can’t be found yet!
‘Come on, Kosuke!’ He grabbed the cardboard box and ran with it to the gate leading out of the park. Kosuke could do nothing but follow. It felt like they were straying from the storyline Satoru had described, but there should still be time to put that right. Surely there would be. Well, maybe.
They managed to shake off Satoru’s mother and were sprinting down the slope away from the housing complex when all of a sudden there was a roar.
‘Come back here!’
The roar came from Kosuke’s father. It was probably too late now to put anything right. Maybe we should just apologize, Kosuke was thinking, but Satoru shouted: ‘It’s the enemy!’
The story had taken a different turn now.
‘Run for it!’
By now, they’d completely lost sight of the narrative they were supposed to be sticking to. For the time being, all Kosuke could do was chase after Satoru, who was determined to keep running.
His portly and generally sedentary father couldn’t keep up and they lost him after they’d rounded the first corner, but now the street was totally straight. There was nowhere to hide.
‘Kosuke, this way!’
Satoru had raced inside the small supermarket where they’d bought the can of cat food. A smattering of customers were flipping through magazines while the red-haired clerk listlessly restocked a shelf.
‘You have to hide us! We’re being chased!’ Satoru shouted. The clerk looked over at them doubtfully.
‘If they catch us, they’re going to get rid of him!’
Satoru showed the cardboard box to the clerk and a siren-like yowl rang out from it.
The clerk stared at the box for a moment, then headed to the back of the shop, motioning for them to follow. They passed through a door and the clerk pointed to the back exit.
‘You’re a lifesaver!’
Satoru scampered out, followed by Kosuke.
He turned and gave a small bow of thanks, and the clerk wordlessly waved a hand at them.
From there, they scurried from place to place, but they were only children and there was only so far their legs could carry them.
Finally, they ran to their elementary school. Satoru’s odd little plan to run away from home had caused quite a disturbance, so much so that the news had got around the neighbourhood, and as they legged it into the school grounds, all the grown-ups were hot on their heels.
They prised open a window, one that all the pupils knew was out of kilter and didn’t lock properly, and slipped into the school building. The adults had no idea how to get in, so they ran around helplessly outside, while the boys made their way up to the top floor.
They spilled out on to the roof and could at last put down the cardboard box with the kitten inside.
‘I hope he’s okay. He was quite shaken up.’
There was no sound coming from the box so they quickly opened it. The kitten was nestled in a corner. Kosuke hesitantly reached his arm inside to touch it—
Pyaaa—!
The kitten started to howl even louder than before.
‘Sssshhhh! You’ll give us away.’
The two boys tried to calm the kitten, but cats don’t often listen. Crouched down and shushing at each other, they could hear voices calling out.
‘I hear a cat!’
‘It’s coming from the roof!’
The grown-ups had started to gather down below. ‘Kosuke, enough!’
One angry voice rose up from the crowd, that of Kosuke’s father. From his tone, it was easy to guess that his son was in for a beating.
Kosuke, in tears, turned on Satoru.
‘It didn’t work! You lied, Satoru!’
‘It isn’t over yet. We can still pull this off!’
Again, a voice called out from below. ‘Satoru, come down here right this minute!’
Satoru’s father had joined their pursuers.
‘We can go up the fire escape,’ someone piped up, and it became clear that Kosuke’s father, his face burning with rage, was already climbing the stairs.
‘It’s all over now,’ Kosuke mumbled, holding his head in his hands. Satoru ran over to the railing on the roof. He leaned over it and shouted, ‘Stop! If you don’t stop, he’s going to jump!’
A murmur ran through the crowd below.
‘What?’ Kosuke was horrified. ‘What are you doing, Satoru?!’
When he grabbed Satoru’s sleeve, Satoru gave him a blazing grin and a thumbs-up. ‘A comeback!’ he said. It wasn’t what Kosuke had been hoping for, but it did seem to be enough to stop Kosuke’s father dead in his tracks.
‘Satoru, is that true, what you said?’ Satoru’s mother yelled from below.
‘It’s true! It’s true!’ Satoru yelled back. ‘He just took off his trainers!’
‘Oh my god!’ People were screaming from below.
‘Kosuke, calm down now, kid!’ This from Satoru’s father, while Kosuke’s father roared, ‘Stop buggering about!’ Even from up above, it was clear he was furious. ‘Stop whining! I’m coming up, and I’ll drag you down from there if I have to!’
‘Don’t do that, Mr Sawada! Kosuke’s really going to do it!’ Satoru shouted, to stop him. ‘If you come up here, he’ll jump off, and he’ll take the cat with him!’
Satoru turned to Kosuke with a grave expression on his face. ‘Kosuke, could you, like, kind of straddle the railing?’
Kosuke replied that no way was he going to risk his life over all this.
‘But look, you want to keep the cat, don’t you?’
‘Sure, but …’ For the sake of a cat, did you really have to go this far?
For one thing, the story Satoru had read about the boy running away hadn’t ended up with him and the puppy jumping to their deaths.
‘Listen! Can’t we ask first whether it’s okay to keep the cat at your house, Satoru?’
‘What?’ Satoru looked as startled as a pigeon shot with an air rifle. ‘You mean, it’s okay for me to have the cat? Man, if you thought that, you should have said so!’
Beaming, Satoru called out to the crowd down below.
‘Dad! Mum! Kosuke says he wants us to have the cat—!’
‘Okay, okay. But first talk Kosuke out of jumping!’
A storm of misunderstanding still seemed to be swirling through the crowd of grown-ups, who didn’t have a clue what was going on.
&nbs
p; SATORU, YOU REALLY weren’t too bright as a child, were you?
I could hear Satoru and Kosuke’s conversation from inside my basket. I’d never heard such a mad story in my life.
‘It was after we came down from the roof that things got heavy.’
‘Your dad thumped us pretty hard, Kosuke. I remember, the next day my head looked like the Great Buddha in Nara.’
The cat that had thrown the whole neighbourhood into such an uproar was my predecessor, that cat Hachi, apparently.
‘Speaking of which, Hachi was a male tabby, wasn’t he? Aren’t male tabbies supposed to be quite rare?’ asked Kosuke.
Is that so? Well, since Hachi and I have the same markings, I must be a pretty rare specimen myself.
I had pricked up my ears to listen in, and Satoru said, smiling, ‘Well, the thing is … I asked a vet about it and he said his markings are too few for him to be classified as a tabby.’
‘Really? Other than his forehead and tail, it’s true – he was pure white.’
Kosuke paused. ‘Man,’ he said, raising his arms then crossing them in front of his chest. I could see all this through the gaps in my basket. ‘I was thinking that if I had told my father it was a valuable male tabby I might have been able to convince him to keep it.’
Kosuke looked over at the basket. I quickly turned my head away so as not to meet his eye. Too much bother if he tries to get all friendly on me.
‘What about Nana? His face looks exactly like Hachi’s, but what about his markings?’
‘Nana can’t be classified as a tabby either. He’s just a moggy.’
Well, excuuuse me. I glared at the back of Satoru’s head, and he went on:
‘But, to me, Nana’s much more valuable than a male tabby. It’s fate, don’t you think, that he looks just like the first cat I ever had? When I first laid eyes on him, I knew, someday, he had to be my own precious cat.’
Harrumph. You’re just saying that because it sounds good. I know what you’re getting at. But still.
Maybe that’s why I saw Satoru crying that day. After I was hit by the car and had dragged myself back to his place. He mentioned that Hachi had died in a traffic accident.
Satoru must have thought he was going to lose another precious cat to a car accident.
‘That was one good cat, Hachi. So well behaved,’ Kosuke said.
To which Satoru replied, with a smile, ‘Though he wasn’t very athletic.’
According to what I heard, he was the type whose legs went all spongy when someone grabbed the back of his neck. A cat who couldn’t catch mice, in other words. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me. A real cat would immediately fold in its legs.
Me? I’m a real cat, naturally. I caught my first sparrow when I was less than six months old. And catching something with wings is a lot trickier than catching any four-legged land creature, believe you me.
‘When he was playing with a catnip toy he’d go dizzy, chasing it around.’
‘’Cause he was usually pretty placid.’
‘What about Nana?’
‘He loves mouse toys. The kind made out of rabbit fur.’
Hold on a sec. I can’t let that pass. Since when did I love that awful fake mouse?
It smells like the real thing, so if you throw it near me, of course I’ll fight with it, but no matter how much I chomp on it, no tasty juice comes out. So when I finally calm down I’m worn out, and the whole thing’s been a total waste of time, d’you understand?
There’s that manga on TV sometimes where the samurai cuts down a dingbat and sighs, ‘That was a waste of a good sword.’ To me, that’s kind of how it feels. You’ve hunted down yet another useless thing. (By the way, Satoru prefers the shows with guns.) The least they could do would be to stuff those toys with white meat. But could I take this complaint to the pet-toymakers? Stop worrying about what the owners think and pay some attention to your real clients. Your real clients are folk like me.
In any case, after one of those pointless chases, I usually let off steam with a good walk. But Satoru usually tags along, and that makes it hard to do any successful hunting.
What I mean is, the minute I spot some decent game, Satoru interferes. Deliberately makes some careless noise or movement. When I glare at him, he feigns ignorance, but all that racket gives us away, thank you very much.
When I get upset and wave my tail energetically from side to side, he gives me this pathetic look and tries to explain.
You have lots of crunchies at home to eat, don’t you? You don’t need to kill anything. Even if you catch something, Nana, you barely eat it.’
You idiot, idiot, idiooooootttt! Every living creature on earth is born with an instinct to kill! You can try to dodge it by bringing in vegetarianism, but you just don’t hear a plant scream when you kill it! Hunting down what can be hunted is a cat’s natural instinct! Sometimes we hunt things but don’t eat them, but that’s what training is all about.
My god, what spineless creatures they are, those that don’t kill the food they eat. Satoru’s a human being, of course, so he just doesn’t get it.
‘Is Nana good at hunting?’
‘He’s beyond good! He caught a pigeon that landed on our porch.’
Right you are. Those blasted birds get all superior in human territory. I thought I’d show them what’s what. And Satoru, all teary-eyed, always asked, ‘Why do you catch them if you’re not going to eat them?’ If that’s the way you think, then don’t interfere when I hunt on our walks.
And didn’t Satoru complain about pigeon droppings on the laundry he’d hung out to dry? He’d be happy if I chased away the pigeons, and I’d get to hunt. Literally, two birds with one stone, so why the complaints? And by the bye, ever since that incident, the pigeons have never come near our porch again, but have I heard a word of thanks? Still waiting!
‘It was a real problem that time,’ Satoru said. ‘A sparrow or a mouse I could bury in the bushes next to the apartment building, but something the size of a pigeon, that’s a different story. I ended up burying it in a park, and the only conclusion anybody who spotted me, a thirty-year-old man burying a pigeon, could come to is that I was a pretty dodgy character.’
‘There are more and more weird things happening these days, too.’
‘Right. Every time someone passed by, I would say apologetically, “I’m so sorry, but the cat did it,” and they’d look at me really oddly. And wouldn’t you know it, that was the one occasion Nana wasn’t with me.’
Ah, so he had an awkward time, did he? I should have been with him. But Satoru didn’t tell me, so it’s his fault, and I’m not going to apologize.
‘Sounds like Nana’s wilder than Hachi was.’
‘But he’s quite gentle sometimes too, like Hachi. When I’m feeling depressed or down, he always snuggles up close …’
Not that hearing these words made me happy or anything.
‘Sometimes, I get the feeling he can understand what people are saying. He’s pretty bright.’
Humans who think we don’t understand them are the stupid ones.
‘Hachi was a very kind cat. Whenever my father had a go at me and I went to your house, Satoru, he’d sit on my lap and refuse to jump off.’
‘He understood when people were feeling down. When my parents had an argument, he’d always side with the one who had lost. It made it easy for me as a child to tell who had won and who had lost.’
‘I wonder if Nana would do the same, too?’
‘I’m sure of it. He’s pretty kind.’
Hachi seemed to be a decent sort of cat, but going on and on about Hachi this and Hachi that made me think, If a cat that’s dead was so good, maybe I should die too, and let them see how they like that.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kosuke suddenly murmured. ‘I should have taken Hachi from you back then.’
‘There was nothing we could do about it.’
Satoru sounded like he didn’t hold a grudge. Instead, looking at Kosuke, it seemed to me tha
t he was the one who did.
THOUGH SATORU’S FAMILY brought Hachi up, it was as though Kosuke did the job half the time.
Whenever he went over to Satoru’s, he played tirelessly with Hachi, and Satoru sometimes took the cat over to Kosuke’s house.
At first, Kosuke’s father stubbornly refused to let Hachi in the house, so they played in the garage, but before long his mother let them bring the cat inside, if not into the studio, and little by little his father got used to it. He warned them not to let Hachi sharpen his claws on the walls or the furniture, but sometimes, when he passed by, Kosuke’s father would say a few nice things to Hachi.
Kosuke regretted that he couldn’t have Hachi himself, but he was very happy when his father played with him. It felt like his father was meeting him halfway. He even hoped that, if he ever found another stray kitten, this time he would be allowed to keep it for himself.
Because it was a very special thing – to have your own cat in your own home.
Whenever he stayed overnight at Satoru’s, sleeping on the futon beside his bed, he’d often be woken in the early hours by four feet clomping over him. Feeling the weight of a cat’s paws pressing into your shoulders in the middle of the night – not much beats that.
He would glance over and see Hachi curled up in a ball on top of Satoru’s chest. Perhaps finding it too hard to breathe, Satoru, still asleep, would slide the cat beside him. Lucky guy, Kosuke thought. If he were my cat, we could sleep together and I would let him walk all over me.
‘My father seems to have taken a liking to Hachi, and I’m thinking, maybe, if we find another stray kitten, he might let me keep it.’
‘That’d be great! Then Hachi would have a friend.’
The idea made Satoru happy, and on the way to and from swimming club he’d kept an eye out for another box with a kitten inside it.
But there never was another cardboard box with a kitten inside left under the housing complex sign.
Of course, it was a good thing that no more poor cats were abandoned. Because, even if they had found another cat, Kosuke’s father still wouldn’t have let him keep it.
Two years had passed since Hachi had gone to live at Satoru’s. Kosuke and Satoru were now in the sixth grade of elementary school.