Chapter Text
"Do you think he's getting too fat?"
Sae looked up from his phone, one eyebrow lifting as his gaze settled on his younger brother. Rin stood in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed, his permanent frown somehow even deeper than usual. It was an oddly serious expression to wear on a perfectly uneventful Sunday morning, especially when Sae had only just finished his morning jog and finally made himself comfortable on Rin's sofa.
"I'm serious," Rin insisted, sounding far more concerned than the situation appeared to warrant. He pointed somewhere across the apartment. "Look at him."
Without a word, Sae let his eyes wander across the room. Past the television. Past the coffee table cluttered with unopened mail. Past the scratching post that looked suspiciously untouched. Eventually, his attention landed on the black lump sprawled across the rug.
It took him a moment to realize the lump was, in fact, a cat.
The animal looked less like a living creature and more like someone had draped black velvet over an oversized beanbag. Its stomach spilled lazily onto the floor, tiny paws tucked beneath an amount of fluff—or perhaps fat—that was becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Even its half-lidded eyes carried the unmistakable expression of someone who had long since accepted that movement was optional.
As Sae watched, the cat suddenly lifted one of its hind legs.
The leg rose.
Higher.
Higher.
Its head tilted obligingly to the side, clearly expecting the incoming scratch.
The paw never made it.
The leg trembled in the air for a second before slowly giving up and lowering itself back onto the floor, defeated without ever reaching its destination. The cat blinked once, as if disappointed by its own anatomy, then simply accepted its fate and continued lying there.
Sae turned back toward Rin.
"...He can't even scratch his own ear."
His voice remained as flat as ever, though there was the faintest pause before he added,
"I think your cat has achieved spherical."
Rin let out a long sigh before walking over to the defeated feline. The cat didn't so much as acknowledge his owner approaching, only blinking lazily as Rin crouched beside him. With practiced ease, he slipped both arms underneath the enormous body and lifted.
"...Ugh."
The cat came off the floor with surprising resistance.
Once in Rin's arms, it completely filled the space against his chest. There was no elegant way to hold him anymore. His front paws rested over Rin's shoulder while the rest of him simply... poured downward, like a sack of rice wrapped in expensive black fur. Rin had to shift his footing slightly just to readjust the weight.
Sae watched the entire process in silence.
The cat wasn't particularly long.
He was just... large.
In fact, if Sae ignored the tail and the ears, the animal resembled less of a house cat and more of a particularly sleepy two-year-old being carried around after refusing to walk. The comparison lingered in his mind for a moment before he wisely decided to keep it there. Rin was clearly taking this matter far more seriously than necessary.
"Look, Nii-chan." Rin bounced the cat once in his arms, immediately regretting it. "He's so heavy."
The cat responded with a tiny, unimpressed "mrr."
Sae tilted his head, studying the oversized creature again. The cat looked back at him without a trace of shame.
"...He looks cute."
Rin stared.
"I don't see the problem."
"..."
"..."
"His stomach has its own gravity."
"It looks comfortable."
"He failed to scratch his ear."
"He tried."
"He couldn't reach."
"He gave it his best."
Rin looked genuinely distraught.
"Nii-chan."
"What?"
"I think my cat is obese."
Sae's gaze drifted back to the cat, who had somehow begun dozing off despite being held upright.
"...I think," Sae corrected after a thoughtful pause, "your cat is committed to the lifestyle."
Rin pinched the bridge of his nose before carefully setting the oversized cat back onto the floor.
Blanc landed with a soft thump.
For a brief moment, he remained perfectly still, gathering what little motivation he possessed. Then, with all the determination of someone heading toward their life's greatest purpose, he turned and waddled across the apartment.
Neither brother spoke.
They simply watched.
Blanc's destination became painfully obvious.
The automatic feeder sat against the kitchen wall, polished and suspiciously expensive—another unnecessary purchase Rin had insisted was ‘an investment.’ The cat stopped in front of it, sat down for exactly two seconds, then casually lifted one paw.
Tap.
The button lit up.
A second later, dry food rattled into the bowl.
Blanc lowered his head and began eating immediately, as though he'd performed this exact routine hundreds of times before.
Silence settled over the apartment.
"..."
"..."
Sae slowly looked from the feeder...
...to the cat...
...then finally to Rin.
"You bought an automatic feeder."
"I thought it'd be useful whenever I'm away."
"He knows how to use it."
"...Yeah."
"He presses the button himself."
"...Yeah."
Sae watched Blanc finish the first serving.
Without hesitation, the cat lifted the same paw again.
Tap.
Another serving poured into the bowl.
"..."
"..."
A third tap.
More food.
Sae stared at the machine for another long second before turning back toward his younger brother.
"You asked me if Blanc is getting too fat."
His gaze drifted toward the black cat once more. A black cat named Blanc. White. Sae had stopped questioning Rin's naming choices years ago.
"Yes," he said after a thoughtful pause, watching Blanc confidently operate his personal buffet. "I think he is."
Rin's shoulders immediately slumped.
"I knew it..."
"I also think," Sae continued, "your cat has successfully automated overeating."
Almost as if he understood the accusation, Blanc pressed the button again.
Tap.
More kibble.
"..."
"He might be smarter than both of us," Sae admitted. "He uses that intelligence for evil."
Tap.
Neither of them stopped him. Until Rin had enough.
"Okay, that's enough, Blanc. You're going to die from overeating."
Before another determined paw could descend onto the feeder's button, Rin swooped in and lifted the cat clean off the floor.
Or... attempted to.
"...God."
He had to use both arms.
Blanc merely dangled there.
There wasn't even a struggle. Perhaps he was too heavy to resist. Perhaps resisting sounded exhausting. Either way, the cat accepted his sudden relocation with the same expression he'd worn all morning—a blank, sleepy stare that suggested absolutely nothing happening around him was worth reacting to.
Rin sighed.
"...Nii-chan." Sae had a bad feeling about that tone. "Hold him."
"Hey—"
The protest came a second too late. Rin deposited the cat onto Sae's lap before the older brother could move away.
Thump.
"..."
"..."
Blanc settled himself comfortably, gave one lazy blink, then tucked his paws beneath his chest as if he'd always belonged there. Sae looked down. The cat covered nearly his entire lap.
Correction.
The cat covered both thighs.
Now, Itoshi Sae was many things, but a man with small legs was certainly not one of them. Years of professional football had built powerful thighs capable of sprinting ninety minutes across a pitch, holding off defenders, and generating enough force to send a ball screaming into the top corner.
Blanc somehow eclipsed all of it.
His stomach spilled over both sides like freshly baked bread dough, completely swallowing the definition of Sae's muscles beneath an impressive amount of black fur and even more impressive amounts of cat.
"..."
He was astonishingly dense.
Sae adjusted the cat slightly.
Nothing happened.
It was less like holding a pet and more like someone had handed him an expensive weighted blanket that occasionally blinked.
"And where are you going?"
He looked up as Rin was already making his way toward the kitchen, phone in hand.
"I'm calling the vet."
With that, Rin disappeared around the corner.
The apartment grew quiet again. Sae lowered his gaze. Blanc looked back.
Those golden eyes remained as dull and half-lidded as ever, carrying the unmistakable annoyance of someone whose all-you-can-eat buffet had been interrupted. At the same time, the cat seemed far too lazy to actually complain about it.
They stared at each other.
Neither blinked.
"...Seriously." Sae reached out and poked the soft mound that was supposedly Blanc's side. The cat jiggled. "How did you even get this big?"
Blanc answered with a tiny, offended, "Mrr."
It wasn't denial.
It sounded more like he disagreed with the question itself.
Waking up because you couldn't breathe was, in Sae's opinion, a perfectly reasonable excuse to panic.
Especially when it felt as though someone had quietly wheeled in a grand piano overnight and left it directly on top of his chest. His lungs strained against the weight. For one alarmingly long second, Itoshi Sae genuinely wondered if this was how he died.
Not on a football pitch.
Not in a traffic accident.
Not from overtraining.
No.
Crushed to death in his younger brother's apartment after deciding to save money by crashing there for a few days instead of booking a hotel. What an embarrassing obituary. With considerable effort, Sae forced one eye open.
The ceiling.
The curtains.
Morning sunlight. Still alive. Barely. He glanced downward.
There, sprawled across his chest with all four legs stretched comfortably outward like an oversized starfish, lay an enormous black cat.
His stomach spread over Sae's ribs with impressive efficiency, rising and falling in slow, peaceful breaths. His head rested beneath Sae's chin as though he had personally selected the older Itoshi as tonight's mattress, while his thick tail lazily hung off the side of the bed.
"..."
Sae looked at the cat.
The cat continued sleeping.
"...Blanc?" One ear twitched. That was the only acknowledgment he received. "...You're suffocating me."
Blanc answered with a content little rumble, somehow managing to purr without moving a single muscle. Sae attempted to sit up. But he couldn't.
He frowned. Then he tried pushing the cat and nothing. It was like trying to shove an overfilled beanbag that had somehow developed opinions.
"...How much do you weigh?" No response. Sae placed both hands beneath Blanc's sides and prepared himself.
"...Hup."
The cat lifted approximately three centimeters before gravity politely informed Sae that this was, in fact, a terrible idea. Blanc cracked one golden eye open just enough to express his disappointment at having his sleep interrupted. Then, with absolutely no shame whatsoever, he shifted his weight.
Directly onto Sae's lungs.
"..."
"I think," Sae muttered to the ceiling, his voice noticeably strained, "I'm beginning to understand Rin's concern."
The bedroom door slid open with a quiet click, followed by Rin's voice carrying into the room before he even bothered looking inside.
"Why aren't you awake ye—"
The rest of his sentence never came.
His eyes settled on the bed, taking in the strange sight before him without a word.
Sae lay completely flat on his back, his expression so blank it almost looked like he'd accepted death, while sprawled across nearly his entire chest was Blanc. The enormous black cat had somehow managed to flatten himself like a lazy starfish, his round belly rising and falling peacefully with each breath as his head rested comfortably against Sae's sternum. The beast hadn't moved an inch despite clearly using the midfielder as nothing more than a warm mattress.
Sae slowly turned his head toward the doorway, meeting Rin's gaze with the exhausted look of someone who had been awake for quite some time yet lacked the ability to do anything about his situation.
His usually neat hair stuck out in different directions, dark circles rested beneath his eyes, and whatever dignity remained had apparently been crushed underneath twenty pounds of sleeping feline.
"...Help me."
His voice came out quiet and utterly defeated.
Rin didn't answer.
He simply stood there, staring. His gaze shifted from Sae's tired face, down to Blanc's oversized body, then back to Sae again as if trying to process whether what he was looking at was actually real. The silence stretched for several long seconds, during which the only thing moving in the room was Blanc's tail lazily swaying once against the blanket.
Then the corner of Rin's mouth twitched.
Sae noticed immediately.
"...Don't."
Another twitch.
"Nii-chan."
"Don't you dare."
Rin pressed his lips together so tightly they nearly disappeared, his shoulders giving the faintest shake as he fought whatever was bubbling inside him. It was a hopeless battle. One tiny snort escaped through his nose before he could stop it, followed by another, and then the dam finally broke.
A laugh burst out of him.
Not the small amused scoff Sae occasionally managed to provoke, nor the smug little huff Rin usually reserved for moments he found someone else's misfortune entertaining. This was an honest-to-God laugh, loud enough that he had to grab the doorframe for support as his body folded forward, one hand flying to his mouth in a futile attempt to contain himself.
"I... hah..."
He couldn't even finish a sentence.
Every time he managed to catch enough breath to look back up, the sight waiting for him only made everything worse.
Blanc hadn't so much as opened an eye.
The cat remained blissfully asleep, stretched proudly across Sae's chest like he owned both the bed and the human unfortunate enough to be trapped beneath him, while Sae simply stared back with the expression of a man reconsidering every decision that had led him to staying in this apartment instead of booking a hotel.
"...This isn't funny," Sae said flatly, his voice noticeably strained beneath the weight pressing against his lungs.
"It is," Rin managed between laughs.
"It isn't."
"It really is."
Sae let out the smallest sigh his compressed lungs would allow before looking back at the ceiling.
"Remove your son."
That only made Rin laugh harder, another fit escaping him as he bent over again, shaking his head while wiping the corner of one eye.
"I can't..."
"You can't?"
"I'm laughing too much."
For a long moment, Sae simply stared at his younger brother, completely unamused. Then, in the same exhausted tone one might use after finally giving up on life itself, he muttered, "I should've left for Spain yesterday."
Rin laughed so hard this time that even Blanc cracked open one lazy golden eye, glanced at the source of the disturbance, and, deciding it wasn't worth caring about, simply settled back down on Sae's chest with an even louder purr.
Sae watched as Rin finally straightened, the last remnants of laughter leaving him in the form of a quiet exhale. Relief washed over him.
Finally.
Without another word, Rin reached into his pocket.
Sae blinked, "...What are you doing?"
Rin pulled out his phone.
"No."
The screen lit up.
"No, Rin."
He raised it.
"Nii-chan."
"You wouldn't."
The familiar shutter sound echoed through the room.
Click.
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.
Rin lowered his phone, glanced at the picture, then gave a small, satisfied nod as though confirming the image had met his standards. There, immortalized forever, was the country's prodigy midfielder pinned helplessly beneath an absurdly oversized cat wearing the most defeated expression Rin had ever seen on his brother's face.
"...Delete it."
"No."
"Rin."
"I might need it."
"For what possible reason?"
Rin slipped his phone back into his pocket with complete indifference before finally walking toward the bed.
"Blackmail."
Sae stared at him.
"You don't even know how to blackmail people."
"I'll learn."
"..."
Somehow, that answer was even worse.
Only after securing the evidence did Rin crouch beside the bed and slide both hands underneath Blanc's impossibly round body. The cat made a tiny sound of protest as Rin lifted him, stretching all four paws dramatically in the air like he had been inconvenienced by the concept of gravity itself.
Blanc blinked once at Sae, completely unaware that he'd nearly suffocated his favorite human, before immediately melting into Rin's arms with a content rumble.
The pressure disappeared instantly.
Sae inhaled so deeply his lungs almost hurt.
"...I can breathe again."
"You were exaggerating."
"I was drafting my will."
Rin looked down at Blanc, who had already tucked his face against Rin's chest and fallen back asleep within seconds.
"...He's gotten heavier." Sae added.
"He has."
"You've been overfeeding him."
"I know."
There wasn't an ounce of guilt in Rin's voice. Sae could only stare at both of them before rubbing a tired hand over his face.
"I'm going back to Spain."
"You said that five minutes ago."
"I mean it this time."
By the time they made it to the living room, Blanc had already forgotten the crime he'd committed that morning.
The oversized cat hopped onto the couch with surprising grace for something so round before immediately settling beside Rin as though the spot had always belonged to him. Rin sank into his usual seat, absentmindedly scratching behind Blanc's ears while the cat leaned shamelessly into the touch, purring loud enough for the sound to carry across the room.
Sae, meanwhile, chose the sofa opposite them and let out a long sigh as he finally sat down, his gaze lingering on the black furball with far less amusement than before.
Yesterday, he would've simply called the cat fat and moved on.
Today, however, Rin's words refused to leave his head. "Do you think he's getting too fat?"...
At the time, he'd dismissed it as Rin overthinking. Now, after waking up unable to breathe because of the animal currently bathing himself without a care in the world, the possibility didn't seem nearly as ridiculous. If Blanc could pin him down without realizing it, then Rin—who slept far more deeply than Sae ever did—could genuinely be at risk. The image alone was enough to sour whatever humor remained from the morning.
"He needs to lose weight."
Sae folded his arms across his chest, his sharp gaze settling squarely on Blanc, who continued licking the side of his body with absolute determination. Judging by the awkward angle, the cat had apparently accepted that only the parts he could still physically reach were worth cleaning.
"What did the vet tell you?"
Rin's hand never stopped absentmindedly stroking the cat's back. "That he needs to move around more," he answered, watching Blanc's tail lazily flick against the cushion. "And slowly reduce his food intake."
Sae's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"And?"
"And..." Rin paused, already sounding like he knew what was coming. "That he's perfectly healthy."
"That's not healthy."
"The vet said his bloodwork is fine."
"I'm talking about..." Sae gestured toward the cat, who had somehow managed to pause his grooming long enough to yawn dramatically before resuming. "...all of that."
Rin followed the gesture before looking back at Blanc with complete indifference.
"He is... a little round."
"A little?"
"The vet called him 'well-loved.'"
Sae was almost certain that was veterinarian language for your cat is obese, but I'm trying not to hurt your feelings.
His gaze drifted back to Blanc, whose stomach spread against the cushion like rising bread dough the moment he flopped onto his side.
"...He's one meal away from becoming a beanbag."
Blanc responded by rolling onto his back, exposing his belly without the slightest hint of shame. Neither brother said another word. The cat merely blinked at them, blissfully unaware that the entire conversation was about him.
The silence that followed lingered just a little too long, as if all three of them were collectively trying to process the same uncomfortable truth in different ways.
Rin continued stroking Blanc absentmindedly, though now his hand slowed slightly, as if even he had begun to acknowledge that “a little round” might have been an understatement. Sae, on the other hand, leaned back into the sofa with his arms still crossed, his gaze never leaving the cat as Blanc rolled lazily onto his side again, completely unconcerned with the weight of the conversation being directed at him.
The idea of a diet plan for something that clearly treated gravity as optional felt increasingly less like a suggestion and more like a diplomatic negotiation with a very uncooperative nation.
“So,” Sae finally broke the silence, voice flat but now carrying that faint edge of someone who had already resigned himself to involvement, “you’re actually going to follow the vet’s instructions this time, or are we just going to pretend we heard them and continue feeding him like this.”
Rin glanced down at Blanc, who had shifted slightly in his lap and was now lying in a position that made it unclear where cat ended and furniture began. “…I’ll follow it.”
“Are you sure?” He remembered Rin being a softy for this big fella.
“I meant it this time.”
“Right..…”
Rin paused for a second, as if genuinely trying to find what Sae meant by that tone, then looked back down at Blanc with a rare moment of seriousness. “He needs to lose weight.”
Blanc responded by blinking slowly, then stretching one paw outward in a direction that vaguely suggested either innocence or complete indifference depending on interpretation. Sae narrowed his eyes slightly, watching the movement with the same expression he would normally reserve for analyzing an opponent on the pitch, before letting out a small sigh through his nose.
“…Fine,” Sae muttered, shifting his attention away from the cat and back to Rin. “But if this thing collapses on me again in my sleep, I’m leaving Japan immediately.”
“That was one time,” Rin replied.
“It was this morning.”
“That still counts as one time.”
Blanc, sensing none of the tension in the room, slowly rolled onto his back again with his legs slightly spread, exposing his stomach like a dramatic statement no one had asked for. Rin immediately reached down to pat it, and Sae watched the interaction for a second longer before his expression shifted ever so slightly, as if another thought had quietly inserted itself into the situation without permission.
“…We’re taking him for a walk,” Sae said suddenly.
Rin blinked. “A walk?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a cat.”
“I noticed.”
Rin looked down at Blanc, then back at Sae, as if waiting for this to become a joke that would eventually resolve itself. It did not. Sae remained completely serious, arms still crossed, gaze sharp and unyielding in a way that suggested this was now a decision rather than a suggestion.
“…He doesn’t walk,” Rin said slowly.
Sae tilted his head slightly. “Then he learns.”
At that, Blanc yawned, entirely unimpressed, as if the concept of ‘walking’ was something that applied only to lesser beings who had not yet achieved his level of existence. The sound of it filled the room, long and lazy, before he settled back down again like the entire conversation had officially been dismissed.
Rin exhaled.
“…He’s going to hate this.”
Sae’s eyes didn’t move from the cat. “Good. So will I.”
Getting Blanc out of the apartment already felt like negotiating with a sleeping natural disaster.
At first, it seemed manageable with Rin insisted on carrying him, claiming it would be easier ‘until they reached the park,’ and Sae, already regretting every life decision that had led him here, did not argue as long as it meant they were actually moving.
Blanc, for his part, did not protest at all; he simply hung in Rin’s arms like an overfilled plush toy, blinking slowly at the passing hallway as if the concept of ‘outside’ was mildly interesting but ultimately beneath him. The elevator ride went by in silence, save for Sae occasionally glancing at the cat and wondering, not for the first time, how something so round could still qualify as a biological creature rather than a soft, breathing cushion.
The trouble only began once they reached the park entrance.
Rin carefully set Blanc down onto the pavement, almost like lowering something fragile and important, while Sae stood a few steps behind with his hands in his pockets, already bracing himself for whatever nonsense was about to unfold.
For a brief, hopeful moment, Blanc actually moved forward on his own.
It was slow, deliberate, and almost convincing—one paw in front of the other, tail swaying slightly, ears twitching as if he had accepted this new chapter of his life. Rin’s eyes softened immediately, following him like a proud parent watching their child take first steps, while Sae narrowed his gaze suspiciously, sensing deception.
It lasted exactly seven steps.
On the eighth, Blanc simply stopped, considered the ground for a moment, and then lowered his entire body with the solemnity of someone making a life-altering decision. He did not fall. He did not collapse. He chose to lie down, spreading himself across the path like a black, furry roadblock that had declared the concept of movement officially over for the day.
A couple walking behind them had to step aside, and Blanc did not even acknowledge their existence.
“…He’s doing it again,” Sae said flatly.
Rin, however, had already crouched beside the cat, his expression shifting into something far more distressed. “Maybe his feet hurt,” he said softly, reaching out to inspect Blanc’s paw as though this were a legitimate medical emergency. “We shouldn’t have made him walk so far at once.”
“He walked seven steps.”
“That could be a lot for him.”
Sae slowly turned his head toward Rin, the disbelief on his face growing heavier by the second. “He just spent the last two days pressing a food button like it was a sport.”
Rin ignored him entirely, now gently rubbing Blanc’s paw pads with exaggerated care, as if the cat had just completed a marathon instead of relocating himself from one patch of grass to another. Blanc, meanwhile, accepted the attention with full confidence, occasionally flexing his toes as if this level of concern was exactly what he had been expecting all along.
“…You are being manipulated,” Sae muttered.
“He looks tired.”
“He is horizontal on purpose.”
Rin hesitated for a moment, glancing between Blanc and the ground like he was genuinely trying to calculate whether the cat had suffered emotional damage from walking seven steps.
Sae could practically see the internal debate happening behind his eyes, the part of him that understood logic clashing violently with the part that had already decided Blanc was a delicate creature in need of protection.
Finally, Rin sighed.
“…We can carry him a bit more,” he said reluctantly, scooping Blanc back up into his arms.
Sae closed his eyes for a second, as if asking the universe for patience it had long since stopped providing.
“This is not a walk,” he said. “This is a transport operation for a living beanbag.”
It took a while before they finally managed to get Blanc moving again, and it only happened after Sae, in a moment of quiet desperation, pulled out a small bag of snack treats and gave it a single, deliberate shake.
The effect was immediate and almost insulting. Blanc, who had previously been behaving as though walking seven steps constituted a personal tragedy, lifted his head at the sound and stared at the bag with sudden, intense focus. For a brief second, there was silence as if his entire body was recalculating its purpose in life, and then, with slow and dignified effort, he rose back onto his feet and began following Sae at a pace that suggested this was the only form of motivation he respected in the world.
Even then, it didn’t last long.
They barely made it a few more meters before Blanc slowed again, and this time Rin noticed something that made his expression shift completely. The cat’s breathing had grown heavier, his tongue slightly out, his body moving with far less of the lazy confidence from before and more like someone who had dramatically overestimated their stamina in a completely different climate.
To Rin, it looked like suffering.
To Sae, it looked like a creature that had walked less than a minute and immediately decided to dramatize the experience as though it had crossed a desert under a blazing sun.
“…He’s out of breath,” Rin said softly, crouching down immediately, his hand hovering near Blanc again with that same worried gentleness that made Sae question how Rin survived competitive football.
“He barely walked thirty steps,” Sae replied flatly, watching the cat pant on the grass like he had just completed a triathlon.
“That could still be a lot for him.”
Sae stared at Rin in silence for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether his brother was being serious or simply emotionally compromised beyond recovery.
Meanwhile, Blanc sat down with full commitment, his entire body collapsing into a soft heap as he continued breathing like he had personally climbed a mountain. Rin, completely undeterred by logic or physics, immediately started stroking the cat’s head with quiet concern, murmuring things under his breath as if offering emotional support to a fallen soldier.
Eventually, Sae exhaled through his nose and reached into his pocket again, not even bothering to hide the resigned irritation in his movements. He shook the treat bag once more, and Blanc’s head snapped up instantly, all signs of exhaustion disappearing as though they had never existed at all.
The transformation was so fast it almost offended Sae on principle.
“…Of course,” Sae muttered.
Blanc stood again.
Walked.
Stopped pretending to die.
Rin, however, was no longer amused. He looked at Blanc properly now, watching the cat move forward with slow but determined steps, and something in his expression softened into guilt again.
The earlier humor had faded, replaced by the uncomfortable feeling that maybe, just maybe, they had pushed him too far for one morning. When Blanc finally reached Rin again, the cat paused and looked up at him with those same half-lidded golden eyes, still somehow managing to appear both tired and entirely unbothered at the same time.
Rin immediately scooped him up.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, almost like he meant it personally.
Blanc made a small sound of complaint, but didn’t resist.
Rin pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his head, holding him a little closer as if that somehow compensated for the exhausting experience of existing for more than a few meters at a time.
“Good job,” Rin murmured, as though Blanc had just completed something meaningful. “You did your best.”
Sae watched the entire thing in silence.
“…He walked in a circle for snacks,” he said finally.
Rin didn’t look up.
“That’s still effort.”
The walk back felt noticeably slower, though not because Blanc had improved in stamina in any meaningful way.
Rather, it was because Rin had decided that carrying him for most of the return journey was the only morally acceptable option after witnessing the cat’s brief, tragic attempt at ‘exercise.’ Blanc, of course, accepted this arrangement without protest, draped over Rin’s arms like an overstuffed pillow that occasionally blinked.
Sae followed a few steps behind them the entire way, hands in his pockets, watching the scene unfold with the kind of quiet resignation that came from realizing he had become unwillingly involved in something far more domestic than anything he had signed up for when he decided to visit Japan.
Rin kept glancing down at Blanc every few seconds, adjusting his grip slightly whenever the cat shifted or made a small sound, as though even the slightest discomfort was a serious concern requiring immediate attention.
At one point, he even slowed his pace just to make sure Blanc was resting properly against his chest, gently smoothing a hand over the cat’s back in a rhythm that was almost absentminded but still far too tender for something that weighed as much as a small child with poor life choices.
Sae observed all of this in silence, his expression flat but increasingly thoughtful, as Rin whispered something soft to Blanc that sounded suspiciously like reassurance, or praise, or both.
By the time they reached the apartment again, Sae had already come to the conclusion that something in this household was fundamentally misaligned. Rin carefully set Blanc down inside as if returning a fragile artifact to its display case, immediately crouching beside him to check on him again even though the cat had done nothing but breathe, blink, and exist. Blanc responded by walking three steps toward the living room, collapsing halfway through, and then continuing to exist horizontally without further explanation.
Rin reacted instantly, kneeling again, checking him like there had been a sudden medical emergency that only he could perceive.
Sae stood in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, watching Rin fuss over the cat with a level of concern that bordered on devotion, before letting out a slow sigh through his nose. The image of Rin’s face earlier—soft, worried, completely convinced that Blanc might have been suffering despite all evidence to the contrary—stayed annoyingly present in his mind.
It was not that Sae didn’t understand caring for something; it was that Rin looked like he was treating a living, breathing beanbag as if it held the emotional weight of an entire national team.
“…Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” Sae muttered under his breath, stepping further into the apartment anyway out of pure habit rather than intention, already regretting every decision that had led him into proximity with this particular ecosystem.
Behind him, Rin was still gently patting Blanc’s head like a reward for surviving the walk.
Blanc, completely unbothered, had already fallen asleep again.