Chapter Text
Grumpy didn’t like pet shops. He’d take one look at pet stores and immediately book it in the other direction.
Dr. Yehuda said it was a reflex born from trauma. After all, he’d gone through twenty-six masters before meeting his mom. It was to be expected, kind of like how Oliver sometimes panicked and tried to hide whatever he was eating if someone entered the room. Or how Boss kept trying to hide how much he cared for the others because he’d grown up surrounded by people who considered such things a show of weakness. Or Bang sometimes not being able to taste anything on days after her memories kept her up all night.
Or something like that.
This flight reflex of his had come up once more while he was walking around a mall with some friends. They’d been enjoying a day off, and per a suggestion from Nancy, they’d decided to roam the place and see what the newest trends were.
They’d passed by all number of places—designer stores with shoes and handbags costing a year’s worth of Grumpy’s allowance, souvenir shops and plushie stores, a couple of candy shops, a food court. Then Jocelyn had pointed out the pet shop eagerly, and both Lawrence and Nancy had followed.
Grumpy wasn’t going to speak up. What was he supposed to say? “Sorry, I don’t like pet shops because I used to live in one”? Hell no. Better to keep quiet and suck it up.
“Aww! They’re so cute…Jo, look at this one’s little ears! It’s so fluffy!” Nancy squealed, her nose against the window. A bunny blinked back at her curiously, its siblings trying to shove themselves forward to see the viewers as well. “Miharu, Lawrence, aren’t they cute?”
“They are,” Lawrence agreed. “My cousin has a rabbit. They’re pretty chill.”
“Let’s go inside!” Jocelyn suggested. “We probably can’t buy anything, but they’ve got even more cute animals and I want to see more of them!” The others agreed, and as the group entered the store, Grumpy reluctantly followed, because it would be weird if he didn’t.
He shivered slightly as he walked in, and pulled his hoodie fighter around himself. The strange smell that always seemed to linger in places with a multitude of animals instantly hit his nose, and he cringed. The pastel wallpaper, the fluorescent lights, the cold cages filled with puppies and kittens and birds…
Logically, he knew it wasn’t the same place he’d spent half his life in. That store was a town away from Blossom City. This one seemed to be a lot less chaotic then the one he’d been in, too. But pet stores were all fundamentally the same at their cores: places with many animals waiting to find a home.
Grumpy pretended he couldn’t understand the meows of the questioning kitten Nancy was cooing at. Please take me home. I’ll be a good kitty.
“Hey Miharu, you have pets, right?” Jocelyn asked as Nancy fawned over the animals, Lawrence not far behind. “I always see you posting animals on your WeCat.” Grumpy nodded. “How many do you have? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.”
“Um…” He had to think. What was the least suspicious answer? “I think my mom’s adopted…” me “five or six cats, but there’s definitely more. She always puts out food for the local strays. I think there’s a pug living in the yard.” He privately wondered how Boss Mo, CEO of a well-off company, would react to being called the lapcat of his artist-fashion designer mom. Probably with a huff of annoyance but no denial, because it wasn’t an entirely untrue statement.
“Wow! That’s a lot, dude.” Lawrence laughed and dodged a cart filled with birdseed in the aisle. “How do you keep track?”
Half of them pretended to be humans and didn't even live there. “They all look really different. They have different personalities too. It’s not too bad.” Unless everyone decided to come over for dinner and a movie night.
“Where do you even get that many cats?” Nancy wondered as she gently scratched the chin of a white cat that reminded Grumpy of Doll through the metal bars of its cage.
At least she asked an easy question this time. Why was this turning into an interrogation session about family pets, anyways?
“There’s a shelter near my house,” Grumpy replied. “My mom’s boyfriend volunteers there, and he always comes home with cats.” Like him. And Bangs. Honestly, the house might as well be a mini animal shelter of its own, with how many animals came home with Oliver on a regular basis.
A pair of tabbies meowed, and Grumpy turned away, biting his lip. While no one would mind a few extra cats, he didn’t exactly have money to take any home today. Not if he wanted to buy a birthday gift for his mom later in the week.
The whole store was still giving him the heebie-jeebies anyways. He couldn’t wait to get out, hyperaware of every sound made. Probably because he still had the hearing of a cat, even if his ears had been hidden away.
“Awww, they’re so cute! Guys, look, look!” Jocelyn suddenly exclaimed, and Grumpy looked over to see Jocelyn crouched next to a cage, a few kittens inside. Lawrence and Nancy were already there, peering in at the meowing kitties. Moving closer on shaky legs, he saw there were three of them, huddled together and doing their best to look cute.
They reminded Grumpy of himself and his siblings, not long ago.
“That one on the right has such pretty color splotches!” Nancy exclaimed.
“Nah, the one on the left’s got that eyepatch, it’s definitely the coolest,” Lawrence claimed. “Like a little pirate.”
“Arrrrrgh, matey, or whatever?” Jocelyn snickered. “Well, I like the one right in the middle. Look at her big round eyes! She’s even purring. Hey, how about you, Miharu? Which one do you like best?”
Grumpy’s eyes lingered briefly on the trio, but then his eyes wandered to the next cage over. Inside was a small gray kitty, with a strange arrangement of spots that looked a bit as if someone had let a young toddler take a brush and wave it around in the general direction of the thing. It meowed weakly, but otherwise stayed in a little ball, clearly knowing the group wasn’t here for it.
It was all alone, unlike many of the other cages that had two or three animals each in them.
Grumpy walked closer, and then passed his friends to look at the tag on the cage. The last of a litter, the runt, who had been there for five months at time of writing. He’d been initially adopted with a few others, but returned for unknown reasons. Someone else had adopted him as a birthday gift, but returned him the next day not long after.
People didn’t want used cats. They never did. Especially ones that didn’t have interesting markings, unlike Grumpy, whose eyebrows had been half the reason he kept getting adopted by various people.
He looked at the small thing, and made his decision.
“This one,” he said. “I’m going to buy this one.”
“What?!”
“Huh?!”
“But weren’t you saving for your mom’s birthday?!”
“She’ll understand,” he said, and under the questioning gazes of his friends, headed for the counter at the front of the store.
“Are you sure?” the clerk asked when Grumpy showed her the kitten, whose ears had perked up slightly with the commotion outside its cage. “We have many other kittens here. This one’s going to need quite a bit of care.”
“I’m sure,” Grumpy stated firmly.
“Miharu,” Nancy started.
“I’ve already decided.”
“This isn’t like you, making spontaneous decisions. You good, man?” Lawrence asked.
“I’m fine. I’m going to take this one home with me,” Grumpy said, and the clerk reluctantly obliged, setting the kitten inside a carrier while Grumpy pulled out his wallet.
“We have supplies, if you’d like? And there’s a refund policy—” the clerk started, but Grumpy waved her off as he took hold of the carrier.
“There’s no need. My family already has several cats. Thanks for the assistance,” he said. The kitten meowed inside the carrier. Who are you? He didn’t answer, he couldn’t just yet.
He couldn’t get out of the petstore fast enough, his friends following him with concerned looks.
“I’m gonna head home. I shouldn’t carry him around if I’m wandering around a mall,” Grumpy said once the pet store was finally out of sight. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“...If you’re sure,” Jocelyn said nervously. “Just...text us if anything comes up?”
Grumpy nodded, and then finally, finally, he could get out of that place, out into the open street. The group had come by bus, and luckily, he didn’t have to wait long at the bus stop for one to arrive. He only realized how tense he was and that his hands were shaking slightly when he finally sat down.
He exhaled and took a moment to breathe before leaning over to peek inside the carrier.
“You good, buddy?” he whispered. The kitten meowed back inquisitively. “Don’t worry. I’m taking you somewhere real nice. I think you’ll like it there. Oh, I should text the others…hopefully Mom’s home…”
He pulled out his phone, and sent a quick text saying he was on his way home, before slipping it back into his pocket.
“Cloud Road”, the driver’s voice called out, and Grumpy checked he had his things, before disembarking onto the familiar street. From there, it was only a short walk to the house. He could see Bangs stretched out on the windowsill and Nana-chan up on the roof, where she’d recently taken to hanging out. He waved at them both, before letting himself into the house.
It seemed no one else was home at the moment besides Bangs and Nana, so Grumpy made his way to the living room and set the carrier down on the floor. Bangs hopped off the windowsill and transformed back into a human to investigate properly.
“What do you have there, Grumps?” she asked, bending down to look inside. “Oh my gosh, it’s a kitten! Oh, you are so cute!”
Grumpy stood back and let her unlatch the carrier.The kitten meowed and cautiously approached the hand offered to it, and Bangs giggled when its nose touched her palm.
“What’s the name, Grumps?” she asked.
“None that I know of, ask him yourself,” Grumpy replied. “I picked him up at the mall.”
Bangs paused. “A petstore?”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s why you’re home early. Huh.” She leaned down, and transformed into her cat form, to the urprise of the kitten who jumped back into the carrier. “Oops! Sorry! Hey, I won’t hurt you, meow~!”
Grumpy settled on the couch, letting himself transform as well, and watched as Bangs slowly coaxed the kitten out and led him to where the food bowls were. This one might or might not be a human-cat, but it didn’t matter to Grumpy.
He knew what it was like to be left alone, shivering in a cold metal cage in the middle of a noisy pet store. And he knew that that kitten needed a home, just as much as he’d once had.
His mom would understand. He knew she would. She never turned an animal away, no matter the type.
But he was still going to avoid pet stores.