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Rain on a Saturday. It left Yuki itching for something to do, pent up energy from the previous week of schoolwork building but no outlet. If trouble wasn’t going to come find her, she was going to come find trouble herself. Lucifer was keenly aware of this, sitting out in the den with coffee and a newspaper. It was only one in the afternoon, but feeling like she was being babysat just made her feel more antsy. Thankfully, he couldn’t watch the stairwell around the clock; when he left to do who-knows-what, Yuki tip-toed her way out.
Counting out the Grimm she had… Yuki wanted to pick up some warm coffee for herself from Cursedbucks, but the odd jobs she took up when she had free time just weren’t enough to cover it. She’d just have to head over to Hell’s Kitchen for some cheap, burnt coffee and wait for Lucifer to call yelling. Something something dangerous, something something irresponsible, something something Diavolo. The sky was dark, but it was always dark down here, even when it wasn’t raining! She deserved to stretch her legs a little.
Face down on the diner table, her phone did end up ringing. Yuki rested her hand on the back of it, considering just silencing it. But she didn’t want to push her luck too far, never able to get too comfortable with her housemates without some reminder that they weren’t human, so she flipped it over. The name lighting up the screen wasn’t Lucifer, but instead, Satan. Uh oh… Had she gotten him involved, too? Feeling a little guilty all of a sudden, she used her thumb to swipe across the call accept icon.
Before she could even say hello, Satan’s panicked voice crackled through. “This is an emergency. You’re the only one that I can ask for advice, Yuki.”
Yuki coughed. Guess he wasn’t worried about her after all. “Uh, I’m at Hell’s Kitchen so I don’t know how much I can help you, but what’s wrong?”
“That’s perfect, actually. I just left the library and found a lost kitten. I tried looking around for the mother but there’s no one around and…” he trailed off, the wind and pitter patter of rain filling the gap. “It started raining. It doesn’t look any older than two months and it’s not wearing a collar. I don’t know what I should do, but I don’t want to leave it here.”
Now this was the exact kind of trouble Yuki wanted.
“Take off your uniform jacket and try to use it to scoop up the kitty. It’ll probably be scared, so don’t get mad if it scratches you—”
“No, uh, I held my hand out to it and it just came over. It’s, um, chewing on my shoelaces.”
“Oh, wow. I guess it wasn’t born wild then. Okay, then just take the little baby home—” And she was interrupted again.
“There’s absolutely no way Lucifer would allow something like that. Besides, I mean… I’m a demon. How much should I really interfere?”
“Listen to me, Satan.” Words she really thought she wouldn’t be talking into a phone in a diner in hell. “You called me for advice, a human. The human-y advice you’re getting is to disregard the consequences and bring that cat home out of the rain. That’s half just human nature and half because I have three cats back home.”
“You do?” He really didn’t sound convinced, on the other line.
“Yeah.” Yuki thought about telling him about her other pets; two dogs and two tortoises. But it might sound like she was overcompensating for a lie. “Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll go pick up the essentials from Devil’s Value and meet you there, and then we’ll both go home. If we show up drenched in rain with that baby and we have cat food and litter, and I swear on my grave that I know how to take care of cats, Lucifer should at least let us keep it inside until it stops raining.”
Yuki counted out how much Grimm she’d need to pay for her coffee as Satan considered the half-baked plan, wholly hinging on Lucifer taking pity on dumb, dumber, and the cat.
“What if he still insists on kicking the kitten out?” Satan asked.
“Easy, I’ll beat him up.”
Satan snorted. “That’s not reassuring at all.”
“It did make you laugh, though. Stay right there, I’ll go to the store and then head straight for the library. I’ll try not to take too long. Okay, bye!” She hung up before he had time to argue anymore.
Pulling her jacket tighter, Yuki tried walking through the rainy sidewalks as fast as she could without slipping. She was worried about the selection of… actually, everything. Cat litter could be substituted with something like newspaper, but there’d be complaints about the smell instantly. Satan said the kitten looked around two months old, so it was old enough to not need milk or kitten formula. Dry cat food wasn’t enough to nourish it, especially if it was already dehydrated from being out without shelter, but she’d be stuck cutting up meat and fish for it if there weren’t any safe wet food brands.
Keeping a kitten safe was well worth the effort, but she’d be worried about doing it right the whole time. Yuki stepped through the automatic Devil’s Value doors and wiped her feet before heading inside. Back home, she wasn’t directly responsible for providing food for her pets; the human world was all the humans had to worry about. Companies flocked to fill whatever need a person could come up with, and all Yuki had to do was open a bag or can and plop it onto a plate for her animals— Huh. Actually, looking down the cat care aisle of the store, she found all the same brands from back home. The ingredients didn’t show anything spooky either. What a relief! They even had the lightweight line of cat litter that cost double but weren’t nearly as heavy. She used this whenever she had the spare money in the human world, so she knew one container would have enough litter to work for two fresh boxes.
Yuki smiled as she gave the cashier the very last of her Grimm. She only had enough to afford a plastic litter tray, plastic scoop, one tub of cat litter, a small bag of dry kitten chow, and five cans of wet cat food. That was enough to hold them for now; Yuki really had no illusions about Lucifer letting them keep the kitten for longer than a week at the very most. He’d be saying all the things her own older brother had, warning them not to name the kitten, that if they took in one cat then they’d want to take in every one they saw.
Bundling up her collection of heavy bags, Yuki faced the dreary weather again. She knew neither brother was wrong. In all of her (admittedly limited) years of life, there wasn’t a single time her family had driven past a stray animal without her earnestly asking if they could stop to take it home.
The grocery bags were heavy, and the rain was cold and wet, but walking to the library from Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t too long a distance. Satan’s blonde hair, drooping in the rain, was easy to spot. Yuki’s shoes gave her presence away, and when Satan turned to greet her, he was cradling… possibly the cutest kitten Yuki had seen in her life. It was some sort of tuxedo colorway, mostly white, but with black ears and a black spot over its pink nose.
He noticed her staring and looked down at the kitten. It was purring lightly, snuggled up in the crook of his elbow for comfort from the rain. “I tried checking and it looks like he’s a boy. Does that mean anything?”
“Uh… Boy cats like to pee on things to mark their territory and it’ll smell stronger than if he was a girl,” and then she winced. “ Don’t tell anyone else that or they’ll want to get rid of him if they know there’s a difference. He’s old enough to be neutered and that’ll stop him from spraying on everything, he just needs to get some rest and food first.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We definitely shouldn’t tell Lucifer that part. We should get going…” Satan titled his head in concern. “That looks heavy, do you want us to switch what we’re carrying back?”
Shaking her head, Yuki readjusted her grip on the plastic. “No, that kitten already looks like it trusts you. He must not have been born wild, since most kittens refuse to go near people they don’t know. If we disturb him he might bolt.”
“Oh.” Yuki wasn’t going to finish that what-if, and Satan didn’t want to either.
Animals were kindred spirits to Satan. They were easy to understand, straight-forward beings that you could earn respect and love from without worry of it being taken away. There were no muddled concepts to worry about… like reputation, or hierarchies, or a difference in species. You just had to be patient and kind to them, something Satan worked ridiculously hard at being, and they’d treat you as family. He could make his own palace out of books on demonology and still feel his confidence crumbling, when it came to the peers he had. But all he had to do was speak softly at an animal cafe, offer some treats and a warm hand, to be treated like a person.
They walked in silence for most of the trip, but when the House of Lamentation came into view, Satan became too curious.
“You have three cats of your own?” He kept his voice low, taking her warning not to disturb the unnamed kitten to heart.
“Yeah…” Thinking back to her pets, Yuki’s eyes shone. “Well, my parents had two cats from before I was born, but they passed away while I was still little. My dad wasn’t super crazy about cats, but my mom and I were, so people started to see us as the place to go when their cats were sick. Eventually one of our neighbors found three kittens at a construction site, panicked, and called my mom to ask if he could leave them with us since he had to go to work. So it was kinda exactly like this, newborn kittens with no mom in sight. They were younger than this one and we had a big dog, so we kept the kittens in my bedroom, and I ended up becoming like, their mom.”
“Wow. And you guys never found a home for them?” A talking point frequented among demons was how stupid and selfish humans could be… the picture of some burly man frozen up in alarm over kittens, and hand-delivering them to someone he trusted as a cat expert painted a more favorable image of humanity.
Yuki looked sheepish, smiling under the streetlights. “I mean… we planned on finding homes for them. But like I said, I was raising them in my bedroom. They’re my babies . I just couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing them again.”
“I guess I understand. That’s why Lucifer never lets us take in strays. You know you can’t get attached this time, right?”
The two made it all the way to the House of Lamentation’s doorsteps, finally shielding them from the hazy rain. It didn’t feel very comforting, knowing that Lucifer’s lecture and possible rejection was coming.
“I know, I know. I’m only staying here for a year, so it’s not like I can get ready to commit to another pet. We sell this to Lucifer, and then we find a good home for that cutie as soon as physically possible. In that order.”
Satan wasn’t reassured by that, but he was still ready to piss Lucifer off. Maybe with Yuki’s immunity as an exchange student he really could get a petty win.