Astor (Yaoi/boyxboy)

Chapter 1: Turning 33

       "You're fucking joking," my mouth felt dry and the muscles on my back tensed as I stared, half frightened and half fascinated, at the short, doe-eyed boy standing on my front porch, cutely adorned with a giant red bow clipped onto his left ear.

"He isn't mine...you guys didn't-" The neko blinked, and for a moment, my brain went completely blank. I gulped, watching as the neko's ears turned and flicked at every word, every sound, that I made as if attentively listening for command.

     "We did," Joe responded, and I concluded that Joe must've been the mastermind to this ingenious plan.

"Surprise!" Terrance interjected, stretching out his arms and accidentally, not that he cared much about doing it, tugging at the leash in his hand. I winced at the sight of the neko's collar tugging at its neck, but the well-behaved boy stood there quietly and looked down at my shoes when they made eye contact.

That must've hurt him, I thought, that collar is choking him. But the neko had been trained, as all nekos are, to obey humans. So the boy just stood there quietly as the collar dug into his neck.

"You guys, you really didn't have to do that," I had managed to go 33 years without ever owning a neko of my own, and I wasn't ready to change that now, "look, I don't need a pet right now," I grimaced at the word, "really, thank you, but I think he'd only get in the way." I said, trying to come up with some kind, any kind, of excuse that I could.

But I knew, in my heart, that there was no way either Terrance or Joe were going to leave until I accepted the boy as my own.

"No, you know what, you do need him," Joe said sternly, shoving a manilla folder, presumably proof of purchase and ownership, into my unsteady hands. "You're probably the only psycho on this block- no, scratch that, you're probably the only psycho in this entire city who doesn't have a neko. They- they can cook, and clean, and do all the shit you don't want to do, and they do it happily."

"You know how busy I get with work, and I just don't think I could take care of a pet right now-" I said, trying my best to sound grateful despite the obvious scowl on my face.

"Yea, yea I know, you're busy, I get it," Joe said, and I clenched my jaw, "but they take care of all the shit you don't want to do. He'll clean for you, he'll cook your food, he'll basically do fucking anything really. Hell, if you really wanted I bet he'd-" Joe poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue, rocking his hand back and forth in front of his face.

"He'll blow you" Terrance added, as if the message weren't already clear enough.

All the while, the neko, dressed neatly in a long sleeve white t-shirt, a plain, straight pair of white jeans and white slip on shoes, continued to stare at my feet.

I blushed at the sight of the boys reddening face.

"What the fuck, Joe," I murmured "don't say that shit."

"We're kidding!" He and Terrance laughed out loud, again tugging at the collar around the boys neck.

It was starting to piss me off.

"But really, these fuckers do whatever you want them to do. You need to stop overworking yourself. These bitches," He said, referring to the boy, whose pretty face I knew would become a problem for me, "exist to make kids happy, and clean up. Take advantage of it."

I really didn't know how to respond.

"Terrance, give him the leash" Joe said, and Terrance stretched out his arm, trying to hand the black leash tied to the boy over to me.

"No, you guys, really I don't want-" I stammered.

"William, take the damn collar. Fuck man, I'm trying to help you here. You know how long we've been planning this shit?" He said, angry now, and as he exhaled a strand of blonde hair slipped down onto his forehead.

"I-I just..." I stumbled over my words, trying hard not to stare at the pretty boy with ears to my left.

"Take the damn collar" Joe repeated, and this time, I did, not that I had much of a choice. The neko's eyes followed the leather strap into my hands, and I scrunched my nose at the foreign feeling of the leather against my thick fingers.

"Look, I know it isn't exactly easy to take care of a neko. Keep them fed, and clothed, but Will we're you're friends. We see how much time you spend in the office, at work, and how you barely have enough energy in you to get up out of bed..." Joe trailed off, and I tried my best to keep the leash in my hands steady so as not to hurt the neko boy whose eyes had been, for the past two minutes, fixed on my lips.

"But you know how my son got after he broke his arm, he was depressed! But when we adopted our neko Millie, she really brightened him up...I don't know, I guess-"

"A neko will help with your loneliness" Terrance said, with about as much ease as a bullet to the stomach.

"I am not lonely" I said through grit teeth; angry now.

"Yea, and the sky isn't blue" Joe responded sarcastically, "look, take the boy, for a month- no, take him for a week! Just try it out, and if, by the end of the week, next sunday, if you seriously still don't want him then we'll take him back. Yea? That sound like a plan?"

"I-" I watched as the neko boys once cute, clueless face, turned into one of fear. As if he were afraid to lose the home he'd been longing for his entire life. The boy looked longingly towards me, and stood there with his head hung low as if to say 'I'm a good boy, please choose me.'

And to say that it completely shattered my heart would be an understatement.

I sighed, and my stomach dropped when I opened my mouth and said "alright Joe, it's a deal," both because the young neko's ears perked up as I said it, and because I had already decided, before the week had even started, that there was absolutely, without a doubt, no way that I was going to keep the pretty, grinning boy standing on my front porch.