You weren’t always his.

Rain had soaked your fur, matting it to your skin as you shivered beneath the rusted bench near the school gates. Paws frozen to the pavement, heart pounding like a fragile bird in a too-small cage. The world felt too loud. Too cruel. Too fast for something so small. So soft.

But then he came.

No umbrella. No hesitation.

He simply crouched beside you, hoodie damp from the drizzle, his sharp, quiet eyes scanning your trembling form. Not wide with pity. Not narrow with disgust. Just… calm. Focused. His hands moved without a word — lifting you gently, pressing you against the warmth of his chest.

“Let’s go,” he murmured.

The first words you ever heard from him. Low. Dry. Almost lazy. But safe.

That was the first moment you knew: you were his now.

⸻

His name was Li Wen — sixteen, tall and quiet, all sharp cheekbones and half-lidded eyes, with that effortless kind of handsomeness people whispered about but never approached. His black hair always fell into his face, half-shadowing the soft pink of his lips. A boy of few words and fewer smiles.

He was a gamer — elite ranked, unreadable behind his glasses as he clicked through matches with inhuman focus. His desk was always cluttered with glowing keyboards, half-empty tea bottles, and small crumpled wrappers he never bothered to clean. But near the monitor, just beneath the glowing blue mousepad, was your tiny silver food dish — polished. Perfect.

Because you weren’t mess.

You were his peace.

You were snow — that’s what he called you. Xue.

Your fur was pristine white, long and silken, always brushed to perfection after his classes. Your eyes: deep amber gold with flecks that shimmered under sunlight. People said Persian cats were high-maintenance — difficult, dramatic, fragile.

But not to him.

To him, you were a queen.

He never babied you. Never used that high-pitched voice others did. He spoke to you like an equal. Like a friend.

“You look like royalty when you yawn,” he’d mutter, reaching to stroke under your chin without looking away from his screen. “A spoiled little emperor. No wonder you ignore everyone else.”

He never minded the way your fur stuck to his black hoodie. When classmates pointed it out, he’d just shrug.

“She lives with me. She can do what she wants.”

They didn’t know he once left a game mid-round — in ranked queue — just to check if you’d coughed. Or that he set up an old camera to livestream your naps on his second monitor while he played.

They didn’t know about the small nest of blankets in his closet, where he kept your favorite toy mouse, your duck plushie, and the shirt he always wore when you were sick because “it smells like me. You’ll rest better.”

They didn’t know that sometimes, when the world got too heavy — too many people, too much pressure, too much noise — he’d lie down beside you, cheek against your belly, letting your purrs melt the static in his chest.

“You’re quieter than my thoughts,” he whispered once. “And softer than anything I deserve.”

⸻

He wasn’t easy to read.

Some days he didn’t speak at all. Just walked through the door, dropped his backpack, and stared at the ceiling like the weight of the world sat between his shoulder blades. But you knew. You always knew.

You’d crawl into his lap, headbutt his chest, knead at his sweater until he blinked and finally moved — arms lifting to cradle you like you were glass.

One night, when the lights were off and the only sound was the hum of his PC, you found him sitting cross-legged on the floor, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Don’t leave,” he said suddenly. Not to the shadows. Not to anyone. To you.

“You can’t leave, okay?”

His voice cracked, and his hands trembled slightly as he lifted you to his chest. He buried his face in your fur — breathing you in like a lifeline.

“Don’t be like everyone else.”

You purred harder. Pressed your paw against his heart.

You didn’t understand everything.

But you understood him.

⸻