Like Cat And Dog {Finished}

Chapter 3

You sit in your apartment, silence shrouding you like a blanket. You feel cold and restless, waiting a hallway away from Yoongi. Your fingers twitch impatiently along the edge of your chair. You need something to do - waiting around like this only makes you feel useless, pointless even.

Raising yourself from your chair, you grab a coat and a lead, and head outside with your dog in tow. You can’t sit around in your apartment right now. It’s too quiet, almost haunted. The rain has stopped, but the air is still damp and chill, and you feel glad of the protection your coat offers. You have decided to search for Yoongi’s cat. At least doing this will give you some sort of purpose. In your head you try to construct a route that will cover as much ground as possible, opting for a loop you know that will take you in a circle around the apartment block. The wind buffets your hair as you set out, but you pull your hood up against the gale, and soon your swift pace warms up your stiff muscles.

Keeping an eye open for any sign of a stray cat, you allow all the thoughts that have been sloshing about in your brain to settle. For the past couple of hours you have felt as if your brain was mixing up a cocktail – your own personal blend of anxiety and doubt, shaken not stirred. You allow the fresh, rain-soaked air to penetrate into your lungs. It sobers you. You try to give some kind of order to your thoughts, setting out your questions and answers in the same way you would lay out a plan for an essay.

First question: Why is Yoongi so worried about his cat? You know what it’s like to be deeply attached to a pet, but for Yoongi, someone who is normally so restrained, to react in such a way seemed a little odd. It was almost as if he were mourning the loss of a family member. Perhaps the cat was the only family he had. After all, he had said that he’d looked after himself for five years. You recall the emptiness of Yoongi’s apartment, the lack of photographs and pictures on the walls, and your heart suddenly fills with grief on his behalf. 

Second question: Why is Yoongi so against you trying to help him? Is it pride? Or something else? You can’t decide, but trying to decipher his behaviour puts you on edge. One minute he’s acting like you’re best friends, the next moment he’s treating you like some three-week-old “present” his cat has dragged in. 

Final question: Why does your heart get so tight and jittery when you’re with him? You want to skip this question. You’d rather not answer it – rather not think about the way your heart had leaped a good few inches from its usual position when he touched you; not think about the way his dark, star-spotted eyes punched your heart into the pit of your stomach every time they appraised you. No. You wouldn’t think about that, ever. Because thinking about that required you put a name to those feelings. A name that you will never utter. 

You suddenly become aware of your surroundings, and realise that you stopped keeping an eye out for the cat about three streets back. Breathing a sigh to the empty heavens, you turn back, and walk through the streets that you managed to skip in a total daze. There was no point searching if you weren’t thorough. Still no sight of the cat - not even a whisker. 

When you finally return to your apartment you’re exhausted and ravenous. It’ then that you realise that all you’ve had to eat since breakfast was the scone in that café from earlier.

You plunder your cupboards, looking for something quick to prepare. Your dog sniffs around your feet as you scout the kitchen. He’s hungry too.

“I know,” you reassure him, as he snuffles at the floor, like some food will magically appear there if he’s diligent enough.

Grabbing a can from the back of your cupboard, you wrinkle your nose. “I guess it’s soup,” you tell your dog, who cocks his head in return.

As you wait for your meal to heat in the microwave, you pour a dog bowl full of brown-coloured pellets, and lower it to the floor, where the food is immediately inhaled.