A Cat? For Us?

Chapter 1: A Very Strange Young Man

Caleb Patel sat at his desk spinning a pencil around his fingers idly. His blank eyes barely focused on the lesson being taught in front of him. His mind did what it always did and started wandering elsewhere, thinking of scenarios that could never happen, like a new moon circling the earth or the sun turning blue or something. His teacher wrote some equations on the board and asked Caleb for the equation's name. 

But he wasn't listening so he just continued thinking up new things like what he could do for his job, or what he would like to see in the world, his mind often snapped to more important life centric things when he's being asked something important. He finally noticed the teacher after she snapped her fingers in his face.

He turned to the board and paused for a moment before speaking in his regular monotone voice. "You wrote the equation for relativity incorrectly. It's supposed to be E=mc squared, not cubed." His teacher stared at him for a moment before turning to her board for a moment and pausing, before saying embarrassedly. "Ah, it appears I got that incorrect, thank you Caleb." Before timidly rubbing out the three and replacing it with a two. His classmates slightly snickered at the teacher's mistake, but Caleb was already deep in thought again. His mind started wandering again before the bell rang and snapped him out of it.

Caleb walked outside after grabbing his bag and sat on a bench before starting to eat the lunch he had packed. A few of his classmates gave him weird looks, but he was used to it. A friend of his sat beside him and sighed for what he counted was the 4th time this afternoon... New record. "You're seriously still eating steak for lunch?" His friend asked with an eyebrow raised.

"We've had this conversation 1,453 times this year, Aileen. But to answer your question, yes." He said with a deadpan and monotone voice. He had gotten over worrying about that, his mentality for it was that it was fine because even if there wasn't a tone in his words, people had to focus on the words themselves.

"... I'm not even surprised you counted that anymore." Aileen said in response. "Probably for the best, I was getting tired of having to say yes to every 'did you really count that?' that you've said." Caleb responded again with a deadpan and monotone voice. He finished his food and got up, putting his lunch box away. "Well, see you at the weekend, remember you still owe me a game of Marvel vs Capcom." He said to his friend as he left.

Caleb walked home and opened his door, closing it behind him as he walked upstairs. He walked into his room and pet his sleeping cat Lecture as she purred in her peaceful sleep. He sat down next to her on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, wondering what he would do with his life. These thoughts were all that crossed his mind as he stared at the ceiling slowly falling asleep.

3 Years Later...

Caleb woke up in his seat as his plane landed, he pulled up his window cover to see a nice runway, along with a few workers. He waited for the plane to stop and got his bag before waiting for the traffic in the cabin died down. He left the plane and walked to the end of the gate and walked through customs quickly and found himself at a busy airport.

He thankfully got all his luggage without incident and walked out into the open air. Scanning the area for his taxi, he eventually found it and sat down inside the car, telling the driver the address. "So, you're heading to Saga? You know that could take a while, right?"

"It's not as if I have another thing to do in the meantime." Caleb said monotonously. "Uh, are you ok there kid?" His driver said in confusion

"Apologies, my Japanese isn't very fluent. I'm still adjusting to certain words." Caleb apologised with his eyes closed and his mouth slightly smiling.

"Hm, ok, how long have you been learning?" "...Around a year or two." Caleb admitted with a small pause, he wasn't particularly good with other languages. The different rules often tripped him up.

"Wow, then your level of fluency is quite impressive." "I'm told I've been a fast learner." Caleb went back to his usual neutral face at that, it reminded him of his time in school. Physics was his favourite subject, gravity interested him most, it was so important. One of the four fundamental forces. Then with that came the theory of relativity and then- His train of thought was interrupted by his taxi stopping. Time really passed fast when his mind was occupied. He got out of the car and paid his fare before grabbing his luggage and walking to the entrance to a large apartment building.

He looked up as he heard a bit of thunder in the distance. A bit of rain was coming down, that was worrying. But thankfully he got inside before he got too wet. He checked in to the apartment he rented and walked up to his room: 204. He opened the door and flicked the light switch. Surprisingly nice for what outside appearances would have you think. He closes the door behind him and starts unpacking.

As he finishes unpacking, he sits down on his bed. He opens his laptop and powers it on before logging in. He opens a spreadsheet and starts typing up a schedule and sets an alarm for tomorrow morning. He looks over it one last time before clicking save. He looks around his new apartment and sighs. 

He turns off the light and walks over to the balcony door before opening it, stepping outside. The rain was a nice ambience to the sun setting in the distance. He stayed there for a few more minutes before heading back inside and going to sleep. Tomorrow is another day, as his friends used to say. 

Author's Note: If anything can be improved I'd love to hear it. This is the first time I'm writing something like this. And before you ask, yes Caleb is autistic, I'm modelling his personality off of my own as I am also autistic. It's just easier for me to write that way.