He hadn’t planned on telling anyone.

It was an impulsive decision.

She couldn’t believe He said it out loud.

So empty.

In the middle of nowhere.

Why?

A sudden warmth touched Killian’s forehead in the midst of his confusion.

No breath escaped him.

His gaze remained fixed on the cat resting its head against my forehead.

This is why…….

After checking his temperature, which had returned to normal, and watching the cat take a step back, Killian’s mouth tightened.

He couldn’t help but speak.

Just a few hours ago. As he lifted his eyelids to clear the dull pain, a familiar figure entered his vision.

She was dressed in pure white chemise, bathed in the bluish dawn light.

Closing and opening his eyes helplessly, Killian stared at the figure, then jerked to his feet.

The girl was dressed.

The chemise she had rejected with her whole body.

He must have forced her to wear them.

Haunted by an ominous premonition, Killian glanced back at his memory and frowned at the pounding headache.

I remember gritting my teeth and returning to my bedroom, but the rest is a blur.

“……But why.”

She was sleeping on the floor.

Killian stared at the girl on the carpet, and suddenly my attention was drawn to the foreground of the bedroom.

The table was a mess, and flowers that should have been in vases were strewn about.

Somehow, the vase had been knocked over near the couch.

Killian slowly pushed himself up and sat down on the couch.

At that moment, something clattered into his lap.

“…….”

He picked up what looked like a small piece of fabric and realized it was a chemise.

I looked over and saw several wet chemises on the couch he was lying on.

The carpet he was walking on was also damp.

His eyes widened in disbelief, and he turned back to the girl.

She had soaked them in water overnight and placed them on his forehead.

“Why would you do…….”

You don’t have to.

Closing his mouth tightly, Killian was about to carry her to bed when he flicked on the lamp on the side table.

He hesitantly placed his hand on her human body, hoping she would sense the light and wake up on her own.

But no matter how long he waited, she didn’t open her eyes.

“Huh…….”

He shook her shoulder for the umpteenth time, trying to wake her up, but in the clearer light, I could see a red wound.

Kneeling down, Killian peered more closely at the girl’s lips.

The girl’s lips were covered in red bruises.

Killian, who had maintained a stoic demeanor, stepped back.

He suddenly imagined what it must have been like to roam this bedroom as a kitten.

To shrinking a chemise, wetting it, and placing it across the carpet to his forehead.

He couldn’t bring himself to shake her awake anymore, to watch her open her eyes as a kitten.

“…….”

I walked over to the couch and sat down, only to find her sleeping on the floor.

I couldn’t leave her alone, much less go to bed with her.

Without thinking, Killian grabbed a blanket from the bed, tucked it over her, and sat down next to her.

A nagging headache throbbed in the back of his head.

Looking down at her sleeping form, Killian slowly lay down on the floor and faced the girl.

“You didn’t have to do that. Why did you…….”

A hard tone like a stone bounced out.

Unrefined, raw eyes stared at the girl’s wounds.

I don’t know how much time passed with my eyes fixed on her lips.

Killian stretched out his arm involuntarily.

“……ah”

I might have touched it if I hadn’t snapped out of my thoughts before my fingers touched it.

‘This cat’s memory……. It’s all about His Royal Highness Crown Prince Killian.’

If her oldest memory was of Killian, the girl most likely had amnesia.

She wouldn’t tell me.

Once I learned of her condition, it was quick to come to a conclusion.

Teaching her that she was human might be the key to getting her memories back.

The cat was proof that the Oracle’s interpretation of the current Empire was wrong, and a clue to track down its creators.

He could not afford for the cat to change his mind about the way forward.

It was better to let it believe that there was no other place in the world to turn.

But what if.

It was unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Taking advantage of someone was something I didn’t mind doing.

Maybe it was because it had the appearance of a small animal.

Hesitantly, Killian stroked the girl’s hair with his outstretched hand.

Killian’s eyes narrowed as the slender silver hair curled around his fingertips.

It felt new, fragile, and tender.

It was hard to put pressure on my fingers as if I were treating a newborn beast as if one wrong move would hurt her.

As he brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, her burgundy lips came into focus.

He watched her untouched lips carefully.

He hoped she wasn’t hurt.

Tsk. He clicked his tongue briefly to dismiss the feeling, which quickly turned into a thought.

Killian stared at her, awake and cat-like.

Eyes smeared with golden sun and summer forest green met his.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Killian opened his mouth slowly and spoke in a low voice.

“When you’re asleep.”

The cat tilted his face, ears flicking.

“You become a person.”

The cat’s eyes widened in surprise.

“When you fall asleep. You turn into a person.”

If only she hadn’t walked up to him as soon as she opened her eyes and checked his complexion.

If she hadn’t pressed foreheads together to check his temperature.

He would have watched for a long time. Maybe he would have watched, oblivious, until the end.

But he had been too defenseless, believing himself to be an ironclad cat, and with that defenselessness came a pang of useless guilt, and he didn’t know what to do with that pesky feeling.

So I let it out.

Because I had to.

* * *

“Without a stitch of thread.”

What did he say with that bored, impassive look on his face?

For a moment, feeling as if I might suffocate, I doubted my ears.

I’m a person?

My tinnitus beeped like my brain was overloaded.

“I’m just saying it because today I saw it.”

“!”

My mouth dropped open as I heard something that made me even more stunned.

It’s one thing to be human but to sleep naked.

I froze in place, staring blankly up at Killian’s face.

I become human…….

I become a person when I sleep.

And he said I didn’t wear anything.

At that moment, as if he could see right through me, he added.

“Just so you know, I didn’t.”

“Meow?”

Does it matter now? No, of course, it matters, but……!

It’s a person.

I’d been thinking it was just a kitten, but a person!

The sudden onslaught of truth completely paralyzed my thinking and my head started spinning.

I breathed in and out to calm myself, but I could feel my heart beating faster and faster in isolation.

It was beating so hard that it could bounce off the outside of my body, echoing through my head, and keeping me on edge.

When I fall asleep, I turn into a human!

That means I’m a cat when I’m conscious and a human when I’m not.

I didn’t believe it when I was a cat, but when I heard that I would become a human, I felt like clinging desperately to the hope I didn’t have, and I felt a hunger to fulfill it.

Maybe I can become a person?

Isn’t there a way out there somewhere?

My breath caught in my throat as visions of walking around on my own two legs and being able to act freely filled my head.

I could be a human being who could go anywhere I wanted, not just in this bedroom!

How could I find a way to do that?

The fact that even the famous wizard Baron Duchsen didn’t recognize my situation meant that this wasn’t a problem that could be solved by asking a wizard for help.

So what was I supposed to do?

“…… I guess you really didn’t know.”

Seeing me stiffen, Killian murmured low.

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

Looking down at me, I saw the corner of Killian’s mouth twitch upward on purpose.

His languid, wicked smile brought me back to my senses, and flashes of what he’d said to me a few days earlier when I’d picked out a pair of chemise, or how he’d ordered me to make my clothes shrink or stretch to fit my body.

Or the way he used to tuck me in when I slept.

So he did!

“Argh!”

The crown prince, this man!

“I told you to put it on.”

Killian said muffledly, swiping his fingertips across my forehead.

There’s a difference between telling me to put it on and telling me why, and just forcing me to shut up and put it on, huh?

“Mmph!”

I clawed and scratched even harder, stuck in his grip.

Killian didn’t seem to mind, picking himself up off the carpet and scooping me up gently.

“You told me something I didn’t know, so I guess I’ve repaid you for the dawn.”

What? What does he mean?

Killian walked silently into the bathroom and turned on the water.

Why? What are you going to do?

I started screaming at the top of my lungs the moment I realized what he was about to do.

“Maaaaaah!”

Don’t wash me! Don’t wash me!

My whole body flared up as I remembered the morning and evening baths.

I wished I could erase the way I used to gurgle and sprawl on all fours in the half-bath.

As I struggled to free myself from his grasp, Killian lightly rubbed the corners of my eyes.

“Take your eyes off me.”

I scratched and struggled against the back of his hand, but Killian didn’t seem to care, and he pulled the blindfold off.

My human rights! My shame!

“Aolungororo!”

An unintelligible language poured out of me, and I tried to hold on to Killian’s fingers with my forepaws, but he only wiped my face with a towel.

Then he laid a fresh towel on the marble countertop and set me down.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Mmm!”

“Then how are you going to wash it?”

Killian asked bluntly, nonchalantly.

His red, jewel-red eyes watched me with a picture-perfect gaze.

The high, chiseled bridge of his nose and the slender line of his jaw gave him an air of elegance.

“Yes?”

At a loss for words, he lightly stroked my hair.

How were you going to wash it?

“Mmmeeow.”

Not knowing what else to do, I buried my face in my front paws in despair.

I’d give anything to be human…… to find out, but I need to be able to move freely.

I’d be a guest here if anyone saw me.

“Hmm.”

I hear Killian sigh in the air, and then his index finger brushes against my front foot.

I looked up to see him bending over me, his face expressionless.

“You’re pissed off.”

“Meow?”

My ears pricked up, wondering what the hell he was talking about, but for some reason, Killian’s expression seemed awkward like he was trying to gauge my mood.

“Let’s go on a picnic.”