Chapter 1
Rain pattered against the holiday lights strung across the storefronts, each droplet catching and scattering the colors into puddles below. Hentan in December wasn’t just cold—it was the kind of damp chill that seeped through layers and settled deep into your bones. Beau hunched his shoulders against it, stuffing his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.
The streets were eerily empty tonight. Most sensible people were home already, not trudging through near-freezing rain at nine o’clock on a Tuesday. But “sensible” wasn’t exactly Beau’s strong suit lately—not with the extra hours he’d been putting in at Meridian Insurance.
His phone weighed heavily in his pocket. Three drafted messages to Reyna, his crush from work, sat unsent, each one rewritten a dozen times since lunch.
Hey, want to grab coffee sometime? Too casual.
I really enjoyed our conversation at the office party... Too desperate.
There’s this new exhibit at the art museum I thought you might like... Too presumptuous.
Beau sighed, his breath clouding before him. Who was he kidding? Reyna was way out of his league—confident, sharp-witted, with that smile that made his stomach flip. Meanwhile, he was... well, just Beau. Average height, average build, average life. The kind of guy who faded into the background. Invisible.
His nose tickled, and he sneezed violently. If there was anything that made him stand out, it was his sneezes. They were loud, wet, and satisfying. He didn’t have time to cover himself, but luckily, there was no one around for the sneeze to hit. He watched miserably as it evaporated into the cold air.
The weather was getting to him. He needed to get home as fast as possible. He quickened his pace, but soon found himself sneezing three more times in quick succession.
“What the hell?” he muttered, catching his breath between sneezes.
That’s when he saw her.
A small tortoiseshell cat peered at him from beneath a dumpster, her sleek fur wet from the cold drizzle. She watched him with unusual intensity, golden eyes unblinking. Something about those eyes seemed... different. Not quite animal, but not quite anything else he could name either.
“Ah,” Beau waved a hand halfheartedly. “So you’re the one polluting my airspace.”
She didn’t move. Just stared, her tail flicking once.
“I’m sorry, little kitty,” he muttered, walking past. “But we are not compatible.”
He’d barely made it ten feet when he heard the soft patter of paws behind him. Turning, he found the cat following, keeping a precise distance.
“No,” Beau said firmly. “No following. I am not a cat person.”
As if to contradict him directly, the cat meowed, her voice surprisingly musical in the empty street. Beau sneezed again.
“See? Allergic. Go find some nice family with children and... I don’t know, cat toys.”
Beau turned the corner, walking faster now. When he glanced back, the cat was gone, and he felt a strange twinge of... disappointment? Ridiculous. He shook his head and continued home.
But at the next intersection, there she was—sitting patiently, as if she’d been waiting for him. As if she knew exactly where he was going.
“How did you—?” Beau cut himself off. Talking to cats now. Perfect.
The cat darted ahead to wait for him at the next corner, then the next, always seeming to know his route home. Each time Beau approached, she would meow softly, almost conversationally, before leading him further. He couldn’t help but feel she was guiding him, rather than following.
A sudden sound from his left made them both freeze—a low, guttural chattering emanating from a narrow alley between buildings. The noise didn’t sound human, maybe animal? It wasn’t anything Beau had ever heard before, but it raised the hair on his arms.
The cat’s entire demeanor changed. Her back arched, fur standing on end as she hissed toward the darkness, positioning herself between Beau and whatever lurked there.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Beau said, surprising himself with the gentleness in his voice. “It’s probably just a raccoon.”
But even as he said it, he didn’t believe it. Raccoons didn’t make sounds like that.
The chattering faded, and the cat relaxed slightly, turning her attention back to Beau. She shivered visibly in the cold, her golden eyes looking up at him almost pleadingly.
Something twisted in Beau’s chest. “Yeah, I’m freezing too.”
Another sneeze racked his body, and he groaned. “I’m going to regret this.”
Crouching down, he reached out tentatively. The cat didn’t hesitate—she walked right into his hands, allowing him to lift her. She was surprisingly light and immediately began to purr against his chest.
“I’ll take you to the shelter first thing tomorrow,” Beau said firmly, both to the cat and himself. “One night. That’s it.”
The cat blinked slowly, as if she knew better.
“If I sneeze myself to death, I’m blaming you,” he muttered, cradling her inside his jacket as he resumed his walk home.
As Beau reached his apartment building, he couldn’t help but glance back down the street, a strange feeling of being watched prickling at the back of his neck. The deserted street revealed nothing, but the holiday lights seemed dimmer somehow, their reflections in the puddles distorting into shapes that almost resembled faces.
“I need to lay down,” he muttered, pushing through the lobby door. But as he rode the elevator up to his fifth-floor apartment, the cat’s ears remained perked, her golden eyes fixed on the closed doors as if she could see through them, back to the streets they’d left behind.
