[Novel] I Was Here—The Cat Says Nothing, But Sasebo Knows the Town Scenery (Episode 31: "What Bun-chan Reminded Me Of" / "The Scent of Memories Rose Around the Wooden Box")

Side B: "What Bun-chan Reminded Me Of"
——From the granddaughter's perspective

A flea market was being held in the square facing the harbor.
A clear spring breeze brushed against the scent of old clothes and paper bags.

At my booth, I had unused tableware, miscellaneous goods,
and one old wooden box that had turned up while sorting through my father's belongings.
The box was compact for its weight,
had no engravings or labels,
and assuming it probably contained some kind of parts,
I had placed it on the table without giving it much thought.

I hadn't even put a price on it,
just a handwritten sign that said, "Please feel free to ask."
There was a fair amount of foot traffic,
but no one took any notice of the box.

Around the time the afternoon passed, a cat appeared.

It had a white and brown spotted pattern. A small scar on one ear.
Hearing a nearby vendor call out, "Oh, it's Bun-chan," I remembered,
"Ah, that's the famous cat in this town."

Bun-chan came straight to my booth without hesitation.
Then, it stopped dead in front of that wooden box.

"…Huh?"

I let out a voice without thinking.
Bun-chan didn't move, staring intently at the box.

Watching that,
suddenly, the depths of my heart stirred.

—The veranda where you can see the harbor.
On my grandfather's lap.
The little me playing in the sunshine, and
the cat from back then, curled up beside us.

"...Wait, Bun-chan?"

The cat in my memories and the cat before my eyes now overlap.
No, that can't be.
That was a long time ago,
and Bun-chan is still talked about even now as the "cat that appears anywhere."

But in that moment, I remembered clearly
what my grandfather had shown me back then.

Inside the wooden box,
there should have been parts of old ship models my grandfather collected when he was young,
and a small notebook.

—"This is like a logbook
filled with the words of people I met on the sea.
It's Grandpa's own little record of adventures."

My grandfather said that and laughed.
Beside him, I laughed too, along with the cat that was sniffing the model's sails.

…I hadn't forgotten.
I just hadn't been able to remember.

I gently held the wooden box again.
And then, I set it back at the far end of the table.

As if to see that through, Bun-chan blinked slowly just once,
and while swaying its tail, walked back into the wind.

Feeling as if it had said "that's fine" to me,
I whispered a small "thank you."

Time dwells within objects.
Memories I had pretended to forget are still breathing right there.

Bun-chan must have come to help me find them.

[End]

Side A: "Because the Scent of Memories Rose Around the Wooden Box"
—From Bun-chan's perspective

I am a cat. Bun-chan.
Today, the harbor wind had a scent.
The scent of salt, food, paper bags, and memories,
all mixing in the sky—it was that kind of day.

In the square, many humans had gathered.
Old things, things no longer used,
but things that were once important "somethings" to someone,
were lined up on the tables.

I was wandering aimlessly among them.
But suddenly, my feet stopped dead.

A single wooden box.
It might look like just a tool.
But my nose,felt the scent of the "time" remaining there.

—Light on the veranda.
—Grandfather's lap.
—Small hands and a gentle laugh.
And the warmth of a cat like me.

Because it wafted up softly from the depths of the wooden box,
I sat down in front of it.

The young woman on the other side of the box
looked at me and tilted her head just a little.
Something flickered on her face.
—A sign that the light which had sunk to the bottom of her memories was slowly rising to the surface.

And then, she picked up the box.
She looked at me and nodded slowly.

…So you remembered.

On the veranda overlooking the harbor,
while playing with a cat on my grandfather's lap,
we were talking about this wooden box,
that moment in time.

I swayed my tail slowly.
It meant "that's fine," and
it also meant "I'm glad you could remember."

A tiny fragment of time that no one else would notice.
Finding things like that is something I'm just a little bit good at.

I stood up and returned to the wind.
Because there are still other "lost memories" hiding in this town.

Even so, today's wind felt a little bit warm.

[End]

Previous episode▼

Series Title List: (To be posted sequentially)

• Episode 1: "The Cat on the Hill" / "The Delivery Person's Mission"

• Episode 2: "The Letter Shop at the Bottom of the Hill" / "The Word Florist"

• Episode 3: "The Tail Map" / "The Tail Arrow"

• Episode 4: "I'll Be Waiting" / "The Scent of the Wind, the Sound of Curry"

• Episode 5: "The Tail Guide" / "A Cat in Sasebo"

• Episode 6: "The Sound That Unravels Me" / "The Sound of Trying Too Hard"

• Episode 7: "The Day I Let Go of That Hand" / "The Me Who Still Doesn't Understand"

• Episode 8: "The Reason I Cried That Time" / "A Mother's Heart, the Warmth of a Child's Hand"

• Episode 9: "The Night I Couldn't Say 'I'm Home'" / "Will I Be Able to Properly Become a 'Father'?"

• Episode 10: "The Voice of Fish, My Old Man's Back, and Cat Footprints" / "Standing in My Old Man's Shop."

• Episode 11: "The Day I Returned to Land" / "A Heart Returning to Port"

• Episode 12: "Beside a Warm Tail" / "The Presence of Distant Mountains Behind the Scent"

• Episode 13: "Waiting at the Exit of the Night" / "The Few Minutes I Return to Myself"

• Episode 14: "Before the Sound Finishes Ringing" / "I'm Sorry. But, Thank You." / "Is Staying Behind the Same as Running Away?"

• Episode 15: "Beside the One Who Prays in Silence" / "The Prayer of the One Who Prays"

• Episode 16: "Before the Silence Turns into Sweat" / "You're Here Again Today, Bun-chan"

• Episode 17: "The Reason for Raising the Noren" / "Bun-chan, It's Not Over Here Yet"

• Episode 18: "I didn’t say it out loud, but you heard me." / "A voiceless voice, I can hear it clearly, you know"

• Episode 19: "The Winner Who Doesn't Sing and the Clown Who Doesn't Laugh" / "The Distance Seen from Above, the Scent Reaching from Below"

• Episode 20: "Light Ignites Between the Two" / "I Thought You'd Come. I Have No Basis for It, Though." / "I didn't exactly go to meet you—you wouldn't believe me if I said that, would you?"

• Episode 21: "The One on the Boundary" / "I Can Tell Both Departures and Arrivals by the Scent"

• Episode 22: "Even If You Fall, Your Eyes Are Still Looking Forward" / "I Wanted to Say That I Did It"

• Episode 23: "Even on Days Without Sound, There Are Those Who Can Hear" / "Beyond the Sound, There Is a Heart"

• Episode 24: "The Sound That Unravels Is Not in the Voice, But Deep in the Eyes" / "Mom, the Cat, and a Stranger" / "On the Slope, I Felt Two Winds Overlap"

• Chapter 25: 'There was no sound of a broom today' / 'I felt the garden grew a little wider when he was silent'

• Chapter 26: 'Even if I can't hear the bell, the wind is still blowing' / 'Even if the bell doesn't ring, the scent of feelings remains here'

• Chapter 27: 'Someone was definitely here' / 'They were here'

• Chapter 28: 'That hand was gentle' / 'I feel like the town has become a little warmer since the day I touched that child'

• Chapter 29: 'The scent of dried nets and a silent kindness' / 'There are things that are understood even without saying a word'

• Chapter 30: 'I'm glad you were a police officer' / 'There was a gentle presence in the shadow of the hat'

• Chapter 31: 'What Bun-chan reminded me of' / 'The scent of memories rose up around the wooden box'

• Chapter 32: 'The last flight of spring, and Bun-chan.' / 'The scent of the bus and the rules of spring'

• Chapter 33: 'Drinks, the night breeze, and Bun-chan.' / 'When the tempo is off, listen to the sound of the wind'

• Chapter 34: 'A mountain of lucky bags and the scent of that day' / 'Beyond the scent of the mountain of lucky bags'

• Chapter 35: 'A waltz mixed in the wind, and Bun-chan' / 'Under the cherry blossoms, while scooping up the wind'

• Chapter 36: 'The scent of water and Bun-chan' / 'The scent of water and the sound of footsteps'

• Chapter 37: 'The scent of the river, prayers, and the silence of spring' / 'The scent of the river, a vow, and Bun-chan'

• Chapter 38: 'The scent of the tide, the words spoken, and Bun-chan' / 'The wind scooping up the tide and the sound of prayers'

• Chapter 39: 'Thoughts swaying on the water's surface and Bun-chan again' / 'The scent along the river and the shadow of prayers'

• Chapter 40: 'The sound of being untied and Bun-chan' / 'The sound of passing through the wind and the scent of the sea'

Afterword

Thank you for picking up this book.
And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for walking this far with Bun-chan and the town of Sasebo.

I was born and raised in Sasebo.
However, I left town for university and found employment outside the prefecture.
But after several milestones in my life, I am now living in this town again.
This collection of short stories began with the desire to depict the scenery of Sasebo—which is somewhat nostalgic yet has certainly changed—and the lives of the people who live there, as seen through my eyes now that I have 'returned to live in this town,' through a quiet lens called 'a cat's perspective.'The protagonist, Bun-chan, is a white and brown calico cat.
He doesn't speak human language, but by simply being there, he gently accepts the small fluctuations in people's hearts and the expressions they show to no one else.
A cat in a corner of town.
Even just being that, he is a presence that is surely remembered as 'having been here.'
The title of this collection was named as a symbol of Bun-chan's way of being, and Sasebo as a 'place where the thoughts of people who have spent time in this town remain.'
Furthermore, for the creation of this book, I have utilized
OpenAI's ChatGPT as a creative partner.At first, I started consulting on the plot with a light heart, wondering 'what kind of stories would be born with a cat and a town as the stage,' but before I knew it, it became days of
carefully exploring the breath of the story and the lingering resonance of words through dialogue with AI.'A cat that doesn't speak,' 'people who don't want to talk,' 'memories of the town that disappear without being told'—I feel that being able to shape these themes into something that is sometimes like poetry and sometimes like a story through collaboration with ChatGPT was an essential process for this work.Sasebo is a town of slopes and harbors.
The scenery that has changed and the air that remains unchanged all continue to nurture the memories of the people and the town.
I would be happy if Bun-chan's story could gently nestle into your heart as one of those memories.
Spring 2025
From the town of Sasebo
Author

Profile | Kazuomi Matsunaga

Biography:Graduated from Kyushu University, Faculty of Engineering (Materials Science) => Engineer at a metal materials manufacturer in the Chukyo region (Production Engineering) => Advertising sales for a local free paper in Nagasaki Prefecture => Educational institution staff (← Currently here). A person in their 50s living in Nagasaki Prefecture.
I am a writer who lets my thoughts play daily at the intersection of "questions" and "curiosity." Recently, I have been writing about my own unique perspectives on themes such as education, storytelling, psychology, AI, and design, focusing mainly on the serialized column series "The Science of Thought." I am exploring "free knowledge design" that goes beyond existing frameworks. My motto is "Imagination opens up the world."
In my professional life, while working in university and education-related fields, I value carefully observing "the moment someone starts to 'like' something" and "the scenes where questions sprout."
🧭 I would be happy if I could deliver articles that leave you with a "new perspective" after reading them.
Any feedback is always welcome!