Luhan is cleaning one of the dog cages in the animal clinic (as a part of his internship) when he hears his boss approaching. The door opens and the man enters, his forehead creased with worry. Luhan feels suspicious at that.

“Is everything alright?” he asks. His boss snaps his eyes at him, only now realizing Luhan is in the room, and quickly scans the place, like he didn’t even know he’d entered this specific room.

“The animal shelter has too many cats,” he explains, walking past Luhan and heading for his office. “My friend who works there just told me. We can take some of them in, but it’s not enough. It seems like they’re gonna have to put some of them down.”

Blood drains from Luhan’s face.

“What?” he asks, standing up. His boss’s already disappeared in his office, and looks startled when Luhan suddenly barges into the room. “They can’t put them down.”

“Nobody wants them,” the man says, sighing. “They have no place to go and they’re old. Sometimes we just have to make this choice. Same about dogs.”

Luhan stares at him. The man looks tired and he smells of sadness and regret, which Luhan hates.

“I’ll ask my friend,” he says, “maybe they can take some cats in. I can put up posters and give out fliers–“

His boss smiles a bit bitterly.

“When are they going to…put them down?” Luhan asks.

“In two days,” the man answers. “Some of these cats are really beautiful. Do ask your friends.”

Luhan nods solemnly.

*

“We’re not getting a cat,” Kris says. “It’s a big responsibility. I’m gone most of the time and you have to study.”

“It’s not that big of a responsibility!” Luhan argues. “Cats like to be alone. He’d just need food, water, some kind of toilet, and a place to sleep, which we don’t even have to buy because he’ll probably love the couch.”

“Luhan, cats hate werewolves,” Kris reminds him, flicking him on the forehead.

“Not all of them,” Luhan replies, rubbing at the sore spot with a betrayed expression on his face. “Come on. Imagine having a cat. He’d meow at you sweetly, come to you so that you can pet him, look at you doing stuff and keep you company, and he could even sleep with us! Imagine having a cute, furry, purring cat hugging you to wake up to!”

“I already have a cute, furry, purring werewolf hugging me to wake up to,” Kris says, winking at him. Luhan looks very unimpressed.

“You’re a terrible person,” Luhan tells him and stomps away.

*

“Okay, so which one of you wants a cat? Or five?” Luhan asks, entering the loft. You’re standing by the stove, cooking something, Kai is sprawled over the couch and woken up from an afternoon nap, and Kyungsoo sticks his head out from behind the corner in the kitchen. He’s munching on some chocolate.

Choco comes to greet Luhan with some happy barking.

“I’m looking for someone who can take in some cats,” Luhan explains, walking further into the room.

“We already have Choco, and he’s a handful,” Kai says. “I’m not sure he likes cats, too.”

“Nonsense, he loves cats!” Luhan says, scoffing. He looks down at Choco, who’s still circling him happily. “Right, boy? Right?”

“My parents will never allow a cat,” Kyungsoo says. “My mom is allergic as hell.”

“Can you keep cats in a dorm?” Luhan wonders out loud, looking at the ceiling in wonder. “Chanyeol loves cats, right?”

“You most definitely can not,” you say.

“Sehun could, though, since he has his own apartment, right?”

“Why are you looking for someone to adopt five cats?” Kai asks from the couch, his voice groggy.

“Not five, more,” Luhan says. “And if I don’t find them homes soon, they’ll all die.”

Your eyes go wide at that. You look at him in horror. “Oh no.”

Kai stands up from the couch and staggers into the room, looking devastated.

“What?” he whispers.

Even Kyungsoo decides to leave his spot by the table in the kitchen and comes to stand next to Kai, giving Luhan a similar, betrayed look.

“They’re all gonna be put down because they don’t have enough space in the animal shelter.”

You turn off the stove. Kyungsoo looks at you, and you clench your jaw, determination visible in your eyes.

“Alright,” you say. “Call in for a pack meeting.”

*

“Fliers?” you ask.

“Check,” Chen replies.

“Posters?”

“Done and already hanged,” Eun reports.

“Facebook posts?”

“Spreading like a wildfire, ma’am,” Taemin nods.

“Neighbors?”

“Check,” Kai says seriously.

“Photos of the cats looking sad all over the Internet?”

“Of course,” Yixing says.

“Old lonely ladies Amber found via the police base informed about the situation?”

“All of them,” Luhan whispers.

“How much time do we have until the cats are put down?” you ask.

“Approximately sixteen hours and twenty-four minutes,” Sulli says.

“Great. Good job, soldiers,” you say, finally smiling and looking around the room proudly. “Let’s find these cats some good homes!”

*

“This is going too slowly. There’s only been two people willing to adopt this far, and we only have ten hours left!” Luhan shouts, throwing his arms up. “I say we go to meet those old ladies again.”

“Maybe Amber should trick the people working at the shelter into thinking all the cats got taken?” Tao asks.

“I can’t be there forever,” Amber reminds him.

“We did everything we could, Luhan,” you say to him. “I’m sure we’ll get a few more people to adopt.”

“It’s midnight, Dal,” Luhan deadpans.

You pout, feeling sadness washing over you.

“You know what’s sad?” Yixing says out loud. “There’s a lot of cats and dogs like this around the country, and there’s no way to save them all. People abandon them so easily, it’s just sad.”

“Okay, no, don’t tell me this,” Luhan says, covering his ears with his palms, tears gathering in his eyes. “I don’t wanna hear that.”

A warm hand touches the nape of his neck and he sniffles. Kris rubs his skin there a little.

“They’ll die peacefully,” he says, “there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s just how life is.”

“Unfair and brutal?”

“Yes.”

Luhan sniffles again, wipes his tears away, and stares into nothing as the rest of you fall into silence.

*

Kris is going through some paperwork at the police station when Changmin walks past his table, giggling like a schoolgirl. He looks up, frowns, and goes back to work, but then he picks up on Changmin’s words as he reports to Maeng.

“So a dude just called from the animal shelter, said someone kidnapped his cats.”

Kris snaps his pen in half, the ink spilling all around him, and he jumps up as if burned, immediately getting everyone’s attention. Heechul screams out a ‘What the hell, Yifan!?’ and Changmin goes from giggling to outward maniac laughter.

Kris looks down at his ruined shirt and at his ruined papers, and then up at Maeng, who looks pissed and sad at the same time, and Kris honestly doesn’t know how that’s even possible.

Thankfully, Maeng allows him to go home and change (though Kris always keeps a spare shirt at the station) and Kris can scent the cats the moment he enters his apartment block. He runs upstairs, barges into their apartment, and closes the door with a bang. The first thing he sees are two cats sleeping in his shoes.

He stares at them for a few seconds. They’re all fluffy and sleepy and cute, and one of them opens his eyes at him lazily. He hears a meow and then he sees the third cat standing on his right. When their eyes meet, it meows again and approaches Kris to brush against his leg.

Kris stares. He bends down to pick the old cat up, and it immediately starts to purr. Kris walks into the living room, still holding the cat in his arms, to find it full of cats.

There’s five of them sleeping on the couch, three of them playing on the floor in the middle of the room, one of them staring out the balcony, another two fighting in the kitchen (or at least he thinks they are fighting) and there, in the middle of it all, is Luhan, just sprawled on the floor covered with fur and kittens.

Luhan hears him coming in and he looks up, a huge grin on his face. “I can die happily now,” he says. Then he notices Kris's shirt. “Whoa, dude, were you wrestling Kraken before you came here?”

Kris is speechless. It takes him a moment to speak up. 

“Luhan,” he says, “have you gone completely crazy?”

“I couldn’t just leave them there!”

“What are we supposed to do with all of them?!” Kris shouts, startling the cat in his arms. He stops purring and looks up at him curiously. Kris feels guilty all of a sudden, and he tries to fix his mistakes by petting the cat with even more enthusiasm now. It gets content again fairly quickly. When Kris looks at Luhan again, the boy looks smug as hell.

“We’re gonna find them a home. But before that happens, we’re gonna take care of them.”

A loud crash comes from the kitchen, followed by two angry meows, and then one of the cats runs out of the kitchen with its tail up. Another cat follows the first one and they throw themselves at the dinner table, waking a cat that’s asleep on the chair.

The cats somehow tumble all the way towards the window, one of them jumps on the curtains, and then it’s pure comedy cartoon, because it rips all the way down to the floor. Luhan and Kris are just staring now, wide-eyed and shocked.

“That one’s on Dal,” Luhan says quickly, looking at Kris. “She brought that one in.”  

Adopt. Don't buy.

I've made myself an account on soundcloud! Drop by if you feel like it, I'm always up for discovering new music. S/o to Bethany for convincing me to make an account there (without actually meaning to, I think? Hahah)

Next chapter is a sort of a follow-up to this one. Watch out, instagram is coming!

Love you salted caramel chocolate tarts <3