Kaoruko was in her own place, reading her latest find om the library.
One more chapter before she would lean over the reading desk, napping
for a while, and then going back to study.
A bit after her
closing her eyes, she remembered something from a few days ago: Steve
and her were taking a walk and finding a place, where he could drink a
few shots of expresso and she could sit back and read the little novel
she brought with her. The place was there, and quite soon, without
tasting any of the caffeine-infused drinks there, her eyes drooped…
And
the next moment, when she opened the eyes again, he was gone. No sign
of him leaving, the chair was empty and the glass not being there at
all. She ran outside the café, and called the cops, but no sign of him
ever, as if he was spirited away from plain sight.
That was months ago. He wasn’t her boyfriend, but close enough for her to remind herself of the loss from time to time…
“Nya~, Kaoruko-chan!”
The
soft call pulled Kaoruko up and turned her to face the source of this
oddly warm sound. Standing between the rows of reading desk is this
girl, with a pair of twitching cat ears growing out of her auburn hair.
The green eyes were familiar to be called strange, but the face with
those parted lips…
“Eh, did you call my name? Huh?”
A
complete stranger? Calling her? She wasn’t used to seeing this kind of
never-seen-before extending such a warm welcome as trying to rub against
her face. She was as red as a carrot, like some self-respecting girl
would be.
“No way you would know me when I had never seen you!”
The
catgirl was more accustomed to seeing her, even though this seated girl
should be alien to her, demeanor or otherwise. Kaoruko was amazed at
how this catgirl was pretending to be intimate.
“Do wu like dis pwetty new me nya?”
Her
talk was quite slurry, and normal people like Kaoruko couldn’t talk
back instantly, without deciphering the half-understood sentence. Pretty
new you – she definitely thought Kaoruko had seen her before, though
not as a catgirl. Or was she completely new to her like she must be?
Pretty you – other than that doll-like face, she could only make out her
costume, vaguely emo, the from the low perspective of the chair. An emo
catgirl she had never imagined…
“Um, what “pretty you”, I don’t even remember your face, let alone your cat ears or the zippered top you’re wearing.”
“Nonko-chan, no way wu don’ reconize me becoz I do reconize wu, nya~”
Ah,
her mouth confirmed this – “because I recognize you”. A stranger
recognizing her? Kaoruko had no memory of her, absolutely none. No
catgirl would enter her life naturally except a girl wearing a cat
hairband, and certainly not this. Just in case…
“What, you do? When did you ever see me doing anything?”
“Aw, purr, Nonko-chan, me and wu were in dat stweet…”
“In a sweet? What are you even talking about?” The slur, maybe pretended, maybe natural, was in the way of talking clearly.
“Dat stweet… wen a dorkie came and fond me and…”
A dorkie found her, then? Who could this dorkie be, Kaoruko thought, except he might be related to something of “theirs”-
“and… tuk me away wau wu’re sleepin’…”
Sleeping?
That sounded familiar. When had she been with another, and she fell
asleep… “could it be that Steve I had been finding a place where he
could drink, and I could sit back and read? That was surely a terrible
idea…”
