= Chapter III =

Purrhaps a Purrincess

I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you

His lips moved slowly away from hers and Jinki opened his eyes just when she was opening hers. It was the right moment to do so because he could admire her long eyelashes and the green of her eyes that was hard to catch if you weren’t keeping attention. But he was…

He was so lost in his own feelings that he didn’t care about anything else besides her; he wasn’t even noticing the energy slowly flowing in his direction threatening to exposure him since an overflow of energy was able to change the colors of his eyes.

The last thing he wanted was for her to see his eyes change, for her to get suspicious that he wasn’t a normal person like her.

However his own feelings were too overwhelming for him to think about the consequences of his irresponsible actions.

Hyejin observed him for a while without saying anything and then her eyes widened more and more as if she was suddenly realizing what they did.

Jinki tilted his head confused and before he had time to say something she raised her knee and hit him between his legs making him bend forward, the pain being enough for him to feel tears come to his eyes.

What was wrong with her?! She just kissed him back!

He looked at her feeling betrayed and Hyejin bit her lower lip staring at him angrily as if he just stole a part of her and wasn’t giving it back.

“I guess you are truly a man after all!”

He tried to smile because her comment was on point but instead he groaned covering his lower parts with his hands still in pain.

She didn’t move watching him and Jinki glanced at her a few times realizing that she seemed worried now.

“I didn’t even hit you that hard…” She said her voice trembling a little. Oh she was worried so he hid his smiling face and kept in pain even though it wasn’t hurting as much as it was before. “It was a small hit! Stop being a baby!”

“Well you don’t have a right?! You don’t know how much it hurts!”

He pouted cutely blinking his eyes and mastering his best cat eyes in her direction and Hyejin released a soft cry, clearly feeling the guiltiest person on Earth.

“You deserved it though!” She blurted out still not wanting to give in and admit she did a mistake. “I mean…it’s your fault because you shouldn’t have kissed me without my consent!”

Jinki straightened his body and his posture changed because he gave up on making her feel guilty, instead he wanted to know why she reacted like that when she was obviously enjoying the kiss as much as he was.

“You kissed me back!”

Hyejin frowned noticing that he wasn’t complaining anymore but the corners of moved and even though she hid her smile from him he was still able to see it.

“This is why girls don’t want anything with you!” She said instead and he furrowed his brow. She was so wrong! “You must wait for the right moment to kiss someone.” Hyejin didn’t give him time to answer and instead turned around to leave “I’m going home! Goodnight!”

He walked after her but gave up releasing a deep sigh before he screamed at her “It was the right moment!”

She heard him even though she was almost at the end of the street but she didn’t turn around, she didn’t know if he would be able to see her reddened cheeks and she didn’t want that.

He was right. It was the perfect moment. The moon was bright, they were alone and she was emotionally fragile. The perfect moment!

He touched her so tenderly and the kiss had the right amount of sweetness to it. She touched her lips, her heart beating as fast as it was beating when he kissed her.

Why was she analyzing the kiss that idiot gave her?

She turned at the end of the street ignoring that Jinki didn’t move from his spot watching her every move knowing he would see her very soon through his cat eyes.

He eyed the moon wondering if it put a spell on him. There was no other explanation for what he was feeling ever since he laid his eyes on her.

Hyejin wasn’t much different from other women he met before and yet she was special, he knew deep down in his heart that she was.

If that was a moon spell or destiny or just plain coincidence he didn’t care.

Jinki did a few little happy dance steps and then fastened his pace so he could change before he returned to her side in his cat form.

Hyejin searched the whole apartment but no sign of the cat. The window of the bathroom was open, which she didn’t remember leaving open and she sighed returning to the kitchen leaning against the counter.

Her house was a mess that day so apparently she didn’t sleepwalk that night. She tangled her fingers in her hair and rubbed her head going crazy.

Her cat disappeared, she needed to do the laundry and she was still weak on her knees because of a silly kiss.

“Where the hell is that cat?!” She mumbled under her breath returning to the bathroom.

A meow made her features light and then a white furry cat showed up at the window.

“Oh there you are you devil!”

She grabbed him and took him in her arms to her bedroom, caressing his fur and pressing him against her chest as if he was one of the soft toys she treasured when she was a little girl.  

“Where were you?” she asked but the cat was nuzzling his head against her chest cutely. “Did you leave through the bathroom window, ball of fur?” She scratched his head slowly and the cat started to purr softly.

Jinki was extremely happy with all that attention, besides her s were too close by and he couldn’t stop purring.

“I was so worried!”

Her confession made Jinki raise his eyes to her and for a second she could swear his eyes became slightly blue. He noticed her confused expression and his cat lips trying to control the flux of his energy. The kiss and all those demonstrations of affect were making him stronger even if he wasn’t searching for it.

Without warning Hyejin threw him on the bed and Jinki graciously fall on it standing. He meowed upset and she sat on the bed by his side abruptly.

“Worried…pff---You are not even my pet!”

He eyed her confused and then sat by her side. When it came to Hyejin he needed a big dose of patience to completely understand her. One time she was kissing him and the next she was kicking him between his legs.

“Of course I was worried you were run over by a car and my coworker sister in law would be sad. She is the one adopting you after all. Also if my landlord saw you I would be in trouble. I’m only worried because of that.”

Jinki moved his tail slowly finding her adorable. She was trying so hard to resist him that it was very charming and had the opposite effect on him. She could try to push him away all she wanted because he was going to stay anyway.

Jinki nuzzled his head against her arm and she slowly raised it for him to rub his body on her side. She ran her fingers from his nose and up to the middle of his eyes and head and down his back slowly.

Jinki didn’t move his cat eyes away from her Hyejin that was completely smitten with the cuteness of her temporary pet “I’m glad you are safe.”

She absently minded kept petting him and Jinki laid by her side in the bed placing his head over the covers but still watching her, moving his tail slowly every time she caressed him as if he was a dog.

“Something happened to me today. A lot actually…”

His pupils dilated hearing her attentively.

“I fell into a lake, this idiot saved me and then Minho asked me out on a date.”

The cat bit her hand softly when Hyejin was going to touch him and she narrowed her eyes. Jinki corrected his mistake trying to control his temper and her hand instead telling her to continue her caresses.

“As I was saying, Minho invited me to go with him buy a present for his mother and then after that I went to a coffee shop with that idiot guy and Minho was there with his girlfriend.”

She pressed her hand on the cat's head and he meowed cutely as if telling her to cheer up.

“Yeah I know. It !” The cat placed a paw over her hand making her place it over the bed and he laid his head on it.

“You are so cute! Seriously!” Hyejin never had a cat before so she had no idea they could be so smart and adorable. “You know sometimes that guy looks like a pet too. “

Jinki panicked a little and he hoped she didn’t notice it in his eyes.

“He looks like a puppy or a kitty and he seems to love animals because he stays put watching them.” She laughed with her comment “He says things that don’t make much sense and you should see the amount of puns and old jokes he knows! He is weird!”

He wondered if weird in her dictionary was the same as attractive because she seemed to be saying that instead, which made him roll on the bed and relax, his head still over her hand.

“Then the moon…and…” She stuttered and her eyes fall on the cat beside her that was now looking at her intensely, he even raised his head from over her hand “Don’t look at me like that!”  she warned the cat clutching her chest “It was only a kiss it meant nothing! It wasn’t even that great!”

Jinki stood up on the bed and Hyejin looked at him surprised while the cat jumped from the bed and walked away as if he was hurt with something she said.

“Hey…”

He didn’t even look her way and walked out to the living room.

“Stupid cat!” She let herself fall back on her bed. How did her life started to become that weird?!

She spent years of her life leading the most boring of lives ever since her father left her.

Because before he abandoned her and her mother life was like a fairytale. Now it was just an empty tale until a few days ago when that weird man entered the palace and tried to touch that cup with a tiger.

Hyejin frowned.

Maybe that’s why she found him endearing and she couldn’t turn away from him, because in a way he reminded her of the remarkable and out of ordinary things her father always told her about.  

Hyejin placed her red mug with tea beside her books over the table and she grabbed her pen and started underlining some sentences from it.

Jinki was by the tv, laying on the floor, his head in the middle of his front paws while he watched it lazily. He laid on his side instead feeling bored because the drama on the tv was boring and his eyes moved to Hyejin that was biting her tongue while she read something in her book.

He found it adorable and curiously stood up to see what she was doing.

She didn’t notice his presence, focused on what she was reading and Jinki sat beside her watching her every move.

She glanced at him and smiled a little because the cat’s head was moving every time she did something, his tail swaying cutely and slow in a hypnotic way.

“How did you leave the house?” She asked tucking her hair behind her ear. “I really don’t remember leaving the window of the bathroom open.” Jinki didn’t react to her words “You are a really weird cat.” She caressed his head softly and Jinki closed his eyes rubbing his head against her hand. “Not angry with me anymore?”

She got back to study and failed to see Jinki’s upset gaze. He was still hurt with what she said and she knew she was lying because the kiss was amazing, but being by her side was more important.

Hyejin turned off the tv and tried to concentrate on her studies instead.

She led a very boring life. Every night after work she would shower, get in her pajamas, sleep and sometimes watch tv. She liked to watch idol performances, sometimes singing their songs, other she sat reading books.

Even his life of a cat seemed more exciting then hers. He looked around him. There was already several bowls by the kitchen counter waiting to be washed and a lot of used clothes on her bedroom floor.

Jinki wondered why she didn’t clean the apartment at all even though she cleaned the bathroom. Was it because she was lazy? Or she simply forgot and did other fun things instead.

He opened his cat mouth and he would have sighed loudly if he wasn’t a cat. Jinki decided to clean the house the next day again, he would have done it that afternoon but he had a date with Hyejin.

The next day he would take care of it and after he would pick up the clothes he hid on the rooftop and wash them too. Later he intended to visit his old apartment to pick up more clothes and other things he needed. He couldn’t use Hyejin shower gel any longer. Sooner or later she would find out and that would be dangerous. Wearing her neighbor clothes and shampoo wasn’t a good idea too and his clothes were too big for Jinki.

She yawned loudly covering with her hand while she wrote on her small notebook with the other. It seemed like a very boring history book. At least for him it was boring since he was used to study them all the time when he was little.

“Are you tired?” Hyejin asked out loud and it took a while for Jinki to realize she was speaking to him. “Are you?” Her eyes laid on him and as an answer he climbed to her lap.

Hyejin grabbed him in her arms and nuzzled her face against his head making the cat widen his eyes and look up at her. “I’m really tired! Let’s go sleep in our bed!”

Our bed…

Jinki smiled internally almost melting in her arms. He didn’t mind hearing that every night.

Jinki couldn’t sleep. Usually when he was in cat or tiger form he would sleep more due to the amount of energy it took from his body.

He still remembered the first time he turned into a cub. It was only for a few ten minutes that at first made his parents celebrate and then worry when they saw the color of his fur. At the time they still thought it was something temporarily and that with time it would change from white to orange. It never happened unfortunately and soon his grey stripes become more noticeable.

Those first ten minutes in tiger form exhausted him so much that he slept for the next two days barely leaving his bed, oblivious to the amount of wise elders that came to visit to check on him and see if there was something wrong with him.

The days and weeks that followed where a blur, with Jinki changing into tiger form so they could look at him, cut his fur to analyze and even do some tests.

Eventually they decided that nothing was wrong with him. He was simply different in the outside.

But does that mean that he was also different inside?! Even if his parents never ever mentioned it Jinki knew that they feared that for some reason Jinki wasn’t a full god.

Even though he was tired due to the last hours in cat form he couldn’t sleep that night.

Hyejin break her own rule of not letting him sleep on her bed and she let him lay down beside her, his back pressed against her chest and tummy, feeling her warmth even though he was lying over the covers.

She had her arm around him and her hand was just beside his nose and if he was truly a cat he probably would have hated that, but he was in fact a human so that produced in him different emotions.

She was so close that he could smell the scent of her hair and her own scent which was a mix of all the scents in her, her skin, her hair, everything. It was something human couldn’t really identify completely but he wasn’t a common person.

She was sleeping peacefully and he was the only idiot feeling nervous with the proximity and having impure thoughts. If he turned into a human in that moment he would be laying in her bed with a gorgeous woman wearing only a pajama by his side. He raised his head to smell her hand and she moved it away because of his whiskers tickling her.

If he was in human form he would be able to kiss her, to lay his body over hers and smell all of her body. The thought made Jinki uncomfortable and he stood up from the bed and moved to the end of it away from Hyejin.

She moved her arm feeling the lack of him under it and Jinki felt sorrowful. If he had arms and real hands he could hug her back.

He knew he couldn’t live like that any longer. He couldn’t be only a pet in her life and sooner or later he would have to tell her about his secret about who he was.

He felt as if he was that little cub again revealing his parents his fur that was so different from everyone else, remembering how his father’s smile faded and his mother looked worried.

They still managed to accept him, tolerate that difference since they were blood related but Hyejin had no relation to him. She could simply kick him out; call him a freak, anything…

He had no idea how she would react but probably she would try to kick him in the middle of his legs again.

No one reacted well to those news so with time he just gave up on it but now he wanted her to know him, who he truly was, to be able to hug her and kiss her.

However maybe this time he would take his time making her know him, how he was inside before she saw what was outside.

Hyejin walked powerless to the bathroom. Her period came that morning and she was more emotional, tired, hungry and grumpy than ever.

She crossed the garden fixing her bow tie while she thought about the previous day.

Minho was with a woman at a coffee shop. Ok, they were being touchy with each other but that didn’t mean for certain that they were dating. She could be his sister after all. Did he even have a sister?! Why didn’t he have facebook or any social media where she could try and find out?!

Unfortunately he only used kakao. She knew it because once she heard him tell one of his friends that visited the palace to message him on kakao.

Maybe she could ask him for his too when they go out together to get that gift for his mother. She could also try to ask him on that day, to see if he had someone special after all.

But that wasn’t the only thing bothering Hyejin.

That kiss with that Idiot, Lee Jinki, did too. Above all because it was a dreamy like kiss and her heart would go dugeun dugeun every time she remembered it.

Also because she was looking forward - to her frustration - to see him later. He didn’t show up in her morning tour so he was probably going to do so in the afternoon one.

She bit her lower lip. What if now that he got his date and a kiss he wouldn’t show up again?!

The idea upset her more than it should and Hyejin fastened her pace to reach the building where the bathroom was.

The door of it opened and Minho came out looking stunning, dressing up his coat over his black shirt.

Hyejin almost got blinded by his beauty but that didn’t stop her from jumping the middle of the bushes hiding from him.

She watched him walk away while she creeped on him behind the bushes and one tree.

Damn it!

She couldn’t face him now, too worried to spill anything about the day before and his possible girlfriend. She needed time to think about the perfect way to ask him about it.

A noise behind her back made her turn around and the old gardener watched her amused.

She quickly stood up and pretended to look around, she even looked in the middle of the tree branches.

“Lost something?” The old man asked, placing his hands over the broom.

Why was he everywhere she was?! Hyejin frowned slightly and then tried to act natural.

“I was searching for…my cat. He comes here sometimes!”

That was probably the place he ran to when he was missing the previous night. She didn’t live that far away from the palace after all. Maybe 20 minutes by foot and cats run right?!

“How does it look?” the man asked.

“White with grey stripes. He was abandoned and used to live here.”

The man widened his eyes and she wondered for one second if the cat was his and he was now searching desperately for him and was going to ask him back. Her heart hurt with the prospect of giving the cat away which was also stupid since she was searching for an owner for him.

“You adopted that cat?”

“Yes. He is living with me now. He is very smart actually.”

“Do you have an idea of what you got yourself into? What you took home with you?”

The man had a grave expression and Hyejin shrugged her shoulders confused.

“Aaaaa a stray cat?”

Maybe there was some kind of similar animal to a cat that she didn’t know about and in fact that cat was a wild species. It would explain how smart it was.

The old man started laughing while he collected his tools from the ground “You have no idea.” He raised his eyes to her as if he was looking at a very innocent child “be careful. This one seems good but magical creatures attract more magical creatures and not all of them are good. By accepting this one into your life you are also accepting the unknown and the peculiar.”

Hyejin was speechless still wondering what he meant. “It’s a really nice cat.” She showed the man her hand “He bits me softly and did this small scratch but that is because we were playing and he has big nails.”

“Aigo!” the man turned around ignoring her and Hyejin pouted in thought before she came out from the middle of the bushes. She really needed to use the toilet.

“Home sweet home!” Jinki said out loud closing the door of his abandoned apartment.

He took off his shoes, jumped over the several sneakers he owned and landed in his living room.

It was all like he left, the big couch in front of the big tv, the blue curtains on each side of the huge window and door for the balcony, letting the light bathe the room.

He ran a finger over the cabinet on his right and looked at it. Dirty, too much dust.

He haven’t been to his apartment for a while and he couldn’t stay longer.

There was a reason for it, for his fugitive nature the last months. He was kinda hiding from his parents.

Jinki was turning 30 soon and 30 was the limit his parents settled for him to live away from the clan.

His father was getting old and was being pressured by the elders to give away his place as chief of the clan to his son. Of course everyone wanted it to be Taemin and Jinki knew but still the ceremony to make Jinki a full member of the clan needed to be done now before he was too old. He would be temporarily the chief until Taemin took the position from him which would probably be a few days later since his father would probably ask Jinki to give it away immediately, alleging something silly.

Jinki didn’t mind. He wasn’t ambitious and he never wanted to be a member of the clan at all anyway.

The problem wasn’t the ceremony it was what it meant. He would have to dedicate his life to the clan and sometimes that didn’t mean good things and worse he would have to choose a bride.

That was why once he turned 29 and his mother started visiting more often mentioning is father that never came to visit him, Jinki decided to disappear.

Sometimes it was hard, avoiding using much money, not working at the hospital, living in the street but he didn’t mind it most of the times. He was used to that lonely life and living like the poor gave him a different perspective about the world he lived in and the people he liked to help on his free time.

However right now he took the risk of coming back. He needed some of this things and clothes. If he was going to show up in front of Hyejin and try to date her he needed to look good, he needed to look like his human self. And he could be very charming and handsome in his human self.

Jinki dashed to his bedroom and opened the closet to take a traveling bag out. He placed it over his bed and that’s when he noticed the letter there.

He grabbed it and sat on the bed recognizing the handwriting immediately. He ripped the envelope open and unfolded the letter.

“Beloved son, since you are not answering to my calls” – He searched under his pillow and grabbed his phone that he didn’t use for a while – “I decided to write you this letter knowing that you would read it.” – She truly knew him like no one. – “We miss you.” – she missed him – “We are worried with you. Forget about the Clan initiation, forget about it. We just want you to visit us. Taemin is worried too. He searched for you at the hospital but no one saw you for weeks. Please visit us or at least call.”

Jinki almost folded the letter but his eyes fell on the rest of the words his mother wrote.

“My birthday is soon. Nothing would make me happier than to hug you. Please Jinki.”

He placed the sheet of paper on the bed beside him and stood up to grab some of his clothes from the closet to place inside his bag.

He would need underwear, some hygienic products too and his cellphone and documents.

His time as a cat was shortening and now he wanted to get back to being a human.

He had a reason to.

Jinki placed several shirts over the letter on the bed but then slipped his hand under them and saved the paper. He folded it carefully and placed it on his pants pocket.

“Ok! I’ll probably need more than one bag!”

He also probably should try to rent a place near hers too.

Hyejin threw the small pearl aqua blue ball from her bed and it bounced on the floor and fall over the table in the middle of two books.

The cat glanced at the ball and then back at her as if he had no intention to pick it up.

“Hey stop being lazy!”

Jinki moved his ears not able to show his annoyance. He wasn’t a dog! Clearly Hyejin had no idea what kind of things cats liked but he wasn’t a cat anyway and he didn’t want to make her sad so Jinki lazily moved to pick up the ball.

“Gee! You are a lazy cat! I see! I must give you less food or you will become huge!”

Jinki immediately started running and swiftly jumped on the table, grabbed the ball with his mouth and then jumped graciously to the floor and walked fast to her before he placed the ball right in front of her in the bed.

Hyejin grabbed her hair in a ponytail, which made her old black t-shirt rise and gave Jinki a good view of her flat stomach. He didn’t take his eyes away this time and he would have drooled if she didn’t do it quickly.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her in his arms, lay her down on the bed and kiss her stomach leisurely, inhaling her scent.

Since she was on her period her smell as a woman was making him go crazy. He was still an animal after all - a male, and she was a female, a female ready to procreate.

Hyejin grabbed the ball. “Want to play more?”

Jinki moved his head negatively and Hyejin blinked her eyes “Did you just answer to me?”

Oh right he was a cat.

Jinki immediately lay down on the bed and placed his head between his legs pretending to be his lower parts.

“Ok we won’t play more!” That seemed to work and he quit the pretense.

Hyejin stood up to grab a glass of water before sleeping and he followed her, bypassing one pair of dirty socks on the floor.

Aish! Couldn’t she clean up a little?! Why was she so lazy when it came to do the laundry or wash the dishes?

He grabbed one of the socks with his mouth - thankfully it wasn’t her or he would have become a mess – and he rubbed his body against her leg making her look down with the glass of water on her hand.

“What are you doing?”

He placed the sock over her bare feet and waited but Hyejin simply walked away leaving the sock there.

Jinki meowed to call for her attention so she turned to him.

Her eyes fell on the sock and Jinki made it slide on the floor using his snot.

“You want to play with that sock?”

Jinki sat beside the sock and placed a paw over it.

Hyejin walked to him and crouched in front of the cat caressing his head.

He closed his eyes enjoying her caress and took his paw away from the sock.

Hyejin grabbed it and moved it in front of his snout. “Want me to throw it?”

Meow.

He wasn’t a dog. Why couldn’t she understand?

Apparently his frustrated meow worked because she stood up with the sock. “Maybe I should do the laundry tomorrow.”

He moved his tail and stood up rubbing his body on her legs happily.

“Yes I’m going to do it!”

Yes! He made her understand.

“Let’s sleep now!”

Hyejin turned off the light of the living room and entered the bedroom where she the moon light before turning off the bedside table lamp.

Jinki jumped on the bed and lay next to her knees over the bed covers.

She didn’t say anything for a while so he closed his eyes ready to sleep. He had a tiring day. He did some cleaning in the morning and then went to his old apartment to gather some things and then searched for an apartment close by to rent so he could hide his things. He didn’t find anything yet so he hid his bag on the rooftop. He hoped no one noticed it or that it rained.

“You know…” Hyejin’s voice made him open his eyes slowly “The moon was once part of Earth.”

Jinki smiled internally and stretched his body lying along her.

“I learned that the other day from that weird guy. His name is Lee Jinki. It’s a funny name…”

It wasn’t a funny name at all. It was the name his mother chose for him, Jin meant precious and valuable just like her name and Ki meant foundation.

He was supposed to be a very reliable and unique person and he tried all his life to live up to that. Maybe someday he could tell her about his name. He wondered if she knew what hers meant too.

“I wonder where he is.”

Jinki raised his head so he could look at her illuminated by the light of the fake moon of her bedroom, not the sky.

She had her eyes closed and half her face was under the covers.

“I don’t have his number or anything. I don’t even know what he does for a living. He must be unemployed since he doesn’t seem to do anything!”

Jinki groaned internally and his nails came out without him controlling it so he had to carefully pull them away from the covers not to ruin it.

“He didn’t come at all today.”

He tilted his head. Did that mean that she missed him and she wanted to see him?

Hyejin stretched her arm and grabbed the notebook beside her bed. Jinki saw her open it and take a picture from inside it.

She rolled on the bed and he watched her interested.

“I asked for this picture at the last new year party.”

He released a short meow because the energy flowing from her was sadness again. He truly didn’t want it at all but he couldn’t help it.

She turned the picture so he could see it and Jinki buried his nails on the cover.

Minho. It was a picture of Minho, that boring Mr. Right Guy.

“Isn’t he handsome?”

Jinki placed his claws over Hyejin leg and she moved it away.

“YA! Why are you using your nails on my bed and my leg?”

Jinki showed her his teeth and she placed the picture inside the notebook and laid it over the table.

That seemed to calm down Jinki that snuggled against her again and curled into a ball.

“Ok I get it, no talking; only sleeping!”

He didn’t move upset.

Upset that she was still thinking about Minho, upset that he couldn’t even scold her and tell her to think about him instead.

He was so absorbed in jealousy that he completely forgot that she just confessed that she missed Lee Jinki.

Hyejin hurried up to enter the main building. Her coworker informed her that she had an important call waiting for her. She wasn’t supposed to use her phone during working hours and none of her scarce acquaintances would call her at work so it must be something important.

Several thoughts run through her mind. Maybe her landlord found out about the cat and had a huge allergic reaction and went to the hospital and now was calling to demand that she pay for it or the cat could be cleaning the house and doing the laundry and then he put too much detergent in it and it exploded into an avalanche of foam and soaked the whole building. The more she thought about it the more ridiculous it sounded.

“Oh.” She was expecting to see one of the secretaries but instead Minho was the one holding the phone.

He smiled warmly at her “One is sick and the other had to lunch.” He explained.

“I’m terribly sorry!” She rushed to grab the phone.

“No problem at all.” He leaned forward and Hyejin blushed deeply when he whispered closer to her ear “I think it’s your mother.”

He touched her forehead softly “Glad that the bump disappeared.”

With that he returned to his room but left the door open so Hyejin could see him sit at his desk his attention on his computer.

She swallowed hard still feeling the touch of his fingers on her forehead.

“Yes?”

“Hyejin?” It was really her mother and she turned around forgetting about Minho. That was an unpredictable call.

“Mom, is it really you?”

“Of course it’s me! Why are you so surprised?”

Hyejin lowered her voice and she grabbed the phone with both her hands “Because you don’t call in such a long time.”

“I tried to call your cellphone. You didn’t pay the bill?”

“I did. I can’t use it at work.”

“Aish.” Hyejin was sure her mother didn’t believe her.

“It’s in my locker. But did something happen? Is oppa ok?”

“Of course he is ok. He is in America now.”

“Oh really? That’s great!” At least one of her kids was doing well. “Are you well mom?”

“I’m doing well.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“Can’t I call my daughter? Is that a crime now?”

“No I mean…” Hyejin bit her lower lip and lowered her voice so Minho wouldn’t be able to hear “Do you need money is that it?”

Doing great in America didn’t exactly mean that her brother would send her money.

“No I don’t.” Her mother seemed offended and Hyejin leaned against the desk beside her. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m only interested in you because of money? Your stepfather has a good job!”

“No mom…”

“Because even if that was true going to you for money would be stupid. You barely have enough money for yourself.”

“I’m sorry mom!” She was being unfair. Her mother only asked once for money. “But you never call me so I thought that maybe…”

“I called you last month.”

“Two and and half months ago mom. “She wasn’t counting though neither did she mark the last day she saw her mom, two years ago, in her old calendar.

“You always exaggerate so much. Anyway I’m going to visit this Saturday.”

“WHAT?” Hyejin knocked over a mug with pens all over the desk and Minho peeked from behind his computer to check on her, something she didn’t miss.

“I miss my daughter so I decided to visit. I’m going to stay the weekend.”

“Do you know what day is on Sunday?” Hyejin asked collecting all the pens and placing them inside the mug.

“Of course I know my daughter’s birthday.”

Hyejin beamed and her eyes meet Minho’s that was watching her now.

“I’ll be waiting then! You can sleep in my bed!” Better they could sleep together like when she was a little girl.

“Ok. Can you send me the address again? I think I misplaced it.”

“I will as soon as I get to my cellphone! I can’t wait to see you!” Hyejin giggled biding her mother goodbye.

“Something wrong?” Minho’s voice on her back made her place the phone back to its place.

“No. Everything is great!”

“You seem sad today.” Minho’s comment made her open like a fish. She tried so hard to avoid him all day and yet he knew she was sad.

“How do you know?” She covered realizing that she was using informal language with him. He didn’t seem to mind though since he barely reacted “I mean we didn’t saw each other today!”

“I watched part of your tour. You didn’t seem as energetic as you usually are.”

He was watching her! Choi Minho had his eyes on her!

“Thank you!” She answered with hearts in her eyes and he raised his eyebrows confused. “I mean. I’m ok thank you for worrying with me.”

“I think we can say that we are friends right? Friends care about each other.”

Was he friendzoning her now?! Hyejin didn’t have time to answer before he spoke again.

“You are always in high spirits; your smile makes everyone feel cheerful too.”

“I’m just tired.” She forced a smile, a natural anti suspicious one.

“This Saturday I’ll pick you up ok?”

She almost forgot about the date. She needed to tell her mother to arrive later. “Sure. We have a present to find!” she laughed awkwardly and he smiled nodding his head.

“Now time to go back to work!”

She took that as a cue to leave him and she quickly stepped outside.

There were a lot of things she needed to do before her mother arrived.

First she surely needed to clean the apartment; second she needed to do all the laundry; third she needed to go to the hairdresser and take care of herself better; fourth she needed to cook.

Her mother always mentioned how everyone knew how to cook but her. Hyejin was the one always eating, that was her specialty. However she could surprise her mother since she knew how to cook now. Of course she wasn’t an expert but she did well when she wanted.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the man that was following her steps while she walked away from the palace in the direction of the bus stop.

Jinki was following her for a while smiling preciously waiting for her to notice him and his nice pretty and clean clothes. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt and dark jeans and pretty sneakers. Not to mention that he combed his hair perfectly and even put on some perfume.

Since she didn’t seem to notice him he jumped on her, placing his hands on her shoulders and Hyejin released a small scream and hit him with her bag.

“OUCH IT’S ME!”

She stepped back holding her blue bag that matched her denim skirt and white sweater.

“Jinki?”

He grinned cutely because she was treating him as if he was her friend even though he was older. Somehow that pleased him and made them feel closer.

“Hello! Did you miss me?” He asked cutely but her answer made his smile fade.

“No!” She walked away but he followed after her, walking by her side.

“Ah, don’t lie! I bet you thought of me at least a little bit wondering where I was, what my phone number was, what I do for a living!”

Hyejin stopped on her tracks and stared at him. Was he reading her mind?! She thought about that the previous night.

“I mean. Isn’t that what girls normally wonder about guys they kissed?!”

She covered his mouth with both her hands and Jinki had to pull them away because he barely could breathe.

“Who kissed?! No one kissed! Don’t even mention that anymore!”

“Aigo!”

She walked away and he once again followed her like a pet “Want to go out with me? Let’s go eat something! I have money today and I got new clothes! Let’s eat steak!” Whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted to go he would take her.

She turned to him and checked him out with a fierce expression.

Jinki opened his arms giving her a better look and he noticed how her eyes hesitated over his chest. She liked what she was seeing.

“This t-shirt sticks a lot to my chest right?” he blinked an eye at her and Hyejin looked away.

“You did dress better today. That looks expensive.”

It was expensive, not that he cared much about it.

“Did you steal the clothes or money?”

Her question offended him. Jinki never would do something like that.

“Hey I only borrowed that sweater. I mean…”

She frowned and he realized that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to mention how he stole a sweater from her landlord.

Jinki grinned correcting his mistake “I’m kidding. It’s all mine. Nothing stolen.”

“Right because you work as a…” She waited for his answer and Jinki rubbed his ear. He could play that game with her; he didn’t have anything to hide, besides being a furry god and her pet without her knowing.

“Doctor!”

As soon as he answered she scoffed at him and started to laugh so much she was shaking “A doctor! Right….”

Jinki watched her unpleased “I swear I am a doctor. I studied medicine in college!”

She laughed even more and she even placed her hand against a street lamp leaning on it laughing on his face. He wanted to make her laugh until she cried but not in that way.

“I’m telling the truth!”

She cleaned her eyes and stopped laughing because he seemed really upset with her reaction.

“Ok you don’t have to lie.” She cleared “Don’t try to impress me by pretending to be someone you aren’t.”

“I don’t have to. I never lied about who I am…well not about everything…”

“So you do lie about who you are?” She stabbed her finger on his chest.

“Don’t you?” he accused her smiling softly which annoyed her more than anything. Hyejin turned around and walked away upset.

There was something about Jinki that made her insane. It was as if he knew her, and therefore he knew exactly where to poke to make it hurt. He knew the right words to say in every moment and she hated it.

“Wait!” He called going after her “I’m sorry Hyejin, wait…”

She didn’t stop and instead she walked even faster “Stop following me!” She turned around to check where he was and send him an evil look. “If you keep following me I’ll kick you again and I’ll scream that you…”

She didn’t finish her sentence because Jinki pulled her by one arm to him and away from the street lamp she was going to hit because she was busy staring at him upset.

She fixed her gaze on his and Jinki moved his hands down her upper arms pulling her closer to him, so close that she was once again lost in his eyes. There was something about Jinki that attracted her as much as it irritated her and she couldn’t explain.

He caressed her arm tenderly and even though going against a street lamp couldn’t compare with being run over by a car or killed by a psychopath, Lee Jinki still seemed very worried with her.

He parted his lips and Hyejin’s eyes fall on them immediately, a huge desire to kiss them made her almost dizzy and she recalled the kiss they shared the previous night.

“Be careful…” his beautiful full lips muttered “I saved you again. Three times already. Don’t get used to it.”

He repeated her words, the same ones she said to him in cat form. Getting attached to her wasn’t a good idea and yet he couldn’t walk away from her, he couldn’t prevent it because he was already feeling too attached.

Hyejin blinked her eyes slowly and she tried really hard to save her body from that evil man that knew exactly what to do to and say to infuriate and seduce her at the same time.

She pushed him away and stepped back. Jinki watched her as if he was a wild cat watching one of his cubs, taking care of it so it wouldn’t get hurt.

“Can you do me a favor?” Hyejin asked gravely increasing the distance between them.

Jinki moved his fingers, a gesture she didn’t notice, the distance becoming to trouble him. She was safest near him. “Anything.”

“Save me from yourself!” The words made him narrow his eyes as if he couldn’t understand what she meant “Leave me alone!”

Hyejin walked away as fast as she could and Jinki watched her walk away from him with frustration wrinkling his eyes.

Hyejin was worried with her cat. She wasn’t having the best of days ever since she had an argument with that Jinki idiot and she spent the rest of the evening cleaning the apartment and the cat didn’t come, not even once to greet her. He simply lay down on her bed not even looking in her way. It was as if he was upset with something she did to him but she couldn’t recall anything. She even gave him chicken that night.

“Are you angry?” she asked from the door after she collected all the laundry from the floor and placed it inside the basket in the bathroom. “Are you upset because I didn’t give you enough chicken?” Jinki didn’t move pretending not to listen to her but she could see his ears move “you can’t eat chicken all the time. I mean, cats don’t eat chicken. I have no idea what the consequences of eating too much chicken are for a cat but I bet there must be some.”

Since he didn’t answer Hyejin crossed her arms in front of her chest frustrated “Hey cat!” She shook her head “I need to find you a name. How can I call you or scold you without a name?”

She approached Jinki and he curled more into a ball ignoring her “Are you even a girl or a boy?”

She grabbed him before he could run away and Jinki panicked. No way no way!

Hyejin turned him upside down and Jinki meowed in terror embarrassed because the last thing he wanted was for Hyejin to stare at his manhood…or cathood.

Too late though because she released him over the bed and Jinki stared at her devastated.

“You are a boy. A very noticeable boy. Well done cat!”

Was she praising his cathood?! Jinki sat proudly. She saw nothing though. He couldn’t wait to show her his body in human form. She would have a surprise, a pleasant one.

“Look at you!” She grinned admiring his fluffy fur. “Fluffy can be your name!”

Jinki’s fur on his back started to rise and he showed his teeth in disagreement.

“Ok not Fluffy! Then Snowflake?”

Jinki didn’t change his posture so she kept trying other names.

“So maybe cute names don’t work so a manly one, Brutus!”

Jinki frowned. They would go on and on and she wouldn’t find a right name for him because there was only one – his clan name.

Jinki’s eyes darted around the room and he found what he was looking for.

Hyejin followed the cat’s every move and Jinki jumped over the kitchen counter.

“YA!” She was going to scold him more but Jinki stopped in front of the tofu she had for dinner. He pointed at it with his head and Hyejin placed a hand on her waist and followed the cat with her eyes since he jumped out from the counter.

“Dubu?” She asked but the cat didn’t stop there. “You want that name?”

This time the white cat jumped on the table and over the flyer of the new chicken restaurant of the neighborhood.

“Chicken?” She asked feeling like an idiot for thinking that the cat was showing her something. “You want chicken and tofu? You are hungry again?”

He meowed frustrated and placed his paw on the flyer over the word New.

“What are you trying to tell me? Dubu? New….Oh I know Onew?”

He released a long meow and sat over the table moving his tail in an enchanting rhythm.

“Onew? Is that your name?”

She scratched him behind his ear making the cat close its eyes. “I like that name, Onew!”

More than a cat name, Onew was his clan name, his tiger name and something that wasn’t openly shared and yet he did it with her. That was how special she was to him.

Soft and gentle.

That was the name the gods choose for him.

Reliable, gentle and treasured Jinki. Too soft to be a real leader.

Hyejin crouched in front of the table so her eyes were the same level as Jinki’s and a honest sweet smile graced her face.

“That’s your name. Onew! Perfect!”

That name that he often didn’t like to hear sounded beautiful coming from her.

If only he could transform back into a human now maybe he could make her understand who he was. She would probably freak out since she wasn’t expecting it and he was .

Hyejin’s cellphone rang and she stood up and grabbed it from over the table.

“Oh Jiwoo!” Jinki read the flyer under him while Hyejin was on the phone. The new chicken store had good prices; maybe he should check it out. “Oh she wants him. Ok. We can settle a day to do it. Thanks goodbye.”

Hyejin placed her cellphone on the table again and her eyes moved to Jinki. This time she wasn’t smiling and he could taste a weird energy coming from her. It was something bad, close to sadness…

“I found you a family.”

Jinki was living his worst nightmare as a cat. It was Saturday and thankfully Hyejin’s period was ending so he could sleep beside her without any worries. However that morning she woke up super early and started cleaning the rest of the house since apparently her mother was coming to visit and then she decided to give him a bath which was ridiculous because everyone knows that cats clean themselves, also he took a bath the previous day, a human one.

That was the reason why she was grabbing him carefully and he had his nails dangerously close to her arm threatening to scratch her if she placed him inside the shower.

“It’s only water. Stop being like this!”

Jinki moved in her hands and she tried really hard to hold him which was a hard task. “Stop moving!” He didn’t listen to her request so instead Hyejin hold him against her which made him scratch her without wanting to and she rubbed his fur carefully and under his neck on his chest.

Cats didn’t like that and Jinki widened his cat eyes staring at her. She was such an idiot when it came to have a cat. She knew nothing about what she was doing and yet…

She was smiling sweetly at him with affection, not caring about the big scratch he gave to her arm that was bloody, and gently caressed  him. She was looking at him with love. She loved him. His cat form!

He stopped fighting immediately. Being a cat and showering is an awful experience but for that he would do anything.

Hyejin placed him inside the shower on the floor and Jinki sat obediently.

“Wow. So smart!” She patted his head and Jinki closed his eyes tight, feeling the water fell on his back. “I’m sorry Onew but you need to smell nice for my mother.”

He didn’t open his eyes trembling all over and feeling miserable, he even shook like a dog and Hyejin laughed out loud. The sound being music to his ears.

She placed shampoo – her shampoo which made Jinki roll his eyes - on his back and started rubbing him. The scent was wonderful and Jinki closed his eyes again not only because he didn’t want to watch his torture but also because if he closed them he could go back to the night they kissed and he could breathe in her scent, and run his fingers in her hair.

He was focused in the memory but not enough to ignore her naughty hand rubbing him down to his tummy. OH HELL NO!

He cried like a scared cat and before she could do anything he run away and into the living room.

“ONEW!” Hyejin ran after him trying to grab him but he didn’t let her running around the table “You are drenching my kitchen! I JUST CLEANED YOU IDIOT!” she tried once again to grab him and her hands failed his tail for an inch which made her trip and Hyejin fell on the floor.

He stopped on his tracks feeling guilty and Hyejin moved her eyes with tears of embarrassment and frustration from the floor to him.

Ok maybe he could bit her once she tried to touch places she shouldn’t.  It was for her own good, he was only trying to protect her after all. He could educate her if he was patient.

Fluffy, clean and scented Onew lay over Hyejin’s bed, his head pending from it and his eyes half open while he watched her clean the kitchen floor again.

“Done!” She stood up from the floor and stretched making her sweater move upwards. That made the cat eyes open more and Jinki smiled internally. He loved her tummy!  

She walked in his direction and opened the small closet that could be barely closed with all her clothes.

Onew didn’t move still feeling lethargic from the awful bath she gave him. Yes he looked like a damn soft toy now but it was very painful. At least she didn’t clean him under his tummy, he didn’t let her, using his paws to keep her hand away or biting her. Eventually she understood it and stopped trying. If he was a real cat Hyejin would have been  doomed. She was an awful cat owner.

Jinki moved lazily on the bed and that’s when he realized that Hyejin was in front of him, only in her , with her back to him.

He immediately stood up in the bed and widened his eyes. He needed to leave the bedroom fast and yet he couldn’t move. Her hair was falling on her back and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her body, from the soft skin of her neck that he could have a glimpse every time she moved her hair, or from the marks her bra left on her sides, and down to her . She had a nice !

He swallowed suddenly feeling too hot and that’s when she turned around to him.

Jinki’s heart almost stopped with the shock, his eyes moving from the place where her s were that luckily were covered by the blouse she was showing to him and then to her face, her cute innocent smile because she had no idea who he was and what he was thinking.

“What do you think of this one?”

Whatever! Anything on her would look perfect because she was perfect to him!

“Or maybe...” She turned around again to grab another blouse and Jinki felt like an so he jumped off from the bed and walked away from her bedroom.

“Hey Onew! Where are you going?”

He ran to hide in the bathroom away from her.

“I need help choosing my clothes for the date!”

Of course! That date with Minho!

The fact that she was dressing up to meet another man annoyed him to no end.

“Onew?” She went after him wearing only her and Jinki jumped to the bathroom window and outside, climbing the stairs to the rooftop, running away from the temptation before he would give in and peek at her s.

He only stopped on the rooftop, when he was far away from her, his heart beating so fast that he couldn’t handle it anymore.

He closed his eyes and in a few seconds he was back to his human form.

“Aish!” He ran his hands through his hair frustrated and then smelled his fingers. It smelled like her. He now freaking smelled like her and it aroused him.

“Damn it!” he released a deep sigh and sat over the blanket he placed there before. Luckily no one came to the rooftop or they would think he was a ert. “She is going on a date with the fancy pants…”

Why wasn’t she going on a date with him?! Clearly they had so much in common, they belonged together. That kiss was a clear sign of it. It was special. He didn’t know much about romance but he was sure that she also felt the same he did, that that kiss had a deeper meaning.

Besides…she liked him, she looked at him with so much affection when she showered him. Ok, he was a cat back then but still, she loved him even though she didn’t know yet.

If only he was normal, if only he was like Minho. Why was he a damn god?! Why did he have to be special?! He raised his eyes to the sky and frowned.

He really wanted to see her s, all of her, to hug her against this chest and kiss her lips again.

He closed his eyes. He was going insane!

“Onew?” He heard her voice from downstairs, from the bathroom window. “Are you up there?” He panicked a little. She wouldn’t follow him to the rooftop right? He needed to turn back into a cat and he wasn’t sure he had enough energy. He wasn’t feeding on emotions lately, too busy by her side. “I’m going to leave. Be a nice boy and don’t stay out a lot. Makes me worried…” The last part was only a whisper but he could hear it and it warmed his heart as much as it annoyed him.

She thought he was a damn pet, a damn furry cat.

He crawled to the side of the building and peeked out from it.

She was climbing down the stairs wearing her cute black blouse with red petals. He liked it and she looked great with the soft silky fabric of it moving around her body while walked. She was even wearing black heels and a dark red skirt.

She looked beautiful. He smelled the air and groaned. She smelled so good.

Jinki frowned and hid his head with his hands like a cat hiding behind his paws and then he stood up and grabbed his bag from the hiding place.

If she had a date then he had one too.

He was going nuts and he probably should just walk away from her but there was no stopping him now. Maybe he was right after all and that was his destiny.

And when its destiny whatever you do won’t change it. However he was a man of action and he didn’t want to wait, he was tired of living his life hesitating about everything.

He was a tiger for god’s sake! He was brave and powerful and he should go after what he wanted without any regret. And he wanted Hyejin. He would make it his destiny if he could.

Hyejin could barely look at Minho because every time she did she would start giggling like an idiot because his smile was so enchanting and he was so tall and handsome and she couldn’t control her face.

“I’m really glad you came to help me!”

“I’m glad you invited me!” Hyejin blushed slightly and Minho cleared his throat.

“Want to go for a drink after we get the present?”

“Why not?” She wanted to scream hell yes but it’s not good to look too desperate, besides he could have a girlfriend.

She needed to ask him to be sure. However if he had a girlfriend wouldn’t he invite her to choose the present with him instead of Hyejin?

“Why did you ask me? I mean you must have other girl friends or maybe a sister or girlfriend?”

Minho smiled softly and she had the idea that he knew exactly what she was doing, what she was trying to find out. “I don’t have many girl friends. And I only have an older brother and…” He his lips and grabbed Hyejin arm softly sopping her, the gesture making her freeze “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

He could be lying but her prince would never do it, besides Hyejin was looking into his eyes and he wasn’t even wavering. Who was that woman then?!

Besides why did he stop her?! Was he going to kiss her? To confess his love for her in the middle of the mall?!

“Here we are!” He said pointing at the store behind her. “That’s a brand my mother likes.”

“Oh!” So that’s why he stopped her. She turned around feeling like an idiot and they entered the store.

Hyejin marveled at everything because not in a million years would she have money to buy anything there but she tried to control her excitement and walked around the store instead, afraid to touch anything. She noticed how everyone looked at Minho and her and smiled. They were jealous of her and probably thought that he was her boyfriend because he followed after her leaning closer to say something or give hints about what his mother liked.

“She likes black a lot but I wanted to give her something cheerful.”

Hyejin tried hard to focus on what he was saying but her heart would go crazy every time his body brushed against hers.

“Maybe that green blouse. It’s very pretty and has a cute bow.” She loved it.

“Ah!” his eyes illuminated “That’s a really good choice! You have good taste!” he walked to it determinated and Hyejin followed after him smiling delighted. But her grin faded when she noticed the man beside Minho that also grabbed the same blouse.

“Oh!” Minho tried to remember the name of that man he met before but he couldn’t.

“Lee Jinki!”

They bowed politely to each other and then Jinki pretended to be surprised when Hyejin joined them. She didn’t seem to buy it, eyeing him with suspicious eyes.

“Hyejin! Nice to meet you!”

She panicked because Minho’s eyes moved from Jinki to her wondering why he was treating her with no formalities.

“Are you friends?” He asked and before Hyejin could deny it Jinki spoke.

“Yes. We are drinking buddies.”

The comment made Minho widen his eyes and Hyejin wanted to punch Jinki, her eyes darting with hatred from him to Minho.

“You don’t drink though.” Minho said “Hyejin doesn’t drink!” He turned to Jinki.

“Oh!” Jinki smirked tilting his head cutely “She accompanies me home. I drink a lot!”

That was even worse. How could a single respectful young lady accompany a drunken bachelor home?!

Jinki grinned eyeing Hyejin’s troubled expression and even though it hurt him to do that to her he couldn’t stop his jealousy, he couldn’t stop doing it in a way that she would understand that she didn’t need to lie to him. He knew who she was and he didn’t care, he still cared for her.

“Oh she does…” Minho sounded a little disappointed and Hyejin quickly pushed Jinki against the clothes rack with her shoulder and she placed herself in front of Minho explaining quickly.

“Because he is my neighbor. He lives nearby and he is an old acquaintance. Not friend…an acquaintance.” She turned to Jinki “Sorry!” And then back to Minho. “I was walking home that day and I saw him drunk outside a bar and he looked so lost and confused that I helped him home. Just that!”

She didn’t even stop to breathe and waited for Minho’s reaction in expectation, hoping that Jinki would shut up.

Minho chuckled softly finding her reaction cute and she breathed out of relief. “I see. You have a heart of gold.”

That was something that they both agreed on, Jinki thought to himself rubbing his arm, but she could also hurt you deep when she wanted.

“Well we were going for a cup of coffee. Want to come with us?” Minho asked Jinki politely and Hyejin’s shoulders slumped and Jinki could read her frustration and deception clearly, besides he could feel it as much as he felt her panic and fear before.

“Sure. I love coffee.” He grinned cutely and winked in Hyejin’s direction when Minho turned around to pay.

She was going to follow after Minho but Jinki pulled at her sleeve softly. “Do you like it?”

“Like what?” She whispered angrily.

“The blouse…”

She moved her eyes to the blouse and back at him. “Why?”

“I’ll buy it for you!” He said honestly “I think you would look perfect in it, it’s the same shade of green your eyes have when you are under the sun.”

“ert! Are you staring at my body to know it fits?” She released her arm and he wished she never found out about what happened earlier that day “I don’t want anything coming from you!”

She walked away and Jinki checked for her size and grabbed one of them too. She loved it for sure and her hurtful words were just words. He knew her better than she thought.

Surprisingly Minho was a very interesting guy and if he wasn’t the prince of Hyejin’s dreams Jinki would actually befriend him. He was a very honest, hardworking and polite person.

They were now talking about basketball while Hyejin drank her coffee in silence watching both men.

Minho was like always, a gentleman and caring person but he also had a childish exciting side to him and he seemed younger when he talked about sports. Jinki was actually very funny and cute and he couldn’t stop making silly jokes that she tried really hard to not laugh at even though Minho couldn’t stop doing it. She was sure he was “falling” for Jinki’s charms and they seemed like old friends now which upset her a little. He was supposed to have his full attention on her, to be on a date with her and stupid Lee Jinki ruined everything.

However there was something far worse than that, the fact that she couldn’t take her eyes away from that idiot, from his lips, or sparkling eyes, from the way he rubbed his neck once in a while as if he was used to do it a lot, or how he glanced at her many times showing her that he couldn’t forget that she was there, that even though he wasn’t speaking to her she was always on his mind.

She couldn’t deny that he was the kind of man that would make you fall hard, so deep that you had no way out.

Hyejin finished her coffee and tried to gather her courage to ask Minho to take her home but he wasn’t looking at her, instead he was checking his phone and for her surprise he was the first one to stand up and gather his things.

“I really had a great time today.” He said giving Jinki his hand to shake. “It was nice meeting you. I hope we do someday again.”

Wait?! Hyejin stood up too and looked at him like a puppy waiting for him to offer to take her home.

“Sadly I received an important message and I must go. I can’t take you home Hyejin I’m terribly sorry. I’ll compensate you any other day.” He raised the bag with the gift “I’m glad you helped me. It’s a beautiful shade of green, just like the color of your eyes.”

Jinki frowned because he could hear Hyejin’s heart beating faster with that comment, the same one he made before. He felt betrayed and wanted to show it to her but she wasn’t even looking at him.

“I have to go I’m sorry!” Minho walked away fast and Hyejin mumbled a see you on Monday and sat back on her chair with no reaction.

Jinki watched her for a while and she glared at him, her eyes burning and not with passion.

She was pissed with him and he couldn’t blame her.

“You freaking ruined my date!”

“I didn’t!” he raised his arms with his palms out “If he truly wanted to be alone with you he wouldn’t have invited me!” Jinki smirked “I mean I wouldn’t if I was in his place. I would want you all for me!”

She groaned angrily and stood up “That’s why he is a prince and you are…you!”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment!”

“Because it isn’t!” she grabbed her bag and walked away so Jinki hurried to follow her holding his paper bag with her gift.

“That was probably his girlfriend!” she mumbled under her breath. “That message he got!”

“Hum not sure.” Minho’s heart didn’t react much when he got the message. Actually the message didn’t leave him happy at all. Whoever it was didn’t sound like someone he liked that much.

“How can you even be sure? What do you know?!”

“More than you think!”

She ignored him and he tried his best to accompany her now that she wasn’t a lady and wasn’t forcing herself to walk slowly and elegantly like a lady.

“He was going to drive me home!” She sighed and Jinki grabbed her by her shoulder and stopped her.

“I can do that! I’ll drive you home!”

”What?! You don’t even have a car!”

“I don’t but I can buy one. I had one and sold it.”

She scoffed at him and then hit him with her bag which made Jinki raise his arms to protect himself.

“Can you stop making fun of me? I have feelings you know?”

“I do! It’s to protect your feelings that I’m doing this. If that guy has a girlfriend he is lying to you Hyejin and I don’t want you to get hurt!”

His words left her defenseless and he saw her expression soften. “I’m sorry I ruined your date but was it even a date to begin with? If you want to date Minho ask him about that woman and be sure that he truly wants to be with you.”

“Why do you care?” She asked softly.

“I care for you. I want to date you.”

He his lips because he could hear it, the sound of her beautiful heart beating faster, triggering a smile on his face.

“If you want a ride back home I’ll buy a car Hyejin. I’ll be your personal driver! Anything to make you trust me!”

“Idiot!” she mumbled walking away and he followed after her happy because she was walking slower, letting him walk beside her.

They walked back to her apartment talking and even though Hyejin was trying really hard to pretend she wasn’t enjoying it she was walking too slow making the time beside him last.

Jinki was loving every second of it because she was laughing with his jokes and he could ask her about what she liked, pretending to know nothing about her and her hobbies. He didn’t even had to pretend to be interested because he was genuinely interested, drinking her words and knowing that she was just being herself and not lying to him.

“You didn’t need to follow me home again!”

“I’m not. I live here close by!” He pointed to the street ahead, the same one that parted from their gazing space from before, the place where they kissed.

“So you like to dance?” He asked to keep the conversation going, remembering how she danced a little the previous night copying the moves of a famous cute dance of a kpop girl group.

“A little. Are you good at dancing?”

“I can manage.” He answered and she tucked her hair behind her ear blushing a little.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance those couples’s dances you know?”

“Tango?” he pictured her with a red dress in his arms and he couldn’t help but giggle like a ert with the vision.

“No! That dance the prince and the princess dance every time in fairy tales.” She bit her lower lip cutely and Jinki stepped in front of her making her halt.

“The waltz?”

“Yes!” she agreed vehemently “That one! It’s stilly right?”

“No, not at all!” And the best thing was that he knew how to dance it. He learned it a long time ago.

“My father loved fairytales a lot and the passion passed on to me. It’s really silly and I don’t believe them anymore but I used to dance it with him…as a joke cos I’m bad at it. I’m not even sure those were the real steps.”

“It’s not silly!” he said seriously “I learned it a long time ago.”

“With someone special?” she asked curiously and it made him happy that she was interested.

“Yes you can say so.”

“A girlfriend?”

She realized only then that they were in the exact same spot from the day they kissed and she wondered if he knew and stopped her there for that reason. Apparently he did because he followed her eyes to the moon and back to her.

His expression and her betraying body made her nervous and Hyejin tried to step back away from him but her legs weren’t obeying her.

“You live in that direction?” She stuttered forgetting about her question and pointing at the street on her left side. “Be careful going home.”

Jinki didn’t move even though she said goodbye to him so she tried to walk away and he grabbed her hand softly. He didn’t have to force her to stay because Hyejin didn’t even try to release herself or walk further away.

She wanted it as much as him, he knew it, he could feel it and he wasn’t even using his tiger powers. As a human he knew, he could read it in her eyes. The kiss they shared was populating her thoughts and she wanted more even though she wasn’t admitting it, not even to herself.

“Don’t forget your gift.” He said stepping closer to her giving the bag and even though she opened to complain and say she didn’t want it he grabbed her hand and placed the handles of the bag in her palm.

Jinki was a tiger so he used that moment to take the risk and kiss her, a brief short wet goodnight kiss that made her widen her eyes and then he jumped back ready for the attack.

No way in hell would he let her hit him with her knee again.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” She covered her lips, her cheeks a beautiful shade of pink. Even though she was screaming she didn’t seem that upset and he beamed at her cutely,

“I kissed you!”

She run after him raising the bag with his gift to hit him and Jinki ran in circles laughing out loud, checking over his shoulder to see if she was following him. She was, swinging the bag at him and doing it lousily. He couldn’t stop laughing because he knew she wasn’t doing her best to hit him, because she truly didn’t want to, because she liked it and her beating heart was the proof of it. She loved his kisses even if she tried hard to convince him that she didn’t.
She gave up after a while panting and he stopped running too watching her with a grin.

“The moon is watching!” He said making her raise her eyes from the ground to him. “Here is our kissing spot. Every time we meet here we have to kiss! It’s a rule!”

“Who made that freaking rule?”

He pointed at him and then at her “Us! We wrote our destiny when we kissed that night!”

“I didn’t write anything! You were the one who kissed me!”

“And you kissed me back!”

“I DIDN’T!” She screamed back frustrated throwing a tantrum at him.

“Oh you did and someday you will be the one to ask me to kiss you!”

She didn’t say anything and he his lips.

“It’s a rule, a rule blessed by the gods! We shall kiss here every time we meet! I’m certain of it!”

“You are crazy!” She didn’t seem mad at him as if she just accepted what he said as a fact “Why are you such a kid sometimes? Who makes up silly things like this or smiles like that as if you are the freaking sun!”

“Ah you are childish too!”

“I’m not! I’m upset and I’m a grown up woman!”

She stepped closer to him and this time he didn’t move so she swing her bag as if it was a weapon but he didn’t move.

“Why are you so upset? Do you really want to get closer to me that badly?” He stepped back the same amount of steps she did towards him which made her stay in her spot “Is the distance between us upsetting you?” It upset him so much how she always walked away from him, how he had to run after her all the time.

“It upsets me. How you never let me get closer to you!”

She pursed her lips letting her arms fall beside her body “The only thing that upsets me is that you don’t leave me alone!”

Mean Hyejin was back and Jinki sighed tired of it “I don’t buy it. I don’t think my presence upsets you or that you want me to leave you alone because I annoy you. I think it’s the opposite. You don’t like how close I can get to you, how I am entering your heart without your consent!”

She covered her ears and turned around “I’m going home and I’m not listening to you!”

He chuckled with her reaction “And I’m the childish one!”

She pretended not to hear him “GO HOME!”

“You like me! You don’t want to admit it but deep down you are falling for me. You enjoy my company because we are similar!” He screamed to her “You like when I touch you, when I kiss you…do you know why? Because it’s our fate!”

“I’m not listening to you just go home ert!” she didn’t stop still walking away but in such a slow way that he knew that she was taking her time so she could hear all he had to say. She was so obvious it was cute.

“I’ll do it Hyejin! Someday I’ll be so deep inside your heart you won’t be able to push me away anymore! I’ll make you stop being afraid of loving!”

She closed her eyes and uncovered her ears walking a little faster now and after a few seconds she realized he wasn’t saying anything anymore so her curiosity won and she looked over her shoulder to check on him.

He was still there watching her, under the moon saying nothing and she bit her lower lip and looked away.

He was wrong.  She wasn’t afraid of falling in love. She longed for a relationship for a long time. She wanted to be loved and love a safe person, someone she knew well, someone that was down to earth and easy to love, someone like Minho.

She didn’t want to get closer to Jinki because he was special and unpredictable like her father.  She was afraid that he would be like him, like the only person who truly loved her, the same one that left her.

Once she started caring, once she started enjoying his company, depending on him she was sure he would walk away.

She didn’t bear to lose again, to face the day he would be so far away she wouldn’t be able to reach him.

That was what scared her above everything, the distance she couldn’t cross to reach his embrace.

Onew tried to take off the cute purple bow he had around his neck with his paws but failed to do so once again.

“Stop it!” Hyejin scolded him and he pretended to stop only to try again after she turned her back to him.

“My mom is arriving soon to have dinner and you are a cute cat so you will behave!”

He tilted his head wondering what she meant when he was the smartest and most perfect cat ever. If he was a real cat he would have peed in her bed already and ruin the curtains and bed sheets of her bedroom because she was awful at taking care of him. Only for that ridiculous bow she deserved that he ate all the plants inside her apartment.

“I can’t wait for her to come!” She sat at the table fixing the dishes and Onew gave up on taking the bow off and instead lay down on the floor exhausted. If he had fingers he could take it off and throw it at her.

Humans can wear bows, manly cats don’t!

“I haven’t seen my mother for two years!” He raised his ears to listen to her “I miss her very much! And I cooked so many things for her. She will be so surprised.”

She looked great too, wearing the skirt from her date and the blouse he gave her. She looked really pretty and it made him happy that she accepted his gift.

She looked like a real princess with it and she didn’t even need to wear a dress. If only she could see herself like he saw her. If she could read his heart and trust him.

Hyejin’s phone vibrated over the table and she grabbed it reading the text. “Oh Jiwoo is coming to pick you up today.” She didn’t seem that happy with it “You will meet your new owners today.”

Her words made Jinki panic. No way would he leave her, no way he would be someone else’s pet. He was only her pet! Only hers!

Hyejin sensed his stress and tried to grab him but Jinki jumped over the table making her complain because he almost knocked down a glass and then climbed on top of the cupboard away from her hands.

“YA ONEW!”

He didn’t move from there eyeing her upset and she felt guilty because in a way she was betraying him.

“I’m really sorry. I also don’t want you to go. I…” She stuttered patting her chest “I got attached to you. You are the best cat someone can have and I wish I could keep you but my landlord will kill me if he finds out. I might be kicked out and I can’t lose this apartment.”

He growled at her. He would never let the landlord find out. And they could find a way out if it happened.

“I’m really sorry Onew.” He didn’t move from his hiding spot and Hyejin sat back on her seat “It's ok. I’ll make you come out from there with chicken.” She sighed a little depressed and played with her phone waiting for her mother to arrive.

Jinki dozed off over the cupboard and he would have napped if he wasn’t scared to fall from it – he was still part human and a klutz - and also he was worried with Hyejin.

It was late and her mother didn’t arrive yet and clearly she wasn’t going to arrive any time soon since she wasn’t even picking up her calls. Hyejin ended up having dinner alone and she was motionless and quiet watching tv still in the same place she sat.

It made him nervous because he could sense her troubled emotions and he wasn’t sure what she was truly feeling. It was a mix of sadness with anger and he knew that the thin layer of control she had was close to breaking down.

Hyejin’s phone vibrated again and she grabbed it reading the message out loud.

“I’m sorry I can’t come today after all. I’ll call you tomorrow to wish you a happy birthday.”

Hyejin turned the phone in her hand and placed it carefully over the table.

Onew saw her stand up from the chair serenely and she piled the dirty dishes with the clean ones and placed them inside the sink.

He jumped down from the cupboard and walked to her raising his head to try and see her expression.

It was her a birthday the next day. He had no idea at all.

“I bet it has to do with her new boyfriend.” Hyejin mumbled leaning against the kitchen counter. Jinki sat in front of her eyeing her sadly, moving his tail slowly trying to act cute and show her that he didn’t mind if she grabbed him in his arms and hugged him. He was there to make her feel better.

Hyejin didn’t grab him, instead she turned around and placed her hands on the counter with too much strength making him blink his eyes startled and she started to laugh, her shoulders shaking.

Jinki knew she wasn’t laughing even though she wanted to make it seem like that.

“I’m such an idiot. I’m always second when it comes to her…no...third!” Her brother was always first. “I shouldn’t have made so much food!”

Hyejin grabbed a bowl and filled it with chicken noodle soup and placed it on the floor beside Onew “Eat it all!”

She didn’t have time to stand up because the cat jumped on her lap and a tear from her cheek.

His tongue was rough against her skin but she didn’t mind and hugged him against her, grabbing him in her arms and hiding her crying face in the fur of his back.

Onew tried to stay still and bear it as if he was a soft toy or a pillow.

If only he had arms, if he could hug her…

She kissed his head and Jinki blinked his eyes fixing them on her teary ones.

He had beautiful big eyes and so bright a little blueish and she blinked her own eyes making tears fall from them down her cheeks.

No his eyes were brown, not blue at all.

Jinki looked at her reading her expression wondering if she saw something suspicious. He was feeding from her sadness and becoming stronger while she became weaker with sadness. When that happened, his eyes sometimes changed colors and it wasn’t something he could control so he always tried to be careful but at the moment he couldn’t think about it. He was worried with her.

He rubbed his nose against her face, his whiskers tickling her cheek and Hyejin giggled cleaning her wet cheek.

He purred softly rubbing his head on her neck innocently only wanting to make her smile and it seemed to work for a while until her phone rang.

She didn’t release Onew and grabbed her phone to read the text.

Onew took the opportunity to read it too.

It was Jiwoo asking if it was ok to pass by Hyejin’s place to pick up the cat.

Hyejin quickly used her free hand to text.

“No need to. I decided to keep him.”

He relaxed in her arms and she placed her phone over the table and squished him against her.

“I guess it will be the two of us from now on.” She sniffed “I don’t mind if you go outside and I’ll let the window of the bathroom open so you can leave whenever you want but please be careful with my landlord so he can’t see you and…just be careful on your way back home, ok? You will come back right?”

Onew meowed softly and her hand before he turned his snout to her face.

She wasn’t alone. He wouldn’t let her be alone. He would always come back to her.

Jinki was running down the street, still zipping his jacket because he had to dress up quickly when he spotted Hyejin in their gazing kissing spot.

A few minutes ago, after she cleaned the dirty dishes and saved the food in the fridge, she turned off the tv, grabbed her coat and left saying she would get a drink. He quickly jumped out of the bathroom window, climbed to the rooftop and got dressed to follow her as a human.

He didn’t have to go further away of her place after all. He walked slower shortening the distance between them and Hyejin moved, softening her grip on the railing and turned to her right so see him now by her side.

“Are you following me?” she asked without a hint of malice. She seemed so calm that if he didn’t see her cry before he wouldn’t even have guessed it.

“Where are you going?” He asked not answering to her question because the truth was that he was indeed following her.

“I’m watching the  fake rock.” She cleaned her cheek even though there was nothing in it to clean. “I was going out to drink but then I just decided to stop here for a while.”

He smiled to himself remembering how a few hours ago he kissed her in that spot. It felt like it was a longer time ago, maybe because a lot happened after it. He became her official pet and she opened her heart a little to him, even if she didn’t know that he was hiding behind that cat.

“Do you know that after Apollo 11 landed in the moon there were other landings there?”

“Oh really?”

He placed his arms over the railing and leaned beside her eyeing the moon above instead of the high road filled with traffic below them.

“Yes and have you heard of Laika, the dog that went to space?” She nodded slightly and he kept speaking “Well in one of the landings a bunny was inside the space shuttle.”

“A bunny?” She frowned suspiciously.

“Yes. Have you heard of the story about a bunny living on the moon? Well it comes from there because the poor mammal never returned so they say it still lives there. Sadly no carrots to eat so I wonder what he eats there. He probably died of starvation.”

“Is that even true?” She asked wrinkling her nose adorably and he chuckled.

“No. I only wanted to make you think about something else.”

“Aish!” She turned around turning her back to the moon and he did the same.

“No animals ever went to the moon and I really doubt a bunny lives on the moon. That’s no place for anyone. It’s more fun here down on Earth!”

“Yeah! I guess!” She chuckled staring at him “A bunny on the moon…seriously.”

“I really like fairy and folktales, don’t you?!”

She looked away because he knew that she did and was using it to reach to her. Idiot!

She scoffed before she laughed and she turned her back to him which made Jinki step away from the railing.

“Hyejin?”

“Can you leave me alone for a little?” It was too much for one day, she couldn’t be beside him, he couldn’t see that side of her.

“No.”

She moved her arm without seeing and tried to push him back but he did the opposite and tried to look at her face which made her turn around, “running” away from him in circles like he did to her before, but this time she wasn’t leaving her spot.

He got tired of the game and grabbed her by her shoulders turning her forcefully to him.

Her tears didn’t scare him, not after what happened before in her kitchen but she didn’t know it.

Hyejin raised her wet eyes to him and he lost it completely.

He was wrong. It was way different when he was in human form. His feelings were way stronger and this time he had arms so he could hold her close to him and that was what he did, holding her tight against him. She didn’t resist it, closing her eyes, silent tears falling down her eyes, her head fitting perfectly against his shoulder, her body fitting perfectly on his while he hugged her, his hands on her back caressing her softly.

She hiccupped a little hiding her nose in his jacket, wetting it with tears but he didn’t mind, his grip on her not faltering.

She feared that. That was why she didn’t want him to see it.

He smelled and felt like her father. It was a different scent but it had the same effect on her.  He was like her father, reliable, clean, loving and comfortable just like home. She felt safe when she was with him and at the same time it was so unpredictable that she didn’t know what to expect when she was with him and yet she didn’t fear it.

He caressed her hair, hugging her tightly.

“It’s ok Hyejin. I’m here. Cry all you need to.”

His words made her sob more and she hid her face in his jacket breathing him in. She didn’t want to let him go and after a while she wasn’t sure why she was crying anymore. Was it because of her mother failing on her, or because of her father leaving her and how much she missed him, was it because of Minho and her deception with him was it because Jinki was revealing to be too wonderful and she felt too attracted to him.

Maybe it wasn’t anything of that and she only needed a warm hug and a shoulder to  cry on for years and she was finally getting it and couldn’t hold it in any longer.

She sniffed trying to control herself and placed her hands on his shoulders so she could push away from him enough to look at his face.

His small bright eyes were on her and he truly seemed worried with her, just like when he saved her from going against the stupid street lamp.

“Are you feeling better?” He asked gently as if he was used to do that with her all the time as if it wasn’t their first time hugging. They barely knew each other and yet he acted as if he knew her like a friend and the weirdest thing was that she felt the same.

“You can cry more. It’s ok!” he pushed her softly against his shoulder, sliding his hands on her hair but she pushed back again making him blink his eyes wondering what was wrong. She saw a little hint of worry in his eyes probably because he thought she would kick him or hit him with her knee again like when he kissed her but Hyejin didn’t do any of that.  

She had enough of it, she couldn’t held her emotions in anymore and she felt weak, needy and emotional and he was there so close, keeping her warm like she needed.

She her salty lips remembering how he called that place their kissing spot; how he said she would ask for a kiss of him someday. She didn’t need to ask if she wanted it. She could simply do it. Her eyes fell on his lips and before he could react she closed her eyes and kissed him.

He widened his eyes surprised with that kiss and then gave in completely hugging her tighter, closing his eyes too and kissing her back passionately. Her lips tasted like her tears and it filled him with energy making him feel stronger and stronger as if her kiss and that gesture of tenderness wasn’t enough to do so. He didn’t kiss like that or drank tears in a long time so the rush of adrenaline mixed with his feelings for her made him more demanding, more passionate, and feeding from her with no regret, satiating his hunger.

Jinki caressed her neck with his fingers tilting her head so he could kiss her deeper and she melted in his arms with the intensity of it, grasping his jacket on his back, her knees getting weaker – his hand moved to her waist and he held her more firmly against him, knowing the effect he was having on her – and she kissed him back ardently as if her life depended on it.

Hyejin’s heart was beating crazily inside her chest, butterflies were dancing in her stomach, fireworks exploding inside her, all of her tingling as if he was lighting everything inside her.

She was no longer a fake rock; the moon was shining brightly and with its own light.

It was the cheesiest of the descriptions for a kiss just like they sometimes described it in fairytale books.

However it was how she felt it.

Maybe true love kisses did exist.

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Isnt Jinki the cutest?! XD Aigo Hyejin just cant run away from him anymore! *__*

I need someone like him in my life!

Bye ~

Cel next ! ^^ (sorry that im taking a long time writing)