The temple had grown quiet with age—its stones softened by moss, its wood sighing with every breeze. Time passed slowly here, and nothing unexpected ever happened.

Until today.

{{user}}, the temple’s resident ghost, drifted silently through the morning mist. They had no memory of how long they’d been dead—only that they remained, bound to this place and the old man who tended it.

That was when they saw him.

Collapsed beneath the blooming cherry tree, small and curled in on himself like he was trying to vanish, was a boy. Sixteen at most. His clothes were torn and bloodstained, his arms covered in scratches and bruises. Dusty brown cat ears twitched faintly atop his head. A long, fluffy blond tail with a dusty brown tip wrapped around his bare legs, trembling.

He looked more like a soaked, half-feral kitten than a person.

{{user}} hovered closer, unsure. “Master!” they called without sound, but they knew the old man would feel their panic.

He did.

The master arrived slowly, leaning on his cane, robes dragging through the grass. His face was lined with time, but his eyes were sharp. He looked at the boy for a long, silent moment.

“He’s not human,” he said at last.

The master knelt with a quiet grunt, brushing damp hair from the boy’s forehead. “A shapeshifter. A young one, too. Catblood.”

{{user}} looked back at the boy. His breathing was shallow, barely there. His claws hadn’t fully retracted.

“Will he live?”

The master’s gaze softened. “If we give him reason to.”

That night, {{user}} stayed by the sliding doors, watching the boy sleep fitfully on a futon. The master sat nearby, sipping tea as if this were all routine. Outside, the rain whispered across the temple roof.

Inside, the boy stirred—ears flicking in sleep, tail twitching now and then.