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Shen Yuan had always thought that it might be nice to get a cat, someday. Cats were quiet, clean and low maintenance. Or so he’d thought. In retrospect, maybe he should’ve just caved and gotten Binghe a puppy.
It wasn’t that they’d decided to get a cat, exactly. More accurately, a cat had wandered into their house through the yard one day and decided it lived there now. It was a white cat with green eyes, scrawny and standoffish, elegant in a way that made it seem like it was judging you all the time.
It looked like it had seen some rough days, startled and hissed and hid under the bed whenever they got too close. Shen Yuan was the one who had made the mistake of feeding it because, look, it really did look pitiful.
It had meowed to be let out later on in the evening, darted out into the bushes, and they’d thought that would be the end of it.
But the cat had come back the next day, and the day after that. Eventually Shen Yuan had added cat food to the grocery list, because the cat was draining their fish supplies.
It started staying longer and longer, and Shen Yuan eventually had to resign himself to the fact that they now had to do something about it.
Shen Yuan had made Binghe put up posters in case someone was looking for it, but no one had come. Wrestling it into a box to take it to the vet had been a nightmare. (They’d both gotten scratched up, but poor Binghe really had gotten the worst of it. Eventually Shen Yuan had managed to rescue his husband by picking up the yowling beast with oven mitts). They’d gotten it vaccinated and treated for fleas, and Shen Yuan had wanted to cry when he’d gotten the bill.
The vet had given them the number of a shelter they could take it to, but Shen Yuan had known from the look in his husband’s eyes that that wasn’t going to happen.
He’d known they were going to keep the mangy thing from the moment the secretary had called it Shen Jiu, as though it was a member of their family (he’d filled out the paperwork while Binghe kept the creature from escaping its box… The form had required his name, and the cat’s name, and it had a grey mark on its chest that kinda looked like a nine, so that was what he’d come up with).
They’d never seriously discussed getting a pet before, Binghe’s longing sighs whenever they ran into a particularly cute dog aside, and they didn’t really then. Binghe had simply turned big, watery eyes his way and Shen Yuan had said fine, okay, don’t look at me like that.
And so their house had permanently gained a new occupant who, for a stray, sure acted like it owned the place
The cat tolerated Shen Yuan, and would sometimes sit by him on the couch if he stayed still long enough. He’d look up from his phone or his laptop to find it curled up on a cushion, a respectable distance away, and then they carried on ignoring each other.
On the other hand, the cat loathed Binghe, who of course was inexplicably fond of it. Any and all attempts at earning its affections were met with scorn. Catnip it ignored, treats it refused to eat until Binghe had left the room, attempts at brushing it were violently rebuked, and it never wanted to play except when it decided to hide in dark corners and pounce on them to bite at their ankles (Shen Yuan hadn’t been so scared of going to the bathroom at night since he was a toddler). It preferred to shed on their bed rather than use the cat tree they’d painstakingly put together, and to gnaw on Shen Yuan’s expensive earpods rather than on its many toys.
It always seemed to need something when they were in bed, and so they’d taken to bribing it with treats before starting anything – which, okay, was just encouraging its bad habit, but he wasn’t just going to let it ruin their sex life!
Despite all this, Binghe cleaned up the gross hairballs and the litter box, cooked homemade cat food and watched videos on cat psychology – whatever that meant – with a smile.
They’d just settled into some sort of routine when Xiao Jiu disappeared, one day. Shen Yuan had figured it would come back eventually, but Binghe had worried. After three days, Shen Yuan was unsettled. After five, he’d made some calls. After a week they’d put up posters, and Shen Yuan had discretely looked up how often do cats get hit by cars.
After a month Xiao Jiu had come back, looking a little worse for wear, yowling for the door in the middle of the night. Typical. Shen Yuan hadn’t cried at all, not matter what Binghe said.
Things had been a little less tense after that, like maybe the cat had learned he had it pretty good in the Luo-Shen household.
Then the horrible creature started bringing Shen Yuan his kills.
Binghe had been delighted, because it apparently meant that Xiao Jiu liked him, but Shen Yuan would really have preferred it if he didn’t. Almost stepping on a dead mouse or bird every other day was not his idea of a good time! And there was that time the mouse hadn’t been quite dead and had run around the house while bleeding profusely. Shen Yuan had had to mercy kill it.
To sum it up, Shen Yuan’s cat was a little bastard. And so here they were, having a standoff over a glass of water.
It was Shen Yuan’s glass of water. The cat knew this. And yet, he made a point of ever-so-slowly leaning towards it, even though his own dish of water was right there.
Shen Yuan straightened, putting down the paper he’d been grading.
“Oh I don’t think so, Shen Jiu. Not today.”
The cat looked straight into his eyes, undaunted.
Shen Yuan was distracted from their staring contest by muted laughter coming from the doorway.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Binghe said, a soft smile on his lips, and he came closer to press a kiss to the top of Shen Yuan’s head and to knead at his shoulders. Which were tense, because of the asshole cat.
One of Binghe’s hands crept slowly towards Xiao Jiu, much to the cat’s apparent displeasure.
If you scratch Binghe again you’re going to the shelter, you demon, Shen Yuan tried to silently project.
But Binghe had come with an offering of chicken; it earned him enough good graces for exactly three strokes along his soft back before Xiao Jiu bolted.
“Progress,” Binghe said, looking unreasonably happy about it, and Shen Yuan just had to kiss him.
After dinner, the cat meowed until Binghe let him out into the yard, where he went to antagonise their neighbour’s big black and white tomcat, who was very sweet and luckily not easily cowed by Xiao Jiu’s bullying tactics.
They sat down on the porch to read because it was nice out, and not because Shen Yuan wanted to make sure the little monster didn’t start any fights he couldn’t win.
“Xiao Jiu, stay away from the tomatoes!” Binghe called out when the cat wandered too close to his little vegetable patch.
The cat darted under the porch, where he would undoubtedly get dirty. He would then need a bath, which would be an ordeal.
Shen Yuan sighed, and rested his head on Binghe’s shoulder.
Next time they were definitely getting a dog.