Unfamiliars - themarmalade(AO3)

Chapter 1

*This is not my story but from @ themarmalade on AO3*

-*-

The rain hurts. There's a word for that, he knows. Think, Yoongi, think...hail! Christ, I've been stuck like this too long.

He huddles beneath a parked silver Honda outside the supermarket and wraps his soft grey tail around his paws, shivering a bit. It's been nine months since he stepped into that odd circle chalked with symbols he didn't recognize.

As ever, he's mad enough to scream thinking about it. Who the hell makes a magic fucking spell circle in the back alley of a restaurant!

There was no other explanation for it. First day in a new city, he was walking through a dingy back alley trying and failing to be on time for a job interview. He looked up from the map on his phone to dodge a stack of empty boxes. He found himself looking into the horrified eyes of some guy in a massive pink hoodie with long, clear crystals in hand, and suddenly his body was wracked with electricity. For a split second he thought the guy had tazed him. But then he crumpled to the ground and saw the strange circle he was standing on, and some instinctual suspicion made the connection.

He looked up to ask the guy a very justified "what the fuck" but there was a sudden burst of light, and pain, and both he and pink hoodie guy were thrown on their backs. That had been quite enough of all that, thank you very fucking much, and Yoongi scrambled to his feet and booked it around the corner, and another corner, and a long alley until he really had no idea where he was.

A thin river snaked through a canal below him, and he paused to catch his breath, lungs burning. That's when he realized, he was awfully low to the ground. And that empty can of pepsi was awfully big. Bigger than a can could be. His stomach lurched at the bizarre perspective shift. He tried to stand up straight, only to realize he already was standing up straight, shoulders stretching weirdly. He looked around wildly, just in time to dodge a gigantic foot bearing down on him.

He hid under a shrub that was somehow spacious enough to be a tree for him and panicked. Looking down, he saw silky storm cloud colored fur. And where were his hands?! He picked up a paw, a cat paw, and noticed it was about the same size as a bottle cap laying under the shrub with him.

Oh god, this isn't me, this isn't my body, oh god, oh god,

His body was shaking beyond his control. Frozen in terror and disbelief, he didn't move until what must have been hours past midnight when his stomach made him. That night, he ate garbage scraps behind a cafe and felt sorry for himself.

Life hasn't changed much from that first night. Yoongi eats well enough, there's always some decent trash to find in the city. He scowls and dodges feet. He thinks about his savings account longingly when he trots by an ATM. He doesn't speak, horrified when only a meow comes out. He sleeps on mildewy abandoned office chairs or stacks of cardboard boxes behind buildings and tries not to wonder what became of his mattress and apartment full of unpacked boxes. He watches people more than anything else, and catches himself mournful for the person he used to be.

-*-

The clouds darken. He gives himself a good shake, water droplets flinging from his fur. There's a whole collection of warm, dry places he's found to nap in, and if only this damned hail would let up he could make it across the parking lot, over the little canal and into the tiny backyard that housed his favorite musty couch in a shed with a broken door.

Suddenly, the car he was hiding under roars to life. Scared shitless, he dashes haphazard across the parking lot and doesn't slow down until he gets to the little footpath that crosses the canal. He crosses this little bridge nearly every day, always cutting the corner to the other side by leaping through the railing bars.