"Thank you very much!"

Sojung bowed to the client with a big smile on her face. She watched the man leave carrying the store's plastic bag and felt a pang of pride fill her chest, because, Sojung, being one of the rare shapeshifters in the world, was successfully living among humans!

Well, to be honest, that wasn't really impressive. The few shapeshifters she had met in her life lived pretty well and managed to do it without that much of an effort.

But to Sojung things were a little different.

The girl was raised in the woods by a lonely man, who even though was a human himself, didn't know a lot about his race fellows. So, when she started trying to mingle, things were really hard. Sojung cried so many times while curling up on the grass, careless of how dirty her white fur would get.

She really thought she couldn't make it.

But life surprised her! Sojung went through a lot, but she never gave up and now look where she got!

She owned a small record shop that had enough clients to pay all the bills and still allow her some... luxuries--such as pink wool balls--and even some occasional catnip.

It was all perfect.

Well, she did feel a little lonely, but in general everything was perfect!

Sojung looked at the clock on the wall and happily sighed. 5:57PM.

She stretched, letting out a sound that was between a yawn and a mewl, and walked to the front door, turning the 'Open/Close' sign around. Sojung locked the door and closed the curtains.

"Now, I'll just check--"

Suddenly, a loud thump at the back echoed and made the shop owner jolt. Sojung turned her head to look to the back door--that led to an alley where she put the trash--and frowned. Automatically, her ears started to change and white fur gradually replaced her soft skin.

There was another sound and her cat ears twitched.

Sojung stepped towards the door and sniffed the air carefully.

She didn't catch on anything besides the smell of the trash. Thus, whatever made that sound was probably not human. Suspicious...

Sojung was inclined to not open the door after a few seconds of silence, but, as soon as she stepped back, a faint mewl invaded her ears. Frowning, Sojung changed her ears back to their human form, in case there was a human there, and opened the door a little, peeping through the crack.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she saw the trash cans' silhouettes. Sojung quirked an eyebrow and opened the door further.

She waited a little, and the sound of a box falling attracted her attention.

Sojung looked to her right and there was, on top of a trash can, a cat that was so small that Sojung thought she was imagining it.

The animal weakly mewled at her.

"Hi," Sojung said, almost whispering.

The cat had one of its paws on top of a half-eaten apple. It mewled again and pushed the fruit until it fell down with a soft thump.

Sojung smiled. "So, you're the one making all of these noises, huh?"

The cat's eyes were focused on the fallen apple, but it mewled again as if answering Sojung's question, and somehow she could feel that the cat before her was not a normal one. The wind hit her skin and Sojung winced. It was starting to get colder and, by the looks of it, this would be a strong winter.

"Hey, kitty," she called. "Do you want to come inside?"

For a moment, Sojung sensed the cat's hesitation, but the wind blew once again and it looked at her--with wary eyes--before slowly walking towards her. Sojung stepped to the side and watched the cat jump off the trash can and enter the store.

She held back a smile. Something about that brown kitty was off, but she could feel it wasn't bad--it was actually pretty endearing the way the animal looked around and walked like it already owned the place. 'Its legs are so adorably short, though,' Sojung thought when the cat tried to jump on a chair and she couldn't help but snort at the hard time it was having.

As soon as the sound reached the cat, it turned around to look at Sojung. And she could swear it was squinting its feline eyes towards her.

"Sorry," Sojung giggled. "You're so adorable."

The car harshly breathed and Sojung took that as an annoyed huff.

"Ei, don't be mad," Sojung sang as she took a step closer to the animal. "I can't help how cute you looked trying to get up there!"

This time, a certainly annoyed mewl came out of the cat's mouth and Sojung chuckled.

Now, she was sure it could understand her words. And that only meant one thing.

Usually, when Sojung communicated with cats, they had sort of an instinctive conversation.The shapeshifter had never sustained such a talk using human words with them before. Therefore, the only logical conclusion was that the kitty in front of her was a shapeshifter.

She watched as the cat kept trying to get on the chair and smiled.

"Stop trying, we are going upstairs anyway."

The animal turned to her and mewled, questioning what that meant.

"I've already closed the store," she explained. "So, I'm going upstairs... it's where I live, for that matter. And, I mean, I know you're probably a very nice kitty, but I'm not letting you roam around the store all by yourself."

The cat stopped and stared at her; it was was hesitating again.

Sojung offered it a small smile. "I know I haven't given you reasons to trust me yet, but think about it. We are kind of in the same boat, you know?"

Well, that seemed to work as the cat mewled once again and slowly walked towards her. Sojung hummed, happily and made her way to the door that led to the narrow staircase that connected the store to her house, feeling the animal right behind her.

Sojung opened it and stepped to the side. "Here it is, kitty. You can go first... I mean, if your legs allow you."

The cat let out a pissed off sound and Sojung uglily snorted. The steps weren't even that high, but it was just so fun to see the kitten's reaction to her teasing.

As if just to prove Sojung wrong, the cat sprinted and reached the next floor in a millisecond.

Sojung couldn't help her smirk. If I was in my cat form, I'd totally beat it.

The cat looked at her from upstairs, with an almost snob air,, and Sojung bit her lower lip.

Maybe that would be fun.