Chapter 8: Searching for Me

I wasn’t the same. That wasn’t accurate… I was not who I thought I was.

Not just in body, but everything. I should have been able to handle that situation out there. Hideki was down and done. My mere hiss drove him to flinch! Then his goons swarmed me, but I should’ve been capable of handling them with ease.

It was infuriating!

On my bed… Hitoshi’s bed, I sat with my arms hugged around my knees and chin snuggly tucked between the pair. Unfortunately, I’d never put my pants back on. This damn tail just kept trying to get me out of them.

This whole entire affair had me feeling really low.

The only comfort I felt right now was that of the sun finally coming out from behind those gloomy rain clouds. And it had at least the decency to apologize for the depressing scene by bathing me in its warm glow. I glanced at the window and wondered if I should ever go back outside. Other than Hideki and his gang, there were authoritative figures out there. I thought so, and knew that to be the case for one valid reason: I was a freaky kind of special.

Did they want to get in contact with me? If that were the case, staying here would eventually have one of them ringing my doorbell. At least the hospital had a closer idea of what had happened to me.

Even if they did, that didn’t matter to me. Hideki was the one who showed he believed me. That I was Fuma Hitoshi...

I wanted to laugh. I felt some doubt that these memories belonged to me.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Hitoshi’s family name had no ring to it. Fuma Hitoshi wasn’t working out with me as a name. Neither were these memories fitting in with how I was experiencing everything right now. Absolutely all of my decision-making was skewed by instinct rather than reason.

...Hitoshi hadn’t survived. There was one image in my head, a memory, that hinted at his death. The light. I still remembered how I’d felt, scared but determined, when I’d jumped into the light at the shrine.

Hitoshi hadn’t jumped… I’d jumped on him. His spirit, and my supposed nine lives, had merged.

That was the only memory that truly felt like it belonged to me.

“I’m… I’m a cat.” That was it. Hitoshi had passed on, but left his memories behind with me. And I supposed he didn’t need his body for where he was going.

Sliding my forehead down to my knees, I hugged my legs tighter as I buried my face. I was bracing myself for the flood of emotions I wanted to let out. Their burden was weighing heavier and heavier on me until my torso felt near ready to implode from the pounding pressure.

This could be my home, but it wasn’t. Fuma Hitoshi was a boy who lived here. I was a stray cat he’d let in who was intruding into other lives.

That explained why it had taken so much effort to find this place. I didn’t know where he lived and had to use his memories and piece the mental map together like a jigsaw puzzle.

After awhile like this, I decided it would be more respectful to leave this place. It was not my home. But I wanted to get cleaned up first.

For a moment, the thought of licking myself clean crossed my mind. I didn’t consider it seriously, it was just something I thought about as I truly was a cat and that was what cats did.

No. As a human, I would take a shower and get this dirt from my rough encounter outside off of my face and, well, everywhere else Hideki’s gang had touched me. Hideki’s boys definitely were not gentlemen.

Sliding off the bed, I wandered out of my -- out of Hitoshi room to the hallway. I hadn’t relied on a memory to tell me that the Fuma family was wealthy. It wasn’t a two-story house, but still a big, furnished, well-maintained, and… well, it was an incredibly nice house. And not many homes had front lawns made of pavement.

Dojo… that was how the Fuma household advertised. They did morning training out in front of their house. Was that why Hideki had been there? Was he trying to wait for Hitomi?

No. Hitomi wouldn’t be around, just like the rest of the family wouldn’t be here either. None of them would know about what had happened to Hitoshi until… until...

...I shook my head, trying to clear out the mingling thoughts of what had happened, and tried to pair up a past that wasn’t mine. A father, mother, and sister. Those were Hitoshi’s family.

Friends? Who were Hitoshi’s friends?

Hitoshi and Hideki weren’t friends, but not… they were adversaries. Not really rivals, as it was apparent Hideki had the advantage of size, muscle, and numbers. Hitoshi had wealth and time, and a Hell of a lot of liberty from his entitlement.

Fuma. That name had a historic importance. I didn’t believe Hitoshi ever knew his family’s role in this nation, but he knew enough to use his name to get what he wanted.

...Was Hitoshi bad?

That explained the red shirt. He’d wanted to stand out and show everyone how much better he was. That he could be who he wanted to be and everyone else had to fall in line. No friends were good enough to hang out with him.

That’s why there was so much strife between the two. Hideki was a conformist because of his traditional upbringing and how everyone expected more from him. And the fact he appeared more mature than his actual age.

He was rather mature out there. I was the one who’d struck first. In fact, I didn’t quite recall if Hideki had done anything to me except grab a hold of me. That went the same for Hitoshi… well, not quite being held by him, but every bit of violence came from me or Hideki’s friends.

...Why the Hell was I defending Hideki’s actions? He was still responsible for me… Hitoshi getting stabbed. This was so confusing. I needed to relax. Even if I wasn’t really him, I was glad to own his lessons and know the techniques to keep calm or settle down. And I really had to settle before I lost any more of my sanity.

From the hall, I faced the door that had to be the bathroom. Of course it was the bathroom.

“Fucking Hell…” My mind, everything in this head, was unstable. If I was going to keep going forward, I had to stop first and take a break from this nightmare.

Opening the bathroom door, I paused to collect myself again. I stood in the doorway and started to wonder how anyone could cope with something like this.

Before a minute could pass, I entered and closed the door securely behind me with a click of the lock. To truly get my mind off of this serious matter, I concentrated on the mundane.

Casually, I removed my red shirt and tossed it on a counter of a darker shade of red. Kneeling down, I finally took note that my footwear was nothing more than soaked socks. My shoes were likely removed when those bastards outside had stripped me of my pants.

With disgust, I saw how dripping wet my socks were and groaned inwardly at the thought of my wet trail across the house’s floor. If the Fuma family did have an unexpected visit back to their home, they’d be furious at my improper entry and continued occupancy.

“Okay, mewby I should clean the floor first?” Tight lipped, I instantly remembered why I didn’t speak much anymore. I stood up and hung the pair of socks off of a hanging bar on the wall. What I should’ve done was disrobe in the bedroom and crossed the hall in a bathrobe.

Too late for that, but if I ever had the chance again...

Kneeling back down, I leaned over the tub to turn on the faucet knobs. I had to wait a moment, testing the water’s temperature, and when the warmth finally caught up, I adjusted the heat until it was comfortable. Before I switched the faucet to the showerhead, I stood back up and stepped in, pulled the curtain shut, and hit the switch.

Not bothering to look at my body, I blindly started scrubbing off the dirt and rinsing myself with a steamy comfort of ignorance.

My deft and delicate hands roamed over my lithe figure. I could see in Hitoshi’s memories what he looked like without cover, and I was certain in comparison we were both lean, strong and fast. But just by feeling around, I could tell I was slimmer, and that explained how I’d been more agile than I could remember being while I’d had my brief fight with Hideki.

That straight-up surprise pounce had taken him completely off guard. Even I didn’t realize what I had done until I was on top of him.

...I still didn’t entirely understand what I had been doing while I had the advantage over Hideki. My aggression had shifted from being violent toward an overwhelming primal instinct.

Now that I thought about that time, I was aware of how every tingling sense I had had heightened to a new sensitive peak. It was like I’d had a furnace in me that tried to see how much pressure it could max itself out at before I’d blow. I had mistaken it for anger… but I was certain now that it was something else.

On another note about my instincts, I wished I’d been a bit more sharp in a witty sense. But maybe I was... I was a true scaredy-cat now, and it would be a survival instinct for me to have felt such a fear.

Unlike Hitoshi, I’d lose my head, and if I could, I’d run. But he’d have control in any situation. Even when he was trapped in the shrine, he’d kept a careful fight for his life going until the very end… whereas I had lashed out in every direction until I found freedom from Hideki’s few friends that clung to me.

In the shower, reminiscing on that recent memory, I didn’t mind losing to my emotions and shedding a few tears. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my display of weakness and this showering rinse. For me, it was upsetting that the man who’d saved me really was gone. I personally didn’t know him, not in a natural sense, and that probably was for the best because I was gathering Hitoshi was a snobbish jerk… but he’d saved me and I couldn’t make the two of us mutually even.

Instead, it felt like I was unintentionally taking his place. A disrespect to his memories, and to those few who were close to him, like his family. I figured he’d be angry at me, not by knowing how he would feel about it, but by how I reviewed his past.

I wouldn’t be him. It was wrong… but that left a question of who I would be? Just a stray cat?

Then I remembered Hideki and the name he’d considered cute.

“...Hitomeow.” Against the stream, I mewled before I sobbed out: “So what do I do now?”

Thinking back, I knew how Hitoshi would handle the current situation: he’d get washed up! Mundane thinking, that was where I’d go from here. That looked okay to me. Grabbing the soap, I got sudsy and scrubbed up…