AHTT CHAPTER 46

046: No Need to Wear Clothes

When Tang Yu told him to stop, Sang Zhao’s first thought was, I won’t, I won’t!

Unfortunately, he had already exhausted every corn-related word he could think of. Even if he wanted to keep going, there was nothing left to say, which was very annoying.

So he softened again and secretly gave a little hum.

He stopped talking and just stared pitifully at Tang Yu, eyes big and wet, sounding dejected as he said, “Gege, you don’t feel sorry for me anymore.”

That landed right on target.

Tang Yu wanted to sigh. He felt helpless, unable to say anything for a moment.

But looking at him, it was obvious that Sang Zhao felt entirely justified.

The little cat wasn’t being reasonable at all. In his mind, if Corn Bean wouldn’t listen to him, then Corn Bean just didn’t care about him anymore.

Before, whatever he said, Corn Bean would agree. Why was he suddenly being so forceful now?

Clearly this wasn’t Corn Bean anymore. This was the hateful Corn Paste.

Tang Yu drew a deep breath and forced himself to be firm. His tone was steady as he said, “How do I not feel sorry for you? Get it straight. You’re the one who doesn’t feel sorry for yourself.”

He deliberately made it sound very serious.

“It’s not just using freeze-dried cat treats as a snack, right? Sometimes you’re too lazy to cook, so you dig out a spoonful of cat kibble and treat it like rice, don’t you?”

Head hanging, Sang Zhao gave a guilty sidelong glance at him.

“…You really did that?” Tang Yu stared. “I said it at random, and you actually did it?”

He felt his heart and blood vessels both throbbing in anger, a deep, muffled ache, and the edges of his vision almost went dark.

Whenever he was embarrassed, Sang Zhao started touching random things to make himself look busy.

He rubbed the side of his neck, then slid his hand up to his head, mussed his little orange hair all over, patted himself from top to bottom, then tipped his head back to look at the ceiling.

Anything except actually talking to Tang Yu.

Tang Yu couldn’t stand it and stuck to his original plan. “All right, enough. We’re going today. You can have someone come back and pack your things later. For now, you grab your cat, we go downstairs, and we drive to my place.”

Ugh. I’m going to die of anger, thought Sang Zhao.

Where am I supposed to find you a cat?

Honestly, he almost wanted to praise Corn Bean for being attentive. Even now, he was still thinking about the cat.

There was only one problem.

He didn’t have a cat.

What did he mean, “take your cat along”?

The cat was standing right in front of him and he couldn’t see it. He was even asking the cat to go fetch a cat. Completely unreasonable.

“I’m not going!” he shouted.

When coaxing didn’t work, he gave up on that and started throwing a full-on tantrum.

“I’m just not going! I won’t! What am I, some stray little cat with no home who can only live at your place? I already have my own home and I’m really happy here. I don’t want to live at someone else’s house!”

His tone was very firm and he looked a little fierce.

Someone else might have butted heads with him and started a fight.

But Tang Yu had an instinctive, unconscious cat-petting skill set. Every time Sang Zhao was about to get truly mad, he would somehow end up being soothed, his anger melting away like water into water.

He really was a fated cat owner.

Tang Yu pursed his lips and deliberately weakened his stance. “Am I ‘someone else’?” he asked. “I’m not the boyfriend you just agreed to, am I?”

“Mm,” Sang Zhao grunted. His little bit of anger evaporated at once.

He pouted, thought about it, and looked back at him.

“But I still don’t want to go,” he said.

He really liked Corn Bean, and Corn Bean really was a kind, good human. None of that was wrong.

But when he lived alone in this small place, it was just him, and he could do whatever he wanted.

He could eat what he wanted, play with what he wanted, everything exactly how he liked it.

Living alone was great. He loved prowling his own territory with his tail held high.

A boyfriend was great, but he still didn’t want to live with him.

Tang Yu’s mood visibly dipped.

He stopped sounding stern, stopped insisting. Instead, he copied him and started playing pitiful, putting on a wronged little expression.

“Really not possible?” he asked softly.

His cat-heart was made of iron. Obviously it wasn’t.

Seeing that this wasn’t going anywhere, Tang Yu raised his hand, stuck out his pinky, and gave him a pleading look. “Then let’s make a pinky swear,” he said. “From now on, you have to eat properly, okay?”

“You can’t keep abusing your body just because you’re young. Being sick feels awful, doesn’t it?”

Gentleness was exactly his weakness.

The moment Tang Yu softened his tone, every word sank in.

He was completely susceptible to this and felt like gentle Corn Bean was wonderful in every way.

Seeing such genuine concern in his expression, he suddenly felt guilty.

He’s right, he thought. I can’t be like this. I need to stay healthy if I want to keep pretending to be human. I can’t keep getting sick.

Mostly, he’d just been too busy lately.

He’d gone from being a comfortable, lazy salted-fish cat to working hard, and now he was sick.

Wow, wasn’t this heaven telling him not to try so hard?

He shook his head to stop that line of thinking and focused on Tang Yu’s extended pinky.

He lifted his hand and hooked it around Tang Yu’s little finger, then flipped his hand over and enclosed Tang Yu’s hand in his own, lightly scratching his palm.

“Okay,” he said. The single syllable was full and clear, bright with happiness.

“I can’t live with you, but… you still like me, right?” he asked uncertainly.

Fidgeting with his fingers, he said, not even aware of how it sounded, “So we’re, like, officially in love now?”

Tang Yu froze, letting him fiddle with his hand without pulling away.

The angry look from earlier had vanished completely.

“So I have a boyfriend now?” he repeated.

“I thought you’d understand the moment I kissed you last time,” Tang Yu said dryly.

He paused mid-sentence and let out a quiet sigh. “How are you really a bit slower than everyone else? How did your mind run off in the direction of ‘mom’?”

“Because you’re really gentle,” Sang Zhao said with perfect logic. “And you kissed my forehead. You didn’t kiss my mouth.”

That shut Tang Yu up again.

He lowered his gaze a little. “Nobody just starts with kissing on the mouth. That’s not how it works.”

“Really?”

To him, everything was brand new.

It was his first time being a person, and three months in, he already had a boyfriend.

Every part of it felt fresh.

He knew nothing about human social rules and customs, and he just thought all of it was fun and interesting.

Tang Yu actually could see that, rather than deeply “in love,” it was more like he had found a very close playmate.

He didn’t want to let go, always wanted to be closer, so he clung and stuck to him.

There wasn’t that much love yet, just a soft, fond feeling.

He was muddled and easy to fool, not good at saying no, and would agree to anything.

That made Tang Yu’s guilt flare.

He felt like he was being a bad person, but he had absolutely no intention of letting go.

Right now, “good feelings” had already turned into “boyfriend.”

Real liking and real love could slowly grow in the days to come.

The more he looked at him, the more he liked what he saw.

The word “boyfriend” kept circling in his heart, and he couldn’t bear to look away from him.

“Then should we kiss now? Oh, no, that’s not the word. It’s ‘make out.’ So should we make out now?” Sang Zhao asked, all excited.

Inside, Tang Yu was full of complicated emotions.

He felt like he was bullying a younger person with his age and experience, but he couldn’t ignore the urge rising in his chest.

He was still tangled up in guilt when Sang Zhao abruptly vetoed his own idea.

“Oh, right, I can’t,” he said, patting his head. “I’m sick.”

If they couldn’t kiss, they could at least hug.

He had to celebrate having a boyfriend somehow.

He shifted his weight to the right, tested a spot, then shifted left, fidgeting around for a good while just to find the right angle before pouncing.

He threw himself into Tang Yu with some force, knocking him back a half step before he managed to keep his balance.

He buried his face happily into the crook of his neck, arms tight around his waist, clinging to him in a very sticky, cozy hug.

“We’ll just hug for now,” he muttered, sounding a little dissatisfied.

But for Tang Yu, it was already more than enough.

His breath actually paused.

His head went light, and if not for those arms around his waist, his knees might’ve buckled.

They had skipped the tentative hand-holding stage entirely and jumped straight to full-body, close-contact hugging.

He could feel his breath on his ear, hot and damp, sending tingles all the way from the edge of his ear up through his scalp.

To Sang Zhao, none of this seemed like a big deal.

He didn’t understand that stuff. It just felt good to hug.

Not only did he hug, he had a more serious problem now: from this angle, Tang Yu’s little ponytail was right in his line of sight.

No cat could resist that.

All of his attention got sucked in.

He secretly reached up and started to fiddle with it.

He played with the little tail of hair, tugged on the hair tie, pinched it between his fingers, pulled and released, and kept squirming his head into Tang Yu’s neck, rubbing here and there.

He suddenly remembered something and let out a soft “oh.”

“Not now,” he said, “but once I’m better, we can sleep together, gege.”

Tang Yu’s mind was half-floating somewhere else.

The side of his neck and his ear were both completely red, his cheeks flushing too, and just as he was falling apart, he heard the rest.

“Can I sleep on your head?” he asked, excited.

“…What?”

Adam’s apple bobbing, Tang Yu’s over-heated brain cooled immediately.

He tried to imagine what kind of sleeping position that even was and came up empty.

Half a beat later, Sang Zhao realized it too.

No, that wouldn’t work.

He couldn’t turn back into a cat and curl up on his head, pressing his furry belly over Tang Yu’s skull while they slept.

He was playing human right now, and that performance was how he’d gotten a boyfriend.

Tang Yu didn’t know he was a cat.

Humans didn’t sleep like that.

Just like that, another little bit of feline happiness vanished.

Realizing he couldn’t shift into a cat and sleep on him, he sighed and said into his ear, sounding glum, “Forget it then.”

He made a small compromise. “If I can’t sleep on your head, sleeping on your body is fine. I’m not picky.”

Tang Yu made a couple of strangled sounds, unable to find the right words.

He stared at the ceiling with a complicated expression. “…Thanks,” he managed.

Not understanding at all, but very polite, he answered, “You’re welcome.”

–

That night, his fever fully broke.

After watching him eat and take his medicine, Tang Yu finally felt comfortable enough to leave.

On his way out, he reminded him, “Your cat is really terrified of people. I never saw it once. Once I’ve gone, feed it quickly, okay? Poor thing hasn’t eaten at all.”

Mouth saying “Mm, mm, mm,” he lowered his head to look at his own belly.

Yep. The cat was plenty full.

In human form, he had defined abs.

In cat form, his fuzzy belly would be bulging as he burped.

Once Tang Yu left, he finished off the remaining half of the melon.

He bounced back quickly, and now he didn’t feel bad at all.

After hesitating a bit, he went downstairs to find the Samoyed.

Ye Ye wasn’t asleep yet.

He hadn’t done his homework again and had spent the whole day playing mobile games.

He hadn’t known that Sang Zhao was sick, but once he heard about it, he definitely felt sorry for his cat friend.

He rummaged through the fridge and found a bag of taro balls and a bag of pudding, then dragged out red beans, taro, mochi flour, and glutinous rice.

Then Ye Ye stood in the kitchen with a pot in his hands looking like he was about to cook something.

Staring at the ingredients, watching the Samoyed’s clumsy movements, Sang Zhao’s tone held pure, uncut doubt. “Are you trying to poison me?”

Ye Ye was wronged.

He was stomping up and down on a little stepstool, rummaging everywhere.

All of this hard work was for the cat’s sake.

“I’m making dessert for Kitty!” Ye Ye said enthusiastically. “You have to eat something cold and icy so your throat feels better!”

“I learned it from romance movies. The male lead cooks this taro mash, taro balls, red bean, glutinous rice, pudding shaved ice stuff for the female lead. It’s good for the throat.”

Whether it was good for the throat or not, he didn’t know, but he was definitely craving taro and red beans now.

So he just watched Ye Ye bustle around.

Speaking of romance movies, his own romance movie was rolling too.

“I’m dating Corn Bean now,” he said, not bothering with any lead-up before blurting it out.

Ye Ye had been tipping the taro balls into the pot when he heard that.

His hand jerked, and the round, bouncy taro balls slid along the outside of the pot, tumbled down the side of the counter, and scattered everywhere.

“Ah—”

“Ah!”

In an instant, any attention they had on “romance” evaporated.

They spent twenty minutes chasing taro balls, scooping them up everywhere.

Once they got them into a bowl and rinsed them, the taro balls got slippery, so the slightest pressure sent one flying off the counter onto the floor again.

The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of two idiots grunting and picking things up, both cat and dog panting from the effort.

Finally, when everything was in order again, Ye Ye had enough spare brain power to ask the important questions.

“So should I start calling him ‘Auntie’ now? Is he really going to have little kittens with you? If you guys have kittens, can I raise one?”

“Humans can’t have kittens. He doesn’t have that function,” Sang Zhao snapped. “And you’re not allowed to call him ‘Auntie.’”

Nothing allowed, nothing allowed.

How was Ye Ye supposed to satisfy his curiosity?

At least this time, unlike when he was talking to An Tihu, Sang Zhao was very honest with Ye Ye.

Stuttering a bit, but basically giving him the full picture.

“I’ve never been anyone’s boyfriend before,” he said from the bottom of his heart. “What if I’m bad at it?”

“If you’re bad at it, just kiss him,” Ye Ye said, throwing out terrible ideas. “If he gets mad, if he’s upset, just kiss him. When people are getting kissed, they won’t say angry things, because they can’t talk.”

Hiss. Weird, thought Sang Zhao, but actually, that did kind of make sense.

While he was over there wrestling with that idea, Tang Yu, on the other hand, wasn’t overthinking things at all.

He was just happy enough to fly.

The only issue now was that, having gotten into a relationship, he didn’t know how to act around him.

He was a twenty-six-year-old human who had never dated before.

His first relationship made everything feel fresh, but he really was happy.

Now, when he was at work, faced with boring meetings, trivial proposals, and endless spreadsheets, he’d still be smiling, working with way more enthusiasm than usual.

Early love made everything new.

He wanted to see him all the time.

When Friday came and Sang Zhao returned to work fully recovered, Tang Yu’s thoughts immediately drifted.

Tomorrow was the weekend, and he couldn’t stop thinking about asking him out to play.

Before, “going out” was just going out.

Now, they were a couple, so it was a date.

Just imagining it made him smile so hard his cheeks hurt.

He could sit there and grin for a solid five minutes at the thought.

He wanted to ask him out, but refused to do it over WeChat.

He wanted to say it in person.

So he sent him a message, asking him to come to his office.

Reading it, Sang Zhao looked down at his phone, then around at his coworkers, and snuck into the CEO’s office like a sneaky little cat.

Corn Bean wasn’t just Corn Bean.

He was also the boss.

He thought, I have to date him in secret. I have to hide it from Xiao An-jie and Director Li.

Xiao An-jie was Director Li’s claw and paw.

Sure, last time she seemed supportive, but that was just talk.

If she really confirmed that he was dating Corn Bean, Director Li would probably charge over and kill him.

Just thinking of Director Li made him shiver.

He wasn’t very smart, but he wanted to act cleverly.

So he picked up a huge pile of documents to use as cover.

Tang Yu took one look and found they were all misprints and discarded pages.

A whole stack, everything from Excel sheets to reimbursement slips, creative drafts to log forms.

He had carried a mountain of scrap paper into the CEO’s office, pretending he was here to report on something.

In his first relationship, he’d suddenly discovered that this was also an office romance, and a secret one on top of that.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The sheer ridiculousness of that stack made him want to burst out laughing, but he held it back so he wouldn’t discourage him.

“What are you here for?” he asked instead. “Need the president’s signature?”

He said it on purpose, just to tease.

Thinking it was fun, Sang Zhao felt like he was acting in some kind of drama.

What was that called again?

Oh, right. Roleplay. Corn Bean was roleplaying.

So he shuffled over and put on a pitiful little underling act, murmuring, “President Tang, I want to claim my travel reimbursement. President Tang, could you please sign for me? I’m begging you.”

The stack of scrap in his arms was heavy.

When Tang Yu took it, his wrist tensed up and his expression almost cracked.

It was really thick. Really heavy.

He once again marveled at how strong he was…

He pulled a random sheet from the middle and pretended it was a travel reimbursement form, giving it a look-over and clicking his tongue like he was displeased.

“I told you to take the bus. Why did you take the bullet train?”

Softly, he answered, “Because the bus takes thirty-six hours.”

When Tang Yu put on a cold face, he was genuinely intimidating, like a tyrannical CEO from a drama.

“What’s wrong with thirty-six hours?” he scoffed. “Can’t sit that long?”

“I can,” Sang Zhao shot back. “But my butt isn’t made of iron.”

That did it.

Tang Yu couldn’t hold it anymore and laughed, tossing the “form” aside and tugging him down into the seat next to him.

“Come sit here.”

He soothed him and happily started planning the weekend.

“Let’s go out this weekend, okay? We could go to a concert. Or play badminton. We didn’t get to last time, but we could this time. There’s also that cat café that just took in a new calico. We could go see it…”

He’d been all ready to agree, but suddenly remembered… this weekend…

Oh.

Wasn’t that the day they were going to the reservoir to camp?

“Not this weekend,” he said regretfully. “I’ve already made plans with my friends.”

Tang Yu deflated.

“Which friends? Do I know them?” he asked casually.

He’d been expecting him to say, How could you know my friends?

Then he’d say, When are you going to introduce me to them? and that would be his chance to start integrating into his social circle.

Perfect.

Instead, his expression knotted up.

Seeing that, Tang Yu suddenly had a bad feeling.

“You know them,” he said. “It’s Xiao An-jie.”

The other big cat friends he couldn’t name anyway, and even if he did, Tang Yu wouldn’t know them.

So he just said Xiao An-jie.

At least Tang Yu knew her and would understand that he’d already made plans.

“An Tihu?”

Which An Tihu?

The one from the secretary’s office?

The one he’d said had “safety risks”?

The one who walked on her hands and held her umbrella with her feet?

Tang Yu didn’t feel good about it and wasn’t willing to give in yet.

“She’s going, so why can’t I?” he asked. “We just got together.”

They’d be gathering as cats and birds to go wild in the water.

If a human came along, none of them could relax.

He shook his head, feeling guilty toward Tang Yu but still refusing.

There was absolutely no way he could let him come.

Humans couldn’t be part of a cats-and-birds party.

Seeing the stubborn look on his face, Tang Yu deliberately acted hurt.

“I get it,” he said. “I’m five years older than you, so you think I’m old and don’t want to play with me.”

“It’s not that! It’s not!”

No, no, that wasn’t it.

How could he not understand?

It wasn’t about age. It was about species.

In cats-and-birds happiness, there was no place for humans.

He was sorry, but that was just how it was.

Humans just couldn’t join.

What, was he supposed to strip down and go into the water with them to eat fish?

His expression twisted with the struggle, brows scrunched up so tightly that Tang Yu’s heart ached just looking at him.

Not wanting to make things harder for him, Tang Yu took a step back and decided to at least leave a strong impression on his friends.

“What are you going to wear?” he asked. “Want me to help you choose?”

He could show off a bit of styling sense and indulge a tiny bit of control freak in the process.

His brain was mush, so he answered without thinking, “Whatever. We won’t need clothes anyway.”

“…What?”

He froze and stared at him.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” he yelped. “That’s not it!”

It was only because once they were all animals again, they wouldn’t have to worry about clothes.

Everyone would be furry.

Nobody would be paying attention to that.

But Tang Yu didn’t know that.

His gaze lowered, his expression going very still.

His lashes trembled once and his face grew complicated.

“You’re… going to be doing what out there?” he asked quietly.

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Tap kitty for TOC :3