James
“This is James,” Hojo said, hoisting a ball of fur up onto the table between them. Sephiroth hated his sessions with the professor, even if it got him out of his room and out of training for a time. He would have endured it better if he got to explore the rest of the building, but he was still trapped in the lab.
Obediently, the silver-haired teenager looked at James. James was a cat, it seemed, which was very strange in the lab. He didn’t have any tentacles or even an extra tail. “It’s a feline,” Sephiroth said uncertainly, not knowing what Hojo wanted from him.
“He’s a kitty cat,” Hojo agreed. “A normal domestic shorthair though the bushiness of his tail does suggest some mixed ancestry.” One spindly hand reached out, stroking James’s tail. “He’s your new classmate.”
Sephiroth blinked, green eyes meeting gold and James stared back at him, blinking calmly despite being in the clutches of a mad man. “How can it be my new classmate?”
Hojo smirked, gathering James against his chest to pet him. “You’ll each be given lessons and tasks based on your mental level. Whichever of you completes them to my satisfaction will receive incentive to continue doing well.”
The boy has no choice but to nod. Surely he could prove that he was more worthy than a cat.
That is, if Hojo hadn’t rigged each contest. Sephiroth was back in the room in which he met Professor Hojo four days later. His head ached and his throat was raw. He’d caught the new strain of Wutai flu, Hojo had informed him. Poor James had also been exposed to the same virus and it was a race to see who healed the fastest.
Sephiroth had ceded the point that cats could get the flu. Just probably not this branch of it because James had barely a sniffle while Sephiroth had felt like he’d gained the entire weight of the cat in mucus. He watched Hojo pet the cat’s head tenderly and put down a warm saucer of milk for him. Sephiroth would have killed for that milk, for the warmth on his throat, and even for the head rub that looked like it would alleviate the agony in his brain.
But Hojo had made a scolding noise at him. “You should learn to assist your immune system instead of hindering it, Sephiroth.”
The next time, they each had a set of tasks to complete in a certain time period. Sephiroth was starving, having been deprived of meals for the past two days. It was to simulate battlefield conditions if supplies didn’t arrive, Hojo said, and promised James was likewise being deprived.
He was almost finished with the last trigonometry problem when the buzzer sounded. It wasn’t enough that he’d run a hundred laps, done an entire workout routine, read an instruction manual for what sounded like a very nice vacuum cleaner, fixed said vacuum cleaner, and completed all but half of a trigonometry workbook. But surely James hadn’t done all of that either.
Back in Hojo’s office, Sephiroth’s mouth watered at the scent of food. Fish, which he didn’t really care for, but it was cooked and entirely too edible. Hojo had James on his lap, cooing at him about what a clever boy he was, and feeding him bits of fish off a tiny fork.
Sephiroth stared, in rage and embarrassment. “A cat managed to finish his last math problem?” He demanded icily.
“Cats don’t do math, silly boy,” Hojo replied, spearing another piece of fish for James to nibble. “See for yourself.” He pointed to the checklists on the table.
Sephiroth read his. The final box for the problems had a dot in it. He’d been so close to having it checked. He looked to James’s. Catch mouse. Chase laser pointer. Take 40 minute nap in window without falling off. Drink out of the sink without falling in. Entice at least four people into a tummy rub.
He glared at the cat. James looked at him with a smug look of superiority, and ate the next piece of fish offered, nuzzling Hojo’s hand and purring affectionately.
James was horrid. Sephiroth’s fantasies involved all the awful things he would do to that cat. He swore every time he saw James that he was being petted or cared for, and his golden eyes would shift over and he knew. He knew Sephiroth was beneath him. At first James had seemed cocky and proud but now he looked almost pitying. And Sephiroth did not need a cat feeling sorry for him.
The breaking point came soon after. He and James were both given physicals and their usual vaccinations. He didn’t even bite the tech that stabbed him with a needle, so Sephiroth felt certain he would win this battle.
But as Hojo came into the room, James suddenly collapsed. He twitched and seized, yowling as though in total agony. The tech near him stammered that she hadn’t even touched him but Hojo was already stroking James, telling him to be brave and hold on and he could have a treat.
Sephiroth stared as James instantly stopped, feigning being out of breath and holding a paw up to Hojo. One of the claws had been cut too far back, but Sephiroth doubted it had hurt enough for that display.
Hojo bandaged the paw himself and gave James the prize out of his bag. It was a toy mouse stuffed with catnip. Also in Hojo’s bag, Sephiroth saw the book he had politely requested months ago.
Seeing his look, Hojo smiled nastily at him. “Let’s have a bonus round. Shall we, Sephiroth?”
The bonus round was something he could have done without. Doused with icy water and left in a freezing room. With James. James didn’t look happy either, but he’d soon licked himself to dampness and curled into a ball.
It wasn’t fair. James had a fur coat and even Sephiroth’s long hair couldn’t keep him warm. James had been given easier tasks. James had been exposed to a type of flu he couldn’t catch. James was stroked and fed and loved while he was pushed aside for failing to compete successfully against the cat.
He stared at the black fur, concealing the white belly. At James’s little white face peeking out from his paws and surveying the room, probably wondering why they’d put him in here with such a failure. Sephiroth couldn’t take it.
The door opened before he could move toward the cat. Hojo walked in with a blanket that looked impossibly soft and impossibly perfect to him. But he passed his oldest test subject by and lifted James. “He handled himself with more grace.”
Sephiroth saw the cat’s white toes splay on Hojo’s shoulder, and the white tip of his black tail flick as he was carried out of the room. The cat had to die.
His opportunity came a couple of days later. A short enough time that Sephiroth had still not realized the futility of being angry at a cat. It was evening. Hojo had been mentioning the Directors’ dinner he was attending tonight. It was also a cleaning day at the lab, and Sephiroth knew the doors would be left open.
He crept from his room and sought out James. The cat lived here. He didn’t dare ask anyone where James was or they would know he’d disposed of his competition. As it was, he could make it look like an unfortunate accident that James had gotten loose.
Fortunately, James was in a lounge of some kind rather than an office. He was playing in a box, which was even better for Sephiroth’s purposes. He slammed the lid on the box before James could get out.
He met no one as he left the lab out the exit the staff used. He was in an alley, but he didn’t need to go far. He took a deep breath and instantly coughed, hating the city. He’d just kill the cat and dump his body over the fence. Easy.
He opened the box and James sat there. He didn’t seem afraid, or like he expected Sephiroth to harm him. Probably, Sephiroth thought, he didn’t even see him as capable of killing anything at all since he was such a failure.
Hojo was really to blame. He knew that. James couldn’t help that Hojo had picked him up from wherever he came from and chosen to pit him against Sephiroth. But James was so smug and always acted like he was better than Sephiroth. Maybe if James was gone…
Sephiroth reached for him. James smacked him, leaving little claw marks on his wrist. “I hate you,” Sephiroth hissed. “I hate you and I hate your fur and I hate your toes and I hate your tail and you deserve to be torn apart by wolves.” He grabbed for James, managing to grip around his chest. He could crush him, or snap his neck.
Before he could decide, James bit him. Hard. Sephiroth gasped and his hands unclenched as the black and white cat sank fangs into the webbing between fingers while simultaneously raking his back claws down his arms.
The cat shot off into the dark. Sephiroth stared, blood dripping down into the box. Finally he tossed the box over the fence and went back inside. He left the door open, hoping someone would notice.
Hojo was livid that James had escaped. Sephiroth had told him he tried to catch James and thus sustained his injuries that way. Hojo obviously didn’t believe him, and Sephiroth knew the hunt was on for James’s body. He almost hoped they’d find it because breaking the cat’s neck would have been better than a pampered cat trying to survive on the streets.
He had stopped thinking about James. He was entering the SOLDIER program and climbing through the ranks. The cat was the last thing on his mind as he entered Reeve Tutsei’s office. He was supposed to familiarize himself with all of the directors.
On the desk was a framed picture of a cat. Same white face and belly. Same white toes and tail tip. Black everywhere else.
“That’s my cat,” Reeve explained with a smile. “I call him Tom. I found him outside the building one night and took him home. Sweetest cat.”
Sephiroth nodded, but privately he was fuming. James had gotten out of the lab. James had a home where someone cared enough to put his picture on a desk.
James had won again.