Yeah but hear me out - Brooke Janey Mól (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📗

he also thought that he understood what she meant.

Somehow. Kind of.

All in all, everything had been pretty much confusing in the beginning.

With his Grandmother suddenly appearing, who he only knew from photos, Christmas and birthday cards and later the occasional video chat (He should have known something was up with his Granny, if she was able to use technology correctly)

With her wanting to teach him the ancient arts of magic. Like his father would have wanted.

His father, who had given up all that was magic to be with the love of his life, who was not Magic, but secretly still wished for nothing more than to show the wonders of his world to his own son.

His father, who had died when Anjo was eight, saving him from getting run over by a drunk driver.

 

And while magic was powerful and full of wonders, it could not bring back the dead. No matter how much we sometimes wished it would.

 

That was the first thing Anjo learned about magic.

The second being, that magic could manipulate but never create feelings, not real ones at least.

The third thing were familiars. Magic Animals with which a witch or wizard would form a bond.

(“So, like a magical pet?” Anjo had asked. Juliette had blinked at him and sighted but accepted her overwhelmed Grandsons simple understanding of familiars. For now.)

 

His grandmother had told him that his familiar would find him. Anjo had been super excited but for three weeks nothing had happened. Then, one night when he was about to take his cigarette break in the back alley of the 24h Diner he worked the night shifts at, there was a little black cat sitting right in front of the employee exit. He had stared at it, lighter in his hand and cigarette between his lips, ready to take a well-earned break, away from the group of teenage girls who had just come back from some kind of boyband concert, if their exited squealing was anything to go by.

The cat had sat there unmoving, staring right back at him only blinking its big yellow eyes once or twice. There was something in its gaze, something that told Anjo that this was his familiar.

It had to be.

 

So he turned around, went into the kitchen and snitched some ham from the fridge. Better get a good start if this was to be his lifelong partner.

When he came back, the cat was still there. As Anjo crouched down it didn’t move but narrowed its eyes, gauging him. He cooed at it, offering the ham. “It’s alright. I’m not gonna hurt you. Here.

Do You want some ham? It’s really good ham. Well, I guess, I haven’t tried it. I’m a Vegetarian, you know. But I bet it’s some really good ham. They sell that stuff on sandwiches for 10 dollars each, so it better be.” Anjo murmured. The kitten seemed to somehow snort at his comment in amusement, looked him up and down one more time, before it deemed him and his ham save enough and got up. Anjo smiled. “Yeah. That’s good. Come here, little one. Yeah, just like- OUCH!”

When the young wizard had wanted to pet the cats head it hissed and scratched him out of the blue. The ham, which he had dropped, was snatched up and then the cat ran away, out of the back alley onto the busy main street. Anjo was frozen in his disbelieve.

 

A week later the cat was back again. It had been a pretty shitty day and the customers where as irritated as Anjo was feeling, the only difference being, that they didn’t have to hide it behind a smile and be friendly anyway. It was absolutely exhausting and only thinking about how he had to work morning shift at the bookstore tomorrow had Anjo groaning in misery. His Co-worker had suddenly fallen ill and so Old Jeff, owner of the bookstore, had asked Anjo to cover the shift. And because Anjo needed the money he had agreed.

 

Oh how he already regretted his decision. Which was why he was taking his third cigarette break. And he still had four hours to go. So when he opened the door to the back alley, fiddling with his lighter to finally get his lungs full of toxic but soothing smoke, only to find the black cat, he snapped. “Oh no. Not you again,” he accused it, gesturing wildly with his arms, “Get lost, you filthy, wicked thief! Those scratched still burn like hell, you nasty! Go. Scram. Shoo, shoo!”

But the cat didn’t move.

 

Anjo slowly lowered his arms, thinking he must’ve looked like an idiot. He sighted, squatted down and buried his face in his hands, before taking a long drag of his cigarette. Then he glanced at the cat. It still sat right there and stared at him.

“What do you want?” Anjo asked resigned. He was so not in the mood for this.

“More 10 dollar ham? Sorry, we’re out. Delivery made some mistake and now all we got is avocado toast but there ain’t enough hipsters around to eat all of them.”

The kitten wrinkled its nose at him.

He huffed. “What? Just because I’m wearing ripped skinny jeans and flannel doesn’t mean I’m a fucking hipster.”

The cat crooked its head. Anjo noticed that its left ear was a bit torn.

“No, it’s true. I swear.”

The cat remained unimpressed. Anjo stuck his tongue out.

“You know what? I don’t need to defend myself in front of you! I’ve had like the worst day today and…”, he faltered. “Why am I even talking to you? You’re just a cat, a mean thief-cat to be exact.

I must be going crazy or something. The whole magic stuff is making me crazy. That must be it. It’s not like you can understand me-“

The cat meowed at him. Well, it sounded like a grumpy version of a meow, so maybe more like mreow but anyways. The young wizard almost dropped his cigarette.

“Did…did you just answer me?”

Another mreow.

Anjo didn’t know if this was supposed to be a yes or no so he just stayed silent.

 

Those encounters in the back alleys continued for a few weeks (every time Anjo tried to pet it, it would hiss at him but he never gave up) until one night the black cat didn’t come. Anjo was somehow disappointed and maybe a bit sad (a fact that he would deny whenever asked and take not only to his grave nut also his afterlife). Which was ridiculous because who got emotional over a stray cat, that only maybe loved him for the 10 dollar ham.

 

Anjo Pharista, freshly known wizard in training because his life wasn’t already enough of a mess and to put a cherry on top bemoaning the loss of a rude thief-cat.

 

That’s who.

 

So, he had waited even after his shift if maybe the cat would still come. It didn’t. When it began to rain, Anjo threw the ham into his bag and went home, kicking imaginary stones the whole way.

Upon arriving in his little one-room apartment the first thing he heard was a muffled but very grumpy mreow. Anjo couldn’t believe his eyes but there, in front of his window on the fire escape staircase, sat a very poor looking drenched black cat, meowing at him accusingly as if to ask why the hell he was home so late and why he wouldn’t already open the window to let it in.

 

Still caught in astonishment he went to get a closer look (yep, left ear torn. He wouldn’t want to let a stray cat into his apartment…well an unknown stray cat) and opened the window. The cat looked at him for second and jumped from the windowsill onto his bed, leaving a big wet spot.

“You’re fucking rude, you know that?” Anjo laughed but it died when the cat began to roll around in the sheets, enlarging the wet spot. The young wizard blinked.

“Unbelievable,” he squawked “You savage!”

The cat only mreowed.

 

After casting a basic dry-spell (he had experience with that. Hah, get it? Experience with a dry spell? Yeah, ok, it was more of a sad joke. He so needed to get laid, then he might stop talking to his maybe-familiar-but-probably-just-stray-cat-that-only-maybe-loved-him-for-the-10-dollar-ham…speaking of ham…) he went back to the little hallway to get his bag, fished out the ham and sat on his bed, where the cat was already making itself at home.

He watched it belly crawling in the now dry and slightly warm sheets. As rude as it was, it was also pretty fucking cute. Anjo waved the ham in its face. “Look what I got for you,” he singsonged and gulped when two yellow eyes zeroed on him. Suddenly, the little kitten was a predator, lowering itself, only butt high in the air, its black tail swinging dangerously from left to right.

 

And then it pounced.

 

Anjo screeched (a very manly screech, thank you very much), dropped the ham (what a déja-vu) and feel backwards down the bed, now staring at his ceiling fan. It was spinning as much as his head.

A while nothing happened but then, a little black fury head poked out from over his mattress and before the young wizard could comprehend what was about to happen it took a leap and landed unceremoniously on his stomach.

 

“UFFF!” was all Anjo had to say to that. He went a bit cross-eyed as the cat crawled from his stomach onto his chest and began to lick his nose. Anjo held his breath (He didn’t want to scare it away) and slowly raised his hand, trying to pet it. The cat narrowed its eyes on him, like always, but for the first time it didn’t growl and so Anjo commanded all his courage and gently slid his fingers through the soft fur on its head. It suspiciously flicked its ears but after a few seconds relaxed into the touch and began to rub its head against Anjos hand. The young man let out a breathless laugh.

 

He didn’t know how long they lay there but at some point Anjo could feel his body getting stiff from the position he was in (back on the floor, one leg on, one leg under his bed) and gently moved to get up, not wanting to disturb the kitten but also really wanting to sleep in his soft bed. But then the cat stirred. It opened one eye as if to say don’t you dare or I swear I’ll scratch up your whole face and so Anjo stayed still and eventually fell asleep to the purrs vibrating on his chest.

 

The next morning the cat was gone again.

What had stayed however, was the pain in his back from sleeping on the floor in a very not comfortable position.

 

These encounters too, continued. Anjo would get home and the cat was already waiting in front of his window, demanding to be let in. Sometimes, when the weathercast announced rain, the wizard would leave the window open a tiny crack, so the cat could come in anytime. He would feed it first to save his own food from its insatiable black tummy and tell it about his day. Then he would do his homework for magic class and it would either sleep on his lap or chest while he was reading (depending if it wanted to be petted or not) or sitting on the window sill, observing the busy life on the street. He even bought it a toy. A little pillow filled with cat-nip, that let its pupils dilate as if it was on drugs (which was, now that he thought about it, exactly what happened)

It was nice, Anjo thought, to come home to somebody. Even if that somebody was a rude as fuck black cat that ate him out of house and home.

 

But when he awoke in the morning it was always gone.

 

One particular evening, they were both lying on the bed, Anjo doing his reading for the next potion class, absentmindedly scratching its chin, while the cat was dozing next to him.

“You know,” he started, re-reading the same