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Enjoying the sexual afterglow, Kazuki trailed his fingers over Rei’s back between the various scars. Rei was still lying on his stomach, head buried in the pillow and peeking at him with one visible eye.
Kazuki’s fingers stroked lower, passing scars Rei had already told him the story of. Like a bullet wound from an overly lucky Yakuza underling. A knife wound Rei had gotten from training with his mentor. And a cluster of barely visible scars from being thrown through a glass door.
Right above Rei’s butt crack was a round, very old looking scar. When Kazuki circled it with his fingertips, Rei shivered. “How did you get this one?”
Rei turned his face completely to the side and looked at him with both eyes and an expression that was… confused? Or skeptical? Kazuki wasn’t sure but it definitely didn’t look happy. He took his hand away. “Nevermind, I won’t ask again if you don’t want me to.”
“You don’t know?” It was confusion that Rei showed on his face and in his voice.
“No? Am I supposed to?” Kazuki didn’t think he would have forgotten. He soaked up every little detail about Rei’s past like a sponge whenever Rei felt like sharing.
“You seriously don’t know.” Rei sounded dumbfounded.
Now Kazuki started to feel anxious. “Know what?”
“It’s a surgical scar. From removing the tail.” Rei said it as if it was the most obvious thing.
Kazuki wasn’t following, “What?”
Rei took his hand, put it on his head and directed Kazuki’s fingers to the scars on his scalp. “Surgical scars, from removing the cat tail and ears.”
“What?” Kazuki slowly got it now, but that didn’t make it less bizarre. Rei was a hybrid? It was an extremely rare gene mutation that occurred every now and then. With Southeast Asian ancestry it usually resulted in feline body parts.
Hybrids were a highly sexualized minority and often victims of sex trafficking. And even if they weren’t, an ordinary life was hardly possible because of widely spread prejudices. Kazuki only knew because there had been efforts for awareness in recent years. He’d never actually seen a person with hybrid parts in real life. Or at least he’d thought so.
Carefully Kazuki felt both clusters of scars between Rei’s thick hair. He’d touched them countless times before, never questioning them because they’ve just always been there. Asking and telling was a recently new thing between them. He never would have even thought to ask about Rei’s scars back when they’d just gotten to know each other. “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”
Rei gave him a level look. “Why should I joke about that?”
“You’re right. Sorry.” Kazuki glanced at the tail scar again, took his hand out of Rei’s hair and placed it on Rei’s back. “And I am sorry I didn’t know. I’ve never met someone with hybrid parts before. I didn’t even know they could be surgically removed.”
“They usually aren’t. Too many risks for paraplegia or brain damage. My father paid a lot for it… I really thought you knew.” Rei turned onto his side, adjusted his right, numb arm and looked at Kazuki with tender eyes. “I wasn’t sure when you washed my hair or saw me naked the first time. But when you dragged me out to buy actual clothes, the first thing you made me try on was the t-shirt with the cat print…”
“What!?” Kazuki remembered their first trip to the mall but not all the details anymore. “I didn’t know, oh shit, I’m an idiot. I just thought you liked cats. It wasn’t meant to be offensive or—“
Rei shook his head with a little smile. “It wasn’t. And I do like cats.”
Kazuki pressed his lips together, slowly accepting the new reality. What other times had he talked or joked about Rei’s affinity for cats? What else had he missed? “Was anything else… removed?”
Rei’s small smile had disappeared at Kazuki’s serious expression. “My canine teeth were grounded down. That’s it. I only had the three parts.”
Kazuki had no idea how many hybrid parts were common. But he knew that there could be fur, claws or animal-like pupils, too. Rei’s eyes were very beautiful but also very ordinarily human, just like his nails and skin. Kazuki glanced at Rei’s lips, then looked up again. “Can I see?”
“There’s nothing to see.” But Rei opened his mouth for him anyway.
Kazuki cupped his cheek. He’d never really paid attention to Rei’s teeth. The canines looked as perfect as regular human ones could. He stroked Rei’s cheek and leaned in for a slow kiss.
After they parted, Kazuki pulled the blanket that covered their legs further up. “I take it your father made the choice to remove them?” – Rei nodded. – “Do you… like miss them? Is it like losing a limb?”
Kazuki glanced at Rei’s arm and thought wrathfully of all the things his father had more or less directly taken from him.
“I don’t really know anymore. By now I lived most of my life without. The last surgery was when I was seven, so all phantom pains are long gone.” Rei caressed Kazuki’s forehead to rub away the frown. “At least people don’t treat me weird, I guess.”
The frown stayed where it was. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We surely wouldn’t have met if they hadn’t been removed.”
That was probably true. Kazuki still couldn’t wrap his head around all this, though. Had they never talked about hybrids? Although Rei had thought that he’d known? Kazuki couldn’t remember, but there must have been some tactless situations…
Rei didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking anymore, though. He nudged Kazuki until he laid on his back, kissed his way from Kazuki’s jaw to his mouth and made himself comfortable half on top of him to doze.
Kazuki knew that Rei was human. That the new knowledge didn’t change anything. That there weren’t many differences between humans with hybrid parts and those without. But he still couldn’t stop himself from googling it.
He hadn’t done that since he was younger. It was a wild ride. Most search results were porn sites until Kazuki specified his wording. Then there were overly specific medical sites. A few of them stressed the differences between humans and hybrids way too much, Kazuki noped out of that as soon as he noticed. And then there were help and counseling sites, activists’ sites, and blogs from actual people with hybrid parts about them and their lives.
All of it gave Kazuki reasons to hate the world anew. He also realized that surgeries for removal really weren’t a thing. Like at all. Kazuki’s rage at Rei’s father spiked again. If they didn’t need him alive to not provoke the organization’s wrath, Kazuki would gladly set fire to the manor again.
Listlessly he scrolled through a dos and don’ts blog post that was written mostly tongue-in-cheek.
Kazuki didn’t know what he had expected, but all in all he didn’t learn anything useful in regard to Rei. He knew already that Rei liked soft touches on his face, chin, neck and the back of his head. That wasn’t anywhere feline enough that it had ever stood out to Kazuki.
Instructions to never tug on tails or to always touch ears carefully were… not applicable anymore, Kazuki thought with pain in his heart.
“You won’t try to distract me with a laser pointer, will you?” Kazuki startled when Rei leaned over his shoulder to look at what he was reading. Sneaking up on him like that was all his assassin’s training, but it fit the cat image really well.
Rei’s question hadn’t been serious, but Kazuki couldn’t answer any way but earnest right now, “No, of course not. I’m not going to lure you with catnip, either, or some of that other bullshit.”
Rei headed from the kitchen table to the sink to wash a bento box Miri must have forgotten in her school bag. Closing his laptop, Kazuki continued, “I just… I don’t know. I wanted to see if there’s something I could do for you. Or find out something I should know.”
Rei glanced at him over his shoulder with an arched eyebrow, “On the internet? Instead of just asking me?”
“I can’t believe we reached the point where you give me sound communication advice.” Rei had turned back to the sink but Kazuki was pretty sure he was smirking superiorly. “Can I really just ask, though? I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”
Rei put the bento box on the dish drainer. “It’s fine. Ask away.”
Kazuki was brimming with so many questions: Rei had human ears, but has his hearing been impaired since the feline ones had been removed? What had it been like to have a tail? There must have been so many muscles connected to it in his back, when did those stop hurting?
Also, Rei loved all kinds of animals but cats especially. Did he generally just like them or did it have to do with his hybrid parts? And what had they looked like? Black like his hair? Kazuki tried to imagine Rei with perked up ears, sharp canines and a swishing tail, but didn’t really manage. By now he knew and loved every inch of Rei just as he was, it was hard to picture him differently.
Rei still hadn’t turned around but busied himself with cleaning the perfectly clean sink instead. Kazuki got up. When he hugged Rei from behind, Rei shook the water off his hand and turned around in his embrace. His eyes were a little somber.
Kazuki ran his fingers through Rei’s hair where he was starting to grow out his undercut. “Is there something you want to talk about? Otherwise it doesn’t matter.”
Rei gave him a small smile. “Not really.”
When Rei pulled him closer with his arm around Kazuki’s back, Kazuki leaned in for the kiss. After a short moment Rei pulled back. “But… I used to purr when I was little. I learned not to, but I could get back in the habit of that. If it doesn’t weird you out.”
“Not at all.” Kazuki couldn’t imagine that he’d ever find Rei expressing positive feelings – in whatever way – anything but endearing.
A week later Kazuki had mostly forgotten about the conversation again. He was lying on the couch with Rei sprawled on top of him. Half asleep he had no idea anymore what the movie was about when Rei suddenly started to purr. It was a low, tranquil, vibrating sound that made Kazuki even sleepier.
After a moment it became quieter, then stopped. Kazuki ran his fingers through Rei’s hair, mumbling, “‘s really nice. I love it.”
The purr returned and Rei nuzzled his cheek.