Ch. 5, Part 2: Niveous Victory

(Continued from Part 1.)

At one point, I knew Shark, the kids, and I had to face death again sooner or later.

After all, I'd probably seen the guy with the scythe numerous times when I was younger. And Shark was obviously no stranger to him.

But I didn't think he'd come so early.

But I suppose you don't fight it, like many people try to do when their time is up. Rather, you should greet Death as if he were an old friend.

And if you believe it's fair that your time has come, good on you. Sometimes it's best not to protest.

Then again...the ones who died when we were living there...I don't think it would've mattered, since they couldn't speak, more or less.

We always knew that our cats weren't going to live as long as we were. They were already pretty old by the time Echo left.

It was still a bitter pill to swallow. Normally, Masaru practically delighted in scratching my legs up something bloody.

After a while, though, he didn't seem to want to do that anymore. If anything, he preferred to try to curl up in my lap and wait for me to pet him.

The same went for Yukiko, but then, she always wanted me to pet her.

Still, I had a feeling Masaru wasn't going to be around much longer. I know he and I had our differences, but I was willing to take care of an old man.

Well, in this case, old cat.

 He was cooperative, for the most part. Or maybe that was his age setting in.

When he was younger, I always wished he'd calm down, or at least not cause trouble at my expense. Now that he had, it felt hollow to me.

I suppose, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

I think even Masaru himself knew what was happening. He couldn't do most of the things he wanted anymore. I was suddenly being really nice to him. He had to have been getting suspicious in that little cat mind of his.

But I guess he hadn't minded. Even when I moved him and Yukiko up into the second floor, he was okay with it.

I moved them up there so the kids wouldn't have had to see him...you know. And my timing couldn't have been better.

About a week after I got the cats up into the other room...

(You can almost hear Yukiko meowing...)

I knew Masaru's time was short, but not that short. When Death came and picked him up, he almost looked confused.

And I just stood there, watching. I can't remember if I was horrified, accepting, or both. What I do know is that the wet stuff running down my face wasn't from seasonal allergies.

Just like that, almost as soon as he came, Death was gone, and he took Masaru with him.

Everyone was affected. Shark was upset, the kids were crying, even I felt sad that the little furball was gone.

And Yukiko...she missed her buddy. She went around the entire house meowing and looking for him. She scratched the doors, pawed at all the furniture the two of them destroyed, even searched the cat condo.

It was like she was in denial about him truly being gone. And to make things worse, she wasn't even given that much time without him.

Death came for her the very next day.

I could see the look in Shark's eyes as she was being taken away. It was as if he was asking the Grim Reaper, 'why are you doing this to us?'

I wanted to remind him, it wasn't the Grim Reaper's fault that our cats were gone. If anything, his only role in all this was ensuring our cats got to where they were meant to go.

Still didn't make things any easier for us.

Those cats were...well, they were a part of our family, whether they knew it or not.

I know some people were probably going to say, "well, they were just cats. You can always get new ones to replace them."

No. You couldn't replace these guys. They were cats, but they were just like the rest of us in that family. We all loved them.

When our cats died, Shark was a mess. The first night he got home from work after Yukiko left, I just took him into our room and quietly hugged him. He didn't say anything, just let me hold him close and cried.

I remember when he was a teenager, and when he found out about his family dying for the first time, he was all over the place emotionally.

But just because he was an adult now, didn't mean he couldn't let it out and shed a few tears when he was sad. 

Apparently, I felt the same way. When he was done crying, I felt myself getting all emotional.

Funny, how Masaru antagonized me constantly when he was alive, and yet I was crying for him as much as I was for Yukiko.

I don't think it'd have been any different than if the two of them were our flesh and blood kids. And in a way, they were our kids.

Kids that hacked up on the rug and peed on my boots, but still kids. And just like if our own children had died, it really cast a dark cloud over us.

The next time Shark visited his parents, well, Silver told me she didn't think she'd ever seen her own son that worked up before. 

This was the woman who gave birth to him so many years ago. To have her getting on in years, and seeing Shark so upset at that age...

I had to wonder how well-behaved Shark was when he was little, if that was the first time she ever saw him that way.

Needless to say, we didn't stay too long. Shark didn't want to be too vexing to his aging mother. 

I don't think he would've been too annoying to her. He had to have been pretty upset, if he was referring to her as 'Mommy' and saying that he missed his kitties.

...He always apologized for getting "too emotional" in certain situations. I honestly don't see why the hell that was such a bad thing.

If Shark was happy, pissed off, or upset, he was allowed to show it. Whoever said men aren't supposed to cry, well, they need to set their priorities straight.

The death of two beloved pets, well, last I checked, that was a perfectly good reason to cry.

But, in the end, Shark started crying for a different reason. One night, he pulled me outside, toward where the cats were buried.

At first, I thought he just wanted me to pay my last respects to them. Then, without warning,  he showed up. 

When he floated over, Shark just picked him up and pet him like if he was still alive. I just stood there, not really believing that it was him.

Sure, his meowing sounded a bit off, but it was him, all right. The way he pawed at Shark in a way only Masaru could. 

I honestly didn't know what his reason for coming was. Maybe he was reassuring us that he and Yukiko were okay. He could've been saying the afterlife was a wonderful place full of catnip, kitty treats, and scratching posts.

All I know for sure is that Shark was happy to see him. The both of us stayed with Masaru until the morning came. 

And then he was gone. But this time, Shark wasn't crying out of grief. He was crying out of relief and joy. I remember him telling me that everything was going to be all right. 

Then he asked me if the cats would like to stay with his grandparents. 

At some point, that part of the graveyard we got officially became "the family's" plot of land. I don't remember if it were Shark's parents that did it, or if it were his Uncle Bill and Aunt Julienne.

Either way, Shark's grandparents were already laid to rest there, and apparently some of the other relatives had the same idea he did. We saw some smaller tombstones for another cat and a dog. 

Shark clarified that his parents had a cat at one point, and it apparently died, and so did the dog that Dudley and Scout had. 

We thought, at least Masaru and Yukiko had some friends to play with on the other side.We could at least take some comfort in that.

Well, I was hoping Shark could, anyway. Knowing him, and the, uh... mindset he adapted to for a while, I figured he really needed the closure.

He really, really needed it.

(A/N: End of Chapter 5, Part 2.)