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It’s late as Kojiro walks through the woods one night, the moon shining high in the sky as he heads farther into the thickness of the trees. The moon is getting close to full, and he notes that he needs to start making plans for his inevitable transformation in a few days to avoid being too close to humans when it happens. Last time he transformed too close to town, he ended up scaring a few farmers when he ate a couple of their sheep and he did not care to relive the experience of running from gunfire, even in his wolf form.
A stick cracks behind him and he spins, teeth bared and hackles raised. It’s likely just a rabbit but he’s been caught off guard before. Some of the local packs have been starting to get antsy and had already tried to start shit with him a few times in the past year or so. Adam especially had tried to bait him into a fight, even sending his lapdog Tadashi after him. Unfortunately for Adam, Kojiro just did not care enough about the local pack politics to allow himself to be dragged into them, and was able to talk Tadashi down from any real fight.
Nothing emerges from the brush, so Kojiro relaxes. Probably just a deer. He mentally chides himself for his paranoia as he begins to walk forward again.
More rustling comes from behind him as he turns to leave, causing him to pause. Whatever it is, he’s fairly sure it isn’t dangerous, but he can’t be too careful.
Slowly, he turns to face the bush that rustling is coming from. He sniffs the air, trying to place the scents he’s picking up. But what emerges from the bushes isn’t what he was expecting at all.
A small, white fox comes forward, although in the moonlight she appears almost a pale pink. She trots up to Kojiro before sitting down and cocks her head at him. Kojiro squints, trying to figure out why this fox has approached him when he notices something squirming between her jaws.
“Is that a bat?” He asks as if the fox will answer him.
The fox huffs and Kojiro swears she rolls her eyes at him.
He reaches forward to investigate, and the fox drops the small squirming creature from her maw. He practically yelps when the small, spit-covered creature falls to the ground, its wings flapping weakly. “Ugh,” he groans as he gently picks up the small bat. “What did you do to it?”
The fox yips at him as if to say that she’s innocent before trotting off back into the woods and leaving Kojiro holding the injured creature.
Kojiro sighs and looks down at the little bat in his hands. He can tell the poor thing is in pain, and what smells like blood is dripping from a small wound in its side. Part of him thinks he should just leave it out here to die, but something tells him that he better not.
“What a mess you got yourself into, huh?” He uses the tip of his finger to delicately stroke the top of the bat’s head.
He swears that the bat glares at him, its little golden eyes boring into his soul in a way that feels eerily familiar to him.
He shakes his head at that thought, laughing at the absurdity of it. “You’re a bat, how can I think I’ve seen you somewhere before?”
The bat flaps a single, irritated wing at him and he can’t help but laugh. “Alright, you clearly have a lot of fight left in you. Let’s get you back to my place and see what we can do to get you cleaned up.”
The little bat rolls its eyes at Kojiro before settling down and allowing itself to be cradled in Kojiro’s large hands as they begin the trek back to his house.
As soon as Kojiro gets home, he remembers that he knows absolutely nothing about bats. A quick Google search on his phone doesn’t tell him much other than to take it to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. He frowns at the extremely unhelpful information and wracks his brain to figure out what he should do. Part of him wonders if he should have left the bat out in the woods, but it was too odd to ignore when it was presented to him by that strange fox.
With a resigned sigh, he finds a shoebox and lines it with some towels and old clothes he no longer wears. Gently, he places the bat down in the makeshift bed, making sure it’s comfortable and adding one more of his old t-shirts for something extra soft for it to lie on.
At one point, he locks eyes with the bat. And the harsh, golden glare he’s met with is again so strangely familiar and almost human that for a moment he thinks that he knows this bat. He shakes his head and can’t help but let out a low laugh. “God I really must be losing my mind.”
He places the box in the laundry room and goes to leave. Just as he reaches the doorway and he stops to turn the lights off, he pauses and turns back to look in the direction of the box. “Hang in there until morning, okay? I can get you in with a wildlife specialist then so please just make it through the night for me.”
The lights click off then and Kojiro gives one final look at the bat before going upstairs to his bedroom and calling it a night.
Kojiro wakes long after the sun rises, something that he doesn’t typically do. Another sign of the looming full moon, as his body is preemptively storing energy for when he’s forced to transform in a few days' time.
Rolling over to check his phone, he lets out a sigh when he sees the time. He needs to get up and work out otherwise he’s going to end up spending the day in bed and he can’t be sure that tonight won’t be the night that his transformation is triggered. Just once, he’d appreciate some predictability in his body’s decisions that don’t involve his consent.
After much mental arguing with himself, Kojiro forces himself out of the warmth of his blankets with the promise of his most expensive coffee that he had imported a few months back. He still needs to talk himself into going on a run after, but caffeine is his first priority.
As he stumbles down the stairs, he pauses when he hears movement in his kitchen. He doesn’t know who could be out here, given that his house is in the woods and far away from society to minimize his chances of accidentally killing someone when he’s in his wolf form. And he certainly wasn’t expecting anyone, so knowing someone is in his house immediately sets him on edge.
For once, he curses the fact that he cannot shift into his wolf form at will. Nothing like having a six-foot-tall wolf lumber into the kitchen to scare off any potential burglars. But he is, unfortunately, stuck in his human form and does a quick sweep of the hallway for any potential weapons he can use.
Settling on the skateboard he left by the front door, he grabs that and figures he can at least break it over the person’s head if it comes to that.
He rounds the corner and enters through the kitchen doorway, prepared for a fight. But when he’s met by someone with long, pink hair and piercing gold eyes, he drops the skateboard out of shock.
“Kaoru?” He gasps. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
In his kitchen stands his childhood best friend, long pink hair tied up in a messy bun and wearing what was clearly a shirt he’d stolen from Kojiro’s laundry room. Although Kojiro knew Kaoru had long legs, there was something about them showing from under his shirt that was driving the primitive part of Kojiro’s brain wild.
“You brought me here last night, dimwit. Also, I made coffee. Want some?”
Kojiro blinks, bringing his gaze back up to Kaoru’s face and wondering if he had hit his head. “What? That’s impossible, I haven’t seen you in like a week.”
Kaoru rolls his eyes and hands Kojiro a cup of black coffee. Kojiro takes a sip before realizing that he never told Kaoru he wanted it. But the smell of the hot nectar calls to him, and he can tell before it even hits his tongue that Kaoru found the same beans he had been planning to make before this weird interruption. Hell, Kaoru even remembered that he liked his coffee black, while he can tell from across the kitchen that Kaoru has loaded his up on cream and sugar as he always has.
Kaoru takes a seat at the kitchen table and motions for Kojiro to take the chair across from him, as if it’s his house. Nevertheless, Kojiro plops down in his chair a bit more heavily than necessary and continues to shoot Kaoru strange looks over the rim of his coffee mug.
Once he’s downed enough caffeine to feel vaguely human again, Kojiro brings up the point from earlier that’s currently eating away at him.
“Seriously, Kaoru. How did you get into my house?”
Kaoru sighs and sets his mug down on the table, as if resigned to the fact that he has to have this conversation. “I told you. You brought me home. I believe my familiar Carla brought me to you.”
“Carla?” Okay, now Kojiro knows Kaoru is just making shit up. There was nobody he interacted with last night, especially some named Carla.
A flash of a pink bangle on Kaoru’s wrist catches his attention, the color tugging at something in his memories. He remembered the white coat of fur that looks almost pink in the moonlight and—
Wait a minute.
Kaoru looks at him with a smug sort of look on his face, as if he can see the pieces slowly starting to click into place in Kojiro’s mind.
“Is Carla a fox, by any chance?”
“Perhaps. She takes many forms but I do believe last night she had chosen a fox.”
Kojiro realizes the implications of this conversation and how it’s starting to make him think he’s gone insane. But before he can second guess himself any further, he gets up to stride to the other side of the table. Without thinking, he grabs the hem of the shirt that is practically drowning Kaoru and lifts up to look at his side.
Sure enough, there was a long cut along his ribs, the blood dried and beginning to fade. It didn’t look deep, like the flesh had already begun knitting itself back together--in fact, it looked nearly healed.
“You imbecile!” Kaoru growls and swipes at him with his hand. “You’re lucky I was wearing underwear!”
Kojiro ignores his gripes, and when he looks up into the eyes of his best friend that he thought he knew, the gold eyes glaring at him like he just murdered Kaoru’s entire family, the final piece falls into place.
“You—you’re that bat from last night!” Kojiro is embarrassed to realize that he’d completely forgotten about the small winged creature in the shock of finding Kaoru in his kitchen, pantsless and drinking his coffee like he lives here.
“Congratulations, you figured it out.” Kaoru sounds as amused as he is annoyed. Which, really, is just Kaoru.
Shocked, Kojiro drops the shirt where he still grips it and takes a few steps back. He’s known Kaoru his entire life, how did he ever miss that he could change into a bat?
“I can see your brain working overtime there.” Kaoru quips and brings Kojiro’s attention back to the present. “Sit down and I’ll explain.”
Kojiro nods dumbly and sits back down. He watches as Kaoru takes a minute to organize himself, fidgeting in a way that reminded Kojiro of when they were in school and Kaoru was nervous the teacher would call on him.
“About a week ago, I met someone at a bar. He was hot, asked me to come back to his place, so I said yes. Oh do not give me that look, I’ve seen you go home with many random people over the years!”
Kojiro nods and tries to school his expression, although clearly the shock at hearing Kaoru be so blasé about a casual hookup is something he’s not sure he can get used to.
“Anyway, the sex was great, although I noticed he was really into biting. I didn’t mind, so I didn’t say anything. Next thing I know, he’s biting down on my neck hard enough to draw blood. I panicked; yelled and tried to fight him off but I must have passed out. Later I woke up covered in blood and he was gone.” Kaoru pauses to grab his mug again and take a sip of his coffee, as if he had practiced the dramatic timing of this story before telling it. Which, if Kojiro knows Kaoru as well as he thinks he does, he probably did.
Kojiro knows he’s staring with a shocked expression but he doesn’t know what to say to all of this. Thankfully, there’s more to the story so Kaoru continues before he can decide on something to say out loud.
“Come to find out from a note he left behind that he’s a vampire and he didn’t mean to but he turned me. Carla appeared not long after and has helped me with navigating this whole transition.”
He stops then, and Kojiro thinks that’s where he’s caught up. But the first thing he says is, “Wait, if you’re a vampire now how are you able to be out in the sunlight?”
At that, Kaoru throws his head back in laughter. It’s a sight Kojiro doesn’t remember seeing much since they were teenagers, and if he weren’t still trying to process that his best friend is saying he’s now a vampire, he’d be touched to see Kaoru let loose a bit.
“That’s just a myth, you ape.” Kaoru finally says once his laughing fit calms down enough for him to speak again. “I can still see my reflection in the mirror and a cross is just a shape. I have noticed garlic makes me a bit ill though now, I’m sorry to say.”
Kojiro frowns at that. Guess he won’t be able to cook much Italian cuisine for Kaoru anymore. “So then being a bat…?”
“Ah yes. A new thing I’m just starting to figure out. I finally figured out how to transform into a bat last night, but got stuck that way. A hawk saw me and tried to eat me, which is why I was hurt when you found me. Thankfully Carla was with me and was able to find you.”
Kojiro collapses in his chair, unsure of how to take this all in. Kaoru was so casual about his new identity, something Kojiro wishes he had been able to do when he was first turned into a werewolf. Shit, he still isn’t used to it and it has been several years since that happened.
When he finally looks up again, Kaoru’s nose is wrinkled in a way he can only describe as cute. “What?”
“Have you always reeked of wet dog?”
Now it’s Kojiro’s turn to laugh. “You mean you didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“I’m a werewolf, four-eyes.”
Kaoru nearly chokes on the sip of coffee he unwisely chose to take at that moment. “Since when!”
“Since Italy.”
Kaoru looks skeptical, but whatever is going through his mind, he merely shrugs off after a few minutes. “You can tell me about how it happened later. Right now I really want to get some sleep.”
Kojiro looks at the clock on his stove, noting it’s almost noon. Kaoru was nocturnal before becoming a vampire, so at least this part wasn’t going to take any adjustment.
He leans back and downs the final dregs of his coffee before standing and motioning to Kaoru to follow him. “Come on, my spare bedroom is free.”
Kaoru stands and motions for him to sit back down. “No need. I know where it is.”
“Oh. Right.” Kojiro forgot that Kaoru hasn’t just randomly been invading his home since they were kids and slowly sinks back into the chair. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I’m fine, gorilla. Goodnight. Day? Whatever.” Kaoru shrugs and goes to walk up the stairs, but Kojiro reaches out and grabs him by the wrist, the one with the pink bangle on it. Kojiro suspects that it’s somehow linked to Carla, but decides that’s another bit of information they can discuss after Kaoru has gotten some sleep.
An angular, pink eyebrow quirks up as Kaoru’s golden stare fixes Kojiro in place as he realizes that he’s still holding onto his wrist. The whole thing is so absurd and when he sees that fierce look in Kaoru’s eyes, how in the hell did he not recognize the bat immediately?
He swallows and looks down where his large hand still holds Kaoru’s wrist, realizing that he maybe should have thought this through before grabbing Kaoru. “Are things going to be different now? Between us?”
The scoff Kaoru gives him is reassuring, in a typical Kaoru sort of way. “No, you idiot. Other than the fact I now drink blood and I know you turn into a big mutt every month, things are pretty much the same as always.”
Kojiro chuckles, appreciating the insanity of that statement. “Good. I’m glad.”
“Oh, except now Carla is going to be living with us. I need my familiar nearby.” He waves the pink bangle in front of Kojiro. “Don’t be surprised if another random animal pops into the house sometimes. You’ll get used to her.”
Kojiro nods, unsure of what else to say. There’s still so much for them to talk about, to figure out how they fit into each other’s lives now. But he can see the set of exhaustion in Kaoru’s form and realizes he should let him get to bed. “Okay. We’ll talk more about this later.”
With that, Kaoru pulls away and walks up the stairs to get some sleep, leaving the image of pink sunshine burned in Kojiro’s mind.
Something clicks, though, as soon as he hears the door to the guest bedroom click shut upstairs.
“Wait a minute. Live with us ?! Since when do you live here?!”