Going Beyond the Past

Chapter Six: The Cat and Mouse Story

There was this book when I was a small kid, a cross between Aesop's tale and some story about a greedy cat and a naive mouse. Mrs. Todoroki would read it to us, and I was obsessed with it. I honestly liked it because of the voices she would do for the characters and the fact Touya would let me sit next to him to listen to it. Natsuo would get bored partway through and run off to play with a ball, and Fuyumi would help her turn the pages. I don't remember Shoto and Reina being there much; Endeavor would keep them apart from us to train them.

The story started with a cruel cat who would taunt the small mouse, capturing it and the mouse bargaining for it's life. "What could a little mouse like you, do for a big cat like me? You're nothing compared to me," the cat would sneer at the little mouse while holding it in it's massive claws.

The mouse, being an ever quick thinker, would squeak back and tearfully cry, "oh, there's many things a mouse like I could do for you, Mr. Cat! I could chew through ropes, or I could find the best food, I can even pull the splinters from between your toes! Oh please let me go, and I promise you won't regret a thing, Mr. Cat!"

The cat would release the mouse, and they became friends. The mouse held true to his end, finding the best food for them, pulling the splinters out from his paws, and once when the cat was caught, chewed through the ropes for the feline. However, the friendship wouldn't last. The food ran out, and the cat was hungry. Once again, the mouse pleaded its case, tears and all.

"Please Mr. Cat! We've been such good friends over the years, please, I'll find even better food! I'll take the fleas from your coat, and scratch those places you can't reach, oh please Mr. Cat, I can still do so much for you!"

"Fine," the hungry tired cat would grumble at the little mouse. "But this is your last chance. If I get any hungrier you will be my next meal."

So the mouse searched and searched, looking for the better food it promised the cat. It tried so hard to help, and eventually came back crying, with a single berry in it's paws. The cat, unimpressed and starving, picked the mouse up by the tail.

"Please, Mr. Cat!" the mouse sobbed, holding the berry to him. "This is all I could find! I'm sorry, please don't eat me!"

"I warned you, Little Mouse," the cat sneered, lifting the mouse over his fangs. "You couldn't hold up your end of the deal, so I will gladly hold mine up. After All, what can a little mouse do against me, the big cat?"

And the cat would eat the mouse, berry and all. The ending always made me cry, no matter how many times it was read to me. Because of it, Touya would call me 'Little Mouse', after the crybaby mouse in the story. He was the only one to call me that name, and more times than not, I responded to that name faster than my birth name. We would reenact the story, but with a different ending, since he wanted to be a hero.

"I wouldn't eat the mouse," he'd say, shaking his head as I held a ball. "I'd protect the little mouse, since it's useful to me. If I was the cat, I would've asked the mouse what I could have done for it! I'd protect it from all the bad things trying to hurt it!"

So it became our thing. It was our codeword of sorts, to make sure "we were really who we were", a joke between us. He'd ask what the mouse could do for the cat, and I'd quote the book, before asking in return what the cat could do for the mouse. "I'd protect you from all the bad things," he'd say. Honestly, even thinking about it now, it makes my chest hurt. Back then, it would make me smile and laugh. Now, it makes me cry, and miss him more.

Forty Four Hours until the Sports Festival...

"Are you imagining the door?" Aizawa asks me, rubbing his head with the bandaged hand. "You should have gotten it by now."