Mao enjoyed talking to Yin. In a world where animals aren't fluent in multiple languages ranging from English to Japanese, it was perfectly understandable.

'You know those old TVs where everything is in black and white? I can only see those colors,' he mewed as he groomed himself on the counter of Yin's corner shop, the bell on his collar lightly tinkling. 'And it's like those arcade games, where everything is in simple shapes too, for that matter. Quite disconcerting, I might add.'

Yin nodded, sitting before him. She was blind, Mao was told the first time they were introduced, but that never seemed to be the case during moments like these, when it was just the two of them, and she was listening attentively to him. 'Quite,' she repeated bleakly, as if that was the only word she got out of that.

'But as the tradeoff, my other senses are definitely something, so I guess I got that going for me,' he continued, now scratching his head with a paw, trying to rid himself of this one meddlesome itch he's being having all morning. 'For example, I can tell you were eating shio ramen just this morning, and before that, for dinner last night, prawn and fried rice.' Now the itch had moved to his spine. He paused. 'Cooked by Hei too, if I'm not mistaken.'

'Hei.'

'I got to admit he's certainly deft with a frying pan. Sometimes he lets me have the leftovers.' Mao snorted in a most uncatlike manner. 'Leftovers,' he meowed, wrinkling his nose. 'And from a glutton like him, that's not exactly a lot. But of course it's better than trying to scrounge up food from Huang. The goblin only has expired cat grub. I found that out the hard way. Got food poisoning the first time.' He twisted his head to his flank. 'Damnable itch,' he muttered as Yin rose up and with both hands, reached out for him. 'I ought to-hey hey! What are you doing? Put me down! I'll claw your eyes-' Now on her lap, Yin began to pet him with one hand, and with the sensation of her palm rubbing his head, Mao's protest faltered.

'Itch,' Yin murmured, and then with her other hand, she dug her fingers into his flank, slowly and gently by degrees, until she found it. 'Itch.' As she scratched it for him. Mao heard a new sound. It was a low warble, almost like a croon but not quite. Then he realized it was him purring, and before he knew it, he was resting his cheek on her knee and stretching all his legs out.

'You know Yin, sometimes I wonder why I continue to do all of this. The stakeouts. The ops. The Syndicate. I'm not human. I don't need money, power, prestige: those things weren't meant for me the day I lost my real body. There's no return on me investing my life into all of it now.' Mao mewed, spilling everything that kept him awake at night and he kept tight to himself. 'Sometimes I think it'd be better for me if I cut off the link between me and the server, let the cat in me run the show. Find a home with a family, be the highschooler's pet and confidant, live a drearily boring, unfulfilling life, die loved. Sometimes I wonder. A lot of times, actually. What do you think?'

'Loved.'

'Plus the team doesn't really need me. I'm hardly that much of an asset. There's plenty of other Contractors who can possess animals like me.'

'Asset.'

'I don't think Hei would miss me. Or Huang. Would you?'

'Miss me.'

'I suppose you can't, what with you being a Doll and all. I'm sorry I asked that.'

'Sorry?'

'Yeah, sorry. I'm apologizing. It's when you…nevermind, can you keep doing that for me? Just like that.' Mao's eyes began to close as he felt Yin rub his ears. Being a cat did seem to have its advantages after all, he thought. And for some time, as the shadows crawled along the window sill and the clouds leisurely flowed by with the sun edging by, they stayed like that under the warm daylight, the cat humming contently as the blind girl stroked him and lulled him with soft fingers into a doze, the cat dreaming of days when he had no fur, stood upright and worried about things that now seemed so inconsequential, so bizarrely meaningless, that they seemed to belonged to a stranger who he shared with nothing but a name. At the end of it, when Yin's hands stopped and settled together in a clasp resting on his shoulder, Mao murmured something.

'Thank you,' Yin said.

Mao's eyes blinked open. 'You're welcome,' he replied, though he did not know for what she was to be such. Then there was a question in his head that he had to ask. 'Do you think I should stay, Yin?'

Yin nodded. 'Stay,' she answered bleakly.

Mao enjoyed talking to Yin. In a world where a Contractor's rationale was held above simple sentimentality, one could always use a friend who'd be willing to lend an ear and a back-rub. Especially when one was a cat.