FIC: Trial and Error, InuKai, NC17?
Title: Trial and Error
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17?
Wordcount: 4100
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Inui experiences a number of errors as he tries to rectify a difficult situation.
Author's Notes: Long-overdue fic written for marksykins for all her help. &hearts
Also, thanks to Pix for helping out. :)
Inui hated cats.
He hated them.
So, of course one had to show up, crawl through the building air vents and yowl outside the front door of Inui’s fifth floor apartment. Of all the places in the world, it had to be Inui’s apartment it chose.
The cat showed up one evening, bedraggled and balding. It was raining- not that Inui bothered to take down weather conditions anymore, that is what the weather channel was for- and Kaidoh was doing dishes. Inui remembered this detail because Kaidoh had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his armpits when he heaved the cat inside the door.
It howled.
Kaidoh’s pursed lips softened. Inui looked up from his palm pilot- organizing tomorrow’s workload to maximize productivity was not something he could do when a wet, muddy, miserable-looking beast commandeered Kaidoh’s attention. Kaidoh smiled at it, in a way he never smiled at Inui.
Then he padded off to the kitchen. Inui could hear the sound of a can being opened, and then the smell of sardines permeated the room.
The cat sat at Inui’s feet, moulting fur onto his socks. Yes, his socks were over three years old and yes, they had holes, but he didn’t appreciate it. Still, if the cat was going to make Kaidoh smile like that, Inui could deal with it.
He dealt with Tezuka for six years in school; he could deal with a cat. It was a fraction of the size of Tezuka. About 1/18th, he estimated.
The cat ate by Inui’s feet, making smacking noises as it chewed that made it more than difficult for Inui to keep his palm pilot pencil from scrawling everywhere on his daytimer. Kaidoh stroked its back, running his fingers through the cat’s matted fur. It made Inui’s glasses slip down his nose when he noticed it- Kaidoh never stroked his hair like that.
Not that Inui kept data on certain things- at least, not after that fight March 14th, last year. Kaidoh had accused him of taking his data into the bedroom- which Inui was shocked to discover- was not welcome. Inui could learn. Dogs could be taught new tricks…
Cats, on the other hand…
Cats bristled up and shook themselves off, just like dogs, only without a care for the individuals nearby.
Kaidoh scooped the cat up and rubbed its face to his cheek. It purred, rather like the rumble of thunder in the distance.
Mud slid down the screen of Inui’s palm pilot. The screen flickered, a garish green like his Juice Experiment 0037, then one of the typepad keys sparked.
The palm pilot went dead.
The cat seemed to be smiling at Inui from Kaidoh’s arms.
***
The cat slept on the futon, between them.
Inui would roll onto his side and blindly feel around for Kaidoh’s hip or Kaidoh’s shoulder, or any part of Kaidoh to press up against. Vaguely, he knew there was a cat in the apartment somewhere, but his midnight erection was too. He was horny. Kaidoh was his.
The data fit like puzzle pieces, really.
Instead, all Inui got was a face full of fur and a hiss. It wasn’t the right sort of hiss either, not, “Fssssh, Sadaharu” the way Kaidoh would sometimes moan and then lift his head, part his lips and his legs and they’d start something.
No, this was a hiss from an animal.
With sardine breath.
Inui gagged. Ever since junior high, he’d hated sardines, too.
***
It only went downhill from there.
The cat had effectively moved into their apartment. It had effectively taken over their bed. It had effectively taken over Kaidoh’s heart, too- Kaidoh carried it on his shoulder everywhere in the apartment. Kaidoh let it sit on the table when they ate instant miso soup and chicken curry from the fast-food joint across the road. Kaidoh let it sit on his lap when he spread out his homework at night and Inui vegetated in front of his computer monitor.
The cat started to eat up their food budget. Sardines, tuna, cat food, cat toys. Inui would come home from work after a long, boring day at the office (data entry sounded glamorous when he applied to the job, but the reality was anything but). He tripped over furry mice and squishy balls. He set his messenger bag down and the cat made a beeline for his shoes, sliming the heel and side with its mouth, as if Inui’s stinky shoes were an aphrodisiac.
The litter box took up residence behind the toilet. On days Kaidoh didn’t clean it, Inui would have to smell cat piss when he was trying to have a morning sit. Reading old issues of Tennis Weekly and New Science never could mask the stench of cat. Now, though, Kaidoh seemed to be replacing his bathroom magazine stash with Kittens! and Neko NEWS.
But the worst part was the cat. In bed with them. Most of the time, it ignored Inui, unless Kaidoh had a night class and then it howled at him. Inui did not speak cat. He had no desire to speak cat. He did not care about cat data one iota.
He did care when the cat wedged itself between Kaidoh’s and his legs at night. He did care when the cat would sleep on his pillow and leave Inui the futon mattress, at best. He did care when the cat started to crawl under the covers and Kaidoh would hug it instead of Inui.
Inui took a deep breath. Cat hairs clung to his shirts, even fresh out from drying on the line on the porch. Kaidoh was having a morning shower: 7:23, he had 63 minutes until his first class of the day. Inui had 93 minutes to catch the Yamanote line and make it to work on time.
He peeled off his boxers and chucked them onto the floor. The cat was nowhere in sight.
He crept into the shower room, sliding the door open. There was no way the cat would be in here, just Kaidoh. Kaidoh who was wet and wide-eyed and staring at him as Inui slid the frosted glass door shut.
Inui set his glasses down on the edge of the bathtub. They slipped off, clattering down into the tub. Oh well. He didn’t need them to kiss Kaidoh. Kaidoh had brushed his teeth already and tasted like toothpaste, mint and baking soda. Kaidoh moaned. When Inui touched his arms, Kaidoh was slippery and warm from the water. Inui was hard. He pressed himself into the dip of Kaidoh’s back, just so Kaidoh would know how much he wanted this, like always.
Kaidoh’s tongue ran over his lips, then slid back inside over his own. Coils of pleasure knotted in Inui’s belly- data had never been able to explain that feeling; he just knew he liked it. And he liked it when Kaidoh ran his thumb over the slit of his dick like that, because that usually meant Kaidoh would kneel down and suck-
Kaidoh pushed him away. And wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Inui could see that much without his glasses.
“I gotta feed her breakfast,” Kaidoh said. “Can we do this later?”
Inui watched the shower door slide closed, leaving him standing in the spray of water, blind as a bat and horny as hell. He balled his fist and shook it.
He was twenty-three and stuck in a rut.
That cat needed to go.
***
Unfortunately, 91% of cats did not contract cancer. Chronic kidney failure was far more likely and, after the 44 days the cat had stayed with them (Inui refused to believe it was here for good. He needed some hope, as minute as it may have been), Inui was less than convinced that the cat was sluggish, losing weight, drinking constantly and smelling faintly of urine.
Kaidoh was at night class.
The cat was sitting on the couch.
Inui reached up to the top shelf in the kitchen and dusted off the box. The blender hadn’t been touched in almost six months, but drastic times called for…
Juice.
The ingredients were measured with accuracy, titrated to perfection, according to Inui’s ratty old notebooks he kept in a shoebox in the closet. What Kaidoh didn’t know about wouldn’t hurt him.
The very last ingredient: two grubs, posed a problem. Unlike the bleach and aloe vera water, Inui didn’t keep grubs in the apartment.
The cat continued to sit on the couch, now having taken up residence on Inui’s sports jacket.
His watch said 8:56. Inui had 42 minutes until Kaidoh would return. The park was 350m down the road, across a set of traffic lights. His flashlight was in the front hallway. The precipitation from this morning should have wet the ground sufficiently.
Inui bolted out the door.
As a teenager, his grub-finding skills had been honed. Now, Inui dug frantically under what few fallen tree stumps he could find in the forlorn hope of finding anything to complete his recipe. In his haste, he’d forgotten a jar, so he settled on putting the lone maggot he found (from a rotting sandwich wedged in a tree hollow) in a used food wrapper in his pocket.
9:27. He could make it.
Triumphantly, Inui walked back home. If all went well, the cat could be disposed of with tomorrow’s garbage and Kaidoh could be back on his side of the futon within half that time. Inui grinned to himself and opened the door.
Kaidoh stood in the hallway, hissing.
The cat sat at his feet, hissing.
“What is this?” Kaidoh snapped, holding up the blender.
“Kaidoh, no-” Inui started, fearing the worst for the contents. If Kaidoh shook the mixture too vigorously before the final ingredient…
“What is this?” Kaidoh seethed. In his other hand, he held the dish that said “KITTY” on the side.
Oh right.
Inui had left that on the counter, next to the blender.
He hadn’t counted on this variable, of Kaidoh’s class being finished early.
Despite trying to assure Kaidoh that no, it wasn’t juice and no, it wasn’t poison, it was a health drink for cats, once Kaidoh found the flashlight in his right pocket and the wrapper with the maggot in his left, Inui had lost the battle.
Inui got to have a good night’s sleep, on the couch, with the ratty old blanket. The cat got to sprawl across the entirety of his futon beside Kaidoh.
And come morning, his blender, not the cat, sat with the bags of garbage in the building dumpster.
***
Kaidoh was suspicious.
Inui was apologetic.
He bought the cat a collar, three days later.
And for the first time in what seemed like weeks, Kaidoh acquiesced when Inui kissed the back of his neck. It was dark. They were in bed. The autumn wind was howling outside the window and drowning out the sound of the cat padding around the kitchen. Kaidoh leaned back, curling his hand over top of Inui’s, which rested on Kaidoh’s hip, just above his waistband.
“She really likes…” Kaidoh whispered, “the collar.” He moaned as Inui’s lips slipped off his neck.
Right on cue, the cat jumped onto the end of the futon and walked up, right between them, settling half on Inui’s shoulder.
Inui really wasn’t in the mood after that anyway.
***
Trial #2 began on a Wednesday.
Inui was at the office. His stack of files was empty. He had time. And Kaidoh wasn’t around here to be able to catch him in the act.
The data was simple: Kaidoh had never been to Inui’s office on the grounds that he wasn’t Inui’s wife and he wasn’t going to be welcome, being the same-sex live-in-lover of some bottom feeder of the corporate ladder.
Inui didn’t exactly have many friends. Colleagues, Kaidoh, but not really any friends, discounting his teammates from high school tennis, all of seven years ago. Nevertheless, Inui kept their numbers current, in cases of emergency.
This was an emergency.
Echizen was his first hope. Echizen had a cat. Therefore, Echizen must be like Kaidoh and like cats. That data was simple enough.
Inui telephoned.
Echizen picked up.
Inui explained, “Would you like a cat? I have a spare cat and would like to give you one that I no longer have use for.”
Echizen paused.
Inui’s heart beat faster. This was going well. He should have tried this before!
Then, Echizen said, “Sorry, we’re not interested in your freebies and we don’t want to switch credit cards either.”
Inui scratched his head. He never had very good data on Echizen after all.
Inui tried the second number on his list. Fuji was someone he could understand, sometimes, on an amicable level.
A woman picked up.
Inui blinked. His well-rehearsed speech faltered at the sound of the woman’s heavy breathing and breathy, “Hello?”
But then the phone must have been passed over to Fuji, who cheerfully said, “Hello, Inui. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Inui offered the cat. Fuji, like Echizen, paused. But Fuji, unlike Echizen, didn’t say no. Instead he said, “I didn’t know you liked cats, Inui.”
“I don’t,” Inui said. He was about to say that it was a dire matter that the cat be removed as quickly as possible, when the supervisor suddenly stuck his head up from the cubicle at the end of the row.
“INUI! What the hell are you doing over there? Office phones are for OFFICE WORK, not personal calls about damned cats!”
Inui nodded.
“I’ll let you go then,” Fuji said.
“No!” Inui whispered. He hunched over the phone. “Fuji, I-”
Fuji had hung up.
Taka-san no longer lived at his parents’ residence.
Momoshiro did not need a cat. “Inui-senpai!” he yelled over the phone. “Thanks for the offer anyway, but didn’t mamushi always like cats? Mamushi liked cats a lot- give it to him!”
Inui rubbed his temples.
Oishi picked up the next call. “Um…” he said, “sorry, Inui, I can’t. Allergies.”
Inui dialed Kikumaru’s number. A familiar voice said, “Inui?”
Inui stopped himself from speaking in order to process the voice. “Oishi?” he asked. “I must have dialed the wrong number…” he mumbled.
Oishi made a high-pitched laugh. “No, no!” he said. “Eiji’s…Eiji’s…and I, we….he’s out. And he’s allergic, too.”
Inui didn’t try calling that number a third time. It was awkward. None of his high school data suggested that either Oishi or Kikumaru were allergic to cats. One more item to write down.
The supervisor glared down the aisle at Inui. Inui shuffled some old files and nodded politely, then he leaned back over his phone to call Tezuka.
One ring. Two, then Tezuka saying “Hello?”
“Aa, Tezuka,” Inui said. “Would you like a-”
Click.
“He hung up,” Inui muttered. He frowned. Only one number remained on his cell- his palm pilot had more (including one Atobe Keigo’s private line), but the cat had destroyed that two months before.
This was not good.
This last number had not been dialed in…
A long time.
The chances of it still being active were…5%, maybe 10% maximum.
Inui dialed anyway.
Three rings, and then it picked up.
“Sadaharu,” Renji said, “what do you want now?”
Inui smiled. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Aa, Renji,” he said.
“I’m at work,” Renji said. “Make it quick. I have nothing to say to you.”
Inui’s smile started to falter. “You can’t predict what I might have to say to you after-”
“-seven years, two months and fifteen days, yes, I can. You never change, Inui,” Renji said.
That date had been burned into Inui’s mind. That doubles match in their last year of junior high school. Inui could feel his eye twitch. The pause in their conversation went on and Renji seemed to enjoy it, chuckling faintly on the other end of the line.
Inui hung up.
There was no way- or at least, less than 0.002% chance- that the cat was conspiring with Renji, but Inui couldn’t shake that possibility. Especially when the file girl wheeled her cart by his cubicle and dropped a stack of files onto his desk, right on top of Inui’s cellphone.
“Enjoy,” she said with a great big, Cheshire-cat grin.
***
It wasn’t his last hope, but it was desperate.
Everything was in place, including the cat, sleeping placidly on the floor. A half hour beforehand, though, it was scratching at the litter box behind the toilet and Inui had his pants down for a pee before he realized this. And that he was being watched.
Despite all medical evidence to the contrary, his dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off from lack of sex. But it certainly made Inui want more and more to get rid of the cat in any way possible.
Kaidoh had a textbook spread out across the low table in front of the television. One hand turned the pages- Inui could tell it was an English book, but what it was about, he had no idea and never bothered to ask- and the other hand rubbed the cat’s belly absently.
Inui checked his watch. T-minus 24 minutes.
“Kaidoh,” Inui said.
Kaidoh gave Inui a half-nod. “In a minute,” he murmured. He rubbed the cat harder, enough to make its stomach shake. Legs up in the air around Kaidoh’s arm, it gave Inui a long, hard look as it smirked at him.
Five minutes later, Kaidoh still hadn’t looked up from his textbook, or removed his hand from the abdomen of the cat.
“Kaidoh,” Inui said.
“I’m almost done,” Kaidoh said. He turned a page and his eyes followed the lines.
Inui walked into the kitchen. He checked the clock on the microwave. Eighteen minutes. Then he walked back into the living room. He turned on his computer monitor, then turned it back off. Kaidoh still hadn’t noticed.
Inui cleared his throat. “Kaidoh?”
Kaidoh grunted.
This data had never once failed him. Inui gave up being subtle and went to the closet. He dragged out his tennis bag. And he dragged out Kaidoh’s tennis bag. They smelled musty from neglect over the years, but the weight of the strap in his hand was identical to how it had been when they were younger.
Inui waited. He called Kaidoh’s name.
Kaidoh didn’t respond.
Inui pulled his old runners on and called Kaidoh’s name again.
“What?” Kaidoh asked. “I’m almost finished.”
Inui swore he could hear the sound of the cat purring all the way by the front door. He shook his head. No, he was imagining things. And this would be the last time he would have to hear that noise. Ever.
His watch read ten minutes.
Kaidoh was almost finished, though. Inui could hear him shuffling around the apartment. The toilet flushed. Kaidoh murmured something in a low voice, probably to the cat. He used to use that voice for Inui, mumbling in Inui’s ear when they were naked and panting and hands clinging to shoulders, knees hooked around thighs, sticky and sweaty and replete from sex.
Now, the cat got that treatment.
Eight minutes.
Inui felt one- no, two, then three- sweat beads dribble down the side of his face. “Kaidoh?” he said.
Kaidoh popped his head around the corner from the kitchen. Sardine stench filled the air. “Inui?” he asked. Kaidoh’s eyes narrowed when he saw the two tennis bags by Inui’s feet.
“Up for a game?” Inui asked. He made himself smile. If there was one thing Kaidoh loved most in the world, it was playing tennis.
Kaidoh kept staring.
Inui kept sweating.
Seven minutes…
Six minutes…
Kaidoh took a deep breath. Inui inhaled too. The cat rubbed against Kaidoh’s naked calves, jumping up as high as Kaidoh’s knees to try to paw at the can in his hand.
“Not tonight,” Kaidoh said.
Inui’s jaw dropped. “K-Kaidoh?”
Kaidoh ducked back into the kitchen. The cat meowed happily as Kaidoh set a dish of food down on the floor. He crouched down and scratched behind its ears.
Inui’s jaw was also on the floor.
He’d followed Renji’s advice and never doubted his data from the age of fifteen until twenty-three.
Now he was fucked.
There was a knock at the door.
Inui was even more fucked when Kaidoh brushed past him and opened the door.
On the door step was one Ohtori Choutarou, formerly from Hyoutei Gakuen, now attending Aoyama University with Momoshiro. And he had a cat carrier in his hand.
Kaidoh hissed. “What are you doing here?”
The cat tried to dart outside, but Kaidoh nudged it away with his foot. To most, he wouldn’t have been very menacing in an apron, but to Inui, he was terrifying, glowering at Inui and hissing at Ohtori.
“Um…” Ohtori scrambled and kept trying to get Inui’s eyes, to explain the situation, only Inui was experiencing something akin to sensory failure from the sheer spectacular failure of his data. And his plan.
“Um…so you’re not getting rid of your cat?” Ohtori asked.
“No!” Kaidoh yelled. He slammed the door. Inui slunk to the floor for a moment until he heard a second door slam. The bedroom door.
Inui pushed his glasses up. He ignored Ohtori’s questions through the doorway and instead rushed off to his bedroom. He knocked on the door. Kaidoh yelled for him to fuck off. Inui banged harder. “Kaidoh!” he said. “Kaidoh, please…”
Inui didn’t know what he was doing. Or what he should do. Apologize, yes. Explain, maybe.
The cat weaved itself between his legs. For once, he couldn’t be bothered to shove it away, he just called Kaidoh’s name again. “Kaidoh! Open the door,” Inui said. After a long beat of silence he lowered his voice to add, “Please”.
The door slid open enough for Inui to see Kaidoh seething through his teeth. “You were trying to get rid of her!”
Her?
Inui looked down at the cat. It had always been an it to him. He couldn’t distinguish between females and males. The cat stared at him with narrowed dark eyes, just like Kaidoh was doing.
Inui pushed the door open all the way. The cat ran in first, making a beeline for the futon. Kaidoh crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were blazing with anger. Inui could practically hear Kaidoh’s heart racing unnaturally fast- 100, 200 beats per minute. He couldn’t quantify it with Kaidoh fuming, though.
No data in the bedroom.
Inui swallowed. The words were thick, but he managed, slowly, to say, “I….I’m sorry. I don’t like cats.”
Kaidoh kept staring. The cat started to knead the end of the futon cover. Inui started to sweat. Number flew through his brains- percentages of divorce rates and fractions of couples who survived major arguments and oh god, would Kaidoh choose a cat over him?!?
Finally, after what seemed like an agonizing eternity, Kaidoh exhaled. “Fshhh. Why didn’t,” he said, picking the cat up. Inui stared in terror as Kaidoh walked towards the closet. His suitcases were in there. He was-
Kaidoh chucked the cat into the hallway and closed the door. “Why didn’t you say something?” he asked.
Inui couldn’t speak. His ears were sending him incorrect data when they heard the sound of Kaidoh snickering for a moment. Kaidoh touched Inui’s face, taking his glasses off with careful hands and setting them on the side table.
Kaidoh touched Inui’s eyes, naked and unfocused. His lips pressed against Inui’s collar, right in the dip of his collarbone where they used to linger before the cat came along. And now they were once again as Kaidoh fingered Inui’s fly.
His pants were tugged down. Kaidoh’s mouth was hot on his belly and Inui bit his lip to stop from groaning. But he groaned anyway and his hands buried themselves in Kaidoh’s hair, petting the top of his head when Kaidoh’s teeth pulled at Inui’s boxers.
Then, Kaidoh looked up. Kaidoh was blurry, in the semi-dark, without his glasses on, but his words weren’t: “She doesn’t have to sleep with us,” Kaidoh mumbled, his lips moving on Inui’s dick, causing tremours to wrack through Inui’s body.
Inui practically came right then and there.
By the time Kaidoh’s mouth slid over his cock and the cat was meowing on the other side of the doorway, Inui was falling forward, smiling and gasping and pushing Kaidoh closer to him.
It had been far, far too long.
***
Inui still hated cats.
But he paid for the professional portrait of her for Kaidoh’s next birthday anyway.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17?
Wordcount: 4100
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Inui experiences a number of errors as he tries to rectify a difficult situation.
Author's Notes: Long-overdue fic written for marksykins for all her help. &hearts
Also, thanks to Pix for helping out. :)
Inui hated cats.
He hated them.
So, of course one had to show up, crawl through the building air vents and yowl outside the front door of Inui’s fifth floor apartment. Of all the places in the world, it had to be Inui’s apartment it chose.
The cat showed up one evening, bedraggled and balding. It was raining- not that Inui bothered to take down weather conditions anymore, that is what the weather channel was for- and Kaidoh was doing dishes. Inui remembered this detail because Kaidoh had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his armpits when he heaved the cat inside the door.
It howled.
Kaidoh’s pursed lips softened. Inui looked up from his palm pilot- organizing tomorrow’s workload to maximize productivity was not something he could do when a wet, muddy, miserable-looking beast commandeered Kaidoh’s attention. Kaidoh smiled at it, in a way he never smiled at Inui.
Then he padded off to the kitchen. Inui could hear the sound of a can being opened, and then the smell of sardines permeated the room.
The cat sat at Inui’s feet, moulting fur onto his socks. Yes, his socks were over three years old and yes, they had holes, but he didn’t appreciate it. Still, if the cat was going to make Kaidoh smile like that, Inui could deal with it.
He dealt with Tezuka for six years in school; he could deal with a cat. It was a fraction of the size of Tezuka. About 1/18th, he estimated.
The cat ate by Inui’s feet, making smacking noises as it chewed that made it more than difficult for Inui to keep his palm pilot pencil from scrawling everywhere on his daytimer. Kaidoh stroked its back, running his fingers through the cat’s matted fur. It made Inui’s glasses slip down his nose when he noticed it- Kaidoh never stroked his hair like that.
Not that Inui kept data on certain things- at least, not after that fight March 14th, last year. Kaidoh had accused him of taking his data into the bedroom- which Inui was shocked to discover- was not welcome. Inui could learn. Dogs could be taught new tricks…
Cats, on the other hand…
Cats bristled up and shook themselves off, just like dogs, only without a care for the individuals nearby.
Kaidoh scooped the cat up and rubbed its face to his cheek. It purred, rather like the rumble of thunder in the distance.
Mud slid down the screen of Inui’s palm pilot. The screen flickered, a garish green like his Juice Experiment 0037, then one of the typepad keys sparked.
The palm pilot went dead.
The cat seemed to be smiling at Inui from Kaidoh’s arms.
***
The cat slept on the futon, between them.
Inui would roll onto his side and blindly feel around for Kaidoh’s hip or Kaidoh’s shoulder, or any part of Kaidoh to press up against. Vaguely, he knew there was a cat in the apartment somewhere, but his midnight erection was too. He was horny. Kaidoh was his.
The data fit like puzzle pieces, really.
Instead, all Inui got was a face full of fur and a hiss. It wasn’t the right sort of hiss either, not, “Fssssh, Sadaharu” the way Kaidoh would sometimes moan and then lift his head, part his lips and his legs and they’d start something.
No, this was a hiss from an animal.
With sardine breath.
Inui gagged. Ever since junior high, he’d hated sardines, too.
***
It only went downhill from there.
The cat had effectively moved into their apartment. It had effectively taken over their bed. It had effectively taken over Kaidoh’s heart, too- Kaidoh carried it on his shoulder everywhere in the apartment. Kaidoh let it sit on the table when they ate instant miso soup and chicken curry from the fast-food joint across the road. Kaidoh let it sit on his lap when he spread out his homework at night and Inui vegetated in front of his computer monitor.
The cat started to eat up their food budget. Sardines, tuna, cat food, cat toys. Inui would come home from work after a long, boring day at the office (data entry sounded glamorous when he applied to the job, but the reality was anything but). He tripped over furry mice and squishy balls. He set his messenger bag down and the cat made a beeline for his shoes, sliming the heel and side with its mouth, as if Inui’s stinky shoes were an aphrodisiac.
The litter box took up residence behind the toilet. On days Kaidoh didn’t clean it, Inui would have to smell cat piss when he was trying to have a morning sit. Reading old issues of Tennis Weekly and New Science never could mask the stench of cat. Now, though, Kaidoh seemed to be replacing his bathroom magazine stash with Kittens! and Neko NEWS.
But the worst part was the cat. In bed with them. Most of the time, it ignored Inui, unless Kaidoh had a night class and then it howled at him. Inui did not speak cat. He had no desire to speak cat. He did not care about cat data one iota.
He did care when the cat wedged itself between Kaidoh’s and his legs at night. He did care when the cat would sleep on his pillow and leave Inui the futon mattress, at best. He did care when the cat started to crawl under the covers and Kaidoh would hug it instead of Inui.
Inui took a deep breath. Cat hairs clung to his shirts, even fresh out from drying on the line on the porch. Kaidoh was having a morning shower: 7:23, he had 63 minutes until his first class of the day. Inui had 93 minutes to catch the Yamanote line and make it to work on time.
He peeled off his boxers and chucked them onto the floor. The cat was nowhere in sight.
He crept into the shower room, sliding the door open. There was no way the cat would be in here, just Kaidoh. Kaidoh who was wet and wide-eyed and staring at him as Inui slid the frosted glass door shut.
Inui set his glasses down on the edge of the bathtub. They slipped off, clattering down into the tub. Oh well. He didn’t need them to kiss Kaidoh. Kaidoh had brushed his teeth already and tasted like toothpaste, mint and baking soda. Kaidoh moaned. When Inui touched his arms, Kaidoh was slippery and warm from the water. Inui was hard. He pressed himself into the dip of Kaidoh’s back, just so Kaidoh would know how much he wanted this, like always.
Kaidoh’s tongue ran over his lips, then slid back inside over his own. Coils of pleasure knotted in Inui’s belly- data had never been able to explain that feeling; he just knew he liked it. And he liked it when Kaidoh ran his thumb over the slit of his dick like that, because that usually meant Kaidoh would kneel down and suck-
Kaidoh pushed him away. And wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Inui could see that much without his glasses.
“I gotta feed her breakfast,” Kaidoh said. “Can we do this later?”
Inui watched the shower door slide closed, leaving him standing in the spray of water, blind as a bat and horny as hell. He balled his fist and shook it.
He was twenty-three and stuck in a rut.
That cat needed to go.
***
Unfortunately, 91% of cats did not contract cancer. Chronic kidney failure was far more likely and, after the 44 days the cat had stayed with them (Inui refused to believe it was here for good. He needed some hope, as minute as it may have been), Inui was less than convinced that the cat was sluggish, losing weight, drinking constantly and smelling faintly of urine.
Kaidoh was at night class.
The cat was sitting on the couch.
Inui reached up to the top shelf in the kitchen and dusted off the box. The blender hadn’t been touched in almost six months, but drastic times called for…
Juice.
The ingredients were measured with accuracy, titrated to perfection, according to Inui’s ratty old notebooks he kept in a shoebox in the closet. What Kaidoh didn’t know about wouldn’t hurt him.
The very last ingredient: two grubs, posed a problem. Unlike the bleach and aloe vera water, Inui didn’t keep grubs in the apartment.
The cat continued to sit on the couch, now having taken up residence on Inui’s sports jacket.
His watch said 8:56. Inui had 42 minutes until Kaidoh would return. The park was 350m down the road, across a set of traffic lights. His flashlight was in the front hallway. The precipitation from this morning should have wet the ground sufficiently.
Inui bolted out the door.
As a teenager, his grub-finding skills had been honed. Now, Inui dug frantically under what few fallen tree stumps he could find in the forlorn hope of finding anything to complete his recipe. In his haste, he’d forgotten a jar, so he settled on putting the lone maggot he found (from a rotting sandwich wedged in a tree hollow) in a used food wrapper in his pocket.
9:27. He could make it.
Triumphantly, Inui walked back home. If all went well, the cat could be disposed of with tomorrow’s garbage and Kaidoh could be back on his side of the futon within half that time. Inui grinned to himself and opened the door.
Kaidoh stood in the hallway, hissing.
The cat sat at his feet, hissing.
“What is this?” Kaidoh snapped, holding up the blender.
“Kaidoh, no-” Inui started, fearing the worst for the contents. If Kaidoh shook the mixture too vigorously before the final ingredient…
“What is this?” Kaidoh seethed. In his other hand, he held the dish that said “KITTY” on the side.
Oh right.
Inui had left that on the counter, next to the blender.
He hadn’t counted on this variable, of Kaidoh’s class being finished early.
Despite trying to assure Kaidoh that no, it wasn’t juice and no, it wasn’t poison, it was a health drink for cats, once Kaidoh found the flashlight in his right pocket and the wrapper with the maggot in his left, Inui had lost the battle.
Inui got to have a good night’s sleep, on the couch, with the ratty old blanket. The cat got to sprawl across the entirety of his futon beside Kaidoh.
And come morning, his blender, not the cat, sat with the bags of garbage in the building dumpster.
***
Kaidoh was suspicious.
Inui was apologetic.
He bought the cat a collar, three days later.
And for the first time in what seemed like weeks, Kaidoh acquiesced when Inui kissed the back of his neck. It was dark. They were in bed. The autumn wind was howling outside the window and drowning out the sound of the cat padding around the kitchen. Kaidoh leaned back, curling his hand over top of Inui’s, which rested on Kaidoh’s hip, just above his waistband.
“She really likes…” Kaidoh whispered, “the collar.” He moaned as Inui’s lips slipped off his neck.
Right on cue, the cat jumped onto the end of the futon and walked up, right between them, settling half on Inui’s shoulder.
Inui really wasn’t in the mood after that anyway.
***
Trial #2 began on a Wednesday.
Inui was at the office. His stack of files was empty. He had time. And Kaidoh wasn’t around here to be able to catch him in the act.
The data was simple: Kaidoh had never been to Inui’s office on the grounds that he wasn’t Inui’s wife and he wasn’t going to be welcome, being the same-sex live-in-lover of some bottom feeder of the corporate ladder.
Inui didn’t exactly have many friends. Colleagues, Kaidoh, but not really any friends, discounting his teammates from high school tennis, all of seven years ago. Nevertheless, Inui kept their numbers current, in cases of emergency.
This was an emergency.
Echizen was his first hope. Echizen had a cat. Therefore, Echizen must be like Kaidoh and like cats. That data was simple enough.
Inui telephoned.
Echizen picked up.
Inui explained, “Would you like a cat? I have a spare cat and would like to give you one that I no longer have use for.”
Echizen paused.
Inui’s heart beat faster. This was going well. He should have tried this before!
Then, Echizen said, “Sorry, we’re not interested in your freebies and we don’t want to switch credit cards either.”
Inui scratched his head. He never had very good data on Echizen after all.
Inui tried the second number on his list. Fuji was someone he could understand, sometimes, on an amicable level.
A woman picked up.
Inui blinked. His well-rehearsed speech faltered at the sound of the woman’s heavy breathing and breathy, “Hello?”
But then the phone must have been passed over to Fuji, who cheerfully said, “Hello, Inui. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Inui offered the cat. Fuji, like Echizen, paused. But Fuji, unlike Echizen, didn’t say no. Instead he said, “I didn’t know you liked cats, Inui.”
“I don’t,” Inui said. He was about to say that it was a dire matter that the cat be removed as quickly as possible, when the supervisor suddenly stuck his head up from the cubicle at the end of the row.
“INUI! What the hell are you doing over there? Office phones are for OFFICE WORK, not personal calls about damned cats!”
Inui nodded.
“I’ll let you go then,” Fuji said.
“No!” Inui whispered. He hunched over the phone. “Fuji, I-”
Fuji had hung up.
Taka-san no longer lived at his parents’ residence.
Momoshiro did not need a cat. “Inui-senpai!” he yelled over the phone. “Thanks for the offer anyway, but didn’t mamushi always like cats? Mamushi liked cats a lot- give it to him!”
Inui rubbed his temples.
Oishi picked up the next call. “Um…” he said, “sorry, Inui, I can’t. Allergies.”
Inui dialed Kikumaru’s number. A familiar voice said, “Inui?”
Inui stopped himself from speaking in order to process the voice. “Oishi?” he asked. “I must have dialed the wrong number…” he mumbled.
Oishi made a high-pitched laugh. “No, no!” he said. “Eiji’s…Eiji’s…and I, we….he’s out. And he’s allergic, too.”
Inui didn’t try calling that number a third time. It was awkward. None of his high school data suggested that either Oishi or Kikumaru were allergic to cats. One more item to write down.
The supervisor glared down the aisle at Inui. Inui shuffled some old files and nodded politely, then he leaned back over his phone to call Tezuka.
One ring. Two, then Tezuka saying “Hello?”
“Aa, Tezuka,” Inui said. “Would you like a-”
Click.
“He hung up,” Inui muttered. He frowned. Only one number remained on his cell- his palm pilot had more (including one Atobe Keigo’s private line), but the cat had destroyed that two months before.
This was not good.
This last number had not been dialed in…
A long time.
The chances of it still being active were…5%, maybe 10% maximum.
Inui dialed anyway.
Three rings, and then it picked up.
“Sadaharu,” Renji said, “what do you want now?”
Inui smiled. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Aa, Renji,” he said.
“I’m at work,” Renji said. “Make it quick. I have nothing to say to you.”
Inui’s smile started to falter. “You can’t predict what I might have to say to you after-”
“-seven years, two months and fifteen days, yes, I can. You never change, Inui,” Renji said.
That date had been burned into Inui’s mind. That doubles match in their last year of junior high school. Inui could feel his eye twitch. The pause in their conversation went on and Renji seemed to enjoy it, chuckling faintly on the other end of the line.
Inui hung up.
There was no way- or at least, less than 0.002% chance- that the cat was conspiring with Renji, but Inui couldn’t shake that possibility. Especially when the file girl wheeled her cart by his cubicle and dropped a stack of files onto his desk, right on top of Inui’s cellphone.
“Enjoy,” she said with a great big, Cheshire-cat grin.
***
It wasn’t his last hope, but it was desperate.
Everything was in place, including the cat, sleeping placidly on the floor. A half hour beforehand, though, it was scratching at the litter box behind the toilet and Inui had his pants down for a pee before he realized this. And that he was being watched.
Despite all medical evidence to the contrary, his dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off from lack of sex. But it certainly made Inui want more and more to get rid of the cat in any way possible.
Kaidoh had a textbook spread out across the low table in front of the television. One hand turned the pages- Inui could tell it was an English book, but what it was about, he had no idea and never bothered to ask- and the other hand rubbed the cat’s belly absently.
Inui checked his watch. T-minus 24 minutes.
“Kaidoh,” Inui said.
Kaidoh gave Inui a half-nod. “In a minute,” he murmured. He rubbed the cat harder, enough to make its stomach shake. Legs up in the air around Kaidoh’s arm, it gave Inui a long, hard look as it smirked at him.
Five minutes later, Kaidoh still hadn’t looked up from his textbook, or removed his hand from the abdomen of the cat.
“Kaidoh,” Inui said.
“I’m almost done,” Kaidoh said. He turned a page and his eyes followed the lines.
Inui walked into the kitchen. He checked the clock on the microwave. Eighteen minutes. Then he walked back into the living room. He turned on his computer monitor, then turned it back off. Kaidoh still hadn’t noticed.
Inui cleared his throat. “Kaidoh?”
Kaidoh grunted.
This data had never once failed him. Inui gave up being subtle and went to the closet. He dragged out his tennis bag. And he dragged out Kaidoh’s tennis bag. They smelled musty from neglect over the years, but the weight of the strap in his hand was identical to how it had been when they were younger.
Inui waited. He called Kaidoh’s name.
Kaidoh didn’t respond.
Inui pulled his old runners on and called Kaidoh’s name again.
“What?” Kaidoh asked. “I’m almost finished.”
Inui swore he could hear the sound of the cat purring all the way by the front door. He shook his head. No, he was imagining things. And this would be the last time he would have to hear that noise. Ever.
His watch read ten minutes.
Kaidoh was almost finished, though. Inui could hear him shuffling around the apartment. The toilet flushed. Kaidoh murmured something in a low voice, probably to the cat. He used to use that voice for Inui, mumbling in Inui’s ear when they were naked and panting and hands clinging to shoulders, knees hooked around thighs, sticky and sweaty and replete from sex.
Now, the cat got that treatment.
Eight minutes.
Inui felt one- no, two, then three- sweat beads dribble down the side of his face. “Kaidoh?” he said.
Kaidoh popped his head around the corner from the kitchen. Sardine stench filled the air. “Inui?” he asked. Kaidoh’s eyes narrowed when he saw the two tennis bags by Inui’s feet.
“Up for a game?” Inui asked. He made himself smile. If there was one thing Kaidoh loved most in the world, it was playing tennis.
Kaidoh kept staring.
Inui kept sweating.
Seven minutes…
Six minutes…
Kaidoh took a deep breath. Inui inhaled too. The cat rubbed against Kaidoh’s naked calves, jumping up as high as Kaidoh’s knees to try to paw at the can in his hand.
“Not tonight,” Kaidoh said.
Inui’s jaw dropped. “K-Kaidoh?”
Kaidoh ducked back into the kitchen. The cat meowed happily as Kaidoh set a dish of food down on the floor. He crouched down and scratched behind its ears.
Inui’s jaw was also on the floor.
He’d followed Renji’s advice and never doubted his data from the age of fifteen until twenty-three.
Now he was fucked.
There was a knock at the door.
Inui was even more fucked when Kaidoh brushed past him and opened the door.
On the door step was one Ohtori Choutarou, formerly from Hyoutei Gakuen, now attending Aoyama University with Momoshiro. And he had a cat carrier in his hand.
Kaidoh hissed. “What are you doing here?”
The cat tried to dart outside, but Kaidoh nudged it away with his foot. To most, he wouldn’t have been very menacing in an apron, but to Inui, he was terrifying, glowering at Inui and hissing at Ohtori.
“Um…” Ohtori scrambled and kept trying to get Inui’s eyes, to explain the situation, only Inui was experiencing something akin to sensory failure from the sheer spectacular failure of his data. And his plan.
“Um…so you’re not getting rid of your cat?” Ohtori asked.
“No!” Kaidoh yelled. He slammed the door. Inui slunk to the floor for a moment until he heard a second door slam. The bedroom door.
Inui pushed his glasses up. He ignored Ohtori’s questions through the doorway and instead rushed off to his bedroom. He knocked on the door. Kaidoh yelled for him to fuck off. Inui banged harder. “Kaidoh!” he said. “Kaidoh, please…”
Inui didn’t know what he was doing. Or what he should do. Apologize, yes. Explain, maybe.
The cat weaved itself between his legs. For once, he couldn’t be bothered to shove it away, he just called Kaidoh’s name again. “Kaidoh! Open the door,” Inui said. After a long beat of silence he lowered his voice to add, “Please”.
The door slid open enough for Inui to see Kaidoh seething through his teeth. “You were trying to get rid of her!”
Her?
Inui looked down at the cat. It had always been an it to him. He couldn’t distinguish between females and males. The cat stared at him with narrowed dark eyes, just like Kaidoh was doing.
Inui pushed the door open all the way. The cat ran in first, making a beeline for the futon. Kaidoh crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were blazing with anger. Inui could practically hear Kaidoh’s heart racing unnaturally fast- 100, 200 beats per minute. He couldn’t quantify it with Kaidoh fuming, though.
No data in the bedroom.
Inui swallowed. The words were thick, but he managed, slowly, to say, “I….I’m sorry. I don’t like cats.”
Kaidoh kept staring. The cat started to knead the end of the futon cover. Inui started to sweat. Number flew through his brains- percentages of divorce rates and fractions of couples who survived major arguments and oh god, would Kaidoh choose a cat over him?!?
Finally, after what seemed like an agonizing eternity, Kaidoh exhaled. “Fshhh. Why didn’t,” he said, picking the cat up. Inui stared in terror as Kaidoh walked towards the closet. His suitcases were in there. He was-
Kaidoh chucked the cat into the hallway and closed the door. “Why didn’t you say something?” he asked.
Inui couldn’t speak. His ears were sending him incorrect data when they heard the sound of Kaidoh snickering for a moment. Kaidoh touched Inui’s face, taking his glasses off with careful hands and setting them on the side table.
Kaidoh touched Inui’s eyes, naked and unfocused. His lips pressed against Inui’s collar, right in the dip of his collarbone where they used to linger before the cat came along. And now they were once again as Kaidoh fingered Inui’s fly.
His pants were tugged down. Kaidoh’s mouth was hot on his belly and Inui bit his lip to stop from groaning. But he groaned anyway and his hands buried themselves in Kaidoh’s hair, petting the top of his head when Kaidoh’s teeth pulled at Inui’s boxers.
Then, Kaidoh looked up. Kaidoh was blurry, in the semi-dark, without his glasses on, but his words weren’t: “She doesn’t have to sleep with us,” Kaidoh mumbled, his lips moving on Inui’s dick, causing tremours to wrack through Inui’s body.
Inui practically came right then and there.
By the time Kaidoh’s mouth slid over his cock and the cat was meowing on the other side of the doorway, Inui was falling forward, smiling and gasping and pushing Kaidoh closer to him.
It had been far, far too long.
***
Inui still hated cats.
But he paid for the professional portrait of her for Kaidoh’s next birthday anyway.