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San had thought, quite naïvely, that once the ex-fiancé was out of the picture, life with Hyme would finally settle into something manageable.
He was wrong.
"Why do you have six phones?" San asked flatly, holding up a tangled mess of buzzing devices.
Hyme, lounging on the sofa like a tragic prince in exile, didn't look up from his tablet. "One for social media. One for family. One for emergencies. One for fan messages. One for blocking people. And one because it's pink and matches my eyes."
San slowly set the entire cluster down on the nearest counter like it was explosive. "You're seventeen. How do you even have fans?"
"I once posted a video licking whipped cream off my own paw. It went viral."
San blinked. "That's… horrifying."
"That's marketing," Hyme said with a smirk.
San rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Let's try this again. What do you want for lunch?"
"Something fancy. Surprise me!"
"You said that last time and then cried because the steak was medium instead of rare."
"I have delicate taste buds."
"You spat it in my face."
Hyme gasped. "That was one time, and I apologized by letting you sleep past noon the next day!"
"Which you only did because you ran out of glitter gel and couldn't bother me."
Their argument was interrupted by a loud, insistent knock at the door.
San looked toward it warily. "Don't tell me another suitor's shown up."
Hyme's ears twitched. "No. I think that's… oh no."
Before San could ask, the door was flung open by none other than a silver-haired man in a crisp suit and cold eyes sharp enough to cut steel.
"Hyme," the man said, "You skipped your etiquette class."
Hyme bolted from the sofa like a startled cat. "Uncle Lester! What a surprise! I thought you were dead."
"Tempting," the man muttered. "Who is this?"
San, for once, was too stunned to speak. The aura around this man screamed danger—but in a tax-paying, straight-backed, 'I-own-three-islands' kind of way.
"This is San. He's my… uh…"
"Nanny," San supplied dryly.
Uncle Lester raised an eyebrow. "You hired a gym trainer as a nanny?"
Hyme gave a proud smile. "Triple what he made at the cat bar!"
"You mean that sleazy hybrid lounge full of unregistered biting?"
Hyme's smile dimmed. "...It had good lighting."
Lester turned to San, giving him a long, silent once-over. "Do you know what you're doing?"
"No," San said honestly. "But I'm learning."
"Learning what?"
"How to survive living with a spoiled kitten who eats only gold-dusted strawberries and cries when you won't scratch his ears."
"I don't cry," Hyme whispered.
Lester sighed. "You cry in five languages."
Hyme stomped his foot. "I'm expressive!"
"Express this," Lester said coldly, tossing a thick packet onto the table. "Your father expects you to attend this year's Noble Hybrids Gala. With a proper date."
San immediately took a step back. "Not it."
Hyme clung to his arm. "But I already told them I have a boyfriend!"
Lester paused. "…Who?"
San narrowed his eyes. "Don't."
Hyme looked up at him with the biggest, roundest, fakest teary eyes San had ever seen.
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No."
"I'll buy you protein powder imported from the Alps."
"…Fine. But I'm not wearing a leash."
Lester, somehow, looked both appalled and impressed.
This was how San learned that being broke and handsome meant getting adopted into rich-cat political drama. And there was no refund policy.