"Is Kyun coming home today?" the male - cat - Hyungwon asked, looking up while licking at the spoon.

Now that Taehyung had connected him to the cat he'd been watching over for the past two weeks, he couldn't view him without thinking of the cat. The way he was sitting, curled up in the chair instead of with his legs out. The way he was eating his ice cream, taking dozens of tiny licks at the spoon. The way his head was tilted as he watched Taehyung just as he always had. "You were...a cat...and now..."

"He said he would only be gone for fourteen days," Hyungwon continued, licking at his lips before setting down the ice cream and kneading the back of his left wrist against his head as though rubbing at a cat's ear. "He promised."

"He's busy..." Taehyung mumbled, transfixed and unable to process the situation.

Hyungwon pouted, leaning down so his spine was curved inward as he rested his head on his hands, which he had draped over the arm of the chair. "When is he coming home?"

Taehyung could imagine a fluffy tail whipping anxiously through the air, and he shook his head to dispel the illusion. "He's, uh, he didn't...say..."

Hyungwon gave a long sigh, and Taehyung could almost hear the familiar meow. "That's not fair. Kyunnie promised."

"He said it was important," Taehyung defended weakly. He didn't know whose side to be on. He still didn't know what the hell was happening. "You're...what are you?"

"I'm human," Hyungwon said rolling his head to the right lazily. "And then sometimes I'm not."

"How? Why?"

"Amavasya," Hyungwon said, sighing once more and sinking down even lower in the chair. Taehyung honestly didn't understand how he could even fit in the chair, given his height. "It's Sanskrit for no moon day. When evil spirits are stronger." Hyungwon lifted his eyes to meet Taehyung's. "That's when I become human again, for a short time."

"And when the moon comes back?" Taehyung asked, not sure if he believed anything but rolling with it for the time being.

"Then so do I," Hyungwon said softly. "Back to being a cat. But that's okay, because I like being a cat. I don't have to do anything, and Kyunnie spoils me. It's perfect."

Taehyung looked down to Hyungwon's hands and couldn't restrain a sharp gasp. Where the rest of Hyungwon appeared to be perfect, his hands were a testament to horror. Each of his fingernails were missing.

Hyungwon followed his gaze down and sighed, sitting up as though agitated before hiding his hands from Taehyung's view within the folds of Changkyun's shirt.

"What happened?" Taehyung asked softly. Whether he believed Hyungwon or not, it looked horribly painful, and nobody deserved that.

"I wasn't always with Changkyun," Hyungwon said, looking away and tensing his back so his shoulder blades stood out. "The other ones, they didn't want a cat with claws."

"But Changkyun takes good care of you," Taehyung said, trying to calm Hyungwon down, and it seemed to work as Hyungwon settled back down in the chair.

"He does," Hyungwon said. "He lets me watch the shows I want to watch," he said sharply as though expecting Taehyung to argue with him. "And he gets me the good food, and he gives me treats, and..." Hyungwon tilted his head down so his collar appeared in his peripheral vision. "And he gave me this."

"It's very nice," Taehyung offered.

"It means that I'm his," Hyungwon said, flicking the silver hard so it spun in the light. "So other people don't take me."

Taehyung wondered what had happened to Hyungwon before Changkyun had found him. "How...how did this happen? Were you a cat, or were you a human first?"

"Human," Hyungwon said, still distracted by the shiny tag. "Witches happened. A long time ago."

Taehyung hesitated, unsure which questions were invasive and which were welcome. "How old are you?"

Hyungwon shrugged. "I don't remember."

"What do you mean?"

"It's different for me," Hyungwon said, still looking down, his eyes slightly unfocused. "There is only one Amavasya each month. That's twelve in a year. I'm only human for twelve days a year." He looked up at Taehyung with slightly droopy eyes as though he were already tired. "You're human for 365 days a year. For me to grow a year older, thirty years have to pass."

Taehyung's eyes widened. "How long have you been...like this?"

Hyungwon shrugged again, looking away and seemingly bored with the conversation. "A long time. You can ask Kyunnie. He knows all the answers."

"But I thought he didn't meet you until later," Taehyung said, frowning slightly as he tried to fit all the new pieces of information together. He really needed to call Changkyun, and soon.

"That was the second time. The first time was that night," Hyungwon said, yawning and blinking heavily. "Changkyun was one of the witches that was there."