Cat K | Chapter 14

My name is K.

In the world I was originally from, I had the name「Park」. The witch hag called me 「Blackie」, and the humans in this place mostly called me 「Butterfly」, or I was just called 「Cat」. Sometimes they even call me with「tch, tch, tch」. They were consistently tacky and inelegant names, but I paid them no mind. My name was K no matter what they called me.

I didn’t think names were so important.

Even if someone would call me by that orc-cat’s name, 「Ruby」, I wouldn’t become an orc-cat. Also, if I was called 「Simon」, I wouldn’t turn into a human with a rough build. Therefore, which name I was called in particular wasn’t important.

Of course, just because I said the name wasn’t important doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. Because, inevitably, there will be a situation where you need to call someone, or you yourself are called. You could call out to your friend walking ahead of you with an 「Oi!」 or 「Hey!」, maybe even 「Dude!」, but calling your friend’s name is more convenient. And when you’re thinking about someone, rather than 「That person did that.」,  thinking 「*** did that.」 is better. Or not.

And so, call my name.

“…….”

“……”

Sugar Prince was silent. A helpless feeling came over me. I squinted at his golden eyes and increased my wordless pressure.

Come on and call my name. Come on.

But even with my pressure, I didn’t know how to get Sugar Prince’s mouth to open. He had always understood me like a ghost, but this time he didn’t understand at all. Frustration flaring up, I snapped my head away from Sugar Prince.

Bad guy. Useless guy. Guy with no right to be a sugar daddy.

I had the wrong idea of this guy up till now. Someone like him had no right to be the sugar prince of a beautiful and superior cat like me. He had no right to stroke my silky fur, nor to play with my tail. Calling that grade schooler twerp so easily, Rosemary, Rosemary. I say, hmph. Hmph. Poop-head.

“Is something not to your taste?”

 

Sugar Prince asked this in a low voice. Instead of replying with a Nyaong, I swatted away his hand that was stroking my back. A guy with no right to touch me dares to impudently try to stroke my fur. Absurd!

I expressed my fury at Sugar Prince, who was looking at his rejected hand with a hardening gaze, hiss—, and started to walk away. My insides were boiling as I circled Sugar Prince, and with every step I took, my frustration piled even higher. No matter how much I tried to calm down, I couldn’t manage it in the least.

Sugar Prince watched me intently as I circled around him. I paced, pretending that I didn’t notice when our gazes met occasionally. I showed my anger to the best of my ability and hissed, hhgk—!

Actually, this wasn’t particularly Sugar Prince’s fault. I knew that too.

No matter how well he could pick up on my moods, it was unreasonable for him to understand the meaning of the words ‘My name is K, hurry up and call me by my name.’ Even though I knew this, I felt both hurt and sad. Since I was hurt and sad, I felt frustrated. Since I felt frustrated, I also got angry.

I momentarily stopped and studied the collars spread out on the ground.

Since I had been bad-tempered all day, these items were spread out by the merchant Sugar Prince had called. Normally, they would have put me in a good mood, and I would have picked one I liked. However, there was no way I could look at that sort of thing now. Rather, it just made me more frustrated. And so, as if trying to shut up the loud collars, I kicked at them with my feet. As I hissed and threw the collars about, the merchant’s face quickly turned a shade of dark blue.

Right now, as I looked around, I could also see several completely destroyed feather pens.

Once operation collar had failed, they were the feather pens Sugar Prince had taken out and waved in front of me. Instead of excitedly chasing them, I snatched them away at once and took out my frustration on them. Only as I ripped apart the feathers with my teeth while glaring at Sugar Prince did the guy realize the severity of the situation.

I jumped onto a sofa on one side of the room and curled up into a ball.

As I sneakily opened my eyes, Sugar Prince was calmly watching me. Seeing his slightly hardened expression, I feel slightly bad for him. But I had already steeled my heart. Whether I was still half asleep after waking up from a nap with him or fully alert, there was no doubt I was going to shred his chest into rags. 

Hiss—!

Until you call my name, we will sleep in separate rooms, so don’t come closer! 

I threw out a savage warning and closed my eyes. I was between soft cushions, so it wasn’t cold or uncomfortable, but without Sugar Prince’s body heat and the sound of his heartbeat, the thought that I was lonely nonchalantly came to mind. I flicked my tail as I thought about how this was all Sugar Prince’s fault.

Huh?

I opened my eyes roundly at the scene I saw as soon as I opened my eyes. I had clearly fallen asleep on the couch last night, so I didn’t know why I was seeing Sugar Prince’s face right in front of me. Lifting up my head and looking around, I was lying on Sugar Prince’s chest like always. Heol. Why is it like this?

I was trying to think about what on earth had happened when Sugar Prince opened his eyes slowly. I was flustered and speedily closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

It was even possible that I had climbed up onto Sugar Prince’s chest bed unconsciously in my sleep. Even if it were not so, the entire time before I fell asleep, I was tossing and turning because I missed Sugar Prince’s chest. If by chance I really did storm out and leave him only to come back in my sleep, it would be so embarassing. Well, I didn’t have to think of it so negatively like that. Maybe Sugar Prince had moved me secretly. Yes. That’s probably what happened. 

I was confusedly wracking my brains over this when a large hand started brushing my back. Every time it stroked me, it was the sensation of my frustration melting blissfully away like snow. It was dangerous. Like this, I might end up cleanly forgiving that guy. As if I had just woken up, I opened my eyes slowly. After looking at him and blinking my eyes once or twice, I would make a surprised motion and jump to the ground. Then, I would hiss a threat at Sugar Prince, continuing to make a fuss and show my anger like yesterday. After that, even if I had crawled up here on my own in my sleep, he wouldn’t see me as easy. This was my thought-process as I opened my eyes. But the golden eyes I faced gently relaxed and permeated with a smile.

“You’ve woken up.”

As I absent-mindedly stared into those beautifully smiling golden eyes, I unconsciously let out a meow at those whispered words. Nyaang—  A few seconds later, when I started as my senses came back to me, my throat was already rumbling with a purr. I thought that this was only part of my plan as I purred at the hand stroking my head and body. I would never ever give up on getting him to call my name, nor had I completely been won over by his smiling eyes.

Well…in any case, this and that had happened, and I gave up my plans to use separate rooms.

Truthfully, thinking about it now, using separate rooms wasn’t a good idea in the first place. Didn’t they say this? No matter how big the fight a husband and wife get into, you must still sleep in the same bed. It turns out all those words had a profound meaning within them. I decided to aggressively follow that advice.

Nyaang—

I am definitely still mad at you, so don’t forget that!

I said this with a mean face, but his golden eyes smiled beautifully yet again. I really couldn’t understand why that guy smiled with his eyes like that. Just who was he trying to seduce? Well, since he only smiled in front of me, it would be fine. 

But what could I do to let Sugar Prince know my name?

Looking at Sugar Prince’s personality, it didn’t seem like he would make up whatever name he wanted for me. When he first brought me here, there was a maid who asked if he should name me. At that time, Sugar Prince had just looked at me stilly and wordlessly shaken his head. Truthfully, I had been full of worry that I would be called a name like 「Sebastian」and  let out a sigh of relief.

Looking at that, my Sugar Prince was a guy with quite a bit of common sense. I mean, looking at how he didn’t thoughtlessly give me a weird name. How was he so nice, gentle, and able, but also loaded with common sense? He was a bit timid, but so what? Everyone has their weak points.

I wanted to return quickly to being human. Then I could even tell Sugar Prince my name.

What would Sugar Prince say if I became a human?

Would he be surprised and run away in a rush? Maybe he would even get mad at me and tell me to give him the cat. I could even be caught by the soldiers and be put in jail. Who would believe that a human had been put under a curse and turned into a cat?

……Anywho, I didn’t think that there was a need to be in a rush to return to being a human. It wasn’t bad staying a little closer to Sugar Prince in his loneliness. At any rate. At any rate.

 

QAQ next chapter is 12 pages raw, wish me luck! I actually sorta had this chapter ready at like 6am this morning (only bc my dear editor KagamiTL stays up at ungodly hours to do my chapters for me <3), but I had to go on a college visit today and just got back T.TTT It was so cold/windy today, and my parents wanted to park for free so of course even the walk back to the car was like 20 minutes…