Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Firfir,” Khaotung sang as he walked into his tiny Bangkok apartment. “Where’s my little Firfir?”

The black cat stood from where he had been asleep on the couch, stretched with a leisurely little wiggle, and then jumped down to trot over to Khaotung’s feet. 

“There he is.” Khaotung squatted down to give the cat his requisite ten minutes of dedicated petting time. When his knees began to ache, Khaotung straightened to throw his backpack down on the linoleum floor and flopped into a kitchen chair. “How was your day?”

The cat didn’t answer, simply jumped up onto Khaotung’s lap, both paws braced on his chest. He purred like a lawn mower and stared forcefully into Khaotung’s eyes. 

“Right, right, enough small talk.” With a sigh, Khaotung heaved himself back up again and cast about for something to make for dinner. The fridge was nearly bare—just a little leftover chicken and a few wrinkly vegetables. “Stir fry again, I suppose.” At least rice was cheap. 

Khaotung made a mental note to recalculate his food budget and maybe check a few other markets for cheaper prices. Or maybe if he swung by in the evenings, the grannies might give him some discounts on day-old bread and produce. It stung to ask, but they already knew he needed extra cash. He had been asking around and putting up flyers, trying to find a day job with flexible hours so he could keep auditioning. It was extra humiliating, since they had all seen him in Destiny of You, and been so proud of him for his first real lakorn job and steady paycheck.

But that was just how fate worked sometimes—and Khaotung had long ago resolved never to let his pride get in the way of accomplishing his dreams. 

He scrolled through Instagram as he waited for the rice to cook. First wound around his ankles like a tiny, hungry shark. In his DMs was a message from a cat food account, asking if he would be interested in auditioning First for their commercials. 

“Oho, look at this!” He leaned down to show the screen to First, who ignored it. “You’re more famous than I am! Someone wants you to model.” 

First meowed plaintively, clearly much more worried about his upcoming dinner.

“Then you could have the fancy shit like tuna and octopus or anything besides my leftovers.” Khaotung clicked the profile of the company. They seemed legit. He had definitely seen ads for their cat food before—and seen various cat accounts he followed partner with them. 

“I can’t believe they want you.”

First blinked up at him in affront. He leapt up to the counter to be at eye level and bit Khaotung gently on the nose.

“Oh, come on. Of course you’re the cutest little cat that ever was.” Khaotung accompanied this reassurance with chin scritches. “But black cats aren’t generally good on camera. Something about the shadows.” 

He certainly had a terrible time photographing his cat—he was shocked the brand had reached out based on his Instagram photos, most of which featured a black void with eyes. However, there were those few of First in direct sunlight—when his coat came alive with a rich variety of warm red-browns, and his eyes were golden and entreating rather than a startling yellow in the darkness. 

“I know you’re the prettiest cat ever,” he reassured First. Who sat on the counter—technically not allowed, but whatever—and eyed him reproachfully. “I just didn’t expect them to realize.” He looked back down at the message, which invited him to audition First in two days. “Should we do it?”

First began to wash himself, clearly bored with the conversation. 

“You’d have to go in the carrier, though.” Khaotung sighed. He had never once managed to get First to go into any cat carrier, no matter how he had tried. First was a stray who had appeared in the outdoor hallway of his apartment complex one day, meowing outside the door. Khaotung had tried to bring him to the shelter—he couldn’t afford a cat—or even just the vet once he realized that he had no choice in the adoption. Nothing had worked. Not bribery, not coercion, and not four different types of carriers, each more expensive than the last. There were calming drugs that supposedly helped—but Khaotung couldn’t afford those either.

So he just prayed the cat was as healthy as he looked—at least his fur was lustrous, and he was always energetic and affectionate. 

“Silly cat.” He scooped First with one hand, staggering a little to hold him. He dropped his phone on the counter to reinforce First’s weight with his other arm. “I swear you’re heavier than you should be for such a little guy.”

First pushed his cheek against Khaotung’s face and then squirmed until Khaotung let him drop to the floor. 

“Okay, okay, I get it—focus on dinner. Right.” 

As the rice finished, he stir-fried some vegetables and doused them in sauce. All of the vegetables and rice went on his plate, but he carefully parceled out a little bit of leftover chicken from the fridge, putting half in First’s dish. Before First could jump up on the counter again, he set the dish in its usual spot on the floor.

“Don’t forget to drink water,” he admonished. “And eat slower! It’s not going to run away!”

As usual, First ignored him in favor of housing the food. Before Khaotung had heated the chicken for himself and sat down, First was done and meowing again. 

“You eat more than I do,” Khaotung grumbled as he deposited another forkful of his chicken onto First’s dish. He didn’t really begrudge the food—cats couldn’t eat anything but meat. He could survive on rice and noodles, and other cheap foods. Besides, sometimes the auditions had snacks, especially the callbacks. Not that he got many of those these days.

Anyway, he made do.

Finally, First settled down in his lap, and Khaotung pulled his phone out again as he ate at a more leisurely pace. 

“Time to face the music, huh?” He’d had an audition—a real one, an important one, that could turn this whole shitstorm around—a few days ago. This morning, he had seen the notification on his phone that the result was in, but had been too afraid to face it while he still had shit to do. 

“What do you think my odds are? I wish you could check for me.”

First simply huddled deeper into his lap, silently rebuking Khaotung for his nervous energy, the way his legs kept shifting under First’s furry body.

Khaotung brought up his email app, glad his mother couldn’t see him now. She would worry, with how often he talked to First like a real person who could answer back. But—there wasn’t anyone else. And it was lonely these days, with how the industry seemed to be closing him out. Even his friends and contacts from other jobs seemed to be avoiding him after the incident at his previous film set. 

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, one hand navigating into the email, the other resting on First’s back. 

As he skimmed the email—thank you for your audition; moving forward with another candidate—the smile he forced for no one faltered. 

“Well, looks like one of us needs to get a real job, huh?” And it wouldn’t be the cat—that wasn’t fair. “Time for me to give up on this stupid dream, I guess.”

The next mouthful of rice was tinged with salt.

“You’ll have to get in the carrier after all, Fir—time to pack up and head home.”

Another droplet fell, this time on First’s head. 

The little black cat sat up. Licked at a tear that trembled on the tip of Khaotung’s chin. 

“Th-thanks.” Khaotung’s voice collapsed. He dropped the spoon onto his plate and gave up on eating as tears filled his eyes and mouth. “I’m s-sorry.”

He curled in on himself, arms wrapping around First, who held still without complaint. “I’m so sorry.” Such a shit actor, shit person, shit cat owner. Stupid for thinking he could make it in this notoriously savage career. Stupid for thinking he could handle the games and negotiations and maneuvering of this industry, naive to think that the first person who offered him a kind word had no ulterior motive, that he could just trust everyone’s good intentions. 

He had ruined himself before he’d even started by trusting Knot—all because he had been so desperate for a friend. 

First squeaked a protest as Khaotung’s arms tightened to a punishing grip. “Sorry,” he mumbled again, shifting his self-castigation into fingernails dug into the undersides of his own arms. 

“I love you, First.” Khaotung sobbed into the soft fur. “You’ll stay with me forever, right? No matter how shitty of an actor I am? No matter if I have to move back to Chiang Mai?”

Never mind that he couldn’t get First into the stupid carrier to take him anywhere. But he refused to leave First behind. Even if he had to rent a car, so he could let First loose in the vehicle while he drove. No matter what, he wasn’t going to leave his cat behind. 

“Don’t leave me, okay?”

He rocked back and forth in the chair, crying until First’s fur was soaked and his throat was raw with heartbreak. 

The next day, Khaotung woke up late. He didn’t have any auditions today—and even if he did, he wasn’t sure he could have summoned the energy to care. He felt like a truck had pancaked him—and then backed over him to do it again, just to make sure he was good and dead. 

“Fir?” He glanced around as he stretched and headed to the kitchen. Usually the cat would be awake at seven, climbing over him and meowing for food. He checked his phone—it was well past ten now. 

“Firfir?” His chest tightened, voice rising to a shout, even though the apartment was tiny and there was no way First would not hear. 

If he was there. 

Khaotung’s gaze flew to the windows, but they were all shut. He ran to check the door, searched the bathroom next. 

“Fir?” First never slept through his call. Even if he was dead asleep, he always woke easily. Even if he was—

Was—

“Fuck—First? First, please.” The sob ripped up his throat, his tired, scratchy eyes burning with fresh tears. He tore cushions off his couch, dumped his pillows off the bed, hauled armloads of clothing out of the laundry basket. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

A weak meow. 

Khaotung slammed through his dresser—finally realizing that the bottom drawer was partially open. First huddled at the back of it. Khaotung reached for him—

“Shit!” First was burning hot. “Fir? Are you hurt?” He felt around the cat’s body. First meowed pathetically and rubbed his nose against Khaotung’s hand, but Khaotung’s gentle touches didn’t seem to produce any flinching or fear. 

Khaotung used both hands to scoop under the tiny body and bring him out into the light. First looked at him, eyes half-lidded as if he were falling asleep. His ears and nose burned, and his nose was dry, which Khaotung knew was a sign of fever. 

He found the number for the nearest vet and called. “My cat—he’s burning up. What do I—?”

“You’ll have to bring him in,” came the infuriatingly calm reply. Didn’t this woman know that his cat—his beloved First—could be dying? “We can’t tell what’s wrong without an exam.”

“I can’t—he hates carriers.”

“He’s going to hate being sick even more. If he’s that sick, he should be lethargic enough that you can get him in.”

Easy for you to fucking say.

Khaotung stared down at First, who looked up with piteous eyes and an even more piteous meow. Please, Khaotung prayed silently. Please let the vet be right. “And I can come now?”

“Yes, we have an emergency staff that’s available.”

“Thank you.” 

He hung up and went to get the carrier. First whined when he saw it, a sound Khaotung had never heard from his cat before. “I’m sorry. I know you hate it. Just—just this once, okay?”

But when he tried to lift, the cat eluded him, melting through his hands like water, no matter how Khaotung tried to corral him. He slunk back into the drawer each time Khaotung pried him out—and always managed to wriggle away before Khaotung could get him past the carrier entrance. 

“Please just go in!” Khaotung held him tight around the neck, the other hand on his haunches, shoving him into the carrier. “It’s for your own—”

First made a horrible, choking sound and clawed bright red scratches into Khaotung’s arms in his frantic thrashing. 

“Fuck—no—I didn’t mean—” His arms fell loose. “Fir—I just—I can’t lose you.” Khaotung sat down and sobbed, arms coming over his head to claw at his own hair. “Not this.” He was the worst cat owner ever. “Not this, too.” He had hurt First and First was sick and he might die and— “Please. God—someone. Help."

A tiny, hot nose nudged at his elbow. Khaotung unclenched his posture, and First climbed into his lap. Washed his cheek with a prickly tongue. Khaotung hugged the tiny body to his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please just get in the carrier. Please be okay,” he whispered.

First rumbled into a purr. When Khaotung lifted him in trembling arms, he seemed to sigh, but let Khaotung place him gently in the cloth carrier. 

“Thank you.” Khaotung zipped his cat inside and prayed. 

He clutched the carrier to his chest the entire Grab ride to the vet. He couldn’t really afford the car—should have gotten a bike instead—but he couldn’t risk First falling from his arms or some other unforeseen disaster. First was calm—terrifyingly calm—in the carrier. Khaotung prayed it was because he sensed Khaotung’s distress. But he knew it was more likely that First simply didn’t have the energy to fuss anymore. 

There was no wait at the emergency vet—the intake person felt First’s nose and said, “Let’s get him to an exam room.” She re-zipped and picked up the carrier with gentle hands. 

Khaotung hesitated—he’d never been to the vet and he knew with humans you weren’t allowed—

She looked back over her shoulder and waved, “You come too. He’ll feel better with you there.”

In the exam room, they took First’s temperature and blood sample. First sat on the table without complaint, still appearing to sleep. Khaotung kept a hand on his back, reassured only by the minute rise and fall of his small lungs. Finally, the vet came back into the room with a grim expression. 

“What’s—” Khaotung swallowed hard on his dry, thick tongue. He couldn’t even say the question. He didn’t want to know. 

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“Or—nothing we can detect. He’s—” she frowned at First, as if the sleeping cat had personally affronted her. “He seems fine, even though a fever of that temperature should by all rights mean death for a cat.”

Khaotung’s heart lurched. “But—but he’s not.” Stupid. His hand was right there. He knew First breathed, counted every breath so carefully he barely forgot to inflate his own lungs. He wiped away tears and tried to focus on the vet’s words. 

“He has no other signs of a high fever. Not dehydration, not panting. Hell, his pulse isn’t even elevated. He’s lethargic, but still responds to stimuli.” She shook her head again. “By all rights, he should be dead.”

Khaotung choked and the vet winced.

“Sorry. I’m just mystified.”

“So there’s nothing you can do?” 

“Well, we could keep him on an IV, but like I said, he’s not dehydrated. Did he eat within the last twenty-four hours?”

“Yes. Dinner last night.”

“Drank water?”

“Yes—but is it my fault? I’ve just been giving him chicken from the market. Cooked, but—I can’t afford cat food—”

“As long as it’s not covered in salt or seasonings, that should be okay. I would mix it up with some fish for the taurine but—”

“Is that what caused this?” Khaotung seized onto the tiny bit of information. “He needs fish? I can get fish.” Maybe. Hopefully. 

The vet held up her hands. “Okay, slow down. First of all, I just want to say this isn’t your fault. He’s very healthy otherwise, and like I said, even this fever isn’t hurting him the way it should.”

Khaotung bristled at that word—because nothing should harm his cat. But he tried to stay calm, because the vet was kind and his hand was still on First’s back. First’s fur was still soft and glossy. He was still breathing. 

“Secondly, I can give you some cat food if you’re worried about nutrition.”

“I can’t—” 

“Free samples,” she said with a wink.

Khaotung tried to smile, but his face was still stiff with tears and worry. “So what do I do with him? I take him home?”

“We can keep him here overnight for observation, but—”

At that, First began to cry, little pathetic whimpers that broke Khaotung’s heart. He had to do something, he was the worst cat owner ever.

“As if he can hear me,” the vet said with a gentle laugh, and ruffled First’s ears. “He’s burning. How is this even possible?” 

Khaotung hesitated—because he really did want the best for First, but an overnight stay was expensive and—

“Could I pay you back? I don’t have the money now, but—” Maybe if he sold something? His mother really could not afford to loan him anything more. The roof of their Chiang Mai house still had that leak, and the rainy season was approaching. “I could get a roommate—”

“Look,” she laid a hand on his arm. “He’ll be happier at home with you. There isn’t anything we can do at this point. Either he’ll get better or he won’t, and at least you’ll be with him if the worst happens.”

First only meowed a soft protest as the vet shuffled him back into the carrier. 

“He’s made it this far,” she said, her black eyes serious, but reassuring. “My bet is that he recovers.”

Khaotung nodded as he clutched the carrier and its precious cargo to his chest once more. First was the one good thing in his life in Bangkok. Whatever he had to do, Khaotung would not let the worst happen. 

Back at home, Khaotung put out a plate for the special food the vet had given him. Twenty cans in a shopping bag was much more than a free sample, but he didn’t have the heart to protest. If he had no pride left for himself, he certainly couldn’t afford to have any where First was concerned. Especially not after paying the bill, which, even though he was sure she’d given him a discount on, was more than his groceries for a week. 

He had to coax First out of the carrier—something he could never have imagined that morning. The cat wobbled on his feet, clearly half asleep. 

“Come on, Fir. Little cat. My fluffy baby boy.” Khaotung ran through all the stupid, inane nicknames that he used in place of First’s name. “Firmeow. Squeakers McSqueaky. Come out, Little Fluff.” 

First heaved himself to his feet, little black paws catching on the rough fabric of the carrier as he shuffled along. “Just eat a little something for me? Please?”

First looked at the food, then back up at Khaotung. “You haven’t eaten all day,” Khaotung said, as if the cat could be reasoned with. 

But First seemed to sigh, and bent his head to take a few mouthfuls of food which Khaotung had mixed with water for extra hydration. 

“That’s it. Good cat.”

First sat down and opened his mouth in the parody of a meow, no sound coming out. 

“Oh, Fir.” Khaotung scooped him up. “Please please please be okay.” He settled on the couch, lying down with First on his chest. The cat seemed content there, immediately curling up into a loose ball. 

“I love you Firfir.” Khaotung ran his hand over his cat’s back—again and again and again. Reassuring himself that the small bundle of heat was still there, that this creature who had stayed by his side through everything hadn’t left him just yet. “Please don’t die.”

First blinked sleepily at him, amber eyes luminous in the low lamplight. He meowed, sounding exhausted but reassuring. Khaotung was exhausted too, despite it being just past noon. He stroked behind the cat’s ears and decided to simply wait and watch. By nighttime, the vet said he should either see an improvement or—

He wasn’t going to think about the or. 

“Don’t leave me, okay?”

First laid his little chin down and closed his eyes with a sigh. 

Khaotung froze—was this the end? Was he giving up? He tried to sit up without jostling the cat, kept one hand on the small back to keep him from sliding off—

His sternum began to vibrate, the sensation shuddering through his ribs. First was purring, barely audible, but so damn hard that Khaotung’s chest thrummed with it. 

Khaotung settled back into the couch. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered, unsure of which of them he was talking to. “You’ll be okay.”

When he woke, hours later, Khaotung was no longer afraid for anyone’s life but his own—because in place of his adorable black cat, on top of him was a giant fucking man, crushing him into the couch. 

“What the fuck?”

Chapter Text

Khaotung’s eyes fluttered open to disorientation. He was always confused waking up from a nap, but the furnace of heat on his chest added an extra layer. The weight crushing his lungs was too heavy to be First, and too unevenly distributed to be a blanket. His senses grappled with brain fog as he processed the face he stared into—amber eyes with a flash of yellow-green reflection. Right, First had slept on his chest after the vet. They were on the couch. First—

First was sick.

Khaotung sat up. Or, tried to. The man—man?—groaned as he was jostled to the side. 

“What the fuck?” Khaotung shoved the man—naked man—off his chest and onto the floor with a yell. “What the fucking shit what—”

“Nnnng,” the man whined, both hands going over his ears. “Stop.” His voice sounded muffled, the syllables sloppy as if they fell from his mouth without enunciation. As if he didn’t quite know how to use his mouth to speak.  A foreigner? But he looked Thai.

Khaotung’s newly-unburdened lungs heaved to intake air, fuzzing his head with excessive oxygen as his brain fought to catch up. 

“Who the fuck are you? Why are you in my apartment? Why are you naked?”

The man looked down at his lap, where he sat on the floor, as if here were just as surprised as Khaotung. “First,” he said.

“Shit.” Khaotung jumped up. Searched the apartment with rapid, unseeing eyes. How could he have forgotten? “Fir? Fir!” He kicked the man out of the way and stumbled around the couch toward his bedroom. “Did you do something to him? Did you take him? And he’s sick, oh fuck, fuck I swear to fucking god—”

“No.” The man lunged to catch Khaotung’s ankle. His hand burned like a brand. “Fir.” He patted his own—bare—chest. “Me. ‘M Fir.” He said it the way Khaotung did, slurring the end. Then he grinned up at Khaotung, the edges pressed deep into his cheeks, forming a dimple on one side.  

“You—what?” Khaotung tripped when he tried to lift the foot the man held. He fell, saved only by wiry arms, which then lowered him to the floor. So now he was face to face with the man’s—

“Can you put on your clothes?” Khaotung’s cheeks burned. As if that mattered right now. But he couldn't have walked in here naked, right?

The man shrugged. “Sure.” He stood—and wow, did that put Khaotung’s eye level at a place it did not need to be—and ambled toward Khaotung’s bedroom. 

“Wait—” Khaotung finally processed something besides counting each knob of bony spine down that tapered back and watching lean muscle shift under light brown skin. He scrambled to his feet. “Where are you going?”

The man pointed. “’S where the…clothes are?”

As Khaotung stood and gaped, the man walked to Khaotung’s dresser, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out the black hoodie and sweatpants that First loved to curl up on. The pants were much too short—the man was several inches taller. He had such a lean look about him, sharp, hungry cheekbones and long limbs, that he had seemed small sitting on the ground. Definitely heavy though, when he was on top of—

Khaotung folded his arms, squeezing his ribs with his hands to keep from punching something. “Explain. What. The. Fuck is going on.”

The man shrugged. Played with the hoodie strings. Chewed on one absent-mindedly. Khaotung forebore to mention that First played with those strings, and thus they were covered in cat spit. When the man looked back up, his eyes were large and brown, though Khaotung swore he’d seen the amber of First’s—

He looked around the apartment, heart aching at the thought that he was wasting time with this home invader when First could be sick again or worse.

“I’m the…cat,” the man said, breaking through the suffocating white noise ringing in Khaotung’s ears. “First. That’s…me.” He hesitated on odd words, as if remembering how to shape them with his mouth.

“You expect me to believe—?”

“You…sleep in a Tilly Birds t-shirt. You’re an…actor. You love lakorn. Boring ones.”

“Okay, so you’re just a stalker.” Khaotung ignored the insult to his beloved daytime television. 

“Yesterday, you said we’d have to move to…Chiang Mai.” The words flowed smoother now, though the man still hunted for consonants, still took his time shaping each tone. As if…

Khaotung shook his head like a fly-stung horse, fighting against confirmation bias and his own easy gullibility. He needed to kick this man out of his apartment—how did he get in?—and find his cat. 

But the man’s soft brown eyes and shy, dimpled smile kept him locked in place. That, and the sheer insanity of his words. 

“You—seriously?”

“You failed…audition. Stupid director.” The man's smile twisted into disgust. “Stupid Knot. You are better than…everyone.”

Tears flooded Khaotung’s eyes. Fucking stupid, to be moved by some random invader saying he was a good actor. But just—so many things had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and—

“Okay. Well, maybe you’re not going to kill me.” Absolute nonsense response. But he had to take the wins he could get. This man, crazy stalker though he might be, apparently thought Khaotung was great. Better to humor him until he could call the police or convince him to leave on his own. “Can you help me find my cat? Or go away? But find something else to wear, because that hoodie’s his favorite.”

The man lifted the collar away from his chest and—to Khaotung’s absolute horror—buried his nose in the fabric and inhaled. When his lower face reappeared, he was grinning again. “Favorite because it smells like…” he paused for a full three seconds, seemed to practice the shape of the word he wanted to say. “Khaotung.”

Fuck. “Fuck." There was no way. "Are you really—but you can’t—” But First wasn’t here. And how could the man have gotten in? 

Khaotung circled the tiny apartment, checking the door and the windows—though the man could have relocked them after his entry—and checking for his cat. His movements devolved into absentmindedness, his body moving on autopilot, while his mind churned over the entire—situation. 

When he finished—still no cat—he came to a halt in front of the man who called himself First. “How long have you been a cat?” Maybe he would just play along. Get more information. 

First cocked his head, drifting shaggy hair over his sharp cheekbones. “When did you find me?”

Khaotung squashed the urge to reach out and scritch behind non-existent cat ears. “A year ago. Just over.” They had celebrated the one-year anniversary together just last month. Shouldn't he know that, if he was really First?

Khaotung bit down on his lower lip to keep the latest rush of tears at bay. Focus. Get him to leave.

“Maybe…a bit before? End of the rainy…season. I was very wet outside.”

“Why were you outside? How did you turn into a cat?”

The man shrugged. “Curse.” 

As if it was that obvious. “You know curses aren’t real, right?”

“Except I was a cat.”

Play along, play along. “Do you know who did it?”

“No. One moment I was—” He broke off, looking discomfited for the first time. Khaotung had no pity to spare for anyone else’s sense of awkwardness, but it was a relief, in a way. It made him seem more human.

Less cat-in-a-human-body.

What a stupid thing to think. 

“Okay. Okay.” Khaotung took deep breaths, searching for any reasonable course of action. “Can you just—leave? I need to think—and my cat—I just need to be alone.”

First collapsed inward, posture dejected. “Can’t I stay here anymore?”

“No!” The lower lip on that full mouth trembled. “I can’t feed you,” Khaotung added, stamping hard on the wrench of pity in his chest.

“You always managed before.”

“Humans eat a lot more than cats!” His heart ached for First, for his little black cat. How could Khaotung have resented just that bit of chicken yesterday? 

If only he could close his eyes, and everything would be back to normal. He would give First every single piece of chicken for the rest of his little life. He would even take the rest of his shitty life—the stupid failed audition and his miserably imploding career—if only he could have his cat back. 

“Don’t you have a family? Somewhere to go? Someone who’s missed you this past year?”

The man looked away, thin shoulders slumped. Khaotung grabbed one wrist in his other hand to keep from reaching out. This was going to be a problem. “Not…really. Not that I want to go back to.”

“I’m sorry.” Khaotung rubbed a hand over his face. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“You’ve been taking good care of me.” The man looked up, flashing that dimpled smile again. “I have no complaints, Khaotung.” Though his pronunciation seemed to improve with every sentence, he still said Khaotung’s name carefully, as if tasting each syllable as a full-course meal. 

“You should,” Khaotung muttered. “You really should.” Either First—real First—had crawled somewhere small and dark to die—Khaotung blinked hard and dug his nails into his forearm—or he had gotten out. Probably this man had let him out when he got in. 

“Did you see a cat, though? When you came in?”

The man frowned. Tilted his head again. 

Khaotung finally realized what made him so—odd. So catlike. He didn’t move. He wasn’t restless, didn’t have any of the nervous energy of even a regular human, let alone a home invader. Even when he had been naked, there was no rushing to cover himself or awkward embarrassment. He simply stood, poised on the balls of his feet, deceptively at rest—until he moved, suddenly and with powerful intention. 

“I’m the cat.” He took a step forward. Khaotung backed up until his legs hit the back of the couch. “Are you okay… Khaotung?”  

His brown eyes widened in a look of such entreaty that Khaotung glanced toward the cans of cat food he had stacked up next to First’s bowl. As if a home invader wanted cat food of all things.

As if Khaotung should cave to any amount of entreaty in this man’s eyes. 

“You realize I can’t believe that, right?” 

When the man sighed, it was just—so like First—

Khaotung sniffed. Pressed a hand over his eyes, thumb and middle finger digging into the corners until the burn of tears receded. He should go out and look. He had to. If First was still sick—but he’d been well enough to slip out when this guy entered. He could be right outside, and Khaotung was standing here wasting time.

He gathered his keys and his fraying, empty wallet. “Just—don’t steal my shit, okay? There’s nothing worthwhile here, anyway.”

“Where are you going?” The man caught at the hem of his t-shirt as he passed by.

Khaotung wrenched it from his grasp. “Out. Just—out.”

He half expected the man to follow him—he’d been so doggedly persistent in staying. But he only watched Khaotung put on his shoes, preternaturally still, but with an air of disappointment saturating every line of his posture. “You have to?”

“Yeah, just—an errand.” He explained like he would to a meowing First when he had to go to an audition. “Be good, okay? Don’t miss me too much.” He threw open the door before he could voice the burgeoning sob. Before he could remember that his cat was no longer there to hear the instinctive instructions.

But not before he heard the man’s soft answer: 

“I always miss you too much.”

Khaotung wandered the streets around his apartment in a daze. He should have brought water—his throat hurt from crying, and he could barely muster the energy to call out for First every few steps. Some part of him, a part he pressed down with the weight of every fiber of deadened hope, knew this was pointless. 

First had gotten out before—but he had always come back. He was a stray when Khaotung found him and it made sense that he might want to roam again for a night. But he always showed up on Khaotung’s doorstep and meowed to be let in by the next morning. Usually within five or six hours. He didn’t have a collar, had never been micro-chipped since he never went to the vet. So, if First came back, he would do it on his own. And Khaotung searching for him wouldn’t make a single difference.

Still, he circled and circled, the tears falling incessantly until he couldn’t see where he walked. His voice hoarsened to a croak. When he finally stumbled to a stop two blocks away from his apartment, it was past midnight, and his phone was nearly dead. 

“Time to face the music, huh?” he whispered to no one. To a cat who could no longer hear him. “I miss you so much, Fir.”

He began the trudge back to his apartment, up the concrete stairwell, to the random man that still haunted his apartment—a ghost or a wraith or a hallucination sent to punish him, or a real person acting on their own strange whims. 

If he was real, at least he wasn’t violent—not yet. But he was most definitely confused. Khaotung knew he should call the police—should have done it first thing, should have done it, at least, when he was out searching for First. 

Now his phone was dead. And he hated cops. And the man just seemed so damn comfortable in Khaotung’s apartment, it kept throwing him off. Making him think everything was fine—or at least reasonable. 

At this point, as he dragged himself back up the stairs under the flickering, fluorescent lights, he didn’t have the energy to deal with the police. He couldn’t quite find it in him to care if the man was a murderer or a burglar or whatever. Khaotung had nothing to steal—even his life was barely worth the effort. It almost seemed like the easier option. 

When he returned, he found the man waiting complacently, lying on the couch and watching the door. He sat up as Khaotung toed off his shoes and looked around with blank dejection.

“Why are you sad?”

Khaotung didn’t flinch. Didn’t respond except to wipe away the errant tear that must have prompted the question. He didn’t know what to do, besides stand here and mourn his small sliver of remaining happiness. Which had finally winked out. 

The man stood with that awful, deliberate grace. Approached until he stood just a pace away. Still, Khaotung did not bother to move. 

“You can cry on me, if you want.”

“I don’t want to cry on you. I don’t want you at all.”

“It always seemed to help before.”

First—the man—stepped closer. The scent of Khaotung’s hoodie drifted between them. The scent of First, his fur still clinging to it, though you couldn’t see the black on black unless you were close. 

Khatoung felt the vague impulse to do something weird and gross, like tear the hoodie off the man’s body, scrape all the fur off, and save it in a box. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip the hoodie apart, and the man who had lost his cat, and his own stupid self, because he must have left the door unlocked; that was the only explanation. 

But he was so damn tired. And he still hadn’t stopped crying.

First took another half-step. They were practically chest to chest now. He didn’t lift his arms, just stood there, offering his shoulder. Khaotung closed his eyes. Let his head drift down until it rested on a bony shoulder, padded only by his cat’s favorite hoodie.

The smell of First was overwhelming. Too strong for just the clothes. He had to be hallucinating it, that warm, golden smell of his cat after sitting in a sunbeam all afternoon. He was going insane, or dreaming. Something that would be fixed in the morning, or after they came to commit him.

“I’m just—I’m going to bed.” His stomach ached with the reminder that he hadn’t eaten all day. He shoved it down—there was no food in the house besides rice, anyway. “Tomorrow, I’ll figure something out.” 

He lifted his head and walked, without looking up, to his bedroom. When he turned to shut the door, First—seriously, was he thinking of this weirdo as his cat now?—followed close behind and blocked the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I always sleep with you,” First said, eyes wide, tone completely earnest. 

“You have got to be fucking kidding.”

“But—”

“Even if you’re really my cat—” Khaotung tried to shut the door against First’s foot, “—it’s not the same! At all!”

“It’s not? But I—”

“Shut up.” Khaotung shoved him in the chest hard, both arms locked at the elbows.

The man staggered back, his perfect poise jostled for the first time. 

“Fuck off,” Khaotung screamed, hating the tears that softened his anger, hating the pit in his stomach, the exhaustion that blunted his grief. Hating, most especially, this man who was here when First was not. “Go away. I hate you, I hate you, I just want my cat—”

The tall man’s form blinked out of existence. First—his little black cat—meowed from the puddle of sweatshirt that he now stood in. 

Khaotung blinked. Gaped. Tried to get his brain to process any part of what had just happened. “Fir—?”

The man reappeared. Naked again, ankle deep in Khaotung’s sweats. “How about like that? Then, can I?”

“No!”

Khaotung pressed icy palms to his flaming cheeks as his eyes unwillingly skimmed ripcord muscles and lean hips and below that— 

“If you can do that, then why—You said you were cursed, but—And I just spent hours—but you were really, actually—?”

First—because there was no doubt now that either this was First, or Khaotung was hallucinating, so why fight it?—just shrugged. “Didn’t know I could go back to cat until I just tried. But I don’t want to get stuck that way again.” Khaotung scoffed at this insane explanation, delivered with a perfectly neutral tone. “I was stuck, but now I guess I can…switch. Does it matter?”

Yes! Yes, it very much does!

Ice rushed down Khaotung’s spine, lending him a last burst of energy to shove First out of the doorway. “Stay—out here. Whatever form you’re in, I don’t want to see it.” 

Liar.  

He would give anything to scoop up that little black cat who had reappeared for three heartbeats. But it wouldn’t do any good, now that he knew what really lived in that body. 

And holy fuck was he going to have to think about all the horrifying things he had said and done in front of that cat. That man. But he certainly was not going to think about it while staring at that naked—and very fine, but that was besides the point—body. 

His breath came fast as he stared into wide, brown, shockingly amused eyes. 

“You’ve seen me undress!” he howled and slammed the door shut. 

The voice came slightly muffled by the door, but clear. Thick, for the first time, with a very human-like inflection of humor. “I’ve seen a lot more than that.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. 

That morning—even two minutes ago—Khaotung could not have thought of anything worse than losing his cat. Now—now he didn’t know whether to be grateful First wasn’t dead or horrified at the absurd hallucination his broken mind had conjured. 

“I’ll go to bed. I’ll just go to sleep, and in the morning everything will be—”

With a start, he realized he was speaking as if First were in the room. As if his little cat were just there on the bed. Listening, not judging, reassuring him as always with his presence. 

For one lurching moment, he considered opening the door. 

No.

That way lay true madness. 

Better to just get some sleep and hope this all went away in the morning.

Chapter Text

Khaotung woke up to a plaintive meow. 

He sat bolt upright, only for First to tumble off his chest into the blue cotton sheets. “Fir! Fir, you’re okay!” He scooped up the little cat and cuddled him to his face, kissing his tiny head over and over until First squirmed in his hands. “Sorry, sorry but—” He screamed, a noise of pure joy, and dragged First back into another squished hug. 

“I love you so much, nuu. So, so much.” First purred in his arms and butted his head against Khaotung’s chin. “I had this awful dream where you were sick, and then you were gone and there was this man—fuck.” Khaotung leaned over to his bedside table and tapped his phone screen to check the time, but it was still dead.

Wait.

Still?

“What day is it?” He stared at First in his lap. 

First cocked his head, just like—

Khaotung dove to the side of the bed for his charger and plugged in the phone. His gaze roamed the room, looking for clues while the stupid thing booted.

The bedroom door was open, that was normal. By the sunlight from his single bedroom window, it looked to be around 8 AM, which was shockingly early for him without an alarm. At least, before he had adopted a needy cat. But the nightmare had woken him, so the early hour wasn’t that strange. He should take advantage of it and go for a run. And—

The hoodie and sweatpants were in a pile on the floor. The black hoodie and sweatpants, which always stayed in his bottom drawer, for First to make a little nest on. 

He looked down at the cat again, who had the decency to look chagrined. 

“Is that—did that happen?”

First popped back into human shape again, cross-legged on the bed and—of course—naked. “I thought you’d be happier if I woke you up as a cat.” His happy smile said, and I was right.

Khaotung flopped onto the bed face-first. “Oh fuck,” he wailed. “I just—you—” He sat up and hit First in the face with a pillow. “You jackass.”

First fell backward onto the bed with a yelp and Khaotung instinctively cringed away at the sharp sound.

“Sorry! Sorry sorry—wait.” He straightened and glared at First, who was grinning as he sat up. “I don’t have to feel bad, you’re bigger than me now.”

“Can I still sit in your lap, though?” First’s gaze fell to Khaotung’s crotch. 

“No.” He hastily covered it with another pillow—ridiculous because he was not the naked one here. “And put some damn clothes on.”

First got up from the bed, dragging his long limbs with the petulance of a child. “It’s past time for breakfast.”

Stupid cats and their stupid internal clocks. Khaotung swallowed hard on the bubbling hysteria in his throat—and the hollow, sucking void of his stomach. “I told you I don’t have any food. I’m going to the market, so either change back and eat cat food, or you’ll have to wait.”

Lucky bastard. 

Khaotung watched from the corner of his eye as First pulled out shorts from the small, wooden dresser, trying to judge when it might be safe to approach, and change out of his own sleep clothes. Maybe the market grannies would let him open a credit line.

“Can’t I come?” The wistful question jerked Khaotung’s head around—to find First stuck with a t-shirt halfway over his head. “None of your clothes fit.”

Not only was First taller, his shoulders were broader. He was lean, almost too skinny, with his ribs showing like that. Probably Khaotung’s fault for underfeeding him—though he had no fucking clue how those physics worked. 

Khaotung sighed and clambered off the bed to fish out a loose shirt and his longest shorts. “That one shrank in the wash.” Even on him, the Chiang Mai t-shirt pulled uncomfortably on his shoulders. He only kept it because it was soft and First liked to—

“Try these instead.” He didn’t look over again until First had pulled them on. They fit, but still looked kind of silly, with the hems swimming around First’s narrow hips. Khaotung wasn’t that much thicker these days, given the lack of paychecks. But it wasn’t like he could go shopping for a new wardrobe every time he lost weight.

“Can we buy new ones?”

“If you want clothes, then you can earn the money for them. Or, you can just stay a cat.” Khaotung forced his breath hard through his nose, trying not to raise his voice. The walls were thin, and fucking hell, did he hope the nice lady next door was at her hair-dressing job by now. “Which seems like the obvious option, at least for now.”

“I don’t want to. And I want to come to the market. I never got to go anywhere with you before; it was so boring.” First’s lower lip jutted out. 

Khaotung pressed both hands to his face. “Ugh!” He just—missed his cat so much. But his cat was here. And fine. But also—

No. He wouldn’t ask. He wouldn’t even think about it. 

“If you don’t want to be a cat, then leave.” 

First wilted. 

Khaotung pinched the bridge of his nose. He did not understand what this man wanted from him, and his screaming stomach certainly wasn’t helping. 

“It’s just,” First said, picking at the fraying hem of the baggy t-shirt. “I was lonely.”

Khaotung turned uselessly away. Made his bed. Pretended those words weren’t leaden anchors around his heart. The one creature he had cared for. Touched. Befriended, in over a year. And he had been lonely.

He replaced both pillows at the top of his bed, guts churning. “Sorry, khun.”  

“That’s okay.” First pounced around Khaotung’s side to get in front of him and flashed his widest smile. “I get to go places with you now, na?”  

Khaotung sighed—and sighed again when First took that as confirmation. 

“Do whatever you want,” he murmured without vitriol—because it was true. People just did whatever the fuck they wanted, and Khaotung had to take it in stride. 

He just needed to get food. Food, and then he could make a plan to deal with this bubbly human intruder who had ousted his sweet cat from both his home and his memories. Food, and then he could kick First-the-human back to whatever curb he came from. Whatever life—which Khaotung was not going to ask about—he had been snatched from when he was cursed. 

He could pretend the past year never happened and that he had never had a cat.

He just had to get past breakfast. 

That was how they ended up at the market together, First in his ill-fitting clothes and Khaotung, despite his resolve, still knee-deep in reviewing the past year spent cuddling a human man. 

The market was emptier than usual, given that it was after nine. Khaotung usually forced himself to get up early to buy groceries. Better selection that way, and sometimes the bakery had day-olds he could buy for half price. 

It was still oppressively hot—the press of bodies replaced by the rising heat of the day. The melting ice from the fish and meatmongers spread in puddles across the concrete floor, creating a malaise of rising humidity. 

“Can we get melon?”

“No,” Khaotung replied. He wandered around the stalls, picking up the necessities and reflexively vetoing everything First asked for, even if they needed it.

“What about mango?”

“Definitely—”

“Here, little one. As a treat.” The fruit stall owner—an older lady who had always been brusque with him—held out a bag with two mangos in it.

Little one?  First was thin, but he was hardly little. Maybe the ill-fitting clothes threw her off, made her think he was a child still growing. Khaotung plummeted to a brand new, previously unforeseen low of guilt. 

And come to think of it—how old was First?

First accepted the bag, seemingly unbothered by the diminutive or the charity. “Thanks!” His grin was as wide and earnest as ever, but he turned immediately to find Khaotung and offer the bag. “Look! Mangos!” 

“We can’t accept those,” Khaotung hissed. He smiled at the fruit-selling granny. “Thank you so much, but we can’t possibly—” He reached for the bag, which First jerked out of the way. The already heavy basket of produce in his arms tilted as his foot came down on a wet patch of floor.

“Fuck—!” As his leg slipped out sideways, Khaotung clutched the precious basket of food to his chest and prepared for impact. But the hit, when it came, was to his chin, not his hips or shoulder. 

First dove forward and caught him under the arms, slamming his head into Khaotung’s face in the process. They wobbled precariously as Khaotung tried not to tip backwards and tried to get his feet under him, and tried—most importantly—not to think about the body pressed all along his front. The lean body he had observed—not oggled—naked, multiple times over the last twenty-four hours. 

Fuck.

They steadied. Separated.

Khaotung pressed a hand to his chin and First rubbed his head with a rueful look of apology. The granny was laughing at them. 

“Thanks.” Too humiliated to bother with returning the mangos, Khaotung turned to glare at cabbages in the stall across the aisle.

“Putting those limbs to good use, I see,” the stall owner remarked. Khaotung didn’t hear First’s reply because he was already scurrying away from the entire situation.

When First caught up, he dumped not only the mangos but a melon and some papaya in Khaotung’s basket. When his arms sagged, First tugged it out of his hands and handed him a cup with cut-up mango slices. 

“I can do this for you, now,” he said, a smile sitting proudly on his face. 

Khaotung felt his neck heat and turned aside. 

I’d still rather have my cat.  

“You shouldn’t take things from strangers,” was all he said. He ate the mango, though—he was starving. The cup was half empty, and his gut twisted with more than hunger as he realized First’s last meal was even further back. 

“She’s not a stranger! Besides, we’ll save money.”

“Since when do you care about my financial situation?” 

Khaotung blinked as his head was grabbed by a firm hand. First tugged his face upward, tilted it toward the daylight streaming in from the outer edges of the market. “Are you hurt?” His thumb brushed over the sore spot along Khaotung’s jaw.

Khaotung flinched away and stuffed another slice of mango in his mouth. “You can’t touch people like that.”

“Why not?” First’s eyes went wide and round with genuine confusion. “And you’re not people.”

Khaotung shook his head and changed the subject.

“How old are you?”

“Human years or cat years?” When Khaotung just glared at the boxes of produce, First sobered. “Twenty-two?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I was twenty-one when I was turned into a cat.”

“Do you have an ID?” Khaotung replaced the carton of fancy quail eggs that First had just deposited into the basket with regular chicken eggs. 

First sighed but didn’t comment. “I lost all my stuff the first time I changed form.”

“Right. And you can’t—?” Khaotung cut himself off. It was impolite to ask about First’s situation when he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But how could he just pop back into being human? Khaotung couldn’t afford to feed him. And First couldn’t get a job or live on his own without all the necessary documents. It really would be easier if he just stayed a cat until they figured things out. 

“Here.” He shoved the cup towards First. “Eat the rest.”

“I already ate my portion.”

“You’re too skinny.” He didn’t look at First, refused to acknowledge the burn of his skin or the soft thank you that drifted between them. Just stared at the fishmonger’s stall and thought about how he no longer needed to worry about taurine in his cat’s diet.

And why did that make him so sad?

"Khaotung.” First’s low call jerked Khaotung’s head around. “You’re the same age, right?”

“How—” Stupid. That swooping, world-rearranging sensation in his stomach again. Of course his cat knew everything about him. “Right. Yeah.”

“Our birthdays are only one month apart.”

Khaotung kicked at the wooden slats at the base of the stall. He closed his eyes against the memory of celebrating the anniversary of the day First had shown up on his doorstep, just a month ago. The opposite side of the year from his own birthday—and First’s. 

“Sorry. I didn’t know.”

Long fingers wrapped around his wrist. First’s thumb brushed the underside where thin skin fluttered against the weak, rapid pulse. 

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Khaotung glared at his arm for a moment. Tugged it away and said, dully, “Let’s go back.”

At home, Khaotung made scrambled eggs on his tiny, two-burner stove, cooked some rice, and called it a meal. First hovered in the kitchen until Khaotung shoved a plate his way, and then sat happily at the wobbly table to eat. The spoon moved awkwardly in his large hand, but by the end of the meal, he seemed to regain a normal, human amount of utensil dexterity. 

They didn’t talk. 

Sinking exhaustion drew Khaotung’s shoulders down as he listlessly shoveled bland food into his mouth. He wondered if the fancy cat food might not taste better. Maybe he could sell it to someone with a cat. 

He was supposed to deal with First, now that he had eaten. He was supposed to kick the man out and never think about him again—but First ate slowly, savoring every bite of Khaotung’s shitty cooking. And every time Khaotung opened his mouth, the swelling memory of waking up this morning washed up against the back of his teeth. The memory of his little cat, cuddled on his chest. 

So he stayed silent. What was a few more hours, anyway? 

After dumping the dishes in the sink, he showered and dressed in his least threadbare outfit and gathered his backpack, while First watched him move around the apartment from the couch. 

“Where are you going?”

“An audition.” 

The last one his ex-manager had ever sent him. She didn’t even have to reach out—his contract had dissolved when he couldn’t land any work for months. But a week ago, she had emailed him with a BL drama audition and the message: worth a shot.

Khaotung had hesitated. Won’t that just fuel the rumors? Her response had been pithy—and devastating:

What more do you have to lose?

He had hoped that the audition results from two days ago would be positive, and he wouldn’t have to admit she was right. But now—now he had no other prospects. And an extra—human—mouth to feed, at least until he stiffened his spine and kicked him out.

“Can’t I come? I’ll wait outside.”

“No.” He needed a break. Needed to be away from his cat-turned-human and examine his options. Or, lack thereof. “You stay here.”

First slumped. His liquid brown eyes shone suspiciously in the bare morning light from Khaotung’s two shitty windows. 

“I mean, do whatever you want. You’re a person, not a cat, so—” He dug out his spare set of keys and set them on the table. Fished an envelope out of his top dresser drawer and handed it to the man who trailed behind him into the bedroom. “Buy yourself some clothes. Whatever you need.” 

Whatever you need to leave.

“That’s your emergency fund.”

“You know everything, don’t you?”

First nodded with boyish earnestness. “I slept in your room every night.”

“Fucking hell.” Khaotung sat down, hard, on the bed. This realization had been swirling up from the back of his mind since last night. This reckoning. 

He had hoped he could kick First out of his life before he had to deal with it. That he could have this crisis alone, after the spectre of impossibility was gone, and he could pretend it had all just been some strange hallucination. But now it slammed into him without warning, a train ignoring every signal in favor of jumping the tracks and smashing through the crossing barrier.

“You saw me—” He gestured around his body, to communicate what he dared not utter.

First smirked, the sharpest expression Khaotung had yet seen on his face. “Yes.”

He had—he had jerked off in his room. He hadn’t even bothered to shut First out. The cat never annoyed him, never came over to see why his human was making weird motions and weird noises, like other people on the Internet complained about. 

Well, now he fucking knew why.

Khaotung tried to kick him from his seat on the bed, but First leapt backward with catlike grace. 

“Well—I saw you lick your ass!” As if that made it better. First had been damn cute licking his butt, with his silly little hind leg stuck out like a chicken bone. "And your balls. You’re lucky I never got you neutered.”

The smirk melted into First’s gentle laugh. “Why do you think I never wanted to go to the vet?”

“Shit.” Guilt slammed over him, a tidal wave dredging up ghastly deep-sea paraphernalia. What if he had—to a person—

“I don’t know if it would have translated, but I didn’t want to take the risk.” First moved closer until he stood in front of Khaotung’s knees. His tucked-sideways smile was a clear invitation to laugh at the ridiculous situation—but Khaotung couldn’t quite see the humor. 

Despite First changing form in front of his eyes, he still could barely even believe this was happening—let alone First’s nonchalant attitude about it. “But—this whole time, you were human?” 

“No, I was stuck as a cat.” First blinked in seemingly genuine confusion.

“I meant inside—you were human? You remember everything from when you were a cat,” to Khaotung’s great chagrin. “So you had human thoughts? Weren’t you bored, just watching me every day?” Morbid curiosity bit at his heels like piranhas. 

It was one thing to accept the present. But filtering, editing every memory he had with his cat over the last year—

Khaotung gritted his teeth against the wave of sickening disorientation.

First seemed oblivious—he spoke absent-mindedly, even as sweat broke out across Khaotung’s body. “Kind of. Mostly, I just—drifted. I lost track of the days. I even stopped trying to slip out to search for ways to undo the curse.”

So he had cared, at one point. 

One hand lifted. Skimmed the side of Khaotung’s head, fingers brushing through the ends of his hair. “I just—settled into this life with you.”

Khaotung groaned and covered his face with his hands. Flinched away from the soft touch. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how it might bother you, Khaotung. To have a cat who wasn’t a cat.” 

“It’s not—it isn’t your fault. This isn’t about me.” Well, the mortification immolating his organs to ash certainly was. But the twisting, unmoored swell of sickness in his gut— 

“I was mostly just a cat, in my head. One who understood a lot of what was going on, but still just a cat. I never really thought about it being weird.”

“Sure.” Khaotung kicked him again, this time making half-hearted contact when First didn’t bother to dodge. “Even when I left the door open to pee?”

First pursed his mouth and looked away primly. “I never peeked.”

“You already admitted to seeing me naked.”

“What was I supposed to do, cover my eyes?” When Khaotung only glared at him, First grinned, wide and unrepentant. “And sometimes you slept in the nude.”

“I hate you.” 

Khaotung’s face burned furiously hot—but somehow, this was better. First teasing him, First talking as if being a cat hadn’t been so bad. 

“It was almost harder to become human again…” First’s voice trailed off.

Khaotung latched onto the safer subject with relief. “Is that why you talked strangely at first?”

“I was rusty. My mouth felt weird—my whole body felt weird. While you were out last night, I practiced a bit.”

“And now?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. Why it felt so vital to ask.

“It’s coming back to me.” First looked down at him with unreadable eyes, face shadowed by the window behind him. “Being human.”

Khaotung looked away, down at his hands. It hurt his neck to stare upward. “So when—how did you break the curse?”

“No idea.” First sank onto the bed next to him. 

Too close. Khaotung could feel the heat of his body and leaned away, just slightly. “Why are you so uncurious about this?” If it were him, he would have a thousand questions—wouldn’t anyone?

“Maybe if you spend a year as a cat, you just—stop caring so much,” First mused. “Those first months, I was panicking, running around in the rain, shivering and wet. But once I lived here,” he gestured around the apartment, rekindling Khaotung’s flaming skin at the reminder. “I guess there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it. I tried going out and getting information a few times, but it never went anywhere. And,” he grinned widely again, his generous mouth stretching to show white teeth and that charming dimple, “I had a pretty nice life with you.”

Khaotung blushed again, this time soft and warm around the edges. First nudged his knee against Khaotung’s, his smile melting to something even sweeter. 

“Especially compared to what came before. I’m grateful, you know?”

Did he mean the wet months as a stray, or the time even before that? Khaotung hadn’t forgotten the answer when he had asked if there wasn’t somewhere else First could go. Surely if he had any family he thought would care, he would be in a hurry to reassure them he was okay. 

“I guess—you’re welcome. But—”

First cocked his head. Khaotung lifted his hand. Brushed a few strands of hair behind First’s ear before he realized what he was doing and clasped both hands firmly in his lap. 

“Uh, sorry.” Khaotung coughed on nothing. 

He’s not your fucking cat anymore. 

The bed groaned as he shifted away. The audition wasn’t until the afternoon, but—he needed to get out of this tiny, dingy apartment that barely fit him and a small, black cat. And now overflowed with the sinking gravity of this tall, graceful man. 

“Just take the money, khun." He gestured at the envelope still in First’s hand. “And we’ll figure out something long-term when I get back.”

“Why can’t I just stay here?”

“I told you that I can’t feed you.” And how could he explain the way First’s human presence unsettled him? Past the panic about his lack of a job and the money, and even the embarrassment—he couldn’t look at the man without missing his cat. The uncomplicated comfort of holding a furry body to his chest when he needed a hug, the solace of falling asleep with a purring warmth on his chest. 

He would never have those things again. 

But he couldn’t complain to a person about that. So he focused on the practicalities. “You’d have to eat as a cat at the very least. We have all that cat food. But if you switched back to a human right away, you might still be hungry.”

First sighed. 

“I don’t have any more auditions, and I was thinking of moving home anyway. Wouldn’t you rather stay in Bangkok?”

“I could—”

Khaotung cut that thought off with a rush of more words. “Maybe I can find a regular job, but I’ve already been looking and—oh!”

First waited. Blinked brown eyes that were somehow still luminous, even without the yellow-green flash. 

“That DM I got.” Khaotung pulled out his phone and held up the message to First’s face. “You have an audition for a cat commercial tomorrow!”

First’s eyes narrowed. Khaotung could almost see his cat ears flattening, tail lashing against his shins. Odd, how body language was so different between humans and cats, and yet he understood both in First.

“You really don’t want to?”

“What if I get stuck again?”

“You switched back on your own this morning.”

“For you.” First said this without any hint of embarrassment or irony. Khaotung flushed again and cursed every god in existence. 

First smiled beatifically, and lifted a hand to press three fingers to Khaotung’s burning cheek. “I knew you wanted to see your cat.”

“You can’t just—” Khaotung grabbed First’s wrist. Wondered why he hadn’t simply leaned away from the touch. As much more human as First had become over the past fifteen hours, he was still so—odd. So deliberate and poised, he bypassed every natural reaction Khaotung should have had to such invasive behavior. 

“You can’t just touch people. Me—I told you not to touch me like that.”

“Oh.” First looked at his hand as Khaotung nudged it away from his face. “But your skin is always warm when you blush. It feels nice.”

Images slammed through Khaotung’s mind—First, his cat, always pressing his little head insistently against Khaotung’s face when he talked about embarrassing shit that happened during the day. He stared into level brown eyes as his entire body immolated, from his chest down to his toes. And First knew that, from the way his gaze dipped to Khaotung’s collarbones, probably wanted to—

Khaotung leapt to his feet. Dismissed the thought with a shake of the head so firm his vision swam. “Well, you can’t. Not looking like that.” First instantly shifted back into cat form. 

Khaotung sucked in a breath. Pressed a hand to his throat until his heart rate slowed and stared resentfully at the tiny, black body he was no longer allowed to scoop up and cuddle. “That’s not what I meant.”

Human again, First said, “Isn’t it? We touched each other all the time when I was a cat.”

“But now I know.” And half the time, you’re fucking naked.

“I don’t see why it’s different.”

“It just—is.” Khaotung sighed and averted his eyes. “Can you just do the commercial? You’ll almost certainly win the part, since you understand what’s going on. It’ll be easy money and I—we—you really can’t stay here without it. I haven’t had a job in—” he broke the sentence off. “Well, you know.”

“Stupid fucking Knot,” First agreed, as if they had talked about it a thousand times.

And Khaotung supposed, in some way, they had. 

“So I can stay?”

“What?”

“You said we.” First smiled, eyes shining. “You said if I do the commercial, I can stay here.”

Stupid fucking mouth and its stupid fucking unthinking words. 

“Pretty sure I didn’t say that.” Big brown eyes stared at him, dark with entreaty and reproach at the same time. “A few days.” He was such a fucking pushover. “At the most.” And this was a terrible idea.

First threw his arms around Khaotung’s waist and tackled him back onto the bed. “Thank you, Khaotung. Thank you thank you thank you.”

Khaotung stared at the ceiling, face burning, arms primly at his sides, and very much did not think about the naked, human male body covering his. Or the things he had said and done and committed in front of said naked, human male. He did not think about First’s fingertips brushing through his hair, or it feels nice.  

And he definitely did not consider warm, wide eyes and the way they tracked his every movement—whether they belonged to a cat or a man.

He locked down every one of those disquieting thoughts and focused on the fact that First was a stranger, a nuisance, and most of all—

“What did I just say about touching?”

Chapter Text

The audition was less painful than Khaotung expected. Maybe because he was trying for one of the side characters, and not the main leads. No one mentioned his past issues when he checked in, or even whispered behind his back—that he could tell, anyway. 

There were no screen tests with potential partners at this point, for which he was also grateful. Despite P’Som’s words, despite the situation—he still wasn’t sure he was ready to act in this type of role. There would be no going back to regular lakorn if the drama was successful. And while he was pretty sure his mother would support him, and P’Som was convinced there was no other route forward in this industry for him anymore—

He just wasn’t ready to think about the implications just yet. 

So he performed the requisite lines with the casting manager reading the other part, and simply let himself inhabit the role. 

The audition room was bare of anything except plastic chairs behind a folding table, where the casting panel lounged. There were five of them—director, screenwriter, two ADs, and the casting manager—a large panel in Khaotung’s experience, but then, he knew very little of the BL industry’s patterns. In any case, he followed his usual routine, wai-ing to all five of them before standing in front of the table and stating his name, age, and audition role. 

As the casting manager rose to read the opposite lines with him, he saw the screenwriter whisper something to the director. The director—a woman who appeared to be in her forties—nodded gravely. Khaotung wiped sweaty palms on his slacks. The director straightened, uncrossing her legs to lean forward on the table, chin in one heavily-ringed hand. 

It couldn’t be bad to have piqued someone’s interest already. 

He took a deep breath and focused on the part. 

For a side character, the motivations and plot impact were more convoluted than he would have expected. After he performed the first scene, the writer explained some of the backstory missing from the pages he had received for the audition. She spoke with her hands, enthusiastically describing how this side character was not the monster he appeared, but rather had been forced to lie and deceive even his own family and love interest due to their mother’s machinations. She looked younger than the director—still older than him, but he had done his research and knew this was far from her first writing job. Her other scripts had been well-reviewed, and he could see why. 

Khaotung found himself drawn into the world of this desperate man, who had been manipulated since birth against his brother, and sought a misguided revenge for their mother’s untimely death in the second episode. The familiar shiver of connection ran up his spine. The urgent desire to move, to give a voice to the voiceless—this imaginary person who needed someone else to speak for him so that viewers could understand.

But Khaotung kept all that to himself, merely noting adjustments on the next two sequences that he might try to implement. With no opportunity to practice, he simply had to go for it and hope for the best—but then, he presumed that’s what they were evaluating, by saving this information for the audition.

As the third scene’s final words—a soliloquy at the mother’s grave, when everything was falling apart around the character, including his faith in his mother—faded from his lips, Khaotung blinked. The casting staff applauded. Longer, louder than mere politeness. He thought. 

He was pretty sure.

“I love how your hand went to your throat. Very visceral,” the screenwriter said. “Exactly what I imagined.” The director nodded, and the two women exchanged eye contact in some secret communication.

“You were in Destiny of You?” one assistant director asked, as she flipped through his resume. This woman appeared older than the director, maybe in her fifties. Her professional clothing style was severe, especially in contrast to the flowy, hippy vibes of the director and the youthful, trendy look of the screenwriter. 

“Khrap.” Khaotung braced for the follow-up—no roles after that? The studio didn’t sign you? What about that controversy with that other actor—what was his name?

“I didn’t see that one,” the director mused. “Was it a success?”

The AD simply nodded and addressed the rest of the panel. “It reached seven percent at its height. And Nong Khaotung’s performance as the younger brother was a highlight.” Her eyes glittered in the harsh, artificial lighting of the room, lending a reptilian cast to her gaze. 

Khaotung stumbled with his thanks, still braced for interrogation. “Oh—um—thank you. It was a fun challenge.” And it had been fun while they were filming. He loved inhabiting characters in front of a camera, couldn’t imagine doing anything else—at least, until lately. Until now, when his bills piled up and his cat now needed ten times the amount of food. 

Pointless to still think of him as a cat.  

The director sat back and nodded, clearly satisfied.

“Thank you for coming in! We’ll be in touch,” the other assistant director said, as he ushered Khaotung back into the waiting room. “Expect callbacks to be later this week.”

That was a good sign, right? It had been so long since he had gotten a callback, even for a commercial. If he got this one, maybe he could convince P’Som to manage him again. Khaotung stamped hard on the spark of hope that flickered in his ribcage as the door swung shut behind him. He didn’t have anything on his schedule anyway, no need to get excited. 

Someone was talking to the receptionist, so he cooled his heels in the lobby for a minute. The room was still crowded with hopefuls, some rereading the lines, others on their phones. A few glanced at the man hogging the receptionist’s time, so Khaotung edged closer to the desk, hoping to indicate he was in line to speak next. 

“That sounds…interesting,” the man said. The deliberate syllables pricked at Khaotung’s attention, even as he glued his eyes to his phone so as not to stare at the man’s perfect ass in tight, dark jeans.

“Well, think about it, khun,” the receptionist concluded. 

Khaotung took another step forward and prepared to wai.  

The person turned around and Khaotung’s jaw dropped. Every thought of his question fled from his brain. 

The man was First. 

Dressed in a maroon button-down, jeans, and Converse. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, showing off lean forearms. Surely, everyone in the room was staring at his trim waist where shirt tucked into jeans, and below that, his—

Khaotung shook his head. Blood pounded in his ears, a deep bass to the fainting ringing. He could not have these thoughts about his cat. His cat, who had turned into a man. Whose naked body he had—fuck.

“What—How?”

“I followed you here.” First looked inordinately proud of himself. “And then I went shopping while I waited.” He lifted his left arm to indicate the plastic bag hanging off his wrist. 

“You followed me? For all that time?” Khaotung had left two hours early for the audition. Stopped at his favorite bookstore in a nicer neighborhood on the way—not to buy anything, because all his money was in First’s pocket—just to look. Got the cheapest noodles he could find for lunch, and then sat on a bench in a park and daydreamed about going home to Chiang Mai.

First shrugged. 

Sweat prickled down Khaotung’s neck in an icy shiver as he glanced around the waiting room, where all eyes were now on them as the only source of noise and entertainment. His jaw ached from clenched teeth, grinding hard on what he wanted to scream. 

“As a human?” he mouthed. Had to be, because where had First gotten the clothes from? He wouldn’t have been able to carry money as a cat, and he couldn’t have walked into a store naked.

“Yup!”

“And this—” Khaotung hissed, gesturing at the outfit and the plastic bag. “Did you use every single baht of my fund?” First had even gotten a haircut, the shaggy strands now neatly trimmed, with fashionable, slightly off-center curtain bangs. He looked like a fucking pop idol. Especially with that dopey grin.

“There’s a secondhand shop nearby. Here.” He dug the envelope out of his shopping bag and pressed it into Khaotung’s hand. “I didn’t use much, I promise.” When he noticed Khaotung staring at the shoes, he added, “Those are fake, don’t worry.”

One of the PAs from the audition room poked his head out of the doorway and announced, “We’re done for the day. If you’re still waiting, please check with reception and they’ll reschedule you. Apologies for any inconvenience.” Everyone around them groaned. Shifted, stood, the bodies pressing in tight, eyes still catching on First and his oddness and Khaotung had to move.

He seized First by the wrist and dragged him out of the building into the baking sun. “You—you can’t follow me. That’s—”

“I didn’t want to wait.”

“You could have just—Fuck. Wait here.” Khaotung looked back at the doors, where the rest of the candidates were streaming out after the dismissal. “I needed to ask—” He had meant to talk to the receptionist about getting a copy of the full script draft, in case he needed extra context. In case he actually got the callback. 

The assistant director from before hurried out of the front doors—and stopped when she saw Khaotung, his hand still loose around First’s wrist.

“Excuse me? Khun Khaotung? And—is this your boyfriend?” She wasn’t smiling. 

“No!” Sweat broke out on Khaotung’s temples. He dropped First’s arm and clasped his hands together. “Absolutely not.”

“I don’t mean to pry. But the director—”

“No, I know.” This could not be happening. Not again. His gaze bounced from First to the woman to the doors to the road he wished he could flee down. “He’s just—just a friend visiting from out of town. He needed a place to stay.”

“He’s staying with you?”

Khaotung winced, his whole face crumpling inward with the force of it. “Just for a few days.” First’s bright, open smile faded, but Khaotung ignored him. Ignored the rebellious twinge of his stomach. “He’ll be gone by the time the show films, I swear.”

She looked between the two of them. “I’m sorry.” And she did look it. “It’s really none of my business, but you should keep this as private as you can.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever the reality is, it doesn’t matter.”

Khaotung groaned and stared at the sky above her head and tried his best to stay polite. It was just so fucking unfair. “Khrap,” he managed.

“Look, you had a fantastic audition, that’s why I’m telling you. If you want to work in BL—” who said I did? “—you absolutely cannot have even the hint of a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, for that matter, but most people find it harder to remember that they also can’t cross lines with their male friends.”

“Thank you,” Khaotung made himself say. She was only trying to help. 

“Just—don’t bring him here to the auditions. Or anyone your age.”

“I didn’t—” Khaotung cut himself off with a shake of his head. “I know. I won’t, I promise.” He wai-ed deeply. “Thank you so much for your time and your words.” 

First thanked her and bowed too. 

Khaotung rolled his eyes and nudged First with a sharp elbow as the woman walked away. “You’re not my fucking mom.” Or my boyfriend.

First straightened, eyes big and wounded. “You said I could stay.”

“If you do the commercial.” Khaotung walked toward the bus stop without looking at him. 

“Then why—”

“Didn’t you hear her? I’m out if I have a boyfriend. Or a close friend who people speculate is a boyfriend. Or even just a roommate. You can’t come to my auditions. If I get the part, you can’t be seen with me in public.”

“Why do they care?”

Khaotung checked his phone for the next bus and then collapsed on the bench, shielding his eyes with one hand to look up at First. 

He should be furious that First had come to the audition. He should shout and complain and make it clear that his life was not a game, not First’s plaything to disrupt, not some boring human routine that would take care of itself—as it must have seemed when he was a cat. 

But he was so tired. And all he could think was why did he have to explain any of this to his cat? “They have to sell the show pairings as real couples. Even the side ones.”

“You’ll have to date…the other actor?” 

“Not really.” First’s frown only deepened. “It doesn’t seem that bad as long as you like your co-star—you just hang out a lot and flirt in front of the cameras. But I can’t have a boyfriend. That ruins the illusion.” 

And who gave a shit? It was a job. He needed work. Sure, he had been concerned about the genre before the audition, but now—

It felt so damn good to act again. And the plot seemed interesting, from the few fragments of the scenes. A soliloquy was a big deal for a secondary character. And seeing the impressed look on the director’s face—Khaotung would give anything to be on set again, with a director and a crew that respected him. With challenging work and competent co-stars. 

It had been so long. 

“So I can’t stay with you if you get the job?” First’s voice held no accusation, only a wistfulness that tugged on the ever-present crosshatch of guilt wired through Khaotung’s chest. 

“I—” he sighed and stood as the bus pulled up. “We’ll see, okay? Let’s just go home.”

Back at the apartment, Khaotung denied any further discussion of his acting career and tried to prepare them for the commercial audition by pulling up YouTube videos. He had no idea what to expect from a cat actor, but the example prompts didn’t look too difficult. 

What might be more difficult was hiding the fact that First understood Thai. 

“You never had a problem with this before,” Khaotung said, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I said all sorts of things to you, and you never acted like a human.” 

First, who sat on the floor in his cat form, had just reacted to Khaotung’s muttered, let’s try that again, by running through exactly the routine they had just attempted. While they had agreed that First would “know” specific commands like sit, stay, and come, there was no cat on earth that could parse, try that again, into the correct semantic meaning and then remember what that referred to. 

The cat glared at him, pupils dilated with the force of his focus. Before Khaotung could apologize, First popped back into human form. 

“It was different before. I felt like a cat, most of the time. I didn’t feel the need to react to your human words.”

“Thanks for that.” Khaotung closed his eyes briefly. Reined in his annoyance. Stupid, to be bitter about his cat not giving a shit. It had probably been a coping mechanism, a way for his human mind to handle the trauma of being stuck in an animal’s body. “And now? You don’t go back into the cat mindset?” 

“Now, I feel like a human. Just—a lot smaller.”

“I’ll be mindful of what I say. But try to only focus on me if I’m talking to you and giving you a clear command. The rest of the time—”

He snapped his mouth shut and jerked his gaze back to the laptop screen. “Put on some clothes.”

First shrank into a cat again, and yowled with displeasure. 

“Don’t blame me.” Khaotung typed furiously in the search bar, trying to scrub the mental image away with pure vitriol. “I never asked for my cat to turn into a giant, naked man.” 

And how desensitized was he that it had taken him a full minute to notice?

First whined. Wound around his ankles until Khaotung sighed. “Let’s practice jumping up on surfaces. That seems to be big.” 

Under First’s watchful gaze, he moved around to the couch and patted the back of it. “Here.”

The cat leapt up in one smooth motion, all coiled grace. Khaotung nodded. “Maybe take a little bit longer? You used to wiggle your butt a lot before jumping.”

First glared down his tiny, pink nose in affront. 

“What?” Khaotung couldn’t help the small laugh as he remembered all the times he had tried to capture it on video. “You did.” 

He’d been too afraid to look back over any of those photos or videos since learning the truth. Would he be able to tell, now? Shouldn’t he have known, then?

First meowed. It sounded concerned. 

“Exactly right,” Khaotung replied inanely, and then shoved his shoulders back from their tense, creeping hunch. 

He walked to the counter and tapped it. 

First watched his hand. Locked into the spot, did a very obvious preparatory wiggle—then jumped and landed, soft as a cloud. 

“That was a bit much, but probably no one else will know.”

The cat circled once and then sat very deliberately, cocking his head at Khaotung in a smug, I’m not usually allowed up here, way. 

“Don’t get used to it.” 

First reached up and batted him on the nose. 

“You—!” Khaotung grabbed for the cat, who leapt forward onto his shoulders, paws digging like pistons into his traps. “Oww.” 

When he twisted, trying to dump the cat before he could dig in sharp claws for balance, First flounced into a drape around his neck and licked his ear. 

“That is not catlike behavior,” Khaotung grumbled. He staggered to the couch and peeled First off onto it before collapsing into a lumpy cushion. When First cuddled into his side, Khaotung petted his head without thought. 

“See?” He hauled the laptop onto his knees and started a new video. “You need to act more like that cat.” The cat in question was stretching, rolling on its back, chasing a shoelace—anything but the perfect stillness of First while he stared at Khaotung’s face and waited for him to speak. “And way less human.” 

Though that wasn’t exactly humanlike behavior either. Not for a normal person. 

First slunk into his lap and appeared to watch the video diligently—though Khaotung remembered something about the frame rate of video being difficult for cat eyes to follow. 

Whatever. 

It was nice, sitting here with First. With his cat, warm and reassuring in his lap, and his hand moving without thought to find all the right places on First’s body where he loved to be pet. He knew, on some level, that this was wrong. 

But First could turn back into a man if he didn’t like it. 

The cat nuzzled into his hand, and Khaotung realized with a start that the video had ended. YouTube was now playing random shit from his recommended page—an acting video about micro-expressions, from a creator he followed religiously. He had also stopped petting. 

“Sorry.” His hand resumed scritching behind First’s ears for two seconds. “Wait—” His hand froze, limbs tensing with latent adrenaline as his instincts screamed at him to get up, and shove First off his lap. 

First meowed softly.

Khaotung sighed, slumping into the lumpy couch. 

It was so tempting to just talk. To tell cat-First every thought going through his head—how confusing it was to ricochet back and forth between comfort and guilt and panic, how his chest ached with grief, and yet every time First turned into a cat and back again, the wound carved fresh across his heart. How he had no idea how to treat First anymore, regardless of his form—only knew that he was doing it wrong.

Instead, he gently scooted First off his lap and stood. The cat stared up at him, unblinking. 

“Do you think you’re ready?”

First nodded his head. 

“Definitely do not do that at the audition.”

They should practice more—but his limbs dragged as if weighted and the back of his head throbbed with a tension headache. Maybe in the morning. The audition was at one, so they had some time. 

Khaotung completed his nightly routine in the bathroom, zoning out during his facial regimen until he realized he was rubbing skin that had long ago absorbed every drop of toner he had applied. He shook his head and then stared at himself in the mirror, mourning the dark circles under his eyes and his dwindling supply of moisturizer. What was wrong with him lately? He couldn’t seem to get enough sleep, even before the whole thing with First. No doubt his shitty diet wasn’t helping. 

He couldn’t get new headshots unless he actually looked halfway decent in them. Not that he could afford new headshots. 

Being unemployed was depressingly expensive. 

When he returned to the living room, First still sat on the couch, watching him. Still shaped like a cat. 

At least he was easier to talk to this way. 

“Tomorrow has to go well, okay?”

First cocked his little head, ears pricked towards Khaotung. 

“I know you don’t like it, but one of us needs a job.” Khaotung laughed at his own words, dry and unhappy. “If you were still just a cat, I’d feel bad making you the breadwinner—” he did feel bad, even so. But he fortified his spine and his conscience and attempted to mimic First’s easy, neutral tone. “Since you’re a human, you can move out if you don’t like it.”

He watched carefully—First was easier to look at this way, too—but there was no readable reaction. 

“Well, I’m headed to bed. Do you need anything?”

The cat’s pupils swelled as he glanced toward the bedroom. If he didn’t know First was a human, Khaotung would have said that was his calculating look—eyes measuring the distance for an inadvisable jump. 

“Good night,” he said, for lack of anything better, and headed for his room.

The whisper of a cat’s landing behind him. 

First slipped in between his legs before he could close the door and leapt gracefully onto the bed. When Khaotung glared at him, he simply curled up on the extra pillow and pretended to sleep. 

“You know I could just pick you up and toss you out, right?”

The tip of First’s tail twitched in barest acknowledgement. Khaotung sighed. Slid under the sheets and turned out the light. 

A moment later, First padded onto his chest, tiny paws bruising on his ribs. Khaotung braced to turn on his side and dump the cat off—and then First settled down and began to purr. The sound resonated against Khaotung’s bones, an inaudible hum so comforting that his eyes stung in the darkness. 

“Fine, you win.” Khaotung sighed, shifting First just slightly so he could breathe. He allowed one hand to stroke the soft ears once. Twice. “But only like this.”

Tiny claws kneaded gently into his sleep shirt in acknowledgement. 

“Good night, little cat.”

Khaotung drifted off to sleep, arms around his cat, too exhausted and heartsore to care that this was a fantasy he was not allowed to indulge in anymore. 

Chapter Text

In the morning, Khaotung woke up wrapped around a naked, human First, the heat of him snuggled all down Khaotung’s front. His arms were looped around First’s neck, the bottom one prickling with numbness from the pressure of human weight. His chest pressed into First’s shoulder, and one leg was slung wantonly over First’s hips. His groin—

Khaotung retracted all his limbs at once, heaving the prickling one out from under First’s weight. 

Holy shit holy shit holy shit.

“Sorry. S-sorry.”

First sat up, blinking sleepily. “’S okay.”

Khaotung’s fizzing panic soured as his fluttering pulse thundered into high gear. “Why?” He scrambled to his feet and stared down at the naked body, vision blanking into furious, red shame. “Why would you do that? After everything—and I asked—”

“It just happened while I was sleeping.” First’s voice remained level. He gathered long legs beneath himself and sat still for Khaotung’s judgement. “I didn’t mean to. I apologize, Khaotung."

“You—you can’t—”

As Khaotung stood there—chest heaving, fists clenched, desperate for something to take this fury out on besides First’s ever-placid reaction—he clocked the twitch-ripple of muscle in bare, sloping shoulders. The subtle firming of definition in First’s thighs, even as he sat. Latent energy gathered in those lean limbs, like a cat ready to pounce. 

Lodged in that telescoping moment of horror, Khaotung processed the bare note of defensiveness in First’s tone and realized—First wasn’t still, he was poised. He wasn’t emotionless or unaffected by Khaotung’s words. 

But Khaotung couldn’t seem to stop. Not even when he noticed First’s gaze, locked on his trembling fists. Not even when his gut seized with the image of his tiny cat, flinching out of the way of a reckless blow.

Not that he would ever—he would never—

He clasped both hands on his forearms and rocked back on his heels. Needed to move, to do something with the hammer-hard pound of his heart. “Just—stop. Stop acting like my cat when you’re a man. Stop being naked.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

“Shut up,” Khaotung snapped. He turned and sat down hard on the bed as the fury gave way to trembling knees and pricking tears.

After a minute, a hand rested on his shoulder. Khaotung pushed it off. “Don’t touch me.” 

Ignoring the wounded noise behind him, Khaotung forced himself up and tore through his dresser, searching for exercise clothes. He hadn’t gone running in months, and it really fucking showed.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.” Socks. Sweatband for his hair. Then he was off towards the door. 

Footsteps behind him. 

“Don’t follow me,” he snapped without looking.

The door slammed shut, and he paused in the hallway for a moment to catch his breath. Already sweating, already exhausted, what was even the point of a run? But he took off down the hallway, because the alternative was First’s steady gaze, the silent entreaty of his bowed posture. 

He was being so unfair. First couldn’t control it. First hadn’t even been teasing; the words you didn’t seem to mind  had been as level and earnest as always. Said only with curiosity, as if all he wanted was to understand Khaotung’s actions, and keep from making the same mistake again.

Well, Khaotung would also love to understand his own fucking actions these days. His own fucking thoughts. 

Because he was the one who had maintained the embrace after First changed back. And even in his sleep, shouldn’t he, Khaotung, control that? Shouldn’t he flinch from the touch of a strange man, wake up at the presence of an unfamiliar weight in his bed?

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

He was the one who demanded affection First should no longer be obligated to give. And that was the source of all of these issues:

The crumbling divider in Khaotung’s heart that failed to keep man and cat separate. 

Khaotung drove all of his nervous energy into the run, not dropping from a dead sprint until he reached the river, nearly two kilometers away. It had been a while since he ran in the morning. Before that period a year and a half ago, he had run at night—when it was cooler and the cats were out. Now, he wondered, as he ran past the alleyway where he used to stop to feed and pet the little clowder, whether they still gathered in the late evening. Whether they still waited for him to come bearing scraps of meat and eggs. 

First, he had abandoned them in the joy of finally finding a human friend in the dense, uncaring concrete of the Bangkok acting scene. Then, he had been too poor to offer them anything but pets—and too ashamed to show up empty-handed. Especially when he could barely feed his own cat.

Now, he thought about them for the first time in months. Wondered if any of them were secretly humans who had spent the last year watching him run by, judging and resenting him for failing to keep his promises. 

He stopped, finally, in the park along the riverbank, hands on his knees and heaving for breath. He hadn’t gone running in too long. Or maybe it was the lack of decent food that made his thighs tremble and his head swim. 

A voice shouted nearby. Khaotung glanced over his shoulder. Relaxed when he saw a short man calling to his child.

He was tempting fate, being out here at 9 a.m. This park, this river—the smell of it, morning sun glinting from brown waves—it all conjured the poison-tipped memory of someone jogging beside him, with a smile saying, this is the only time I can fit in my schedule. I thought you wanted to hang out more? Someone who held his hand and told him it would be alright. Who might still run by this river in the mornings, long after everything had turned out distinctly not alright.  For Khaotung, anyway.

The heat of the day beat down on the top of Khaotung's head, just as it had back then. Back when he had shelled out for the most expensive suncream just so he could run in the mornings, and not alone. Even if he did get a callback, he was fucking up his chances by being out here without it. 

Khaotung found a shade-covered bench—not their bench—and let his tears mingle with the sting of sweat in his eyes. 

He just—missed his cat, that was all. And moreover, he missed being touched. Hadn’t been hugged since the last time he visited home—over a year ago now. Because he couldn’t leave First alone, and First wouldn’t go in the carrier. He missed having people. People who loved him, who cared about more than his audition record or his unfortunate history.

Staring out at the river, the smell of sewage and algae swirling up from the banks—he wished violently that he had left. Dumped First on someone else's doorstep and skipped town. He had planned to, right after everything went sideways. He had gone home and sobbed to his mother and insisted he was giving up. That he would go to a nice, cheap college in Chiang Mai and find a real job.

And then he had come back here to pack his things—and found First, mewling in front of his apartment, wet and cold and pathetic. He had thought it a sign. That there was something still for him here. 

But now? One year later, he was farther than ever from his dreams. And First could take care of himself and his own, newly human problems. 

He’s not my cat anymore. 

The birds swooping over the river called:

And yet. 

And yet. 

There was still rent to pay. And there was always, eternally, that stupid flicker of hope that maybe this was his chance. This role was his role. Someone would overlook his past and realize he was good at this. That he belonged here.

Just until he knew for sure he didn't get the part. After that, either he would leave, or First would have to move out and figure out his own, human, life. 

With a sigh, Khaotung stood up. Wiped tears and sweat away with the bottom of his t-shirt and began the long trudge back. 

At the apartment, he barely nodded to First before disappearing into the bathroom to shower. When he finished dressing and headed out to the living room just a few minutes before they needed to leave, First waited for him at the kitchen table in another new outfit, this time a polo shirt and khaki shorts. 

He ate a quick breakfast, realizing only as he put the food away that he wasn't sure if First had eaten. But surely, while Khaotung had been out running, he must have helped himself to something. First was a human, and he could take care of his own needs—Khaotung had to repeat the mantra in his head until he remembered it. 

Distracted as he was, Khaotung startled when First got up and headed for the door.

“You have to be a cat for the audition.”

First paused, one hand on the knob, and looked over his shoulder with a placid smile. “I’m going to change somewhere nearby. There’s a mall, I checked on your laptop.”

Khaotung remembered, with sinking horror, singing out his password to his cat while tapping him on the nose. Firfiriscute. Firfiriscute. Because it’s true, so I can remember it. He was such a moron. He braced for some kind of ridicule, some sidelong mention of how easy it is to remember, since it's named for me.

But First only nodded to the carrier Khaotung had left by the door. “Don’t forget that for the set.”

“And I’m supposed to carry it until then?” Khaotung grumbled. But he picked it up and followed in First’s wake, swayed momentarily by the calm assurance. The way First no longer waited for Khaotung’s permission, but strode through the world on his own terms.

Minute by minute, he acted more like a person and less like a cat.

Because he is a person.  And soon, as Khaotung had thought before, he would move on to his own, human life. 

Khaotung stood in the hallway and watched First walk away toward the stairwell, empty carrier clutched in his arms, a splitting ache sawing through his breastbone. 

How could he not have known?

Shouldn’t First hate him?

And wasn’t it truly awful to wish First was not a person at all?

True to First’s plan, they found a mall near the audition site. First crowded into a bathroom stall after Khaotung and began to strip. 

“What are you doing?” Khaotung pressed back into the flimsy wall, evading contact with First’s long limbs. “Go in a different stall.”

“Then how would you get in?”

“You could just scoot under the space between the dividers as a cat.”

“What about my clothes?”

“Shove them under before you change!”

“But the door would still be locked from the inside. Isn’t that suspicious?”

“Not as suspicious as two men in one stall,” Khaotung whisper-screamed. He hadn’t heard anyone come in after them, and he had made sure it was empty before they began, but still. “Especially when only one comes out!”

“I didn’t want my new clothes to get dirty.” First’s answer came muffled and reproachful as he pulled his shirt over his head. 

“Oh for fucks—” Khaotung turned around and pressed his forehead to the no-doubt-disgusting stall divider and shoved the bag in First’s direction. “Just hurry up.”

The bag jostled as First deposited clothing and shoes inside. 

“Done,” he said. 

Khaotung waited a moment for him to turn into a cat and then turned—to find a very much still human and naked First, grinning impishly at him. 

“You little—!”

First winked—and then shrank down until all that remained was a tiny black cat and a very smug meow. 

“Bastard,” Khaotung muttered. “Standing in bare feet in the bathroom is disgusting, by the way.”

The cat rolled its eyes at him—he hadn’t even known cats could fucking do that—and picked up its paws one at a time with exaggerated care until Khaotung got the message.

“It’s different with paws. I don’t know why, but it is.” Although now that he thought about it—

”Don’t lick those. Not even as a cat.”

First stood on his hind legs, front paws reaching up Khaotung’s thigh to drag over his jeans, and meowed again. 

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t do this to you.” And First seemed in no hurry to find the person who had. “Now hush. Or we’ll get in trouble.”

He scooped the small body up and paused for a moment. Ridiculous, the cool relief that washed over him with that furry weight in his arms; the way the switch flipped in his mind without any effort at all. It was just so much easier to deal with the cat than the man. To pretend that nothing had changed, that he still had an uncomplicated and adoring pet to return home to every day.

Not a very complicated, very independent man. Who somehow still relied on Khaotung for everything material, but no longer reciprocated any of his uncomplicated feelings—had, in fact, ripped those feelings out of Khaotung’s heart with his very existence. 

Khaotung sighed. Allowed himself a single pet of First’s soft head, and then zipped the carrier closed. And wasn’t that a strange sight: First allowing himself to be pushed inside, with nothing more than a frigid glare. 

It didn’t reassure him to see First acting less and less like the cat he remembered. 

But there was nothing he could do about it, so he slid the lock of the stall open and headed out.

It turned out that audition was the wrong word—after ten minutes of questions and looking First over, the director had them on a prepared set and shooting. Khaotung stood to the side of the tiny fake-kitchen set with his arms crossed, trying not to resent First, the pet commercial industry, and the entire fucking world. 

“We saw on your Instagram that he does tricks,” the director had said, his eyes lighting up when First jumped from the carrier and sat prettily at Khaotung’s feet without a single meow. 

Khaotung shrugged. “He knows basic commands.” Was that suspicious? 

But the avaricious light in the director’s eyes only sharpened. “On Instagram, you have videos of him opening doors and drawers and fetching toys for you to throw.”

“Sure. But not on command.”

“We could try, right?” He crouched down in front of First and reached out a hand to pet him. “And aren’t you a little cutie?”

Don’t nod, don’t nod. Luckily, First seemed more focused on avoiding the man's hand than on parsing his Thai. He flinched sideways and then got up to wind between Khaotung’s legs and sit behind him.

“Is he not friendly?” the director asked with a frown.

Khaotung nudged First gently with his foot. “Very friendly.” Too friendly, some might say. “Aren’t you, Fir?” He crouched down as well and scritched under First’s chin. “He just prefers if you introduce yourself first.”

“Well, isn’t that cute?” But instead of reaching out to let First sniff his hand, the director straightened. “Since I’m not going to be the one acting with him, though, I won’t bother overwhelming him. Love!” The last word was shouted at full volume.

In response, a short, slender woman lifted her head from a discussion and trotted over. “Yes? This my co-star?”

“Co-star?” Khaotung looked between the two of them. “I thought this was an audition.”

The director laughed. “Pet auditions don’t work that way, kid. We sourced you and First from Instagram already, remember? As long as you’re okay with the paperwork, and First here seems in the mood to act, we’ll just dive right in and see if we can get the footage we need.”

So that was how Khaotung ended up watching as First sailed through his very first acting job with no audition and less than an hour of preparation. He spent most of it wondering how he could get cursed to turn into a cat and thus have a stable fucking career for once in his life. 

Not that it all went completely smoothly. The first twenty minutes, Khaotung stood behind the camera and shook his head every time First looked over at him instead of at Love, who was portraying his owner. 

“Your cat's really obsessed with you, huh?” the director said with a laugh when they had to cut again and Khaotung began making slit-throat gestures at First’s wide-eyed stare. 

“Something like that,” Khaotung muttered. The real problem was that First didn’t want to be there. But couldn’t he see that the more he glared resentfully at Khaotung, the longer this would take? And he knew how bare Khaotung’s fridge was. 

“Let’s take five,” the director said. “Does he need anything?”

“Maybe some food?” Mostly, Khaotung wanted the man to go away so he could scold First in private. 

“Sure. Phum? Jan?” He waved over a few crew members, and Khaotung took advantage of the distraction to dart onto set and scoop First up to his face. 

“Can you focus?” he whispered into the soft-furred ear. “Remember, the faster you get this done, the faster we can leave.” With cash in hand, hopefully.

First meowed plaintively.

“This little man is such a sweetheart.” Love, the actress, hovered next to Khaotung’s shoulder. Unlike the director, she offered a hand for First to sniff, although he had already greeted her before the shoot started. “Even if he’s taking a while to warm up to me.” She smiled up at Khaotung, and he felt tall. He was tall, compared to most people in Thailand, but spending so much time at home with First—

“Um. Yeah. I guess.” 

“Am I doing something wrong?” 

“No, he’s just being finicky. For no reason.”

First turned amber eyes in Khaotung’s direction and deliberately moved his head out of Love’s reach when she tried to give him the treat an assistant brought over. 

“Oh, dear.”

“It’s really not your fault.” He held First out with both arms to dangle in front of his face. “You agreed to do this, remember?”

Love laughed, light and musical. “I’ve had much worse,” she assured him. 

He still felt bad for the wistful look in her wide, pretty eyes. Tucking First into his arm, he tried to smile at the young woman. “You do a lot of pet commercials?“

She nodded. “Mostly dogs, though I like cats better. And they like me. Usually.”

And now he felt even worse. 

“Alright, let’s try from the top,” the director called. 

“Are you going to behave?” Khaotung asked his cat. 

First considered him with unreadable, inhuman eyes. Khaotung sighed and smoothed a hand over his little head as he set the cat back on the set’s countertop. When First chirped, Khaotung leaned down and kissed him between the ears. “Please be good?”

He felt those eyes follow him all the way back to the camera.

Just like a real cat, he couldn’t force First to do something he didn’t want to. But he could at least ameliorate his half of the problem. 

“Is it okay if I’m off set? In a backroom somewhere?”

The director’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t mind leaving him here?”

Khaotung shrugged unhappily and tried not to think about First’s look of betrayal every time he shut the apartment door in his face on the way out. “I just think things will go smoother.”

“Suit yourself.”

So he waited in the green room, ate sand-dry granola bars, and thought only of dozens and dozens of auditions he had been rejected from. Every time he had been turned away without even reading lines, misscheduled, or baited into thinking it was a real job when it was only some pyramid scheme of a scam. 

Cats had it so fucking easy. Ungrateful cats who didn’t even want to be cats anymore, despite the easy money. 

Khaotung checked his email for the thousandth time—still no updates on the callback—and sighed. Maybe the run-in with the AD outside the building had ruined everything. Or maybe he had simply exaggerated their enthusiasm for his performance in his own mind. It had been so long since anyone had complimented his acting—he had gotten over-excited.

He couldn’t just walk into one decent audition and expect to win the part.

Unlike certain cats.

When the director called wrap, Khaotung heard it through the paper-thin walls of the temporary set. He left the break room to find Love walking over with a smile on her face and First in her arms.

“He’s finally warming up to me, I think.” She made a forward motion, and he realized belatedly that he was supposed to take the cat. 

“See, he does like you.” Khaotung tried to keep his tone cheerful. How incredibly stupid, for his pulse to race, his hands to sweat, like he was face to face with a cobra. It was two in the fucking afternoon, and besides—Love had only been kind so far.

First puddled into his arms and braced both forepaws on his chest, gently kneading at his t-shirt as he purred.

“Do you have many cats?”

“No, not—just this one.” He was so fucking awkward at small talk. Now that the shoot was done and the purpose of their conversation undefined—he hated this stuff. Khaotung glanced around for a quick exit, but the director was busy, and he needed to ask about payment. He should have asked at the start. Probably should have negotiated, too. Fuck, he was an even worse cat-manager than actor.

He gave up and turned back to Love and her engaged smile. 

“You?”

Love’s eyes sparkled, as if she had been waiting for this question. “No! But I want one so badly. I recently moved out of my parents’ place, so maybe I can get one soon. Is he a special breed? Where did you get him?” She reached out to pet First again, but he squirmed just as she did so. 

Khaotung twitched as her fingers trailed over his bare arm. He shifted the cat again, putting his chin on First’s tiny head to keep him still. Though she seemed nice enough, he really just wanted to get paid and go home.

“Oh, no. He’s just a stray.”

Her perfectly manicured eyebrows flew up. “And he’s that well-trained?”

Khaotung shrugged. “It’s more to do with temperament than breed, I think.” And being a whole-ass fucking human. “You might have better luck with a breeder, though. I couldn’t afford a fancy cat, but I wasn’t even looking to adopt this guy. He just wandered onto my doorstep.” 

She clapped both hands over her mouth, big, brown eyes shining. He was reminded of First, suddenly. The human version. First merr ed in his arms, as if he felt the electric tension piping through Khaotung’s nerves. 

“But that’s adorable. You really were meant to be together, huh?”

“Um.” He shifted First to one arm so he could bend down for the carrier. Tried twice to open it with one hand while First wriggled unhelpfully. “I guess.” He knew he must be blushing, not just from the heat radiating off his face, but from the gentle amusement in her eyes. 

“Do you need help?”

“Maybe?” 

She fetched the soft, cloth carrier out of his hand and unzipped the front door. “Here, plop him in.”

“Easier said than done,” Khaotung muttered, as First shifted gear from squirming to trying to claw up his arms. “You’ll be out soon, just suck it up!”

Love burst out in a waterfall of laughter. “You talk to him like he can understand.”

“Well, you never know.” He gave her a pained grin and then focused on stuffing First in the carrier. “The faster you go in, the faster we can leave.” That, finally, seemed to get through to the silly cat. He allowed Khaotung’s next attempt to settle him inside, with only a single wounded meow.

As he slid the zipper home, Love smiled and said, “I guess you’re in a hurry to be off, then?”

Khaotung fought not to roll his eyes. From the mischievous look on her face, he didn’t succeed. “Someone is.”

“I can see who’s the real master in this relationship.”

She laughed, and Khaotung laughed too—she was kind, he realized. Easy to be around. Undemanding. But his palms still sweated against his pants, and he wished, with increasing urgency, to be away.

“Don’t forget to buy him a treat with the payment—he deserves it.” She crouched down to the carrier’s mesh front again. “Bye, First. See you again, maybe.”

As she waved to Khaotung and headed off set, First began to caterwaul. Despite everything, the pathetic sound of his cat’s cries tugged at Khaotung’s heart. He picked up the carrier in his arms and pressed his face to the mesh door. “Hey. It’s okay. We’re almost done, little cat. Just a bit longer—we need to get paid, remember?”

First settled with a soft chirp, shifting in the carrier until he sat more comfortably against Khaotung’s chest—then resumed wailing when Khaotung lowered him again as the director approached. 

“Glad he waited to do that until after the shoot,” the director said. 

“I apologize, sir.”

“No, no.” The smile looked genuine, at least. “How would you feel about shooting a whole series of commercials?”

“All with Khun Love?” 

The director blinked. “Probably? Is that an issue? First seemed to take well to her.” First, bastard that he was, meowed indignantly from the carrier. 

“No—I mean yes, he did—It’s not an issue at all, I’ll just have to check—” Again, he cut himself off. No, he did not need to check with his cat. “My calendar. Can you send the dates and times you’d like to film?”

The director’s smile reappeared. “Of course. We’ll be in touch on Insta.”

“Great.” And it was—great. They would have a steady stream of income for a little while. As long as he could get First on board with being a cat again. 

First yowled. “You’ll get to see Khun Love again soon, so hush.” 

“He misses her already?”

“Best I can figure.” Why else would his human cat be screaming so much at the end of the shoot? He knew they would leave in a second, and he knew that leaving meant getting out of the carrier and the cat body. “Um, about the payment—”

“Right here.” The director handed him an envelope.

It took all of Khaotung’s will and ingrained politeness from years of his mother’s scolding not to peek inside. “Thank you so much, khun.” He wai-ed and then left before anyone else could corner him into small talk.

As they left the building, First kept meowing—but Khaotung figured he either knew the reason, or he knew the fastest way to get the reason, so he said, “I get it, we’re going back to the mall,” and First finally shut up. 

He had to transfer First from the carrier back to his large shoulder bag—cats weren’t allowed in the mall—then got in the bathroom stall, set First on the ground, and turned around. 

“Here.” When he felt First’s human-sized warmth, he held the clothes out without looking. “What the hell were you meowing about?”

“Just wanted to come back here and change.” Fingers brushed between his shoulder blades. “Thank you for understanding.”

Khaotung shuffled sideways in the narrow stall until the hand dropped away. “Sure.” He had also meant when they were still on set, but it was too late to clarify. 

“Are you hungry?”

Khaotung shrugged. He was starving—but they should eat at home, not in an expensive food court. “Are you dressed yet?” 

“Yes.” First’s voice was amused, but Khaotung did his best to ignore it. He waited another thirty seconds, until First’s human chin popped over his shoulder—not touching—and cold air blew in his ear. 

“Gah—” Khaotung yelped and clapped a hand over the side of his head. He spun to find First fully clothed and laughing. “Stop it!” he hissed. There were people in this bathroom. People who now knew that two men were crammed together in a single stall. 

He made First wait until the room emptied before they exited the stall, and then made him go out alone, while he waited an additional three minutes to exit. He prayed that no one was paying much attention to the security footage from the cameras he could see perched around the hallway to the bathroom and by the mall entrance. Worst case, he supposed they thought First had spent the last three hours doing fuck-knows-what in a mall bathroom. 

As they exited the mall proper, Khaotung pulled out the envelope of cash. Considering they had walked into the job that day, it was more than he expected. Maybe he should have negotiated a higher rate, now that he thought about it. He would have to do some research online to see what a typical cat salary was. But while there wasn’t quite enough to stop worrying about rent, there was more than enough to pay for a meal. He turned back toward the mall and the food court. “Do you—”

But First hadn’t turned with him. 

“I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” he said, already reading the timetable on the bus stop outside the mall. 

“But—” Khaotung frowned, his stomach swooping like he had just missed a step on the way down a ladder. “Where are you going?”

First glanced over his shoulder and smiled his unflappable smile. “See you at home, okay?”

“I—” 

Khaotung pulled the cash payment out of his wallet and stared at the bills. Thought about all the things he needed—food and electricity and rent—and all the things he wanted—new outfits and head shots and a trip home to see his mother. 

“Wait.” 

First, only three steps away, turned back.

Khaotung selected enough for groceries for the week, and then held the rest out. First looked from Khaotung’s pathetically threadbare wallet to the cash, as if unsure what it signified.

“Here.” Khaotung closed the distance and shoved the wad of bills into his chest. “You earned it.”

“But—”

“You’re a person, right?” Khaotung didn’t wait for an answer to the inane question. “And it was you in front of the cameras.”

“Can’t we split it evenly?”

“Just take it, khun.”

First lifted his eyes to meet Khaotung’s, features starkly shadowed from the direct sunlight overhead. “You don’t have to be so formal with me, you know.”

Khaotung’s heart fluttered in his throat. He hadn’t even noticed the shift to formal register over the last two days. But now that he thought about it—he hadn’t once used First’s name while he was in human form. Let alone a more familiar term of address. 

“I don’t know you,” Khaotung replied—and swallowed hard under the flicker of First’s brown eyes. 

First slowly raised both hands to accept the money, fingers gentle against Khaotung’s twitching skin. “Thank you, Khaotung.”

Khaotung shook his head, words caught in his chest, suffocating like a blanket of dust over old, unused furniture.

“I won’t be back until late,” First added.

And then he turned and walked in the other direction, leaving Khaotung to make his way back alone. 

Chapter Text

When Khaotung woke the next morning, his bed was empty. But there was a wallet—a brand-new wallet that did not belong to him—squatting on his bedside table, small and sleek and sullen, as if unsure of its welcome.

He had gone to bed early, before First got back, after a depressing meal of rice and an evening of sitting in the dark, checking his email every three seconds and thinking about what he would do if the drama role didn’t pan out. He should have been running lines, or sourcing new auditions, or even researching other commercial opportunities for First. But all he could think about was how lonely his apartment was now. And how stupid it was that the moment he decided he wanted to give up and go home, he couldn’t. 

Now, he picked up the wallet with a frown. It looked brand new—and designer. A small, golden cat charm hung off the zipper. He unzipped it to find it stuffed with cash. 

Shaking his head, Khaotung threw the covers back and stomped out to the kitchen, holding the wallet in front of him like a weapon.  

“We can’t—” Khaotung blinked at the tableau in front of him “—afford this.” Plastic bags covered his minuscule countertop space. Each bag overflowed with bundles of greens, colorful vegetables, cartons of fruit and eggs. He strode over to the fridge on instinct, opened it to find three kinds of meat in neat paper bundles. The door handle slid from his nerveless hand.

“Any of this.”

First stood at the single remaining empty square of countertop, a cutting board and melon chunks in front of him, knife in one hand. “You gave the money to me.” His jaw set in a stubborn line. “So I can buy what I want with it.”

Khaotung stared at the abundance of groceries, hand at his throat. His fingers tapped on flushed skin as he did mental tallies of just how much First must have spent. 

“It’s okay, Khaotung. I’m going to do more commercials, right? We’ll have more money soon.” First turned back to slicing. “And you need to eat something besides rice.”

Khaotung drew a deep breath. “Fine. Food—yes. But this?” He held up the wallet, the cat charm glinting in the shaft of morning light from his east-facing window.  

“It’s a thank-you for taking care of me for a year. Yours is falling apart.”

Khaotung turned away, cheeks burning. First must have noticed Khaotung’s reluctance to pull out his fraying wallet in front of the receptionist who had paid them yesterday. Stupid cats and their stupid observation skills. 

“And to celebrate you getting a callback!”

Khaotung froze halfway through slumping into a kitchen chair. “What?”

First’s back was to him as he chopped. Khaotung watched the lines of his neck tighten under the loose collar of one of Khaotung’s oldest, softest t-shirts. But when he turned around, First’s smile was unaffected. “I mean, I’m sure you’re going to get it. You said it went really well, remember?”

Had he said that? He had thought it—but been too afraid to articulate out loud to anyone. Least of all to First, after he had shown up unannounced and gotten him in trouble with the AD and no doubt ruined everything, anyway.

He opened his mouth, but First kept talking. “And we’re set up for more commercials, right? We can celebrate that. Have you checked to see if they gave you new filming dates?”

Khaotung pulled his phone out and navigated to Instagram, obeying the suggestion automatically as his mind churned on the raised pitch of First’s voice and the jerky movement of the knife in his hand as he gestured blindly. 

“Can you cook the eggs?”

“What?” Khaotung peered from his phone to the figure once more busily chopping fruit at his kitchen counter. “What?” His brain stumbled; tripped over coherent thought like a drunk runner over low-slung hurdles. It was too early for this much information. Too little time to process so many rippling changes in First’s demeanor. In Khaotung’s life. 

“I never really learned to cook,” First admitted. “But I can chop things, at least.” 

“Right.” Khaotung closed his mouth on questions—what kind of life did you live before you were my cat?—and stood up to fetch a pan for frying eggs. 

When he had the heat on and the butter melting, he looked sideways at First, who was still chopping. Scallion, now, presumably to go on the eggs. Under the sharp smell of onions and the sweet one of fruit floated the comforting scent of his cat mixed with Khaotung’s own shampoo. First must have showered—his hair looked soft and ruffled like it had air dried. A lock of hair stuck up from the top of his head. Almost like a patch of fur when his cat got distracted mid-grooming session.

Khaotung’s hand tightened around an egg, cracking the shell in a splintering mess. 

“Shit.” At least it was over the pan. “I hope you like your eggs scrambled,” he muttered as he picked pieces of shell from the hot pan with his cooking chopsticks.

“I like all eggs.” First’s shoulder brushed against his in the narrow space. 

Khaotung couldn’t tell if the warmth in the words was amusement or reassurance. He tried to focus on the eggs, but couldn’t help glancing over again. In between downward flashes of the knife, he finally saw the white cottony texture of tissue, wrapped around the third finger of the hand holding the scallions steady. 

“What happened?”

First paused. Held the finger up to his face, as if he, too, had just noticed it, and then smiled ruefully. “I couldn’t hold the knife steady at first.”

Khaotung marched to the bathroom and came back with a box of band aids. “You know where I keep these,” he muttered as he grabbed First’s wrist and peeled off the tissue. “Why would you put tissue on it?” He tched in disgust when the fibers clung to the line of red across First’s finger. 

First stayed docile as Khaotung tugged him to the sink and gingerly cleaned the wound. “I didn’t want to bleed on the food. Or the floor. And then it seemed fine.” 

When the bandage was firmly affixed, Khaotung tched again and resumed scrambling the eggs in the pan. “Be more careful.”

“Yes, Khaotung.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

First didn’t respond, but when Khaotung looked over again, he was smiling down at the cutting board, chopping each slice of scallion with slow precision. 

When the eggs were ready, Khaotung plated them, and added rice from the rice cooker and pre-cooked sausages First had bought from the market. First put the plate of fruit in the middle of the table and a smaller bowl in front of his own chair. 

“I missed fruit so much,” he said, and selected a chunk of mango from the bowl with a contented hum.

“What’s that?”

“Just the first pieces I cut.” He nudged the bowl further out of Khaotung’s reach with his bandaged hand and nodded to the bigger plate, where the colorful fruit selection was neatly arranged in circular patterns, each slice nearly uniform in size. “Those are for you.”

Heat crept up Khaotung’s neck. “You don’t have to…” Khaotung’s hand hovered over the arrangement, unwilling to ruin the pattern by taking a piece. 

First’s eyes crinkled, his mouth still full of mango as he spoke. “Did I do a good job?”

Khaotung looked down. Grabbed a precisely cut strawberry and stuffed it into his mouth. “Yes,” he mumbled. 

That dimpled smile widened into the grin of a satisfied cat. Khaotung braced himself against further teasing—but First only dug into his eggs and hummed absently as he ate. 

Khaotung watched him for a moment. Maybe humming was the human equivalent of purring. Was First only now seized by the urge to make noise when he was happy, or had always done that, before he was a cat? Khaotung couldn’t stop thinking about pre-cat First. What his life was like, how he had turned into a cat, why he seemed so unaffected by the whole thing. 

Why he seemed perfectly content to stay here, with Khaotung, as if nothing had changed besides the shape of his body.

“So?”

Khaotung shook out of his reverie. The strawberry left lingering sweetness as he swallowed hastily. “So, what?” 

“Did the cat commercial people give a schedule?”

Right. He had left off checking for updates in favor of making eggs. “Um. Yes, actually. They want to see you again on Tuesday. That okay?” No need to check his own calendar.

“What if you get the callback, though?”

Khaotung stabbed at a sausage, but it rolled away from his fork. “Probably won’t. And if I do, they should have several days I can pick from. You’re okay with more commercials?” 

First cocked his head with a frown. Again, Khaotung resisted the urge to pat down the single lock of hair sticking out at an angle. “Do I have a choice?”

Don’t say it like that.  

“Not if you want to stay here,” Khaotung agreed, forking the sausage with renewed annoyance. “But you don’t mind the set? The people? What about your co-star, she was nice?” 

“She was fine.”

Why was this like pulling teeth?

“Look, we need to figure out a long-term solution.”

First’s gaze slid away. His whole, lanky frame stilled, and Khaotung was reminded viscerally of a cat on high alert. “To what?”

“I can’t—” Khaotung gritted his teeth. “That couch is not big enough to sleep on.” As a human, First’s legs probably hung off the edge—it was only a two-seater. 

First’s eyes widened as they snapped back to Khaotung’s face. “Oh.” He grinned and picked up a piece of melon with his fingers. “That’s fine. It’s no problem to just sleep as a cat.”

“But—you wake up human, right?”

“Not always. Last night I stayed.”

“Oh. Okay.”

First leaned forward, head lowered to peer up into Khaotung’s downturned expression. “You were that worried?”

Heat flared across his cheeks. “I just—realized I closed you out—” Not that it had stopped First that first night. “And we didn’t talk about sleeping arrangements.” They hadn’t talked about anything, really. 

Something buzzed. Thanking fate for the reprieve from his idiocy, Khaotung glanced at his phone. 

It sat quiescent on the table. 

First fished in his pocket and pulled out a refurbished older model. As he unlocked the screen and presumably checked the notification, he began to smile. 

“You got a phone?” Why hadn’t First told him? Given him the number?

“Yeah.” First glanced up. “Actually, I can’t do Tuesday for the commercial. Do you think they’ll reschedule it?”

“You—what?” And he had plans? “Why?”

“Just busy,” First said vaguely, stacking his now-empty dishes in preparation to carry them to the sink. 

It was that simple. “Busy, huh?” The sweetness of strawberry soured in Khaotung’s mouth. “Any chance whoever you’re busy with can lend you some money? Or maybe a place to stay?”

The soft lines of First’s body tautened, a marionette hauled up by the strings. “It’s not like that.”

Of course it wasn’t. Of course, Khaotung was just being an asshole to someone who had only ever been kind. Someone who needed help, had nothing—because if he had something else, he certainly wouldn’t still be here. 

He stood up from the table so fast that his chair tipped over. “Fuck.” Righted it with shaking hands, dropping it twice in the process.

“Are you okay?” First stood too and reached across the small space. 

Khaotung jerked his arm out of the way before the outstretched hand made contact. “Fine—just—” He ran for the bathroom and locked the door. Sat on the closed toilet and took deep, shaky breaths. 

First had plans. His cat, who hadn’t been human for more than three whole fucking days, had more of a social life than he did. But still, he had to keep living here. In Khaotung’s tiny space, with Khaotung’s limited budget, rubbing it in Khaotung’s face that he had never been Khaotung’s pet, never really been Khaotung’s to love in any way. 

Uncomplicated or otherwise. 

He stared at the light blue towel, the one First must have dug out of his closet—because Khaotung had completely forgotten to supply him with anything besides clothing—and used to shower with at some point. His gaze slid to the second toothbrush sitting in his cheery yellow cup. When had First bought a toothbrush? This morning? When he got the phone? Why was he still here? Why was he sleeping on Khaotung’s couch as a cat, when he professed to be anxious about getting stuck in feline shape?

Nothing he did made any sense.

When he emerged, First looked up from doing dishes, his expression grave. “I can do Tuesday. I can—”

“I already messaged the director and told them it doesn’t work for us. They’ll send a few options.”

“I’m sorry.” First hung his head and Khaotung closed his eyes. Leaned against the wall. Cursed himself once again for treating First like a cat. Like something he should have perfect control over, instead of a human being with a life of his own. 

“No. It’s—you’re the one making money. We should prioritize your schedule.”

First opened his mouth again, then simply shook his head and looked contrite. Finally, he said, “I can do any time before then—if we need the money sooner.”

We.

“That’s not—” Well, it was as good an excuse as any. Better than the truth. “Sure. I’ll let them know.”

As he opened his phone, he saw a new notification. “Shit.”

“The audition?” 

Khaotung glanced up to find First staring at him, as intently as if he were the one no longer pulling his weight in the household. “It’s probably nothing,” he muttered as his just-settled pulse kicked back into a flurry. 

It took two tries for his sweaty thumb to open the correct app. Took a full thirty seconds for his eyes to process the blurring words. It was definitely from the casting call but—it was probably— 

“So?”

“I—I got it.”

“What?” First lurched forward, banging his knee on an open cabinet door—the first clumsy movement Khaotung had seen from him. “You did?”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” Khaotung snapped. He scrolled up and down the email, shaping the words with his lips to be sure. We would love to see you for a second round of auditions. Please select your availability from the options below. 

“I don’t have the role. But I have a callback. Maybe—a screen test?”

“Is that a good sign?”

“It means they’re narrowing it down and they want to see how their top options play off each other.”

Khaotung set his phone down and stared off into the distance. A screen test… He was much worse at those. They required making people like you in a very short amount of time, and Khaotung liked very few people, and even fewer in a short amount of time. Strangers were just so—tediously false. Everyone pretended to be having a good time when they would rather be anywhere else. Khaotung was simply honest about his preferences. 

And most people decided it wasn’t worth the effort to change his mind.

Maybe it would be easier in a BL when he only had to deal with other men—but probably not. If they had heard any rumors, they might just be predisposed against him and ruin his odds further.

“Let’s go out.” First was still looking at him as if he had won a Nobel Peace Prize.

“What?”

“To celebrate! Let’s go out for food.”

“It’s only a callback.” Khaotung knew all too well how little a callback meant. “And you just bought all these groceries.”

First shrugged. “We can use them tomorrow. You can teach me to cook.” He smiled that open, earnest smile—and Khaotung was so fucked. He had never been able to resist First as a cat, with his cute chirps and his little paws and his habit of rubbing that little pink nose into Khaotung’s sternum before sleeping on his chest. 

This—this totally unearned joy on Khaotung’s behalf—was somehow worse. 

They went to Lumpini Park, and First stared around as if they had entered the gates of heaven. Every toddler running ahead of its family under the tree-shaded paths made him laugh. Every pigeon that hopped out of the way, or myna that burst, startled, from a tree, caught his flitting attention. Though his posture stayed poised and his pace sedate as they strolled toward the lake, Khaotung could feel him vibrating with suppressed movement. 

“Do you want to chase it?” he asked, nodding at the tiny yellow-beaked brown bird that First watched with avaricious eyes. 

When First continued to stare, Khaotung touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Fir?”

First jumped, all long limbs and disgruntled features. Khaotung’s mind replaced the image with a small, black cat startling sideways, back arched, and fur fluffed. 

He held up both hands and tried not to laugh at First’s expression. “Sorry, khun. It flew off,” he added, as First’s head swung back to the bird. “But there are more birds over there.”

First accepted this as recompense and led the way toward his next point of interest. 

Khaotung bought them ice cream—using the fancy new wallet and money donated by First, but whatever—and waited while his odd roommate examined a particularly gnarly banyan tree. 

While waiting, he glanced out at the glittering lake, where giant swan-shaped boats paddled around, captained by gaggles of teens and giggling couples. The first time he had brought his mother out to visit—with his first significant paycheck—they had rented a boat and paddled around until they were exhausted.

She had flicked lake water at him, teasing that he should bring a faen and not his mother. That he needed to eat more so he had the energy to paddle someone around without getting all sweaty and gross. 

He had replied that, lazy as he was, he would rather find someone who could paddle for him, and she had laughed and laughed. 

Back then, he had already known he liked men—and he was pretty sure his mother suspected too. But she hadn’t clarified, then or any other time, and he had never quite had the courage. Now, he wished only that he could afford to go home and feel her arms around him. Even if it was accompanied by a scolding to find someone and get married.

First trotted over, expression still radiant. Khaotung handed over the ice cream—and turned away from the naked joy in First’s eyes as he took a bite. 

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” First hummed with delight. 

Khaotung nodded, though he would have said park ice cream was nothing to get excited about. 

“Can we sit in the grass for a bit?” First pointed at a soft-looking patch of green under the nearest tree, with a view of the lake, and then bounced over without waiting for a reply.

Khaotung settled next to him. But while First’s gaze flitted from person to tree to bird to the vegetation at his fingertips, Khaotung’s stayed locked on First’s face. “It’s been a while since you were outside, huh?”

First grinned at him. “I went out the last two days! The grass is so soft. And I forgot how blue the sky can be.”

Khaotung leaned his head on bent knees and tried not to cry. 

At the market, he had been too focused on food, on money, to think about First going outside in human form. And then he had left for the audition. Left First to buy clothes by himself. 

How had First felt, that very first time he was outside in months—the first time in over a year as a person with full color vision? Had the mango tasted too sweet, or exactly as he remembered? Had he been shy with the shop clerks, had he remembered how the bus worked without issue?

Khaotung had been wrapped up in panic, in resentment, instead of sharing in that wonder and joy. 

“What did you miss the most?”

First settled back against the tree and sifted grass through his hands. “You always opened the windows for me when it wasn’t too hot. So I had sunshine and rain and wind.”

“You don’t have to pretend it was okay. Being locked inside.”

“If I was a real cat, it was more than okay, Khaotung.” First’s eyes were too kind. “You did everything to make me comfortable, and you let me outside whenever I wanted to go.”

More like he had given up keeping First from slipping out the door. Since First always came back—and only left once a month or so—he hadn’t worried too much about preventing those occasional excursions.

Khaotung nodded in acknowledgement, if not agreement. “So then?”

“Touching things with human hands,” First decided as he skimmed open palms over the grass and the dirt. “They’re just so much more sensitive. There are so many textures in the world that I wanted to feel. Not just outside, but at your place. That soft blanket you have is so nice.”

Khaotung bit his lip. Tried not to think about his hands on cat-First’s soft body.

“But with fur, it’s mostly too warm.” First glanced up again, wide smile in full force. “And you, of course. You feel even nicer this way.” He reached out and brushed two fingertips over Khaotung’s cheekbone before Khaotung could flinch away. “Sorry. I know I’m not supposed to touch as a human.”

Khaotung glared at the dirt. A tiny black bug crawled over his sneaker, and he imagined being that small, that self-contained. Something with a hard shell and no capacity for embarrassment. Sometimes, he truly did not understand why First no longer wanted to be a cat. 

“It’s—whatever. It’s just not polite.” First could find other people to touch. All human skin felt the same anyway, right? First just liked him because he blushed easily. “What else do you want to do?”

First’s eyes were too luminous, too knowing. The scant air between them shuddered, charged with static, and Khaotung knew he must be blushing yet again. 

Then First grinned, and the significant moment dissolved in a puff. 

He pointed out to the lake. “I want to ride the duck boats!”

Khaotung laughed. “Hell yes.” He leapt to his feet and took off for the rental stand, First in close pursuit. 

Chapter Text

They stayed out on the swan boats for the full hour and First did almost all the pedaling. He seemed less susceptible to the midday heat, maybe due to the refreshing lack of fur. But by the end, they were both damp with sweat and struggling to keep their legs going. 

“I wonder if I can still ride a bike,” First mused, as they disembarked onto the dock. 

An hour ago, Khaotung would have bet yes—based on how quickly First seemed to be relearning other human skills, such as speaking. But an hour ago, he hadn’t seen First nearly dive off the boat in pursuit of an elegant white egret. 

“You couldn’t catch that thing even as a cat,” Khaotung had wailed, holding First back by the collar after he had—luckily—cued in to his former-cat’s alert posture when the bird fluffed its wings in preparation for flight. 

“That’s why I need to now.”

“That makes no sense! Just—you can’t—” The shirt had slipped in Khaotung’s sweaty hand—and he had given up on holding First back in favor of leaning over the side and splashing him in the face with lake water. 

“Wha—” First blinked rapidly, nose wrinkling in distaste. 

“No jumping into the lake.” Khaotung kept a hard lid on the laughter bubbling up from his chest. At least until First had reluctantly settled back into the boat. 

Then, Khaotung had laughed until he cried, and First had to do all the remaining pedaling. 

“I still can’t believe spraying water works on you in human form, too,” he said now, on the docks, as First stared out at the lake and all of the out-of-reach waterfowl. 

“It’s just startling,” First grumped, finally turning with him to walk back into the park. “You wouldn’t like it either.”

“Seems nice if it’s hot out.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Khaotung just shook his head and laughed. 

When they got to the edge of the park, he asked, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, “So, what do you want to eat?”

First’s eyes alighted on him, his expression back to enthusiasm. “Your favorite thing.”

For some stupid reason, heat suffused Khaotung’s face. “There’s this Chiang Mai-based shop I used to go to after filming Destiny of You around here. The spicy pork noodles are always good.”

“But I want khao—” First cut the sentence with a grin and a wink. 

Khao as in rice? Or— 

“Um—” Khaotung covered his confusion with a fake cough. “They have khao soi.” But that was a noodle soup. Stupid. “They’ll give you khao neow—or—we could go somewhere with more rice dishes—”

First shook his head and stooped to peer up into Khaotung’s downturned face as they walked, hands clasped behind his back. “No, no, I want to eat noodles this time. I want to see the places you love. I want to eat with you.”

Khaotung’s blush only flamed higher. He turned right down a side street and strode away, ostensibly to lead them to the restaurant. “You eat with me all the time. Constantly. Literally every day.”

“Not out, though.” First caught up, but kept his gaze outward now, on the passing scenery of the park. “Even when I felt most like a cat, I always wondered what your life was like, out there.”

“Considering how much time I spend in my apartment, there’s not much to wonder.”

“You’re just an…” First seemed to search for the word.

“Introvert?”

“Yes. You like to be home.”

“With my—” cat.

First shot him a smug smile, and for once, Khaotung didn’t feel that sucking misstep horror. The conjured thought of sitting at home most evenings, reading a book with First in his lap—it radiated only melancholic warmth.

Maybe he was adjusting to the idea that his cat had always been a human. Or maybe, he was just stuffing the inchoate feelings down where he didn’t have to think about them, and praying he could afford therapy one day. 

“What?” First shot him a quizzical glance as Khaotung began to laugh. 

“Just—” Khaotung waved a hand, still chuckling at the image in his head. “Just thinking how I can never go to therapy now, because how the fuck would I explain this?” He clasped both hands to his cheeks in mock-distress. “Yes, khun, all my issues stem from my cat being a person. So what’s the cure?”

“Ha ha.” First’s answering laugh was less than enthusiastic. 

They subsided into awkward silence. 

I didn’t mean—

Khaotung didn’t even know what he had meant. Or hadn’t. Because it was true, this shit fucked with his head. And he couldn’t tell anyone else, or they would commit him. He didn’t blame First—if anyone’s head was messed up in completely unexplainable ways, it would be his former cat’s. 

But First wasn’t amused by their shared predicament. Khaotung had done that thing again, where he centered himself by trying to sympathize. That thing where he made a joke, and everyone’s faces fell. He had ripped the smile from First’s face, taken a moment of generosity and trampled over it with selfishness.  

Khaotung took a breath. Forced all of his own worries and thoughts out of his head. Today was about First, about making up for how much First had suffered as a cat. He just needed to focus on that, focus on pushing down the sharp-edged parts of himself that no one wanted to see, anyway.

It was good practice for the screen tests.

At the restaurant, First—predictably—wanted to try everything. 

“We can always come back,” Khaotung said, when the waiter had come by for the third time and First still hadn’t decided. “And you can try my pork noodles, if you want something else.”

First brightened visibly. “Okay. I’ll get khao…soi, then.” The corner of his mouth edged into something like a smirk. 

“Great,” Khaotung muttered, and flagged the waiter again. Just great. He hated being teased, especially about his name. 

After they ordered, First was uncharacteristically quiet. He commented on the taste of the food—good—when it arrived, but otherwise didn’t ask questions or make observations. Khaotung didn’t particularly mind—he hated small talk—but he found himself glancing up every few seconds, trying to read the placid expression on First’s face.

Had he really offended First with his joke? There was a reason he hated small talk—mostly because he fucking sucked at it.

Khaotung opened his mouth to offer First that bite of his pork noodles.

“Khai? Khai Kanaphan? Is that really you?”

First startled so hard at the raised voice that his chopsticks fell to the floor. Khaotung bent to grab them. “Are utensils still difficult?” He should have suggested rice. Something that used spoons. 

But First didn’t answer. And when Khaotung straightened, he realized that the—extremely attractive—man who now stood in front of their table while a gaggle of people their age hovered behind, was talking to First.  

First who, of course, had a name besides First. The stupid little nickname Khaotung had given him as his first-ever cat. 

“P’Tay?”

First’s eyes were wide and startled. If he were a cat, his tail would be fluffed up like a bottle brush. 

“You all sit down,” The man—Tay—said to his friends. “I need to catch up with him.” Then he reached down to clap First on the shoulder.

First twitched out of the way, and Tay frowned. 

“What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me?” 

When Tay reached forward again, Khaotung had to stomp on the urge to interject. First wasn’t his cat anymore—he didn’t need protection from random people who wanted to pet him and cuddle him without consent. 

First held still and blinked rapidly for a second until his posture relaxed in a rush. He stood up, Tay’s hand still on his arm. “Sorry. Just—startled. Instincts, you know?”

“It’s only been a year, you asshole.” Tay brushed off this nonsensical explanation and pulled him into a real hug. 

Khaotung thought he should relax too, seeing First melt into an easy smile under Tay’s touch. Yet the sick churn of his stomach only spread to sweating palms, which he wiped surreptitiously on his shorts. 

“Sorry.” First gently disentangled himself. Khaotung caught big, brown eyes on him as he looked down at his food again. “It’s First, now.”

Khaotung’s head snapped up. “You don’t—”

First gave him a suppressing look, the sternest expression he had ever shown. “It’s First.” His insistent tone shot through Khaotung’s protests like a shaft of pure sunlight. 

Before Khaotung could do more than take one shuddering breath, First turned back to Tay. “How are you, Phi?”

“Good, you know the usual, but—where have you been?” First’s ears reddened, though the other man seemed not to notice. “Your family said you’d gone abroad.”

So not actually his brother, then.

Tay looked First up and down. “You do speak funny now. An accent?”

Khaotung frowned. He had gotten accustomed to First’s soft, lilting speech; even the odd hesitations or exaggerated tones no longer registered. 

First’s gaze flicked to Khaotung again, his soft eyes wide and desperate. 

Khaotung set his chopsticks—and his consternation—aside. “Excuse me, khun,” he interjected. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

First brightened. “This is my senior, Tay. We were friends in school.” 

“Friends in school? Is that what I’ve been demoted to?” Tay turned to Khaotung with an exaggerated pout. “Fifteen years of fraternity, and this is what I get? Friends in school?” He waggled his eyebrows.

Khaotung tried his best to acknowledge the invitation to joking complicity with a smile, though he was sure it came out more as a grimace. He always hated this part of meeting people—the awkward introductions and boring small talk of acquaintances. Even worse when they expected him to join them in ridiculing someone he actually—

“Shut up, Phi.” First punched Tay lightly in the shoulder and then gestured to Khaotung. “Khaotung. My…roommate.” 

Khaotung blinked rapidly, but kept his face impassive. He supposed it was true enough. 

“So you did move out then?” Tay said, ater a nod to Khaotung to acknowledge the introduction. “But not abroad?”

First’s smile faltered again. 

Khaotung wanted nothing more than to simply sit here. Eat his food and eavesdrop on this conversation and maybe finally learn more about First’s mysterious past as a human. But First threw him those beseeching eyes again. 

He took a breath to once again redirect the conversation—with what, he had no idea—and then his phone buzzed on the table. 

“Sorry—um—I have to take this.”

First stared with all the wide-eyed reproach of a cat whose tail has been stepped on. Khaotung ignored it and nodded to Tay as he dashed from the restaurant. 

First seemed to like Tay. They were close. He could handle it alone.

“Hello? Khun Khaotung?” An unfamiliar female voice came through the call he had instinctively answered. Khaotung startled. He had assumed it was his mother because no one else ever called him. Even auditions sent emails or texts these days. 

He held the phone away from his ear again to check—unknown number. “Hello? Yes, this is Khaotung.”

“Oh, hi!” The voice got measurably friendlier. “This is Love. From the commercial.”

“Yes?” Khaotung frowned vaguely. In the restaurant, he could see through the window as Tay took his abandoned chair and leaned across the table to speak earnestly. First looked—not quite uncomfortable, but discomfited. Maybe he shouldn’t have run. “Did you need something? Is the commercial still on?”

“Yes! Oh, of course, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

You have no idea. First must have already spent the majority of the cash from yesterday’s commercial on groceries, clothing, and other essentials. If they got a second paycheck, he might be able to ask First for a loan and send some of it to his mother. The rainy season was starting soon and that leak….

“Khun?”

“Sorry, what did you say?” He forcibly turned his head away from the window and stared at the street instead of First’s increasingly warm smile. 

“I just wanted to know if I could come by.”

“Really? Why? Shit—I didn’t mean—”

She laughed. “That was rather forward of me, wasn’t it?”

The teasing note in her voice smoothed over his choking panic. Just what he needed—to insult First’s costar and get them thrown out. 

“I meant, just to hang out with First a little, see if he can warm up to me. They’re investing in a long series of commercials, but the director wants things to move faster next time.”

“They are?” Khaotung couldn’t keep the note of incredulity out of his voice. Hadn’t First been obnoxiously reticent?

“Khun, I think you have no idea how difficult most cats are to work with.” Love’s voice was warm with chagrin. 

Maybe it was good that First had acted a little difficult then. To keep the ruse up. 

“And they like the aesthetics of me and your…cat.” She said the last part with a strange note of wistfulness.

“Oh. That makes sense.” First was adorable; he looked good with everyone. And he was so small, and Love so delicate—Khaotung could definitely see the appeal.  

“You think so?” She was laughing again and didn’t wait for an answer. “So, is it okay if I swing by sometime tomorrow or the next day? We’re shooting on Tuesday, right?”

“Yes—uh, actually. Fir—I’m busy on Tuesday. I haven’t heard back yet, but I told them Monday or Wednesday. Is that okay?”

“Then should I swing by tomorrow, just in case we shoot on Monday?”

“Sounds good.” Khaotung’s gaze drifted, all unwilling, back to the restaurant. To First—Khai—and Tay and their animated conversation. 

Was that who First had plans with? But First had seemed so shocked to see his friend here, so it had to be someone else. With yet another friend? Family? A lover? But why stay with Khaotung if he had other options?

They said you went abroad. 

Was a curse something to be ashamed of? Or maybe there was some other, more shameful secret First was hiding. Khaotung could not imagine what that could be. 

But he watched First and Tay laugh, and he thought about First leaving with his friend and his secrets, and his stomach sank through his feet. 

“Khun? I’ll see you tomorrow evening?”

“Yes. Yes, see you then.” Khaotung gave her his address and hung up the phone. 

First couldn’t move out—Love was coming tomorrow. He needed to be at Khaotung’s apartment as a cat. But how could he communicate that to First, if First announced he was leaving with Tay? He didn’t even have First’s phone number. 

Would First want the stuff he had bought yesterday? Would he take the soft blanket, if Khaotung offered it? Stupid, to think he might want some of his cat toys as some kind of morbid memorabilia—but Khaotung knew he wouldn’t have the heart to throw them out. 

As he pocketed the phone, First turned for the first time to look out the window. He waved cheerfully at Khaotung, still talking to Tay. Then the older man said something teasing—and First’s smile faltered. His wave turned into a beckoning gesture, which Khaotung failed to process for several long seconds. 

First got up from the table and hurried outside, colliding with Khaotung’s shoulder in order to stop. 

“Sorry. Did you—”

“Khaotung. Your call is done? Can you help?” The words were slower and more slurred than usual. Lines of exhaustion crumpled First’s face, though he offered a shadow of his usual soft smile. “Can we go home?”

“Home?” Khaotung shook his head. What was wrong with him? Spacing out over everything. “You don’t like Tay? I thought—”

“No. No, I do but—he keeps…asking questions. My bad…talking. I was…gone for a year.” His pitch rose and rose as each word got more labored. Like when Khaotung spoke English and found his entire jaw cramping on strange syllables after an hour of practice.

Khaotung put both hands on First’s biceps, bracing him as he rocked back and forth on his heels in a fretful rhythm. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Just…home. But I…he’s a friend. I want to see Tay more. Just, later.”

“Later. Got it.” 

He took a deep breath. Watched as First unconsciously mirrored him. Waited three more breaths until they both settled a little. Somehow, this tall, lanky man still conjured the same protective instinct that had Khaotung cuddling his cat in his arms during thunderstorms. 

“Follow my lead, okay?”

First nodded—then caught his arm before they walked back inside. “Thank you.” His eyes shone with unearned gratitude.

I haven’t done anything yet.

Inside, Tay stood as the two of them approached. “Sorry, didn’t mean to steal your seat.” 

Khaotung waved away the apology, but when First sat back down, he stayed standing in front of him. “Khun, your friends are waiting for you.” He nodded at the group of tall, beautiful people who seemed much too rich for the likes of his favorite Chiang Mai shop. They had gotten their food and were chattering loudly amongst themselves. 

Tay didn’t take offense at the blunt words. “Do you two want to join us? We’re going to see a movie after this.”

“We can’t,” Khaotung said the words as firmly as he could. Who cared if this guy thought he was crude and awkward? “We’re busy.”

But once again, Tay took his words at face value. “With what?”

“We have to—” Shit. Couldn’t he read the room? Khaotung managed just barely to keep his gaze from flicking to First’s. “Meet my Ma.”

“Oh.” Tay looked between the two of them. “Ohh.”

“We’re roommates,” Khaotung reminded him. From his unwavering smile, First clearly had no idea what Tay’s implication was. And Khaotung didn’t want to get yelled at whenever First figured it out—or Tay teased him about it. “She wants to see my apartment and meet him. We recently moved in together.”

Or at least, Khaotung had only recently realized that he was living with another man.

“Alright. But I haven’t seen you in a year, Khai—First. I’m not just going to let you walk away again!” Tay said the words with a jovial laugh—but Khaotung could see the glint of determination in his eyes. 

“He has a phone.”

Tay’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you acting like his parent?” 

Heat seared up Khaotung’s body, from his burning stomach to his flushing face. “I didn’t—”

Tay threw back his head in a laugh. “Relax! Both of you.” He nudged First’s shoulder again. “Seriously, what’s with you two? You’d think I showed up to drag you off to jail. Are you actually—”

First stood, covering Tay’s words with the sound of rattling dishes. “Khaotung is right. We have to go, but—” He took Tay’s phone and added his contact.

Which Khaotung still did not have. 

“I’m holding you to this.” Tay tapped his phone with a significant look as he accepted it back from First. “If I don’t get a reply, I’m going to find you—no excuses from your family this time. Whatever sickness you had or bullshit they pulled—”

Khaotung sucked in a breath—but First only grinned. “Maybe I left to get away from P’Tay. Ever think about that?”

Tay sighed with comic exaggeration. “I did. But!” He brightened so quickly that even Khaotung fought the urge to laugh. “You clearly failed, so—”

First tackled him in a hug. “Phi, I missed you.”

Tay hugged him back, then ruffled his hair as First tried to duck out of reach. “I missed you too, Nong. You be good until I see you again, okay? Answer my texts.”

“Khrap.”

They spent the journey back home in relative silence. Khaotung’s busy thoughts hummed with questions he knew he could never ask, and First was clearly tired of speaking. 

As they got ready for bed, Khaotung noticed First texting on his phone, leaving his toothbrush dangling in his mouth for long moments. He turned away from the sink and applied some of his dwindling supply of toner, trying not to stare in bitter jealousy at the evidence of easy friendships. 

First finally spit in the sink and washed his mouth out as Khaotung was exiting the bathroom. “Tay wants to hang out with us sometime.” His enunciation was mostly clear again, though his sentences still came slower. 

“Us?”  

“Yeah…” First still stared at his phone, apparently oblivious to Khaotung’s surprise. “Can you help?”

Khaotung watched him in the mirror. “With what? You want me to decline for you? I don’t even have his—”

First eyes flew up to meet his through their reflections. “No! Practice.” When Khaotung only frowned, First added, “Speaking. So I don’t sound weird.”

“You don’t—” But that was patently untrue. “It’s really not that noticeable.”

“Tay noticed.” First’s mouth set in a mulish line. 

Khaotung sighed and straightened the bath towels, hanging neatly next to each other on the door hooks. “Sure, tomorrow we can prac—” Tomorrow. Right. “The phone call I got at the restaurant.”

“Huh?” It was First’s turn to blink in incomprehension through the mirror.

“It was Love, from the commercial. She wants to come over tomorrow.” Khaotung realized he was caressing First’s blue bath towel—unlike his own, it wasn’t threadbare with hard use—and dropped his hands. “To, um, get to know you better.”

First stared down at the sink without moving. 

“I guess she really likes you,” Khaotung added. Just for something to say. 

“Me?” First’s smile was wry when he finally looked up. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Is that not okay?” Khaotung took a step away from the towels. Fisted his hands in his sweatpants. “I guess—I should have asked you first. I keep forgetting—”

“No, it’s fine.” First’s smile relaxed into something more sincere. 

“Ah, shit, I have the callback script, too.” Khaotung paced out into the living room, First trailing behind. “I guess it’s good we moved the commercial back, I can do the audition on Tuesday.”

“Morning or afternoon?”

“Morning.”

“I can run lines with you, too.”

“You don’t have to—” Khaotung shook his head. “You’re already doing the commercials.”

First shrugged. “I can practice talking with the script. Two birds, one…cat.” He winked with a small, mischievous smile.

Khaotung grinned back. “That’s—” He turned away, shaking his head. “Well, we have Monday too, for lines.” 

But the smile lingered as he hesitated on the threshold of his bedroom and glanced over his shoulder.

 First raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing—uh—just, you’re not going to sleep like that, right?” Now that he thought about it—why had First bothered brushing his teeth and applying lotion to his face? Did those things carry over when he became a cat?

A smile tugged at the corner of First’s mouth. “I’ll change later. When I’m ready to sleep.” When Khaotung still hesitated, he added, “Goodnight, Khaotung. See you in the morning.” 

Which was a dismissal if Khaotung had ever heard one. 

Odd, to be told to go to bed by his cat. His cat, who, he was pretty sure now, slept on the couch in human form. Even though his long legs must hang off the edge. Odd, that the image, the knowledge of First out there with his legs dangling over the couch arm, kept a smile on Khaotung’s face as he drifted off to sleep. 

Odd. 

Chapter Text

Khaotung spent the next morning in a cleaning frenzy in preparation for Love’s visit. As he worked, First trailed behind him around the apartment. Sometimes helping—though he seemed to lack any basic housekeeping sense—but mostly just chattering. Ostensibly to practice his language skills. 

They began with the kitchen—Khaotung had to explain how a mop worked and why it was better than going over the whole floor with a cloth, like he did with the counters. In between instructions, First parrotted Khaotung’s lines for the callback. Then they moved to folding the laundry that had finished in the meantime. 

“That’s not how you fold shirts.” Khaotung snatched the t-shirt out of First’s hands. “Seriously, didn’t you ever have to clean at home? I mean—” His face burned. Stupid. He had resolved not to ask. 

First ignored the off-hand question and only watched with wide eyes as Khaotung slowed down to demonstrate. 

“See?” Khaotung nodded in approval as First copied the movements. “It’s not difficult.”

“You don’t usually bother to fold things. Usually, you pile them there,” First pointed to his desk chair, “And then I nap on them until—”

Khaotung interrupted him with a pair of shorts to the face. “Hush.”

First lifted the pile of neatly folded shirts and dumped them over Khaotung’s head. 

“You—” Khaotung squealed as First followed the shirts with his body and tackled them both onto the bed. “Jerk!” Khaotung smacked him about the head, giggling like a maniac as First writhed around to avoid the blows. “Asshole!” 

“I’m just folding like you showed me.” First rose, grinning, onto his knees and crumpled two polo shirts into balls with his hands. “Should I put them back where they belong?”

Khaotung lunged upward before First could throw his handful toward the chair. “Give me that!” He successfully latched onto the fabric just as First swung his arms in an exaggerated arc—yanking them both sideways off the bed and onto the floor in a pile of limbs. 

“Ow.” Khaotung rubbed the back of his head where it had slammed against the floor. First’s shoulder jammed up against his neck and his thigh throbbed with a bruising ache, as if a bony knee had landed on it.

Warmth spread through every point of contact—his neck, down his chest, thank fuck not his crotch—subsuming the pain in a prickling wash.

Khaotung took three deep breaths through his nose. 

“Sorry sorry sorry.” First levered himself up with a groan.

“It’s not—” Khaotung scooted back and shook his head, hiding behind shaggy, soft bangs. He needed a haircut. Should he put in hair gel for Love’s visit? It felt unprofessional to leave his hair unstyled. Bangs, yes. Hair was safe, he should think about taking a shower—no—just styling hair, keep it safe—

Thoughts whirred into static as he sat up and tried desperately not to notice First’s legs, now straddling one of his thighs. At least they were both clothed this time. 

He shook his head until it throbbed. 

“Are you okay?” First reached out—and then seemed to realize his position, and the no-touching rule all at once. He scrambled backward, bruising Khaotung’s leg again in the process. 

Khaotung only winced and said, “Fine. Yeah.” He stood and gathered the discarded shirts, tossing them on the chair. “Whatever.” He ignored the heat cascading over his face. “It’s not like she’s going to look in my bedroom anyway.” 

“Hopefully not,” First agreed with a strange expression, as he straightened his own clothing. 

Khaotung skirted around the implication and hurried to scrub down the bathroom sink. First, predictably, followed. 

“Can’t we eat? It’s almost noon.”

“Why don’t you make lunch?” 

“I don’t know how to cook. You promised you would teach me.”

Khaotung remembered no such promise—but he forebore protesting, because that would require looking First in the face, and his thundering heart wasn’t prepared for that just yet. “If it’s almost noon, then Khun Love is coming in an hour, and I need to finish cleaning first.”

“But—“

“I can make lunch while she’s here and working with you.”

“What am I supposed to eat?”

“I don’t know, how about that fancy cat food?” When he got only stony silence in return, Khaotung sighed and scrubbed harder. “The more you distract me, the slower I’ll work. If you want human lunch, then stay out of my way.”

“I don’t see why you have to do any of this.” First crossed his arms. 

Khaotung threw him a glare in return. “I can at least clean the bathroom for company.”

“You didn’t clean for me.”

“When you showed up on my doorstep as a cat?”

“No, last week.”

Out of all the things for First to protest, this? Khaotung rolled his eyes. “You’d already seen this place—me—at my worst by the time I knew you were human. What’s the point?”

“Is that a good thing?” First watched Khaotung scurry from the bathroom to the bedroom, excessive amounts of nearly-empty product bottles in his arms. If he was giving up the bedroom as a lost cause, he could at least use it as storage for all the useless shit in the rest of his apartment. 

“It’s a neutral thing.” At best. Mostly, there were just so many other fucking things for Khaotung to be embarrassed about, where First was concerned. “Maybe be mad that I forgot to pull out a towel for you that first night, huh? How about that?”

“You probably thought I would bathe myself like a cat.”

Khaotung had a sudden, visceral image of First—naked, human, First—licking himself all over like a cat. Licking—

He shook his head. “I did not. I didn’t think of anything!”

“Uh huh.” First narrowed his eyes, a smile playing around his mouth. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be practicing? Stop asking questions.”

“Questions is still practicing,” First pointed out. 

Khaotung only shook his head in disgust. 

When he deemed the apartment presentable, they had twenty minutes left to cook before Love was scheduled to arrive. Khaotung put First to work chopping papaya—he was good at it now, if a little slow—and busied himself with the main dish of stir-fried noodles. He put in a little more effort than usual—and thanks to First’s shopping, he at least had a few fresh spices to add. 

“How did you know what to buy?” he asked. “If you can’t cook?”

“I googled essential cooking ingredients. On your laptop.”

Khaotung really needed to change his password. And not just for security reasons. “Don’t you have a phone?”

First smiled, in that way that meant he was imagining pressing his face to Khaotung’s blush-warmed skin. “I like using the laptop.”

“I bet you do.” When First continued to gaze at him, Khaotung nudged him with an elbow. “Chop.”

“You promised to teach me.”

“We don’t have time.” First pouted, and Khaotung headed off the imminent whining by adding, “Are there other things you want to do? As a human, I mean. Like cooking. Or going to the park.”

“I like hanging out with you.”

“There’s got to be something.” Khaotung couldn’t admit that he had enjoyed the park—more than any other outing he’d had in Bangkok. More than any other time hanging out with a stranger—because First was a stranger. But still. It was fun to hang out with someone who radiated such joy. 

“The aquarium?” First suggested, after a moment of thought. 

“If you dive in the tanks, I swear to god—”

“Only if the fish looks tasty!”

“You’ll get yourself banned.”

First sighed. 

“Maybe we should start with something more human-specific,” Khaotung suggested. “Like a bar. There’s nothing for cats at a bar.”

“I’d love to go to a bar with you!”

That was too much enthusiasm for what he had meant to be a casual suggestion. But he could imagine that, the two of them at a bar, First clapping along to live music. Did First like to sing? “What about kara—”

“Oh!” First dropped the knife onto the counter to clap his hands together. “P’Tay invited me out tomorrow night. He said I should bring you.”

All of Khaotung’s burgeoning excitement punctured, like a too-thin balloon. “He said that, did he?” First cocked his head as Khaotung busied himself plating the finished food and carrying it to the kitchen table. 

When they sat down, First still looked at him inquiringly and didn’t eat—so Khaotung mumbled, “I don’t like going out, even with my own friends.” Not that he had any here to begin with. “And I have the callback Tuesday morning.”

“I forgot the audition. Should I not go either?”

“What? Why not?” Khaotung shot First a raised eyebrow. “Go see your friend. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing.”

“Oh. Right.”

Why did First sound so damn disappointed? As if he needed Khaotung’s permission—Khaotung chaperoning—to hang out with a friend. “Do whatever you want, it’s nothing to me,” Khaotung reiterated. He reached across the table and tapped First’s plate with a fork. “Hurry and eat your food, Love will be here soon.”

First shoveled in a forkful of noodles and spoke with his mouth full. “What about you?”

“I’ll eat with Love—that’s why I made three portions. But if yours is out and half-eaten, it’ll look weird.”

“Why do we have to do this at all?”

Khaotung stared at him in disbelief. “You’re the one who had to play difficult the first time. If you had just gone along easily, she wouldn’t be coming over now.”

“Want to bet?” First muttered darkly, albeit through a mouthful of noodles. 

Khaotung had no idea what that meant, so he ignored it in favor of staring at First until he finished. He washed and dried First’s plate while his cat made no move to help, and hastily shoved everything back in the cupboards.

“You agreed to this,” he muttered, as a light knock sounded at the door. His hand landed on the knob, and then he glanced over his shoulder at the man lingering in a kitchen chair. “You’re a cat, remember?”

First gazed at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. 

In a single blink of Khaotung’s eyes, he was a small, black cat. He leapt off the chair and sat on the floor, posture ramrod straight and reproachful.

“We need the money,” Khaotung reminded him. 

The cat pawed at the leg of his shorts, dangling from the pile left on the chair. 

“Shit!” Khaotung gathered up the discarded clothes—tried very hard not to think about First’s underwear in the mix—and threw them into his bedroom. He dashed across the apartment shouting, “Coming!” as the knock sounded again, and then threw open the front door.  

“Khun Khaotung.” Love wai-ed as she stepped into the apartment. “And Nong First.”

Khaotung hid his erratic breath by returning the gesture and took her bag to set it on a kitchen chair. “Sorry for my apartment. I know it’s—” dingy “—small.”

Love waved a hand, a gentle smile playing about her mouth. “Hey, I’m doing cat commercials. None of us live in mansions, khun, don’t worry about it.”

She was too kind. 

“I made lunch, I thought we could eat first.” 

Too late, he realized he should have checked with her. What if she had already eaten? It would be impolite to make her wait while he ate. But he was starving. Sweat prickled at Khaotung’s temples. He had never hosted anyone in his apartment who wasn’t—

He was so fucking bad at this. 

“Or, if you—”

“Oh, it looks lovely.” Love clapped her hands together when she noticed the food laid out on the table. “The fruit is cut so prettily, too.”

“I didn’t—” Khaotung snapped his mouth shut. He couldn’t quite glance at First, but he felt the amber cat-eyes watching him. Judging. “Uh. Thanks.”

“And these noodles look delicious. It’s amazing you know how to cook.”

Khaotung’s flushed-hot confusion only rose. “Just basic stuff.”

First yowled. He stalked away from the table and leapt up onto the couch. 

“See, Nong First agrees—you shouldn’t be self-deprecating.”

“I don’t think that’s what he…” Khaotung shook his head as Love laughed at his non-joke. “Well, thanks.”

As they ate, Love talked about the commercials—what she had learned from the director about the format, her past experiences working with animals, and all the treats and toys she had brought to try on First.

“You really don’t have to put this much effort in.” Khaotung fought to keep his tone level, but his jaw ached with unutterable gratitude. “You’re really too kind.”

“I just want him to be comfortable. And besides,” she said, her smile broadening even further, “I need to learn how to win cats over if I’m going to get one of my own.”

“All you have to do is feed them.” Khaotung’s mouth twisted as he realized—he didn’t actually know how to win over any real cats. “Or—probably every cat is different.”

“Well,” Love said, pushing back her chair and carrying her empty dish to the counter. “I can at least start with this one, right?”

Easier said than done. 

Every time Love held her hand out, First turned away. He didn’t run and hide, didn’t avoid her presence entirely—but he very clearly did not want to give his approval.

“Sorry. He’s sulking,” Khaotung assured her, stumbling over words in his haste. “He’s, um, mad at me from earlier, and I should have known that he—that this would be an issue.” She was being so nice. And shouldn’t this be easier with a human cat? 

You agreed to this, he thought at the stupid, stubborn cat, giving back as good as he got when First glared at him. 

“Oh, you poor thing. Is Khun Khaotung being very mean to you?”

To Khaotung’s horror, First meowed in a distinctly affirmative way. 

Act like a normal cat! 

Love giggled and sat next to First on the couch. “It must be so difficult,” she said, still talking as if he were a human child. “To be so cute and talented and yet have no one who understands.” 

First merr ed dolefully and finally uncurled himself to sniff at her outstretched hand. 

“You just need someone to listen to your side, huh?”

Khaotung wanted very badly to defend himself—but then he would sound insane. Watching First allow Love to pet him gently on the head, he instead squeezed his throat closed until he couldn’t speak. 

Stupid.

As if First making friends was his responsibility anymore. And he had plenty of friends from his former life—Tay was evidence of that. He didn’t need to be a part of Khaotung’s world. Especially not as a cat. 

“Here, maybe give him a treat.” Khaotung dug out the bag of First’s favorite treats from his box of cat stuff behind the couch.

Love craned her head around to look. “You have a ton of stuff! Is he very picky?”

“He wasn’t before.” But did the treats still taste good? First had refused the fancy cat food at every turn. “He mostly liked playing with cardboard boxes and bags, even though I bought these mice and stuff.”

“And now?” Love asked. 

Too late, Khaotung realized he shouldn’t have used the past tense. “Um—just—he’s getting older. Doesn’t play as much.” He collapsed onto the couch and handed her the bag.

“That’s a shame.”

“Oh—” Khaotung brightened. “If you get a cat, maybe you can take the toys?” He watched as First sniffed at the Love’s outheld treat once, and then turned up his nose. “Maybe the treats, too.”

“What if he wants them again?”

“Don’t worry about that.” 

Love shifted closer, until First was occupying the only sliver of couch between them, and looked up into Khaotung’s face with a concerned expression. “He’s not sick, is he?”

Khaotung squirmed. First’s eyes slid open to stare at him in silent reproach. “No. Sorry.”

Love frowned. “That’s—you don’t have to apologize. You just seem so sad.”

Khaotung wiped sweaty palms on his knees and wished desperately to be anywhere else. He was so fucking bad at this. And First, who kept meowing like he fucking understood Thai. There was no way Love could guess the true reason First didn’t need his cat toys anymore. Right?

But there were probably a thousand, much worse, assumptions that Khaotung couldn’t predict.

He cleared his throat to stall for time as he searched for some plausible explanation. “I guess I just miss those times. When he was—younger. You know, played with toys more.”

Khaotung stared at First and tried not to shift away from the feeling of human presence at his side. He reached a hand out and put it on his cat’s back, letting the texture of soft fur soothe his jangling nerves. 

First slid out from under his hand—and climbed into Love’s lap. 

Traitor.

“That does sound sad. But he’s still young, right?”

Khaotung opened his mouth to say he had no idea how old First was since he was a stray. Then he remembered their conversation and almost said twenty-two. And then he remembered that there was no way anyone would believe First was twenty-two as a cat. 

So he settled for a strangled, “Yeah.”

Maybe instead of running lines, he should practice conversing like a normal fucking human. 

Luckily, Love didn’t seem to notice his struggle. She began to tentatively pet First as he sat on her lap and began to purr. Khaotung watched her hand—and squashed the chain-lightning pang that arced through his chest. 

“You found him here, right? Have you been in Bangkok long?”

What about the commercial? Why was she bothering to ask questions like that? 

“Uh. A bit over two years. I’m still trying to get rid of the accent.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean—but why get rid of it? It sounds lovely.” 

She blushed, and Khaotung’s stiff posture unbent just a little. Maybe she was just awkward, too. That was a relief. “I’m trying to be an actor. Not as successfully as you,” he added, with a wry smile. 

First opened his eyes to blink slowly at Khaotung. 

“You and First could be in commercials together!” Love looked at him with shining eyes—and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Whoops—”

“You just—” Khaotung laughed, surprising even himself. 

“I just put myself out of a job!” Love joined in until they were both bent over, giggling.

First lifted his head as Love’s whole body shook and yowled before leaping down to sit in front of them and glare.

Khaotung, light and laughing, tears in his eyes with the full-body release of strung-tight nerves, stuck his tongue out at his roommate and laughed all the harder. 

“Seriously, though,” Love said, heaving with inelegant gasps of air that ameliorated any embarrassment from Khaotung’s hysteria. “We could talk to the director.”

“No—” Khaotung tamped down the last of his giggles. “Please, no.”

Love smiled wryly. “I guess now that you’ve graduated to real roles, you don’t want to go back, huh?”

He searched her expression for any flatness, any shuttering judgment. “I guess I’m picky,” he offered, still searching. 

“Oh, no. If I had done Destiny of You, I wouldn’t want to go back to commercials either! They’re the worst. Constantly auditioning for new roles; stupid rote lines; forcing enthusiasm for the worst products—it’s a nightmare. If you’ve paid your dues, you should never go back.”

Had he, though? Or maybe he had simply racked up more dues in the meantime.

“It’s fun when I get to work with cute, well-behaved little cats, of course.” Love leaned down to scritch the top of the black cat’s head. First yawned, showing off his fangs. 

“When he feels like behaving, anyway.”

“He would do even better with you,” she insisted. 

“But I can’t—you’ve been so kind coming all the way here to work with him.” Khaotung’s pitch rose in squeaky protest. “I couldn’t just—steal your job!”

“So you admit that you could, if you wanted to?”

“No, I—”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “I’m joking, silly.” 

Khaotung smiled and nudged back—before he stiffened and remembered that he didn’t know her very well at all. “Well, it’s better if it’s you, anyway.”

If he were on set with First as a cat, he would probably say some truly insane things—and First might even listen to them. Even if the truth was out of reach, the crew could still be disturbed, weirded out, or even think Khaotung was insane. It just wasn’t worth the risk. 

“He’s probably happy for some time apart from me.”  

“I doubt that,” Love said, smiling close to his face. 

Khaotung felt the heat rise in his cheeks and leapt off the couch. “Um. Water? Do you want something to drink?”

“Sure,” she said, her sparkling eyes the only sign that she marked his flustered tone. “Water is fine.”

He fetched two bottles from the kitchen and took his moment out of sight to press one to his flaming face. What the fuck was wrong with him? Besides, First being a general dick. And having a stranger in his apartment, with his cat on her lap, of course. 

Just normal, everyday occurrences for him, now.

“By the way, do you have a collar for him?” Love asked when he returned. She had a feather wand toy out now and was dangling it in front of First’s nose.

He was pretending to ignore it—but the flash of dilated pupils bouncing to track the movement and the twitch at the tip of his tail gave him away.

“Yes.” Khaotung carefully sat half a couch-cushion away from Love—he certainly did not want her to think he was some kind of pervert. He even more carefully looked away from First as he thought about collars. “Why?”

“I just think it would look cute in the commercial.” The feather toy halted its jerking movements and hung in the air as she spoke. “And if he gets famous, you’ll want people to see his nametag, right? So they can find him on Insta—Ah!”

First leapt into the air, front paws yanking the toy down to his mouth. The wand flew out of Love’s hand and onto the floor as she laughed in surprise. Bits of pink and purple fluff feathers flew into the air as the cat brought his back paws up to kick at it and finish the kill.

“Good job, little cat,” Khaotung said without thinking. “You got it!”

Love’s giggles intensified. “Does he respond well to praise?”

Fuck.

Heat swamped Khaotung’s body. He didn’t even know what to be most embarrassed about, he just knew that if the couch melted into a sinkhole and dragged him down into the molten core of the Earth, never to be seen again, he would be forever grateful. 

“I—uh—um—”

Fucking fuck.

“No. Um. Usually—I give him a treat when he catches the toy. The cat people—”

“Cat people?”

Khaotung waved a hand, still curled into his body and fighting back stinging tears of horror. “People on the Internet. They said it’s good for their instincts. Keeps them healthy and exercising, if they can connect play with food.”

“That makes sense!” Love’s laugh remained gentle, with no sign that she thought he was a raving idiot. She leaned down to pet First’s head, where he now lay quiescent on the floor, still curled around the toy. 

“Good job, First. You’re such a good hunter.” 

She really did not have to make such an effort to buy into his insanity. 

To Khaotung, she said, “You should promote him more on social media. He could be famous, I think.”

Khaotung wondered if First might change his mind about spending time in his cat body, if it meant he could be famous and adored—probably by hundreds of other young, pretty women like Love. 

“Maybe—but he never really liked the collar.”

First had scratched at his neck until Khaotung took it off. He had tried a few times, but it never lasted long. 

“And since he was a stray, I figured that if he wanted to leave again, that was his prerogative.”

At those words, First leapt up into Khaotung’s lap and snuggled into his thighs until his soft belly showed. Love cooed—but Khaotung had no idea what to make of the gesture. 

They talked for a while longer, not about First, but about acting and the industry and all kinds of things. The cat stayed quiet in Khaotung’s lap, and Khaotung wondered if switching between forms exhausted him. Cats needed more sleep—so if he spent most of his time in human form, did that mean he always needed rest when he changed back into a cat? The logistics made no sense. And he still found it odd that First apparently wasn’t intrigued by the mechanics. 

Khaotung was almost disappointed when Love checked the time on her phone and shook her head. “Look at me, just chatting away. I’m taking up all of your afternoon.”

“No, not at all.” Khaotung tried out his least awkward smile. “It’s nice to just—have someone to talk to.” He blushed. But he couldn’t exactly clarify. Admitting that he didn’t have any friends would just make everything more awkward. Instead, he gestured at First, “Besides my cat, I mean.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, I imagine he’s not quite as chatty as I am.”

First meowed dolefully, as if to belie her statement.

“I know we didn’t get around to much practice, but I think it was good just to hang out. Cats are slow to warm up, you know?” She stood up and gathered her things. 

“Yeah…” Not First. Not First, with Khaotung anyway. Not when Khaotung had found him, shivering on his doorstep in the deluge of unseasonal February rain, and not when he had first turned human again, either. 

He shook off the image and stood as well.

Love bent to pick up her bag. When she straightened, he was somehow much too close. Her glossy brown hair hovered under his nose, filling his mouth with an unfamiliar, saccharinely floral scent. He jumped back, knocking his knees against the couch and falling into the arm of it in his haste to create sufficient propriety. 

“Maybe it’s not just cats, hmm?” Love giggled. 

“I—” Khaotung blushed to the tips of his fucking toes, and cursed his clumsiness—physical and social. Actors had poise. Actors were extroverts. Actors made everyone feel comfortable. “I’m not good at this.”

“That’s okay.” When he straightened, she looked up at him—and winked. “I’m plenty good at it for both of us.”

What does that mean?

Before he could regain control over his useless mouth, she added, “I’m looking forward to working with you again, Phi,” she said. 

Khaotung attempted to return her smile. “Me too,” he said—and was shocked to find that he meant it. Despite everything, despite his awkwardness and generally unwelcoming demeanor and horrific embarrassment. He only prayed her kindness wasn’t hiding sheathed claws, like the last person in Bangkok he had tried to befriend.

“And you, First,” she said, crouching down, “You be nice to P’Khaotung now, hear?” 

First ignored her. 

“Oh, dear. I thought we were making progress.”

Khaotung sighed. “He’s probably just tired. Cats need a lot of sleep.” When Love still looked concerned, he added, “He’ll be fine by Wednesday. I promise.”

“Okay then. Well,” she shifted on her feet, and flashed him an impish smile that he found himself returning without thought. “See you soon, then.”

“Yeah, soon,” he echoed, and waved her out the door and down the hallway. 

When he turned around, First sat in the short hallway to the door, glaring as only a cat could—ears flat and his spine arched.

“What are you so pissy about?” There was no real heat in the words. Khaotung was too relieved to be upset. Too—happy. 

He had spent all afternoon with another person his age. Someone in the acting industry, even. She hadn’t brought up his past—she might not even know it. And she hadn’t asked about his other jobs or trotted out her most impressive roles. He had googled her; he knew she wouldn’t be doing cat commercials for much longer. 

Most actors loved to wax poetic about all their achievements. Or they wanted to gossip about other actors or complain about how unfair the industry was. Khaotung hated that kind of small talk the most. He didn’t know most of the people they referenced, and he had a hard time pretending to care about anything that didn’t directly affect him. 

But Love—she had talked about food and cats. When she spoke about acting, it was the technical aspects of the job—how cat commercials were different from normal ones, what she hoped for from potential drama roles, and what she enjoyed most about various directors’ styles. 

It was interesting. And relevant. He’d even found himself asking follow-up questions, though she had presented the whole thing as if she were asking him advice about how to do well in lakorn. He had almost forgotten his whole sordid history and the reason he didn’t do lakorn anymore.

And she hadn’t teased him, even when he was awkward or socially incompetent. 

“Khun Love is great, don’t you think?” 

When First only stared at him, Khaotung huffed. “You could be nicer. What if she doesn’t want to do the commercials anymore?” 

A strange, growling noise came from First’s throat. One Khaotung had never heard before. 

“Fir—are you okay?” He took a step toward the cat—who promptly leapt around him and scratched at the door. “You want to…go out?”

First nodded. The human gesture sent prickles of unease up Khaotung’s spine. “Like that?”

The cat nodded again. 

“I’ll have to stay up to let you back in, though.” First scratched again. “Seriously, just change into a human and put some clothes on and—”

First screeched.

“Fucking—shit—stop.” Khaotung clapped both hands over his ears until the gut-wrenching howl stopped. 

Ms-Next-Door knocked politely on the thin wall, and First scratched the door again. When Khaotung opened it, he trotted out without a backward glance.

“Well,” Khaotung said to the silent apartment. “Fine then.”

And for a second time, he went to bed alone.

Chapter Text

By the next morning, First seemed to be back to his usual, cheerful self. Khaotung had slept poorly, waiting all night for the scratch at the door that might indicate his cat had come back and needed to be let in. But when he woke up in the late morning, First was back and lounging on his couch in human form.

Khaotung stared at the feet dangling over one armrest for a long moment, then clenched his jaw and headed for the bathroom. 

First bolted upright. “Can we go to the aquarium?”

Khaotung rubbed his head. He always got migraines from lack of sleep. “Not today.” 

The whole, big frame of him wilted like a giant puppy. “Please?”

“I need to run lines.”

“We practiced all day yesterday. I want to play.”

“Then you shouldn’t have run off,” Khaotung muttered. Maybe First had been out playing—but Khaotung had sat at home, and he wasn’t in the mood to be charitable. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You already have a job. I need this.”

First sighed. Dragged himself off the couch and slouched toward the kitchen. “Then can you teach me to cook eggs, at least?”

“Don’t sulk, nuu,” Khaotung scolded—then clapped his hands over his mouth. Luckily, First had already turned toward the kitchen and didn’t seem to clock anything strange about his tone shift. 

Khaotung washed up in the bathroom and took his time joining First by the countertop, where he was already chopping fruit. The carton of eggs sat next to him, open and expectant, but First did not look up at his entrance. 

“I—” Khaotung cleared his throat. “Khun—how did you even get in last night?”

“Changed into a human and used the spare key under the mat.”

“Naked?”

“No one was around.”

“There are cameras in the hallway!”

“They aren’t pointed at your door.” 

“You—” Khaotung braced against the wall as his sleepy brain caught up with the implications. “What if someone sees?”

First shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Didn’t it? “In movies and stuff, it’s never a good idea for the police to know about the superhero’s abilities.”

First smiled, dimple flashing in his creased cheek. “You think I’m a superhero?”

“That’s not the point! The authorities—”

“What authorities?”

When Khaotung took a breath to launch into an explanation of the types of evil shadowy governments and global conspiracies dedicated to capturing supernatural beings and experimenting on them that he had read in comics and seen in anime, First cut him off.

“I can’t change in front of anyone else. Just you.”

“What?”

“If there’s anyone present or watching me—even through a camera—I can’t change forms.”

“How do you know?”

First shrugged. “I tried. Last night.”

“But—” Khaotung gaped at him. Leaned heavily into the wall as his knees threatened to give. “That’s dangerous—” 

The peeling paint of his clinically-white apartment wall blurred in front of Khaotung’s eyes as he blinked rapidly. Nothing for days and days about First’s predicament and then he just—went out and tried shit. Without saying anything. He must have sought someone out—Tay, or someone else from his former life—and tried to change in front of them. Tried to explain. Maybe tried to ask for help.

But he couldn’t.

Couldn’t do anything but return back here.

Khaotung pressed his eyes closed until the hot burn of tears receded. Took a deep breath and thought about what it might feel like, to turn up in front of his ma and her not know it was him. Not be able to talk to her. Maybe not feel comfortable going home, even in his old form, because of everything that had happened in between. 

He couldn’t quite imagine that, but then not everyone loved her kids as much as his ma. 

But it hurt, just to try. 

“We could go see a movie?”

First stopped chopping to brace against the countertop with both hands. His voice, when he spoke, was flat. “You have to run lines.”  

Heat rose to Khaotung’s cheeks. He stared at First for a long moment, before he could say without rancor, “You said you wanted to play.”

“Work always comes first.” 

That stung. 

“Yeah, it fucking does. Because you’re a human now and you can’t just freeload off me anymore. Even if I get work, you still have to do cat commercials.” 

First shrugged a little. Resumed pulling things from the fridge. Khaotung folded his arms and tried not to scream. 

He was trying dammit and he hadn’t gotten any fuckiing sleep, and why did First have to be like this, be so fucking stubborn the minute Khaotung decided to be nice? “Rent is due in a week. Even if I get the part, I won’t be paid until workshops start. And this is a secondary role—”

“I get it.” First flashed him an empty smile. 

The burn in Khaotung’s sinuses intensified again until his vision swam. His mouth opened and shut uselessly, on empty apologies. Instead, he grabbed a water from the fridge and turned away for a moment, breathing hard through his nose. 

First brushed the fabric of his sleeve. “I didn’t mean…” he never finished the sentence, and Khaotung would never know what he didn’t mean.

“I’m just—” 

He was just so damn tired of feeling awkward and off-kilter in his own apartment. He was tired of being the person who spoke too bluntly, who didn’t know how to navigate a conversation. It was so much easier to talk to his cat, who never got his feelings hurt, no matter what Khaotung said. But even that was a fantasy—even in cat form, he must have hurt First’s feelings so many times, and it was all just—

“I’m sorry I’m such an asshole.” 

Poor First was stuck with him. Not just in the sense that he had nowhere to stay, but no one to talk to. No one who could understand.

And Khaotung understood that more than anyone.

He took a deep breath and turned around—to find First retreated back against the counter, but still focused wholly on him. Those intent eyes made his stomach swoop. He forced the words out from behind his teeth, nonetheless. 

“I’m—I’m sorry. That you couldn’t—”

Why was First stuck with him? 

If only that little black cat had shivered on some other doorstep, all those months ago. If only he had found his way to someone who knew him as a person. Someone who didn’t keep treating him like a cat. 

First shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Khaotung walked the two steps over to join him. “No.” He put a tentative hand on First’s shoulder. “It’s not okay. It sucks.”

First leaned into the touch, hunching his lanky frame and sliding sideways until Khaotung’s arm went around his shoulders and his face pressed into Khaotung’s collarbone. It reminded Khaotung so much of when his cat would nudge under his hand with his nose, until his fingers were petting just the right spot, that he couldn’t be mad about it. He stroked the back of First’s neck, fingers carding through soft hair. 

“It’s fine,” First insisted. He held very still under Khaotung’s hand. “I’m human again. No one needs to hear about it.”

Khaotung sighed. He knew First was lying, but he also didn’t want to puncture whatever fortifying mantra First needed to tell himself. “You can tell me,” he said instead. 

First hummed. 

“I mean it. I know I’m—an asshole about it.” He sighed. “I’ll probably keep being an asshole about it.”

“I’m sorry.” Warm arms crept around his waist. 

Khaotung shrugged. “It’s—”

First’s gaze lifted to his, mischief drawn in every line of his smiling face. “Fine?”

“We’re a pair of idiots, aren’t we?”

First pressed his nose into Khaotung’s neck, his body still hunched in a way that couldn’t be comfortable just to fit into Khaotung’s shorter frame. He inhaled, and Khaotung closed his eyes against the memory of that first day, when First had sniffed the inside of his hoodie and said smells like Khaotung. 

This was okay. He could do this. He could offer some comfort when he had taken so much comfort from First’s cat form. 

Soft lips brushed against the hollow above his collarbone. Khaotung shoved First back with both hands on his shoulders. 

First raised his head slowly, expression unreadable. 

“I should—uh—teach you to cook eggs. Right?”

A small smile. “I would love that, Khaotung.”

In the end, First got distracted learning how to crack eggs. Khaotung cut him off after eight shattered shells and set him to work picking the fragments out of the mess. He had meant to demonstrate many different ways of cooking them, but—

“Scrambled eggs are super easy.”

“Says you,” First muttered, poking around in the pan with a chopstick. 

Khaotung laughed as he watched. “Well, you can practice again tomorrow.”

First hummed. When he finished de-shelling their breakfast, he looked up with a frown. “Don’t you eat anything else?”

Khaotung’s skin heated. He could try to blame it on the hot frying pan they stood over, but—most of his meals were rice, cut up vegetables, and eggs or some bit of cheap meat he got from the kindest butcher at the market. “I don’t need to buy chicken anymore. You can eat vegetables now.”

“Don’t you get bored?”

“If you want to eat a bunch of different things, you can learn to—”

“Hey.” First knocked his shoulder into Khaotung’s, hunching down from his taller height to do it. “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing.” He straightened and reached up to the overhead cabinet to fetch plates and Khaotung was left thinking about how often First made himself small when it was just the two of them.

Even in his human form.

“I do get bored,” he murmured, eyes fastened on the pan and its rapidly overcooking eggs. 

First came back from putting the plates on the table and stood behind him to watch as he seasoned the eggs and then transferred them to a bowl. “Let’s buy something interesting and try some new dishes.”

Khatoung—-already too focused on not thinking about the warm chest he could sense mere centimeters away from his back—turned his head to glare. And regretted the proximity to those wide eyes and full mouth. 

“But—”

First smiled, slow like honey. “You said the money I earn as a cat is mine, so I’ll spend it on what I want.”

Khaotung, loathing every bit of heat dancing on his skin, shoved at his stomach with the bowl to get out of that perilous pocket of overwhelming presence. 

“Do what you want. The eggs are getting cold.” 

Big eyes tracked him to the table, pupils wide like a cat’s when they saw something they wanted to chase. 

Khaotung lifted his spoon. Realized he had forgotten the rice. Tried to get up and slammed his knee against the table. 

“Fuck! Shit—”

A small bowl packed with rice appeared in front of his nose. 

First set a second one down in front of his own plate and sat with all the feline grace Khaotung could ever envy. “Let me,” he said. 

Let you what?

Khaotung fastened his gaze on his food and rode out the rush of his thundering pulse for five seconds. By the time his heart rate settled, First was eating with apparent nonchalance. 

So Khaotung forbore to ask more questions that he probably didn’t want the answer to, and followed suit. 

After breakfast, Khaotung decided that he needed a moment to relax before tackling the script again, so he headed for his gaming setup in his bedroom. His computer was one of the few things he had brought from home. It was deliriously out of date, especially for gaming—but he played with his Chiang Mai friends, and that one sliver of connection had kept him going throughout the years of living in Bangkok and attempting to achieve his dreams. 

Right now, though his friends wouldn’t be online and he would have to play with strangers, he needed that reminder that there were some easy things in life. 

First didn’t say, I thought you were going to run lines. He simply sat on the bed and watched through half-lidded eyes. An hour in, after First had asked a few questions and Khaotung had won a few rounds, Khaotung turned around. “Do you want to try?”

First shrugged. “I’ve never played, but it looks fun.” His tone was casual—but Khaotung felt the same sudden tautening of limb and gaze that he noticed when he dangled a feather toy in front of his cat.

“It is fun. Here, I’ll start you in the training mode.”

Ten minutes later, Khaotung’s jaw was on the floor.

First was fucking dominating at Valorant. Khaotung had put him in a Deathmatch to start, where you could practice your aim before committing to a full 5v5 game. The very first time, First won easily, outpacing the nine-minute timer to hit forty kills—something even Khaotung struggled with. 

“You’re sure you’ve never played this before?”

First started a second round of Deathmatch. “I’ve never played any video games, really.”

“Are you sure you grew up human?” Khaotung said the words as a joke—but really. Never played any video games?

“You’ve met P’Tay.”

“Sure.” But it could all be some elaborate hoax, couldn’t it? His cat, turning to a human, and then recruiting other people to pretend like he used to be human, just so he could—

Could—

Khaotung realized First was staring at him instead of controlling his character. On screen, the counter ticked downward. “You’re going to get shot.”

First didn’t shift his gaze one bit; he simply raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “What are you thinking? Something crazy?” 

Khaotung looked away. “Okay, sure, and it’s not crazy that you were a human who was cursed to turn into a cat? That’s the reasonable story?”

First just waited until Khaotung threw his hands up in disgust.

“Fine! But it’s weird that you’ve never played video games before. You were twenty-one, you said. You should have played video games by then!”

Behind First, his character collapsed dead on the screen. He had still managed fifteen kills before getting distracted. 

“I didn’t say I never played them.” First’s expression was smug. 

Khaotung lashed out with what he hoped was a devastating blow. “Okay, so you were just trying to impress me.”

If anything, First’s smile widened. “Does this impress you?”

Khaotung could do nothing but sputter. He recovered with, “We need to get you on a separate computer so we can play together. Neo’s gonna be thrilled.”

“Who’s Neo?”

“Oh. Uh, friend from Chiang Mai. I play with my high school friends, mostly. When they’re around.” Which was less and less these days, as they were all busy with college classes or jobs or life back home. Unlike Khaotung, the only one who had moved to Bangkok. The only one still unemployed. 

“I didn’t know you had friends.”

Khaotung’s mouth dropped open. “You—”

First blinked. Oblivious to Khaotung’s outrage and the new game starting on the screen behind him. 

Khaotung felt behind himself blindly for a pillow.  Grabbed one and threw it into First’s face. “—Asshole!”

First—of fucking course—caught it mid-air, and grinned over it, canines glinting in the half-light that shone through the blinds. “Cat-like reflexes, remember?”

“Augh,” Khaotung wailed, and flopped backward onto the bed. But he was laughing, and First was laughing and it was okay, in the end, that his former cat didn’t realize he had any friends. He didn’t have any in Bangkok, and that was the only part of Khaotung’s life that he knew about. It was almost nice—to find one thing that First didn’t already know about him. 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be offended, though.

“Do you want to play again?”

First stood up from the gaming chair—and Khaotung’s phone vibrated. It was from Som, his old manager. 

He waved First back down and took the call. “Hello? P’Som?”

“I heard the audition went well. You should have told me you were planning to go.”

“I’m—sorry.” He hadn’t thought she would care. 

“It’s fine. I’m glad. Have you thought about what you’ll do if you get it?”

“Um.” Khaotung frowned vaguely at First, who was watching him with a cat’s intent stare. “I mean, if they offer me the part, I’ll accept it.”

“Not just the role. If you work well with whoever you’re paired with, they might want to make you a couple. Offer you more roles. Maybe even your own lead part.”

“That seems…optimistic.” No point in worrying about it now, when he had only gotten one round of callbacks. 

“Think ahead.” He knew his manager was generally kind under the brusque exterior, but still—that stern note in her voice always straightened his spine. She continued, “You should push for someone you think you can work with long-term. You don’t want to get stuck with some moron.”

“Do I even have a say?” he asked weakly. That required negotiation skills. He hadn’t even thought to negotiate the fee for the cat commercial. 

She huffed, and he knew she was disappointed in him. “I’ve already heard good things from your first audition. You definitely have a strong position. Just make sure you screen test well with someone you like.”

As if it were that simple. 

“Do you know who the current front-runners are?”

“Usually, I would have heard something—and I’d let you know if I had. Seems like they’re scrambling for the opposite role—had to pull in new people. They might not even be ready to screen test you in the callback.”

“Then what’s even the point?”

She tched. “I know you’ve never done partner work before, but just think.”

He flushed. First was still staring at him, he realized with a jolt as his eyes scanned the room in fractious shame. He waved a hand to get First to look away—but of course he was ignored. 

Som was still talking. “If they’ve already locked you in, then you’ll have even more power over whoever they choose. So do your very best tomorrow, do you hear?”

“Does this mean you’re my manager again?”

She sighed. “I’ve always been your manager, Nong. What happened to you wasn’t fair. And it was partly my fault, I should have—”

“Plenty of people warned me. Including you.”

First shifted on the bed and Khaotung looked away. He didn’t need to think about how First had witnessed the aftermath of all that humiliation and drama up close.

“Well. Anyway, I never dumped you as a client, I just didn’t contact you because then I would have to charge.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. 

She ignored his naked gratitude—one thing he loved about her was her lack of patience for sincere emotion. 

“Wait—are you charging me for this call?”

“Ha. Don’t worry, Nong. You’re going to get the part, and then I’ll get a nice fat percentage.”

“Um. Tha—”

She hung up. 

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Khaotung shook his head. He glanced at First—to find those brown eyes still on him instead of the video game.

“I guess I really do need to practice, huh?”

First grinned. “Let’s do it.”

Khaotung forwarded First the callback email, which had two scenes worth of script attached. He didn’t have a printer at home—who the fuck did these days—so they both read off their phones. Khaotung should have been off-book by now, but he wasn’t particularly worried. One of his talents was cramming lines right before a scene. 

It was more important to him to work through the emotions and the backstory of the character—to find quick, simple ways he could tie himself to their story so he could properly embody the emotions and physical gestures. That was especially difficult with auditions, when he usually got only two to three pages. 

He really should have gone back inside that day to ask for the full script. But it was too late now, so he had to make do.

First, despite what were probably his best intentions, didn’t help at all. He kept stopping in the middle of his own lines—sometimes Khaotung’s as well—to state his absolutely superfluous opinions. As if that mattered. Even if Khaotung got the role, he would have very limited input on dialogue. Maybe, if he were part of the main pairing that had been selected especially for this script, but as a newcomer in the second couple? 

Absolutely not. 

On the other hand, First’s insistence on excavating every possible nuance of meaning from the bare bones of the sample scenes was aiding his connection to the character. Mostly because he and the character both shared a mounting sense of frustration that they couldn’t just be done with this shit.

“I know you didn’t—”

Again, First cut off mid-line and shook his head.

“What’s wrong this time?” Khaotung unlocked his phone to double-check the words. 

“Just—this doesn’t sound right. Don’t you think Sun would say more than this? And do more than just hug Moon?”

“More?” Khaotung said weakly. He thought about doing more with some shadowy, unknown costar. Somehow, the shadows had Knot’s face—and they all sneered at him in disgust. 

“I’m auditioning for a second couple, not the lead. And my character has a lot of shit going on. He doesn’t have time for kissing.” Khaotung scrolled back to the top of the document. “At least, not starting in Episode Eight. Maybe just one at the end.”

First flicked him a frown. “You don’t want to kiss your co-star?”

“Not…particularly.” Under First’s continuing scrutiny, he added weakly, “I guess. Depends who it is.”

“Oh.” First relaxed. “Well, don’t worry about that.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t even know if you have the part.”

That made sense. Okay. Khaotung took a few deep breaths. 

First, however, frowned again. “But I don’t think this dialogue is good, anyway. This isn’t what I would say.”

“What, if you were in love with a murderous asshole, who finally admitted that he maybe liked you back?” Khaotung said it sarcastically. His character was technically the villain for the first half—until he met a kind man who helped him see the error of his ways and convinced him to repair his relationship with the main character, his brother. 

“Yes,” First answered honestly. “Since I love you—” 

Khaotung’s heart dropped through the floor. 

First continued smoothly—“I wouldn’t just say, I know you didn’t mean it. For one, I’m pretty sure you did mean it.”

“Can you stop saying you?” Khaotung muttered. “When it’s the characters?”

First ignored him. “And when you finally let me take the gun, I wouldn’t just hug you. I would be determined to show you my unwavering love. I’d want your focus on me, not your stupid revenge plot.”

What would you do?

Khaotung swallowed hard on that question. 

“Selfish much? And it was my mother who died, so don’t—” Khaotung threw up his hands. “Now you’ve got me doing it!”

First grinned his tilted-cat grin. “Helps you get in character though, doesn’t it?”

“And what would you know about getting in character?”

“I watched all those lakorn with you, remember?” First blinked innocently. Too innocently. “I had so much education in what not to—”

Khaotung chucked a couch cushion. This time, First’s reflexes failed—it clobbered him in the chest. 

When Khaotung had finally stopped laughing at First’s mortally offended cat expression, he fixed the couch. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I have to say the lines as is tomorrow. And my scene partner is going to follow the script too.”

First grimaced. “You should ask them to change it.”

“I’m not a screenwriter. And—” he whipped around to wag a finger at First. “Don’t you even think about showing up at my audition again and suggesting script changes.”

“Yes, Khaotung,” First said, with a level of guilt that made Khaotung’s stomach twist. 

“You see how it could be a problem, right?” Why did he sound like he was begging? He had a right to ask this of his—roommate. Or whatever term they were using these days. Tenant? Former cat? “After what that AD said to us?”

“Yes, Khaotung.” 

Shaking his head, Khaotung headed for the kitchen. “Let’s take a break. I’m not sure I’m making any significant progress anymore anyway.” The sunlight had nearly faded from his small apartment windows, and they had turned on the floor lamp a while ago. Where had the day gone?

First followed him—and he couldn’t tell if it was cat-like behavior leaking through or just that his apartment was so small it was almost impossible not to follow each other around. But it felt like Khaotung made all of the first moves, the decisions. Every yes, Khaotung, grated in his chest like paint-thinner whiskey.

Maybe he was too assertive—Neo complained constantly about his stubbornness. Maybe it wasn’t related to First being his former pet.

With that in mind, he opened the fridge for inspiration and asked, “What do you want to eat for dinner?” 

“Oh—”

“What?”

First blushed, a dusting of pink on his ears and cheekbones. “I have dinner. With P’Tay.” His eyes shone, like he might cry at any second. “I should leave soon.”

“Right, sorry. I forgot, yeah.” Khaotung summoned his best smile, the one that only vaguely resembled a grimace, and flung it over his shoulder. “Have fun.”

“I could not go!”

“Why would you do that?” Khaotung stared through blurry eyes at the plethora of unused vegetables First had bought for their—his—fridge. “I need to rest anyway. For the callback. I’ll make something easy—eggs again, since you’re bored of them.” 

“I’m not—”

“I’ll even go to bed early.” He forced a laugh. “A perfect night in for me.”

“Are you sure?”

Khaotung let the fridge door slide from his nerveless hand. 

Does it matter? 

But that was the thought of a petulant child. And why did he care what First did? Why did he care that First would rather hang out with Tay, who could never know about his life as Khaotung’s cat? Isn’t this what he wanted, anyway? Didn’t he want First to have his own friends, his own life? The ability to leave, whenever he got a job? Whenever he realized there was no need to stay here, with someone who still treated him like a cat?

He took a breath through his nose. Blinked hard against that irritating blur in his eyes. Turned around, when he could steady his legs to execute the movement, but avoided that wide, wounded gaze.

“Go have fun with your friend.” Not my cat. Not my cat. Not mine. The comedown was so hard every time. It never got easier. But he had to pretend that it did. That it would.

For First.

He watched in silence as First changed clothes and gathered his few belongings—keys, second-hand wallet much shabbier than the one he had bought Khaotung, fake Converse.

First paused at the door—looked over his shoulder, eyes still wide and expression contrite. 

So Khaotung nodded. 

Pushed the corners of his mouth up into his cheeks until it hurt. 

“Go.”

Chapter Text

Khaotung went to bed early that night, and alone. 

But only for the first half of the night.

“Khaotuunngggg.”

It was dark. Khaotung’s phone screen lit as he sat up and jostled the charger—two a.m. 

“What the fuck?”

“MmsdfjlTUNG.” 

A thud against the front door. 

“If I didn’t know who the fuck it was, this would be terrifying.” Khaotung shuffled out from under his blankets and towards the door. As it was, his heartbeat thrummed in his ears, adrenaline surging through his limbs in prickling preparation to face the nonexistent threat. And he was bound to get some strongly worded notes from Ms. Hairdresser-Next-Door. 

He threw open the door. “Don’t you have a key?”

First collapsed into him, bony shoulder punching into Khaotung’s chest. “Ow.” The smell of whiskey—the expensive, non-paint-thinner kind that Khaotung had only ever tasted at the wrap party for Destiny of You—wafted from him. 

“Get off.”

“Missed you.”

“You were gone for—” It had been quite a while, considering First had left before dinner. “How much did you drink?” Khaotung looked both ways down the empty hallway as First clung to his shoulders. 

“Your friend didn’t drop you off?”

“He did, he did, P’Tay is a good phi.” First pounded a fist on Khaotung’s chest on the word good. 

If Tay was a good phi, why hadn’t he offered to let First stay with him? But Khaotung couldn’t ask that, because what if First hadn’t even thought to ask? What if First moved out, and Khaotung was alone and he didn’t even have his cat to help him pay rent?

“I told him to go before you answered,” First added, snapping Khaotung’s thoughts out of his useless worries.

“What? Why?”

“I know you…don’t like strangers. Small talk.”

“How—” Stupid question. Especially with how deliriously sloshed First was. “Okay, sit down.” He dumped the other man in a kitchen chair and then fetched a bottle of water from the fridge. 

First slumped into his folded arms, face down on the table. 

“Hey, don’t sleep there.”

First whined as Khaotung pressed the cold bottle of water to his flushed cheek. “Drink.”

While First obeyed, Khaotung checked the clock. “I can’t let you sleep on the couch like this,” he muttered.

“I’ll turn cat. We can cuddle.”

“No!” Khaotung grabbed First by the forearm and hauled him sideways, half off the chair. “All that alcohol in a tiny cat.”

First blinked owlishly. “You think so?”

“I have no fucking idea,” Khaotung admitted as he let go and First righted himself. “But let’s just play it safe, okay?”

First’s answering grin was blinding. “Okay, Khaotung. Whatever you say.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“You don’t like when I agree with you?”

Drunk First was impossibly even more earnest and forthright than sober First. “It just feels too—pet-like.”

“I thought you liked me as your cat?”

“When I didn’t—when I thought—oh, whatever.” No use arguing with someone who wouldn’t remember it in the morning. His options were to wait around until First sobered up a little, or to let him sleep in the—

No, that was a bad idea.

“Get in the shower. You reek of barbecue smoke and whiskey.”

First sat there, hair disheveled, eyes shiny and vague. 

“Up,” Khaotung said, grabbing him under the arms in a futile attempt at lifting his larger frame. 

First giggled. “Khaotung is warm,” he murmured and pressed his face into Khaotung’s neck. 

Khaotung frog-marched them toward the bathroom, First stumbling backwards as Khaotung bulldozed into him to keep them moving. 

“Khaotung is warm,” he muttered to himself. “Whatever you say, Khaotung. Sure. Except who was it who went out and got drunk by himself, hmm? Who went out with someone who couldn’t even be bothered to say hello before jaunting off and dumping me with a great hulking lump of drunk cat?”

“‘M not a cat,” First protested. 

His foot caught on the floor and he stumbled backward, the arms still around Khaotung’s neck, dragging him along for the plunge to the floor. 

Khaotung’s hand shot out and caught them on the wall. Caught himself—First still hung off his neck like a loose, lanky anchor chain. His body sprawled, limbs akimbo, in the doorway to the bathroom. 

“Yeah.” Khaotung stared down at the mess of a human below him. “I fucking know.”

First groaned. Peeled himself off the floor and staggered into the bathroom. Khaotung kept his hands ready to catch but otherwise did not touch First’s body as he followed. Only once they were in the tiny space, and First began to strip off his clothing, did Khaotung realize what a mistake he had made.

The other man wore dark, boot-cut jeans that made his long legs look even longer, and a grey button-down with the sleeves cuffed to his forearms. It was different from what he wore around the apartment—t-shirt, wide-legged shorts or pants. Now that Khaotung could see him properly, now that he wasn’t plastered to Khaotung’s body with drunken stupor, but rather standing upright, towering over him—he seemed a different person. 

A stranger. Someone Khaotung might meet in a dark, seedy bar, who might press him against a wall and—

First fumbled with the buttons, poking at them with his silly pink tongue showing out the side of his mouth. He got two undone with painstaking care, and then looked up through his bangs at Khaotung in supplication. “Why did I wear such complicated clothes?” he whined. 

Khaotung thought about knocking those hands aside and replacing them with his own. Slipping the buttons open one at a time, revealing smooth, light brown skin. Then moving to the pants, thumbing the button, pulling down the zipper.

He was so fucking stupid.

Khaotung shifted on his heel, about to turn and leave when First shrank down into cat form and then reappeared. 

Khaotung shrieked and flung himself away, hands clapping over his eyes. “You can’t be a cat—” And then: “Why are you always naked?” He opened his eyes to face the wall and realized he was now trapped in his tiny bathroom with a naked First between him and the door. 

“It’s easier this way.”

“What—that—” Stupid fucking cat and his stupid fucking sincerity. “It’s not safe when you’re drunk.” 

“I don’t feel sick.” First’s words were less slurred than before. “And you’ve seen me naked tons of times.” 

The sound of the water started, and Khaotung dropped his hands. “Doesn’t mean I need to see it again.” 

Liar. 

Well. 

Not that he wanted to co-exist with a naked First. Not at all—the risk for mortification was sky high. But it would be nice to just—observe that beautiful, lithe frame. Without those limpid eyes on him, too knowing. Too sincere.  

If he admitted it, First would probably even let him. He could hear the other man’s voice saying, okay I’ll close my eyes; tell me when you’re done, in a cheerful, easy tone. 

Fucking hell. 

Stupid thoughts to be having. Especially with First in the shower less than a meter away. 

“I’ll—wait out in the living room,” he muttered, sure First couldn’t hear him over the water. Sure that First didn’t care what he did, either way. 

He still gathered First’s favorite t-shirt and a pair of shorts and left them neatly folded in the bathroom. But that was only because First was likely to come out stark naked again if he didn’t.

First came out of the bathroom fully dressed—but sopping wet. Khaotung had been dozing on the couch, still sitting upright.

“Can you dry my hair?” 

Khaotung hesitated. He needed to get back to sleep. More than that, he needed not to be in close proximity with a damp, still-tipsy First. Who seemed to have completely forgotten the no-touching rule. But since he was planning to give First the bed and sleep out on the couch, he couldn’t rest until First agreed to go to bed. And his hair dryer had sputtered to the end of its life a few weeks ago, and it was his fault they couldn’t afford a replacement.

“Sit on the floor.” He gestured to a spot in front of the couch and grabbed another towel from the bathroom. 

When he clambered onto the couch behind, he tried not to think about how his legs were spread around First’s body. First, naturally, didn’t help at all, by continually leaning against one knee or the other, and using his big hands to pet down Khaotung’s legs and play with his toes. 

The smell of him, damp and floral with cheap shampoo, wafted desultorily in Khaotung’s face as he gently massaged the silky strands of hair between layers of towel. He found himself leaning forward, inhaling deeply, searching for that base layer of sunshine that had suffused his life for the last year. 

Just as he caught a whiff—maybe—First ran a thumb along the arch of his foot, probing at the sensitive skin underneath.

“Stop that. It tickles,” Khaotung snapped, kicking his leg to dislodge First’s questing fingers. The only saving grace of this position was that Khaotung could hide his flaming-red face. 

“Sorry.” After a moment, First spoke again, as if continuing a separate thread of existing conversation. “I don’t mind, you know,”

“What?”

“That P’Tay can’t—that’s it’s only you who sees me as a cat. I should have known, anyway.”

Khaotung’s movements paused—but when First tried to tilt his head back, Khaotung pushed it forward and resumed drying. 

“Is that right?” His curiosity about First’s past—about his feelings around the curse and its consequences—resurfaced in a rush from the low simmer they had fallen to. What did you tell him about the last year, then? What did you tell him about us?

But that question wasn’t safe.

“Why should you have known?” He couldn’t think of any logical reason. First could have ended up on anyone’s doorstep, after all. But then, he supposed the concept of a curse that turned you into a cat wasn’t logical to begin with. 

“Was I the first person to see you after you got cursed? But you were so sick, you must have been out in the monsoons for days, right? Someone would have seen you around the neighborhood or the hallways.” 

Come to think of it, how had First even climbed up all those stairs in his bedraggled state? His apartment was on the fourth floor, and there was no elevator.

First, naturally, ignored his questions in favor of brutally awkward honesty. 

“I’m glad you’re special.”

I’m not.

“I thought—I thought it would fix things.”

“What things?” And what was it?

“Didn’t you need me?”

“Huh?”

“As a cat?”

“I mean—” Khaotung had been lonely and sad—that was why he had gone home to Chiang Mai for a month. But he had found First only once he returned. And how could First have possibly known that he wanted to get a cat? “Does that matter? You’re a person. You have to do what’s right for you.” Just, preferably, not in Khaotung’s apartment. And not fucking naked.

“Nothing is right for me.” Big, shining eyes blinked up at him as First tilted his head back and opened his mouth again. “Except—”

“Uh uh.” Khaotung clapped a hand over First’s mouth. “None of that.”

A hot tongue swiped across his palm.

“You—you licked me.” 

First grinned, unrepentant as a cat. “Tastes good.”

“That can’t possibly be true,” Khaotung muttered as he wiped his hand on his leg. Louder, he said, “Nothing about this is good for you.”

First made a questioning noise. Khaotung shoved his face forward again, though the hair he scrubbed with the towel was completely dry.

“You let me stay.”

Which time? Probably he meant the first time—because Khaotung wouldn’t use that phrase for their current arrangement.

“You take care of me.”

Okay, so they were definitely talking about First-as-a-cat era now.

“And this feels nice. Like when you pet me.”

Again, Khaotung was desperately glad First couldn’t see his face. “But see?” he said, forcing his tone casual. “Even now we act like owner and pet and that’s just—that’s fucked up.” He draped the damp towel around First’s shoulders and slumped back into the couch. 

First didn’t respond. Didn’t turn around. 

Khaotung kept talking, grateful for release from those lucid eyes.

“You should do whatever you need to do. Whatever is right for you. If you need a place to stay, you have to earn your keep—I don’t want a human as a pet. I don’t want you to owe me shit, and I don’t owe you anything.”

“I never said you did.” First sounded so fucking sad. Even though Khaotung was trying to tell him that he was free. He was his own damn person, who should make decisions based on his own needs. “Can’t we be friends, at least?”

“You don’t treat me like a friend.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the year.

“How should I treat you? The way Love does?”

Khaotung blinked, thrown by the addition of her name to the conversation. He wouldn’t quite consider her a friend yet—but, when he thought about it—

“Yeah, I guess.” 

He felt shockingly comfortable around her, despite the few days of their acquaintance and his general resistance to getting to know strangers. On the other hand, he simply could not imagine First like that—polite, warm, yet respectful of his personal space. Asking questions about his life and interests.

For one thing, First already knew all the damn answers. 

First turned between his legs, scooting his whole body around so he now sat facing Khaotung, who had sat back and averted his eyes when he felt the movement begin. When the silence hung heavy, Khaotung finally glanced forward again to find those disturbingly cat-like brown eyes on him. 

“What?”

First huffed. “I don’t want you to treat me like you treat her.”

“Like a normal fucking human?”

“You moved away from her. On the couch.”

Khaotung winced. He had hoped his aversion to being touched by strangers was a little less obvious. “Do you think she noticed?”

First stared at him in blank outrage. 

“What?”

Lanky limbs pulled inward until First knelt on the floor. Heat flushed up Khaotung’s thighs and belly as the position registered. “What are you—?”

First lifted on his knees. Braced both hands on Khaotung’s thighs for stability. Uncurled his spine to its full height so his head reached Khaotung’s collarbones. 

Khaotung leaned backward, burrowed into the couch. Too terrified to stand because that would put First’s face right in his—and his legs were still on either side of First’s body, so he couldn’t escape sideways. Those wide palms anchored his thighs with the weight of pure, molten heat against prickling bare skin. 

His shorts had ridden up enough to expose his tattoo. First thumbed under the Korean script absently, soothing the skin over and over again. Khaotung stared at the movement, unwilling to look absolutely anywhere else. 

First squeezed his thighs with both hands and waited—fuck him—until Khaotung dragged his gaze up. 

“No touching,” Khaotung said, the whisper pathetically weak. 

Never breaking eye contact, First peeled one hand, and then the other, off his thighs. Just when Khaotung finally sucked in a life-giving breath of scalding air, First braced both of those hands on the couch outside Khaotung’s legs and leaned forward. 

“Don’t move away from me,” First said, gaze intent. “Don’t treat me like her.”

Khaotung blinked rapidly. Swallowed hard. Fisted his hands in his shirt as the only possible outlet for the surge of wild lightning that shot through his body at the low words. His thoughts stumbled over each other as he tried to parse anything except the way First’s bottom lip glistened, the cut of shadows across his face, the thick eyelashes that blinked slowly, lazily, like a cat staring down an inconsequential adversary. 

It didn’t make sense. Right?

If First wasn’t touching him, he wouldn’t need to move away. The one negated the other. Except he was on the couch and First wasn’t touching him and he needed to do more than shift a few centimeters. He needed to run, screaming down the halls, hysterical and wild because his fucking cat wanted the same affection in human form as he got in cat form and that just wasn’t—

It wasn’t—

Khaotung shuddered violently against the vibrant images of kissing First’s little black head. Burying his face in First’s belly. Cradling him to his chest. Sleeping with First on top of him. First’s fur against his bare skin when he couldn’t be bothered to put on a shirt—

The memories warped, twisted, the little black cat in them growing into a man, a hulking man who was somehow still cute and snuggly. Warped again, the pouty First in his mind looming, the way First loomed in front of him, somehow, despite being on his knees. 

First filled his entire vision, the heat of him pressed close, the scent: sunshine mixed with Khaotung’s cheap shampoo. Soft and inviting, but not comforting—not right now. He stared into First’s eyes and saw not his cat—and not even the gentle, awkward human who was silly and earnest by turn. 

He saw a man.

Khaotung’s heartbeat fluttered high in his throat as his gaze skimmed down First’s tensed neck, down the collar of his t-shirt. Only a few centimeters separated them now. If Khaotung leaned forward and he would graze his nose on First’s cheek. 

How should he treat a man? 

Khaotung’s eyes fluttered closed. First’s breath played against his cheek. 

A man who wasn’t his cat. 

He sucked in burning air, lungs deriving no oxygen, his brain receiving no clarity. His heart pushed against his breastbone, chest threatening to burst with the needy pounding. He wanted to lean forward, into that warmth—

A man he had known barely a week.

His body sank into the couch. Caged between First’s arms, he had no leverage. No control. He couldn’t shift a centimeter without brushing against bare skin. Couldn’t sit up, couldn’t take a step forward, could only wait for the man in front of him to decide what happened next. 

Trapped, just as he was trapped in this putrid city. No control over anything, not his career, not his relationships, not even his fucking cat. And he shouldn’t have control, because he ruined those things and he was no good at people and even cats deserved more than whatever suffocating life he had, but this man wasn’t his cat, he was—

A stranger.

Khaotung’s eyes flew open, and the man in front of him was beautiful and strange. Unknown and unknowable, someone who hid behind smiles and false affection. The way every beautiful person he met in this city hid ugliness deep in their chests. 

And what could such a beautiful person want with him? 

The man—the stranger—leaned closer, the looming figure eclipsing the lamplight. Khaotung sank into icy darkness. 

“Don’t—” he gasped, through cinched-tight lungs. Pressed both hands to his mouth, hard, until his teeth cut into the underside of his lip and he tasted blood. His body swept with sparking numbness. His vision blurred.  

“I’m sorry.” First lurched back on his heels. His hands fell off the couch; his warmth, scent dissipated. “I’m sorry, Khaotung.”

Sudden light, sudden air, sudden space—

Khaotung slumped forward, as if a pinning force had finally released its hold. 

“It’s okay,” he said, staring down at his bare knees, unsure who he spoke to. “It’s okay.”

It was just First. His cat. 

He took shuddering, acrid breaths through his nose. His limbs sagged, leaden and shaky. 

First moved back further, expression wary. “I’m sorry.”

Because Khaotung had the power here. He had control. He could kick First out, if First was playing some long game. First didn’t know his friends, his family, anyone in the industry. He couldn’t ruin Khaotung’s life. 

“I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry. I won’t touch.” First’s hands twisted together in his lap, the fingers whitening where they pressed together with force. 

Tears tracked down First’s face. Khaotung brushed his own, icy-cold cheek with the back of a hand and found tears there too. When had that happened?

“Khaotung, are you okay?”

Khaotung frowned at the shake in First’s soft voice. “Why are you so sad?” He forced a smile past his stiff lips. “I’m fine.” 

Fine. He was the one who used people and never gave them what they deserved. Used his cat for comfort, but never allowed him anything in return. He was the one in control. Had controlled First’s life for a year, and didn’t he owe First something for that?

But he could not make himself say anything more reassuring. 

“Let’s just go to bed.”

“I’m sorry,” First said again. “Should I turn into a cat for you?”

Khaotung sucked in a breath. “You’re too drunk.”

“Maybe not anymore.”

“Drink some water.”

First obediently trotted to the kitchen and came back with two bottles of water. Khaotung sipped his slowly. Scrubbed his face clean and tried not to glance over at the other side of the couch where First now perched. 

But he could feel those watchful eyes. 

“I’m fine. I was just being stupid.” Khaotung pulled both of his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees. Laid his head on them and closed his eyes. It was so late. Exhaustion swamped over him, quieting his heart rate. 

First was docile again, his sweet cat offering him water and control that Khaotung pretended he didn’t crave. 

It was hard not to wish he had found a different cat in front of his apartment a year ago. An easy, normal cat, who didn’t make everything so damn complicated. Glancing at the man on the couch who watched him with a sweetly anxious expression, it got a little easier. 

He yawned, and the last bit of tension seeped from his body.

“You need to sleep, Khaotung.”

“I changed the sheets while you were in the shower, so you can take the bed.”

First’s expression darkened as he stood. “No.”

Khaotung forced his tired body upright and walked toward the bedroom. “Just let me get my charger. And then I’ll sleep on the—”

First grabbed a couch cushion and bulldozed into Khaotung’s back. “No. You have—” First shoved him onto the bed and then jumped after. “You have the audition tomorrow.”

“We can all agree I’m already fucked for that,” Khaotung muttered, face down in the pillow, First’s weight on the couch cushion now pressing his entire torso. First’s bony knee digging into the back of his thigh.

This motherfucker had just sworn to never touch him again without permission. He probably thought three out of four limbs was good enough. Maybe he didn’t even notice the bruising pain of knee cap on thigh bone. 

Stupid drunk assholes and their stupid, hot, older, rich friends. Who, no doubt, bought First drinks and plied him with alcohol and dropped him off without helping at all.

“Sleep on the bed,” First insisted.

“Like this?” But Khaotung’s skin prickled as the last of his cold sweat simmered into a burning blush. “You’re the fucking worst.”

This was clingy, goofy First, who was obnoxious—but neutered. Safe. Absolutely unsexual, like his cat was unsexual. Khaotung knew in his bones that if he protested, First would flinch away. Would apologize and give him space and sulk about it, like a spoiled cat. 

And Khaotung didn’t know much about First-the-human, but a week was enough time to ruin his life, if First really wanted to. If Khaotung hadn’t had a stupid panic attack over feeling trapped, First-the-human might even have—

Khaotung groaned into the pillow and shied away from the humiliation of his panicked crying. He was so fucking stupid. 

It was past three in the morning now, and he just wanted to fucking sleep.

He rolled onto his side—First scrambled off in the process—and scooted all the way to the edge of the bed that held his phone charger. Piled the couch cushion and his three extra pillows in the middle of the bed. “Just—you stay on that side.” He gestured behind his back and fervently ignored the dip of the mattress as First settled under the sheets. 

It was late and he had an audition tomorrow and First couldn’t be a cat right now. It wasn’t safe. 

“Only for tonight,” he mumbled, though he doubted First would hear. 

Chapter Text

Khaotung woke to Knot’s face. 

His lungs collapsed, sucking for non-existent air. Knot laughed. The crowd—what crowd?—laughed too. They whispered behind hands that covered nothing of their disdainful expressions. Air. Where was the air? Sweat ran down his back, prickling, sluicing over ice-cold skin. 

He couldn’t breathe.

Knot laughed again, flashing those perfect teeth. You think you deserve—

Khaotung shoved at the weight over his chest with arms that shook and ached and prickled with receding numbness. The suffocating mass of limbs groaned. Rolled sideways off his chest.

He sat up, sucking in deep breaths, staring around his bedroom in the grey pre-dawn light. Next to him, First was still asleep. Oblivious to the ghosts he had summoned from Khaotung’s subconscious. 

Lucky him.

His phone said 6:33, but the thought of closing his eyes again…

Khaotung shook his head and slid off the bed. He wouldn’t be able to sleep on the sweat-soaked sheets. And First kept rolling towards him, limbs seeking warmth in a way the AC level did not justify, as if he were still a cat. 

Better to just get up and go for a run. Clear his head before the audition at ten. Grab some coffee and power through the morning. Afterward, he could take a nap. Or ruminate on all the stupid shit his mind had dredged up from the useless corner where he kept the events of one year and six months ago. 

First stayed quiescent as Khaotung stealthed around the room to get dressed and gather his things. For a second, Khaotung was jealous—then concerned, because as a cat, First was always a light sleeper. And then he remembered that, one, cats didn’t have deep sleep cycles like humans, and two—First was probably still dead-ass drunk. 

Shaking his head, Khaotung grabbed a waterbottle from the fridge, stuffed his feet into his battered running shoes, and closed the door gently behind him. 

Out in the cool morning, the sun peeked out from between the buildings as he ran past, striping the street with gold, flashing in his periphery: bright and dark and bright again. A light breeze drifted through the humidity, and the sky was cloudless, dusky blue with the promise of another blazing dry-season day.

Maybe it would all work out. It was difficult to think otherwise, with molten gold dawn breaking around him, and the calls of koels and seagulls still audible over the rising blare of traffic. 

Khaotung ran loose-limbed along the canals to the river again and stood for a moment to enjoy the nascent sunrise catching just at the tops of certain waves. He needed to move away, to a cheaper neighborhood. The current lease was a remnant of his long-evaporated hope of steady work after Destiny of You. He shouldn’t have renewed it last year—but with everything going on, the idea of moving anywhere that wasn’t back home to Chiang Mai had felt impossible. And he had found First on his doorstep only a few months before, which had given him hope of a renewed life in Bangkok. 

Now—well, he would know soon if he should bother renewing next month. Maybe even today, if the screen tests went poorly.

Khaotung began to jog along the promenade, flicking his glance out often across the water, tracking the water taxis already hustling people from bank to bank. He would miss the river, despite the smell. The canals. The ability to be at the ocean in just an hour. He loved mountains too, and Chiang Mai had its own river, but—it just wasn’t the same. 

On the other hand, you needed a car to get to the ocean, even in Bangkok. Unless he wanted to take a train to another city further south. But it was the idea of the ocean, so nearby, unfathomable, huge and inspiring that—

“Khaotung?”

Khaotung pivoted, mouth dry, muscles tensing so fast that pain lanced up his spine. He was hallucinating. Had to be. Due to that dream he’d had this morning. The lack of sleep, First’s drunken actions dredging up old memories. 

“Khaotung Thanawat?”

He would rather be hallucinating than have that voice belong to—

“Knot.”

The man from his nightmare stood casually, one hand on a hip, the other behind his neck, head tilted, mouth hanging open—as if he just couldn’t believe his eyes. His hair was so short it was almost a buzzcut, and his heavily muscled shoulders rippled under his tank top in a way Khaotung had never seen. But his eyes were still big and wide-set and his nose still low and round. He hadn’t yet managed the face-sculpting surgery he’d spent months obsessing over. Hadn’t yet saved up to go to Korea to get the masculine face he said anyone needed to succeed in the acting industry; to set himself apart from actors with more feminine features. People like Khaotung. 

Khaotung wanted to point it out. To laugh, unaffected and cruel. You told everyone we were different, you made it abundantly clear. So why do you still look like me?

Instead, he stood and stared, trying to work up enough spit to force literally any words out. Enough courage to do something besides scream, why?

At Knot, at the universe, at himself. 

“It is you.” Knot’s lower jaw pushed forward in affront at Khaotung’s audacity. That set of his jaw—it had never meant anything good, in the whole salt-sowed year of their acquaintance. 

Khaotung shouldn’t care about that anymore. He shouldn’t feel that icy dread trickle down his spine, flex long, cold claws around his abdomen, pierce fetid nails into his stomach. 

He shouldn’t—didn’t—feel anything at all. 

“What do you want?” 

What he should have said: fuck off. 

But his heart lodged rock-hard in his throat and his whole chest beat with go away go away go away and he had never been good at talking, especially not when it mattered. 

“This is wild.” Knot laughed a little. “Seeing you here. It’s been what, a year?” Knot scrubbed a hand over his short hair and continued to stare at him. 

Khaotung wrenched his cotton-stuffed mouth open.

“You’re really still here? Same apartment?” Knot beat him to the punch. Again. 

Deep breath through the nose. Say something. 

“I’m allowed to live in the same city as you.” 

Weak.

“Are you still—you’re not still trying to act, are you?” Knot smiled, a disbelieving sort of smile, like no one could possibly be that stupid. 

“None of your fucking business.” 

Defensive. He was always on the defensive. 

“I’m just asking.” Knot laughed again. Picked at his fingernails, barely a glance thrown Khaotung’s way. “It’s what friends do, you know.”

“Friends?”

All of his dreams of how this confrontation might go had shredded like paper under the tiger’s claws. He needed to escape before the humiliation swamped him, before he said, did something even more stupid. Or someone witnessed it.

Knot shrugged. “We could be friends. You were the one who got all huffy and decided that everything I’d given you wasn’t good enough.”

“You—you lied to everyone. Got me blacklisted from every audition for months. My name was—”

Knot rolled his eyes. “And what was the other alternative? That we both got dragged? You know I was happy to support you through—”

“Fuck off,” he managed, but it was weak. “I don’t need your pity.” 

“Are you sure?” Knot gestured down at his ratty shoes with raised eyebrows. “ You’re looking pretty pitiful.”

Khaotung’s fist clench. His shoulders tightened. He took a scalding breath through his nose, felt his lungs inflate slow as lead but they did, but he could. He could do this, say just one, any of the insults and retorts he had spent long, dark months rattling around his brain like damp pebbles, grinding into gems. 

“He has a callback today—” a voice started behind him. Moved with terrible, terminal velocity past him as his shoulder was clipped by a larger body, shoving its way between the two of them, pushing him sideways.

“—so you can shove your stupid fucking face in my—”

“First?!” 

His former cat did not even glance back. “—ass.”

No.

“Who the hell are you?” Knot had both hands up. 

Please—fuck—it had to be a dream. It had to still be a dream, this awful, impossible moment. 

Stop.

First held his position in front of Khaotung, but his legs tensed, his bodyweight poised forward on his toes as if ready to launch an attack at any moment. His chest heaved. This close, Khaotung could see the stick of his white t-shirt to his back, as if soaked in sweat. 

“I’m his—”

“No one,” Khaotung said. He stepped forward. Stumbled into First’s shoulder. Shoved at him, as the wind shoves at a mountain. 

Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision—or maybe that was just the lack of oxygen, the rush of adrenaline resurging to even more precipitous heights. He blinked hard, his ears filled with cotton, mind sluggish as sun-baked mud. 

“He’s no one.” He repeated. Couldn’t get in between them. Couldn’t look at First’s blazing-sun indignation, nor Knot’s poison-sick incredulity. 

First’s mouth ticked down, but he didn’t look away from Knot. The mountain ignored the useless wind.

“Oh, I get it,” Knot said. “You found a new person to mooch off of. Going to ruin his career, too?”

“What career?” Khaotung said, at the same as First said, “Khaotung never—”

Knot spoke over both of them. “Finally sunk low enough, have you? After all that time rejecting what I got you because it wasn’t premier enough.”

Khaotung gaped at him. “I never said that. I was always grateful I just—”

“You just wanted the best shit without putting in any of the work.”

First was shouting something. Protesting with some bullshit about how hard Khaotung worked or what First thought he deserved. Khaotung couldn’t hear any of it—it was static, just noise. 

All that mattered, all that echoed through his brain was the sharp staccato of Knot’s truth. 

“Shut up,” he muttered, hands over his ears. “Just shut up.”

First made a wounded noise, like he’d been punched in the kidney.  

Into the sudden cessation, Knot renewed his attack. “You’re just a normal sucker now, groveling for whatever you can get. Would have thought your pride would send you packing long ago.”

“You’re jealous.” First still stood in front of Khaotung, as if he were a shield. “Some stupid petty asshole, but Khaotung is better than you.” As if he wasn’t making everything worse with every passing moment.

Khaotung snagged his hand. “Leave it,” he hissed. 

First tugged his arm away. Stepped even closer to Knot, looming over the shorter man with cartoonish intimidation. “Haven’t you done enough?” He shoved Knot with one stiff arm on the shoulder. “Haven’t you gotten your revenge?”

Khaotung choked hard on the fizzing laughter that felt like a scream trapped in a ghost’s lungs. His pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out the rest of First’s tirade, turning it into senseless seafoam at the edges of crashing waves of shame. 

Revenge. 

Even First, who had only heard Khaotung’s side, understood that there was some initial injury. That there was something to get revenge for. That it was Khaotung’s fault that any of this had started in the first place. 

Knot didn’t flinch in the face of First’s crowding. “What revenge? I just needed people to know what they’re getting into, with him.” He shoved First back. “You should know.” Stepped around him to raise incredulous eyebrows at Khaotung.

“Tell your boyfriend—”

“He is not my boyfriend.” 

But Knot would believe whatever he wanted to. And he would use it however he wished. And Khaotung was small, disregarded, left behind as First and Knot squared off, as they decided his fate, adjudicated his trial.

“I forgot you’re still in denial.”

Khaotung choked off his unarticulated protest. No one would hear it anyway. 

“You’re the one who’s in denial. You have no right to speak to Khaotung.” First’s height, his broader shoulders blocked Khaotung’s view. His frame sheltered Khaotung from every physical violence.

But it wasn’t the threat of Knot’s fist in his face that kept Khaotung from running in the mornings.  

“You ruined his life.” Khaotung shuddered. “Now he’s finally doing well again and you’re butting in to ruin it?”

With one hand, First caught non-existent blows. With the other, he twisted the knife in Khaotung’s back, his words a skin-peeling exposure of Khaotung’s life, his heart, his innards now strewn across the pavement. 

Weak.

There was no saving his dignity. It was all a mess, a bloody, excavated corpse lying on the sidewalk. Crime scene long abandoned. Picked over by the most indiscriminate scavengers. 

Khaotung turned and walked away. 

“Can’t even talk like a civil human?” Knot’s tone rose to carry, to nip at Khaotung’s heels like hellhounds. “Have to set your dog on me?”

Dog. That’s funny.

First screamed an inarticulate sound of rage. Perhaps he shoved Knot again, perhaps they exchanged blows. Khaotung did not know. Khaotung did not look. He had no power here, he was nothing but a physical thing to shelter or blame or hate. 

And he wasn’t even grateful. 

As he walked—not ran, some prey instinct told him to run would be to die, so he walked, slamming his heels into the pavement over and over, until the tired rubber of his old sneakers threatened to crack—he let the tears tremble over. Let the adrenaline find its outlet, let the shock of it, of Knot’s face, First coming up behind, the whole awful mess, pinwheel through his mind in a kaleidoscope of regret.

He had never heard First yell before. Never seen his clenched fists tremble, his body brace for its own violence. 

The sight of it had disturbed some sluggish mechanism lodged under his breastbone. Awoken some repulsive instinct to shout, no, don’t. 

As if he had that right. 

As if any of this was his to fix instead of his to fumble. 

It was too late to say any of the things he needed to, let alone the ones he didn’t.

Footsteps behind him, rapidly approaching. Khaotung kept his head down, but a long-fingered hand reached into his vision.

A warning he did not deserve. 

“Khaotung. Are you—”

“Fuck off.” Now, he could say it. Now, he could mean it.

First staggered to halt, and Khaotung followed suit. Though every drop of thundering adrenaline still screamed run, run, get away. 

“You know he’s wrong. You know you deserve—”

“How do you know?” The bitter injustice of it welled in this throat. Having to tell his one defender how very wrong he was. “Are you an actor? Were you there? Do you even know what he’s talking about?”

“But I—”

“You’re just my fucking cat.” 

That wounded noise. A small animal, caught in a trap meant for something much more dangerous than itself.

“Just—fuck off.”

Khaotung began to walk again. The sound of First’s heavy breathing disappeared, his hand receded from Khaotung’s periphery, his voice no longer lifted to call him back.

Good, Khaotung told himself. Good.

He cried all of the long walk home.

Khaotung was still shaking when he arrived at the studio for the callback. 

First hadn’t followed him back to the apartment. Khaotung had rushed through his shower and facial routine, desperate to get out. He had over two hours until the audition, when he scrambled through the front door at 8:35. Yet he still managed to be seven minutes late to the audition, after spending the intervening time pacing Bangkok’s sidewalks and debating whether to just call and cancel.

In the end, he decided humiliation was better than the alternative. He just had to hope Knot was satisfied with the utter implosion of Khaotung’s career a year ago. He had to hope Knot wouldn’t follow up on First’s stupid, stupid words. 

He’s finally doing well again.

Hah.

“You can just head right in, they’re waiting for you,” the receptionist said when he checked in. 

Khaotung’s skin prickled with the first of what he knew would be many humiliated flushes. “Sorry,” he mumbled and then pushed the door open, already folding into a deep wai of apology to the casting panel.

The director waved him to the center of the room, and the screenwriter smiled warmly. He focused his attention on those two, simply because they had seemed receptive last time. Though he knew it was the casting director that he most needed to impress. 

“We’re just going to jump right into screentests, if that’s okay?”

Khaotung blinked. Pressed his lips shut on a protest that would only make him seem unconfident or inexperienced. “Khrap.” He wai-ed again, just for good measure, and thanked every god that they weren’t scolding him for lateness. “May I know what the screen test will entail? Just lines or…” He bit the inside of his cheek, cursing himself. They weren’t going to make him kiss some stranger the moment they met. 

He was pretty sure.

The screenwriter laughed. “We’re starting with Nong Mix, who is playing your older brother—the lead role.”

His neck and shoulders ached as his body released unrealized tension. “Khrap.”

That made sense—no point finding a matching couple if the lead actor couldn’t tolerate the half he would have to work with. But he had never heard of Mix before—and he had done his research. How could an unknown actor have so much clout?

Then Mix strolled into the room, and Khaotung’s questions fizzled out like overly-carbonated soda. 

Mix’s vulpine features were delicate and pretty—but his eyes flashed sharp as a chef’s favorite knife. He moved with enviable poise into the center of the room, scanned Khaotung with an assessing glance, and then turned to the casting panel. “You promise this one has actual talent?”

I want to work with him, was Khaotung’s first thought. And, he looks difficult to please, was the second. 

He took a deep breath and wai-ed to Mix while the casting panel expressed a mixture of amusement and horror. 

“Khrap.”

“Oh.” Mix blinked. “It speaks.”

Asshole.

Khaotung didn’t curse—but he didn’t smile either. He simply met Mix’s gaze with his own and waited. 

“Hmm,” Mix said, finally. “Let’s try it, anyway.”

The director clapped her hands together with what looked like relief—and Khaotung knew his initial assessment had been correct. “We’ll start from Moon’s introductory scene.” 

Mix shot him a smile as he sauntered from the room an hour later. Khaotung almost managed to smile back. When he turned back to the panel, they were all standing and stretching as well.

“Sorry.” He caught the eye of the screenwriter. “Is that all? Should I go?”

“Oh! I don’t think so, but—” She looked around for an AD. “Khun Inn, the schedule?”

Inn looked down at his papers. “You’re here in the early afternoon, too. We still haven’t found our Sun.”

Did that mean they had found their Moon? Was he safe?

But even if he was currently the top candidate, if they couldn’t find a match for him, they would go with someone else. Someone with less baggage. Someone who worked well with others. 

The receptionist told Khaotung to take a break for lunch and report back in forty-five minutes. But he didn’t have a packed lunch, and he wasn’t hungry anyway. So he simply waited in the lobby, knees jiggling up and down, lines running through his head as he crammed last-minute. Every new person that came in, he stared at them—wondering if they were there for Sun or Moon. If they were a potential screen partner—or a potential rival. 

He wondered where Mix had gone for lunch. If he was eating with his co-star before his next screentest or done for the day. How nice it must be, to be assured of your spot. More than that—to have a partner. Someone you came with, as a set. A pair. Someone to face the stress of auditions with. Someone who wouldn’t leave without you.

Khaotung sighed in the empty reception room, and tried not to think about his ghosts. 

When they called for him, he startled. Fell halfway off the chair. 

“Long morning?” the receptionist asked, as Khaotung blinked away the ill-gotten nap and stood on shaky legs. His smile was sympathetic, so Khaotung nodded. 

“Rough night, actually.”

“Good luck,” the man said, “I’ve heard good things about you.”

The words should have been reassuring. 

Khaotung swallowed hard on the bouquet of questions rising to his lips—who? when? what precisely did they say?—which would only make him seem like a narcissist. But his shoulders slumped as he walked through the door, the small boost of confidence erased, like a heart carved into sand below the tideline.

In the room sat only the director, the screenwriter and the casting director. 

“This should be quick and easy,” the director said with a smile.

Khaotung proved her wrong almost immediately.

The first guy—black hair, aquiline features, definitely had work done—was more than decent. He spoke the lines with feeling, drawing Khaotung in. They found a rhythm easily, flowing through the less tense scenes without issue. 

But in Khaotung’s mind, the man loomed like a dark, implacable wall. A mirrored surface that reflected not Moon’s heart and feelings, but the glaring, unforgiving sun, right back into Khaotung’s eyes. 

There was no give. Khaotung probed. There was no—depth. Moon felt along the edges of their conversation, desperate for some understanding. Practicing the lines yesterday, he had changed the cadence, restructured the flow without noticing. With Mix that morning, similar adjustments had sparked the chemistry between them, catalyzing a rote argument into a full-blown hurricane. 

With First—

But with Sun, with this Sun, his every reach forward into shared resonance was met with retreat. Raised eyebrows and faint confusion. The blocking, too, felt closed. Isolated. Moon rocked alone in his misery, his mistreatment. Sun stood on the outside, over him, an eternal, glaring eye of judgment. 

Repent. Repent and I will help you.

When Sun reached out at the emotional peak of the scene, when his hand hovered not at Moon’s face, but his shoulder, a remote, neutered touch—

Khaotung flinched away. He couldn’t force his body into submission, could not convince himself that this was safe. 

Repent, repent.

That his penitence wouldn’t be used against him.  

The director saw it. She frowned and asked him to try the scene again. And again. With that man, and then the rest of them. Each partner worse than the last. 

Tall. They were all tall men, broad and muscled and big. Not just in body but in presence. They grated on him. On Moon. They burned too bright and spoke too loud and insisted that he give up the fight. It was Knot, saying why do you want this so bad, anyway? Just give up, everyone already knows you’re useless. You suck other people dry and then cry when you can’t succeed without them. The Suns told him over and over again, give in, give up, let me handle it, let me defang you and mold you into something that is cute and gentle and mine.

And Moon refused. 

He refused. None of these fake Suns could tell him what to do. He kept thinking about what First had said—shouldn’t they do more, here? He couldn’t stop seeing Knot’s face. That punchable nose he should have punched on the way out. Should have punched his morning. Should have said something, not just stood there, like an idiot, and let First—used First—

Groveling for whatever you can get.

Pity. Disdain. Tolerance. It oozed out of every Sun he came up against and none of them could hug him around the shoulders and just—make it better. His mother was still fucking dead. Knot was still fucking out there, with his smug face and his you’re not still trying to act? Moon hated them all. 

Khaotung hated them all.

He hated them, hated them, wanted to crack their spineless bones over his leg and beat their perfect features until the plastic surgery melted and the plump lips punctured and the sharp jawlines caved in. Wanted to tell them to fuck off, the way he had never quite managed to tell Knot to fuck off in any way that mattered.

And it showed. 

After the sixth attempt, the casting director sighed. “Still not working, hmm?” 

She seemed to be asking Khaotung, but he kept his mouth firmly pressed in a tight seam. 

If he opened it, he would puke all over his shitty, beat-up sneakers. His tears were enough of an answer—and besides, it wasn’t his opinion that mattered. He had no idea why he was still in the building. Why he hadn’t just been dismissed and the next candidate brought in to test against these hulking assholes. 

“We have other options. Later today. We can bring them back in, we still have a week before…”

Khaotung lost track of the conversation between the three. Or rather—he didn’t want to hear anymore. So he was not only a bad fit, he had wasted their time. They would have to go back to other candidates. His reputation would take another hit—can’t work with others, waste of time to even audition him—and Som would never send him another opportunity. 

“Nong Khaotung? We’ll call you in a few days,” the casting director said. Her voice was kind, and Khaotung knew his tears must be obvious to everyone in the room. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that at least he would not have to do fan service with any of those people. 

It didn’t help.

He shuffled through the door back to the reception area. Mix, who must be waiting to screen test with the candidate after Khaotung, leapt to his feet. 

“How’d it go?”

Khaotung shook his head. 

Mix’s fox-like face scrunched. “Huh. Well, I hope we can figure it out soon.” His gaze tracked over Khaotung’s tear-stained cheeks. When he spoke again, the words took Khaotung by surprise. “You do look kind of like me.”

Khaotung pressed his lips together and said nothing. 

The lead actor, predictably, did not like that. “Don't you know how to take a compliment?” He poked Khaotung in the bicep. “You don't think I'm hot?”

Khaotung’s head flew up. “You are.”  

“I knew I liked you.” Mix smirked, as satisfied as if he hadn’t just forced the words out of Khaotung like a popped pimple. He threw one elegantly braceleted arm around Khaotung’s shoulders. 

Khaotung stiffened. Forced himself to endure. To relax. 

Unlike with First, he couldn't risk offending this mercurial potential costar. Mix might even have the power to help his shit position, if he took a liking to Khaotung—even if it was based solely on facial similarity. 

“Did you audition for the part, or…?” He already knew the answer from Googling it during the lunch break. But he also knew someone like Mix would enjoy talking about the process.

“Oh, no. Of course not. Earth—have you met P’Earth? He’s the ever-so-handsome one with the chiseled body. Right over there.” He nodded at a darker-skinned man, studiously reading the script while seated on a corner bench. “We knew each other before, and he refused to work with anyone else. I’m new to the industry, you see. Bit of a prodigy.”

“What did you do before?”

“Modeling. Because I’m sexy as fuck. And—” He held Khaotung away by the shoulders. Lifted one hand to brush his bangs aside. “So are you—even when you cry. You really do look like me. And I’ve heard you’re fantastic. The scene we did was electric—more than half my doing, of course, but you—are you paying attention?”

Khaotung was not, in fact, paying attention. He had been thinking about his six failed screen tests with potential Sun actors. About going home, to his sad apartment. Where First was no doubt out again, probably with Tay, maybe even talking about him. About how Khaotung couldn’t shake the tar-sticky cloud of shame and doom that followed him from job to job. How First had to earn all of the rent doing something he hated, had to protect Khaotung from everything.

Fingers snapped in front of his nose. 

“None of this spacing out when we’re on set, okay? If we’re goofing off, we’re doing it together. For instance, if you want to help me, I was thinking I could prank P’Earth by putting snakes—he hates snakes—in his bed when we’re filming those countryside scenes. But I also hate snakes. How do you feel about them?”

Mix was jumping about five thousand steps ahead by assuming Khaotung would even be around for snake shenanigans. “Yeah. I can do snakes.”

“Great. Love you already.” Khaotung held very still as the other man kissed the air next to his cheek. “You’ll be back for more screen tests, I heard.”

Yeah, right.

“So I won’t say a tearful goodbye.”

We literally just met.

“But don’t forget to practice! I need a hot brother, you know. It’s good for my image.”

Khaotung was left behind, skin still twitching as violently as a fly-stung elephant’s. 

“Khaotung?” First’s voice rang through the deadened apartment air. “Khaotung, are you okay?” The door slammed with a thud, shaking the thin walls. 

Khaotung blinked. When had the sun gone down? Where had First been? He shook the cobwebs from his thoughts. Blinked tear-crusted eyes harder, with no results until First flipped the floor lamp’s switch and the living room flooded with light. 

“Khaotung?”

First wore nice clothes. Pants and a button-down. Like he had when he went out with Tay last night. When Khaotung had stayed home, like always, because—well, he had the audition. 

It really wasn’t First’s fault.

Just like Knot wasn’t First’s fault.

So why did Khaotung’s chest ache, every time First looked at him with those dark, pitying eyes?

“Khaotung!” First snapped his name, fast and uninflected. Without the usual considerate weight he put on the syllables, the drawn-out soft-sing of it that made it special on his tongue. 

Khaotung startled, hard. A plate fell off his lap. Chopsticks clattered to the floor. 

“What is this?” First crouched and picked up the plate. When he started cleaning up clumps of rice with his hands, Khaotung pushed at his shoulder.

“Stop.” First Knot, now this? “Just—stop. Don’t.” His former cat, cleaning up after him yet again. 

“Did you eat anything?” First held the plain rice up to his face. “Why are you eating this? We have food. We have—”

“You have food.” 

“What?”

Khaotung pushed again, until First fell back on his ass. “You have a job. You pay for things. I’m just—I’m just—”

You found a new person to mooch off of. 

“I can’t deal with this right now.” He never could. Hadn’t handled it correctly from the start. First loomed too large in his life. Appearing with no warning and then eclipsing every moment as if it belonged to him. Complicated. Messy. A delicate situation Khaotung had never wanted nor properly braced for.

He just wanted his fucking cat back. The cat whose soft fur he cried into every damn time he failed an audition. 

First set the plate aside, and looked up at him from the floor. Waited for Khaotung to breathe deep through his nose and say, “I didn’t get the part.”

“What?” First looked so innocently shocked and Khaotung wanted to hit him. “Why would you say that?”

“Why?" Shuddering breath through the nose, acrid with the stench of his own failure. "Maybe because what should have been a two-second fuck off to a guy I hate turned into a screaming match.” Khaotung bulldozed past his flushing cheeks and First’s horrible flinch. Leaned forward, arms tight around his torso, jaw tight on every word as if he could protect his mouth from their barbed poison. “Maybe because I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and yet still managed to be late to the audition.” 

Which wasn’t First’s fault at all. Not his fault that Khaotung couldn’t stop the tremors, the cold sweat, the prickling fear that kept him looking over one shoulder as if Knot might actually care enough to track down his supposed, disastrous callback and try to sabotage it. But Khaotung kept going, drowning out the counterpoint screaming in his mind with violence, the violence that had simmered in his stomach all day, leaden, inert. Now boiling into blistering steam. 

“Because you fucking baited him and made it look like I’m some awful person who’ll do anything for money.” And he was, wasn’t he?  

First frowned and opened his mouth.

“Or maybe I failed the most important—the only audition I have left,” just a normal sucker, groveling for whatever you can get, ”because I got no sleep last night, because someone came back fucking drunk at 2 a.m. and someone had to sleep in my bed and someone—someone—” 

Khaotung looked away, the rest of the sentence lodged in his windpipe like a fist.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t deal with this stranger, this man who witnessed humiliation after humiliation in his pathetic life. Whose very presence boxed him in, yet who also paid his fucking grocery bill. He didn’t want First’s charity, and yet he wasn’t allowed to leave.

"Do you have to always be here?" He didn't want to be alone. "Do you have to always show up?" He needed a friend so badly. "Can't you just—"

His neighbor knocked politely on the too-thin wall, as she always did when Khaotung to too into his passionate line delivery.

“Sorry,” he whispered, lips tracing a word that no one could hear.

First waited, still, and Khaotung deflated. He sank into the couch and wished he had the strength for violence. The strength for anything besides cowering behind someone else's pity. But some things could never be.

No matter how hard he wished them.

After a moment, still staring at his bare feet, at the overcooked clumps of rice strewn between them, he said, “I need—I just need—” He swallowed. Hard. “I really want to hold my cat right now.”

If he doesn’t like it, he can leave. 

Surely Tay, or his family, would give him a place to stay. He didn’t need to be here. He didn’t need to be alone. Unlike Khaotung. 

“Khaotung…” First’s expression broke, like grief on a distant shore. 

He would stop. Soon. 

Soon, he would find the strength for self-righteous anger. For loneliness. 

But not tonight. 

Not with Knot’s words more vivid than ever in his ears, and First-the-human’s witness to them. The memory of that complicated moment on the couch from last night bubbling up from his most shameful heart. Did First even remember that? Did he remember their bargain? 

Don’t move away from me.

Well, Khaotung couldn’t move away, not tonight. And it wasn’t safe to have First like that, as a human, readily available for his comfort whenever he needed to cry. Khaotung needed to cry so often these days, and no human should have to put up with that.

First looked at him. Reached out a hand, as if to cup Khaotung’s cheek. True to their promise, Khaotung did not flinch away. He held First’s too-understanding expression and waited, waited to crumble.

First’s fingers never landed. 

“Okay, Khaotung. I can do this for you.” Khaotung hated the way he said that: for you. But he knew it was true. They both did. “You really need it?”

Khaotung nodded and First closed his eyes.

The hand, a breath away from his skin, disappeared. First disappeared. In his place, squirming out from a pile of clothing, was a small, black cat. His amber eyes held a hint of brown, a shred of warmth that stole Khaotung’s breathless sobs, all the more shocking for the fact that when he looked closer—it was gone. 

Khaotung slid off the couch. Knelt in front of his cat, and held out a hand. As if First were a stray and they were meeting for the first time. 

“Hi, Fir.” His voice shook on the name. It tasted sweet and foreign and wrong, like ixora blossoms long rotted in a dying afternoon sun. 

I missed you.

The cat leapt up into his chest and they fell back together until Khaotung hit the floor with a shattering sob.

He thought about last night. About falling asleep nestled against the chest of another human; in the arms of a gangly, adorable man. Waking up four hours later, suffocating with horror. He thought about a man who still acted too much like a cat and only had Khaotung who could ever understand what he had gone through. Who feared being stuck in a cat’s body, and yet was here, giving Khaotung comfort nonetheless. 

That night, Khaotung held First in his arms and cried for both of them. For himself, who clung to the rapidly dwindling memory of his cat, and for First, who was doing everything in his power to leave that memory behind. 

And who would surely, one day—much too soon—succeed.