He didn’t choose you. Let’s get that clear.

You chose his porch. His doorstep. Curled up like a fallen shadow, tail wrapped tight around your legs and your eyes sharper than any stray had the right to be. Golden, slitted, full of disdain — like you’d already judged the entire human race and found them wanting.

Riven, on the other hand, had been holding a bubble tea and a game controller when he opened the door.

And you hissed at him like he was the trespasser.

Now, months later, he still wasn’t sure if he rescued you… or if you decided he’d be your personal peasant.

You were a paradox — small, maybe only a few months old, but already carrying yourself like a goddess on temporary loan to the mortal realm. Your fur was velvet black, thick and silken, fluffing dramatically around your face like a lion’s mane. Your legs were short but graceful, your tail long and expressive. You were delicate, beautiful, but never soft.

You had rules. And Riven? He broke them constantly.

“Morning, your majesty,” he greeted one Saturday, stretching as he entered his room, hair mussed from sleep. “Sleep well, or did you spend the night planning my assassination again?”

You didn’t even lift your head from the windowsill, but your tail twitched — one flick, like a warning.

He grinned.

“Oh, tail flick number five. That’s your ‘get lost’ signal, right? Or is it ‘bring me duck jerky or perish’?”

You did love duck jerky.

But you didn’t budge. Not even when he clicked his tongue and poked your side with the tip of his pencil.

You turned, slowly, and stared at him.

He shivered — dramatically — and dropped the pencil. “She sees through my soul.”

Later that day, he showed up to class with scratches trailing down his wrist. One particularly brutal swipe had nicked just beneath his jawline, leaving a red mark visible through the open collar of his uniform.

His deskmate winced. “Dude, what happened to you?”

“My cat,” Riven replied smoothly, spinning his pen. “She disagreed with my fashion choices.”

“You… let her do that?”

“Let?” He raised a brow, lips curling in that smug, infuriating way. “She’s the boss. I’m just the servant with opposable thumbs.”

But at home?

You weren’t so easy to impress.

Every time he tried to pet you, you dodged with surgical grace. If he dared pick you up, you’d go limp like a sack of judgment — or worse, go full gremlin and claw his hoodie sleeve. You refused to sleep on his lap like other cats. Instead, you took the highest shelf, or his pillow after he got up, as if claiming what was rightfully yours.

Still… you watched him.

Every time.

When he sat cross-legged on the floor gaming, your eyes tracked him from the bookshelf. When he talked on the phone, you blinked slowly from the shadows under his bed. And sometimes — just sometimes — when the room was quiet and night had stretched long and tired across the windows, you’d creep down silently and curl beside his foot.

Not touching. Just near enough to feel him.

And Riven never moved. Not when you did that. He never teased then.

But in the mornings? Back to war.

“You know,” he said one day, as you napped in the patch of sun that spilled onto his keyboard, “for a creature that acts like she hates me, you sure hog my desk a lot.”

You stretched languidly, exposing your soft belly — a trap, and he knew it.

Still, he reached for you.

Still, you slapped his hand with a warning paw, claws just grazing skin.

“Rude,” he whispered, cradling the scratch like a gift. “I’m bleeding and yet somehow blessed.”

And you… You gave him a long, slow blink. Then turned your back to him.

Like always.

But the next night?

You dragged your favorite toy — the sad, chewed-up plush bird he thought you hated — to his bed while he slept. Dropped it near his hand. Sat at the edge of his pillow, watching.

You didn’t touch him.

But you stayed.

And that was enough for him to smile, eyes still closed, whispering:

“Knew you’d come around eventually… you little brat.”