This was the third time Jihoon had to change his sheets, and it was finally time to decide that he didn't need any. Not until the cat goes home. He dumps the stash of sheets into the washer, hoping that Soonyoung would get the sign and wash them for him. Not that the older liked doing laundry anyway. It was all just a matter of helping. And obviously, helping is the last thing Soonyoung is good at.
Jihoon stands in the hallway, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his pants rolled up to his knees, trying to figure out what to do now. His house was a mess.
First he's gotten cat piss all over the place, from the curtains to the bed to Soonyoung's tattered stuffed dinosaur called Ted (Soonyoung still gets mad at him for attempting to throw it out), next was the amount of cat food that was scattered all over his house and Jihoon isn't sure what he should do with them. He hates the smell of cat food; the pellets smelled like rotten fish of some sort and Jihoon hated it so much. The cat's scratched the curtains and the sofa too and Jihoon's not sure what excuse he's going to tell Soonyoung's mother about the damage done towards those hand-sewn curtains.
Jihoon hears a crash in his room. What's good?
"Bounty!" Jihoon shouted, heading towards his room at the back of the house, furthest away from the kitchen and the living room. Bounty? No, it wasn't that chocolate; it was a stupid name Wonwoo gave for his stupid cat because that stupid cat liked coconut chocolate. Which was probably an unhealthy diet for cats, to be very honest.
Jihoon deeply inhales before he enters his room (which stank of cat piss no matter how much air freshener he's sprayed to the point where it's unhealthy), awaiting the new damage Bounty had caused. He opens the door and the cat hisses at him, fur sticking up in defense. Jihoon knew Bounty never liked him in the first place, and the closest to affection the cat's shown towards him was the uncountable amount of scratches on Jihoon's pale skin as he makes a mental note to put several plasters on the big ones.
"What the fuck." Jihoon muttered when he saw his recording equipment all over the floor, the speakers on his keyboard and his figurines at the verge of death. His eyes scan the room for traces of the greyish cat, which seemed to have disappeared, for some strange reason. Jihoon's eyes bulged out of it's sockets when he spots the sliding door open, and Bounty gives him a mocking look before the cat turns it's tail and walks out of the room.
Jihoon almost trips over his equipment chasing after the cat, "Bounty! Bad kitty! Bad kit- no I mean good kitty! Don't do it- GOOD KITTY BOUNTY-"
Bounty jumped to the balcony next to his room, which most probably belonged to his neighbour's. It was his neighbour's house after all. Now Jihoon's having a mental breakdown and a dilemma whether he should chase after the cat or let it be, praying to god that the cat doesn't cause a total mess in Seungcheol's room.
And Seungcheol- oh god Choi Seungcheol. Jihoon's had his eyes on his neighbour ever since he's moved in last year, and Soonyoung knows too, the result of accidentally blurting it out once he had a little too much to drink when Jihoon found out his thesis wasn't accepted. Soonyoung's not surprised at Jihoon's sexual preferences, since he knew Jihoon's lacked interest in women after all.
Jihoon's never really tried keeping his hopes up whenever Seungcheol flashes him a smile as beautiful as the heavens or when he makes some time to talk to him even though he's extremely sleepy. Jihoon's never tried to peek whenever he accidentally catches Seungcheol topless, admiring the body fit for an inspector. Although it was extremely tempting.
In a cracked nutshell, Jihoon liked the boy more than he thinks, although he denies it ever so often when Soonyoung teases him about it.
Anyway, back to the cat. It wasn't an option anymore, Jihoon definitely had to chase after the cat before the inspector comes home to a home that looked like a tornado just passed by. With a little touch of cat piss.
Seungcheol never seems to lock his sliding door or closes it properly, which is strange because the male is rarely at home and he should close his doors properly before anyone tries to break into his house. But it's ridiculous enough for someone to climb over to the fifth floor of an apartment just to get something secretive from the inspector's home. But hey, it could happen. And Jihoon is that ridiculous someone who is about to jump onto Seungcheol's balcony on the fifth floor of an apartment.
It wasn't like it was that high (that's a lie, the fifth floor was extremely high), Jihoon told himself as he tries not to look down and think of a thousand possibilities how he could end up not reaching the other balcony and fall onto the ground, flat, followed by a news report of a man who jumped to death trying to chase after a cat. And Wonwoo better be plead guilty for this ridiculous shit.
A five minute pep talk for himself later, Jihoon holds onto the railings of his balcony, hoping that his legs would reach to the other side (which did, eventually, making him realize how close their houses actually were). He flung himself towards the balcony, letting the cold tiles of the balcony greet him with a sharp thud. Jihoon had never been this athletic in years.
Not wasting any time, he scrambles and swung the door open, stepping into the dark room as his hands flail around in the dark as he tries to find the light switch. He's stepped onto a few things and hopes they don't break, and when he finally gets to the door he finds the light switch situated right beside it, flicking it open. Only to meet a pair of eyes once he did.
The sound of a cat hissing, followed by the thud of Jihoon who fell to the ground with an extreme pain on the back of his head.
"Jihoon? What the fuck- are you okay?" Seungcheol quickly crouches down to look at the boy when he realized he had hit the boy too hard with his briefcase, assuming that it was a burglar. Seungcheol's heard the weird noises from his room minutes ago, ready to fight whoever the intruder was. Lee Jihoon was definitely not on the list. So was the cat.
Jihoon grimaces and makes another mental note to get an ice pack as soon as possible. Bounty who was on the bed darted towards Seungcheol, attacking the male who attempted to take a look at Jihoon's head.
"Now you want to do something good for me, huh," Jihoon rolls his eyes, pulling Bounty by the tail. Bounty scratched him again in the face, on his left cheek right beside the corner of his lips. Jihoon was this close to throwing the cat off the balcony. This close.
"Care to explain?" Seungcheol seems terrified at the rowdy cat too, thinking twice about pulling it away from Jihoon.
"This is Bounty, Wonwoo told me to babysit it while he was out for a workshop for his history course." Jihoon explains, letting the british shorthair curl on his lap "I never agreed to take care of it anyway, Wonwoo just dropped it off here."
Seungcheol laughs, "And the reason why you broke into my apartment?"
"I wouldn't — if only he doesn't piss fucking everywhere," Jihoon grunts, patting Bounty's head "you don't want to see the damage done in my room because of this creature."
"It's just a cat, Jihoonie."
"Yeah. An evil one."
"I don't really know much about cats, but I do have heard of people saying that if it pisses somewhere, its marking it's territory." Seungcheol says, putting down his briefcase to join Jihoon in petting the cat. For some reason, Bounty seems tamer in Seungcheol's hands. This cat has it's standards.
"But is it really necessary for it to mark everything? They're my recording equipment for fuck's sake; I bought them with money." Jihoon tells the cat, sighing "you can't just buy it with piss."
"It's not like he understands." The inspector laughs at the younger boy who was telling the cat off.
Jihoon looks up at Seungcheol, "Anyway, I haven't seen you in days. Why'd you return home early today?"
Seungcheol pouts, "Why, I can't?"
"No, it's just that you're a really busy man."
"I finished a case," Seungcheol proudly states his achievement, sighing as he looks at his bed "finally some sleep."
"You better." Jihoon replies, looking at the dark circles under the older's eyes. He lets Bounty jump off his lap, as the cat explores Seungcheol's home.
Jihoon jumps up to his feet, still feeling the pain at the back of his head, brushing off the grey fur visible on his black t-shirt, "I should get going. Don't want the cat to cause any trouble."
"You're heading home already?" Seungcheol asks, and Jihoon senses a hint of disappointment in his voice, causing Jihoon to feel guilty and flustered. What does that mean? Does Seungcheol want him to stay longer? Maybe for dinner? Whoa, it would totally be fine and Jihoon would be extremly happy to — if only the darn cat wasn't here.
Jihoon sighs, picking the cat up, "Yeah, I'm sorry. I want Wonwoo to pick up his cat as soon as possible, and I need to clean up the mess." It was so hard for Jihoon to look into Seungcheol's eyes because he surely couldn't stand the way Seungcheol looked at him like a sad puppy, ears drooping and all.
"Yeah, I probably shouldn't stop you from cleaning up the catastrophe," Seungcheol says, a hint of playfulness in his eyes.
"Or should I say, cat-tastrophe."
They were surrounded by a brief silence for a moment or two, before Jihoon immediately headed to Seungcheol's front door, leaving, "You are horrible, Seungcheol." Jihoon somehow sensed the fact that the older male was going to pull that pun off one way or another, but he brushed the thought away, only to find out that his intuitions were correct after all.
"I'm so sorry, shit- Jihoon wait," Seungcheol frantically ran after the boy with the cat, spinning him around "curse my dad jokes; I just really wanted to pull that one off ever since you told me. I am so sorry."
"You are lucky it's not as bad as Soonyoung's." Jihoon stated, rolling his eyes. Seungcheol just grins apologetically, teeth showing.
"Are you seriously going back like that? You don't even have shoes on." Seungcheol asks as he watches Jihoon walk towards the front door, shrugging. Seungcheol gestures him to stop for a moment, taking off his coat and scarf. He wraps it around Jihoon hastily and puts the coat on the small framed boy, stepping back to look at him.
"Don't compare me to a penguin," Jihoon grumbles, stealing the words right out of Seungcheol's mouth as the older bursts out laughing. Seungcheol had put a pair of sneakers down for Jihoon to wear, the younger looking at them disapprovingly.
"These are twice the size I wear." Jihoon complaints, slipping into them anyway, waiting for Seungcheol to tie the laces.
Seungcheol ignores his statement and gets up from his squatting position, "Let's have dinner at six tomorrow. My place. You can use the coat and scarf as an excuse to escape from whatever adult responsibility that's in your way."
It's currently five in the evening, Jihoon is standing shabbily in Seungcheol's hallway, possibly covered in cat piss, with scratches all over his arm, and a cat who was trying to eat the life out of Jihoon's fingers, and yet here he was, staring; Seungcheol had asked him out.
"Did you just ask me out?" Jihoon asks bluntly, pulling his hand away when Bounty bit him.
"I asked you to come over for dinner tomorrow but hey, that would do too." Seungcheol winks, and Jihoon tries so hard to maintain his composure and not shit himself "you should get going, Ji, Soonyoung's probably looking for you."
Ji felt goosebumps at his new nickname, and he's probably sure it's not because of the cat fur now.
"See you tomorrow." Seungcheol escorts him to the door, and when his door is shut tight Jihoon breathes out a sigh of relief, staring at Bounty.
"You sure do take after your owner," Jihoon tells the cat who was busy licking it's paw "Bounty, you bag of luck."
Jihoon waddles back home in the coat that was way too big for him, and for once, forgets the mess that he had to clean up in his room.
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I drowned myself in too much jicheol but hey i liked how this turned out
Its a oneshot!! Because i got the idea off a prompt hehe
Jicheol shall always be a guilty pleasure of mine thus jicheol ftw
Thank you for reading!!
- Cee