Tao realized right off the bat that this home, this new home of his, wouldn’t be as nice as his birth place. Where he had known a few acres of a gently rolling landscape for a backyard, there was only a dim outer courtyard running around three sides of the building. Where a cozy, if too large mansion, stood for a home, this austere structure of stone and masonry, squished into the suburban neighborhood on the cusp between lower middle class and the slums, looked anything but pleasant. He sniffed his nose at the prospect, halting in his steps.

“Come along, Tao,” came the friendly voice of the man guiding him. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I promise.”

Tao flattened his ears and slyly observed the human, realizing he had no real reason to doubt him. It soothed his fears a tiny bit, but in no way relieved him of the heartache of having to move, of having lost his master to old age, leaving him homeless and without family.

The man had arrived the day of the funeral, his grey hair a little tussled, and his clothes wrinkled and reeking with the scent of other cats. “I’m a feline social worker,” he’d said. “You can call me Yixing,” and “There’s no reason to be afraid. I’m here to help you since you’re alone now, and I’m going to take you soon to live with a new family, all cats. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Tao didn’t like that, but he knew that he had no choice. It’s the reason he allowed the man to help him pack his few belongings the next day and him to his ratty old car, and the reason he let him place a hand carefully behind his back as they walked up the uneven stone pathway to the house. Tao’s tail jittered in hesitation.

Yixing knocked raptly on the door and only seconds later it opened with a great lurch. Tao startled, but Yixing only smiled in greeting as another cat happily screeched and beckoned them in.

“This is him?” The cat asked the social worker. Tao seemed to shrink under the other’s scrutiny, but if the stranger noticed it, he evidently didn’t care enough to quit. “This is our newbie? He’s cute. I like kittens.”

Yixing laughed and Tao scowled, speechless.

“Hey now, enough of that,” said Yixing. “Why don’t you quit scaring him and introduce yourself instead, huh? I’m counting on you to show Tao around and get him familiar with the place.”

“Sure will do. So, Tao’s your name? I’m Jongdae.” The cat placed out a hand which Tao only looked at. He wrinkled his nose, scoping out the other’s smell, hoping that was all Jongdae expected for a greeting, and the forward cat seemed to understand. He dropped his hand, and laughed, and even though he had a kindly looking face for a cat, Tao refused to let his guard down.

“Alright, if you’re gonna be like that… Yixing, I can take it from here. Go and make your rounds, or do whatever it is you do, and I’ll show Tao to his room.”

“Thank you, Jongdae, I will. Be nice, now!” He warned, with a humorous nagging of his finger.  It was obvious this lecture had been given many times before, but Jongdae beamed at him for reply, and the nagging finger turned instead to scratch at Jongdae’s ears as the social worker passed them both by for the interior of the house.

Tao stood awkwardly, suitcase in hand and eyes perusing their surroundings in the dim light of the foyer. Heavy patterned curtains lined the two windows on either side of the door. An old desk sat lopsided in the corner with a small lamp on it, a lot of clutter, and a scratched and torn cloth armchair beside it. The place reeked of so many scents he couldn’t place that Tao felt a little wobbly himself.

The weight of the suitcase suddenly lifted, and Tao looked back startled to see Jongdae taking it out of his hands and inclining his head to narrow archway, beyond which he could see stairs.

“Coming?” Jongdae asked.

Tao followed wordlessly up the stairs, pausing to look out a window on landing before hopping up the few remaining steps.

“Our room is the second door on the left,” Jongdae explained. “It’s a little small, but it’s homey, and we share with Kyungsoo and he’s pretty nice. Won’t bite at least.” He winked, and Tao had to wonder if that meant there were others in the house that did bite, or if Jongdae was only playing with him. He hoped the second case.

Jongdae opened the door and Tao got his first glimpse of his new room. He wished he could make it out to be worse than it was, but he had to admit it wasn’t so bad. One big window on the opposite wall and a bed underneath it. (“That’s mine!” Jongdae proudly stated.) Another bed catty-corner to it with the head of the bed up against the wall, and a little table separating it from the foot of Jongdae’s. And closest to him was Tao’s bed. He deduced this when Jongdae dropped his suitcase on the comforter and it bounced on the squeaky springs. Jongdae grinned up at him.

“Home sweet home.”

The rest of the furnishings were a rag tag ensemble of wooden drawers and a couple of desks, and there wasn’t an ounce of available wall space but the center of the room remained open, covered in a stained, warm colored rug and it was enough that Tao could probably lay down and not have his head or feet brush against anything, so maybe that was all he should be happy for.

“You don’t talk much, do you, kitten?” Jongdae asked.

“I’m not… a kitten,” were Tao’s first words.

“No? How old are you? Nineteen?”

Tao nodded. He assumed everyone here must know something about him already.

“Well that makes you the youngest. I’m the second youngest, only twenty-two and before now I was ‘kitten’ but now I graduate and you can be ‘kitten.’ See how it works?”

Tao didn’t see how that worked, but he couldn’t really expect to barge in here and change whatever crazy rules these cats have, so he gulped and nodded and sat down a little hesitantly on his bed.

“You can unpack later. Let’s go meet the others.”

The others. Ever since Yixing told him he’d be moving into a shelter with other cats, Tao wondered what they’d be like. He’d only lived with his cat parents before, though they had died nearly a decade ago and since then he’d been the only hybrid cat on the estate. He didn’t know what other cats were like, or how to live with them, so how could he tell Yixing he wasn’t excited to move to a place with only cats? How would he interact with them?

There was only one way to figure out though. The bed gave a groaning lurch when he stood up and followed Jongdae back out into the hall. The other cat stopped just at the next door and knocked twice, not bothering to wait for an answer before he barged in, dragging Tao with him.

“Ahh, so there you are!” Jongdae called in a sing song voice. “Come out, come out, and meet the new kitten!”

Tao craned his head around in the darkened room, training his eyes to adjust and find the other cat within. He was sprawled across his bed in a position that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, half on his back with his legs twisted sideways and one arm tossed behind his head. He had a head of whitish blond hair that looked mangy to Tao’s eyes, and right away he wondered if this was the one that bites.

“I don’t have to come out. You’ve already come in,” spat the cat. He sat up though to get a better look at the new kid. “So this is the kitten. Huh. Doesn’t look like much. Where’d you say he came from? A ranch? So, he was a precious one-family cat? Better get used to how life really works.”

“Oh come on, Kai. You don’t have to talk like he’s not here in the room.” To Tao, Jongdae turned and spoke, “Don’t mind him. He’s bitter. A bitter old cat, and he likes to claim he hates everything and everybody but it’s not true. He’s a softy at heart.”

A pillow hit Jongdae smack in the face, and right away the victim retaliated and sent it shooting back. Kai caught it and squeezed it, his nose screwing up into a tight expression. “I am not old! And I am not bitter!”

“Oh, so then you are a softy?” The pillow flew through the air once more, and this time Jongdae didn’t let it go. He laughed instead, and Kai rolled over on his bed, grabbing another pillow to bury his head in. “See? A softy.” He pushed Tao quickly from the room though, and once the door was shut he sighed heavily. His ears twitched and he looked sad with the same kind of empathy Yixing had shown to Tao, but Tao didn’t pry.

Jongdae didn’t find any other cats on the second floor, and so Tao trailed him back down the stairs. They met Yixing again in the entryway.

“You’re leaving already?” Jongdae asked.

“Yes, I must get back to the office soon. I’ll send someone around later though to check on things.” He smiled and Tao suddenly wished he wouldn’t go. He didn’t dislike Jongdae, but for some reason he really dreaded being left alone in a house entirely occupied by cats. It didn’t feel right, as all his childhood he’d lived under the happy guardianship of a human master. The man hadn’t been overbearing; he’d basically let Tao do whatever he wanted, but always no matter what, if there was a problem he could run to him and let him solve all his problems and soothe all his fears. The old man would always have time for him. It was what owners and masters were supposed to do, and suddenly being deprived of that stressed Tao out more than he could say. 

And yet here he was in a house with supposedly no master. 

The front door shut closed, leaving behind an echoing silence. While he still had the chance, Tao had to ask Jongdae.

“Are all of you… without owners? Like, me?”

Jongdae smiled companionably. “Yes we are all without owners, and if you ask Kai, that’s a good thing, but no, none are like you.”  

“What’s… what’s wrong me me?”

Jongdae suddenly laughed. “Wrong with you? Nothing’s wrong with you, Tao. You’re just an unusual breed of cat amongst us misfits!” He teased playfully with Tao’s ears at the bizarre look on Tao’s face.

“I’m unusual?” He shook his head away from the strange petting, still not comfortable with another touching his ears.

“Well, not like an unusual breed of cat… although, I guess you could put it that way.”

Tao shook his head, still not understanding.

Jongdae clarified. “I mean like you weren’t bred or trained for adoption like we were. You were actually born and raised by cat parents. Us here? We don’t remember parents. We were taken away early and raised by different agencies. Intending to be sold when we get of age… you understand?”

Maybe in the recesses of his mind Tao understood, or had heard of such things. A visitor once expressing awe that Tao was born and raised on his master’s property, that he had a picture of his family. 

“Oh, if I could only have had them as young as you,” the man had said in a creepy voice, before his master shooed the stranger away. 

To Jongdae Tao nodded. “But you, you weren’t adopted then. And that human—“

“Yixing,” Jongdae supplied.

“—Yixing. He adopted you?”

“No he didn’t adopt us. He’s a government social worker, specially for cats. He’s retired now, but he owns the house. Six years ago he turned it into a shelter for unwanted cats, and that’s how most of us came to live here. We have no where else to go.”

Tao repeated the words in his head: no where else to go. It was fitting, he thought. He just never realized how strange his childhood had been. Now he felt some smidgen of comfort that he wouldn't be alone, not in this stage of his life anyway. 

Before he could ask more, Jongdae urged him into another portion of the house, a cozy, well lived in room with the same shabby collection of mismatched furniture, but plenty of soft places to sleep or doze on. Two other cats were doing such a thing now. Jongdae didn’t immediately introduce them. One slept soundly, the soft hair around his ears sticking up like spiked feathers, and he purred gently in his sleep. Tao could tell that this one was older, much older than himself or Jongdae or even Kai. He looked about thirty, around the age of Tao's parents in the last picture he had of them, and the second cat maybe a couple years behind.

The second cat now stood up when they entered, tail reluctantly untangling from the sleeping one’s tail, and with a index finger to his lips, almost obscuring his tiny head behind that, he lead the two out of the room. 

“This is Luhan,” Jongdae whispered to Tao. Even that low level of volume seemed to offend the cat. Luhan glared at Jongdae, who cringed in repercussion and mouthed a silent ‘sorry’ while they closed the door. Tao took a moment to look around the kitchen they’d entered, his stomach already hungry even though he’d eaten just a few hours before.

Luhan made sure the door was securely shut before he turned around and with blinding smiles introduced himself happily. 

“Hi, I’m Luhan.”

“I just told him your name,” said Jongdae.

“Yes, but I didn’t. You must be Tao. Sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you. I was just… well, Minseok was a little sick this morning and I wanted Yixing to look at him first.”

Tao blinked, and then realized the sleeping one must have been this Minseok.

“How is he?” Jongdae asked.

“Fine, apparently,” Luhan shrugged, like he understood the words, but didn’t wish to believe it. “Can’t be too careful though, you know… He’s old. I should probably go back to him soon…”

Jongdae chortled. “Let him rest, Luhan. If Yixing said he’s fine, then he’s fine. He can sleep perfectly nicely without you next to him for a few moments.”

“But…”

“He’s fine.”

“I know, but… oh okay.” Luhan looked back at Tao, partly embarrassed, but then he smiled again. “Welcome to the family!”

2,489 words

Thanks all subscribers! Not sure if you're here for the genre or the ships, or maybe both, but I hope you'll like this story! I didn't mean to start it today (yesterday, now) because I have several other fics still open that I'm writing, but after I read a sweet little Layhan kitty!au yesterday I got to thinking about all the 'issues' few people deal with in an au that seems guaranteed to be fluffy, but... and it was that 'but...' that got to me. So I made myself all depressed thinking about returned or abandoned hybrid kitties and my heart lurched, and this fic was born. 

I was going to put up a character list, because every member of Exo will make an appearance here - but what's the fun of telling you already who everyone is, when I can leave it to the readers to find out?? :)

Other than those already mentioned here, there is still another cat in the house I haven't said, and then there will be a collection of humans who frequently visit the place. Look forward to it! Oh, I hope you will!

FYI, I seriously ship Xiuhan, which is why they're in basically every story I write. I'm also frankly obsessed with Taohun these days, for... obvious reasons. Sudo is a new ship for me write and I'm really looking forward to it. 

Last message: I intend to deal with this subject of hybrid kitties pretty hard once I get rolling, but once again... this is not angst. I hate angst!

Thanks again,

Rosie <3