When kittens bite, it’s usually in the course of play. That’s how they learn to socialize with other animals and it’s not uncommon for them to have to learn how to control themselves the hard way.

When littermates kick and bite, the others react with pain and usually give them a taste of their own medicine so they know how much it hurts. That instills in them the idea that it’s not a nice thing to do.

But sometimes bites are truly unintentional. It’s rare, but if you happen to have your hand in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might have no one to blame but yourself.

In a now-viral gif of two kittens playing, a tuxedo kitten gives his little tabby sibling a chomp – but not on purpose!

They appear to be around 3 to 4 weeks old – their eyes are open, but they’re still pretty small and wriggly. And it’s pretty clear that they don’t quite understand what their little paws are doing yet.

At around week 3 we know that kittens really start to play with one another and start socialization before turning into those little energy balls pouncing all over everything else in the house.

As the two kittens paw at one another, the tuxedo cat lets out a big yawn. And that’s no surprise – kittens this young can spend about 20 or more hours a day sleeping! (What a life!)

The only problem is that its little tabby pal just happened to have his paw in the line of fire when those jaws came down.

So in the second that tuxedo kitten yawns and closes its mouth, it ends up biting its sibling.

And someone isn’t happy.

The tiny tabby is smarting.

That hurt!

And not only does it retract its paw quickly, but it has the most adorable reaction, shaking off the pain.

(It’s kind of like when you pinch or burn your hand or finger and think shaking it rapidly is going to help.)

via GIPHY

Those tiny little teeth are no joke!

After the tabby gets over the injury and insult of it all, it decides payback is in order. The tuxedo cat is innocently bathing itself, but here come the blows.

It’s a kitten attack!

There’s not much a full-scale kitten assault can do when the animal is just a few weeks old, so it takes a minute for the tuxedo cat to even know it’s experiencing a rainstorm of kitten blows to the head.

(Or maybe this kitten is already really great at trolling its sibling.)

And like a little turtle, the tabby has trouble getting off its back to stand up and walk away to pout about it all (or go tell mom).

After a few rolls, it uses the tuxedo kitten’s head to prop itself up.

We imagine it stalked off in a huff to go get some attention, but we’ll sadly never know the outcome of this accidental kitten battle.

It was pretty cute though.

Be sure to scroll down below to see it all play out – it’s much cuter with the kittens in action.

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Source: MrsIndependent via Imgur, Alley Cat
H/t: I Heart Cats