Home With Her
A short story by Cardcaptor Mars

I was close to dying when she found me on that warm summer day.  I had barely noticed her face when she walked by the box I called home, but I had let her pick me up and carry me to her place.  There she fed me food I never thought I would have, placed me on a soft pillow, and stayed by my side for a long time.  She then declared that I would live with her.  That was when I fell in love with her.

It has been a few years since then.  We live together in the small, one-room apartment she took me to.  I've gotten to know her a lot since then, and I love her more than ever.  Every morning, after she gets up and dressed, she watches TV as she fixes our breakfast.  I don’t think she pays attention to it, since she’s mostly focused on her food and singing at the same time.  I love the sound of her voice.  If she’s doing so when she brings me my food and strokes my head, it's almost heaven to me.

The young woman I live with is thoughtful, kind and very beautiful.  She's also as crazy as a nuthatch.  One day she chased me around the apartment for no apparent reason.  She scared me to death and I crashed into everything just to get out of her way.  Another time I found her in her room, dancing in front of her mirror wearing an outrageous green ripped skirt, a tiny top and flowers around her head.  Music blasted from her stereo as she sang in a language I’d never even heard of.  She told me later it was for a dance thing, but I don’t think that was even true.  After all, it brought him to the door.

I'm beginning to see a pattern with these strange behaviors.  Every time she's in this mood, she does it loud enough to bring the man who lives next to us to come banging on our door.  He's her age, I think; a tall boy with short black hair who has been in this complex for as long as I can remember.  The arguments between them always start and end the same way: he complains about the noise, she denies it, he shouts, she shouts back, and the door slams.  She seethes for a while, and then looks at me with a smirk on her face.  She can't hide it from me, and I've noticed it in him as well.  They act like they despise each other, yet it's just the opposite of that!  Do all humans act this strange?

*************************

A bang rings in my ears.  I lift my head to see her standing at her bedroom door, dressed in a sleeveless black shirt and matching shorts, her usually tied-up blond hair draped across her back.  She has a familiar yet odd smile her face.  Uh-oh…

"Chase scene!" she shouts and leaps from her place to the couch.  She lands roughly on the cushions, right in front of my face.  I dash instinctively from the couch to the floor and run right out of the living room, hearing her footsteps behind me.  She traps me in the corner of the bedroom, but she has an open invitation to run right under her legs.  I stop myself when I hear a crash and run back to see if she was alright.  I should have known she would be and would reach right out to grab me.  I didn't have my claws, so I avoided the potential capture by biting her.  I didn't mean to, it's just an instinct of mine.  She yowls anyway and rubs her hand with a glare to my direction.

"God, you're mean," she says to me.  I bend my ears down and hunch over.  Giggling at my response, she grabs me before I could move another muscle.  Why in the world do I fall for that every time?  While my front claws are gone, my back claws are not.  I get them out and dig them into her stomach.  I'm sure they didn't hurt her, but she drops me anyway with a cautious sound.  I take off again, and she does the same.  I leap onto the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room.  She comes in from behind me and leaps onto the counter just as I jump off.  She slides across it and lands on the kitchen floor with a loud thud. 

Right on cue, we hear an angry knock.  I see her mouth opening in a broad grin and she scrambles up to answer the door.  The usual man, holding a large box, didn't hesitate to start yelling at her.  As usual, she started arguing back.  I knew this was going to happen, but it only made me angry.

They're just going in circles!  I silently hissed to myself.  If these two don't get out of their usual routine, then I'll make them come out!

Without another thought, I turn my body and run out the door.  From behind me I hear her screams, followed by the sound of breaking glass.  I freeze.  I turn my head to see that she had tried to follow me, only to knock into him, causing him to drop his box and break whatever was inside of it.  The man looks from the box, to her, to me, to the box again.  My roommate said and did nothing, only stand there with a look of horror on her face.  He looks at his feet, but I can see him shaking.  I swear I could feel his rage building up.  The scream came slowly, silently, scaring both of us when he finally released it.  She comes running down the stairs with a yell and I follow her example.  He follows both of us, shouting something I could barely make out.

It must be quite a sight for whoever looked out their window this evening.  I see people staring in amusement and confusion at a cat being chased by two humans, one swearing his head off and the other wearing only her pajamas.  I feel myself being caught by a pair of arms and something else bangs into us almost right away.  My world spins, turns upside down, and goes black within a second.

*************************

I wake up in pain.  It feels no different from when I first met her, something I had hoped I would never feel again.  Yet, the place I'm lying at is soft, not hard.  There is no rain, snow or unbearable heat, only the gentle breeze of a ceiling fan.  My vision comes back and the pain slowly clears away.  It's morning, but the room is still dark because the curtains are closed.  I turn to the side, lift my head and look around.  I wasn't back on the streets, but in the apartment.  I feel a sense of relief in my heart.  I scan the area until I find two bodies lying on the couch.  The man who had been chasing us earlier took up most of my view, but I could see my roommate's head lying on his chest, her face streaked from tears.

I'm not sure what happened between the two, but I felt sorry for missing it.  I slowly get up and join the young lovers on the couch.  He doesn't stir, but she opens her eyes.  A soft smile spreads across her face and she begins to cry again.  I curl up next to her head and start purring to reassure her that I'm alright.  She lovingly strokes my fur and closes her eyes again.  She looks so peaceful, so beautiful.  I rest my own head on my lap and begin to sleep, thinking how lucky I truly am.

The End