Kuze spent a long time investigating the problem of estrus in cats.
Generally, the estrus season of cats is in spring, and the estrus of male cats is caused by the meowing of female cats. In the case of the cat and Kuze, this was completely incompatible. Kuze opened the search pages one by one by chance, and closed them one by one in frustration. He began to regret not learning more about veterinary medicine.
Throwing away the phone, the room was quiet. Snow was falling outside the bay window. For some reason, the sight reminded him of cats. Soft, warm and full of life. Kuze knew that the cat was fine in the living room downstairs. Still, he had the illusion that he was gradually losing his cat. He sighed.
Kuze didn't go downstairs for a whole day. He skipped breakfast and lunch, not to mention his daily morning workout. He has been in his room since the cat came into his room and kissed him forcibly until now. In addition to confirming that the cat went to the kitchen to find food in the anti-theft surveillance, Kuze did not go downstairs to meet the cat at all. On the one hand, he felt that his presence at the moment might be cruel to the cat. On the other hand, Kuze hadn't figured out how to deal with cats either.
For a moment, he even thought, just agree to forget it. He's been asking for anything from cats, no more than that. It doesn't matter if you can't figure out what the cat is doing, just let it be happy. Kuze could back down to this point.
But Kuze vaguely knew that even so, the cat would not be satisfied.
Before dinner, Kuze finally gathered up the courage and walked out of the room. He poked his head out of the corner of the stairs and saw the cat lying on the sofa playing with his fingers. The cat heard the creaking of the stairs and looked up. When Kuze met the cat's gaze, he was startled and almost stepped on the air. He stabilized his mind and smiled reassuringly at the cat.
To his surprise, the cat didn't look angry at him.
The cat made an "oh" and waved to him. Its expression and demeanor were a little lethargic. Considering that the cat has not eaten much this day, this state is not incomprehensible.
Kuze has prepared some opening lines for angry cats/sad cats/heated cats, etc. etc. He also had a plan of "cats don't get angry", but the possibility of this one is too low. While Kuze was still rummaging through his memory, it was the cat who spoke first.
The cat asked, "Do you want chicken rice?"
With that, the cat slowly got up from the sofa and walked towards the kitchen without waiting for Kuze to answer. Kuze was dazed for a moment, when he saw the cat turned around and came back with two dinner plates in his hands. The cat pushed one of them to Kuze. Open the lid, and on the plate is a chicken sausage gratin. The cheese was golden, the chicken was fragrant, and the sausage casings had a nice sheen.
Kuze was shocked. He stared at the cat's profile in disbelief, unable to believe it was a cat's work.
"Don't look at me like that." The cat was slightly annoyed.
Kuze coughed lightly and looked away: "Sorry, I thought... you're still mad at me."
"I know, not everyone will like me. It's common sense," the cat said as he set the dishes. He still sounded a little pissed off. This time, Kuze was wearing glasses, and he could see some inconspicuous sadness from the cat's expression.
"I'm not—" Kuze tried to explain, but it seemed like everything he said was wrong. Kuze's only reason for refusing is "cat", and the cat doesn't recognize his "cat" identity at all. It won't agree with that. Kuze pursed his lips impatiently.
The cat obviously knew what Kuze was thinking, too. It didn't dwell on the topic, just urging Kuze to dine. They sat down at the table and the cat poured two glasses of aperitif. Kuze held the goblet, his eyes fell on the cat's hand and he couldn't take it away.
"What?" The cat stopped the goblet he brought to his lips, looked at Kuze, and then followed Kuze's line of sight to his hand. It laughed. "Come on, I'll bandage you, why won't you pour wine? I'm not a real cat."
Kuze didn't speak. He remembered that in the beginning, he used to force-feed the cat, and then it turned into feeding. At that time, Kuze never thought of providing utensils for cats - cats would not use those, Kuze firmly believed that, after all, the physiological structure did not allow it. For the same reason, however, cats cannot learn to speak.
Shortly after the cat learned to talk, and about two days before the topic of neutering, it protested strongly about not giving the cat utensils with meals. Kuze had never thought about it like this before, but when the cat protested, Kuze suddenly realized that there was a cat that could use cutlery. Using cutlery isn't even the same thing as talking: the cat is the only talking cat he's ever seen, and Kuze has long seen cats use knives and forks in TV commercials.
The cat's words always awaken the dusty memories in Kuze's mind. But is the cat right about this? Is it okay for cats and people
Kuze's heart was in a mess. He lowered his head to avoid the cat's sight and took a bite of the baked rice. Very fragrant, but the seasoning is a bit strange, maybe that is the taste of cats. Kuze could feel that the cat was still looking at him. He chewed harder than necessary and gave the cat a thumbs up: "Great."
"Yeah." The cat held its chin, still staring at Kuze's face. Kuze was seen embarrassed, and even a little at a loss. He asked, "Why don't you eat?"
The cat replied solemnly, "I'm thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
"Think about how much I like you," said the cat. It sounded so calm, not at all like the cat who would be angry when he heard Kuze's confession before. Kuze didn't like that kind of calmness. Only by giving up expectations can anxiety be completely transformed into calmness. He wanted the cat to keep that wayward look.
But Kuze was the one who disappointed the cat. He couldn't console it.
The cat didn't know what Kuze was thinking. It paused for a moment, then laughed to itself. Kuze was familiar with that smile. When he had no choice but to continue with life, he himself in the mirror laughed like that.
"I've been thinking about it all day. I think I like you very much." The cat said, winking at Kuze, "Look, I'm willing to abstain for you."
The guilt in Kuze's heart deepened. He didn't think there was anything wrong with him, but when he liked a cat and couldn't make that cat happy, no matter how right he was, it was wrong. Kuze has never been caught in such a sweet and bitter contradiction. He finally couldn't bear it anymore, and interrupted impulsively, "I can—"
The cat stopped in surprise and waited for Kuze's post. But in this momentary pause, Kuze had already regained his sanity. He couldn't go on.
Kuze stopped talking, and the cat said it for him. It raised its eyebrows and said in a sarcastic tone, "You can't. In your eyes, I'm a cat, how could it be possible? You can't find a place to insert it, can you? Oh... Or are you willing to be a cat? A cat?"
Kuze was blushing at the frank and rude language he spoke. He didn't know if the cat was limited to using only those words in its vocabulary, or if it was doing it on purpose. But he has no position to blame.
"...I'm sorry," Kuze said.
Both he and the cat knew the sentence was meaningless. Kuze wasn't admitting his mistake, he was just apologizing for the cat's sadness. The feelings of one person and one cat are tied to each other, but the reality they see is completely different.
Chicken sausage gratin cools off in an unpleasant conversation. Danny didn't move any more. Instead, it was the doctor who, for some reason, gulps the cold baked rice into his mouth. Solidified grease is nauseating. Probably the doctor himself didn't know how deeply his brows were furrowed.
Danny stood on the sidelines with revenge. They're torturing each other, and the heartache that comes with it makes Danny happy—any reaction from the doctor makes him happy, better than Danny's loss.
"It's okay," Danny said.
The doctor looked up from the plate of cold baked rice, and was stunned for a moment, before realizing that Danny was referring to his previous apology. Danny saw the doctor's eyes light up again. Black eyes, why are there bright and dark points? Danny looked into the doctor's dark eyes, feeling that it was a starless night sky, quiet, deep, and melancholy. Danny relented.
"I accept your apology, but you have to—" Danny paused, trying to make a tricky request to the doctor to make the doctor realize how serious this was. But he couldn't think of anything terribly wrong with the doctor. The doctor's "proportion" is fundamentally different from his. His eyes swept around the house.
"—I'm going to sleep in your room. Your bed." Danny decided, he said, "failed to climb the bed, which happened for the first time in my short career. I don't accept it."
He is lying. When Danny first entered the business, there was an accident when he picked up customers for the first time, and the trouble was quite tragic. After that, there was a record of not opening for more than a month. He later lowered the client scrutiny left at the caller. Danny made enough money to pay off his debts and his stomach, and even a small surplus. The price is to provoke one or two perverted customers.
Of course, doctors don't have to know this.
After they finished their meal, the doctor took the initiative to clean up the mess and threw the cutlery into the dishwasher. Danny waited alone at the table, watching the doctor's back. The doctor washed his hands for a full two minutes, which was enough to prove that he was upset. At one point Danny thought the doctor was going to back off. But in fact, the doctor kept turning his head to check on Danny from time to time while washing his hands, to make sure he had no intention of going back. When going upstairs, the doctor took the initiative to grab Danny's hand.
Sometimes Danny really doesn't get it. The doctor is crazy, but he's just right, like the ideal lover Danny's dreamed of for twenty years.
A day later, Danny climbed back onto the doctor's bed. He took off his shirt calmly, half-curled himself lazily, and tucked himself into the quilt. He's so used to this kind of thing, even if it's just casual, it's like a seduction. However, doctors cannot detect it. The doctor sat slightly cramped on the edge of the bed, with slight unease and concern for Danny in his drifting eyes, but no desire.
Danny is bored. He kicked the doctor lightly: "You go down. If you refuse me, we can't sleep together."
Danny was just complaining indiscriminately. He didn't expect the doctor to listen to him and actually get up and go downstairs. When he went upstairs again, he brought Danny's blanket and added a spare set of duvet covers from the closet. The doctor spread them on the floor together and fell asleep by himself. Danny watched on the bed in silence the entire time. It was like a punishment, but who was punished and who was the judge, Danny couldn't tell.
He threw a pillow to the doctor, and the doctor quickly caught it when he heard the wind. He turned around, saw that Danny was still looking at him, smiled at him, and said, "Good night."
Danny replied dryly, "Good night."
He turned off the light.
In the dark, Danny opened his eyes. He remembered the conversation about the definition of a cat a week ago. Kuze's warm and stretched smile was gradually replaced by doubt and anxiety after the cat's response. He remembered that Kusei gave in time and time again, and was overwhelmed by Danny's disappointment time and time again. Danny is wronged, he is in love with a lunatic. But he felt that the lunatic loved him too. This made him even more aggrieved.
He even felt guilty for not being crazy enough.
Danny turned sideways in the doctor's direction. The moonlight shone in from behind him, and the snow outside reflected a shallow layer of light indoors. Danny used that light to trace the doctor's blurred profile with his eyes. He is so handsome. Danny didn't have much concept of beauty and ugliness for Asians before, and even had some face blindness. But the more familiar he was with the doctor's face, the more unique he felt, and the more he felt a strange beauty from it.
I am helpless. Danny thought.
He lifted the quilt and strode down, but the figure who was supposed to be sleeping sharply turned over and sat up.
"What's wrong?" The doctor's voice was sober as if he had never fallen asleep.
Danny didn't answer. He lifted the doctor's blanket and squeezed himself firmly into Kuze's arms. He put his hands on Kuze's shoulders and buried his face in Kuze's chest. The floor was slightly cold, and the chill seeped in through the thin quilt cover, but Kuze and he were both warm.
"It's okay, go to sleep. It'll be fine tomorrow." Danny curled up in the doctor's arms and whispered.
Kuze responded softly. Danny felt his palm fall behind his back. The palm was hot at first, and it even sweated. Gradually, he couldn't feel the temperature anymore. Maybe the doctor calmed down, or maybe he became just as hot.
Danny closed his eyes, thinking, he's going to try harder. If "cat" is the only obstacle between them, then Danny will smash the concept of "cat" and rebuild the impression of cats and people in Kuze's world. He wanted to force the doctor to look at reality, to see Danny himself in the cat's vision. Danny would teach him how to name a man who was five feet seven inches tall, weighed a hundred pounds, and was in love with him.
He will be his lover.