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It's not that he's afraid of small animals that can do almost no harm to him. It's just that... Well... When an animal bares its teeth and hisses all threateningly in your direction, one can only do so much about it but be wary of anything that might end up happening.
So Jisung knows that the kitten in front of him can barely hurt him and that it only wants to protect itself but... Sharp teeth and claws are something, even if they come from a small grey cat that looks like it would fit in the palm of his hand.
“Why are you so angry?” Jisung mutters under his breath. He should just go and be on his way, to keep walking back to his dorm, but he can't in good conscience let the cat all alone by itself when it's so small and it looks so lonely. “Come on…” He sticks his hand again and tries to pet the top of the cat's head, but Jisung pulls his hand back just as fast when the cat hisses once more and steps back, the fur raised. “It's okay, it's okay…”
He tries to convince the cat that he doesn't mean any harm, making his voice high-pitched and kneeling down on the floor, trying to make himself look as non-threatening and as small as he can, but the cat continues stepping back and baring its teeth, so Jisung stands back up with a heavy sigh.
Well. It seems like there isn't much that he can do about the entire situation. Every time he tries to get close, the cat feigns an attack — and okay, it might look cute because the kitty is little, but Jisung isn't interested in getting any scratches, thank you very much.
So he turns his back to the cat and takes a step forward.
And stops.
Groaning, Jisung rubs the side of his neck before he spins and looks down at the cat once more.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? You could even take a nap on a pillow, y’know. It would be better than the hard ground.”
The cat doesn’t answer him, but it hisses and Jisung thinks that’s the closest to an answer he’d get.
Jisung looks hard at the cat, pursing his lips. The cat shows him its sharp and bright teeth back.
“It’s your last chance. Come on…” He barely moves his hand down when the cat jumps back and scurries away from him, stopping a few steps away as it makes a high-pitched noise. Jisung sighs. “Okay, okay… I get it…”
That’s it — the cat obviously doesn’t want a single thing to do with him and Jisung isn’t going to force more than he already did. He leaves the cat behind and starts to go back to his dorm, his steps hurrying when the wind gets stronger and he feels some drops of rain splash against his face.
And then Jisung stops again.
The cat.
Ah.
Would someone take the cat in with themselves? Would it be safe in the rain? The kitten is so small that Jisung worries how it will survive if something happens. What if he comes back the next day and the kitten is nowhere to be found?
“Ah, fuck…”
Before he can even think twice about what he’s doing, Jisung sprints back to where he last saw the cat. The rain isn’t strong and it’s more of a nuisance at that point, but Jisung fears that it could turn into something harsher later on. His backpack hits his body with every long step he takes, but Jisung can’t be too bothered to stop and fix the straps right now — he has another thing that weighs heavily on his mind.
Where is the cat… Cat, cat, cat, cat…
Releasing a disgruntled noise, Jisung tries to look around, tries to push some bushes to the side while he calls for the kitten, but there’s no sign of it.
“Where are you? Come on, kitten, come on…”
With a gasp, Jisung holds himself back from jumping when he pushes a big leaf from the way and sees the little grey cat curled around itself, ears flattened against the head. Jisung takes a deep breath before he sticks his hands in and wraps them around the cat’s torso, holding the animal in front of him while he runs back to his dorm. His heart beats fast in his eardrums, and the cat meows and releases a shrill cry that makes Jisung quicken his steps to get into his dorm already.
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” He mutters, holding the cat in front of him with one hand while he tries to unlock his door with the other.
He doesn’t lock the door behind him, using his feet to make it close completely. Dropping his backpack on the floor, Jisung opens one drawer next to his bed and picks the closest hoodie, dropping it on his bed and putting the wet and trembling kitten over it, wrapping the animal well in the warm and soft fabric.
The kitten meows and meows, teeth bared, and Jisung is careful to not put his hands too close to its mouth, looking at where the bundle is in the middle of his bed with the cat right in the middle.
Eventually, all the fight seems to leave its system, because the kitty falls asleep almost immediately, still wrapped in Jisung’s hoodie, and Jisung can finally sit down on the floor of his dorm and take a deep breath in, scratching the back of his neck while he tries to wrap his mind around everything that just happened.
Well… now he has a cat in his dorm when they aren’t allowed to keep animals there.
Fuck.
🐈
Jisung decides that a nap is very much in order.
Everything was a nerve-wracking experience, after all. He pushes the hoodie to the side of his bed where it stays safe between the wall and his body, and he promptly falls asleep while watching the kitten take deep breaths, small body moving up and down.
When Jisung wakes up, a few hours later, the kitten is still asleep and a worry he didn’t even know he had dissipates away from his body. It’s there and it’s safe, all warm and cuddled up in his hoodie, so Jisung picks up his phone and opens YouTube, ready to do some very needed research.
‘Taking Care of a Kitten 101’ starts to play and Jisung pays attention to every single detail.
🐈
The next few days are a test of Jisung’s patience — he isn’t a very religious person, but now he’s sure he angered some god that’s trying to get their revenge in the form of a small grey cat.
While the cat had been quiet and stayed in its place for the first two days, sleeping all the time and barely eating even though Jisung tried his best to feed it, the next days were like a switch had been flipped.
The cat is fucking nuts.
Guided by two YouTube tutorials and a WikiHow, Jisung decides that the cat is a he and he names it “Baby” (having been fooled by the first days where the cat had been very calm, though now he thinks that maybe he should rename him “Devil” or something similar).
Baby seems to have his own agenda and doesn’t stop in just one place. He tries to climb the curtains but fails, and he meows until Jisung holds him high in the air to crave his claws on the top of the curtains. Jisung needs to be careful around because Baby sometimes hides under the furniture and appears out of nowhere when he’s passing by in front of him, darting past his feet and startling Jisung before vanishing underneath the small couch. Baby cannot be trusted close to any knick-knacks because he’ll simply shove them towards the floor or bump into something as he tries to climb to the highest places, the shattering sound echoing through the dorm and making Jisung sigh in defeat.
But Jisung loves him dearly.
After what seems like days of testing and almost driving Jisung insane, Baby calms down again. He still has his moments where he goes crazy and jumps from one place to another, using Jisung as his own jumping place, but Baby also comes to cuddle with Jisung and curls up on his chest to take a nap. Baby follows him around the dorm, hot on his wheels, and plops down next to him on the bed. Baby wakes him up by kneading on his belly and Jisung cradles Baby and brings him close to his face, nuzzling against the soft fur.
Jisung comes back to his room after class and he opens the door of his room and Baby is right there, waiting for him. The grey kitty meows happily and tries to climb up his legs, claws sinking in on his sweatpants, and Jisung coos before stepping inside and locking the door behind him.
“Ah… Baby~” Jisung drops his backpack on the floor and gets the cat, lifting him to his eye level. “Did you do well? Did you have fun while I was gone?” Baby meows and Jisung kisses the top of his head, rubbing his face against him. “Are you hungry? Are you? Are you?”
If any of his friends ever got to see him like this, cuddling and speaking all high-pitched with an animal, Jisung knows he’d never get to hear the end of all the teasing that would surely come. But he’s alone there and he doesn’t hold back. He feeds Baby and holds him close in bed, petting him and bringing him close to his chest, whispering how much he loves him and how cute he is, peppering his little face with kisses and rubbing his belly, giggling when Baby tries to jump on his chest and lands on the pillow next to his head.
Baby ends up curling on his lap and taking a nap there while Jisung spends some hours studying, half-mindedly petting and caressing the top of Baby’s head.
🐈
Jisung doesn’t really believe in the supernatural, but there is something weird going on.
His dorm, in general, seems cleaner. Yeah, sometimes he finds his clothes in places where he didn’t put them or a sock somewhere weird, but things have been tidier than it has ever been.
It’s different enough that it makes Jisung raise an eyebrow and keep pondering if he really left his hoodie over his laptop or if he cleaned up the juice he spilled that morning and had just forgotten about doing all of that.
Besides, Baby is getting fussier. He walks over his keyboard when Jisung is trying to type something, meowing loudly and staring at him as if trying to say something that Jisung doesn’t catch on. Jisung tries to keep Baby away from his laptop and to reprimand him when Baby makes him mess up what he’s typing, sometimes giving up completely and waiting for Baby to get distracted so he could finish his essay, but Baby would quickly get back to do the same thing.
And though the government has started to implement fhjfkhjsdbkhdfgj jh hsd h h jhsh hey kjdh im stuc~hsdjh
Jisung chuckles at the lost “hey” there among the keysmash caused by Baby. It almost feels like the cat was trying to communicate with him.
“Oh, Baby…” Jisung sighs, pulling the cat away from his laptop and deleting everything that had been accidentally added to his paper. “You can’t keep doing that. Let me just finish this one here and I’ll play with you, okay?” He pats the top of Baby’s hair, plopping the cat down on his lap and securing him in place with one arm, scratching under his chin just how Baby liked and how it made him purr loudly, resuming his typing with just one hand, Baby’s tail slapping Jisung in the arm every time he stops petting him.
🐈
Even though Jisung tries his very best, eventually he’s discovered. It happens quite unceremoniously, too.
While doing a video call with his friend in the middle of the night, three empty cups of coffee pushed to the side of his small table fueling him to finish a project, Baby suddenly jumps on the table and gets in the middle of the video, scaring Jisung shitless.
Chenle is, understandably, upset about the fact that Jisung has a cat hidden in his dorm all this time and he hadn’t known about it, so Chenle wastes no more time in making himself familiar with Baby and crashing at Jisung’s dorm at any given moment, just to play with the little grey kitty.
Jisung is kind of jealous at first, side-eyeing how Baby is all happy and rubbing himself over Chenle, but it all flies away from his mind when Baby comes to cuddle next to him to sleep or when Baby bumps his little head against Jisung’s legs until he picks him up and showers him with kisses.
He knew he’s #1 in Baby’s little heart.
“You know… This isn’t cat behaviour at all,” Chenle comments one day, watching as Baby runs after a rolled sock. He attacks the sock, rolling over it and sinking his claws in, but then lets the sock roll under the table and goes back to Jisung, climbing his sweatpants until he gets on his lap where he turns on his back and hisses until Jisung pets his belly. Jisung just thinks he's the most adorable cat he's ever seen in his entire life. "I've seen cats before and they're not like this."
"You're just jealous," Jisung says. "I didn't even train Baby and he's the cutest and most obedient cat ever. He's perfect."
Almost as if agreeing with Jisung's comment, Baby chooses this moment to purr loudly. He blinks his eyes in Chenle's direction before closing them again, rubbing his face against Jisung's hand.
"See?" Jisung adds. "He's so cute. And he loves cuddles and kisses."
Chenle scrunches up his nose. "Cats don't really like to be touched this much though. Maybe it's because he's still small?"
That makes Jisung almost hesitant. "Maybe... But I don't know, I just feel like maybe that's his nature..."
"He almost acts like a dog but there's just..." Chenle smacks his lips together, watching Baby cuddling in Jisung's lap, his tail curling in the air and slapping Jisung's thigh. "Just something weird. I don't know."
"Have you ever had cats before?" Jisung asks.
"No, but have you?"
"...no."
Well. They're two lost guys there with a cat that maybe doesn't act like a "real" cat. Jisung is not complaining, not when Baby is so cute and comes to greet him at the door every time he comes back from classes and likes to snuggle against his neck.
So Jisung shrugs his shoulders and scratches between Baby's ears, smiling when Baby blinks his eyes and purrs, licking the tip of his fingers, stretching his little body out before nipping at Jisung's hand once.
"He seems fine to me," he says. "Baby is very smart and fun."
"Yeah, your cat sometimes is scarily smart but then... maybe he's just weird because he's yours. Maybe you rubbed off on him or something," Chenle says, laughing out loud.
Jisung puffs his cheeks out and rolls his eyes, but he can't really deny that so he only continues petting Baby and mutters to him, loud enough for Chenle to hear, "Did you hear him, Baby? He's saying you're weird, but you aren't. You're very special and very, very perfect."
Baby purrs with the petting and Jisung smiles, chuckling later when Chenle is chased away from his dorm with Baby hot on his wheels, trying to climb his pants and hissing. Chenle had only said goodbye and gently punched Jisung on the arm, but apparently that wasn’t appreciated by Baby who immediately jumped at Chenle and scared him away.
Sometimes Baby looks serious and like he has his own little secrets, but Jisung quickly brushes the idea away. Baby is just a cat. And a very cute one.
🐈
As soon as Jisung opens the door of his dorm and closes it behind his back, Baby is climbing his pants and Jisung collects the little grey cat in his hands, cradling him towards his chest.
"Did you have a nice day, Baby? Did you play a lot?"
Jisung immediately goes to his bed, dropping his things on the way there. He lays on his side on the mattress and uses his fingers to nudge at Baby's side, booping his little nose and scratching in between his ears, laughing when Baby rolls on his back and shakes his head before playfully attacking Jisung's hand, holding it between his body as he squeaks a might cry that's too high pitched.
It doesn't take long for Baby to fall into a light nap and Jisung uses that time to clean the things he dropped, putting them away in their places. There's an open package of cookies he doesn't remember eating on his trashcan and his big and comfy blue hoodie is outstretched over the floor. He doesn't remember using it on the day before but, still, the hoodie is there.
Jisung scratches the back of his neck. He doesn't believe in the supernatural, but he almost kind of wants to believe just to have an explanation for the weird things that are happening around him more and more. Maybe someone put a curse on him or he accidentally clicked on a pop-up that brought him that.
He doesn't know which one is more likely, but there's a little voice on the back of his head that tells him that something must have happened. There are too many coincidences by now, too many little things that are adding up. One thing is to forget that he used a shirt on the day before, but another is to have completely forgotten about the fact he opened his laptop and somehow typed "hiii hjkjsn hds~]lsnd im stuck can u help]s".
🐈
It was a normal day: Jisung missed the first two alarms and was woken up by Baby jumping on his chest and pawing at his face, he ran to his first class with his shoes still untied and his phone almost falling out of his pocket, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head to hide the bed hair that he didn't have time to brush.
Somehow, he managed to get through the day with food from the vending machine and a quick trip to a small restaurant nearby (all paid by Chenle, of course) and, when he got back to his dorm, Jisung was ready to fall face-first on his bed and not move for some time.
But Jisung unlocks his door and he stops in place. Baby isn't there at the door to greet him.
He looks around himself carefully, barely moving a muscle. He's sure he closed the door before leaving and his window was also closed. Baby couldn't have left. Jisung toes his shoes off and drops his backpack on the floor, slamming the door behind his body.
He searches for Baby in the usual places he likes to hide in, but Baby isn't sleeping on his bed, under his blanket, over the bookshelf or under his bed. Baby isn't hiding behind the potted plant or watching the street from the windowsill.
So, as one does, Jisung worries.
“Baby…?” He tentatively calls out, feeling his heart racing against his chest. “Baby, where are you?”
At the sound of his voice, there’s a loud noise that comes from the bathroom and Jisung takes a deep breath.
“Baby… I told you already to not go into the bathroom…”
Jisung is sure he had closed the bathroom door, but maybe he’d forgotten about it, maybe Baby had managed to get inside somehow, and, with a small smile starting to make its way on his face, Jisung approaches the bathroom with his heart a lot lighter.
Baby was okay and there. There was no reason for him to worry at all.
But Jisung doesn’t get the chance to even get inside of his bathroom before he’s rendered frozen in place by the sight of an unknown guy leaving the place. And wearing his blue hoodie.
Jisung feels his heart drop to his stomach, ice running through his veins. “W-who are you and what did you do to my cat? I… I have a weapon here!” Jisung threatens, pointing his index finger in the direction of the man. He has no weapon on him, but the guy didn’t need to know that.
The guy blinks and tilts his head up to look at him. He has big and bright eyes, his hair so light that it’s almost silver, and he’s small enough that he needs to lift his head to be able to meet Jisung’s eyes. The blue hoodie he’s wearing is the one that Jisung had picked up from his floor before, and where the hoodie is slightly oversized on Jisung (just enough to be comfortable), he’s more than big on the guy, ending at the middle of his thighs and completely covering his hands.
He’s cute and looks like someone that Jisung would meet at a coffee shop and get a crush on. But they’re not at a coffee shop and Baby is nowhere in sight.
“W-where’s my cat?” Jisung tries to make his voice something deeper and stronger, to look threateningly enough that the guy wouldn’t try to jump on him, but his voice wavers and he swallows hard. “Where is him?”
A small smile curls up on the edge of the guy’s lips and he nods his head quickly. “Hi!” His tone is bright and chirpy and the smile widens into a big grin. “Hi!”
“Where. Is. My. Cat.”
The guy blinks once more and he frowns. He looks down at his body and wiggles his toes. “Here? I’m here.”
“My cat,” Jisung stresses out the word, frowning. “I want my cat. What did you do to him? How did you even get here?”
The guy takes a step forward and Jisung immediately takes a step back. “D-don’t come closer!” He shrieks. “I just want my cat! You can get anything you want, dude! Just give me my cat!”
And then the guy parts his lips, mouth forming an “O”, and he says, “I’m your cat, though. I’m Baby. I can finally change forms when I want.”
Jisung doesn’t pass out because he’s not dramatic — but it had been a very stressful situation, so Jisung staggers towards his bed and grabs a fistful of his sheets before the world turns dark, the guy’s voice (Baby?) echoing around him, “Oh, no!”
🐈
So.
It ends up that believing in the supernatural might be a good idea, after all.
Or at least believing in hybrids and shape-shifting creatures, Jisung discovers. It’s hard to not think they’re real when his little and sweet baby, the small grey kitten he held against his chest for so many nights, suddenly becomes a guy right in front of him (naked and bare which makes Jisung quickly avert his eyes and beg him to get dressed and put something on).
And yeah. It’s quite a lot to take in.
Baby ends up having another name — Renjun, he tells him — and got stuck into his cat form because he fucked something up in the middle of the process. Renjun told Jisung he managed to shift back to his human body for just some short moments of time and he tried to leave hints inside the dorm for Jisung to catch on, but that Jisung hadn’t been able to read the signs and that it had taken Renjun all this time for him to be able to gather enough strength back to change forms and manage to talk directly with him.
“Was that why you were jumping on my keyboard all the time? Were you trying to send me a message?” Jisung asks after Renjun tries to explain to him why he was the way that he is and what he was doing all the time he was left alone in the dorm.
“Oh, only sometimes. It was fun to see you getting all flustered too. You’re very cute when you don’t know what to do.”
Jisung flushes. He rubs the back of his neck. “So… what now?”
Renjun — god, it was still hard for Jisung’s head to wrap around the fact that his cute Baby is somehow also this guy in front of him — cocks his head to the side. His hair falls over his face and he lifts a hand to tuck it behind his ear. “What? I’m still here. Do you want to do something else?”
Jisung doesn’t know how to explain to Renjun that having a cat is something, but discovering your cat is actually a shapeshifter and a person (who heard and understood everything Jisung had cooed and whispered to him) is entirely another. And, also, that his dorm doesn’t allow animals or other people crashing in student’s rooms.
Jisung inhales deeply and scratches the side of his neck again, puffing out his cheeks. God, what a mess.
Renjun, though, apparently gets an idea and he jumps up, snapping his fingers. “Oh! I get what you mean!” He says loudly and Jisung frowns. How could Renjun even understand what he was thinking of unless he could also read thoughts and—
In front of Jisung there’s a blue hoodie on the floor. And a small grey cat that crawls from inside of it, sinking his claws on Jisung’s sweatpants until he climbs his leg and lays down on Jisung’s lap, rubbing his head against Jisung’s hand.
Dear god.
Jisung gulps and starts to slowly pet the grey cat under his chin when he hisses at him for not receiving some good old scratching as soon as he presented himself, just as spoiled as he’d ever been.
🐈
Jisung quickly realizes that he’s utterly fucked.
Not only is he breaking the rules again (this time by having both an animal and a person in his dorm), but he realizes that sharing things with Renjun isn’t as bad as he first thought. Yeah, sometimes he still froze in place and imagined that everything was part of something he dreamed up, but he only needed to get back to his dorm and reality would smack him right in the face and remind him that everything was very much real.
Sometimes he’d wake up with a small grey cat curled up on the pillow next to his head, little noises coming from him, but sometimes Jisung would go to sleep clutching his pillow to his chest and wake up in the middle of the night with a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, legs entangled with his own.
And then he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore because—because Renjun was there. Hugging him close. Sleeping, yes, but he was holding him in his sleep and Jisung had never felt more comfortable and safe before, and it was all a little too much for his brain to comprehend: he had a cat, his cat wasn’t just a cat but a human too, and the human was cute as hell and would cling to him and be adorable whenever he wanted.
Jisung tries not to act too much different from before, but he finds himself hesitating when petting or playing with Renjun in his cat form, his brain screaming to him that there’s a human inside there, and why are they both doing that? What’s happening?
And Renjun is quick to catch up to that, cornering Jisung one day and demanding answers without any hesitation.
“Why are you treating me so differently now?”
Jisung flushes hard. He can feel his ears burning, but he tries his best to avoid looking into Renjun’s eyes. “W-what? I’m… the same as before… He he… Nothing changed.”
“Jisung.” Renjun’s voice isn’t aggressive, but there’s a tone there that begs for understanding and his utter attention. “You are different. Things aren’t the same anymore. What’s going on?”
Jisung gulps. He licks his lips and stammers out, “Y-you’re… a human. It doesn’t feel right… You’re a person.”
Renjun rolls his eyes and crosses his arms against his chest. He’s using another one of Jisung’s hoodies that cover the top of his thighs and drowns his entire form. “I’m the same as before and nothing has changed. It’s just you that knows more things now, but everything is still the same.”
“But… you’re a human.”
“I’m both,” Renjun says, emphasizing the word. “Some choose to only live like animals and others like to keep going back and forth between forms. I’m still the same. Everything I ever did was because I wanted to and not because I felt pressured to act like something or whatever.”
“Are… are you sure? Is this… is this all okay?” Jisung asks quietly.
Renjun’s act drops and he sucks in his bottom lip, suddenly looking nervous. “Are you okay with it all? I’m good—I’ve always been good. But are you?”
Jisung isn’t one-hundred percent sure and he tells Renjun that, he’s honest about his feelings and his worries and what plagues his mind, but Renjun is accommodating of his thoughts and says:
“We can discover and learn things together too… if you want that. This is also new to me.”
Jisung nods.
That night, for the first time, Jisung cuddles with human-Renjun when they’re both awake and like they’d usually do if he was in his cat form. It’s a little strange doing that with another person and Jisung isn’t too sure of where to put his arms and what to do with his hands, but Renjun is also awkward and together they laugh until Renjun rests his head against Jisung’s chest and entangles their legs together, his attention on the phone in Jisung’s hand and on the video that’s playing.
Jisung feels his heart beat fast against his chest and he wonders if Renjun could feel that too.
🐈
Because Chenle’s timing is something that needs to be investigated by science (Jisung is so, so sure about that), he discovers about human-Renjun in the worst possible way ever: by entering Jisung’s dorm with a spare key and finding Jisung cuddling with Renjun on his bed.
“Park Jisung? Is that you?”
Chenle’s voice is loud and shrill and it makes Renjun jump up on the bed, socked feet kicking the back of Jisung’s legs in his alarm. Jisung, though, flops down to the floor not so much graciously.
“What the fuck, Chenle?!”
Chenle stays at the doorway, holding the doorknob for dear life, staring at Jisung with furrowed brows and like he can’t understand what he’s seeing right in front of him.
“Is that… really you, Park Jisung? With a boy?” Chenle’s voice becomes higher and Jisung grimaces from his place on the floor.
“Please, close the goddamn door, Chenle. I’m begging you.”
He’s pretty sure that someone else in the hallway must’ve heard Chenle’s voice, but Jisung still has some hope left in him. He has a reputation to hold on, after all (even if no one really knows him or cares because it’s college, but Jisung still tries).
Chenle dazedly closes the door behind him. And stares.
“Since when could you even talk with boys? Let alone bring one back to your room?”
Jisung’s ears burn a bright red and he starts to get up from the floor using the edge of the bed to help him.
Renjun pushes up the ends of his long sleeves (a mustard hoodie that Jisung really liked but now has been claimed by Renjun as his) and lifts his nose in the air, looking at Chenle when he says, “I’m Renjun. Or Baby. Both works. You’re the guy who punched Jisung on the arm last time.”
He gives no prior warning before he changes and becomes a grey kitten again, jumping from the bed and hissing at Chenle from his place on the floor. Chenle’s eyes widen even more and his mouth stays open while he looks from the cat on the floor to Jisung who sighs deeply.
“It’s a long story,” he says, “but I kinda have a roommate now.”
Renjun continues hissing and even attempts to claw at Chenle’s sneakers once before he’s picked up by Jisung.
“That’s my friend, Renjunnie. Don’t be mean to him. He’s okay.”
Renjun meows loudly and just calms down after Chenle apologizes and Jisung puts him inside the bathroom together with the yellow hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, dreading the explanations that they’d have to give to Chenle.
🐈
“Do you… do you not like me anymore?”
Jisung’s head snaps up in a flash, his eyes widening. Renjun is lying on the bed, a blanket thrown over his body, just his head poking out, and Jisung is on the floor with his laptop open on his lap because the only outlet on the wall was away from his bed and he’s too lazy to go to the desk.
“Wha—Why did you even think that? No?”
Renjun’s brows furrow a little and he squirms on the bed, rolling on the blanket and becoming a small burrito. Jisung bites the inside of his cheek and tries hard not to smile at that, at how cute Renjun is being.
“So you don’t like me?” Renjun’s voice is full of hurt and confusion and Jisung scrambles to put his laptop away and get up, to get into bed as fast as he can.
“What?! No, no! I meant that I don’t not like you! Like, wait, I do like you and I don’t not like you, you get me?” Jisung sits on the edge of the mattress, rubbing his face hard with the palm of his hands. “I like you. I do. Why are you asking me that? Why are you thinking the opposite?”
“You don’t kiss me and hug me like you used to do before…. Like when I was stuck in my cat form. You would do a lot of that with me but now… now you don’t.”
Jisung freezes, his mind a mess and unable to come up with any good arguments. “I… Well… I…”
“Would you like me better if I was only a cat?” Renjun asks, his voice small. “Would that make you happy? Because I wouldn’t mind that too much. I only want things to go back to how they were before.”
To say that Jisung’s brain is short-circuiting is an understatement. Jisung fists the sheets and tries to ground himself to the Earth, to not let his body dissipate away. In a way, he almost can’t believe they’re having this conversation because he thought he’d been kind of obvious about his little crush on Renjun and how much he’d flush close to him and with any affection they shared.
But that clearly didn’t happen.
“I don’t want you to be ‘only a cat’,” Jisung starts to say, repeating Renjun’s words.
He rakes through his mind in search of something he could say, something to repair the damage, but his heart beats so fast and his hands sweat and, with a sinking feeling to his stomach, Jisung realizes that maybe he’ll have to be honest and face the reality in front of him.
“What…?” Renjun asks, confused. His eyebrows are knotted in the middle of his forehead and his eyes dart all over the place.
“I…” Jisung gulps, his throat choking up. “I… like you. Yes, I… I like you. I like you.”
Renjun blinks.
“And I…” Jisung continues, his ears blushing a bright red. He feels like he could explode right there and then. “I don’t want you to be only a cat. I want you to be you, I want you to be who you want to be. To be Renjun. And I want you to do what you want and to be happy.”
“Do you… want me to go?”
“What? No! I mean… if you want to go then I won’t fight you but… I like you a lot and I’d like it if you stayed.”
Renjun blinks once more. And then twice. He sits up on the bed in a shot and fights to untangle himself from the blankets, needing Jisung’s help to get himself free.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Renjun whines. “I thought you hated me! I didn’t get why you were so different now!”
“It’s… I… You see, I…” Jisung stutters, trying to find the right words to express himself. “You were a cute cat and then… And then you were a guy… But also a cat sometimes… And you’re cute… And… And to kiss you I—” Unable to continue, Jisung hides his face in the palm of his hands, groaning out loud. “God.”
Renjun stops. “Why would it be different? I’m still me! You should be able to kiss me in any form because I didn’t change!”
Jisung squeaks, still hiding his face, feeling his cheeks flushing. “But it’s different! It’s different kissing a cat’s head that’s a cat from a cat that’s actually a person! It’s not the same!”
Huffing, Renjun crosses his arms against his chest. “But I’m Renjun and I’m also your cat Baby so it is the same! Why would a kiss be any different?”
Jisung peeks from the gaps in between his fingers, narrowing his gaze in Renjun’s direction. “Are you being serious right now or are you joking with me?”
Though Renjun fights hard to keep his poker face on, the edge of his lips still curls up a little and Jisung shrieks indignantly.
“Renjun!”
“What?!” Renjun asks, laughing out loud. “You’re so cute when you’re confused and flustered! I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist myself!”
Jisung moans in distress, flopping down on the bed and hiding his face against the sheets. “You’re so evil!”
Not denying the accusation, Renjun only hums and pats the top of Jisung’s head. “So… you like me?” He asks, after a few seconds of silence.
Jisung grunts.
“Like, really like me? Not only because I’m cute and clean your bed? You like like me?”
Jisung grunts again, a little more high-pitched than before.
Grinning wide, Renjun runs his fingers through Jisung’s scalp. “That’s good to know,” he says. “Since I like you too, you know. That’s good.”
“...hm?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm?!”
“What?”
Jisung lifts his face away from the blankets, looking up at Renjun with furrowed brows. “Are you… serious? Or are you joking again?”
This time, there’s no playfulness behind Renjun’s gaze. He looks straight at Jisung and doesn’t hesitate to nod his head. “I like you,” he says, easily. “Or I wouldn’t have stayed with you. I did have a lot of chances to escape, after all.”
“You… like me?”
“Yeah?”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You?”
Renjun fixes Jisung a look and cocks his head a little to the side. “Yeah? Me, Renjun, likes you, Jisung. What’s so hard to understand there?”
Jisung makes a dying noise from the back of his throat. “And… and you want me to kiss you? When you’re a human too?”
Renjun shrugs. “Sure. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“I—”
Probably sensing that Jisung was close to another breaking point, Renjun shuffles on the bed and smirks at him. “Come on, don’t you want to give me even just a little kiss?”
And that’s it. That’s it. Jisung will achieve some kind of out-of-body experience without even trying. Or at least that’s how he feels when Renjun crosses the distance between them and slots their lips together.
🐈
“Do you use the litter box or do you use the bathroom?” Chenle asks, raising one eyebrow in Renjun’s direction.
Jisung sighs. Renjun flicks one french fry in Chenle’s direction. “Don’t be gross, of course I use the bathroom. Jisung also has a nice tub there.”
“I thought cats didn’t like baths,” Chenle says.
The movie plays on Jisung’s laptop but the sound is completely drowned out by Chenle and Renjun’s voice. Jisung scratches his neck.
“I guess,” Renjun says, shrugging. “But I’m not a cat. I can shapeshift between forms, remember?”
“Ah, yeah, that...”
There’s silence for a few seconds and Jisung thinks they’ll finally have some peace. Renjun is snuggled up against Jisung’s side, his head slotted on the crook of Jisung’s neck, and his arms are wrapped around Jisung’s waist, holding him in place and not letting him use an excuse to leave Chenle and Renjun alone.
Jisung is still trying to make them become friends, but it seems like there’s quite a hard journey ahead of them. Renjun hadn’t exactly fully forgiven Chenle for punching Jisung on the arm.
“Is there a problem with cat fur on everything or not?” Chenle ends up asking right away, not letting them have even one minute of silence. Jisung doesn’t even remember what the movie was about.
“Look around you,” Renjun says. “What do you think?”
“Well, it looks a lot more put together. Jisung wouldn’t have kept things clean like that. Do you use a vacuum or your fur just becomes hair?”
Renjun sniffs. “We use a vacuum.”
“Nice.”
Jisung fills his mouth with more popcorn. He’s sure that if he doesn’t speak they’ll just forget he’s there.
“Does Jisung also talk with you in that baby voice he used when you were a cat?”
Shoot.
Jisung flushes. He continues staring hard at the screen and refuses to make eye contact with anyone. Maybe Renjun would just ignore it and they’d be able to continue watching the movie (or try to, anyway) and—
“Of course he does,” Renjun answers proudly. “He’s very cute.”
Chenle cackles and Jisung, for the first time, sends a glare in his direction. Don’t, he warns, don’t even try.
“Do you really have nine lives?”
“Yeah,” Renjun deadpans, sighing. Jisung knows that’s a lie because he asked the same thing some time after he learned about Renjun’s shapeshifting abilities and Renjun said it wasn’t true, but he lets Renjun lie to Chenle (Chenle knew about the baby voice now, anyway, some small lie wouldn’t hurt him, he reasons).
Chenle gawks at Renjun. “What?!”
“Uh-huh,” Renjun says, “and I’ll spend all nine of them together with Sungie here…”
Jisung scrunches up his nose, cringing a little, but he can’t deny that Renjun’s words make his heart beat faster inside of his chest and that he feels a little tingly. Renjun is totally aware by now of the effect he has on him, and Jisung can feel the little chuckle he lets out against his neck, the warm puffs of air against his skin.
Jisung also promptly ignores Chenle’s smirk and his teasing gaze, trying to force himself to look at the laptop screen and the movie.
“Just be happy that your boyfriend doesn’t look like that,” Chenle says, pointing at the screen and Jisung almost flinches.
Cats continues to play and Jisung is glad that both human-Renjun and cat-Renjun are very cute and adorable and nothing at all like the characters in the movie.
Almost as if reading his thoughts, Renjun whispers against his ear, “Don’t worry, I can’t get like them.”