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Tang has a problem.
Right now, Tang's problem is The Big Oaf lying right in his spot, in the very middle of Warm Rug Time, the time of day when a sunbeam hits the rug just right and makes it the best place to nap. But Tang cannot nap there right now. Why? Because The Big Oaf has come, The Big Oaf is making the rug smell like dog, and now The Big Oaf must pay.
Tang watches him from the top of the bookshelf. He is folded into a tight loaf, paws tucked out of sight, and the only part of him that moves is the very tip of his tail. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He supposes, in a bigger way, everyone is to blame for this.
Earlier, Tang's human, Butt Pats, opened the door. The Loud One, who is sometimes at the door when Butt Pats opens it, came in. Tang does not mind The Loud One. He is, in fact, impressed by his hunting practices. But this time, The Loud One has gone too far.
This time, he brought The Big Oaf.
As soon as they arrived, The Big Oaf galloped in, jumping on the people and prancing around with an embarrassing lack of decorum. Then he started sniffing around eagerly until his nosy muzzle brought him right to Tang's paws.
Bap.
Tang's ears drew back like the wings of an airplane as he held up a paw, ready to swat the dog again.
Bap. Bap. Bap.
This was the result of the dog's unfortunate decision to try to sniff Tang a second time.
The Big Oaf cowered in front of him, his muzzle resting on his big oaf paws.
"Sorry… why are you in airplane-mode? Uhm, what's your name?"
Tang glowered at him.
"Ah, okay. I'll call you hyung. It's what dog-like people call cat-like people. Anyway, sorry, hyung."
Clearly not knowing when to quit, the dog continued. "My person calls me Bam, or Bamah, Bamiya, Bamtori, Gunbam, Ay Shibal or my favorite, Agi. But you can call me Dogsaeng. It's what cat-like people call dog-like people."
Tang wouldn't call him anything other than what he was: The Big Oaf.
The Big Oaf whined and tried to pounce. "Do you want to play? I love to play."
He dropped his front half into a deep bow, his back end wiggling so hard his whole body shook.
"It's not my favorite, but we can play more of the face-smacking game. Dogsaengs are supposed to always get their way because they're babies, but I don't mind playing your game, because I'm a good boy. My person always says so."
Tang's only reply was a slow, disdainful blink. But he wasn’t even sure Oaf deserved the eye movement.
The Big Oaf waited, his tail thumping hopefully against the floor. When his new hyung remained unmoved, The Big Oaf's ears drooped, and his entire body seemed to deflate. He trudged to the middle of the rug and collapsed, stretching out his long, oafish limbs with a loud groan, his big, sad eyes fixed pitifully on Tang.
Refusing to engage any further with such an undignified creature, Tang abandoned the floor and leaped to the top of the bookshelf, where he is still sitting now.
Below him, The Big Oaf pouts from his stolen sunbeam, gazing up at the shelf. Tang stares back, quietly calculating every possible way to destroy him.
"I'm just worried about Tang. He's been acting out so much lately."
The plotting halts. Tang's left ear swivels, zeroing in on the kitchen. That was Butt Pats's voice, sounding far too distressed. If they are about to bring up the incident with the toilet paper, Tang is going to take it out on the dog.
"What gave you that idea?" The Loud One replied. "All the fallen houseplants and mugs? The shredded curtains? The furry and feathered dead surprises on your pillow?"
That was some of Tang's best work. But from The Loud One's tone, he doesn't seem to agree. He really is a dog-like person, a dogsaeng, as The Big Oaf would say. Well, hyungs like Tang and Butt Pats are made of better stuff. They understand craftsmanship when they see it.
"Jungkookie… isn't that just being a cat?" Butt Pats argues from the kitchen, gentle but defensive.
Tang lets out a low, pleased purr. Finally, some sense. This is why Butt Pats is his human. He understands that a predator has to keep his skills sharp.
But as Tang shifts on the shelf, a familiar, nagging worry tugs at him. He has to stay sharp. Butt Pats certainly won't provide for them. The human is an abysmal hunter. He never stalks, and he never pounces, and when he finally does procure a meal, he is weirdly timid about it. He never proudly displays his kills. Instead, he nibbles quietly at his food, shoulders hunched. It's a miracle he has survived this long.
No, Tang can't afford to get soft.
Butt Pats needs him.
"Have you thought any more about Jimin?" The Loud One asks, his voice carrying clearly down the hall. "The pet psychic I recommended?"
Tang swivels his ears back, straining to catch Butt Pats’ response. A pet what? What on earth was that? But before he can listen closer, excited tapping ruins the quiet of the living room.
“Hyung! Hyung!” Below him, The Big Oaf is prancing around.
“Quiet!” Tang hisses down at him, his tail lashing.
The Big Oaf freezes. His front paws splay out awkwardly, his eyes going wide. For a second, he just stares. Then, his tail starts up again, wagging hard.
"You can talk?!" The Big Oaf gasps. "Hyung, you can talk! Oh, this is the best day ever. I thought we were just going to do the face-smacking game in silence, but-"
Tang unsheathes his claws. He is fully prepared to drop from the shelf and permanently silence the dog himself when The Big Oaf continues.
"-this means the pet sidekick is coming!"
Tang pauses, one white paw hovering dangerously over the edge of the wood. "...The what?"
"The pet sidekick!" The Big Oaf whisper-barks, taking an excited step closer to the shelf as if sharing a big secret. "It’s a sidekick who comes and helps your pet person with their problems!"
Slowly, Tang retracts his claws. A sidekick? An assistant specifically designated to help him fix Butt Pats’ abysmal hunting skills and general melancholy?
Tang settles his paw back into his loaf, his green eyes narrowing with fresh intrigue. Now that is an interesting proposition.
"I'm telling you, it's a scam," Butt Pats says, his voice pulling Tang away from his grand plans for the sidekick. The two humans step back into the living room and head toward the entryway. "A complete waste of money. I am not paying for some fraud to 'connect' with my cat."
Tang's ears flatten. A waste of money? No sidekick? But Butt Pats needs help!
The Loud One sighs, stopping by the door to put on his shoes. "Suit yourself, Yoongi-hyung. Just trying to help. Bam! Let's go, buddy."
Panic spikes in Tang's chest. His one chance at securing help for his human is about to walk right out the front door. Casting his dignity aside, Tang un-loafs and launches himself off the shelf. He lands with a soft thud directly in The Big Oaf's path, blocking the dog's exit.
"Wait," Tang demands, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "How do you summon the sidekick?"
The Big Oaf stops in his tracks. His tail, which had just started to wag at the prospect of going outside, drops. He lets out a miserable, trembling whine, his floppy ears pinning flat against his head.
"It's awful, hyung," The Big Oaf whimpers. "You have to be a bad dog."
The door clicks shut, with The Loud One and The Big Oaf safely on the other side of it. The apartment returns to its usual quiet.
Tang sits on the rug, his tail wrapping neatly around his paws, and observes his human.
Butt Pats leans his back against the heavy wooden door and exhales, slowly sliding down until he’s sitting on the floor. He looks pitifully small like this. He is pale and slight, swallowed up entirely by an oversized hoodie. The sleeves are pulled down so far that they completely cover his paws, a serious disadvantage. How is he supposed to catch anything?
He is all soft edges and quiet sighs, moving with a slow lethargy that suggests he is perpetually in need of a nap. He is a creature built for resting in warm places, not for the brutal, fast-paced realities of survival. He lacks the sharp instinct of a true predator, rarely eating enough and preferring to huddle into himself rather than stalk a proper meal. Right now, he just pulls his knees to his chest and stares blankly at the wall, radiating that quiet, deep sadness that always sets Tang's whiskers on edge.
Yes, Butt Pats needs help.
Tang stands up, stretching his spine into a perfect arch. He flexes his claws into the rug, thinking about The Big Oaf’s warning.
You have to be a bad dog.
Tang lets out an amused sneeze. Dogs are clumsy, slobbering creatures who think they must constantly clamber all over their people to prove their worth. A bad dog, therefore, must make himself scarce.
This will be effortless. Cats, after all, respect themselves and their humans by remaining properly aloof. To be a bad dog is simply to be a very, very good cat.
Yes, he will vanish. He will withdraw his magnificent presence until this pet sidekick is summoned to assist Butt Pats. He will begin this campaign of devastating scarcity immediately.
Well, immediately after he goes over there.
Butt Pats is still sitting against the door, looking far too tragic and small inside his giant sweater. It is pathetic, really. Tang un-arches his back and pads softly across the rug. He can spare a few minutes to lean his weight against his human's knee and allow Butt Pats to cheer himself up by giving Tang some much-needed… well, butt pats.
Then, the aloofness will commence.
🐾 🐈⬛ 🐾
The campaign of devastating scarcity begins immediately after the butt pats, and Tang considers his execution to be flawless.
When Butt Pats sits on the sofa to read, Tang does not curl up in his lap as usual. Instead, he walks pointedly across Butt Pats’ thighs and settles on the opposite end of the cushion with his back turned. It is a brutal display of distance.
When Butt Pats goes to the kitchen to miserably nibble on a piece of toast, Tang sits and only watches from a distance, staring unblinkingly at the refrigerator.
Tang is practically nonexistent. He restricts his physical contact to sleeping exclusively on Butt Pats’ shins at night. It is torture to stare up at the steady rise and fall of his human's soft tummy and deny himself the comforting satisfaction of biscuit making, but Tang remains strong. He even refuses to loudly demand his breakfast until the sun is all the way up. Surely, this level of bad behavior is unprecedented. The sidekick must be on their way.
After all of his exhausting efforts, Tang decides it is time to rest. He makes his way across the living room for Shelf Nap Time, feeling incredibly proud of himself. To get to his shelf, he takes his usual shortcut, squeezing along the narrow console table right behind the flat-screen television.
Except, perhaps he misjudges his own width, or perhaps the screen was already precariously balanced. His belly catches the plastic edge.
The heavy base wobbles. Tang wiggles through.
The television tips forward, hanging suspended in the air before gravity takes over.
CRASH!
The noise is unnatural. It is deafening. It is a direct threat to his life.
Tang freezes, every single hair on his body puffing up. His tail instantly triples in size.
All of Tang's calculated aloofness vanishes in a millisecond, replaced by pure, unadulterated feline panic. He scrambles, his claws scrabbling wildly against the hardwood as his back legs completely spin out in a cartoonish burnout. He doesn’t even look to see where Butt Pats is. He just launches himself forward, diving frantically beneath the low clearance of the sofa, scurrying all the way to the darkest, dustiest corner near the wall.
With his heart hammering against his ribs and his eyes blown wide in the dark, Tang realizes that this is no longer a strategic retreat.
He is never coming out again.
🐾 🐈⬛ 🐾
It's a wet day when the pet sidekick arrives.
Tang hasn't been out from under the sofa, but he can hear it against the bird window. That flat, endless tapping that means no birds and no sunbeams. He keeps his ears pinned flat.
He has no idea how long he has been under here. On a normal day, he would know exactly, Warm Rug Time, then the Sofa Corner Time, but a wet day has no time in it at all. Time simply sits there, just like Tang, until someone knocks on the front door.
Butt Pats’ pawsteps hurry down the hall. The door clicks open.
"I'm so glad you're here," Butt Pats says, his voice high and tight with panic. "The TV is completely shattered, and I don't even care about that, but it scared him so badly, and he won't come out. I think he might be hurt, or traumatized, he's just under the sofa and-"
"Shh." The new voice is calm, cutting off Butt Pats’ rambling.
Then, absolute silence falls over the apartment.
Tang's eyes stay blown wide in the shadows. He hears pawsteps approaching the living room. Butt Pats’ familiar socks, followed by a pair of unfamiliar canvas sneakers, sneakers come off, and if the socks weren’t attached to a stranger, they would be very bitable. The bitable socks stop right in front of the sofa.
Tang presses himself as flat against the floorboards as physically possible, waiting for the inevitable, terrifying moment when a giant human face will shove itself under the furniture and try to drag him out.
But Bitable Socks doesn't.
Instead, the human drops to the floor with a soft thud. He doesn't peek under the couch. He doesn't reach a paw into the dark. In fact, he lies down parallel to the sofa and turns his back entirely toward Tang's hiding spot.
Butt Pats lets out a bewildered whisper. "Uhm. What are you doing?"
"Shh," Bitable Socks whispers back.
Lying flat on his stomach, the new human lets out an exaggerated, jaw-cracking yawn. Then, keeping his back firmly turned to the sofa, he stretches one arm behind him and begins dragging his paw back and forth across the floor. Scritch... scritch... scritch.
"Are you... taking a nap?" Butt Pats asks, sounding lost.
To Tang, the logic is flawless. Bitable Socks is speaking perfect, fluent feline. By turning his back and exposing his neck, he is proving he is not a predator. By yawning, he is showing he is bored and unbothered by Tang's presence. And by scratching the floor without looking, he is casually pointing out that there might be an interesting, mouse-like bug over here, if Tang happens to care. Butt Pats just doesn’t understand because he’s not a talented hunter.
Against his own better judgment, Tang finds his whiskers twitching forward. His tail gives a tiny, involuntary flick in the dust.
Scritch... scritch... scritch.
Slowly, carefully, Tang crawls toward the edge of the sofa.
Tang's nose breaches the edge of the sofa first, his whiskers twitching rapidly to test the air. When nothing moves, he slowly pulls the rest of his dusty body out of the shadows.
He expects the living room to be cold, but a golden pool of light is spilled across the hardwood. It isn't coming from the bird window, the sun has already shifted too far west for that. Instead, it is radiating directly from a new lamp, casting an artificial, perfectly heated sunbeam right next to Bitable Socks' hip.
Tang pauses. He creeps closer, stretching his neck out to give the socks a long, thorough sniff. They smell like normal human paws. More importantly, the human attached to them is still respectfully ignoring him.
Satisfied, Tang steps delicately over the Bitable Socks’ outstretched arm, walks directly into the lamp's warm beam, and folds himself into a pristine loaf.
Bitable Socks doesn't try to grab him or offer clumsy butt pats. He simply turns his head, resting his cheek against the floorboards so he is exactly eye-level with the cat.
"Hi, Tang," Bitable Socks says, his voice a low, soothing murmur. "I hear you've been having a hard time with him."
Tang's ears pivot forward in sheer disbelief. He stops breathing for a second, staring into the human's calm eyes. Finally. A professional. Someone who actually understands the true dynamic of this household.
Behind them, Butt Pats lets out a confused, highly offended little noise. "With... me?"
Bitable Socks ignores Butt Pats entirely, keeping his undivided attention locked on Tang. "How long has he been like this?"
Tang doesn't even dignify the question with a meow. Words are entirely unnecessary when the tragedy of the situation speaks for itself.
Instead, Tang simply turns his head to look over his shoulder.
Butt Pats is hovering awkwardly near the edge of the rug. He is wringing his giant sweater paws together, his shoulders hunched up to his ears, looking perfectly pathetic and entirely out of his depth.
Bitable Socks follows Tang's gaze. The psychic takes in the oversized sweater, the nervous posture, and the sheer, helpless energy radiating from the human.
Bitable Socks sighs, a heavy, deeply sympathetic sound, and shakes his head sadly at Butt Pats.
"I know," Bitable Socks murmurs to Tang, though his eyes remain fixed on the human. "It's a lot to take on. You must be exhausted."
Butt Pats throws his paws up, his voice cracking. "Wait, what is happening? I’m the one paying you! Why are you both looking at me like that?"
Tang lets out a long, rumbling purr of pure validation and tucks his paws a little tighter into his loaf. Finally, someone who understands the sheer burden of being the only capable cat in this household.
Bitable Socks turns his attention back to the cat, dropping his voice to a quiet, professional murmur, like one colleague consulting another.
"I have some ideas in mind for a treatment plan," Bitable Socks says softly. "If you're okay with it, of course."
Tang gives a slow, deliberate blink. He is certainly open to outsourcing some of the emotional labor in this household.
"Your pridemate will need to be okay with it, too," Bitable Socks adds, his tone turning slightly conspiratorial. He casts another glance at the human, who is currently hugging his own elbows in confusion. "And he may need some convincing. You know how stubborn they get when you try to change their routines."
Tang twitches an ear in profound agreement. He knows all too well. Getting Butt Pats to alter his terrible habits is like trying to move a mountain.
Bitable Socks gently pushes himself up off the floor, moving with slow, deliberate grace so as not to disturb the edges of Tang's artificial sunbeam. Before he stands up completely, he pauses to offer Tang a deep, respectful nod.
"No matter what happens, it was truly lovely to meet you, Tang. You've done an outstanding job with him so far."
Tang's chest puffs out within his loaf. Outstanding. Yes, that feels highly accurate. It is nice to finally be appreciated by someone with a trained eye.
Dusting off his knees, Bitable Socks finally turns his back on the sunbeam and walks over to the deeply bewildered Butt Pats.
From the safety of his artificial light, Tang observes them. He can’t hear every word of their low, murmuring conversation, but he watches Butt Pats’ posture shift. Slowly, the defensive hunch vanishes. Butt Pats’ shoulders drop away from his ears. Bitable Socks’s calm, steady energy seems to anchor the entire room, easily filling the chaotic space the shattered television left behind.
"So, what's wrong with him?" Butt Pats asks, his voice finally carrying over to the sofa.
Bitable Socks reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small rectangle. He presses it gently into Butt Pats's paws.
"With Tang? Nothing," Bitable Socks says mildly. "But he is highly empathetic. He is absorbing your stress. My professional advice? Sit in a sunbeam for twenty minutes a day, and eat your meals off a plate at a table instead of hovering over the sink. It's upsetting him."
Butt Pats stares at the business card, completely baffled. "You got all that from him just now?"
Bitable Socks just smiles, stepping past him toward the front door. "Call me when you're ready to start doing the real work."
The door clicks shut. Butt Pats is left standing alone in the middle of the living room. He looks down at the crisp white card in his paws, shaking his head, and then slowly looks over at the sofa.
Tang looks back at him. He sits perfectly still in his golden circle of light, his paws neatly tucked, radiating calm for the first time in days. The pet sidekick will be back, and the pride will be waiting.