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Cat cafes are some of Hitoshi’s favorite places in the world. They are quiet, warm, and (the best part in his opinion) full of friendly cats. So, when a new café opened within walking distance of UA, he knew that he had to go try it out.
As he approached the café, he saw a sign promising “a truly unique experience”. His first mistake was assuming that that meant an interesting menu or a cute interior. But he went inside, ordered an alarming amount of espresso, and walked into the cat room. He couldn’t see what made it “truly unique.” It was clean, cute, and smelled like paint, coffee, and catnip. But it was like the other cafes he had been to before. This one was close enough to UA though, so he wasn’t going to complain.
Hitoshi sat down, pulling out his hero studies essay. They were told to write about the different types of heroes that society needs, and his classmates seemed to focus on the wide variety of popular archetypes. There are flashy, confident, untouchable heroes like All Might, friendly, outgoing heroes like Best Jeanist, or mysterious and dangerous heroes like Edgeshot. But what Hitoshi was focusing on, to no one’s surprise, was underground heroes. He knows they don’t get much credit, and certainly don’t get merch deals or sponsorships. But Hitoshi believed they do the most good for the average citizen, even if the average citizen doesn’t know it.
Hitoshi was deep in thought, absentmindedly stroking a dark, long haired cat that had curled up in his lap, and didn’t notice the employee come over until she was right on top of him. He started and looked up.
“Are you enjoying our café?” the employee asked with a smile.
“Yeah it’s nice. Close to UA,” Hitoshi replied.
“I see from your uniform that you’re a student there. That must be very challenging. Are you training to be a hero?”
“Yup,” Hitoshi replied, trying not to grimace at the reminder that he wasn’t in the hero course yet. He was working night and day with Aizawa sensei, even doing the homework for the hero course in addition to his gen ed courses. He was technically training, so he didn’t feel like he was truly lying.
“I’ll tell you what,” the employee continued, leaning down to pet the cat in his lap. “Since you’re working so hard to keep us safe, I’ll give you the VIP treatment, on the house today. What do you think?”
“Sure,” Hitoshi said, perking up. “Is it some sort of special room or …?”
The employee’s eyes twinkled with mischief before simultaneously poking Hitoshi and the cat directly in the middle of their foreheads.
Hitoshi tried to recoil from the touch, but wasn’t fast enough to stop what must have been the employee’s quirk, as he was hit by a sudden, dizzying feeling of twisting and falling. When he opened his eyes, he was much closer to the ground. He must have fallen over when the dizziness hit.
“What’s the big idea?!” Hitoshi tried to ask angrily. But what came out instead of words, was a series of rather pathetic meows and hisses. It was then that he noticed he could see, hear, and smell much better than he normally could, and he felt something strange attached to the base of his spine. When he twisted around, noting he could contort much farther than he had been able to before, he saw a sleek black tail. And instead of his uniform, there was just more black fur.
He jumped up, landing on his hands and feet, bristling as his anxiety kicked in. He could see now that he hadn’t woken up on the floor like he originally thought. No, of course not, that would have been too simple. Instead, he had woken up sitting on his own lap. When he checked to see if his human body was awake, he had the horribly unsettling experience of looking at his own face as others saw it, instead of in a mirror. Were his eyebags really that dark?
Not the time, Hitoshi! He scolded himself. His body was holding up his hands, flexing his thumbs like he had never seen them before. The employee laughed at both Hitosh-as-the-cat, and the-cat-as-Hitoshi, before leaning down to explain. “That’s what makes this place unique! My quirk allows me to mind-swap people and animals, although the effect only lasts for about 45 minutes. Enjoy your time, kid! Curl up and have the best nap of your life, chase your tail, use your super senses to experience the world in a whole new way! The world is yours to explore. Or, at least, this room is.” The employee wandered back to her station by the door, acting like she had just solved all of his problems.
Hitoshi could not believe this was happening. A cat. He was a CAT. He had homework to do, and no thumbs to grab his pen with. He could not believe this was happening. What happened if someone he knew came in? The cat couldn’t very well carry on a conversation for him. He needed to think of something.
As he was trying to decide what to do, he saw his body stand up, unsteady on two feet, before making it to the door. Cat-Hitoshi looked up and tilted his head at the employee and said haltingly “Out? Can I go out now?”
“No, dear, you have to—”
“Let me go outside.”
Oh. Fuck. The cat just used his quirk. The cat. Used his quirk. And was now leaving the cat café and running for freedom. Hitoshi took off after his body, dodging the grabbing hands of an employee, and barely avoided having the door close on his tail. It didn’t look like Cat-Hitoshi knew to go to UA, and had instead taken off in a random direction, running like hell itself was after him. Hitoshi was doing what he could to keep up, but despite his increased speed, he still had little bitty legs. It also felt like this cat has been living the life of luxury in the café, and so he was already quite out of breath.
Hitoshi had one mantra as he followed his body through the streets. Please don’t run into Aizawa-sensei. Please don’t run into Aizawa-sensei. Please don’t run into—
“Hitoshi?”
Fuck.
There was no time to stop now. His best bet was to follow his body and hope that it could either A) lose Aizawa-sensei (although he knew that this option was not very likely. The man was a pro hero after all.) or B) Cat-Hitoshi would evade him just long enough for them to switch back, and then he could make up some story about chasing the cat who had escaped from the cafe. That would… technically be correct. The cat did escape, it just… used his body to do it.
Aizawa was practically flying through the streets, trying to get clear line of sight of Cat-Hitoshi, but there were so many people out on a Saturday that he couldn’t get a clean shot at restraining him. Hitoshi wasn’t sure what would happen if Aizawa activated erasure, but the man didn’t seem to be trying. He must have thought Cat-Hitoshi was running from something, not running because of something.
Cat-Hitoshi made one fatal mistake in his bid for freedom, and that was leading Aizawa to a park with an open space of grass in the middle. Hitoshi never knew that his (human) body had this much stamina, but he knew that Aizawa-sensei would try to drag every drop of it out of him in training the next day.
As Aizawa tackled Cat-Hitoshi to the ground, he began squirming and struggling in his grasp. “No! Let go! Out! I want to be out here! In the big room where all the birds are!”
“Kid?” Aizawa-sensei asked with surprise, “Are you okay?”
“No no no! Let go! Let go!”
As his body struggled to get out of the iron grip of his mentor, Hitoshi ran up to them before flopping down, panting like he had just sprinted an entire marathon. Which, he thought dryly, he supposed he had. At least he got in an arm workout in at the same time.
Aizawa glanced down before looking back up at Cat-Hitoshi before trying again. “Kid, please tell me what’s wrong.”
Hitoshi answered on reflex, letting out a wheezing mew as he tried to catch his breath.
Aizawa looked down at Hitoshi-in-cat-form before hesitantly asking, “Hitoshi?”
“Meow.”
“Is that you? How about, one meow for yes and two for no. Sound good?”
“Meow.”
“Okay. So is this… the cat?” he said, gesturing toward the-cat-as-Hitoshi.
“Meow.” Hitoshi tried to include his usual deadpan stare, but he wasn’t sure how effective it was since he had more facial muscles that he knew what to do with.
“Was it a villain?”
“Meow meow.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Meow.”
“And is it permanent?”
“Meow meow.”
The questioning went on line this for several more minutes before Aizawa was satisfied that this wasn’t some sort of elaborate prank. Hitoshi stood and stretched languidly before walking over and twisting through his teacher’s ankles, purring and acting as cat-like as possible. Eventually he flopped down, exposing his belly. Aizawa-sensei raised his eyebrow before going in to pet him, only to be bet by bunny-kicks, biting, and sharp claws.
Aizawa pulled his hand back with a curse before saying, “You know, you have a lot of explaining to do, kid.”
“Meow meow.”