Archive of Our Own

Shut the fuck up. No, it wasn’t his fault. Fine!

He wanted candles! That’s it! Really, that’s all. Just some candles, so he took a quick detour (after all, he was hungry) and when the forest started getting darker and darker he started to regret it more and more.

That’s when it started storming. The whole deal, clouds darkening the sky, a wind shaking the tree branches, raining cats and dogs from the sky.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Seokjin mumbles to himself, unhappily perched underneath a pine tree, getting soaked nonetheless. “I just wanted candles. ”

A bolt of lightning hits the ground right in front of him and Seokjin nearly jumps out of his skin. He’s gonna fucking die. He shoots straight up when he realizes there’s some old hag standing right in front of him, like she came with the lightning.

“What the fuck! What the fuck!”

“Who dares to enter into my forest,” the witch scowls, fixing Seokjin with a deathly glare. And he means it - he can feel his head getting lighter and his chest tightening. When a witch gives you a death glare, it’s actually a death glare.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just came through to buy candles, please,” Seokjin chokes out.

The witch breaks eye contact and Seokjin drops to the pine needle-covered forest floor, gasping for breath.

“Hmph. I think you’re lying to me.”

“Me?” Seokjin chokes out, air rushing back into his lungs. “No! I just wanted some candles! I’m from out of town!”

“Liar! You came for my youth potion!” the witch screams, and then points a crooked finger at Seokjin.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Seokjin yells, scrambling backwards on his hands and feet, but it’s too late - a blast of white light, Seokjin being thrown off his feet and - thump. He lands. In the street. Did he fucking teleport?

“Ow, what the fuck?” he says, and then tries to stand up - except he can’t?

“What the fuck?” he says again. He stumbles when he tries to stand up. He looks down and sees paws. He screams.

“What in the lord’s name?” a voice rings through the air. Some angry looking woman opens a window. “Shoo, cat!”

Seokjin scrambles. He feels like he should be unnerved by how easy it is to move, all slinking muscle and four legs, but it comes horribly natural. It doesn’t feel like he’s been transplanted into the cat, more like this is just him, which is disconcerting in of itself. He stops once he’s a safe distance from the angry woman and her street and pauses to reassess. Okay, so he’s gonna track down that fucking old hag and tell her to make him human again.

Once he figures out what town he’s in. He looks around. He’s kinda unsure - oh, he recognizes that street name. Damn, the witch teleported him back to where he came from, his home town, which should sound very nice of her - but he’d been on vacation. Now he’s gotta go back to that stupid witch, all the way across the country. He’d known he shouldn’t have gone on a vacation so close to a suspiciously dark forest, but he’d figured being cursed wouldn’t happen to him. He’s a cat! He’s got four paws and whiskers. His hearing is amazing - every detail is being picked up. Worst of all - he’s hungry. One problem at a time.

Oh god, Seokjin doesn’t care what he is, he is not eating a mouse. And no raw meat! Except for rare steak, but only if it’s being served with some good side dishes.

He tries not to think about steak and sniffs angrily at the air. Now, that scent’s promising. He pads down the street (a little bit wobbly) and tries to get used to having a tail. He arrives at the outside of a little restaurant, and Seokjin considers digging through the trash for two whole seconds before rejecting that idea. He’s not that hungry. Yet.

Some tall dude comes out with food and nearly trips over Seokjin. In fact, he does, and Seokjin starts cursing him out.

“Ow! Fuck you! That hurt!” Hey, he’s a cat. Humans can’t understand him.

The guy stares open-mouthed at him, and drops his food, much to Seokjin’s disappointment. A waste of food! How dare.

“Did you just - okay, Namjoon. Get a grip -”

“I know, right! A waste of food! Who does that.” Seokjin is perhaps enjoying people not being able to understand him a little bit too much.

Namjoon stares at Seokjin, open-mouthed. Then he slaps himself in the face. Yeah, Seokjin is enjoying this way too much.

“What the fuck. What the - what the fuck. I’m going crazy.”

“Nah, chill. I’m just hungry.” Then, a sudden, chilling thought occurs to Seokjin. “Wait. What the fuck - can you understand me?”

“Yes!” Namjoon blurts. Then he slaps a hand over his mouth, his eyes going comically wide. “What the fuck. I’m talking to a cat.”

“You can understand me,” Seokjin says, moving closer to Namjoon’s shoes. Namjoon scrambles away from him like he’s scared.

“Stay away! You’re cursed!”

“Damn right I am,” Seokjin says. “Some fucking weirdass witch pointed her finger at me and turned me into a damn cat! I just wanted candles. ”

Namjoon is wide-eyed and confused. “Wait, what?”

Seokjin rolls his eyes (it turns out cat eyes don’t do that, so he flicks his ears impatiently) and sits down, wrapping his tail about his paws neatly and properly. “My name is Kim Seokjin. I was walking through the woods to the local farmer’s market when I got ambushed by a witch and cursed into a cat, about five minutes ago. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, well why didn’t you say so.” Namjoon smiles with relief (much to Jin’s confusion.) “My name is Kim Namjoon, and for years people have been making fun of me for believing in magic, but it’s happened to me too!”

“You were turned into a cat?”

“No! Well, my brother was. He’s human now!”

Seokjin can hardly believe his luck. “Really? How?”

Namjoon frowns. “Well, to be honest, my grandmother spelled him, and she only did it because he wanted to see what it was like, and she put the timer on it for three hours.”

“Could you please take me to your grandmother, then? Please?”

“She’s dead.”

“Fuck. Sorry, man, I’m -”

“The point is,” Namjoon hurries on, “I believe you. How can I help?”

Seokjin’s jaw would’ve dropped to the floor if he were, say, in possession of a human jaw. “Just like that?”

“Well, what have I got to lose? I’m the local bookworm, talking to a cat at two in the morning.”

“Well, it’s not like I know where to start,” Seokjin sniffs. “I was just hoping for some food.”

“Okay, well...I can go buy more and we can go back to my place and talk?”

If Seokjin was human, he would’ve assumed “talk” was some euphemism, but since he’s a cat currently, he’s glad it’s not. Wait...hopefully it’s not. Namjoon does seem awfully eager to help out a random cat. Random human. Whatever.

“Sure,” he says instead. “I’ll be here.”

“Great!” Namjoon hurries back into the shop and disappears. Seokjin takes a moment to look at himself in the glass window, and he can’t help preening. He was such a good-looking human, it figures he’d be a good-looking cat, too. Take that. He’s a tabby cat, and a cute one at that. If he saw himself on the street, he’d stop to pet himself.

Namjoon hurries back out, arms laden with food. “Okay,” he says, staggering a little. “My house is that way.”

“Okay,” Seokjin replies, flicking his ears because he can, now. It feels kind of weird, but that same feeling of startling normalcy continues. “Lead the way.”

He trails Namjoon through the early morning streets and ignores the people that are giving Namjoon weird looks, arms full of food, cat at ankles. Namjoon unlocks the door to his apartment and beckons Seokjin inside.

Seokjin pads inside the house. Damn, human things look weird when you’re a cat. Everything is so much taller, and electronics make faint hums. Namjoon’s house smells nice, too.

Namjoon sets the things down on his kitchen table. “Uh…” he says, suddenly unsure. “What do you want to eat?” he asks politely.

Seokjin really can’t believe this. He’s a cat, not a houseguest. He wants to laugh, but he’s not sure if cats can.

“I dunno,” he says, turning his nose up at the very thought of cat food. “Fish. Cooked fish.”

“Okay…” Namjoon says. “How do I do that?”

So that’s how Seokjin, in his cat form, ends up perched on the kitchen counter of some random dude that’s agreed to help him out of, apparently, boredom and respect to his dead grandmother, educating him on how to properly fry a fish. And he means really well, too, not that soggy skin mess, the real deal. The whole fish, not some fillet. Thank god for Asian markets.

Once they’re both served (Seokjin can’t believe it when he sees Namjoon eating instant noodles, but he holds his tongue because honestly it’s one miracle Namjoon agreed to help him, and another that Namjoon can understand him) Namjoon starts talking.

“Alright. I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming, but this is Montegard.”

Seokjin waves his paw airily. “I know. I live here. But I went on vacation and I think the witch teleported me back from where I was, in Greenfield.”

“Where?”

A quick Google search later, Seokjin is explaining that it’s three days away, and “They don’t have any green fields, so don’t expect to see any.”

“Why would I expect to see any? ”

“Because you’re taking me there,” Seokjin replies casually, licking his paw to clean it, and then promptly setting it back down, half-horrified at himself and how quickly it took him to start adopting cat habits. What if slowly he forgets how to be human? Oh god - nah, that would never happen. Seokjin will never eat cat food.

“I am?” Namjoon says, around a mouthful of instant noodle, confused.

“Yeah, duh,” Seokjin says. “How else am I gonna get un-cursed?”

“Well, I suppose I could take a short, three-day vacation,” Namjoon mumbles, more to himself.

“Great, thanks. Shall we start tomorrow?”

Namjoon awkwardly offers Seokjin a pillow and then offers him Namjoon’s own bed (what type of freak doesn’t have a couch, Seokjin bemoans in his head) before Seokjin tells him just to sleep, and it’s not even really bedsharing unless you’re some “weird creepy pervert that has a thing for humans turned into cats.”

Namjoon gets into bed pretty quickly after that particular accusation. And apparently, even though Seokjin is a cat, he’s still diurnal as hell. You would think he’d stay up a little bit longer, but he tries to sleep in hopes of it actually waking him up from the strange and bizarre dream he’s currently having.

-

He opens his eyes to brightness. Oh, thank god - it was just a dream. Wait - that’s not his ceiling. Oh, yeah, and Seokjin doesn’t usually have a fucking tail.

“Goddamnit!” he yowls, startling the lump in bed next to him awake.

“What the fuck -” Namjoon says, sitting up, gasping awake into the morning. “Oh. OH. Oh, no, what the fuck, I thought it was a dream.”

“Me toooooo,” Seokjin moans. “Oh no, this is horrible! I wasn’t even in shock yesterday, now I am. I’m a cat! What the fuck!” Then he says it again, louder, and with three exclamation marks. “What the fuck!!!”

He’s about to go for four exclamation marks when he remembers - they made a plan. Oh yeah!

“Wait, Namjoon, get up!” he says, stalking over and pawing at Namjoon’s back. “You agreed to take me to Greenfield.”

“To be honest,” Namjoon says, turning over and squinting as he makes eye contact with Seokjin. “I thought you were either a dream, or a hallucination, so…”

“You already wrote an email to your boss, asking for a three day leave,” Seokjin points out.

“I did?”

“You did,” Seokjin confirms solemnly. “Although since you sent it at three in the morning, so they probably haven’t seen it yet.”

“Oh. Well. You’re not a dream?”

“No.”

“Hallucination?”

“No.”

“Plot by the government and-or aliens?”

“Would I tell you? ”

Namjoon pauses. “Good point. I guess we’re going to Greenfield. Let me pack my things.”

“Pack your things?” Seokjin says, after a dish of milk. He’s cleaning his face with his own tongue because apparently the dislike of water transferred over. God, when he gets his paws - fuck, hands, on that witch, he’s gonna give her two-fer.

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, stuffing the last of his things in a duffle bag. Then he pauses. “Am I stupid? I’m going on a road trip! With a cat! ”

“To be fair,” Seokjin says. “I could say the same thing. But I am the cat.”

“You know,” Namjoon says, shaking his head at Seokjin. “You’re lucky I’m one of the rare people nowadays to have magical relatives and believe in magic.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, most people nowadays don’t believe in magic, okay. I didn’t really give a shit about it until that stupid witch cursed me.”

Namjoon opens the door and Seokjin pads out into the light of day, and then hops into the passenger seat of Namjoon’s car. It’s an old, messy car, and Seokjin can see fast food wrappers on the car floor.

Namjoon swings into the driver’s seat, tossing his duffle bag into the backseat. “So,” he says. “Greenfield, huh?”

“Can’t miss it,” Seokjin replies, wishing he could see out of the window. “Man,” he huffs. “This fucking sucks.”

“Alright,” Namjoon checks his phone, starts the car. “Let’s go.”

The car is awkwardly silent except for the road under the wheels along quiet morning roads until Namjoon says “Shouldn’t you be wearing a seatbelt?”

“I’m a cat,” Seokjin says, turning to give Namjoon the most sarcastic look a cat can muster up.

“That doesn’t matter,” Namjoon says, eyes on the road and looking genuine. “Did you know that it’s estimated about 100,000 dogs die every year just from riding in the truck bed?”

“Well, I’m not a dog, I’m not in a truck bed, and just how do you know that?”

“Never mind that,” Namjoon snaps, looking flustered. “My friend has a pet seat belt extension, and his house is along the way.”

-

His friend, apparently, is shellshocked that Namjoon is even awake right now.

“Woah, is this Kim Namjoon on our doorstep? At this hour? ”

“Oh, shush, Hoseok, you’ll wake up the entire street. I came to - uh...borrow your -”

Namjoon is cut off by Hoseok shrieking. “Kim Namjoon! Is that a cat! You’ve adopted a cat! ”

“He’s done what? ” Another voice cuts through, and a person with mint-green hair, squinting in the light, pokes their head into the entryway.

“Babe! He’s adopted a cat!”

“More like I adopted him ,” Seokjin says, expecting them to startle back, but instead Hoseok just coos, and pets him, and Seokjin isn’t saying he’s suddenly realizing that being petted is the best thing to happen to him ever , but being petted is the best thing to happen to him ever.

“Did you hear that, Yoongi! It meowed at me! What’s it’s name!”

Seokjin is too busy being petted to realize that Hoseok apparently can’t understand him, but Namjoon is quite aware of that. Yoongi has a crooked, fond smile on his face as he watches Hoseok pet Seokjin.

“Uh, his name is Seokjin,” Namjoon says, awkwardly.

“That’s a rather human name,” Yoongi says. “Not ‘Fluffy?’ ‘Mittens?’”

“Uhh…no.” Namjoon suddenly looks very shifty. “Uh…”

Seokjin looks up at Namjoon. “They can’t understand me?”

“Uh…” Namjoon says, again, even more awkwardly. He obviously can’t reply to Seokjin in front of his friends.

Hoseok stand and worriedly looks at Namjoon. “Are you alright? You seem kinda...I dunno, flustered?”

“New pet owner jitters,” Namjoon says. “I came for your pet seat belt?”

Yoongi glares at Namjoon. “Don’t tell me that you adopted a cat, and then came to wake us up at some ungodly hour -”

“Babe, it’s 9am,” Hoseok breaks in. Yoongi ignores him.

“Some ungodly hour,” he repeats, “to borrow our pet seat belt. ”

“Yeah,” Hoseok says. “Yeah, even I find that kinda weird. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t go on a road trip first thing with, uh, Seokjin. Really, that is such a human name. You might wanna go with something more...I dunno, cat like.”

People really do look different when you’re a cat. For one, they look taller. For another, you pay a lot more attention to shoes and feet. And, apparently, they don’t do anything you’re asking them to do.

“Just hurry up and get whatever you wanted! We can talk in the car,” Seokjin prompts Namjoon.

“Well, it’s a long story, but I just need your pet seat belt. I swear. This will make sense,” Namjoon obediently says.

Hoseok and Yoongi exchange looks. “Okay,” Yoongi says, doubtfully. “If you insist.”

“You know,” Hoseok is saying to Namjoon when Yoongi gets back with a weird contraption of straps, “when Seokjin meows, it really does almost sound like talking. I take it back, Seokjin is a great name for a little wittle kitty like you. Yes it is! Yes it is!” He scratches Seokjin’s ears as he talks, grinning broadly.

Hoseok is petting him again and so far, he’s Seokjin’s favorite human since this whole debacle.

“Here it is. You’ve used it before, right?” Yoongi hands Namjoon the mess of straps. “Good luck with...whatever you’re doing. What are you doing?”

“Long story,” Namjoon is fleeing to his car and Seokjin follows him. “Thanks, guys!”

“Good luck! Be careful with Seokjin!”

Namjoon straps something to the seatbelt and something to the car seat, and Seokjin fixes Namjoon with a doubtful look. “You know, the pet seat belt really wasn’t necessary.”

Fifteen minutes later, Seokjin reconsiders. Seokjin doesn’t like being wrong, but it was necessary. It was necessary.

“You know,” Seokjin tries to say without biting his tongue off. “You’re the fulfillment of that stereotype that Asians can’t drive.”

“Not my fault that stereotype exists, it’s the fault of the people that made it - yeah it’s your fault, you motherfucking shitty asshole! That’s right! What the fuck, you cut me off!” Namjoon furiously takes one hand off the wheel to flip someone the bird and the car swerves dangerously.

Seokjin shudders. He wonders if he dies as a cat, will his body turn back human? Why is the one person that can understand him such a horrible driver in city traffic? He was fine on the open road, Seokjin thinks mournfully.

He also finds out that Namjoon is into hip-hop, but he’s too nervous to turn the radio on, since it would distract from driving, and Namjoon doesn’t need anymore distractions. (“Unless you want it,” Namjoon says doubtfully. “No, no, it’s fine,” Seokjin says fervently. “No distractions.”)

In the meantime, they talk. At first it’s stifled, stilted small talk, but eventually it’s high noon, the sun is beating down on the car, and Seokjin is talking about his repressed childhood memories and how that might’ve affected him being turned into a cat, out of all the animals, or do you think that the witch chose a cat?

Yes, there’s nothing quite like being turned into a feline for a conversation starter.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” Namjoon eventually asks and Seokjin ditches both his food standards and pride to have Namjoon feed him small pieces of KFC™ with his fingers because Seokjin is hungry, damnit.

They keep driving, and they keep talking. It’s surprisingly easy, talking to Namjoon. At first, they talk about Seokjin’s current situation (you know, him being...a cat), but then somehow they’re talking about colleges and how the current educational system puts too much pressure on students, and the road is empty (that’s how Seokjin’s been able to make conversation with a driving Namjoon and not die) and the sun is setting and Namjoon is yawning.

“You know,” Seokjin says, interrupting his own anecdote about that time he’d been reported for catfishing on Twitter even though it was his own photo, “It’s bad to drive for too long without a break.”

“Not like we had a choice,” Namjoon mumbles sleepily. “Besides, we stopped for lunch.”

“Let’s stop now, then.” Seokjin doesn’t say this out of the goodness of his heart, he says this trying not to die, because he’s seen an awake and alert Namjoon in city traffic, and even though the road is empty now, sleepy Namjoon by himself is bad enough.

Namjoon looks around. “But there’s no hotels around.”

Seokjin fixes Namjoon with his infamous Are You Stupid look. “You think, even if there were any, they’d let me in? I saw a rest stop sign a few miles back.”

Namjoon pulls into the rest stop and pauses uncertainly. “I guess I’ll just sleep in the car?”

“Have you never slept in a car before?” Seokjin asks incredulously.

“No, not really,” Namjoon says, biting his lower lip. “Usually whenever I go on road trips I stop at hotels. I mean, I don’t usually travel with a human-turned-cat.”

“First times for everything,” Seokjin says. “Sleeping in your car isn’t that hard, just cover your windows and recline your seats.”

Namjoon is stretched out and just staring at the ceiling when he says “What am I doing.”

“You’re a day into a three-day road trip?” Seokjin offers. “Sorry that witch is making it inconvenient for me to get un-cursed. You offered to come.”

“True. But - it’s just - I’m sleeping in my car on the way to some witch’s house, and the person I’ve talked most today is a cat, ” Namjoon says, all in a rush.

Seokjin says, “I can beat that. I’m sleeping in some random stranger’s car, because I got turned into a cat by a witch who thought I was after her fucking youth potion , and said stranger agreed to help me out of boredom. And respect to his dead grandmother.”

Namjoon pauses, staring at his dingy car ceiling. “Yeah.” He turns to face Seokjin. “You’re right. We’ve both been having weird days.” He sighs. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Seokjin replies, and then curls up on the car seat and falls asleep.

-

It turns out there are little-known advantages to being a cat. For one, you sleep so well, and your back never hurts, ever. Another one is apparently Seokjin doesn’t need as much sleep, and also he can jump so high? His reflexes are amazing, and his senses are higher.

And he can take a dump in the woods without worrying about people thinking he’s weird. He emerges, smug, and hops up onto the car’s hood to wait for Namjoon.

Namjoon blunders back out of the woods, red-faced. “Next time, we’re getting a hotel room. I don’t care if I have to sneak you in with my suitcase.”

“I would care,” sniffs Seokjin. “And I didn’t have any problems.” He smirks.

“Oh, shut up,” Namjoon says, rolling his eyes and smiling despite himself. “You’re a cat. ”

Seokjin blinks. “Yes. Yes I am.”

-

Day two of their Epic Road Trip To Rescue Seokjin’s Human Body (aka ERTTRSHB,) goes about the same as day one.

“I’m just glad we aren’t doing this for, like, a week. By the end of Day6 I think I’d be way over this.”

Namjoon’s driving isn’t as bad, today, since the road is much clearer. Namjoon’s phone is propped up on his dashboard, and the sun is shining right into Seokjin’s eyes.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Seokjin says. “Besides, by then I think we would’ve driven into the ocean by then, or something.”

Despite his obvious flaws, like not being able to take a dump in the woods without blushing, or not being able to flip someone off and keep his car in the lane at the same time, or being easily swayed to put a talking cat in his car and drive across the country, Namjoon is a pretty interesting conversationalist. He’s halfway through some story about getting drunk at a playground when Seokjin discovers that cats can’t laugh like humans, but Namjoon laughing at whatever sound just came out of Seokjin’s cat lungs nearly crashes the car. The road is long and deserted and eventually Namjoon rolls down the windows instead of using the air-conditioning and Seokjin realizes that, well, he’s having fun. He would be having more fun if he were, say, back in possession of his human body, but as it stands right now...he could be having a worse time of it.

Namjoon spots a lonely gas station and pulls in to fuel up.

“I’m hungry,” Seokjin whines.

“I don’t think they sell anything that wouldn’t give a cat indigestion,” Namjoon replies.

“Oh, shush. I’m a human!”

“You’re a cat. ”

“Yeah, and I’m a hungry cat.”

It turns out cats can eat potato chips, and it also turns out that Seokjin is willing to literally eat from Namjoon’s hand when he’s hungry.

“You know, your personality reminds me of a cat, too,” Namjoon remarks, spewing crumbs into Seokjin’s fur. Ew, Seokjin’s fur. Nasty. Seokjin isn’t sure if he’s more disturbed by having fur or being angry that said fur is dirty.

“What do you mean?” Seokjin asks absentmindedly, eyeing Namjoon’s water bottle. Do they have a dish he could drink out of? He doesn’t think there’s a handy forest stream around here.

“You’re all, like, grouchy. I’m half inclined to think you’re actually a cat.”

“I am not! I think you’re delusional because you didn’t eat dinner last night.”

“I had granola bars!”

“You need three full meals a day! It’s a requirement. ”

“You’re eating potato chips, though. And you’re a cat!”

Seokjin sniffs haughtily. “Stop pointing that out, jeez, Joon.”

“It’s hard not to when people give me weird looks for talking to a cat.”

“You’re on the road, nobody’s gonna actually talk to you,” Seokjin dismisses. “Can I have some water?”

Namjoon glances uncertainly at the water bottle. “Do I just...pour it into your mouth?”

There’s a lot of things you don’t think of when you’re a human. Such as, “Wow, that mouse smells great!” and perhaps “I want to lick myself clean!” but mostly you don’t think about how hard it is to drink from a water bottle when you don’t have hands.

“You probably don’t need all the parts in your car -”

“I am not taking apart my motor so you can have a dish to drink out of!” They’re pulled over by the side of the road and Seokjin is thirsty. Ew, not in that way, you dirty-minded people. He’s a cat, for crying out loud.

Seokjin tries to pout. He’s not sure if it’s working, since he’s more used to a, you know, human face, but apparently it manages to tug at Namjoon’s heartstrings. Namjoon is too caring for his own good. “But if you try to pour it into my mouth, I’ll choke, and then I’ll die! ”

Namjoon pours a little bit of water in the palm of his hand and offers it to Seokjin.

“Oh, no. I am not doing that. Nuh uh.”

“You’re gonna die of dehydration, Jin.”

A few minutes of hydration later, Seokjin is occupied in cleaning his face. The car is, for once, silent. Namjoon is tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. Seokjin breaks the silence. “So, technically, did a human just lick water out of your hand, or was it a cat ?”

“Please stop,” Namjoon groans.

Smiling (or the best approximation of it he can manage, since he’s a cat) Seokjin says, “You know, technically, when I’m human again, I’ll have licked water off of you.”

“Please stop,” Namjoon says again, clutching the the wheel until his knuckle are white. “That’s such a weird mental image. I don’t even know what you look like.”

Seokjin pauses. That’s true - Namjoon hasn’t been blessed with his lovely features yet. “You poor thing. You can look up my Instagram later. I will allow you to follow me.”

Unfortunately for Namjoon, the poor sap, Seokjin’s Instagram is private. And it’s not like Seokjin is really in the state to grant him access.

“Where is your phone, anyways?” Namjoon says. They’ve stopped to watch the sun go down. Seokjin is perched on the roof of the parked car. This is another hidden advantage to being a cat - you can perch on roofs of cars. It’s warm, and the sunset is pretty, all pinks and purples and oranges over the lonely corn fields.

“Hm?” Seokjin says. “It was in my jeans pocket.”

“And why were you walking to the market, anyways?”

Seokjin scowls. “It was a lovely day! I went on a whim, and then I just took the wrong shortcut, that’s all. And I was on vacation, it’s not like I could just grab my car and go.”

“Alright, don’t get your feathers in a ruffle. Or your fur.” Namjoon starts laughing.

“Oh, shut up,” Jin says, amused despite himself. Namjoon is leaned against the front bumper of the car. It’s relaxing. There’s even a slight breeze. It looks like the scene straight out of some movie, except Seokjin is a cat.

When they come to a city, Seokjin suggests stopping for the night, mostly because the vein on Namjoon’s right temple has started throbbing and Seokjin is once again thanking the lord above for the pet seat belt, and also internally composing his last will and testament.

Namjoon find a hotel with a vacancy, but the problem is -

“The front clerk said no pets allowed,” he says glumly.

Seokjin sighs at the look Namjoon sneaks at the duffle bag. “The inside better not smell too bad.”

Seokjin tries his best not to be sick as Namjoon carries him in a duffle bag to his hotel room. As soon as Namjoon unzips the bag, Seokjin pops out and stumbles about dizzily.

“Oh, god,” he says faintly. “Remind me to never do that again.”

“We’re gonna have to get you out of the hotel, you know.”

“Oh my god. No. ”

Despite his complaining, Seokjin does enjoy sleeping on a bed again. He wakes up and realizes that he probably should’ve slept on the couch, but eh, he’s a cat. He can sleep on Namjoon’s chest if he wants to, damnit. The AC is cranked up too high, and Namjoon got all the blankets, anyways.

Namjoon brings Seokjin back a bagel from the continental breakfast. Seokjin sighs. “Man, I miss good food. We had McDonalds for dinner yesterday. You know how long it’s been since I had their chicken nuggets? Two years. And there’s a reason! They’re nothing compared to my home-fried ones.” He sighs in longing, practically drooling. “I can see them right now…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re a very picky eater. We went over this two days ago. Get in the bag.”

Seokjin looks up at Namjoon with the best puppy eyes he can manage, him being a cat. “How about we just hope nobody sees me?”

Namjoon just fixes Seokjin with a look and Seokjin gets into the bag, sighing. Did Namjoon pick that up from Seokjin’s Are You A Dumbass look? Seokjin used to be able to look at Namjoon and then he’d usually give in. (“I need to use the bathroom.” “Right now?” /cue the Look/) Now they’re, like, friends or something, and it doesn’t work so well. It turns out spending two days straight cooped up in a car together makes you friends. Who knew?

“I think I’m gonna throw up now,” Seokjin groans, as Namjoon lifts him out of the duffle bag and shoves him back into the pet seat belt.

“Don’t,” Namjoon hisses back under his breath, since there are people around.

“You try being carried around in a duffle bag!”

“I can’t, since I didn’t get myself turned into a fucking cat. ” Namjoon ducks in the driver’s seat.

“Wow. Low blow, Joon, low blow.”

“Oh, shush it,” Namjoon says, the tips of his ears going red. He starts the car. “Stop being sassy.”

“We’ve already known each other for three days and you still can’t tell I’m sassy?”

Namjoon rolls his eyes, grinning from ear to ear as he pulls out of the parking lot. “Shut it, Kim. Four hours until we meet the witch that did this.” Then the smile drops from his face. Seokjin feels oddly sad to see it go. “Wait. What are we gonna do?”

It’s a funny fact. They’ve been talking to each other for hours and hours (Namjoon is a socially aware individual, and Seokjin is glad) but somehow they’ve never come up with the topic “What the hell are we gonna do?”

“Uhh…” he trails off to buy some time. “I mostly was just picturing you stomping up to her and telling her to reverse this at once and then maybe I’d claw at her a little?”

“Right,” Namjoon says, sounding doubtful. “Because that’ll work?”

“Look,” Seokjin says. “Obviously, not all witches are evil. Like your grandmother, may she rest in peace. This is all one big misunderstanding.”

“Okay...and what’s Plan B?”

Seokjin snorts and turns to look at Namjoon. “Have we ever had a Plan B?”

Namjoon pauses. “Okay, good point. Let’s make one right now. Plan B?”

“Right. You bluff by saying your grandmother - she was highly respected, right? Then just threaten her like “I’m her grandson! I can’t believe you dared to do this!” ”

“Okay,” Namjoon says, still looking a bit doubtful. “I guess…”

And then the conversation flows to other things. Seokjin and Namjoon have mutual interests, and they’re in the middle of excitedly fanboying over a band when Seokjin says “Wait! Wait I think I recognized the top of that building.” He struggles to get out of the pet seat belt, and then fumes when he can’t. “Namjoon, c’mon! I think we’re here.”

“Really?” Namjoon says. He slows the car and looks around. “This doesn’t look so...evil.”

“Namjoon, I got cursed into a cat in this city, hurry up and let me up so I can direct you.”

By the time the navigator has led Namjoon to a public garage, Seokjin’s eager to get out, practically clawing at the door, batting his paws against it lightly. “Let’s go!”

“This is one of those cat moments again,” Namjoon grumbles at him. “And every time this happens I lose faith that you’re actually a human.”

“You know basically my entire life story, you hoe. Hurry up, get me out of this thing.”

Namjoon grumbles under his breath as he unbuckles Jin. “This is like having some fussy toddler, or something.”

“Don’t call me a toddler,” Seokjin fires back as he jumps out of the car and lands lightly on the street. “Ow,” he says, after a moment. “You know those pet shoes people have? Yeah, I totally understand why they need ‘em now.” He jumps onto the grass. “This way!”

“Do I...I dunno, need to take anything?”

Seokjin stares blankly at Namjoon. “Your phone? I dunno. A change of clothes? A jacket? Not like there’s much you really can bring to like...defeat a witch. Unless you have some old magical antique to trade that you somehow haven’t told me about.”

“It just feels wrong to not bring anything. What if she demands, like, my favorite hoodie as payment and it’s in the car? I’m going to a witch confrontation empty-handed?”

Seokjin glances up at the sky. “It’s not like it’s gonna get dark anytime soon, but I guess you could bring a flashlight if you really wanted it? Also I don’t think anyone else would want your hoodies. Why are they all grey?”

“No, you’re right,” Namjoon says, shrugging it off. “Not like there’s much that I can bring. You sure we can’t just...drive the car in?”

“I feel like we’d be making a dangerous statement, considering I walked in and then she turned me into a cat. I really don’t wanna be stuck for the rest of my life as a cat.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Namjoon says doubtfully. He pats his car. “Alright, I guess we’re going now.”

Seokjin would be lying if he wasn’t the slightest bit nervous. What if the witch doesn’t agree to turn him back? What if they can’t find the witch? At least he’s got Namjoon. Namjoon can...he looks uncertainly up at him...challenge the witch to a rap battle? He could probably get a few punches in, but by then the witch would probably curse him too. He wonders if it would be considered weird for him to date another cat if said cat was also a human-turned-cat. Then he realizes he’s thinking about dating Namjoon. Dating cat Namjoon, no less. Weird.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing,” Jin says, and then turns and walks faster. Another advantage of being a cat: they can’t see if you’re blushing or not.

The forest is dark and foreboding, but there’s a path leading through it. Namjoon pauses for a moment by the entrance to look up at the trees, awed. Seokjin think he’s just appreciating nature (the trees are really pretty, stretching tall to the sky, all dark branches and slices of blue sky struggling to make it through) until Namjoon says, “Let me get this right. It was turning to night, it looked like it was about to storm, and you walked into that? ”

“Look, I was hungry! And I -”

“And you wanted candles. I know. Whatever, let’s go. Not like it’s gonna storm anytime soon, anyways.”

The trees look much bigger than they had when Seokjin was a human. He falls back a little so he can walk beside Namjoon instead of in front of him. “Fine. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, too.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Namjoon rolls his eyes at Seokjin. “You’re only coming to that conclusion now? ”

“Jeez, you ask a guy to drive you across the country in his car to help you cursebreak yourself back to your original human form and suddenly he thinks he can insult your intellect anytime he wants to.”

“So,” Namjoon says, ignoring Seokjin, “Are we just gonna walk until we find the witch?”

Seokjin pauses in his walking. That’s true. He’d just assumed that the witch would show up again. Whatever. He starts walking again, feigning confidence. “The witch showed up once, she’ll show up again.”

“Your tail is flicking.”

Seokjin makes it stop and turns his head to glare at Namjoon. “It’s rude to stare at somebody’s tail, you know.”

“Sure,” Namjoon drawls.

It’s been a few hours, and the sun looks close to setting, when Namjoon brings up just going back to sleeping in the car again, or maybe finding a hotel.

“We can try again tomorrow, Seokjin. Sorry.” He looks apologetic, but Seokjin is hopping mad at not being able to find this fucking bitch. He’d wanted to get turned back into a cat today. How dare she not show up?

“Wait a moment,” he says, flashing a winning grin at Namjoon. “One last try.” Then he turns to yell into the woods. “HEY! Whoever cursed me! I’m back and I’m here to STEAL YOUR GOLD!”

“Seokjin, what the fuck are you -”

“That’s right! Seokjin is back! I’m here to -”

“Seokjin, are you trying to get us killed?!” Namjoon bends down to try to grab Seokjin, and he runs further into the bushes, evading Namjoon and popping out the opposite side into a clearing.

“I’m here to STEAL YOUR YOUTH POTION -”

And with that, lightning strikes the ground again. Seokjin yowls - an honest-to-god surprised cat yowl - and the witch is standing in front of him. She’s dressed the same way - matted hair, filthy dark purple pointed hat, ragged robes - the whole shebang.

“WHO DARES STEAL - oh. It’s you. What are you doing here?”

Seokjin sniffs angrily. “Oh, now you don’t believe me when I say I’m here to steal your youth potions. Turn me back into a human! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Namjoon crashes through the undergrowth and pulls up short when he sees the witch.

The witch turns to him, ignoring Seokjin. “Oh! You brought along a friend, into my forest! ”

Namjoon raises his hands cautiously into the surrender position. “Uh, sorry about that, uh,” he clears his throat, “esteemed witch. We just came here to ask you to resolve this big misunderstanding, and - uh -”

“Turn him back into a human? No!”

“What?” Namjoon and Seokjin say. “Why not?” Seokjin says, irate.

“Eh, too much effort. I have to brew up a whole antidote - it would take me a week.”

Seokjin swears he feels tears well up, but mostly he’s crushed. “But this is my life. ” He tries not to let the feeling of sadness building up in his chest drag him down. How could anybody be so uncaring? “Please?”

“Why should I? There’s really no need for me to do that.”

Namjoon pulls himself up straighter and taller. “I, Kim Namjoon, am the son of a son of the great witch Park Jimin! Release Kim Seokjin from this curse at once!”

The witch fairly snarls at him. “You’re a wizard? ” And then she sniffs, and a smile unfurls across her face. Seokjin’s heart sinks. “No,” she says, gleefully, “You’re not. You came in here with your little boyfriend and threatened me, without the gift of magic! Well, you can join him, too!”

She points her finger at him and Namjoon throws his hands up and the beam of white light flashes again from the witch’s finger and Seokjin braces for a life living with cat-Namjoon and - the smoke clears and Namjoon is standing, hands up, cowering from the witch, and the witch - Seokjin wants to laugh. The witch is standing there, a disgruntled looking cat.

Cats can’t laugh usually, but apparently they just haven’t tried hard enough. “Oh my god,” Seokjin chokes out, giggling. “Oh my god,” he says it again, laughing harder. “Oh my god,” he repeats it, laughing so hard he tips over. “Ah, what the hell?”
“I think it reflected off my phone, or something?” Namjoon says, looking amazed. “I saw it come towards me but then it hit my phone and bounced back! Thank god for Apple™ making the iPhone™ Seven Plus S - I don’t even know anymore, but it’s huge! Thank you!” He kisses his phone and falls to his knees. “Thank you Steve Jobs! Thank you!”

“Aw, curses! Moldy moon-grubbing maggots! You little pests! ” The witch keeps cursing but Seokjin isn’t paying attention anymore.

“Wait. How am I supposed to get turned back now? The witch is a cat. ”

“Aw, fuck,” Namjoon says, and Seokjin agrees fervently.

“I can still make the antidote, obviously, even though I’ve assumed this wretched form,” the witch snaps, furiously. “I just need you pathetic magic-less human to help me.” She glares at Namjoon.

“I’ll only help if Seokjin gets some, too.”

“Deal,” the witch agrees, and Seokjin feels like a weight has been taken off his chest. He’s going to be human again! Thank god, for a few seconds he’d seen his life flash before his eyes and he’d felt grief - tangible and tangling and heavy in his chest. His life as a human isn’t perfect, but he liked it. He doesn’t want to be a cat forever, hidden cat talents be damned.

The witch sighs and says, “Well, since my lightning powder is gone, I’ll have to walk back to my cottage. Come along, you worms.”

Namjoon and Seokjin share a look and they follow the witch into the forest. It turns out it’s actually not too far from the clearing to her cottage - only about five or so minutes of walking, at cat pace.

“You couldn’t have just jogged up to me instead of using your lightning? You gave me a heart attack.”

“Oh, shut up,” the witch says, scowling. “The dramatic entrance was necessary.”

“No, it really wasn’t,” Seokjin and Namjoon say in sync.

The cottage isn’t actually too bad. Seokjin was half-expecting some rotten old shack, two nails and a piece of tape away from falling down, but it’s actually a low stone cottage, with a garden in the front, ivy climbing up the garden fences. It looks nice. A little rustic for Seokjin’s taste, but it’s a cute cottage, in a nice location.

The witch leads them inside (Namjoon holds the door for both of them) and Seokjin’s mouth falls open. It’s a gleaming palace inside, with marble floors and a grand staircase with gold handrails. There’s a statue of the witch in the middle of the imperial staircase, a diamond chandelier on the ceiling, oil paintings framed on the wall -

“Oh, do pick your jaws up from the floor,” the witch says, irritably as she marches by them with as much dignity as a cat that looks like it’s walking while slightly drunk can have. “I’m a witch. I’m magical. What, you think I was gonna live in some rusty, ugly shack? ” She flicks her tail at the staircase. “Your room is up there.” She sniffs. “Be glad I don’t just throw you into the dungeons.”

“You have dungeons?” Namjoon asks, horrified.

“No, of course not. I’m not that evil.”

Seokjin is labouring up the staircase when Namjoon reaches down for him - and pauses. “Can I just pick you up?”

Seokjin sighs. Where has his dignity gone? “Sure. Whatever.”

Namjoon carefully picks Seokjin up and tucks him close to his chest. “You see,” he says. “I should’ve totally brought a change of clothes. Why are we getting a room?”

“Don’t argue with the witch. I’m just happy she agreed to change me back.”

Their room is fantastic. There’s a grand canopy bed with huge, arched windows, and heavy red curtains to draw across them. Namjoon looks out one. “You know, it’s weird we can see the forest, since this room...doesn’t really...exist…” He trails off, wide-eyed, and stares down at his hands, flexing them.
“Magic,” Seokjin yawns after Namjoon deposits him on the bed and wanders off a little. His voices echoes from down a hallway.

“There’s a hot tub...I think this toilet probably cost more than my entire apartment...and the shower curtain could possibly pay my college tuition. Well...maybe a quarter of it. College, you know.”

“Magic!” Seokjin yells again.

Namjoon comes back and flops on the bed, poking Seokjin a little bit. “Move over, you cat.”

“Hey, I’m a human. Just under unfortunate circumstances.”

Namjoon stares up at the ceiling. It arches up into a dome, and there’s a nice skylight at the top of it. The sun is setting. “So…” he says. “Do we just...wait until the witch calls for us? Or…”

“I guess,” Seokjin says, doubtfully. “Maybe we should go back downstairs?”

A polite knock on the door, with good timing too. Seokjin wonders if that was magic or coincidence. Namjoon gets up and opens the door to reveal the statue of the witch, arms crossed. “Follow me.”

In that exact moment, a few thoughts run through Seokjin’s mind - at the forefront “Oh god is she gonna kill us?” , “What the fuck, it’s a statue?” and at the very, very back (which is a little out of sync with his priorities) - “I wonder what’s really in cat food?”

Namjoon looks at Seokjin. Seokjin looks at Namjoon. “Well, what have we got to lose,” Seokjin says, eventually.

Namjoon puts out his arms and Seokjin jumps into them (Namjoon stumbles and Seokjin sees his life flash before his eyes, but Namjoon doesn’t fall over, praise to the powers that be) and they set off after the statue. She leads them down to a laughably formal dining room, considering that two-thirds of the people eating there are cats. It’s all dark wood and long, forbidding table with chairs with high backs, paintings on the wall of forests and ponds that look like they really could pay for Namjoon’s college tuition - and then two cats and a guy in a hoodie. Seokjin finds this hilarious, for no particular reason. He feels a strange desire to burst out laughing. Is this what being in shock feels like?

The witch is sitting at the head of the table (like, literally, on the table), licking her paws. “Sit down, sit down, and let me tell you what I’m going to have you do.”

Namjoon promptly places Seokjin on the table and pulls out a seat for himself. As he sits down, food appears on the table, already cooked and warmed on golden plates. Sets of golden utensils appears with them, diamond-studded. There’s even a diamond-studded golden dish for Seokjin to eat off of, with wonderfully cooked fish on it (with the skin, which is the best part of the fish.) Seokjin isn’t even really that surprised at this point, and Namjoon just starts eating. A fucking statue led them here. There’s a palace inside a tiny cottage. The fish is scrumptious and possibly better than Seokjin’s own, and - oh yeah, Seokjin is a cat. Nothing else can possibly surprise him.

“Right. I went to check that I’ve got all the ingredients, and I’ve got everything except mint picked during the full moon. The full moon’s in a week. I expect both of you two to stay here. The palace is open from sunrise to sunset. If you don’t make it back in, you’re camping.” She sniffs. “I’m only keeping you two around because the potion requires that a human assemble all the parts, and I don’t want to have to find another slave to do my bidding. So don’t die.”

“Okay…” Seokjin says. “So we just...hang around for a week?”

“Well, you can leave. But for some reason, your boyfriend wants you to stick around to, I dunno, save you, or whatever.”

“I’m not!” Namjoon breaks in.

“ What?” Seokjin hisses, turning to stare at Namjoon. “No, please, I really don’t wanna be a cat forever and honestly I just -”

“No! No, I’m still gonna help you. But I’m not -” Namjoon clears his throat, ears going pink, “I’m not his boyfriend.”

The witch flicks her tail and she gracefully jumps down off the table. “Whatever. I don’t care. Taehyung will keep you updated.”

“Who’s Taehyung?”

“She took you down here,” the witch scoffs.

“The statue? ” Namjoon says, but the witch is already gone.

Seokjin and Namjoon just look at each other again.

-

“You know, sometimes I think you should be more shocked to be a cat,” Namjoon remarks as he stretches across the bed, tapping away on his phone.

“Hmmm?” Seokjin says. Namjoon is absentmindedly petting him and Seokjin is about to fall asleep before he can start downright purring, which might be embarrassing but Seokjin has taken a dump in the woods one too many times this week to feel embarrassment easily.
“You’re not even in shock, really.”

“Oh. Well, everyone knows magic exists, just mostly they don’t know where to find it.”

“Still. Even if you know magic exists, shouldn’t you be more worried about it?”

Seokjin shrugs as best as he can, being a cat. “Things always work out,” he says as Namjoon drops his phone on his face and Seokjin grins.

There really isn’t much to do without invading the witch’s palace further, and Seokjin doesn’t want to offend her any more than he already has, what with stomping into her forest and somehow accidentally reflecting her curse back onto her and turning her into a cat. The first day, they trek back to get Namjoon’s duffle bag.

“You’re sure we can’t just drive the car back? I mean, c’mon. She’s gotta have a, like, diamond garage.”

Seokjin snorts. “Yeah, and then she’s gonna turn your car into a giant diamond and keep it. And then we’ll have to walk back to Montegard.”

So they drive into Greenfield city and hope they can find their way back to the witch’s palace. There’s not really a lot a tabby cat and a lanky human can do (mostly, buildings don’t let Seokjin in,) so they end up in a park for the sole reason that Seokjin smelt the distinctive scent of ice cream.

“You know,” Namjoon grumbles, setting the ice cream cup down on the ground so Seokjin can eat it, and taking a lick of his own ice cream cone, “half my internet history now is just about what cats can eat. And half my credit card bill is gonna be you. ”

“It’s worth it,” Seokjin moans, savoring the vanilla ice cream. Personally, he likes chocolate more, but Namjoon had insisted that Google was always right and that cats shouldn’t eat chocolate, so Seokjin had grudgingly settled for vanilla.

“At least nobody’s here to see me talking to a cat,” Namjoon sighs. “A week here?”

“Unless you want the witch to track you down to make the potion for her in a week...yeah.”

“Why can’t she use somebody else?” Namjoon whines, dropping his head down off the back of the park bench.

“‘Cause you’re already here, and she’s probably loathe to find someone else. And witches are rare now. If she revealed herself to the general public, people would be all over her. ‘Oh, turn my baby into gold!’ and all that. Must be lonely.”

“I know,” groans Namjoon. “But I still wanna grouse about it.”

Seokjin looks sadly down at the rest of his ice cream. “You sure I can’t have the whole thing?”

“Unless you want to have diarrhea in the woods.”

Seokjin splays across the sun-warmed sidewalk. “I think the worst part about this is not being able to use the toilet. I can’t believe there’s a gold toilet and I can’t use it.”

“You could always fall in,” Namjoon smirks. “Hey, hey - Jin! This is my ice cream -”

They go back to the witch’s palace (cottage? hut? shack?) at around lunchtime. In their room is a lovely lunch, already set out.

“I think if maybe the witch didn’t hate us both and would’ve gladly curse you if your iPhone™ didn’t save you, I could get used to this,” Seokjin remarks, swiping around his mouth with his paw, debating if he lick the plate clean or if that would be too much.

“I don’t care what she tried to do, I could get used to this either way.” Namjoon sighs with satisfaction and leans back, patting his stomach. “That was, perhaps, the best beef I have ever had the pleasure of eating.”

“That’s just because you can’t cook, and you haven’t have my beef yet,” Seokjin replies.

-

It’s bizarre, but they get used to things. They try to get into places a cat shouldn’t be able to get into, like the museum, but they both chicken out at the last moment. Besides, it’s really hard to sneak a cat into anywhere if the cat gets motion-sick from being zipped inside a suspicious-smelling duffle bag. Seokjin doesn’t want to go wherever stray cats go (presumably the pound, which would be bad) and Namjoon doesn’t want to attract attention from authority figures, which is the normal human worry. It’s not like they can send Namjoon to the pound.

They hang out at the park a lot. Namjoon’s internet history slowly becomes more and more clogged up with Google searches for what is safe for cats to eat. Seokjin convinces Namjoon to put him in a toddler swing and push him, and then teases him mercilessly for when an angry lady comes over and scolds Namjoon for treating his pets like that. “Young man! You should know better than to treat your poor kitty like that!” As soon as she leaves, Namjoon turns to Seokjin and fixes him with a glare. “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

Seokjin just tries not to laugh. They hang out right by the library long enough for Namjoon to loiter around and mooch off the library’s free Wifi to download Netflix™ episodes. Seokjin hides in the alley as Namjoon goes through the supermarket to buy junk food.

It’s fun. Or as fun as a human-turned-cat and a human under duress by evil witch can be having. There’s an instance where Seokjin gets chased by a toddler and Namjoon waits to save him way longer than is strictly necessary. Seokjin has never found toddlers so terrifying. (“I could’ve died!” “Seokjin, he was, like, 2.”)

They talk a lot. Mostly, it’s sunny with a breeze and they have their little space under the tree in the park that nobody goes to, tucked away on a little street in a little corner and folded all around with trees. There’s a little dingy, rusted playground, and Seokjin is discovers that first, cats do land on their feet and that if you go down the slide as a cat, all your fur will stand up, no matter what you do with it. Namjoon is eventually persuaded to push Seokjin on the swing again, but he grabs Seokjin out every time he hears anybody approaching, even if it’s literally just the wind.

They still return to the witch’s palace for dinner everyday, mostly because they don’t want to get locked out of it. The great outdoors is, well, great, but only when you know there’s air conditioned rooms waiting for you at the end of it.

They discover there’s a beach in the landlocked city. It’s not really a beach, just a sandy (fine, more pebbly, but it’s still a beach, okay) patch near the edge of some lake, but it’s nice enough, and isolated enough that Namjoon feels comfortable talking out loud to a cat. Sometimes they see other people hiking the trail as well (they all give Namjoon weird looks for carrying Seokjin in his arms, but Seokjin refuses to be put on a leash, no matter how little dignity he’s got left) but none of them ever say anything. It’s not exactly normal to carry your cat into the woods on a nice hike, but it’s also not normal to see a millennial outside. Namjoon suggests they go kayaking, one day. They’re sitting in their little sandy patch they like to call a beach, watching the boats go by. Seokjin is napping, curled up in the sand. Namjoon is typing something on his phone, letting the water wash over his toes and praying silently with every wave that he doesn’t drop his phone into the lake.

“We should go kayaking.”

Seokjin opens one eye. “What? No. I’m a cat.”

“Don’t let that limit you, Jin. It’ll be fun!”

“How would we explain to our fellow kayakers why you’ve got a cat onboard? Also, where would we get a kayak? Also, how would we fit me, a cat, into a kayak?”

Namjoon waves his hand dismissively. “There’s gotta be a kayak place around here, somewhere. And we’ll just steer away from anybody that comes near us. It’ll be fun! Don’t think too hard about it.”

It is fun, but Seokjin refuses to admit that. They end up getting a canoe, and Namjoon energetically paddles for about five whole minutes before getting tired.

“Forward! Forward!” Seokjin cheers, at the bow of the canoe.

“I’m tired,” Namjoon protests. “My arms are tired.”

“You’re the one who suggested this,” Seokjin points out. “Let’s go! We haven’t got all day!”

They end up missing lunch that day because Namjoon refuses to paddle for half an hour and they drift aimlessly on the lake. “It’s all fun when you’re up there, ‘feeling the breeze’ but I’m back here, slaving away -”

“What, like I could paddle?”

“One day, when you’re human again, we’re gonna come back and I’m gonna sit in the front and make you paddle.”

-

It’s fun. Oddly enough, it’s just like a vacation. Seokjin hasn’t admitted to himself how stressed he’d been getting lately, and it’s stupid how it took him being cursed into cat-form to finally let loose and unwind a bit.

Seokjin tries to convince Namjoon to sneak him into the movie theatre. He even offers to get into that dreaded duffle bag again, before Namjoon points out that no bags are allowed into movie theatres, and no, Namjoon won’t be able to pass as pregnant with Seokjin somehow bundled under his shirt. They discover that a drive-in movie theatre still exists in the city, but the palace will probably be locked when they get back, since it’ll be past sunset.

“It’ll be worth it!”

“I am not sleeping in that car again.”

“C’mon, Joonie,” Seokjin wheedles. “It’ll be like old times!”

“Old times was, like, five days ago,” Namjoon deadpans. Seokjin blinks, startled. It’s true, it’s only been about a week since he met Namjoon, and now they’re closer than most of Seokjin’s friends. Maybe all you need to do to make friends is go on a cross-country road trip with them as a cat and then spend a week at a witch’s mercy. And then go canoeing.

They don’t spend a lot of time in the room. Mostly when they are, Seokjin curls up on Namjoon’s chest and Namjoon pets him as they watch something downloaded to Namjoon’s phone. (You know, that phone that saved his life by reflecting a cat curse at a witch.)

Namjoon says, softly, once, into the darkness. “I think, maybe, if you weren’t a cat…” and then he trails off.

“If I weren’t a cat?” Seokjin prompts.

Then they don’t say anything.

It stays there, lodged in the back of Seokjin’s mind. It’s been nearly a week, and every night the moon grows rounder and rounder.

Until one day the statue appears at their door again. They’re in the middle of lunch, in a heated debate about healthcare when the statue taps on the door, perfectly politely.

“What the fuck -” Namjoon scrambles back, overturning the table, the dish landing food-side-down on the thick carpet. Seokjin has leaped up and his fur is poofed out.

“The witch has summoned you.”

Namjoon stands up uncertainly. “Me?”

The statue nods, creakily. “The cat, if he so wishes, as well.”

“My name is Seokjin, please don’t call me ‘the cat. ’”

“If you so wish. Follow me, human and Seokjin.”

Namjoon scoops Seokjin up without a second thought and follows after the statue. Seokjin half-expects to be led to a bubbling cauldron, maybe a stick to stir it with, but instead the statue pushes the door open to a state-of-the-art kitchen. The witch is already perched on the counter, swishing her tail impatiently. “Alright, you’re finally here. Do hurry.”

“Are we really going to make a potion? Here?” Seokjin finds his voice first.

The kitchen is really stunning, all white marble and black countertops and Seokjin is fairly sure all the utensils are gold. And do you really need a chandelier in the kitchen except for bragging rights?

The witch flicks her tail at the stovetop. “Human!”

Namjoon jumps and Seokjin is jostled. “Yeah?”

“Pour that...liquid in there.”

Namjoon sets Seokjin on the counter and obediently picks up the bottle of dark red liquid. He blanches. “Is this…”

“Look, don’t ask questions. Just do what I tell you to do.”

Namjoon turns to fix the witch with a look. “Do I have your solemn word that you won’t curse any of us after I give you this potion and you’ll let us go?”

The witch snorts. “Why would I want to keep you?”

Namjoon shrugs. “Good point.” He pours the liquid (Seokjin is fairly sure it’s blood) into the pot.

“Now, turn the heat up to the third-highest notch.”

“This is so weird,” Seokjin offers as they’re waiting for the blood (?) to boil and coagulate. (does he really want to be human this badly? What if this poisons him?)

“Yeah, I know, right?” Namjoon replies.

“Oh, what are you two blabbering on about?” the witch snaps.

Seokjin looks around again. “This just doesn’t seem like...a magic-y place.”

“Oh, that’s the problem with mainstream media nowadays,” the witch scowls. “Always stereotyping everybody. Why would I bother to start a fire, nowadays? So inaccurate. Why would I use a cauldron? Takes forever to heat.”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” Seokjin concedes.

The witch turns back to the pot. “Alright, that’s fine,” she says. “Add the mint leaves in.”

Namjoon tosses them in. “Now,” the witch instructs, “I want you to stir it with your left-hand middle finger.”

“My left-hand middle finger?” Namjoon repeats, looking perplexed. He dips it in and starts stirring and the witch starts chanting.

Later, Seokjin will look back and try to recall what she said, but it always slips out of his grasp like sand through his fingers. All he knows is that it’s dark and heavy and they sound almost like curse words. The witch spits them out, over and over as Namjoon keeps stirring, and Seokjin later swears the lights dimmed, but he’s not sure if that’s was just added by his imagination.

“Alright,” the witch stops, gasping for breath. “Throw in that.” She gestures with her tail.

Namjoon grabs it, his finger dripping what should be minty blood onto the floor - but now it’s a shimmering purple, now, somehow.

The next ingredient is a dark powder, and as soon as Namjoon tips it in, purple sparks start shooting out of the pot, screaming loudly. Seokjin swears he sees a face in them.

“Quick! Cover the pot, and add the glacial water!” the witch snaps.

Namjoon does both as quickly as he can, and the sparks calm, leaving only a gentle steam, hissing out from the sides of the lid. When the steam clears and Namjoon lifts the lid off, the potion is a glowing silver, like molten metal.

The witch instructs Namjoon to divide it in two and pour the halves into dishes.

It’s gone swimmingly well, so well that Seokjin is suspicious.

“Alright,” the witch says, gesturing to the scissors on the table. “Snip some of his fur, and then snip some of mine and toss it into the dishes.”

Namjoon does. Seokjin is half sad to see a clump go, even though he knows he’s not gonna need fur when he’s a human again. He nearly squeals, giddy with joy.

The witch tells Namjoon to point a finger at Seokjin’s plate of fur and potion and then she starts chanting again. Seokjin hears his name a few times - maybe? He isn’t sure if he is hearing it, like it’s some other, ancient, language he cannot comprehend. He has the immense sensation of standing blind in what should be an empty field, but suddenly he can hear whispers. He gasps as a silvery light from inside him floats out and disappears into the cup.

The potion turns completely clear. The witch smiles, suddenly. “It’s worked!” They do the same thing to the witch, and then Seokjin half has an irrational urge to cheers or maybe high five the witch.

Namjoon very, very carefully pours it into a dish for the witch and Seokjin and he laps it up eagerly, not missing a drop. This is, perhaps, the most important drink of his life, and he’s not gonna screw this up.

Then nothing happens. Seokjin really ought to have expected this.

“Nothing is happening, ” he wails. “I’m doomed. ”

“Oh, shut your trap,” the witch says irritably. “It takes a while for the potion to take effect.”

“We’ve not leaving until Seokjin’s human again,” Namjoon says, arms crossed.

The witch hops down from the country and tosses her head. “Suit yourself. Leave whenever you want.”

Disappointed, (he’d half wanted to become human right then and there and then - he doesn’t know. Maybe give Namjoon a hug. A handshake?) Seokjin and Namjoon return to their room and watch the sunset from the window. Namjoon’s black hair glints orange in the light and his skin is striped golden.

“It’s alright, Seokjin. I’m sure you’ll change back soon. Maybe I’ll even miss your cat form, or something.”

“Oh, shut up,” Seokjin grumps, rubbing his head against Namjoon’s hand to show he doesn’t mean it.

Later, at night, when Seokjin is curled up on top of Namjoon, he says it again. “I think I’ll adopt a cat after this.”

“What, a talking one?” Seokjin asks, sleepily.

“Nah, but I got used to petting a cat. And not being lonely.”

“That’s because you’re single, you dweeb.”

“Hey,” Namjoon lightly swats Seokjin, his hand rubbing Seokjin’s head, “I’m not a dweeb .”

“What was that IQ again, huh? 144?”

“148,” Namjoon corrects reflexively.

Seokjin smirks. “Point proven. Besides, none of them will ever be as good-looking a cat as me.”

Namjoon goes to roll over and Seokjin shifts with him, curling up on the sheets. He hopes the witch doesn’t care that there’s cat hair on them, now. “You talk a lot about how good-looking you are, but I haven’t even seen your face,” Namjoon remarks.

“It’ll be a nice surprise, then. Go to sleep, Joonie.”

It wasn’t quite the nice surprise he’d pictured when he was woken up by loud, shrill screaming.

“Ow, what the hell?” he goes to turn over and then he realizes - much to his joy - he’s human again! Oh, blessed biped legs! Oh, blessed opposable thumbs! Oh, blessed human arms!

Much to his detriment, he’s also naked. Namjoon is covering his eyes with his hands. “Hello, Jin,” he squeaks.

Seokjin scrambles for the blanket to pull it over his lap. “I didn’t think I’d come back naked, ” he hisses furiously, blushing. “Can I have...pants?”

Namjoon scrambles to go grab his duffle bag. He rifles through it, blushing wildly. “Uh, I haven’t washed like, any of these -”

“You think I really care, right now? I mean, unless you want me to be naked in your bed -”

“Oh, shush it,” Namjoon says, throwing a shirt and pants at Seokjin. Then he pauses.

Seokjin pauses too.

Namjoon breaks the silence. “I won’t tell anybody you’re going commando.”

“Ew, don’t talk to me about my underwear choice. I wanna take a shower.”

“It’s 2am,” Namjoon protests. “Shouldn’t you just sleep?”

“Namjoon, I have not taken a shower in over a week. And I was a cat. ”

Namjoon grins. “What?” Seokjin asks, confused.

“Nothing. You’re the exact same, you know. I thought maybe you’d be different, or something.” Namjoon laughs. “It’s funny.”

While he’s showering, Seokjin considers it. It’s true, they’ve really not changed in their dynamic at all. Seokjin thought maybe their friendship would be strained, but it’s been just fine.

He changes into Namjoon’s clothes, swimming a little bit in them. Namjoon wears his clothing looser than Seokjin does, and he’s a little bit taller than Seokjin too. Seokjin isn’t sure what he feels about wearing Namjoon’s clothes. They smell like him. Seokjin’s sense of smell seems greatly dulled now, and it’s also true that he can no longer perform almost super-human feats like jumping twice his height and sleeping in the car without a sore back - he can eat chocolate again. Seokjin wonders if he should be concerned that the fact that he can eat chocolate outweighs everything else.

Then he realizes that it’s 2am, and while cat Seokjin was willing to sleep on top of Namjoon, human Seokjin thinks that’s gonna cross borders. There’s nowhere else to sleep, either. He sighs. He doesn’t like sleeping in bathtubs, but to be honest that golden hot tub is looking more spacious than his own bed at home. At least he’ll still be sleeping in luxury, just not comfort.

Namjoon knocks on the door uncertainly. “Seokjin?”

Seokjin pulls the door open, running a hand through his wet hair. “It’s chill,” he sighs. “I’ll just sleep in the hot tub.”

“What? You’ll drown!”

“No, I meant while it was empty.”

“Oh.” Namjoon looks much relieved. “Why bother? I don’t think gold is good for your back, and it’s not like it’s gonna be comfortable. Just come back to bed.” Seokjin hesitates. Namjoon adds, “And it’s 2am, and I’m tired, ” he whines.

Apparently, Namjoon doesn’t give a shit about sleeping in the same bed with Seokjin, even if the times they’d done it before was because Seokjin was a cat. He takes the left side and Seokjin takes the right. Seokjin lies and stares at the canopy of the bed, practically vibrating with excitement. There’s no way he can sleep - he’s human again! He’d half-thought he was gonna be a cat forever, and that would’ve been awful. No offense meant to cats.

He slips out of bed and crosses over to the window. It’s a moonlit night, the treetops a sea of silver, waving gently in the breeze. Seokjin wonders if he can open the window, since it doesn’t actually exist.

He can. It’s a beautiful night out - not too hot, not too cold. The breeze brushes past his face and ripples the curtains. Crickets are singing, the stars are shining, and somehow he thinks they’re brighter now, where he is.

Namjoon comes up behind him from where Seokjin is leaning on the windowsill, watching the clouds move slowly. “The stars are beautiful,” he says softly.

“Yeah. They are,” Seokjin says, turning to look at Namjoon.

It’s soft. Namjoon is soft, his edges are smoothed and softened and blurred out by starlight. He smiles at Seokjin, that fond smile that somehow, over the past few days, had turned into some sunlight grin that Seokjin was warmed by.

He looks back out at the forest.

“Come back to bed,” Namjoon sleepily murmurs, tugging at his arm gently. Seokjin swallows something he’s about to say. And then he goes back to bed.

-

They drive out of the city, that day. Seokjin almost misses it, the way it recedes behind them until all the buildings are gone. The intimacy of last night is gone and Seokjin’s future looms up before him.

Namjoon keeps shooting him nervous glances out of the corner of his eye, and then opening his mouth to say something, and then shutting it again.

After the fourth time it happens, Seokjin caves. “What?”

“Huh? What?”

“You keep glancing at me,” Seokjin replies, a little irritably. “Out of the corner of your eye.”

Namjoon kind of fiddles with the steering wheel a little. “Yeah, you’re not what I pictured.” He clears his throat. “As a human, that is.”

Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Is that a compliment, or an insult?”

“Oh no, it’s definitely a compliment,” Namjoon rushes to assure him. “You’re - uh, you weren’t lying about that whole...good-looking thing.”

Seokjin sits back, smirk on his face. “Is it true? The great Kim Namjoon just told me, Kim Seokjin, that I was -”

“Oh, shut up,” Namjoon grumbles, blushing furiously.

“For the record, you’re good looking, too,” Seokjin says. “I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to say that when I was a cat, but now I’m human.”

“What do you mean, you couldn’t say that when you were a cat but you could make fun of my ‘noodle legs?’”

“I was hungry!” Seokjin defends. “I wanted noodles. Plus it’d be weird to just suddenly tell you that.”

“Great,” Namjoon says, blush receding, ears still red. “We are both great-looking men. Great. Glad we got that established.”

“You know what we should do? We should stop by a noodle restaurant! I can do human things again! Like eat in restaurants!” Seokjin is perhaps more excited than a noodle restaurant warrants, but he hasn’t had human foods without worrying he’d die for a week and three days. Seokjin deserves noodles.

They stop by a noodle place. Seokjin feels a twinge of guilt when he sees Namjoon pull out his wallet again. When he was a cat, there really wasn’t anything he could’ve done, and it’s not like going to the park cost a lot of money, even if Seokjin perhaps ate more ice cream than a healthy cat strictly should’ve. But, now, with Namjoon right in front of him, paying again, Seokjin feels guilty.

“Remind me to pay you back, when I get back to my apartment,” Seokjin mumbles.

Namjoon looks up from his noodles. “Hm? Nah, it’s fine. We’re bros.”

Seokjin struggles not to mouth the words “We’re bros,” to make fun of Namjoon. He coughs. “I still feel guilty - I mean, you did all this stuff for me, and literally drove across the country for a stranger -”

“You gave me an excuse to take a vacation. It’s chill. Seriously.” Namjoon is earnest. His cheeks are flushed - from the noodles? from Seokjin?

“But how can I ever repay you for what you did? You risked your life for me.”

Namjoon shrugs. “I didn’t do it to be rewarded, even though” he lets a smile crack out faintly from his face, “you did brag a lot about your cooking skills.”

“You’re too nice, man. I’m definitely in your debt. Remind me to come over with my world-famous beef one day.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes. “If you’re not as good as you’ve been bragging about, I’m gonna be really disappointed.”

“I bragged about my face, and then you said -”

“Stop,” Namjoon says, covering his face with his hands. He cracks a finger and peeks out accusingly. “You’re never gonna let that go, huh?”

“I never let anything go, Joonie. Hurry up, I already finished my noodles.” Seokjin looks out the window and pretends he doesn’t feel Namjoon’s eyes on his skin.

“Right, yeah,” Namjoon says, fumbling with his chopsticks. “Gotcha.”

Things are easier when they’re on the road. They’re in the midst of talking about dogs when Seokjin realises it’s getting dark.

“Regardless of your choice of dog, since we both agree that one should adopt instead of purchase, it’s also getting dark.”

Namjoon struggles to follow the transition. “What? Oh, yeah, it is.” Then he groans. “I am not sleeping in this car again. I think my back still hurts.”

“Let me see your phone,” Seokjin says, reaching to grab it off the navigator stand. “What’s your password?”

“0000,” Namjoon replies. “Please don’t rob me, or steal my phone.”

Seokjin snorts. “I would never. Also, the nearest hotel is, like, four hours away.”

Namjoon groans. “Do we have to?”

“I could drive,” Seokjin offers uncertainly. “I mean, I don’t have my license with me, but, hey, they think all Asians look the same. We could totally pull it off.”

“No - that’s not going to work,” Namjoon says. “Where’s the nearest place we could pull over for the night?”

It turns out there’s some tiny road leading off the street they’ve been driving along and Namjoon pulls the car into it and turns off the engine. He sighs. “You think we should’ve asked the witch to just teleport us right back or would’ve we just been cursed?”

Seokjin just looks at him.

“Yeah, we would’ve been cursed. I get it.”

Namjoon offers Seokjin a hoodie, but it still gets cold. They’ve stopped somewhere with higher elevation, and Seokjin didn’t realize that without the sun, it’s getting freezing in the car.

“C - can we turn on the heater?” Seokjin shudders, clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.

Namjoon apparently feels the same way, turning on the heater. He breaths on his hands and rubs them together, and then shoots Seokjin a look, already apologetic, even as he opens his mouth to suggest -

“No,” Seokjin grumbles. “That’s way too cliché, even for me.”

“It’s not like I’d be enjoying it, or anything like that,” Namjoon says, making a face. He pouts. “I’m cold. And we’ve shared a bed before!”

“I was a cat! ”

Namjoon flutters his eyelashes comically, sticking out his lower lip to pout. “C’mon Jinnie. It’s freezing, and my car battery isn’t going to last the whole night.”

“We’ll be fine, ” Seokjin replies, scoffing.

He can’t sleep. It’s too cold. He turns over to glare at Namjoon, face tucked into his hoodie to prevent his nose from freezing off. “Couldn’t we have driven back down the mountain before we stopped?”

Namjoon pokes his head back out of his hoodie. “ I suggested getting a hotel.” He’s shivering. “With heating, ” he adds mournfully. He looks small and vulnerable, huddled and curled up. Seokjin feels a wrench of guilt. He sighs and opens his arms invitingly.

“You’re not telling anybody,” he says, already feeling warmer.

“What,” comes Namjoon’s amused voice, from behind him. “That you’re the small spoon?”

“Everyone knows that the small spoon is superior,” Jin scoffs. He ignores Namjoon’s chest pressed against his back and pretends like he doesn’t want to melt into it. “You don’t get hair all up in your face, and you’re warmer.”

“Sure,” Namjoon says. “Your hair smells nice, by the way.”

Jin kicks him in the shin. “That’s not a by the way sentence, oh my god. Don’t make it weirder.”

“What? It’s like we’re in a survival show -”

“Out of all the people, I got stuck with this weirdo.” Jin sighs deeply.

“You got stuck with me,” Namjoon says. “With me,” he repeats and then sighs against Jin’s neck and his breathing slows.

“With you,” Jin replies, repeats, and then closes his eyes.

-

They end up sharing the last of their junk food for breakfast. The sun has come out, and dew is on the grass. Namjoon is loathe to go outside, until Seokjin throws open the door and warmth comes rushing in. Then he fairly topples Seokjin over in an attempt to get to outside first.

“I think we would’ve been better off just opening the doors so the cold didn’t get trapped in,” Namjoon says, spread-eagled to catch more sunlight.

Seokjin makes a face. “Bugs.”

Namjoon hums in agreement. “Bugs.”

They’re back on the road, wheels eating up pavement underneath them. Seokjin drowsily wonders if this is what sailing on the sea is like. Namjoon is humming something quietly on his other side, the sun is pastel light in the sky, the clouds are lacy and it’s - it’s just a nice day. The sky and the street stretch out in front of him, and it feels like forever.

-

“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” Seokjin presses. “It’s not very likely we’ll get caught. Besides, I can drive, it’s just my driver’s license was eaten by the Magical Void or whatever.”

“We shouldn’t risk it,” Namjoon says. “We can just stop at some hotel.”

“But it’s only a few hours more until we’re back. It’ll be fine.”

Namjoon shakes his head stubbornly. “Nah, man. I once didn’t have my driver’s license and I ended up crashing into a car. Everyone was fine, but there was a little kid in that car - god. Nah, man. I’m lucky they didn’t take me to court or wherever when they found out I didn’t have my driver’s license on me.”

“Alright, then. There’s probably a hotel in this town, somewhere, just drive around.”

They circle around aimlessly for a bit until Seokjin says “Hey, there we go!”

They pull into the hotel parking lot with a collective sigh of relief.

It’s when they’re checking in at the front desk. “Names?”

“Kim Seokjin, and Kim Namjoon,” Namjoon replies, already pulling out his credit card.

The front desk clerk smiles friendly at them, and then gives them the keys. “We’re a particularly welcoming town,” she says, nodding.

“Oh, thank you,” Seokjin says, confused. Is that just because she’s the hotel staff? Seokjin supposes that everyone who lives in a town thinks theirs is ‘particularly welcoming,’ since they settled there. But it’s not like they’re moving in? “What did she mean, particularly welcoming? ”

“I dunno,” Namjoon grunts, dropping his duffle bag on the ground. Seokjin stares at it in disbelief. Had he really been able to fit into that? Namjon unlocks the door and pushes it open. It’s a nice room, really. The wallpaper isn’t as extravagantly ugly as Seokjin has seen in some hotel rooms. It doesn’t even have a bad smell. In fact, the only visible problem right now is -

“Oh,” Namjoon says, coloring. “It’s fine, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Seokjin sighs. “Is that why she said that? I think she thought we were a gay couple.”

“Goddamnit,” Namjoon sighs. “I’ll take the couch.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll take the couch. You’ve done enough for me.”

“You’re older. Take the bed.”

“You’re younger. Take the bed.”

Namjoon throws the duffle bag into a chair and sighs. “Whatever, man. Let’s just sleep together - woah, not like that.”

Seokjin has never appreciated showers more. Sure, it’s not his own shower, which is invariably and inarguably better than all other showers (maybe with the exception of that golden hot tub), but going a week without a shower is not something he ever intends to repeat again, especially now that he’s human again.

(He’s human!!! Again!!!)

He steps out, drying his hair. He’d put back on the same clothes Namjoon had given him the first time, but at least he’s clean and sweat-free. He yawns and flops onto the bed. Namjoon is propped up on the pillows, scrolling through something on his phone. “Your turn to shower.”

Namjoon just grunts as he gets and grabs his bag and swings into the bathroom.

It’s not a bad day, in all. It hasn’t been bad. Any of it. Namjoon breathing gently in the sheets next to him, his new-found appreciation of opposable thumbs, a vacation, a road trip - it hasn’t been bad. Any of it.

Seokjin stares up at the ceiling and smiles. It hasn’t been bad.

Namjoon rolls over next to him.

Any of it.

-

They have breakfast, and they take their time, too, about it. They should probably get going, honestly, but Seokjin doesn’t care. What he does care about is the food. The waffles are going to make him cry with joy.

“No, really, I wanna ask them the recipe. This is so good.”

“They’re just waffles.”

“The best waffles.”

“You’re just waffle-deprived from being a cat,” Namjoon, that unbeliever, scoffs.

Seokjin shakes his fork at him (taking a risk, since there’s a piece of waffle speared on it, absolutely slathered in syrup) “These are incredible. My compliments to the chef.”

“Seokjin, this is a buffet.”

Seokjin offers him a piece of waffle generously, and Namjoon is suddenly a believer, tears of joy sparkling in his eyes. “You were right,” he sniffles. “They’re so good. Get the recipe.”

-

Seokjin isn’t sure what to feel when he sees the horizon of Montegard approaching. It’s almost like whatever weird universe he’s been living in is leaving him - he doesn’t know what it is. It’s like he’s been a different person, but now that the familiar scenery is settling over him, restraining him, turning him back into the less-carefree version of Seokjin. His responsibilities, his commitments, schedules and deadlines are all catching back up to him. Whatever, strange other planet that he’s been on where it’s just him and Namjoon - it’s coming to an end. Seokjin is suddenly, breathtakingly, heartbreakingly - sad. Sad about this, whatever this is, at whatever this almost became. Something so close to flying, a bird with clipped wings still singing in a cage. A canary lowering itself down to its doom.

He directs Namjoon to his apartment. With every turn, his heart sinks more and more, for some reason. Namjoon seems to feel it too. They don’t say anything.

Namjoon idles the car outside of Seokjin’s apartment. “Well. This is it.”

Seokjin wants to say something, but he just doesn’t know what, yet. Namjoon seems to understand. He says, almost desperately, “It’ll be fine. We can see each other again. You have my number.”

“It’ll - it’ll be different.”

“I know,” Namjoon almost whispers. Seokjin doesn’t know what’s come over him. He’s going to go back to his daily life - will Namjoon and he have time to be friends? A will to be friends? He’s scared, he realises with a jolt - scared of drifting apart.

“I thought we had more time,” Jin lets his voice crack, “before we had to say goodbye.”

Namjoon looks out the window. “When I started talking to a cat, I figured that you were a dream. Now, I see I was right. You’re the best dream that could’ve happened to me.” He looks at Seokjin. Just once, just to look at Seokjin one last time, almost despairingly.

The door shuts behind him when he leaves like a “The End.”

-

Seokjin doesn’t have a phone. He doesn’t have his car keys. Half his favorite shirts are probably in the lost and found of the hotel he’d been staying in when he got turned into a cat. He hadn’t brought along anything of actual value, which is a relief, but Seokjin doubts he’ll find it, even if he calls. Seokjin wishes he had his phone. And maybe his wallet, but they’d disappeared with his clothes.

Seokjin gets his life on track anyways. He goes to the bank. He gets new car keys. He goes grocery shopping. It’s almost like nothing has changed - except that sometimes he wakes up, curled in the middle of his bed. Except sometimes he tries to find a shirt he’d liked and then he remembers. Except sometimes he looks at Namjoon’s shirt and tells himself he needs to wash it, and then he doesn’t. Except sometimes he listens to the songs Namjoon had told him to listen to off of his laptop and lies there on his bed and doesn’t do anything for a bit.

It’s better to forget, he supposes. It’s not like anything would’ve come of it, anyways. Life plays cruel tricks, and magic has a mean witch.

He goes to work. He explains he’d had a family emergency, and he starts saving for a phone. He can’t afford the iPhone he’d had (he curses the witch inside his head for the umptheenth time) but when he gets a pastel flip phone, he tastes the sweet taste of victory.

It’s a cute flip phone. He gets weird looks, but as long as he’s got the same number, he’s fine. He’s got a laptop (it’s old and cruddy, but hey, it’s a laptop, all things considered) and - he’s fine.

His first text is to Namjoon.

-

Namjoon sips coffee and grins at Seokjin until his dimples come out. “Would it be weird to say I missed you?”

“Nah,” Seokjin replies, stirring his coffee. He looks up and flashes Namjoon a grin. “I missed you too.”

Seokjin was right. It’s not quite the same. But Seokjin was wrong - not all change is bad. Sometimes you need to get turned into a cat and spend a week hanging out with a stranger to figure things out.

“You know,” Namjoon says, half shyly, “when I said you were good-looking, I didn’t really have selfless intentions behind that.”

“Neither did I.”

They make eye contact and both look away. Seokjin fiddles with his straw. He wants to say something - something he’s been thinking about, growing like a flower in his mind. He never planted the seed - it blew in with the breezes of change and new times.

Namjoon gets there before him. “I like you, you know.”

“Huh?” Startled, Seokjin looks up. “I like you, too,” he says cautiously.

They both pause.

“I meant it like - uh, well -”

Seokjin feels himself start blushing but he pretends he’s offended anyways. “Aiyah, Kim Namjoon, you beat me to the confession. What will I do with you?”

Namjoon looks at him like he can’t believe his luck, and then a grin spreads across his face, creating dimples that Seokjin wants to kiss. So then he does, and thanks whoever’s looking out for him when neither coffee cups spill.

-

Namjoon, Seokjin learns, is an obnoxiously sweet boyfriend. It’s endearing, really. He shows at Seokjin’s apartment with little gifts that ‘made me think of you.’ When he shows up with a box of candles at Seokjin’s doorstep, Seokjin threatens to not let him in. (He lets him in, trying not to grin and failing spectacularly.) Namjoon sends Seokjin good morning texts and good night texts. When Seokjin accepts his follow request on Instagram (he’s got to use on his laptop now, gross) Namjoon threatens to print out and frame all of Seokjin’s selfies and hang them up on his wall. Seokjin thinks he’s joking until Namjoon sends him a video of his printer. Seokjin drives over to stop him with a...distraction.

They’re boyfriends. There’s nothing much to it. It’s not all flowers and games and sunny meadows all the time. They have their days. But they all have their days, and - compromise. Going with the flow. Seokjin remembers that change isn’t always a bad thing.

Seokjin breathes sleepily into Namjoon’s skin, glad they don’t need an excuse to cuddle now. “So,” he says. “I’m really hoping you’re not into pet play.”

Namjoon sputters and Seokjin laughs.

So maybe the witch wasn’t the worst. He got his candles, anyways.

-

“Paddle, Jin, paddle!”

“You...were…right,” Jin pants, at the back of the canoe. “My arms are tired.”
“I told you,” Namjoon says, turning around to smile at Seokjin smugly. “I was right.”

“I want a divorce,” Seokjin grumps.

Namjoon just laughs. “You would never,” he says, turning back to the front of the boat, trailing his hand through the water and leaning the boat dangerously. He looks so happy, smiling in the sun, splashing the water. He turns back to look at Seokjin. “What? You’re staring.”

“What? Nah.” Seokjin starts paddling again. “You’re right. I’m never gonna leave you.”