NOVEL NEXT Chapter 28: Mochi
What am I supposed to do now? Do I lie...or?
“Uhm...no I wasn’t.” I try to lie as I sit myself upright on Sam’s bed, my heart pounding heavily in my chest.
“So you are saying you weren’t purring for almost two hours straight while I was scratching your head?” Sam follows suit and sits herself right next to me. She’s clearly not buying it, well that was to be expected…
“Hmmm…” I turn my gaze away from her, towards the pile of plushies next to her wall. Thinking about what to do. I should probably tell her, but not here...
“If you don’t want to tell me…”
“Wait…” I interrupt her and I sigh. “Can we talk about this at my place?”
Sam appears to be in thought for a couple of seconds.
“It’s not that I don’t trust your parents or anything… It’s just that I want my sister to be there, just in case…” Just in case it goes wrong and she dumps me…
She smiles, seamingly assured by my decision. “I understand. I’ll tell my mom I’ll walk you home.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
she nods and crawls of her bed to go and warn her mom.
In the meantime I take my phone and shoot my sister a message.
“Hey sis, I’m coming home in 20 minutes or so. Sam’s coming over too”
It doesn’t take long for her to reply back. “Alright! How did the date go? ;)”
“Pretty good, but I have a bit of a problem”
“How so?”
“I fell asleep with Sam and apparently I was purring.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll be waiting for you. I’ll prepare you some hot coco as well.”
“Thanks sis, you are the best.”
“I know ;)”
I put my phone away, right when I hear footsteps coming back to the room.
“Do you want to go now Amicia?” Sam peaks her head through the door.
I nod. “Yeah, let’s go.”
We head towards the living room together where her parents are watching the television.
“Thanks for letting me join for dinner.”
“No problem, you can come in any time.” Sam’s mom smiles.
“Especially if you bring us Chinese food.” Her dad adds.
Sam rolls with her eyes, which makes me giggle a little. “We’ll be going now!”
“Allright, be safe, ok?”
“Always!” She blows a kiss to her parents and I wave them goodbye.
I put my shoes back on and we leave the building.
“Did you have fun today?” Sam asks, breaking the awkward silence while we are walking towards the closest tram stop.
“I did.”
“That’s good.” Sam smiles awkwardly after which the silence returns.
I do want to engage her a little bit more. But right now I have other things I have to think about.
What will I tell her when we get home?
“Uhm Amicia?” Sam brings me back to reality.
“Yes? What’s wrong?” I see her looking back.
“This cat has been following us for a couple of blocks now.” I follow her stare and well enough, there’s a tiger cat who is following us.
“You want to sniff my clothes?” I tilt my head curiously at the cat’s request but start crouching so it can come and smell my dress. In the meantime Sam is making very weird faces at what’s happening in front of her.
The cat sniffs my dress and gives me a quick meow.
“Oh, I smell familiar to you do I? Huh.” That’s when something in my head clicks.
Pocky.
“Do you want to come with me kitty?” I ask our feline friend.
She meows and gives me a quick nod.
“Let’s go then.” I smile. “Sam, do you mind if we take the cat with us?”
Sam’s still standing there with her eyes open wide. “I have no clue what is happening, but of course. I’m not going to stop you. More cats equals more happiness.”
That last comment makes me blush quite a bit.
The cat follows us along to the closest tram stop where we patiently wait on the tram. A couple people do look quite weirdly at our fellowship, especially when the cat gets on the tram with us and occupies the seat next to us.
It’s still pretty silent between me and Sam but when we got on the tram Sam offered me her hand, which I gladly accepted. When we near the stop close to my home I give Sam a little squeeze. “Next stop is for us.”
“Alright.” She smiles and gives me a squeeze back.
The cat gets off her seat and puts herself in front of me. When we press the halt button all of us move to the door and get out, with the cat taking the lead.
“It’s in that apartment block over there.” I point at the building in the distance. Dimly lit by the setting sun.
We start walking hand in hand towards the apartment, with the cat a meter in front of us. Looking back occasionally to see if we’ve stopped already. She meows.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just in that building there.” I point towards it again.
She runs ahead which makes Sam giggle a bit.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She smiles, making me pout a bit.
When we arrive at the apartment we swiftly go inside towards the elevator. But when we want to enter, our cat friend stops.
“What’s wrong?” I bend down towards her.
She meows. “You aren’t scared of trams but you are scared of elevators?”
Sam can’t hold back her laughter.
“Ok, ok. I’ll carry you then.” I pick her up and take her into the elevator.
She tensen up a little when the doors close and the elevator starts moving, but overall I think she feels pretty safe in my arms.
“It doesn’t take that long.” Just when I say that, the elevator beeps to notify us of our arrival.
“See, that wasn’t that bad.” I smile and walk over to unlock the door.
“We’re home!”
The moment the door opens the cat sprints inside, immediately after I can hear loud meowing.
“Welcome! But what in the…” I hear my sister call out.
I beckon Sam to come in.
When I get a clear view of the living room I can see Pocky being licked furiously by the tiger cat. I can hear them both purring from here.
“I think we found her mom.”
“Wow.” Nikki gets up from the sofa to look at what’s happening behind her.
“I think you did indeed.” Élise comes to stand next to me and Sam. “Hey, I’m Élise, this little derp’s sister.” she gently pats my head and extends a hand towards her.
“H-hello, my name is Samantha, uh, Sam’s fine.” She shakes my sister’s hand, clearly a bit intimidated by my sister, she is a head taller than Sam so I guess that’s why.
“Normally we kiss other people on the cheek when we first meet, but I didn’t want my sis to think I was stealing you from her.” She gives Sam a wink, making my face go bright red.
“So I guess we have a new cat now?” Nikki walks over to us as well. “And I’m the big derp’s girlfriend. Nikki.”
“Nice to meet you too.” Sam blushes.
“I guess we do.” Élise continues the conversation. “Should we give her a name?”
“Probably.” Nikki shrugs. “Maybe let Amicia decide?”
“M-me?”
I go closer to our cats and crouch down.
“Hmm. Pocky, Pocky, Pocky.”
Pocky tilts her head towards me while still getting licked by her mom.
“If you are Pocky… What do you think of… Hmmm… Mochi?”
Pocky’s mom looks over to me and gives me an agreeing meow. “You like that? Good.” I smile.
“You know, you didn’t have to name her after a Japanese snack right?” Élise is giggling a little.
“I think it sounds cute…”
“It definitely does.” Nikki smiles. Sam just nods along.
“Anyways, to the other point on the agenda…” Élise walks away towards the kitchen. “I prepared your hot coco.”
Oh right… I almost forgot about that.
I walk away a bit and look over to Sam, gently touching my choker while doing so. My heart is pounding in my throat.
“Sam…” I sigh as I bring my hands to the back of my neck to unclasp my choker. “I’m sorry I kept this from you…” I take off my choker, revealing my feline features.
Sam approaches without saying anything but gets stopped by Nikki.
“No, Nikki, let her, she’s not going to hurt me.”
Nikki nods and lets Sam pass. She halts half a meter in front of me.
“C-can I touch them?” She whispers.
I nod. “Y-you can.”
She comes even closer and very softly runs her hand over one of my ears, making it twitch a little. Sam pulls back her hand slightly
“I-it just tickled a bit.” Making Sam pet my ear again.
Élise rejoined Nikki, with the hot chocolate in her hands, silently watching our exchange.
“They are pretty soft.” She says silently with a smile.
“You don’t think I’m...weird?”
Sam suddenly takes me in for a hug.
“You know, a girl I like once told me, ‘what is normality, really’... You are you, Amicia, a fluffy tail and some ears aren’t going to change that. I do understand why you hid them though.”
“Th-thanks… also… Amicia wasn’t always m-my name…” I can see Élise and Nikki react pretty surprised to this part of the confession. I actually can’t believe I said it myself either. “So?” Sam gives me a squeeze. “You are Amicia now aren’t you? I don’t give a toss about who people thought you were in the past. The only thing I know is that I love you.”
“I love you too.” Now it’s my turn to squeeze.
We stay there for a couple of minutes before my sis interrupts us.
“Amicia, your coco is getting cold.” Élise is still standing there with a couple of mugs in her hand
“You might want to drink that up then, we can continue cuddling later.”
“Miss Sam, there’s some for you as well.” Nikki states.
“Oh! Thanks!” Sam slowly releases me and I do the same.
“A catgirl wouldn’t have been my first guess though.” She casually says while taking over the mugs from my sister.
“Oh? What were you thinking then?”
“I was thinking more like... a witch or something? For some reason that sounded more plausible in my head. They can talk to cats too, right?”
“Well,” I casually say when Sam gives me one of the mugs. “I might be both.”
I take a sip from the lukewarm cup with Sam looking extremely confused at me.
Hmm...This is still some pretty good coco.