A/N: So, I lied. I said I wouldn't update until March, and, um, this is an update. It's also random, pointless, and based off a completely cracky idea. I blame katie-chan, for that youkai talk of ours (it all led to this really), and butterfly-chan, for the amount of AU. And crack.

Disclaimer–clearly, I do not own. Give me a cat!Kaito anytime.

-

The Kind Of Cat You Can't Bring Home

-

Nakamori Aoko was many things.

She was twenty-four, a history student, working on her master thesis, only half-dressed, in a hurry, and definitely late for class. She was also in front of her mirror, trying to pull on tights without tearing them (which was proving rather difficult given the amount of stress recently dropped on her shoulders), hair pins pinched between her lips in the vain hope of managing to do her hair before the alarm clock struck the hour.

The door slid sneakily open. "Ao–"

"I said stay in the living-room!" she squealed, dropping the pins. She swore and crouched to recover them, making displeased hisses between gritted teeth as one of them eluded her fingers. Why couldn't the damn thing–

A hand slipped in her field of vision, picked up the pin, and held it up to her. She bit her lip, hesitated a fraction, took it, looking up to a lazy smile on stretched lips and eyes that were entirely too blue to be true.

So were the ears.

And the tail.

"I told you to stay in the living-room," she muttered, unconvincingly.

"But I was bo-ored," he intoned, and fell back on the small of his back, leaning his weight on his hands as her eyes lingered on him, half-wondering how he could keep that position with his tail stuck underneath him. It didn't seem to bother him. "It's much funnier when you're here, A-o-ko–"

His voice was ridden with a foreign accent, thick, though not disagreeable. It was a little rough, a little coarse, but his words and syntax were flawless. "Well," she said, standing up and fastening her collar, "you'll have to wait. I'm going to class. I'll be back this afternoon."

"Ehh?" He pouted comically, sitting up. His ears flattened a little. "Aoko-cha-an…"

"No pouting," she said. "Now hop off to the living-room and let me find my jacket."

He pouted some more but obligingly did as he was told, trotting off to slump on the couch. He sprawled over it in a fully feline fashion, tail flicking absently over the span of skin the fold of his white shirt showed above the belt of his jeans. She'd had to give him some of her father's youth clothes. The tail had been a problem (it wouldn't fit over the belt, and he'd complained that it hurt) until she'd resigned herself to pick up the scissors.

She couldn't very well leave him naked like she'd found him on her doorstep the evening before. Her first instinct had been to cover him up–scratch that, her first instinct had been to have a heart attack, finding a unknown boy (with cat ears. And a tail) on her doormat as she came home from college.

She'd dragged him in, though–couldn't leave him there–weighted a ton–and had covered him up before she'd checked for injuries. There were none. She'd left a bowl of milk beside the couch and waited for him to wake up.

Which he had, half an hour later, with a cheerful smile and, it seemed, no intention at all to explain who he was or why she'd found him half-dead on her doorstep. The ears and tail, apparently, were quite real. He'd winced and yelped when she'd tugged on them by surprise.

He'd said his name was Kaito.

He'd also asked if he could stay.

He was quite harmless. Though he had no inhibitions at all–he didn't understand a second why she forced him to keep the towel around his hips while she hunted for clothes that would fit him–he had slept curled up on the couch and had not bothered her through the night. He was as flexible as a cat, judging by his acrobatics around the room, and he appeared to have a one-track mind–milk, milk, and milk. He was lazy, stubborn, whimsical, and–absolutely endearing.

She'd said yes–for now. "Later," she'd added, making dinner as he gulped down milk, "we'll figure out where you've come from, but for now you can just sleep on the couch." And then rules had been laid, rules of property and decency; "you're not getting close to my bedroom during the night. … actually, you're never getting close to my room. You're keeping your hands to yourself. I don't know much about nekomatas, but I think their libido is just the same as everyone else's–"

He hadn't listened; he'd been sticking his nose in the milk bottle to see if there was any left.

Now, though, looking at him stretching on the couch, she couldn't help but think–he had a gorgeous body. He was taller than her by a head–though she felt she would be able to match him in strength, if need be–and slender; the white shirt suited him perfectly and her father's jeans, a little too large, pooled around his feet in the casual way of the familiar at home. His hair was ink-black and untamed, the eyes a wild blue, the smile easy and blissful–too much of it all.

In fact, he would have been a stunning young man, hadn't it been from the fact that he was only part-man. The black ears and tail were testimony of that. They seemed to have a will of their own–not unlike an actual cat, really–as the ones flattened and perked in response to his temper, and the other would simply never be still, nimble and languid as it twined carelessly around a jean-clad leg.

"I'll be back around five," she said, pulling on her jacket and fishing around for her keys. Then struck by an afterthought–"Wait, can you even read the hour?"

No answer.

"Kaito?"

She stepped closer, ducking to get a look at his face. It was relaxed and even. He was asleep.

She shook her head with a smile, started to pour him another glass of milk, thought better of that, left the milk in the fridge, stuck a note on it with the time she'd come back and how to read the hour, considered covering him up with a blanket, thought he'd be heating up (that was bad, for cats, wasn't it?), checked on him one last time, and left for college, for which she was later than ever.

The nekomata opened his eyes again as soon as the lock turned.

He uncoiled slowly from the couch, long limbs lazy and leisurely making their way to the window. The balcony was bare of pot-plants, but bedding hang to dry over it, white sheets and a yellow, fluffy comforter in the timid spring sun. He leant against it, head resting in the crook of his arms, as he watched the street almost deserted as of now.

Aoko emerged quickly from the building entrance, wished good morning to the middle-aged custodian, who was sweeping his two-yards of garden, and quickly made her way down the sidewalk, pulling at the disarrayed chignon of her hair.

Kaito hummed contentedly as he watched her go, his tail half-curling around his thigh and eyes closed to thin slits of satisfied blue in the golden morning warmth.

-o-

When she came home the flat was dark and cold, and her heart went fluttering in her chest as she jerked her shoes off. There was no one in the living-room, and the curtains of the window had not been drawn; outside was the blue shades of early evening. "Kaito?"

No answer. She dropped her bags on the couch and hurried into the bedroom, flicking on a small lamp by the door. "Kai–"

He was huddling on her bed, both arms tightly hugging his legs and his face buried in his knees. She stilled, one hand still on the doorframe, breathing out in what was probably a sigh of–relief, perhaps, at seeing that he was still there. "Kaito, what are you doing on my bed?"

He must have turned his head, for one blue eye was staring at her, and she was startled by how bright it was. One slitted pupil was like a black rift in the blue-green (and she was certain it hadn't been this way this morning) and she could see it perfectly in the bedroom's dim obscurity.

He buried his face in his knees again, and she blinked as though a light had been put out. "You said you'd be there at five." His accent was thicker than ever, maybe because it'd been a few hours since she hadn't heard it, maybe–not.

"I–I know," she said, dumbfounded. It was half-past six. She was so used to living alone, she hadn't thought a second he might have worried over her absence. "I'm sorry. I had to pass by the market and there was a crowd–"

No answer. She walked in, leaning up to switch on the lamp hanging over the bed, its rice paper shade casting a warm, diffuse glow onto the walls and the cat-man hunched up on her blanket. "Kaito? I'm sorry." The mattress creaked when she sat beside him. He didn't budge. "Hey…"

She extended one hesitant hand to one of his ears. The black fur was as soft as it looked; softer perhaps than she'd thought it'd be. She scratched it gently, nimble fingers moving slightly to meet the most sensitive spot. It felt exactly like stroking a real cat's ear. "I'm sorry, Kaito…"

She must have hit a soft place, for he let out a small sound very much like a mewl and uncontrollably rubbed his head back against her hand. She smiled indecisively, and let her fingers trail sideways to the other ear.

This time he couldn't repress a faint whimper and turned his head to look at her again; his eyes did not look so greenish now the light had been switched on. "'S not fair," he muttered, and moaned quite loudly when she stroked the underside of his ear, delicately. They kept in that position a few minutes, her taming him by inches, him relaxing slowly, all the tension in his body seeping perceptibly away.

At times he would rub back against her fingers or away, in an indication to stay there or move. His eyes were closed now, his face relaxed and showing nearly nothing, but there was a purr building in his throat, and his tail was trembling barely on the comforter. Just like a real cat; though Aoko had never had one of her own (her father couldn't stand them, had refused to even let her welcome in a friend's kitten while the friend's family was away on vacation and they needed helping out with the pet), she had seen enough to know how they behaved–and Kaito, in this moment, was much more cat than he was man.

She thought she should be bothered–disrupted–by this, by an unknown nekomata showing up on her doorstep and her letting him, knowing nothing of him, especially not how he even came to exist; she wasn't. She thought of her father, of all the lectures he had given her, as a child and as a teenager as well as a young woman, about strangers and boys and strange men; it did not affect her a minute in the situation.

Kaito was probably strangest than her father had ever thought she would come to meet with, but this–the tall, nervous body now vibrating with pleasure under her fingers, pressing hot against her side–felt right, wholly natural.

It was with a sigh that she stood up. Kaito whimpered at the loss when the miraculous fingers were taken away from his ears and hair. "A-oko…"

"I'll go make dinner," she said, in a tone clearly boding no nonsense. She stretched deliciously; the massage had benefited her as well, apparently. "I've bought fish," she added, smiling down at him.

Kaito immediately hissed in displeasure, and his ears flattened. Aoko stopped short of the door. "… you don't like fish?"

A fierce shake of the head. The tail swished through the hair like a lash.

"I thought cats loved fish."

"I'm not entirely a cat," he admitted with a feline smirk, his accent making him bump against the four-syllable adverb.

Looking at him now, legs on each side of him as he gazed up at her with his head cocked to the side and one ear perked up, both very human hands pressing onto the blanket, it was impossible to deny he was a man–part cat, but man all the same. Aoko felt her cheeks heat up sensibly, and put it down to mere hunger–or affection, simple genuine affection, whatever.

"… fine. I'll make something else tonight. We can order out." His responding smile was bright as the lamplight falling all over him, swathing him in gold while she was dampened out by the darkness of the adjacent room, and she scowled a little, unable to control the warmth that furled and unfurled quietly in her chest. "But from tomorrow on, you're having what I'm having."

"Okay!" he said happily, scrambling off the bed to follow her into the living-room and over to the phone, fussing all over her as she made her call.

She made him stay in the kitchen when she answered the deliveryman. He came out again as soon as she closed the door, and watched curiously while she unpacked the food, but he had no idea how to use the chopsticks. She let him use a spoon for the soup and his fingers for the course of pork he had demanded, watching as he distractedly licked sour sauce off his fingers.

It was clumsy, but adorable. She found her lips twitching, while he fished in the bowl for more rice.

"Aah, be careful! Use the spoon for that!"

After dinner she gave him the ball of yarn she had bought at lunchtime–not on purpose at all, she had had no idea there was a pet store by her college and she'd only noticed it today, and she'd had time on her hands and had had to say to the friend who was eating out with her that no, she hadn't bought a cat, her neighbour had asked her to keep hers before she'd left in vacation to the isles–and tried not to smile as he batted thoughtfully at it, this visibly being very serious business.

The ball escaped him and rolled away from him, slowing down by where Aoko's bare feet were dangling down from the couch.

Kaito made a soft noise and crouched up on all fours, limbs long and jean-clad and mastered, moving confidently, slited eyes narrowed on the ball.

Aoko breathed in, waited until his attention was focused on the ball and the ball only, and swiftly kicked it away from the couch.

Kaito pounced.

She laughed, played with him a few minutes more, and then, leaving him to his game, climbed back up on the couch and switched on the TV. The weather. Cold and sunny; the temperatures were expected to warm up during the next few days. The news; murder in the 3rd district–

It wasn't long until Kaito tired out of the ball and clambered up on the couch also. He began nuzzling her immediately, nudging his nose into her neck and against her hair, nibbling at her skin with rather sharp teeth.

She pushed him away. "What the–what do you think you're doing? I said you keep your hands to yourself–"

"My hands are on my lap," he breathed out, and she couldn't help a shiver. "A-o-ko, pet me again…"

… okay that did not even bear thinking about. She had better grant him that pleasure–part-cat, he was part-cat, he had no second-thoughts at all–and not think about how… stupidly… erotic that had sounded. She was the one with the naughty mind here. He was not–he did not think about–

Oh, screw it.

Her fingers found their place in his hair rapidly again, rubbing absently at the soft spot that had him mewling with pleasure. He was purring quite loudly against her neck, a low, mellow rumble in the back of her throat that vibrated in soft puffs of breath against her skin. They watched TV together, though he probably did not understand half the things they were saying; he was on a quick way to snoozing.

"That show's really rotten," she murmured, in a faint effort to restore somewhat of the day before yesterday's reality.

"Hmmm. Don't stop," Kaito sighed, nuzzled her cheek, then licked it, and there went that attempt. His tongue was a little on the rough side, very much like a cat's would be.

He fell asleep on her quickly enough. A catnap, she thought fondly, watching him and stroking still the side of his ears, and reached out to catch the remote and switch the TV off. Her fingers lingered. He was still purring, even in rest.

Only now could she allow herself to wonder at what had brought them there. She had no clue as to how a nekomata could even exist, much less stray–naked–all the way to her doorstep, but right now, the two of them dozing off on her couch, she figured it didn't matter so much.

"I don't know who you lived with before," she murmured in his hair, nuzzling it, half asleep herself. Her fingers rubbed his ear gently, "but you're mine now."

The long, soft black tail coiled sleepily around her leg.

-

… aaaaand I think this officially proves that I need to buy myself a life. Vacation will be the death of me. Also, every time I try to write a short story, it expands dramatically. –sighs– it was fun to write, though. I really don't know if there'll be a sequel or whatever, but knowing my muse, there very well might be. –pats–

Um. Next is Sands And Sands, I promise. –cookies–