Chapter 43: That Cat Frost
Sos, Ka-san’s B-day was love-day. An, like, our schedules got kinda wild. Schoolday (Love Day’s, like, a Friday), a bunch a’ grind days, so catching a few ticks f’r the festives’re kinda a thing. But we did get a chance t’ gather up in the mornin’.
“Alright, one! Two! Three!”
“Congrats, Ka-san!” I’m shoutin’ while the confetti rained.
“Ugh, backache.” I guess it takes ‘em hard. Better get my prep on, f’r eventually. “The hair’s not bad, but I really want to get it re-dyed, heh heh.” Ka-san fiddles the sharp edga a’ her bob, but while she’s sorta just standin’ there, a python a’ the smoochin’ strikes.
“Your hair is fine,” Mom said ‘fore she stole another kiss. “You look great.”
“Yes, yes,” Ka-san said, laughing and poundin’ her fists like she’s throwin’ a hissy. “But I still want that pink! Teal’s no good for me!”
“Of course, of course,” Mom answered. “Get your hair dyed, and I’ll be waiting outside. It’s love day, after all.”
And that meant vistin’ their fav’rit spot on a top-a-the-mornin’ date. Mom told me somethin’, later; I guess it was prob’ly on her mind then, like.
“When you’re young, you think you want someone beautiful. But things like that are temporary, right? But they’re not.Time passes, and you spend it with someone, and you get the chance to see every second you’ve spent, written on their face. That smile of conspirators that belongs only to you. And you realize: beauty is something you share with someone. It’s something you find because you want them. It can go forever.”
Those little times where, like, Mom really dig deeps, really thinks personal, I kind see someone a little diff’rent. We got stuff in common, kinda; just happenin’ in some other place, at our own sorta times.
But spring is sprungun up all over.
‘Course, Kace an’ I aint got much we can do f’r Love Day, even with Mom, like, makin’ concessions in our fam’s trads f’r those times when there aint no one in our lives, like.
“But I did wanna give this t’ ya. It aint the best flower I got, tho; that’s… That’s you.”
“Awww…” She takes it an’ leads a hand on the edge a’ the flowers. “That’s so sweet. And also corny, but mostly sweet.”
“Hey, Kite… Do you have a perfect date?”
“Tuesday, second week a’ Spring. Coupla’ days back. It aint too hot, but it aint too cold, neither,” I answer. The sky’s got that good high blue goin’ on, everythin’s gone full green… It’s got that potential, you dig? The flowers are burstin, some slow-burnin’ flames that’ll carry late inta the spin, some fireworks that fizzle out in just a day’r two. “An you got that green, you dig? ‘Nature’s first green is gold,’ an, like, I aint big on that cat Frost, but he got a clock right. Not, like, literal gold, dig? Not a gold-green, like you get in Fall, but, like… Precious an’ little an’ glossy-like. ‘S a green yer sad t’ say goodbye to, but if it stuck ‘round… You think it’d still be nice?...I guess I do.” I wanna think stuff that sticks aint bad. Like, that sorta summer green, after it, that’s not a bad green. I think it’d be kinda sad, if it was somethin’ you only liked ‘cause you couldn’t keep it. That’d mean you didn’t really like it at all, dig?
“Kiiiiite….” She chuckles an’ snuggles on up. “Not like that! I meant a date you’d go on with, say, me.”
“...Hmmm… You got anythin’ you want? Cause this’s just right f’r me. Just you an’ me an’ a cool spring air an’ all.”
“...Same. Except with more kisses.”
“I’ll deliver a heap a smooches f’r the job.”
We were actually, like, all’a us, out a’ the house then. See, Akira’d gotten a ring-up. An why not spend a love day w’ your girl, huh?
“This is nice.”
“Yeah, it is. The estate’s maybe a little stuffy, but we’ll make our own fun,” Ulrike says.
‘Cause we’d gone out to the Von Haunt’s old digs, dig?
“I’m really happy you called me out today, you know,” Akira says. It weren’t that long ago he’d just sorta snuck back inta her life an’ all. Maybe, deep down, he was a little scared she wouldn’t. “I wouldn’t want Love Day to go by, even for a second, without the person I love most.”
“...You’re in a mushy mood,” she says, but with a smile. It aint like she minds.
“It is love day, after all! What good is it if you don’t have a romantic fancy!”
There aint too much there, so they end up talkin’ an’ flirtin’ over chess.
“Do you know why I love you?” Akira asks her at one point.
“Because I’m beautiful and we have similar taste in tats?” Kinda a joke, but kinda sincere. “I do always love yours.”
“Your taste in tats is great. And you are always beautiful. But… It’s more than that.” He laughs. “Better. Even if it’s a selfish reason… I love you because you got mad at me. And you talked to me and wanted better. And...Until then, I hadn’t thought of love as something that pushes you to be better.”
And those weren’t lines; there weren’t nothin’ insincere ‘bout that.
“It’s not a bad sort of love to have, really. It makes me sound cool.”
“Well, obviously,” he answers, with a chortle. The game don’t really mean much.
“Happy love day, Darling.” Uncle Johnny’s got a couple a’ old flames here, an’ at this point, it’s just sorta a sweet hello an’ a little festive cheer… Or… Summin. Whatever makes folks happy, right?
But let’s give it up f’r the ladies that show us all how it’s done, dig?
‘Cause of course they aint callin’ their love day done w’ just the post birthday date! They run off t’ some corner a’ the estate.Private enough I kinda missed some of it.
So, uh, ‘pologies mega for that, my dude… But I think it was prob’ly reminiscin’. A lot a time’s gone by f’r ‘em; not just sorta external-like, where time happens, but in, like the eternity you get when you feel somethin’ real strong. I did hear somethin Ka-san was saying, as they lay up in some little garden all their own:
“I think the clouds remembered their shapes from when we met, don’t you?”
“I barely remember them. I had a pretty girl to look at, so I was only kind of paying attention…Though! Hey! That one’s a cocktail glass with an oversized umbrella, though.”
“It kind of is!” Ka-san laughs. “I think it’s sort of a brain-slurping elephant demon! Or a Funyarinpa!”
That gets a laugh from Mom, too, until they’re rolled up close in the grass.
“I’m not falling for that! I’m not falling for that again!” She stops, an they’ve gone real quiet f’r a tick. “I’m real glad I’ve had you with me, every step of the way.”
“Me, too.”
An’ that felt like time f’r Kite to skeedadle cooly, dig?
Once Kacie had to split, I ended up just takin’ pictures. They got some radical gardens out there; been honed from centuries a’ folks carin for the place.
An I even caught sight a’ one of the local ghosts, paintin’ all alone up on the walk. Wonder if he’s thinkin’ a past Love Days.
Closer t’ later -- well, aint we all closer t’ later, my dude? All the time, reachin’ fer a time that’ll never really be here, it just dissolves, like, gentle as a dream into the present. But it was some flick time.
“Relying on love day only for romance will bite someone, sooner or later. I’d rather it not be me,” ‘s how Mom put it. “I’m not really into sappy movies, though.”
“You can’t fool me! You get all misty-eyed whenever an anime gets all sentimental about friendship,” Ka-san interjects.
“Impossible. I’ve never once cried at an anime friendship speech. Who needs the power of friendship when you’re not using it to power immortality?”
“Trip, Mom. All’s you need is love. ‘S a swell thing, just by itself, bigger ‘n you can pen in, small enough you’ve always got it on ya once you have some,” I point out. The flick’s kinda a big group piece, lotsa dudes havin’ their own love stories. Suprised Ka-san weren’t gonna insist on somethin; it aint like there’s no flicks romantic a’ the animovin’ kind.
“Well, later! Later! But for now, I’m not hung up on the particulars. I just want to snuggle with my boys.”
“Ohohoho,” Maggie laughs kinda like he’s been practicin’ it. A stage thing, kinda. “It’s the same! I’m overflowing with love for my dear family!”
Awwww.
When the flick’s windin down, I kinda got to wonderin’. Maggie’s still a kid, sure, but he’s kinda, like, been watchin the cats around him. An I think we all sorta got an approach to love…
“There someone you sweet on, Magpie?”
“I am sweet on the world, dear brother!” He announces. Round a’ applause, good answer.
“In particular-like?” I lean up on him, grinnin’ like I gotta put the pressure on.
“...Well, I have an intended for a flower today,” he says, sorta secretive. “If she’ll take it.”
“Good luck, bro. You got this.” I give ‘m a little nudge. He does, like anyone’s gonna turn my kid bro down.
“...Kite.” He asked, after a long quiet where it was just the credits rollin’ by. “You love Kacie, right?... Do you think you’ll ever love someone else?”
“...Donno.” I don’t got a plan to, anyway; don’t think I could. An… I don’t think I’d wanna, like, when we’re a thing, dig? “She’s my main squeeze, you know. Far-out chick like that… Wouldn’t wanna hurt her or nothin. But time’s long, dig? I aint gonna say what’d happen, far away…”
I sigh. I don’t wanna think on it. That’s somethin’ I can’t stop an’ I can’t change. I just wanna make this time, in the time a’ the heart, last good an’ long as I can.
“...Do you think it’d be wrong if someone did?”
“Love, if you do it right -- an you got ‘em like your dudes, an’ everyone know’s what’s what an’ that’s cool an’ you know it’s cool, f’r real, an’ everyone can really say that… Then, I don’t think it’s gonna be wrong whatever it looks like.”
An’ Magpie smiles t’himself. All ya need’s love in a world like this.
Kacie decided t’ plant ol’ cuttin’s from that daisy I gave her… Back then, when things sorta clicked together.
“I want to be able to keep an eye on it. I want to see it grow… Something like that,” she adds, with kinda a sheepish grin.
“Sure, sure… Hey. You know… If you wanna… Whenever you wanna use my pad, you can. An… It c’n look like stuff you want, too.” I offer her, kinda nervous. When’s too soon f’r stuff like that, anyhoodle? Didn’t she, like, sorta already move in? ‘S that creepy?
...But she don’t have to live like it aint her place, neither.
“OK. Ok. I can do that. I… might have had a few ideas.”
An we do a big ol’ overhaul from there. Furniture flies. Up goes a couch t’ sit on, an’ a new shelf, and Kacie’s makeup. Just a hint more pink.
‘S a pretty groovy pad. Just the right amount a Thing t’ it all, dig? Like, there’s a gap b’tween just, like, a house, which’s sorta made a walls and rooves an’ folks livin’ in it, and a
pad, which, if you dig me, is all on the essential Thingness of it, as a cool place where you’re you an’ you can just chill.
“Maybe we’ll get a fish,” she adds, puttin’ the bowl on the table at the bedfoot. “It’ll be nice and green and homey.”
“...Yeah. Sure is.” Homey, huh? Yeah, I think whatever sorta pad we wanted, it’s pad-like cause it’s our home.
