“No.”

“Wha— I didn’t even ask you yet.”

“You’re going to ask if you can hang out with that professor again.”

“How’d you—”

“I was literally sitting next to you when you got his text. Your work already interrupts your training, and your proxy sign is advancing. We don’t have time. No.”

Minseok sank back into his seat. Luhan had finally gotten some free time between grading tests, setting up the extra credit, and getting his department on board with the partnership with NC Tech. Jaehyun occasionally sent him good news from their end about it, and Luhan gave him any major updates through text.

After getting through a departmental meeting and getting a first round of consideration from them, the professor said he realized as the stress left his body along with his energy that he needed a break and wanted to do so with Minseok. He hadn’t been able to see Luhan either, and he wanted to, but now his demon guard was also apparently his life’s secretary.

Minseok pouted at the computer screen for a few more minutes instead of organizing the contacts and waste information like he was supposed to. He clicked a couple things, saw the words ‘hazardous waste training,’ and an idea popped into his head.

“Chen, Chen, Chen, what if I practice some aura training while I hang out with Luhan?”

The demon looked up from where his nose was level with the desk as he played with a pen, eyebrow raised.

“And how would you do that?”

“I can try the aura warning. We’ll be outside, and the low-class demons will be around too. I can practice. We’ll just ask Tao if he can hold off on sending warnings while we’re hanging out.”

“It’ll be for a couple hours at minimum, and you attract them like moths to a flame. And if the aura you send out isn’t strong enough, then they’ll just swarm to the spot for the easy snack.”

Minseok lowered his head to Chen’s eye level and leaned in, making the demon startle back a little.

“Please? If it’s really bad, then you and Tao can take back over. It’s not like I haven’t been practicing pulsing out my aura either. I made it all the way to a whole hour and a half last time.”

Chen narrowed his eyes, and Minseok just put on his best pleading face, clasping his hands together. The stare-off lasted for a few minutes until Chen’s lip slowly started to curl and the demon sat up, though Minseok couldn’t tell if that curl had been in disgust or something else.

“Fine. You can go hang out with the blessed one.”

“Yay!”

Minseok threw his hands in the air and snatched up his phone to text Luhan. The professor sent back the same enthusiasm and gave him an address to meet at, and he plugged it into GPS really fast to see where they were going. As soon as ‘Pastel Pet Park’ showed on the screen, Minseok let out a knowing cackle.

Minseok let out another cackle at the explosion of complaints and just let his phone ding with the messages, finishing his spreadsheet. It wasn’t until he submitted it to another of the managers that he realized that his phone wasn’t where he left it.

He glanced at Chen from the corner of his eye—the only possible culprit—and found him typing something into it as he looked from both his and Minseok’s phone. He waited for Chen to notice that he noticed that he took it and had to hold in a chuckle when the demon set the phone down with zero noise and nudged it back into place.

“If there’s anything incriminating on there, I’m going to take away your scratch post.”

He didn’t have to look over to see the violent flinch from the demon, and the chuckle had no trouble escaping him that time.

“I didn’t do anything like that,” Chen grumbled.

Minseok raised an eyebrow and picked up his phone. His picture gallery had no new pictures, his apps were still in place, but there was a new text he hadn’t seen before.

Minseok burst out laughing. He lost all way to right himself up and fell out of his seat, banging his shoulder in the process but way too high on laughter to do anything else but say a belated ‘ow.’ He just COULD NOT believe that Chen would save himself as ‘Best Cat Guard.’

“Hey! What’s so funny?’

He couldn’t even answer because he was wheezing by the time that he anchored his elbows onto his desk and heaved himself up into his chair. He gave himself a few moments to breathe while Chen rolled his eyes.

“Are you done being a weirdo?”

“Sure, Best Cat Guard.”

Chen bristled, and Minseok nearly fell out of his chair again at the way the demon looked like he wanted to grab the desk and flip it.

“It’s not like you have to keep the name!”

“I don’t know. It’s kinda cute,” Minseok snickered. “Also, Kai got my number last time when we talked.”

Chen actually sunk his hands into the desk and ripped them back out before grabbing the back of his chair and scratching at it. Minseok laughed at his pissy kitty, but then he looked at his desk and let out a squeak. Ten puncture holes speckled the top of his desk, showing straight through to the bottom, to the tiles. And his desk was made out of metal.

“Oh my god.”

Chen turned around and followed his gaze, shrugging. “That’s your fault.”

“My fault?!”

“You don’t laugh at me and expect everything to stay in one piece.”

“But—my desk is made of metal.”

“Barely. That’s not anything compared to what I can tear through.”

“Like what?”

“What’s the hardest surface known to humans?”

“I think it’s diamonds.”

“Oh, those? Yeah, I can cut them with just my claws.”

Minseok choked on air. “Woah.”

“I’m certified in jewel cutting since that was one of my jobs a couple decades ago.”

“Woah…”

Minseok needed a moment to comprehend that. Chen’s knowledge sounded scarily vast and random, and his claws sounded frighteningly sharp. He glanced at his arms, where Chen had climbed his chair and jabbed them. He figured that a cat demon would have claws but hadn’t confirmed how he was hurt that day. Showing his arm, Minseok pointed at the tiny scabs.

“So was this from your claws too?”

Chen sat, hunching down and looking to the ground, and Minseok blinked in stupefaction. He actually looked so… guilty.

“I always—I usually have control of them. I—I don’t know what happened that day.”

“Uh, it’s okay. I was mostly surprised when it happened. I’ll heal. Demons heal fast, right? So maybe it’ll help my body adjust.”

Chen just hunched even more, his mouth screwing in distaste.

“Chen?”

“If we train your body, do we have to make you bleed too?”

He stilled. Angelics healed almost instantaneously, and if he had to train his body to physically endure, would healing have the same method? He glanced at Chen clenching his jaw. Taking a little breath, Minseok scooted his chair closer to the demon’s.

“Hey, Chen, it’ll be okay. We don’t know for sure. Besides, it’s better to do it now in a controlled environment than by something attacking me in the night.”

The demon grabbed his wrist and paused, like he hadn’t meant to do that. He slowly let go, but Minseok took his hand to pat a few times.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

He chuckled and set Chen’s hand back down and wheeled back to his desk. “I’m going to check a couple more spreadsheets, then I can leave for the day.”

He did that, and then punched out, waving goodbye to D.O on the way. Yixing had something to do in hell and heaven, so he didn’t come to work today. Minseok asked Chen about it, but the demon didn’t know the details either. Just something about books.

Letting Luhan know that he was on the way, he drove them to the pet park, parked, and glanced at Chen, who had his nose pressed against the window. The park wasn’t crowded, being a random weekday evening. Mostly dogs ran around, but Minseok was pretty sure he saw someone walk by with a rabbit.

“So, I guess I’ll see you in a bit? I mean, I know you’ll be around, but in terms of me seeing you—”

“Do humans just walk around with their pets?”

“Yeah, it’s a park specifically made for—OH GOD!”

Chen had his jacket and shirt off and was wiggling out of his pants when he stopped at Minseok’s cry, sending him a glare.

“You should break that habit. Demons calling on God isn’t really a good thing.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll keep that in mi—WHY ARE YOU STILL TAKING THOSE OFF?”

Minseok slapped his hands over his eyes and twisted the other way in his seat, flushing from his chest to his cheeks.

He ALMOST saw— But what he DID see was—

He let out a strangled noise in his throat as the sight of Chen’s chiseled upper half flashed under his eyelids. He should’ve expected it, Chen being a demon and probably insanely strong, but holy crap—Minseok could still say that, right?—in that single glance, he could see all the muscles of Chen’s torso, how they flexed lean and interspaced perfectly with flesh and skin, soft and hard at the same time.

No, no, he couldn’t think of Chen like that. Minseok was simply… appreciating, from one person who exercises to one who… probably has to be fit to survive supernatural creatures. Yeah.

“Mew.”

Minseok whipped around at the little meow. In his passenger seat now sat a small black cat with the lightest amber stripes and glowing amber eyes in a pool of Chen’s clothes. And he recognized that cat. He stared with his mouth unattractively open, but he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t seen Chen’s kitty form since he healed completely and sprang out of his living room as a demon.

“Meow.”

He snapped back to reality and looked down at the kitty now rolling his eyes at him.

“Mreooow,” Kitty-Chen said with impatience.

“Okay, so I’m guessing you want me to bring you around the park? Why?”

The demon rolled his eyes so hard that he might as well rolled over too. Then Minseok retrieved his brain from coo-over-kitty land enough to remember what he himself explained to the demon, and something lifted in his chest. Scooping up the kitty, he ignored the loud indignant meows right in his ear and opened the door.

“Hey, you’re a cat now. Did you want to try opening the door with those paws?”

He looked down at said paws and let out a big ‘awwwww’ when he saw how tiny Chen’s paws were, barely bigger than two of his finger pads. He moved in to poke them when Chen swiped at him with another glare.

“Okay, okay, fine.”

He found an empty bench and sat, texting Luhan his relative location and getting an affirmation that the professor was on his way. He set Chen down on the plastic wood and watched as he turned his furry head left and right or his paw and drew it over his ear or how his tail twitched every now and then (Minseok held in so many coos). Several dogs wandered up to him, and Minseok snickered at the way Chen looked down at them. A pack of border collies barked up to him, and Chen just nodded, like he was royalty approving of the dogs’ suggestions.

They started to wander away, but one of them remained, staring up at Minseok rather than Chen. And when Minseok tried to focus on the pup, its outline wavered. Its bark even sounded a little strange, denser, like it was underwater. When Minseok concentrated a little harder, he felt the way its aura wisped out darkness.

Chen hissed and jumped down onto it, unsheathing his claws and shooting forward. Minseok opened his mouth to panic, but the dog’s form morphed last second, and a hole split open in the dog’s face, Chen literally flying through it and tumbling into the grass. Like a bullet of black fur hadn’t just tried to scratch its face off, the dog barked again and rubbed its muzzle on Minseok’s knee. He gave another ‘awww.’

“Mreow!”

“I can tell that it’s a demon, but it looks harmless.” On cue, the dog rolled to show its belly, and Minseok had to oblige, cooing and kneeling into the grass and rubbing his hand over the fur. His hand didn’t just go through, and the fur felt solid but with the coolness of fog.

“Meow meow mreow!”

“Oh, relax. I’ll do the aura warning in a moment. Is there a way I can do it without scaring this one away?”

The cat demon let out a string of irritated meows, and Minseok could just imagine the yapping and griping in Chen’s voice. He thought he almost heard it too when Chen seemingly gave up with a huff. A little weird, but hey, he was also petting a demon dog.

“Excuse me, young man?”

He looked up to a middle-aged lady smiling at him with a little concern.

“Do you need help finding something?”

“What?”

“You’ve been patting at the grass for some time, so I thought that maybe you lost something.”

He let out a silent curse in his head as Chen mreowled in laughter at him. He forgot that most people probably wouldn’t be able to see the dog he was currently petting.

“Oh, no, I got it. It couldn’t have gotten that far—ooh! I found it. Thank you for your concern.”

The lady looked surprised but clapped her hands in joy and waved farewell. Minseok sighed, gave a last discrete pat to the dog, and sat back on the bench. Chen hopped up, smirking at him with a tail lash. Ugh, Minseok could recognize the expression on Chen’s cat face too.

“Alright, alright. I’ll do the warning.”

He settled into the bench and closed his eyes, concentrating on his aura. It was getting easier to feel it gathering within him, and he made sure to take just enough to pulse out, willing his intent into it.

Stay away.

The aura swept out, and Minseok opened his eyes. Various shadows wavered and disappeared, and he smiled that it must’ve worked. He still turned to Chen, waiting for his approval, and he gave himself a fist pump ‘yes!’ when the kitty nodded. Wondering if the border collie also left, he chuckled to find it still at his feet, pressing close in a slight cower then resuming its attempts to seek Minseok’s affection. He rested his hand on its head so that it looked like he was just resting a hand on his knee.

He watched the park for a little while, people chasing their pets or tossing things for them to catch, animals prancing and running, while the late evening started to fall. The sight was so normal, peaceful. It was a kind of serenity that came from an average unsupernatural evening, and that felt good.

A little to his thigh made him look over, and he saw Chen narrow his eyes at him before turning on his paws, head tilted up and away from him in a hmph. Just as Minseok raised an eyebrow at his back, he saw Chen glance towards the collie and flatten his ears. Was he… jealous of the demon dog?

Evaluating his position, Minseok scooped up Cat-Chen again, ignoring the yowls of indignance, and deposited him into his lap. Just as Chen raised a paw to smack down into Minseok’s very important area, he ran a hand down Chen’s back. The kitty-demon immediately relaxed and sank down as a puddle of fur. Huh, so maybe Minseok hadn’t imagined that time when Chen had leaned into his touch that first night with the ectoplasm.

“Do you like being petted?”

Chen curled his tail around himself, but it uncurled after a few more pets.

“I guess you do, being a kitty and all. Do you get more possessive when you turn into this form?”

“Mew.”

“Cats can’t taste sweetness, right? Can you still taste it, or is your palate that of a cat’s now?”

Amber eyes looked up and narrowed at him, unamused. Minseok knew that look and snickered.

“Yeah, okay, stop asking dumb questions. But I’m curious.”

Those amber eyes rolled, and Minseok rubbed behind his soft ears, causing those eyes to close. Then Chen purred. It was just for a second, but the rumbling and sound couldn’t be mistaken for something else. The kitty demon curled away from Minseok, and he chuckled.

“Embarrassed? It just means you’re happy, right? Why not just enjoy it? Demons should be able to be happy too.”

Chen didn’t respond, but a few moments later, the purring continued, and a light feeling, the kind that lifted his chest and followed through into his cheeks, echoed in that sound.

Yeah, an unsupernatural evening felt nice, but Minseok knew that these moments, this demon, were precious to him in a different way.

They stayed like that, the demon dog on his knee, Cat-Chen in his lap (purring!), while Minseok did good on his promise to send out aura warnings when the shadows started to wiggle at the edges. It really was every five or so minutes. It was after he just did another wave that he spotted the sandy gold hair of his professor friend. Luhan practically sprinted towards him.

“Minseok! Sorry to keep you waiting! I, uh, got lost again.”

“GPS is not your friend.”

They laughed, and Luhan plopped down next to him. As Luhan leaned back on the bench and splayed himself out, Tao fluttered up from behind, waving at him before his eyes went lower and he stopped.

“I’ve never seen two demons so relaxed before.”

Chen sent a little hiss to Tao, while the border collie gave a happy bark. Minseok smiled at Tao’s comment.

“What was that hissing— OH. You brought your cat? He’s so cute! Can I hold him? Wait, didn’t you come straight from work?”

, Minseok didn’t think about that at all.

“Uh, I, uh, he… had an overnight vet appointment, so I just picked him up after work and came here.”

When did he learn to lie so well??

“Wow, that’s an amazing coincidence! The same day I ask you to come here, I get to meet your stray. Can I pet him?”

“Sure—”

Chen craned his head and hissed at Luhan next, causing the professor to pout.

“Aww, he doesn’t seem to like me. I was wishing for your recovery though.”

Minseok looked down at Chen and poked him in the back.

“Don’t be rude. Luhan’s a nice human.”

“Meowww.