It wasn’t uncommon to see strange or lonely animals around in the city, there were all kinds of miscellaneous creatures that took the shape of various animals, so the other inhabitants just accepted them, and didn’t bother them. The most common ones were cats, sometimes dogs and rodents. There were some birds, but no one really ever saw the birds and so no one paid attention.

            Even if no one paid much mind to any of the animals, there were still those who choose to be mean to some of the smaller ones.

            When Hakyeon and his friends got to the park they played at after school most days, there was a group of kids circled around something, he couldn’t tell what, but they were obviously laughing about it, and as he got closer, Hakyeon could hear them throwing insults at whatever they were surrounding, and every once and a while one of them would throw out a kick. Hakyeon was never a big fan of violence, and especially not when it was all grouped up, like these kids were doing. Most of them looked like they were elves, which wasn’t as surprising as one might think, since many of the younger elves were arrogant and, in Hakyeon’s point of view, positively stuck-up. Disregarding his friends, he crossed through the sand to get to the ring of kids.

            “Yah, what’re you doing?”

            The kids turned to him, and with the split in the circle Hakyeon could see their victim, which was just a little black cat, and he felt anger pooling in his core. He was pretty well known among the students though, and these elves were from his school, he could tell by the uniforms.

            “Hey, Hakyeon, it’s no big deal, we’re just having a little fun, no use in getting involved. Just go ahead, okay?”

            Hakyeon shook his head and advanced.

            “Leave it alone, look, it’s already scared out of its mind. If you don’t stop I’ll tell all of your teachers about this.” The teachers all liked Hakyeon, he was a good student and performed well, so his threat held weight, which the elves in front of him knew. With pointed looks and grumbles directed at him, they slowly split up, one kid spitting back at the cat. Hakyeon grimaced. He didn’t know why they enjoyed it so much, bullying those weaker than themselves. He approached the cat that was still huddled in the corner of the pit, and sat down next to it. He could hear his friends talking on the other side, by the swings, but they didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Hakyeon reached out a hand to touch the cat, and with the contact it jumped, turning towards him and shuffling away.

            “Hello, little cat.”

            He knew that the cat would most likely not respond, but he kept talking anyways.

            “Are you okay? They’ve gone now, so you can go ahead and go back to wherever you came from, it’s getting late and cold.” Hakyeon scratched the cat’s back softly, feeling it relax. He didn’t know why, but he was drawn to it, maybe it was the beautiful almond eyes, or just the look that it seemed to be giving him. Hakyeon reached out with his other hand tentatively, and pulled the cat towards him gently, drawing it up into his arms. The cat let out a small startled noise, and Hakyeon laughed.

            “Aww, cute.” He was pretty sure the cat was glaring at him for this, but Hakyeon just rubbed behind its ears.

            “Ey, Hakyeon, we have to get going, we’re already running late,” one of his friends shouted at him from across the playground. Hakyeon looked over his shoulder and nodded, putting the cat in his arms down.

            “Get home safe, okay?” And with that, he turned and ran to catch up with his friends.

            The next day when he got to the playground, Hakyeon was surprised to see the same little black cat sitting next to the swings, tail flicking around. His friends disregarded it, and went to claim spaces on the swings. Hakyeon crouched down next to the cat.

            “Did you come to wait for me?”

            The same thing continued for about a week, with the cat waiting patiently by the swings. Hakyeon had decided to call him Leo, because it was cute to imagine a little cat like that becoming big and strong like a lion.

            After the 8^th day of him seeing Leo at the park, the cat followed him home. Hakyeon turned to look behind him while he was walking, and stopped, reaching down and picking Leo up.

            “Well if you’re following me anyways, I might as well carry you.”

            Hakyeon’s family didn’t really notice the addition of a cat, there were plenty of other animals hanging out around the elves, and so they let Hakyeon keep him. Leo made himself comfortable in Hakyeon’s room, and he laughed, going to bring him some food.

            The cat became something like Hakyeon’s best friend, who he talked to constantly and he was pretty sure Leo listened to him, he even imagined him nodding sometimes.

            Leo stayed with him for the next year, and as Hakyeon grew older the cat was always with him.

            It wasn’t until the fall of that year that Hakyeon figured out that his cat wasn’t really completely a cat after all. He had just come back from school, dropped his bags outside of his room and opened the door, calling for Leo.

            “It’s actually Taekwoon, you know.”

            On his bed, cross-legged, was definitely not a cat. Instead there was a boy who looked to be about Hakyeon’s age, with shaggy black hair and defined features.

            “What?”

            “My name, it’s not Leo, it’s Taekwoon.”

            “What?”

            “Hakyeon, I’m not a cat. Well, completely. I’m kind of a shapeshifter, but only into cats. I figured it’s been long enough that you weren’t going to kick me out once you found out. It’s not unusual to abandon one of us, especially if you don-“ Hakyeon interrupted him

            “Wait wait wait back up a second. So, you, Leo, are actually a person, Taekwoon, and not a cat-“

            “Kind of.”

            “But you aren’t a cat right now, and you’re sitting on my bed.” Hakyeon finished.

            “Yes.”

            “And why’d you wait this long? What’s it been, like a year?”

            Leo, or Taekwoon, looked almost worried, like he was scared of something.

            “It’s just that a lot of people don’t like having a cat/human shifter with them, so I haven’t really been able to stay anywhere for a long period of time, so when I was pretty sure you weren’t going to get rid of at least the cat, I decided to try being human.”

            “You thought I would get rid of you? Why on earth would I do that? It’s not like you’re any less of a friend to me now. You are much cuter as a cat, though, even though you’re still cute.” Taekwoon huffed at this.

            “I’m not cute.”

            “You so are, look, you’re even pouting.” Hakyeon reached out to poke at his lip, and Taekwoon smacked at his hand.

            “Stop it, I’m not cute.”

these two will probably get some more pieces written about them

but!

here it is hakyeon meeting taekwoon

i like this one? i guess? idk how i feel about it you guys can decide

i'm trying to not make everyone's backstories completely depressing im WORKING ON IT

its a lot easier to write sad backstories though

BUT

oh well

if you have any ideas about it you can let me know :O

thanks for reading, commenting, and subscribing!

~Win