Sunggyu woke up feeling really weird today.

First of all, he felt like he was not in his own body. As he slowly woke up and stretched his body, he could feel that something was wrong, but he was still disoriented so he wasn’t sure what exactly it was. And then when he opened his eyes, he realized right away that he was not on his usual bed, instead, he was on something very uncomfortable. And wet. As his eyesight became more focused, he realized that he was sleeping on grass and that the building around him looked enormous. He still didn’t really think of anything, though.

It was not until he stood up that he started to wonder, ‘Why am I standing on my four?’

And he looked down and saw a pair of paws instead of feet, he finally yelled, ‘WHAT THE HELL!’

Except while on his mind he thought of those words, what came out of his mouth was a loud meow. Hearing that sound coming out of his mouth, he freaked out again and let out a continuous meow, while trying to take a look at himself.

The memory of last night was hazy. He remembered that he was trying to finish his Animagus training on his own since his teacher had gotten sick and couldn’t accompany him. He decided to do the final step on his own even though it was risky because he had failed the training several times because of various reasons and the thought of having to hold Mandrake leaf on his mouth for another month sickened him. He suffered a lot during the training, and he didn’t want to go through it again. Of course, he could just give up on his mission to be an Animagus, but he hated giving up on anything.

He went to the Quidditch field last night during a storm since the last step of the training required an electrical storm. He remembered waiting for it on the field while fearing his life, but after that it was hazy. It seemed like his hard work finally paid off. He had succeeded transforming himself into an animal. He started to feel joyous as it finally dawned on him that he had really succeeded. Unfortunately, thought, there was one huge problem looming over his head.

He didn’t know how to transform back into a human.

He felt so stupid for not learning about what to do after he managed to transform because he was too focused on the training itself. It should be easy, right? He knew that it didn’t need a spell, so he just need a willpower to do it. He closed his eyes and tried to focus and thought, ‘Let’s transform back. Transform…transform…I want to be human again…’

It was not working, even though he tried to block any possible sound and focused on trying to transform back.

“Hi, Kitty, what are you doing this early? You are so drenched.”

A voice surprised Sunggyu, ruining his concentration. He was delighted though when he opened his eyes and recognized the owner of the eyes that was currently staring at Sunggyu curiously.

“Myungsoo, it’s me! Sunggyu!” Sunggyu yelled, though, of course, for Myungsoo it was just a bunch of meows.

Myungsoo crouched, looking so curious about the animal in front of him. He looked so big to Sunggyu now and Sunggyu felt a little intimidated. Myungsoo wouldn’t hurt him, though, Sunggyu was sure. Myungsoo loved cats. If Myungsoo ever hurt cats, that would be one the biggest plot twists in Sunggyu’s life.

Sunggyu wondered what Myungsoo was doing out here in the morning, though. He was not sure what time it was, but usually there weren’t many students roaming outside in the morning.

“Is your owner around?” Myungsoo asked, scratching the top of Sunggyu’s head, “Or are you lost?”

“No, I don’t have an owner. I accidentally turned myself into a cat!” Sunggyu tried to explain futilely. Myungsoo tilted his head in confusion. After several seconds, he picked up Sunggyu off the ground and inspected him. It was scary, so Sunggyu stiffened a little. He was not used to be this small. He tried to relax because it was Myungsoo after all, and Myungsoo might be able to help him if Sunggyu managed to tell him who he was.

“Hmm, no name tag, no wounds…” Myungsoo muttered and then hold Sunggyu with both his arms, bringing him close to his chest like he was trying to keep Sunggyu warm, didn’t care that Sunggyu’s soaked body wet his uniform, “You must be so cold out here. Let me bring you inside, I will search for your owner.”

Suddenly, Sunggyu felt nervous this wouldn’t end well for him.

***

Sunggyu felt so warm with all the blanket covering him, Myungsoo went a little too far in trying to warm Sunggyu up and almost buried Sunggyu with blankets. Sunggyu had no chance to focus and try to transform back into a human because Myungsoo didn’t leave him alone. It was only when he had to change his uniform that Sunggyu was finally left alone, but it didn’t last long before Myungsoo picked him up again—still wrapped in a blanket—and brought him to the recreation room, where students were meeting up before going to class.

“Anyone lost their cat this morning?” Myungsoo started to ask around, “I found this cat this morning outside.”

While Myungsoo started to approach the student one by one, Sunggyu was a little distracted by how Hufflepuff’s common room looked like. He had never been here before and now he wished he could hang out here instead of at Slytherin’s common room. It looked lovely and warm, fitting for a place to hang out with other students. It felt different from Slytherin’s common room. Sunggyu had never liked Slytherin’s common room—it was too gloomy and cold. Perhaps it was because Slytherin’s was under the lake, while Hufflepuff’s was near the kitchen.

That fact alone already made Sunggyu jealous since a long time ago.

He finally became more focused on his current problem when he was suddenly picked up from Myungsoo’s arms, making him growl loudly at the person. It was a white girl with blond frizzy hair—someone Sunggyu never saw before. The girl looked at Sunggyu like she was trying to recognize him, but it was annoying because the girl kept spinning him around, making him dizzy. Sunggyu had decided that he hated the girl now.

“I have never seen this cat around,” the girl finally said, giving Sunggyu back to Myungsoo, “I don’t think it belongs to students here.”

Sunggyu didn’t know why but he curled up right away on Myungsoo’s arms. Myungsoo was holding him like a baby and it felt so comfortable. Somehow, being a cat felt so comfortable right now. But no, he still wanted to transform back. He still had classes to attend and assignments to do.

“Really?” Myungsoo said, disappointed. Sunggyu looked up at him. Sunggyu recognized that face—whenever Myungsoo looked so serious like this, it meant that he was really determined to do something. In this case, he was determined to find Sunggyu’s owner. Myungsoo sighed, “I need to find its owner, I think it was lost.”

“Well, you can give it to Argus and ask him to find its owner.”

Sunggyu shuddered at that name. He was one of the school keepers and he was a scary man who didn’t seem to like animals judging by how he always growled whenever students with pets came to him.

“Argus?” Myungsoo repeated, “Uhm, I think I am going to do it myself.”

Perhaps, Sunggyu was lucky that Myungsoo had bad experiences with the school keeper.

“Well, do it after class,” the girl suggested, “You can put the cat in your room and let him play with Byul. I will wait for you.”

Sunggyu glared at the girl. Who was she, anyway? Sunggyu had never seen Myungsoo with her even though he spent a lot of time with Myungsoo. Myungsoo had never mentioned being close to a girl, too.

“Okay,” Myungsoo agreed.

Myungsoo brought Sunggyu back to his room, putting him back in the bed, next to his own cat who was currently seemed to be only half awake. He Sunggyu’s head several times while crouching again in front of Sunggyu. Sunggyu looked at Myungsoo and again was struck with how weird it was to see as a cat. He had noticed since this morning that the world seemed less colourful, though he still could see Myungsoo very well.

“Myungsoo, I am Sunggyu,” Sunggyu tried to tell Myungsoo again even though he knew that it would be useless.

“I am sorry, I have to leave you here for now,” Myungsoo said, pouting. He suddenly switched to Korean when he spoke to Sunggyu in English before, as if he was tired of speaking English, “I promise I will find your owner. I hope you will get along well with Byul.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Sunggyu meowed. He started to get annoyed at how he sounded, at how no matter how many words he said, for others it was just a repeated one word. He felt grumpy, too, because he started to feel hungry. Being a cat was not that fun, now.

As if hearing Sunggyu’s thoughts, Myungsoo moved away and took out the cat food he stored under his bed, pouring it into a bowl and put it near the bed’s leg. He poured a lot into that, some of the food spilt into the floor and made Myungsoo whined at his own clumsiness. He cleaned up the little mess in a hurry, probably realizing that he was going to be late to class.

“If you are hungry, this your food. Byul, you have to share, okay?” Myungsoo said, patting Sunggyu’s and then his cat’s head before running out of the room. Sunggyu felt so weird being treated like that—he was usually the one who pats Myungsoo’s head, not the other way like this. Somehow, he ended up feeling a longing for Myungsoo even though he was right in front of Sunggyu. It was because they hadn’t hung out a lot lately. They were busy, but Sunggyu felt that Myungsoo had been avoiding him. So, that was one more reason for why he was glad that it was Myungsoo who found him.

“Who are you?” Sunggyu suddenly heard a voice from right beside of him, startling him. He turned his head to see that Myungsoo’s black cat was currently looking at him, analyzing him, “You are not a cat.”

Sunggyu couldn’t believe that he could understand another cat. He was also surprised that Byul could know that he wasn’t really a cat. Ever since Myungsoo adopted the cat, Sunggyu had been wondering if Byul was magical or not.

“I’m Sunggyu,” he answered, wondering if Byul could recognize him by his name.

“Sunggyu?” Byul repeated, “The human the annoying smug face?”

Sunggyu felt offended hearing that. He had been described as someone who had small eyes, someone who looked like a hamster or a fox—but this was the first time he was described as annoying and smug. By a cat, nonetheless. It made him wondered if people actually thought that he looked smug.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Sunggyu confirmed, even though he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to fight a cat.

“Why are you a cat?” Byul asked though he didn’t sound that interested.

“There was a little accident,” Sunggyu answered.

“Oh, whatever, I don’t care,” Byul finally said, despite being the one who asked the question. He changed into his sleeping position again and purred, “You can eat the food. But not all. If you don’t leave anything for me, I will kill you.”

How great. The only one who understood what Sunggyu was saying was a cat who didn’t even care about him.

***

“I think I have asked everyone,” Myungsoo said with a sad tone, “But no one claimed this cat as theirs.”

Sunggyu was on the desk, surrounded by people he knew. Myungsoo had been taking him around the school, trying to find someone who would claim Sunggyu. Of course, there was no one. Sunggyu had started to feel sick of this form because he felt so small. Even though when Myungsoo was gone, he had been trying to turn himself back, Sunggyu still failed. He didn’t understand why, he was pretty sure that there was no spell needed and it was supposed to be easy for an animagus to transform back into his human form. Did something go wrong?

“Maybe the owner is sick,” Woohyun said, “and this cat got abandoned.”

There were Woohyun and Sungyeol right now, taking turns poking Sunggyu for no reasons at all. Sunggyu had been growling at them, but they ignored him. How come they were still annoying Sunggyu even when Sunggyu was being a cat?

“Poor cat, it lost its owner and it looked like Garfield,” Sungyeol said, even though he didn’t look like he felt sorry for Sunggyu at all, “Maybe you should keep it until the owner is found.”

Sunggyu didn’t understand why Myungsoo was asking them for solutions, because Woohyun and Sungyeol would always be Sunggyu’s last choice in problem-solving. But then again Myungsoo was only close to the other few Korean-descents in this school, so perhaps he didn’t have much choice.

“I will,” Myungsoo said, resolute, “But how if I can’t find the owner?”

“Then keep it forever. You said you want more cats.”

Ah, Sunggyu wondered if anyone had realized that he had gone missing. He missed a few classes today, he felt worried about his grades now. He couldn’t miss more classes—it was his last year, he needed to do well so he could get a good job. He really needed to transform back. He couldn’t imagine being a cat forever. He had so many things he needed to do.

“Yes, but I am not sure if my aunt will allow me to have more cats. She barely allowed Byul.”

“You can try.”

Though being taken care by Myungsoo for his whole life didn’t sound so bad. He didn’t need to work.

“Hey, have you seen Sunggyu around?” Dongwoo suddenly showed up on their desk, pushing Myungsoo to the side to sit down, “He promised to teach me transfiguration after dinner but he never showed up.”

Finally, someone seemed to realize that Sunggyu was gone. Sunggyu looked at Dongwoo hopefully, wishing that he would fuel the others into searching for him, or even better, since they knew that Sunggyu was trying to be an animagus, they might realize that something went wrong. That way, he could get help soon.

“No, I haven’t seen him at all today.”

“Me, too.”

“That’s weird, how if he got sick too?”

There was an infectious disease spreading among the students and lots of them were being hospitalized right now, taken away from the others. Between them, Sungjong was the one who got the disease. Sunggyu really hoped that they didn’t think that he got sick too, because then they would this that he was safe in the school hospital.

“Isn’t his animagus training supposed to end last night? How if he failed and something happened to him?” Myungsoo asked, looking and sounding worried. Sunggyu was a little surprised that Myungsoo knew that, they barely met and talked to each other lately.

“I prefer him being sick,” Sungyeol said, already in a denial mode, “Though if he got sick that meant he has to repeat the whole thing right?”

“I am not sick, I am right here in front of your stupid asses!” Sunggyu meowed, though none of them responded to his yelling. Myungsoo picked up Sunggyu from the table and cradle him. Sunggyu didn’t panic, somehow already gotten used to it. Instead, he relaxed and clung to Myungsoo’s uniform.

“I don’t understand why he is so determined to be an animagus,” Woohyun said, “He is too ambitious for his own good.”

“That’s why he is a Slytherin,” Dongwoo laughed, “I hope none of us gets sick, too.”

“Yeah.”

Wait, when did they decide that Sunggyu was sick?

***

Sunggyu’s body shook along with the bed when Myungsoo laid down on it, right beside of Sunggyu who had been sitting near the pillow with Byul. Myungsoo smelled of soap—he just took a shower after he finished all of his activities. Sunggyu really wanted to take a bath too. It probably would be the first thing he would do when he managed to turn back. Sunggyu watched him, having nothing else to do. He thought that Myungsoo would go to sleep right away, but he turned to Sunggyu instead and said, “I am sorry that I can’t find your owner, I will try again tomorrow. I hope you will be okay staying with me and Byul here.”

Sunggyu was okay. At least he felt like he was on a reliable hand. Myungsoo was growing up quite nicely, he had grown up from the first time they met—when Myungsoo ended up Sunggyu’s train compartment, nervous as hell because he was a muggle-born who just moved to England not a long time ago, didn’t really know anything about magic, and could barely speak English. Now Myungsoo was one of the best students in his year and could curse in two languages if he wanted to. Sunggyu took Myungsoo under his wing because he could relate—he was not a Muggle-born, he knew about magic his whole life, but he was also an immigrant who had to adapt to an entirely new country.

He used to take care of Myungsoo, and now he was being the one who was being taken care of, even if Myungsoo didn’t realize it.

“I hope you are not abandoned. That’s too cruel,” Myungsoo muttered. He sat up and stared at Sunggyu, “I wish I know your name. Should I come up with a temporary name? Do you have an idea, Byul?”

“How about Sunggyu?” Byul meowed. Sunggyu was trying hard to side eyed the black cat.

“How about Gyeoul?”

Byul said, “It’s a stupid name.”

“I like that,” Sunggyu said, overriding Byul’s voice. This conversation felt stupid because it wasn’t like Myungsoo understood them.

“You like that? Okay! Gyeoul then,” Myungsoo grinned, showing his dimples. The damn dimples that sometimes made Sunggyu felt like he was looking at an angel.

Myungsoo laid down again and wondered, “How if I can’t find your owner? I want to keep you but I am not sure if Aunt will allow that.”

“Don’t worry, I promise that I will turn back and won’t trouble you again,” Sunggyu promised, moving closer to Myungsoo and put his paw on Myungsoo’s shoulder.

Byul moved to, pushing his head against Myungsoo’s hand, making Myungsoo lift his hand and let Byul moved under his hand. He Byul’s body and closed his eyes, muttering, “Ah, I hope I can visit Sunggyu Hyung and Sungjong. They must be miserable.”

Really, why did everyone decided that Sunggyu was sick instead of missing?

To Be Continued