Pride, Prejudice, and Pretty Boys – Episode 5: Like a Cat

“Why does Doongi smell like coffee?” The rapper frowns, scooping up the short-haired, white cat with black hind feet as it tried to crawl away.

“You’re seriously naming it ‘?’” Hongbin asks, putting away his shoes.

“And keeping it?” N says, pushing Hongbin away so he could pet the cat.

“Sounds cute, doesn’t it? And might as well keep it, or at least until we figure out where Taekwoon-hyung went. This little guy might be able to lure Hamjji home.”

“Only you would name an animal ‘’ and not think it’s abuse, Wonshikkie,” laughs Ken, kicking off his shoes and heading towards the game console with Hyuk behind him.

“It’s like you want people to ask if they can touch your ,” muses Hongbin, going into the kitchen.

“Why not name it ‘Lio,’ instead? Seems more appropriate to call a kitty that. And that way, Leo-hyung won’t kick us for naming something after him again,” Hyuk says as he focuses on the football video game he was playing with Ken.

“Because ‘Lio’ is your doll-pillow thing, and it doesn’t seem to hate the name ‘Doongi,’” Ravi replies, passing the cat to N as he went to his room to fiddle with something on his notebook.

Oh, little did Ravi know that the little white cat DID hate the name and thought there was nothing—well, almost nothing—more undignified than being called ‘.’ Then, turning its head, it just glares at N as the tan man its head.

Setting the white cat on the sofa as it tries to swat his long neck, N frowns. “Ravi should name it Leo; it’s just like him. Doongi doesn’t seem to like me touching him . . .”

"No one likes being touched by you, hyung--ow!" Hyuk screeches as N jabs his neck.

“Doongi is a lot like our Hamjji . . . he doesn’t like it when anyone pets him, hyung. He doesn’t even purr when our stylist noonas look after him,” Hongbin says, setting a small bowl of milk on the floor for the cat. “And we need more coffee; someone drank the left overs in the fridge . . . Did Wonshikkie tell you that Doongi bit him when they first met?”

“Lee Hongbin, we were ALL here when Ravi found the cat—“

Yes, they were all in the dorm when they found the cat, including Leo. But according to the other five members, Leo was missing, so they’d called his name and Ravi found Doongi in the bathroom staring at its own reflection. So what happened to Leo, and how did a cat get into their dorm?

Well.

Leo was a man when he returned from his studio early this morning . . . and when he was washing up to go to sleep, his throat felt awfully scratchy and irritated--like he had swallowed a cat or some other furry little critter-- so he took some cold medication just in case. Then he woke up a few hours later, and his throat felt even worse, so he went to the bathroom. But when he got up and made his way to the bathroom, the entire dorm and everything in it seemed a heck of a lot larger than usual, and he found himself looking up for the bathroom’s door knob. Since the door was slightly ajar, he’d just slipped in, but the sink and light switch were not where they usually were for a man his height. So he jumped onto the toilet, then onto the countertop to flip the light switch. And the finger that should have touched the switch wasn’t there. Heck, there wasn’t even a hand. Leo saw a fuzzy paw hit the light switch and a little, snow-white cat with dark hind socks in the mirror. He stared at the mirror, wondering how a cat got into their dorm, and kept staring at that cat until Ravi came into the bathroom.

Meow.

He tried to ask Ravi how a cat got into their dorm, but he had meowed instead. Oh, s would never let him live it down if they found out—

The rapper scrubs his eyes, walking back out of the bathroom and into Hyuk. “Hyukkie, there’s a cat in the bathroom. Is it yours—ow! What was that for?” He growls, rubbing his arm where the maknae had decided to slap him.

“Just making sure you’re awake, hyung,” the young man grins, ducking behind Hongbin as Ravi reaches for him. “And what cat? I’m too busy raising myself to raise a cat!”

Hunching his shoulders, Ravi slinks back to the bathroom. The cat stares at him, and he reaches over to pet it, but it bites him, causing him to yelp as a few droplets of blood fell from his finger. Running out of the bathroom, he clobbers Hongbin and Hyuk while looking for a bandaid.

“What’s with all this ruckus first thing in the morning?” growls a grumpy N, catching the rapper by the back of his shirt collar.

“Oh, Hyukkie, there IS a cat in the bathroom,” Hongbin says, poking his head into the bathroom.

“Huh?”

Leo stared up at his teammates as they all stared down at him. Sure, he wasn’t the tallest in their team, since Hyukkie had grown so much . . . but since when had N ever been tall enough for Leo to need to crane his head up to look at?

“Think this lil’ guy has rabies?” Ken asks, warily eying Ravi as he came into the bathroom.

And at the word ‘rabies,’ they all scooched away from Ravi and the cat (Leo).

“Well, I have no schedules today, so I guess I’ll take Wonshikkie to see the vet—“

“Hongbin, take the CAT to the vet, not me—“

Sitting on Ravi’s lap—not because he had a choice—Leo mulls over his current cattish dilemma as Hongbin drives them to the vet’s office. He turns his head a little as he feels a bandaid rub over his ear and blinks, feeling guilty as he sees the injury he gave to their rapper. Normally, biting his friends wasn’t a problem. And quite honestly, it was fun to bite them (and sometimes, they deserved it). But in this new body, his sharper teeth were a problem. And those teeth weren’t his only problem.

With his throat feeling scratchy again, he coughed. Once. Twice-- and woah! What is THAT?

“Ugh! Don’t play with that!” Ravi scolds, picking up the cat as it curiously poked at the soggy, hairy critter that it’d just regurgitated onto the rapper’s lap. “Hongbin, are we almost there yet? The cat just coughed up a hairball!”

“What? Where—“

“He barfed on me—Hey, eyes on the road!”

Well, Leo’s throat felt lightyears better now . . . so he resettled on the rapper’s lap after Ravi wrapped up his hairball in a tissue and stashed it in Hongbin’s passenger side glove compartment.

Pulling into a street side parking space, Hongbin glares over at Ravi as he unfastens his seatbelt.

“What?”

“Make sure you take that out of my glove compartment before you get out of the car or I’m leaving you here.”

“Ah, right,” Ravi says, remembering the hairball. Taking it out of the compartment, he wrinkles his nose as the soggy tissue squishes between his fingers. “Ugh!”

Also grossed out by the critter he’d “birthed,” Leo climbs up to Ravi’s shoulders, pausing there for a beat before deciding to climb up to the top of his head and sit there, since that was about as far away as he could get from his own hairball. Fortunately, the rapper was wearing a hat, so his little kitty claws wouldn’t hurt Ravi’s head as he clung on.

“He’s like a parrot,” remarks Hongbin, eying the cat perched on his friend’s head as they walked into the animal clinic. “Does Leo want a cracker?” He lightly pets the cat, laughing as its head whipped up and a soft nose pressed against his fingers.

Don’t bite him, don’t bite. Don’t. Leo mentally reprimanded himself, bringing his head back down. It was so hard not to bite when Hongbin’s hand was right there in front of his face with “bite me” written all over it. Sulking, he stares at the snarky Adonis as he pets the kitty.

“But his name isn’t Leo,” Ravi says.

Yes, it is. The cat thought, twitching its tail as Hongbin stopped petting its head.

“Oh? Then is its name Taekwoonie?”

Yes! Hyung got turned into a cat! Hongbinnie—

“No! Hamjji will kill us if we name something after him, remember?”

Or maybe hyung is sitting on your head right now and going to kill you all if you don’t name something after him. The cat glowers, “punching” the top of the rapper’s snapback with a fuzzy paw.

“How about ‘Socks,’ then?” suggested Hongbin as they reached the front desk. He turns his attention to the vet and begins to fill out some paperwork and answer some questions.

“Doesn’t seem to fit,” Ravi says, pulling the cat off his head to stare at it as it stared back at him. He purses his lips, not noticing the pleading look that the cat was trying to throw at him. “’Doongi?’ Like short for ‘Undoong.’”

“You’re naming it ‘?’” Hongbin asks, turning around to give his friend that judging look. “And we have to wait for about half an hour; they’re a bit backed up right now.”

“Yeah, I think his name is Doongi. Do you have a better name?” Ravi said, taking the cat with him over to the waiting area and completely missing the look of absolute indignation it was throwing at him.

Sighing, the artwork shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Wait!”

Slumping what he supposed were his shoulders, Leo just gives up on trying to escape as N peeled him off the floor.

“Did Doongi miss hyung? So today, at SuKiRa, we—“

No, I didn’t miss you. And you’re not ‘hyung’ to me. And don’t give me a play-by-play of your day. I don’t care. Leo thought sourly. Besides, if he did want to know what N did at his schedule, he’d just monitor the broadcast. Which, he (and everyone else) had already told N many times.

Honestly, his life as a cat wasn’t all that different from his life as a man. He still had schedules; the members often dragged him out with them to work, and when they had individual schedules, they rock-paper-scissored to see who would get him. He still didn’t have N’s ability to be completely ignored by the members; they paid more attention to him now because he was all “cute and cuddly.” His fans still loved him, even though they (and his friends) had no idea it was him inside that furry little body. N still bothered and stuck to him like melted taffy, and if anything, N was more irritating now than ever because the leader kept pulling Leo’s tail. Hyuk still pestered him every day and opportunity without fail, but the maknae seemed a lot nicer to the cat than his hyung. Hongbin was still a snarky OCD neat freak; “Doongi” got scolded on an almost daily basis for shedding on the laundry and all over the dorm. Ravi still snored like a freight train; and the snoring seemed louder with a cat’s enhanced hearing. And Ken? He was still a weirdo that Leo couldn’t figure out. 

One late night, as he was drifting off to sleep in his bed (thankfully, the Vixx members had let him keep his own bed even as a cat), the door opened and Ken walked in. And he smelled like alcohol, so that woke up Leo’s brain. Jerking his head up as the main vocalist zigzagged around, he realizes that Ken is drunk. Which was odd, considering no matter how much Ken drank, he never seemed more drunk than he did when he was sober. Flinching as he hears a thud and the man disappears from his line of sight, Leo gets up and peers over the edge of his bed to find Ken passed out on the floor. Concerned for his friend, Leo lightly jumps off, neatly landing on his four paws next to Ken’s face.

Jaehwan?

Roughly, he pushes that face, alarmed as he gets no reaction and the alien’s complexion starts turning grey. Then he remembers what Ken did for him when he was drunk himself; Ken had pushed him onto his side so that he wouldn’t be suffocated by his own vomit. Leo throws his entire weight as a cat against Ken’s face, frantically trying to flip the drunken man. Realizing that he couldn’t do anything in his current form, he curses in his head before running out to find help.

Going first to N and Hongbin’s room, he curses again as both Hongbin and N were still out filming and not there. After smacking into one of the managers’ room’s door several times, he gives up on trying to rouse one of them and dashes into Ravi’s and Hyuk’s room, almost about to give up when he doesn’t hear Ravi’s snoring because the rapper was spending the night in his workroom instead. But then he faintly hears someone sleep talking and dashes over to Hyuk’s side of the room.

Sanghyuk!

“ . . . the mic . . . need to take off the mics first,” mumbled the maknae. “. . . Taekwoonie-hyung, where did you go . . .”

Wake up! Hyung needs you right now!”

Impatiently, Leo pushes Hyuk’s round nose with one paw, flattening it several times. Exasperated after trying just about everything to wake up their maknae, Leo circles the body twice before deciding to bite his finger. Hard.

“OW!” Hyuk cries out, waking up and angrily groping around him for the cat. “Leo, I know you just bit me!” Catching the cat, he picks it up and glares at it, shaking it. “What is your problem—stop squirming!”

Breaking out of Hyuk’s hands, the cat leaps smoothly to the ground, and hops to the open door. At the door, he turns around and stares back at Hyuk.

“You want me to follow you?”

Meow.

With something akin to impatience, the cat ran back into the room, tugging at the hem of Hyuk’s track pants.

“Ok, ok, I’m coming! You better not be waking me up to clean up your hairball again,” the maknae grumbles, following the white cat to the next room. Seeing Ken on the floor, the maknae stares at the cat that was running around the man on the floor. “What? Hyung is sleeping on the floor—ow!” That, because the cat had nipped at his foot. Kneeling, Hyuk crinkles his nose as he caught a wiff of his hyung. “He’s drunk?”

Yes, now go flip him so he doesn’t get a fill of his own vomit! He’ll smell even worse as a dead body and I can’t sleep! The cat swats even more impatiently at Ken’s unconscious face. Looking up at Hyuk and doing his best to convey the order to flip the drunkard with his eyes, Leo keeps jabbing at Ken with one paw.

“How much did hyung drink . . .” Hyuk wonders aloud, studying the man on the floor for a bit before noticing how clammy and odd his complexion was. “Shoot, we better tip him; think he’s puking—“

And Leo scurries out of the way as the maknae rolls the drunk kid. But unfortunately, while he managed to dodge the body, he failed to dodge the projectile vomit. What exactly did he do wrong in life—past or present—that all these weird and unlucky things always happened to him? Being turned into a cat, being tortured by their maknae, always losing in rock-paper-scissors, being puked on . . . He lets loose a small growl, slinking past Hyuk and heading to the bathroom to clean the vomit off his fur. Well, at least Ken was relatively OK now—he yowls in cranky surprise as Hyuk pulls on his tail.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, eh, Leo? Jaehwan-hyung can clean this himself in the morning,” Hyuk yawns, scooping up the cat. “You can sleep on Wonshik-hyung’s bunk since he’s not here.”

Rather than sleeping on the rapper’s vacant bed, Leo had ended up tucking in with Hyuk that night, curled up against his chest like a small plushie. And all the gripes and complaints he’d held over their maknae evaporated as he listened to the younger man’s sleep-talking; poor kid was stressed out and extremely worried about where his hyung went, since Leo hadn’t been seen (as a human) in over two weeks now. Even if Hyuk loved to torment Leo, Leo had to admit that he enjoyed playing with the maknae. As he closed his eyes that night, he couldn’t help but wonder why only Hyuk called him “Leo” now, and if the maknae knew it was him, why was he speaking informally?

“Ugh,” complained Ken, cleaning his and Leo’s shared room as Hongbin watched from the door. “This is gross!”

“Why did you go out drinking alone last night? You should’ve called one of us at the very least,” quips Hongbin, crossing his arms. Reaching down as he felt something fuzzy brush past his leg, he picks up Doongi by the nape of the neck and settles the disgruntled cat in his arms. “Don’t go in there; it’s filled with Jaehwan-hyung’s dried stomach contents from last night.”

Poking his head over his hyung’s shoulder, Hyuk decides to stand next to Hongbin to watch Ken scrub at his own puke. Reaching over, he ruffles the cat’s ears, earning a small glare as he rubbed the hairs the wrong way. “Hyung, Leo saved your life last night by calling me, so you should thank him.”

“He’s back?” Hongbin and Ken asked, raising their eyebrows. Then they realize that Hyuk was referring to the cat. “Ah, you mean Doongi . . .”

So Hyuk doesn’t recognize me after all. Leo sulked, drooping in Hongbin’s arms. But at least he doesn’t call me “.”

“He doesn’t seem to like his name,” began Hyuk, shrugging. “Any who, who gets him today? Can I take him with me to my script reading?”

“You got to take him with you to your schedules for the last three days, let him come with me this time,” protested Hongbin. “And before that, Ravi kept him in the studio.”

“You mean you want to clean up after him today?” Ken asks, pausing in his vigorous scrubbing of the floor. “You’re always complaining about Doongi shedding all over the laundry and whatnot—“

Leo lets out a sigh as his three dongsaengs rock-paper-scissored while squabbling to see who the cat would hang out with today. Honestly, he wanted to go with Hongbin because the artwork had an appearance on Dream Team later today with Ravi. And actually, he was originally scheduled to appear on that show today, too, but considering his situation right now . . . N had an opening in his schedule, so he would fill in for Leo today. And that made Leo want to go with either Hyuk or Ken to their schedules instead.

But of course, with his luck that wouldn’t happen; Hongbin won the game of rock-paper-scissors.

Perched on N’s shoulder—not entirely by choice—Leo watches as Hongbin attempts the obstacle course, nearly falling off as N suddenly shot up as Hongbin fell face-first into the mud pool.

“Aouuu, you were so close, Lee Hongbin!” the leader exclaims, chopping at the returning mud-monster’s neck before handing him a towel.

Yes, so much closer than you got. Thought Leo, recalling how N had missed that first platform jump in the first stage of the course and splooshed into the waist-deep mud. Which was why he was perched on N’s shoulder; it was the only shoulder that was relatively clean and dry right now. Normally, getting a little muddy wasn’t a problem for him, but as a cat, it tended to cake in more places than just his head, making him very uncomfortable. Oh, how he wished he were a man right now. He definitely wouldn’t have missed that first jump, and Ravi wouldn’t be the only one carrying the team through right now—

“I wish Leo-hyung were here; he’s more useful in recordings like these,” grumbles Hongbin, seating himself in a chair next to N to wait for Ravi’s turn at the obstacle course. Roughly wiping his face and hands off with the towel, he reaches over and pets the cat, laughing as its whiskers tickled his palm. “I swear, he wants to bite us every time we stick our hands near his face.”

“But he doesn’t . . . well, except for that first time when he bit Ravi,” N says, looking over at the cat on his shoulder. “He’s really weird for a cat; he doesn’t chase mice or the cat toys, he wakes us up in the morning sometimes, he knows to fetch someone after he coughs up a hairball . . . it’s almost like he’s human.”

“But humans don’t get hairballs, hyung,” laughs Hongbin. “But it is odd how he knows how to flip light switches and use the bathroom sink . . . Hyuk told me what happened with Ken-hyung last night, and apparently, Leo usually washes up in the sink instead of grooming like a normal cat.”

“Leo washes in the—wait, isn’t his name Doongi? And is that why I keep finding cat hair all over the bathroom—Kim Ravi!” Whatever complaint N had about Leo’s shedding was cut off as the rapper began his run, and the three of them cheered him on.

Curled up on N’s lap with his chin on his forepaws—again, not by choice—Leo spaces out in the van filled with three muddy men, bored and drifting off to sleep as N gently brushed the fur on his back. But N’s oddly hushed voice wakes him up as he hears the concern in it;

“Jung Taekwoon, where did you go? Sports really aren’t my thing, and we really needed you today . . .”

You should be sleeping, Hakyeonie. Hongbinnie and Ravi are sleeping, and you were out all night, too. He thought, uncurling himself a bit to look up at his friend. And he meows softly, wanting desperately to let N know that he was here. As annoying as N was, Leo still appreciated having him has a friend . . . and as maknae fodder, since when Hyuk wasn’t torturing Leo, he was beating up N, usually.

“Hyung, can we stop by Leo’s studio if we have time?” N asks their manager with an unsteady voice, and the manager nods. “Maybe he’s there today, since he left everything there when he disappeared . . .”

I’m right here. Getting up on his hind legs, Leo tries to chop at N’s neck, but can’t reach. Giving up after batting N’s chest a few more times, he sits back down and sulks as N absentmindedly runs his fingers through his fur.

And of course, when they did arrive at his studio, it looked like he hadn’t been there in over two weeks; everything was just as he left it, including the coffee he didn’t finish that night. Leaping out of N’s arms and onto his worktable, he sniffs at his coffee, disgusted by the smell of the partially-dried, two-week-old, blackish-brown goop at the bottom of the cup.

“Hyung, he’s not here, let’s go,” says Ravi, putting a hand on N’s shoulder as it slumped in disappointment.

“But where could he have gone?” whispers N, almost in tears now. “I know we fought the night before he disappeared, but . . . it’s not like we haven’t fought before, and all he did was ignore me then, so why did he decide to run away this time? And really, it’s not like—“ And he covered his face as the tears slid down.

Hongbin and Ravi sighed. Ravi pats N’s back reassuringly as Hongbin scoops up the cat before they all left the studio to return to their dorm to wash off the mud before heading off to their individual schedules.

Poking his head out of Hongbin’s backpack—since the snarky god had won the game of rock-paper-scissors this morning—Leo looks around the MV set, realizing it was the set for their upcoming video. So Hongbin was replacing him as the lead . . . and he looks down, feeling a little dizzy as he realized how far the ground was from Hongbin’s shoulder. Normally, this wasn’t that high off the ground for him, but in the last two weeks or so, he’d discovered a new-found appreciation for midgets as a tiny cat himself; he preferred it when their shorter stylists carried him around to when the Vixx members did purely because he did not like the thought of splattering from such a great height if they dropped him.

Meow.

Glancing over his shoulder at the small white face sticking out of his backpack, Hongbin chuckles, swinging his bag around and pulling the cat out. “Don’t fall out; I can’t help you if you end up splattering on the floor.” Kneeling, he sets the snowy kitty on the floor, letting it explore the set as he discussed the blocking with the director.

As Leo wandered around the set, he takes note of all the staff members bustling about; some were adjusting and fine tuning details on the stage, some were checking the electronic displays, and others were doing other things. He had to scramble out of the way to avoid getting stepped on at least twice, and felt a little scared as a tiny cat surrounded by such big feet that could turn him into stage kill. He wanders around a bit more, looking for Hongbin so he could hide in the safety of his backpack again. But the main character was nowhere to be found, so he just paws at the director’s leg, hoping that the director would take him to his friend. But instead, the director just chuckles and hoists him up in front of the monitor.  

“You’re interested in monitoring Hongbin’s acting, too, eh?” he laughs, petting the cat.

Not really, since I can’t give him feedback. Leo sulks, resting his chin on his forepaws as he stared at the empty set through the monitoring screen. At least no one would step on him here . . .

Waking up as he heard Ken warming up his throat, Leo looks around the dressing room, realizing that he must have fallen asleep while monitoring Hongbin. So someone had probably brought him back here, and the other members had arrived to film their parts.

“Seriously, Ken-hyung?” a groggy voice rumbled from the couch in the corner. “Can you do that outside? I was filming all night—“

“No, I can’t,” Ken snapped back. Then his shoulders slumped. “Sorry . . . Guess I’m just a bit touchy because my throat’s sore from having to do Leo-hyung’s high notes in addition to my own . . .”

“Why don’t we ask Hyukkie to do the high notes? He can hit the same frequency Leo-hyung does, and Wonshikkie can always just auto-tune him,” Hongbin mumbled, rolling over to face the back of the couch to go back to sleep. “I wish Leo-hyung were here to tell me how I did . . .”

“And help us out with jacket filming . . . and cook dinner; I think I lost another ten years of my life from N-hyung’s ‘Sunday special,’” added Ken, leaving the room to finish his vocal warm-ups.  

Carefully leaping off the table, Leo bounds over to Hongbin and hops up onto the couch. He pokes their visual’s shoulder twice before Hongbin turns his head a little and sighs.

“Doongi,” he mumbles tiredly. “Why can’t you be Leo-hyung instead of Leo-cat?” Watching the cat as it curls up next to him to sleep, he lightly pokes its fuzzy face, laughing as that soft nose pressed against his fingers. “Don’t bite me, OK? We all have more to do because hyung is missing, and I really wish he was here. . .” And whatever he was saying was cut off as he fell asleep.

Cracking open one eye to watch over Hongbin for a little while, the cat sighs. I am here. And you did fine on your filming.

Leo sighs again, wondering how long he would be stuck like this. Maybe this was all just a really bad dream, and he’d be a man again when he woke up from this long, feline nightmare . . .

A little over a month has passed since Leo woke up as a cat, and his birthday was quickly approaching. The weather outside was growing colder, as winter was coming, and the Vixx members were taking a break from practice in the dance studio. As they sat and lay on the ground, Leo walked around them, wondering why they were so quiet. Usually, at least N or Ken would be goofing around, but seeing those two quiet unnerved him.

“It’s his birthday tomorrow,” Ravi says suddenly, staring at the ceiling.

“Is it November already?” Hongbin sits up, taking out an earbud as he looked over at their rapper.

“Taekwoonie’s been missing for over a month,” N notes quietly, drawing his knees to his chest.

Ken and Hyuk just sigh, reaching for the cat as it passed between them, and the practice room goes quiet again.

“Let’s get hyung a cake,” suggests Hyuk. “It’s his birthday, right?”

“Might as well. We still have leftover candles from Hongbin’s party back in September,” adds Ken.

“Geez, those creepy voodoo-cat candles you bought in Mexico?” Hongbin says, throwing Ken a judging look. “Why did you even buy those?”

“Dunno. They said they would grant you whatever you wished for if you used them on your birthday. And I thought you needed some luck after a bird pooped on you the day before your birthday.” Ken shrugged. “Although, bird poop is lucky, supposedly . . .”

“What did you wish for, Hongbin?” asks Ravi, stealing the cat from Hyuk.

Hongbin blinks a few times, staring at the white cat in his friend’s hands. “No way . . . those candles don’t actually work, do they?”

The cat glares at their visual, remembering how they celebrated Hongbin’s birthday that night. He and the snarky Adonis had argued, and the wish that Hongbin had made—

“What, don’t tell me you wished for Taekwoon-hyung to turn into a cat or something—“

“Leo?” asks their manager, poking his head into the practice room. “You’re back . . . Have you seen the other kids?”

Leo shakes his head. “No, I haven’t.”

“Where did all those cats come from?”

“No idea.” Leo smiles, petting the five sulking cats around him; his friends had never been cuter and more loveable.

// End - Like a Cat

20160808 - apologies for the long wait, ran into writers' block with the other two installments I had planned for Ken or Ravi .____. & then got distracted by hype for "Hades" & laughing over how it looks like Leo finally lost it and murdered N in the teaser photo. <3

20160814 - minor grammar, spelling, and content edits

20170704 - Gave Hyuk an extra line of maknae snark :) Brownie points if you can spot where I made the edit~