Cat Phantom V |
The hands of the clock ticked forward, and it was time for the usual low flow of customers. The manager and Nagase left long ago, laughing profusely (especially Nagase) while worrying about Takenaka, who was looking a little pale.
Takenaka had regained his composure yet still looked somewhat sick.
Standing in front of the cash register near the doorway, he remained as dazed as ever. His tired, staring eyes signaled his struggle with drowsiness.
If I let him continue like this, I wondered if he would slip off into a world of sleep while standing again. I hoped he wouldn’t do that. Takenaka was the only person I could count on in case something went south.
Out of a touch of curiosity and out of concern as well, I didn’t want him to fall asleep. Even though I felt bad about it, I decided to poke him a little.
“Um, Takenaka. Are you not good with cats?”
“―!?”
Takenaka’s shoulders jerked up amusingly when I whispered this. He peered at me with his jaws tightly closed as his drowsy eyes enlarged and his neck shifted like a mechanical device that had been forgotten to be applied oil. Perhaps reminded of the disaster, it was noticeable that his face went ashen.
The number of times he blinked was strangely high. The calm and collected Takenaka was extremely perturbed.
Takenaka nodded slowly while keeping his eyes on me. And then he said, “Yes…” in a small voice.
Not good, not good, not good, not good, not good.
That was fascinating! As I thought to myself, I truly had a poor disposition.
“Hating cats is… rare, isn’t it? Even though you look like you would be a good match for a cat.”
The image of both of you sleeping together on a kotatsu in the winter. When I said that, Takenaka shook his head and denied it. Did he dislike cats that much?
It seemed that he really couldn’t handle cats, not just the carcass of a cat that had been run over, but cats in general. While I was more of a dog person, I thought cats were not so bad either. Recently, my sister showed me a video of several cats lying down together, with their round bodies and small paws, and I found that people were soothed by such an innocent sight.
I had assumed that Takenaka seemed to like animals a lot, but apparently I was mistaken.
But this was bad, I couldn’t restrain myself from grinning. Taking advantage of his sleepiness, I asked him why in the softest way I could.
Then Takenaka took a small, deep breath and spoke up in a somewhat nonchalant manner.
“I like animals… like dogs… but cats… For some reason, I am out of luck with cats from the past.”
“Out of luck?”
“Yes… Ever since childhood, I was scratched, hit, chased, and threatened when I made eye contact with the neighborhood cats or other cats that I didn’t do anything to them. My hair was brushed back, I had to escape from them, and I almost got bitten by them…”
Terrific, how could he be so rejected by cats when he didn’t do anything to them?
“U-Um…. that’s terrific. Why is such a thing…”
“No clue. At first, I wondered why too… but when I was in elementary school, a cat at my aunt’s house leaped down from a shelf and somehow clawed me with all its force after it landed on my face.”
“Wow, that sounds painful..!”
“Ever since then, whenever I see a cat… ugh!”
Well, that must have been a traumatic experience…
In addition, the dozens of cats that had accumulated in the temple of his grandfather’s parents’ house bristled up their fur and intimidated him, and the boss cat in the neighborhood seriously started a fight with him.
How pitiful… I supposed such people existed in the world…
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