Chapter 53
Inside the iron cage, there was even clean water and boiled chicken breast.
‘It’s not food scraps. It’s actual food.’
With this level of treatment, it was clear he was still in the house where Aisha lived.
Though he was curious as to why he had been locked in a cage.
Chomp, chomp, chomp—
Since he was hungry, he started by eating the warm chicken breast.
After drinking his fill of water, he sat on the blanket and pondered.
‘Did Aisha bring me here?’
Warm sunlight streamed through the bars of the cage. Ahili’s Circus never had sunlight like this.
Aside from the iron bars, this place was as comfortable as any home for a cat.
Of course, his real home was inside Aisha’s blankets.
‘Let’s just wait and see for now. Aisha might come looking for me.’
Although she nagged him when he was in human form, Aisha doted on him whenever he was a cat.
He tucked his paws under his chest in a loaf position and drifted into thought.
He missed Aisha’s arms.
He remembered falling asleep in her warmth, curled up while listening to the sound of her heartbeat.
But right now, he couldn’t go to her.
Well, so.
‘That’s what you call being lost.’
Suddenly recalling one of Aisha’s lessons, the cat nodded his head with dignity.
Aisha’s arms. Lost.
He wasn’t dead, so he could find them again.
Imagining himself back in her arms soon, he stretched out his four legs languidly and waited for her return.
But.
One day passed, then two.
Even after a week, Aisha did not come.
The only things that came were cool water and warm chicken breast, provided by a knight who cooed at how cute he was.
‘…Is Aisha not coming?’
The cat began to feel suspicious.
Did Aisha lose me? Is that why she can’t find me?
If not that.
‘Did she abandon me?’
Abandon.
That was the word the staff at Ahili’s Circus used for sick animals.
Whenever the staff said they were “abandoning” them, the sick animals would eventually disappear.
It meant they were dead.
‘Aisha is abandoning me?!’
His fur bristled instantly, and his purple eyes trembled with shock.
‘That can’t be right. I haven’t even transformed into a human, so I should be in Aisha’s arms.’
He didn’t know why, but a sudden wave of anxiety washed over him.
‘Should I escape the cage?’
In truth, the cat could escape this place whenever he set his mind to it.
Humans tended to underestimate the flexibility of cats.
The only reason he hadn’t left Ahili’s Circus—or this cage—was because of the food.
If he went outside, there was no guarantee he’d find anything to eat.
Roll—
His troubled purple eyes darted around.
He was sitting in a loaf again, lost in thought, when—
Click, clack.
The faint sound of footsteps echoed from not too far away.
It wasn’t the knight who usually came.
“What’s this? Why is a maid coming all of a sudden?”
Someone locked in the adjacent cage asked grumpily. The maid replied with a smile.
“I am Rose, the new maid. No one likes coming down to the prison, so as the newcomer, I volunteered for the dirty work.”
“You talk too much.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
The maid gave a mechanical response, handed a piece of bread to the man in the cage, and stopped in front of the cat’s bars.
“Eat up, little one.”
She smiled prettily as she offered cool water and chicken breast.
If it had been the usual knight, he would have rushed over to eat the meat immediately.
But the cat, wrapping his tail around his neatly tucked front paws, stared intently at the maid.
‘Something’s strange.’
She had no scent.
Just like the man who had kidnapped Aisha.
The cat glared at the maid’s back as she walked away.
He was at an age where he grew quickly and got hungry fast, but he endured the temptation of the meat’s aroma because of a lingering sense of unease.
“M-My god. To think that maid was a s-spy for the House of Pose.”
He heard the man in the next cell sobbing.
“Right. Since I bought that potion, this is a matter of customer service… No. The Duke of Pose. I didn’t think much of him, but he’s a decent man after all. So if I just trust that maid and wait, I can escape from here?”
The cat listened for a moment but quickly lost interest.
The Duke of Pose, potions—it was all full of words he didn’t know.
Yawn—
‘So noisy.’
Then, he realized something.
The knight, who was always kind to him, never even spared a glance at the man next door and simply tossed bread through the bars.
But that maid.
‘She was very kind to the man next door.’
When he used to sneak into Aisha’s arms and wander the Duke’s Castle, the knights were kind to Aisha.
So, would that maid be kind to Aisha? He doubted it.
She had no scent, and the man who also had no scent had tried to kidnap Aisha.
Conclusion.
The maid named Rose was an accomplice, and there was a high probability she would try to kidnap Aisha.
So what should he do?
Should he kill the woman?
‘But if I drink her blood and turn into a human, Aisha will nag me again.’
Still, it would be better to endure some nagging and run away from people than to let Aisha be kidnapped.
That way, he could return to Aisha’s arms later.
‘She’s not dead. She’s just lost. So I just have to find her again.’
With his eyes sparkling for the first time in a while, the cat waited patiently in front of the bars until evening came.
“Hey, Rose. I’ve been waiting. So when can I escape?”
“Please have patience.”
“Hmph, fine. I understand.”
“Hello, kitty.”
The moment Rose, who had been talking to the man next door, reached her hand into the cage to provide water and meat—
Snap—
The cat pounced on the maid without hesitation.
As his small but sharp teeth sank into her skin, the maid’s vision blurred and she collapsed.
“T-This kitten killed someone! Knights! Look over here! Someone is dying!”
The startled man next door shrieked and threw a fit.
‘Should I kill that man too?’
The cat, who had already transformed into a boy, looked at the man with an indifferent gaze.
“H-H-He turned into a person. The c-cat turned into a person…”
Thud.
Fortunately, the noisy man fainted on his own, just as the cat wished.
The problem was that the footsteps of the knights, who had heard the man’s screams, were getting louder.
The boy, possessing an impossible amount of grip strength, tore away the iron bars of the window. He was about to escape when he noticed the blood on his mouth.
‘I have to wipe this clean.’
Aisha had been shocked the first time she saw him like this.
The boy climbed back down the wall and used the fallen woman’s apron to scrub his mouth clean.
Ah, of course, by the time the knights arrived—
“…What? What is this…?”
The boy had already vanished.
Not in the garden. Not in the kitchen. Not in the dining room. Not even in the storehouse…
Screech—
I let out a sob as I took a crayon and crossed out the word [Storehouse] on the tear-stained list.
“He’s not here. My baby isn’t here.”
Several days had passed since I started looking for him, but the baby had truly vanished without a trace.
‘Did he really run away from home?’
That couldn’t be.
He was such a good listener, and always so well-behaved…
“Ugh…”
Unable to hold back my tears any longer, I wiped my eyes roughly with the back of my hand.
It was then.
Knock, knock. A quiet knock sounded at the bedroom door.
‘Who would come at this late hour?’
I tried to wipe my eyes, but I had cried so much that instead of drying, my whole face became smeared with tears.
Scrub, scrub—
Finally, after wiping my face with a handkerchief, I opened the door with my eyes swollen and puffy.
“Who is it?”
And there.
“Meow.”
A massive man was standing in front of me. He was wearing a white cat mascot head and a furry suit.
He beckoned to me with his right hand.
“…….”
“…….”
A brief silence followed.
“…Dad?”
“Tsk. Caught already.”
Calips, looking flustered and awkward, finally took off the mascot head while still wearing his fluffy fur gloves.
I gave him my honest review.
“Your meow was too deep.”
“I know. I regretted it as soon as I did it.”
Luckily, Dad seemed to agree.