Our eyes met. The golden eyes curved into a soft smile.
I quickly snapped my head away. My whole body felt tingly, and I hugged the red ball of yarn tight, kicking at it hard with my hind legs. I kicked and kicked, then sneaked a glance—only to see those golden eyes smiling softly again. I snapped my head away once more and kicked the yarn ball even harder.
Right now, I’m inside a yarn basket placed on the desk in the office. I’m not alone. I’m together with my favorite red ball of yarn—Big Guy. The basket and Big Guy are offerings Julia presented to me. I treasure these guys immensely, so I take them with me wherever I go. Of course, it’s an attendant who carries the basket. It’d be ridiculous for a Crown Prince cat like me to carry a basket myself.
When my patron heads to work in the morning, I walk alongside him. Knights follow behind us, and behind them, an attendant trails along carrying my yarn basket.
Once the morning meeting ends and we arrive at the office, I immediately hop into the basket the attendant sets down beside the desk. I hug Big Guy—whom I’d been neglecting for hours—and roll left and right to greet him properly. Of course, since I’m never an easy man, I make sure to roll frontward and backward too.
While I’m rolling around with Big Guy exchanging greetings, my patron sits down at the desk and gets ready to work. My diligent patron never shows irritation, even while staring at mountains of documents that piled up overnight. He just quietly does what needs to be done. Living as a loner must’ve turned work into his only friend.
But today, my patron can’t seem to focus on work at all. As I hug Big Guy and roll this way and that, every single time I look up, our eyes meet. It feels like he’s watching only me. Normally, I’d flick his hand with my tail to warn him, but today, I’m a bit different. I just quickly avert my eyes and bite Big Guy or kick him with my hind legs instead.
When I sneak a look, my patron is reading the documents. Looks like he’s finally in the mood to work. Only then do I relax and steal a glance at the hand holding the quill.
On the back of my patron’s hand are red claw marks. Their shape and angle are flawless—my handiwork. I scratched him so well that, at a glance, it looks like someone drew them with a red pen. As a bonus, there are a few irregular claw marks scattered here and there across his hand.
The most impressive one is the bite mark on his index finger. It’s incomparably prettier than the bite marks I left on his hand before. Well, I did sleep with my teeth sunk into it, after all.
The humans who saw my patron’s hand caused quite a commotion. Well—“commotion” might be a bit of an exaggeration. Still, watching people who usually wouldn’t dare speak up to him widen their eyes and toss out comments one by one was rather memorable. Every single one of them stared at his hand in shock, then looked at me—but instead of getting angry at those insolent humans, I flashed them a smug grin. If I want to bite my own patron’s fingers, what business is it of theirs?
Our eyes met again.
I snapped my head away from those softly smiling golden eyes. My heart was pounding so fast I worried it might burst right out of my chest. To avoid the gaze pouring down on me, I hugged Big Guy and started rolling around for no reason.
Last night—no, to be precise, early this morning—my patron saw me transform into a cat. I’d been too distracted rubbing muzzles with him to notice the sun rising. I barely realized dawn was breaking and tried to run, but—of all things—I got caught by my patron.
I get why he grabbed me. I’d been biting and sucking on his lips until they swelled up like balloons, then suddenly bolted. From his perspective, that must’ve been terrifying. Judging by my actions alone, I looked exactly like a cheap bastard who stole a kiss and ran.
Anyway, because of that, he ended up witnessing my transformation into a cat in full.
What happened after that—I honestly don’t remember very well.
I wasn’t fully sober, and I was so startled that all I could think was that I had to run. I just ran for a long time, and the place I ended up hiding in was a laundry basket.
Burrowing into the clothes, I thought about all kinds of things—but I don’t even remember exactly what. I think I might’ve considered digging up the jewels I’d buried and running off with them. I might’ve also worried that I’d get caught and handed over to some wizard as an experiment subject. On the other hand, I vaguely remember thinking my kind patron would never do something like that. But I’m not sure. My thoughts were completely tangled, every idea getting cut off halfway through. All that kept looping in my head was: What do I do? What do I do?
Now that I think about it, it was a pointless mess caused by being drunk.
Even if I suddenly turned into a cat, there’s no way my gentle, soft-hearted patron would chase me out or hand me over to a wizard. On top of that, he’s completely smitten with me right now, isn’t he? It was all needless worry.
Ah—our eyes met again.
Those golden eyes smile beautifully once more. When we first met, he wore a blank expression all day long, but now, every time he looks at me, he automatically smiles softly.
He looks at me several times more often than usual today, yet he hasn’t reached out to touch my body even once. I can more or less guess why. He’s trying not to provoke my sensitive nerves after what happened at dawn. Where else would you find someone this kind? He’s more than qualified to be my patron.
I watched him for a moment, then got up.
Stretching my front paws forward—streeetch—stretching my hind legs back—streeetch—I arched my back up into a round curve and enjoyed a long, luxurious stretch. Then I stepped out of the basket at an unhurried pace. As I swayed my way toward my patron, those golden eyes quietly followed me. I climbed onto the documents laid out right in front of him and looked at his face.
I can see that the lips I’d been sucking on all night are still slightly swollen. I narrowed my eyes. Seeing lips swollen because of me makes me oddly pleased. I even feel smug. I almost want to tell everyone that those lips puffed up because I sucked on them.
Nyaaang—
I let out a long meow toward my patron, then gently lay down on the documents.
Lying on my side at a slant, I lifted my hind leg to expose my belly. The golden eyes narrowed slightly, as if assessing me. Still lying on my side, I let out another meow at him.
Nyaaang—
Wanna rub my belly? I’ll let you touch it—just for you.
I lay there quietly, waiting. My patron cautiously began stroking my side. The moment his large hand touched me, a purr slipped out of my throat on its own. After timidly stroking my side a few times, he finally brushed my belly—just a little. Then he checked my reaction.
With a generous heart, I allowed his hand to continue stroking my belly.
My patron began rubbing my belly in earnest.
He looked deeply moved by my generosity. Naturally so—I’d never allowed anyone to do this before. I’d let people touch my tail when praising me, but I never, ever permitted belly rubs.
After rubbing my belly for a while, he pressed his lips to the top of my head. The ticklish sensation turned sharp and electric, and I narrowed my eyes. The feeling of his lips from last night came rushing back, and my tail began flapping on its own. Embarrassed, I slapped my wildly moving tail down with my front paw.
But the tail under my paw didn’t seem to be mine. It kept wriggling around shamelessly, completely unaware of itself.
What the hell is wrong with this thing…
I grabbed the flailing tail and bit down hard.
As I chewed mercilessly on the offending tail that dared move on its own, I heard a low chuckle above my head. Still biting the tail, I looked up—my patron was smiling. Damn it all. Feeling awkward, I quietly let go of the tail.
I was one step away from becoming a stupid cat. This wouldn’t do. I’m a cool, chic cold city cat. I am absolutely not the kind of cat who mistakes his own tail for something else and bites it.
Hey. It’s not like I didn’t know this was my tail when I bit it, okay?
To prevent any misunderstanding, I grabbed my tail with my front paw and began licking it carefully. I just hoped he’d understand the truth—that I wasn’t biting my tail, I was grooming my fur.
I kept licking my tail diligently, tongue nearly worn out, when my patron reached out. Then he grabbed my tail and held it up right in front of my mouth.
…What do you want me to do about that?
I shot him a dirty look. He grinned, as if proud of himself for sparing me the effort of holding my tail in place. Like he wanted praise. I glanced between the expectant golden eyes and the hand offering up my tail—then mercilessly smacked that hand away with my front paw.
What a tactless guy. If I lick my tail, what am I supposed to do about the fur that gets into my mouth? Do you know how irritating it is when fur gets in your mouth? I’m a cat who gets brushed by maids, thank you very much.
When I glared at him with sulky eyes, he leaned his face close to mine and whispered,
“K.”
I immediately grabbed the tail that started flapping wildly again and bit down hard. This tail is definitely not my tail.
Once my patron gets a taste of touching me, he goes on for awhile.
He rubs my head with his fingers, scratches my nape, then moves on to my back, my sides, and my belly without pause. I chewed on the tip of my tail and purred loudly. This guy—after rubbing muzzles with me for so long, it seems his petting skills have leveled up again.
After being stroked for quite a while, drowsiness slowly crept in. I opened my mouth wide and yawned, then flopped down on top of the documents. Since I was lying on them, my patron couldn’t work anymore—but that’s fine. He has to keep stroking my back until I fall asleep.
I lay still, blinking my sleepy eyes, when suddenly my patron’s hand crept closer. Instead of stroking my back, he grabbed the edge of the document I was lying on and gently tugged at it. Prioritizing paperwork over petting me—how utterly shameless.
I slapped my front paw down hard on the edge of the document he was pulling.
My patron stared thoughtfully at the document pinned beneath my paw. I shot him a look that clearly said, What are you going to do about it?
And then—out of nowhere—he placed his finger right on top of my front paw, which was pressing down on the document. I looked once at the finger resting there, then once at my patron’s face. The golden eyes curved into a sly smile.
This bastard must’ve lost his mind. How dare he put his finger on top of my paw? No matter how much he sucked on my mouth all night, this is absolutely unforgivable.
When is this chapter going to upload 😭