Chapter Text
17 August 2019
Evening
“What the fuck?!” Hijikata stepped back. “N-No, this is bullshit! You’re lying! How did you make that video?! How did you replicate his voice?!” The mongoose was asking questions in a rapid-fire manner, the same sensation that Yuri and Keiko felt of the reality they once perceived as real to dissolve in front of their eyes with one small three-minute video. “W-What is this?!”
“...I don’t know.” Keiko bluntly responded. “We just discovered it a few hours ago. We opened the safe with Komodo dragon poison, and-”
“You took my fucking poison without my permission?!” Hijikata’s screams seemed to grow louder by the second. “Who the fuck allowed you to do that?! Just because you’re the leader you think you can do whatever the fuck you want, huh?!”
“ENOUGH!” Kariya declared, his voice overtaking Hijikata’s angered squeaks. “That’s not what we need to worry about right now. What we need to worry about… is that man Tsu- I mean Shinsuke mentioned.” The bear was trying his best to stay cool-headed, yet every factor around him was seemingly made to disrupt that plan.
“Oh, so we’re all going to pretend that everything is fine and dandy as if Tsuki didn’t fucking lie to us for years?” Hijiagata mockingly asked. “That crazy-ass doctor might be heading towards here to kill us like Tsuki as we speak! If I knew that this was how I was going to die, I wouldn’t have let Kariya take me to this shithole!”
“Shut your ungrateful mouth!” Keiko spoke up. “He gave us a home!”
“He lied to us!” Hijikata countered. “Sure, we’re alive! But every day he was putting us in danger because he wanted to play hide and seek with that fucking bamboo-shooting maniac!”
“Did anyone forget that the people who attacked us were copycats? I remember an alpaca and a tiger, not a panda…” Sota pointed out, making sure not to move a lot. The crow’s right wing was in a cast, having been damaged in the raid. “And, we’ve been hanging out here for years. Didn’t Keiko and Hijikata join around ten years ago?”
“What’s your point?” Hijikata bitterly asked.
“My point is that if he’s so dangerous, why didn’t he come to kill us in the span of what, the fourteen years that Tsuki made this gang? He has the skill to come and kill us since we know what happened to those folks at the black tower.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me…” Keiko shuddered, remembering the horrid and overly graphic depictions of the event that had become gossip and whispers among the folk that had made the back alley market their home. For criminals like the panther and company, the story was like a boogeyman; a tale of a being that will come and hunt you down for your misdeeds.
If the Black Devil wasn’t the most feared figure in the back alley market, then the doctor would certainly take that spot with ease.
The air was tense; none of the five animals in the room were able to fully accept the truth, even if some were trying more than others.
Suddenly, Kariya spoke up. “Wait, there’s something that’s bothering me. I’ve heard about this ‘Gouhin’ person before, but I never heard his last name.”
Hijikata scoffed. “So? I’ve heard he has an errand boy that delivers contact cards. The name is probably there.”
“No, I swear I’ve seen his contact card. It has a small drawing of a panda. You know, two black dots and two black ears.”
“Oh, simplified art! How wonderful!” Yuri chipperly announced, but soon shrank when he saw all the weird stares he was getting.
“....Aaaanyways, what do the contact cards have to do with anything?” Keiko was certainly intrigued by Kariya’s comment. The bear had always been keener than him, some might even say that he had the bad habit of missing the forest for the trees. It was nice having some help every once in a while.
“Well, I’m remembering them… and they didn’t have the name of the doctor. Only the name of the clinic and the number.”
Sota then followed after Kariya. “So what you’re saying is that he didn’t know the doctor’s name by ear. To know his name, Tsuki… had to know him personally? Is that what you’re implying?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so…” Kariya leaned back on the tiled wall of the lab. “That’s not the only thing that bothers me about Tsuki’s message. It felt… threatening. I could feel the hate in his voice.” The dry, raspy voice accompanied by the hyena’s words, how they seemed to be choked out and forced like they were agonizing to confess. It felt oddly personal. “What do you all think? Am I just imagining things?”
“No, you’re definitely right.” Keiko pointed out. “There’s a specific phrase that seemed out of place. He said that Gouhin stole his future…”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Hijikata asked.
“He said ‘Stole’. You know, in the past tense. That means it already happened…” The panther placed his thumb on his chin. “Hmm… maybe Gouhin had snitched him to the police about his drug-dealing affairs…”
Sota then spoke up. “Stealing a dream because of some snitching? No way, no one speaks that spitefully because of something that’s essentially a civil duty. Tsuki isn’t the one to hold grudges for something so minor…”
“That’s assuming that he was being truthful, though.” Hijikata awkwardly shifted in his seat. “He lied about his name, why wouldn’t he lie about his beliefs?”
Keiko stared at the mongoose. Anger boiled inside him like a volcano. Each second that he heard Hijikata’s accusations towards a dead man, Keiko couldn’t help but grow spiteful. He wanted nothing but to silence the smaller carnivore by any means. He wanted silence because every word from Hijikata’s mouth felt like a stab wound.
“Come on, why are you guys so trustful of Tsuki in the first place? Or should I call him Shinsuke when talking about him?”
Keiko closed his eyes… and when he opened them again, Hijikata was on the floor. Blood poured out of the mongoose’s nose, the short carnivore gasping for air. Keiko felt that his knuckles burned, small patches of blood on each one of them.
“I-I…” Keiko mumbled.
Everyone around him stared in awe, jaws dropped to the floor. Their eyes went back and forth between victim and attacker, unable to decide who was in the right.
“Y-You…” Hijikata muttered. His entire body shook as he struggled to get up, having to lean on one of the chemistry tables. The brown pupil of his eyes glued themselves to Keiko, growing bigger with dilation in the same vein of a carnivore staring at a fellow hunter, ready to engage in a violent battle, driven by nothing but pure, unfiltered blind rage.
“Hijikata, I-” Keiko was ready to scramble for an apology, but as the words tried to escape his mouth, it was far too late.
“You fucking piece of shit, I’ll kill you!” Hijikata took one of the graduated cylinders and smashed it against the table, glass flying everywhere as the bottom half broke. The mongoose pointed the half-broken flask at his attacker, waving it around erratically, much like a drunk would wave a broken bottle.
“Hijikata, stop this right now!” Kariya intervened. “The last thing we need is more dead people, okay?”
“What, you’re on his side too?!” Hijikata then pointed the broken flask at the bear, the ursine backing up in response. “Why does everyone seem to side with Tsuki and Keiko?!”
“Why are you acting like a petulant child!?” Yuri’s ice-cold demeanor burned away, the ashes leaving the hidden aggression of a serviceable and dependant canine. “I may not have gone through hardship my entire life, but… for the few moments that I did go through that, Tsuki pulled me out of that hardship. I don’t care if he lied about who he was, that couldn’t have been a lie! I refuse to believe it!”
“Well too fucking bad, Yuri. This is the real world, where people do shitty things because they can. Do you really expect me to simply trust Tsuki because he was nice to me? Unless you provide absolute honesty, I have no reason to believe anything you say.” He wiped the blood from his nose. “If you simply believe everything you’re told, you’re no better than those privileged little shits from that school.”
“Hmph…” Yuri crossed his arms, icy blue eyes focusing on Hijikata. “Leave at this instant. You’re not welcome in this room.”
“W-What?” Hijikata looked around the room, hoping that anyone would object. “Come on, guys. You’re not agreeing with him, right?” He stared at each member in the room, pitifully hoping that someone would side with him. He waited and waited yet in the end, no one was by his side.
He sighed, letting the broken flask rest on the chem table. “Fine, you can all go fuck yourselves.” Hijikata went through the door and angrily slammed it on his way out.
“Well, that just happened,” Sota commented. “I don’t know how to feel, honestly… I barely knew Tsuki, I’ve only been here for a few months, so I don’t know what this means for you guys…”
“It’s okay, Sota.” Keiko reassured. “You’re excused; feel free to leave. This doesn’t concern you as much as it concerns us.”
Sota nodded, being unable to bow due to the injuries on his chest. The crow slowly walked away from the room, leaving Keiko, Kariya, and Yuri as the only ones inside.
“I don’t understand why he acts like that…” Kariya said. The ursine sank lower and lower, basically melting down against the wall. “He’s always been so standoffish. I sometimes feel like I’m the only one he trusts.”
Yuri’s ears shot upwards with notice. “Well, he certainly made it clear that he doesn’t trust Keiko. He probably doesn’t trust me by proxy as well…”
Keiko could still sense the burn on his knuckles. The impact of the punch was as strong as his guilt. “I mean, I kind of get how he feels. Once you know that Shinsuke’s identity was a lie, it becomes hard to differentiate what was a lie and what is the truth.”
“Does it even matter?” Yuri asked, seemingly filled with more life than ever before. “All that matters are the consequences, not the intent. The consequences were positive, so shouldn’t we think of Tsuki in that way?”
“Woah, hold on. We can’t just bury this and pretend it didn’t happen. Tsuki wanted us to know about his relationship with the doctor. That video wasn’t a memento or a testament, it was a warning.” Kariya added.
“Well, what should we do?” Keiko asked. “If it’s impossible to discern a lie from a truth… then what?”
“I guess that it’s up to everyone to decide on their own,” Kariya grumbled. “As for me, I want to believe in him. I don’t care if his name is Shinsuke or Tsuki, I take all the years he helped me with gratitude.”
“Woah… You almost sounded like Yuri for a sec.” Keiko teased. “I’m not sure if I can accept that Tsuki lied to us. I mean, the warning is so foreboding that you can’t help but feel a little unsettled.” The panther turned to the wolf. “How about you, Yuri? What do you think?”
“I…” The wolf stumbled on his words for a few seconds, his chin shaking a small bit. “I just know that I lived a happy life thanks to him.” Yuri gripped his chest, feeling it grow tighter as he spoke. “I’m just… so tired. I’ve been trying to stay calm, it’s the only thing I know to do when things like these happen… but I’m so, so tired.” Yuri gritted every word, fangs grinding against each other with each one.
“Yuri…” Keiko tenderly placed his paw on top of the wolf’s. “You have to remember that you can talk to me. I know that you’re not one to talk about feelings, but I’m here for you.”
“...Very well, I shall remember.” Yuri hastily walked away, not even looking at Keiko on his way out. Instead, his gaze was glued to the floor the entire time.
The panther sighed. “Okay… Guess that settles things.”
“There’s one last thing before I need to know we leave, Keiko.”
“What is it, Kariya?”
“Why didn’t you tell Haruto and Takumi? I mean, I might understand why you wouldn’t want to include Takumi in this, but Haruto? What’s wrong with him?”
“Call it a hunch, but there’s something in my gut that’s telling me that he’s not to be trusted.”
“...I’ll trust you, then. I suppose that I don’t know much about the members besides you and Hijikata.” The bear bashfully said. “Maybe I should play some rounds of chess with Sota once he heals, he seems like a nice kid.”
“Speaking of Hijikata, did you know where he went off?”
“I know, but it’s a secret.”
“Fuck, Kariya… we literally had a big fight because of secrets. Don’t you think that it’s a bad idea to have secrets now?”
“Hey, it’s a promise I made to the little fella.” Kariya clarified. “Once you make it, you can’t break it.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
Keiko snorted, taking back from the joke. “Fine, fine. You can leave and comfort him from his tantrum. I’ll go check on Yuri, kay?”
Kariya smiled. “I think that’s a great idea.”
◆◆◆
His room was littered with a repulsive mass of crumpled tissues, smeared with his own blood, snot, and tears. As Hijikata paced the room in his mania, he only further contributed to his sudden squalor.
“Assholes, they’re all fucking assholes.” Hijikata hissed to himself. “They don’t understand what it means being lied to, I-I…” His voice arched into a shaking crescendo, burning his throat with the intensity of a blowtorch, his mouth practically spewing fire with his rage.
He looked at the pictures pinned to the corkboard, feeling his nails dig into the tables. Just seeing their faces emphasized the pain in his chest, the weakness in his lungs, the tears stinging his face.
His pain was the only constant in his little abyss, drowning him without a ray of hope to be found.
Then, out of the blue, Hijikata heard the sound of the doorknob being fiddled with. In a panic, he grabbed a knife that was resting on the table and screamed as loud as he could. “If you enter, I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll stab your goddamn eyes out!” He cried, his voice fluctuating between threatening and abhorrently pitiful.
“...It’s me.” Kariya’s voice sent further shockwaves into Hijikata’s body. The usually comforting and reassuring deep ursine voice only made the mongoose’s blood boil with even more intensity. He gripped the knife further, burning from the pressure spreading all over his hands. “I-I’ll kick you in the nose and stab you in the chest, you bastard! I mean it! I have a fucking knife!”
“Okay then.” Kariya bluntly said. “Then I’ll stay behind the door and wait for you to calm down.”
“H-Huh?! That’s not how that works! What are you doing?!”
“I’m waiting for you to calm down. I already said that.”
“But why?! If you’ve come to apologize, then go fuck yourself! Shove your apology up your ass!”
“...Well, if you’re not going to accept an apology, that’s fine. I came to see if you were okay, that’s what mattered to me.”
“Y-You…” Hijikata dropped the knife, the blade clattering on the floor from the drop. “I hate you… you and your stupid way of making everything right. Why can’t you just be normal and get angry?”
“It’s my job to take care of you, isn’t it? That’s what I promised ever since we became family.”
“S-Shut up, you’re not my-”
“I’m not your father, I know. I know that I’ll never be able to fill that void, but… I can still be there, can I not? Is that enough?”
“...Yes.” Hijikata sobbed. “Y-yeah, that’s-” He wiped away tears and snot, sniffling as he did so. “-En-nough.” His voice still quivered, yet without the red-hot aggression. “C-can you come in, please?”
“Of course.”
“Good, I’ll open the door…” Hijikata unlocked the metal door and let Kariya through. The bear took quite an amount of space in the small cramped room, but the ursine didn’t seem to be bothered by it. If he actually was unfazed couldn’t be determined by Hijikata; he could never discern what truly went through the old man’s head no matter how much he tried…
Kariya stared at the room, and how much it was in total disarray. “Do you need help cleaning this up?”
Hijikata nodded, looking down. His entire body still shook with uncomfortably intense fervor.
“Okay, help me put everything inside there, okay?” Kariya pointed at the trash can that laid underneath the office desk. “We need to clean this up so that you can put on your dye.”
“D-Dye?” Hijikata turned around to stare at himself in the mirror; as expected, the excess fluids all over his face had caused the fur dye to wash out prematurely. Patches of white fur around his mouth and eyes were now visible to the naked eye. “Oh, now I see…”
“Good thing that I was the one that knocked on the door and not Keiko. I don’t want to imagine what that situation would’ve led to, especially with how tense he is after seeing that video.”
“...I don’t want to talk about that asshole.” Hijikata looked aside while talking dryly.
“Okay, then we won’t talk about Keiko. That’s fine by me.” Kariya said while picking up one of the wipes. “How about you tell me why you’re so upset instead?”
“Because you’re backing up a fucking liar, that’s why.” Hijikata started picking up trash as well. “I mean, seriously, why am I the only one that’s upset?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know, Hijikata. Why are you so upset that Shinsuke or Tsuki, whichever name you want to call him, lied?”
“Because what if it ends up being dangerous?! You can’t trust someone who lies about who they are, because it will end up biting you in the ass eventually. We were just lucky…” Hijikata grasped his arm, shivers going down his spine. “...That we didn’t end up with arrows through our heads. Even if the people we got attacked by were copycats, that doesn’t mean that that psychopath won’t find us.”
“Why are you so scared? You’ve spent ten years living here!”
“And what if he kills us after I’ve spent eleven years here, huh?!” As fast as a coin flip, the seething rage and fear came back over Hijikata. “You can’t be sure if we’re safe here. W-what if you die because you trusted Tsuki?! Bet you didn’t think about that fun possibility, did you?!”
“Calm down, okay?! Listen to me, Hiji-”
“No! You don’t understand, no one does!” Hijikata sharply hissed. Horrible images that he wished to repress yet still haunted came back to him. “You don’t know what it feels like being lied to!” The sight of mangled bodies, flesh torn apart with such intensity that ribs were visible invaded his mind. “And you’ll never understand! NO ONE EVER WILL!” The disgusting stench of carnivore blood, the sight of the black swarm that ate those two animals so dear to him.
“Then help me understand!” Kariya crouched and placed his paws on the shaking and sobbing mongoose’s shoulders. “What happened to you, Hijikata?! What do you need to tell me?!”
“NO!” Hijikata writhed under the bear’s grip, limbs moving as erratically as his thoughts. “L-LET ME GO!”
“I won’t!” The growl from a big carnivore like Kariya was enough to make Hijikata shrink with fear; the primal, deep sound echoing evolutionary responses for the smaller animal. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on, right now.”
“I-I…” Hijikata stared at the ursine’s black eyes, getting lost in them. Shakily, his hands moved on their own to wrap themselves around Kariya’s monstrously big body. “I’m sorry…” He sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Kariya…” He buried his face into the bear’s shirt, tainting it with tears.
“Shh… it’s okay, Hijikata, it’s okay.” Kariya traced his paw from Hijikata’s head to his back. “Listen, everything will be alright as long as you trust me, okay? You can take your time telling Keiko and the others, but please, trust me at least.”
“I-I…” Hijikata swallowed. “I’ll trust you.” He sniffled and sobbed, yet still managed to say it with conviction.
“That’s good. Take your time, please. I’ll be here as long as you need to.”
“Thank you…” Hijikata uttered. The blood in his body slowly cooled down against Kariya’s warm embrace. The sound of the ursine’s heartbeat was a comforting melody as he fell deeper and deeper into his chest, feeling the floodgate of tears calming down with time.
They stayed in a warm and caring embrace for a long time; the only thing they could hear was the quiet yet shaky breathing of Hijikata. The weakness and mania that took hold of him slowly vanished, like a puppet being freed of its strings.
“I’m sorry for screaming at you…”
“It’s okay, I’m not mad. Don’t worry, I’m not lying about it.”
“Hmph, you better be telling the truth.” Hijikata slowly ended the hug. His entire look paraded the sad, heart-rending feelings going through him; a runny nose with tiny amounts of snot, red eyes with floods of tears that stuck to his eyelashes.
“So, why are you so mad about lies?”
“It’s about my parents.”
“Your parents?” Kariya felt a knot form in his stomach. The taboo topic immediately made the ursine shift into an uncomfortable position, overseeing the small mongoose speaking determinedly, putting trust into his hands. “They were-”
“-Murdered.” The fire in his throat remained, yet was now a tender burn that still hurt. He was going to suffer through every second with tenacity. “Yeah, they were killed by the Komorigumi.”
“Is that why you wrote that?” Kariya pointed at the piece of paper pinned to the corkboard.
“Yeah… but it wasn’t random gang violence. They were targeted by their leader, a white mouse named Junichi.”
“But you said Komorigumi, isn’t that the name of an old bat gang?”
“Yeah, but have you heard of that deer controlling the Shishigumi? The leader doesn’t have to be the same species as the gang, you know?”
“I suppose… anyways, go on.”
“That man was friends with my parents; they were writers of childrens’ books.”
“That’s very sweet of them...”
“The caveat is that they were books with pro-hybrid messages… I suppose that you can figure out what happened next.”
Kariya gasped, experiencing the sensation of his lungs being devoid of air for a short yet agonizing second.
“...It was a bunch of bats. I-I was hanging out in my neighbor’s apartment while it happened. When I came back to my home, I saw them in the living room, and then-” Hijikata stopped for a second, having to swallow.
“You don’t have to continue, Hijikata. I didn’t know that it was so bad.”
“No, it’s okay, I…” He took a deep breath, his body begging for it to stop. “I found them dead. They were basically eaten alive, and coming out of the window, I saw a giant, black ball coming out.” Hijikata could picture the ghostly apparition, thousands of demonic calls from the dark cloud that he assumed killed his parents. “...There was a giant cloud of bats.”
“B-But that’s-”
“The Kopi Luwak? That’s only the name they’ve gotten ever since Deshico took over. While that son of a bitch Junichi controlled it, they were named the Komorigumi.”
“So the Komorigumi and Kopi Luwak are the same?”
“Yeah… that’s why I’m always wary of Haruto. I know it’s probably unfair of me to bunch him alongside those creepy bastards, but I can’t help it.”
“That’s… Hijikata, I don’t know what to say.”
“The reason I'm so weary of people lying is because Junichi was a close associate of my father. They used private aliases when writing and publishing, but he slowly got close to them. He did that until they revealed their true names, and the very same day, Junichi sent those bat freaks to kill them.”
“W-why? Why did he do that?”
“Deshico might have given them a new coat of paint, but they’re still a bunch of hybrid-phobic fucks. That was from the start…”
“Oh… I’m sorry, I always thought that it was some petty vendetta. I didn’t want to pry into your business, I didn’t want to make you sad or mad, although I guess I failed, didn’t I?” Kariya chuckled at himself.
“You did the best you could… you aren’t responsible for what Junichi did. Days later, you found me trying to steal food and scraps in the back alley market. You already know the rest…”
“...So then, he lied to your parents to kill them?”
“Exactly… liars can’t be trusted, I know it.”
“Then… you don’t have to trust Tsuki.”
“I thought that you came here to convince me to do so.”
“If it’s something so traumatic for you, I won’t force you to change, but then… believe in me and Keiko. Believe in us, I promise I won’t let you down like Shinsuke did.”
“I…” Hijikata swallowed. “I guess that I can trust you.”
“That’s great!” Kariya beamed with excitement, like a ray of light that pulled Hijikata out of the dark abyss. “Now, let me help you with your dye, okay? You have tons of white spots visible.”
“...Thank you.”
◆◆◆
Yuri restlessly clawed away at his bed covers, desperately trying to ignore his pounding heartbeat.
Music was his spark, his comforting passion, but the strain on his mind made it impossible to even look at his violin. Such an instrument required care, and Yuri was worried about the possibility of tearing one of the strings. So, all he could do was scratch away at his bed with anxiety.
The facade of peace was hard to maintain, tearing away at his sanity. Yuri’s temple hurt, like a rope constricted around it with force. It didn’t matter how damaged the bed would end up, he’d keep tearing away at it with hysteria.
Passage of time was something that he had lost a long time ago. He hadn’t dared look at the clock in what he perceived to be in a long time. Feelings of loss and grief were the only thing running through his system, attempts to repress them being null and futile.
The scenery of the empty bed in front of him was always haunting, yet he never dared to ask to be moved to another room. The want to leave was consistently overpowered by the need for attachment to whatever was left of Aubin. He still couldn’t do something as mundane as arranging the sheets. It would just be too painful.
Tsuki’s dying message was the final blow to the fragile house of cards that was his emotional stability; The tense atmosphere, the heavy air that couldn’t be breathed in, the sudden distance he felt from everyone. It was unbearable.
Looking down, he heard the sound of the door to his room being opened. Yuri glanced at the doorway, seeing his lover awkwardly standing in it.
“Hey…” The panther stared at the wolf, eyes glued to the canine’s sad state. “Can we talk?”
“I’m sorry for acting out. It won’t happen again, promise.”
“I want you to act again, Yuri! Talk to me!” Keiko’s voice raised in volume, echoing through the halls. “I-I need you to be open with me. Just this once, you need it!”
“How can you know what I need?” The wolf coldly asked. “I… I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?! Why can’t you trust me?!”
“Because I don’t know how to, okay?!” Yuri cried out. “I don’t know how to explain things to you, it’s hard. It’s really hard for me, a-and it’s selfish of me to ask you this, but I need you to be patient."
“Yuri, I-I… why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because… I don’t know if you’d think less of me. Whenever you had a problem and Tsuki nor Kariya were there, you’d always look at me with those amber eyes of yours for help. You’d be so sad, but then that sad frown would go away when I’d lay beside you…” Yuri smiled at the memory, clutching his heart. “And I can’t be that person you look up to in your time of need if I’m… vulnerable.”
“I don’t care if you crack sometimes, Yuri! Everyone does that! And what about you ?! Why can’t I be that person for you?!”
“B-but, how can I-”
“We’ll figure it out! You can just talk to me, and everything will turn out okay!”
“Keiko, I don’t know if I’m ready to be honest with you about who I am. It’s… painful to talk about it, especially since Aubin is… not here.” Yuri scratched the bed with further intensity, claws now digging themselves deep into the mattress.
Keiko rushed to Yuri’s side, clutching the wolf’s hand in desperation. “Just one thing, Yuri. I just want to know one thing about you. That’s all I need.”
Yuri looked at the feline tenderly. “One thing? Is that all you need?”
“For now, that’s the only thing I’ll ask of you. You can tell me whatever else you have bottled up in the future, but just be honest with me! Please!”
“I…” The wolf took a deep sigh. “I suppose that you want to know how I got here in the first place since that’s all you’ve been asking about ever since Tsuki died…”
“You only have to tell me if you want to, Yuri. You can go with smaller stuff at the start.”
“No, it’s fine. After all, someone like me doesn’t seem to fit among a band of unfortunate people like you.”
“Yuri… what happened to you?”
“Aubin and I didn’t live around these parts. We actually used to live a very wealthy life, a big three-story house with a pool in the back and air conditioner to fit our bodily temperatures. It was… paradise.”
“So, you’re a rich boy? I guess that explains how you speak all fancy-schmancy.”
Yuri chuckled. “You probably think less of me now. I look like a privileged child in the eyes of someone who has gone through so much hardship…”
“N-No! I’d never think that about you!"
“Hmph, you only say that because you already know me without my wealth. I know that Aubin and I would be no different from the ones you call spoiled brats.”
“Yuri, I’d never say something so horrible about you! You’re probably-”
“-One of the good ones? Now that’s an interesting comment. What could that mean? Are you saying that my status alone causes scorn?”
“I-... Look, I’m just not fond of people with wealth. They’re usually douchebags that trample over the common folk, and the carnivores that are part of that group never speak up for us because they prefer to not cause conflict…”
“Well, I guess that I’ve been a douchebag for most of my life.” As Keiko grew uncomfortable, Yuri seemed to grow amused. “Well, I assume that you’re dying to know how I ended up living in such a different place compared to my early life.”
Keiko had a knot in his stomach. It was like staring at a closed box, and he was fearful of the contents of the box. Still, curiosity and concern were stronger than any petite fear he had. “...Go on, Yuri.”
“Well, from my build, you can probably know that I’m not one for sports besides ones that require plenty of upper body strength. Archery was a niche at the time, so a scholarship wasn’t possible. So, my only option was getting through extremely high grades.”
“Wait,” Keiko interrupted. “You definitely appear as if you came from a rich house, but what about Aubin?”
“As the eldest brother, the image of the family came to my hands. Aubin didn’t have to endure hours’ worth of classes about etiquette and severely detailed subjects. He still joined me in archery, but it was nothing more than camaraderie.” Yuri smiled as he thought of his brother’s carefree attitude. Despite the brashness, it was oddly soothing. Oh, how he missed it.
“So, you were the only one that had to be, uh…”
“Elegant? Yeah, that task came to me.” Yuri clarified. “Well, you’ll be glad to know that I share your sentiment towards high-status herbivores. They’re far more bloodthirsty than any carnivore, that’s for sure.”
“Did a herbivore fuck you over too? Wouldn’t surprise me, considering how much of a piece of shit most of them are.”
“Well, you certainly have quite an acute sense of intuition.” Yuri’s ears wiggled up and down as he stared at Keiko. “Well, mind taking a stab at guessing?”
“I… I don’t want to imagine it, but I guess that the most likely thing is that your wealth got fucked over by a herbivore.”
“Hm… kiiiiiind of close! My father and mother still have their wealth intact. However, the only thing linking us is our DNA, every other link between us has been severed because of something as petty as a public incident.”
Keiko felt his blood go cold as ice. “Wait, you’re not telling me-!”
“Yes, they disowned me to save their public image. Aubin was to take over, but he chose to stay by my side. To this day, I… I’m still grateful for his undying devotion.” Yuri tried to will the tears that were forming in his eyes to stay inside.
“...What the hell happened?”
“Fraud. Specifically, I was framed for the crime.” Yuri explained. “It was for my final exams about how carnivores can positively impact the economy. There was this girl in my class, a small squirrel girl. She was top of the class before I arrived.”
“N-no, there was no way someone could do that.” Keiko’s blood boiled with anger and spite. “Did they seriously let her lie?!”
“Lie? That’s a very kind way of putting it. She paid off the board of directors to fake a report. As carnivores, our family’s opinion weighed less than her family’s. It didn’t matter that we had a case, she and her family of liars won…” Yuri growled, picturing the smug face of the herbivore. He clutched his chest with wrath, claws now digging themselves into his sweater.
“Yuri, oh my god, I-” Keiko couldn’t process anything Yuri was saying. It made so much sense, yet he didn’t want to believe that his lover had gone through something so horrible.
“I don’t want pity, I just want to be heard,” Yuri explained. “It’s all behind me. I’ve got a new home with you here. That’s all that matters.”
“Are you sure that you’re okay? I know that losing Aubin must’ve stung even worse. I-I didn’t know that it was so hard for you…”
“Well, it’s true that it’s hard for me, but… I feel liberated after talking to you. It’s comforting having an ear that will hear my pleas. The only one that was ever this attentive to me was Aubin… but now he’s gone.”
“Oh, Yuri… you beautiful bastard.” Keiko cupped Yuri’s face and immediately pulled him into a deep kiss. The panther immediately moaned against the feeling of his partner’s muzzle, joy overtaking him. He pulled back, needing to breathe in air. “I love you, I love you so much. I promise to be as good to you as you are to me.”
Yuri sniffled. “That would make me the happiest animal in the world.” Yuri pushed himself onto Keiko, his muzzle millimeters from the panther’s. “You make me incredibly happy. I know that I can be cold or distant, yet you remain at my side constantly. I sometimes wonder why I was blessed with such a wonderful partner…”
“I sometimes ask myself that too, Yuri. You’re the best animal in the entire world, you handsome wolf.” A small smile crept onto Keiko’s face when he saw Yuri starting to blush and his ears starting to droop in submissiveness. “I’ll wait for years for you to open up. The wait is going to be worth it, I just know it.”
Yuri then lowered his posture, arching his back downwards so his head would be resting against Keiko’s chest. “Your heartbeat… is my favorite melody.”
“I thought that it was Paganini Caprice Number 1?”
Yuri looked upwards at his partner. “You remembered?” His ears and tail wagged at a high speed. His arms wrapped themselves around Keiko’s back. “You really remembered?” Yuri repeated in disbelief. “I can’t believe it…”
“Of course I did. What do you think I do when you go on about music?”
“I… I always thought you did it to be nice…”
“Of course not! I always pay attention when you talk about music.” The mental image of Yuri’s entire body moving with life and energy while he played the violin was always magical. Each time he remembered, he always got the tight feeling on his chest of how much he was in love. “Another one you like is, let me think… The Bach Chaconne in, what was it?”
“In D minor…”
“Yeah, In D minor. That’s the one you played after our first date as a couple, right?”
“It was a beautiful night… I remember how much work you put into your appearance. You even wore gel and everything!”
“First time going to a groomer in a while. It was nice…” Keiko sighed. “You were wearing that beautiful lilac eyeshadow. It was the first time seeing a man with makeup, but you made my concerns go away with how handsome you looked.”
“You flatter me too much, Keiko.”
“Isn’t that my job as your boyfriend?”
Yuri chuckled. “True. One could not ask for a better man than you.”
“Aww, now you’re the one flattering!” Keiko felt his cheeks flush. He gently rubbed the back of the wolf’s neck, causing his left leg to move up and down rapidly.
Yuri smiled, tightening the embrace he had Keiko in. “You’re so good to me…”
“Good boy.” He continued to scratch, Yuri’s white face turning pink. “Can I ask you something?”
“Whatever you need, Keiko.”
“Stay.” The panther smiled as he said it.
“Like you needed to order me to stay here…”
“Atta boy…”