sunmoonandspoon | Sitting Quietly

Title: Sitting Quietly
Author:

speaky_bean
Characters: Sachiko, Soichiro, Light Sayu, two cats named Ichigo and Strawberry.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,295
Notes: If anyone can be blamed for this story, it's

reka. We were talking about how strange it was that the Yagami family didn't have pets--it seemed like a fairly standard thing for a family with a stay-at-home mother to do.

reka decided that it was because Soichiro was allergic to them. And thus, this story was born. In this story, Sachiko desperately wants a cat, and can't have one because her husband is allergic--but as time goes on, he becomes more and more detached from the family--and so, it doesn't really matter if she gets a cat. Soichiro isn't there, anyway.

Oh, and it was written for

dn_contest. The theme this week is 'cat'.

The new apartment is nothing special. The walls are beige and soiled, and there are tatami mats made of rotten straw strewn randomly about. They don’t have heat or running water yet, they’ll have to make a lot of phone calls to get this place liveable. Despite her complaints, Sachiko doesn’t care. She can go a day or so without a shower, and the warm September weather doesn’t require central heating. They’ll fix things in due time, for now, Sachiko is just happy to be moving in with Soichiro. They married three months ago, but for financial reasons they haven’t been able to live together until now. She has been dreaming of this day for ages, and while it isn’t quite as exciting as she thought it would be, the knowledge that it ought to be exciting is enough to buoy her up.

The place feels huge and empty, and Sachiko had thought that once she put her skirts and blouses into the splitering, sky-blue dresser that the last tenant left behind, it would seem a little more like home. But so far it’s just her and Soichiro and a lot of empty space. Not really a lot, but more than Sachiko ever had. Five siblings and a rotation of cats and dogs that sometimes seemed uncountable make any quiet space seem strange to Sachiko. Soichiro has a younger brother who never spent much time around the house, and he never had any pets that Sachiko is aware of. Most likely, this small, quiet apartment seems perfectly normal to him.

She puts on some music, hopes her choice in music won’t offend Soichiro’s ears. She has no idea what the Beatles are singing about, but her husband speaks some English and for all she knows he’s hearing something horrible. The music doesn’t do much to liven the place up. She’s happy to be here, truly she is, but she’s used to being constantly blindsided by rampaging animals and younger siblings, not sitting at the kitchen table quietly sipping tea. She’s nervous about living as a married couple, and the silence and stillness doesn’t help matters. She misses her sisters, her brothers and her pets. Especially Ichigo, a mangy old tabby whose purr sounds like a motorcycle. “Soichiro,” she says, blowing the steam away from her cup. “What do you think about getting a pet? Maybe a cat to start with. It’s so quiet here, and I’d like someone to be here with me while you’re at work, you know? Besides, I love cats.”

Soichiro shakes his head, takes a sip of his cinnamon tea. “I’d rather not, if that’s alright. I’m actually allergic to cats. And dogs. And most other animals with fur. We could get a lizard, if you’d like…or some fish...”

“Really?” This is a bit of a shock, and Sachiko isn’t sure she believes him. He’s been to her old house on countless occasions, and there were furry creatures everywhere! Not to mention all the furniture that needed lint rolling. She brings this up, trying not to sound too incredulous. She doesn’t want to seem like she doesn’t trust him, but well, she doesn’t. He’s just saying this because he thinks a pet would be too much work to look after.

“Oh,” he says, laughing slightly. “Well, we never stayed at your house for long, did we? I usually rushed us out after the bare minimum required for politeness. And I always loaded up on medication before coming over.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Sachiko sighs, stands up to turn the tape over—she doesn’t like the last song on Side A very much. “I certainly wouldn’t have asked you over so frequently if I’d known it was making you sick.”

“It wasn’t too bad,” he insists. “I made sure to limit my exposure, and I thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t let me come over anymore. Which wasn’t something I wanted—I’d see you a lot less that way, and I love your enormous family. It’s not like being around animals is going to kill me, I’d just rather not have them in my house.”

Hands on her hips, Sachiko mutters about how strange it is that she never even noticed this. “You must have a really mild reaction, then,” she says, hoping that he’ll assent to this and agree to getting a cat after all. But he shakes his head, says that he’s just good at suppressing his symptoms. “When that didn’t work, I’d just pretend I had a cold,” he says. “They’re different, but they’re not so different that I can’t pass one off for the other.”

She thinks that she should have realized, and now she feels bad about having dragged him to her house so many times. And she still wants a pet, despite this new information. She won’t push it though, that would be ridiculous. When they start having children, things will be as hectic and loud as they were back home. For now, she turns up the music.

-------

Sayu pulls on the hem of her mother’s skirt, squawking happily about the miracle next door. Apparently a neighbor’s cat gave birth to kittens several weeks ago, and they’ve got them all in a wicker basket on the lawn. “Mommy!” she shrieks, chubby fingers catching on the loose threads of Sachiko’s clothing. “Can we get one of the kittens? They’re selling them for ¥1000, and they’re really really cute, so can we?”

There’s no harm in going to see them. The desire for a pet has only intensified since Sachiko became a mother. The children go on about how badly they want a rabbit like Noriko in Sayu’s class, or a puppy dog like Seiha next door, and while Light is reasonable about the subject, Sayu doesn’t accept or understand why she can’t have one. Still, there’s no harm. She probably won’t throw a fit if Sachiko tells her from the start that they’re only there to look, and they are adorable. “We can’t get a kitten,” she says. “I’ve told you already, your father’s allergic to animal hair, so we can’t have a cat in the house. We can look, but that’s all we’re going to do, alright?”

“Come on Mommy,” Sayu pouts, forming chubby fists and puffing out her cheeks like a blowfish. “Daddy’s never around anyway, he won’t care if we get a cat! He can just stay at work or something!”

“Sayu, that’s a terrible thing to say,” Sachiko says, plastering a hand on her hip. “Your father might not be here all the time, but that’s because he’s out working hard so that we can have a place to live. If we got a cat, it’d be his money that paid for its food. Do you really think it’s fair of you to say we should get one anyway?”

“Yeah!” she yelps, but Sachiko gives her a stern look, taps her bare foot on the carpeted floor. Sayu reluctantly shakes her head, grumbles something about having to go change a doll into a kimono, because her grandmother was coming over and would yell if she wasn’t wearing traditional clothes. The kitten momentarily forgotten, at least, by Sayu.

-------

It’s been two weeks since Soichiro’s been home, and twelve days since he last bothered to call her. He only did that because she called him, eight times. She’d wanted to talk about Light, about whether it as healthy for him to lock himself up in his room for hours at a time, to never utter more than a word or two to his mother and sister, and to laugh hysterically over—what? Surely calculus or whatever he’s studying can’t be that hilarious. And the laughter…well, it didn’t sound like he really thought anything was funny.

This had been gnawing on her brain for days, and she’d desperately needed a place to air her concerns. Who better, she’d thought, than the boy’s father? Surely he’d know if this was a normal developmental stage for a boy or not, surely he’d be able to provide some comfort. But he’d called her back after her eight attempt, and spent the whole phone call griping about how much work he had to do, and how he couldn’t talk long, because he had to get back to it immediately. If he’d let her talk to begin with, they might have had time to discuss her concern, but he wasted all his time complaining.

She had hung up the phone in disgust.

She had thought about how, when she was a child and something had left her heart pounding and her cheeks flushed, she would take four (it had to be four) deep breaths, and curl herself around Ichigo. She'd drag her stubby fingers through his grey, matted coat, not doing much but matting it further. Ichigo thought tears were delicious, so it didn’t matter to him if she cried into his fur. She would breathe in the scent of cat food and kitty litter, pretend that it smelled good instead of just comforting. They would lay together until Ichigo got bored or one of the dogs came in, but that was never before Sachiko felt better. And she had thought that, when she grew up she’d have a husband to make her feel better instead of a cat.

When she married Soichiro, she decided she didn’t really need that kind of comfort. She couldn’t ask for that. He loves everyone else in the world more than his family, and he always has and she knew that, when she married him. She knew he was already married to his job.

Right now, she doesn’t care. This isn’t just about her, it’s about Light, their precious son, and the fact that something might be very wrong with him. But he won’t even speak to her. Can’t even guess that something might be wrong when she’s calling him eight times in one day. She balls her fists (ignores the nagging, arthritic pain that shoots through her joints when she does this) and gnaws her bottom lip. Thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get a cat. It’s been nearly twenty years, and Soichiro’s hardly been home for any of them.

-------

It takes her a while to find the perfect cat. She finds herself disliking most of the cats that fit the description she claims to desire. She says she wants a quiet, unobtrusive cat, one that could spend days in the back of Sayu’s closet if need be. But she finds those cats to be obnoxious and off-putting. What she really wants is a cat that will run around the house knocking things over, and then leap into his owner’s lap and knead her skirt and purr. The way Ichigo had been. But such a cat wouldn’t suit her purposes, so in the end she settles on a somewhat mangy, aloof Abyssinian, calls it Strawberry and pretends that it’s the same thing. Watching her hiss at the bars of her car carrier, Sachiko wonders if this was really a good idea after all.

-------

It’s Sachiko’s birthday, and for the first time in fifteen years, Soichiro is home for the occasion. She isn’t sure how she feels about this, really. She’s used to spending time with her friends on her birthday, and she had in fact had to cancel dinner plans with them because Soichiro decided he would grace her with his presence. They are sitting on the decaying couch together, holding hands and searching their minds for something to talk about. Everything Soichiro does these days is top secret, and Sachiko doesn’t like to talk about her life. It’s dull compared to his, and she doesn’t want him feigning interest in something that just isn’t interesting. She doesn’t want to talk to him about Light anymore—Light spends all his time with him now. Soichiro knows things about him that Sachiko doesn’t want to know.

She isn’t looking at him, and it makes her jump a little when she hears her husband sneeze. It’s a loud, jarring, obnoxious sound, and he does it six or seven times before he stops and blows his nose. Sachiko looks behind her and sees Strawberry bashing her skull against the couch. When Soichiro had called to say he was coming over, she hadn’t remembered her impulsive decision, hadn’t bothered to hide the cat or clean up any of her fur. Apparently, part of her wants him to know he’s been dismissed. This is a non-verbal fuck you, and that’s only just starting to dawn on her. Soichiro trumpets into another tissue, coughs a few times and wonders aloud if he might be coming down with something. “Maybe,” Sachiko says. “You work so hard, I bet you hardly get any sleep. Really, it’d be shocking if you didn’t get sick.”

Once again, they lapse into silence. No one makes a sound, save for the Soichiro’s frequent coughing and sniffling. Sachiko knows he knows the difference between illness and allergies, and she knows that he knows there’s an animal here. That he’s no longer a part of this household—his well-being is superseded by Sachiko’s need to have a cat. It’s stupid, and she wants turn around and pick up Strawberry, explain that it isn’t really a dismissal; it isn’t really just exactly what it is.

She knows he knows, but as long as neither one says it, they can go on pretending that this is still their home and not just Sachiko’s house, which Soichiro happens to pay for. They can go on pretending that the Yagamis are still a family.

Sachiko stands up and turns on the radio. Not caring anymore what song comes on.

Current Mood: nauseated
Current Music: Biko - Bloc Party

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

tallulahgs

~~Calculus is very funny! I have laughed manically about it often!~~

*cough* ignore my inner maths geek, who fangirls whenever she hears people mention stuff she recognises.

Oh my gosh... ow. Ow! That's a really great well-structured story and I love the way you use the cat to symbolise stuff in the last section. But oh, so sad!

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Sitting Quietly

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