That wasn't really the whole truth. The truth was I didn't want anyone asking why I wasn't going back to work after the funeral. I'd already been laid off a month earlier and still hadn't found the courage to tell most people. Oliver knew, of course, but even with him I'd started pretending things were better than they were. Every morning I'd open my laptop, send out a handful of applications, get another rejection or, more often, no response at all, and by dinner we'd somehow be talking about my mother again. Grief has a way of swallowing every other problem. Losing your job feels selfish when you've just buried your mom, so eventually I stopped bringing it up altogether. Japan gave me an excuse to disappear for a while without having to explain why I needed to.
Aunt Sachiko had lived alone since my uncle died nearly twenty years ago. Her house sat at the end of a quiet little street where bicycles outnumbered cars and every neighbor seemed to know exactly when everyone else came and went. She looked smaller than I remembered, wrapped in oversized cardigans even though it was warm outside, but otherwise she hadn't changed much. She still apologized before asking me to pass the soy sauce. She still bowed slightly whenever I thanked her for dinner. If I'd only met her that week, I probably would've described her as lonely, but not unhappy.
The cats surprised me.
There were at least ten of them, maybe more. Every evening, just before six, they'd gather outside her front gate without making much noise. They didn't fight over territory, didn't wander around looking for scraps, didn't even meow much. They simply sat there waiting, almost politely, until Aunt Sachiko opened a can of sardines, mixed them carefully into warm rice, divided everything into little bowls and carried them outside. Watching her do it reminded me of someone setting the table for old friends who'd been invited over for dinner.
When I asked the neighbors about them, they laughed as though I'd noticed something charming.
"They've been coming for years," one elderly woman told me. "Those cats adore your aunt."
I believed her because animals usually know kind people. At least that's what everyone says.
Looking back, I think I explained away every strange thing because I needed there to be an explanation.
She hated rain, but not in the ordinary way older people dislike bad weather. Whenever the forecast mentioned showers she'd quietly walk through the house closing curtains before the clouds had even rolled in. She wasn't worried about the windows being left open or laundry drying outside. She just didn't seem to like the idea of being visible while it rained. I asked her once if storms made her nervous, expecting some story about surviving a typhoon years ago.
She smiled politely.
"I just don't like being seen in the rain."
I laughed because I thought something had been lost in translation.
She didn't laugh with me.
Then there were the sardines.
She always rinsed the empty tins before throwing them away. That wasn't unusual. My grandmother used to do the same thing so the garbage wouldn't smell. It was what happened afterward that stayed with me. She'd stand at the sink with her back turned, raise her fingertips to her lips, and slowly lick away the little bit of oil that had collected on them. It wasn't greedy or messy. If anything, it looked comforting, almost nostalgic, the way people absentmindedly lick cake batter from a spoon because it reminds them of childhood.
The first time I caught her, she looked over her shoulder and smiled.
"I've become an old woman with strange habits."
"So did my mom," I said, and somehow that felt like enough of an explanation for both of us.
By the second week I wasn't sleeping well. I kept hearing soft footsteps in the hallway long after she'd gone to bed. Once I could've sworn I heard something scratching lightly against the wooden floorboards outside my room, but every time I opened the door the hallway was empty. I'd stand there listening to the house settle around me until I convinced myself old buildings make strange noises and grief makes you notice them.
Oliver called almost every night.
At first he asked whether I was eating properly and whether Aunt Sachiko seemed alright living alone. A few days later he started asking when I was coming home. By the end of the week, I'd somehow stopped talking about my mother entirely and started asking him whether he'd ever heard of something called a bakeneko.
He laughed.
"I thought you went to Japan to get away from horror stories."
"I did."
"So why are you reading folklore at three in the morning?"
I didn't really have an answer for him.
Every version of the story sounded slightly different, but they all shared the same idea. An ordinary house cat grows old enough, or strange enough, to become something else. Some learned to imitate people. Some waited for widows to die so they could take their place. Others simply lingered around lonely houses until people forgot what had always lived there and what had only arrived later.
It sounded ridiculous.
It stayed ridiculous right up until I realized Aunt Sachiko never once called the cats.
Not once.
They always arrived before she did, as though they already knew exactly when dinner would be served.
The day I finally decided to leave, it rained so hard the houses across the street disappeared behind sheets of water. I found Aunt Sachiko sitting by the front door with every curtain in the house drawn shut. She wasn't reading or watching television. She was just sitting there listening to the rain on the roof, her hands folded neatly in her lap as though she were waiting for something to pass.
When I carried my suitcase into the hallway, she looked up and smiled.
"I thought you'd stay a little longer."
There wasn't anything threatening about the way she said it. If anything, she sounded genuinely disappointed. I hugged her goodbye anyway. She smelled faintly of laundry detergent. And sardines.
Coming home felt like waking up from a strange dream. Oliver met me at the airport, I found another job a few weeks later, and life slowly started looking ordinary again. We even adopted a stray cat that had been sleeping outside our apartment building because Oliver insisted she'd already decided we belonged to her. He named her Miso before I had a chance to object.
She was a sweet cat.
She followed me from room to room, curled up against my legs while I worked, and sat beside the kitchen whenever I cooked dinner. I didn't think much of it until one afternoon I bought tuna and she wouldn't touch it. She sniffed the bowl, looked at me as though I'd insulted her, and walked away.
The next day I bought sardines instead.
She ate every bite.
Somewhere along the way, I started eating them too.
I can't tell you exactly when that happened because I honestly don't remember deciding to. One afternoon I opened a can while making lunch and realized the smell didn't bother me anymore. It actually smelled comforting somehow, familiar in a way I couldn't explain. Before I knew it, I was buying them every week without thinking much about it.
Oliver noticed before I did. "You've become obsessed with those things."
"Have I?"
"You've eaten sardines almost every day this week."
I laughed because I thought he was exaggerating.
Then, while I was washing the dishes that evening, I caught myself lifting my fingers toward my mouth to lick away the last little bit of oil.
It was such a small thing that I probably wouldn't have noticed if Oliver hadn't gone quiet behind me. I looked over my shoulder. He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking at Miso.
She was already sitting by the back door, perfectly still, staring at me with the calm certainty of an animal that already knew what came next.
Without really thinking about it, I opened another can of sardines. Only after I'd spooned half of it into a bowl did Oliver ask, very softly, "...When did you start liking cats?"
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