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Morgana has a list of humans he checks in on.
As a shapeshifter, he doesn’t have much to call his own. Even if he has a handful of identities he goes by, none of them can really have a bank account or any identification, so for the most part, he has to rely on the kindness of humans.
There are seven of them that have helped them enough for him to consider them “his humans,” and that implies making sure they’re taken care of every day.
Normally he wouldn’t bother that much. Usually a human giving him a hand means he finds a lost item for them or he “finds” some money to leave for them, but these humans are different.
All seven of them are regressors, a term that Morgana hadn’t even known before he’d met them, but it’s kind of a crash course when you find one of them sobbing in an alleyway. Because even if it counts as a favor, watching out for all of them is now an obligation.
If the adults of the world failed them, well, then Morgana will just have to fill the gap. Besides, what else is he going to do? All he’s ever wanted was to have a permanent human form, and what better way to understand humanity than to watch after little ones?
His true form is human, he’s sure of that much. Even if it is more comfortable for him to move around as a cat. Even if he shifts back into his cat form whenever he falls asleep. In his heart, he knows he’s human.
Morgana’s first check-in is for a girl by the name of Futaba Sakura. She hardly ever leaves the house, so he has to catch her before she goes to work.
Morgana sits perched on the stone wall, waiting for a familiar head of red hair to pop out the front door. She does, and not a moment too soon. Why is it that she’s always running late? If she doesn’t move, she’s going to be late for work.
“Mr. Cat!” Futaba grins, opening her arms for a hug. She has her breakfast—or at least what passes for a breakfast by Futaba’s standards—in her hand. Honestly, who eats a ham sandwich for breakfast?
Nonetheless, Morgana obliges, putting his paws on her chest and quickly leaping up to rest on her shoulders.
“I can’t stay long,” Futaba says. Nonetheless, she takes a piece of ham out of her sandwich and offers it to him.
Morgana meows happily. Maybe that’s why Futaba has such weird breakfasts, so she can share with him. Even if that’s not true, he can pretend like the snacks she shares with him every day are a new favor he has to repay.
“Are you gonna walk with me to the train station, Mr. Cat?” Futaba asks.
Morgana wraps himself around her neck, purring contentedly. But of course! It’s his job to make sure she gets to the train station safely, after all.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
The ride is a little bumpier than Morgana would prefer, but he doesn’t blame Futaba. If he had to guess, humans probably just don’t realize how much they bounce when they walk. They’re not as graceful as he is, and that’s perfectly okay.
“You don’t know how close I was to calling in sick today, Mr. Cat,” Futaba says. She always talks to him when they walk to the train station, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the stares she attracts. “We’re introducing a new system to all of our offices and I know I’m gonna get non-stop calls about it.” Futaba sighs. “I wish I could just work from home.”
From what Morgana can piece together, Futaba is some sort of tech wizard, which unfortunately means that instead of doing high-level hacking and programming, she ends up spending the majority of her time teaching elderly coworkers how to log into their email.
But the money must pay well, because she’s able to support herself and her father’s restaurant.
Morgana meows again, butting his head against her ear.
“I know, right?” Futaba says. Morgana doesn’t know what she thinks he’s saying, but he’s glad the conversation is engaging for her. “Totally unfair.”
She goes on like that for a while, detailing some of the people in the main office she works for that drive her absolutely nuts. The common theme between them is that they have no willingness to learn, a complete lack of patience, and a firm belief that they’re better than the techie kid that makes their computers work.
“Here we are, Mr. Cat.” Futaba plucks Morgana off her shoulder. “Find me tonight, okay?” She gives Morgana one last head pat before heading out on her way.
Frowning, Morgana watches her disappear into the train station. How can he make her day better? She doesn’t seem stressed, at least right now, but that doesn’t bode well for the rest of her day. Maybe he’ll find her a trinket in the morning and check in on her later tonight?
Morgana checks behind him, looking over the sea of faces. He picks out a couple he likes—a tall man in business casual, a shorter man with nicely coiffed hair—and borrows their looks for a bit.
That’s the key to being a shapeshifter. Never make a one-to-one copy of someone, but instead make a collage of people’s finest features.
Morgana looks down at his newly formed hands, taking in the size and shape, noting this will be his body for the day.
Just as easy as breathing.
Morgana’s second stop is at Yusuke Kitagawa’s house.
An up-and-coming artist, Yusuke spends most of his time cooped up in his shack painting, really only coming out for food—and even then it’s a toss-up.
He offered Morgana shelter one rainy night, even going so far as to spend the last of his pocket money on cat food, so there was no way Morgana couldn’t keep looking out for him.
Morgana finds the quickest way to help him is by dropping off food. Even if it’s something as small as instant ramen, as long as Yusuke has it in front of him, he’s going to eat it. Of course, Morgana always tries to get together some healthier options, but he and Yusuke aren’t too different when it comes to their financial situations.
Morgana checks behind him, making sure no one’s around. Yusuke’s shack, inherited from his mentor before the man left the art world in disgrace a few years back, isn’t on a very busy street, so no one is there to see Morgana, shopping bag of food in hand, approach the nearby window.
Morgana peers inside, only to find Yusuke curled up on the hardwood floor, sleeping soundly.
Morgana heaves a sigh. How is he even able to sleep like that? Is he really that tired? Maybe Morgana needs to bring him an actual bed next time.
Yusuke always leaves the window open, so it’s no trouble pushing open the window and dropping the bag of food inside. Morgana plans to leave it at that, but one look at the mess Yusuke has fallen asleep in tells him he can’t leave without another extra favor.
Morgana casts another look behind him, making sure no one notices as he shifts back into his cat form. He holds the image of his human face tight in his mind, clutching onto the thread like the string of a balloon, and slips inside.
Did Yusuke fall asleep right in the middle of painting? He has brushes scattered all around him, globs of paint drying up in a palette, and a large canvass half-worked on sitting before him. At least he has a glass of water on the table. Sometimes he doesn’t even have that.
“Did no one ever teach you how to clean your room?” Morgana grumbles under his breath.
It’s hard, organizing everything with only his mouth, but he doesn’t want to take human form in case Yusuke wakes up. It’s one thing to find a cat in your house, but an entirely different thing to find a human.
“Hi, kitty.”
Morgana lifts his head to see Yusuke smiling at him, very clearly regressed, if his speech pattern is any indication. He’s one of the younger ones while regressed, meaning that his vocal tells are most noticeable.
Morgana pads over, trying to suss out the situation. Yusuke usually regresses from exhaustion, but Morgana still keeps an eye out for signs of emotional distress.
It’s hard not to, considering his mentor.
Yusuke yawns, apparently uncaring about being on the floor or having the morning sun shining directly in his face. “Ni-ni, kitty.” He rolls over.
“Are you really gonna go back to sleep?” Morgana hisses.
He’s not sure if Yusuke is awake enough to hear him, but based on Yusuke’s active imagination and how tired he’s acting, it’s unlikely. Besides, Morgana has to get his frustrations out somehow.
“You have a bedroom, you know!”
In the end, Morgana settles for dragging the pillow and blanket Yusuke keeps in his closet out. He wants to do more, but one of the most important parts of looking out for Yusuke and the others is that his identity has to remain a secret.
At least Yusuke curls up easily enough. When presented with a plush pillow and a warm blanket, he instinctively curls into the comforts, making Morgana’s job easy.
Morgana considers checking in with him later as well, just to make sure he eats when he wakes up. That, and to make sure he doesn’t get right back to painting the second he wakes up.
His next stop is Ann Takamaki and Ryuji Sakamoto. They’re coworkers, he thinks, so they always spend lunch together. It’s easier to visit them both at once. Luckily, they both know about the other’s age regression, so Morgana can at least take comfort in the fact that they can look out for one another.
And as diligent as he is, Ann finds him before he finds her.
“Hey, look, it’s the boy!” Ann says.
“The boy!” Ryuji cheers.
Morgana perks up to find Ann and Ryuji sitting a few tables away from their normal spot and happily trots over. Ann and Ryuji are both chanting “the boy, the boy, the boy,” under their breath. Personally, Morgana thinks they’re both weirdoes, but they’re his weirdoes.
“Ya know, it’s almost like he knows what we’re sayin’,” Ryuji says.
Morgana hops up on the table, allowing Ann to squish his face, the customary greeting between them, before taking his normal spot between Ann and Ryuji. Out of respect, he keeps a good distance from their food, but Ryuji is almost guaranteed to share a couple fries with him.
Morgana met them separately, both in human form, surprisingly enough. Ann gave him her umbrella while it was raining and Ryuji covered the cost of his meal at a restaurant without so much as a second thought. He hadn’t even realized they were friends until he found them right here.
At first glance, both of them seem okay, but it’ll take a little more listening for Morgana to know for sure. While Ryuji is outspoken, Ann is a little more reserved, although both of them try to avoid talking about what’s really bothering them.
“So how are things on your end?” Ryuji asks, continuing the conversation from where they left off.
“Ugh, don’t get me started,” Ann grumbles. “Is it just me or are those faculty meetings getting longer and longer?”
“For real. It’s like they’re trying to get us to zone out.” Ryuji pauses, the realization settling in. “Does that mean after work, you’re gonna… you know?” Ryuji raises his eyebrows.
“Maybe just a little. I have a couple movies I’m gonna watch. Do you wanna come?”
Morgana’s gaze shifts to Ryuji, silently willing him to agree. He doesn’t know if Ryuji’s figured it out yet, but Ann doesn’t regress when she’s alone. More than anything else, she needs companionship.
“Are you kiddin’? That sounds awesome after the week I had. I totally blew out my knee last practice.”
“What, were you teaching the kids how to run drills again?”
“Uh…” Ryuji trails off, his face burning. “Somethin’ like that.”
“You bumped into your desk again, didn’t you?”
Morgana dozes for a bit before taking off, finding the nearest alleyway so he can shift back into his human form. Even if Ann and Ryuji are the most put-together of the bunch, he still wants to do something for them to help them get through the day.
He drops into the nearest convenience store and purchases a candy bar, using up the last of his money for the day. Morgana quickly writes Ann’s name on a piece of paper, disappearing into the flow of people. Ann is inside, probably getting another drink, and Ryuji doesn’t even notice when Morgana drops the candy bar on their table.
When Ann returns, she stops short, looking left and right, as if someone is going to pop up and declare it all a prank.
“Ryuji, did you leave this?” she asks, indicating the candy bar on the table.
He glances up from his phone, looking just as confused as her. “Wasn’t me.”
“Huh. That’s weird.” Still, Ann can’t be deterred by a sweet, and she gladly starts unwrapping it.
“Hold on, isn’t that dangerous?”
“I mean, it’s in the original packaging, right? Come on, we’ll split it!”
The trick with Ann is making sure she always has something to share. Leaving snacks or toys or whatever is fine, but if it’s not something she can share with Shiho or Ryuji, there’s really no point to it.
Knowing they’ll be fine for the rest of the day, Morgana heads off to his next stop.
Next up is Makoto Niijima.
Out of all seven of them, she’s the hardest one to get a read on, and she’s usually busy all hours of the day.
Luckily for Morgana, however, she always takes a late lunch to walk the same sixteen city blocks.
He’s only seen Makoto regressed a handful of times, but he thinks that’s by design. She doesn’t like to show vulnerability, even in front of animals.
He’s tried to get through to her, he really has, but so far he hasn’t found a single way to repay her kindness. Like Ryuji, she was all too eager to cover the cost of one of his meals, and even went so far as to try and get him a job after hearing he was unemployed.
She’s resting on her favorite park bench when he finds her.
“Hi, cat,” she says, a slight twinge of guilt in her face.
Sometimes she gets like this, all wistful and introspective. She doesn’t like to talk on most days, but days like this it’s near impossible.
Morgana hates this feeling of helplessness, especially since the most he can do relegates him to his stupid cat form. Sure, if he were in his human form, he could talk to her, but there’s no way she’d talk to him then. Only if she thought there was a way to help him.
So Morgana sits with her, because at the end of the day, that’s really all he can do.
As the day winds down, Morgana visits Haru Okumura next.
There’s a gap in his schedule between visiting Haru and Makoto, and that’s mostly by design.
As a CEO, Haru has to bounce around from one meeting to the next, so even if she has time for a lunch that isn’t at her desk, she rarely has time to enjoy it.
Thankfully, she’s one of the easiest to comfort as well. She loses things the most. Nothing big or important, but trinkets. Most often, it’s jewelry.
She leaves a little pouch by her mailbox now. Morgana wonders how this looks to her, leaving a pouch by her mailbox and suddenly her lost jewelry is being thrown at her room. He won’t complain, though. It makes things a lot easier when he doesn’t have to carry each piece up one-by-one is his cat form.
Morgana fills the pouch with her forgotten jewelry. This week, there’s the usual earrings and bracelets, but he also found a set of keys with her scent on them. He winds up, pitching the bag over the fence and (hopefully) onto Haru’s back porch.
He waits a few moments, checking to see if she’s home yet. Sometimes she doesn’t get home until rather late at night.
“Thank you!” Haru calls out from her balcony. She’s given up trying to see his face, and instead just shouts her thanks.
She sounds happy enough, but Morgana still wants to follow up. He checks around, making sure no one’s looking his way, before shifting back into cat form and making his way to her greenhouse.
“Kitty-chan!” Haru’s beaming as she gently lifts him, supporting his back legs like few people do.
She fixed up his leg after he got attacked by a dog. He was in too crowded of an area to shift into human form and care for himself, so he really does owe her a lot.
“Are you here to watch me garden?” Haru asks. She’s flashing him the usual sunny smile, but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to Haru.
Morgana hasn’t seen her fully regress once. Instead, she regresses in little ways, finding enjoyment in either dancing or gardening. Things that remind her of her childhood. If she, like Ann or Ryuji, hadn’t outright mentioned regression once, Morgana might not have even suspected it.
But like Makoto, she enjoys his company, so he simply sits with her until it’s time for him to go.
Morgana’s last stop of the night is home.
After dark, he doesn’t need to make as much of an effort to be hidden. When it’s easier to walk around as a human, he does so, and when he needs to take shortcuts through yards or just avoid the train fees, he shifts back into a cat.
The only thing he needs to be careful about is making sure Akira doesn’t see him shifting, so he makes the last three blocks to Akira’s apartment in cat form.
Just as expected, Akira is waiting for him by the window. Morgana hops up on the windowsill and meows to announce his presence.
“There you are.” Akira pushes open the window, allowing Morgana to scurry inside.
Akira needs the most looking after, because he’s the littlest. And like Futaba, he does Morgana favors every day, so it stands to reason that Morgana should be watching after him the closest.
Technically speaking, Morgana can go just about anywhere he wants to. As a shapeshifter, he’s not bound to any set of rules.
But it is really nice to have a home to return to every night.
He and Akira usually spend the evenings watching TV and tonight is no exception. It’s nice to have some time to finally relax, especially when he has so many kids to look after. Akira regresses more often than the others, but in smaller ways, making him the easiest to help. Usually Morgana just has to curl up on his chest. The pressure, for whatever reason, puts him at ease.
Someone knocks on the door, startling Morgana awake. He’s about to grumble his complaints, but Akira is already answering the door, and to Morgana’s shock, Ryuji and Ann are standing on the other side.
“Hey, this is gonna sound really weird, and we’re sorry, but that’s our cat?” Ann says.
Akira doesn’t even blink, shooting Morgana a less-than-impressed look. “So that’s where you go all day.”
Morgana creeps closer. How long had they been following him? He hopes they hadn’t caught him shifting, but from the looks on their faces, it doesn’t seem like it.
“Not all day,” Ann says. “He usually finds us at lunch. We actually are here to speak for everyone.”
Everyone? Morgana looks past Ryuji and Ann to see the others clustered at the other end of the hall. How did they all manage to find him? Maybe he does need to be more careful moving around at night.
“You guys hang out with my cat?” Akira asks. As usual, Morgana can’t tell what he’s thinking.
Ann’s cheeks heat up, realizing just how ridiculous this must all sound. “Just about every day.”
“I feed him, so you’re welcome!” Futaba pipes up.
This could be an opportunity in disguise. Ann and Ryuji look out for each other, so if they were all together, it would make Morgana’s work that much easier. Not to mention that, while it’s ultimately none of his business, he has noticed that all of them don’t have many friends.
Morgana meows insistently, weaving between Ryuji’s feet. It’s times like these where he wishes he could just say “hey, be friends with these people! They’re like you!” but he doesn’t think any of them would react too kindly to a talking cat.
So instead, he tries his best to show how much he likes these strangers at Akira’s door, that they’re trustworthy and he should definitely let them inside. He even goes so far as to jump into Futaba’s arms, just so she can call him Mr. Cat and further solidify that they know each other.
Still, Akira’s face is unreadable. Morgana doesn’t know everything, but he does know that Akira grew up lonely, and he’s more used to kids pranking him than genuinely wanting his company. “Well, he does seem to like you.”
Morgana can see it now. It may take some time, and he may have to plan a couple of staged reveals, but he knows they’ll look after each other well. Ann and Ryuji are probably the oldest, so they’ll look after the others the most. Futaba can show them all the party games she has to play by herself; Yusuke can throw an arts and crafts party. Makoto and Haru can finally slip into their headspaces. All Akira has to do is let them.
To his relief, Akira grins and opens the door the rest of the way. “Would you like to come inside?”