Archive of Our Own

Jeno doesn’t think much of it when his cat leaves- it’s normal. Cats like to roam. Cats can fend for themselves in the great outdoors of the suburban neighborhood in which he resides in.

And it wasn’t like Cookies ‘N Cream couldn’t handle herself despite only being about a year old. She was a stray when Jeno first took her in. She’s probably much more adjusted to the streets than even he was. He remembers a couple weeks ago he had caught a glimpse of her fighting another neighborhood dog over a dead bird. He also remembers walking past and pretending he hadn’t seen and wasn’t extremely prideful that she had won over the annoying chihuahua who lived a few doors down. That same pride kept down his bile when he was greeted with the dead bird on his doormat as a gift from Cookie later that day.

However, even with all this knowledge, Jeno couldn’t help but be achingly curious to whatever his cat got up to when she wasn’t roaming around the immediate vicinity of his neighborhood block. Which is why he is found crouching behind the shrubbery surrounding an old woman’s house at the corner of the street in his pajamas and some ratty old sandals.

He observes the black and white spotted feline with sharp eyes, not daring to look away for even a moment. Jeno knows the extents of her speed and he’s experienced it before. A bout of past humility makes his cheeks warm as he thinks back to when he had to chase Cookie down the street after she had ran off with his left sneaker and tripped on a garden hose the hot university student next door was using to wash his car. It was hard enough having to deal with a face full of asphalt, but dealing with a shirtless and wet Wong Yukhei looking down at him while he was in his pajamas and his chin was bleeding was all too much for Jeno. Luckily Yukhei was nice about it- offered him his discarded shirt to hold against his open chin wound and even helped him track down the cat who was happily ripping his shoe to shreds under Sicheng’s porch from down the street. Sometimes he didn’t know whether he was raising a cat or a dog.

Jeno snaps out of daydreaming about Yukhei, who- much to Jeno’s heartbreak- had recently moved out, once he senses movement in his peripherals. Cookie strolls down the sidewalk leisurely, yet with purpose. Jeno follows along, about 20 meters distancing himself from her in case she were to sense his presence and be startled. He’s about fifteen blocks from his house at this point, but still in the residential area. He must’ve been following her for at least a half hour already. In his head, Jeno begins to question his own motives. He has half the mind to just turn back and head home because it’s not really his business what Cookie gets up to while she’s out as long as she returns home to him safely. That and she’s a cat who hasn’t really done anything in the past thirty minutes but walk around aimlessly and sniff around at scraps of litter on the sidewalk. But at the same time it gave him a bit of a thrill. Enough of a thrill that he was choosing to ignore the strange looks he got from the pack of neighborhood soccer moms out on their daily jog.

The small feline prances around in circles for a little bit and does some more purposeful sniffing here and there at different shrubs and random bits of junk in the streets. Jeno winces when she paws at a dirty sock in the middle of the road. He almost shouts when he notices an approaching car. Jeno’s brain goes into overdrive and he nearly compromises his own mission, but Cookie turns her head towards the vehicle and bounds away towards the safety of the sidewalk before it gets too close. Jeno lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Jeno recalls a similar time in the past when he had first seen Cookie. On a rainy day, he was walking home from school under the covers of an umbrella. He had heard her before he had seen her. A shrill meow was caught over the pitter patter of raindrops and Jeno could not help but seek out the source of such a pitiful and small noise. It was luck that he was able to spot the frail cat wobble onto the street. A car was rapidly approaching and for some reason, the animal would not stop hobbling into the street. So Jeno had taken matters into his own hands.

He had courageously and a little carelessly  ran into the road with one hand held up towards the car in an attempt to halt it. Fortunately, it was just a little old lady on her merry way to the grocery store and she was easily stopped by the sight of a young boy running into the street.

Jeno had then walked over to the wet cat and scooped her shivering body up. She was probably only a few months old then, all thin and quivering in his hands. It filled Jeno’s heart with hurt and he could not help taking her home to open her up a can of tuna and offer her a meager dish of milk.

After the startle, Cookie pads along straight towards a house. It is a pleasant shade of yellow, similar to his own, and the front door is adorned with a pet door. She bounds towards the house almost giddily, a bounce in every step she takes. It leaves Jeno intrigued. That is until she leaps headfirst into the doggy door and slips into the unsuspecting house without a care in the world.

Jeno jumps up from his previous crouching position and is met with a tree branch hitting the top of his skull with a klunk. He curses and runs towards the house with a hand rubbing the top of his head. His sandals clap against the cement so loudly, he wouldn’t be surprised if Cookie heard him coming already. In fact, she had leapt onto a window ledge from within the house to peer outside at him. Once she sees him on the front porch she sprints off further into the house. Jeno is left gaping. He takes a deep breath and raps his knuckles against the front door gently. He doesn’t have any idea of what lies behind the door in this mystery house. A drug dealer? A murderer? A cat burglar? Whoever it may be, Jeno’s already got a bad impression of them for coaxing his cat into entering their home.

Jeno stands there for a whole minute while tapping his foot impatiently and maybe a little angrily because his cat had just invaded someone’s house like it was nobody’s business and how long has she been doing that anyways? He knocks again and harder. He waits another thirty seconds and almost knocks again when the door finally swings open. His fist is still midair.

“Hey, sorry to bother-” Jeno starts before he is cut off by his own breath being taken away. He immediately takes back whatever rotten thoughts he may have had about the owner of the house.

In the doorway stands another boy, maybe his age. He is stunningly beautiful. His hair, a soft brown, is mussed in the most perfect and effortless way. His features are soft, rounded. His skin is smooth alabaster and supple looking, enough to make Jeno’s fingers itch to poke a cheek. The boy’s eyes are a deep brown, pools of achingly sweet molasses. His entire figure is glowing like some otherworldly god. Or maybe it’s because of the light of the window directly behind him. Jeno wouldn’t know the difference.

Jeno’s mouth gapes open like a fish out of water and he’s sure he looks like an idiot while staring at this boy with the most boopable nose and fluttery eyelashes.

“Are you okay there?” the boy asks. His voice is the chime of a bell and reminds Jeno of the heavens above (and maybe- just maybe- of a wedding). He submits it into his memory bank. His brain is overloading, simultaneously trying to think of words to say to this distressingly beautiful boy and also trying to act less abashed as he stands in front of him in his oldest tshirt and fluffy pajama pants spotted with cartoon kitties.

“Um, okay, bye then,” the boy speaks again and moves to close the door when Jeno finally peels his eyes away, a just little downwards, from the boy’s shining face to see Cookie laying snuggly in mystery boy’s arms. The cat rests her eyes, as if completely disinterested in Jeno’s presence.

“Wait,” Jeno calls out. The boy looks at him half in surprise and half in amusement. Jeno wasn’t exactly subtle with the checking out and the jaw dropping.

“So he speaks?” the boy asks smugly. Jeno’s brain short circuits a little more before starting back up again, albeit a bit slower.

“Uh, yes. He does. Anyways, that’s my cat. I saw her come in here randomly. I’m really sorry if she’s ever done that before. I think she may have gotten lost? Your house is the same color as mine so,” Jeno rambles as he makes a move to grab Cookie. He looks up at the boy in confusion when he moves away from his attempt to take her from his arms. Cookie doesn’t look displeased at the mystery boy’s protection in the least. In fact, she looks right at home in the boy’s arms and Jeno isn’t sure whether to be jealous or coo at the sight. The boy, however, seems completely puzzled and possibly peeved.

“But this is my cat?” the boy questions, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you sure you aren’t confused or something, dude?” Jeno huffs. He wasn’t being serious, was he? This had to have been a practical joke and this boy was a professional actor or something. Jeno was half expecting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from a nearby shrub to yell that he just got punk’d, but he realizes that might just be a little far fetched. He takes his chances in believing the other boy is being completely serious.

“Yes dude, I’m sure that’s my cat, so if you could just hand her over I could get out of your way.” Jeno makes another attempt to grab Cookie, only for the other boy to take a step back and glare daggers at him. Somehow he made a deadly glower look entirely angelic and there’s just the slightest chance that Jeno’s heart flutters at the held eye contact. Pretty boys like that had to be harmless. Right?

“And I’m sure this is not your cat. This is my cat Oreo. She’s a stray. I checked her for a chip already. She’s been living here for three months now.” The boy says this all while petting Cookie’s head. Jeno scoffs at him. Firstly for being absurd and secondly for naming a black and white cat something as unoriginal as ‘Oreo’. The little voice in Jeno’s head makes fun of him for naming her Cookies ‘N Cream, but he ignores it to focus on other, more important things like how Cookie isn’t budging. The feline quietly purrs in the boy’s arms and Jeno starts to think that maybe it really isn’t his Cookie. That doubt is erased when he sees the heart shaped spot of black fur against white fur. He knew it all too well.

“I keep telling you, this is my cat. I’ve also had her for three months and I even took her to get her shots!” Jeno argues.

“That’s great and all, but I got rid of her fleas and trained her to shake!”

“Yeah? Well, she sleeps in my bed!” They’ve both escalated to yelling- seraphic face be damned.

“She sleeps in mine too!”

“She’s at my house more!”

“Well, right now you’re in my house!” the boy shouts before retracing that step forward again and moving to slam the door shut. Before he can, Jeno juts out a foot to catch it. Unfortunately, he forgets that the only protection his foot has are his ratty sandals he had put on in a haste to chase after his cat who was currently resting happily in another boy’s arms. He curses the heavens above.

The door just about crushes his foot against the doorframe and Jeno doubles over in pain. He could have sworn he heard a crunch.

He hops around on his still functioning foot as he shouts in agony. There’s a beat of silence from the other side, the other boy realizing what had just happened as Jeno screams at the top of his lungs.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” the boy shrieks before opening the door once again. The change in demeanor is enough to give a man whiplash. Both their faces are now flushed red, Jeno’s in pain and the other boy’s in hysterical panic.

He drops the cat and runs inside while shouting. “I’ll get some ice, wait on the couch!” He disappears into the house, presumably to get ice for Jeno’s foot.

All pride and rational thinking out the window, Jeno limps into the stranger’s living room and shuts the door before he plops down on the closest loveseat. His foot throbs angrily. He’s pretty sure it’s broken or something. He glares at Cookie through the tears the pain in his foot has produced. The cat jumps up onto the couch to nestle into the side of his thigh and Jeno sighs, giving in and patting her head. Although this was partially her fault for supposedly being a two-timing cat in the first place, Jeno couldn’t find it in himself to stay mad at her- especially if she was attempting to comfort him now. He’s grown soft.

He distracts from his throbbing limb by taking in his surroundings. The entire place smells of paint and pine. The living room of the boy’s home is filled with artwork. They cover the walls in grand, golden frames. There are several easels standing in the corner, covered by dirtied white sheets. Jeno isn’t sure if the framed works are purchased pieces or not from the quality of them, but they are awing all the same. He’s not exactly an art fiend, but he can’t help it when his eye catches an uncovered easel. The painting on it is incomplete and a bit abstract, but Jeno is sure that it takes the shape of Cookie sitting and staring out of the window she had been sitting on prior to Jeno knocking. It’s painted only in shades of blue.

“Look, it’s you,” he says quietly to the cat as he points towards the painting.

They both jump when the other boy stumbles back into the room with a bag of frozen peas in his hands. He’s panting and obviously still flustered.

“I’m really sorry. But for the record, you shouldn’t stop doors with your feet,” he says. Jeno thinks he’s going to just hand him the peas, but he walks right over and plops himself on the ground right in front of Jeno and gently puts the bag over his swollen red foot. His sandal, lost in the mayhem of the incident, is long forgotten on the front porch.

Jeno doesn’t have to try to blush at the close proximity of the other boy, his face is already pink with pain. He grimaces once the icy bag makes contact, a surging pain shooting straight up his spine from his foot. The main branches through his nerves making him cringe.

“Maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be slamming doors on people,” Jeno retorts snottily. He howls in pain when the other boy applies the slightest amount of pressure down. The boy lets out a giggle and Jeno may have blacked out for a split second from the twinkly sound.

“Who are you anyway?” the boy asks, looking up at him with a challenging stare. Jeno’s breath catches in his throat and he clears it loudly to distract from the fact that he obviously oogles him every time he gets the chance to look at him.

“My name’s Jeno. Lee Jeno,” he reveals with feigned certitude.

“Nice to meet you, mister cat snatcher. I’m Huang Renjun,” the boy named Renjun says with a smile. Jeno turns the name over his mind repeatedly. Huang Renjun. He liked the sound of it. His mind then curses whatever god giving him the luck that gets him injured in front of every pretty boy in his area.

“I’m not a cat snatcher! She’s mine, see?” he gestures to the cat rubbing against his leg. “She loves me and she will come home with me. If anyone’s the cat snatcher, it’s you!”

Despite the other boy looking like he descended from the heavens above, he wasn’t about to just let it slide that he had claimed his Cookie as his own.

“That’s because she feels bad. She’s apologizing on behalf of her owner. And according to you, she came into my house voluntarily so I should get to keep her!”

“No, I should get to keep her because you injured me.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Renjun shouts, dropping the peas onto Jeno’s foot in frustration. Jeno flinches at the fervent pain the action causes.

“It does and you should feel bad for hurting me! Who’s gonna pay for my medical bills?”

“I let you sit on my couch, pet my cat and help you ice your foot and now you’re yelling at me? After just meeting? Get out of my house!” Renjun stands up and points at the door as if he was scolding a child, telling them to go to their corner for a time-out. Jeno will admit to being childish sometimes, but this is where he had to draw the line.

“Fine!” Jeno says as he stands with his weight on his left foot. He struggles maintain an angry scowl on his face without faltering due to the sharp pain. That fails and he lets out a whimper when he grabs his forgotten shoe and slips it onto his swollen foot. He limps out the door and Renjun slams it shut.

Renjun huffs as he looks out the window at the boy now staggering down the street. A tender spot within his heart can’t help but feel bad for him. It was his own fault that he was injured anyways, and he knew it too, but his stubbornness had gotten the best of him and he ended up defending what he believed to be his pet. The boy places his hand on the doorknob with the intent of running outside and catching up to Jeno (which wouldn’t be much of a challenge with the speed he was hobbling at) and apologizing, maybe offering to share Oreo. He thinks through every word he plans on saying carefully and is about to open the door when he sees Oreo walking out the pet flap.

“Hey!” he opens the door and shouts down the street. Jeno turns around at this and spots the cat trailing after him. Renjun sees him smile brightly at Oreo and then at him still standing at his open door.

“Cookie is my cat!” Jeno shouts at him from down the sidewalk. He even sticks out his tongue for good measure. Renjun slams the door for the third time, apology forgotten.

Jeno’s next few days are filled with resentment. Mostly towards the staff at the doctor’s office and how they had told him he had most definitely fractured his foot and maybe at how they had laughed at him when he told them how he got injured in the first place. A lot of resentment also went indirectly towards Cookie who was almost never at his home while he was stuck in bed all day with a bulky cast on his right leg.

It had been one week since the whole cat fiasco and four weeks since school had closed for summer break and Jeno was now beginning to believe that his body would waste away in his creaky twin bed he was bound to. Even his usually active group chat consisting of all his friends was starting to slow down in daily messages, which meant all of his friends were out enjoying their vacation and he was home popping prescription painkillers, trying not to miss his swindler of a cat and repressing images of a pretty boy who he only knew for giving mighty fine foot injuries.

He knew exactly where his treacherous pet was. He could picture it in his mind; Cookie purring in Renjun’s arms as the boy laughed his beautiful, maniacal laugh, cursing Jeno’s name and calling her Oreo (he still thought it was a stupid name). He tousles his hair in frustration. Jeno tries to feel angry when thinking of the other boy, but instead of filling with dread he only feels his heart flutter. It was a trick of the light- it must’ve been. Renjun was far from angelic, as much as his appearance and soft voice begged to differ. The boy had broken Jeno’s foot and ruined the remainder of his summer. Taking the nearest pillow, he buries his face with it and screams. In his fit of distress, he nearly misses the miffed meowing coming from outside.

Jeno raises his head at the sound. It was unmistakably Cookie’s wailing. He looks towards the open window of his room and frowns. Jeno always left it open for her, risking the sweltering heat, dozens of mosquito bites and the bugs invading his room to make sure Cookie could get back inside safely whenever she pleases.

He pulls himself out of bed and waddles out toward the front door where the meowing is still occurring. He opens the door all the way and Cookie darts past him into his house. Puzzled, he moves to close the door when he notices there is another figure waiting on his doormat. It is definitely not a gift of a dead bird. Far from it.

The tables have turned. The same Huang Renjun who slammed his front door on his foot stands in his doorway as Cookie circles around Jeno’s leg and casted foot. His face mirrors Jeno’s own in surprise. Jeno does what every rational boy with a case of kitten love would do when he’s face to face with his object-of-maybe-affection and immediately closes the door on him.

There’s a brief moment of silence as Jeno stands there trying to process what had just happened- what he just did. The quiet is cut through by Cookie’s meowing. She paws at the door angrily, her claws scraping against the door, and Jeno snaps out of it to open the door again. Renjun still stands there. He huffs and glares at him, yet his eyes are a bit meek. Jeno cowers a bit under his stare but still finds the shamelessness in him to admire his sparkling eyes and how pink his frowning lips were. There’s a splatter of powder blue paint on his left cheek as well as all over his painter’s smock and Jeno has half the mind to reach out and wipe it off, but even he has his boundaries.

“Hello again,” Jeno starts with a sheepish smile, “What’s up?” He makes an attempt look like he has showered in the past three days by running a hand through his hair, but nothing can hide his greasy bed head or the ketchup stain on his old shirt with the rip right in the armpit. He places all the blame on his cast for being a hassle to get into the shower with because he was supposed to be keeping it dry or whatever. He had used an embarrassing amount of Axe body spray to take a hobbling trip to the corner store the other night.

“My cat brought me here. She would not stop meowing until I followed her,” Renjun exhales. Jeno quirks a brow at this and glances down to the feline by his feet. Then his face goes smug, feeling good about Cookie coming home to him in the end.

“Sorry about that. That my cat bothered you. My cat,” he repeats with emphasis. There is something, just something, that thrills him about the prospect of getting Renjun angry at him. It may be in the way the other boy flares up and stares at him like he’s the only thing in the world- and also like he’s the scum of the Earth. Jeno can overlook that. It wasn’t everyday he was gazed upon by such a pretty boy. He curses at how desperate it makes him sound. He barely knew the guy.

“You mean my cat?” Renjun offers sternly. Jeno feels another shouting match arising and apparently so does Cookie because she moves from his side to sit directly in the space between the two of them. She lets out a loud cry and the two boy stare at her shocked. Seconds pass, the both of them trying to decipher what the cat’s attempt at communication could mean.

“I-I think she might want us to make up,” Jeno stage-whispers to the other boy. At his words Cookie meows again as if she was responding. He looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to agree and Renjun looks back at him like he’s an idiot.

He decides to bravely take initiative, hoping to, at the very least, gain the favor of the feline. He’s always been the “bigger person” (a phrase taken directly from Donghyuck) in most situations. “Listen, I admit this all started ‘cause I’m the one who followed Cookie to your house in the first place. And although I think this would’ve happened eventually anyways, it’s kind of my fault,” Jeno confesses, a nervous hand on his nape. “But you also broke my foot?” He gestures down and the shorter boy’s eyes follow.

Renjun looks down at his awkward cast in embarrassment and shock. “I didn’t know it was that bad…” he trails off to look up at Jeno through his eyelashes. The dull pain in his leg subsides and he feels it in his chest instead. Angry he could deal with, guilt not so much.

“It’s okay, really!” It was definitely not okay. Jeno takes a look at Cookie. She’s giving him a piercing stare. He gulps. “How about this. To make it up to me, let’s just share the cat. It’s not like she wasn’t already hopping back and forth from house to house before all of this started.” Cookie seems satisfied by this as she purrs.

It’s a little harder to read Renjun’s reaction to his proposition, is face unreadably blank as he glances at the pleased looking cat.

“I guess that would be alright,” Renjun voices quietly. He picks up his head suddenly and smiles. “Now that that’s cleared up, see you!”

Renjun turns on his heel and begins taking quick strides down his walkway and then down the street. Jeno isn’t sure if he’s relieved or saddened at how eager he was to leave. He must be busy with the painting and the art and all that. Jeno’s heard creative juices only flow for so long until they don’t anymore. He doesn’t dwell on it. Except he totally does dwell on it.

Jeno thinks that this marks the end of a Renjun era for him. In his head, he says his fond farewells and sends Renjun off waving a scarf, sniffling into his free hand dramatically. Renjun waves back somberly. (Jeno’s imagination is always a little more animated than he intends it to be.) Although, instead of a cinematic heartbreak, he is puzzled to be greeted with Renjun at his doorstep for the second time. And then a third time. And day after day, sometimes multiple times in a day, Renjun is dragged all the way over to Jeno’s house by a wailing cat.

Neither of them are really sure what causes the cat to act this way, or what exactly the objective is. The only knowledge they have, from trial and error, is that as long as Renjun shows up to Jeno’s open door, she stops meowing. Bonus points if they engage in conversation. Mega bonus points if Renjun comes inside the foyer. They haven’t really gotten past that. The experimentation isn’t exactly formal in any case. They’ve also found that Cookie never wants Jeno going to Renjun’s instead. Perhaps the feline has some sympathy for Jeno after all.

After a week of it happening and being caught off guard and looking like he’s just rolled out of bed every time he answered the door (which wasn’t too far from the truth) he learned to anticipate the meowing at the door and Renjun’s shining beauty on his doormat. Except the last thing was something he actually couldn’t get accustomed to at all.

On the eighth day of being meowed at to go to Jeno’s house, he shows up with a sketchbook and a pencil behind his ear. Jeno is starstruck by how adorable he looks in his red beret.

“I have a commission to work on and I can’t waste time coming to and fro all the time, so I’ll just hang out here,” he explains briskly, already brushing past Jeno and moving towards the couch. He wants to just tell him he doesn’t have to come over every time Cookie starts meowing and that she would eventually stop if she was ignored. Instead, Jeno hobbles after him and finds him already in his own world curled up by the armrest, sketchbook open and lead dragging against paper.

“Um, make yourself at home,” Jeno offers awkwardly, mostly out of obligation to himself than actual courtesy towards the boy. It seemed like he was halfway to being right at home anyway.

Cookie hops onto the couch and circles around once before settling down next to the boy. Jeno does the same, pivoting around on his one working foot while in an internal conflict of whether he should retreat back to his room and engage in another four hours of PUBG or not and finally decides to sit down on the opposite end of the couch. Cookie raises her head and stares at him in a way only he understands. Hesitantly, he scoots closer and starts petting her. He is acutely aware of the distance of only one small cat between them.

Despite Jeno feeling a little anxious about the proximity, things feel right in that moment: the faint scratching of Renjun’s pencil as background noise and his hand on a warm, purring Cookie. Despite being strangers, Jeno feels comfortable around the other boy.

It could be attributed to the fact that the moment they had met, they had started bickering at each other. Arguments lead to connections and all that. His head had raked through itself thinking about that quote about how the best lovers fight because they care, or something along those lines. Or it was because Jeno harbored the most gargantuan crush on Renjun. Details, details.

Jeno leans his head back and feels his eyes grow heavy. Nothing restrains him as he allows sleep to take over. It is a dreamless rest, but even without the vivid imagery accompanying his conscience, he feels at peace.

Once he awakens, the sun is setting, casting an orange glow onto the living room. There is a crook in his neck that he cracks with a loud pop. A note on the coffee table in front of him reads, “I’ll probably be back tomorrow.” in neat handwriting. Cookie is long gone.

+

Renjun isn’t the type to intrude on others and tries his best to stay out of people’s way. However, his beloved Oreo makes this extremely hard when she uses her tender spot in his heart against him. The first time he had heard her wailing at the front door, his heart had dropped. So did all of his paintbrushes when he had stood up startled and ran towards the door where she was sitting.

“What’s wrong?” he asked gently, squatting down to her level in worry. She stops meowing to paw at the door and Renjun looks at her puzzled. He pushes a hand through the doggy door and sees that there’s no issues with it. He had even seen her use it that morning.

“Why aren’t you going through this?” he asks without expecting an answer. Nevertheless, he complies to the cat’s begging and opens the front door and Oreo prances out before taking an expectant look back at him. Renjun looks at her in confusion. She meows loudly, beckoning him to follow. So he does.

After several blocks of walking in his slippers, Renjun stops in the middle of the sidewalk and thinks about the direction of his life and how he was following a cat to an unknown destination while in his slippers and dirtied smock. Oreo notices his halted state immediately and gives him an impatient meow. He sighs and continues to follow her. It seems as though he has no way out of this one.

This is how he comes to stand at a stranger’s front door. The house is painted in a color similar to his and before his hunch can even come to vocalization, the door opens to reveal Lee Jeno. They share a look.

When Lee Jeno had showed up on his own doorstep the other day, he had looked similarly to present time. This hadn’t stopped Renjun from admiring the slope of his nose or his sturdy eyebrows and how they perfectly roofed his dark eyes.

Renjun notes the messy state of the other boy’s hair and if he wasn’t so shocked he would burst out into laughter at how flustered he looks. That is until he slams the door on him. Renjun thinks it must be his karma. Though, that thought doesn’t stop him from getting upset about it.

He had also noticed the white cast adorning the boy’s leg, specifically the foot that he had smushed with his front door. Heat rises up his neck as guilt overtakes him. He should probably apologize for that.

The rest of that scene happens in a frenzied blur, at least it does in Renjun’s opinion. There is an exchange of words once Jeno finally reopens the door to him and the apology on the tip of his tongue is replaced with an argument about how Oreo actually is his cat. There’s some meowing and more back and forths. The next instant Renjun walks away as a co-owner to his pet. He feels the weight on his shoulders lift a bit on his way back home and later that day a page of his sketchbook fills up with doodles of a cat and a boy with a bad case of bed head.

+

When Jeno hears the tentative knock on the front door before it opens on its own and then closes gently, he knows it could only be one person. He sets down his comic and swings his legs from his bed down to the floor. He kicks aside the crutches blocking his bedroom door with his good foot and shuffles towards the kitchen.

Renjun is there in the living room with his sketchbook as usual, draped horizontally across an armchair, Cookie resting in his lap as he works. The cat doesn’t seem to mind being used as a prop for his sketchbook. Renjun is ethereal as per usual and Jeno is breathless. It still feels like a fever dream to have such a pretty boy in his home, sitting in his living room looking like he belongs there.

Jeno grabs two glasses from a cabinet and fills them with water, one of them with ice because that’s how Renjun had asked for it the first time and he likes to remember the little things. He sets them both on coasters on the coffee table and plops down on the loveseat adjacent to the other boy.

Jeno whips out his phone and scrolls mindlessly through his social media feeds as he takes inconspicuous glances at Renjun and at his tongue poking out the side of his mouth as he concentrates. Jeno tries his best not to ogle him too much, afraid of creeping the other boy out with his blatant staring, but he’s found that, fortunately, not much can deter Renjun from his drawing when he’s in the zone.

However, they, along with Cookie, are startled by the loud and low growling of Jeno’s stomach. Renjun shoots him an amused glance. Jeno blushes profusely.

“Have you eaten today?” the boy asks as he looks back at his sketches. Cookie hops off of Renjun and stretches against the carpet.

“Not yet,” Jeno responds guiltily.  He knows it’s the wrong answer when he sees Renjun giving him a look that says something between a judging ‘get your life together, bed head,’ and a worried ‘please eat something.’ The clock on the wall which reads three in the afternoon, much past breakfast and even lunch, tells him the same thing despite being inanimate.

“Shouldn’t you eat something?”

“I, um, don’t have any food though.”

Renjun’s expression turns into something unreadable as he looks at the meek expression Jeno wears, and then at his cast.

“Do you want me to…” he trails off, unsure. “I could go get you something.” It comes out as more of a question than a statement. “And you need to keep your foot elevated, idiot.” Jeno is surprised by the change in tone and hurriedly swings his leg up onto the coffee table, the impact of the cast slamming down on the glass surface reverberating throughout his leg. He cringes in pain. Renjun laughs at this and in his head Jeno compares it to the wind chimes outside. He cracks an embarrassed chuckle.

“It’s okay, I don’t want to hassle you. Work on your commission thing,” Jeno declines and waves it off. He was sure his stomach, no matter how angry it sounded, could wait at least until Renjun had left.

“No, it’s okay. Let’s just go eat something together, I’m hungry too,” Renjun says with finality. He sets his sketchbook onto the table and goes over to Jeno. The brown haired boy holds out a hand and Jeno takes it gratefully. He can’t help but notice how small Renjun’s soft hands were in his own.

They decide on the convenience store nearby to buy instant ramen and chocolate milk (Jeno’s favorite). Renjun preferred something more nutritious, but agrees that the close proximity of the store was more convenient for an injured Jeno. That being said, the walk there is still ten minutes.

There are very few words exchanged during the entirety of the trip there, both of them scarfing down their food like the ravenous teenage boys they were and making their way back to Jeno’s house in no time.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Renjun starts saying without looking up. They were just leaving the store. “Where are your parents?”

The question stuns Jeno for a split second before his brain kicks in again. Renjun takes the moment of brief shock badly and almost opens his mouth to apologize before Jeno finally says something.

“They’re on a business trip,” Jeno responds automatically. His conditioned words leave a bitter taste in his mouth. His parents had been gone since summer vacation started, leaving him with a hefty envelope of cash and a list of things to remember to do taped on the fridge door. He was used to it though, he explains to Renjun.

“I’m- sorry I asked.”

“It’s alright. It’s just how it is. It keeps me fed with a roof over my head, right? Plus the freedom’s kind of nice.”

Conversing is dropped altogether as they walk past an alleyway. Jeno slows his pace and his eyes go towards the dark lane. Renjun follows his gaze. They both spot scrawny grey cat hidden behind a trash can down the way.

Jeno sets down his crutches as he gets down on one knee. He puts out a hand, beckoning the cat over. Renjun watches as the cat hesitantly emerges from the shadows and pads towards him. It’s smaller than Oreo, thinner. He watches as Jeno’s lips and eyes curl up into a smile when the cat nuzzles it’s head into Jeno’s knee. He wears a gleeful glint in his eyes, one the food from earlier hadn’t even been able to conjure.

“You really like cats, huh?” Renjun asks softly, wary of scaring the cat off. It doesn’t seem to mind the noise as it sniffs Jeno’s hand then tucks its head underneath it to be pet. Jeno obliges and scratches behind its ears.

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is about them. Well I do, actually- just look how cute they are,” Jeno laughs. The cat rolls over on the pavement to show off its stomach. “I remember when I first brought Cookie home she looked just like this guy. She was so skinny and weak and I could tell she always hung out around here digging through the trash. One day I brought her home, opened her a can of tuna and she just kinda stuck around.”

Renjun admires the fond look in the other boy’s eyes and smiles. He, too, had seen the conditions that Oreo had been living in and took it upon himself to allow the poor thing into his home. In return, she gave him cuddles and art inspiration. He thought it was a lovely deal. Now, he couldn’t imagine a day without her presence.

“It’s a lot less lonely with her,” Jeno says. A car passes by and startles the cat. It dashes off back into the shadows and Jeno frowns.

“She must be lonely too, back at home. Let’s go.” Renjun hands Jeno his crutches as he stands and they both continue walking.

Things change over the course of the next few weeks, but Jeno can’t figure out why or even what. For one thing, Renjun starts interacting with him more. It used to be just sitting around the living room in silence, Jeno on his phone and Renjun diligently drawing. Neither of them had any qualms about it, even if Jeno did crave a conversation. It was enough that Renjun was there at all. Nowadays, they never stop talking.

Jeno learns a lot of new things about Renjun. For example, as much as he denies it, he’s the doting type. That or he actually felt really bad about fracturing Jeno’s foot and was too preoccupied with his art before to express this. After their trip to the convenience store, he ends up bringing food over every other time he visits, promising him that they’re only leftovers he wasn’t going to finish anyway when Jeno refuses his offers. So Jeno eats and Renjun is silently pleased by it.

He’s also as stubborn as a mule, insisting that he was just letting Jeno win at their games of Mario Kart (suggested by Jeno because the sight of Renjun frustratedly crumpling up his bad sketches was a big unnerving) because he’s sustained an injury when Jeno knows that his frustrated yelling when he slips on banana peel after banana peel and ends in 7th place can’t be acted out. That is, unless, Renjun was a prodigal actor, which is another thing Jeno is sure that he isn’t because the boy can’t tell a lie to save his life. He discovers this when he finds Renjun in his house despite Cookie not being there with him. The smaller boy ends up using the excuse that the air conditioning is better at Jeno’s, but he knows it’s a lie from the redness of the tips of his ears and his painfully obvious avoidance of eye contact. He just can’t figure out why.

Renjun also takes it upon himself to be Jeno’s personal caretaker by reminding him to take his pain medication everyday and tediously making sure his injured foot was elevated.

They had also exchanged numbers, Renjun explaining it was only because he wanted it to make sure his foot was healing on the days he didn’t come over (not that that was often). Jeno had obviously fixed his name in Renjun’s phone as ‘Cookie’s Dad,’ to which Renjun complained, but he didn’t bother asking Jeno changing it.

It’s another airless summer day when things between them shift again.

For the past week and a half Renjun had only brought over tupperware containers of food and the occasional sketchbook. Today he brought paints, an armful of bottles and some other supplies.

“What are those all for?” Jeno asks from his desk. Renjun smiles at him from the doorway before walking into his bedroom and dumping all of the art supplies onto his bed.

“What did I tell you about your cast?” Renjun scolds. He didn’t answer the question. Jeno doesn’t have time to move his casted leg onto the bed before Renjun moves in to occupy the same spot he was going to place it. The smaller boy leans towards him and spins his computer chair so that they’re facing each other. Jeno tries at acting like he’s not flustered. Renjun reaches to gather all of the art supplies near to him and pats his lap expectantly. Jeno can only give him a puzzled look in response.

“Leg,” he demands. Although he still doesn’t get it, he hesitantly lifts his cast onto Renjun’s awaiting lap.

This was weird- like really weird. It was not everyday you had your broken, casted foot in your crush’s lap.

The usually open window of Jeno’s bedroom had long been closed; there was no point in letting the heat and bugs invade if Cookie was going to meow at him from the front door. The air around them is cool, yet Jeno feels an uncomfortable heat rising up the base of his neck at the close proximity. It’s not like he hasn’t sat close to Renjun before. It was different from sitting shoulder to shoulder while playing video games though. In this position he was forced to face him and drink up all of his features.

Jeno can count all of Renjun’s short eyelashes. He can observe each glisten of his twinkling eyes. He can watch how Renjun’s lips part slightly in concentration and how his canine teeth peek out.

It’s not until Renjun has a paintbrush in his hand, which has been dipped into the glob of dark blue paint on one of the palettes he brought along, that Jeno realizes what’s happening just before him.

“You know, most people would just ask to sign it,” Jeno teases. There is no better way to mask his befuddlement.

“That’s awfully predictable. Besides, no one who signs a cast actually cares about the person’s recovery. And wouldn’t it be depressing to stare at the names of people who don’t care about you for the duration of your recovery period?” Renjun reasons without even looking up. “You should be looking at something pretty.”

Jeno doesn’t have the nerve to say he already was and it was the boy right in front of him, recreating the night’s sky all over his cast.

He takes Renjun’s advice. They’re both quiet as Renjun paints and Jeno admires.

After a total of 43 days, the doctor finally tells Jeno he can have his cast removed. He had ended up spending exactly 38 of those with Renjun.

It was a bittersweet doctor’s visit, starting off with the secretary complimenting the complex galaxies painted onto his cast and ending with the doctor going at it with a saw straight after. His heart may or may not have shattered at the sight of his own personal artwork in two pieces on the doctor’s office floor.

The cast, as much of a burden it was along with being a reminder of how idiotic he was, had come to be a comforting presence to him once it had been painted over. The bland eggshell color was replaced by deep blues and purples, all swirled together and splattered over with pinks and whites into a galactic wonderland Renjun had spent two days worth of time and effort into making beautiful, just so Jeno could gaze upon it. And he did. Often.

He’s both relieved and anxious when he gets home, cast-free. His foot’s still a bit swollen and tender, but with two layers of socks he can manage walking. Mostly, he’s relieved to be freed from the reigns of his cast and no-longer-broken foot. The world is his oyster now, and he still has another month of summer vacation left. But anxiety creeps along the sidelines of his ease. There was the prospect of Renjun.

Renjun who was doting and impatient and artsy and kind and short tempered, and only cared about Jeno because he had been the origins of his demise. Once the cast was off, Jeno was sure he would be left in the dust. Sure, there was also Cookie who tied the two of them together, but they had gone three months without knowing of each other’s existences prior.

Jeno’s worries only amplify after the sun sets without a sign of Renjun. Not a text or a note or even a Snapchat story update of a random landscape picture and the time sticker over it for an aesthetic.

The cicadas chirp incessantly outside his window and it drives Jeno up the wall. And now he didn’t even have his painted universe on his foot to ground him. Now it’s just a swollen foot. He has half the mind to walk over to his front door and slam the other foot in it before he realizes he really must be going insane and it had only been 20 hours without Renjun. He himself had not come to terms with how substantial his feelings for the other boy were. With him always being around, he had never been forced to.

It was obvious there was something there. But how much something? That was the question that irked Jeno’s brain to no compare. It had started off innocently enough. Renjun was attractive- Jeno knew that better than anyone and he had spent enough time blatantly checking him out.

Jeno does what any other teenage boy would do in a time of distress and starts up his game console. He plays and rages and yells at his screen into the dead of the night. He does such a great job at distracting himself, he can’t even recall when he collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

The boy wakes up with a start, groggy and eyes burning from excessive screen usage. There is a blaring noise from under the sheets- his ringtone. With his head burrowed in his pillow, he rustles a hand around his blanket until he finds the origins of the noise. He doesn’t bother looking at the screen before swiping to accept the call.

“Hello?” he asks, voice ladened with fatigue and a little coarse from his yelling the night before. There’s the distinct sound of heavy breathing on the other line and Jeno thinks it might be a prank call. He feels a prick of annoyance when he peeks out his window and sees that the sun had barely even began rising from the constraints of the night.

He’s startled when Renjun’s distinctly musical voice is heard over his phone.

“Help,” is all he says before Jeno is stumbling out of bed.

“Help? With what? Are you alright?” His brain almost goes into maximum overdrive, but he takes a deep breath. If Renjun’s in trouble, the last thing the boy would need is Jeno panicking.

“It-it’s Oreo. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. And there’s blood and I’m- She’s at my house right now.” The words all tumble out of Renjun’s mouth and into Jeno’s ears and it takes him approximately 20 seconds to run out of his house, dull ache in his healing foot forgotten in his spur of adrenaline. He doesn’t even hang up the call. What could have happened to Cookie? He runs through a million different scenarios in his head. Food poisoning, badly placed mouse trap, big hairball, cancer, annoying neighborhood kids who couldn’t leave animals alone- the list went on and on and each one egged on his anxiousness a little more.

The sprint he’s broken into slows to a steady jog straight into Renjun’s house. He doesn’t even bother knocking.

Renjun is on his knees in the living room, hovering over Cookie’s writhing body. She lays on her side, wiggling around and meowing loudly.

“She’s been really weird lately and she’s been losing fur, too, and I’m scared, Jeno. What’s wrong with her?” he cries out in one breath. “She hasn’t been eating all day.” His eyes are glassy, pupils quivering in fear. In one look, he can tell Renjun had been thinking of every bad scenario possible too.

He pulls Renjun’s shaking body into a hug in an attempt to comfort him and tries his hardest to keep his mind from going straight into negative. Renjun and Cookie needed him. Together, they wrap a still mewling Cookie in a couple of soft towels and speed-walk her down to the animal clinic.

With an arm slung around Renjun’s narrow shoulders they sit in the lobby in front of the bored looking receptionist and wait. The vet had taken Cookie into an examination room and suggested they wait for her. There is only the sound of their rushed breaths and the unrelenting tapping of nails on a clicky keyboard. Renjun jumps when he sees the doctor enter the room, jolting up to stand immediately.

“Is she okay?” he barks. The vet blinks at them before smiling, obviously aware of the tension hanging in the air.

“You’ve got kittens!”

It takes an approximate three seconds for the words to sink in. The second they do, the two boys break out in cheering and maybe a stray tear or two from Jeno. The vet chuckles at the sight.

“Kittens, Jeno, kittens!” Renjun exclaims, the brightest and most adoring smile on his face. It nearly gives him whiplash at Renjun’s change in mood from drastically anxious to happy as a clam. Jeno is pulled into his arms for a hug and his brain is moving a mile a minute while simultaneously processing at the pace of a snail. And as Renjun pulls back, only an arms length away everything moves in slow motion.

He looks like sunshine embodied. Like happiness pours out his pores and warmth encompasses his heart and Jeno’s own heart soars at the sight.

So he does the logical thing. Jeno takes Renjun’s grinning face in both of his heads and just before revelling in how smooth his alabaster skin feels, he fits his lips against Renjun’s for a split second, not even long enough to taste him. Their lips are plush against each other’s and warm and everything is right in that one instant and then Jeno pulls back immediately. His face is singed red. He takes a step backwards in his state of fluster.

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t…” he stutters and removes his hands, placing them back down at his sides. “I don’t know why I did that.”

Renjun looks at him with that unreadable look again and Jeno is looking anywhere but the other boy. He doesn’t notice when Renjun’s face is broken back into a luminous smile. He doesn’t see when the short boy lifts his arms. Which is why he jumps in surprise when Renjun’s small hands come up to hold his face. He’s forced to look at him now.

He must be either the luckiest or the unluckiest boy on the planet, he thinks, being forced to gaze straight into Renjun’s warm eyes like this. His cheeks are too warm to handle. He thinks they might pop from all the blood gathering in them. Renjun’s eyes are wrinkled with glee at the outer corners. They glimmer under the artificial light with perpetual wetness and Jeno just might see the painted universe from his cast in them. They stare back into his eyes with a sort of longing and lovingness that makes Jeno’s heart stutter in its ribcage.

Finally, Renjun pulls him down to connect their lips again in a dance made just for them. They smile against each other, Jeno feels it. He decides on lucky, mostly because tangible joy is pressed against his lips and his arms are finding purchase around an entire world- his world. The kiss is as sweet as sugar and giggly on Renjun’s end, an airy champagne bottle of love and bliss.

“We’re gonna be granddads,” is the first thing Renjun says as they pull away from one another. Jeno groans because it’s such a lame thing to say and then laughs because he’s happy. It doesn’t take long for Renjun to join him.

They’re escorted to Cookie by the vet once they’ve been peeled off of each other. She’s resting in a corner on a bundle of blankets and licking one of the heads of a newborn kitten. There are a total of four mewling little babies and Jeno almost passes out from the pure, innocent cuteness. Their eyes are still squeezed shut as they feed on their mother’s milk. Each of their small bodies are still tinged pink, but all spotted in different patterns of black and white.

A few months later, three of the kittens are playfully wrestling with one another on the floor of Jeno’s bedroom. Jeno watches them lovingly from where he’s laying on his stomach, leaning over the edge of the bed and Renjun lays right beside him, head on Jeno’s shoulder as he sketches the kittens in different poses. It’s evening and they’ve both retired to Jeno’s room to procrastinate homework. Despite being at different schools, they spend every waking minute with one another.

“I think I really captured Domino here,’’ Renjun says, pointing at one of his many pencil drawings.

“My favorite is this one of Pepper and Bowtie,” Jeno voices while pointing to another.

“How do you think the last one is doing?” Renjun asks suddenly. The other day they had dropped off one of the kittens at his new home. Yukhei had been so excited, he squealed like a child receiving a ticket to Disneyland.

“Last I heard, Yukhei and Jungwoo were arguing over his name.”