Chapter 3: Confused Cat

The next time Kirito woke up it was in his own room with a wet cloth over his eyes, and he was scared out of his mind.

Why?

Because now his senses weren't just different, his entire body felt different. It was like every time he went to sleep a little more of his original self slipped away.

What he didn't realize was that he was completely right. He was slowly changing. Though it dawned on him that that might be the exact case when he climbed out of bed with an unnatural form of grace, it really hit him when he looked in the mirror.

He screamed, how could he not? His pupils were in slits like a freaking cat!

"Oh god, this cannot be happening." He mumbled to himself in panic as he leaned in closer to the mirror to confirm he was not seeing things.

He stumbled backwards in shock when his eyes truly remained cat-like, much to his alarm his feet didn't even make a single sound on the floor in his panic, that wasn't natural.

Nothing about this was natural.

He was shot.

He was killed.

He woke up two days later unharmed.

His senses were suddenly very weird.

Now his body was weird.

But his eyes…those couldn't be human.

What the hell was he?!

"Kazuto!" He heard his aunt call and the sound of feet stomping up the stairs. Oh that's right, he did scream...

Quickly Kirito leapt in his bed threw the covers back over his body and head and did what any smart teen would do in such a situation: He bought time by pretending to sleep.

The door to his room swung open and knocked against the wall loudly. Although to Kirito it sounded like a sonic boom.

He jumped, almost knocking off his covers in the process.

"Shit." He cursed under his breath, now there was no way he could pretend to be sleeping.

'Time to play the nightmare card' He thought to himself, with what he just went through they wouldn't question it. Not that they knew what really happened but he was sure they knew it wasn't good when he was missing for two whole days and landed in the hospital covered in partially dried blood.

Speaking of which, he was still somewhat gross but his face and neck had been wiped clean of blood and he'd already got a change of clothes at the hospital, his aunt must have wiped his face while he was out. That was both touching and very disturbing. It made him feel like he was three again…

"Kazuto, are you alright?" His aunt questioned quietly as she made her way over to his bed and sat down, she tried to pull the blankets down so she could see his face.

He immediately shifted so his face was buried in his pillow.

"Kirito, what happened?" He heard a second voice call from the door way, of course the voice was and always will be unmistakable to his ears, he'd recognize it from a mile away.

Oh no, just who all is here? If Asuna is here, does that mean everyone is?

But the biggest question was how the hell was he going to play the nightmare card without looking at them?

"I'm fine, I just had a bad dream." He started with his voice muffled by the pillow, "I just need a moment…" this was damaging to his pride in more ways than one.

"Sweetie, why don't you talk to us about what happened? We're all very worried." His aunt started as she stroked his hair.

Mothers can be the most embarrassing beings on the planet at times; his girlfriend is right over-

Almost like he had no control, a sudden noise erupted from his throat before he could even finish his train of thought.

His mother stopped stroking his hair as he went rigid with horror.

"Kazuto…were you just purring?" She questioned quietly.

"No." he answered a little too fast, and the room filled with silence.

"Kirito-"

"Can you both please just leave me alone for a little while? Please?" He interrupted quickly; he needed to figure his shit out alone before he did anything else weird. He was seriously losing it.

"O-ok…" he heard Asuna mumble as she slowly left the room, his mother sighed but remained quiet until Asuna was all the way down the stairs.

"Kazuto what aren't you telling us?" She questioned quietly as she waited for her son's response. She understood that he wanted space but he went missing and when they finally saw him again the first thing he did was faint. The doctors said it was just from exhaustion but that didn't stop her worry when he slept a whole day away. The fact that he had been covered in blood wasn't any bit more reassuring either.

She hated knowing that the boy she raised as her son had gone through something terrible and yet not knowing what it was or how to help him. She's only had to feel like this once before... That was the night Kazuto's parents died in the car accident and he had gone missing for a full month before being found.

Midori shook her head, that's in the past and she doesn't need to be thinking about it right now.

"Nothing, I'm fine." He affirmed still burying his face in that confounded pillow.

"Kirigaya Kazuto don't you dare try and lie to me! I raised you young man which means I know you are, and will you get your face out of that pillow and look at me while we talk?!" She pushed in irritation; she knew Kazuto was not one to lie unless it was about something huge. That piece of knowledge only served to freak her out more the minute he did.

"Nothing makes sense and I'm just scared ok?! Why can't you just give me a moment?!" He yelled back into his pillow, making no move to show his face to her. His words only served to confuse and irritate her more.

She huffed in annoyance before standing up and yanking the pillow out of his grip, "Look at me Kazuto." She stated in that calm voice of authority that only a mother could achieve.

When Kirito still didn't move, she started to speak again with her voice low in warning, "Kirigaya Kazuto-"

Kirito sat up causing her to cut off her previous sentence, but much to her frustration and worry he still wouldn't look her in the eye. She couldn't even see his eyes what with the room being somewhat dark and his hair hanging in his face.

She stared at him for a long moment completely confused, he has never acted like this before, not once in his life. "What do you mean by 'nothing makes sense'?" she questioned quietly.

"I-I don't know…"

"Kazuto, what happened that day you went missing?"

"I don't know." He repeated.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean I don't understand what happened, it doesn't make sense. I. Don't. Know."

He could feel his mother's stare linger on him for a long moment before finally she handed him back his pillow and turned to leave. "I see…" he heard her mumble quietly, as she silently made her way to his door. However she paused when she had just stepped out the doorway, taking a deep breath and seemingly relaxing her posture before turning back to him with a small smile.

Regardless of her giving him space for now Kazuto was fully aware that he would have to come up with a better more adequate answer for later as she would bring it back up. She was his mother, or as close to one as he could have ever hoped to have; there was no way she would drop something so concerning about her son so easily.

"Everybody is still here; we've all been waiting for you to wake up. When you're ready, why don't you come down and say hi? We've all been worried out of our minds." She spoke calmly and casually as if the little fight they just had never happened.

"Ok." He answered similarly.

"Ok." She repeated with a smile, "Kazuto, you know I love you very much…don't you?"

"Yeah I know, love you too." He mumbled, shifting uncomfortably, she must have had a heart attack while he was missing because they weren't a very lovey dovey family. They also weren't one to fight.

She nodded, closing the door behind her. She probably thought it was quiet but it wasn't. Not to Kirito. For him it was as loud as a shot gun…

Like the gun that shot him-

Maybe he shouldn't think about guns in any way or form for a while.

Not to mention his ears were still ringing from when she had raised her voice.

The moment he heard her feet hit the last step he was out of his bed and staring at his reflection in the mirror again.

He thanked his lucky stars that his eyes were a dark gray…while he may seem to have enhanced vision; everyone else didn't. Better yet, it seemed his eyes were only truly noticeably slit when he was adjusting to different lighting or overly emotional.

While his pupils were still sort of oval-ish in shape, it was barely noticeable unless someone knew what to look for.

Kazuto wracked his brains as he thought back to how a cat's pupils worked, before he realized he shouldn't have too much of a problem hiding it as long as no one randomly shined a bright light in his face and or he avoided any sudden changes in lighting around him.

Well that made for somewhat relieving news, now the more important question was still left unanswered: what the hell was going on with him?

"Kazuto? Aren't you going to come down dear?" His mother called up from the bottom of the stairs.

Kazuto flinched as his ears started ringing again, it seemed he was going to have to get used to that or jump every time he heard a single noise. A pin could drop and it would probably sound like a firework to him.

"Yeah I'm coming!" He half shouted back before making his way down the stairs.

Once he reached the bottom of the stairs he could feel his eyes dilate back to slits from the sudden brightness that was the living room and he quickly looked towards the wall as he waited for them to go back to normal.

'Damn…This might be harder than I originally thought.'

On the outside it looked like he was randomly staring at a picture on the wall, on the inside he was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

"Kirito! Man you have no idea how much you scared the ever living crap out of me- us- ah whatever you get the point. We were worried." He heard Klein practically scream in his ear, oh wait no he's all the way across the room still… It sounded like he was screaming in his ear.

He had a feeling headaches were going to be a new common theme to his life from now on.

"Next time choose someplace closer by to hang out then." He responded making sure his voice sounded calm and even, though it still came out heavy with irritation as he turned to stare at him.

"The first thing you do when you come round is scold me, go figure."

This whole cat problem thing must have been taking more of a toll on Kazuto than he had originally thought, because normally that wouldn't really have bothered him. Heck, in another situation and time he might have even chuckled, but he wouldn't have been out on that road and he wouldn't be dealing with these weird problems if Klein had just chosen some place closer. Instead he felt something he'd been holding back this whole time snap at those words.

"Oh you're whining, you're fucking whining?! I almost got murdered trying to get back home! I should be dead right now! But for some ungodly miraculous reason I'm not, and your whining?! A man held a gun to my head, clearly not bothered with killing me, AND YOUR WHINING?!"

Well crap he didn't mean to say all that. It kind of just slipped out his mouth…at least he didn't say anything about actually being shot. That would have been hard to explain.

And now everyone in the room was staring at him in horror, their mouths hung open in shock. Did the police not tell them anything? Man the quality in police and doctors has seemed to drop lately, what do they just go and take a little quiz and call it a day? Where does all their education go?

"Kazuto-" his mother began her voice shaking.

"I'm hungry do we have anything to eat?" he quickly cut her off in attempt to change the topic.

Nope, not working everyone was still staring at him; wait are Suguha and Asuna crying? Oh wonderful, he made them cry.

'Can't I catch a break?' he thought as he looked up at the ceiling like some magical being might swoop in and save him.

Like maybe that stupid cat that he may or may not be hallucinating.

He'd take the stupid imaginary cat, hell; he'd hop on a freaking unicorn pooping rainbows if it got him out of the current situation.

"No? ok I'm going back to bed." He stated as he made to dash up the stairs.

He didn't get very far up before a hand on his shoulder stopped him from escaping to his room and locking himself in for as long as possible. Turning around he found the hand to belong to none other than Agil, which was in itself a surprising discovery seeing as how busy a man he always seems to be.

"For the past day we have been coming in and out of this house waiting for you to wake up and sick with worry, two days before that we nearly lost our minds when you just disappeared without a trace. You know they say after 24 hours the likelihood of a missing person's survival decreases greatly? I understand you've been through something horrible but that makes for all the better reason you should at least come sit with us for a little while. Ease or minds, ease yours, ok?" Agil spoke his voice calm and patient but it was easily noticeable, just as it seemed with all of them, that it's been a couple days since he slept well and that he was starting to become a little irritable.

It never occurred to Kazuto how he could worry them all that much, but if he thought about one of them suddenly disappearing for two days and then just popping back up covered in blood he realized he would be going out of his mind as well.

"Ok." Kazuto said quietly as he made his way back down the remaining steps again and though he did not feel up to spending time with anyone at the current moment he knew it was something that needed to be done.

He sat down next to Asuna before gently pulling her in a hug as she was still silently crying, something that was very out of character for her. After all she was, in his opinion at the very least, as strong as they came.

Luckily Suguha had already stopped crying, so that was one concern out of the way. Still he reached over and held her hand in his as a form of comfort, "You're alright?" he asked quietly looking her in the eye.

She gave him a quick little nod, he however didn't let go of her hand until she gave him small smile as well in reassurance.

Now that he was sure his sister was fine he could focus all his attention on his girlfriend instead, "Asuna" He started speaking softly as he ran his fingers through her hair, allowing her to bury her face in his shoulder, "I'm ok, I'm here. I won't ever do that to you again, I'm so sorry sweetie." He continued as he kissed the side of her head.

The fact that she let him in front of everyone was a testimony for how upset he had made her, and he was just going to lock himself in his room and wallow in self-pity. How selfish of him, when his girlfriend was sitting on the couch crying over him, something of which she didn't do unless she was truly at her limit in emotion.

"You scared the ever living crap out of me." She mumbled into his shoulder.

"I know, and I'm so very sorry."

"You owe me a date." She spoke again in between sniffles obviously trying to lighten the mood for them all.

He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his mouth, "I know." Was all he said in response.

"Well, welcome back idiot." Lizbeth called from her seat across the room, effectively ruining the moment but serving as a form of amusement all the same. Though Lizbeth herself seemed nonchalant about the whole affair it was obvious that she too had spent nights in worry over her friend (or not so secret crush).

"Liz, that's not very nice." Silica mumbled from her seat next to Lizbeth.

"I say idiot in the most affectionate and honest way." Was Liz's only response

"Yeah it's good to be back." Kazuto commented mostly to himself as he watched everyone seem to relax back to their casual selves.

"You're just going to ignore the fact that she called you an idiot?" Silica questioned almost in disbelief.

"Eh, she calls a lot of people idiots."

A/N: Ok I was going to try and make this chapter longer but man this mushy stuff is killer to write…too many emotions…dying!..I see the light…

No wait that's just my lamp.

Bad joke, anyway please review! See ya later (hopefully not as late as this time was, college is killer)