Author Note: I chose to upload another chapter today (it should not become an habit) because it is rather descriptive of the way she got each cat, as well as the explanation for some of their names, so if you're not interested in knowing this (this may happen), you can skip it ! Otherwise, enjoy ! The next chapter should be more useful, plotwise.

Comfortably seated into her coach, she remembers the day she has brought the first home. The first cat, that is.

It was after one more heartbreak, a few years ago.

She had no idea of the name she could give to the massive, almost orange and grumpy looking cat she had received from a colleague. She recalled she had given him a weird look, as if it was the craziest thing one had ever done to her, but in the end, she accepted the animal and brought it home, thinking of placing him – it was a male, she only learned it afterwards – in another house as soon as possible. But the cat stopped being grumpy once home and he spent his time walking around the flat, looking around as though he was discovering some kind of unexplored planet. How cute.

At the sight Yong-sun knew she was lost.

Yet the reason for this was not that she suddenly began to love cats. She always loved them, even though she had always pretended she would never have animals at home.

What happened is that Yong-sun actually realized that her new roommate was very good at easing the pain of her heartbreak. Better than any friend she hade. When she ever decided to rant about men and the way they treated her, the Mr. Stache – she had finally given him a name, thinking for some reason that it was less weird to adress him with some kind of respect – looked at her silently and listened at her stories without complaining. What is more, he would never make an unconvenient remark or judge her decision. Because of course, there was no reason why she should be wrong.

She started buying toys to her new friends, more expensive food and even a cute, purple cushion to sleep confortably, that she placed next to her bed.

And the ranting continued. She knew she should not have accepted this. She knew that man was going to be the stupidest of all the creation, and yet she continued to see him, regardless of all the mental warning she had given herself. As the day passed, purring Mr. Stache started to find himself at ease in her bedroom, sleeping and eating all day.

But after a few weeks, Yong-sun began to think maybe he felt lonely when she was at the office, trying to make a living and keeping a social life as well.

What a wonderful, much-needed excuse to try and find a friend for her new four-legged companion.

Internet being the wonderful tool it is, it was not very difficult to find someone who was giving kittens for free. So, one day after work, Mr. Stache had the pleasure to see his owner come back home with not one, but two kittens, both of them small and wild. The first one was white and the second black, except for the two spots of red fur on top of the eyes, which gave the impression of ever furrowed eyebrows.

But she had no name to give them either.

Instead, she had a best friend, Byul, whose imagination seemed to expand far beyond the walls of everyone else’s.

Asked for an idea, the abstract painter just looked at the animals and answered. "Call them Shadow and Light, this is what I see them like." She finally decided, smiling at her friend, before going back to their discussion over the last film they had been seeing.

So Shadow and Light it was.

Now that she thinks about it, Yong-sun finds herself laughing. Byul is really the only person she would believe instinctively. She could have told her to call her cats Hello and Goodbye at the time, she would certainly have done it. This is the amount of trust that exists between them. And this is why the choice of cat names should never be given to someone who spends their day throwing paint stains on a canvas.

Never ever.

Hopefully, Mr. Stache and his two friends seemed to get along pretty well, except when it came to share the bedroom. Sorry, not sorry. The bed would be forever his.

This is how Light and Shadow's cushions found place in the kitchen, next to the frigde. A place that did not seem to bother them. Food was near, and what was a cat without food?

They paid her back with affection and listening hears.

They were always there, waiting for her to come back home.

Of course, they waited for her, mewing in front of her door.

Mewing all day long, even when she was off for work to her neighbor's contempt.

"Then, there was..." Yong-sun squints, Moody's back, since the brown, fluffy cat has decided to raise and settle onto her lap, trying to catch his owner's attention by scratching her thighs through her clothes. "Stop it." She puts her paws away, frowning as she tried to remember the order in which they all arrived at her place.

And seeing a flash of grey crossing the living room, heading for the opened restroom, she smiles widely. "Of course, King." Her hand finds back her way through Moody's fur. She shakes her head and goes back to her thoughs.

Things are easier to remember after that one. She got Moody from a cat network. He was saved from death and spent his time yowling, but he got along with Light and she could not resolve to separate two friends.

Cherry came after Christmas, from Byul, who insisted that she called that way, because of her small, pink nose. It was obviously the best option, she thinks as she looks at the small cushion, placed where the Christmas tree always is, next to the television. "Then there was Mop and Bubble." Acquired in the most simple way.

"I don't know why Hyejin keeps..."

There is a bang on the door and an authoritary feminine voice calls:"MS Kim?"

Yong-sun sighs. This is Mrs Jung's, her next-door neighbor.

Again.