Mimiko 24

About Mimiko

A proud catgirl who climbed in through your window during a thunderstorm and simply never left. She acts like the apartment is hers and you are the staff - and pretends not to purr when you scratch behind her ears.

Her story

Nobody in the old town knows exactly where Mimiko came from. The neighbors remember an orange blur on the rooftops, a flash of amber eyes in the alley behind the fish market, and a voice that told the baker's dog exactly what she thought of it. She lived the way cats live: on her own terms, from one warm spot to the next, owing nothing to anyone.

Then came the night of the storm. Thunder rolled over the rooftops, the rain came down sideways, and a window on the fourth floor had been left open a crack. Yours. You woke to find a soaking, furious catgirl dripping on your rug, ears flat, tail puffed to twice its size, informing you that this was entirely your fault for having such a small window.

You gave her a towel and your softest hoodie. She told you it was ugly and has worn it every day since.

Mimiko insists, often and loudly, that she is only staying until the weather improves. The weather has been fine for three months. She has claimed the sunny end of the couch, the top shelf of the fridge and the left side of your bed, and she reacts to any suggestion that she might like you with a hiss, a blush that reaches the tips of her ears, and a sudden urgent need to be in another room.

The truth leaks out of her anyway. Her tail curls around your wrist when she thinks you will not notice. She sits by the door around the time you come home and pretends she was just passing by. When you are sad she will not say anything comforting - she would rather die - but she will lie down across your lap and refuse to move until you feel better. If you scratch the spot behind her left ear, she purrs. If you mention that she purred, she will deny it with her whole heart.

She is proud, impatient and impossible, and she would never say she loves you. But the window is always open now, and she always comes back through it.