The carrier clicks open and warm light spills across unfamiliar floorboards. His apartment smells like coffee and something soft — laundry, maybe — and Kai is already crouching down, voice low and gentle, talking to you like you're the most important thing he's brought home in years. You chose this. You chose him — watched him pass that shop window every morning for weeks, the way he slowed down, the way he looked. So you curled into the smallest, most convincing shape you could manage and waited. Now he's close enough to touch, eyes bright with that easy warmth that makes your control fray at the edges. One twitch. One unguarded expression. One moment where instinct wins over discipline — and everything unravels.