Disclaimer: Psh not mine, I could never think of such an amazing basketball story with amazing basketball idiots.
Warning: AU. Trust me, cats like this don't exist in real life or in KnB. And Hanamiya says a few cuss words so get over it. Aaaaaand possibly a slightly OOC Hana. I'll try to keep him as sadistic as I can, but honestly, how can you be mean to such a cutie like Izuki.
Author's Note: Ahhhh It really took me a while to decide if I should write this or not since the idea of "Izukitty Shuneko" was born from a crack role play I did as Izuki with a Hanamiya. We continued to talk as "Master and cat" from then on, but it wasn't until I started having fantasies of these two as an actual "family" that I started thinking of a plot. And an Imayoshi role player also did not help very much with his fighting over me and such... *Facepalm* Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy it and all of it's weirdness. I had a lot of fun writing it so my only wish is that you have just as much fun reading it!
"Che. Getting mad at me for playing basketball my style... If they want to win so badly they should let me play however I want." the raven haired male muttered as he walked home from a basketball match. They'd won the match, but only because Hanamiya was trying out something new. A few days prior, he realized there was a way to weaken the team without going all out. "All you have to do is attack the Ace in the ref's blind spot." he thought. A smirk crept onto his face as he thought of ways to improve this method. Of course, there was no way to test this on his own team. As he continued to walk down the street, he heard a noise coming from somewhere below. "What the hell is that annoying sound." he questioned aloud, stopping to look around his feet. Somewhere off to the side, away from the sidewalk, there was a cardboard box with a small light blue blanket covering it's opening. The mysterious noise sounded again and as he walked closer to the source he realized it was a kitten. Hanamiya shrugged the thought of the helpless animal off, thinking that someone else would take it and he wouldn't have to worry about it the next day— but he was wrong. The day after that, when his practice ended later than usual, he passed the kitten again and thought the same words. "Someone will take the thing soon, I'm sure."
Two weeks passed and still the kitten remained in the same general area, though, the wind blew the blanket away a few days ago and he could tell it was kicked around a few times. The same "Nya" came from the box every time he passed it but gradually got weaker with every passing day. It was a wonder the poor thing was still alive after being so weak with starvation and dehydration. Someone should at least feed it periodically, he thought.
The next day, he bought some cat food and water for the little thing and finally peeked in to see what it looked like. The fur was black and it wore a white shirt with black, red, and white gym shorts, resembling a human. When the tiny cat looked up, he saw that it was human, or at least human-like. The fur he saw from above was it's hair, but it still had cat ears and a tail. Was this one of those cat-like humans he'd heard about on the internet? He never believed such illogical things, especially since he read it on some unreliable website that provided no evidence to back it up, but here it was, flesh and fur(?) in all it's glory. He wanted to pick it up to examine it a little more, but he figured the tiny animal was probably ill from being outside for such a long period of time so he just opened the cat food and water and left it in the box for the little thing to feast on.
Hopefully someone would come pick the animal up soon because the teen was definitely not going to keep that up every day, but soon enough he found himself feeding the kitten every three days when his allowance allowed it.
Another two weeks passed and he realized it'd been about a month since he first met the kitten. He knelt next to the box, still wary of the kitten carrying diseases, and looked at it again. It's head looked up, staring right back at him, and he remembered the last time they met like this when he realized it was a cat-like human, or maybe human-like cat. It was too small to be a functioning baby human and all it ever did was meow, so it had to be a cat. Deciding it was time to finally give it a home, he took out some newly bought disposable gloves and put them on before picking up the flimsy, damp box.
When he arrived home, he took the cat out of it's container and placed it in the empty sink for a bath. As Hanamiya stepped on the box to crush it before throwing it away, the cat looked around, scared and fascinated by the new surroundings, and decided to jump out of the sink, only to be met by the faucet and a newly formed bump on the top of it's head. When Hanamiya looked back into the faucet with new gloves on, these ones much thicker with more rubber, he saw the hurt animal crouching down, holding his hands on top of his injury with tears at the edge of its eyes. "How cute, the little thing is hurt. Must be pretty stupid to have hurt itself in a sink." he sadistically said with a smirk.
A smile remained on his face the whole time he washed the tiny cat, chuckling every time he touched the bump resulting in a loud "Nyaaa" from the puny kitten. When he finished drying its hair, it shook it's head leaving it in a fluffy ball of fur, and Hanamiya had no choice but to brush it. "You're such a handful, kid." he said aloud, "Why did I even take you in. I can't possibly balance you and basketball in my life." He obviously had no trouble with school, being the top student of his class without even studying, but he was still trying to figure out new ways for his new basketball to develop smoothly. Every once in a while, he would get caught elbowing a player or stepping on their shoes and his coach would have to pull him out of the game. "If only everyone in my team cooperated with me. Damn Kiyoshi. Iron Heart my ass."
Coming back to reality and to his new pet, he tossed the brush aside and looked at the towel covered kitten. Its clothes were still in the washing machine and there was no way he would have clothes that could fit the palm-sized animal, so he rummaged through the box of unwanted items he received from previous years and finally found some tiny shorts that belonged to a stuffed bear Mibuchi had gotten him for Christmas. "Here, kid." he tossed it on the bed in front of where the animal was sitting, "You're a male, being shirtless for a few hours shouldn't hurt."
Hanamiya watched as the "kid" put the shorts on and thought that it should have a name. "It can't be anything stupid like 'Nekosuke' or 'Kuro-san'." he thought. Maybe it already had a name and he just didn't know it, but he was certain there wasn't anything written on the box. Out of curiosity, or habit, the teen asked, "What's your name?" with a rather harsh tone. The cat flinched from the words, stumbling back onto the bed and landing on its behind. He knew it, it didn't speak Japanese. Why would it? He went through a list of male names —he was positive the cat was a boy— until his thoughts were interrupted by another noise from the kitten. It was quiet, but he was sure he heard something. "Say it again." demanded Hanamiya, praying to any god that he wasn't going insane. "Izuki... Sh-Shun..." it said.
"What the hell." Hanamiya thought, "He fucking spoke."
Izuki sat on the bed, pouting at his new owner who ran to his laptop and immediately began searching up anything he could find about this species. There wasn't much about them, other than descriptions of their appearances and the like, but couldn't there at least be some information on the behavioral patterns of them? He wasn't sure what to feed him now; cat food or human food, what kind of vaccines to give him, how big he would grow up to and the type of body he would develop— all of this was so foreign to him. Finally, after an hour of searching, he found a website (though it was in English) that gave him enough information to at least help him raise Izuki.
Most people don't know where these human-like cats originated from. Some say they're just an experiment gone wrong and others theorize they're just freaks of nature. A lot of owners of these cats are very skeptical of how to take care of them and end up accidentally killing them by treating them like cats. These creatures have the bodies of humans and features like cats; this does not mean they are cats. Our bodies are not suited for only cat food, water, and milk, so don't treat them as such.
Like us, they can learn to speak and walk, but because of their "cat side" their sentences might end with the occasional Meow.
Hanamiya paused from the article and glanced at Izuki, who was nodding in and out of sleep, wondering if he'd have to bare with such an annoying speech pattern. He scrolled down, not caring about how they were human-like; he already knew how the human body worked and figured he could deal with a few cat features.
After learning all there was to know, except for the origin, Hanamiya leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, processing everything that had happened until then. The room was silent until he heard a light thud on the bed and saw that Izuki had fallen asleep and fell back in the process. His arms were sprawled out, as were his legs, and he only took up a tiny portion of the bed. Hanamiya picked him up, not caring if he woke up or not from the movement, and layed him on the maroon bean-bag chair next to his bed and placed an old T-shirt over his body as a blanket. The dark haired teen scratched the back of his head as he examined his pet. "I'll probably have to buy a few things for this guy, dammit." he thought, then mentally listed various items he'd have to purchase.
Finally having everything in place, he lied down in his own bed and pulled the covers up to his shoulders. "I really should have thought more about this..." he mumbled, then drifted off into a deep sleep.