Neko Sensei (Dr. Cat)

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(Translated and Arranged by Saya)

Bakeneko (yokai cat) by Utagawa Yoshifuji

This is a story I heard from my older brother and his senpai at a local enkai (Note:a drinking party, banquet).1️⃣

My brother, when he was in high school, was a member of a gang (Note: furyo or yankee group in Japanese) that used an abandoned hospital as their hangout. 

The hospital was a famous haunted place in our home town, but ever since it became the gang’s hangout, no one would dare to go there casually for kimodameshi. 

It looked like a total mess inside the building, but there were a lot of medical apparatus and documents left behind, which made it seem as though the people in it had done a moonlight flit.

One night, my brother and his friends were killing time in the hospital as usual. 

My brother was walking down a corridor when:

“Please, come in.” 

Someone called him from one of the rooms. 

He opened the door without thinking, and entered a room that looked like an examination room; and sitting demurely on a chair in front of a desk was a neko (Note: a Japanese word for cat). 

My brother felt confused for a moment, but:

“Please, have a seat.” 

The neko spoke to him. 

For some reason, my brother thought, “ oh yeah, I need to see the doctor,” and pulling a chair, he sat down in front of the neko. 

The neko asked him many questions related to his health, and he answered it one by one.

When they had finished, the neko said:

“Listen, you have a lump in your jaw. You will need to be hospitalised.”

My brother didn’t want to be hospitalised and tried to weasel his way out of it, but the neko explained in detail why it needed to be done, giving him many medical reasons. 

In the end, my brother felt persuaded that it would be in his best interest to admit himself to the hospital. 

So he said to the neko, I understand, please can you tell me how I can be admitted to the hospital? 

Right at the same moment, his senpai opened the door and entered the room. 

According to the senpai, when he was walking down the corridor, he heard my brother’s voice coming from the other side of the door. 

He at first thought my brother was talking to himself, but then noticed that it sounded more like he was responding to someone else. 

So the senpai, suspicious, opened the door, and found my brother sitting on a chair, talking to the neko. 

The neko took flight as soon as it saw the senpai and disappeared into darkness.

My brother came to his senses immediately, and thought:

Did that neko talk?

What was I doing just now? 

And he became really scared. 

But nothing further happened and my brother went home with the others at the crack of dawn. 

After that, my brother no longer really felt like hanging out at the hospital, and he and the senpai avoided going there as much as they could.

About half a year later, my brother went to the dentist because of a toothache, and was told something surprising there. 

There was a small shadow on his x-ray. 

Comparison with the last x-ray he took, together with the size of the shadow, indicated that it had been formed within the past year. 

So what the neko had told him was true! 

My brother was so shocked.

Eventually, my brother was referred to a doctor at a university hospital, and was hospitalised there for 10 days to have his jaw tumour removed. 

I was still an elementary school kid at the time, and I remember visiting him in the hospital.

Luckily, the tumour was benign, and it never returned, so my brother is still alive and kicking.

My brother assumed that the neko had appeared to him to forewarn him of the illness.

He later bought some cat food and left it in the hospital to show his gratitude to the neko. 

But something doesn’t feel quite right to me.

If the senpai hadn’t opened the door, and my brother had agreed to be hospitalised as the neko had strongly recommended, what would have happened to him?

What did the neko mean by hospitalisation? 

I start feeling strangely scared when I think about it. 

————

1️⃣ Enkai: A drinking party or banquet.

Most English articles on enkai focuses on enkai at work place, but it can happen between friends and family too. 

https://guidable.co/work/top-14-things-you-should-know-about-an-enkai-japanese-office-party/

Hope you liked the story!❤️