2025-08-31: There's a Cat
- Log: There's a Cat
- Cast: Minato Arisato, Yoko Hirano
- Where: Iwatodai Station
- OOC Date: 2025-08-31
- IC Date: Wednesday July 04 2012
- Summary: There's a cat.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
There are a lot of small differences between Iwatodai and Taito, where Yoko grew up. Iwatodai feels younger, despite the age of the shrine and the shabby corners where things haven't quite kept pace with the bright and shiny future dreams of Tatsumi Port Island. Taito has always felt a little more like something reluctant to leave the Showa era.
The train stations are different too, but that's probably because different railways maintain them...
But a station is a station and that means there will be plenty of people standing around or rushing on, which means good people-watching opportunities. She can gets of figure drawing in! And she can watch out for more of those weird figments that seem so glued to certain people.
She hasn't gone back to her dorm to change out of her summer uniform, so Yoko blends in with plenty of other local students - well, maybe except for the big sketchbook held in her lap, and the way she just sort of... disregards the Don't Stare At Strangers rule. It's fine. She's an artist, she's allowed!
Her current page finally full, Yoko flips over to a new one and lets her gaze drift. So far, nobody has been followed by anything nearly as clingy as that horse thing that haunted Aragaki-senpai. But she's got all evening.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
There's a cat...
There's a cat at Iwatodai Station, and Minato has been walking around for the past ten minutes trying to find the cat.
He looks under a bench.
He looks behind the vending machine.
Nothing...
But there's definitely a cat.
(There's a whole chorus clinging to Minato, backed by the vibes of a lyre, but never mind that.)
Minato looks behind a garbage can... and then walks up to Yoko's bench.
And looks under the bench.
"Have you seen a cat," he says, to the artist, apropos of nothing.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
If Yoko knew about the cat, she would want to see it too. Anybody would!
As she adjusts her grip on the pencil (6B, soft soft graphite, smudges easily but so nice for motion studies) Yoko peeks up over the top edge of her sketchbook. Huh, that boy is looking for something, isn't he? Maybe he dropped his wallet or his phone. ...Yes, behind a vending machine. He's not too unusual... the boys' uniform, headphones, soft-looking hair. The interesting thing about him is his behavior!
And the strange, ever-shifting crowd of indistinct shapes trailing after him. Her gaze sharpens by just a hair. Another one!
...Kind of. The horse thing following senpai had been unmistakeable. Solid, like if she'd reached (who would ever do that!!) she would touch a padded jerkin or smooth black metal. And maybe lose a finger doing so.
Her pencil speeds up. A figure leaning to peek behind a box, several blobs trying to peer over his shoulder at once. A crouching boy, the formless things laid out on the ground beside him or draped over the bench. They flicker and change, and Yoko couldn't draw a single one in detail if she had to. The suggestion is everything, the potential for anything chokes out the individual. Yoko thinks she could look at him forever and not understand it, and that she would quickly get an eyestrain headache if she tried.
And then Minato comes closer, and peeks underneath the bench she's on, and Yoko cranes her head to squint through the kaleidoscope of color (and tucks her skirt a little closer around her knees just in case). "...Did you lose something?" she asks, while her hand reproduces the bend of his spine, the bow of his head on paper.
"A cat? No. Is that what you lost?" The sketchbook gets laid down across her knees so Yoko can stand up, and then brought back closer to her chest. But not too close, or it'll smear. "What color is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"It isn't my cat," Minato explains, still crouched as he looks up to her. "But there's a cat. If it's hanging around out here, maybe it's in trouble."
The cat... the cat is DEFINITELY close. Right around here...
"Puss puss puss," Minato calls, straightening up, looking around.
"... maybe if I put out some food."
And then Minato walks off again! Just like that!
... ... ... ... ... ...
That's the sound of silence which reigns as Minato leaves for the strip mall. He's gone for a good ten minutes, at least, plus or minus how long he had to wait in line for takoyaki.
Soon enough, though, he walks back... with two boats!
He's pretty sure the cat was close to Yoko, so he lays one boat on the ground, by her bench.
The other, he stretches out to offer to her. "Want some?"
Minato... you know that's not real octopus in there, right...?
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Yoko glances around as Minato calls for the mystery cat. ...Nothing yet... "I hope it's not hurt," she frowns. Don't animals hide away when they're sick or injured? "Did someone put up a notice-"
Oh. There he goes. Yoko blinks after Minato and his hangers-on. Well, if she's still maybe she'll spot it. She settles back down on the bench and lays down the basic proportion lines of his face, glancing up now and then towards the corners of the station.
She's got two serviceable portrait sketches done by the time Minato returns with snacks.
He offers her some too! The scent wafts past her and Yoko suddenly remembers how long it's been since lunch. "...Thanks," she nods, and puts her pencil down in her lap to reach for one.
"How did you find out about the cat? Did someone put up a poster?" Her sketchbook begins to tilt as Yoko blows on the takoyaki to cool it before popping it into her mouth. Mmmmmmf still hot still hot what has cooking done--
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato holds the takoyaki boat in front of Yoko for a moment... before he realises there's a better solution, and sits down on the bench beside her, with enough space between them that he can put it down there.
(Minato is aware that a strange boy just coming and sitting down next to a girl might be weird. ... well, he's at least aware enough of it to give her a clear separator.)
"I don't know," he admits. "But I walked into the station, and I knew there was a cat. I must have heard it meowing... or something like that."
But -- did you know?
There is a cat who hangs out around the strip mall. And that cat did smell Minato's takoyaki. And so...
On little, padding orange feet, all striped and handsome...
... a stray cat walks in from whence Minato came.
Miaou...
"Oh," Minato blinks, looking up. "There's the cat."
Mystery... solved?
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
It would probably be weird. Especially with the whole... situation that he has going on. Yoko does a masterful job of not cringing or wincing or anything(!) when a flourish of red floats between her and her sketchbook. Not real. Not real. Probably.
The buffer zone of the takoyaki boat seems to help? While the colors crowd around him they seem to figure out how to sort themselves appropriately, given the time to do it. She'll let Minato eat more of them, but if he's earnestly offering then Yoko won't say no. She's hungry and doesn't want to get up and go buy food yet. "You just knew?"
She considers this, head tilting to one side to let the thought roll around like a marble. "Maybe you caught a glimpse out of the corner of your eye. Your conscious mind didn't see it but your subconscious did."
Is... is that how it works??
She picks up another piece of takoyaki, bringing it towards her mouth... when a Handsome Gentleman appears!! "!!" Wide eyed and open-mouthed, Yoko tracks the cat as it comes over for community snacktime.
"Or maybe you're an esper," she decides, and sticks the octopus ball in her mouth. Nomf.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"... that makes sense," Minato decides, after a moment's pause. Of course he is offering the takoyaki to Yoko, because she's helping him find the cat! Somehow. Probably.
Anyway, it would be rude to just eat in front of her.
"They say that's what's really happening, when you have 'intuition'. You really knew the information... you just didn't know that you knew."
He noms a Weird Takoyaki himself. (It's not octopus... so what is it? Whatever it is, it's tasty.)
The stray cat slinks closer, as Minato says a friendly, "meow," really quite convincingly. The cat responds to -- him? -- with its own friendly miaou, as it slinks forward to chomp at the takoyaki. Whatever's in there, the cat likes it!
"What's an esper?" Minato wonders, as he reaches for another takoyaki, watching the cat eat its own share.
(The cat got more takoyaki than either of the humans... is that the kind of guy this boy is?)
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Intuition can be very powerful. Sometimes people just know things without understanding how. Sometimes the universe or 'God' or whatever people want to call it reaches out and touches people with understanding, whether or not they want it! Clearly, this boy understands.
The takoyaki is not, in fact, made of tako. But it's so tasty (and Yoko is so peckish) that she doesn't mind it much. He never said it was octopus, after all.
While she chews, her pencil starts moving again. The cat joins Minato on the page, striding across the plaza, mouth open in a friendly meow, crouching to eat.
"An esper is a person who has ESP - extra-sensory perception," Yoko explains. "Really strong intuition. Or other psychic powers, but I don't think those really exist." They might. But Yoko doesn't think it sounds very realistic!
Yoko looks over at him again. Now that he's so close, she can see details that she missed earlier. The texture of his bangs falling over his eyebrow, the shape of his eyelashes. There's enough room left on the page for another sketch, so Yoko swaps for a harder pencil and starts drawing. Tighter control of curves, thinner lines.
"...My name's Yoko Hirano," she introduces herself, still looking down at her sketchbook. "It's really nice to meet you."
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Is takoyaki without the tako... just yaki?
Hey, it sure isn't yucky.
Sketch, sketch... Minato doesn't try to catch a peek, though. That would be rude. He does watch her draw, though, with quiet curiosity.
"Extra-sensory perception..." Minato blinks, thinking, thoughtfully, to himself. ... people like Yamagishi-san and Kawase-san, maybe? "Cool. I can believe that."
If he said just why he believed it he'd look insane, of course. But he does!
But... there's something very important he forgot, and he looks vaguely embarrassed -- as if his emotions slider was turned all the way down -- when Yoko introduces herself. "Nice to meet you," he says. "I'm Minato Arisato."
He pauses.
"I don't know what the cat is called."
The cat helpfully meows, tail sweeping across the floor as it chomps on those not-takoyaki.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Yoko will certainly feel a little silly if she ever finds out there are people with other kinds of psychic powers already out there. Except telekinesis. She should get a pass for that one.
"Cats have three names. I read it once... A name that humans call them, a name for other cats to call them, and their own secret name that nobody else knows." Yoko that was from a book of poems, not actual scientific literature!! "So we could only ever know one, probably, since we don't speak cat." ...Do you, Minato??
"Do you think it already has a human name? Or should we give it one?" she wonders. Short light strokes across the paper in a small area. Move an inch over and keep at it. There's graphite on her uniform...
She looks up at him again. Back at her page. And, after thinking about it briefly, she carefully tears out the page she's filled up with sketches of Minato. "You're a pretty good model. You go to Gekkoukan too, right? Uh... what year are you in?" She looks like she might fold it, but rolls it up instead and offers it to him.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"I wonder if you can learn to speak cat," Minato says, thoughtfully. "They probably have their own language, right? Different meows mean different things..."
If only there were a woman in his life who could translate for him. ... but that would never happen, right?
"I think it's a stray... though it must be a boy, right? Since he's orange." Minato applies logic to the cat! Most oranges are boys, anyway. "So, maybe he doesn't have a human name yet..."
He blinks, looking down at the rolled up paper, and wipes his hands on his pants before reaching over to take it. (Oils can damage paper, right?) "Hey, pretty good," he says, with mild impressedness. "But what are all these weird shapes behind me?"
Minato doesn't know how he looks, apparently.
He nods, though. "Yeah," he says, confirming his school. "I'm a second-year... in class 2-F. What about you?"
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Yoko watches the cat eat and feels good about it. "If you can make the right noises and do the right motions, they would have to understand your feelings," she guesses. It only makes sense! "I saw a video on the internet of a man who's really good at understanding them. He blinks slowly at them to tell them they're safe. He has a lot of tattoos and dresses strangely, but he's really gentle." It's not that strange after all, to be weird but also kind.
If only there was someone like that in his life. One day, maybe Minato will perfect the language of cats on his own...!
"If he likes it, maybe he'll accept what we choose. Maybe he already has ten names that people have given him. It's hard to tell, with a cat," Yoko muses, resting her sketchbook on her lap and leaning forward to rest her elbows on it while she watches the cat munch away.
"It's nothing special," Yoko demurs, even though the praise makes her happy. Her eyes flicker back to him briefly when he asks about the shapes. They're still orbiting him even now...! But he must not know about them, if he's asking about the drawing. So that's another clue. "...Artistic license," Yoko informs him solemnly.
"You're my senpai then. I'm a first year, in 1-C. ...Are you in a club?" Is there a Cat Appreciation Club? Can they start one??
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"Blinking, huh." Minato blinks. Right, blinking is a thing he does hundreds of times a day... how is it different, he wonders, when it's a statement to a cat? Oh, yeah, it's blinking s l o w l y... he tries doing that, too.
Of course, he's looking at Yoko, not the cat, but that's fine.
"Hmm..." Minato looks at the cat. "Maybe his name's Enigma. Because I knew he was there, but I couldn't find him." Is Enigma... really a cat name...?
But she declares it to be artistic licence, and Minato examines the drawings a moment longer, before he decrees: "Cool. I like it."
... he probably needs to explain how he's feeling, because his expression doesn't ever seem to shift all that much.
But she's in first-year, she says, and Minato tilts his head. "I'm on the Track Team," he says, plainly. "And I'm in the Music Club. I'm part of the Student Council, too." Wow... second year is so busy...!!
No Cat Appreciation Club, though...
"What about you, Hirano-san?" Minato asks, politely. (He remembers about taking turns in conversation!)
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
He tries to envision the s l o w blink, and even goes so far as to practice it! Yoko's mouth curves in a little smile, and she b l i n k s back at him. "Yeah, that's just how he did it." Maybe Minato is cat-aligned? He certainly seems to understand them well, especially if he's able to sense them without seeing them! (Yoko is going to conveniently disregard the just-accepted wisdom of the subconscious, because she can do what she wants in her own head forever.)
You can get away with a lot of things if people know you're an artist, it seems...?
But he's in two clubs and the student council?! "That's so busy...!" Does he have enough time to rest, too?? Yoko scuffs her feet back and forth gently. "I'm in the Art Club. I joined recently so I haven't met a lot of people yet, but everybody seems fun. There are a lot of really talented and creative students. I hope I'll learn a lot. I want to be a professional artist after I graduate. What about you?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"Then I've learned something new," Minato nods, and looks down to the cat. B l i n k ... b l i n k. "What do you think of the name 'Enigma'?"
The cat says 'prrp', because he's polished off his takoyaki. That wasn't a 'no'...!
Minato nods. "It can get pretty busy," he admits. "But it's a good way to get to know a lot of people." She says she's in Art Club, though, and Minato nods. Given her artistic talents, it's the only logical choice.
"You're pretty talented, too," he points out. "I bet you'd make a good artist." But... what is he going to do when he graduates...?
Minato's gaze grows a touch more distant, a touch more absent, as he looks forward and sees nothing but the abyss. What kind of future does he have -- when death is haunting his every step? Can someone like him graduate, go to university? Surely he'll die. Surely he died, ten years ago, and no one's yet realised --
With a faster blink, he realised he's gone silent for at least twenty seconds longer than is socially appropriate.
"I'm not sure," he says, as if it's a a matter of indecision. "... but it made me remember I need to fill out that careers questionairre still. So..." He stands, lifting his hand in a loose wave. "I'll see you around, Hirano-san."
One might note, as he walks away, that he never specifically said he was going to fill out that questionairre.
No, having been made aware of it... he'll just forget about it as soon as he can get out of here.