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“That’s not my cup noodle,” Juni says when Yesol throws open the door to their shoebox-sized dorm. She’s lying upside-down on the top bunk, head hanging over the railing so Yesol’s body is facing the wrong way but even from here, she can tell that whatever fuzzy bundle she’s holding isn’t the $5.99 Cup Noodle she was promised.
Yesol frowns back at her, child-like innocence and confusion written in her expression. Juni wants to smack it right off her face sometimes.
“This isn’t a cup noodle,” she says, shaking the fuzzy blur. “Can you not see because you’re missing an eye?”
Juni really wants to smack her face now.
“No,” she snaps. “I can see perfectly fine. I was being sarcastic. Forgot that you don’t get that.”
It had been nothing short of a miracle when Yesol had asked if she wanted anything from the overpriced corner convenience store. She can’t even operate a washing machine by herself, Juni had to teach her the first week of classes and hadn’t that been something to write home about. (Metaphorically, of course. If Juni had an actual home to write back to, she wouldn’t be spending Christmas day with her shitty roommate in their even shittier dorm.) She should have known that Yesol’s offer was too good to be true.
“I don’t get it,” Yesol says. Juni sighs, opens her mouth to respond and is abruptly cut off when the fuzzy bundle in Yesol’s arms meows.
Juni sits up so fast she hits the ceiling tiles and plaster rains down on her because AberrantU can’t afford humane housing despite committing a highway robbery with their tuition fees.
“What the fuck is that?” she snaps and Yesol fixes her again with that flat, dull stare. Juni would really like to pry open her skull and see what’s inside. She has a sneaking suspicion that it would be a fat load of nothing.
“It’s a cat.”
Juni clambers down the side of her bed and physically restrains herself from decking her roommate in the face. Surely, there’s some clause in her scholarship about not being able to commit a homicide.
“I can see it’s a cat,” she says, air hissing through her teeth. “Why is there a cat in our dorm?”
“I found her on the side of the street. She looked lonely so I brought her home.”
“You picked a random cat off the street because it looked lonely?
“Yes. Isn’t she cute?” Yesol says, shoving the ugliest, grumpiest cat that Juni has ever had the misfortune of seeing into her face. Its fur is gray and matted with dirt, the tip of one of its ears missing. Its eyes are narrowed into green slits that seem to contain enough malice to rival Professor Sang on her worst day. The cat growls at Juni, flashing all of its sharp, yellowed teeth and Juni bares her teeth and growls right back. “I think she likes you!”
“It’s a he,” Juni says, glancing downwards. “He hates me and the feeling is mutual.”
“Really?” Yesol turns the kitten around to face her and cocks her head. “How can you tell?”
Juni wonders briefly if she’s pulling her leg before remembering that Yesol isn’t even familiar with the concept.
“I just can,” she says flatly. The cat growls and starts scratching wildly at Yesol’s skin. Its claws are sharp enough to leave behind thin trails of blood but Yesol keeps him suspended in the air, limbs flailing wildly. Her face is completely impassive, devoid of a single trace of discomfort and Juni’s more than freaked out. “Put him down!”
Yesol stares at her and lets go abruptly and the cat tumbling towards the carpet. He lands on his feet, unperturbed, and lifts one arm to clean it.
“Why the fuck did you just throw him on the fucking ground?”
“You said to put him down,” Yesol says and Juni digs her fingers into her own scalp and pulls at the roots to stop herself from screaming out loud.
“Gently! I meant gently, obviously.” The cat crawls onto Yesol’s mattress and settles perfectly in the middle of the pillow like he belongs there. He curls into a ball, his gray tail flicking behind him. The only saving grace is that it’s Yesol’s bed and not hers because Juni had enough sense to pick the top bunk, even if it means she gives herself a concussion on the ceiling every other day. She bites her nail hard enough that she tastes the familiar, plasticy resin of her polish and stares. “What if it has fleas?”
Yesol gives him a quick once-over and shrugs her shoulders.
“I don’t see any fleas.”
“You have to look closer than that! You’re supposed to use a comb or something.”
“Here we can use this.” Yesol picks up Juni’s hairbrush and Juni rips it out of her hands before she can even get within 10 feet of the mattress.
“We’re not using my hairbrush to check for fleas! Use your own.”
“I don’t have one,” Yesol says blankly and given the fact that her hair looks like she’s tousled with a tiger half the time, that actually checks out.
“Of course you don’t,” Juni huffs. The cat meows at them loudly, baring its tiny teeth again. He narrows his eyes and paws at the pillow, his claws pricking a tiny hole in the fabric.
“What do you think he’s trying to say?” Yesol asks. Her head bends unnervingly at a 45 degree angle, like an animatronic whose lever’s been pulled. Juni shudders.
“Do I look like I speak cat?” Yesol narrows her eyes and stares hard at her, like she’s truly contemplating the question. This must be taking all of her brainpower.
“You look more like a dog person,” she says finally. Which might be true, but that’s besides the point. The cat meows loudly again, ripping a gash in Yesol’s sheets in frustration.
“Maybe he’s hungry,” Juni says.
“Oh! Let’s feed him.” Yesol picks up a half-open pack of gummy worms and shoves her hand inside, pulling out a radioactive-colored candy. Juni lunges across the room to grab her wrist.
“You can’t feed him that!” she snaps and Yesol stares back at her.
“Why not?”
“You have to feed a cat, like cat food. Not gummy worms,” she says, exasperated. How Yesol has managed to survive this long, she’ll never know. (Actually, Juni does know. It’s courtesy of her and the multiple times she’s been woken up at 6 am with pointless questions like “Does the start button on the microwave start it?” and “Do I have to plug in the electric kettle to turn it on?”)
“Okay,” Yesol says and then stares down at her wrist. “Can you stop holding my hand now?”
Juni drops her hand like she’s been burned and scowls at her.
“I wasn’t–I wasn’t holding your hand,” she spits and stalks to the farthest corner of the room out of sheer defiance. She shoots one look over her shoulder to check that Yesol hasn’t tried to feed the cat some other junk food in her absence and finds that she’s abandoned the quest for food to try and get the cat to play with one of her socks instead. It’s not working.
Juni crouches down on their carpet that hasn’t been vacuumed in months and prays that no potential fleas latch onto her ankles. She swings open their mini-fridge and forages for something that isn’t ripe with mold. Chinese takeout, month-old strawberries purchased by a more hopeful Juni, more takeout, ah. She dislodges the rotisserie chicken she’d bought herself as a rare treat for Christmas dinner, still bearing the bright red PURCHASED sticker from the supermarket and all. Yesol peers at it from over her shoulder.
“You said you didn’t have anything to eat when I asked.”
“That was then,” Juni says, flapping her hand at her. “This is now.” She tears off a chunk and slaps it into Yesol’s empty palm because she’ll be dead before she lets a street cat lick food straight out of her hand. “Give him this.”
Yesol stares at the piece of chicken and Juni is terrified for one heartstopping second that she’s going to put it in her mouth. Thankfully, there is some mercy left in this world because she finally crosses the length of the room and holds the chicken out to the cat. It raises its head long enough to bite the piece clean out of her hand, licking her fingers to get the last of the grease.
It devours the chicken thanklessly and then rolls over on its back to expose its belly. Juni swears it takes one paw and rubs it over the fur like a human rubbing their stomach after a full meal. It’s unnerving.
“He’s adorable,” Yesol says because she has no common sense at all. “Can we keep him?”
“No,” Juni says reflexively.
“He won’t survive out there!” Yesol protests, tapping the window where the snow is falling in thick layers outside. “It’s too cold for him.”
“First off, he literally has a built-in fur coat. Second, he was doing perfectly fine before you scooped him up.” The cat meows loudly, as if in protest, and Juni glares at it.
“Please,” Yesol says, picking the cat back up again. She holds it in front of her and Juni’s words die in her throat.
The similarity between the two of them is unnerving. She shuts out the rising feeling in the pit of her stomach and tries to coach herself back to reality. Juni’s not here on some sort of soul-searching journey to find her purpose in life like the rest of her disillusioned classmates. She’s here for one reason and one reason only: a bank account with an exorbitant amount of zeroes and her name on it. Her ten-year plan is to sell her soul to the first AI startup company willing to buy it and dump her entire paycheck into the Steam summer sale. She’s not supposed to pick up strays, cat or otherwise, along the way.
Yesol’s still doing her impression of puppy eyes, which might look sympathetic on a normal person but looks downright strange on Yesol’s stone-cold face. There’s not enough shape to the line of her mouth, her eyes dead and soulless. It should absolutely repulse Juni but instead she feels something warm stir in her chest. She shakes her head to dislodge it like water stuck in her ear. The weather must be making her sentimental
“Only until the snow melts,” she says and she can taste the lie before she even finishes saying it. Yesol grins at her like, well, like a kid on Christmas morning which she basically is. She gives the cat a hug that looks more like she’s trying to strangle it to death. Juni feels a distant pang of sympathy before she quickly averts her gaze away.
“Juni,” Yesol says and Juni wrenches her eyes back up from the carpet, two seconds away from exploding because this has been a trial in her patience and she’s failing.
“What?” she snaps.
“Thank you for spending Christmas with me,” she says, smiling at her like there’s something stronger than the ResLife RNG gods tying them together. (Which there isn’t. At all.) Juni stares blankly at her, bowled over by her earnestness.
“If I had literally anywhere else to go, I’d be there,” Juni replies honestly and somehow Yesol seems to take this as a compliment somehow.
“I think I’ll name him Min.” Yesol’s swinging the cat around like a ragdoll now, plague and pestilence be damned. He looks incredibly displeased by the arrangement, his horrible frown etched even deeper in his fur, whiskers bristling.
“I think I’ll kill myself,” Juni says and Yesol turns in shock. This gives Min enough leverage to pry himself free from her gasp and launch all 10 lbs of unmatted, grimy fur straight at Juni’s face.
Juni hates Christmas.