"Father? Who are you glaring at? Glaring at the sky like that."

  Glare.

  Amashiro, who'd been glaring at the non-existent "hack writer," turned his gaze directly to Rashion.

  "...You said earlier you came from 'a slightly distant planet,' right?"

  "Yes."

  "Then how did you get here? If you came by spaceship, it would've caused a huge uproar...

  Or wait, is it that? Did you make a secret pact with some superpower to cover it up?

  Or is your planet's technology so far beyond Earth's that you could land without anyone noticing?"

  Amashiro rattled off various common sci-fi scenarios.

  "No... actually, it's the opposite. The technological level of my planet is far below this one—Chikyu (Earth)."

  "What?"

  "Even Chikyu's technology can't achieve space travel yet, right? On my planet, Tusita, it's even more impossible."

  Amashiro felt his earlier suspicions resurface.

  "So you really are a yō—"

  "I'm not! We just relied on thaumaturgy instead of technology."

  "Artillery?1 Don't tell me you were shot here by cannon? This isn't Baron Munchausen."

  "Baron Mun... what? I know someone named Mun'chaf, though.

  Anyway, not artillery—thaumaturgy. We waited for the planets to align, then activated the grand thaumaturgy of 'World Crossing.' That's how I flew here."

  Yet another avalanche of mysterious keywords threatened to make Amashiro's head explode.

  "Wait a minute... thaumaturgy, World Crossing... isn't that a bit too fantasy?"

  "Even if you say that, it's all reality, so you have no choice but to accept it."

  "Coming from someone who's basically a walking impossibility..."

  Even as he said this, there was Rashion—bizarre in appearance but undeniably alive.

  He couldn't bring himself to argue with common sense, nor did he want to treat the person before him as an illusion.

  After all, he'd desperately wished to see him again, "even if only in a dream."

  So he decided to accept it as "just how things are."

  There was no point agonizing over questions with no answers. He had no choice but to accept the events before him as fact. That's the kind of person he was.

  "Low technological level... but isn't that thaumaturgy thing already incredible enough? Forget space travel—that's interstellar jumping! How much distance did you cross in an instant?"

  "Well, even so, it's true our industrial production capacity doesn't match this planet's, and while minor magic is usable, thaumaturgy isn't something you can use willy-nilly. In fact, we can't even make these 'sacred treats' there."

  Rashion said this with a straight face, but somehow it felt like an absurd punchline.

  'Calling cheap treats you can buy with a kid's allowance "sacred"—what an exaggeration... wait, did he just say magic? As if aliens weren't headache-inducing enough—'

  However, the prevailing theory these days was that the lifestyle of an ordinary working-class person in a modern developed nation was actually richer and more luxurious than that of pre-modern nobility.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  If Rashion lived in a world with a lower technological level than modern Earth, that reaction wasn't entirely unreasonable.

  "Ah."

  "Ah?"

  "Ahhhhh..."

  At Rashion's somewhat melancholic voice, Amashiro snapped back to reality.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Ahhhhhh."

  "Hey, what's... wait, that..."

  Amashiro turned his attention to Rashion.

  On the table before him, empty treat wrappers were neatly arranged, and Rashion was looking down at them with eyes that seemed to say "it's not enough."

  And then—

  Norgaar, perched on the back of the sofa, repeatedly delivering cat punches to the back of Rashion's head.

  Isha, biting Rashion's hand.

  Asha beside them, hissing—no, angry?

  It was truly a hellish scene.

  "You glutton...

  So you didn't come back to see me—you came back for the treats?"

  "That's absurd! Of course I came to see you, Father!

  ...Along with that..."

  "Yeah, you're definitely an idiot. That was clearly putting the cart before the horse."

  Even as he delivered the retort, Amashiro couldn't help but smile.

  "Well, never mind all that.

  Just being able to see you again like this is enough for me.

  And to actually have a conversation? It's perfect.

  Thank you for coming to see me."

  "Father...

  Ow—Asha! You're biting too?"

  Just when the atmosphere was getting emotional, the cats refused to allow it. Amashiro chuckled wryly.

  "Well, it's fine. You ate everything I bought today, didn't you?

  With that body of yours, that's probably not enough.

  Alright, I'll go buy more. If I hurry, I should make it before closing time.

  Oh, and you haven't had dinner yet either. There are some ingredients you can't eat, so... what would you like?"

  "Ah, no, dinner isn't—"

  "Don't be shy. I'll be right back, so make yourself comfortable, okay?

  If you can drink alcohol, I'd love to drink the night away with you, but I don't know if you can—"

  Amashiro hastily threw his jacket back on and rushed out of the apartment.

  "I'll be right back—don't go outside, just wait here!"

  Slam.

  Hearing the apartment door close, Rashion let out a small sigh.

  "I'm sorry, Father..."

  At his quiet words, the cats—transformed from their earlier hellish behavior—gathered around Rashion peacefully.

  Rubbing their foreheads against him, licking where they'd bitten...

  "You all did well."

  ---

  Rushing out of his apartment, Amashiro first burst into the pet shop just before closing time and swept every single one of those treats off the shelves, then asked if there was more stock—which startled the owner.

  "My cats are big eaters, you see."

  Despite the sudden eccentric behavior, perhaps because he was a regular, the shop owner didn't press further and brought out an entire box from the storage room.

  "Please consider other customers and limit yourself to that for today."

  That was the condition, though.

  After thanking the owner and completing the purchase, Amashiro next rushed to a nearby sushi restaurant and ordered sushi without wasabi. He'd initially considered steak, but knowing that garlic and onions were toxic to cats, he'd eliminated options one by one until sushi remained.

  "Well, they did say sushi toppings are safe for cats."

  He thought the sushi place might find it suspicious, but when he said it was "for a foreign friend not used to wasabi," they made it without question.

  An alien was basically a foreigner, so he wasn't lying.

  ---

  Running around everywhere while out of breath, pushing himself a bit hard for his age, Amashiro was barely hanging on by the time he returned to the apartment...

  "No, no, no—it's tough but not enough to kill me!

  ...Wait, who am I even talking to?"

  In any case, he took a deep breath at the apartment door to catch his breath before entering.

  "I'm home—sorry for the wait!"

  Meow.

  Unlike before, this time Norgaar came to greet him at the entrance.

  "Yes, yes, good boy. Where's your big brother?"

  As he said this and removed his shoes at the entrance, Amashiro felt something was off.

  No presence from deeper inside.

  Despite Rashion's overwhelming presence earlier, he couldn't sense him?

  Moving further in, he found Isha and Asha sleeping peacefully on the living room sofa. Until just before he'd rushed out to shop, Rashion had been sitting there.

  "Huh? Where's Rashion?"

  He'd told him not to leave.

  Rashion should've understood that going outside in that form wasn't wise.

  At the entrance, Rashion's shoes... no, wait, had he even been wearing shoes? He couldn't remember.

  The bathroom, the bath, the study, the kitchen, the closets—he searched everywhere he could think of, but Rashion wasn't there.

  As if he'd never been there at all.

  "...No way..."

  Had he been seeing things? A waking dream?

  "...No."

  That couldn't be.

  On the table in front of the sofa where Rashion had been sitting, the treat wrappers he'd enjoyed so much were neatly arranged.

  Had he gone home?

  He'd said he came to Earth from some planet using that incomprehensible method called thaumaturgy, so just as he'd appeared suddenly, it wouldn't be strange for him to suddenly leave.

  "Selfish bastard..."

  As if collapsing, Amashiro sat down in front of the sofa where the cats were sleeping and muttered bitterly with a sigh.

  If you're going to come, at least tell me in advance.

  If I'd known, I would've cancelled everything today and prepared properly to wait for you.

  Appearing on your own and disappearing on your own... that's exactly what a cat would do.

  No, who's really being selfish here?

  If there'd been a way to contact me, you would have.

  Who wasted the precious time with you by being out or passed out?

  "Right to the very end, I was a useless old man..."

  Emptiness and sorrow came crashing down.

  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  Footnotes

  1 In Japanese, "thaumaturgy" (法術, hōjutsu) and "artillery" (砲術, hōjutsu) are homophones—they sound identical but are written with different kanji. Amashiro mishears Rashion's explanation, leading to this absurd misunderstanding about being shot to Chikyu by cannon.