Mandarin Orange, Kotatsu, And A Found Cat

I walked into the room with my arms full of cat supplies and found the cat curled up in the corner of the room, just like in the morning.
I don’t know why, but she seems to like that position.

In response to the sound of my return, she slowly raised her head and looked at me.
Her eyes are indescribably oppressive. Perhaps I had disturbed her sleep.
I apologized to the cat, and after staring at it for a while, it went back to its dream world.

I wondered if it was possible to keep my head above water with a houseguest cat, but I took it as a positive sign that the fact that she was sleeping right in front of me without paying attention to me meant that she was letting down her guard.

I put down the plastic bags on my arms and started to unpack the contents.
Then, perhaps bothered by the sound of rustling, the cat got up and moved toward me from the edge of the room.

Then she started cat punching the item that’s placed farthest away from me.
The scene is so cute that I can’t help but watch it for a while and get a little chuckle out of it.

After enjoying the scene, I unpacked the rest of the supplies so as not to scare the cat, and started to prepare dinner.
I remembered that I had to remember to prepare food for the cat today…and then I remembered something.

She was probably wary in the morning and didn’t eat the food I prepared for her until I left the house.
Considering how she looked when I picked her up, she probably hadn’t been able to eat for a while, and I was quite worried about her.

I looked fearfully at the side of the table and saw a plate that had been cleaned and returned to its pure white form.

I couldn’t help but feel relieved. I don’t know if it was to her taste, but for the time being, she seemed to have finished it.
I put the empty plate away in the sink and grabbed a new one from the shelf.

Then, I cut the sashimi I bought at the supermarket into appropriate sizes and put them in there.
Sashimi is one of my favorite foods, but I don’t usually buy it unless I have a particular reason. Incidentally, I bought salmon, my favorite sashimi.

Today, of course, I bought the canned food not for myself, but for my cat.
I had bought a variety of food for the cat, including cat food, just in case the canned food didn’t suit her taste, but I wanted her to try the food I liked best.
As expected, or just in case, I also bought some cat food, the so-called crunchies.

After cutting up the sashimi, I went back to the table to prepare some leftover pieces of sashimi, other side dishes, rice, and soup for myself.
The cat, who seemed to have been pawing at the cat stuff the whole time I was preparing dinner, took a little distance from me when I came back to check on her.

I smiled at the cat to reassure her and placed a small plate of crunchy fish and sashimi on the side of the table with my meal, just like in the morning.
The cat glared at me, sniffed me, and slowly approached me, while still looking at my face.

She came to the side of the table and looked at the small plate, wagging her tail widely in the air as she observed.
The cat continued to observe the sashimi for a while, and then looked at me again. I somehow felt that it was saying, “can I eat it?” I don’t know why it was played back in my brain in Kansai dialect.

“Of course. I bought it for you.”

I told the cat so, muttered “Itadakimasu” and started to eat my dinner.
I thought it might not be a good idea to look at her too much, so I pretended not to notice her as I proceeded with my meal.
[TLN: Itadakimasu = Thank you for the meal.]

But in the end, I couldn’t resist the urge, so I glanced over to see hows he was doing, but she was really eating her food, albeit little by little.
I felt relieved when I saw that, and then I ate a piece of sashimi too. It was just something I bought at the supermarket, but it was tasty enough to make my cheeks relax.

I looked at the cat again, made sure it was eating well, and looked at my phone at the same time.
Perhaps because I’ve been researching cats a lot lately, the screen of the social networking site I opened was lined with videos and pictures about cats.

When I pressed play on a video that caught my attention for some reason, I saw a very funny video of a cat struggling with a robot vacuum cleaner.
As I continued to watch the video with this in mind, I heard the owner calling out the cat’s name in the video.

As I watched, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten something important.
I looked at the cat, who was still eating her food a little awkwardly.

Yeah, I don’t know this cat’s name…that’s no surprise. I have no way of knowing.
It would not be difficult to find out what she was called in its previous home. But when I picked her up, she didn’t have a collar or a name tag on her.

“Hey, your name…”

Feeling apologetic for interrupting her meal, I try to talk to the cat. However, I couldn’t find the right words to say and got stuck.
When I couldn’t say anything, the cat stopped eating and looked at me not knowing what was going on.

Her face, which had been a little calmer when she was eating, became somewhat cloudy and grumpy.
I don’t know if it was because her meal was interrupted or for some other reason.

“What am I supposed to call you?”

I changed my question.
If this cat had a name given to her by her previous owner, there was no guarantee that the cat would like that name.
At least, if I were in the cat’s shoes, I wouldn’t want to remember the name given to it by such a person.

Of course, I don’t believe that the abandonment was simply the fault of irresponsible owners.
It’s highly possible that there was some reason for it. Perhaps this cat was the cause.

If you ask me what’s the point, I’ll tell you, I wanted to give her a new name that would help her move forward.

“If you don’t mind, can I come up with a new name for you?”

Then I made eye contact with the cat for a while.
At my serious gaze, the cat gave me the same gentlemanly look.

“…Meow.”

That’s what the cat said.
Of course, I don’t know if that’s the answer to what I just said or not.
However, I could see a definite intention in the cat’s eyes.

Now, the problem was the name. I didn’t have any in mind.
It may be a little late, but this cat is a girl. I wanted to give her a beautiful name that would match her beautiful face and fur. That’s what I was thinking.

But of course, such things don’t just come out of the blue, and before I knew it, the cat had eaten all its food and gone back to the corner of the room.
I don’t know if she’s wary of me or if she’s just comfortable in that place, but I feel sorry for her to be in the corner.

Even though I have the heater on, it still gets cold in the morning.
With that in mind, I slowly approached the cat so as not to disturb it and moved the cat-shaped cushion and the electric heater near it.

I was completely stuck in my thoughts, but at such times, there was no point in sitting around getting hung up.
I finished the rest of my meal and took a long soak in the bath while I thought about her name.

At first, I thought I would come up with a few candidates to choose from, but even those candidates were hard to come up with.
In the end, I thought about it for about half an hour, but nothing satisfactory came to mind.

I left the bathroom feeling troubled and went back to the living room.
When I looked at the cat’s position, I saw that she was using the cat-shaped cushion I had placed there.

I sat down a little distance away from her.
The cat noticed my presence and opened her eyes to look at me. Then, after staring into my eyes, she quickly closed them again.

Well-toned face, slim body, and beautiful white shining fur…

“Mashiro…”

I found myself spilling out a name.
As soon as the name reached her ears, the cat’s ears twitched.
Then she opened her eyes and looked at me again.

“Mashiro… A little too cheesy, don’t you think?”

I swallowed down my mixed feelings of anticipation and anxiety and spoke to her.
In response, the cat mewed a single “meow” without looking away from me.

“Do you like it?”
“Meoowww.”

She replied to my second question in the same cute voice.
She seemed to like the name that I had suddenly spilled out.

“Then, nice to meet you. Mashiro.”

The day when the crescent moon and the stars shined in the night sky.
A very small step. Only a definite step. The distance between me and the cat…Mashiro, had grown closer.