"Why the hell aren't you wearing pants, you depraved cat?!" Sungmi hollered.

The catboy pouted and took his pale pink tail in his hands. "No good!" he replied. "Your pants are terrible, they hurt!"

"How can my pants hurt you?" she demanded.

"It hurts my tail!"

Oh. That would honestly make sense – there was no opening for his tail. She sighed. Was she really going to have to sacrifice one of her sweatpants? Or would it be better to let the catboy wander around with no pants?

"Follow me," she said, trying not to cry. Her sweatpants! She'd never be able to wear them again! And thank goodness the over-sized sweatshirt she had given was large on him, too – who would have thought that clothes three times too big would come in handy for these types of pant-less situations.

The catboy followed her to her room, and while she searched for the scissors in her drawers, he took a good look around. "Why is it so messy?" he asked. "Why do you keep your clothes all over the floor? And why do you have those square-paper thingys – ah right, books – everywhere? How can you sleep if it's on your bed? How will I sleep there, there's no space for me!"

"You'll sleep in the living room, on the couch," said Sungmi, coming with the scissors. Trying not to cry, she cut a hole in the seat of her pants.

"But I want a bed," said the catboy, pouting all over again.

"The couch is your bed," she replied. "Now put this on and then come to the kitchen for dinner."

"Dinner!" The catboy's ears pricked and his tail swooshed with excitment. Because he was clean – and only because of that – Sungmi had to admit it was kinda cute. But it was only because anything would be cute compared to how filthy he had been.

"Just put the pants on," she said, and left to put a pot of water for noodles to boil.

The catboy sauntered in by the time the noodles were ready and on the table.

"Tada!" he announced, in eactly the same kind of tone Byul used.

The pants were too short – they were above his ankle. Sungmi sighed. Why was he so tall? Whatever, they could just think of the pants as capris.

"I look like a model," he said, and she was almost scandalized by how he said this with not one trace of modesty or anything – like he was simply stating a fact like the sun sets in the west. "These clothes were ugly, but now they're on me, they're not – I make everything look good."

Sungmi ignored him and started to eat. Luckily, the catboy was hungry, so he shut up in order to gulp the noodles. Once they were done, Sungmi decided it was time to set down some rules. And also state that he wasn't allowed to call her 'human'. Come to think of it, what could she call him? Did he even have a name?

"Hey," she said, and the catboy looked up from his second bowl of noodles that he had been noisily slurping up.

"Yes, baby?"

"Don't call me that!" she yelled.

"Why not?"

"It's stupid!"

"But all female humans like to be called that," he said in surprise.

"Where the hell did you hear that?"

"I learned it on TV, baby."

"If you call me that one more time, I'll kick you out!" she threatened.

"I'll tell Byul then," he said, sticking out his tongue. Stupid cat!

"Don't call me that," she ordered. "End of story. And by the way, do you have a name?"

He nodded. "I do."

She waited, but when he was about to go back to his noodles, she said, "Well? What is it?"

"Oh! My name is Seokjin."

"Seokjin." The name wasn't bad, but it seemed too long and she was simply too lazy to say both syllables. "I'll call you Jin, then."

"How dare you shorten my name!" he exclaimed, his pale pink ears twitching with indignation.

"Hey, as long as you live under my roof, you live by my rules," she reminded him. "And I'm going to call you Jin, agreed?"

"Fine," he said sulkily, and muttered under his breath, "Stupid crazy human, too stupid to say my name properly and-"

"I can hear you, you know that?" she cut in.

He made a face, and stood up and marched out of the room, leaving behind his dirty bowl. How rude! Not even a thank you for the meal! Sungmi fumed as she put the dishes in the sink, realizing that she still hadn't laid down the rules.

When she got to the living room, Jin was curled up on the couch, his fluffy tail wrapped around him. Sungmi's words died in his throat. Huh, he did look quite harmless when he was sleeping, she grudgingly admitted. Maybe now she could get some peace. Quietly, she went upstairs, and heaved a sigh of relief when she was finally able to sit and study with no disturbances.

****

On Saturday mornings, Sungmi usually woke up at around noon – that was the only day of the week which she allowed herself to indulge in a good snooze and a lazy afternoon.

Last night, she had not set her alarm as it was Friday night; she planned to snooze all morning. Jin had other ideas, though.

Sungmi was woken up at an ungodly hour of the morning – ungodly for a Saturday, that is, it was eight AM – with Jin's face staring at her, his head on the pillow. She screamed and her first instinct at finding an uninvited guest in bed was to kick – hard – and the catboy went yowling off the bed.

"What are you doing here?" she hollered.

Jin's head reappeared, and he rubbed his it and looked at her with large, reproachful eyes. "That hurt!" he said. "Ah, my handsome face.... if you do something to my handsome face again-"

"What are you doing here?" she cut in. Had the catboy just crawled in her bed? And he ruined her Saturday snooze, and this did nothing to improve her temper.

"I was hungry," he stated. "Very hungry. So I came to get you, but you were sleeping so deeply you didn't hear me. Then I got tired too and the bed was so comfy that-"

"I told you that your bed is the couch!"

He made a face. "The bed is better. You can take the couch."

Sungmi closed her eyes, trying not to yell at him again. Yelling first thing in the morning wasn't a good start, she told herself. Come on, stay calm, don't let him see you losing your mind.

"There's cereal in the kitchen," said Sungmi, forcing a smile and a sweet voice. "You can go eat that when you're hungry."

Jin looked at her suspiciously – her smile and sweet tone was odd. "I will eat that now?"

She nodded, forcing herself to keep smiling. "Yes, you can. Poor kitty, why don't you go eat now, hm?"
 

Flicking his tail with suspicion, Jin kept his narrowed eyes on her as he left the room. As soon as he'd gone, Sungmi heaved a sigh of relief and pulled the covers over her head, ready to get back to her snooze.