Chapter 22: Not Easily Resolved

"Remind me why I'm here again."

Ema and I stand outside the station, huddled close together. After having convinced me to join her for lunch I was unable to back out, so here I am with my host about to meet up with her brother. 

This morning as we were leaving Yusuke asked where we were going. Ema told him we were going to lunch, but she made no mention of Natsume, despite he and Yusuke being brothers. As she didn't say anything neither did I. Thankfully, Yusuke thought nothing of it and wished us a good day, and while I know we don't have to report everything to him, it feels weird having kept something from him.

"Have you ever been to this café before?" I ask Ema, trying to strike up conversation.

She shakes her head. "This is my first time going there. Natsume-san mentioned it before, saying it would be a better location to meet up."

As opposed to what? 

"Are you and Natsume-san close, then?" They must be, if Ema can casually meet him for lunch to talk about moving out like this, especially when she's refused to talk about it to any of her other brothers.

A blush seeps into Ema's cheeks and she turns away. "He's helped me before when I needed it."

It must have been something super embarrassing, I gather. 

Not long after I spy an orange head in the crowd, a stark contrast to the sea of black and brown. Not many adults dye their hair, so Natsume is a bit of a mystery, but I'm sure he has his reasons. Maybe, like me, he wanted to experiment with colour and style. Hair dye is a great way to stand out without being too out there, in my opinion.

"Natsume-san!" Ema waves him over. 

Natsume looks up from his phone and smiles. I haven't seen him in a while, but when I see him I'm reminded of the twins. Though unlike the twins, he has a mole on his chin, and his features are a tad sharper, his brows only soften upon seeing Ema in turn. 

"Hey," he says. He turns to me. "Ema, Mai-san. Did I keep you waiting long?"

"Not at all." Ema and I shake our heads. "It isn't a far walk from here." Ema pulls out her phone to the digital map with the route marked in blue. With her in the lead, the three of us set out for our destination lunch. 

On the way Ema walks between us, holding out her phone to gauge directions. 

"Thanks for inviting me out," Natsume says. "I hope it's not too weird to have your brother intruding on your lunch."

"It's no trouble at all," Ema assures him. "I haven't seen you in a while, and I wanted to take Mai-chan to the café, too. She also likes cats, isn't that right, Mai-chan?"

"Yeah. My parents like to feed the local strays back at home, even though it's not good for the birds." I sigh, recalling all those times we've found a dead bird on the engawa. 

Natsume chuckles. "I'm lucky there. My cats are mostly indoors, so they don't hunt birds."

"That's right, you've got more than one!" 

Immediately, I'm glad I came. 

"How are they today? I wonder if they'll notice that you're going to a cat café."

"They're the annoying type, so they'll only care when it suits them."

"Sounds rough." 

In truth, all cats are like that. 

"Apparently you said it's a good place to meet up? I haven't been to that many cafés in the city, so I'll take your word for it." This is the kind of place I'd like to go to more often if I had the time.

"One of my colleagues brought me here once, so I know the food is good."

"Your colleague has good taste." I picture the cool-faced Natsume hooked by the elbow and forced into a cutesy café full of kittens. I nearly laugh when my visual clashes with Natsume's more serious aura. He looks confused but makes no further comment.

We find the café alright, and sure enough there are beautiful felines to greet us at the door. They follow us into the front room and to our seats, where one nuzzles its way to Ema's lap, purring like thunder as she strokes its soft back. Another weaves between my legs, its fluffy tail tickling the back of my calves. A third scrambles up onto Natsume's back. He winces as he realized his mistake of wearing a black suit jacket to lunch.

I can't help but laugh, and even Ema clamps a hand over her mouth to avoid her amusement tumbling out. Natsume fakes a grimace, which Ema somehow falls for. I think she's too worried about others over herself, but that's the kind of person she's always been to me. 

Once our food arrives and the cats settle, Natsume asks the big question.

"So, you wanted to talk about living away from home?"

Except he's not looking at Ema. 

"Ha?" I point to myself. 

He's staring right at me.

Next to me, Ema flashes an apologetic glance.

No way. You told him that I wanted to talk about this?

It takes me a moment to recover. 

"Natsume-san, how much did Ema-chan tell you when you last talked?" I say, trying to keep my voice light. Ema smiles beside me, though it's twinged with guilt.

I could be a good friend and go with the flow, since it is true that Ema and I were both talking about the issue of moving away from home the other day. But at the end of the day I'm content with my decisions, and I know that moving out was something I wanted to do. This time, it's Ema who's dealing with conflict over leaving home, so this is her problem to deal with, not mine.

Sadly, I'm not that nice. 

Natsume thinks back. "She said that the two of you were looking at new places for you to live. I was told that you're staying at Sunrise Residence right now, but Ema said you wanted to move out again soon and had some questions."

"I do have questions," I say, stealing an unsubtle glance at Ema, who flinches. I sigh and turn back to Natsume. "The other day Ema and I were talking about reasons for moving out."

"Oh?" Natsume folds his hands on the table. The cat on his back thankfully retracts its claws before it slides down. "What were your reasons?"

"School, mostly," I say. "I wanted to go to a school in Tokyo, so I moved here. Ema lives close enough to Meiji University, so it's not like she needs to move out, but it's still a possibility, ne, Ema-chan?" I shoot her a glance. 

Ema panics, but I'm not letting her off the hook. She's the one who dragged me into this meeting, so there's no way I'm letting her run away from it. If she's too scared to ask Natsume outright, then I'll just have to give her a little push.

"Th-That's right..." Ema says after a long pause. She looks down at the cat in her lap, averting her gaze from Natsume and me.

Natsume tenses at the gesture. "I see. Did the guys say you had to move out all of a sudden?"

Ema's head snaps up and she waves her hands in dismissal. 

"Iie, iie, nothing of the sort!"

Natsume's eyes narrow like a cat's. 

"Then do you want to move out or something?"

Ema seems to shrink in on herself even more. "It's not that. I just..."

I want to facepalm. Is it just me or is Natsume's attempt at getting her to open up backfiring even more than mine? I admit that I might have been too hard on Ema, but at this rate we won't get anywhere. Ema won't be able to figure out what's bothering her and we'll have dragged Natsume out here for nothing. 

"I think what Ema-chan is saying that she's thinking about the whole idea of moving out in general," I say, finally coming to her rescue. It's a lame excuse, but it's the best one I can come up with on the spot. 

Visibly, Ema relaxes and nods, but this won't be an issue easily resolved. 

Well, we have the rest of lunch to get there, so we may as well get started for real. 

I clear my throat. "That's why we thought about asking you, since you've already moved out of your family house." I nod to Natsume. "Can you share with us your experiences about moving out, if you please, Natsume-san?"