Cats and postcards (Jason Mendal x Ysaline Dolga/Reader) (Scenario)
Summary: Ysaline wasn't even drunk when she sent an offensive postcard to the wrong address. Who could have guessed that her ex-boyfriend and her actual crush lived on the same address, different cities? Suddenly, without being aware of it, Ysaline and Jason are exchanging postcard with photos made by them with cats, recommendations of places to visit, and snarky remarks. While in the meantime they work together to open the first cat cafe in the Amoris. A little bit of personal information, a little bit of guessing, a little bit of flirting, and a little bit more hope. It has references to episodes till the 11th one inclusively. P.S: Taki is a cat here.
Word counting: 5325
It was always like this. You couldn’t remember one single time in which you called your university friends and didn’t do some strange shit in the meantime. Even your cat Taki was adopted while you were on a call with them. Your best friend would have never forgiven you if you left that small fur ball, with bald spots and so dirty you couldn’t even understand what color it was, alone in the street, during the rain. She could have, of course, continued living her best life if you didn’t do what you have done that led to where you were now, but it was for the plot, right?
And a few days ago, when you sent her that photo and told her “I know the address by heart,” her first thought was to actually do it. To actually make a postcard out of the photo of your cat pooping in your ex’s mug. You asked your mom to throw away the mug countless times, but Tasha insisted on saving it in case any of you would ever need to take a pregnancy test. It was the only thing the mug was worth it. And apparently, only Taki was solidare with you. Poor thing she couldn’t also share a part of her brain to use when you decided to send that postcard.
And you really were sure you knew the address by heart. It even used to be saved in your car’s navigator. So how come you ended up in this situation? You read only the first sentence of the response and were too mortified to continue. Like, what good can follow after “I am sorry to jeopardize your revenge, but I have been living at the same address since this apartment was built and this is the first time anyone has called me I.M.”
So, you messaged your best friend, telling her it was an emergency. It started with her, she should be a part of the continuation too, your moral support in reading the replay. You didn’t even have the courage to look at the photo on the postcard you got back. Your mom put it on your desk face down and you read only the first sentence to understand what it was. After a few minutes, your friend video-called you.
“Read it! Read it! Read it!” she chanted the moment she understood what happened. You wanted to sass back, but was too stressed to be witty.
For a second, you thought about hanging up on her. But as much as you didn’t want to admit it, you needed her support. Otherwise, you would have locked yourself in your room, hoping the bed would swallow you whole without leaving a trail you have ever lived there.
“I am sorry to jeopardize your revenge,” you finally started, your voice slightly changed due to all your emotions chaotically flying and bumping around your mind as if you had a Break the wall game inside your head. “... but I have been living at the same address since this apartment was built and this is the first time anyone has called me I.M.” You finished the first sentence, the only one you were familiar with, not having enough courage previously to read the rest of the text. Your friend stayed silent, waiting for you to get yourself together. “I may have misunderstood your cursive and it was a J instead of an I. I may not be the most likable man around, but I assure you that I have never dated two people at the same time. I have done worse. I dated three.”
“WHAT A JERK!” your friend was fast to comment.
You weren’t sure if the sender was serious or not, but it made you laugh, the first genuine laugh since you entered your room.
“I am joking,” the letter continued and made your friend murmur an Oh. “I want to believe I am not such a jerk in my personal life. And I have no idea what you went through, but it had to be intense for you to send a card with your cat pooping in a mug that I suppose is your ex’s. So, in my attempt to make you feel better, I’m sending you a card with my mom’s cat drinking water from the only mug I left at her place. This cat is the only reason I didn’t go no-contact with my family, even if he decided to make my mug his. Worst of all, he is not even a scorpio!”
You turned the card around and it was a photo of a tuxedo cat drinking from a mug with the zodiac sign of the scorpio on it. And you laughed again.
“P.S. I advise you to throw away the mug. I don’t get why you kept it, but now that it has poop in it, it’s not even good to use as a container for pregnancy tests.”
Your friend didn’t say anything but you didn’t care because you were laughing your ass off. Whoever this J.M was, he would get along with Tasha better than she was getting along with you.
“No good. He’s a scorpio. Ditch him,” your friend finally said. It made you come back to reality, but question your friend’s sanity.
“I don’t even know who he is or why he got the postcard meant for Ioan. I was sure I knew that address by heart!” you said proceeded to check the address again. You read it once, twice, thrice, the street, number and apartment seemed right. So, what could it be? “OMG! I hope a briefcase with one million euros will fall from the sky right into my head and kill me instantly!”
Your friend started to ask you what happened while you covered your mouth with both your hands in disbelief. It couldn’t be! You weren’t even drunk when you wrote the address. How? How?!
“I wrote the wrong town. Instead of sending it to Ioan, I sent it to someone from Amoris…” you finally explained in a whisper. In total contrast with your reaction, your friend fell into a loud laugh, gasping for air half a minute later. It didn’t stop her from continuing till she was hiccuping.
“So it can be anyone, even your boss from Devenementiel. Can you imagine? You go to work and Devon, or Amanda are like: Guess what I received yesterday! And show you all Taki pooping into Ioan’s mug.”
“Their initials are not J.M,” you clarified, annoyed by her reaction, even if you knew you would have done the same.
“Do you know someone with the initials J.M.?” she asked you.
Before you could even think you said that no. You couldn’t remember anyone, or not now, at least. There had to be someone, but you didn’t care enough, too shocked to think straight.
“Let’s search for his address,” your friend continued. But no, this time you wouldn’t listen to her. You had had enough. No more Do it for the plot moments in your life.
You talked a little bit more, but hung up soon, returning to your day to day lives in different cities, with different people.
You couldn’t believe you sent it to someone from your town. With your face deep in the pillow, you prayed continuously for it not to be someone you knew, also hoping that they wouldn’t come check the address the postcard was sent from. You didn’t want to check theirs but you also couldn’t be sure they would do the same. Unlike them, you didn’t leave your initials. But it wasn’t very hard to find out who you were if they just drove by your house. Your mom was too busy to do things like this, your sister too young and the only person left was you. Shit. Shit. SHIT! With this in mind, you fell asleep.
The next day at work, you were still deep in your thoughts. On one hand, good thing Ioan didn’t find out you were still mad at him and thinking about him – even if in a bad way. On the other hand, Amoris was a small town that you could even walk in one day if you wanted hard enough. So how? How did you make the mistake and wrote your actual location instead of the previous one?
Your colleague and newly acquired friend Amanda was fast to notice that something was bothering you. And after a few attempts, changes of your cheeks in a pink three times more visible than usual, and a promise from her to keep the secret, you told her about the dumb adventure you did for the plot.
“Why don’t you send them another postcard, but a cute one this time, apologizing for the bother?”
At first, you didn’t like her idea but it grew on you. It was a very Amanda idea to offer, cute and distinguished, with politeness as spice. Every moment you didn’t think about work, you thought about it. And at home, Taki felt more than once your eyes on her, trying to catch her in a cute position. She didn’t seem to cooperate and you were too busy with work to spy on her every free minute, so the deadline of your apology moved further and further. Until one day you came home to see Taki sleeping on the window sill with only her front paws on the hot radiator.
“I am deeply sorry for the mess with the last postcard. So, as an apology, please accept this one with my cat enjoying the cold weather from the inside of the house. She used to be a street cat when she was a kitten and I adopted her a few years ago. Now, she never goes out and lives like a queen, eating only the most expensive full of vitamins and low fat food. Next thing I know she buys herself land in Ireland and tells me to call her Lady. Hope this message finds you well and brings you a small smile on your face.
P.S. Don’t be a douche and stop dating three people at the same time. Date four.”
You decided to have the same easy-going approach as J.M in his card. Even if you felt awkward, at least it made you believe it wasn’t as serious as it seemed in your mind. You left the card in the mail collecting box on your way to work and forgot about it. It was a month after J.M’s response and all you hoped was that it wasn’t too late to apologize. But better late than never, right? Plus, it wasn’t as if you owed him anything. You were just polite. Polite. You were just polite.
On your way to work, you hoped that you would continue to be just as polite, considering that you had to work with Goldreamz again. It was the first time Devenementiel and Goldreamz were cooperating, not competing. And that was how you, Jason, Danica, and Elenda ended up working together. Devon intentionally chose you and Elenda, not to cause any unpleasant scene in front of the client. It didn’t matter how much you wanted to convince everyone, your colleagues were sure you got along with Jason. Their argument: they had eyes to see. You had no idea what they were seeing, but it was wrong.
Of course, you went together to choose an apartment for you and pose as a couple, even if it didn’t work out. He probably saw you naked, even if he wanted to make you believe he didn’t look. He let you see a part of his childhood. You even were supposed to have dinner together, even if it again – didn’t work out. But it wasn’t that deep. Of course, it wasn’t that deep. It couldn’t be. You weren’t close with Jason. You didn’t hate him as Amanda, or Roy did, or whoever else, but he was just a guy. A kinda hot, sometimes funny, sometimes caring, sometimes leaving you double-meaning hints guy who was flirting with you and you were flirting back, but nothing too serious. Right? RIGHT?!
“As you know already, I want to open a cafe,” the owner said during your meeting. As he said, all of you were aware of it, even if none of you had any idea why two of the biggest event companies in the town had to work together for a local cafe. “However, it’s not a simple cafe and I didn’t see any projects similar to this in any of your portfolio. So, I decided to ask both of you to work together for my project and share ideas.”
Usually, if a client didn’t see a work in the company’s portfolio, they were searching for something similar and hoped for the better if no other company could raise to their standards. Now, it seemed like something more serious, if they weren’t ready to hope for the best for a simple cafe.
“I saw that Devenementiel once worked with a cat cafe, while Goldreamz worked with a cat shelter. What I want to do is to make a cat cafe from which the clients could adopt the kitties. Goldreamz’ relationship with the shelter can help us get the cats, while Devenementiel knows how to integrate them into a cafe.”
You couldn’t help but smile. Everything else went on a secondary plan and your head already started to burst with ideas about what you could do. Also, you were sure Danica would know lots of stuff too, considering her love for her own two cats. Elenda liked everything cute. And about Jason… You just hoped he wouldn’t be only business, but also put a little bit of his soul into the project.
“I saw a similar idea in Greece a few years ago and finally got all the permissions to implement something like this. This project is as dear to me as a kid and I would like to think you would do your best to make the opening as memorable for the town as possible. I know you can look at it like it’s just a cat cafe that can’t bring too much for your companies, but…”
“No! You have no idea how happy this project makes us!” Danica interrupted the owner and a smile appeared on his face.
The rest of the meeting went smoothly. Danica and Elenda stopped at a cafe to chat and catch up before returning back to work. Which left you alone with Jason. Ugh. Here we go again.
“Do you like cats?” you asked Jason while buckling up the seatbelt in his sports car. The first time you ended up in that place, you forgot to put it. After that, you promised yourself to never make the same mistake in any car. Who could have thought that again and again, you would end up in Jason’s car? Good thing you were keeping your promise and not making a fool out of yourself again.
“Why are you here?” the CEO asked. And he was right. He didn’t invite you in his car, you did it on pure habit. At first, you felt a little embarrassed for making a fool out of yourself again. Then, you saw a grin on Jason’s face and rolled your eyes.
“I was sure you didn’t get enough of me during the meeting and decided to show a little bit of kindness towards you. No, dear horsy, speed up!”
Truth be told, not you, nor Jason knew where you were going. But he started the engine nonetheless.
“I do,” he said after he stopped the car at a red light. You turned to him with a raised brow. “I like cats. My stepdad gave my mom an expensive spoiled cat once. However, that hell creature hates him, but jumps on my lap every time I’m visiting. At some point, I was going home weekly just to piss him off.”
You looked at the Devil CEO, trying to understand if he was joking or not. It was a very Jason thing to do, but still kind of unexpected. You liked it – to discover new things about Goldreamz’ CEO that no one could have guessed, probably not even his own mother. You liked to know new things about anyone, but Jason was a special case. He was like a Matryoshka that was slightly changing with all the layers and awakening more and more interest in you.
In the end, you ate lunch together. At first, you took out your tablet to search for the Greek cat cafe that allows customers to adopt them, but you got so deep into talking about Jason’s mom’s cat that you forgot completely you were working on a project. Apparently, his name was Shere Khan because Jason’s stepdad was sure the black panther from Mowgli was named Shere Khan and not Bagheera. And that was how a black tuxedo cat ended up being named after a tiger instead of a panther. He also shared how the cat learned to open and close drawers, especially the ones that keep the food in; how he was vomiting only in one place – his step-father shoes; and how the man who got it tried to get rid of it but Mrs. Mendal didn’t let him do it. Jason was okay with not being the favorite if it meant that his step-dad wasn’t the one too.
You laughed, you ate, you didn’t pay anything and in the end, Jason even drove you to work. He offered to enter the company and greet everyone, but you stopped him just in time. In return you only got a laughing Jason right at the entrance of Devenementiel. It was still better than having him inside. There was a chance the whole building would have exploded if Jason entered Roy’s theritory.
For the next few days, you saw your competitor – now colleague – only during the meetings with the client. The rest of the time you were gathering information about how to make a cafe a pleasant place for both humans and animals. You looked up other projects that had cat cafes to search inspirations for placing the cat labyrinths and other places to hide, how to find a perfect balance between cats having a safe space and people still being able to see them, and what was the optimal number of creatures in the space offered by the client.
And one day, when you opened the postal box to see if your mom got anything while being away, something caught your eyes. It was a photo of a night sky without any light pollution, where you could see stars and a part of the Milky Way.
“Dear Miss,
I sent you this photo of the sky seen from Amantani Island in Peru as a thank you. I don’t have too many good quality photos of my mom’s cat (blame her, please. I save all of them, I have a heart). But I have a few from places I have visited. I don’t think there are a lot of places in Europe where you can see such a pretty sky. So, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.
Your wrongly accused,
J.M.
P.S. Don’t worry. Right now, my douchebaggery found a single victim. My polygamous times are gone.”
You laughed and thanked J.M. for stating that his heart was occupied. It made you feel safer. He didn’t have interest in finding you if he had someone he loved enough to stop his self-proclaimed playboy times. You didn’t know if you wanted to send something back. As a destruction, you decided to work. Searching the internet, messaging your mom, answering your team’s messages… And suddenly it hit you! You remembered that you once traveled to a fun place: the cat museum of Krakow, that place that had more than 1000 statues of cats and you had to find specific 20, or was it 10? of them to get a prize. Somewhere on your laptop you had the photo of that museum. You could use it as an inspiration for your work. When you found it, another random thought hit you. What if you printed it as a postcard and sent it to J.M.? It seemed fun. It wasn’t anything serious, just a pen-pal who sent you cute photos from his life and random messages. You didn't even know each others’ names.
***
Jason felt the need to lean his head on the entrance door while he was searching for his keys. He would have never imagined that listening to Danica’s stories about cats could be that exhausting. He was a CEO, he knew what exhausting conversations felt like: meetings with the board, firing employees, talking with difficult clients. But Danica, Danica was on a whole different level! That woman had more energy in herself than an orange kitten. She was the best person in the whole company for the cat cafe. However, it came with a price – the price of his nerves. And the worst part was when he drove her home she told him: “You are so taciturn with us, but talkative with Devenementiel’s Ysaline. It’s amazing how different you can be. That’s such a black cat energy.”
Jason threw all the contents he got from his mail-box on the bar of his living room and went to shower. Only on his way out did he see something strange on the floor. When he took a closer look, he saw it was a photo with what seemed like glass shelves full of statues of cats. He turned it on the other side and was met by an already familiar cursive.
“Dear J.M.,
I don’t have a beautiful photo of a sky that you probably didn’t see, considering that we are from the same town, but I have this. I rediscovered it while working on a project for a cat cafe. It’s a place in Krakow named the Cat Museum that has 1000 statues of cats. We are back to the cat topic, but right now it’s the only thing I can think about. So, if you like to travel, please visit it with your special one. It’s fun and not expensive at all. You’ll have half an hour of pure happiness!
Your kitten obsessed,
Y.D.”
The postcard fell back on the floor. He knew who it was. It made lots of sense now. And even more things made sense. Jason knew about his love interest’s past relationship with Ioan Mullioz and how it ended. But only now did he understand the whole tragedy better. Of course Ysaline cried in front of him when he was teasing her about being a mistress. However, the thought that she was still deeply affected by him in his day to day life didn’t cross his mind that much. Jason was older, higher in the work hierarchy, and with a playboy history. Of course, Ysaline was constantly pushing him away when he was getting too close to her in a romantic way. If she was still hurt enough to even have the thought of sending her imbecile ex a postcard to mess with him, then how could he push her the way he did? The Cat Museum was supposed to make Jason smile, instead, it made him the closest to despair he had been in years.
***
Dear Cat-Lady Y.D.
Considering that you showed interest in going back to the topic of cats, I’ll send you a photo that my dad once took. In it you can see a few seals that are colloquially called sea cats. They may not be of such great inspiration for your cat cafe project, but their cuteness can not be denied. I will probably add the beach with the seals to the places to visit when the woman that caught my interest will accept my advances, alongside with the Cat Museum of Krakow. Make such a list for yourself too and add Amantani. But please, make sure your next choice will be better than Mr. I.M. As much as I liked the first postcard, I do love more the ones in which cats don’t poop. Thank you for your understanding.
Your not-at-all-romantic-even-if-in-this-letter-looked-like-it,
J.M.
***
Dear Mr. Anti-Romantic J.M.
I just understood that I have never explained how I sent that postcard to you and I’m sorry. It was my university friend’s idea while we were joking around on our monthly call. I don’t want to blame everything on her, but I do really normally don’t do things like this. I have mostly moved on. But back to the topic, I do have a list of places I want to visit with my future partner. And on top of the list is probably the project I am working on right now because I love the concept behind it and it’s very close to us. Perfect for a first date. In the meantime, please admire this photo of the stray new-born kitties my friend from work has found.
You actually romantic,
Y.D.
***
Dear Ms. Modesty Embodied Y.D.,
I am sure the project you work on will be of great popularity, considering how much passion you put in it. I also deeply admire the quality of your photos of the cats you have sent till now. I wish my mom took photos of Sher her cat at least half as good as yours. But if we are talking about cafes, I would like to recommend you another one from abroad: Little Kook. This one is not as far as Peru. It’s way closer: Greece, more specific, the center of Athens. The postcard that seems like a total chaos of colors, decorations and sweets is taken inside of it. (If you worry, don’t. I didn’t visit it with one of my one-night-stands. I visited it with my mom with the money I saved from my first serious jobs. A little bit before she married my idiot step-father.)
Your “I promised my dentist I don’t have a sweet tooth”,
J.M
***
Dear Mr. “I have veneers in all my teeth after I ate the entire menu of Little Kook in one day” J.M.
Thank you for your recommendation. I didn’t visit it in the meantime, but my mom who was in Greece did and she loved it. She told me to come to Athens with her and visit again, but I have too much work. So, she sent me photos of Greek street cats and one of them is the one I’m sending you. I have a funny thought that maybe, when I finally get to visit it with my partner, you’ll be there too with yours, after your chosen one will accept your advances. Good luck with it and send her photos from Little Kook too, while promising to pay and organise the entire trip.
Your very busy right now,
Y.D.
***
You tried your best to fall asleep for two hours, but it wasn’t working. You were seeing Jason daily for the past two months, eating lunch together at his expense, sometimes even dinner. Once, you convinced him to let you pay, which was an achievement, considering he didn’t let you do it even when you lost that bet. And you also convinced him to act as if he was proposing to you with one of his rings to get a discount. It worked. The problem was that you played the role so well, you nearly let him kiss you. You wanted him to kiss you, you really did, but not like that. There was something you needed to do first – finish the cat cafe. The opening date was one week away. And from your observations, the arrival time of the postcard was also around four to five business days. If you wrote the next message now, it would arrive by the time it should. All your hope was in the French Postal Office. And you, that you would have the courage to do everything.
On your way to work, you let the postcard slip your fingers inside the mail collecting box. Your cheeks were as red as when you did it for the first time. But your legs were heavier with each step you took. Before entering the building, you stopped. Jason’s car was already at the entrance. You needed a little help, a little push, a little support. And you knew for sure who could give it to you.
“Thank you for convincing me to send that postcard to Ioan. Now I am way better at expressing myself than I was a few months ago. You truly are my best friend.”
When you entered and walked towards the meeting point of your team, you felt a buzz in your pocket.
“You can do it. You go girl!”
Yes, you could. You could do it. It was the last meeting before the opening and the entire team had other projects to take care of, unable to go daily to the cat cafe. So, it had to be done now.
Your hand slipped into your bag and you put behind the thing that you took out. Jason didn’t see you yet and it was the perfect opportunity. He seemed to wait to talk with the owner but Elenda was keeping him busy. You knew him for long enough to understand from his body language that he was getting impatient: hands crossed, changing positions every half a minute, looking at his watch every now and then. And boom! You put the cat ears you were hiding on his head. He turned to you immediately, not understanding what just happened.
“Keep the evening of the opening day free. You have to see what a great job I have done on this project.”
You wanted to wait for his answer, but your heart was beating too hard to let you hear anything. So, you found your rescue in Danica who liked to talk your ears off about her two cats and apparently, you were the only one ready to hear her. Elenda could probably do it too, but Elenda was also getting overly excited and it was turning into a war of who would talk for longer.
For the next few days you barely saw anyone from Goldreamz. If you needed something, you would message Danica or the owner of the cafe. You didn’t even know if Jason accepted your invitation or not.
Jason also didn’t have the easiest time either. He didn’t know if you were joking or not. You seemed serious, even if you did it in a playful way. But something couldn’t let him sleep: was going to the cat cafe what he thought it was or did you change your mind at some point? He even started to question his deduction skills, a thing he had never done till now. He was taking his phone in his hands to message you, then throwing it back, then taking it and writing the message and then delete it. He couldn’t work like this, so after the opening in which he didn’t see you, he went back home. The owner told him you visited in the morning hours and you two split only by a few minutes. He wanted to believe that the date – if it was really the date he waited for – was still on.
Once again, Jason opened his mailbox. But he stopped before looking inside.
“I’ll come to your place in one hour,” he finally wrote. Jason hit the Send button and immediately put his phone away.
In his mailbox was a postcard with the photo of the cat cafe that just opened. Jason rolled his index finger ring with his thumb. Maybe, just maybe, you were asking for what he thought you were.
“I know who you are =))
Message me.”
