🐱ྀི Cheshire Smiles .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱
[TWST] ━━━ ．°˖✧ Chenya ˚₊ ⊹ x Toralei! Reader
Contains: Kissing, Copycat tendencies, Mocking, Teasing, Biting, SO many cat pun sentences holy hell
A/N: OKAY LISTEN I HAD A VISION PLEASE TRUST ME also I was debating whether to do this with Che'nya or with Leona whehehe
Summary: On Sage Island, skipping school is practically an art form for you a werecat with claws for justice, a tail that sways with attitude, and a talent for causing trouble with style. Whether you’re exposing liars, humiliating cheaters, or simply reminding people why they should never underestimate a cat with a plan, life is good when you’re the one calling the shots. Or it was, until a certain floating stray decided to attach himself to your shadow. Chenya, RSA’s maddeningly charming Cheshire cat, seems to materialize wherever you go upside-down in trees, inches from your face, or as nothing more than a pair of glowing eyes and a grin you’re dying to smack off. He speaks in riddles, laughs at your irritation, and somehow sees right through your claws-out attitude every time. Worst of all? He keeps showing up just when you’re about to execute your most perfect schemes. So when he ruins your latest act of revenge with a single smug comment, you snap literally grabbing him and kissing him just to shut him up. You meant it to be angry, sharp, punishing. You didn’t expect him to melt, purr, or wrap his arms around your waist like you’d handed him a dream on a silver platter. You definitely didn’t expect your tails to curl together... and to expect more + HEADCANNONS AT THE END!
╰┈➤⸝⸝★ Twisted Wonderland୭ ˚.
The day was warm in that lazy Sage Island way, the kind of heat that made everything shimmer and slow down, the kind of heat that made your tail sway with feline self-satisfaction. You weren’t supposed to be out; you were supposed to be sitting in a boring classroom at your public school pretending to care about whatever stale lecture the teacher was droning on about. But skipping was practically a refined talent of yours, something sharpened to an art over years of slipping between rules, expectations, and authority.
You yawned into your palm with a bored, sharp-toothed smirk curling the corner of your mouth, stretching your arms above your head as you strutted down the sidewalk like you owned it because honestly, you did. Your boots clicked softly with every step, the rhythm matching the sway of your hips, a confident danger in your gait. Eyes only half-lidded, but behind that lazy look you were alert, poised, observant in that way only a predator who enjoyed trouble for breakfast could be.
You’d slipped away from campus the second the bell rang, prowling across Sage Island with the kind of purpose that only spelled mischief. Someone from a rival school had been poking around your territory, mouthing off about your school, and worse, playing two girls at once like he had the right. You would’ve dragged Meowlody and Purrsephone along to make the scheme even sweeter, but you told them to focus on their studies and that you’d take care of it yourself.
This kind of entertainment was personal, like scratching an itch behind your ear that only your claws could reach. You stopped under the tall shade of an old oak tree, leaning your shoulder into its bark as you narrowed your eyes at the crowd across the town square, watching, calculating. Perfect distance. Perfect angle. Perfect timing. Your mind purred with anticipation.
You spotted the guy loudmouth, liar, fake sweetheart on Magicam leaning in close with a girl who definitely wasn’t his supposed girlfriend. And then he left his phone on the table to go to the bathroom. Oh, he might as well have placed it in your hands and begged you to ruin him.
You slipped forward in that fluid way only a werecat could manage, snatching the phone before anyone noticed, your smirk sharp enough to cut glass. “Look who’s lyin’ like a dog just waitin’ for this kitty to scratch,” you giggled under your breath, eyes narrowing as that familiar thrill sparked in your chest. You cleared your throat, shifted your voice effortlessly into his tone, and called his girlfriend, telling her in his voice to meet him at the café. Then you tossed the phone back onto the table like it had never been touched, slid back under the oak tree, and watched the chaos unfold.
When the girlfriend arrived and caught him with the other girl, their bickering erupted instantly. You laughed, one hand resting on your hip. “Mrow, too easy.” Your orange ears flicked in smug delight as you tossed your hair back and prepared to savor the show. That’s when you heard it a soft giggle, right above your ear. A voice purred practically in your hair. “Skipping school? Tsk, tsk~ And here I thought I was the only cat who caused mischief for fun.”
Your ears shot upright, tail fluffing involuntarily before you forced it back down. You snapped your head around, claws half-extended. No one behind you. No scent. No silhouette. “Ugh. If this is some wannabe stalker, scratch off,” you hissed, lip curling a laugh drifted from above you, airy and far too entertained. “What if I’m a very charming stalker?”
You glared up and there he was. Lounging upside-down on a branch like gravity was merely a polite suggestion. Purple hair messy in a way that looked deliberately stylish, striped tail swaying lazily like he had all the time in the world. Yellow eyes glowing with mischief, smile so wide and too pleased with himself. His form flickered faintly at the edges, as if reality couldn’t quite keep a hold on him.
You blinked once, then rolled your eyes so hard it could’ve counted as an exercise. “A floating hairball. Great.” He laughed, delighted, his head disappearing and reappearing beside you, then in front of your face, then hovering a few inches away all with that glowing, curved grin. "Can you stand on your head?” he asked as if that were an actual greeting. You hissed, irritated, turning your head away with a slow dramatic flick.
“Mrow, great. Another weirdo stranger.” “I’m a stranger. You’re a stranger. That makes us a pair of strange~” he chimed, floating down until he stood well, hovered at your eye level.
You flicked an ear in annoyance. “That doesn’t make sense… Who even are you?” He put a hand over his chest, theatrically offended. “I am Artemiy Artemiyevich Pinker,” he declared, name rolling off his tongue like he’d practiced it in a mirror. “Am I a cat? A purrrrson? A mimsy borogove? A mome rath with style?” “…Arta- whatever” you deadpanned. He giggled, carefree and dizzy and sparkly in the most infuriating way. “Everyone calls me Chenya.” “Your nickname is a pun?” you asked, eyes narrowing. He nodded proudly.
You scoffed loud enough to disturb a bird. “Wow... Lame" but your tail curled once before you snapped it straight again. Annoying. “Nyhehe, I saw what you did to that guy,” Chenya sang. You raised a brow. “Oh, me-yow? Never,” you replied with a matching smirk, eyes narrowing like knives.
From that moment on, he stuck to you like static cling. Every time you came into town, he was there sometimes just a floating grin bobbing beside your shoulder, sometimes a pair of luminous eyes blinking in a tree branch you knew you’d checked already, sometimes fully materializing in a swirl of purple stripes just to watch you groan. His riddles, his nonsense… you found it endlessly, claw-grindingly irritating, and yet he always managed to see right through your sharp remarks and hairpin turns of attitude.
“Haste makes waste, so I rarely hurry. But if a ferret were about to dart up my dress, I’d run,” he mused once while drifting upside down beside you. You stared at him like he was a walking headache. “Mrow, you’re so peculiar.” “Correction I’m mad,” he chirped, tapping your nose with one clawed fingertip you always hissed and swatted him away.
And yet… he kept showing up. Watching your schemes from afar, appearing beside you whenever Meowlody and Purrsephone left you alone, circling you with lazy loops as you plotted. You’d mock him, he’d tease you, and somehow you fell into a dance neither of you could stop. Somewhere during those exchanges perhaps at the fountain when your claw traced under his chin and his eyes softened. Chenya began to fall for you fully, hopelessly, first.
When NRC hosted its open day for the VDC event, he appeared in front of you despite being RSA. He smiled at you before glancing away coyly, then suddenly leaned in, licked your cheek, and vanished in thin air as you stood frozen.
You gagged dramatically to Meowlody and Purrsephone. “EW. What is this- this positive… flowery feeling I’m having inside?” The twins exchanged knowing looks while you glared at Chenya’s retreating shimmer. A couple of days later, you’d spent the entire morning crafting the perfect little act of revenge, claws sharpened both literally and figuratively. Some stuck-up classmates thought they could skip inviting you, Meowlody, and Purrsephone to their party and get away with it, they clearly forgot who they were dealing with. You had the plan set, subtle enough to not get caught but satisfying enough to ruin their precious little get-together.
A small, harmless issue. Nothing life-threatening. Just enough chaos to make them think twice next time. You weren’t doing anything dramatic, just a little reminder that excluding you or your girls from little pranks you did on one girl is a dangerous game. You crouched behind a marble planter near the courtyard of your school, tail flicking with growing amusement at the thought of their ignorant faces. Your heartbeat settled into the familiar rhythm that always came before a good bit of mischief. Everything was going according to plan. Perfectly. Quietly. Smoothly.
Which, of course, is exactly when Chenya decided to show up. A voice purred behind you, melodic and smugly playful, drifting out of thin air the way smoke curls from a flame. “And no scheme of ours can raise any sort of smile, it seems?” he cooed, the words lilting with riddling whimsy. It was the kind of tone that vibrated with mischief not your mischief. His.
You hissed before you even fully turned, every muscle tightening as your ears flattened instinctively. Your head snapped toward him, only to find absolutely nothing just a grin hovering in midair, purple stripes beginning to materialize around it. That stupid grin. That annoying, floating, ever-smirking grin that signaled the ruination of your perfectly timed moment. The sound of his laugh, half giggle echoed as he fully faded into view behind you, tail curling in amusement as if mocking the tension simmering off you.
You jerked your head toward the group of classmates who were supposed to be the recipients of your carefully planned revenge, only to watch the opportunity slip between your claws like water. They were already moving away, oblivious. The perfect timing you’d built up all morning evaporated in an instant. Your eye twitched. Then your jaw tightened, tail lashed once, sharply, betraying the complete meltdown simmering just beneath your skin. And you could feel Chenya’s grin widening behind you, drinking in your frustration like it was his favourite tea.
When you snapped your head back toward him, you were already seething. “Are you kidding me?” came out as more of a growl than a question. Chenya blinked innocently, because of course, he did, he found your anger delightfully entertaining. He opened his mouth, probably preparing some quirky comment or another riddle that would make you want to claw his whiskers off but he didn’t get the chance.
You grabbed him by the collar and yanked him closer. His eyes widened, grin faltering in genuine surprise for once. And before you could second-guess the impulse, before you could stop the frustration from boiling over into something reckless, you kissed him.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even particularly long. It was sharp, irritated, and fueled by the kind of emotion you refused to acknowledge out loud. A quick, angry kiss meant solely to shut him up, to punish him, to make him understand you ruined everything.
Chenya froze. Completely. His tail went rigid mid-sway, the tip suspended in the air like it had forgotten how motion worked. His ears perked sharply, twitching once before going still, and even the floating stripes that framed his cheeks halted as though someone had hit pause on Wonderland physics. His eyes were usually mischievous, unreadable, widened just a fraction before slowly, impossibly, that grin crept back onto his face. Not the trademark one dripping with riddles and trouble. No. This one was softer, surprised, pleased in a way that made the air thicken between you.
His hands slid around your waist with an instinctive, dreamy smoothness, pulling you in with a delicacy that contrasted the shock in his expression. The closeness made your stomach flip, and not in a way you enjoyed acknowledging. He leaned closer, clearly hoping, maybe even expecting, that you weren’t done that your irritation tasted sweet to him, addictive, something he wanted more of.
You didn’t let him get that far. Your hand shot up, fingers threading into his hair at the back of his head, gripping firmly before tugging his head back just enough to make his breath hitch. His grin cracked wider, eyes fluttering for a moment in something dangerously close to bliss. And then you bit his lip sharp enough to make him gasp, soft enough to leave him beaming.
His tail curled around yours without even asking permission, the two striped appendages winding together with an intimacy you absolutely did not intend but couldn’t immediately undo. Reality snapped back into motion with the rapid thrum of your pulse, and before Chenya could even think to chase your mouth again, you pushed him away. Hard enough to make him stumble a step, light enough to make it clear you did it out of irritation… mostly.
He blinked at you, mouth parted slightly, that soft grin morphing instantly back into his perfected, cocky Cheshire smile. You masked the wildfire under your skin with an expression of bored annoyance, one you’d perfected long before Chenya had ever decided to be a recurring pest in your life. You pretended your heart wasn’t hammering so hard you could feel it in your fingertips. You pretended you hadn’t just kissed and then bitten the most bothersome cat in existence. You pretended you weren’t one second away from either throttling him or dragging him back toward you. Combustion disguised as indifference.
“Okay,” you said flatly, flicking your tail behind you with a practiced ease, “officially ignoring you now.” and you walked off, chin lifted in crisp confidence, steps sharp and controlled, refusing to grant him even a single glance over your shoulder. You knew if you looked back, even for a heartbeat, he’d catch the crack in your composure. And you refused to give him that.
Behind you, Chenya blinked, stunned for all of half a second before delight glittered across his features. His smile widened so far the edges of it warped slightly, glitching at the corners as if it couldn’t contain how amused he was. The striped marks along his cheeks brightened, flickered, and then faded from sight entirely as his body dissolved piece by piece arms, torso, tail, stripes until all that remained was a floating, radiant grin. A quiet chuckle escaped him, echoing like a whisper caught between dimensions, and the disembodied smile drifted after you with calm, eerie certainty. Eager. Intrigued. Entirely too pleased with the chaos you’d let slip between your claws.
He wasn’t letting you walk away that easily and you both knew it.
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Dating Chenya is like your falling down a rabbit hole into a world where reality tilts sideways just enough to make your stomach flutter in the best and worst
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ He is constantly teasing as if he was a shadow stitched to your footsteps, appearing in the corner of your vision only to vanish when you turn your head
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ He loves provoking reactions from you smirks, scoffs, swats of your tail and he treasures them in ways he tries (and fails) to hide. You pretend you hate how soft he becomes around you, how his grin lingers longer, how his eyes soften when he thinks you’re not looking, but deep down it warms something in you that’s been cold for years with him, trouble stops feeling like a weapon and starts feeling like a language only the two of you speak
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ He coaxes the softness out of you, inch by inch, like tugging a ribbon loose. You never admit it, not out loud but you let him stay close when no one else is around
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ You let him touch you in ways you’d scratch anyone else for even attempting fingers playing with the torn edge of your ear, tail brushing your tail in quiet affection, his forehead resting against yours when he’s feeling bold
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ In return, you bring out the thrill-seeker in him, the reckless glint in his eyes that says he’d follow you anywhere. You teach him sharper mischief, cleverer pranks, and the art of poetic payback, all while he teaches you that vulnerability doesn’t have to be a weakness
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ When he disappears, it no longer irritates you… at least not as much. Instead, you listen for the faint shift in air pressure that means he’s reappearing behind you, or the warm brush of his tail curling around your wrist
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Sometimes you catch him watching you with an expression that makes your heart stumble soft, adoring, filled with wonder like he still can’t believe he gets to be someone you let in and in those moments you feel your chest tighten, your claws retracting instinctively, because no one has ever looked at you like you’re worth being seen. He does. Every time and it scares you, and you love it
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Together, you become something dangerous and beautiful a pair of cats dancing on the edge of chaos, claws hidden but ready, hearts guarded but slowly, surely, intertwining ━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Chenya calls you “copycat” in the fondest, most infuriating way possible. He’ll sing-song it next to your ear after you mimic someone perfectly, which always earns him a swat of your tail and a smug little smirk he pretends not to melt over
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ He thinks your voice-changing skill is the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Every time you pull it off flawlessly, he gets this wide-eyed, sparkling look like you just performed real magic. Then comes the kiss quick, impulsive, right on the lips and you shove him away with a hiss only to immediately tug him back by his shirt
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Chenya is obsessed with the way you purr out threats like they’re compliments. Whenever you tap his nose with a lazy “Hmmm. You’re asking for it.” he practically melts, tail fluffing up while he trails after you like a mischievous shadow who’s already planning how to test your patience again
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ You have a talent for cutting people down with a single sentence. The moment someone steps out of line or a famillar Bat chick from your school, you tilt your head, tail flicking, and sneer, “You think you’re all bat? Please. What have you ever done?” Chenya watches from behind you with the biggest grin, eyes glowing with delight. He doesn’t stop you in fact, he loves it until you get too close to claws-out, then he gently pulls you back by the waist with a soft, “Easy there"
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ When you cuddle sometimes rest your cheek on the top of his head. Your ear twitches when he purrs softly and you purr back before you can stop yourself the moment you realize it, you bury your face in his hair, embarrassed as he giggles
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Trey and Riddle have heard about you and instantly worried about Chenya, but they noticed how the guy looked happy every time mentioning you
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ When it was summer holidays, and Chenya was back in the Queendom of roses, he'd spam text you, you'd both also go on calls every now and then. Chenya likes to chat about you to his grandpa, grinning ear to ear
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Chenya loves stealing your attention, literally dropping into your lap, hanging upside-down from railings above you, or popping into your locker even though he's supposed to be in RSA but when you open it your response is always the same “Mrow... Do you mind?” Followed immediately by you fixing his hair, adjusting his shirt or letting your tail loop with his in lazy affection
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ Even Purrsephone and Meowlody begrudgingly accept him because he makes you happy like genuinely happy something they’ve never seen from you without a scheme behind it
━━━ ．°˖✧ 🐱ྀི ˚₊ ⊹ His madness balances your fire your sharpness sharpens his mischief and somewhere between stolen kisses, botched pranks, vanishing acts, and long afternoons wandering the island, you realize you’ve given him one of your nine lives. Perhaps even more and Chenya, for all his theatrics, guards that gift with a loyalty you didn’t expect, always appearing exactly when you need him even when you’d never admit you do
