It was hard to say how long she'd been out, but it had to have been a couple of days.

She was hungry, her mouth was dry, but everything was fuzzy and loose.

Kat rolled on her back. Or maybe she'd been on her back the entire time. Her side? She wasn't moving all that well, and her tongue was lolling out and everything taste gross.

She opened her eyes slowly. Slitted metal bars rested in front of her, and she was laid on something hard and plastic.

Was she in a fucking cat carrier?

She screamed angrily. Or tried to. Instead what came out was a rough 'mro-awa?'

She heard footsteps approaching, and then a familiar face appeared at the front of the cage. Bright blue eyes looked at her through the gaps in the cage. The door was opened a second later and one long, gloved fingers booped her nose.

The weight of gravity lifted off of her and she floated carefully into the air. In a show of control that she wasn't sure she knew he possessed, Chuuya crooked his fingers and she was tugged gently out of the crate and into the space outside.

They were back in his apartment, she realized. He must have taken her home while she was injured.

"It took you long enough to wake up," he teased lightly. There was something sad about him though.

She chirupped at him weakly. Kat tried to glare at him, but everything was really wonky. Was she still floating? She left like she was still floating. Her head was floating. Fuck.

"You sure took a good hit there," Chuuya went on. His fingers ran across her side. Oh, so she was on solid ground now. Solid counter. The marble was cool under her cheek. She'd always wanted marble counters. They were really nice to look at, and you could temper chocolate on them and-

"It wasn't necessary," he went on, "I can take care of myself."

Kat shot him a dubious look, even while her head swam with the effort. Chuuya huffed at her. "Don't look at my like that. I should have named you Mendo."

Troublesome?! "Merrow!"

"Wow, you could almost say that," he scratched behind her ear. "Guess you really are a mafia cat, huh?"

Guess she was.

What a weird idea. She'd never even been that big of a troublemaker. Kat was pretty good at keeping her head down. She got her work done, and that was all she needed to do. She stocked shelves, and on the weekends she climbed mountains. Kept her head down.

She was friends with her co-workers, and she liked her apartment, but she didn't really… do. Much.

What a depressing thought.

Kat batted weakly for Chuuya's hand. He let her hold onto his fingers while he scratched her under her chin.

"You've even got the scars to prove it, too."

Wait, what?

Scars?

She had scars?!

Kat stared up at him.

Being in this world was turning her into a crazy person.

She stalked mafia members into their HQ, sat on their shoulders and yelled at them to do their laundry, and now she was attacking random strangers to protect them.

It was official.

Kat was losing her goddamn mind.

Chuuya kept petting her for a few more minutes before he went to dig something out from under the sink. When he came back he had a little suitcase, and he opened it with a click. Kat watched him wearily.

"Don't look at me like that. And don't fight me, either. I don't want to sedate you again."

Oh, that was why everything felt so weird. She'd been drugged up.

She struggled to lift her head to look down at her body, but all she could see was a bit of skin showing along her side before she had to lay her head back down. It swam too much. She barely felt it when Chuuya started dabbing what she figured had to be her injuries. She could smell the antiseptic on the wipe he used. It was sharp and bitter.

Chuuya was startlingly careful with her. He was humming under his breath while he worked, whether he knew it or not, and she was positive she knew the tune too.

Her tail twitched. She must have been on a lot of drugs if she didn't even feel the sting of the ointment he used on her. After he was done he applied something else that smelled more like lotion.

"C'mon, it's late."

He used his Ability (and god was it hard not to think of it as a quirk) to lift her up and take her to his bedroom.

It wasn't somewhere she spent a lot of time.

It just felt weird to go into a man's bedroom when he didn't know that she was actually a person. So she slept on the couch in the living room, or the windowsill, or somewhere like that. Whenever he was changing clothes she left the room, and at night he slept alone.

Still, when Chuuya lay her on one of his pillows she didn't have the energy to object or move. She was still drugged, and exhausted to boot. She could only watch while Chuuya pulled his small black overcoat off, and then his vest, and finally shed his white dress shirt. She caught sight of a scar on his shoulder before her eyes drifted shut.

In just a few minutes she passed out entirely.