Bonus Chapter: Dirty Little Cat

After attending my middle school graduation ceremony, I didn’t bother with an umbrella.

I let the rain soak through me as I walked alone toward the bus stop.

While my classmates clustered together, celebrating graduation and bidding each other farewell, I—always the one surrounded at the center of the crowd—secretly slipped away.

During the third year, I had turned down a lot of unnecessary socializing and poured more energy into studying.

In the end, I barely scraped into a decently ranked high school.

At the graduation ceremony, everyone who ran into someone they knew would ask them to sign their yearbook.

I was also asked by many people.

Each time I wrote down my phone number, I’d wonder—how many of these people would actually reach out to me later?

How many would remain my friends into the future?

After hastily taking some group photos, I made up an excuse and slipped out through the school gates.

There was no one here worth staying for.

More than the sense of accomplishment from studying hard, I felt it was the melancholy of graduation that pushed everyone to act this way, to ease the anxiety that lingered in their hearts.

When I tried to recollect memories from the past three years, I realized that the ones worth engraving in my heart were few and far between.

I really had just muddled through everything, hadn’t I?

When the bus arrived, I was swept onto it by the crowd.

Raindrops dripped from my bangs, landing on my lap with soft plops.

I sat by the window, gazing out at the dim and gray cityscape, my heart gripped by numbness.

It seems… ever since I parted ways with that dirty little cat, I haven’t felt anything that could truly stir my heart again.

Is this… some kind of curse?

I still remember when I first met her—it was back in second grade.

At the time, I had just transferred to a new elementary school. Everything was unfamiliar.

Even though some classmates took the initiative to talk to me and befriend me, I couldn’t shake a lingering sense of loneliness.

Then one day, as I was wandering aimlessly around the school grounds, I heard a child softly sobbing.

That was when the haze started to lift, and a turning point quietly arrived.

“Mmew…”

The sound was faint—so faint that if the place hadn’t been quiet and secluded, I probably would have missed it or misheard.

It came from the small grove behind the school.

Each tree here had a sign attached to it, introducing its name—ginkgo, maple, and other species with long, complicated scientific names written beneath them.

I followed the sound step by step until I stopped beside a large banyan tree. I had seen the tip of a cat’s tail sticking out from behind the trunk.

It lay limp against the ground, trembling slightly in sync with the muffled sobs.

Circling around the tree, I discovered that hiding behind it wasn’t the kitten I had expected—but a little catgirl.

She had large, jewel-like red eyes, shimmering with tears from crying so hard.

Her puffy eyelids were tinged with a soft blush of red.

“Mmew?”

The little catgirl lifted her head and looked at me.

Her cries were strange.

Unlike most children who wail with loud “waaah” sounds, she cried with quiet “mmew, mmew” noises, as if afraid of disturbing others.

It was oddly polite.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

I crouched down and asked her in the gentlest voice I could manage.

Even though I had a reputation as a troublemaker who liked bullying others, it seemed the little catgirl hadn’t heard of my infamy.

She rubbed her teary eyes and looked at me with trust—clearly deceived by my deceptively kind appearance.

“Mm… it’s okay. I just fell down earlier. It really hurt, that’s why I cried so much.”

Her voice was soft and sticky-sweet, like mochi, and I had to focus hard to catch every word she said.

I gave her a quick once-over.

She did look like she had taken a tumble—her knees were covered in dust, her clothes were tangled with twigs and leaves, and her cheeks were smudged with dirt.

But what caught my attention was a bruise on her arm, and the way her hands had been clutching her stomach.

“Does your tummy hurt? Are you okay?”

“Ehh? N-no, it’s fine. I’m just… used to it.”

Startled, the little catgirl’s ears twitched softly atop her head.

She quickly released her grip on her belly, then checked over her body and tugged her rolled-up sleeves back down.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the nurse’s office?”

“No! That’s not okay!”

Her expression tightened, and she shook her head firmly in refusal.

Maybe realizing that her reaction had been a little too blunt, she lowered her voice and gently tugged at the sleeve of my shirt.

“Thank you for worrying about me. I’m really happy. This is the first time anyone’s cared about me.”

I don’t remember exactly what went through my mind back then, or how I responded to her almost obvious plea for friendship.

All I know is that, before I realized it, I had already started carrying that constantly-injured little catgirl around the school—from the bathrooms to the classrooms to the cafeteria.

Sometimes, staring at the deep, dark sky before bed, I can’t help but wonder—have I been entangled by this little catgirl, Zhi Nian?

But unlike real cats who fake affection for a few minutes and then live a lifetime of luxury, Zhi Nian was truly obedient.

Whatever I told her to do, she did.

I once tested this.

Took her out to a remote countryside church and asked her to take off her uniform.

She didn’t hesitate—just lifted the hem of her shirt and started undressing.

Thankfully, I stopped her in time.

Looking back now, she really was an unbelievably pure little catgirl.

If anyone else had ended up as her friend instead of me…

I don’t even want to imagine what could’ve happened.

*****

It’s been nearly eight years since that day.

As I stepped off the bus and walked the familiar path, that thought crossed my mind.

The rain had stopped.

My damp clothes clung to my body. Instead of heading straight home, I veered toward the countryside.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t gone back to that area since my last argument with Zhi Nian.

I had no idea what the church looked like now.

“Why do you like going to the church?” Zhi Nian once asked me.

Even then, my answer had been vague.

I didn’t really know why I was drawn to that abandoned church.

Walking inside meant stepping over litter, and the place didn’t even smell all that great.

Now that I think about it, maybe it’s the symbolism—the image of the church itself—that I was drawn to.

That sense of ineffable peace I felt there… but only when I was with Zhi Nian.

I’ve never tried going inside alone.

*****

The reason I fought with Zhi Nian wasn’t all that complicated.

She had been hiding the fact that she was being bullied.

I felt heartache for her and wanted to retaliate against those people, but Zhi Nian stopped me.

“It’s all in the past,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. After graduation, we won’t ever see them again anyway.”

That was when our values began to diverge.

And with the middle schools we got into being far apart, we just… gradually “didn’t see each other anymore.”

If you asked me which reason mattered more, I’d say the second one.

Sometimes when I sit alone in my room reminiscing, I can’t help but marvel at how fragile relationships are.

Just a bit of physical distance, and everything can be lost.

But… even though I often convince myself I’ve forgotten Zhi Nian, it only takes a familiar setting, a subtle trigger, and I find myself remembering those quiet days we spent together.

Standing at the decaying door of the church, I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing sky that had followed the rain.

The black-striped pews were crooked and broken, scattered in disorder.

I walked past the vestibule, heading for the altar at the center.

This countryside was quiet to begin with, and the church, removed from any roads, was utterly silent.

It seemed even insects avoided this place.

I looked at the old piano on the altar. An open sheet of music rested on it.

Then I glanced at the overturned pews, the plastic bags scattered across the floor, and… the faint silhouette of Zhi Nian.

She stood there, tail swaying, smiling brightly as she looked over her shoulder and waved at me from the corridor.

I didn’t respond.

I just watched.

In the silence that enveloped the church, only the residual raindrops slipping off the eaves and the sunlight slowly filtering through the stained glass above the nave gave any sign of movement.

I couldn’t hear the blare of car horns. I couldn’t hear the birds sing.

There was nothing—nothing but a deathly silence so thick, it felt as if space itself had frozen.

Without warning, a wave of panic surged through me.

Any sound—anything—would’ve been enough, as long as it could drag me out of this unbearable stillness.

I started running, heading toward the corridor, but even then, I couldn’t hear the sound of my own footsteps.

That’s when it hit me—I’d always been running away.

I threw myself into the noise of the world to escape.

But now, trapped within the silence of this church, there was nowhere left to run.

Every emotion I had avoided, dismissed, or buried—now they rose, all at once.

They crashed into me like a tidal wave, like massive stones pressing down on my back, forcing me to the ground.

My upper body slammed against the dusty floor with a dull thud, and there I lay, sprawled in the hallway, laughing like an idiot.

Only then did I truly understand.

It wasn’t me who was supporting her.

It was her—she was the one who had been holding me up all along.

And now, three years after parting ways with Zhi Nian, I was finally feeling something again.

Something overwhelming.

This… this was the void.

A soul-crushing, all-consuming sense of emptiness.