DISCONTINUED | Black Cat In A Box ☂ ML

02 ☂ Chat Noir

02 ☂ Chat Noir

UNREVISED

Marinette nearly cried tears of relief as she finally managed to unlock the crème door to her apartment, the dry air from inside hitting her in the face as she stepped over the threshold. Her entire body was drenched in rain, a wet trail leading from her doorway, down the hallway, down the stairs and back to the glass doors, probably still swinging shut from her mad dash inside.

"Okay chaton," Mari slung her purse and broken umbrella over hooks beside the kitchen counter, as she addressed her newfound (albeit wet) feline friend. "Let's get you dried off."

Other than a disgruntled merrup, he was silent as she fitted her hands under his forearms to pry him off her shirt. Marching through the small apartment, Mari flicked all the lights on and made her way to the master suite at the back. Knocking the door open with her hip, she could see her pink bed was still made as tidily as she'd left it, its headboard tucked up against the far wall and next to her white duchess. But it wasn't the simple furnishings that made her pause in her step every time she came to bed, no, it was the breathtaking Paris landscape she could drink in through the massive windows on the right side of the room. Taking up nearly the entirety of the wall, Mari could still see the storm raging outside on the streets, rain pelting against the surface of the Seine and clouds pulsing with lightening. Even the silhouette of the Eifel Tower was illuminated with each strike of lightening.

"It's worth that extra couple of hundred every month," she told the cat defensively as he stared up at her. "Good stimulus for my designs, no?"

Biting her cheek to stop herself from reflexively blurting out anything else to a cat, Mari moved into the ensuite and put her quite load down on the marble basin-top. Within no time at all, she'd pulled out fluffy white hand towels and was rubbing him dry with a force that reckoned the storm outside.

"Does that feel nice, chaton?" Mari asked him as she buffed his sides vigorously, causing him to stand up and sway with each of her strokes. His eyes started to drift shut, and a rumbling purr was building up in his tiny body.

"Hang on." She paused. "Do you have a name?"

He lazily opened those wide green eyes, but barely batted his tail against the mirror as answer. With no collar and no ID, Mari had effectively only been calling him... cat.

"Okay... first things last, I guess," Mari had reverted back to talking to the cat as she knocked a fisted towel on her hip. "What should we call you?"

She got no reply.

"Chaton?"

"Kitty?"

"Puss?"

Her feline friend was looking more incredulous by the minute.

"Chat Noir?"

At that, Chat Noir let out a loud, approving meow and rubbed his side against the faucet.

"Chat Noir it is, then!" Marinette told him happily and patted him a couple more times, sating his thirst for affection before turning back to the situation at hand.

Her water-logged clothes.

"Alright, now, for me," she told the now-dry Chat Noir matter-of-factly. Turning on her heel, Mari returned to the bedroom and pulled her dry pajamas off the back of her desk chair. Though it was only five pm, she had no one to impress and the leftovers in the fridge certainly weren't going to judge her choice of clothing. PJs sounded warm and inviting, almost as heavenly as a steaming hot shower.

She nearly sighed out loud.

Chat Noir was still in the basin when she came back to the bathroom, and she petted him again as she dropped her loot on the toilet seat. His eyes drifted closed in contentment, and she stifled a giggle as she moved to the shower and flicked the taps on.

Off came her shoes and soggy socks, next, her jacket and shirt. Mari was just fighting with the disagreeable zipper on her pink jeans when Chat Noir gave a loud meow.

"What's wrong, mon chaton?" She turned quickly with her hands on the fly, searching for the source of his sudden voice. "What's – "

"Meeerooow!" Chat yelled with a wide mouth, his pupils nearly the size of saucers. "Ma merrow!"

"What's up?" She crouched in front of the basin in concern, but he sat up suddenly and meowed again. "Do you not like the shower?"

He wasn't hissing, or fluffing up in fear. Rather, he was backing up against the mirror, and away from Mari, still meowing in distress.

"Chat Noir, I don't know – " As she reached forward to pull him against her bra, Chat leapt from the counter and dashed out of the room in a mad rush. She watched him jump up onto the end of her bed in confusion, from where he pointedly faced his back to her and settled back on his haunches.

"Alright then," Marinette sighed and shook her head slowly. "I guess you're just raring for a nap."

Pushing the door closed gently, she turned back to her shower and fully stripped off, more than ready for its steaming spray.

"Ahaha," she laughed to herself in an indulgent moment. "What if he just didn't wanna see a girl naked?"

She shook her head again with a laugh at her own imagination.

Hahaha, what a thought. He's a cat!

  ☂