“Well, there goes our plan.”

Dafne can’t help the annoyed growl that escapes her throat as she hides under a bush alongside her clowder members. Nena, the ragdoll who points him out, along with Cwoissant, their new recruit Chartreux, lay low as they watch the dog approach. Dafne can’t find it in herself to care, laying on her side, belly exposed—her tail wagging in annoyance.

They had just watched the senior dog ruin their match. He had called the wrong people’s attention, making the match pass each other without a second glance. In fact, the person who is supposed to find their match that day began to flirt with someone else and asked for their information.

“He’s persistent. I don’t know how to make him undertstand.”

“Is he dangerous?” Nena asks, she’s not quite tense but her posture shows she’s ready to flee if necessary.

“To our safety, he’s absolutely not. To our mission though…” Dafne pretends she can’t see him lying feet away from the bush. He’s persistent and he’s old. Not always the best combination. At least, he’s a mellow dog—overly loving and loyal like most, but mellow.

He approached Dafne about seven weeks back, asking to be taught the ways of matchmaking. It caught her by surprise, very few creatures knew about Whiskers. Of course, she turned him down.

A dog can’t do a cat’s job after all.

“What does he want again?” Cwoissant asks, his eyes shining with curiosity.

Dafne can see the crazy daydreams passing through his mind. Scenarios of creating the greatest love story brought to Whiskers. She wonders if his scenarios has a theme of beating all odds. Maybe two opposites falling in love.

“It really doesn’t matter.” As much as Cwoissant showed promise of being a great matchmaker, Dafne couldn’t feed his imagination. Even as felines tasked to do this job, they had various limits.

“Shouldn’t we at least hear him out?” There’s not time to stop him, he’s out of the bush and greeting the old Chihuahua.

The old dog perks up, tail wagging slowly, uncertainty in his eyes. “Hello,” he responds.

“My name is Cwoissant, I’m an agent at Whiskers. My colleague says you’re interested in becoming a matchmaker yourself.”

“Yes! I am. I knew if I followed you and showed you what I can do, you’d see I was serious.” The old dog is gleeful now, his tail wagging furiously. “I’m happy you’ve changed your mind.”

“We haven’t changed our minds.” This time Nena speaks, she makes her way out of the bush, giving Cwoissant a disapproving look. “Please forgive my student, he’s only a recruit and not cleared for anything besides shadowing me.”

The tail almost drops, but the dog keeps his optimism. “Of course, as a fellow student, I understand being eager to be part of the team.”

Dafne can’t continue to listen any longer. She exits the bush and sits before the dog. “Achoo, we’ve talked about this. You can’t be a part of Whiskers.”

“And I insist I can. You saw me earlier, right? I brought those two together.”

“You definitely brought two people together, just the wrong ones.”

This time his tail drops. “Oh.” 

They stare at each other, Dafne hopes he understands what he has just done. This match has been in the making for quite some time now, over the live spans of one cat and as the legend goes, cats have nine lives.

For this match to not be able to meet each other in any life time they’ve been born in means something or someone has kept them apart. Dafne, Nena, and Cwoissant’s task is to figure out why.

In this current circumstance, they know why.

“I can fix it!”

“No, you can’t!” Dafne hisses, her ears start to lower. “We’ve had the conversation before, a dog can’t do a cat’s job and you just proved it. I’ve been patient with you long enough, Achoo, but enough is enough. This job for us has been very difficult and the one time we can get these two in the same place, you completely ruin it. So please, while I’m still being nice, go home.”

There’s a phrase Dafne has heard the humans say about dogs that she didn’t quite understand before, but seeing the old timer slowly get up from his spot and walk away, the cat couldn’t help but feel some guilt.

It’s one thing to see a puppy give you an expression of raised eyebrows and a pleading look, but to see a senior dog give you that same look is something else. Puppy dog eyes, is what the humans call it and Achoo just have the biggest eyes Dafne has ever seen.