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"That's a rat."
"A mouse, technically. See the triangular snout, big ears and the thin, hairy tail?"
The thing was as big as Sojiro's head.
It was wearing a headband.
Why was his life like this.
"... Listen, it doesn't matter. Mouse, rat, you can't keep it in here. The cat is already- this is a restaurant."
Ren pouted, and not for the first time Sojiro wondered how he even got arrested, with such an artfully pathetic expression painted on his face. By then he had spent enough time near the kid to know that he was, while a lovely person to have around, also two bad days away from becoming a supervillain at all times, but even with this knowledge it was difficult to imagine that the owner of those heartbroken puppy eyes would ever assault someone without reason.
Still.
"Morgana is going to eat that thing," he objected weakly, though he wasn't entirely sure it wouldn't be the other way around. The rat (not a mouse. Sojiro had seen mice before and that beast wasn't one for sure) squeaked, twisting around in Ren's hold to shoot a look over Ren's shoulder, and Morgana yowled in what he decided to anthropomorfically interpretate as outrage.
"He won't. I've talked to him," said Ren, sounding all reasonable as if he wasn't spouting the most batshit insane stuff with a straight face.
Then again, of fucking course his charge would be weird enough to unironically talk to his cat, and of fucking course the cat would be weird enough to actually listen to him- Sojiro swore that damn thing had humanlike intelligence: the way it seemed to actually participate into any conversation taking place around him never ceased to creep him out.
"Please Sojiro? I need to take care of Makoto for a friend. It's only for a little while, I swear she won't be a bother."
The rat seemed to do a small bow and squeaked, almost as if to apologize for imposing, and Sojiro sighed as he felt a headache starting to form behind his eyeballs.
"I-"
"She's very polite."
The rat pulled a face that, indeed, seemed very polite.
Sojiro's grunt and defeated wave aimed in the attic's vague direction were enough to put a blinding grin on Ren's face, and the kid instantly shot up the stairs shouting out some sort unintelligible thanks.
After a moment of deliberation, he went to make himself a cup of coffee. He had the feeling he would need it.
"Explain the whole story again."
"So, uh, Mishima- you know, that classmate of mine I mentioned a few times? Yeah, well, he got the flu, and as he's currently bedridden he can't exactly take care of his pet mouse when his parents aren't home most of the day. And since neither Ann or Ryuji can take care of her, Makoto-the-human is sick as well, and I wouldn't ever trust Yusuke to look after a living being when he regularly forgets to feed himself, I decided to take one for the team."
"Right. Any reason this rat is named after the student council president?"
Ren looked up from the plate he was washing. The lights of the kitchen reflected oddly on his glasses, shielding his eyes from Sojiro's gaze. "I love Mishima like a brother. But he is, fundamentally, a nerd unable to talk to 3D women like a normal human being."
"Ah."
"I'm sorry Makoto, but this really is the most I can do. I have no idea of how to turn you back, and you can't exactly go back home in this state, now can you?"
Sojiro inched closer to the stairs, straining his ears in hope to catch more of the hushed conversation.
For a long moment, Ren was silent as a chorus of squeaks and meows answered him. When he spoke up again, he sounded markedly annoyed.
"Well, maybe this experience will teach you not to repeatedly jump in front of other people when a coffin god shoots a mousefying ray around. Or do you like having a tail that much?"
Speechless, and admittedly considering getting Ren to a psychiatrist as soon as humanly possible, Sojiro walked back to the counter.
As it turned out, Nezumoto (as Sojiro had taken to refer to the creature to distinguish it from Nijima junior, and to put the absurd but growing-increasingly-less-unlikely suspicion of the two being one and the same out of his brain) was indeed a very sweet and seemingly very intelligent animal, on par with Morgana.
(If not arguably smarter, but Sojiro had the distinct impression that if he ever expressed that thought out loud in front of the cat, he would find his curtains mysteriously shredded.)
He dared say he even liked having it around after hours, the small squeaks sounding increasingly cute to his old, withered heart.
Still, nothing changed the fact that seeing some sort of dire rat subbornly attempt to remove a coffee stain from the counter with a paper napkin was surreal.
"Makoto- you're too small to clean it properly, let me do it."
Nezumoto looked up at Ren, whiskers quivering slightly in a way that suggested it would've burst into tears if it had the ability to do so.
"I know you want to help- stop giving me that look, please- but until we figure out..." Ren shot a hesitant look at Sojiro, as if just now remembering that he shouldn't be made aware of something, "... until your owner feels well enough to take care of you again there's nothing we can do."
"What you can do is bring it upstairs," he grumbled, choosing to ignore the obvious slip up. "The restaurant is still open, you know, what would I do if a client walked in to see that thing on the counter?"
"Observe them be in awe at her majestic heft?" He chuckled slightly at Sojiro's glare and Nezumoto's offended squeak. "Sorry, sorry, you're right. Let's get you to the attic, Makoto, I'm afraid I don't have a hat to hide you under while you direct me through cooking."
"... What?"
"Ratatouille? The Piksar movie? Really?" He shot a long and kind of judgemental look at the both of them, before picking Nezumoto up with a grunt. "I really need to introduce both of you to good cinema. Well then- we'll be going upstairs."
"For the love of- I didn't call you fat. You're cat-sized, Makoto. Cat-sized. Do you know how big a mouse is supposed to be? Because this isn't it."
Mreow.
"You are not helping, Morgana."
"It's nice to see you again around here."
Makoto smiled, a pretty blush blooming on her face. "It's nice to be back, sir."
Sojiro liked her quite a bit- she was top of her class, a delight to have around, and seemingly had some damn common sense, something that Ren's friend group was in desperate need of. Nice kids they may have been, but, as Futaba would've put it, the communal braincell pool could've used some additional material thrown in.
(He would've teased Ren about her, the way he had when he'd met Ann for the first time, but as the kid's face had twisted up in some very complicated grimace at the time he'd decided that he probably didn't want to do that again, less he give more unneeded psychic damage to the poor boy.)
He nodded at the stairs with a smile. "Up you go, your friends are waiting for you."
"Dude- you called Makoto fat?"
"I DID NOT."