Light A Flame || Hoshi (editing)

Chapter 40

Jang-mi chuckled at his reaction, glancing down at the orange kitten in her lap. She scratched its head as an audible "aww" was heard from the assembled members. She carefully handed it off to Hoshi, who - possibly for once in recent times - was speechless.

He reached out a hand and scratched the kitten behind its ear. It was sort of frazzled: its chin and most of its face was pale and bare, in contrast to its bright orange body with dark brown stripes and growing fur. But its eyes - they were huge like boba pearls and took up most of its face, themselves a bright, emerald green. The kitten's ears pointed up sharply, like two tiny party hats on its round head.

"Here he is," she said curtly, knowing she had about 5 seconds before he'd get overwhelmed. She glanced at Jeonghan's filming phone, waving at it and subtly pointing over at Hoshi with the cat.

By the looks of it, he was positively entranced. He had a childlike grin on his face as he rubbed the kitty's belly and it pawed at his hand. He stroked its face with his finger, but soon yelped as the cat lightly bit his outstretched pinky. Not enough for blood, but there was a visible mark.

"Wow, he's just like you," Woozi remarked - arms crossed - at Hoshi, whose eyes looked glazed over with tears.

"Is he seriously crying?" Joshua whispered over to Jeonghan, the oldest of the present members breaking out into a slight smirk.

Hoshi didn't appear to hear any of the conversations, being focused solely on the kitten in his lap. He took its paws in his fingers, moving them back and forth and making his impression of cat noises.

Jang-mi placed a hand on his shoulder. "Soonyoung."

No reply.

She tried to get his attention by patting him on the back a few times, and only then did he snap out of his feline trance and faced her.

"We haven't named him," Jang-mi pointed out, in a tone that suggested it was Hoshi's responsibility.

"Hmm. Hoshi junior?" he suggested, picking up the kitty and aligning it to his face, trying to point out the similarity between the two, doing a horanghae and attempting to get the cat to copy the pose.

"Soon, I know it's a Toyger, but no."

"Alright, fine. Guys, help me out here," he looked at the other members.

"Call it Mittens. I dunno," Joshua shrugged. Everyone shook their heads at this and continued brainstorming.

"I feel like Ginger or something could fit it," Woozi said, leaning against the wall in an attempt of acting nonchalant. However, it was fairly clear that he wanted a turn with the kitten as soon as possible.

"Maybe Shingi Bbangi? Or Bbong Bbong for short," Jeonghan offered behind the camera.

"How about Maum? It means heart, and also sounds like cat noises," Hoshi proposed.

Dino snorted at this. "Hah! How soppy."

Hoshi shot him a glare. "Well what would you name it?"

Dino paused for a moment. "Obviously, the only appropriate thing to name a cat."

Everyone eyed him skeptically, except Hoshi, who was mostly fixated on the furball in his hands.

Dino inhaled. "Look at him. That's a Megatron 3000," he said with an air of bravado, seemingly half-joking, but it was hard to tell. Joshua and Woozi just shook their heads at him flatly. He shrugged and receded to his previous spot.

"None of you seem that surprised," Hoshi remarked. "Did you know about this?" He turned to Jang-mi. "Did they know about this?"

She nodded, noticing Woozi eyeing the cat. To Hoshi's protests, she extracted it from his lap and placed it on the floor. After a few moments of thought, the cat meandered over to Woozi, who was trying very hard to suppress his excitement. He dropped down onto the floor and began playing with the kitten who started clawing at his fluffy hair.