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It was one of those days when everything seemed to be fated to go wrong. Bansai didn’t believe in fate, or in anything else, for that matter, but in days like that even he would wonder if some superior entity was toying with him. It was just the human nature of wanting to have someone or something they could blame when things went wrong. So that’s what he was doing now that he was soaked to the bones. The heavy rain had already stopped, it lasted only enough for him to get wet on his way home, which he had to go by walking because he lost the last train, and to top that he left his wallet at home in the morning when he left to college, so he couldn’t even call a cab. At least he was close to home now, and once he arrived, he could take a hot bath and go to bed. And tomorrow was Sunday.
He wouldn’t usually hear any noise around him, as he always had his headphones on, but because of the rain he put them inside his bag to not risk ruining them. So he could hear that noise. It was like something falling, something heavy, and then some kind of voice. It wasn’t fully human, he could tell, it was kind of like a cat. It came from an alley he was passing by, and while anyone with a drop of common sense would ignore any weird noise from a dark alley at night, Bansai Kawakami wasn’t very well known for having a lot of common sense. He decided to check what was going on in that alley.
He couldn’t see very well. The faint illumination from the street didn’t reach deep into the alley. But he could hear the hissing sound. It was like an angry cat. A big one. That was the time where he should just leave, but instead he fished his phone from inside his pocket and turned the lantern on. He pointed the light to the direction where the sound came from. He could now see the creature that was hissing at him.
It was human. Or almost. The creature did look human for the most part, despite being on his fours, but there were very cat-like ears on the top of its head, and a fluffy, albeit messy and dirty looking, tail coming out of its lower back through a hole on his clothes. As the thing hissed, Bansai could see its very sharp fangs. By its features, it looked male. Now Bansai could see that t was clearly a Feline. Felines were very rare in Tokyo, and that only made Bansai even more curious about the one in front of him.
Another hissing sound. The Feline seemed to be trying his hardest to scare Bansai away by hissing alone. And soon Bansai noticed why: he was hurt. One of his eyes was closed and bleeding. And there was more blood covering many spots on his clothes—a yukata, another very unusual thing. The poor creature was angry, wet, hurt, dirty and weak. Bansai instantly pitied him.
Well, he was already there.
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Bansai said as he raised his arms and showed he had nothing besides his phone on his hand. “Are you okay? Are you lost?”
The Feline stared at him. His face still looked angry, but now he was panting.
Bansai took a step and almost instantly the Feline took a step back.
“You seem hurt, let me help you,” Bansai tried again.
The Feline didn’t say anything, but continued panting. Bansai imagined he would end up running away at some point, but instead, after one last weak hissing, the cat-like man just fell down, head on the floor. He fainted.
Bansai approached and the Feline didn’t move. He seemed like he really lost conscious. And now Bansai felt like it was his obligation to help him. For sure that superior entity was having fun that day, putting Bansai in such a situation… No, to hell with any entity, Bansai was the one who chose to check that alley after all. He walked to the Feline until he was close enough to touch him. He tried to wake him up, but it was useless. At last, Bansai put his phone back inside his pocket, and picked the body up, bridal style. The Feline wasn’t so heavy, as he was very thin, and was shorter than Bansai was. Bansai could take him to a hospital, but he didn’t know how they would react to having a Feline there, so he decided to just take him home and take care of his wounds himself.
-
That surely wasn’t how Bansai was planning to finish his day. But there was him, undressing a Feline so he could put his dirty yukata in the laundry, washing his wounds with a towel that he soaked with warm water (he was glad that the wounds were mostly superficial, which made him wonder if the blood on the Feline’s clothes wasn’t actually his) and disinfecting some deeper cuts, all that while the cat-like man was unconscious, and for that he was grateful, considering how skittish he seemed to be when awake.
The most difficult part was taking care of the wounded eye. That part looked really messy. But he was no doctor, so he only did what he thought would be enough for a first aid and bandaged the eye.
Bansai grabbed an old yukata from his own wardrobe, it was a simple white one that he usually wore to sleep, and dressed the Feline with it. He guessed he wouldn’t like to wake up naked. He then lied the Feline on his bed, covered him with a blanked, and decided to just wait for him to wake up.
-
It took two hours. Bansai was almost falling asleep on his computer chair when he heard the Feline moving on his bed. He approached the bed with the chair and watched.
The Feline sat up on the bed while stretching. He winced, probably feeling some kind of pain, and then started to look around. He stared at Bansai for good 5 seconds before the synapses in his brain worked properly, and then suddenly he moved away, uncovering his whole body and got as close as he could to the wall on the other side of the bed. Then he started hissing to Bansai again.
“Well, I thought it would be worse,” Bansai said. He was expecting a much more violent reaction than just more hissing.
The Feline looked at him, showing his fangs, suspicious. He didn’t move from where he was crouching on the bed. Bansai thought it would be better to not try to approach him yet.
How could he conquer that cat-like creature’s trust though?
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he started saying. “If I did want to hurt you, I would have done it already. Plus, I wouldn’t have treated your wounds.”
The Feline quickly looked at himself and brought his hand to the bandaged head. But he was still feeling too wary to take his eyes off Bansai for too long, so soon he was looking at him again, still in guard.
“Your yukata was dirty with blood so I washed it. It’s drying now,” Bansai continued. “You are free to leave whenever you want, although I wouldn’t recommend it since it’s raining again.”
The Feline seemed to calm down, or at least he stopped showing his fangs.
Alright, things were starting to work out. Maybe now he would let Bansai approach.
Bansai stood up from his chair and walked to the bed. He put a knee on the mattress to try and get near the scared cat, ignoring the fact that said cat seemed to be shrinking even more. That was his mistake.
Once Bansai was way too close for the Feline’s standards, the Feline attacked. It wasn’t a real attack, but it was fast enough so Bansai couldn’t dodge. He could only hear the hissing and then he felt a scratch on his face.
Bansai yelped and stepped back and moved a hand to his injured cheek. That really hurt, in a very sharp way. When he looked at his hand, he saw it was covered in blood. The cut was deep.
Those claws clearly weren’t there only for showing.
“That hurt,” Bansai said. “Fuck, that hurt a lot.”
He looked to the Feline who was still crouching in his bed. He wasn’t in an attack position and neither was showing his fangs, he now just looked scared. Perhaps he just realized that he was hurt and therefore weakened, and if Bansai wanted to hurt him, he would. Especially now that he hurt Bansai first. That was what Bansai thought.
“Alright. My bad,” Bansai said. “I shouldn’t have approached without asking you first.”
Bansai walked to the desk nearby, where he still had some first aid stuff he left there after treating the Feline’s wounds. He grabbed some cotton and disinfectant to quickly clean his face and then covered it with some bandage and tape. He could take better care of that later.
The Feline watched him without leaving his place.
“I’m gonna walk back to the bed, okay?” Bansai said.
The Feline stared at him for a few seconds before weakly nodding, and then Bansai approached.
“I have food and water in the kitchen,” Bansai said. “And the toilet is the first door to the left once you leave this room.”
The Feline kept staring without showing any reaction.
“I live here by myself, so no one else will show up, you don’t need to worry about that.”
Finally, the Feline moved. He put himself on a sitting position on the bed, his back leaning against the wall. Well, he wasn’t in guard position anymore, that was a good sign.
“Do you want anything?” Bansai asked.
It was a whole minute of silence before the Feline finally spoke.
“Water,” he said. His voice sounded very hoarse.
“Okay,” Bansai nodded. “You can wait here or you can come with me,” Bansai said that thinking the Feline would want to see where the water was coming from and so he would feel less wary of him. The Feline stood up and walked behind him once he crossed the door.
In the kitchen, Bansai got a clean mug from a cupboard and got a water bottle that was on the cabinet. He let the Feline see him opening the bottle and filling the mug with water. Once it was full, Bansai pushed the mug to the other side of the table, where the Feline was standing, and waited for him to grab it.
The Feline got his mug and started drinking. He was so thirsty he was drinking it as if he hadn’t seen water in days. A string of water fell from the corner of his mouth, running down his chin, and once he was done with the mug, he dried his mouth and chin with the hem of his yukata.
“More?” Bansai asked.
The Feline just nodded and pushed the mug back to Bansai, who was quick to fill it again.
Once the Feline quenched his thirst, Bansai walked back to him room and the Feline followed him. He stopped on the way back, so Bansai turned to look at him. The Feline looked to the toilet’s door and Bansai just nodded, so he entered and closed the door behind himself.
Bansai had no idea how Felines usually went to the toilet but he hoped they knew how to use a human one.
When he arrived in his room, Bansai opened his wardrobe to get a futon. He put it by the bed’s side and got some covers and an extra pillow. When the Feline was back everything was ready.
“You can sleep in my bed if you want, I can sleep in the futon,” Bansai said, and then he left to go to the bathroom to bandage his face better.
When Bansai was back, he found the Feline lying on the futon.
“Alright,” Bansai said. Then he remembered that during all this time he had forgotten about something very important: introductions. Clearly, he hadn’t been socializing enough in a long while.
“My name is Bansai,” he said. “Before you fall asleep, could you tell me your name?”
The Feline didn’t answer.
Bansai sighed, then turned the lights off and went to bed.
When he almost falling asleep, a voice woke him up.
“Shinsuke,” the hoarse, but deep voice said. “My name is Shinsuke.”
Bansai only made a sound to show that he had listened, and not too long after that he fell asleep.
-
Bansai woke up at 7 in the morning feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. He was cold, so he looked outside through the window’s blinds and saw it was snowing. Heavy rain and then snow, weather sure had been crazy. He thought about grabbing another blanket and going back to sleep, but when he got up, he saw the blanket he was going to grab in a bundle on the floor, covering what seemed to be an adult body in fetal position. Of course, he had given his extra blanket to the Feline he saved last night after college.
His plans changed and he grabbed the blanket he was using and covered his guest with it, then went to his wardrobe to get a hoodie or something else to keep warm. He walked to the kitchen trying his best to be silent so he wouldn’t wake Shinsuke up.
In the kitchen, Bansai prepared his coffee in hopes that it would prevent the headache that the lack of sleep would most likely cause him.
He drank his coffee and decided he was in the mood for a western style breakfast and wondered if Felines could eat pancakes and bacon with eggs. He would need to try and make them to find out since the other option was waking Shinsuke up to ask but he decided that only one scar on his face was enough, thank you very much.
He was in the middle of preparing his American breakfast when he notices Shinsuke watching him from the door.
It was a cute view, Bansai thought. Shinsuke was standing there, wrapped in the blanket he had covered him with earlier that morning. Well, it was cold and the Feline was wearing nothing but a yukata so he couldn’t blame him.
“Good morning,” Bansai said, flipping a pancake.
Bansai could hear a sound that was something between a grunt and an actual word. That sure was a start.
Bansai waited for Shinsuke to move but when he realized that he wouldn’t, he told him:
“You can sit, I’m almost done making breakfast.”
Bansai watched with his peripheral vision as Shinsuke walked to sit down on the chair. The blanket covered only up to his ankles, so Bansai made a mental note to lend Shinsuke some socks later. Certainly, the kitchen floor was cold under his feet.
Shinsuke waited and then watched silently as Bansai put the food on the table. The coffee was there, as well as a carton of soy milk. Then pancakes, syrup, butter, bacon and eggs. Bansai put an empty plate and cutlery in front of Shinsuke and then sat by the other side of the table.
“You can eat anything you want. If you don’t like anything here, I still have some bread, cheese and fruits, I guess. And I can make some rice.”
Shinsuke used his fork to get a stripe of bacon and sniffed it before taking a bite. Judging by his face as he chewed and by the fact that he immediately got another stripe after finishing the first one, Bansai guessed he liked the taste.
After eating some bacon, Shinsuke grabbed the carton of milk. He sniffed it as well, and then grimaced.
“This milk smells weird.”
Bansai was so shocked with the fact that Shinsuke uttered an entire phrase that he took a few seconds to reply.
“It’s soy milk.”
Shinsuke just stared at him and moved his ears in a way that later Bansai would figure out it was his way to say he didn’t understand something.
“It’s milk made of soy. Not real milk.”
“Don’t you have real milk?”
“No. I’m lactose intolerant.”
Shinsuke stared and moved his ears again.
“It means I’m allergic to a component of milk,” Bansai said, taking a bite of his pancake.
“Milk can kill you?” Shinsuke asked.
“It can’t kill me but it can give me a hell of a stomachache.”
Shinsuke nodded and poured some of that weird milk in his cup.
Bansai guessed now that his guest seemed more willing to talk, he should motivate him to talk more.
“I thought that thing about cats liking milk was a myth and they were actually all lactose intolerant too,” Bansai said.
Shinsuke raised his eye to look at him with a frown.
“I’m not a cat.”
Bansai could feel an invisible friendship bar going down above his head as if they were both Sims characters. Great move.
“I know, I just—
“We share a few traits with cats but we are much more like humans,” Shinsuke said. Bansai could swear there was a hint of disgust in Shinsuke’s voice when he said the word ‘humans’.
Finally, Shinsuke took a sip of the soy milk.
“This milk tastes weird too,” he said.
Bansai smiled.
“I can get you some real milk later when it stops snowing.”
-
After they finished eating, Bansai decided it was way too cold to wash the dishes now so he would postpone it for some time in the future. He and Shinsuke went back to his room.
Bansai sat on his back and asked Shinsuke to sit in front of him.
“Let me take a look at your eye,” he said.
“Why?”
“It was bad last night. I need to see if it’s healing. If it shows signs of getting infected, I’ll need to take you to a hospital.”
“No!”
“I figured you wouldn’t want that, so come here and let me see it.”
Shinsuke hesitated but ended up sitting on the bad, still wrapped on the blanket.
“I’m gonna unwrap your bandages, okay?” Bansai asked, knowing very well any suspicious move could still give him another scratch.
Shinsuke nodded.
Bansai unwrapped the bandages, letting them fall on the bed, and touched Shinsuke’s face so it would be in an angle where he could see his eye better. It looked… better than Bansai had expected. It wasn’t bleeding anymore and it didn’t look dirty. It was certainly ruined though, there was no way Shinsuke would be able to see with that eye anymore.
“Does it hurt or anything?”
“Itches a bit,” Shinsuke answered.
“I’m gonna use disinfectant on it again. It might sting a little.”
It did sting, Bansai could tell by Shinsuke’s grimace, but the Feline just took it. Bansai wrapped the bandage around his head again afterwards, telling him they would need to change it a few more times in the near future.
“How did you hurt your eye?” was Bansai’s way of asking what the fuck happened last night before I found you.
“Human.”
It was just one word but that explained a lot. Bansai didn’t ask anything else.
-
That day Bansai learned that one of the traits that Felines shared with cats was the fact that they slept a lot. Shinsuke spent most of the time wrapped in his blanket and napping on Bansai’s bed. When Bansai went to the living room to watch TV, Shinsuke followed him and napped on the other side of the couch. When Bansai announced he was going out to buy milk, Shinsuke opened his eye, nodded and then went back to sleep before Bansai could ask him if he wanted anything else.
Bansai came back half an hour later with three cartons of milk and the certainty that he hated snowy days.
He left the milk in the kitchen before finding Shinsuke in his room, still wrapped in the same blanket, but instead of sleeping he was playing with his computer chair, spinning it non-stop.
Bansai couldn’t stop himself from laughing, and Shinsuke immediately stopped and hid his blushing face under the blanket.
“I’m gonna take a bath, and I think you should too,” Bansai said, putting his heavy jacket, gloves and scarf back in his wardrobe.
Shinsuke’s ears moved in a way that expressed excitement.
Well, that for sure was something Shinsuke did not share with cats. He seemed to like baths quite a lot.
“C’mon,” Bansai called him. “Leave the blanket here, please.”
-
Bansai turned the tub’s tap on and started taking off his clothes, throwing them in a basket. Shinsuke took his time to take his yukata off, which made Bansai wonder if Felines were shyer when it came to getting naked in front of people of the same sex. Once he was properly naked though, he didn’t seem to mind.
It was only then that Bansai realized he only had one stool. He looked around the room and the only thing he could use was plastic basket. He let the dirty clothes fall on the floor and turned the basket upset down, hoping it would be able to resist his weight.
They washed themselves with their backs to each other, and as expected, Shinsuke didn’t say a word. Bansai thought about offering Shinsuke to wash his back but wasn’t sure about what was the etiquette for taking a bath together with a Feline, so he stayed quiet.
When Shinsuke was done washing himself, he called Bansai.
“Can I get in?” he asked. His ears were moving again, and Bansai could see his tail—that now looked clean—was also moving non-stop.
“Sure.”
Bansai couldn’t help but watch as Shinsuke got in the tub. Once he was comfortably sitting there, he closed his eyes and looked so peaceful one would never have guessed this same Feline was acting so aggressively not even 24 hours ago. Bansai smiled to himself. Shinsuke looked cuter by the second.
Bansai finished washing himself, got up and grabbed his towel. He dried his hair a bit before wrapping the towel around his waist to leave.
“Won’t you come in?” He heard Shinsuke asking.
“No, the tub is too small for two people,” he replied. “Take your time, but let the water go down the drain when you leave, please.”
-
Bansai shivered when he left the bathroom. The cold air hit him with everything it got, and that was when he decided that electricity bill be damned, he would turn the heater on.
He got some warm clothes from his wardrobe, and separated some for Shinsuke as well, before he got his hairdryer to dry his hair. It was a pain, but he learned the bad way (by catching a cold) that going to sleep with wet hair in cold days wasn’t good for his health.
Shinsuke came back half an hour later.
“It’s warm,” he said.
“I turned the heater on,” Bansai replied. “I got some clothes for you, they’re on the bed.”
Shinsuke looked at the clothes, but didn’t move to get dressed.
“What’s wrong?” Bansai asked.
“Why are you…” Shinsuke stopped himself and bit his bottom lip.
Bansai looked at him with curious eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“I don’t like wearing pants,” Shinsuke said.
Bansai raised an eyebrow. Judging by the way Shinsuke was acting just now, he was sure that wasn’t what he was going to say at first. But he decided not to press him.
“Well, it’s cold. If you only wear a yukata, you’ll end up catching a cold.”
Shinsuke just nodded and put on the pair of sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt that Bansai got for him. They were a little big, as expected, since Bansai was taller than him, but they would protect him from the cold and that’s what matters.
“Don’t forget the socks,” Bansai told him.
-
After dinner, which was just two cups of instant lamen because Bansai saw there was enough dishes in the sink and he didn’t want to make more, Bansai stayed in the kitchen to wash the dishes and Shinsuke went straight to bed.
When Bansai got to the bedroom, he saw Shinsuke lying in the futon, wrapped in the blanket like a spring roll. The pair of pants Bansai had lent him were lying on the floor, so Bansai picked them up.
“Are pants really that uncomfortable?”
“Human pants, yes. There’s no space for my tail.”
Oh. Of course.
Bansai put the pants back in his wardrobe and turned the heater off since he couldn’t afford to let it on all night. He went to bed afterwards.
“Bansai,” he heard Shinsuke’s voice calling him.
“Yes?”
Silence.
Bansai had already given up on hearing anything else from Shinsuke that night when the question came.
“Why are you doing all this?”
He didn’t need to clarify, Bansai knew what he meant.
“I don’t know,” Bansai said. “To be honest, if you hadn’t fainted in front of me, I think I would have just left. But I couldn’t let someone unconscious and hurt in an alley like that… I knew you would die if I did.”
“People die every day, and you didn’t even know me.”
“I guess it was just my moral compass. People die every day, but not in situations where I can save them.”
A couple more minutes of silence.
“I’m a Feline,” Shinsuke said.
“I’m aware,” Bansai replied.
“Most humans don’t like us.”
Most humans don’t even like each other, he thought about replying. But instead, he just said:
“I’m not most humans, I guess.”
Silence again. This time for long minutes, and Bansai thought the conversation was over.
“Thank you,” Shinsuke said.
Bansai smiled.
That night he could sleep properly.
-
Bansai woke up the next morning with his alarm clock’s sound. He grunted and turned the alarm off. He peaked through the blinds to see if it was still snowing so he would have a valid excuse to skip class, but he was out of luck. He sighed and left his bed.
“Where are you going?” A slurred voice asked him.
“College,” he answered while looking for some clothes he could wear to go out. “I’ll be back late today, probably only by seven.”
It was a pain to get dressed in the dark, but Bansai didn’t want to turn the lights on because of Shinsuke.
“You know where there’s food and water. I’ll make breakfast for me before I go and I’ll leave some for you. You can watch TV or do whatever you want as long as you don’t break anything,” he said. “Ah, and don’t forget to change your bandages.”
Shinsuke didn’t answer, but Bansai knew he was listening.
Bansai grabbed his headphone and left the room. Before he turned the music on, he heard the noise his bed would make every time someone would get on it. He smiled to himself and felt ready to start his day.
-
It was just a little past seven o’clock when Bansai arrived home. The lights were all out and it was silent. For a moment Bansai got scared that Shinsuke had left in his absence, but he found the Feline sleeping on his bed, wrapped in what Bansai guessed that was his favorite blanket now.
“Shinsuke?” he called.
To his surprise, the Feline actually moved. He sat up on the bed and scratched his eye before looking at him.
“You’re back.”
“Yes,” he said. “Did you sleep all day?”
“Most of it.”
“Did you eat?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“Hm. Why?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“I was out all day,” Bansai said. He was starting to be a little worried. “You must be hungry.”
“It’s fine, I just don’t like eating alone.”
Bansai blinked. Shinsuke wasn’t just a cat, he was a house cat to boot.
“I brought udon for dinner, let’s go eat. Also,” Bansai started, opening his backpack. “I got some yukatas for you. They’re simple and have plain colors, but now you can have something to wear since you hate pants.”
Bansai put the yukatas on the bed by Shinsuke’s side.
“Thank you,” Shinsuke said.
“No problem. Now let’s go eat, I wanna take a bath and rest afterwards.”
-
After their dinner, they were both together in the bathroom again. Bansai had bought a new stool so he could wash himself without the fear of suddenly breaking the basket again.
The day before, Bansai was afraid of asking Shinsuke if he could wash his back. But that day, asking that felt only natural. Bansai was still surprised when Shinsuke asked to return the favor and washed his, though.
Shinsuke finished first again, but instead of getting in the tub he just grabbed his towel.
“Not soaking today?”
“No. You were out all day in the cold, you should get in instead.”
Very considerate, Bansai thought. He did allow himself to spend some time in the tub, feeling the hot water on his sore muscles.
-
Like that, things fell into a routine. Bansai went to college during the week, Shinsuke stayed home like a house cat until Bansai was back, which was in the afternoon some days, and at night in others. They would have dinner and bath together at night, and then they would go to sleep.
It felt so natural to Bansai it was like he had been living with Shinsuke for years. The Feline had warmed up to him completely. He was totally different of the skittish, aggressive creature that Bansai had found in that alley.
At some point Bansai woke up in the middle of the night with Shinsuke sneaking into his bed, under the covers.
“Cold,” he simply said when he noticed Bansai was awake.
Shinsuke lied with half of his body on top of Bansai, his head comfortably lying on Bansai’s chest. Bansai couldn’t stop himself from bringing a hand to Shinsuke’s head and start stroking behind his feline ear. He wasn’t sure if it was because Shinsuke was already half-asleep or if he simply didn’t mind, but instead of getting angry, he started to purr. It was with that sound that was like a weak engine and the feeling of Shinsuke’s body vibrating against his own that Bansai was urged back to sleep.
-
They were watching a movie together. Bansai was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and Shinsuke was lying with his head on Bansai’s lap, purring lightly as Bansai scratched his ears.
It was an old western movie about a rock band, which usually would be very interesting to Bansai, but that night he was more interested in his Feline guest’s sounds. The purring continued incessantly, and Bansai got distracted, losing himself in his own thoughts. He only realized his hand had stopped when Shinsuke called him out.
“Why did you stop?”
“Hm? Ah, sorry. I was thinking,” He restarted the caress.
“About what?” Shinsuke asked.
Bansai smiled.
“How you went from a people-hating grumpy thing to a house cat,” he said, teasing.
Shinsuke instantly got up from his lap.
“I’m not a house cat!”
“Right, right,” Bansai said. “Come back here.”
Shinsuke showed him his fangs and just shrunk to the other side of the couch, ignoring Bansai.
Bansai let him be and tried to pay attention to the second half of the movie. When it was over, he realized he couldn’t even tell what the plot was about. He got up from the couch and stretched his body.
“Let’s go to bed, Shinsuke,” he called.
Shinsuke didn’t movie. He was already asleep.
Not wanting to wake the Feline up, Bansai covered him with a blanket. It was when he opened his olive eye.
“You can sleep here if you don’t wanna get up,” Bansai told him.
Shinsuke stretched his arms and held Bansai over his shoulders. “No…” he said with a slurred voice.
Shinsuke was in that state where he would be half asleep and half awake, so Bansai understood he wouldn’t walk back to his room by himself. He carried him back and let him lie on top of him on his bed again, half because he didn’t want to wake him up, and half because he wanted to feel his purring like a lullaby again.
-
After two weeks, Shinsuke was already comfortable enough to simply ignore the futon and go lie in Bansai’s bed with him every night. Bansai realized he didn’t mind that at all. Not only he enjoyed having Shinsuke purring near him, but simply having someone else’s body next to his felt good.
He had learned so much about Shinsuke already… He knew Shinsuke liked milk, but more than that he loved things like yogurt and yakult. Shinsuke loved sleeping, that was obvious, but he loved falling asleep to Bansai stroking his ears the most. Shinsuke enjoyed classical Japanse music and the sound of the rain falling outside. Shinsuke liked tea, but it needed to be in a very specific temperature because he couldn’t deal with hot drinks due to his cat tongue. Shinsuke’s tongue wasn’t as rough as a cat’s but it was rougher than a human’s, and Bansai knew that because Shinsuke licked the scar he had made on his face in the first night he spent at Bansai’s home, as a way to apologise. Shinsuke was born and lived most of his life in a Feline village in the countryside, but he still didn’t want to share with Bansai the story about how he came to Tokyo, it seemed like thinking about that was painful to him.
The more he learned about Shinsuke, the more Bansai wanted to know about him. And at some point Bansai realized he didn’t want to let Shinsuke go, even if Shinsuke wanted to come back to his village. He couldn’t imagine living without Shinsuke anymore.
But Bansai only thought about that when he wasn’t home. Once he arrived and was received by Shinsuke saying “welcome back” in the middle of a yawn he felt like their lives together wasn’t going to end so soon.
-
They were lying together in Bansai’s bed. The lights were still on and none of them wanted to get up to turn them off. Bansai had his hand behind Shinsuke’s ear, as usual, but this time the Feline wasn’t purring. He seemed to be lost in thought, and Bansai wished he could read his mind. Finally, Shinsuke broke the silence.
“Do you have a mate?” Shinsuke asked. His face was half-hidden so Bansai couldn’t see his blushing cheeks.
Oh, so that’s what this is about.
“A mate? That would be like a partner?” Bansai asked, wanting to confirm.
“Yes, I guess that’s how humans call mates.”
“I don’t have one.”
Shinsuke hummed.
“Ever had one?”
Bansai seemed to ponder on how to answer before he finally talked.
“I did once, for a short time. It didn’t work out between us though.”
Shinsuke took a few seconds before asking his next question.
“Were they male or female?”
“She was a girl,” Bansai replied.
“I see,” Shinsuke said, avoiding Bansai’s gaze.
Curious about where that conversation was going, wondering if it was going in the direction that he wanted it to go, Bansai decided to not let it end.
“Have you ever had a partner?”
“Yeah… He was kind of a dick though so it didn’t last.”
He.
“He was a man.”
“Yeah,” Shinsuke confirmed. Then he blurted out the next question: “Do you only like females?”
“No,” he started. “I don’t really care about gender.”
“So would you…” Shinsuke hesitated. As usual, Bansai didn’t press and just waited for him to finish talking. “Would you have a male mate?”
“Sure.”
They fell into silence again. Bansai could hear Shinsuke’s heart beating fast against his chest. He wanted to manhandle Shinsuke and change their positions and kiss him against the mattress, but he had decided to follow his rhythm instead so he waited. For long minutes he waited, until Shinsuke looked up and asked him:
“Would you be my mate?”
“Yes,” Bansai smiled. “I would love to.”
It looked like it took a while for Shinsuke to understand the positive answer to his question, but when he did, he put his arms around Bansai’s shoulders, hugging him tightly.
Bansai took the opportunity to change positions with Shinsuke so he was on top of him now. Once he managed to make Shinsuke let him go, Bansai looked him in the eyes for a second before leaning down to kiss him.
It started chaste, but soon Bansai deepened the kiss. Kissing Shinsuke felt weird. Bansai had never kissed someone with sharp fangs and a rough tongue before. But weird didn’t mean it was bad. No, it was already the best kiss of Bansai’s life and he couldn’t wait for the many more he knew they would share in the future.
“Kissing a human is weird,” Shinsuke said once Bansai withdrew. Bansai could only laugh in return.
“No more kissing then?”
“I didn’t say that,” Shinsuke pouted.
Shinsuke pulled Bansai down for another kiss. This time they didn’t stop with just a kiss. They went much further, touching each other all over with their hands and mouths, until they got too tired and ended up falling asleep with the lights still on.