Bringing Stray Cats Indoors: How Nori and Witty Became Family

At 9:38 a.m. on April 29, 2026, Nori came back home.

He was walking down the lane, limping on the left front leg he had injured the night before. He had disappeared while I was getting ready to take him to the vet. I had been waiting near the entrance to the house with Hodu for almost an hour.

The moment I saw Nori, everything became clear.

For several weeks, I had been struggling with whether to take Nori and Witty in. I had already brought them inside once, then decided to let them live outside again. I was afraid of what it would mean to take responsibility for five animals, and I wondered whether bringing cats who had grown up outside into the house would mean taking away their freedom.

But when I saw Nori limping back toward the house, those questions no longer seemed important.

That was when I clearly realized that I already loved both of them deeply.

When Nori and Witty First Started Coming to the Yard

I moved into this house on February 27, 2026.

At first, I paid little attention to the cats in the neighborhood. After moving in, I occasionally saw cats crossing the yard. Out of curiosity, I put some cat food in a bowl near the entrance to the house. I enjoyed watching them come to eat, and I thought Kant and Fooku might find them interesting to watch from inside.

Most of the cats that came to the yard were adults.

Then I noticed one unusually small and thin young cat.

He didn’t seem very afraid of me and came close to me from the start. He coughed badly, his body was very thin, and he seemed to have little energy. He spent a great deal of time lying down and sleeping.

That was Nori.

Beside him was a young white cat with blue eyes. He looked a little larger than Nori and appeared healthier. His reaction to people was the opposite of Nori’s. Whenever I approached, he quickly ran away.

That was Witty.

One thing stood out almost immediately.

Nori and Witty were almost always together. More precisely, Witty rarely seemed to leave Nori’s side.

On March 18, Nori, who had usually been visible in the yard, suddenly disappeared. The next day, only Witty appeared.

I worried that something might have happened to Nori because he was already in poor physical condition. At the time, I deliberately didn’t feed the outdoor cats every day because I didn’t want them to become too dependent on the food I provided. I even wondered whether Nori had stopped coming because I hadn’t fed him consistently.

On March 20, Nori returned with Witty and a female cat I took to be his mother. Among the female cats I had seen nearby, she looked strikingly similar to Nori.

I was relieved to see him again.

Around that time, I also began to want Nori and Witty to come inside and live with me.

Witty Was Almost Always Beside Nori

After March 20, the two cats rarely left the area around the house, even at night.

Although it was past mid-March, the mornings and nights were still very cold. Nori and Witty often slept beneath a waterproof bicycle cover under the eaves outside the entrance. I laid down several layers of fabric to help insulate them from the cold ground.

After that, they began staying close to the house during the day as well, resting there or spending time in the yard instead of wandering farther away.

I still worried whenever night came.

I bought a winter shelter made for outdoor cats, placed it outside the entrance, and lined the bottom with fabric. Nori and Witty alternated between the bicycle cover and the shelter.

There was one thing I found interesting.

Witty, who was much more cautious than Nori, almost never entered the shelter alone. He seemed to prefer the bicycle cover, where he could look around and leave quickly if necessary.

But if Nori was sleeping inside the shelter, Witty would go in too.

If Nori slept beneath the bicycle cover, Witty stayed there with him.

I don’t know how they met or how they became so close. I probably never will. But during the time I knew and observed them, Witty was almost always beside Nori.

I had come to love both of them.

I Wanted to Bring Them Inside on the Cold Nights

Nori worried me most.

He was thin enough that I could feel his bones, and his coughing continued. A neighbor told me that Nori had three littermates and that all three had developed similar coughs before dying.

I took Nori to a veterinary clinic. I showed the veterinarian a video of him coughing. Nori received an injection and was prescribed medication. The coughing became somewhat less frequent afterward, but it didn’t disappear completely.

I thought that letting Nori sleep and rest somewhere warm indoors until the mornings and nights became warmer might help him recover.

But I couldn’t bring in only Nori.

There was no medical reason that Witty, who seemed healthy, also had to live indoors. But after watching him stay beside Nori night after night, separating the two didn’t feel right to me.

My thoughts naturally turned to adopting them.

I wanted to help Nori. I was also deeply impressed by the bond I saw between Witty and Nori. More than anything, I wanted to live with them.

At the same time, I was afraid.

Caring for Hodu, Kant, and Fooku already required a lot of time, money, and energy. I also remembered the strong rejection Kant had shown when Fooku first came home. I had no idea what might happen if I brought in two more cats at once.

I wanted to help Nori and Witty, but I was also afraid of the responsibility I would be taking on.

For now, I decided to focus on the problem at hand.

Their First Attempt at Indoor Life Did Not Last Long

Before allowing Nori and Witty to come into contact with Hodu, Kant, and Fooku, I thought they needed to be tested by a vet first.

On April 1, after several failed attempts, I managed to lure both cats into the entryway, put them into carriers, and take them to a clinic. Both cats tested negative. The veterinarian recommended that I finish giving them their medication before introducing them to the other animals.

That day, I brought Nori and Witty inside.

I prepared litter boxes, water, and sleeping areas in the room where I normally exercised and kept them separated from the other animals.

But things didn’t go as planned from the very first night.

Witty was restless and kept crying. Nori seemed comparatively comfortable indoors, but Witty reacted very differently. I was so worried about them that I barely slept either.

The next morning, I finally let both cats outside again.

In my mind, I had given up on adopting them.

That didn’t mean I stopped bringing them inside at night altogether.

For a while, I continued letting them spend the day outside and bringing them indoors at night.

After Hodu’s evening walk, I used food and treats to lure Nori and Witty into the entryway. But as the days passed, bringing Witty inside every night became increasingly difficult. Even after he came inside, he often cried in front of the inner door for a while.

Keeping Nori indoors while leaving Witty outside wasn’t an option for me.

Either I would take them both in, or they would both remain outside.

Those were the only two possibilities I could accept.

I Decided to Care for Them Outside Again

On April 10, another problem appeared.

Fooku became unusually quiet and stopped eating. Fooku had previously needed surgery because of a foreign object in her small intestine, so I took the change seriously and took her to the hospital right away. She had a thorough round of tests and was hospitalized for a day.

Fortunately, the tests didn’t reveal a serious problem. Fooku recovered some of her energy after receiving fluids and gradually returned to her normal behavior over the following days.

There was no evidence that Nori or Witty had caused Fooku’s illness.

But at the time, I found it difficult to ignore the fact that Fooku’s symptoms had appeared shortly after I began introducing the two new cats into the household.

Beginning on April 12, I had Nori and Witty sleep outside again.

The nights were still chilly, but temperatures were no longer falling below freezing, and the days were warm and springlike. Every morning, the two cats were back in the yard and appeared healthy. Fooku was also recovering.

I decided that I would vaccinate Nori and Witty, provide food and shelter, and care for them while they continued living outside.

I felt somewhat relieved.

That didn’t mean I had stopped wanting to live with them.

I thought this was a realistic choice that would allow me to care for them without taking away their freedom.

The Night of April 28, and a Risk I Had Not Seen

It was sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight on April 28, as I remember it.

I hadn’t been asleep for long when I woke to loud, sharp yowls outside the entrance.

It wasn’t coming from somewhere in the distance.

It was right outside the house.

I immediately got up and ran outside.

Nori and Witty were not beneath the bicycle cover or inside the shelter where they usually slept. I searched the yard with a flashlight and found white fur scattered across the grass near the neighbor’s wall.

I did not see the fight itself.

At that moment, all I knew was that I had heard intense yowling right outside the house, there was a lot of fur on the ground, and Nori and Witty were missing from their usual sleeping places.

I found Witty first.

He was hiding inside a small hole in the neighbor’s wall. When I shone the flashlight inside, I could see his face. I called him, but he wouldn’t come out.

I went back for a hunting toy Witty liked.

When he heard the bell, he responded and came out of the hole. I couldn’t see any major injuries on his body.

Then I began looking for Nori.

I searched along the lane with a flashlight but couldn’t find him.

After returning to the house and searching the yard again, I finally found Nori inside the outdoor cat shelter beside the entrance.

I called his name and reached toward him.

He hissed at me.

It was almost the only time he ever did that.

I waited for a moment, spoke to him again, and then carefully took him out of the shelter so I could examine him.

There was blood on his left front leg.

The wound was large and deep.

Nori limped when he walked.

I carried him indoors and quickly disinfected the wound with povidone-iodine that I had at home.

That night, Nori fell asleep on Hodu’s bedding beneath the large table in the living room.

Nori Disappeared

The following morning, Nori seemed calmer than he had been the night before.

He still limped every time he put weight on the injured leg.

I thought he might feel more secure if he spent a little time with Witty, so I let him outside briefly. Nori had barely been leaving the yard during that period, so I wasn’t very worried.

I finished getting ready to take him to the veterinarian and came back outside with a carrier.

Nori was gone.

Witty was still there, but Nori had disappeared.

That was when I remembered something a veterinarian had told me earlier.

If I provided food and shelter in the yard, another cat might try to claim the area and drive away the cats already living there. The veterinarian had warned me that such fights could happen especially during the breeding season and recommended providing a secure place where the cats could be protected at night.

I had not ignored the warning.

But I had not acted on it either.

Catching both cats and putting them in a cage every night would have been difficult, and more importantly, it felt to me as though doing so would restrict their freedom too much.

As I waited for Nori after what had happened the night before, that warning kept coming back to me.

I sat near the entrance with Hodu and waited.

Nearly an hour passed.

9:38 A.M.: Nori Came Back

At 9:38 a.m., Nori appeared in the lane.

He was walking toward the house, limping on his injured leg.

At that moment, I decided that Nori and Witty would come inside and live with me.

I did not suddenly begin loving them that morning.

If anything, it was the other way around.

I had already loved them deeply; I had simply kept hesitating.

While I waited, I had to face the possibility that I might never see Nori again. When he finally appeared, I no longer needed to explain to myself what I should do.

My fears about responsibility hadn’t disappeared.

I still didn’t know how Kant would react or what my life would look like while caring for five animals.

But at that moment, those questions no longer had any bearing on the decision.

I loved Nori and Witty, and I wanted to protect them.

That was enough.

How often in life does certainty arrive so clearly?

From That Day On, They Lived Indoors

I took Nori to the veterinarian.

Nori received an injection, and the wound was treated. After returning home, I continued giving him his prescribed medication and disinfecting the injury.

From that day on, Nori and Witty lived inside the house.

Interestingly, this time was different from their first attempt at indoor life.

The first time Witty stayed inside, he cried because he wanted to go back outside.

This time, neither Nori nor Witty cried or fussed to be let out.

Once, the screen door was accidentally left open, but the two of them, sitting right in front of it, didn’t go out.

I connected that change with what had happened on the night of April 28.

But I cannot know what either cat experienced that night, what they felt, or why their behavior changed.

All I can say for certain is that their behavior changed.

The other animals in the house responded in their own ways.

Fooku approached Nori and Witty relatively easily and sometimes ran and played with them.

Hodu, perhaps because she had seen them so often in the yard, showed little interest. When the cautious Witty suddenly moved quickly to avoid Hodu, however, Hodu would sometimes instinctively chase him.

Kant was different.

When Nori or Witty approached, Kant sometimes hissed or raised a paw. Even now, Kant has never grown especially close to either of them.

I wrote more about how Hodu and four cats share a home in a separate post.

I didn’t rush to get close to Witty either.

He was still cautious around me and often moved away when I approached.

So I thought I should simply give him enough space to keep his distance.

There was no reason to hurry because becoming close to me was never the goal.

The day after they came inside, Nori and Witty were resting in the same indoor space as Hodu.

A few days later, Nori, Witty, and Fooku were together on top of a bookshelf looking out the window.

Not all of the animals became close friends.

I have also written separately about how I manage space and resources in a multi-cat household.

But Nori and Witty no longer spent their nights in the outdoor shelter beside the entrance.

I Would Make the Same Choice Again

If I could go back, would I bring Nori and Witty indoors sooner?

I can’t answer that easily.

My fears at the time were real. I had to consider how two new cats might affect the animals already living in the house, and I had to think seriously about what it meant to take responsibility for five animals for the rest of their lives.

I also wondered whether I had the right to change the lives of two cats who had grown up outside.

What happened on the night of April 28 didn’t give me answers to all of those questions.

It showed me something else.

I had already accepted Nori and Witty as family.

Even if I could go back, I would still make the same choice in the end.

Since Nori and Witty became part of the household, caring for them has required more time and more money. My daily life has changed as well.

Strangely, none of that feels like something I have lost.

For a long time, I had vaguely wanted to live a happy life.

Watching Nori and Witty live in the house, I sometimes feel that this vague wish has taken on a concrete shape through everyday life.

Nori and Witty entered my life.

And now, that fact itself is part of my life.