Chapter Text
“Where are you headed off to?” Tadashi paused at the sound of his mother’s voice. He finished tugging on his shoes and twisted to look back down the entry hall of his home at his mother.
“Out?” He really needed to learn to speak with conviction. “I’m done with all my homework, and it’s a pretty nice day out, so I thought I’d take a walk.” His mother looked at him suspiciously.
“That’s alright, I suppose. But be extra careful for me, you’ve been injured a lot lately. I swear, sometimes I wonder if you’ll last until your first year of high school without breaking a bone.”
“Well, that’s only a few months now, it’s nearly summer. I’ll be careful though.” He grinned brightly at her and turned to open the door. “I’m off!” He called over his shoulder and stepped out into the late spring sunlight. He trotted off down the path through the town, worn sneakers tapping the packed dirt evenly. Once he was out of view of the little mismatched houses, and had made sure no one was coming up the path from the other side, he stood facing the fence. The thing that most kept people out of the woods was the sounds the wolves made at night. The fence was less a safety net as a slight reminder, as it now stood up to his waist. Besides, look at how many years he’d been climbing over this fence and still hadn’t been caught from an adult on either side. With this thought, he swung a leg over the fence, shifted and pulled himself over without any trouble. Now he was in slight danger, inside the fence but not within the trees that stood, either for protection or rapid death, depending on where you go. Tadashi approached them, falling quickly under their shadow, heavy and familiar, like a blanket. He shivered and kept walking. He had a system with Tsukishima, or “Tsukki” as he now referred to his friend.
“Here, and the spot you’ve come in the last two times. You’re really lucky, if you had come in anywhere else, you probably would’ve been eaten.” Tsukishima grinned at him, but it had nowhere near the effect his brother’s grin had held.
“See, all the families have their own territory, and you wandered into our area, but barely, the first time. You were on a border, which is why you ran into those guys the first time.”
He slunk between the trees, pine needles muffling his footsteps. Their sharp scent filled the air, and a few inches of bright green hung off the end of each branch. The new growth of spring. The air still smelt of last night’s rain, the tail end of a three day storm. The wind appeared to have knocked a tree to the earth, creating a gap in the perpetual shadowy layer of the forest. Passing it, Tadashi raised a arm to block the sunlight from pouring into his eyes. This allowed his eyes to focus on the scar left by his best friend.
“You’re not mad?” Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. Tadashi shook his head, picking an auburn leaf off his bandages. He grinned widely.
“Nah, doesn’t matter.” He waved his arm about goofily. Tsukishima smiled, then broke out into disbelieving giggles.
“I savaged your arm, and it doesn’t matter?”
“Guess not.” Tadashi replied easily, giving his friend a warm smile.
Tsukishima hadn’t really mentioned it after that, except explaining that he’d been trying to discourage future visits to the woods. Tadashi had just started laughing and snarked about how that hadn’t even kept him away for a full recovery period.
Tadashi traced the now familiar route towards the clearing where Tsukishima spent most of his time. It was more a ravine, a divide between hills that contained several caves that the wolves had dug out and added support beams, transforming them into rooms. Sliding back into the shadows, he lowered his arm back his arm. He saw Tsukishima looking at the scar sometimes, his golden gaze simmered down to glimmering coals.
“Tadashi!!” Tadashi looked up, startled out of his reverie. A tall familiar wolf was waving at him, a fanged grin glinting with a much different meaning than the first time he’d seen it.
Tadashi trembled, his body thrumming with adrenaline, his legs tensed to run. Not that he could go anywhere, since the wolf stood in the cave mouth, and Tadashi wouldn’t be able to outrun him anyway. However, he noticed, the wolf wasn’t even looking at him, he had had turned his frightening grin on Tsukishima.
“Kei.” Tsukishima was staring at the floor and didn’t acknowledge that his name had been spoken.
“Keeeeeeiiiiiiii.” There was an unusual note of teasing in the wolf’s tone and Tadashi noticed mild embarrassment, not concern or fear on Tsukishima’s face.
“C’mon, you’ve dragged a human in here and now I’m getting the silent treatment?” Tsukishima blushed and mumbled, “What do you want, Nii-san?”
Nii-san? Was Tadashi not going to get eaten? He really didn’t want to get eaten, hopefully the rest of Tsukishima’s family was as lenient about humans as the cub himself.
“Well, getting that poor child out of danger is probably my priority. An introduction would be nice though.”The blond wolf looked over at Tadashi, his grin never fading.
“For reference, if I could smell you in here, others can as well. Oh, and I’m Tsukishima Akiteru. Follow me?” Akiteru turned and strode out of the cave, Tsukishima slipped from his perch and followed after his brother. Tadashi trotted up next to him and muttered at him.
“Is he mad? Is he cool? You didn’t tell me you had a brother!” Tsukishima glanced at him incredulously.
“Well no, we had basically no time to talk. Also no he isn’t mad and yeah, he’s cool. Do you have any siblings?”
“No. Where is he taking us?” Tsukishima snickered quietly.
“So you question where Akiteru is taking us, but you didn’t really care when you were following me.”
“Hey! I know you.” Tadashi said indignantly. Tsukishima laughed again.
“Yes, the grand total of like ten minutes we have known each other, which includes the time I attacked you. That’s a lot to build trust off of.”
Akiteru had taken them to ravine Tadashi was now approaching.
“Hello Akiteru, How are you? Back for a visit?” Tadashi smiled, it had been a while since Akiteru had been back. He’d moved to another forest, and travelled a lot. Wolves didn’t have much room to maneuver without a human trying to kill them, but Akiteru insisted.
“I’m great, and yes I am. Here to see your boyfriend?” Akiteru bobbed his eyebrows obnoxiously and Tadashi’s grin widened.
“I wish.” He said, sighing dramatically. “He’s just so… straight.”
“Wanna bet?” Tadashi laughed and waved him off. He was definitely not having this conversation with Akiteru… again.
“I’ve kept you. Have a nice day doing, whatever you’re off to do.” Akiteru looked disappointed that Tadashi clearly wasn’t up for contesting his brother’s sexuality, especially since the older Tsukishima knew he’d win.
He settled for saying, “You as well.” Before wandering off.
Tadashi slipped into the ravine and approached the the room where Tsukishima lived.