I was surprisingly warm and comfortable when I woke up that morning. It felt so good that I could easily ignore the ache in my lower back. I didn't want to get up. Yet as my senses came into focus, I began to panic: they were much sharper than I was used to. I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what I was sensing. Maybe knowing exactly how they had changed would help me adjust.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of Kanda's shampoo. He was nearby. That subtle floral scent was everywhere, covering, but not hiding the smell of the room, which, after several days of sleeping in it, smelled of Kanda and myself. Yet I could pick out details, like the scent of the soap used to wash the sheets of the bed I was in. I could even make out traces of what we had done the night before. The scent of Master's cigarettes also lingered, though it was faint.

The room was quiet, but as I listened to what was around me things got loud really quickly. Once again the first thing I noticed was Kanda. The sound of his breathing was closer than I expected it to be, but I didn't dare open my eyes and find out exactly where he was. He was close enough for me to hear his heartbeat, its gentle rhythm indicating that he was still asleep. However, as I listened to his heartbeat, I noticed that I could hear my own as well. And that was freaky, so I focused on something else. The lack of noise from the street outside told me it was still early- too early for the tourists to be out, though some of the locals had begun their daily routines.

My tail - oh dear God I really have a tail - was wrapped around my left leg. I had avoided looking at it, only seeing enough to know that it was white like my hair and ears. I didn't want to know what it looked like. Yet somehow I knew that it was long, just a few inches short of touching the ground when I stood. It was weird to have and be aware of another appendage. I didn't like it. Even if it was incredibly useful on Kanda.

To change my train of thought, I let my eyes drift open. All I could see was navy blue. Kanda was close enough that his hair was in my face. I tried to turn my body, to get a better look at the room, but couldn't move. That's when I realized exactly how close Kanda was: the warmth I felt was him. His chest was pressed against my back and his arms were wrapped around my waist. I tried to pull away, but his hold was strong. I wouldn't be able to move away without waking him up.

So I settled for moving his hair out of my face. I blinked at what I saw. I was confused. We were in Kanda's bed. But we had had sex in mine. And I was pretty sure that I had passed out as soon as we had finished. Kanda must have moved me. And cleaned me up- I was wearing my boxers. I expected him to have left me in the messy bed. Waking up in his bed with his arms around me was just plain weird. I still thought of him like yesterday hadn't happened, his confession of love still seemed like a dream. And it was safest to think that way; my heart was safer if I accepted that he never truly loved me, that he just said those things to get in my pants.

I felt him stir, his heartbeat and breathing began to change: he was waking up. I expected him to push me away when he realized we were cuddling. He pulled me closer. It freaked me out, so I tried to pull away from him. "What do think you're doing, Moyashi? You're mine now. You're not getting away."

He was still half-asleep. I could hear it in his voice. What he said was scary, yet somehow reassuring. I knew he meant that, and I knew he wasn't just talking about the cuddling. He thought of me as his possession. "And what if I want to leave, Bakanda?"

"Then you shouldn't have told me you love me." He laughed briefly, then kissed the back of my neck. He was fully awake now.

His lips sent sparks down my spine, and I immediately lost my train of thought. One of his hands left my waist, but the pleasure coursing through me distracted me from my chance to escape. In some corner of my mind I knew exactly what he was doing, knew that he was doing something I didn't want him to do. But his fingers were already tangled in my hair. It felt so good, but they didn't stop there. They kept moving until they were caressing my ear. His calloused fingers felt spectacular against the soft spot where my ears met my head. I wanted him to continue, but more than anything, I wanted him to STOP. IMMEDIATELY.

But I knew he wouldn't. And his lips on my neck were preventing me from escaping. I couldn't stop him. And even worse, I couldn't stop the reflex he was triggering. I could already feel it in my chest. The growing rumbling.

Kanda's kisses stopped the moment the purring started. I could feel him smirk into the back of my neck. He knew I hated the purring, the reminder that I was part cat, the reminder that my life had once again gone horribly awry.

But as much as I hated it, I loved the feeling. I loved his fingers playing with my ears. I only wanted him to stop so that the purring would stop. Yet some part of me knew that if I did make him stop he'd just find another, more embarrassing spot to pet and trigger the purring. So I didn't fight it as we lay in bed that morning.

"You're awfully quiet, Moyashi." Kanda's breath tickled the back of my neck, and I had to suppress the urge to giggle.

I rolled over and glared at him, pulling his hand from my head. "I thought I was being plenty noisy."

"That's not what I was talking about." He smirked at me and tried to pet me again, but I had his wrist in my Innocence hand and he couldn't break my grip. I gave him an innocent smile as he narrowed his eyes at me.

"You actually want me to talk? Aren't you the one who tells me to shut up because I talk too much?"

"Yes, but given the circumstances..." He sighed and gave me a small smile. "You shouldn't hold things in, Moyashi."

I rolled my eyes at him. "What do you want me to say? That I'm not ok? You already know that." I felt my ears twitch as I started to get angry, and the fur on my tail bristled. The sensations were so alien, and they only served to fuel my anger. "Fuck! The sooner we get to Komui and get this fixed the better. I can't stand being like this. But you already know that too."

"Yes, but don't you feel better having said it out loud?" He smirked, and it made me want to smack him. I growled at him and pushed him off the bed.

Or I tried. He still had an arm wrapped firmly around my waist. So I went over the edge with him. And for the second time that trip, Kanda and I ended up on the floor, tangled together.

Only this time it wasn't in the middle of making out. And this time it hurt. Bad. I screamed.

.x.x.

I was just messing around. No, actually, if I'm being honest, I was trying to get the Moyashi to stop overthinking things so that we could have sex again. That's why I pulled him off the bed with me.

Only things went wrong when we landed really hard. It knocked the wind out of me, but that was nothing compared to the pained screech the Moyashi let out.

In my slightly dazed state it took a moment to figure out what happened. But once it clicked, I scrambled away immediately. We had landed on his tail.

The screeching died to a whimper once my weight was no longer crushing his tail. I knew from experience exactly how well Allen could handle pain. This must hurt like hell for him to be crying over it. No, that wasn't it. It was more like the first time I had a hangover. He had no frame of reference for the pain he was feeling, and that made it seem worse. It probably didn't help that his head was still screwed up over the whole thing.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to console him, but I didn't know how. Or have the patience for that. I had used up all of that yesterday.

So I did nothing. I just sat there and waited for him to stop crying.

.x.x.

Fuck that hurt. Not the worst pain I'd ever experienced, I'd been stabbed too many times for that to be true, but it was still worse than I could have ever imagined. I now officially hated that tail. The pain faded quickly once Kanda was no longer sitting on it and pulling it at a weird angle, but that brought a whole slew of other problems. The tears I thought had dried up started falling once more, and I couldn't stop them.

I don't know where they came from. I was well aware that my situation wasn't hopeless. I wasn't even that upset over what happened anymore. Fuck, last night was one of the best nights of my life. The man I loved loved me back. And I probably wouldn't know that if it weren't for what had happened.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. Lying on the cold floor was not helping anything. I pushed myself into a sitting position. Kanda was sitting just out of arm's reach, staring at me. He looked... worried. As much as I liked knowing he was concerned about me, the look was very wrong on his usually scowling face.

"Sorry, you said no more crying." I forced a smile, trying to make a joke.

"Don't." Kanda's voice was harsh. "Don't try to push things away. You're clearly not alright."

"We've already established that." I sighed and stood up. "But I can't keep dwelling on this. I need to move on. So let's just go back home, ok?"

"I have one question first." His usual stoic expression was back, but the worry hadn't left his eyes or his voice.

"And what would that be?" I held my hand out toward Kanda, and when he took it I helped him to his feet.

He wrapped me in a hug, his right hand drifting down my back to rub the base of my tail. "Is your tail ok?"

My tail swished behind me as he rubbed the sore spot on my back. Not just sore from the fall, but from last night's activities as well. My body was reacting to the touch in the same way it did to him petting my ears. I pushed him away before I could start purring. "It's just fine, Yuu. A little sore, but fine."

Just then I caught the aroma of food nearby. Though with my heightened senses, 'nearby' was probably more than a few rooms down the hall. But it was still strong enough to make my stomach rumble.

Kanda opened his mouth to speak, but a knock at the door interrupted him. "Kanda-dono? Walker-dono?"

"What?!" One look at Kanda and it was obvious that he still wanted to kill that finder.

"Umm. I took the liberty of ordering breakfast for you. It should be here in about ten minutes." The finder sounded scared, I wondered if he realized that he saw something he shouldn't have. "I, umm, I wanted to make sure you knew so, umm, so you'd be ... awake and... dressed..."

I heard the finder start to walk away, muttering to himself. Curious, I focused and tried to hear what he was saying. What I caught was '-And not make anyone else witness things that will keep them up at night.'

I almost laughed at how traumatized he sounded, but I was distracted by the curious stare Kanda was giving me. "You can still hear him."

It was a statement, not a question. But I answered it anyway. "Yes. I can hear a lot of things I couldn't before." I placed my hand on his bare chest. "Like your heartbeat."

It was a cheesy thing to say, but it worked. He leaned in and kissed me. And I desperately needed that kiss. I needed a direct confirmation of his love, and I knew I wasn't going to hear him say those three words again. A kiss on the lips was the best I'd get, and that's what he gave me.

When we broke apart I immediately moved away, and began looking for my clothes. "What are you doing, Moyashi?"

I laughed as I threw on a shirt. "Getting dressed so you won't have to plot murder when the food gets here." I turned around in time to catch Kanda's glare. I returned the look with a smirk. "Don't think I don't know how possessive you are. We're going to have to have a long chat about that..."

I finished buttoning my shirt, and picked a pair of pants up off the floor. They weren't mine, so I threw them at Kanda's head. He caught them and pulled them on.

I found my pants under a chair, freezing momentarily when I caught sight of the hole Kanda had cut in them. Hopefully Johnny could fix that once my tail was gone, they were my favorite pair. I slipped them on quickly, trying not to notice my tail threading itself through the hole. It felt no different from slipping an arm through a sleeve, but knowing that it was a tail made it creepy.

"You stopped moving, Moyashi. Do I need to be worried?" Kanda's words snapped me out of my thoughts, and I quickly returned to dressing myself.

The knock at the door came right as I finished tucking in my shirt. I looked over at Kanda, he still hadn't put a shirt on. He began to open the door, and I panicked, diving to the corner where my jacket rested over a chair. I pulled it on and threw up the hood, hiding my ears and tail from sight.

Kanda got dressed while I ate breakfast. Which took all of two minutes; after three days that finder still hadn't figured out that I need more food than normal people. But at least my stomach wasn't empty anymore.

.x.x.

The Moyashi hadn't said anything in almost an hour. Sure he'd been in the bathroom some of the time, but still. Most days I would have given anything to make him shut up, but today the quiet was unnerving. He was brooding again. I wished I could make him see how much more beautiful those cat ears made him, but I knew it was a lost cause; sex hadn't worked, and I didn't have the social skills to talk about it with him.

But at least he was showing me his true feelings. If I was anyone else he would've been pretending to be ok. And they'd have believed him.

There was something different this time though. He was staring at me as I got dressed. And his gaze almost seemed angry. As I buttoned my coat it hit me, he had moved on from the cat thing and was moping over a different subject.

I locked eyes with him, and snorted when he looked away. "Are you really that jealous, Moyashi?"

He glared at me. "Are you really surprised?" He mocked. Then he gave an annoyed huff. "Of course I'm jealous. It's been almost two years since I broke critical. That general's coat should be mine."

"And it will be, in three months." I understood his frustration. Even if I hadn't wanted my own promotion, the Moyashi deserved his. He just had to wait a little longer.

"Two months, three weeks, and two days."

"Oh, so you're impatient too?"

"After two years of Central doubting my loyalty? Hell yes."

"I'm surprised you don't blame Komui."

"Why would I blame him?" The Moyashi sounded genuinely confused, like the idea that the supervisor could be at fault had never occurred to him before.

"For making you wait until your birthday."

"Oh."

"Do you even know why he's making you wait?" It was something that had been bothering me for a while, but I could never ask without giving away my feelings for him.

Allen sighed and dropped his gaze. "It's because I'm only seventeen. He doesn't want to put me in such a high risk position until I'm an adult."

"That's stupid." Between his eye and the whole thing with the Fourteenth, the Moyashi was already the exorcist in the most danger. Making him a general wouldn't make things any worse for him.

He sighed and shook his head. "Did you know that Komui looked up the records of all the past critical breakers?"

"So?"

"Before you and me, the youngest to break critical was twenty three."

"Do you have a point?"

"I was fifteen." I saw where he was going now, and his next sentence made it all the more clear. "I'm also the only parasite type on the list."

"Komui thinks you might have the Heart."

Allen opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Kanda-dono, Walker-dono, it's time to leave."

.x.x.

I hoped that finder realized just how badly Kanda wanted to kill him. Not that I knew either, but if I was that irritated with the guy, Kanda must have been furious.

We gathered our suitcases and headed out of the inn, thankful that the finder was only escorting us to the ark gate and not actually coming with us.

I was also thankful that it was cold outside and there were very few people on the streets. It meant there was less noise to hurt my ears, and less chance of anyone seeing them. My coat hid them from sight, but it wouldn't take much to knock my hood off.

About three blocks from our destination, my eye activated. Kanda sensed me stop, and stopped as well. "Where?"

"The river, under the bridge." I activated my Innocence as I turned around. "About twenty level ones. There's a level three as well."

Kanda drew Mugen and began walking back towards the bridge. "You should check your reflection when this is over, Moyashi."

The akuma sprang from hiding before I could question what he meant. I jumped up and started slashing at the level ones, knowing that Kanda would want to face the level three. There was a problem though: I was currently part cat.

My hood had come off when I activated my Innocence, exposing my ears. In the heat of battle, I didn't care about appearances, but akuma are loud. Especially for how sensitive my ears were now. The smell of their poison was much stronger than it used to be too.

But that wasn't the real problem. No, the real problem was that I had discovered a new way in which my body had changed. I pushed off one akuma to reach another, and I missed. I overshot it. It only took a moment for me to figure out what had happened: I was stronger than I was before I changed. I had always been flexible, having spent so much time at the circus, but as I dodged bullets it soon became clear that not only was I much more flexible, I was also faster. All good things, in the long run, but there, in that moment, they were throwing me off. I should have easily wiped out those level ones, instead I was in danger of losing.

.x.x.

I had finished off the level three. I searched for the Moyashi, expecting him to have finished off the others long ago, only to see him still fighting. Something was wrong. I'd spent a lot of time watching Allen fight. That group of akuma should have been no match for him. Yet he was struggling. He wasn't moving like he usually did.

It hit me when I saw him stumble. He was having difficulty with how being part cat had changed his body. I itched to jump in and help him, which wasn't new, I usually felt that way when he was in trouble. I'd just never been able to do so before without starting a fight with him. I could help him now, and I wanted to, but in this instance, he needed to do this alone. I'd hurt more than his pride if I tried to intervene.

.x.x.

Kanda, in his usual bastard fashion, was just standing there, watching me fight. I usually didn't need or want his help, but it always frustrated the crap out of me anyway, that he could be so cold to a comrade. For some reason though, I had expected things to be different now that we were together. It was stupid of me to think he'd change overnight.

I stumbled over my footing once again. Why was it so damn hard to adjust? I needed to pretend I hadn't fought before, forget all my training. I had to focus on what my body wanted to do, listen to my instincts, like I had done with my senses earlier.

The akuma finally defeated, I landed surprisingly gracefully on my feet. I was pissed off, and out of habit, and lack of other targets, I took it out on Kanda. "What the hell, Bakanda?! Couldn't you see I needed help?!"

"And what would have happened if I had helped, Moyashi?" His glare was calm. "Like it or not, but we have no idea how long you're going to be stuck like that. You had to learn how to fight eventually."

"So you just stood there and watched?!"

"They were only level one. And the street's deserted. It's not like there was any actual danger."

I hated that he was right. But that wasn't the only thing I was mad about. "But what about-"

"Don't." Kanda cut me off, he almost sounded emotional. "Don't finish that thought. That has nothing to do with this."

"But-"

He cut me off with a brief kiss. "Stop talking."

Kanda had just kissed me in a public place. I couldn't have talked if I wanted to.

"Thinking with your heart may work for you, but it doesn't for me. I can't let my feelings change how I act on the battlefield. I know the others buy into all that teamwork crap, but you're like me, we've both grown strong by depending only on ourselves. You can argue with me all you want about it, but love is only going to make us do stupid things."

I don't think I'd ever heard Kanda say so much without cursing. He'd also admitted to loving me. "You're so cynical, Yuu."

He pushed me away with a hand on my forehead when I tried to kiss him. "Deactivate your Innocence before you kiss me. I'm not going to risk having you bite me while you're like that."

"Like what?" I blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Your teeth, Moyashi."

I brought my right hand to my mouth. "What about them- oh."

I ran my tongue over my teeth to confirm what my fingers had felt. I had fangs. And they definitely weren't there earlier. This whole part cat thing was really getting on my nerves.

Like Kanda had implicated, the sharp teeth disappeared when I deactivated my Innocence. I sighed. I wonder how many more surprises this curse has in store for me...

.x.x.

The finder was dead. The akuma had gotten him. It wasn't surprising to me, he'd been especially inept.

What was surprising was that the Moyashi didn't seem to care. "What's with you? Aren't you supposed to get all sad and mopey when people die?"

He sighed and leaned against me. "Normally, yes. But in this case..." He shook his head. "In this case it's better this way."

"'Better'?" It was hard to process soft-hearted Allen thinking that it was good someone died. "How?"

When the Moyashi finally spoke again his voice was quiet. "He was going to tell people about us."

I didn't understand. "Why is that a bad thing? It's not like people are going to care that we're gay."

He gave me a look of disbelief. "For starters, homosexuality is considered a mortal sin. Meaning that if Central feels like it, they could have us executed."

I stared down at him, ready to object to his reasoning, but he wasn't done talking.

"Then there's the whole sex outside of marriage thing, which they don't care about nearly as much as they claim to, but they could certainly punish us for that. They've also got bans on certain sexual positions, one of which happens to be the one used between two men. And to top it all off, if they wanted to, they could charge you with rape because I'm technically a minor."

"Relax, Moyashi. We're exorcists, it's not going to be that bad." I refused to be afraid of what ifs.

Allen snorted and rolled his eyes at me. "I've been locked up for treason. You've been part of human experiments. It is going to be that bad."

I didn't have a retort to that. It was too true to deny. I'd have to try a different tactic. "So are you saying you don't want us to be together?"

He froze. "No! Of course not! I-"

I cut him off with a kiss. "Then stop fretting. As long as we act like nothing's changed between us no one will ever find out."

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

A/N: If you don't want to do the math for yourself: the countdown Allen recites places this chapter's events on Oct. 2nd.