Lullaby for a cat.

There was a yellowish cat purring between his legs, asking him to follow. It rubbed his legs with his furry tail and nudged him with his little snout, urging him to move after it. He knew he had to do so but his feet were tied, blinded to the ground. The cat looked at him, blinking, and Jinwoo felt the taste of its name on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t say a word, his lips glued, his eyes fading away, the scenery melting, turning into a suffocating night. 

When the cat, the last bit of colour remaining, a dot in the dusk, was about to disappear, he woke up. His pulse was trembling, his hands, shaking, a faraway name pulsing deep inside his head, threatening him with a headache. 

He could still feel the feline's eyes glaring at him in the dark – like a forest at dawn, sparkling alive. He was panting, sensing his chest constricting, his heart beating out of tempo. His room was hot and the air was asphyxiating, ashes burning his throat and igniting fires inside his lungs. He wanted to scream but his mouth was dry, flavoured with soot. It was the fourth time that week he dreamed about that cat, a yellow, furry, fluffy Munchkin cat. 

It had to mean something. Four times already it wasn't something he could ignore. And then, the realization hit him. A prophetic dream, that was what it was. His soulmate was about to be revealed, he thought, the cat was the link and he only had to follow its lead to that person waiting for him to discover, to find the end of the dream. Something last week had stirred the connection inside his heart – probably he has spotted his soul-mate in between the crew of a city that never sleeps or someone has pronounced the name he no longer remembers, bringing with it a tide of dreams that are meant for him to track that person down. 

It was Jinwoo’s first time meeting his counterpart but he had heard about it happening all the time – after all, soulmates weren’t that uncommon, he personally met a few pairs of them. But he had never had one himself, he had never experienced it, the tickles over his flesh while thinking about it, a heartbeat tied to someone else's heart, a soul that was out there, waiting for him. 

Jhonny was the name. Jinwoo just knew it as he knew his own name, he could hear it echoing inside his memories. It happened four days after his last dream. The Munchkin cat – Jhonny - was meowing at him, indicating for Jinwoo to walk beside it – again, Jinwoo knew that Jhonny, despite the name, was a female. This time he could move freely and so he rushed after the little cat’s path. He was in front of a house in Yongjin. Jhonny was purring in front of the entrance. It was a little old, the sky was painted a shade of sepia as if a decayed photography. With a blink, though, he was passing by an anodyne office building. There was nothing notorious about it; a busy street, people and noise, the colours were neat and clear. Jhonny nuzzled him and Jinwoo kneeled down to pet her fur; it was soft and warm, his fingers tangled around her long coat. It felt so different to touch her than to touch Bei and Rei but he liked it, he closed his eyes and let the magic happen again. When he opened his eyes again he was in his neighbourhood. At the end of the ally, he could see the market he usually went after work to get the groceries. Turning at the corner there was Seunghoon and Seungyoon’s vet clinic and, four streets from there, it was his flat. Jhonny stared at him for a long moment before winking. She vanished with a last, joyful meowl and Jinwoo woke up.

Past, present, future; places that were meaningful to his other half, countries visited, friends’ living rooms, a loved sister playing with Jhonny and that was as familiar to Jinwoo’s heart as his own siblings were. With every dream, Jinwoo visited a new location, a new scenery, discovering another piece of the jigsaw. And Jhonny was the key. With her, Jinwoo walked familiar streets, saw the moon with another pair of eyes, travelled the world twice within the span of a dream that lasted a night. And, yet, he was as clueless as the first time he saw the cat.

If that person owns Jhonny, maybe he should ask Seunghoon. His other half, somehow, lives nearby: he has seen his own district, the busy streets, the coffee shop he frequents. But when Jinwoo brings his hairless cats to get their nails trimmed, Seungyoon can’t give him an answer and even after checking all the files, there isn’t any Jhonny registered on their clinic. Jinwoo is left out as he was at the beginning, though Seunghoon promises him to look around.

It’s been one month and two weeks since it all started and Jinwoo is getting fed up. Every day he dreams the same and he wakes up showered in sweat, his chest constricted, out of breath, pictures of places he has never visited lingering inside his mind, the touch of Jhonny’s flesh on his fingertips, a name swirling like flowers in the wind, unable to catch it but unable to forget about it – the fact that he needs the name to discover who his soulmate is. 

He opens the door to be greeted by three pairs of meows. In between Rei and Bei walks a yellow Munchkin with soft, brown eyes. He knows her. He knows Jhonny as well as he knows his own cats. By now he is so familiar with her, he knows where to rub her, when to let her alone when she wants something and, like right now, she is rubbing his calves affectionately. In real life, she is as smooth as she is in dreams and Jinwoo sits and plays with them as if completely normal as if Jhonny belongs to him instead of her being a visitor unexpected – a visitor that sneaked into his house without warning. 

It’s not until the sun is nearly down, dying on the horizon, that Jinwoo realizes that Jhonny is really there, that this is not a part of a dream, a fantasy as he is so used to. Jhonny is scratching Rei’s scratcher and she has eaten – after terrifying him – Bei’s dry food and treats. She is a queen, he notices while Rei hides under his crossed legs, Bei nowhere to be found after fighting with her for the food.  And now she is reigning in his own home. 

“How did you come in?” Jinwoo asks her, rubbing her ears. She purrs delighted, her furry head laying atop his chest, taking nest on his arms, as comfortable here with him as if she was on her own place. But a purr is not an answer and so Jinwoo is left imagining. Will she lead him again? Is his soulmate near?  But Jhonny falls asleep and, clearly, she isn’t moving at all from the spot she is curled. 

The door rings and, before Jinwoo arrives at the hall, Jhonny is already there, her tail up. Jinwoo’s heart thumbs at double speed and his hands are sweaty holding the knob. 

Minho.

Jhonny runs to him and Minho holds her dear. How does Jinwoo know him? He has no clue but he is sure that this is his name, that he knows him, that he is the mirror that reflects his feelings. He is staring at him with eyes that are the same colour as Jhonny’s, smiling at him as if an old friend. He knows it, too.

Rei and Bei join and Minho smirks at them, petting them. Did he dream about his cats as he did, too? Jinwoo doesn’t need to wonder because the answer to it is inside Minho’s sparkling eyes, in the way his mouth twists to form worlds.

“You must be my soulmate.”

And it feels alright to be held by his arms, to be kissed gently by his pierced lips, to be surrounded by cats that are meowling at them in the middle of the hallway.