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The house is quiet when Victor and Yuuri are both gone, but Christophe can manage fine alone. He can sleep much of the day away, and does, until boredom and curiosity tugs him to the kitchen window, and then he peers outside across the frozen lake. Victor and Yuuri are dancing together, suspended on smooth blades: what the humans call figure skating. Christophe has done it once or twice when his master would bring him to the rink for different things, and he excelled, of course, but there’s less motivation when there’s no one out to watch him. Victor and Yuuri seem to have eyes only for each other. They watch their partner instead of their feet, and they still paint out a masterpiece.
As graceful and alluring as they both are, Christophe eventually grows bored of even that—the kitchen’s no place to lounge, and Christophe prefers to really lounge. There’s nowhere proper to sit with a good view of the lake, but that’s alright—if he wants to watch more skating, he can always do it on a screen. He’s been shown countless times how to work a ‘television.’ He almost never actually does it. Humans are often too obsessed with things fictional or far away, while Christophe prefers the exact world around him and the touch of warm physical contact. It’s a pain that he’s now alone.
He’s only being looked after by Victor (and maybe Yuuri) while his own human is away. And he’s left alone often enough at home—his master has a very busy job: the director of a hybrid zoo. But those hours are easy to whittle away, because Christophe always knows that his human will come home eventually and pay him all the attention in the world: scratching just behind his ears and hand-feeding him treats, maybe even brushing his tail. Masumi dotes on him. Christophe isn’t particularly high-maintenance for a human-cat, but he does crave contact more than anything. He misses it now. He misses the spicy scent Masumi wears, and the way Masumi would fetch him fresh milk and deliver the cream-coloured glass right into his hands.
For a few minutes, Christophe wanders aimlessly about the little cabin, longing for the perfect spot and knowing nothing will be quite right—the spot isn’t what he wants. But it’ll have to do. Victor seems like a better human than most, and if Christophe went outside and called for him, he’d probably come back to stroke Christophe’s stomach and make him purr, but Christophe isn’t willing to do that. He saw the way Yuuri looked at him when he first arrived. Yuuri’s kind and sweet—Christophe can tell—and he won’t say aloud what Christophe sees; Yuuri’s clearly worried, threatened by Christophe’s alluring presence, and taking Yuuri’s clueless human, even for just a few pets, will clearly agitate him more.
Thinking of them does make him wonder. Beds are often a great place to lie—they’re big, and comfy, and full of last night’s warmth. Christophe naps in Masumi’s bed all the time. Here, he’s been given the guest room, but he knows that Victor and Yuuri sleep up in the loft, and he putters up the stairs with ears perked in curiosity.
On the second landing, he gets two steps towards the bed, and then he stops to wrinkle his nose, because it absolutely reeks. It doesn’t quite smell like it’s been urine-marked, but it’s definitely been some kind of marked, and Christophe can guess why Yuuri must’ve done it. It works; Christophe can’t sleep amongst that stench.
So he trails back down to the living room. He stretches out across the couch, trying to lie directly in the sun that streams in through wide windows, and he shuts his eyes. He pictures his distant master, off on ‘vacation’ without him—really, the always-working-hard director’s just gone to interview more hybrids that want protection in his zoo. Christophe can’t always go—his scent’s too strong, and he’s too domesticated—he often either intoxicates or agitates the other hybrids. Like Yuuri. But that still leaves his poor Masumi without anyone to pet or pamper, completely devoid of all Christophe’s splendor. No one can satisfy like Christophe can. Masumi knows that better than anyone.
But Masumi’s gone, so Christophe snuggles into the couch cushions, wasting time until his human returns to all his glory.