A treat for buzzbird
A treat for: buzzbird
Cooked up by: A friendly chef
Title: Must Like Cats
Characters/Groups: NEWS, Akanishi Jin
Genre: Crack/Humor
Rating: PG-13 for swearing
Warnings: none, unless you hate animals/transformations
Author's Notes: Ryo wakes up one day with an epic hangover, shredded drapes, and a mystery cat on his living room floor. I tried to go for light and funny, as you requested, and worked in the idols-taking-care-of-a-cat bit that you mentioned. I even read the fic you referred to! But since my brain is kind of naturally broken, it went all the way into crack and, uh, the story warped into…well, you’ll see. I really hope you’ll enjoy it, though! (Also, I think I broke my beta’s brain. If there are leftover errors, it’s all my fault.)
Whenever Ryo wakes up with an epic hangover, he usually thinks nothing of it (beyond the usual moment of wanting to die). But when he wakes up with a hangover and sunlight is shining cheerfully upon his face, it's somewhat insulting. And also confusing because he doesn't remember opening the drapes the night before -- he never opens the drapes, anyway.
When he cracks an eye open and finds his curtains in shreds, the first thing he does is start yelling.
"Damn it, Akanishi! I let you crash in my house drunk and you wreck my curtains! Jin! Jin, if you've run off, I swear--!"
There's no answer and Ryo drags himself off his bed and to his living room, prepared to throw his slippers at the person he last remembers seeing passed out on the couch, only to find said couch empty.
Ryo wanders around his apartment scratching his head. Jin isn't in the bathroom, isn't in the living room, and isn't out on the balcony. Ryo even checks his closet, but there’s no Jin there, either. His place is empty except for the cat on the living room floor--
There's a cat on the living room floor.
Ryo skids to a halt and backs up. The cat is still there, sitting on top of a pile that looks suspiciously like Jin’s clothes and glaring at him with beady eyes. "What," he says, unable to even frame it as a proper question.
"Ryo-chan," the cat suddenly says, and its voice is dripping with caustic sweetness. The voice is familiar, but a talking cat is mostly creepy, and Ryo shrieks and grabs the nearest object (a spoon) to use as a weapon.
"Ryo-chan," the cat says again, louder this time so Ryo could hear him over his shrieking.
It works because Ryo stops, his rational mind overriding his terror. "A cat is shouting at me. Obviously, I'm dreaming," he mutters, setting down his spoon. "I'm dreaming or hallucinating, and maybe in five minutes I'm going to wake up and start puking."
The cat sighs, and this time there is no mistaking it. It speaks in Jin's voice. "Ryo-chan, why the fuck am I a cat?"
-
"Pi! Pi, over here!"
Yamapi freezes, his latte halfway to his lips. He's spotted a strange man in sunglasses, a baseball cap, and with a Band-Aid on his cheek lurking around the corner of the Starbucks, waving frantically at him. Yamapi glances around then decides to ignore him.
"Yamashita, come over here, or I swear to God, I will kill you!" the man hisses, pulling down his sunglasses a little. It's enough for Yamapi to recognize him, but he still doesn't move.
Ryo finally storms over and what he's carrying makes Yamapi snort so hard, he spews coffee all over the table. Several girls glance their way and there's an assortment of giggling and eyerolling and head-shaking.
"Nice kitty," Yamapi smirks, wiping his chin with the sleeve of his jacket. "Did he scratch your pretty face, Ryo-chan?"
"Shut up. Toilet. Now."
"Geez, Ryo. I'm not your personal whore," Yamapi says, but he gets up and follows Ryo to the toilet. It's empty, and Ryo sets the kitten down on the edge of the sink.
"What's this about?" Yamapi asks, glancing at his cell phone. "And why can't we talk in the car? They'll be picking us up any minute."
Ryo points at the cat.
"Are you going to bring your new pet to the next tour stop?" Yamapi frowns. "Because you know Shige's allergic to cats."
"You idiot! It's not a cat!"
Yamapi looks it up and down. "Looks like a cat to me."
"It's Jin!"
"...Ryo-chan, how much did you drink last night?"
"No, look, I can prove it! The cat can talk!"
Yamapi looks down at the cat expectantly, though all it does is stare back up at him with huge, pleading eyes.
Ryo scowls and gives it a little shake. "Say something!"
"Mmreeooow?"
"Oh, yeah. It can talk," Yamapi says sarcastically.
“But it can! It did just this morning!”
“Okay. Sure. But I really want to get back to my coffee so just tell me when it feels like chatting again.” And with that, Yamapi turns around and walks out of the toilet, shaking his head.
Ryo glares down at the cat. “What the fuck was that all about?”
The cat glares back up at him. “You can’t tell Pi.”
“What?!”
“I’d never hear the end of it.”
“But I need someone to help me figure out how to get you back to normal.”
“No! Look at me! I’m a kitten! If you were in my place you wouldn’t want anyone to know, either.”
Ryo privately agrees but protests once more, just out of principle.
Jin responds by ominously flexing his paws. “Don’t make me scratch your face again.”
“Okay, okay,” Ryo groans, stuffing Jin into his jacket pocket. It’ll be our little secret.”
-
Ryo's rolls his eyes at Jin when he crawls into Yamapi's lap in the company van and proceeds to purr, rather smugly, when Yamapi starts stroking its fur. He snorts. “Hey. Do you think we should stop and get a carrier for Jin? You’re getting fur all over the place. Massu wouldn’t like it.”
Jin hisses spitefully at him until Yamapi taps him firmly on the nose.
“Quit that,” Yamapi tells him. He turns to Ryo. “I’m sure Massu won’t mind, Ryo-chan.”
“Fine, whatever,” Ryo mutters. He resolutely avoids looking at Jin, which is just as well. A kitten sneering is somehow less cute and more terrifyingly evil.
-
"This is Jin!"
Massu takes a long look at the cat Yamapi is waving in his face, and if he thinks it strange that Yamapi should have a cat named after his best friend, he chooses not to mention it. He just opens his bag, pulls out a dust mask, and snaps the bands in place behind his ears. "He's very cute, Yamashita-kun."
Yamapi glances smugly at Ryo. "See? Massu likes him just fine."
-
Koyama and Shige are together at the next spot and, predictably, Shige starts sneezing the second he sets foot in the van.
"Excuse me, but is there any reason why there's a cat in the van when you all very well know I'm al--alle--achoo!"
Ryo opens his mouth but Yamapi beats him to it. "Ryo brought him here, Shige," he says. "I tried to tell him, but--"
Ryo glares at him in disbelief. "What the hell kind of friend are you?"
Yamapi shrugs at him, nudging Jin in his direction. But Jin is having none of that. He leaps across to the seats in front of them, right into Koyama's lap, who's just beside Shige.
"I'm going to die," Shige groans, just before another violent fit of sneezing seizes him.
Massu silently taps his shoulder and offers him a dust mask.
-
"What a cute little kitty you are! Yes, you--aaaarrrrrgh! Get him off!"
By the time Yamapi gets Jin back safely in his arms, he has a scratch on his arm, cat fur is all over the place, and Tegoshi's brand new knitted navy blue sweater is completely ruined.
"Now what was that all about?" Yamapi asks with a frown, scratching behind Jin's ears while Tegoshi mourns over his sweater.
Jin just kneads Yamapi's thigh, curls up, and goes to sleep with a purr, an expression of utter satisfaction on his furry little face.
-
Somehow, Shige makes it through the car ride without dying and the remainder of Tegoshi’s clothing remains intact. Jin is mostly content to just sit in Yamapi’s lap and all is peaceful. Until they get to the train station and a heated argument takes place as to who should pay the extra fee for him.
“He’s your damn cat!” Yamapi finally shouts in exasperation, actually straightening from his habitual slouch to his full height so he could properly glare down at Ryo.
“He’s your best friend!” Ryo shouts back, waving his arms so violently that Jin has to dig his claws into Ryo’s jacket for fear of getting thrown off.
“You’re still not on about that, are you? It’s a cat!”
Jin lets out a plaintive meow as the pair continue to argue until Koyama finally takes pity on him and rescues him from Ryo. It kind of hurts to have your two best friends arguing because neither of them want to take responsibility for you. Jin buries his face in Koyama’s shirt and wonders if cats could cry.
The conflict is only resolved when their stressed manager comes over, looking on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Ryo grumblingly coughs up the cash.
“Stingy bastard,” Ryo mutters, walking past Yamapi onto the train.
“…Jerk.”
“Real creative comeback, cheapskate.”
“Shut up.”
-
“We need to talk.”
Ryo raises an eyebrow down at the cat that’s suddenly in his lap. “Got tired of Koyama?”
“He talks too much,” Jin sniffs. “And I’m not mad at you anymore.”
“Oh, good,” Ryo says with barely a hint of sarcasm. He glances meaningfully at Yamapi beside him. “But I thought you don’t want Pi to find out. Sure this is a good idea?”
Jin rolls his eyes. “Please. Put something soft under his head and he’s dead to the world.” He not-so-gently pokes Yamapi in the stomach. “See? Fast asleep.”
“Okay. First, we should figure out what happened last night.”
“We got drunk,” Jin says flatly.
“Yeah, but we get drunk a lot and this is the first time this ever happened.”
“I don’t know. I’ve had some pretty crazy mornings after. Maybe I’m just hallucinating that I’m a cat.”
“Hold on, what?” Ryo asks indignantly. “Why am I a hallucination? If anything, I’m hallucinating you being a cat.”
“You must really like me if you’re putting me in your dream,” Jin says. “And in such a cute form, too.”
Ryo scowls. “Let’s just assume that this is all real. I don’t remember us doing anything different from usual. We started at the same bar as usual and then-”
“And then I don’t remember anything,” Jin says with a frustrated purr.
“You must really have pissed someone off, though.”
“Hey! Why do you assume I did something?”
“Because you’re the one who’s a cat right now, not me.”
Jin opens his mouth to argue the point further but can’t think of anything to say so shuts it again. He turns around in Ryo’s lap so that his back is to the latter. “All I know is that this sort of thing never happens when I’m out with Pi.”
“Yeah, well, this never happens when I’m out with him, either,” Ryo says stubbornly. “But we’re not going to get anywhere if we just sit around blaming each other.”
“Fine. But it’s your job to figure out what happened.”
“My job?”
“I’m a cat! I have limited brain power!”
“How is that any different from normal?” Ryo mutters.
“What did you say? I have claws and I’m not afraid to use them!”
“I’m bigger than you.”
“So that’s how it is? Just you wait when I get back to norm-meow.”
“Normeow? What the hell is that supposed to-” Ryo freezes, catching sight of the video camera along the edge of his vision.
It’s Koyama, of course, with a bonus Shige, going around and apparently recording how the members drool in their sleep.
“Just act natural, Ryo-chan,” Koyama says cheerfully. “It’d be great if we get you on the DVD talking to your cat! Get your softer side on camera for the fans.”
“I do not talk to my cat!” Ryo whispers furiously. “And be quiet, you’ll wake Pi!”
“Talking to cats isn’t that strange,” Koyama says in a coaxing tone. “It’s not as strange as pretending to be a cat talking about yourself.”
“The fans expect a lot more sensibility and intelligence from me than from Shige,” Ryo says. “Go away!”
“Okay, okay! Look who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Koyama mutters, drifting toward seats a few rows down, where Tegoshi is very audibly playing a video game on his DS.
“Are you trying to remember now?” Jin hisses as soon as the duo are out of earshot.
“No. I’m going to sleep.”
“Ryo!”
“Look, my head still hurts and we can’t talk with Koyama walking around with that camera. Just move over to Pi and go to sleep.”
Jin raises his tail straight up in the air, the closest he can manage to giving Ryo the finger, and pads over onto Pi’s lap. “Pi smells better, anyway,” he huffs, just before curling into a tight ball, closing his eyes, and diving into sleep.
-
"I am calling this emergency meeting-- What, Shige?"
Shige lowers his hand. "Why are we starting without the staff?"
Ryo sighs. "Because this is not a concert-related matter and-- Yes, Tegoshi?"
"Why are we starting without Yamashita-kun?" He glances at the prone form on one of the couches in the dressing room. "Why didn't you let me wake him?"
Because he's a pain in the ass. "He needs his sleep. Let's not bother him, okay?"
The other four members glance at each other then at the small cat washing its paws in the middle of the table. Ryo ignores this and clears his throat. "You might be wondering about the presence of this cat on the tour."
"I'm also wondering why you named your cat after your friend," Shige says.
"He's not my cat," Ryo says.
"You brought him."
“Well, he’s not my cat alone,” Ryo says desperately. “Jin’s...ours.”
Tegoshi coughs delicately. “By ‘ours’ you mean yours and Yamashita-kun’s?”
“No. I mean...he’s ours. The group’s. NEWS’.”
“I don’t remember wanting a cat,” Shige says dryly.
“I would have picked a cuter one,” Massu says.
“Excuse me, what do you mean he’s the group’s cat?” Tegoshi presses.
Ryo looks at each one of them appraisingly, sees nothing but open and trusting faces, and proceeds to lie through his teeth. “I thought...I thought we could do it as a...group project of sorts. He can be our mascot. We could...kind of...bond over him. It’ll be great for the DVD,” he finishes lamely.
A moment of silence.
“That’s a great idea!” Koyama says.
“It is?” Ryo asks dumbly. “I mean, it is! Isn’t it?”
“I would really prefer a group project that doesn’t interfere with my breathing,” Shige complains.
“Suck it up, Shige. You’ll live,” Ryo says, actually sounding cheerful for the first time in the day.
Tegoshi looks doubtful, though mostly he’s remembering his mangled sweater. “I don’t know. What does Yamashita-kun actually say about this?”
Ryo grins, thanking all the gods that made Yamapi a heavy sleeper. “It was his idea. He came up with it on the train.”
Tegoshi blinks then sighs. “Okay. If Yamashita-kun says so. I’m in.”
“Me, too,” Massu says.
Koyama and Shige immediately follow suit and Ryo takes the opportunity to also thank the gods for the unreasonable faith the others have in their currently slumbering and utterly clueless leader. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about Jin by himself. Why are all my friends pains in the ass?
-
They actually drew straws to see who would get him first. Jin thought this was just a touch offensive, especially since none of them seemed to want the privilege of taking care of him. Not even his so-called best friends.
If anything, Yamapi and Ryo looked all too happy to see Koyama carrying him off.
Still, the first thing Koyama does after he gets Jin is to give him a saucer of milk, something which hasn’t occurred to anyone else all day.
“Ahhhh, refreshing,” Jin breathes. And then his eyes go round and he slowly turns his head.
Koyama is staring at him, a piece of pumpkin from his bento hanging precariously on his bottom lip.
“Nyaaaaaaow?” Jin purrs desperately.
Koyama shakes his head, pushes the pumpkin back into his mouth, and goes back to eating.
Jin heaves a very quiet sigh of relief.
-
Fifteen minutes later, in the dark of the backstage, some urgent whispering is taking place.
“I’m telling you, Shige! The cat was talking!”
“Koyama, my foot is stuck in my pants. Can we not?”
“But Shige! I gave it milk and it said it was ‘refreshing’! And then it fell off the bench while it was napping and it said ‘fuck’. That’s English.”
“Great! Now my monitor is caught on my shirt! Who designed these fucking costumes?!”
“You. Shige, it’s a demon cat, I swear!”
“Meow?” says a voice from somewhere in the vicinity of the floor.
“Arrrrgh!”
-
By the order of the straws, Ryo is supposed to get Jin next. However, there’s no trace of the grumpy man at all and Koyama brings Jin to the next person instead: Yamapi.
Jin is kind of sad to say goodbye to Koyama. Koyama has done nothing but feed him, give him milk, and respectfully let him have a lot of privacy, making sure to give Jin at least a four-foot radius of personal space. But at least he’s going to be with Pi, which should be fun. He always has fun with Pi, after all.
Except Pi is far better with people than with really small animals.
Small animals, Jin realizes to his dismay, he tends to forget.
For instance, he stuffed Jin in his jacket pocket and was halfway into his solo routine’s dance practice before he remembered the cat was even there. By which time Jin was sick from all the spinning and was trying desperately not to throw up in Yamapi’s pocket - though it would only have served him right.
Then, at lunch time, Yamapi opened a bottle of milk for Jin and then was called away by the staff. Pi said he would only be gone for a minute, but the minute stretched into half an hour, and Jin got thirsty. So thirsty that he took matters into his own hands and tipped the bottle over, not only filling his saucer but also drenching himself in the process.
“Pi, you suck,” he growls aloud, finding Yamapi’s boots and angrily gnawing on a shoelace.
There’s a sharp intake of breath behind him and Jin quickly jumps around, just in time to see a pale-faced Koyama edging out of the dressing room. Jin glares at him, liquid eyes filled with resentment for being surrendered to such a useless person. He glares until Koyama is out of sight, makes a low grumbly noise, and resumes his savage attack on Yamapi’s boots.
-
Massu said that he would have picked a cuter cat and Jin wonders what kind of stupid standards Massu has for cuteness that renders Jin inadequate. Maybe he has to be a violently orange cat with star-shaped markings or have a tail dyed purple or something. However Massu defines “cute”, Jin apparently is not it, and this does not sit well with Jin at all.
Then, to add insult to injury, the first thing Massu does when he gets him, dishevelled and slightly sticky from hastily dried-off milk, is give him a bath.
Jin squeaks indignantly, then squeaks some more because - damn it - Akanishi Jin is not supposed to have a squeaky voice.
“You’ll feel much better once you’re clean, trust me,” Massu says, noticing the baleful gleam in Jin’s eyes.
Jin thinks he would feel much better if he was allowed to nap in peace, but he quickly realizes that it’s not going to happen with Massu because as soon as he’s dry and fluffy, Massu decides that it’s a wonderful time for a walk.
“You’ll feel even better after some exercise,” Massu says.
Jin drops to the floor, rolls onto his back, and resolutely closes his eyes.
“Jin, the hallway is filthy,” Massu reprimands him, prodding him in the side with a finger. “If you don’t get up soon, I’ll have to give you another bath and-”
As it turns out, Jin does get a lot of exercise for the next two hours - running away from Massu and his constant threats of bathing.
-
Underneath their fresh and wholesome exteriors, NEWS, Jin realizes miserably, are evil, sadistic bastards. He thinks this while shrinking back underneath a pile of costumes as Shige walks past calling for him. Besides the saint that was Koyama, the rest of NEWS had been galactic failures at taking care of Jin as he wanted to be taken care of. After narrowly escaping Massu, Jin had fallen into a bucket of feathers and confetti. Instead of leaving him be, Shige, wearing a dust mask and armed with a fine brush, insisted on picking all of the junk out of his fur, forcing him to lie still for what seemed like forever. And then, having apparently missed the memo, Shige had given him another bath.
Jin shivers among a tangled heap of fur stoles and mewls pathetically. He’s still feeling a little sorry for himself when someone comes along and scoops him up.
“There you are, kitty!” Tegoshi croons. “It’s my turn with you now!”
Jin starts wailing.
-
Jin quivers on the dressing room table, watching nervously as Tegoshi advances with his weapons of choice. Closer and closer until-
“Stop!” Jin shouts. “If you come one step closer with that-that-that ribbon, I am going to make your shirt look like your hair.”
Tegoshi halts and stares at the suddenly articulate kitten.
“I mean it!”
Tegoshi lowers the ribbon and hairbrush. “So Koyama was right. You are a demon kitten.”
“I am NOT a demon kitten!” Jin yells. “I’m me! I’m Akanishi Jin!”
“You’re a cat.”
“No! I mean, yes, I’m a cat right now, but it’s really me! I’m really Jin!”
Tegoshi puts the ribbon and hairbrush on the table and stares at Jin down his nose. “Huh. Interesting. How did you wind up like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Ryo-chan,” Jin mumbles.
“And Yamashita-kun?”
“You can’t tell Pi!”
“I can’t?”
“If you tell him, he’ll feel the need to take a billion embarrassing pictures of me while I’m like this. And he’ll never let me hear the end of it, so you can’t tell him.”
Tegoshi mulls this over. “I’ll keep your secret on one condition.”
Jin narrows his eyes suspiciously. “What?”
“You’ll see.”
-
Evil. Sadistic. Bastards.
“Nice ribbon, Jin,” Ryo smirks when Tegoshi hands him over at the end of the day.
“Nice dress, too,” Yamapi says, reaching over and giving Jin an insulting pat on the head. “Very, um, pink.”
“Isn’t he a boy cat?” Massu asks.
“A little cross-dressing never hurt anyone,” Koyama says with a smile.
Traitor!
“Someone should take a picture for posterity,” Tegoshi suggests innocently.
On the spot, Jin decides that the next finger to stray anywhere near his face is going to get bitten. And when the next finger just happens to be Ryo’s-well-
“Ouch! Why did you do that, son of a bitch!” Ryo yelps, almost dropping him. “Jin, I swear. Do that again and I’m letting you live the rest of your life as a cat!”
Jin hisses at him. Fortunately, the rest of NEWS just give him odd looks and edge away. Except for Koyama whose eyes grow round, and Tegoshi, who cuts off his laugh with a cough.
Why couldn’t I have turned into a bear?
-
The rest of the weekend had passed swiftly - but not swiftly enough for Jin, who had spent half the time hiding amongst costumes in fear of NEWS and the other half grudgingly playing “cute kitty” for the camera. To his disappointment, the only NEWS member that had acted like he didn’t want anything more to do with Jin had been the only one Jin had wanted anything to do with. Koyama had still been the only one to take proper care of him, but the mutterings of “Demon cat, demon cat” had been kind of upsetting.
Now he and Ryo and Yamapi are back in Tokyo, making the usual round of clubs in search of a clue. Well, he and Ryo are. Yamapi’s just trying to get drunk.
“Dude, I gotta say,” Yamapi begins, setting down his nth beer in the nth club of the night. “I laughed when you showed up with the kitten, but the girls seem to really like it for some reason. Good one, Ryo.”
“Yeah, brilliant,” Ryo says absently, looking around the room.
Jin checks out the surroundings, too. The club is new, and while he vaguely remembers being there the night he had turned, most of his memories are hazy and indistinct. He glances at Yamapi, who’s distracted by the current song and is bobbing his head and snapping his fingers to the music. Jin inches closer to Ryo and stretches, front paws on Ryo’s arm, closer to his ear. “Set me down! I want to look around.”
Ryo frowns dubiously at the sea of people. “I don’t know, Jin. There’s too many people and you’re awfully small. Someone might step on you by accident.”
Jin bristles. “We let you out on the dance floor, don’t we?”
“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Ryo says flatly, picking up Jin and setting him down on the floor. “Don’t be away too long, okay?”
“Five minutes,” Jin says, and threads his way through the crowd. Something about the place is nagging at him. He’s sure it’s significant but he can’t think. The pulsing music and blinking lights are a bit too much for feline senses, so he slowly and carefully heads for the narrow hall leading to the restrooms. He finally gets there without being stepped on once - though it was a close shave for his tail twice - and sits at the dead end beside the door to the women’s room.
Let me think... Ryo and I came here. Then we got even drunker. We might have been a bit too loud, Jin winces. And then...
He jumps up onto all fours. There had been a girl. A girl with a small tray and five shot glasses filled with a mysterious bright blue cocktail. Jin gasps and races out of the hall in a hurry, a tiny streak of fur that crosses the dance floor unnoticed, until he gets back to their table and mews loudly for Ryo’s attention.
“I remembered something!” he shouts in Ryo’s ear once the latter has picked him up and set him back on the table. “There was a girl! She gave us free cocktail samplers! You didn’t drink yours but I did-” Jin stops and stares at two empty shot glasses on the table. They hadn’t been there before.
Ryo lightly flicks a finger at Jin’s ear. “Jin?”
Jin looks at him, wide-eyed. “What were in the shot glasses?”
Ryo makes a face. “Tasted like a margarita. They dyed it bright green for some reason. Said it was something they were considering putting on their menu. Anyway, you were saying?”
Jin stares at him in horror. “Did you-Did you drink it?”
Ryo shrugs. “Hey, everything else here is overpriced, who would turn down a free drink?”
Jin looks around for Yamapi, finally spotting him chatting up a petit blonde near the bar. “Pi, too?”
“Well-yeah.”
“Ryo, a girl gave me a blue drink here the day I turned into this!”
Ryo blinks at him. “You mean you think you turned into a cat because someone gave you a magic potion disguised as a mediocre cocktail?”
“Yes!”
Ryo snorts. “That’s stupid. Why? And if they’re turning their customers into animals, someone would have complained by now. No. Maybe you just pissed off the wrong chick that night.”
Jin gapes at him. “But-”
“Also, our drink was green, not blue,” Ryo hiccups. “And ooooh, I think it’s making the lights dance.”
Jin groans as Ryo gapes up at the ceiling. Great. Just… great.
-
The next morning, Jin wakes up on top of a familiar bed in a familiar room. A sliver of sunlight runs across the blanket and he stretches his arms and legs-
I have arms and legs?!
This thought, a mix of relief, surprise and confusion, is immediately followed by another one: Why am I naked on top of Yamapi’s bed?
Jin scrambles off it hastily, grabbing the blanket off it and hurriedly wrapping it around himself. He’s barely covered up when he notices what had been underneath the blanket.
Yamapi’s and Ryo’s clothes. And inside those, sleeping contentedly with mouths half-open and floppy ears spread over the mattress, are two small beagle puppies twitching restlessly as they dream.
Jin stares down at them for a long time, wondering if it would be too nasty of him to wake them with hysterical laughter. He makes a mental note somewhere.
Life Lesson #17: If it’s neon-coloured and free, don’t drink it.
He smiles faintly, reaches down and gives the puppies twin pats on the head.
“Don’t worry guys,” he says brightly. “I know the perfect pet-sitters for you.”