Kawasaki
Legacy Name: Kawasaki

Moshi moshi! My given name is Kiba, but in the cat realm it's Kawasaki. By day I'm just an ordinary house cat. Snoozing all day, basking in the sun. (Don't forget to bake both sides evenly if you do!) But by night I show a whole other side of myself. I grow large in size and can walk on my hind legs. I am also capable of human speech but we bakeneko's rarely converse with humans.

I used to sneak into my little owner's bedroom and borrow his haori and practice-shamisen. They are just my size. But one night, when my little owner was not so little anymore, he caught me coming out of his brother's bedroom, wearing a children's haori and his old practice-shamisen on my back. He always wondered why I still looked so young for a 15 year old cat. Clever boy.

A few months after I got caught, there laid a rather large present on the balcony with a card 'For Kiba'. Curiousity never killed me, so I opened it. A brand new haori and a proper shamisen in my size! I sat down and started tuning it as quiet as possible. The balcony door opened and my owner sat down with me. 'Well, let's hear it then', he said enthusiastically. I played for him and explained where I go off to every evening on weekends.

My world looks quite different on weekends, much livelier. I make my way over walls, roofs and railings to get into the outskirts of the city. The pleasure district is rich with noise and smells. From perfume escaping through windows to rotting fish in trash at the back of restaurants. That's just where I'm heading. Up ahead a dark alley, a warm hue of light flickers, shadows play against the walls. They look like monsters. Even the sounds coming from the alley don't sound natural. But closing in, the dancing shapes become more catlike. Around the corner a group of clothed bakeneko's gathered around a lit oil barrel behind a sushi restaurant between the trash cans and dumpsters. The females wear a kimono. We also have geishas with elaborate headpieces. Some even manage to apply make up. They mostly perform with their maiko's on fridays early in the evenings. Us males just do with a kerchief around our head and/or a haori vest. We are very welcome at the back of this restaurant. Which is quite uncommen. We have our own sushi master, who gets the scraps of the kitchen. Here we get drunk (not really) on fish oil. Although some cats bring their own sake. But this is somewhat frowned upon here. Sometimes we get a human visitor. One of the employees taking their break with us, smoking their sigarette.

I am here mostly to fill my belly with sushi and play the shamisen once the geisha's had their performance and the ambience is more loose. And this for a whole weekend. This is why I got to live so long and happy. A good home and good fun on the side!

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