The next day, Jongin woke up to a small, warm cotton ball stuffing itself into his nose. 

His first instinct was to bat it away, but he restrained himself, because what if it was the beagle line tricking him? He didn't want the mischievous trio to have even more blackmail material. But as he slowly came to, he realized it was a cute little--cat. 

He meant to say it was the spawn of Satan, really he did. It must be the sleep clouding his brain. And if you tilted your head to the side, and squinted really hard, it did kind of look like a puppy. 

Kind of. 

"What are you doing?" someone asked.

"I swear to all things holy, Sehun-"

"But you're Satan-OW!"

Jongin groggily raised his from his pillow, to be greeted with the welcome sight of Kyungsoo beating Sehun's head in with- was that one of Suho's plushies?

"How-how did you get into our room?"

Kyungsoo turned his glare to Jongin, and the dancer squirmed uncomfortably. 

"Thanks to a certain dancer, the entire dorm knows that Jongdae can pick locks."

Jongin did his best to look guilty, but he knew they would've found out eventually.

Sehun snickered loudly. "You look like a-"

As Kyungsoo not-so-gently herded the precious maknae out of their dorm, Jongin stretched, his shirt riding up to reveal his stomach. Sehun gave him a wide-eyed stare ("When did you get abs?" he later demanded to know, startling the dancer into snorting up water through his nose) and when the door was shut firmly behind the annoying brat, Kyungsoo turned around to see him, still yawning, and turned a soft shade of pink. 

As Jongin finished yawning, Kyungsoo almost ran into a nearby closet. When Jongin looked around for his roommate, he was instead reminded that there was a cat. 

In his room. On his bed. 'His poor dogs must be scratching at the door to his cousin's house, ready to run and save their eomma,' he thought. But as he watched the cat, it watched him back with small, bright eyes. From this angle, it looked like some sort of angel, and it reminded Jongin of a certain ethereal hyung of his, at least before said hyung left to sing solo songs so inappropriate and cringe worthy it should be illegal (although he only realized just how inappropriate the songs were once they were translated into an actual language).

At this point Jongin felt like he's having someone sort of out-of-body experience. Despite muffled screaming in the background (don't ask), it's like he's trapped in some sort of bubble, with only the cat for company.

Tentatively, he reached out to touch the cat. When he made contact with the soft fur, it purred, and nuzzled its head against his hand. He continued it gently, caught up in some kind of spell.

"AWWWWWWW, CHANNIE LOOK!! THEY'RE BONDING!!!!" 

As Chanyeol came running at the call of his... his Baekhyun (Jongin isn't sure exactly what to call Baekhyun in relation to Chanyeol. Maybe owner?), Jongin practically leaped away from the cat, and the cat actually leaped, right into the closet Kyungsoo is currently hiding in. 

Jongin glared at ChanBaek with his best impersonation of Satansoo. 

Unfortunately, they were too busy dancing in celebration that Jongin was actually touching the cat voluntarily to notice. 

Jongin tried to restrain himself from facepalming too hard, as he gets up to shoo the couple out his his room, dress, and eat breakfast. He could already tell it would be a long day.