23 A new family member

"Hey, wake up sleepy head...It's morning already," Anemachi heard a small female's voice in the darkness, "come on. You will be late for work later."

"But I don't want to…" Anemachi said without any control of her body. She felt tired and sleepy, "let me sleep…"

"Come on. You won't want to be late right?" the voice continued to speak, "people are waiting for you outside. You have a big day ahead of you."

"I'm tired though…"

And before Anemachi continued she felt a soft sensation on her lips which stopped her from speaking.

"You can get through it. I believe in you, my darling."

There, Anemachi's view was filled with rays of light.

"Anemachi! Are you in there!?" Anemachi heard A-chan's voice combined with rapids knocking on her door, "are you still conscious? God, she didn't die of overworking right? Are you there Anemachi?"

"Y-yes, I'm here," Anemachi replied while her eyes were still half open. She has a deep dark circle below both of her eyes which indicates that she hasn't got a night of good sleep for a while, "and I'm not dead by the way."

"I'm intruding then."

A-chan then opened the door into Anemachi's office in her usual T-shirts and Jeans. Her face was full of worry.

"Ahh...You didn't go back home today again?" A-chan said, "I told you to leave your work for tomorrow right?"

A-chan looked at the messy table of Anemachi. She was not satisfied.

"Y-yeah...Sorry about it," Anemachi felt guilty for some reason, "I thought that I could finish it in time to go back home. And I fall asleep before I know it."

'Ah, why did I fall asleep so easily recently? Guess my body has trouble keeping up with my routine now…' Anemachi rubbed her forehead in an attempt to get rid of the tiredness but to no avail.

"I can see that. Jeez, working that much, are you a workaholic? I'm so scared that there will be a corpse on the other side of the door. And is that your cat? I remember telling you that pets aren't allowed in the company," A-chan looked over to the small creature and was surprised that Anemachi had it lying around, "didn't think that you were a cat person, Anemachi."

"Ah, I picked her up last night when I was buying snacks. She looked weak so I decided to take her in," Anemachi felt the small being moving on her thighs as A-chan was talking. The cat was sleeping calmly still as she squeezed herself into Anemachi, warming herself up.

"A stray cat huh? She looks young though. Will her mother be worried?" A-chan commented, "I hear some mothers could go crazy if they notice their child is gone."

"Her mother is already long gone judging from how hungry she was last night," Anemachi rubbed the cat's head which woke her up, "I couldn't ignore her at that time...So here she is with me. Sorry about it A-chan."

"Nyan?" The cat now awakened meow due to her instinct. Realizing another stranger entered, she proceeded to look at A-chan cautiously, her tail raising up. Anemachi, noticing the cat's behavior, calms her down with another pat on her head, which she successfully did.

"Don't worry about it. Not like our president really cares about these rules. It's the investor that is troublesome. Anyway, you can go back home now, Anemachi," A-chan waved off Anemachi's worried as she dismiss Anemachi

"H-huh? What do you mean?" Anemachi widened her eyes, "you mean I'm fired-"

"Nope. I want you to rest," A-chan bonked Anemachi's head with her hand.

"AHHHH!" Anemachi doesn't like that.

"Punishment for you who doesn't take care of herself. The president told me to keep an eye on you, do you know that? He said that he won't want his employee dying from overworking. You should be proud that your work attitude has reached even his ears," A-chan continued as Anemachi was recovering her health, "go back home now and rest. You have already finished your work for this week already."

"But-"

"You don't want our company to be sued for being a sweatshop right?" A-chan countered Anemachi, "you are literally getting us into legal trouble if this continues."

"So, go back home and rest for the day. And no next time."

And thus Anemachi was kicked out of the office together with her cat. A side note here, her action of trying to bring back some files home was noticed by A-chan and stopped immediately.

"Looks like we will have to go home today, little cat," Anemachi standing before her company's building sighed and said.

"Nyan!" the cat responded with enthusiasm.

"You are excited about it, aren't you? Don't expect too much. My home isn't that interesting for you," Anemachi teased the cat by touching her nose, "but I should probably have a vet appointment for you after a while, this will be troublesome. Anyway, let's go then."

With the cat being held in one of Anemachi's arms and her bag in another the two eventually left the street and reached the small home that Anemachi has. The journey was mostly uneventful except for Anemachi occasionally talking to the cat. Of course, the cat doesn't understand anything.

Anemachi never knew that talking to an animal can feel this nice though. It was as if she had a place where she finally could release her pent up emotions.

"Alright, we are home now. Don't mess up anything alright?" Anemachi said to the confused cat who was observing her home, "this will be your home from now on, hopefully."

"Nyan?"

With that, Anemachi slowly put down the cat on the floor, allowing her to explore the new environment. Anemachi watched as the cat carefully checked every corner and door. She was scared that a hunter or danger may appear at any second. Anemachi smiles at her behavior.

"Since I have a whole day, I might as well spend it on myself then." Anemachi wasn't gonna lie. She loved her day off, "Let's start with-"

"Didi!" Her phone rang.

"God damn it. Who could it be...yes?" Anemachi picked up the phone.

"Hello Anemachi~" a familiar voice came from the phone, although it sounded slightly sleepy.

"Mio? Why are you calling me this early? Anything?" Anemachi didn't expect Mio at this time.

"Yeah...Just wake up actually. I have work later. Just want to remind you of something before I go. You didn't forget right?"

"Forget what?" Anemachi asked.

"Sigh...Your medication, silly."

"A."

Anemachi instinctively looked towards one of her tables. There the medication that Mio gave her remained untouched and unharmed. She forgot about its existence completely.

"O-of I course I didn't!" Anemachi won't say the truth of course.

"Hmmmm…" Mio was suspicious but didn't say anything, "anyway, remember to take it. I will be off now before I'm late for work. See you next time."

"Also, don't flirt with other women alright? You are mine."

"What-" the phone was hung before Anemachi could confirm what Mio has said.

"...I must have misheard it. Yes, Mio isn't someone who will say that." Anemachi successfully convinced herself of Mio's unusual behavior, "but the medicine…*sigh*"

After all, Anemachi has no reason not to take the medicine now. Her disease is already exposed. With that, she took the medicine on the table and poured herself a glass of water.

She opened the container and took out a number of pills on the table. Most of the pills have bright colors of red, blue, green, yellow to indicate their potential lethality, with warning signs surrounding the capsule.

Anemachi doesn't like taking these medications. The side effect of these was nasty. But she doesn't have much of a choice really. Thus Anemachi swallowed the pills one by one unwillingly while the cat was still exploring around.

Life indeed wasn't kind at times.

Anyway, she wanted to take a rest too for herself like A-chan had said. She would binge sleep but she doesn't want to mess up her sleep schedule yet. So…

Anime it is, or manga.

She would be a hermit for a whole day.

"Let's see...There are quite some anime I have been wanting to watch," Anemachi went through her laptop and began searching for her desired anime, "hmm..."

Anemachi's taste in Anime was quite vanilla. She enjoyed comedy, romance and slice of life genres. But she won't mind going through other genres too.

Anemachi began putting some anime into her watch list while humming cutely. It's nice to relax from time to time, knowing you won't have to worry about anything else

And as the anime op began playing, Anemachi indulged in the personal time she had, her whole body relaxing.

"Nyan!" the cat, seeing the human sitting on the chair, wanted affection and got close to her, "Nyannn."

"You wanna come up?" Anemachi looked at the cat and invited her, "come then."

Followed by a quick hop, the cat jumped on Anemachi's thighs, eyes wandering on Anemachi's laptop, wondering what was this human doing.

"We will be chilling the whole day it seems. Talking about it, you don't have a name yet right?" Anemachi while patting the cat continued, "Let's see...I'm quite bad at naming things though."

"How about I call you Helka from now on?"