Chapter Text
“Ahoge Nii-chan—!”
The voice hit Isagi before the beastkin did, sparking a familiar throb right behind his temples. He didn’t even have to look up to know who it was. The sharp clack-clack-clack of hooves against the floor announced Charles’s arrival with all the subtlety of a landslide.
The goat beastkin skidded to a halt in front of him, his pale blonde hair bouncing with every restless movement. With a mischievous chirp, Charles lunged forward, his fingers twitching to flick at Isagi’s signature sprouts. Isagi, practiced in the art of “chaotic beastkin management,” took a deft step back, his hand rising in a half-hearted defensive gesture.
Loki, who had been deep in a technical discussion with Ego, let out a sigh so heavy it seemed to weigh down the very air in the corridor. “Charles,” he said. It was that low, vibrating tone of absolute authority that only a Director—or a very tired guardian—could master.
The effect was instantaneous. The little contrarian froze, his hand still hovering mid-air. Charles clicked his tongue in a sharp show of annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest and wrenching his head away to give Loki a truly Oscar-worthy pout. Loki, ever the composed Director of the French Research Institute, just rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d raised Charles from a kid, and it clearly showed in the way he braced himself for the boy’s looming adulthood.
“Is he… starting to come into it?” Isagi asked softly. “The maturation?”
At the mention of his development, Charles’s goat ears—tufted and pale beneath his blonde fringe—gave a violent, involuntary twitch. Behind him, his short tail began to wag with a mind of its own, betraying his excitement despite his sulky expression.
“…Unfortunately,” Loki muttered. “He’s more impulsive than ever. His energy levels are off the charts, and his instinct to cause trouble has tripled.”
Isagi offered a small smile—the look of a man who was essentially a human scratching post for high-strung hybrids. “He’s definitely keeping us on our toes.”
Loki nodded, smoothly pivoting back to professional matters. “On that note, I heard Blue Ark finally finished that specialized range? The one we discussed during the last summit?”
“We did.” Isagi’s expression warmed, his blue eyes softening as he thought of the progress they’d made. “And the resident we spoke about… he’s thrived there. He’s doing remarkably well.”
Feeling the spotlight slip away, Charles didn’t hesitate. He bodily shoved himself between the two men, his shoulders bumping Isagi’s chest as he forced his way into the conversation. “What? Range? I wanna hear!” he demanded, his voice pitching into a loud, spoiled whine as he looked at Isagi with demanding eyes.
Loki’s brow furrowed, his mouth opening to deliver a stern reprimand, but the sound of different hooves cut him off. These were softer; it was a rhythmic, muffled beat echoing from the residential wing.
A pale blue blur appeared at the end of the hall. Hiori moved with a grace that Charles lacked, his thick, cloud-like wool catching the light as he trotted toward them. The moment his eyes locked onto Isagi, the sheep beastkin’s entire posture changed, his expression melting into something profoundly sweet.
Isagi didn’t even realize he was smiling back until his cheeks felt warm. The tension in his shoulders, brought on by Charles’s antics, evaporated instantly.
“Hiori,” Isagi breathed, his voice dropping into a tone of genuine, fond welcome.
Isagi didn’t have to walk far before the blue-haired beastkin closed the gap himself. Despite being significantly taller than Isagi, Hiori moved with a swaying gentleness, leaning down to bring himself level with the doctor. In his hands, he cradled a bundle of blooming wildflowers, their stems meticulously bound together by a soft, hand-spun string of light blue wool—his own.
He pressed the bouquet into Isagi’s arms, the scent of crushed petals and sun-warmed fleece filling the air. “For you,” he said, his voice like velvet.
“Thank you, Hiori. Did you spend the morning wandering the back meadows?” Isagi asked. He reached out a hand, and Hiori leaned into the gesture instinctively, pressing his cheek into Isagi’s warm palm with a contented sigh.
“Yeah. It’s spring,” Hiori smiled. He didn’t pull away; instead, he lingered, seeking out the physical closeness that had become his primary way of communicating affection. “Flowers, for you.”
“Thanks Hiori. Are you still heading to the enrichment range today?” Isagi asked, his fingers moving to idly skritch behind Hiori’s soft, sensitive sheep ears.
Hiori’s eyes half-closed in bliss, a tender smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. I’m going with Yuki. Will you come see us? This afternoon?”
Isagi stood on his tiptoes, gently pressing his forehead against Hiori’s in a familiar, intimate greeting. “I’ll come find you the second I have a break,” he promised. The joy in Hiori’s big, round eyes deepened, a soft rose-flush dusting his cheeks. His ears gave a happy, rhythmic twitch before he leaned in, stealing a fleeting, feather-light kiss against Isagi’s cheek.
Only then did he straighten his posture, his demeanor shifting instantly. His gaze swept over Loki and the blonde goat beastkin with a look of cool, detached indifference. Hiori turned and disappeared down the hall with a graceful, silent stride.
Loki strolled over, watching the blue blur vanish. “Was that the one referred to you for chronic depression?” he asked, sounding impressed. “He seems to have made a remarkable recovery under your care”.
“He has, though he’s still more sensitive than most,” Isagi said, a protective note entering his voice. He glanced down at his watch and his eyes widened. “Shoot—Loki, don’t you have a briefing with Ego? You’re going to be late.”
Loki’s face immediately fell into a grimace at the mention of Blue Ark’s director. The thought of Ego’s clinical, biting reprimands was enough to make even the Director of PxG want to retreat. Compared to Ego, his “comfortable camaraderie” with Isagi was a sanctuary.
He jabbed the elevator button and shot a warning narrowed-eyed look at Charles. The goat beastkin immediately batted his eyelashes, twitching his ears in a display of practiced, feigned innocence.
Loki sighed, turning back to Isagi. “Keep an eye on him for me, please. And…Charles, behave for Yoichi. No trouble.”
Charles’s tenuous grip on decorum evaporated the very instant the elevator doors hissed shut. In a blonde blur of motion, he launched himself at Isagi like a guided missile, his front hooves planting firmly against the doctor’s chest as he clambered upward.
“Ahoge Nii-chan—play with me! Play! Play!” he chirped, his voice loud and slightly disjointed in his excitement.
The impact sent a jar through Isagi’s spine, nearly knocking him flat; he only managed to stay upright by bracing his shoulder against the wall. Seeing the doctor wide-eyed only fueled Charles’s delight, sending him into a fit of mischievous giggles. Resigned to his fate, Isagi let out a long sigh, his voice softening into something more indulgent.
“Alright, Charles, alright,” Isagi managed, patting the boy’s side. “How about we head out to the new specialized range?”
Maybe, Isagi thought desperately, the range could finally burn off enough of this chaos gremlin’s energy to keep him from dismantling the clinic piece by piece.
“Okay!” Charles finally hopped down, though he didn’t give Isagi an inch of personal space. He immediately locked his arms around Isagi, clinging tight as if the doctor might vanish into thin air if he let go.
Clutching a stack of medical files in his free hand, Isagi accepted his role as a human anchor. He allowed the endlessly energetic goat beastkin to tug him through the corridors toward the facility’s newest addition.
Nestled on the sun-drenched slopes behind Blue Ark’s main building, the specialized range was a massive sprawl of terrain—roughly half the size of a professional soccer pitch—engineered specifically for hybrid anatomies. To the east, rolling, hill-like tracks covered in lush artificial turf mimicked the wild highlands. The curves were designed with perfect, banked gradients, allowing running beastkins to lean into the thrill of centrifugal force at full gallop without losing their footing.
The western side of the range was a vertical labyrinth: a staggered array of elastic platforms wrapped in anti-slip rubber, interconnected by swaying rope bridges and steep ramps for those whose instincts demanded they climb and leap. The ground itself was a sensory map, transitioning from the soft give of fine sand to the springy resistance of vulcanized rubber.
Isagi took a seat on the bleachers, his lips curving into a weary smile as Charles immediately began to claim the range. The blonde beastkin moved with frantic curiosity, sniffing at the turf boundaries and poking at the tension of the rope bridges. Once satisfied that his new kingdom was secure, he easily scaled a steep incline, perched on the crest, and let out an proud bleat.
Isagi offered a brief, encouraging wave. “You’re doing great, Charles. Just keep your weight centered so you don’t take a spill,” he called out, his voice carrying that calm authority that usually kept the Blue Ark residents in line.
At first, the novelty was enough. Charles was thrilled to have the entire playground to himself, sprinting laps that showcased his agility and conquering the highest elastic platforms. But the thrill of the “conquest” faded the moment he paused to catch his breath. He looked toward the bleachers, expecting to see Isagi’s eyes following his every move. Instead, the human was hunched over, deeply engrossed in a thick stack of medical files, his pen moving in steady strokes.
Charles puffed out his cheeks in immediate offense. To his impulsive mind, it was physically impossible for a boring stack of paper to be more captivating than his own spectacular presence.
He launched into a second wind, this time with a clear agenda. He ran two more laps, deliberately slamming his hooves into the rubber track with force. He even took a wide, sweeping arc just to sprint inches past Isagi’s face, the wind of his passage fluttering the doctor’s files. Isagi didn’t even flinch; he just absently murmured a distracted, “Careful, Charles,” while circling a metric in red ink.
Scowling, the goat beastkin scrambled up the nearest high-jump platform. He began to bounce—not for the joy of the height, but for the volume. He slammed his hooves into the elastic surface, creating a series of rhythmic, booming bangs that sounded like cannon fire against the hills. He jumped higher and landed harder, his tail lashing with irritation, but when he checked for a reaction, Isagi hadn’t moved an inch. Not even the doctor’s signature sprout of hair gave a sympathetic twitch.
Finally, the young goat had enough. He leaped from the three-meter platform, forgoing the ramps entirely, and landed heavily on the sand pit right next to the bleachers. The impact was massive, sending a vibration through the wood that finally caused Isagi’s hand to slip.
A long, jagged red streak slashed across the paperwork.
Isagi finally looked up. Charles immediately puffed out his chest, his ears swiveling forward and his tail wagging in anticipation of the reprimand—or better yet, the undivided attention—he’d just bought himself.
Instead, Isagi just gestured mildly toward the far side of the field. “The crash mats are over there if you’re planning on doing more high-impact landings,” he said, his tone perfectly level. “That way it won’t hurt your joints when you fall.”
Without another word, he dove right back into his files, leaving a stunned Charles to process the fact that he’d been out-maneuvered by a clipboard.
That is not the kind of attention I wanted!
Charles fumed, the childish resentment boiling in his chest until he felt like he might actually combust. He stomped his hoof against the track, the impact vibrating all the way up his spine. Isagi didn’t so much as blink. Charles stomped again, harder this time, pouring every ounce of his “spoiled child” spite into the movement until his leg felt dull and numb.
Still, the doctor remained a statue of calm authority, his eyes fixed on those wretched medical files.
The “contrarian” inside Charles began to scheme. He wasn’t just going to ask for attention anymore; he was going to seize it. He spun around and sprinted toward a higher platform in the range. Then, he scrambled to the very edge and peered down. From up here, Isagi looked tiny. He wasn’t aware of Charles’s thoughts, still buried himself in the stack of paperwork.
Mean human! Charles pouted, his goat ears twitching with resolve. He had a plan: he would drop right into Isagi’s lap like a fluffy, blonde cloud. He’d force the doctor to drop those papers, scoop him up, and finally realize that Charles was the only thing in this range worth looking at.
But Charles, as a immature beastkin, lacked the spatial awareness of a human. In his mind, he was still the tiny, weightless kid that Dr. Loki and Isagi used to lift with a single arm. He didn’t account for the heavy, powerful muscle developing in his lower body or the sheer velocity of a three-meter drop.
Without a second thought, he launched himself off the platform.
He didn’t fall like a cloud; he plummeted like a comet. Isagi finally heard the violent rush of wind, but by the time he looked up, the golden blur of Charles’s hair was already filling his vision. Isagi’s ocean-blue eyes widened in shock.
Just as the impact seemed inevitable, a flash of movement blitzed in from the Isagi’s periphery; a shadow far faster and more predatory than a goat appeared.
The velocity of the descent was nothing short of lethal. Isagi felt a violent gust of wind whip past his cheek. Charles’s outstretched arms grasped at empty space as the slipstream caught Isagi’s medical files, scattering them into the air like a flurry of white feathers.
In that same heartbeat, a crushing, undeniable force seized Isagi by the waist, wrenching him backward with such ferocity that his feet barely touched the specialized turf. By the time Isagi’s vision cleared, he found himself caged against a broad, solid chest that smelled of sun-dried grass and the deep, earthy scent of cedar.
Hiori’s arms were circled around Isagi like iron, his heart thundering with a uneven rhythm. The sheep beastkin held him with a desperate, trembling tightness, his fingers digging into Isagi’s lab coat as if he were still terrified the human might vanish. When Isagi managed to look up, he found Hiori’s brow knotted in agonizing distress. The normally gentle blue eyes were stripped of their calm; his horizontal pupils were blown wide and pinned, fixed with a protective intensity on the wreckage of the bleachers.
Charles had slammed directly into the bench Isagi had occupied seconds ago. The kinetic force was staggering—the heavy, metal-framed structure flipped entirely, the backrest twisting into a jagged, mangled wreck with the horrific screech of tearing steel. While the hybrid anatomy of beastkin made them incredibly durable, the sheer shock of the impact left Charles sprawled in the dirt as he blinked at the ruin his impulsivity had created.
Isagi felt the arms around his waist flinch, tightening with a bone-deep reflex before Hiori forced himself to loosen his grip, as if terrified his own strength might hurt the man he’d just saved. Yet, he didn’t charge at Charles, nor did he scream. He remained a silent, trembling statue, standing three meters from the wreckage and staring at the twisted metal with a look of haunted intensity.
It took Isagi several long moments to find his own breath. He reached down, gently patting the back of Hiori’s hand where it was still locked over his stomach.
The contact broke the dam. The blue-haired sheep beastkin lowered his head with a sharp, broken sound, frantically nuzzling his nose into Isagi’s hair. He began to let out a series of panicked ‘baa’ sounds, the noises blurring into a indistinct rhythm. He had seemingly forgotten that the human in his arms couldn’t understand the language of the herd.
Isagi patted his hand again, his touch a bit firmer. His voice firm, coming through in his steady movements. “Hiori, look at me. I’m okay. I can’t understand you when you speak like that, remember? I’m just a human”.
“Ah—yeah,” Hiori choked out, the human words finally catching in his throat as he snapped back to the present. He buried his face deep into the crook of Isagi’s neck, taking a shuddering breath of the doctor’s scent. It was a desperate gesture, heavy with the deep dependency that had defined his recovery from depression. He was still vibrating with a fine tremor, though the tension in his muscles was finally beginning to bleed away.
Isagi sighed softly, a touch of his usual resignation softening his features as he turned within the embrace to cup Hiori’s cheek. The beastkin leaned into the palm obediently, closing his eyes. The raw emotion swirling in those blue depths was a violent storm—fear, relief, and a dark flash of protective fury—but as he focused on Isagi, the lightning died out, melting beneath a thin sheen of unshed tears.
“Did that scare you?” Isagi asked gently, his thumb brushing a stray tear from Hiori’s cheek.
Hiori pressed closer to the warmth, his thick light-blue wool on his chest brushing against Isagi’s clothes; he turned his head, kissing Isagi’s palm.
“…Baa,” he didn’t speak.
“What you do?! You blue-head! I hate you!” Charles shrieked, his voice cracking with a high-pitched, goat-like resonance. He jabbed an accusing finger at Hiori, not showing a single ounce of guilt for the mangled bench behind him. If anything, he was very angry that this sheep had ruined his grand surprise. Besides, how had Hiori known? The goat hated when others read his thoughts.
Hiori didn’t release his grip on Isagi, but he straightened his spine, his thick wool brushing against the doctor’s lab coat. “You hurt him,” Hiori stated, his human speech coming out in chillingly flat, precise blocks. “You could have. Almost.”
“No! I not!” the blonde goat yelled back, crossing his arms. “We do that! Many times! He never hurt!” To Charles, the physics of adulthood hadn’t set in yet. “Before! Loki… he never drop me!”
Hiori let out a long sigh, though his horizontal pupils remained fixed on the younger beastkin. “You are big now. Heavy,” he said, using simple words to bridge the gap. “And that was high up. Heavy things fall from high… they break humans. They break Isagi.”
The logic finally pierced through Charles’s stubbornness. He looked at his own powerful, cloven hooves and then at the shredded metal of the bleacher. It made sense why they didn’t carry him anymore, but he stubbornly puffed out his chest. “You! You ruin surprise! Isagi… Isagi not even mad at me!”
He turned to Isagi, fully expecting his Ahoge Nii-chan to take his side. And it was true; Isagi wasn’t yelling. The doctor simply stood there, dusting the turf and debris off his clothes before raising his gaze.
Those ocean-blue eyes were dead calm. It was an unnerving stillness that made Charles’s bravado evaporate instantly. There was no warmth, no fond sigh, only the firm stare.
“Charles,” Isagi said, his voice quiet but commanding. “You almost crushed me. If you hit me, I would be in much pain. I would bleed. And then… we would not see or speak to each other for a long, long time.”
The blonde goat stammered, the severity of his actions finally crashing down. His ears, usually so energetic, drooped flat against his head, and his fingers twisted together in a rare display of genuine anxiety.
“I was frightened, Charles. Truly,” Isagi said, his voice quiet but carrying a weight that forced the younger beastkin to listen. “I was scared of the hurt, and the blood—and so was he.”
Isagi’s gaze drifted toward Hiori. The sheep beastkin remained a sentinel three meters away; he hadn’t moved to bridge the gap, but his blue eyes were locked onto Charles with a predatory sharpness that felt entirely out of place on a creature of the herd. He wasn’t yelling, yet the sheer suffocating weight of his stare mirrored the exact look Loki gave Charles when he had truly, royally messed up.
Charles hated that look, but for once, he couldn’t find the spirit to be contrarian. He stared down at his hooves, his lower body shifting restlessly as he scuffed the track. Finally, he mumbled, his voice as thin as a mosquito’s hum: “I don’t know… don’t know you would break. Or bleed. I thought…”
“You’re not a little lamb anymore, Charles”. The warmth finally bled back into Isagi’s face as he stepped forward to pat the goat’s blonde head. “You are nearly as tall as I am now.”
Charles peeked up, his goat ears giving a tentative twitch before he dropped his gaze again. His mouth opened and closed, the human words tangling in his throat, before he finally squeezed out a garbled apology. “…I… I am sorry.”
Isagi reached out, gently ruffling the boy’s blonde hair in a gesture of forgiveness. “It’s okay. Just… remember your own strength.”
Just as Isagi leaned down to retrieve the stray medical file from the turf, a new shadow fell across the range. Loki’s silhouette appeared at the edge of the field, moving with a terrifying speed. The hem of his coat snapped around his legs like a flag in a storm. His usual composed smile was gone, replaced by a frown so tight it radiated a quiet, intimidating authority.
Very few things in the world could make Loki look like that, but Charles was a specialist in the field. Loki’s sharp eyes swept over the broken bleachers before locking onto the boy.
“Charles.”
The sheer weight of Loki’s tone made Charles physically wilt. The blonde goat beastkin seemed to shrink, his powerful lower body bunching as if he were trying to disappear into the specialized turf.
Loki checked Isagi first; he closed the distance with a predatory grace, his sharp eyes performing a head-to-toe assessment of Isagi. Isagi offered a small shake of his head to signal he was unhurt, allowing Loki to pivot his full, exhausted wrath onto Charles.
There was no visible rage in Loki’s expression—just an oppressive, icy calm that was far more effective at silencing a contrarian than any shout could be.
“Look at me,” Loki commanded.
Charles reluctantly lifted his head; his goat ears were pinned flat. Loki stared him down for two agonizing seconds, a silence so heavy that even Isagi felt a phantom urge to apologize on the boy’s behalf.
“What did I tell you before I left?” Loki asked quietly.
Loki possessed a far more intimidating aura than Isagi. The little troublemaker clamped his mouth shut, his tail giving a nervous twitch. Loki didn’t rush him; he simply waited with the patience of a man who had raised this goat from a kid. Finally, Charles whispered, his human speech coming out in blunt, shamed fragments: “…Not make trouble. For Ahoge Nii-chan.”
Loki nodded slowly, his expression shifting from icy to merely exasperated. “And what did you do?”
Under the weight of the interrogation, Charles’s eyes darted frantically across the range, unable to hold Loki’s gaze. Unable to bear the crushing silence a second longer, he pointed a trembling finger toward the highest platform—the three-meter jump he had so recklessly conquered.
“I jump,” he confessed, his voice cracking with childish resentment and guilt. “I want… pounce. On doctor Isagi. For surprise.”
Loki let out a shuddering breath, the sound of a guardian who had reached the absolute end of his tether. He rubbed his temples, looking less like a prestigious Director and more like a very tired man who desperately needed a nap.
Then, Loki’s gaze landed on the violently mangled metal of the bleacher bench. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he processed the sheer kinetic force required to make the bench a mess. Taking a deep breath to reclaim his composure, the man stood and turned toward Isagi, running a hand through his hair in a rare display of visible stress.
“He jumped from there?” Loki asked, his voice low and vibrating with a quiet authority. He stepped closer, checking his colleague with an observant eye. “Yoichi, are you really alright? You aren’t hurt, are you?”
Isagi offered a quick, reassuring nod. “Don’t worry, Loki, I’m perfectly fine. Hiori was fast; he pulled me clear of the impact zone just in time”.
Loki’s face darkened instantly, his sharp mind easily calculating the catastrophic damage a near-adult goat beastkin would have dealt to a fragile human frame. He whirled back to Charles, who was still stood there.
“Do you realize how high that platform is?” Loki asked with a frown. ”Do you have any concept of your own weight? Do you have even a sliver of an idea of what would have happened to Yoichi if you had landed on him?”.
Charles’s lower lip trembled, his light blonde hair messy from the fall. Loki sighed heavily, his hand gripping the boy’s shoulder with firm, responsible pressure. The Director turned to his colleague, looking utterly mortified by the chaos. “I am so sorry, Yoichi. This kid… he is nothing but trouble.”
“It’s alright,” Isagi chuckled, his smile softening the tension as he offered the sulking goat a look of resigned fondness. “It’s just a sign that Charles has plenty of energy to spare”.
Loki cleared his throat, his next words carrying a lethal edge of warning. “Charles, behave yourself. If you act out—if you ever think about pouncing again—you are banned from the second half of this exchange visit”.
“No! You’re mean! Mean!” Charles immediately shrieked, his voice loud and disjointed as he threw a tantrum. He bleated loudly in protest, stomping a hoof against the specialized turf.
“So…I am taking him back to rest before he destroys the rest of your facility,” Loki said, exchanging a polite nod with Isagi before steering the chaotic beastkin toward the residential wing. Charles kept craning his neck back to look at Isagi with a desperate need for a final wave until they disappeared around the corner.
Watching the two French friends vanish, Isagi finally turned his full attention back to Hiori. The sheep beastkin hadn’t moved an inch, standing there with his blue eyes glued to the doctor as if ensuring the danger was truly gone.
Isagi stepped into the sheep beastkin’s personal space, patting his shoulder. The skin beneath his fingers was slightly chilled. “Are you ok, Hiori?” he asked softly.
Hiori didn’t answer in human words. Isagi fished into his pocket for a specialized herbivore treat—a standard peace offering in the Blue Ark. As Hiori accepted it, his head bowed heavily, his forehead coming to rest against Isagi’s shoulder in an act of profound, quiet dependency.
Isagi wrapped a steady arm around the beastkin’s waist, rhythmically rubbing his back through the thick, light-blue wool. Hiori’s breaths were slow, carrying the faint scent of the treat as they tickled the crook of Isagi’s neck.
They stood there for a few minutes until voices drifted from the entrance. The black-haired doctor looked up to see a few familiar residents arriving for their afternoon play. Leading the pack was Chigiri, the panther beastkin, his long hair swaying with a feline grace that mirrored his fluid strides. Spotting Isagi, he quickly closed the distance. “Good afternoon, Isagi,” he greeted.
“Afternoon, Chigiri,” Isagi smiled back.
“Isagi, Isagi!” Kurona, the black-footed cat beastkin, sprinted over with a ball tucked under one arm. His tail was hoisted high, pink eyes bright. “Play together? Play together?” he chirped, his speech rhythmic and repetitive.
Isagi fondly ruffled Kurona’s soft hair, tapping the tip of his nose with an affectionate sigh. “Sorry, Kurona. I’ve got meetings. Go play with Chigiri for now, okay?”
“Okay! Okay!” Kurona nodded with a quick, energetic nuzzle against Isagi’s shoulder before bounding off. When Isagi turned back, he found Hiori still watching him with an intensity.
“What is it?” Isagi asked gently.
Hiori didn’t speak. He simply reached out, his fingers barely grazing Isagi’s forehead as he swept a stray lock of hair that was dislodged by the earlier chaos back into place. The touch left a soft, tingling sensation in its wake. Isagi blinked, then laughed softly. “Thank you. And thank you again for getting there in time, Hiori. You really saved me from a disaster”.
Hiori’s ears gave a pleased twitch, and his familiar, gentle smile finally returned. Though his mastery of human language was excellent, the fright had seemingly stolen his voice. He lowered his hand but didn’t step back, remaining glued to Isagi’s side.
Checking his watch, Isagi realized his meeting were looming. He patted Hiori’s arm. “I have to get going. Are you coming back to the residential wing later?”
Hiori nodded, his gaze lingering.
“See you tonight, then,” Isagi promised.
“See you tonight,” Hiori replied softly, his voice finally returning as he gave Isagi’s hand a final squeeze.
The afternoon meetings didn’t just drag; they felt like a slow-motion marathon. By the time Isagi finally stumbled out of the conference room, the sky was a bruised palette of molten gold and deep violet, casting the long hallways of Blue Ark in a hazy, atmospheric glow. Massaging the knots in his aching shoulders, he turned the corner toward his office, only to find a familiar silhouette leaning against the wall.
Loki was clearly finished with his professional facade for the day. His trench coat was draped over one arm, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he scrolled through his phone with exhaustion. At the sound of Isagi’s footsteps, he looked up, his expression softening into the comfortable camaraderie they shared.
“Finished?” Loki asked.
Isagi offered a weary nod. Loki straightened, shoving his free hand into his pocket. “I finally managed to corner Charles and chew him out. The kid is an absolute menace when he puts his mind to it. He’s currently in the middle of a world-class tantrum and refusing to touch his dinner.” He paused, his gaze shifting to Isagi with a look of genuine pity. “But that’s not why I’m here. I need to give you a briefing on a… development.”
Isagi waited, but the usually composed Director seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
“Our institute recently took in a new arrival,” Loki began, his tone striving for professional distance. “A Gallic rooster beastkin named Hugo. He’s in great condition… But his personality is… specific.”
Loki hesitated, and a deep sense of foreboding settled in Isagi’s gut.
“…Obsessive. He has very rigid opinions and world views… Let’s put it that way,” Loki finally managed. “He somehow intercepted some files of Blue Ark, and since then, he has developed a singular fixation. He’s been demanding a transfer here for weeks. He absolutely refuses to compromise, so I’ve decided to bring him along for the second half of this exchange to test the waters.”
It was a vague warning. Because in the world of beastkin care, “obsessive” was often code for a primal imprint. Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, the stress of the day finally showing. “He’ll be arriving this Thursday. I just wanted to give you a few days to mentally prepare.”
Isagi rubbed his temples. “Loki, what exactly do you mean by ‘obsessive’ in this context?”
Loki’s expression tightened. He stared out the window at the dying sun for several long seconds before speaking in a painfully flat tone. “He is utterly convinced that a specific person is his destiny. And he is determined to make that person acknowledge and accept him.”
Isagi blinked, his brain too fried to immediately connect the dots. “Who is the person? Is it one of the directors?”
Loki let out a sound that was halfway between a cough and a choke. He looked at Isagi—at the man who had survived a goat’s dive-bomb and a sheep’s panic attack in a single afternoon—and finally forced the word out.
“…You.”
Isagi took a deep breath, holding it until his lungs burned before letting it out in a long, rattling sigh. He rubbed his temples again, feeling the onset of a truly legendary headache. God, it had been a long day.
Loki offered a rare look of profound human sympathy, patting Isagi firmly on the shoulder. “Look on the bright side, Yoichi. At least I warned you.”
Isagi was too drained to even muster a polite retort. Loki wisely retracted his hand, sensing the doctor’s limit had been reached. “I should get back. Charles is probably still bleating at the walls; I need to make sure he actually eats and sleeps.”
He turned toward the elevators but paused after a few steps. “Oh, right… I’ll forward you Hugo’s file tonight.”
“‘K,” Isagi deadpanned, that single syllable draining the very last of his energy for today.
[Bonus]
“So this is your dorm? Not bad. I’ve been Blue Ark plenty of times, but I’ve never actually seen where you live.”
Loki followed Isagi into the room, his eyes scanning the space with a quiet, sharp curiosity. He came to a halt near the glass balcony door, noticing the way it sat just an inch or two off its track. “You leave the balcony open? Aren’t you worried about some stray wings finding their way in?”
Isagi sighed, the kind that came from months of interrupted sleep. “They already do. To be honest, the ones without wings are worse. I just stopped locking the door,” he admitted, rubbing his face with his palms in a gesture of total surrender. His mind flashed back to the previous Tuesday—waking up barely able to breathe because Hiori was there, burying Isagi under a literal mountain of thick wool.
Loki pulled out a chair, though he hesitated for a second when he saw the cushion was practically upholstered in a thick layer of shed fur. He sat anyway, watching Isagi with an amused tilt of his head. “You just let them wander in? Why?”
“It started with Bachira,” Isagi said, his voice softening with a flicker of genuine warmth. “Back at the start, if he couldn’t open my door, he’d spend the whole night scratching at the wood until his paws bled. It was easier to just… leave a light on and the door unlatched.”
A series of sharp clack suddenly rattled through the walls.
Both men froze, eyes darting toward the origin of the sound. It was metallic, rhythmic, and moving fast through the ventilation shaft. Loki was on his feet in a heartbeat, his frame tensing as he stepped firmly between Isagi and the noise, a low, protective hum vibrating deep in his chest.
Isagi just reached out, placing a steadying hand on Loki’s rigid shoulder. “It’s okay. I recognize that specific brand of chaos.”
Loki didn’t look convinced, his muscles still coiled and ready to spring, but he gave Isagi space as the doctor walked toward the vent. Isagi knocked the wall for several times. “I’m glad you’re back, Otoya. But I have enough surprise today so… Please, out of the vent.”
A series of sharp, weasel-like squeaks answered him. The metal grate—which was supposed to be bolted shut—swung open effortlessly.
A shock of white hair popped out first. Otoya didn’t emerge fully; instead, he squeezed his upper body halfway out of the narrow opening, looking less like a trespasser and more like a king surveying his domain. He paused there, wedged comfortably in the gap, and let out a long, lazy yawn. With a casual air, he reached his arms out wide, stretching until his joints gave a satisfying pop, completely ignoring Loki’s presence.
Blowing a stray lock of green hair out of his impassive eyes, the ermine beastkin leaned further out, tilting his weight until he could circle Isagi’s shoulder with his arms.
“Otoya, stop that,” Isagi groaned, though his hands instinctively reached up to hook under the beastkin’s armpits to keep him from sliding onto the floor. “Get out of the vent properly.”
“He just… uses the ductwork?” Loki asked, his brow furrowed as he eyed the large metal opening. It was the look of a man realizing his host’s security was held together by little more than hope and a single loose screw. “If he can get in, what’s stopping anything else from crawling through the walls?”
“It’s alright, really. I actually prefer it. He’s my early warning system. Otoya appears out of nowhere and stops others getting into the dustwork.” Isagi explained. He reached up, his fingers sinking into the plush white ruff at Otoya’s chest. Under the practiced rhythm of his nails, the ermine beastkin let out a series of vibrating chirps, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned his weight into Isagi’s palm.
With a sudden, fluid motion, Otoya slipped from the vent and dropped to the floor. He stood tall on his hind legs of his lower half-body in that classic posture ermines use to survey their territory. His head swiveling with a cold curiosity as he sized up the stranger.
After a long beat, he settled back into a normal gait, but didn’t move away. He hugged Isagi again, his chin resting pointedly on Isagi’s shoulder.
“Stepping out on us?” Otoya murmured, his voice a lazy drawl.
The bluntness of it hit the room like a physical weight. Isagi felt his brain stall for a second before he could even process the words. “I’m sorry… what do you mean, stepping out?”
“You have the pack. You have us,” Otoya deadpanned, his half-lidded eyes cutting toward Loki. “Yet you bring another human here.”
Before Isagi could protest, Otoya leaned in, the tip of his cold nose dragging slowly against the heat of Isagi’s cheek in a deliberate scenting graze. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it was intimate enough to make Isagi’s heart skip a beat in pure shock.
Isagi’s face went scarlet, the heat blooming all the way to the tips of his ears. “Otoya—stop! It’s not like that! Loki is a colleague!”
Otoya didn’t offer a rebuttal. He simply let his narrow gaze linger on the frowning French director for a moment longer. His long tail dragged like a taunt against Isagi’s calf, a final claim of territory.
Then, in a blur of white fur, he was gone, vaulting through the open balcony door and vanishing into the shadows of the night.
A thick, heavy silence settled over the room. Isagi stared at the empty doorway, his pulse still thrumming in his throat. “I am so, so sorry,” he managed, finally turning back to Loki with a frantic wave of his hands. “Otoya just… he has no filter. Please don’t take him seriously.”
Loki didn’t look angry, but his jaw was set tight as he stared out at the dark balcony where the beastkin had disappeared. “He certainly has a very… keen grasp on the things going on here,” he muttered, his voice tight as he pointedly looked everywhere but at Isagi.