So Greg's mom headpats Chen
Greg's dad headpats Greg
Greg headpats Satori
Who is Chen going to headpat?

She'd been just a cat, before. She'd been happy, she knew that much. The pet cat to a loving family, their smells, their faces, their voices, even their names, still fresh in her mind. (Her own name was less clear. She had one, she was Chen, but hadn't it been something else before?) Laying in the sun while Kiyoshi worked, allowing him to scratch her from time to time. Rubbing against Haruka as she cooked, receiving the choice morsels that were her due. And then there was little Aiko. Always happy to run, to explore, to roll in the grass or splash in the mud. Aiko had been her human. It was her bed the cat had slept in, her warmth she sought out for the night. It was her she'd been trying to defend, from that youkai. (She'd smelled nice, of flowers and soil. Why was she so mean?)

She trembled, recalling that moment. The mean youkai had shown up, and her family had started running... and Kiyoshi had cried out, and she'd smelled blood, and he'd stopped moving, and Aiko was screaming. She'd... she'd been so angry (so scared). She'd turned, leapt from Aiko arms, leapt at the mean woman, scratching, clawing, biting.

She'd been so fast, faster than she'd ever been before, youkai fast... but then the mean woman wasn't there, and hit her back. She hadn't even seen it happen, she'd been outside one moment and knocked into the wall the next. And then the wall fell on her, and it hurt, and she couldn't move. And all the while Aiko and her mom were screaming, and then they... stopped screaming.

Lost in dark memories, she clung to the warmth next to her, missing the moment when said warmth woke up.

"Chen... Chen!"

She opened her eyes, seeing the kitsune's concerned face.

"Ran?" she squeaked, sitting up.

Ran seemed at a loss for words for a second, sitting next to her on the bed. The kitsune had a hand still on top of Chen's head, as if frozen mid-pet, and was just... looking at her.

"Are you feeling okay?" Ran finally asked. "Is anything wrong?"

Was there? Her memories of last night after her injury were... confused. The kitsune here before

Yukari was not above spying on her shikigami in critical moments. Or spying on anyone at any time, really. She was the expert on all boundaries, including personal ones, and that meant she could decide when to ignore them.

Though to be fair, there was a legitimate reason this time. It was highly uncertain whether Chen waking up was going to be greeted by Ran the shikigami or Ran the mother, and if it had been the former, Yukari might have needed to intervene. Instead, she got a moment she wouldn't have missed for the world.

Of course, the thing about moments is that they are, in fact, momentary. Ran got ahold of herself first, going from desperate embrace to more of a gentle hug.

"There, there. Don't cry," she said, petting the transformed cat.

Even still, it took a minute for Chen to stop crying, and a bit longer before the cat was willing to let go.

"Feeling better?" Ran asked.

Chen nodded, rubbing her eyes, and in response Ran disengaged from the hug, getting up and stretching. Yukari could see the moment the shikigami came to the fore, as Ran switched from hovering over Chen to assessing the state of the room and looking guiltily towards the door. The shikigami's eyes flickered between her ripped dress, the mess made of her sheets, the ritual scattered across the floor, and Chen, trying to decide what to deal with first.

Before she could come to a conclusion and attempt to impose order, Yukari knocked on the bedroom door, covering a chuckle at Ran's flinch.

"Ran!" she called through the door. "Breakfast is ready!"

A more domestic phrasing than she'd typically use, but perhaps it was that sort of day. Besides, she had her own first impression to make on their new cat.

Her shikigami's instinctual wince was completely uncalled for.

Your master's call all but put you into a panic. You were nowhere near presentable, and you hadn't explained anything to Chen! Combined with your disgraceful loss of control yesterday... it didn't bear thinking about.

"One moment!" you called back, tearing off your ruined dress and snatching