Archive of Our Own

The ad was simple and reasonable; thoughtfully worded, even, if Jisung dared say so himself.

Roommate Wanted

• Quiet, clean, a hybrid preferred;
• NO predators;
• Must be respectful of boundaries and keep shared spaces clean.

Jisung reread it four times and then another one for good measure, then, with the weight of a thousand traumatic roommate experiences pressing down on his tiny, overtaxed mouse heart, he clicked “post.”

His last roommate, Renjun, had been… well, the best roommate he’d ever had, to put it nicely. Renjun was a human, but he'd been considerate and always mindful of Jisung’s mouse hybrid quirks, never leaving dishes in the sink or being loud at ungodly hours, never doing anything that spooked him. 

During their cohabitation, the shared spaces were kept tidy, boundaries were respected and not even once was Jisung made fun of for his obsessive cleaning rituals.

That is to say, Jisung had grown fond of his roommate and their shared routine. Until Renjun had to go and ruin it by falling in love, that is. After more than a year of peaceful cohabitation, Renjun announced that he was betraying him moving in with his boyfriend, Jeno.

Jisung tried not to be bitter about it. Really, he did. He congratulated them, helped Renjun pack and even promised to visit after they got settled in.

But now the silence in the apartment felt like too much, and he could not get used to the silence no matter how hard he tried, like the place itself was waiting for someone else to move in.

Based on his roommate history and personal luck, he would likely get stuck with another crazy person, and it was the main reason why he’d been stalling to post an ad. However, after a month of living by himself he had to admit that he needed someone new.

Rent was getting tight, and he had already downgraded his streaming subscriptions and cut his cheese budget, which in itself was a tragedy not easily overcome. 

At first, he’d told himself he’d ask around, maybe friends of friends, maybe a quiet herbivore hybrid from work, but after three weeks of no leads and a scary letter from the landlord, desperation finally won out.

Which brings him to here, posting an ad online and exposing himself to the horrors of the general public. After he hit post, he proceeded to shut his laptop and burrowed into his nest of blankets with a warm mug of chamomile tea hoping that maybe, just maybe, things would work out.

  ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

The morning was quiet. Peaceful. Through the open window of his bedroom he could feel the beginning of a tentative spring day, carrying with it the smell of sun-warmed pavement and a nice floral trail. 

Jisung stirred under his blankets, nose twitching at the scent of jasmine that mingled with the city air. It was, he decided, a genuinely excellent morning to do absolutely nothing. 

He stretched carefully, vertebra by vertebra, then twitched his ears to get them out of their nighttime droop, his long tail curling and uncurling like a ribbon. That's when he heard it. Jisung’s ears perked up instantly, angling toward the sound.

Slurp.

His heart rat-a-tatted in his chest when it came again.

Slurp. Slurp.

Someone was in his kitchen! That was — that was definitely the sound of someone drinking milk, judging from the wet sounds, and he would know that glugging rhythm, because it was a sound he himself was occasionally guilty of making. But this was different. This was someone else's mouth doing that in his kitchen. 

Was it a robbery? A break-in? Did he leave the window open or forget to lock the door? What kind of criminal mastermind breaks into a stranger's home, bypasses the TV or the surely-pawnable laptop and beelines straight for the dairy? Was this a new kind of burglary he hadn't heard about? 

For the life of him it did not make sense. Jisung’s mind spun into overdrive.

He slowly peeled himself out of bed, taking cautious steps toward the source of the sound. His tail was curled so tightly around his ankle it almost cut off circulation.

Okay, he thought, creeping toward the door on the balls of his feet. Okay, you can do this. You have claws. Technically. Somewhere. 

With trembling hands, Jisung edged closer, pressing a tentative hand to the doorframe and as he did so, his eyes locked onto a pale skinned, very orange haired, very smug-looking cat hybrid drinking milk straight from the carton, as suspected. 

His carton of milk, that he paid for. What was happening? Was he living in a simulation?

“...Who the hell are you?” he asked, voice going high with disbelief.

The cat hybrid seemed in no hurry. He made an “ahh” sound of satisfaction, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand (are those claws oh god), and finally met Jisung’s gaze with glowing gold eyes and a smirk that screamed at him to run away.

“I’m Chenle,” he said, like that answered anything. "This milk is criminally good, by the way. Whole fat? Respect." 

Jisung stared at him, the edges of his vision going blurry with stress. “And why are you in my kitchen?”

“You posted an ad,” Chenle said with a shrug, as if it were obvious. “I accept.”

“You… accept —?”

“I’m moved in already, hope you don’t mind. I got in through the window. It smelled like rodent but, like, in a cozy way.”

Jisung’s brain short-circuited, tail twitching like a live wire. “You broke in through my— You can’t just climb through a window and declare yourself my roommate!”

“I didn’t declare anything,” Chenle said, hopping onto the counter with feline grace. His tail flicked, eyes sparkling with what Jisung could only describe as the joy of chaos. “I claimed. There’s a difference.”

Jisung took a shaky step back. “You’re a cat. You’re literally the thing the ad said no to. You’re the reason the ‘no predators’ line exists.”

Chenle didn’t move. His gold-flecked eyes stayed locked on Jisung’s face, an expression of amusement crossing his face. His tail moved lazily behind him, brushing the cabinet overhead. 

“Mmm, that was cute indeed. Don't think I didn't see it, because I did, but when I read it I thought, ‘wow, this guy needs a cat in his life’.”

“I—No! No, I do not. I need peace. I need solitude. I need my food untouched and my walls unscratched and— do not knock that over!” Jisung’s voice cracked an octave higher as he pointed at the bottle of orange juice teetering precariously on the edge of the counter.

Chenle leaned forward, still maintaining perfect eye contact, and extended one clawed finger with all the menace one usually sees from cartoon villains and toddlers in time-out.

He gave the bottle a small nudge. Jisung held his breath, gaze locked onto the bottle like he could telepathically stop it from collapsing and shattering on the floor.

“You didn’t really think I’d do it, right?” Chenle raised an eyebrow, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his mouth. 

“I’m calling animal control,” Jisung whispered.

“They know me by name. Tell them I said hi.”

Jisung slid dramatically to the floor and buried his face in his hands while Chenle started opening cabinets like he owned the place.

“Look,” Chenle said, poking his head into the pantry and nudging aside a box of cereal to peer around. “I’ll make you a deal: you stop freaking out, and I’ll pretend I didn’t shed in your living room.”

Jisung let out a small, helpless noise, not knowing whether he wanted to cry or punch something. “I don’t want a roommate,” he mumbled into his knees. He knew the ad had been a mistake, but nothing had prepared him for said mistake to have pointy ears and a tail and raid his pantry at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. 

There was a rustle, followed by footsteps approaching as Chenle crouched beside him, balancing easily on the balls of his feet. Jisung made the catastrophic mistake of looking up. 

Up close, Chenle’s pale skin was even more evident, his orange hair falling over eyes that were slanted and entirely too open, watching Jisung like he was something mildly amusing rather than a man having the worst morning of his month. 

He’d handsome, he thought stupidly, then kicked himself in the next moment because the breaking and entering took a solid four points off that assessment. The milk theft, three more. 

“Don’t be silly,” Chenle said softly. “We’ll get along just fine. My instincts are never wrong.”

And just like that, Jisung realized two things:

1. He was being emotionally hijacked by a cat;
2. He might be too tired to stop it.

  ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

The first thing Jisung did after hyperventilating in his room for a full ten minutes was to open his laptop to delete the roommate listing.

The second thing he did was start drafting a new one titled “Cat Hybrid for Sale (Free, Comes With Milk Addiction and No Sense of Boundaries).”

By the time he got back to his senses and went back to the main room, Chenle had claimed three things:

1. The couch, which he was now entirely sprawled on;
2. The sun beam coming through the windows;
3. Jisung’s favorite hoodie.

“You have five seconds to leave before I start spraying you with water,” Jisung warned, holding up a floral-patterned spray bottle he’d previously used to keep pigeons off the balcony.

Chenle blinked at him, then yawned. “Kinky.”

“It’s not—it's pest deterrent! You're the pest! ”

“You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean, Jisungie,” Chenle purred, playing with the sleeves of the stolen hoodie like he owned it. “Your aura says you like cohabitation.”

Jisung actually hissed. “You cannot gaslight your way into housing!”

“Too late,” Chenle said, pulling out a bag of snacks from somewhere and opening it with one claw. “Also, you need better snacks. This is tragic.”

“I hate you.”

“You say that, but you let me eat your food.”

“I didn’t let you, you—!”

Chenle reached out and actually flicked Jisung on the nose. Jisung froze. Then turned and silently walked into the bathroom, locked the door, and screamed into a towel.

    ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

In the middle of his spiral, Jisung made the mistake of sending a panicked voice memo to the group chat that went something like: "Emergency!! There is a cat hybrid in my apartment. He broke in and im scared!" and he hadn't even finished hyperventilating when Renjun’s read receipt popped up. 

So naturally, Jaemin and Renjun showed up 20 minutes later with bubble tea and matching expressions of curiosity.

“Oh my God!” Jaemin exclaimed. His eyes went wide as they landed on Chenle, who was stretched across the back of the couch like a smug lion. “He’s so fluffy. Look at his tail! And his ears!”

“Wait, don’t—” Jisung started, but it was too late.

Jaemin crossed the room and started scratching behind Chenle’s ears before Jisung could so much as warn him. The cat hybrid didn’t even flinch, nor did he hiss or make a scene like Jisung had expected. 

Instead he let out a low, rumbly sound that practically echoed through the apartment, a sound so deep and content it made Jisung's hair stand on end.  

Oh no, he was purring.

Jisung stood frozen, ears twitching. He’d read about it—of course he had, way back in middle school when they did a whole unit on hybrid types and “understanding your peers”, but reading about it and hearing it in person were very different things. 

It was loud but not obnoxiously so, and yet the sound itself felt strange, like it wanted to settle in his bones, or sneak under the door of his room at night and vibrate directly into his nightmares.

This was the sound of a relaxed predator, but to his nervous system it did not matter. Even if no one was snarling or hissing or attacking him with their claws, it was still terrifying in a whole new way.

And Jaemin?

Jaemin had the nerve to sigh dreamily and say, “This is the best day of my life,” before sinking down onto the couch beside Chenle like they were long-lost friends from some alternate universe sitcom.

Chenle’s eyes fluttered closed as he leaned into the touch like he’d been personally starved of affection for centuries. Jaemin kept scratching, and Chenle made a pleased trill, tail flicking until it draped over the back of the couch.

“I hate everything,” Jisung muttered.

Of course they were getting along. Chenle was clearly one of those hybrids who could be charming when he wanted to be, and with the right amount of crazy to match Jaemin’s particular flavor of chaos. They were both the type of people who would, without a doubt, start a friendship at the drop of a hat. Social anxiety feared them, not the other way around.

Jisung watched in horrified silence as Jaemin pulled out his phone and took a selfie with the still purring Chenle beside him.

“We are not keeping him,” Jisung barked, crossing his arms.

Jaemin looked up in confusion. “You already live with him.”

“Not by choice.”

Renjun, meanwhile, stood at a distance, assessing the unfolding scene. He narrowed his eyes at Chenle, then at the partially-shredded throw pillow on the floor, which had, at some point in the last two hours, lost an honestly alarming percentage of its stuffing. 

“So,” he said slowly. “You let a predator move in.”

“I did not let him, he invaded my house,” Jisung tried to explain, voice cracking slightly on the last word.

“I used the window,” Chenle added helpfully. “Very agile of me.”

Renjun ignored him, nudging a tuft of pillow stuffing with the toe of his shoe. “And now he’s nesting here.” 

"I'm not nesting," Chenle scoffed, finally cracking one eye open, deeply offended by the accusation despite the physical evidence surrounding him. "I'm simply settling in." 

Renjun once again ignored him, and Jisung truly admired his ability to tune out anything or anyone he deemed bothersome. “He’s definitely trouble.”

Jisung’s shoulders slumped in relief. Finally! The voice of reason! The last shred of sanity in this unhinged social circle. “I know! Thank you.”

“But he’s also kind of…” Renjun tilted his head, watching as Chenle made a delighted trill noise under Jaemin’s relentless doting. “Domesticated?”

“Excuse me,” Chenle said, indignant. “I am an apex snuggler. I'm not domesticated. There’s a difference.”

Renjun sighed, looking done with the conversation. “Look, he hasn’t maimed you and he seems harmless enough, plus you’re in dire need of a roommate.”

“He ate my gougere!” Jisung yelled. “That’s not bonding, that’s a war crime!”

Jaemin, who was now curled beside Chenle on the couch, looked over dreamily. “That’s French, he has taste. I think you should keep him.”

“What?”

“He matches your energy,” Jaemin explained. “You’re anxious and twitchy while he’s chaotic and confident. You will have a good balance. It’s like an ecosystem.”

“I’m not running a wildlife preserve!”

“I’m not saying it’s ideal, but give it a week,” Renjun intervened. “You’re anxious, your rent’s due soon, and let’s be honest, your screening process was not extensive.”

How dare he. How dare Renjun, of all people, stand there and be rational about this. He was supposed to be on Jisung's side, not look at the shredded pillow and the milk-thief currently occupying his couch and think it’s a reasonable thing to let him move in. 

“I made a list of rules!” Jisung tried to explain.

“Exactly. That scares normal people off.”

Jisung groaned, dragging both hands down his face, and through the gaps between his fingers he could already see the judgment settling into Renjun's expression, hidden behind that maddening calm exterior.

“Chenle,” Renjun said, finally turning to the feline lump on the couch, “if you’re going to stay here, you will behave.”

“Define behave,” Chenle asked, blinking lazily up at him. 

Renjun narrowed his eyes at him and that made Chenle sit up a bit straighter. "Don't test me," he said, perfectly even. "I will be checking in."

Later, after the traitors had left—Jaemin promising to return with a grooming brush (“Don’t enable him!” Jisung had wailed, to no avail), and Renjun muttering about setting up “contingency plans”—Jisung lay face down on the floor, letting his soul seep into the carpet.

His tail was flat, as was his mood. His will to live was extinguished. “Everyone has betrayed me,” he mumbled into the scratchy fibers of the rug. “I’m going to become a hermit. I’ll build a burrow and live in a shoebox.”

Chenle dropped onto his back and rested his chin between Jisung’s shoulder blades. “Even your friends want me here,” he said smugly.

“That’s because they’re sadists.”

Chenle just purred and curled tighter against him. “Love you too, roommate.”

Jisung felt a migraine forming between his eyebrows and realized, with a long-suffering sigh, that it was already too late for him.

The cat had won.

  ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

The next few days were a test of wills, and Jisung’s torment started slowly. First it was the sock thefts, so subtle, a mild inconvenience at best, an odd moment where Jisung stood over the laundry basket, frowning down at the single fuzzy sock in his hand.

Only one. Always the left one.

The first few times he blamed the washing machine — that evil, sock-eating portal to hell. Everyone loses socks in the wash. It’s one of those universal mysteries, like crop circles or why bananas go bad faster when you actually want to eat them, so he didn’t think much of it.

Until it kept happening. Week after week, one of his socks went missing. Never the right one, never anything athletic or sensible. No, it had to be the fluffy ankle socks, or the thermal wool blend ones he saved for cold mornings. 

It was personal. It was a targeted campaign.

And then, one Tuesday evening he finally walked into the living and found the truth. Chenle was asleep, right there on the rug, curled in a crescent shape around a small hoard of stolen treasure.

Three socks. All left-footed, all balled up neatly and tucked under his chin like makeshift pillows. And Chenle was purring in his sleep.

Jisung froze. He took multiple looks at the socks, took a couple of deep breaths, then stared some more. Slowly, very slowly, his eye began to twitch.

“These aren’t yours,” he said, horrified with his realization.

Chenle cracked one eye open and let out a soft yawn, making zero effort to move. “They are now.”

“They’re my socks.”

“You weren’t using them.”

“Because they were in the laundry?”

Chenle rolled over with a languid stretch, one of the socks resting proudly under his cheek like a comfort pillow. “They smell like you. That’s the point.”

Jisung opened his mouth, then closed it again. Words failed him, so he began to flail a bit. “That's not—how is that the point?! What do you do with them?”

Chenle blinked at him like he was the crazy one, gesturing to the sock pile with a clawed hand like it should have been obvious. “I nap with them.”

“You have a whole bed. You have catnip mice,” he said, pointing toward the toy box in the corner of the living room. “Literally a dozen of them. One even has bells!”

Chenle flicked his tail. “Too crinkly. The socks are more emotionally resonant.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Chenle said, rolling onto his back and tucking all three socks under his head, “they’re mine now. Legally. By hybrid common law.”

“There’s no such thing!”

“There is in this house,” Chenle replied, closing his eyes.

Jisung stood there for a long moment, debating between yanking the socks back, screaming into the void, or just going to bed and pretending this wasn’t happening.

Instead, he turned around and walked away slowly, muttering to himself. “I’m going to start hiding my laundry. I’m going to put it under lock and key. I’ll build a trap, or— or get decoy socks.”

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” came the amused voice from behind him. “I can smell emotional attachment.”

Jisung let out a low groan and thudded his forehead against the fridge. This was his life now. This was his roommate, and deep down, in a place he didn’t want to acknowledge, he was pretty sure he’d give up the right sock too, if Chenle asked nicely.

  ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Next came the fridge wars, and they started, like most great battles in history, over cheese. 

Chenle had been living in Jisung’s apartment for approximately one month and a half at this point, which was long enough to shed on every surface, rewire the TV to skip commercials, and implement a strict “if it’s left unattended, it’s community property” rule about the pantry.

But the fridge was sacred. Or at least, it used to be. 

The morning started out normal and peaceful, and Jisung wandered into the kitchen still a bit bleary from sleep, dragging his tail as he opened the fridge to start on breakfast. 

He stared blankly into the shelves, uncomprehending. Something was amiss. Leaning forward, he squinted at the cheese drawer to scan the lineup: camembert, fontina, cheddar...There! One missing wedge of gouda! 

He shut the fridge. Reopened it. Nope, still gone. His ears twitched, then he let out a soul-deep sigh before he padded down the hall. Someone was about to die.

“Chenle,” he called, trying to keep calm. “Do you want to explain what happened to the wedge of gouda that was missing from the fridge?”

Chenle’s bedroom door was wide open. Its occupant was lying on his back across the bed, one leg dangling off the side, watching a video on his phone with his ears twitching from under a hoodie. 

“You ate my smoked gouda,” Jisung said flatly, eyeling the remains of a cheese wrapper that sat crumpled on his nightstand like crime scene evidence.

Chenle didn’t look up. “You have, like, eleven other cheeses.”

“That’s not the point. That cheese was imported and I’ve been saving it for my Sunday anxiety spiral.”

“You have a specific cheese for your anxiety spirals?” Chenle finally sat up, looking up at him all confused.

“Yes,” Jisung snapped. “And a separate one for depression spirals. And one for happy days. Cheese is a delicate emotional support system. You can’t eat the structure out from under me!”

“Help yourself to my pâté, then, it's a fair trade.”

“That is not a fair trade. That is canned meat mush and I’m sure it’s not even human food.”

Chenle set his phone aside and yawned, looking bored with the conversation. Why couldn’t this guy ever give a damn about the emotional wreckage he was causing? “You didn’t label it. I figured it was communal.”

“I organized the drawer by type and texture! Who even does that if it’s communal?”

“All this for one little wedge, Sungie? Very mouse behavior.”

Jisung was so beyond trying to be understanding about this. Clearly cat hybrids would never understand the complexities of cheese, nor would they care about anyone else’s privacy. It was his own fault for expecting literally anything else. “Excuse me for having a functioning sense of food boundaries.”

“It’s cute,” Chenle said, grinning. “You scurry around the kitchen with your little cheese rituals and hoarding habits. Honestly, it’s endearing.”

Jisung’s ears twitched. “You’re the worst.” He turned to leave, muttering under his breath as he walked back toward the kitchen. “I’m going to buy a tiny safe for my cheese and bolt it to the wall.”

Chenle called after him, “I know how to pick a lock!”

Jisung shut the fridge with more force than necessary. From down the hall, he could still hear Chenle’s laughter.

    ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Jisung was laying flat on his back on the mattress, eyes open and ears twitching every time a sound crept through the dark. That specific creak of the third floorboard from the kitchen, he'd learned during their days of cohabitation, meant Chenle was awake and Up To Something.

His tail had curled anxiously around his thigh at some point, like it wanted to physically remind him of his growing anxiety.

Skritch.

He was being toyed with. There was no possible universe in which he wasn't, and there was exactly one suspect, because there was only one other person in this apartment he could blame this on.

His flatmate had been up for the last three hours, and Jisung could swear he heard Chenle go into the kitchen, rummage through the fridge for a good minute, then wander off with a huff. And now he was back, probably doing backflips in the living room to test Jisung’s nerves.

Jisung finally sat up with a groan and padded to the door, ears flattened with irritation. He cracked it open. “Chenle.”

No response.

The silence was way worse than any noise. This type of silence usually only meant one thing: ambush.

Jisung stepped into the hallway cautiously, his instincts screaming at him to turn back. Apparently months of living with a menace hadn't taught him a single lesson about self-preservation. He stuck out his tail and let it trail behind him like a radar, ready to detect danger. 

The kitchen light was off, which meant the entire living space was dark. If he squinted he could make out the faint outline of a—

“BOO!”

Jisung yelped — a high-pitched, totally unflattering squeak — and jumped a solid foot into the air, tail puffing up. His claws shot out, pupils going huge and round with adrenaline.

Chenle was standing there, grinning in the glow of the microwave clock like a demon summoned from his nightmares. Jisung's nightmares never happened to have such nice cheekbones, though… 

“Don’t do that!” Jisung snapped, clutching his chest.

Chenle’s grin widened, unrepentant. “But you’re so jumpy. It’s cute.”

“I’m not cute!” Jisung hissed, voice pitching dangerously close to another squeak.

“You squeaked.”

“I did not!”

Chenle leaned casually against the kitchen counter, his tail pendulating behind him. He looked entirely too pleased with himself, ears twitching once, alert. Jisung scowled and turned away. “I’m trying to sleep and you keep creeping around like some haunted Roomba.”

Chenle looked confused by the accusation. “I get bored.”

“It’s 2 A.M.”

“I get bored at 2 A.M.”

“Well, I get anxious at 2 A.M.,” Jisung muttered, stomping back to his room, “so maybe try being a little less of a menace when you’re bored.”

He paused at the doorway and looked back, only to see that Chenle had stopped in his tracks, expression uncharacteristically soft.

“I didn’t realize it bothered you that much,” Chenle said, and it even sounded genuine. “You’re really sensitive to movement, huh?”

Jisung rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting his eyes. “I’m prey-coded. If someone’s slinking around outside my den, I panic and can't sleep. It’s not personal, but that's how my instincts are.”

Chenle tilted his head, studying him, then said softly “Okay, I’ll try to be quieter.”

“Wait, really?”

Chenle shrugged, ears flicking. “Yeah. It’s not fun if you’re actually mad.”

“I’m not mad,” Jisung said, a little stunned at this turn of events.

There was a short beat of silence before Chenle laughed, and the sound came out a little bit feline. “Okay, okay,” he said, waving a hand. “No more jump-scares, I promise. I’ll sit in the window and sulk like a normal cat.”

“Thank you.”

It would have been too nice for it to end there, so of course that Chenle just had to smirk and add “But if I ever find a laser pointer—”

Jisung slammed the door in his face.

     ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

It had been two months at this point. Eight entire weeks of catastrophic emotional erosion. Jisung liked to think of himself as adaptable; he’d lived with humans, with hybrids, and even with one guy who tried to start a worm farm in the bathtub. He could manage. He could coexist. 

But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for Zhong Chenle.

The cat hybrid was like some chaotic myth come to life, part feline, part golden retriever, and 100% chaos. He shed like it was a competitive sport, knocked things over with casual malice, and had the gall to purr while stealing Jisung’s food.

When he came back from switching the laundry and saw the scene, Jisung stopped dead in the living room doorway, his soul briefly leaving his body.

There, right in the center of the couch, was a nest of hoodies. His hoodies, freshly folded and still warm, arranged with care by him before he'd had to go check on the washing machine.

And at the heart of it all, like a smug orange haired parasite, was Chenle.

He was sprawled out like he owned the place, in his characteristic position with one leg kicked over the armrest, his cheek mashed into Jisung’s favorite gray fleece. He was hugging a sky-blue hoodie like it was a body pillow, a low, contented purr rattling in his chest. 

It was, in short, a crime scene. Jisung took a deep inhale through his nose, trying very hard not to cry. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Chenle didn’t move.

Jisung stepped closer, trying to be reasonable about this. “Those are clean. I just folded them. Why are you like this?”

No reply came, but the purring actually got louder.

“Chenle,” Jisung hissed.

A golden eye cracked open slowly and focused on Jisung. This sleepy creature had zero concept of regret. “Oh,” Chenle mumbled. “Hey.”

Jisung gestured to the entire situation in disbelief. “You’re sleeping in my laundry!”

“It’s comfy.”

“That’s not—That’s not an explanation!”

The cat hybrid yawned without covering his mouth and stretched, limbs long and sinuous. Jisung tried not to stare at the exposed sliver of stomach and the faint happy trail leading down.

“Still warm,” he murmured, rolling over so his face was pressed directly into the fleece.

Jisung was practically vibrating. “That’s not the point!”

“You should be flattered. I could nap anywhere but I chose your hoodies. That’s like, hybrid affection level five. Minimum.”

“I don’t want to be your nap zone!”

“Well, too late. I’ve claimed it. Squatter’s rights.”

Jisung stared at him, ears twitching so hard they nearly levitated off his head. His tail fluffed out in betrayal. “Squatter’s—You can’t just claim things!”

Chenle tilted his head, hair sticking up in lazy tufts. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. You folded them like you were laying out tiny beds.”

“I am not a nest,” Jisung snapped. “I folded them like a functioning adult because I was going to put them away!”

“Well, now you don’t have to,” Chenle said helpfully. “They’re doing their job.”

“What job? Being your naptime spa?” Jisung groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “This is exactly why my ad said no predators.”

“You need a nap. Want to join?” Chenle patted the edge of the hoodie pile invitingly.

Jisung took one menacing step forward. “Give. Me. My. Hoodie.”

Chenle rolled onto his side and tightened his grip on it, snuggling in deeper. Jisung made a strangled noise and turned on his heel, stomping out of the room with his dignity in shreds. Behind him, Chenle was settling in once more, his purring echoing like gentle thunder through the apartment. 

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

“You’re walking too fast,” Jisung grumbled, struggling to keep up with Chenle’s dash through the automatic doors of the neighborhood market.

“I’m not walking fast,” Chenle said without looking back. “You’re just too slow.”

Jisung huffed, tail lashing behind him like a frustrated metronome. “God forbid I like looking around.”

“You snooze you lose,” Chenle said cheerfully, veering off toward the fresh meat section.

Jisung gritted his teeth and followed, clutching his little grocery list like a lifeline. It was written in neat bullet points, organized by aisle, with color-coded highlights. Chenle did not even glance at it. Didn’t bother with a basket either, for that matter, seeming to always operate on vibes.

“We’re starting with dairy,” Jisung called after him. “That’s the far end. You’re going the wrong way.”

“Meat goes bad faster,” Chenle called back. “And I need to smell everything.”

“What does that even mean?”

This shopping trip had been a bad idea, Jisung thought, watching in horror as Chenle leaned over a package of raw duck, eyes fluttering shut. “Jisung,” Chenle said seriously, “do you ever just inhale a steak and feel at peace with the universe?”

“I’m a herbivore-coded omnivore. I feel at peace with tofu.”

Chenle patted the meat pack like it was a newborn. “Tragic for you.”

Eventually, Jisung managed to herd him toward the dairy section, where it was his turn to spend an embarrassingly long time comparing cheeses.

Chenle hovered behind him with his arms crossed, watching as Jisung picked up a wedge of manchego, inspected it, then gently placed it back. He repeated the process with camembert. Then gouda. Then blue.

“You’re not building IKEA furniture,” Chenle said after the 5th cheese. “Just pick one.”

“This is an important decision,” Jisung replied without looking up. “I need something mellow enough for sad evenings, but bold enough to sustain existential dread.”

“Okay, so not the goat cheese,” Chenle deadpanned. “It's too hopeful.”

“See? You get it.”

Chenle smirked but didn’t comment further. Instead, he reached into a nearby shelf and plucked a small, triangle-shaped cheese wrapped in fancy foil. “This one looks pretentious. You’d like it.”

Jisung stared at it for a second then reluctantly added it to the cart. “...Thanks.”

They moved on to produce, where Jisung carefully selected leafy greens while Chenle got distracted trying to balance a banana on his head. It fell twice and a small child was staring at them the entire time from the end of the aisle.

When they reached the dry goods section, things truly went downhill.

“You’re not buying that cat mousse,” Jisung said, poking at the bright pink tin in Chenle’s hand. “It’s basically meat pudding, how can you even eat that!”

Chenle gasped. “It has omega-3s! You eat cheese with mold in it!”

“It’s aged! That’s culture!”

They were about to spiral into another argument when an older human woman pushed her cart past them, pausing to glance at the two of them bickering in front of the canned goods. “You two make such a cute couple.”

There was a moment of silence. Jisung made a noise like a kettle about to explode before Chenle cut in, smiling charmingly. “Thanks!” 

The woman wheeled away with a chuckle, leaving Jisung frozen in place, his entire body overheating for reasons that he did not want to look at.

Chenle dropped the can into the cart. “Well, that got us out of the awkward ‘roommates’ category. Good job, team.”

“Don’t ever say that to me again.”

Chenle just grinned.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

The changes happened so slowly that Jisung didn’t notice them, but there was this one night when he was standing in the hallway, blanket in hand, muttering threats under his breath for the third time in two weeks.

What was with the blanket, one might ask?

It was not a particularly nice blanket, either. The blue fleece got worn out after so many washes, but he kept it draped over the couch—Jisung’s couch, thank you—and only because he liked being cozy while watching quiet things like documentaries about sustainable grain farming.

You know, civilized content, not cat videos or true crime marathons narrated by irritating people.

But back to the blanket. It was important because it had become a symbol, a bizarre little ritual in the absurd ecosystem that was now their shared apartment.

Every time they fought (which was often), Chenle would sulk on the couch with his back turned, his orange tail twitching with fury. Jisung would scoff, then throw a half-hearted insult over his shoulder like “enjoy freezing to death,” and storm off to his room, swearing he was done.

But he never stayed away.

Five minutes later, like clockwork, he’d creep back into the living room, heart pounding for reasons he refused to name, and toss a blanket over Chenle’s sprawled-out body.

He never lingered, always dropping it and leaving, but each time he listened for the little shuffle that indicated Chenle had curled up with it, then the hitch of breath as he relaxed. 

It was basic decency, nothing more.

This entire ritual began after one of their first “real” arguments. The topic? Dishes, naturally. Well, it started that way; a couple bowls left in the sink, some spoons with unidentifiable sticky residue on them, and a persistent smell that clung to the air.

Jisung had walked into the kitchen after a long day only to find the mess untouched after Chenle had promised to clean yesterday.

And somehow, in the span of a few heated minutes, it escalated from, “Can you please clean up after yourself,” to, “You’re impossible,” and finally, to Jisung slamming his bedroom door a bit more forcefully than necessary.

He paced for a while after that, back and forth, back and forth, tail coiled tight around his ankle. It wasn’t until he sat on the edge of his bed, still fuming, that a little guilt-pang threaded its way in.

Chenle didn’t have his own blanket.

Jisung knew this because he’d mentioned it once, offhandedly, during their first week of living together, something about “not liking the way synthetic fibers cling to fur,” followed by a smug assurance that he “didn’t need one anyway, he was warm-blooded.”

Except the apartment got cold sometimes, and now it was getting late.

He had tried not to think about it and focus on his phone, or his email, literally anything else, but the thought of Chenle curled up on the couch like a sullen stray kept resurfacing. Eventually, with a huff of pure defeat, Jisung yanked his extra throw blanket from the foot of the bed and stomped out of the room. 

This was not forgiveness, he thought to himself. This was just pity.

When he reached the living room, he squinted suspiciously at the form on the couch, half-expecting this to be some new elaborate scheme, maybe round two of Operation Traumatize Jisung. But Chenle was curled in on himself, knees drawn up, one arm tucked beneath his cheek, and his tail was laying limp and still alongside him instead of doing its usual restless flicking. 

He looked so… small. Cute. It was strange to see, honestly, after days of him being a near-constant blur of motion for no discernible reason. Asleep, all of that restless energy had simply drained out of him. 

Chenle’s ears were low, hoodie bunched at his waist, the edge of one sock barely hanging on like he’d kicked it off when he was sulking. Jisung frowned at the sight of it, and not just because it was his sock (again), but because the whole picture wasn’t sitting right with him.

He didn’t like seeing people uncomfortable, not even smug, insufferable cat hybrids who hoarded his hoodies and left dirty forks in the sink. With one last muttered curse at himself, Jisung tossed the blanket at him, and said, as gruffly as he could manage, “Don’t die of hypothermia, I can’t afford the bills.”

Chenle didn’t move, didn’t even open his eyes, but Jisung could feel the reaction, that almost imperceptible shift in the air. The tip of Chenle’s tail gave one slow, satisfied flick.

Jisung glared at him for a few more seconds before turning back toward his room. Behind him, a quiet sentence barely reached his ears: “Thanks, Sungie.”

The second time, the fight was about Chenle’s penchant for always watching things too loudly on his phone.

The other was watching some drama on his phone at full blast while Jisung was clearly trying to read in peace on the couch. That one ended with Jisung muttering about “respecting shared space” and Chenle replying with, “Your ears are just too sensitive, it’s not my fault you’re built like a prey animal.”

More door-slamming, more pacing, and then the blanket, thrown over him again like some kind of peace offering. No eye contact, no words, but Jisung could hear the content sound of a cat hybrid purring as he walked away.

The third time, though, was when Jisung started noticing the pattern.

The blanket always kept ending up in his room. He’d wake up, groggy and grumpy, and there it was, folded (badly) on the foot of his bed, or sometimes crumpled on his desk chair. 

He’d scowl, drag it back to the couch, and toss it over the backrest like a passive-aggressive truce flag. However, by nightfall Chenle would be stretched across the cushions, bare of blanket, eyes closed as if already asleep. 

It was suspicious. He had to be doing it on purpose.

“He’s trying to trick me into covering him,” Jisung muttered one night, standing in the dark hallway with the blanket in hand, glaring into the living room. “Reverse psychology. Classic feline manipulation tactic.”

Chenle, as usual, was curled onto the couch, unbothered by his one person audience. His head was tilted just so against the arm of the cushion, and from this angle Jisung could see the line of his side profile, from the slope of his nose to the lips held almost in a pout.

“Your tail moved,” Jisung said flatly, shaking himself out of the stupor. “You’re awake.”

But of course that Chenle didn’t dignify that with an answer. What he did instead was to let out a very suspicious sigh and buried his face further into the couch cushions.

“You’re faking it,” Jisung hissed, taking a step closer with the blanket still clutched defensively to his chest like a shield. “I know you’re faking it.”

No response.

He should’ve left it. Should’ve walked away and let Chenle suffer blanket-less for once. Instead he grumbled under his breath about being the bigger mammal, and threw the fleece over him with an angry flourish. Chenle didn’t say thank you nor did he purr, but the corners of his mouth lifted when Jisung turned to leave.

As expected, the next morning the blanket found its way back to Jisung’s room, and every night, like clockwork, Chenle was back on the couch, uncovered and waiting.

And Jisung? He covered him every time.

˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Jisung was exhausted. Not physically, because he’d been sleeping slightly better now that Chenle had agreed to “stalk the living room quietly.” But mentally? Emotionally? Existentially? He was wrecked.

He was sprawled on his bed trying to read a book he never got around to finishing, his mug of tea somewhere nearby on the nightstand. 

Chenle had only been living with him for three months, but it felt like years had passed. Loud years. Claw-marked years, filled with unsolicited purring, stolen cheese and being ambushed around the house at random moments.

Living with Chenle was like hosting a natural disaster in your guest room. However, it had been suspiciously quiet for a while. Too quiet.

Jisung stopped looking at the page before him because at this point he was just pretending to read, ears angling instinctively toward the hallway. The apartment wasn’t big, and normally he could hear Chenle somewhere, whether that meant singing nonsense in the shower, dropping utensils in the kitchen, or stomping around in socked feet. 

But now he couldn't make out anything.

Silence, in Jisung’s experience, rarely meant anything good. He set the book down, tail bristling with unease. It’s not that he cared or anything, but, well, a dead roommate would be a massive inconvenience. 

It wouldn’t hurt to check up on him.

When he reached Chenle’s bedroom door, he realized that it was left slightly ajar. Mouse hybrids weren’t usually nosy but boundaries were important, and especially so when it came to predators. Their rooms were private, and while Chenle hadn’t explicitly said Jisung couldn’t go in, he hadn’t said he could, either.

However, his concern outweighed his instincts, so after a quick internal debate he decided it wouldn’t be weird to peek in.

Inside, the room was weirdly tidy for someone so chaotic. The sheets were crisp and tucked in at the corners, the books on the shelves were sorted by color, and there was also a tiny tray of oils and creams on the nightstand, organized like a skincare altar. 

A soft rug was laid in the center of the floor and it looked more like it belonged in a fancy boutique rather than the apartment of a man in his early twenties.

Chenle himself was sitting on the edge of his bed with his head ducked as he tried to work a brush through his tail. From the look of things, his tail was still damp from a recent shower, and it lay coiled beside him in a frizzy, matted mess.

He'd try to run the brush through in even strokes, the way Jisung imagined it was supposed to go, but every few passes he'd hit a snag and wince in frustration. The process looked hard, slower than it probably should’ve been and so meticulous that it made Jisung’s chest ache a little.

His usual smirk wasn’t present either, which should have been the first tell. His ears were drooping low against his damp hair instead of standing up proud and alert like they usually did.

He looked… small. Jisung didn’t think he’d ever seen Chenle small.

When Jisung pushed the door open wider and stepped through, he tried not to look too nervous. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but Chenle looked up, startled, his golden eyes wide.

There was no snark or immediate joke and that alone made Jisung uneasy. “You okay?” Jisung asked. His fingers twitched at his side, unsure if he should hover in the doorway or come closer.

“Yeah.” Chenle shrugged and looked away.

Jisung didn't buy that for a second. He'd known Chenle for barely a couple of months, but he'd learned enough in that time to recognize when a shrug was doing a lot of heavy lifting. "You don’t look it.”

There was a pause, then Chenle muttered, “I hate this part.”

"What part?”

Chenle gestured vaguely to his ears and tail. “The wet, the brushing, the shedding. It all sucks.” He scratched at the base of one ear like it had been bothering him for a while. “I don’t even mind being a hybrid most days. I like who I am, but sometimes it feels like a lot, you know?”

Jisung sat down beside him on the bed, cautious not to touch. “I kind of do. Different stuff, but... I get the ‘feels like a lot’ part.”

Chenle glanced at him, the corner of his mouth twitching up, but he didn’t offer anything else.

“I thought you liked the brushing,” Jisung said after a pause, eyeing the tangled tail. “You always act like it’s a luxury spa treatment.”

Chenle snorted, then shook his head. “Only when someone else does it. Doing it myself sucks. I can’t reach the back properly, and if I leave it too long it tangles, and if I pull too hard it hurts. Ears too.”

He glanced down at the brush again, fingers curling around it. “I know it’s stupid. It’s just fur, but it gets annoying and I feel gross and messy and—whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

Jisung wasn’t good at comforting people. He was way better at huffing and retreating and avoiding eye contact, but this right now felt like it mattered. “Do you want me to help?” he asked softly.

Chenle’s ears twitched, then he looked at Jisung in disbelief. “You? The guy who practically dies when I lick a spoon?”

“I didn’t say I’d lick your tail,” Jisung muttered, a little red in the face. “I said I’d help with the brush.”

Chenle kept staring at him, like he couldn’t quite process the offer. “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Jisung said slowly. “But I want to.”

Chenle hesitated but then turned around, folding his legs and offering his tail forward like it was something delicate. Which it was, and Jisung would know it, as a tail-haver himself.

Awkwardly picking up the brush, he then carefully began to run it through.

He started slow, going from base to tip. The fur was impossibly fine, and Jisung had a feeling it wasn’t only a result of the expensive products he used. It felt thick and way softer than he’d expected. There were knots, but Jisung worked them out with patience, pausing when Chenle shifted or flinched, brushing around them until they loosened on their own.

He worked through the tangles slowly, trying to be gentle and not tug too hard as Chenle sat there, posture relaxing a little more with each stroke, and Jisung took that as a silent compliment.

He smoothed down the last section of fur until the tail lay neat and glossy across Chenle’s lap. The brush had done its job, but Jisung’s fingers lingered anyway, combing through the thick, silky length one final time. 

If Chenle asked, he would claim he was only checking his work when in reality he just wanted to feel its softness for himself. His own mouse tail was sleek and almost sparse by comparison, never this plush or yielding.  

Wow, it was so fluffy! 

Chenle’s fur parted under his touch like warm silk, and Jisung marveled at it internally, barely resisting the urge to bury his whole hand in it. Then Chenle’s ears twitched once, and Jisung hesitated before reaching up.

“You don’t have to,” Chenle said, but it didn't sound like he meant it.

So Jisung did.

The ear itself was cute, which was not a word Jisung threw around lightly, or ever, but there was no other way to describe it. It was a tiny orangle triangle, fur slightly longer at the tips and warm under his fingers, the skin beneath sensitive. 

He applied the fur oil gently, applying a generous amount so he could smooth it in without weighing the ear down. He used his fingers instead of the brush, lightly smoothing the fur along the back of one ear, watching it tilt and flick in response. It was such a small, reflexive thing, but for some reason it made his throat feel tight.

“They always move like that?” Jisung asked quietly, almost embarrassed by how fond he sounded. His own didn’t have quite that big of a range of motion.

“Yeah. It’s not always on purpose.”

Jisung kept going, but the admission made him feel unsteady, like his heartbeat had moved up into his throat. He switched to the other ear, motions slowing when he imagined Chenle struggling to reach this angle himself, straining in the mirror with his tail half-brushed and an expression of resignation.

“You’re really bad at asking for help, you know,” Jisung muttered, not unkindly.

Chenle didn’t open his eyes, but the corner of his mouth curled up. “So are you.”

Touché.

Jisung gave the ear one last caress, brushing his thumb along the outer edge, and let his hand fall to his lap. He didn’t say anything more. Chenle’s posture had completely relaxed, tail resting limply against the bed, the fur smooth and shining, no trace of the stubborn tangles from before. 

It was quiet and surprisingly peaceful after Jisung was done with his task.

This was, somehow, the first time that he'd spent an extended stretch of minutes with Chenle and not once felt the urge to strangle him. Underneath all the smirking and the window-climbing and the reverse psychology, Chenle had a surprisingly calm side when he wasn't performing.

Jisung wasn't totally sure what to do with the fact that he liked him like this. Liked him subdued and gentle, stripped down of his usual bravado.

"I don't get it," Jisung admitted eventually, setting the brush down on the mattress between them. 

Chenle turned towards him. “Get what?”

"You're so confident all the time. Like you're never unsure about anything."

Chenle huffed and flexed his tail once against the blanket, like he wanted to test the smoothness of it. "That's just noise. Doesn't mean I'm always fine." He said it simply, without any of his usual flourish, eyes fixed somewhere on the middle distance. "Confidence is easy. Being okay is a whole different thing."

"Yeah, I guess I know that now."

"Thanks for the help." 

"Anytime," Jisung said, a little startled by how much he meant it.

˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

It was grocery day again, but this time it was different. There was no shouting over cheese, no sneaking mystery items into the cart, and zero arguments about pâté vs. cheese, because they had a system now.

Jisung pushed the cart while Chenle walked ahead, glancing over the list and tossing things in. After some disastrous shopping trips together, they’d finally cracked the code, and even added shared categories: “essentials,” “comfort items,” “non-negotiables” (cheese), and “wildcards” (Chenle's domain).

They moved through the aisles like they'd done this for years but today the store was busier than usual, with too many people and too many smells mixing together, perfume and produce and sweat and meat and—

So many stares, too.

Jisung drew his hood tightly over his ears to conceal them beneath and avoid any lingering glances. His tail had coiled around his ankle like a reflex, tense and twitching every time they passed by someone. He kept close to the shelves, scanning the labels or looking at the bright packaging to distract himself.

He hated this part.

The grocery store was too loud. The fluorescent lights overhead were not helping either, their constant buzzing adding to his already overstimulated disposition. Most people probably didn’t notice the sound, but to him it was like a needle drilling into his skull. Speaking of people, every now and again some would give him sideway glances in passing, and if there was one thing to know about him, it was that Jisung didn’t like to be looked at.

People’s eyes would inevitably linger a second too long on his tail, or on the shape of his ears under the hoodie, or how he flinched when someone brushed past him with a cart. It wasn’t malicious, or at least not always, but it made him feel exposed. It made the muscles in his back tighten like a coiled spring.

The surprising thing was that Chenle noticed pretty fast.

He slowed his pace, easing back to walk beside Jisung instead of ahead like he usually would. Jisung had been watching him out of the corner of his eye, taking idle note how he walked all casual, with his tail swaying lazily behind him, ears flicking with curiosity as he scanned the aisles. A cat at ease in its territory, tracking things just for fun.

Jisung didn’t get how Chenle could move so comfortably through a space like this. How he could wear his hybrid traits so openly. The other never tucked away his ears or his tail when they went out, like he never wanted to minimize himself like Jisung always did.

If anything, Chenle seemed bigger here. He walked like he owned the place, tail flicking every time someone made space for him or stared too long and got a haughty look in return. Jisung almost envied it.

Almost.

Watching Chenle like this, Jisung realised a couple of things. Chenle was scanning the place in the same way that Jisung was, clocking the exits, memorizing faces, keeping track of everything going on around them, ears twitching at every noise and gaze always moving.  He was assessing. A predator’s calm happened because they had control, and to have said control they needed to be alert.

“Hey.”

Jisung startled slightly, broken out of his thoughts. He’d been too busy trying to breathe evenly, gripping the cart handle like it was the only thing tethering him to the ground.

“You ok?” Chenle asked, bumping their shoulders lightly. 

“It’s too loud.”

“Yeah, it is.” 

They stood in the middle of the cereal aisle, a sea of bright boxes and screaming children all around them. Jisung’s fingers twitched against the metal, wishing he could disappear into the floor.

Chenle reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim case and opened it, retrieving a single earbud, and offered it without a word. Jisung looked at it in confusion.

“It’s not much,” Chenle said. “But it helps.”

Jisung hesitated, then took it and slipped it into his ear. A soft and lo-fi song was playing from it, and it wrapped around his brain like a blanket. He exhaled shakily.

Chenle leaned closer and said, just loud enough to be heard over the music, “You don’t have to listen to all the noise if you don’t want to.”

Jisung turned to look at him and offered a smile. “Thanks.”

Chenle shrugged, hands in his pockets. “You brushed my tail when it was a disaster zone. Least I can do is keep your brain from short-circuiting in public.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice, but his eyes were sincere.

Jisung turned his attention back to the shelves, feeling his posture slowly relaxing. The store didn’t magically become any less crowded, but it mattered less now. He looked at the cereal in front of him, then pointed to a box of chocolate puffs. “That one’s my comfort pick.”

Chenle smirked. “Seriously? You’re such a sugar mouse.”

“Shut up and grab it.”

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

The café was Jisung’s favorite, because it was quiet and no one looked twice at hybrid customers. The chairs were big enough to accommodate tails, the music was calming, and Jaemin always picked a booth with the best view of the exit, just in case Jisung needed to flee if things got too overwhelming.

Today, Jisung was poking at a slice of banana bread while Jaemin sipped away at his iced coffee. “You’ve been smiling to yourself for five minutes straight,” he suddenly said.

Jisung caught himself but it must have been too late. “No, I haven’t.”

“You keep smiling at your banana bread.”

“It’s a good banana bread.” His ears twitched downward in embarrassment. Was he being that obvious?

“It’s Chenle, isn’t it?” Jaemin asked, leaning forward to steal a bite from his plate. 

“No.” Yes it was.

“That was fast,” Jaemin said. “Immediate denial, so it's definitely about Chenle.”

Jisung let out a groan and slumped forward, forehead thudding against the table. “He is still a menace. He startled me from inside the hallway closet last night.”

Jaemin bit back a laugh while he chewed. “He’s creative. I’ll give him that.”

“You’re enjoying this,” Jisung wailed through a glare that had zero effect on Jaemin.

“Very much. But also, seriously you're… lighter. Calmer. You don’t flinch every time someone walks too close. That hasn’t been true in a while.”

Jisung couldn’t really deny it.

He stared at the crumbs on his plate, then at the sunlight dancing across the wood of their table. “He noticed I was overwhelmed at the store, and he didn’t say anything dumb, or call attention to it. Just gave me one of his earbuds.”

Jaemin wasn’t saying anything, just kept watching him from across the table as he listened.

“And when he’s not trying to sneak into the closet for no reason, he…” Jisung paused, pondering on how to put it. Chenle was someone that you had to experience to understand. “He gives me space. He’s loud, but he never pushes when I really need quiet. And if I ask him to stop doing something, he mostly stops.”

“That sounds like you trust him.”

Jisung's tail was curling against the booth cushion in absent arcs, a contrast to the wheels turning in his head. “…Yeah,” he said finally, staring at the rim of his mug. “I think I do.”

“So you like him.”

“I tolerate him,” Jisung jumped to clarify. “With… surprising fondness.”

But even as the words left his mouth, he could feel the edges of his own denial softening. Somewhere along the way, all the petty bickering and their mismatched sleep schedules and Chenle always hogging the hot water no longer weighed so heavy on him.

He started thinking of the apartment as warm rather than cramped, and their evenings had a routine by now. He liked knowing the rustle in the kitchen was Chenle making tea with far too much honey, or that the lump on the couch was him, snoring into a pile of (stolen) hoodies. 

If he came home after a rough day, he knew there might be a snack left on the counter with a note in Chenle’s messy scrawl. Jisung hadn’t realized it in the moment, but looking back, he could trace the slow building of comfort. 

They’d really learned to navigate each other’s quirks, after all.

Was this really affection, or was it maybe the strange, unexpected relief of being seen and not having to flinch away from it? Chenle was a lot of things: annoying, loud, occasionally insufferable, but he was also gentle in ways Jisung hadn’t expected, thoughtful when it mattered and quiet when Jisung needed silence the most. 

That had to mean something.

Jisung didn’t say all that to Jaemin, choosing instead to take another sip of his drink and muttering, “He’s tolerable.”

“You’re lying, I know you like him,” Jaemin said, reaching out and dragging the last piece of banana bread toward himself. “You’re going to look me in the eye and admit you have a crush on your cat roommate.”

“I’m going to admit I have a brain disease,” Jisung answered. “Caused by excessive feline exposure.”

Jaemin just smiled, chewing thoughtfully.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

If anyone were to ask, Jisung would blame it on the fact that the changes that continued to unfold happened so slowly that he didn’t notice them for what they were.

It started with the noise. Or rather with the lack of it. Chenle had stopped stomping around after midnight, which in itself was a small and easy to miss thing. He still stayed up too late watching his cooking shows and snacked at ungodly hours, but the volume had dropped. 

Sometimes, on the days when Jisung came home looking hollowed-out and worn thin from hours of holding himself together in front of other people, Chenle cooked them both something warm and plain and they’d share that while making idle conversation. 

Then it was the cheese.

Jisung opened the fridge one evening after a rough work day, and he’d been kinda bracing to find his favorite wheel of aged gouda ravaged. It was gone indeed, as expected, but in its place was a new cheese. A better cheese, actually; definitely imported. It was wrapped carefully, with a sticky note that read:

“Thought you deserved something fancier than stress cheddar.” – CL

It wasn't a one-time thing, either. Another evening, weeks later, Jisung had offhandedly mentioned a childhood memory involving smoked scamorza, and it mysteriously showed up in their fridge soon after.

Chenle had money. Jisung had suspected as much for a while, judging from the sleek hoodies that definitely weren't from the same stores Jisung shopped at, or the name-brand headphones, but he never flaunted it outright. He bought things for others, like fancy olive oil for Renjun or silly plushies for Jaemin, and now apparently imported cheese for Jisung.

That wasn’t to say that Jisung himself remained unchanged. He, too, adjusted to their new rhythm.

When Chenle’s tail brushed thoughtlessly against him in passing he no longer flinched from it, and when Chenle had a particularly bad day or got overstimulated, Jisung brought out the brush without being asked.

His newest revelation happened during a random day as he came home from work. He opened the apartment door, took off his shoes, and walked into the living room like normal, intent on going to put his groceries away only to stop dead in his tracks.

Chenle was curled up on the couch, fast asleep with one arm under his head, and that in itself was normal. His tail was laying beside him like an adorable question mark, and the afternoon sun that came through the blinds was catching in the fine fur of his ears, lighting them up gold.

And he was purring, which again was normal, but Jisung's brain had simply short-circuited once he’d heard it, grocery bag hanging forgotten from his wrist.

Chenle's features looked impossibly soft in sleep, their usual sharpness smoothed away, and the sight of him folded so cutely on their couch, like it was simply where he belonged, like there was nowhere else he'd rather be unconscious, made Jisung’s chest inexplicably squeeze. 

It was the first time Jisung had heard the purring like this, when Chenle wasn’t showing off, or curling smugly into someone’s lap for attention. 

This was just him being happy in their shared house.

He didn’t expect to like it. In fact, when he’d first learned that Chenle was a cat hybrid, the idea of purring had unsettled him more than he’d wanted to admit. The sound felt too feline, instinctively foreign to his little prey-animal brain and too close to the sound a predator might make before pouncing.

But this wasn’t that. This purring brought comfort.

Jisung found himself standing there too long, eyes tracing the curve of Chenle’s tail and the slow rise and fall of his chest. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was stupidly endearing how peaceful he looked in that moment.

“Cute,” Jisung mumbled before he could stop himself.

Then he blinked, horrified at himself. He glanced around the apartment, like Jaemin might jump out at any second to gloat about being right, and in his haste he dropped the keys that clattered noisily onto the floor.

Chenle startled awake, blinking up at him with dazed eyes. “…You’re home,” he mumbled. “Did you get the cheese?”

Jisung just stared.

Chenle’s ears gave a slow, sluggish twitch atop his head, like they hadn’t caught up to the rest of him yet. “Jisung?”

“I—” Jisung’s voice cracked. “Yeah, the cheese. I got it, it’s here.” And then he lifted the grocery bag that was still dangling from his hand.

The purring had faded, gone the second Chenle woke up, and Jisung felt an illogical pang of loss over its absence. Chenle squinted at him some more, pushing himself upright on the couch. "You okay? You look weird."  

“I’m fine,” Jisung said, feeling the exact opposite of fine. “Great.”

“Did someone eat your cheese on the way?”

“No. No cheese crime.” There was a pause, and then it just fell out of him before he could stop it. “You were purring.” 

“Yeah? Cats do that.”

“No, I know, I just—” Jisung’s tail swished erratically behind him. “It was loud. Not like, loud loud, but… warm. I mean, it sounded warm. You looked—" He cut himself off once he saw the smirk spreading across Chenle’s features.

“You like my purring,” came the smug reply.

“Nope.”

“You think it’s cute, admit it.”

“I’m leaving.” And he actually did leave, turning around to march toward the kitchen like he should have from the very beginning, heart pounding.

But later, when he was alone in his room under his blanket, he closed his eyes and he could swear that the phantom sound of that purr followed him into his dreams. And he didn’t sleep badly at all.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

There was a pebble at his door, small and smooth, with a tinge of pink in the middle of it like it was embarrassed to exist. It was sitting dead center in front of his bedroom door one morning, and for a second Jisung thought it had rolled there by accident. 

Maybe Chenle had kicked it while dragging in some bizarre trinket haul. He’d seen the guy bring home a paper lantern shaped like a fish once, so nothing surprised him anymore. He rolled his eyes, nudged the pebble aside with his toe, and moved on.

But the next day, there was a feather in its place, and not a regular feather either. This one was sleek and iridescent, looking like it should belong in the border of a fancy hat, not laying at his doorstep. Again, no explanation. Weird.

Then came the shiny bead. Then the ribbon. Then the enamel pin shaped like a tiny fish. Always something small and oddly thoughtful in its randomness, like someone had been watching him very closely and said, “Yes, you need a glittering rock in your life. And here, have this very tiny cheese sticker. For… reasons.”

Jisung started tossing the objects in an old mug on his desk, unsure what else to do with them. Throwing them away felt like tempting fate and asking Chenle outright felt like giving him the satisfaction of knowing he was noticed.

Because, let’s be honest, if this was Chenle, it was probably a joke. What else could it be other than a weird game of his or some cat ritual of marking territory with trinkets and shiny things?

Jisung had googled it once at 2 AM out of sheer curiosity, and apparently some hybrids, especially feline ones, had gathering instincts. Nesting behavior. But that was more about collecting things for themselves, right? Not scattering them around like a sparkly breadcrumb trail outside someone else’s room.

Jisung wasn’t sure if it was the mystery of it that annoyed him more, or the implication that he was being messed with.

He was already dealing with enough at work, and then Renjun sent some cryptic voice notes about an argument with Jeno, and to top it off, Chenle had decided that the kitchen counter was the perfect place to air-dry his tail brush.

So when the worst Tuesday of his month arrived — a day full of humidity and malfunctioning headphones and passive-aggressive emails from his boss — Jisung was teetering on the edge. He came home sweating and snappish and almost hissed at the building’s elevator for being too slow.

And what do you know? Right there, in front of his door, was another item.

This time, it was a keychain; a little slice of cheese made out of plush, with a smiling face and beady eyes, bright yellow and unapologetically cheerful. He stared at it. The beady eyes stared back. 

Then he picked it up and marched into the apartment, following the familiar scent of Chenle’s latest fish-based snack that assaulted his senses. “You,” Jisung snapped.

The hybrid was sprawled on the living room floor, watching a show on his tablet. Chenle blinked up at him. “Me?”

“You’ve been putting this junk in front of my door again, haven’t you?” 

“What junk?” Chenle sat up and turned off whatever video he’d been watching. 

“This junk!” He gestured wildly at the plush dangling from his fingers like evidence. “All of it! Pebbles, feathers, random trash! Who else would it be?”

“So you did notice,” he said.

“That’s not the point,” Jisung scowled, feeling the heat rising behind his ribcage. “It’s weird. Are you that bored? Do you get some kind of kick out of watching me get confused? Because congrats, it’s working. But seriously, I don’t need more distractions right now.”

“They’re not junk,” Chenle interrupted, a shadow of something passing over his expression before it settled on a frown. “They’re... never mind.”

“No, you don’t get to say ‘never mind’ after cluttering my door like I’m some kind of collection box for stray trash,” Jisung barked, frustration boiling over. In a distant part of his brain he knew he was kind of overdoing it, but he couldn’t stop.

“Do you have any idea how stressful it’s been trying to live with you? You’re loud at night, you steal my food, you leave your brushes everywhere, and now you’re dropping things at my door for me to pick up?”

Chenle stared at him, ears flattened against his head. “Where is this even coming from? I thought— I thought we were fine.”

Jisung let out an incredulous laugh. “Fine? You think this is fine? You barge into my life, decide you’re going to live here, and then you do whatever you want. I don’t say anything because I’m trying to be polite, but you— you take advantage of it. You never think about what it’s like for me.”

Silence.

Chenle didn’t look offended or angry like he expected him to. Instead he looked stunned, and his usually animated tail was laying limply by his side too. “Oh, okay,” he said quietly. He stood, brushing off invisible dust from his sweats. “Sorry I made your life so miserable then,” was the last thing he said before he disappeared into his room.

Jisung's jaw clenched, feeling how the guilt pressed into his ribs, but the tension had wound him too tightly to apologize or take anything back. After a moment he turned around and walked back to his room as well, closing the door behind him. His tail was twitching uncontrollably, ears pressed so flat to his scalp that they ached. 

He shouldn't have snapped like that.

Jisung rubbed at his face with both hands, trying to massage the tension out of his temples. He hadn't meant to go that hard. Everything had just... piled up. The assignments, the noise, the weird energy between them lately.

Chenle always seemed to be around; in his space, in his thoughts, eating his cheese and dropping trinkets like some chaotic fairy. It was overwhelming. 

He sank onto his bed, realizing belatedly that he was still holding onto the stupid keychain. He turned it over in his hand to examine it once more, taking in the beady eyes and the tiny stitched smile.

Stupid. 

Cute.

"I’ll apologize tomorrow," he told the ceiling.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Jisung woke up disoriented and with a dry mouth after a night of fitful sleep. For a second he just lay there to stare at the ceiling, letting last night’s events unfurl and actually cringed at himself when he replayed the memory of the fight. Why did he yell like that? 

After a bit more tossing and turning he finally braced himself and shuffled into the kitchen, mind set on apologizing. It was fine. They fought before and managed to make peace again. They’d surely patch things up before lunch time.

The apartment was quiet when he padded down the hallway, no sound of slurping or videos blaring from Chenle’s phone, no smell of questionable foods being reheated at 8 a.m. Jisung blinked at the empty kitchen, straining his ears for any sound that might give away the whereabouts of his roommate. 

Nothing.

“Maybe he’s out,” he mumbled to himself. Chenle did like to visit that weird hybrid supply store with overpriced jerky and combs made of bamboo. 

Opening the fridge, he saw that Chenle’s favorite yogurt drink was in the exact same spot it had been two days ago, and that’s when a tiny prick of unease began to bloom in his chest. He checked the living room next, but that too was empty. The hallway mirror showed nothing but Jisung’s own frown when he passed it by.

“Chenle?” he called.

No answer.

He hesitated in the hallway, ears flicking nervously as he stared at the closed door across from his own. He didn’t like going in Chenle’s room. Even if Chenle seemed to be fine with it, it was still his space, and as previously established, you don’t just go into a predator’s den uninvited.

But things didn’t feel right. He knocked once, then pushed the door open when no reply came.

The room looked the same it did when he was last inside, maybe save for the different bedding and a stray hoodie draped over the back of a chair. The window was open to let in fresh air, and he saw the fur products exactly where they’d been last time too.

Seeing that everything was still there reassured him more than he expected, though he couldn’t quite say why. Did some part of him truly believe Chenle might leave without a word?

“He’ll be back,” he muttered aloud. “He’s just being dramatic.”

And Chenle was dramatic indeed, but not to the level that he'd up and leave...right? He’d never disappeared before, and with that thought in mind, Jisung set off to make breakfast. 

“He’ll be back,” he said again, willing himself to believe it.

By day two, Jisung was lowkey panicking. It wasn't like he’d been waiting around for Chenle or anything. Not like he paced around, heart jumping at every noise that might indicate Chenle was coming back. That would be ridiculous. He had other things to do, except somehow he kept ending up in the kitchen doorway with his phone in his hand, thumb hovering over the screen while he checked for a message that wasn't there. 

The silence was unbearable.

Maybe he was visiting family. Maybe he just needed space. He turned all these thoughts over anyway, poking at them like a bruise, trying to make it hold, but couldn’t. 

Without Chenle around the apartment felt wrong, like it had gone grayscale. It was too quiet and neat, which was not a thought that Jisung ever thought he’d have. Him, disliking silence? And yet here he was, turning on some music just to fill the space. 

Jisung kept waiting to catch a familiar orange tail disappearing around a corner, or to hear a voice sing-song “Jisungie~” from down the hall, since Chenle couldn’t imagine a single moment without saying his name in the most annoying tone possible, but none of that happened.

The ceramic mug kept sitting on the corner of Jisung’s desk, full of the gathered trinkets that he’d meant to throw out. The collected evidence and the whole stupid reason this had started. 

Jisung tried not to stare at it too closely, because if he kept looking at it he was going to have to think about why Chenle had been leaving him things at all, but it was on the third day that Jisung gave in and Googled it.

“Why does my cat keep bringing me weird objects?”

He scrolled past the surface-level pet care blogs until a hybrid discussion thread caught his eye. 

“It’s a gift behavior,” the top comment read. “A way of expressing affection or bonding. Feline types will leave small objects, particularly shiny or personally meaningful ones, for people they like or trust.”

Jisung reread that sentence multiple times until the words blurred together on the screen, then stared at the mug sitting on his desk like it might bite him. Realistically, though, it had already done its damage. 

He stood up and began to slowly pull the trinkets out, one by one. They were gifts. They were gifts that Chenle thought he’d like, and not random like he’d presumed.

He pressed a palm to his chest, not sure what to do with the warmth blooming there, slowly mixing with the guilt. He’d been so tired and stressed that day, so quick to snap and to say the ugliest version of what he didn’t really mean.

Chenle hadn’t fought back or made a scene, and that hurt more than anything. Thinking back about all the times he'd unloaded on Chenle, he realized that the other never really got mad. Didn't complain about much either, always absorbing Jisung’s bad moods like a wall built to take exactly that kind of weight. 

Jisung had never once wondered what it cost to be a wall. He sat down heavily on his bed with his tail curled around his feet, the tiny plush cheese keychain still in his hand.

Where are you? he thought. The silence offered him no answers.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Being alone sucked, Jisung concluded somewhere around hour fifty of Chenle-less silence, and it had taken an empty apartment to make him tally up everything that had changed since Chenle moved in.

It turns out that somewhere in the last few months since his entire life had been insidiously colonized by one loud cat hybrid, lots of things had changed, and most of them for the better.

"This is so stupid," he told the ceiling.

You got used to him, admit it. He made it better and then you yelled at him over some pebbles. Jisung sighed, flopping over and covering his face with a pillow. He needed to talk to someone before he exploded. 

Grabbing his phone, he dialed the only person who could offer sensible input, not giving himself time to back out. The phone rang twice before Renjun picked up. “Hey,” he answered. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk.”

“Uh-huh,” Renjun said, clearly not buying it. “You called me before noon on a weekend for a friendly chat?”

“Can’t I just call you?” Jisung snapped, then immediately winced, curling in on himself. “Sorry. That came out wrong.” Again. What was with him and putting his foot in his mouth lately?

Renjun just hummed, unimpressed. “Did it, though?”

"I messed up. With Chenle." Jisung admitted, deciding to bite the bullet and say the thing before he lost his nerve. The thing about Renjun was that he'd never crack, so he'd sit there waiting until Jisung either came clean or dropped it.

“Messed up how?”

“Well, we fought, kinda. Over something stupid.” He eyed the trinket mug again, forcing down the lump in his throat. “I told him he was annoying and that he was making my life harder. I didn’t mean it, obviously, but I was frustrated and it came out super wrong. And now he disappeared somewhere and I can't stop worrying about it."

"What do you mean disappeared? Did he leave?" Renjun asked, voice taking on the edge of reproach.

"Yeah." Jisung felt his face heat, mortification creeping up his neck at having to say it out loud and face what he caused. "I don't think I've been the greatest person to live with either, if I'm being honest. I was always on him for stuff. Acting like the apartment was my space instead of, you know, ours." He let out a humorless laugh. "Pretty shitty, actually, now that I'm saying it out loud." 

He was aware he was rambling, but he’d been keeping all of this locked behind his teeth for days. Maybe weeks at this point. Being honest might do him some good, and what better person to listen than the one who’d known him and his quirks?

He’d expected Renjun to call him an idiot, or maybe to launch into one of those dry, cutting lectures that he was so good at. Instead, Renjun stayed silent, giving him the space to keep unraveling.

Jisung exhaled, pressing the heel of his palm to his eye. “The apartment’s too quiet and I keep looking over like he’s about to pop around the corner but he’s not there. And I hate it.”

"Okay, well." Renjun's voice came back gentler than Jisung expected, missing the judgement he'd braced for. "That doesn't make you a bad person, Jisungie. It makes you a person who got uncomfortable and didn't communicate properly. That's fixable."

Jisung sniffed, blinking hard at the ceiling. "It doesn't feel easy."

"I said it's fixable, not easy." Finally a little laugh. "Realizing you were kind of a dick about the apartment was probably the hardest part, but it’s good that you did all that soul searching.” 

"I had to," Jisung said. "I don't think it's been all that bad to live with him lately. He changed. I changed. I don't know when it got like that, but it’s easier to live with him than I’ve ever realized." 

“You miss him,” was what Renjun finally offered, after he was done pouring out the confession.

“I do.” Jisung’s voice cracked around the admission. “I shouldn’t have said those things."

When Renjun’s voice returned, nothing could have prepared Jisung for what came out as he said, a little smugly, “Well, now that you’ve come to your senses, are you coming to collect your cat or what?”

“Wait, what?” Jisung sat up straight, sure that he must have misheard.

“He’s been here for three days,” Renjun said. “Shedding all over my couch and pretending he’s not moping. Jeno’s about to reach his tolerance level soon.”

“You—! You let me spiral!”

“I let you process,” Renjun corrected. “Which you clearly needed. So? You coming to get him?”

Joke’s on him, because Jisung was already on his feet, hurrying towards the door. "I'm on my way."

He ended the call with his heart thumping faster. This was it. He had no idea what he’d say yet but what he knew what that he was going to try. He missed Chenle, and he was done pretending he didn’t.

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Renjun buzzed him in without a word, and Jisung almost turned around three separate times on the way up the stairs.

His tail twitched nervously behind him, ears flicking at every tiny sound. He clutched the stupid peace offering in his hand — a small package of smoked cheese and a ribbon-wrapped pack of jerky he’d panicked into buying at the convenience store like an idiot.

The moment Renjun opened the door, Jisung was greeted with the overwhelming scent of air freshener. Jeno sat in the kitchen with his headphones on, eyes closed like he was spiritually transcending to escape the chaos, and on the couch, half-buried under a blanket and a pile of Renjun’s decorative pillows, was Chenle.

He was in an oversized hoodie, feet kicked up on the armrest, tail hanging limply off the cushion. His ears flicked at the sound of the door and his head turned around to glance at the new presence in the room.

Jisung froze.

Chenle blinked at him, slow and unimpressed, like he hadn’t disappeared for three days and driven Jisung to the brink of emotional ruin.

Jisung hovered in the doorway, heart hammering against his ribs. “Hi.”

Chenle didn’t respond, just blinked again and pulled the blanket higher over his chest.

“Look, I was a jerk,” Jisung dared again, inching closer to the couch.

Renjun, hovering in the background, just muttered, “Understatement of the year,” and then disappeared into the kitchen. Jisung ignored him. He shuffled forward awkwardly, clutching the gifts behind his back.

“I want to apologize for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I was tired and overwhelmed and—okay, that’s not an excuse, but it wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have said that living with you was bad.” He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because it’s not. Not even close.”

In spite of the perked up ears on top of his head, the reply Chenle offered was dry. “Really?”

Jisung nodded. “I got used to you,” he said, and it felt so dumb to admit it out loud, but it was true. “I, uh… brought peace offerings.”

He pulled out the plastic bag and held it out. “I got some cheese. The good kind. And this, um—” he fished inside the bag, avoiding the gaze he felt on him, “a sardine-shaped stress ball. It was in the clearance bin but felt appropriate.”

Chenle blinked at all of it, still unmoving. “That’s your apology?” he asked flatly.

“No. That’s just—it made me think of you,” Jisung hurried to explain, trying not to fold in on himself. He moved toward the couch, lowering himself onto the edge like he was afraid Chenle would lunge at him.

“I was a jerk,” Jisung said softly. “I said some really awful things but I didn’t mean them. I was overwhelmed and I didn’t understand what you were trying to do. With the trinkets, I mean.”

“You mean the ‘random junk I keep dumping at your door’?” Chenle raised an eyebrow. 

“Okay, yeah, I deserve that.”

“I don’t care if you didn’t like the stuff, but you made it sound like I was being invasive. Like I was annoying. And I know I joke around a lot, but I’m not… unbotherable.”

Jisung’s mouth opened, then closed again. He really had said that. He’d said it thinking Chenle could take it, that nothing ever stuck to him. But that wasn’t true, was it? Just because Chenle carried himself like nothing mattered didn’t mean he wasn’t affected, and it took one stupid fight to make Jisung realize he’d rather chew off his own foot than make Chenle sad again.

“I know. I know how it must’ve sounded. I was trying to ask for space, but I phrased it like you were doing something wrong, and you weren’t. I kept everything you gave me, by the way,” he added quickly. “I went through each one and I think I get it now. You were leaving me little pieces of you. Of your day. Things that made you think of me.”

Chenle, who up until then had been silently watching him from his corner of the couch, finally unfurled himself and reached out to take the stress ball from Jisung’s hand, turning it over in his fingers. 

“Thought you were going to say you wanted your space back,” he muttered, eyes downcast.

Fair assumption, but ouch. “I do need space sometimes. It’s a mouse thing, but I should’ve said that instead of blowing up, and I’ll keep working on being clearer. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t want you around. Because I do.”

Here went nothing. “I, um…I do want something back, though.” 

Chenle’s eyes flicked up, curious. Jisung held his breath, feeling his cheeks warming up, and blurted, “I want my cat back.”

At first, nothing, and then Chenle let out an ugly snort, followed by the first genuine laugh during this entire conversation. “That was so bad.”

“Yeah, well.” Jisung’s ears twitched in embarrassment. “I’m trying, okay? Please come home.”

Chenle leaned against the armrest and smirked. “Okay. Let’s go home, then.”

Renjun re-appeared in the doorway with his arms crossed, looking at them not unlike a disappointed dad who had just watched his two kids throw a tantrum in a grocery store. “You’re both idiots,” he said flatly and waved a hand to signal he was banishing them. “Out. Go. Take your unresolved tension and weird pheromones and leave my apartment in peace.”

“Thanks for cat-sitting him,” Jisung sheepishly threw over his shoulder, hurrying toward the door.

Chenle was already halfway down the hall, tail swishing behind him. “Don’t worry, Renjun-hyung. I’m going back where I belong.”

“Don’t say weird things!” Jisung called after him, ears going red once more.

Renjun leaned against the doorframe and muttered, “God help you both,” loud enough for Jisung to hear as he passed. Jeno, still in the kitchen with his headphones on, lifted a lazy hand in farewell.

As the door clicked shut behind them, Chenle bumped his shoulder against Jisung’s and said, “That went well.”

Jisung gave him a sideways glance. “I think we owe Renjun snacks. Or therapy.”

 ˚⟡˖ ᓚᘏᗢ- ᓚᘏᕐᐷ ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Chenle paused inside the hallway when they got back, gaze landing on Jisung’s bag where it hung from the coat hook. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Is that…”

Jisung swallowed upon realizing what he saw, because dangling from one of the zippers was the tiny cheese-shaped keychain. 

“You kept it,” he said, reaching out to touch it lightly with his fingers like he wanted to make sure it was real. 

“I told you, I kept all of them since the beginning.”

Chenle turned toward him.

“I didn’t really get it at first,” Jisung admitted. “I thought you were trying to mess with me. You know, being weird. Classic Chenle™.” He rushed to continue when Chenle gave him a semi exasperated look. “But then it changed. When you left, the apartment felt emptier and I started missing all the weird stuff. And you. Mostly you.”

Jisung shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hands deep in his hoodie pocket, wondering why the hallway suddenly felt more narrow than usual. “I just…I wasn't sure if I was reading things right about you." 

His tail curled around his own ankle, betraying his nervousness no matter how casual he tried to make his voice sound. 

Chenle looked amused, and in the light of the hallway his eyes seemed more feline than ever, catching the glow and making Jisung’s heart trip over itself. “Reading things right?” he echoed, coming in closer. “Jisung, you’re silly.”

By the time he stopped, they were so close together that Jisung could feel the warmth of his breath against his skin. “Silly?”

“I like you, dummy.”

“Oh,” Jisung said, a little dumbly. 

Cool, cool cool cool. He should say something back, say anything back and use his mouth, use the mouth— 

“Took you long enough,” Chenle chided and heat flared across Jisung’s face so quickly he was certain it must be visible even in the dark.

“Okay, well! I was emotionally overwhelmed,” he managed, words tumbling over one another, “and distracted by all the shiny objects you kept throwing at me!”

“I like you, Jisung,” Chenle repeated, like it mattered more than anything else he’d ever said.

Jisung stared at him. 

Chenle was just standing there with his hands swallowed by his hoodie sleeves, ears drooping a little like he, too, was trying not to seem nervous but couldn't quite help it. When had Jisung learned to read Chenle's ears that fluently? 

"I like you too," is what came out, finally, embarrassingly late. "Obviously. I mean hopefully it’s obvious, because I thought that was — I thought I made that clear with the whole, the —" 

"It was obvious to me," Chenle said. "I think I can read you pretty well by now."

“And you’re not joking?”

Chenle’s eyes crinkled. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Honestly? Kind of. You always look like you’re five seconds away from pranking me, but I'm choosing to believe you because I like you too. I’d feel really stupid if I got emotionally wrecked over a guy who eats dried anchovies as a snack.”

Chenle didn't dignify that with an answer, which was probably for the better. Instead he took one step closer, gaze fond, and all Jisung could think in that moment was: he’s going to kiss me. And that was terrifying. 

Not because he didn’t want it, but because he’d never imagined what kissing a predator would feel like, and now he was seconds away from finding out.

Jisung, don't be stupid, he told himself. This was Chenle. Chenle who was warm, and nice, who smelled like clean cotton and a little like floral shampoo. Who was leaning in slow, his hand coming up to cup Jisung’s cheek and brush a thumb under his eye. 

“Can I?” he asked. 

Jisung nodded; or tried to, but it felt more like a twitch. He wanted it so much that his fingers tightened into fists just to keep from pulling him down faster.

And then Chenle kissed him.

It was softer than Jisung had braced for, which in hindsight was stupid of him to think, because of course it was soft. This lovesick cat fool had been leaving pebbles at his door for weeks, what else did he expect? 

When Chenle parted his lips, his tongue brushed carefully along Jisung’s bottom lip and Jisung let out a tiny, involuntary squeak that had his ears twitch. Heat exploded over his face and he mentally cringed at himself for all of a second before Chenle made a low sound back, such a pretty purring noise from deep in his chest.

Oh.

Were Jisung’s reactions pleasing to him? That purr should not have helped, but miraculously it did. Almost without realizing it, Jisung’s arms had slipped around Chenle’s middle, splaying his hands against his back, relishing in the rise and fall of Chenle’s breathing he could feel under his palms. 

It was lazy and exploratory. Maybe a little too smooth for Jisung’s current mental state, because how was Chenle so good at this? The other had angled their heads a bit better, letting the kiss linger and drawing it out until Jisung’s stomach went all warm.

The only thing that mattered was that Chenle was here, holding him, kissing him like he wanted to be nowhere else. His whole body buzzed. Jisung pressed himself closer and he got a nip to his bottom lip in reward, the edge of teeth reminding him that this was a predator he was making out with, lovesick or not. 

At present, he was totally content with being eaten.

Eventually, Chenle pulled back to look at him. His lips were glossy and pink, (well kissed, Jisung’s mind supplied), and there was a pleased curve at the corner of his mouth, smug but fond. 

Jisung stared at him in return, trying to get his bearings.

“What is it?” Chenle asked, like he hadn’t just kissed him senseless in the hallway, and Jisung blurted “You’re a really good kisser,” like the fool he was.

"Good to know," he said, tucking a strand of hair back from Jisung's face, and it was so tender that Jisung barely kept himself from biting his own fist. "Because I plan on doing a lot more of it." 

Jisung groaned and buried his face in Chenle’s hoodie, his voice muffled as he mumbled, “Don’t be hot and cocky. It’s rude.”

“Too late. You’re stuck with me now.”

And, honestly, Jisung didn’t mind how that sounded at all.