"I don't want to wear clothes without cats on them!" The result of my cat obsession in my 20s...

"I started checking if materials resist cat hair," or "I stopped buying black clothes"—a cat can change an owner's fashion sense once they start living together.

In my mid-twenties, my overflowing love for cats warped my fashion sense. Please laugh at this dark chapter of my life, which I can only talk about now.

Driven by the desire to fill every daily item with cats

Although I had lived with cats at my parents' house since childhood, I truly fell into the "cat swamp" in my early twenties. The catalyst was meeting Maron, a black cat who came to our home.

As a child, I was actually not very fond of cats. I was scared of the family cat that would playfully pounce on me just for walking by (I was probably being underestimated). Now, I see that as a "cute point," but back then, I was at the mercy of cats' unpredictable behavior, and I would scream in my heart, "What am I supposed to do?! What did I do?!" (in the style of Tatsuya Fujiwara).

However, after meeting Maron, my perception of cats completely changed. Maron came to my parents' house as a kitten. At that time, in my early twenties, the workplace I had finally secured was a hotbed of power harassment, so I quit after about six months.

I became depressed, spending my days self-deprecatingly, thinking, "I'm useless at everything." The anxiety of being unemployed also grew. It was rare for someone with a congenital heart condition like me to be hired by a company. Yet, the regret of having lost my job by my own hand lingered.

It was Maron who comforted my heart. More than my human family, who would say things like, "Oh, it didn't work out again," or "Everyone struggles with work, it's just a matter of mindset," Maron, who would purr silently by my side, felt more like family.

Maron taught me how to interact with cats and that their playfulness wasn't scary. As I spent my days like this, a desire sprouted in my heart: "I want everything I see in my daily life to have a cat motif!"

Realizing "my fashion lacks cats" and going astray

I wanted cats to be in everything I saw in my daily life. With this in mind, I replaced all my daily items—mugs, towels, dishes, kitchen mats—with cat-themed ones.

After my part-time job at an arcade, which I barely managed to get, I would check the gachapon machines. If there was anything with a cat motif, I'd always try it. Being often laughed at by my co-workers, who'd ask, "Are you playing it again today!?", is a fond memory.

What bothered me during those days was my fashion. With so many cats integrating into my daily life, why was I dressing so blandly?! I felt like scolding myself: "You should be choosing cat-themed clothes!"

My fashion lacked cats... After realizing this, I started by incorporating cats into easily accessible items like earrings and rings. I also bought a collection of loose cat T-shirts, advancing my "plan to make my loungewear cat-themed."

After preparing my "cat-filled" home fashion, I surfed the internet to find cat-themed clothes I could wear outside. However, this proved to be much harder than expected. At the time, the cat boom hadn't arrived yet, and there were almost no cat-themed clothes that adults could wear casually.

Still, I couldn't give up, so I made a big decision. Using my short stature to my advantage, I bought children's cat-themed clothes. I forced myself to enjoy cat fashion.

Realizing how suspicious I looked while out and about...

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