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It was one of those days where Andy felt like he hadn’t changed, hadn’t moved forward. He had startled awake in the middle of the night, unsure if he had heard someone walking around or if he had just imagined it. He was too antsy, his coworkers would tell him. There was no way anyone could get into his flat. You’re being paranoid, they would say. But it was hard to put his soldier ways aside. He couldn’t just “get over” years of being on active duty. His Normal coworkers had little way of understanding this, stuck in their daytime desk jobs from nine to five.
On nights like this one, where he just couldn’t fall back asleep, he would begrudgingly get out of bed and head over to his little kitchenette. Open the fridge. Take out the milk. Take a mug (his favourite being one shaped like a penguin - a birthday gift from Yuugiri). Heat the milk up. He tried not to turn on the lights, thinking that if there was something in his flat with him he would rather not know. But as he sat around, watching the seconds on his microwave tick down oh so slowly, he heard a small “thump” noise from his bedroom.
Suddenly, he felt fully alert. Gone was his goal of falling back asleep. If there was an intruder, then he needed to take care of them. He casually turned off the microwave, aware that the beeping could give him away, and reached for his knife block. Unfortunately, he wasn’t allowed any firearms outside of work - at least, he wasn’t supposed to. He did have a single gun stashed away in his closet, but at this rate, it was safe to assume he would meet with the intruder before he would be able to reach his trusty handgun. A kitchen knife would have to do.
Slowly, holding the knife at chest level, Andy crept towards his bedroom door. He hadn’t closed it when he had left just a couple minutes earlier, so he made sure to stay out of direct line of sight with it. Standing with his back to the wall next to his door, he strained to hear if the intruder was still moving around, but he was only greeted with silence. There was no way that someone could be this silent. At the very least, Andy should have been able to hear breathing, but there was nothing.
He gritted his teeth. There were two possibilities, at this point. Either he was dealing with someone highly trained in stealth missions, or he had imagined the whole thing. The secret third possibility that he would not let himself even consider for a moment was that a certain Esper had decided to drop in to one of the most protected complexes in the world, probably just to say hi or dump Andy into some body of water.
As he chastised himself for even considering (or hoping) that the third scenario might take place, he heard another noise. Footsteps. But there was something strange about them. There were too many, too often, too quiet for someone walking normally and too loud for someone trying to sneak in. Andy held his breath, waiting for the intruder walk out and reveal itself too him.
The footsteps stopped as suddenly as they had started. Andy decided that if this intruder was truly after him, there was no use in him pretending to not be aware any longer. He tensed his grip on his knife, bringing it closer to him, and peaked around the corner of his doorframe, only to be greeted by -
Nothing?
No, that wasn’t quite right. There was definitely something in his room, or specifically, on his bed. A small, curled up form. As if in reaction to his sudden appearance, the shape released a small “Mrrp?” and lifted a furry head in his direction.
Andy fell to the ground.
The only intruder in his house had been a cat.
“You gave me a real scare, you know.” He told the cat, who had nuzzled into his lap after he had sat down on his bed. She (he assumed. He had only taken a quick look, because regardless of whether it was an human or animal it was rude. Momotarou had been sure to let him know of this.) was currently content purring into his hand. “I think I’ll just call you Intruder for now” he chuckled to himself. He would have to think of a better name for her in the morning.
The next morning, he would call in to Princess Sophie and ask her for the day off. After all, he needed to make sure this kitten didn’t belong to anyone, and if it didn’t, then of course he would have to go shopping for all the things you need to raise cats. Things like, well, food, a litter box, some shots? Andy didn’t know much about cats, but he did know that he was never leaving his window fully open again. He could only deal with so many intruders in his now peaceful life.