Kosuke knew his mum would be against it because of his allergies, plus his dad wasn’t so keen on animals.
In contrast to Kosuke, Satoru was quick to come to a decision.
‘I’ll ask my mum.’
‘That’s not fair!’
Kosuke’s reaction was fuelled by something that had happened at swimming club a few days before. A girl Kosuke was keen on saw Satoru swimming in the advanced class and murmured, ‘He’s pretty cool.’
Satoru could swim fast, he didn’t have any allergies, and his father and mother were both kind people, so if he took the cat home they were sure to accept it. So not only did the girl Kosuke liked praise Satoru, but now he would get to keep this soft, tiny creature – that just wasn’t fair, was it?
When Kosuke told him this, Satoru looked hurt, as if he’d been slapped. Kosuke felt ashamed.
He’d simply been getting something off his chest, that was all.
‘I mean, I found him first,’ he finally blurted out.
To which Satoru, honest to a fault, said, ‘I’m sorry. Yes, you did find him first, Kosuke, so he’s your cat.’
Kosuke regretted having snapped at his friend, but all he could manage was a small nod. They parted a little awkwardly, and Kosuke carried the cardboard box with the kitten inside it home.
His mother, surprisingly, wasn’t against keeping the kitten.
‘Perhaps it’s because of the swimming, but you haven’t had any allergic reactions lately, so as long as we keep the house really clean, I think it should be okay.’
The main obstacle was his father.
‘No way! A cat? Are you insane?’
That was his immediate reaction, and he refused to change his mind.
‘What if he scratches everything with his claws? Looking after a cat costs money, you know! I’m not running a photo studio to feed some cat!’
Kosuke’s mother supported her son, but that seemed to make his father even more resistant to the idea. Before they had dinner, he ordered Kosuke to take the cat back where he’d found it.
So Kosuke, on the verge of tears, trudged back to the slope below the housing complex with the cardboard box held tightly to his chest.
But put the box back under the sign? He couldn’t bring himself to do that. And so he found himself heading for his friend’s house.
‘My dad said I can’t keep the cat.’ Standing at the door sobbing, Kosuke finally managed to get the words out.
‘I get it,’ Satoru said, and nodded. ‘Leave it to me. I have a great idea!’
Satoru disappeared inside the house. Kosuke waited at the door, guessing that he was going to ask his mother if he could keep the cat, but then Satoru reappeared, with his swimming bag slung across his shoulder.
‘Satoru, where are you going with that?’ his mother called out from the kitchen. ‘We’re going to have dinner as soon as your father gets home!’
‘You go ahead and eat!’ Satoru called out, slipping into his trainers at the entrance. ‘Kosuke and I are going to run away from home for a while!’
‘What?’
Satoru’s mother was always so graceful and gentle. Kosuke had never heard her sound so stern.
She seemed to be in the middle of deep-frying tempura, so although she wasn’t happy about it, she couldn’t come to the front door. Instead, she just popped her head out from the kitchen.
‘Ko-chan, what is he talking about?’ she asked.
But Kosuke was equally clueless.
‘Come on,’ Satoru said. He pulled Kosuke by the hand and they ran out of the house.
‘I read this book at school the other day,’ Satoru explained. ‘A boy found a stray puppy and his father got angry and told him to take it back where he had found it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it so he ran away from home. In the middle of the night, his father came looking for him and, in the end, he said he would let him keep it, as long as he looked after it himself.’
Satoru rattled on excitedly.
‘What we’re doing is exactly the same, Kosuke, so I’m sure it’ll work out! The only difference is it’s a stray cat, not a dog. And you have me to help you.’
Apart from it being a kitten, not a puppy, Kosuke had the feeling that his situation was quite different from the one in the book, though he was, admittedly, quite attracted by the idea of his father feeling sad and giving in if he ran away.
He decided to go along with the plan. The first thing they did was go to a small supermarket and buy some cat food. ‘We’d like food for a kitten,’ they told the man at the cash register, and the man, whose hair was dyed red, said, ‘Try this,’ and handed them a can of paste-like meat. The man had looked intimidating at first but turned out to be unexpectedly kind.
Then they had dinner in the park of the housing complex. Satoru had grabbed some bread and sweets from his house, and the two of them made do with that. They opened the can of cat food for the kitten.
‘So, by “middle of the night”, I’m guessing we need to hang out here until about twelve.’
Satoru had prudently packed an alarm clock in his bag.
‘But won’t my father have a total fit if I stay out that late?’
Kosuke’s father seemed friendly enough outside the house, but with his family he was an obstinate man with a short fuse.
‘What are you talking about? We’re doing it for the cat, aren’t we? And besides, he’ll forgive you in the end, so it’ll all work out.’
In the book, the father had forgiven his son, but caught up in Satoru’s blind enthusiasm, Kosuke didn’t feel able to say what was on his mind, namely that his father had a very different personality, and he doubted that the plan would succeed.
As they whiled away the time playing with the cat in the park, a few people, out for a stroll, called out to them, among them a woman walking her dogs.
‘What are you doing out this late? Your family will be worried,’ she said.
They were too well known in the neighbourhood. Kosuke started to wonder if they’d chosen the wrong spot, though Satoru didn’t seem at all concerned.
‘Don’t worry about us,’ he told the woman. ‘We’re running away!’
‘Is that so? Well, you’d better go home right now!’
After a fifth woman had come up to them, Kosuke finally raised an objection.
‘Satoru, I don’t think this is how you run away from home.’
‘I know, but in the book the father came looking for them in a park.’
‘Yeah, but this doesn’t make any sense.’
At that moment, they heard a voice calling through the cool air: ‘Satoru!’ It was his mother. ‘It’s late, and enough is enough. Come home now! You’ve got Kosuke’s family worried, too!’
Satoru flinched. ‘There’s no way they could have found us so quickly!’
‘You didn’t think they’d find us?’
Had Satoru seriously believed they could hide from their parents when there were all these strangers around who seemed to know them?
‘I’m sorry, Mum!’ Satoru shouted. ‘But we can’t be found yet!
‘Come on, Kosuke!’ He grabbed the cardboard box and ran with it to the gate leading out of the park. Kosuke could do nothing but follow. It felt like they were straying from the storyline Satoru had described, but there should still be time to put that right. Surely there would be. Well, maybe.