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Zhou Zishu picked up a kitty from the trash. She did it because it was a pathetic little thing that was going to die and Zhou Zishu wanted to be a better person (people are despicable but caring for animals he could do, that still makes you a good person right?).
Ok so maybe she was a little drunk at the time. Maybe the only reason she heard the pitiful meowing in the first place was because she was propped up against the dumpster trying hard to keep her numerous, expensive, drinks down.
And mayyyyybe…. that wasn’t a kitten. She didn’t remember ever seeing a kitten with claws this big in the pet store apparel. She feed the (not?) kitten some warm milk with a tiny plastic spoon from her last take-out, wrapped the shivering thing in a hand towel and held it close as she went to bed. She decided that would a problem for her future, sober, self to resolve.
Now her future, sober, self has some serious doubts on ever going back to that flimsy bar with their dubious overpriced drinks because that is definitely not a kitten. Not the usual kind anyway. It has small, rounded ears and a muzzle that looks rather big for the small head, eyes still firmly shut. Its fur is a sandy color with solid dark spots all around. And yep, those claws can’t be what normal cats are born with.
She does the sensitive thing and goes to the closest exotic pets specialized vet she could find online. After feeding baby animal again, of course, because she is not a monster. It’s not a long ride but on the way she keeps throwing looks at it, wrapped once more in the gray hand towel and content to curl up against the warm of the seat heater. The vet clinic is not big, a one-story building with a reception, a short hallway with two closed doors on one side, another in the opposite wall, and a bathroom at the end. It’s not big but is packed inside. There are at least a dozen other people with crates or bundles or outright animals in their arms. Zhou Zishu writes her name down on the waiting list and takes the last seat available, sandwiched between a teenager snuggling an iguana with a worry-sick expression and an old lady with a summersaulting squirrel in a crate on her lap.
She checks that the not-kitten is ok, then sweeps out her phone to pass the time. She first checks her notifications. A couple of texts from Beiyuan, a work-related email from Han Ying that she makes a mental note to check out later, and not much else. She searches the web to try to find what exactly she’s holding against her chest. It takes a while, but she finally finds a picture that looks pretty much the same as the small thing she’s got here. Clouded Leopard, vulnerable species status due to trafficking, reads the title of article. Zhou Zishu looks up from her phone to glance at the various posters about poaching and briefly wonders if she’s going to get arrest for picking up a cat from the trash.
One of the doors in the hallway opens and out walks out a man with the fattest rabbit Zhou Zishu has ever seen in her life, along with a supermodel of a woman on a white coat. Engrossed on her search as she was, Zhou Zishu hadn’t bother to look every time people came in and out of the vet’s office, and thus hadn’t seen the woman before. She’s tall, almost a head taller than fat rabbit guy, with a slim built. She’s wearing heels, but not the high type, more like the one’s that are comfortable enough to wear for long work hours and still make you look stylized. She is also wearing a pale blue silky shirt with an elegant bow at the front and grey slacks under the coat. Which seems a bit of an odd choice for a vet. Her long black hair is held half up with a hair pin, and is that actual white jade?, but leaving out a few strands free to fall around and frame her lovely face. She has delicate features, with a high nose and strong eyebrows that accentuate her deep dark eyes. Her upper lip is thinner than the lower one, painted in a provoking warm tone of red. She smiles as a perfectly manicured hand comes to pet the fat rabbit’s head and Zhou Zishu has to tear her gaze away from those long delicate fingers.
Clearing her throat, she comes back to reality to notice the young girl attending the reception is calling her name. She blinks and notices that the room is significantly less crowded than before, while some new people have arrived.
She stands up and enters the first room on the hall as instructed. The vet is standing by the metal examination table in the middle of the room. She smiles at her and Zhou Zishu’s heart does a stupid thing inside her chest that she is totally going to blame on the not-kitten pawing at her.
“Hello gorgeous”
Zhou Zishu blinks.
“You can come closer, I won’t bite you unless you ask” the smile on those red lips has now morphed into a cheeky grin.
Zhou Zishu doesn’t thinks that’s a very appropriate thing for a vet to say.
Whatever, she thinks as she walks over with a slight frown, placing her bundle in the table. “I found it in a dumpster last night”
The vet’s eyes immediately shift to it, a concentrated expression replacing the sleekness. She turns on a yellow light above the table that emits a soft warmth before unwrapping the hand towel. By her surprised little gasp Zhou Zishu can tell that she knows exactly what she has brought her. She first checks the not-kitten, gingerly running her hands across its small body to check that there are no visible injuries. She frowns a bit when she touches one of its front paws and the baby cries. She checks its nose and its mouth, then its butt. Weights it and takes its temperature. When that’s done, she takes the baby with towel and all and leaves the room without a word.
Zhou Zishu is not about to panic about getting arrested over this. She is not.
When the vet comes back a short while later with the not-kitten and an x-ray Zhou Zishu allows herself a minute sigh of relief.
She places the small animal back on the table, and Zhou Zishu watches as she expertly get’s an IV to deliver fluids straight to its tiny paw. Rather impressive, if you were to ask Zhou Zishu who’s had a lifetime of nurses complaining that her veins are too small whenever she needed her blood taken. After wrapping the towel around it again, the vet finally turns back to Zhou Zishu. There’s a reserved looked in her eyes, when she asks “Madam, are you aware of what kind of animal you brought me today?”
Zhou Zishu nods, tells her again how she found it. The vet gives an incredulous laugh.
“Madam, that is a clouded leopard cub. You say you found it in the trash?”
“… I was drunk”
The vet pinches the bridge of her nose, hand on her hip.
“Look, I know what this looks like, but I swear I did find it in a dumpster. I just felt bad leaving it to die there, but if you want to confiscate it or whatever that’s fine by me”
The vet gives her a long stare.
Zhou Zishu stares right back.
“Pfft”
Zhou Zishu blinks again.
“I can’t believe you found a wild animal in a dumpster outside of a bar! That’s some luck if you ask me.” She laughs, not exactly reassuring but more at ease than she’s been since Zhou Zishu walked in with a potentially trafficked baby cat.
She checks the x-ray and bandages the broken paw all the while walking Zhou Zishu through the not-kitten’s -cub, she has to remind herself- condition.
“Well, will you keep it?” she asks when she’s done explaining and bandaging.
“Can I?”
“I can help you fill the paperwork to obtain a license if you want to, gorgeous” The vet winks at her, then goes serious again “But only if you are prepared to give this animal the proper care it deserves. It will be a lot of work, and you need to understand that it will always be a wild animal.”
Zhou Zishu ponders on it. “What will happen to it if I don’t take it?”
The vet cocks her head, “It will probably be taken to a zoo. There aren’t that many centers that will bother with raising an animal in captivity for it to be able to be released in the wild later.” she says, her thumb softly stroking the baby’s head.
Zhou Zishu thinks it a bit more thoroughly. She has the resources and the time. As a freshly retired corporation lawyer, she won’t be doing more than the occasional consultation job here and there. She inherited a not-so-small fortune, is not like she even needs those jobs, really. “I’ll keep it” she says after a while. The vet stares for another moment, then her face breaks into a genuine full-blown smile.
This time there’s no cat pawing at her chest for Zhou Zishu to blame.
The vet (Wen, Wen Kexing- she tells her with a coy smile when Zhou Zishu asks for her name) gives Zhou Zishu half a dozen papers with feeding and medicine schedules and basic care instructions for the cub and sends them on their way with the notice to come back after three days for a check up and for Zhou Zishu to get started on the licensing paperwork.
Zhou Zishu does as she’s told.
When she comes back three days later with the cub - a male as far as Wen Kexing was able to tell- which she has decided to call Chengling in tow, Zhou Zishu is surprised to see the place apparently closed. She rings the bell and a smiling Wen Kexing lets her in at once.
“It’s my rest day” she tells Zhou Zishu as she brings them to her office. “Ah-Xiang is not here today, either so you can talk freely, Ah-Xu. It’s just the two of us”
“And Chengling” she deadpans ignoring the familiar address, emphatically but gently placing the cub in the table. He immediately begins to squirm, trying to get back to Zhou Zishu. She’s not gonna lie to herself, in these past few days the tiny fur ball has grown under her skin. She nuzzles him on the cheek with her finger as Wen Kexing laughs.
“Of course, of course”
She examines him in half the time this time, already knowing what to look for. When Zhou Zishu tells her he’s been eating well the formula Wen Kexing gave them she decides there’s no need for an IV.
“I’d wager he’s about ten days old” she says, when she notices the slimmer of blue when Chengling scrunches his eyes open for a few seconds at a time. “So young and already without his mother” she sighs, a pained expression deep in her eyes that makes Zhou Zishu wonder if she’s only thinking about the cub right now. She doesn’t ask, of course.
Chengling checked and re-wrapped in his towel, Zhou Zishu places him back in the sling she bought online to carry him which Wen Kexing eyes at with a smile but doesn’t comment on, and they get to work on the paperwork.
Turns out obtaining a license to raise a “big cat” is not that complicated. The hardest part is the part where the source of the cat should be verified, but to be honest Zhou Zishu has solved more complex cases than a dubiously obtained clouded leopard cub. It’s not a complicated work, but it is a long one. By the time they finish filling the forms and annexing the complementary -cough, cough forged cough- documents it’s already getting dark outside.
Zhou Zishu, feeling a little bad for using up almost the whole of Wen Kexing’s day off, offers to buy them dinner. It’s just being a decent human that can show gratitude, no other motives whatsoever. She let’s Wen Kexing pick the place, thinking of getting takeout, and is slightly surprised when Wen Kexing takes them to a fancy restaurant instead. The waitress greets her by name and doesn’t give the sling across Zhou Zishu’s chest more than a glance before taking them to their table. Not long after, an older woman with striking long white hair comes to their table. Wen Kexing introduces her as ‘Aunt Luo’. They chat for a while then she leaves then to their meal when the food arrives.
“She practically raised me and Ah-Xiang” Wen Kexing explains, loading Zhou Zishu’s bowl with food before filling her own. “She used to be a divorce lawyer”
“Wait, that was the Luo Fumeng?” Zhou Zishu can’t help to ask. Of course she had heard of Luo Fumeng, the woman had a reputation of never loosing a single case in her more than twenty years of practice.
Wen Kexing nodded, grinning, “Pretty impressive, right? Nowadays she’s mostly stopped practicing law except for the occasional pro bono. She opened this restaurant years ago as a personal project to help the women in the community get back on their feet. Serving these same tables paid for my degree” She admits a little sheepishly.
Zhou Zishu looks at her a moment longer then nods. Looking at the Wen Kexing now you’d never guess she ever worked as a waitress. Everything from her way of dress to her mannerisms pointed more towards spoiled child.
They ate and chatted comfortably, the conversation never stalling or turning awkward. This was technically the second time they had met, but after a couple bottles of wine they were like lifelong friends.
Zhou Zishu couldn’t drive back to her apartment in that state, so Wen Kexing offered her to spend the night in her own, conveniently-at-walking-distance place. If Zhou Zishu were less drunk, she probably would call her out for her scheme. She would call her out, but she doesn’t think she would mind either way.
“Ah-Xiang moved in with her oaf of a boyfriend last summer” Wen Kexing provides as an invitation as she opens her door and turns on the light. The place is not as spacious nor as carelessly luxurious as Zhou Zishu’s own. Not that Zhou Zishu had great interior designing skills, she had gotten the apartment fully equipped a year into working on her cousin’s corporation as a lawyer. Not luxurious, but the place couldn’t be called plain either. It was obvious that the furniture and décor had been bought separately from each other, but there was a consistent theme. The place felt well-lived in, homely, with some mementos here and there and frame pictures on the walls.
“Lovely” Zhou Zishu says simply.
“Why, thank you, Ah-Xu. You are breath-taking yourself” Wen Kexing practically purrs.
Zhou Zishu rolls her eyes but uses the opportunity to disguise her checking out Wen Kexing’s figure when she turns and bends to take off her shoes. Zhou Zishu only toes her own snickers off, thinking that maybe Wen Kexing isn’t as drunk as she pretended to be if she can still undo the tiny buckles at her ankles.
When she’s done, Wen Kexing catches Zhou Zishu staring at her naked calves. Zhou Zishu drags her gaze up, following every curve in Wen Kexing’s body, to finally meet her eyes. The heat she finds there pretty much mirrors the one she feels at the bottom of her belly.
Wen Kexing swallows audibly, licks her lips…
Of course, Chengling chooses that time to wake up and cry for food, attention, Zhou Zishu’s sanity, or whatever it is the little tyke wants.
The spell momentarily broken; Zhou Zishu settles in the couch while Wen Kexing goes to the Kitchenette to prepare the powdered formula with some warm water. Zhou Zishu does not stare at her over the bar separating the living and kitchen areas. She does not.
She’s uhm… distracted and doesn’t notice that Chengling started to suckle on her finger until Wen Kexing speaks, coming over with the bottle.
“You shouldn’t let him get used to that” she says, handling the bottle to Zhou Zishu, who positions it near Chengling’s muzzle and carefully watches him feed. “Have you looked up what his teeth will be like when he’s older?”
Zhou Zishu has. It’s kind of terrifying, but also kind of hard to picture when looking at the helpless little ball of fur in her hands.
Wen Kexing leaves again to ready Gu Xiang’s old bedroom, the air a little awkward between them. Zhou Zishu wants to say there’s no need.
She doesn’t.
After Chengling is fed and happily sleeping like a baby ought to, Wen Kexing walks her to the room she’s prepared. It’s obviously a childhood bedroom, but not the posters on the walls nor the exorbitant amount of plushies on the bed get Zhou Zishu’s attention as much as the huge terrarium occupying the whole back wall. A scaley white head pokes from beneath a wood log, a red biforked tongue peeking out from the creature’s mouth.
Zhou Zishu takes one look at it, then turns around and walks straight into Wen Kexing’s own reptile-free bedroom.
There’s a woven laundry basket cushioned with a fluffy baby blanket in a corner, next to the closet door, and Zhou Zishu has no doubt that this was indeed a plot of that cunning woman.
Ugh, I can’t believe I’m going to sleep with her. Zhou Zishu thinks, placing Chengling carefully in the provided basket.
“Ah-Xu! I swear Baiyi is not dangerous, he’s just old and has a bad attitude towards people!”
“Lao Wen”, Zhou Zishu says, turning around to face the woman stuck at the doorway of her own bedroom. There’s a slight flush in her cheeks, and her eyes take a second too long to actually land on Zhou Zishu’s. She gulps at whatever she finds there. Zhou Zishu smiles, shrugging of her leather jacket, “Shut up and come here”
Wen Kexing pounces on her like a tiger after her prey.
_________________________________________
The seasons come and go, the rest of the world is not important.
Zhou Zishu walks Chengling in the park. She always takes her permits with her and takes a great amount of pleasure in seeing people’s face when they ask her to show it to them and she does. She watches him roll around; he loves to play among the fallen leaves this time of year. It’s getting cold again, soon Chengling will turn two. They should throw him a bigger part than last year, she thinks, blowing on her free hand to warm it.
Suddenly that hand is snatched away from her face. She feels hot lips press against it and doesn’t even bother to look that way. “Took you long enough”, she says instead and hears an answering chuckle.
“This wife is terribly sorry Ah-Xu, my love”
A warm cup of coffee is placed in her hand before Wen Kexing lets it go with a final kiss to her fingers.
She takes Chengling’s leash from Zhou Zishu’s other hand, taking her free hand in hers. Her hand is warm, and Zhou Zishu feels warmth bloom in her chest.
“You didn’t get a drink” she points.
“I’m already drunk in the sight of you”
Zhou Zishu bumps her shoulder hard, Wen Kexing just laughs again.
They walk like that, hand in hand, simply enjoying the bright afternoon, sunshine warming them even through the clouds that cross the sky from time to time. Wen Kexing steals a kiss, tasting the coffee from Zhou Zishu’s mouth, murmurs against her lips “Holding your hand, watching the clouds unfold, my hearts know no other desires”
Zhou Zishu’s does. With Wen Kexing here, her heart’s desires are as endless as those clouds, as warm as those hands.
She kisses her wife again.