Chapter Text
“This is awful,” Jisung huffed with his face buried in his hands at the bright and early hour of 7am.
He was at his favorite coffee shop with his laptop and a freshly brewed iced americano sitting beside it. The problem at hand wasn’t that he spilt his coffee over his work or anything. No, no. As much of a klutz as he was, he was never more careful when it came to his prized work.
Except for, however, today.
His usual routine was to go to a coffee shop in the quiet morning where he had a peaceful environment, get his work done, and then head off to his 9am writing class. Despite him being nothing close to an early bird; if he were being honest with himself, he’d say he was closer to a permanently exhausted pigeon, this arrangement worked for him.
The caffeine was all he needed to come up with something quick yet brilliant that would give him a passing grade for his daily assignments. The flaw in this plan? He never looked at the assignment posted until the morning. Something about the adrenaline rush of needing to get it done within an incredibly short timespan was the only thing to get him going. Oh. And the coffee. He couldn’t forget about his coffee.
Today of all days was when he forgot to charge his laptop the night prior and to top it off, his charger was nowhere to be found in his bag. All he had to work with was an open laptop with a black and useless screen.
But that’s okay! He can just find the assignment on his phone, right? Wrong.
For some dumb reason that he can’t explain, the website’s format just was not mobile-friendly. The only way it would properly load was on some sort of computer.
Moving onto his next issue at hand: even if he did go to the campus to work, the computer labs wouldn’t be open until another hour from now. That only gave him less time to get the damned thing done. But hey, who was the one that said they were an adrenaline junkie? Jisung swore he would take this day as a lesson.
Miraculously, Jisung was able to finish his assignment at the exact time he needed to be sprinting his way across campus to make it to his class on time. Bag haphazardly secured onto his shoulder and dead laptop hugged in his arms, Jisung ran with all his might to get into the door just two minutes before it would have been closed.
Throwing his bag down onto the floor with a soft thud, Jisung collapsed ungracefully down into his seat, resting his laptop down on the desktop and his forehead onto it.
“I’m dying… I’m dead… I’m done.”
His friend looked at him with halfway concerned eyes. “Did you wait until the last second again?” He questioned with a raised brow.
Changbin. One of his closest friends and confidants. On the surface he looked edgy with his usually all black attire and even inkier hair that sported an undercut, but in actuality he was one of the biggest sweethearts Jisung knew. Now if he could only work on that habit of Changbin telling him I told you so whenever something doesn’t necessarily go Jisung’s way, he just might steal that number one friend spot. Until then, a brownie-bearing angel by the name of Felix would own the title of best best friend.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Jisung sighed out, ready to get this day over with already. “My laptop died and I lost my charger. I hardly had time to wait for the computer lab to open and get it done there.”
“You know…” Changbin started in a low voice. His arms were comfortably crossed at his chest with a finger tapping in time to his thoughts against his bicep. “If you just texted me I could have helped you out. Unlike you, I already finished the assignment before this morning.”
Freezing, Jisung looked over to his friend in slow motion. A series of possible reactions played out in his head as he tried to pick out the best one. In the end, he settled for smacking his forehead repeatedly against his desk and cursing under his breath.
Today was just not looking up for him.
Little things just kept piling up for Jisung’s very unlucky day and he wondered what mirror he broke to be cursed the way he was. First his laptop was dead, then the missing charger, he grabbed the wrong notebook for the class he had today, and to top it off, the cafeteria was sold out of his favorite dessert he indulged in when he was having a bad day. Okay. He liked to have it whether or not he was having a bad day. Sue him for wanting to live a happy life.
He’d be perfectly fine if it could just stop there, but alas. The universe seemingly did not want Jisung to have a good day today by any means.
The second he walked in and flipped the switch on to the entryway of his small and humble abode, the lightbulb burst overhead, causing Jisung to let out a small shriek and cover his head with his laptop. A light layer of dust and glass particles showered overhead, thankfully landing on his laptop rather than in his hair. That would have been a pain to try and get out. As for the floor, there were small shards scattered about around his feet.
A small mewing sound was the next thing to pass through Jisung’s ears, causing the boy to look up from the mess. “No, no, Mini! Don’t come over here, baby! You’ll get hurt!”
The golden-colored Turkish Angora cat stopped promptly where it stood at Jisung’s plea to not come any closer. Matching golden orbs watched him pensively as Jisung struggled to step over the broken bits of glass.
Once over the mess, Jisung placed the laptop down and took up the small cat in his arms and hugged it gently, wanting to soak up a little bit of love from something after the day he’s had. He buried his face into Mini’s fur and let out a small sigh.
He had never thought of himself as a cat person before he found Mini. Really he wasn’t much for having any sort of animal in the first place. The beautiful creature had simply found Jisung one day, taken a liking to him, and began waiting around for him near where he lived.
Jisung hadn't thought much about it at first. In the beginning he would give it a simple pet and go about his day. He was a busy person when he was supposed to be working on all of his assignments and projects. It wasn’t really until one day when he was burnt out and unwilling to move from a bench that he entertained the idea of taking the cat in.
As if it had sensed his distress, it hopped straight onto his lap and began massaging his legs with its little paws, purring all the way through. It was just enough to shed a little bit of light onto Jisung’s gloomy day. After the somewhat strange encounter, Jisung began looking to see if the cat actually belonged to anyone. His ideas were that maybe it would be nice having another body living with him even if it weren’t a person. An article he read online informed him that having a pet could help with mental issues and even let someone live longer. One week’s search later and he came to the conclusion that it was merely a stray.
Because of its unusually small size, though completely full grown and just as big as any other one of his breeds, Jisung decided to call him Mini. Granted, he did have miserable naming skills when it came to things other than songs, but he thought it was cute and fit the little guy perfectly.
Needless to say, he came to love that cat more than he had ever imagined. Without any of the attitude that he’s known some cats to have, he realized that Mini was incredibly independent and quiet yet a fan of cuddling whenever Jisung was lounging around or idly working on his laptop. Without a doubt the cat would always sense when Jisung was having a bad day or was overwhelmed and would invade his space in an instant to distract him. In short, he was the most perfect cat Jisung could ever dream of. Not too clingy, not too yielding, but a perfect mixture of everything.
The icing on top? He knew perfectly well how to operate a toilet without ever being taught. Did Jisung mention that his cat was also a genius? (Like him.) The only downside; if he could call it that, was that Mini seemingly would only eat things Jisung would eat himself. He wouldn’t even try to catch things from outside and drop them dead at Jisung’s feet; thank god , Jisung really would have a heart attack. This only forced Jisung to watch what he ate more carefully and pick up cooking as a skill. Fortunately he had Felix in his life to help him out. If not, they would both surely starve.
“Mini, did you have a good day today?” Jisung questioned as he always did when he came home. Obviously the cat could not respond to him, but he thought it was polite enough to talk to it like he would a friend. Animals needed conversation too, you know?
“Mine has been awful,” he sighed, carefully sweeping up all the broken glass and lint-rolling the floor to ensure no microscopic piece of glass would have the chance to pierce Mini’s foot if walked over. “I’m under a streak of bad luck. I think I’ve upset a god or something somehow,” he murmured as he disposed of all parts of the broken bulb.
“But it’s all okay now!” Jisung cheered, throwing himself back onto his bed and fumbling for his remote. “I’m home, I did my work thanks to both Changbin and Chan hyung lecturing me, and now, I get to catch up on my anime.”
Ah yes, his anime. One of the few things he looked so forward to when he had the time. Lately he had been trying to cram all of his work in and get it done so he hadn’t much time to sit down and watch a few episodes– or a season– of any of his favorite shows. Actually, he only had a couple more days that he could afford to spend the time and watch his shows like this. His next big writing project would be introduced next class and with that, he would be stuck back in the grind.
How many episodes had passed before Jisung fell asleep in the middle of watching went unknown to him. Since he did have that habit, he turned autoplay off so all he would miss was whatever episode he was last on. He didn’t even know he fell asleep in the first place until a tiny paw was pawing against his squishy cheek.
“Hm…?”
Gradually he pulled his eyes open and focused them on the gold blob in front of his face.
“Mini?” He called out groggily, pulling a hand to his face to rub the sleepiness from his eyes. “What is it?”
When he finally did pull his hands away, Mini stretched out and smothered Jisung’s face with his soft belly. At this point in time the owner knew this was his way of saying, I’m hungry. My stomach is empty, feel. Feed me.
Chuckling against the soft fur, Jisung peeled the cat off of him and sat up. “Okay, I’ll make us something to eat,” he promised and rubbed his own stomach. “I was just getting hungry myself.”
Before he could even fully make it to the kitchen; which, it wasn’t very far from his room considering just how tiny his home was, he stopped dead in his tracks to see his laptop charger laying in a neat circle on his coffee table. His laptop was sitting right beside it. He remembered putting that there when he was dealing with the lightbulb, but he could have sworn his charger was also not there.
“It’s really been there the whole time?” He scratched his head in wonder as he walked over to it. Not knowing what to make of it, he simply plugged his laptop in and stretched the cord over to the outlet. Maybe he really was just out of it today. Shrugging it off, Jisung made his way over to the small fridge in his kitchen and opened it up.
“What are you thinking, Mini?” He pondered over the not-so vast selection in front of him. Maybe it would do him some good to take Felix to the grocery store with him. Still, he needed to learn how to cook more efficiently.
“I’m thinking…” His hand hovered over the shelves until it landed down on a chicken breast. “How about this?”
He looked down to see Mini sitting down between his feet, seemingly eyeing the exact thing he picked. A paw was lifted up in the air as if he were wanting to get it himself. He wasn’t, though. If he wanted it, he would have been more than capable of doing that. He has before, anyways, when Jisung wasn’t picking the thing he wanted to eat.
While Jisung was busying himself in the kitchen, Mini laid along the windowsill above the sink. It was where he always stayed when Jisung was cooking. Thankfully the cat never tried to walk across the hot stove or even steal whatever it was that Jisung was trying to cook. Instead he would just lay in the sun and watch every move Jisung made.
When Jisung was finished, he set the food out on two plates at his table. Another perk about having a cat as small as Mini: he really didn’t go begging for large portions. Some might find it weird that he let a cat eat up there with him as if he were some person, but Jisung found it to be peaceful. He wasn’t one for going out much and socializing with new people; especially not at any parties. Even in his 2nd year of university he managed to keep only a handful of friends. They were usually busy during the week, seeing as they too took all the credit hours they could. So without them hanging out with him, Jisung got all of his social interactions fulfilled through Mini. It may be a bit sad, but hey. Both of them were happy with each other.
“Was it good?” Jisung asked, placing a small kiss on Mini’s head as he reached down to pick up the empty plate. “Was it enough?”
A satisfied answer came in the form of a small purring sound as Mini rubbed his head under Jisung’s chin. Jisung could only take that as a yes.
The rest of his night was spent doing the dishes and taking a nice hot and relaxing shower. With the towel still on his head, he wandered over to his bag and made sure ahead of time that everything he needed for tomorrow’s classes were there. Once he was positive, he zipped it up and headed back to the bathroom. He wouldn’t worry about adding his laptop in yet since it was still charging on his coffee table.
Once his hair was fully dry and brushed, Jisung turned all the lights off and flopped back down into his bed. There, Mini padded over to him and curled up at his side where he instantly drifted to sleep. Even in the darkness, Jisung could still make out its little form balled up beside him. It was through the comforting weight against him that he too was able to fall asleep comfortably.