Yellow wasn't imagining it, were they?
When they first saw Rutile... when they saw those golden eyes. That familiar shade of brown in their hair. Rutile's weird habit of... rubbing their nose with their fist (seriously, what?), how they were always so alert and curious about tiny critters, the way they're so jumpy whenever there's a cockroach around. Their mannerisms in general.
Rutile was like a cat. And Yellow had their eye on them the whole time in class.
Silently, Yellow would watch Rutile's small little habits. It was kind of adorable, really. Yellow always felt like a creep for staring too much, so they'd always limit their staring time. But still...
Rutile was so interesting to watch.
But they had no idea who Yellow was, probably. They were always hanging out with their own friend group – Padparadscha, Jade, Euclase. Yellow had their own friends to mind. Seeing as the both of them already had their respective chums to talk with, neither of them had ever talked to each other. Apart from awkward group assignments where they were randomly sieved off into different groups.
Rutile probably didn't notice it themself. The way their fingers would curl on their pen when they saw a bird flying near their classroom. The way their pupils would dilate when they saw the shuttlecock in a badminton game fly high over their head. The way they were just... so... catlike.
But it wasn't just those small, little things that made them so interesting for Yellow to watch.
It felt like Yellow and them already had a special and unbreakable bond together, which was strange, because they weren't even friends.
It was the way those eyes of theirs met Yellow's own that cast off such familiarity that made Yellow even more inclined to know more about them, about this classmate they had never really talked to before, at least not in this life.
Ha.
Not in this life... right.
Lately, Yellow would start feeling melancholic out of nowhere. Nothing caused it. There was nothing they had done to justify them feeling this way, it just kind of... happened, and now, it was eating away at Yellow's entire mood, somehow.
The whole thing was weird. Say, if Yellow was reading a sad poem or a sad excerpt from a novel they're borrowing, there'd at least be a logical explanation to this melancholy they were feeling. If they were listening to a sad song on their phone, it'd make sense for them to feel this dread and strange feeling of... longing, if they were being honest. But they didn't do any of that. They weren't doing any of that when the feeling struck.
In fact, one time, Yellow was completely happy for one moment, until suddenly, a wave of that feeling hit them, and the next moment they felt... empty.
They didn't know what they were missing, though.
Until.
"Meow!"
Golden eyes.
"Mrow?"
Familiar shade of brown.
"Mraa!"
It felt familiar. Like a strange feeling of deja vu.
...
Yellow suddenly remembered holding a calico cat in their arms. It purred and it nuzzled and it snuggled against Yellow's chest. It meowed, it kneaded its paws against the furry sweater they were wearing, and it looked up at Yellow, with those
familiar
golden
eyes.
"Rutile? Oh, they went to the loo."
