After dinner, Jongdae started picking up the plates to clean them, while Kyungsoo took Baekhyun to the bathroom. It had been a while since Baekhyun had a decent shower. Usually back at the shelter they gave him 5 minutes in the morning to wash his face and body. If he was lucky and there was shampoo, he would quickly scrub it over his short hair and hope he had enough time to get it out before his 5 minutes ended. So he was more than surprised when he entered the bathroom and the shelves were full of bottles and weird spheres literally everywhere.  There were also scented candles adorning what little space was left.

Kyungsoo began filling the bath when he noticed Baekhyun’s lost sight settling on the numerous colorful objects and began laughing.

“Those are Jongdae’s. He’s a bengal cat, and he kinda loves water so he takes baths almost daily. Most of them are water perfumes and bath bombs, but the shampoo bottles are by the shower. I think Chanyeol mentioned you love water too, so how about taking a bath so you can relax a bit?” Kyungsoo said closing the water when the tub was half filled. Baekhyun started waving his tail crazily, touching the warm water and wanting to dive in already. Kyungsoo stood up and ruffled his hair, getting a couple of towels out from the gabinet. “You can use these towels when you’re done, I will leave a change of clothes outside of the door, ok?” Baekhyun nodded, flashing his smile to Kyungsoo and getting ready to shed his clothes right there. This was the first time in all his life he was taking an actual bath so he was ecstatic. 

Kyungsoo decided to leave at that moment when he saw the puppy was no longer paying attention to him, his complete focus on the warm water, closing the door lightly and going towards his own room. He picked up some pants and a shirt that he never used. They were a present from Chanyeol so the color was an horrendous bright yellow. He knew that if he gave something that he wore Jongdae would get mad, so better safe than sorry. Putting the stuff by the bathroom’s door, he decided it was time to make the call.

“Jongdae, I’ll be out in the balcony to call Chanyeol. He wanted the complete update so it might take a while” Jongdae, who was just finishing putting the glasses back on the gabinet nodded and went to hug Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo was no fool, he knew the other one was secretly leaving his scent all over him, marking him as territory. Probably after being near Baekhyun, the puppy’s scent had stuck a bit to him. His kitty sure was a possessive one.

Kyungsoo wanted to ask some things to Chanyeol, so he didn’t want to risk the possibility of the puppy overhearing them. After he called the number, not even a second after, he was overwhelmed by Chanyeol’s loud voice bombarding him with questions about the well-being of the puppy.

“Chanyeol, calm down, I can’t understand you if you keep shouting” he said, rubbing his forehead and seating on the chair, getting comfortable. This was going to be a long talk probably.

“Sorry, sorry. So how is he? Does Jongdae like him? Did they get along? Is he comfortable? Did you feed him?” It was a miracle Kyungsoo could even understand the questions raining on him with the speed his friend was talking in, but they have been friends for over 10 years so by now he’s good at this. 

“He is good, he’s taking a bath right now. They are not the best friends yet but I have hopes that they will get there eventually, at least Jongdae accepted to try it. He seems to be comfortable, he will be staying at the guest room. We had dinner together like an hour ago. And now shut up, I need to ask some questions” His answers seemed to placate the other one. At least for now, since he received a happy hum.  

“Can I ask a bit about his past? I just don’t want to make him uncomfortable in case there’s something that can trigger him? And I have to say he’s quite good looking, so if the problem is his personality or something else…?” Chanyeol seemed to consider what to say, he took a couple of minutes to start talking.

“We found him maybe like 5 years ago? He was just wandering around and when we got to him he had fake papers. He had a tag and an ID, but the name and number were not the same, the tag didn’t belong to him. We tried asking about it, about whose tag was it but he never answered. He has an ID, so it means that at some point he did have a family but we are not sure what happened. It looked like he had been living in the streets for a while, so him leaving his former family was not a recent thing. He was actually the one that didn’t want to be shown on the webpage for adoptions until just last year. I have no idea why, but when he decided he wanted to give adoption a try it was too late. You know that hybrids older than 18 are rarely adopted” Kyungsoo took all this information in. There were still some questions he had, actually a lot of questions, but he would have to wait for Baekhyun to open up. “But you don’t have to worry personality wise. I can tell you he is one of the sweetest and most caring hybrids I have met. He used to love taking care of the younger pups”

He continued chatting to Chanyeol who seemed to believe Kyungsoo needed tips about dog hybrids, totally ignoring that Kyungsoo was already a proud owner of a cat hybrid and things couldn’t be that different.

Inside the apartment, Jongdae was getting bored. He had been waiting for Kyungsoo’s call to end for hours! (Not even 10 minutes had passed since Kyungsoo went to the balcony) And he needed cuddles before sleeping, so going to the room now was not an option. He heard the door of the bathroom opening, and then some rustling of clothes inside. He decided to go and see what the puppy was doing. He had to make sure the other one didn’t break any house rules (Even if there were absolutely no house rules)

When he got nearer, he was rewarded with the really nice view of the other hybrid trying to dry his hair. He had pants on now, but the awful yellow shirt was still waiting by the sink. He was toweling his hair with both arms and this made his back muscles pop out. Jongdae had to admit he had a really nice body. His shoulders were wide and his waist narrowed down. He had his pants a bit lower on his hips so his tail could rest over them, since the pants didn’t have the hole for it. He didn’t notice he was getting nearer to the bathroom door until he heard the scream the puppy had let out on the second time that day.

“Jesus! You scared me! Is this going to be a regular thing?” Baekhyun said trying to climb backwards on the sink and covering his chest with the towel. Jongdae got out of his daze when his staring got interrupted by the ugly blue fluffy towel.

“Give that to me!” the cat said extending a hand towards the towel. Baekhyun was a bit confused but he handed it over anyways. He didn’t want to anger the other hybrid on his first day here.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was yours. Kyungsoo gave it to me so…” he didn’t finish his sentence putting on the yellow shirt. His hair was dry enough now, so it didn’t really matter.

“Shut up dog, and take a sit” Jongdae said while opening one of the drawers and rummaging inside. Baekhyun was still confused but decided to follow the orders, taking a seat on the bench in front of the sink. 

Jongdae made a small ‘aha!’ taking out a weird thing that honestly looked like a gun and Baekhyun was getting more nervous by the second. When he saw the cat connect the gun-thing by a chord he was ready to run away. Jongdae, seeing the scared expression on the pup started laughing. He turned it on and grabbed Baekhyun’s arm so he wouldn’t run away after the scary sound the gun made. 

“You fool, have you never seen this thing? It’s a hair dryer. If you towel your hair your ears will get hurt” Jongdae started combing the puppy’s hair when he saw his reflection on the mirror. Baekhyun had a smirk and an eyebrow raised, which made Jongdae’s skin turn red. “Kyu-Kyungsoo wouldn’t like a dog with a broken ear! I’m doing this for him, not you!” Baekhyun closed his eyes with a satisfied smile and just let the other one comb and dry his hair. This felt really nice actually! Not as nice as the bath probably, but Jongdae’s fingers gently touching his ears was more than nice. 

When he was done, Jongdae let out a smile at his work and started searching for something else on the drawer, when he came out with a pair of huge scissors. Baekhyun almost had a heart attack by seeing the things so close to his face. This is it. This is how he dies.

“Stop being a scaredy cat!” Jongdae said pushing the other one and giving him the scissors. “Don’t tell me you have never seen scissors!” 

“What are these for? You want to cut my hair?” Baekhyun said standing up. He was shocked to see he had the same height as Jongdae. He was sure he was taller but it was probably because Jongdae usually curled his body while sitting or walking. 

“It’s for um, you cut the ah…” his thoughts were interrupted by Jongdae motioning to his pants.

“To cut the hole for my tail?” he asked puzzled. Jongdae gave a firm nod at this, going out of the room.

“I’ll leave you to it then!” the cat then closed the door and Baekhyun could hear his quick steps going away. For a cat he sure was noisy sometimes.