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Chapter Text

"Shima-kun... Wake up, Shima-kun!" Hana grumbled, shaking her son's sleeping figure on the bed.

"Shima-kun! Wake up or else you'll be late for Cherryton!" She grumbled once more as she placed her hands on her hips, clearly annoyed at her son's behavior. Her eyebrows relaxed for a minute before a light bulb went off at her head.

"Oh Shima~" she teased, walking to the door before opening it "If you won't wake up, then I'll just drink all of the fruit juice~" she smirked as she closed the door behind her before chuckling as she heard the sheets rustle behind the door.

"Not the fruit juice!" Shima yelled, afraid that he might run out of them. Fruit juice was his favorite, he won't care if someone uses random fruits in making the juice, he was only interested about how it tastes.

"Get a shower first, or else~" Hana teased again making the boy give a mad dash for the shower, rushing his bath in order to drink the oh-so-good fruit juice.

"Shima Hakitori, Human. weird right?" He asked himself in the shower. he was one of the few humans that lived in this world. oh and if you're wondering of they're a carnivore or a herbivore well, they are none of those. Their classifications were somewhere in between those two, an omnivore I suppose.

His father died when he was 12 years old. Old age? I don't think so. You see, their village was raided a few years ago by a large group of carnivores. His dad unfortunately died during that incident, he died protecting the others. "It's pretty heroic. though I did cry for a few days after his death and burial."

Oddly enough, his father gave him a bracelet, it was a family heirloom and his dad gave it to him with his word. Stating that it must be passed onto next generations.

But at the time he didn't know what a heirloom is so he decided to lock it up in his storage box for a few years. And it's only recently when he found out what a family heirloom was. And because of that, he started wearing it again.

Another odd thing is his father taught him sword skills! 'How crazy is that!' The human thought while brushing his teeth in the sink.

"Shima. Hurry up. Its almost time for the train to leave." He hummed in response of his mother's words. After dressing up, he made his way to his dresser in order to grab his luggage and as he was heading down the stairs, he witnessed his mother tearing up at the sight of her son leaving.

"Don't get into too much trouble alright?" Hana adviced as she wiped a stray tear on her cheek.

He just chuckled at his mother's emotional demeanor before talking "Mom, I'll be okay! And besides the city's not that far."

"Go now, I'll be even more upset if the train leaves you" she ushered him out the door, pulling the lugagge behind her as she walked alongside her son.

With one last hug, they parted their ways. But not before giving her son's beloved fruit juice. "Catch!" She tossed over a plastic bottle of lychee juice.

"Thanks mom!" Shima yelled and waved one last time at his mother before running off to the station's direction with a smile plastered on his face.

Luckily, he made it in time before the train left. Though, the car that he got into was full of carnivores, he just chose to shrug it off along the stares that he got from the carnivores with a scroll away on his phone.

He arrived at the city's station pretty quick, considering it was just a few minutes since he boarded the train car. As soon as he got outside the train car, he was hit by the overwhelming sight of different animals in the city, along the hustle and bustle of the city cars.

~~~~

"Okay, Here goes.." Shima sighed before walking inside the gates of the prestigous Cherryton academy. The school was big, not to mention it was on top of a hill that overlooks the city at some degree.

As he walked trough the school grounds, everyone was staring and talking about him, eyeing him curiously. All of the animals at the school was rather confused as to what his species could be. some suspect that he's a poodle, judging from the way his hair only grew in some places and not whole body like the others.

As he reached the Headmaster's office, everyone was already giving him too much attention. which he didn't like that much.

"Is the Headmaster available?" He asked the zebra at the secretary's desk who eyed him head to toe. Wondering what kind of animal he is.

"Do you have an appointment with him today, sir?"

"Yes"

She pointed to a bench beside the human.

"Please sit there as I inform the Headmaster of your appointment"

"Okay" he smiled at the zebra in which she gladly returned.

The place was rather big. Well, what would you expect from a school that holds 7,000 or more animals. He looked over to a hallway that's decorated with red carpet and began thinking to himself.

"The Headmaster wishes to meet you right now sir." The secretary informed as she set away the phone in her hands.

"O-okay.. Uh.." He trailed off. Thinking of a good approach to ask her about the directions. Thankfully, she seemed to pick up on his intentions and pointed to the hallway that he observed earlier, he sent another smile at her as a thanks to what she did.

Sighing inwardly, he pushed the doors with all his strength. As the doors opened, he was met by the gaze of a tiger.

"Ah Mr.Hakitori, it's a pleasure to finally meet you" The tiger spoke as he made his way over to the human and sticked out his hand for a handshake.

"Same here, Mr..." He trailed off one more since he didn't know the tiger's name.

"Gon. Just call me Gon."

'Gon.. What a nice name for him.' The human boy thought while finally shaking the hand of Gon.

"Nice meeting you too Mr.Gon" Shima continued as they ended their handshake and Gon returned to his desk.

"I suppose you already know the rules of the school right?

"Yes,sir" "Very well." The older tiger replied.

"You probably also know how dangerous carnivores are, not to mention, i am one."

Shima just nodded his head in return, not really wanting to talk anymore.

"Every animal's safety is this school's proirity, so I'm letting you keep a wooden sword (wooden katana) with you for safety reasons." Gon spoke before a moment of silence befall upon the two.

"I'm sorry for the loss of your father."

Shima's memories of that day started resurfacing. Making him look down on the floor in sadness.

"You don't have to be sorry sir, but thanks."

Out of fatherly instincts, Gon made his way over the human and handed him the sword while he placed his other hand on the boy's shoulder for reassurance. The boy looked up at him and grabbed the sword silently in the tiger's hand as his thoughts about the tiger started to invade his mind.

'He somehow acts like father... Could he be father's reincarnation?' He shook His head lightly as Gon pulled back and headed once more on his desk 'Of course he isn't, how could I think that way?'

For the next minutes, the Headmaster explained things to do, clubs to join, reminders, and so on and so for. Shima listened as closely as he could, occasionaly taking swigs from his fruit juice.

"You can ask the secretary for the things you need. For now, head to your dorm room and rest for the day or wander the halls for a while so you can find your way around here." The tiger finished as the boy got up from his seat.

"One more thing..." Gon interjected. "I would like you to sign these papers" he handed a set of papers to the human before giving him a pen.

Shima eyed the papers curiously for a few minutes before his eyes widened and he looked to the tiger in shock.

"Y-you want me to become a Beastar candidate?"

"Why not? I'm sure you'd make a great Beastar one day." Gon smiled brightly

"Thank you sir! It's been my dream to become at least a candidate!" Shima exclaimed as he signed the papers hurriedly.

"Now, now. You better get going. You might not wanna miss meeting your room mates"

"Thank you for your time sir." Shima bowed before opening the door and closing it behind him. After closing the door, he headed to the secretary.

As he headed to the dorms, he could hear the whispers of those he passed by. He even heard two girls talking about how good he'll be in bed! His cheeks flashed a faint pink from embarassment and he just looked down at the ground in an attempt to hide his flushing cheeks.

He didn't realize that he was already at his dorm room which is located at the carnivore dorms and numbered 415. He decided to not knock since probably most of the students are either at their classes or stalling around.

As he got inside, he was met by three felines about to head to the door. The three felines froze as they saw their room mate, they didn't know that he'll move in today! They thought he would move in tomorrow so they didn't bother cleaning up for today.

"You're our new room mate right?" One of the two cheetahs asked, still frozen in their spot.

"You're the new room mate? Oh Hi! I'm Haiku," he pointed to the other cheetah beside him "He's Hajin, my twin." He next pointed to the panther. "This is Tao."

"Uh.. I'm Shima" he shyly replied.

"What species are you?" Hajin asked the other two helped him with the luggage.

"You might not believe it, but I'm a human"

The others stared at him, dumbfounded.

After a few moments, Hajin's gears started working and a memory resurfaced.

"A human?! I thought they went extinct 600 years ago?!"

"Well, they didn't get totally wiped out, so here I am"

"Man, that's some sick shit" Tao commented

"It's nice meeting you here and all but we have to go, we're almost late!" Haiku pulled the other felines behind him as they headed outside the door.

"Mind if I come along?"

"You sure can!"

~~~~

Later, Tao was left to tour Shima around since the twins was busy hitting on some girls. They were now headed to the drama club as Tao was a part of the club.

"Do you plan on joining any clubs yet?" Tao asked as the two were walking past the yard into the club house.

"I'm not so sure.. But maybe I could join the drama club... As a stage crew."

"Stage crew? Dude, being a crew is lame. Why don't you try the acting team?"

Shima thought hard about it, weighing his emotions and fears at having so many people look at him.

"I don't think so."

"Why?"

"I have stage fright."

"I see" was the last word that was uttered among the two before they reached the doors of the drama club building.

Everyone's heads turned towards them as the doors opened and revealed the two. Some of the students couldn't believe their eyes. Shima, the mysterious transferee was actually here!.

Like a surge, they rushed to the human as the human was shocked by their sudden actions.

"What kind of animal are you?"

"Are you some kind of a poodle?"

"How come you only have fur on your head?"

Shima smiled awkwardly as question after question was throwed at him, unaware of the two gazes that befall upon him from afar.

"You're Shima Hakitori right?" A voice suddenly called out to him and as the others heard the voice they stepped aside to make way for a deer.

'A deer.. Wait don't tell me he's-'

"I'm Louis, president of the club." Louis introduced himself as he stood in front of the human. "Perhaps, I could be informed of your visit at the club?"

"Ah, oh it's nothing, I just wanted to know which clubs are there to join." Shima answered as Louis smirked to himself, liking the way the human cowered under his gaze.

"You should join the club!"

"Yeah! You'd make a good member!" Two of the herbivores in the club cheered him into joining the club.

"Come, we could talk about this at the leader room." The deer suggested as the human just nodded and followed him to the said room. Unaware of the second gaze that was coming from the loft.

'Is he a poodle...? .....I can't even see his tail... But, poodles have small tails right?' A wolf thought as he watched the two enter the leader room and the other members scramble to the door just to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Another conversation caught the wolf's ears as his ears turned to a certain panther and a mongoose on the corner.

"So, what species is he?" The mongoose asked as the others stopped on eavesdroping on the door and into the two's conversation instead.

"He said earlier that he was a human."

"A human?!" All of the members said in unison "I thought they were just myths!"

"I thought so too." Tao replied as the others processed the information they just recieved.

"A human huh?" An anteater beside the wolf spoke up as the wolf looked at him. "Can you imagine how crazy is that Legoshi?"

"Y-yeah..."

"Don't be so flattered there" the anteater patted the wolf's back.

"Legoshi! Help me with these boxes can you? Oh and bring Tao with you!" Someone called out for them before they started heading down the loft.

~~~~

Shima left the leader room with a uplifting mood while smiling brightly.

Apparently, Louis already knew that he was gonna at least gonna come to the drama club and somehow Louis got him into joining the drama club earlier than he had expected. He didn't know, but something about the deer attracted him towards the buck, it was like he was being pulled into his eyes everytime their gazes met.

Back to the story, he wandered around the club building for a while, watching the acting team rehearse for a few minutes before deciding to check the dressing rooms in order to pick out a locker for him to use tommorrow.

As he got to the dressing rooms, he saw two animals in there, one was an alpaca of some sort and the other one was a large wolf.

Shima observed the two as he thought to himself regarding the two 'If I remember correctly... The alpaca was Tem, part of the acting team, about as tall as Louis aaand a herbivore.'

He then looked over at the wolf "Legoshi... A gray wolf, art department, handles the lights, and a carnivore.'

"Putting it back again I see" Legoshi spoke as to the alpaca as he closed his locker.

"Ah, Uhh, the.. Timing! Is a little bit off," Tem gestured as the human started picking out the vacant lockers "But I'll be sure to do it next time." Tem finished as Shima finally, chose a locker that was close to the wolf's.

"What next time?"

"Ah! Ah. Shima-san! Have you decided to join the club yet?"

Shima hummed in response as he inspected his locker "Yep, that's why I'm here at the dressing rooms, picking out my locker"

"I see..."

"Back to my question, what's the thing that you'll do next time?"

"Ah... Uh..."

"He plans on confessing to Els" Legoshi answered for the alpaca, which eyes widened from the unexpected answer.

"L-legoshi!" Tem scolded, cheeks still flaring.

"Want me to come with you and help you?"

"Th-that would be nice.. But... I'm planning on doing it tommorrow after school..."

"Sure! I'll just meet you here tommorrow after school alright?" Shima remarked before heading out the door "Oh! And don't be late!" Shima said lastly as he dissappeared from the wolf's line of vision.

'He seems nice enough'

Chapter Text

"So, have you decided to join the drama club?" Tao asked to the human as the four of them walked side by side to the cafeteria for breakfast.

"Kinda. I don't know how, but Louis somehow got me to join the club"

The other three sighed in unison "Louis-senpai with his charm again"

"I swear, It's harder to get girls when he's around" Hajin complained about the buck while his other twin just nodded in agreement.

Shima sighed "If I were you guys, I'd stop hitting on girls."

"Alright cut that out before something happens"

They soon arrived at the cafeteria and the human was awed at the cafeteria. 'Everything here looks great! Not to mention those trees adding a good vibe into it. Wait, just how did they grow those trees indoors?'

"Hey Shima," Tao tapped the human's shoulder as the human faced him

"What plate are you gonna get?"

"I'll just get what you guys will get"

Hajin faced him with confusion written all over his face "The carnivore plate? Aren't you guys herbivores?"

"Were not herbivores nor carnivores, something in between."

"An omnivore?" Haiku guessed

"Bingo. Put it this way, just think that were herbivores that-" he inched closer to the others "Can eat meat"

"You can eat meat?!"

"Shhhh!" Shima shushed the others from screaming it out loud.

"Hold your tails. I haven't eaten a meat yet nor thinking about eating one alright?"

They got in line, not uttering a single word from the earlier conversation. He got his food last before heading to the table that the others found for them.

"Do humans have claws?" Haiku asked as Shima dug into the bean steak before lightly shaking his head.

"Fangs?"

*Shake*

"Fur?"

*Shake*

"Uhh... Tail?"

*Shake*

"Humans have more herbivore-like traits than carnivore-like ones." He explained getting tired of the questions.

He finished up his food before standing up and heading outside the cafeteria with the others tailing behind.

~~~~

The human's classes went by in a flash, with Shima's Seaspeak class coming in first before Biology and the rest of his classes, thankfully, he didn't get lost on the way to the rooms. He was currently heading to the drama club's building.

When he got to the building, there were already some students getting ready for the rehearsal. Not to mention, the tiger that the boy didn't see yesterday.

He walked in on the locker rooms as he thought of random things, ignoring the chatter of the other members. He was just about to slip his white shirt on before the tiger made his way over to him.

"A new member, no one told me you joined this club, Shima."

"Hm? Oh! Sorry if you weren't informed about me joining the club. But if I should ask, who are you anyways?"

The tiger chuckled at the human's reaction "It's me, can't you remember me? The super tiger?"

Shima squinted his eyes as he tried to recall who the tiger was. The word "Super tiger" was somehow familiar for him, 'I think I heard it somewhere.... Though it's kinda cringey'

And finally, it clicked.

"Wait, Bill?" His eyes widened in surprise as he finally recognized the said tiger.

"Yo! How have you been? It's been years!" Bill exclaimed as he draped his arm across the boy's shoulder and the both of them headed outside the lockers.

"Yeah! I mean, look how much you've grown!"

"Same to you, still small as always."

Shima huffed as he doesn't like getting called small.

"Heard you got a wooden sword, want to test it out?"

"Alright, but don't complain when you get beaten up alright?"

"Ha! As if you'd beat me!"

Bill smirked as they made their way to the stage for some clear space. Shima had the wooden sword from the Headmaster while Bill had the training sticks at the club. Everyone's heads and attention turned to the two.

They stared at each other for a while, waiting for someone to make a move. And of course the prideful tiger Bill is, he made the first move by swinging down in an attempt to hit the human while Shima just rolled out of the way.

Bill came again by targeting the boy's feet, and again, Shima just jumped for a few feet. Shima finally attacked by swinging to the right before quickly maneuvering his body to the left, resulting in him hitting the tiger with a great force on the side.

"Guess you win again, But I won't let you next time!" Bill remarked as he set away his stick and watched the human hop off the stage.

"Yeah, yeah, now you better rehearse for the play or you'll be in trouble"

As soon as the little scene was dropped, everyone came back to their own tasks at the club. Shima also made his way to the loft to attend to his tasks. As he got up the loft, he set the wooden sword to the side before making his way to the large wolf that's handling the light while watching the others rehearse.

"You're Legoshi right? The one who handles the lights."

"Yes?" The wolf faced him before Legoshi's eyes went wide like plates "Sh-Shima-san? What are you doing here?"

"I'm assigned to help you handle the lights" he explained as he made his way over the other spotlight. "So, what do I have to do?"

Much to his surprise, the wolf slowly got behind him and held the humans hands, guiding him on how to align the spotlight properly. He didn't notice that he was blushing ever since the wolf held his hands. Yet again, he didn't know but when the wolf held his hand, it was like butterflies erupted in his stomach.

"Shima-san? Are you ok? You're red." The wolf spoke as he looked down on the human.

"Ah, y-yeah I'm okay... I'm just gonna get some water." The human rushed as he freed himself from the wolf and went down the loft.

The wolf looked down on his hands(paws?) 'His hands are... Soft and.. Warm.' He looked over to the spotlight they recently fiddled with and took a deep breath, inhaling the human's scent.

'It's sweet...and...' He inhaled deeply again 'kind of... spicy..?'

~~~~

Meanwhile, after the human went down the loft to drink some water at the lockers, realization struck him.

'W-why did I get so flustered with just a simple touch? What's happening to me?' The boy thought as his phone started buzzing at his locker.

Shima hurriedly opened his locker before also hurriedly fiddling his bag in an attempt to find his phone. A few seconds went by before he finally found his phone, he checked the caller's id first before answering it as it seems that his mother has called him.

"Hi mom, why'd you call?" He asked over the phone.

"Oh! Nothing! I just seem to have clicked it accidentally," came on the other end, causing Shima to roll his eyes "So hows life there?"

"It's great mom! Though, it's kind of lonely without you.."

"Oh shush you little kid," she giggled "You'll be fine, and besides, you will meet some other person there. Possibly get a crush on someone~"

"M-mom!"

"Who's the guy~"

"G-guy?!" Shima exclaimed, a little bit quieter but still all flustered.

"Oh don't worry, your dad and I have always known. The way you looked at your boy classmates when you were a kid was far from normal. So who is it~"

"I-I don't know, but... I think there's two of them."

"Oh my! The soup!-" she exclaimed at the other end "Well goodluck finding your the one, but I gotta go now bye!" Hana remarked before cutting the line.

As the call ended, Shima released a breath he didn't know he was holding at the whole call. Deciding to go attend to his club tasks, he started heading to the door. He was just about to open the door before the other members started filling up the room, wanting to get outside already.

He spotted Tem on his locker, and he made his way over the alpaca for questions.

"Hey Tem," he spoke as the alpaca faced him "What's with the commotion?"

"Louis-senpai decided to give everyone an early leave so everyone is excited to hang around the school."

"I see," the human shrugged before he smirked as he remembered something "You ready to confess to Els?"

Tem felt his cheeks turn red from the mention of the girl's name. He looked at the letter in his locker before he turned to the boy again.

"I-I don't think i can do it Shima-san"

"You can do it! I'm here can't you see? I'll help you through."

"Th-thanks Shima-san but, can we do it on another day? I don't feel like doing it today."

"Are you sure?" He asked kind of worried while the alpaca just nodded.

"If you say so" he shrugged before heading out to the stage as the others started leaving.

"Sanu-san?"

"Yes?"

"Could you give me the spare keys? I want to clean up since I didn't help that much today."

"Sure, Here are the keys," he handed them to the human "And it's okay if you forget to lock it. Louis-senpai is still at the leader's room."

"Thanks! Sanu-san!" He thanked before the pelican turned and headed to the doors.

He looked around and placed his hands on his hips, annoyed by the amount of dust on the floor. "Now where's the broom..."

While looking around, checking places, and hunting for the broom, the boy found a guitar and he decided to try it first.

"Umm.." He stratched his head "How does this thing work again?" He placed his fingers on the long part of the guitar(neck?) And started forming random keys while strumming the strings until he got a tune.

(Play 2002 by Anne-Marie)

'Never knew it was this easy..' He thought to himself as he tried to recall the lyrics of a song he recently heard.

"I will always remember..." Louis' eyes tore itself from the papers in his desk and into the door where the voice came.

'Looks like someone's still here..' The buck pondered as he tried focusing his attention back to the papers, but to no avail since the voice keeps distracting him.

"The day you kissed my lips... Light as a feather..." Louis heard as he decided to listen on the one who's singing.

Louis got captivated as he listened more, taking note of how soothing and quiet the voice sounded in his ears. It was like a command, telling him to rest easy and escape the world for at least once.

"And it went just like this, no, it felt something better, than the summer... Of two thousand and two.... Oh..."

And then it stopped.

The deer stood from his seat and slowly trudged to the door before he opened it silently. As the door opened, the buck looked around, trying to find where the mysterious voice came from.

He continued looking around before his eyes landed on a figure sitting at the stage 'So it's that little human..'

Louis lightly clapped as he got out of the leader room, catching the human's attention.

'Clapping? Someone's-' he searched with his eyes before he spotted the deer. 'It's Louis-senpai! How can I forget that he was still here?! This is so embarassing!' He thought as he felt his cheeks redden from embarrasment.

"S-sorry to interrupt you senpai.." He apologized while his head turned down to hide his red cheeks.

"Do it again"

The human's head jerked towards the deer.

"W-what?"

"Do it again."

"O-okay..."

He repeated the same strumming pattern from before. Then, he continued to sing the next part of the song.

"We were only eleven.." He sang, noticing the deer close his eyes to feel the song more.

"But acting like grow ups, like we are in the present.."

"Drinking from plastic cups, singing love is forever, and ever.."

He felt his heart quicken it's pace as he observed the buck open his eyes, causing him to get lost on his golden-like eyes. But he then removed his gaze from the buck's eyes and looked down on the stage.

"Well I guess that.. Was.. True.. Oh."

The both of them met gazes, completely lost in each other's eyes. Shima had now stopped strumming and was just staring at Louis, but for Louis, there was a million thoughts running in his mind. This feeling for him felt completely wrong yet at the same time, it felt... Right.

"On the day we fell in love"

Chapter Text

The two stared at each other for a while, not uttering a single word.

Shima finally broke their eye contact by dropping the guitar and hurriedly hopping down the stage before trudging to the door.

What was he doing?! Feeling this way for him is terrible! But either way, his mother was okay with it right?

Before he could even get to the door Louis grabbed Shima's wrist, stopping the human from fleeing. And then, out of the blue, he pulled the human for a hug. Feeling the human's warmth envelope his body.

Meanwhile, as the deer hugged Shima, the human's cheeks went to a deep crimson red, it looked like he was about to explode at every moment.

He liked it, in a way, but why's Louis suddenly hugging him?

Before the human could even get a word, Louis shook his head and released Shima. He was internally cursing himself for doing that. He was the Beastar of the school and yet here he is, hugging a possible predator and a male?!

Silence was shared between them, he was blushing, but so was the human.

Could he possibly like him? A male?

"I-I have to go senpai." Shima rushed in his words before turning in his heels and exiting the club while Louis just watched him run away.

"He truly is something" Louis mumbled before he went back to the leader room with the previous events present in his mind. He didn't even notice that he was smiling as he thought about the human.

~~~~

"Waaahhh this is so confusing.." Shima groaned, he hid his face in his hands. He was at the back of the club building, unable to go to the dorms since he forgot his bag. And another thing was that, the wooden sword was up at the loft where the wolf and him had interacted.

"Think, Shima. Think... Just how would you be able to get those without getting seen by Louis?"

"..."

"..."

A light bulb rang in his head. Though it's not a great plan, it just might work.

Finally mustering up all his courage, he removed his hands on his face and started heading back to the doors of the club.

Much to his doubts, the deer wasn't anywhere to be found.

'Maybe, he's at the leader room? Yeah, definitely.'

Shima slowly and quietly climbed the ladder to the loft, trying his best to be discreet as much as he can. As he finally made it to the loft, he noticed that there was a strange clean spot on the floor near one of the spotlights. Like it was brushed by something at one point.

"Alright, got it." He mumbled to himself as he picked up the sword on the ground and he climbed down the ladder.

He sighed, reaching the locker rooms without being noticed. And again, he spotted another clean spot on the floor by Legoshi's locker.

'I better figure it out later! It's almost time for everyone to return to the dorms!' He thought as he slammed shut his locker in a rush.

In desperation to leave, he accidentally slammed the door to the locker rooms a bit loudly.

Foosteps sounded from the leader room as the boy's gears turned and he made a mad dash for the main doors.

"Speed up legs!" He spoke to himself as he picked up his pace, finally getting through the doors and outside.

~~~~

By the time he got to their dorm, he was sweating and panting hard.

"Whoa, you alright?" Hajin asked, stepping out of the bathroom while drying his fur with a towel.

"Yeah, I'm alright." The human waved him off as he trudged to his bunk bed, dropping his bag with the sword on it in the process.

"Just... Need to rest" Shima flopped on his bunk bed with a deep sigh.

He closed his curtain and curled up in his sheets, doing his best to fall asleep already.

He closed his eyes, but instantly regretted it as images of the wolf and the deer without any top clothing flashed in his head.

'Mom, help me. My mind is getting toxicated!' He thought with a groan before turning in his bed. He didn't notice sleep taking over him as he breathed in and out slowly.

~~~~

"Shima wake up! Shima!" Haiku shouted in what he thinks the human's ears, only getting a shout in response.

"What?!"

"Get up already it's almost late!"

'Did I sleep that long?' He got out of his bed and headed for the bathroom. He stared at his reflection for a while, noticing the style of his hair.

"Shima! Stop spacing out!"

Shima shook his head and picked up his toothbrush while hurriedly spreading the toothpaste on it, spilling some on the floor at the process.

He decided to multi-task for the morning, he brushed his teeth while he got his clothes ready. Taking a few minute shower before dressing up as fast as he could. By 15 mintues later, he was ready while the others were still busy dressing up.

"I'm gonna go ahead alright?" The human asked to the three while

"Alright."

He exited the room and headed to the hallway that was connected into the building where classes are usually done.

He looked beside him, into the open window. "Police? What's happening?"

"Hey, did you hear what happened?" Two animals in the corner chattered among themselves.

Shima turned to the side before he saw Legoshi walking beside a dog of some sort.

He raised his hand and waved "Legoshi!" He smiled at them while Legoshi's ears and tail perked up at the call.

Shima jogged up to the two, Legoshi's tail wagged lightly. Meanwhile on the other hand, the labrador was also staring at the human with a smile. The labrador must've known him.

"Heading to class?" He asked as he was close to the two.

"Ah.. Y-yeah.."

"Can I come with you?" He looked to the side. "Oh, Hi!" He waved to the labrador who in return, wagged his tail and smiled brightly.

"I forgot to introduce you. Shima-san, this is my best friend, Jack."

"Are you the real Shima?" Jack questioned as he inspected the human, taking note of his wierd features.

"Yeah, why?" He answered before the lab stopped observing him and they started heading to their Seaspeak class.

"Well, there's been rumors round here saying you're some kind of a poodle"

Shima knitted his eyebrows at the lab's remark.

'Why is everyone mistaking me for a poodle?!'

"I'm not a poodle."

"Then, what kind of animal are you?"

"A human" Legoshi and Shima said in sync before the human giggled. Legoshi kept staring at the human, admiring the way the wind blew his hair softly. And how the sun illiminated his skin, giving it a kind of glow.

Jack thought hard about what the two had said, he knew he read about the humans... 'From what I can recall, humans have gone extinct.'

"A human huh... Aren't they extinct already?"

"What would I be doing here if were extinct?"

"Good point."

They stopped their conversation and kept on walking until they reached the classroom. The human decided to sit with the two for today, barely noticing the chicken that sat beside Legoshi. It ticked him off for some reason.

"Hey, have you heard the news?" Someone behind them spoke to someone.

"Yeah, the predation?"

'Predation....? Did someone get devoured?'

"I heard the alpaca from the drama club was devoured" another guy joined in on the conversation as Shima froze in his seat.

He felt tears starting to prick his eyes as he slumped in his seat and he buried his face in his arms.

'Tem... I wish I just came with you, I could've protected you... And for once, I failed your orders. Dad.'

For the whole class hours, Shima just kept mourning for Tem. He occasionally listened to the teacher, but as it said "occasionally" it was almost never.

For lunch, he parted from the two canines. He wanted to be alone, he wanted to keep mourning for Tem's death.

His face was void of any expression as he picked on his bean steak.

"Can I sit here?" A voice interrupted his thoughts. It sounded small, like a girls'.

He looked up, only to be met with a white rabbit.

"Yeah, sure." He looked down again on his food and decided to take a bite out of it. The taste uplifted his mood for a bit, though, it wasn't enough.

"You look troubled. Did something happen?"

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing"

"It's okay, you can tell me, I won't tell it to anyone else."

He turned his gaze to the rabbit once more.

'Maybe, I can trust her...'

"...Heard the predation incident this morning?" He asked as the rabbit nodded while he looked down on his food.

"I... was on the same club as him, we weren't that good friends but I feel like I'm.. the reason why he died.."

"It wasn't your fault... It was no one's fault. Maybe you should pay a visit to his grave."

'Visit his grave...? Maybe.. It could work. It wasn't a bad idea after all'

The rabbit finished her food and stood up. "I have to go now, go and talk it out to someone. Maybe it'll help you loose up" She gave a smile to the human before starting to walk away.

"Umm.. Where can I talk to you again?"

She stopped and turned to Shima.

"Find the Gardening club, you'll see me there." She smiled once more while the human just stared at her.

Shima felt an undeniable connection to her, it felt like she was a long lost friend.

He sighed and rose from his seat, picking up his bag in the floor before quietly leaving his food at the table.

Legoshi, from afar, watched the human leave the cafeteria, wondering why his mood suddenly dropped as they got to their classroom earlier.

He heard about the news too, actually, it mad him sad, he was a great friend of Tem. From what he remembers, Tem was actually very friendly towards carnivores at the club. The alpaca didn't mind the fact that he was a carnivore, he wasn't even scared of Legoshi, unlike everybody else.

"Shi?.. Legoshi!" A white sheepdog snapped his fingers in front of the wolf's face, breaking Legoshi's trance.

"You shouldn't do that Collot, you're breaking Legoshi's daydream." A hyena interjected as Collot retracted his hand from the wolf's face.

"Maybe he's dreaming about girls, Miguno." A coyote draped his arm over Miguno's shoulder.

"Durham, Legoshi's not like that!" Jack remarked.

A small fox on top of Collot's shoulder started talking. "Of course we know, especially you."

"Voss' right"

As the others rambled on, Legoshi just kept on wondering to himself.

'Should I visit Tem?... Maybe I should.'

~~~~

Meanwhile, after Shima left the cafeteria, he went to the club first, hoping everything will be nice and okay at the club. He arrived about at the same time as their chief, though his small smile dropped as he got inside the building.

There stood the carnivores and herbivores, taking sides as if they were on a debate.

"Chief!" Ellen spoke as she glared at Bill on the other side. "Tem was only friendly with carnivores at this club."

"A-and?"

"You're suspecting us?" Bill shot back.

"I bet one of you guys was jealous that Tem got a good role!"

"How dare you say that! You herbivores are all the same!"

"Are you going to bite me?"

'This is bad... What should I do?!'

"Did you know that carnivores can get expelled if they cause any harm to herbivores?"

"Bullshit! You're not woth getting bitten by my fangs!" Bill shot back one more time before something snapped in Shima.

"Stop it!" He roared, walking in front of the two sides. "You're both striped animals!"

"Let's just go back to doing our tasks okay?!" He exclaimed as he rubbed his temples in pure utter stress. There was so many things happening and yet here they are, arguing over who killed Tem. 'Can't they just let the school mourn for his death?! At least once!'

Both Ellen and Bill scoffed before turning and attending to their own tasks, everyone also returned to their own as the two finally dropped the act. Though the carnivores and herbivores are still avoiding each other.

~~~~

Later, he decided it was time to pay a visit to Tem.

'Why do you have to die Tem?' He thought, turning to a corner and spotting a dented door with Tem's picture on a frame at the floor with a few offerings sorrounding it.

He kneeled in front of the offerings, paying his respect.

"I'm sorry you have to die Tem... You didn't even get to confess to Els... I swear... I'm gonna hunt your killer for justice."

He was about to stand before large footsteps was heard across the hall. And soon, a familiar gray fur was caught in the corner of his eye.

'Legoshi.. Tem, tell me, how will you know if you're in love? Does the air around you get hotter like what I'm experiencing right now?' He thought before screams of girls sounded in the hall, followed by light footsteps as the air around Shima seemed to get more hotter.

'It's Louis-senpai, no doubt. But why is he here?'

"You're staring." Louis remarked, since the human and the wolf was unconciously staring at him. This wasn't the Louis he saw that night. This was his mask.

"Is lack of manners a common trait among wolves and humans?"

'Since when have I been staring?!'

"You're both from the stage crew, Good. I have something for the both of you to do. Come on" Louis ordered before walking away with the two in tail.

They arrived at the leader room of the club and they were greeted by a goat named Zoe.

Shima closed the door as the two got in "The both of you are going to help me fix his act by tommorrow."

"He's the replacement for Tem's role. Odie, the water spirit."

"Oh, okay.."

"It's ironic that we should meet here, water spirit Odie."

"Huh?" Zoe confusingly replied

"We're rehearsing. Give me Odie's lines"

"I'm sorry. I haven't memorized all the lines.." The goat replied before Louis made his way over to him and cupped his muzzle roughly.

"Tell me, you didn't eat the script didn't you? I know you goats can eat paper, but I don't want you using that ability here."

'I-I think Louis is starting to hurt Zoe.. Maybe I should sto-"

"Senpai!" Kai barged in at the room, the others turning their head towards him. "Why is Zoe replacing Tem?! Me and Tem were the only ones who auditioned for-"

"You're supposed to knock when going to the leader's room!... Get out. Get your lines down." Louis ordered to Zoe before he let go of the goat. This scene was pretty violent for Shima, another thing he didn't kinda like.

"Hey!" Kai turned his attention towards the two. "Aren't you guys just stage crew members? What are you doing here?"

"I guess Shima-san and I will be leaving.." The wolf answered before walking towards the door with the human following.

"No. The both of you can stay. Kai, you better get along with them."

"Huh?!"

"W-what?"

"You're taken out of the acting team, we decided so in yesterday's meeting. You'll be supporting us as a stage crew." Louis spoke, walking around the room as if in thought.

Shima looked over to Kai. 'He's gritting his teeth.. Heck! His fangs are starting to bare! He's really furious!'

"Act two's dance from the spring breeze performance.. And the final act's dance from the winter safari convention.. You only managed to mess up those two performances in your whole acting career."

Kai was gritting his teeth, clenching his fists. Louis was really starting to get into his nerves! 'The way he acts, the way he talks, the way he insults me right now, it's really annoying!' The mongoose thought before he threw his fist towards the deer.

"So, I don't even know why you thought you can-" Louis stopped, seeing the human manage to block the mongoose's punch with a mere wooden sword.

"Kai, what are you doing? Are you really gonna hurt Louis-senpai?" Shima asked, tightening his grip on the sword and hardening his glare at the mongoose.

"Who do you think you are?! You... Ah.. Uhh.." Shima was confused. What has gotten into the mongoose and why is he backing up?

"I'll at least let it go for now.." The mongoose unclenched his fists and looked around the room, showing that he's intimidated of something from the human. He regained his angry demeanor before trudging to the door.

"You're lucky you get treated like a prince by everyone around you!" He opened the door "What are you looking at?!" He shouted, slamming the door shut behind him.

"What has gotten into-" Shima stopped talking before he stumbled to the ground as a sharp pain was felt in his eyes.

"Shima-san!" Legoshi exclaimed, clearly worried for the human. He held the human, and turned Shima to face him, though his eyes went as wide as plates.

Shima's iris' didn't have their usual dark brown color, instead, it has a hazel-like color into it. Along with his pupils, there were diamond-like, far from the round shape it always has. In overall it was different. Like the eyes of a true beast.

"S-shima-san... Y-your eyes... They're bleeding" the wolf panicked. He didn't what to do, he doesn't even know what happened to his eyes. And what's more, his eyes creep him out.

Louis, on the other hand, was perplexed. He haven't seen eyes like those in his whole life, bet no one in this world have eyes like those except the human. He so wanted to help him, it's not like he doesn't care about Shima, he just really couldn't understand what's happening.

'I-I.. Help! Father!' The human thought, he felt his body losing its strength, it was like his strength was being sucked out of his body. He needs him. Them.

"W-what's happening... To... Me..."

With that, he blacked out.

Chapter Text

"Hello?" Shima called out in a vast field of grass and flowers, this place was rather warm and calming.

"Hellooo" he called out again, only getting silence as a reply.

Fog started clouding his vision and after a few seconds it cleared up, but who in front of him gave him mixed emotions.

There stood his father, looking at him with a soft yet inviting gaze.

"Son..."

He was tearing up, and he rushed to his father for an embrace. Oh how he missed his beloved father..

"Dad! I-I missed you!" The boy cried, hugging his father tightly while his father gently stroke his head.

He didn't even notice that he had shrunk to his younger version, which was more smaller and can only reach up to his father's waist.

"I knew son... I was watching you... All the time."

"Then, do you know what happened..." He discontinued trying to recall what happened but to no avail, he couldn't remember what happened earlier!

"You triggered the mark son."

"Mark?" He asked as his father crouched down to his eye level.

"Yes, your eyes that change is the mark of our bloodline." His father explained.

His father stood up and stalked to the tree a few feet from them before he layed beneath it's cool shade. Shima followed him after a few seconds and layed beside his father.

"You know son... You should only use that mark for the good. I don't want you to end up like your grandfather.."

"Grandfather? Why? What happened to him?"

"..He let himself get blinded by the mark's power and ended up killing himself instead. He thought with the mark's power he would be able to dominate over carnivores, and of course, it didn't work." He informed. He turned to his son with the worry evident on his eyes.

"I want you to use this mark for the good, and always keep that bracelet with you" His father stated while pointing to the bracelet in the boy's wrist.

"What does the bracelet do with the mark?" The boy asked. His father stopped looking at him and instead looked at the clouds that rolled by.

"The bracelet harnesses the power of the mark. If you try to trigger it without the bracelet, you'll achieve it's full power, but it could also lead you to your fatal death. It'll suck up all of your strength until your whole body collapses and you die. That's how I died son."

"How you died?!" He sat up from the ground and faced his father. "Didn't you get beaten to death by those carnivores?"

"Yes, I got beaten to death, but I used the mark's full power to take on all of them. Yet, I only managed to take 80% of their total." His father explained while tracing the outlines of the clouds.

"Only?! Dad, you almost wiped out all of them!"

"I know, but I didn't have the strength anymore to kill their boss. Their boss wanted our people to sell on the Black Market and I failed to protect them."

The boy shook his head in disagreement to what his father said.

"Dad, you didn't fail to protect them, you even helped them draw the carnivores out of the village!"

"I see. Then, I take no regrets on dying that day." his father remarked, sitting up from his position on the ground.

'Father...' He thought before he embraced his father for a hug once more, shocking his father from his sudden actions.

"You should go now."

"But I don't want you to leave.." He pulled back from the embrace, missing his father's presence.

"I never left. I'm always here," his father pointed to his head then moved it towards his chest "And here." His father smiled.

"Tell your mother I love her"

Shima smiled "I will, I will..." He replied, his father smiled brightly one last time before it all went black and he felt himself waking up.

He woke up to the sound of multiple footsteps and instantly shot up on the bed, only to hit the supposed roof of the bunk bed.

"Hahahah you're awake!" Haiku laughed while Hajin just slapped the back of his head for his behavior.

"What time is it?" The human asked. He got out of his bed, only to finally realize and remember everything. Didn't he faint out at the leader's room? How did he get here?

"Relax. It's just about club time. Oh and if you don't remmeber, your wolfy friend brought you here." Hajin answered.

"Legoshi?"

"Yeah, him." He leaned closer to the human. "Are you two dating or something?"

Shima's cheeks went to a crimson red. He shook his head as a sign of no. "W-we're not." He crossed his arms "But, why did you ask?"

"He was sniffing you when we got here."

'He sniffed me?! Did he smell something bad? Do I stink? Why would he sniff me?' He thought as his cheeks became redder.

Maybe cooling off somewhere would help him think everything out... Yeah, Surely.

"Hey guys."

The twins looked back. "Hm?"

"Tell Tao I won't be able to go to the drama club today, I'm not feeling well." He stated as he slipped his shoes on. The twins just stared at him in confusion.

"If you're not feeling well, why are you preparing to head out?"

"I have to go somewhere." He answered as he finally got the other shoe on. He ran to the door and into the hallway. "I'll be back!"

~~~~

A few minutes have passed and he finally got to his destination. Right now, he's standing in front of a metal door that read, "Gardening Club" he wasn't sure about his objective here, all he wants was to have breather and think out everything that happened today.

He pushed the door open, and he was greeted by a warm breeze with the smell of flowers.

"Is someone here?" He called out at the rooftop garden. He didn't realize that this place somehow looked like the vast field of flowers in his dream.

"Do you need something?" A voice asked out of nowhere. He recognized the voice before the white rabbit that he met at the cafeteria stepped out of a shed.

"N-not really.. You're the rabbit from the cafeteria right?"

"And you're the troubled guy from that same time." She answered back. The human just nodded as the rabbit picked up a watering can and started watering the flowers.

"Have you finally visited that alpaca's grave?" She asked, watering a bed of tulips.

"Yeah.. And maybe what you really said worked. It kinda helped me." The human replied as he got to sit at the side of the shed.

"So," she faced him "What brings you here?"

"Nothing, just wanted to have a breather." He turned his gaze to the tree that was illuminated by the sun. "I remembered," he looked back at her. "I haven't got your name"

"It's Haru." She replied carrying a rather big pot for her size as the human just rushed to help her.

He took the pot and set it near the fence. "Shima"

"Uhh, Where's the other club members?" He added.

"Most of the club members have graduated years ago, I'm the only one who's left to take care of them."

"Must be hard, huh"

She sighed, setting down another pot. "Yeah it is, but I just can't let these children die here..."

'Children? What does she mea- oh! It's the flowers.'

"I'll help you with those." He informed, trying to snatch the pot from her hands but she just pulled it away. "I can do this."

"No you can't. Now give it to me"

"Look! A meteor!" She pointed to the sky, trying to trick the human which worked. "Huh? Where?"

"You just joking there's no-" he looked back to the place she was previously in, but found her not there.

A loud giggle came from the far side of the fence while the human just pouted "No fair!"

~~~~

"Phew, finally done." Shima wiped the sweat on his forehead. He was done on helping her take care of the plants, she didn't even ask him for help, he just randomly did it out of nowhere. Mainly, because she seems to be tired, but he also helped because it seemed fun and it helped them get to know each other.

"Wanna eat dinner with me?" The rabbit offered.

"Oh, thanks!"

They both stepped out of the rooftop, closing the door behind them in the process and talking about random things on the way to the cafeteria.

This is a friendship he'll never forget.

~~~~

'If we get caught, will the Drama Club get suspended?' Legoshi thought, walking back and forth at the lecture hall's doors. He was here for a reason, he's a look out. Louis has forced him on being the look out on his sneak rehearsal for Zoe.

'Will I get suspended?' Something rustled that made him stare towards the pouring fountian. "Eh?"

It rustled again. But this time, it came beside him so he stared towards it. Only to spot a grasshopper hopping on the floor.

He picked up the insect by his fingers. "What are you doing here? I guess the same goes for me."

Before he could even let the grasshopper go, a scent caught his nose. It's sweet yet intoxicating. It reminds him of someone...

'It's an herbivore!' A wave of adrenaline came rushing in him, and before he knew it, he has turned feral.

~~~~

"Haru? What's wrong? Why did you stop?" Shima asked, wondering why she stopped dead in her tracks near a fountain. He turned to stare at her ears, which are flipping around.

'Her ears... Could this be a sign of-' a growling noise reached his ears before the rabbit ran for her life. He tried to follow her, but he was rolled to the ground a multiple times before he was pulled into an embrace-like position.

He could feel the warm breath of whatever creature that's embracing him, on his neck.

"Shima!" Haru shouted. Trying to aid the human, but she just couldn't. He wanted to help the only friend she had, but her instincts tell the different story. Her instincts was telling her to run, to hide, to leave her friend.

"Go! Don't look back!" The human shouted back. He couldn't afford to let another student to get devoured, even if it means exchanging his own life.

"But-!"

"Just go!" He retorted before the sound of footsteps fleeing sounded across the place they were in.

"I'll eat you..!" The creature growled once more.

'So this is how I meet my death? Heh, I didn't even get to show this creature my own sword skills.. Speaking of, where did I even leave my sword again?'

The creature suddenly spoke, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"N-no! I won't look!"

"I won't do it!"

"I-" the creature began before he opened his mouth, aiming for the human's neck.

"HELP!" a shout was heard across the field, breaking the creature's devouring trance.

'Huh? It stopped. Maybe it's not my time yet. But this is the chance! I have to go if I want to live!' The human thought, trying to wriggle free from the creature's grasp. His struggles was a bit successful. Though, the creature's claws was unconcously dug into his arm.

He moved and moved, only resulting in the claws sliding across his arm and his blood getting spilled. 'Shit! My- ugh! Arm!'

He finally got out of the creature's grasp, and he wasted no time in following after the rabbit.

The wolf stared at the retreating figure of someone he almost ate. He couldn't help but lick the blood on his hands, he so wanted to stop. Yet, it will give him trouble if he let the others see the blood.

He headed to the lecture hall where the voice came, meeting Zoe on the way.

The goat sighed. "You're here Legoshi-san, Louis-senpai fell from the stage and I think h-he broke his leg." Zoe explained as they rushed inside the building.

When he got to the stage, Louis was already on the floor, holding his leg in pain. Louis looked at them with a glare. "Where have you been you dumb dog?!"

"S-sorry senpai, I was just checking out some bugs when Zoe called for me.." He informed, helping the deer on his feet by carrying half of his weight.

"Don't tell this to anyone."

Chapter Text

*Pant*

He entered their dorm quietly while holding onto his wounded arm, hoping no one in the dorm building caught a whiff of his blood.

'Bandages, bandages...' The human rummaged through their bathroom cabinets. The earlier events was still fresh in his mind, yet, he never got to see or know who attacked him. All he knew was that it was big and rather... Feral?

His face lit up with relief as he found one roll of bandage, he wrapped it tightly around the wound in his arm and changed into his long-sleeved white shirt to conceal it from his dorm mates.

He washed away the blood on the bathroom floor before he headed to his bunk bed. The loud snores of his dorm mates were heard across their dorm as Shima layed on his bunk bed, staring at nothingness.

'Wait! What about Haru? Is she alright?' He wondered, typing as fast as he can on his phone to find her contact.

After a few minutes, he sighed and let go of his phone again. "Idiot." He muttered. He forgot to catch her number... Just how will they contact each other?

He decided to just sleep already, careful not to lay on his wounded arm. He closed his eyes. Though, everything that happened earlier flashed in his mind and slowly, he drifted off to sleep.

~~~~

The students of room 415 headed out early since all of them woke up early, mainly the other three from a good dream but for the human, It's a nightmare.

Today, everyone's stares at the human was different, wanna know why? Well, he was wearing the green jacket that Beastar students usually wear. Even the three was surprised when an animal came into their dorm and handed the human's coat.

You might think that Shima was rather feeling confident and proud at his officialized Beastar position at the school, well, he isn't.

He wasn't used to this much attention at all. Every gaze had him nervous and his mind even kept telling him to fix his posture whenever his shoulders gets hunched.

The four sat to a table, food in hand. "Dude, you didn't even tell me that you're a Beastar!" One of the twins spoke.

"This is our chance to get more girls!" The other twin exclaimed, pumping their fists in the air. "Yeah!"

The human's nerve starting twitching violently, showing he's annoyed at the twin's behavior.

He was about to hit the two before a shout boomed across the cafeteria. "The hell is your problem?!"

All of the animals turned their heads towards a german sheperd arguing with a fox about stepping on his tail.

"You didn't realize you were stepping on my tail this whole time are you?!" The german sheperd exclaimed, gripping the fox tightly. "Hey, I apologized, damn it!"

The students began talking to themselves."The way you smile really pisses the hell of me, you damn fox!" The dog barked.

"Oh, so now you're venting out your stress on me?! is that it?!"

Before the fox could even utter another word, the german sheperd bit on his arm. "Ow! Damn it!" The fox retorted.

Everyone gasped, some carnivores even covered the eyes of their herbivore friends just to protect them. "Oh, he's biting him!"

"Someone get a teacher!"

"Herbivores, stay back!"

The two animals rolled onto the ground, growling and baring their fangs at each other. This went on for a few minutes before the fox caught the german sheperd on a headlock. "Alright, if you say you're sorry, I'll let you go." The fox ordered, still keeping the headlock.

"He's strangling him!" One of the students chimed in. "Oh no!"

Legoshi and Jack was watching the scene unfold before them, but in the wolf's eyes, he could only see one scenario, his near-devouring incident last night. The event last night bothered him to such extents, he even refused to eat his bread since it reminded him of the human's flesh.

The more he watched the two fight, the more it reminded him of last night. Another wave of thoughts washed in him, and before he coukd even react, his body moved on it's own.

"Enough!"

All of the students turned their gazes towards him.

He froze before he brought a hand up to his muzzle to prevent any words from coming out. Why did he do that? Now, he'll be in even more trouble!

The fox took a few menacing steps towards the wolf. "What did you say?" The fox questioned. This is bad, he has to get out of this situation, quick!

"Hey." The human cut in, walking with a hand on his hips and a stern glare towards the fox. "Leave him alone."

"He's a Beastar?"

"I knew it! He's a Beastar!"

"That human was a Beastar? No one told me!"

The fox turned his heated glare to Shima. "What? Just because you're a Beastar you think you can take on a carnivore?"

"You're not worth my time." He shot back. The fox was taken a back at the insult. He threw a hard punch towards him but he just dodged out of the way.

"Good Grief." The human froze as a hand graced on his shoulder.

"Humans must've had it rough" Louis spoke, the human turned to the deer as he pushed him a bit to the side. "Especially when they're defenseless." Louis stated as Shima's eyebrows knitted at the buck's remark.

"Eek!"

"Louis-sama!"

"Look, the two Beastars against that fox."

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Aristocrat himself. Louis the great." The fox glared, Irritated at the deer's presence.

"Baring your fangs in public is bad manners, especially when you're going to hurt someone in front of everyone."

"Well, you're both a piece of work yourselves, since you're both aiming to be the Beastar." The fox stated.

"You have to be desperate to gather all the attention the both of you needs" the fox added before the deer cut in. "Do you even know why Beastars are needed in this world?"

Louis smirked. "A Beastar... That's an impossible goal for you."

"Before you try to go and degrade our efforts, then you should improve yourself first" interjected the human, not letting himself back down. He even made sure to emphasize the "our".

"W-What?! Well sure, if good grades is all that it takes, then everyone can be a Beastar!" The fox glared. The german sheperd, having enough, finally pulled the fox away from the three.

The human sighed. "This is pressuring."

Legoshi scooted closer to him. "Are you okay Shima-san?" He asked, kind of worried.

"Y-yeah I'm okay." Not really, if you could only see inside him, his heart is probably beating like a drum by now.

Louis faced them "...That was for yesterday."

The human stared at him before the scenario at the leader's room clicked in his mind. "Hm?... Oh! You don't have to worry about that."

"How was your eye?" Louis also asked as he also inched closer to the human.

"I-I'm great, already.." He replied while trying to scoot away from the two as he felt his heart beat much, much faster.

"Thank you Louis-senpai, if it weren't for you and Shima-san-"

"You would've gone through your losing act?" The buck interjected with a small smirk. "I wonder, how long you intend to keep facing your problems through fake-outs" Louis walked beside them and gave the wolf a pat on the shoulder.

He stopped. "You didn't tell me you were a Beastar."

The human cleared his throat. "I-I just don't want anyone to find out about it yet." He saw another smirk cross the buck's lips. "Too bad you're exposed now."

He continued on heading out the cafeteria door. "I'll just see you at the drama club then." The two just stared at his back, watching him leave with a smirk.

The human took a glance at his hand before realizing that he was unconciously holding onto the wolf's arm. "Ah!" He pulled back his arm as the wolf's tail started wagging on it's own. "I-I'm gonna go ahead alright? Legoshi?" Luckily, none saw that.

"O-okay..." Legoshi replied before the human also walked away with burning cheeks. He knew it was the human that he almost devoured. He likes spending time with him, but deep down, the guilt of almost eating him was still evident.

"Wow! They're both so cool!" Jack spoke as he reappeared on Legoshi's side like a bubble. The wolf also started heading on his way with the lab tailing behind "Legoshi? Did something happen yesterday between the three of you?"

"Nothing"

"Oh, by the way, I ate the bread you left behind."

"Okay.."

~~~~

"Adler, why are they coming for me?!" Ellen, a zebra of the acting team, cited as she ran at the dark alley way while gripping the reaper's hand.

The reaper slashed and hit an enemy behind him as they turned. "You were supposed to die three days ago"

"The forces of nature want you dead."

"And this is a part of them?"

"Yes." he stared. the other "forces of nature" stopped and stared at them as one of them dropped to the cold hard ground.

"Just stay behind me... Killing you is my job." He pointed his sword at his enemies and displayed an ambitious stance "Until then, I won't let anyone lay a hand on you"

"And... cut!" The deer snapped back to reality. "That's it for scene 15! We will now take a break!" Sanu announced. Louis gave him a confused stare. "A break? We've never taken a break before in a rehearsal before."

The pelican perked as he was caught off guard by the question. "Ah.. Um... It's just for 30... 15 minutes.." Sanu approached the deer and handed a towel.

"We've known each other for a while now, Louis. I know your movements are getting sloppy. Are you okay?" He asked, the deer got the towel and wiped the sweat forming on his fur.

"I'm fine. And don't whisper." He replied "This play is the important part of the student welcoming event, we should give it our all and forget about our physical composition," He bent forward with his hands on his knees "Right?" He asked Tao who acts as the villian he killed.

"Umm.. Y-yeah." The actor replied.

~~~~

"A break? That's wierd" Dom, a peafowl and the leader of the crew team stated as the crew sewed the costumes backstage.

"Why? Do the actors never take a break before?" Shima inquired.

Dom shook his head "Not never, but rarely."

Kai cut in, "I should be out there acting! Not sewing!" He complained as he kept on sewing a costume. "I think you're great at sewing." The peafowl praised, something that's really effective at calming the mongoose down.

Kai relaxed his eyebrows and wore a suprised expression "Really?" He asked as Dom nodded "Then, I'm just gonna sew the rest of my life!"

The human softly giggled. He looked on the costume he was working on before he spotted a name written at the small corner of the fabric's edge. "Huh? Isn't this Tem's.." He held the costume up and showed in to everyone. "Isn't this Tem's?"

The peafowl stared at it. "Yeah, what should we do about it?"

"Maybe we could just store it or something." Pudge, a red panda, suggested. "Let's reuse it" Kibi, an anteater, spoke.

There was a long silence as they all thought about what to do with the costume. Meanwhile, Legoshi was busy thinking about how Louis was still able to hold up after their stage incident. After all, he's the one who fell on the stage.

Louis, on the other hand, was hiding something. He was at the dressing rooms as he checked his leg. His left leg wasn't just bruised, it was sprained at the worst levels. It might even be bad if he kept going.

"We're gonna start act 16 now!" Sanu called out. Louis rolled down the cloth of his pants to hide the sprain. Looks like it's not just Shima who is injured.

Back to the backstage, the others are still sewing, though this time, Shima was done sewing most of the costumes and was now holding the same guitar he found days ago.

Since he still doesn't know most of the guitar keys, he decided against playing it and pulled out his phone instead. He searched through the collections of songs until he found a minus-1 format of a song he used to sing.

(Play We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift)

He set the phone down and stood up "This song was made from the human era so you guys might not know about it." He stated before he started singing as the drum accompaniment came in.

"I remeber when we broke up, the first time saying this is it I had enough. Cause like, we hadn't seen each other for a month, when you said you needed space."

As the human sang the others stared at him in adoration, especially Legoshi. He was dazed by how his lips moved in accord to the song and beats.

"..Goshi? Legoshi!" Dom shouted which cut off the human singing and woke the wolf from his trance. "Hm?"

"You were daydreaming again are you?" The peafowl pulled out a large piece of paper and showed it to the wolf. "I want you to get some roses from the Gardening club, I'm planning on using them for the archways and the entrances of the lecture hall for the acting day."

"Really? Let me see!" The human paused the song on his phone and trudged to the peafowl.

"It looks great!" He smiled.

"Thanks!"

The mongoose asked "Man, why'd you stop singing?" The human turned towards him and placed his hands on his hips "Singing also tires me out, you know."

"Fine! If you won't sing, then I'll sing" he snatched the phone and played the song. "Uhh, where's the lyrics?"

The human rolled his eyes "See, you're so brave, yet you don't even know the lyrics." Kai threw the phone towards him "Whatever." The mongoose grumbled.

"Can you and Kibi help Legoshi for the flowers, Shima?" Dom asked once more.

"Sure!"

~~~~

"Why do I have to come with you two?" The anteater questioned. The three was currently trotting up the stairs where the Gardening club is.

The wolf held the doorknob, but he stopped as his nostrils caught a whiff of a familiar scent. "This scent.."

"It's the flowers right?" Shima spoke as he went ahead and opened the door for the three of them. "Ah, wait!"

As the door opened, they're met with a white rabbit.

"Hi Haru" the human smiled and waved, though, the other two wasn't as pleased as the human. Kibi knew her reputation among herbivores, but he didn't expect to see her here!

'T-this scent.. This was the scent from yesterday... Yet, it feels like something's missing.' A sweat trickled down the wolf's and the anteater's fur.

'I have to get out here!' The anteater panicked, the human and the rabbit was talking away from them and as the human's and rabbit's scent mixed, the wolf started sweating more.

'S-shima-san was with her that night! I-I have to make an excuse to get away from here!'

Chapter Text

“Oh, Roses?” Haru asked, while Shima moved his head up and down in a form of agreement.

She eyed the paper once more, “I have roses, but using too much red roses can be bad, they're poisonous.” The rabbit spoke.

“Oh, they're poisonous?“ The human remarked, he diverted his attention to the other two behind them. "What do you think guys?"

Um, um, what excuse do I make? Stomachache? Bathroom? Wait, how about 'I just remembered, I have some errands to make'.....Yeah.

”Oh, I...“

”I just remembered! I've got some errands to take care of!“ his head whipped to his side where Kibi stood. ”Sorry but, I need to get going.“

Talk about twist of fate.

The wolf's knees bent into a crouching position to meet the anteater's eye level, ”W-wait.“

”Sorry Legoshi, I'll buy you an antshake so please, don't try to stop me..“ But that doesn't explain why you're leaving! ”I'll leave the rest to you, I owe you one“ Kibi whispered.

”Wait..“

”Shima-kun?“

”Hm?“

”Are you sure they're okay? Do they not want the roses?“

”No, no, we need the roses. I just don't know what happened to those two...“ the human scratched his head. They both stared at the wolf beg to the anteater for something they both couldn't make out.

The metal door emitted a loud bang whilst it slammed shut. The sound echoed through the rooftop. The rabbit's ears and the human's hair swayed through the warm breeze of air as no one dared make a move.

”Legoshi?“ asked the human. Legoshi's fur started breaking fountains of sweat as the liquid clinged onto his fur and the human stared at him curiously.

Why are you talking to me? I don't even have the right to look at you or talk to you after what happened!..

”Legoshi!“ Shima exclaimed, snapping his fingers in front of the wolf's face. Legoshi's train of thoughts broke as a snapping sound brought him back to reality. He looked down on the human, who's still eyeing him curiously. Only this time, much, much closer.

He felt warm blood rush to his cheeks. ”Ah.. Umm.“ he stuttered. He gulped and looked down on the space between them. And when he saw it, he almost jumped out of his fur.

The human's smaller stature was only a mere inches away, it was so close that he could almostly feel the warmth radiationg off the human's skin. H-he's too close! Way too close!

”Rumors sure spread fast. He must've gotten scared of me.“

They both redirected their gazes at her. ”Hm?“

”Oh, I mean your little friend.“

”Come“ she waved over to the two ”I'll show you the roses.“

When Shima finally moved away from the wolf, he couldn't help but sigh in relief. ”You coming Legoshi?“ the human inquired as he stopped on his tracks. ”Ah, Y-yes.“ he replied. He trudged to Shima, and when he has closed enough distance, the human gripped his arm and led him through the brick arch. ”Come on!“

He felt even more blood rush into his cheeks. He eyed their entwined hands.

His hands are soft... I want to hold them forever.

”I have roses around, you guys can look for them... On one condition.“

The human and the wolf gave her a confusing stare. ”Condition?“ the human inquired.

”I can't just give away my children for free..“

”Oh... What's the condition?“

She stepped aside and revealed a small set of pots. ”Help me move these to the back will ya?“ Shima and Legoshi stared at it for a while before the human realized something.

It's the same pots from a few days back.

”Really? Pots? Again?“ he remarked with a smile that said, really? The rabbit brought a lightly-clenched fist to her mouth to suppress her laugh.

The pot felt heavy in his arms whilst he struggled to carry the pot across the ground. The breeze of air became much cooler as sweat trickled down his face. Finally taking the pot to the back, he wiped the sweat on his forehead while the sun gleamed brightly on his skin, giving it a faint, unnoticeable glow.

Legoshi, on the other hand, was taking everything easy, occassionaly taking side glances to admire the human's features. He was just in the middle of carrying a pot when a hand touched his tail.

”There,“ the rabbit brushed her hands after tucking the wolf's tail between the inverted Y-like part of the suspenders. ”Don't want this big monster tail of yours to knock around my garden.“

S-she touched me...

~~~~

”Alright“ the human exhaled. He turned around and witnessed that Legoshi was just about finished. He trotted to the rabbit. The squirt of the water spray ringed in his ears as he got closer to the rabbit.

”Is there any water here?“ he asked. Now he was close enough for the rabbit to hear his slightly silvery normal voice.

”There aren't any drinkable water here..“

”Is that so?“ He asked while the rabbit nodded.

”Then I'll just go and get one..“ he turned in his heels and headed for the metal door. ”I'll be back!“ he shouted before the door creaked from the lack of oil as the human closed it slowly and gently.

The rabbit invited the wolf into the shed as they finished up. The sliding glass door rolled to the side whilst the wolf entered and the rabbit sat near the window blinds, reading a newspaper.

”Thanks for the help today,“ she started. The glass door creaked again, followed by the shut of the curtains.

”Do you want something in return? How about food?“

The wolf scratched the back of his head. ”Ah, you don't have to worry about that...“

”But I want to repay you somehow. Is there anything you want?“

I want? Let's see... Should I go for food seriously? But I'm a carnivore.. Wouldn't she get scared of I ordered a carnivore plate in front of her? Think Legoshi, Think...

His hands flew to his ears and his eyes shut closed as he thought of what to do. All sound was blocked out, he didn't even notice when the rabbit spoke up. ”I guess you want the same thing...“ Haru hopped out of her chair and shut the blinds, darkening the room whilst the wolf kept thinking to himself.

She took her belt off, ”I haven't done it with a large carnivore before...“ her buttons came next. ”Have you done it with another herbivore?“ she asked as her uniform finally came off, unnoticeably shivering as the cold air inside the shed caressed her furred body. ”You can be rough, I can handle it.“ she sauntered slowly to the wolf.

A hand started unbuckling his belt while he peered through his eyelids and the bottom part of his white dress shirt rode up a few inches. ”Your fur is cream white here...“ the rabbit complimented. The wolf's limbs and tail freezed while his eyes went as wide as saucers when a small hand started caressing his chest.

She pulled the waist band of his pants a little wider and peered inside the big fluff of fur underneath. ”I want to see how far it goes is that ok?“

”Guys! I'm-“ Shima stopped mid-sentence as he held glass door and the curtains to the side. The thump of the water bottle brought Legoshi to reality once more. ”NO! IT'S NOT OK!“ he exclaimed, snatching the waist band of his pants from the rabbit's grasp.

”W-what...“ the human managed to utter through his frozen state. Once everything has finally registered to him, he literally flashed out of the shed and out of the rooftop. Jumping three steps at a time.

Legoshi buckled his pants and suspenders in one swift move before he reached out to the bed. ”Y-you'll get cold a-and bugs might s-sting you s-so“ he draped a blanket over her shoulders and also bolted out of the room.

He slammed the glass door shut. He jumped from the sharp pain that coursed through his body as the sound of the glass door reached his ears. ”Ah!“ he exclaimed. He pulled his slightly flattered tail from the door and finally ran out of the rooftop.

Haru hugged the blanket closer to her body,

Eh? Did he not want it?... Wait, did I jump into conclusions again?

And a blanket? Heh, wierdo.

~~~~

”Ahhhh! Why do I have to see that?!“ Shima questioned. He slammed his head on the wall and groaned. ”I just wanted to check on them!“

”Shima-san?“

”Eh?“ he turned his gaze. His head still stuck on the wall. ”Legoshi? What are you doing here?“

Waahhh Legoshi! Why did you do that!

”A-ah.. Shima-san... I came to explain..“

Maybe it's not like it seems it is.

”Alright.“ he moved his head away from the wall and instead leaned on it. ”Go on“

The wolf's ears perked at the human's words, though his tail didn't show any signs of joy. ”I-I...“

”You seduced her?“

Legoshi shook his head. ”I-I didn't! S-she was the one w-who started undressing..“

Hmm.... I have to talk to her.

”I see,“ he stopped leaning on the wall and stalked towards the wolf. ”I can understand what happened. You don't have to be sorry now.“ he patted the wolf's head and gave a few scratches on the back of his ear as the wind behind the wolf picked up.

He retracted his hand. ”I'll just go get the flowers.“ he gave a short kiss on the wolf's cheek before he trotted away. ”See ya!“ he waved at the far distance.

When the human was finally out his vision, Legoshi felt his cheeks warm up again while he caressed the spot where the human kissed him.

”Legoshi?“ a small voice called out on his side. He turned his gaze andd saw Kibi staring at him with a raised brow.

”Why did you leave?“ he asked, facing the anteater.

”Nevermind that. She didn't do anything to you didn't she?“

~~~~

”Haru?“ the human knocked on the metal door. It took a few moments but it eventually opened up, revealing Haru, fully dressed.

”Shima?“ the rabbit shot him a confusing look when the human had got outside the stairwell. He placed his hands on his hips, ”Let's talk.“

Haru sighed and closed the metal door. ”This is about earlier right?“

”Yes.“

”I know, you're here to tell me you're no-“

The human crouched to her eye level. ”Haru, I understand why you did that. But sometimes, it's good to take a break. You traumatized him!“

She gave him a side eye. ”I know“

Wait, something's not right.

”You like him don't you?“ she smirked. The human widened his eyes and looked away to hide his cherry red cheeks. ”I-I don't... M-maybe..“

The rabbit chuckled, ”That's why you're so offended.“

”I'm not!“

”I think you should get these roses now“ she pointed to a bag in the corner full of countless roses.

”Hm?“ something vibrated in his pocket. He felt around his pockets for his phone. ”Where is it?“ another vibrate. He sughed in relief as he finally found his phone on his pocket where he just felt around before.

He opened his phone, only to get bombarded of message notifications. ”Yeah, I think I should“ he set the phone back in his pocket and picked up the bag of roses.

”I'll just see you alright?“ he shouted, trudging to the door and gently opening it.

”Alright!“ Haru replied. The human flashed her one last smile before he closed the door and waltzed down the stairs.

Another wierdo

~~~~

Shima made in time for the roses, though Dom was already gone and he was instructed to leave the roses up at the loft.

He laid the roses down near the window so it could catch some sunlight. He turned his attention to a small paper bag hid between the pile of boxes.

”What happened to your arm Shima-san?“

”Legoshi?“ he turned around indeed met with the familiar grey fur.

”Oh this? Just got scratched. Nothing serious“ he reassured and turned to go back. He yelped when his wounded arm hit the pile of boxes and the boxes stumled to him, trapping him.

”Shima-san!“ the wolf exclaimed, struggling to remove the boxes one-by one. He finally removed the last box weighing down the human's bandaged arm. He felt his body get wamer whilst staring at Shima's bandaged arm, a small spot of red was evident on the layers of white bandages.

The more he stared at the spot of red, the more it slightly grew. The spot stopped growing as the human stood up and brushed his pants of the dust. ”I'll go ahead Legoshi.“ the human passed beside him before the sweet scent from that night wafted through his nose. He watched the human climb down the ladder while still latching his eyes onto the human's arm. Once the human entered the locker rooms, he knew the scent was his blood.

~~~~

I'm starving... Shima slipped his dark grey pants on before he took off his white shirt and 'accidentally' showcased his 'slightly' toned body. Everyone's heads turned to him as he changed.

Finally finishing dressing up to his green jacket, he turned in his heels. Though, he almost felt his soul leave his body.

”Wha- Bill! Stop!“ he exclaimed, kitting his eyebrows in annoyance as Bill was staring at him terrifingly grim expression from behind.

”Haha, I got you!“ the tiger chuckled. Bill backed away from him before someone at the outside the locker rooms called out for the human.

”Shima-san?“ Els asked, popping her head out of the doorway. Her face turned fifty shades of red as she saw some of her clubmates topless. ”L-Louis senpai wants to t-talk to you.“ she stuttered still flushing red.

”Okay.“ the human answered. He grabbed his bag and headed out the door while Els dashed to the girl's locker room. He knocked on the door before he heard the deer's voice on the other side.

”Come in.“

Chapter Text

“Let the Drama club enter the auditorium.”

“They've achieved with their performances that cross the species barrier.”

Should I really be here??

“Therefore we would like to acknowledge the Drama club's achievements with the Cherryton school.”

I mean, I've only been at this club for only a few days and now I'm here with the other's, having an award ceremony?

“They would be recieving the award directly from the Headmaster.”

Shima watched while Louis bowed his head in front of the Headmaster, both holding the award. Gon mumbled something to the deer as the deer replied and grab ahold of the mic before speaking.

“Co-existence and Co-prosperity, those are the values we will be showing in our performance. I would love everyone to come to our performance in two days.” the deer bowed.

Claps and cheers busted through the lecture hall when the deer raised his head from the bow. The human's heart pounded against his chest. He was internally cursing himself on coming with them just for this thing.

“Co-existence and Co-prosperity my ass! I can't believe he had the nerve to say that in front of 3,000 students!” Kai boomed, pulling Shima out of his thoughts.

“Hey, keep it down..” Legoshi spoke.

“I don't care if he hears me. He kicked me out of the freaking actor team.” the mongoose rose from his sitting position and adjusted the lights.

“Well, I think I'm doing pretty fine. Though, being a stagehand is more fun that I thought.”

“Good for you then.” The human cut in. He sighed and looked down on the papers in his hand. Apparently, they we're scripts.

“Hay, whaddya' got there?” asked the mongoose. Kai didn't even got to see what's written on the papers before the human pulled them close to his body.

“It's nothing!” he replied with enlarged eyes, shocked by Kai's sudden intrusion.

“Alright,” the mongoose turned. Shima sighed again and brought the papers to his eye level. A hand suddenly swiftly snatched his papers. “Hey!”

“Hm.. Let me see... Script? On what character?” he eyed the paper's top part, where the character's name is usually written. “Bartender?” he turned another page. “Marketer?” another page. “Guardian? Three roles?”

The human looked down on embarassment while Kai glared at him. “All by yourself?... Hey, Legoshi look.”

“Hm?” the wolf also observed his script, “How did you get these roles?” the mongoose asked. The human snatched his script from Kai's grasp. “Louis-senpai gave them to me.”

“What?! He should've given those roles to me! Bet, I'll do better than you!” Shima climbed down the ladder, deciding to test out his skills with the deer. Once he got to the bottom, he looked around for the deer, though Louis was nowhere to be seen.

He tapped Bill's shoulder “Hey, Bill”

“What?”

“Have you seen Louis?”

Stop thinking about Louis! I'm here!

“I don't know, maybe he's somewhere” the tiger shrugged his shoulders.

“You know Adler's lines right?”

“Yeah, why? Want a help from the exper-” Shima pulled his hand towards the stage roughly, sending him slightly stumbling forward. “Good! Now help me rehearse.”

Sanu approached the stage as the two positioned themselves. “What scene is this?” The tiger asked.

“18!”

18, alright! I still remember the lines!

“Let's do this!” Bill exclaimed whilst the human memorized his lines for a quick second. He morphed his expression to a relaxed one, the one that's needed for the scene. “3, 2, 1, Action!”

Bill came dashing to the human. “Ellen!” the tiger shouted, the zebra came out of the curtains and she trotted to the tiger. “Reaper-san...” she panted.

“Pretty rough day are we?” the interjected. The tiger's and zebra's heads turned to him as he was busy cleaning a prop glass. “Sit down and I'll give you drinks.”

The prop team came out of the curtains and settled a two plastic chairs behind the tiger and the zebra. They also laid out a fake but functioning cupboard in between the three. A vegetable juice was handed to the human as he pulled out two glass cups.

He started pouring the cups with the vegetable juice, “Um, Mr. Bartender? Why are you helping us?” the zebra asked.

The human gave a long pause. Remember the lines! “No reason.” he smiled and started filling the other cup.

The tiger and the zebra downed the juice to the last gulp. “Ah, thank you Mr. Bartender.” Ellen thanked with her full respect. “You're welcome.”

“I don't trust him.” the tiger mumbled under his breath which was directed to the zebra. “Me too. But he's helping us, we should be greateful.” the zebra whispered as the human turned his back at them and pretended to do something.

A few fake footsteps sounded behind the curtains that caught the attention of the three. “You might want to leave now.”

“Why?” Ellen asked before Tao and an owl came out of the curtains. The tiger diverted his attention with a fake shocked expression on his face “They found us!”

“The backdoor's just behind the shelf.” the human spoke as he rounded the corner where bartender's usually exit and enter on the space between the shelf and the cupboard. He pulled out a wooden staff and faced the villains. “Go now.”

“But!”

“I can handle them.”

“Adler,” he slightly turned his head to the side. “Grant what she wishes.”

“That's what I'm doing!” Bill replied before the zebra and the tiger disappeared to the other side.

“And, cut!” Sanu exclaimed. The human realeased a small shaky breath while the other's started clapping.

“You're great Shima-san!” Els praised.

“Thank you, everyone...” he thanked, unaware of Legoshi watching him from above the loft.

Could you be hiding something, Shima-san?

Or could Louis-senpai be also hiding a secret?

«—»«—»«—»«—»«—»

“Alright everyone!” the gazelle teacher exclaimed, catching everyone's attention. “We'll be making muffins today.”

“Yes!”

“Muffins? That's great!”

“Quiet down everyone...” the teacher started washing her hands while all twelve of them followed.

As Shima was washing his hands, his blurred reflection appeared on the stainless steel sink. The water burbled the more he let the faucet running. The teacher immediately took notice of his behavior as they were already about to start. “Mr.Shima”

He snapped out of his trance. “Y-yes?”

“Please stop spacing out, were at the middle of baking here.” the gazelle readjusted her glasses.

Shima gulped and looked down in apology. “S-sorry ma'am, won't happen again.”

“Good. now,” she clapped her hands and started writing on the board. “Alright, I want everyone to get these ingredients that I'm writing.” She added.

The human and the others examined the ingredients listed on the board. Mainly, it's basic.
1 1/3 cup of flour
2 eggs
3 'Dying' bananas
1 tbsp. Baking soda
A bag of chocolate chips
1/3 of Vegetable oil
Sugar

“Yes, ma'am” they all said in unison before they pulled out small baskets and headed to the back of the room where ingredients are usually kept. “Two students will share a bag of flour and chocolate chips!” the teacher shouted.

“Can I share with you?” a voice spoke, coming from his side. He turned his head and his lips immediately curled up into a smile. “Oh, Els! Didn't know you take this class.”

“Shima-san? What a coincidence!” she smiled. He returned the smile and picked up a small tray of eggs. He set the eggs down on his basket before continuing to find bananas. “You can share the flour and chocolates with me. Let's just meet up at my workspace alright?”

She smiled again “Alright!” he rounded the corner of an isle before he spotted a sign that said bananas. He trudged to that section immediately looked around for the 'dying' bananas.

He poked every bunch of banana. His poking went for a few seconds until he felt a banana which is much softer than normal. “This must be it.” he mumbled and picked up three 'dying' bananas.

“10 Minutes!”

Gotta hurry! He dashed to the flour and chocolates which are luckily placed next to one another. He swiftly snatched one bag of flour and chocolate chips before going to find vegetable oil and baking soda.

Once he got the remaining two, he literally flew to their workspace. “Are you okay, Shima-san? You're drenched in sweat!” she spoke, panicking on how to help him.

She waved her concern off. “I'm alright.”

“Looks like everyone is here,” the gazelle teacher clapped again. “Equipment.”

All of the students obliged and pulled out their baking equipment from the drawers. “Good. Let's start.”

“First, get your bananas. They should look like this.” she showed her bananas which is spotted with a bunch of black spots. “We're not looking for a banana with a headache or a banana with a high pressure, we're looking for a terminal disease.”

She peeled the bananas and threw them to the mixing bowl like a champ. She picked up her banana masher and started murdering the hell out of the bananas. “Now, you'll end their suffering. Go to that tunnel. Follow the light.”

Why does she sound like she's murdering someone?! Shima thought whilst following the teacher and doing the same thing she's doing: murdering the bananas. Same as Els.

“Now two eggs. Herbivores. If you guys can't stand to do it, go have another animal do it for you. But if you're though like those chicas on T.V. then do it yourself.” she stated while cracking an egg and spilling it's insides to the banana mixture.

Oh gosh. Els thought while cracking an egg.

The gazelle got a glass measuring cup and measured the vegetable oil, “A third of vegetable oil” she poured it onto the mixture. She started mixing the ingredients while occasionaly glancing at her students.

“How did you get those roles Shima-san?” Els asked out of nowhere. The human gave a side glance while mixing his own batter. “...Remember the time when you called me cause' Louis wants to see me?”

The goat nodded.

“He wanted to see me since he would give that role and transfer me temporarily to the actor's team”

—«Flashback»—

“Come in”

The door creaked while it opened. It's creaks went on before the door's movements finally ceased and the human stepped in. “Close the door.”

The door creaked again, this time, a bit louder that the human silently grimaced from the sound it was making.

“Take a look at these papers.” Louis handed him a set of papers which looked like scripts of one character. “They're scripts... Who's playing this?”

“You.”

“A- What?”

The deer smirked at Shima's reaction before he stood up and made his way to him. “You're a Beastar right?” he pushed the human into the wall.

“Then show me what you've got.” he forcibly opened the human's mouth with his hands. He then lined up his hand along the human's teeth. He can nearly feel the human's hot breath tickling his palm. His face turned into an angry expression as his eyebrows knitted together.

“Bite me!”

B-bite you?! W-why do I have to do that?! I don't want to hurt you! And I-I don't have fangs!

“Mmf.. Mfo! Mfeafe, msof” (No.. No! Please, stop!) the human's retorts and begs came out as muffled protests the more the deer forced his hand to his teeth.

He's not doing anything...

“Come on! Bite me! Do it!”

“f wofn't!” (I won't!)

Louis stared at the human's petrified expression, then to his porcelain-white teeth. He stared at Shima's teeth before he saw something.

He let go of the human which went stumbling towards the other side of the room while gasping for air. “I'll go now.” he rushed and picked up the papers before he hurriedly slammed the door shut on his way out.

Must've traumatized him. The deer stared down at his hand.

Fear.

—«Flasback Ends»—

Better not tell her what happened...

“Let's just get back to baking.” he looked down on his batter with a gloomy expression. It didn't take long for the goat to sense the human's expression which she might've turned sour.

“A cup of flour.” the gazelle spoke again, discarding the contents of her measuring cup to the mixed batter. The human finished his one and a third of flour before he gave the bag of flour to Els. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

“Would that be one third?” the gazelle gave a long pause, glancing at her students and back to the measuring cup. “It looks like...” she discarded the remaining amount before she started mixing again.

She pulled out a slightly smaller measuring cup and measured some sugar with it. “Sugar to taste, honestly.”

“A little bit of baking powder.” she threw a spoonful of baking powder in. “Now you're gonna start mixing but in glam motions..”

(If ya'll know all of this glam kitchen reference, ya'll should know shiadanni)

The heck is glam motions?!

Everyone tried to replicate her mixing motions but since they really just can't do it, they went their own ways. “I forgot the oven. Preheat the oven to FOUR HUNDRED!”

“I'll just preheat the oven.” Els spoke, crouching to reach the oven under their worktable. “Okay” he smiled to the goat though his eyes weren't smiling like they usually do.

She stood up as the teacher began talking again, “Now when you see that there's still some flour there, you put the chocoate chips.” she sprinkled a bit first before she literally threw the 2/3 of the chocolate chip's contents to the mixture. Some of it even ended up on the floor or at the table.

“How much chocolate will we use again?” the human asked.

The goat shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe 1/3 of the whole bag?”

The teacher then pulled out a cupcake mold (or whatever that is) “Ok, you're gonna need one of diz. Now you're gonna start greasing this.”

A student raised his hand. “Can we use spray oils?”

“Yes. What? You think I don't know spray oils exist? You must think I live in the dessert too.”

“You must think I use a cactus as a pillow.”

She started pouring the batter onto the tray molds “The oven is ready and we're late!” she kept pouring the batter, one mold after another. “Faster!”

“Good. Now throw that to the oven. Set it to 20 minutes and wait.” the human and the goat 'threw' their own trays into the oven before Shima set the oven's timer for 20 mins.

The human pulled out another bag of processed blueberries. “Blueberries?” Els asked while staring confusingly at the human. The human hummed in response, “Yep, I'll make a jam out of this and pour it onto the muffins after they're done” the human added.

He started crushing the berries inside a ziplock with a rolling pin. “Can I try?” the goat asked once more. The human gave him the rolling pin and stepped aside. As the goat took hold of the pin she started crushing the berries like there's no tommorrow.

“Okay, okay. That's enough. You're starting to murder them.” Shima took his place again and placed the berries on a pan, without the ziplock of course. He stirred the berries for a few minutes under mid heat before he added in cornsyrup. “This will add the consistency.” he stated.

The goat peered on the boiling pot and her mouth instantly watered at the scent the berries give off while cooking. Just as the human turned off the heat, everyone's ovens ringed. “Can you take out the muffins for me?”

“Y-yes.” she equipped her oven mitts before the goat opened the oven's hatch and the scent of baked bread and chocolate wafted through her. The muffin trays felt hot on her grip as she pulled out their trays from the oven.

“Here, Shima-san.” she laid out one tray in front of the human's ready workspace before setting the other one on her's

The humam transferred the muffins into a small packaging tray before he poured a decent amount of the blueberry syrup on top of each one. “Alright!” he exclaimed.

“C-can I use the syrup too?”

The human picked up one muffin as the other's started packaging theirs. “Hm? Yeah sure.” he took a bite out of his muffin. He instantly fought the urge to moan at the overpowering taste of blueberry over the chocolate and banana.

He looked at the goat which was also eating her own blueberry chocolate chip banana muffins. The teacher walked on their workspace and instantly gave them a perfect score just by the smell, of course the gazelle didn't stop herself from snatching one muffin in which the human just smiled.

Shima looked at Els and gestured at their remaining muffins.

“Let's give everyone at the club”

“Yeah!”

Chapter Text

{=} - pov change

Today, today's the day we'll be performing. I just hope everything goes well and good, and I also hope that I don't  mess up while performing on my scenes. I remember that father goes screaming just to calm himself down... I guess I should just-

"Shima?"

Shima turned to look at Sanou who called him, "Yes?"

"Can you call Louis? Everyone's aready here. Ask him if he would like to give an inspiration speech or two." The pelican requested. The human nodded to the pelican before he went to the leader's dressing room.

Once he got the the leader's dressing room, he opened it without knocking. 

"I'm coming in." he mumbled.

He was gazing at the floor when he entered the room, though when he looked up, he's met with the sight of Louis on the floor with a broken foot.

His eyes widened as he saw Louis' leg was covered in purple bruises all over, some of them are even swelling in pain.

"Louis?!" He slammed the door shut and hastily squatted before the deer's swollen calf. "W-what happened to your leg?!" He panicked.

Louis sighed and rose from the floor before he sat at a sofa facing the human, "I'm fine." He replied. Though it doesn't even look like he's fine, it even looks like his leg was fractured.

The deer sighed again and got the bandages on the table beside him.

So much for keeping it a secret.

Shima's eyebrows knitted together, "Fine? Louis, you're not fine. You have to go to the infirmary!"

"Like i said, I'm fine. I'll just-"

"Okay Mr. Perfectly fine, if you won't go to the infirmary or hospital then I'll just treat it myself." The human snatched the bag of bandages from the deer's grasp and squatted again before him.

Shima slowly rolled up his pants, careful not to hit the swollen areas of his leg. After rolling up his pants, the human unwrapped one bandage and started wrapping the deer's leg tightly.

As the human did his leg's bandages, Louis just watched silently, seething to himself for a few times whenever the bandage was wrapped too tight. He was already used to the pressure of being in pain, but this is one of the worst and he knew that the human won't let it go that easy. He just has to endure this today and tommorow then he'll go straight to the hospital. "Alright."

Shima stood up and placed his hands on his hips, "Now, come. You have to give the other's a speech." He ordered with a stern glare.

"Sure, I'm coming." Louis stood up, only to stumble towards the human. His leg was bad enough that he has problems with walking, this isn't good. "Here"

He looked at the human who is lending his shoulder for him to use as a support. "I'll help you" he smiled. And there he is again, gazing at the human's dark brown eyes. 

He snapped out of it before he clutched to Shima's shoulder. And they both headed out of the dressing room.

"Don't tell anyone about this okay?" Said Louis as they kept walking. The human nodded and stopped before the other's see them like this.

The deer let go of Shima's shoulder, "I can walk on my own now." He said and strode through their clubmates with new found confidence.

"Everyone gather 'round!" Sanou called out for everyone whilst Louis approached them with the human tailing behind.

"Our rehearsals have been wonderful."

It's pathetic, none of you did good.

"It goes to show that it takes more than a bad incident to break our morale."

I don't care about our morale right now.

"This club is special..."

Because I'm a part of it.

"When we get onstage, we're going to show them that we're living life to the fullest. You got that?"

Devote yourselves to me.

Everyone smiled, "Got it!" All of them answered. Louis stared at Legoshi, they made eye contact before Sanou spoke.

"Okay, ten minutes till the performance! Everyone, back to your positions!"

The wolf gave a short bow to Louis as Mina the giraffe and Pudge told him that they're going to put Adler's mask on him, he just replied with "Right.."

Louis turned and headed to the giraffe and red panda. He won't let anyone get in his way, this is how it should be. It's his fight alone, only his.

{=}={=}={=}

No one must've noticed it, except Legoshi. At first he thought it was nothing, but it became stronger that he was able to identify what the scent was. It was the scent of plasters coming from Louis.

Legoshi adjusted the lights a little bit, Louis-san was acting really strange yesterday... And his pep talk sounded like it was directed at him... Is something wrong with him?

He was just observing the blank stage before his headphones blared and Kai's voice came in, "Louis-san is almost done with his make-up, how are the lights?"

"Oh, the lights are ready." He replied with perked ears.

{=}={=}={=}

"Louis-san, I'm putting on the mask." Mina spoke as she lowered the mask over Louis' head.

"Raise your chin a little bit." Pudge fixed the jaw part of the mask. Louis just kept pondering to himself. As the mask was settled on his face, he swore he could almost feel Adler's power surging through him. He's determined to give them a good show.

"Does this feel okay?"

"Yes, no problem." He replied before he stood up. "Louis-san is ready to go."

Alright, I'm going to give them a good show. 

Feast your eyes...

He ran to the stage with all his might. 

A wounded reaper is now onstage.

Louis kept running before he turned and his broken foot cracked, causing him to slightly fall. But he managed to cover it up with pretending as if it's part of a lowered stance. This is his life.

{=}={=}={=}

"Are you ready Shima-san?" He turned to the others.

"Yeah" Shima replied before the stage darkened and the prop team rushed to change the background props. He went to his spot on the stage as it lightened up again and revealed him.

Louis came in on the scene, reciting his lines.

He's doing good. To be honest, it's not just good, it's breathtaking.

His lines came in next and he executed them well, gaining his own spotlight without stealing Louis'. He even noticed Louis' mask slightly lifting upwards as he spoke, a smirk? Smile? It's hard to tell...

His scene finally closed and he immediately ran to the backstage while the stage darkened again.

"Good acting there, Shima!" Sanou praised as Shima gulped down a whole water bottle in a few seconds.

He sighed, "Thanks, Sanou-san. But we shouldn't be celebrating yet..." He looked back on the stage, "There's still a few more scenes."

Yes, his scene weren't the greatest but it was good. Though, he wasn't really thinking about any of that, he was thinking about how Louis was doing. From what he observed, the deer is still holding up himself despite his broken leg. Louis' strength wasn't physical, it's pure willpower and that power is only something Adler might have.

The reaper whose body would shake when he gasped for air, had taken the breath away the audience's as they gazed in awe... His radiance would last all the way to the last scene.

"Ellen, you came back..." Louis recited as he was on the ground while Ellen approached him. "Thank goodness.."

He took the zebra's hand and pulled her closer, "For I have no greater desire to be with you! I am a reaper..."

Louis hugged the zebra while caressing the back of her head. "Our deaths will be the proof of our love for each other." He said. Ellen fell limp in his arms and slowly slid down to the floor as his grip on her body softened. 

"Ellen, have you gave your farewells to this world?"

A long moment of silence befell through the hall as he panted from exhaustion throughout the whole performance. His ragged breaths was soon clouded with the overwhelming sound of cheers and claps from the audience, all of the audience went wild with how he executed the last scene.

His pants were still evident whilst the curtains rolled down.

It's over...

The curtains are closing... I can hear the audience clapping... The last scene was executed perfectly...

I did it.

I can't feel my legs anymore.

His body made contact with the wood of the stage when his body finally gave up.

How am I still up?

I actually managed to do it with my left leg injured... Did you guys see that?! I did it! I actually did it!

{=}={=}={=}

"Louis-san!"

"Call an ambulance!"

Louis? What? Why?

Shima ran to the stage, and there laid Louis, unconcious. "Louis!" He exclaimed. He inspected Louis' body, trying to find a way of helping him.

"This is what I'm talking about!" He shouted, hurriedly gripping Louis' wrist to check for his pulse.

He sighed in relief when he found a pulse, "He still has a pulse, though we need to get him to the infirmary." He looked at Legoshi who just came down from the rafters.

"Legoshi, take him to the nurse's infirmary." The wolf nodded before Legoshi picked up Louis bridal style and ran outside of the hall through the back.

Els started panicking, "W-what do we do? It's almost time for the curtain call" 

"You have to get through the call without us. I'll be following them." He started running after Legoshi, "Start the curtain call already and we'll meet at the infirmary!"

He kept running, though it seemed like he was going nowhere, this place is too big. A sweat trickled down the side of his face.

This is why I told him to at least get his foot checked! Now look at what happened! This isn't good! Not one bit!

He bursted through the infirmary doors, jolting the nurse from her stroll through the room.

"W-where's Louis?" The nurse pointed to a bed obscured by curtains from his view. "Thank you, but please don't tell what happened to anyone, his reputation will be hurt if this goes around the school."

The goat nurse smiled, "I won't. And you know, that's what he exactly says everytime he gets sent here."

Shima bowed, "Thank you so much!"

"It's fine."

He bowed one last time before he made his way to the deer's bed. "What did she say?"

"His left leg was broken, he won't be able to perform tommorow." Legoshi replied from his position beside of Louis' bed. Shima stared at Louis then sat at the side of the bed. He stared at the deer's unconcious form while gripping Louis' hand tightly.

Legoshi, on the other hand was just watching Shima show his caring side to the deer. He wasn't hurt by it or anything, he knows he has feelings for Shima, but if he likes Shima, then why isn't he hurt by him showing his affection to others?

Shima stood up, "I'll just go get something to eat." He stated before heading to his dorm. He's lucky all students are on their classes, it might be bad if they saw him wandering the halls instead of doing the curtain call at the stage.

He started walking faster, soon, his walk turned into running. He's just staring at the floor before his vision began to get blurry and he had to stop just to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

W-why am I crying?

{=}={=}={=}

"How's Louis-san?" Sanou asked while the other's started filing up the infirmary.

"The nurse said his left leg was broken and he won't be able to perform tommorow." His ears drooped. The girls gasped while the guys just frowned at the news.

"Where's Shima-san?" Els looked around.

"He went to get food and water." 

Just as Legoshi finished stating where the human was, he entered the infirmary with small boxes of lunch from the cafeteria and a few bottles of water enough for all of them, including Louis.

Everyone started taking out certain boxes of lunch, luckily the boxes were labeled with C and H so the herbivores don't get the carnivore's food or vice versa.

Legoshi took one before the human settled one bag of herbivore food and water beside Louis' bed. Shima just pulled out a bottle of apple juice and started downing it slowly.

He sighed and stared at Louis' face,

I told you to go to the hospital, now look what happened.

Chapter Text

Louis started to stirr awake, "Louis!" Ellen exclaimed.

"It's fine. I can get up myself..." Louis sat up on the bed and a moment of blankness overwashed him. Wait.. He should know one thing first.

"Did the audience see me fall?" He asked. Everyone stared at each other before Sanou spoke, "No. When you fell, the curtains was already dropped so none of the audience saw it." 

Louis sighed, relieved that no one saw him fall. "Just for the record, it's 8:00 PM, and we're at the infirmary"

"The doctor said that you have a stress fracture on your left foot," Louis heard and his attention turned to Bill, "And you're not in any condition to perform tomorrow" Bill stated and Louis almost felt himself shake from the shock.

What?! Not in any condition to perform?!

"Bill! Why'd you have to say it like that?!" Sanou questioned with a jerk of his head towards the tiger. "What do you mean? Beating around the bush won't help him. This is Louis-senpai we're talking about."

"But, still..."

"The head's right!"

"You have to learn some tact!"

"You're so insensitive..."

Legoshi didn't mutter anything.

"Yeah! Louis actually managed to go through the performance with a fracture!" Ellen retorted one last time.

The protests against Bill soon turned into praises towards the deer as their conversation shifted from one topic to another. "Your performance was great, Louis-san!" One of the members spoke.

"Yeah, it gave me chills."

Aoba explained, "We we're just talking about what we should do tomorrow..."

"Yeah!"

"But we don't have enough ideas, even though we went here."

Louis stared at the club members as they kept discussing to themselves. He slightly hung his head low, going against the idea of others pitying on him, thinking he's just some helpless animal in need of care.

A strong sense of anathema kept creeping to his head the more the others talked about what to do with the second play. His pride and self-esteem is slowly being eaten away by his mental state.

He hates this. Being pitied upon, being treated like a small delicate animal with no mind of himself. He wants to stand up for himself, to show that he's not just some weak herbivore, to dominate over every animal, To be on top of the pyramid of life.

He gripped the sheets more tighter, "Just a broken foot and now you're taking pity on me?!" Louis boomed, shocking everyone. Aoba and the others stopped talking and just stared at Louis with shock and confusion written all over their faces.

Keep calm, Louis

I'm calm, always calm

Stay calm

"I'm sorry," he regained his cool demeanor and instead smiled weakly, "Bill, you'll be my stand-in for tomorrow. You know Adler's lines, right?"

Dumbfounded, Bill stared at Louis for a few moments. His face brightened up as soon as his head finally processed everything. "You really think I can do it?!"

~~~~

"Of course"

Bill's acting really weird today...

"You're a notable actor of the drama club"

I've known him for years so something must be up

"And most of all, I have taken a liking to your courage for informing me of my condition without any needless compensation" Bill continued to mumble to himself as he trained with a prop stick on the stage with everyone watching, especially Shima.

He turned swiftly, "It shall be you!" He swinged his stick to where he turned, hitting Tao in the arm. "Woah!"

He flicked the Adler mask above his face, "Yep..."

Shima turned to Kai, "Kai, what happened at the infirmary?" He asked as the mongoose turned around to face him.

"Why, aren't you there when Louis woke up?"

"He woke up already?" The human chuckled, "No one told me."

Shima stopped chuckling and straightened himself. "No wait. What actually happened there?" He asked, leaning in closer to the mongoose as if to hear the latter better.

Kai set down the box in his hands and told everything that happened back at the infirmary to the human, which the human nodded to assert that he has understood the situation. "Okay..."

"So, Bill got the Adler role?" He asked and Kai nodded. That explains everything..

Shima pointed to Legoshi in the corner of the stage. "What about Legoshi?"

"He replaced Bill's previous role as the mook since they're just as tall."

Turns out, Bill already had a role as the enemy mook, but when Louis appointed him as his stand-in, they had one less actor. Everyone started to find for anyone fitting for the tiger's role, searching every team they had until they landed on Legoshi who has a similar figure to Bill's.

Legoshi and Bill made their way to the stage as to rehearse for their fight scene, "You should know how we're supposed move since you can see everything from above. Let's take it easy don't we?"

This isn't good... "I have slow reflexes.." The wolf looked down.

He didn't even get to look before Bill's stick suddenly swinged towards him, causing him to raise his prop stick in defense.

Their forms trembled as both of them shifted their strength in blocking or pushing the other. "Oh, wow.."

"Nice.. Nice.." Bill started exerting more force and the wolf was forced to slightly lean backwards with the latter's strength, "Now that's the power of a gray wolf."

"You look happy..." Legoshi asked, still struggling.

Shima nudged Aoba beside him while all of them watched the two, "Uh, Aoba?"

"Of course I'm happy! I'll get to show everyone how an Adler with stripes can be good as Louis on stage!"

"Are you sure they're just practicing?"

"Yeah... They're just taking it seriously." Aoba replied. The human scratched his chin in thought. The tiger never behaved like this when they were young, except that time when they had a roleplay in their school, but today... He's.. Violently ecstatic...?

"Hey Legoshi, I don't see any reason why carnivores like us are not allowed to stand out. Tomorrow, I'll get to show everyone that if strong animals live strong, they can shine bright like stars!"

Bill finally exerted all of his force and pushed Legoshi a few feet from him, "You're a wolf and I'm a tiger. There won't be any wrong assumptions on our fight scenes." Bill huffed.

The tiger's serious and slightly eerie demeanor was instantly thrown out the window as his face brightened up and he rested the stick on his shoulder with a hand on his hips, "Tomorrow's performance will be a blast! Let's do our best."

~~~~

What's with Bill today?

Shima walked through the halls of the buildings, occasionally taking glances at the open arched windows of the path bridge he's trudging to get to his dorm. He sighed, the cool air of the night lightly blowing at his face. His hair swayed everytime there's a sudden blast of cold wind.

He stopped in his tracks, and turned to the window, taking in the scenery before his eyes. I'm sure Bill's directing those words to himself again... I knew him like the back of my hand and I can clearly see through him, he's nervous.

He turned again and continued on the silent halls. Not that I could do anything about it... I'm sure he'll also find out a way to relieve his nervousness by tomorrow. But, how about Legoshi? He looked... a bit? Or maybe definitely scared.

All I could do for now is hope that the 2nd performance will go great.

His phone ringed and he fished it out of his pocket with ease, he skimmed through his messages before Haiku's message was notified at the inbox list.

Shima sighed and pocketed his phone again.

I better hurry.

~~~~

"Wow. Who would've thought that Louis the great will come to check on me on the day of the performance."

"Are you here to encourage me? Give me a piece of advice?"

"Or maybe... Discourage me?"

Bill turned to Louis who's standing on his crutches, "Just kidding." He smiled.

Louis also smiled, "Heh... That's funny"

The light from the window beside Louis gently arrayed a yellow glow of the sun outside while showcasing the grassfield with trees behind it. "I'm totally fine. I'll make sure to portray Adler in the ways you do."

"I won't let the audience leave their seats" Bill added. Louis turned to stare at him, he examined the tiger's physique before he turned at the door. "It's going to be a full house today"

"It'll be your duty to sway the hearts of thousands of animals of different species."

"Such is the curse of bearing the role of Adler. If you allow that curse to completely crush your heart..."

"You'll surely break more than just a leg" He stated. Louis shuffled to the door. Before he could even open it, Bill instantly appeared and held the door open for him, slightly shocking him. "Woah! Let me get that for you!"

Louis spinned in his heels to look at Bill again. "This is just on a whim, but there's this good seat I want to show you... I'll take you there!" Smiled the tiger.

They both left the dressing room and headed down the hallway, "You're pretty smart, I'd be happy if you could teach that wolf a lesson."

Bill perked at the deer's remark and a question popped in his head, "...Is it just me or have you been paying a lot of attention to Legoshi lately?"

Well if you think about it, Bill's right. Legoshi has been lately getting on Louis' nerves, he hates it when strong animals act weak. It serves like an insult for deers like him.

"I just can't help myself to hate him... He's forcing himself to be a nobody. It's a disgusting insult for a deer like me."

"But you're the contrary of him. You probably find his conduct amusing."

"Well, I definitely don't want to live like a nobody. I was glad to be born a tiger. Unlike Legoshi I have the makings of a large-breed carnivore."

Bill finally reached the backstage after taking Louis to the seat he was talking about, once he got to the backstage, he's greeted by Sanou and other members of the stage crew. "This is it... Did you sleep well?" Sanou asked.

"Well, a little bit." He replied. His eyes immediately landed on Legoshi, standing a few feet away from him.

Shima just stared at Bill, "You look great in that, Bill." He commented. "What can I say, I seem to fit the role of Adler" Bill puffed his chest as to kind of assert confidence among them. 

"30 minutes 'till the play."

Legoshi took a threatening step towards Bill, the tiger slowly stepped back with cold sweat running down his face. "Bill what do you..."

"Oh, thirty minutes you say? I'm gonna go to the bathroom then." Bill rushed and darted out of the room.

"Sorry, I'll be out for a bit" Legoshi glanced and waved at Dom for a quick second before he made a hot pursuit of the tiger. "We have 30 minutes left!"

"I'll be right back!"

Dom and the others just stared at the two run away, "Going to the bathroom together? Well, aren't they carefree."

Shima's thoughts started running wild, "Eh? What do you mean?"

"Nah, it looked like he was chasing him." Pudge cut in.

"Wait, what was that, really? Didn't it feel kind of scary?"

{=}={=}={=}

The bathroom window emitted an orange glow as Bill stood against it, panting from all the running he made bcause of Legoshi who is in front of him, also panting.

"Why'd you follow me to the restroom? Are you trying to hit on me?" Bill huffed in exhaustion and resting his hands on his hips, "Why don't you take it slow and give me a love letter first?"

"I noticed it when you entered the wing... What do you have?" Legoshi growled.

"..."

"Haha, I guess nothing passes through the nose of a large-breed canine" Bill slid his arm onto his side pocket, fishing for something on the pocket, "What, you want some too?"

Bill finally showed Legoshi what he got.

"Wha... What is that...?"

"It's deer blood."

Now this made Legoshi boil.

"Oh, but this isn't Louis'! There was this old tiger who's kind of a punk who gave it to me. Told me to use it when I needed it..."

"And this is the right time to use it right?"

A deer's... Louis-senpai...

"So there's no problem--" Before Bill could even continue, he was cut by Legoshi pounding his fist into him which he managed to block with his own hands. "Woah!"

"Hahahaha... Listen to me will you?" Another sweat dripped down the side of Bill's face as he was pushed to the wall, "You weren't like this in our rehearsal..."

"Legoshi, you've got it easy, living life in the shadows! But I can't be like you! This is justified doping!"

"You wouldn't understand 'cause you never had to deal with pressure in your life!"

"..." Legoshi's form shaked with his strength, he let go of one of Bill's hands, "...Bill..."

No matter how Legoshi put it, he couldn't talk back to him, all Bill said was right. 

Legoshi, why don't you ever... Utilize your own strength? Louis' words rang onto Legoshi as the wolf spoke again. "I'm thankful to you..."

"...What?" Bill questioned. Legoshi finally pulled back and clenched his fists in frustration.

I'm tired of running away

"I'm not going to start a fight in the bathroom... I'm finally ready to go onstage."

Legoshi spinned in his heels to face the door while slightly looking back at Bill, "We'll meet onstage, Bill..."

"And I'll make you pay."

Chapter Text

The heat of the lecture hall, the stares of the audience, and Bill's own body turned against him as he recited his lines on the stage, “Don't forget!”

Good grief, this sweat.

“I am Adler the reaper.”

It's the heat right?

A cough.

Someone coughed?!

“And the spirits of water and fire have fallen into my hands!” he recited while the audience murmured and whispered, losing interest in the play for Louis wasn't here, “I...”

I'm onstage... gotta calm down.. 

“I can sense of those wretches coming towards us... We must run away now!” Bill exclaimed so it'll be audible at the whole building. Sanou and Sheila watched with worry ecthed on their faces, “Is he alright? He looks kind of nervous.”

“Well he's doing fine, considering this is Louis' role,” Sheila frowned, “The pressure must be unbearable...”

Sanou started looking around as if looking for someone, “Where's Legoshi? He's supposed to come in soon!”

Bill, you shouldn't pay attention to the audience. They're only here for Louis... You can't blame them for being dissapointed.

Shima jogged up to the two, “How's Bill doing?” he asked, resting his right hand on the female cheetah's shoulder whilst the two glanced at him before looking back at the stage, “Good.” Sanou spoke, “How about Legoshi?”

“Legoshi? Well...” Shima turned as the sound of heavy footsteps came from behind them and they all stepped aside to take a look behind them, “L-Legoshi?”

“Looks like they did a good job on yous costume. How do you feel?”

Bill, if consuming red blood counts as justified doping...

Legoshi walked on the stage, his prop cape swishing behind him ever so gently with a number of bandages wrapped across his body face. He also has a prop knife in hand, “You must be the last demon!”

Show me what you got.

I'll crush every part of it.

Bill's eyes widened as he took in the sight of Legoshi all mad looking and ready to kill, Ha, ha... He looks mad...

“I'll show you the way to the other world!”

I'm the one who should be mad. It's because of you that I'm acting out of order.

Legoshi glared at Bill before he dropped the knife and charged at Bill, giving the tiger a hard punch that sent the tiger flying across the stage. Everyone gasped as Bill landed on the stage with a sick thud and their eyes widened from the shock.

Hey, hey, hey, hey! Bill propped himself up from the floor with his hands, Hey are you crazy?!

Legoshi then sat on Bill's waist, Hey stop it! We're in the middle of a performance! What's wrong with you?!

“I told you I'm make you pay,” Legoshi clenched his fists. He clenched it so hard his claws almost drew blood from his palms, “Bill...”

The three at the stage's wing started panicking, “S-somebody stop him!” Sheila whisper-shouted to the two, “Why don't you stop him?” Sanou retorted back. Shima—taken aback at what's happening—didn't try to cut in at the bickering of the two, instead he just stared at the fight happening before their eyes.

A cold sweat slid down the human's head as the prop skull mask slid across them, along with a small red vial which Shima picked up. He examined it andbased on it's visuals,  the vial's contents are a red, dense-like liquid. It looked like blood, Maybe it really is blood.

“What i-is that?” Sheila asked, her eyes slightly widened. Shima clenched the vial in his hands, “I'll stop them,” he ran backstage.

{=}={=}={=}

Legoshi kept on striking Bill with all his might. His blood is boiling in rage, his body felt warm as he pounded the tiger's skull with his punches. A blind rage took over him completely while what Bill said back at the bathroom seemed to resonate in his head, always playing back and forth.

“I'm not like you Legoshi! You're lucky you never had to deal with pressure in your life! This is justified doping!”

Bill, with me on top of you, punching your face, your doping is useless- out of nowhere, Bill caught his punch started to slowly rise from the floor, “That's far enough Legoshi...”

“Are you trying to be a hero? Do you think you're a damned perfect carnivore?” Bill muttered, still gripping Legoshi's fist tightly, “That can't be true.”

Legoshi's breath hitched when Bill hugged him out of the blue, “I can tell... You smelled blood before haven't you?”

“You wouldn't have reacted stringly from it otherwise,” Bill whispered in Legoshi's ear that sent a chill to go down Legoshi's spine. Images of Shima and Louis—smiling brightly—flashed in the wolf's head, “Right?” Then, an Image of the deer and the human all bloodied appeared, Legoshi held their cold, lifeless bodies in his hands while he was continiously uttering the word, I'm sorry...

“Did you injure someone? Or maybe kill anyone?” Blood dripped from Bill's nose while he kept talkong, “Calm yourself comrade! We'll surely understand each other!”

Legoshi's eyes widened, Damn it! I feel... He released a small shaky breath whilst pain shot from his back, Something warm...

“Accept it. It's out proof of kinship,” Bill devilishly grinned and dragged his claws deeper and clawed longer wounds against Legoshi's back, “Matching stripes, from one predator to another...”

Legosh stood on his toes, blood dripped to the floor as it seeped from the wounds on his back. Bill's terrifying seemed to reverberate through Legoshi's ears, now he realized it. The blood oozing from his back is the same as the tiger's, it's palpably the blood of a carnivore.

Tepid, defenseless, melancholy. This blood has caused him nothing but grief, “Legoshi, you can't stand any longer can you?” Bill spoke, though Legoshi kept panting despite the tiger's remark and the claws dragging against his back.

“Just give up...” Bill remarked while pants and short breaths was the only reply Legoshi coukd give, “If you let yourself fall down, the show can go on.” Before Legoshi could react, Bill let go of him, causing him to drop to the stage floor, “O' sad wolf.”

Legoshi's back made contact with the hard wood floor, “Accept your fate,” Bill set a hard foot on Legoshi's abdomen, glaring at him. After all, Legoshi ruined Bill's show and further embarrassed him onstage. He just wants to make him pay.

“I'm the lead actor,” he tore the bandages in Legoshi's face, “I have to look good while finishing you off,” he raised his prop sword, ready to blow at Legoshi. He was just about to swing it down when it flew out of his hand and he stumbled back, “That's taking it too far.”

Now Bill is shocked, What? He confusingly thought, “I'm sorry Bill, but I can't let you do things like this.”

“I'm sure you'll be able to play Adler one day,” Shima got the skull prop and fitted it down his face, “But you'll be the mook for now.”

As the prop skull fitted onto his face, Shima's eyes changed once more. Though, it isn't visible enough thanks to the skull being shaped for animals with long snouts, something he doesn't have.

Shima's vision slightly started to become blurry and clouded with red as blood rolled down from his eyes, and into the neck of his shirt that went unnoticed by everyone.

“S-shima... Why?” Bill questioned, his voice laced with shock and confusion and shock, “I can't have you two killing each other,” he gave a glimpse to Legoshi, “I've got this Legoshi, don't let the audience see your back.”

“A-all right...” A sweat formed again on Legoshi's head. The others at the stage's wing brightened up, “Yeah!” Sheila exclaimed softly. Though the audience was shocked by the earlier scene of Legoshi and Bill, they're now intrugued as another person stepped in on the ruckus. The audience murmured rather loudly, talking to themselves and whispering words of shock and disbelief is the main topic of the murmurs.

“Now I would tell you kitten,” the events of Shima sneaking on the two at the bathroom glimpsed through him, “Adler knows all your evil deeds!”

“I dare you to take a drink of my blood. Once you've done that, you'll become a true reaper. An impostor is not what this world needs.”

Bill scowled Damn... You serious? I've been completely disposed of... With a frown, Bill ran to one of the stage's wings.

Shima turned to Legoshi and stuck his hand out, “It's okay now... Everything's fine,” he smiled warmly, it's the smile that always made Legoshi's heart take flips. Legoshi sat still, awestruck. He slowly reached for Shima's hand before the human gripped his hand tightly and helped him on his feet.

“For the true reaoer has forsaken this world, many imposters showed up. Your job is to eliminate those fake reapers until the real one comes back.”

Shima let go of Legoshi's hand. He turned in his heels and faced the audience, “I may not be the real reaper, but I had an important role for him. Adler's identity shouldn't be tampered nor used by fakes, it's unrightful.”

“Now, we'll disappear along with the morning dew of the sun, your soul will never be reaped for Adler owes you his dignity and reputation as a reaper. He'll forever owe you.”

A moment of silence consumed the whole building, it was deafening, yet it was quickly replaced by loud claps and cheers of the audience. They whistled, they gave them standing ovations, they clapped, they cheered, they were amazed. But Legoshi wondered, What do they think about this performance...

As the curtains started rolling down, everyone made their way to the center of the stage for the curtain call. 

I don't think I can hold out for long...

They fixed their position into a staright line before the curtains rolled up again and they bowed one last time before the performance officially ended and the curtain's last drop was made. 

But as it dropped, Shima dropped too, “Shima-san!”

At least I managed through curtain call...

“Keep holding Shima-san. We're going to the infirmary.”

“I'm sorry, I can't hold out anymore... My body feels weak.”

A pleading voice of who the human guessed is Legoshi, replied, “Please Shima-san keep holding...”

“Don't worry...” he lifted his hand to gingerly touch Legoshi's cheeks as the wolf carried him bridal style, “I won't die...”

His hand fell down as his whole vision turned black.

~~~~Infirmary~~~~

The constant beep of the machine hooked to Shima, the sterile scent that hung in the air, and the heavy tension that's present between Legoshi and Louis as the nurse wrapped bandages on Legoshi's back to stop the bleeding.

“Hey Legoshi,” Louis remarked with a stern tone, “What happened?”

“Um.. He-ah... Fainted.”

Louis sighed, “I know about that. Why did he faint?”

“I...” Legoshi hesitated, “I don't know.” Legoshi rubbed the back of his head, guess it became his habit 

“A—” Louis tried to reply, but was cut short by the sound of the door opening and the floor rattled as the sound of footsteps rattled in the air. The other drama club members started filing in, “L-Louis senpai?” Els asked.

The others started filing the infirmary and Bill was further ordered to go stand with Legoshi in the far corner. There was a noticable 2-meter gap between where the others stood—including Louis—and where Legoshi and Bill stood.

Sheila glared at the two, topped with the stern expression on her face, “The performance was a success, on the outside at least.”

Louis spoke up, “The audience was satisfied at the performance and they left the building all smiling... But that fight of yours wasn't unprecedented.”

“If you won't make us understand out there, the herbivore members won't be able to associate with you two,” Sheila remarked.

“It looked like Legoshi started the fight...”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“I can't say...”

Sheila huffed and crossed her arms across her body, “I don't get it... You're normally so quiet.”

“You're both carnivores, try talking to each other.”

“Wha-” Sanou tried to speak before Louis cut in, “You two.”

“Come with me. We'll talk,” he ordered with a stern tone before he headed out of the infirmary with his crutches, “What?” Legoshi deadpanned, buttoning his white button up uniform. Bill—with a black eye—pointed to Legoshi with his thumb, “Us two?!”

“Yeah, you two go follow Louis. If you don't get this settled with, we'll avoid contact with you two,” Sheila knitted her eyebrows. Legoshi and Bill started glaring with hate at each other, “Hey, don't glare at each other!”

Sanou, then, also with knitted eyebrows soon spoke up, “And don't start fighting right when you leave!”

“Soon after, they both left, ”Hey Legoshi...“ A small swish of Legoshi's tail came like a reply before he spoke, ”What?“

”Why didn't you tell them that I drank deer blood?! What's your game?“

Come to think of it, he never really told them why, what, or when he drank that blood. The vial was also gone from Bill, someone must've got it and might tell it to the whole academy. That would be kind of bad.

”They don't need to know about that,“ he said. Now the real problem for Bill is that Shima and Louis seems to know, considering what they said earlier. Sure Shima won't tell anyone, but what about Louis?

Bill held his eye, ”My swollen eye is getting worse and worse,“ he complained as Legoshi held his shoulder in pain, ”I won't be able to use my suspenders for a while. It'll hurt my back,“ Bill just didn't reply, he thinks Legoshi will be fine with saggy pants 

”Hey Legoshi,“ Bill started, ”Your punches really hurt. But you didn't just pummel me just so I could scratch you. I can tell.“

”You pummeled me 'cause you wanted to feel like you were in the right,“ After all, Bill could tell from how desperate Legoshi's punches felt. Bill didn't even know what kind of attachment this wolf has towards deers, but there's no use fighting it.

”We're carnivores,“ he finished after explaining the latter, ”We both have the same makings—Whoa!“ Bill exclaimed while Legoshi pushed him to the side roughly, ”Then you'd better scratch me more. I can't be the same as you if my body isn't covered by stripes.“

”What?!“ Bill perked up before he caught up to Legoshi and his eyebrows met each other, ”What's with that attitude?! You sheep in wolf's clothing!“

”Whatever! Quit following me!“ Legoshi barked.

”What do you mean?! We're going together, dammit!“

Chapter Text

A day after the performance...

“Extra, extra! We've got everything you need to know about the two performances! It's a special edition!” The seller of the newspaper called out while holding a bunch of rolled up newspaper about the performance. Students who bought the newspaper scanned it as if there was no tomorrow. They talked about the performance, warping the story to the point that it just makes no sense. Even other students believed it and passed it down to others, making the fake story spread like a virus.

Jack kept walking through the halls of the academy. Lunches in hand, he slowed down his pace once he passed a group of students talking about the perfromances, “Wow that wolf is scary!”

“I couldn't show up to either perfromance,” a female gazelle noted, keeping an eye on the newspaper.

“What?! I saw both perfromances!” The female gazelle turned to her friend, “Really?! How was it?”

“It was amazing! They were punching, kicking and stabbing each other! 'Till the wolf shot the tiger with a machine gun and set him on fire!” her friend mimicked the actions with his hands for more damatic effect which made Jack quicken his pace again.

Whoa, whoa, he's warping the events too much! I need to hurry... After a few minutes of walking, he reached the rooftop of the building that has a dry, unused, olympic pool with a certain large grey wolf sitting on the lower ledge of the pool.

He sat beside Legoshi and gave him two egg sandwiches before Jack pulled out his own bread, “Here are our lunches!”

Legoshi turned his wolfy gaze at the lab, “Thanks...” he mumbled, removing the wrappings of one egg sandwich and freeing it from it's restraints, “You were right at not going to the cafeteria, Legoshi.”

“I figured... What does everyone think about it?”

“Your act of violent rage is on the front of the school newspaper and everyone's buying a copy so it's selling out,” Jack munched on his food as Legoshi's eyes widened, “Th- the front? Of the newspaper? You... You're kidding right?”

“I'm not,” Jack pulled out a newspaper and smiled. Upon seeing the newspaper, Legoshi reeled back with a sweat and quirked eyebrows, “They even got some nice pictures of you!”

Your smile was twitching a bit, though...

“Thought I'd buy one for the occasion!” Still with a smile, Jack started skimming through it as Legoshi beside him relaxed and stared at him. 

Legoshi's confused as to why Jack was still treating him like a friend, maybe Jack saw the performance? He still treats Legoshi like nothing happened as usual. Maybe he doesn't know that Legoshi's acting wasn't acting at all.

Jack chuckled, pulling Legoshi out of his thoughts, “You know, this is a great picture! I didn't know you and Louis-senpai were such good friends.”

“Oh, we're not... There was just some stuff that happened that led to that article being made...”

Half true.

“Huh?” Jack raised a brow, turning to look at his best friend, “Uh, well... Louis-san is just amazing so to speak...” he's always causing him so trouble to the point of his courage vanishing into thin air everytime he tried to look at Louis' eyes.

... ... ... ... ...

“You two really threw him for a loop there.”

Legoshi and Bill stood awkwardly, facing Louis who's leaning on a pillar behind the lecture hall, “You could scuffle here if you want. But how can you have the nerve to pull out a stunt like that expect me to understand it?”

“Well, um, I don't... Really know where to start...” Bill stuttered out. Legoshi's ears folded against his skull, though it slightly flicked when Louis came to speak again, “Bill, I admittedly don't care that you drank herbivore blood just to pump yourself. It was a coincidence that I heard about it anyway.”

“You see, unlike Legoshi, I never expected you to have good integrity on the first place. The real problem...” Louis narrowed his eyes at the two and he knitted his brows in frustration, “Is that you two spilled blood on the stage like a bunch of stupid and irresponsible monsters!”

“If he didn't stop you there, would you have tried to kill each other?! Now he's passed out there because of you two!” He added, Bill's gaze transfixed behind his back, “S-senpai...” Bill tried to talk but got cut off, “Your insolence surpasses reason... This is an order from the leader of the actor team. Both of you are definitely suspended.”

“I don't want to hear any excuses, you better not come to practice tomorrow. Normally, I would have had you two kicked out of the club...” Now both Legoshi and Bill are staring behind Louis with an evident stress on their face, “Uhm, look behind you.”

“Eek! There they are!”

“Louis-senpai!”

“Wolf-kun!”

“Tiger-san!”

“You're so cool!”

“We've been waiting for so long!”

“Please give me an autograph!”

Amidst the crowd of animals, the PR team member pulled out a small notepad, “We're you in the middle of something?! I'm from the PR team and I'd like to hear your thoughts about today's performance! Would you like to give me some sort of time?”

Cameras flashed, phones were held up high, “Look this way please Louis-san!” The animals over the commotion said as they took pictures of the three for an article or to post into social media. This getting in social media? They'll be doomed, “Um, Louis-san... What should we do about this?”

“Louis-san please give me your thoughts!”

Unbelievably, at that moment, Louis looked hesitant, like an 18-year-old boy normally would. Not a second passed as Louis regained his irritated demeanor and started glaring at Legoshi and Bill, “Listen closely you two.”

“I am withdrawing my order...” Louis' nerve twitched, “The performance was a success and to keep it a success, we will act like there were no problems got it?!” Legoshi's ears relaxed, “Y-yeah, okay...” he replied.

A heavy tenseion hung in the air as the crowd asked questions, “The sudden change by the play's plot, that didn't happen by accident right?” Louis turned to the crowd, but instead of a forelonging glare and knitted eyebrows, plastered on his face was a smile, “Yes of course! We had it all planned out.”

Louis pushed the two with a hard grip on Bill's back shirt and a tight squeeze on Legoshi's shoulder, “Right! Everyone in the audience must have been surprised!” The PR team member snapped a picture, “Of course. The performance in general, was a great challenge for all of us,” still with a smile, Louis looked at Legoshi, “And I believe it was very important for the underclassmen...”

“The world we live in is very complex. The animals in this world like to keep secrets. They try hard to persevere in something and face all kinds of conflict. But in the midst of that, everyone is living life to the fullest. For that, there is no right or wrong.”

“But if someone were to have a certain conviction, they would surely shine like stars. That's what I think,” he added, “Even if they happened to be rude or immature... That conviction would shine through. I think that message was presented very well to the underclassmen.”

Louis gave a small pat after he loosened his grip at Legoshi's shoulder, “That'll be enough out of me. You can ask more questions from these two...”

“Oh, hey Louis-san! Wait! There are some more things I want to hear from you!”

“Give me your autograph!”

Louis turned to leave, though he and Legoshi shared a brief meeting stare which made Legoshi wonder, Louis-senpai. Were those words aimed at me?

I just went and destroyed that performance. Did I have some kind of conviction?

“Conviction...” He mumbled, though he didn't notice, it was loud enough for Jack to hear. Jack leaned in closer, “What's this about conviction?”

“Oh I just... Ah, nevermind,” Legoshi stuttered back, unsure if he shoukd really tell Jack, “So Legoshi,” at the mention of his name, Legoshi looked at his canine friend, “Are you not angry anymore?”

“Angry?”

“Yeah, since that brawl you had wasn't acting right?”

Shocked, Legoshi's eyes went wide as plates, his hand freezed and his egg sandwich fell to the floor, “What?! B-but how did you know?”

Jack wasn't surprised at Legoshi's remark, instead he pointed to the egg sandwich on the floor, “Hey, don't drop your food! Well, it'd be strange if I didn't know right? We've known each other for years!”

Jack picked up the sandwich calmly and handed it Legoshi, “Hey, three-second rule! You can eat it,” the wolf moved his hand to take the sandwich from Jack's grasp before the lab spoke, “You better cheer up. When you let something get to you, you tend to get depressed easily.”

Legoshi just took back his sandwich without even muttering a word to reply since he knew Jack was right, he does get depressed easily whenever he thinks so much about something. He took a bite out of his egg sandwich and he started eating the piece of food inside his mouth, “I wanted to stay like that.”

“Huh?”

“Always feeling down and getting up on my own... Living without anyone knowing how I feel. But yesterday was different. For the first time in my life, I felt that I just couldn't let it go. I wanted to vent my anger, even if it meant throwing the stage into chaos” he declared, standing up and walking a few steps into the middle of the pool.

“I didn't want to control myself... 'Cause these feelings I have only belong to me... Eh, it's hard to say.” he shrugged his shoulders, feeling uncertain, but Jack wasn't. Hearing Legoshi say those words... It made Jack feel happy and proud for his friend, He's changed...

“I think it's fine to have times like that. Do you not like it?” Legoshi though about it, mumbling a “Hmm...” while his thoughts began to roam his mind, “I do like it... But that's what I don't like.”

“...”

Out of humor, Jack chuckled, “Don't be such a stick in the mud,” he also stood up and gave Legoshi a pat on the shoulder, “I think it's great! You're the liveliest you've ever been, Legoshi!”

“You think so?”

“Yeah! I think you're perfectly fine! Let's go back to class.”

After both finishing the talk, they trotted down the stairs from the rooftop. The usual sound of the hallway filled with animals going about their way greeted them as they finally made it out of the stairway. The sun lightly shone on their faces, it felt warm against their fur.

“Well, honestly, I've been worried about you since you've been looking worn-out lately. Is there a special reason for it?”

A special reason...

“Well, I don't know...” Legoshi replied, but he stopped on his tracks. He gazed at the clouds rolling by, the archs of the open window sometimes blocking the view of the clouds.

While Legoshi stopped, Jack kept walking, “Maybe love?” Jack suggested, and then he started swinging his hips, singing a merry tune, “Oh my tail's swingin' maybe I'm in love... Le-Le-Legoshi.”

Realization finally dawned.

Jack froze, he stopped singing and his eyes are wide with his mouth agape. He looked back at Legoshi who's frozen too l, but he seemed to be thinking about what he said, “Huh?!” Jack rushed back to Legoshi, “Legoshi. Se-seriously?! Really?! You've never been in love for the past 17 years of your life! And now you're finally in love?!”

Legoshi purposely started walking faster, “We need to get back to class. Fifth period is about to start.”

“So, who is it?! Is she one of the wolves in our class? Hm, well... Four? Oh! I narrowed it down to quite a bit!”

“Uh-huh... That sure is something.”

“What?! So it's not a wolf?! Is it even a canine?!”

~~~~Infirmary~~~~

Beep, Beep, Beep

Shima groaned in the uncomfortable bed and turned a little to the side, “Oh? Are you awake?” a girly voice asked

My body hurts all over...

He groaned again, he finally opened his eyes, but the first thing he saw is just blinding light. He sat on his bed and immediately started questioning everything, “Eh? Where am I?”

The nurse chuckled while keeping hold of her clipboard, “You're at the infirmary... You've been out for hours,” the sheep gestured with her small, furry hands, “What time is it?”

She started tapping her chin as if in thought, “Hmm... Just about afternoon.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About a day,” she replied before she walked away with a small smile on her face. She stopped by the window just to peer through it and her smile widened even more, “Everyone's talking about the performance.”

She looked back at Shima who displayed a stressed expression, “A day?! Mom's supposed to call today! Wait,” he started looking around in distress, “Wheres my phone?”

“Here,” out of nowhere the nurse popped up at the side of his bed, sometimes he wonders if she's just a normal animal or if she has some teleportation powers, “Thanks,” he took his phone and opened it.

He was greeted by a message notification,

I'm sorry I couldn't call, I have too much to do. But congratulations on the performance! I heard from other people here that it was amazing! I'll just catch up another time 'kay? Is the rumors about a wolf and a tiger fighting at the performance true?

Shima scratched his head after reading his mother's message. It took him about a second before he typed in a reply,

Mom, the fight was... Kinda true. But thanks for the congratulations. Can you send me some of the baking equipment I used back there? I kinda need it for my baking class.

He tapped send. A total of five minutes passed before a ding chimed,

Sure I'll send the equipments. I also deposited a few amounts into your card ;)

Just as he was about to close the messaging app, another notification came in,

Five thousand yen was safely deposited into your account. Happy banking!

His eyes widened at the amount, his mother never had this much money... Or really? Maybe she hid an incredible amount of money after all this years.

He silently got up from the bed, got his bag on the floor, and went out of the infirmary, he swore he heard the nurse shout a, “Be safe!” before he closed the door.

He walked silently at the halls, just him and his thoughts. The clouds rolled by at the window beside him but he paid no mind into it, what he's really worried is if Legoshi and Louis is okay.

He got to their dorm and instantly went to their kitchen to munch on his muffins that he bought the other day, the ones he baked were already finished.

Dear Legoshi and Louis, I hope you two are okay... I miss the both of you already... If you only know how much I want to-

He shook his head out of his thoughts and instead stare at the warm rays of orange light hitting the surface of the hard-wood table, It's hot today... But I still want to see them.

~~~~

“How long are you gonna read that newspaper?”

The small white rabbit, Haru, flipped a page on the newspaper at her hands, “Hm... Well, there's just someone I know here...”

A brown furred hand suddenly grasped hers, “What's wrong with you? You seem kind of down. Have things not gone your way lately?”

“Your reluctance to pry someone is one of your good traits isn't it?” Louis, who sat on the bed and held Haru's hand, began undoing his neck tie, “Come here.”

They shared a kiss full of uncertainty, insincerity, and full of lust. It became heated as toungues started to get involved.

Louis, Legoshi, Shima, this story revolves around them and their ever forming bond of feelings and emotions.

This is where the real show starts.

Chapter Text

Trim, trim.

Tufts of fur fell to the floor, grey, brown, white, and cream colors of it piled up on the newspaper covered floor of the 701 dorm.

The seasons are changing.

The canines stood a few metres from the pile of thick fur, “Wow...” Legoshi sighed. “There's so much more white and gray fur as usual.”

“Isn't most of this just me and Legoshi's fur?” Collot inquired, pulling out his phone and snapping a photo of the thick mass of fur, “I'm gonna put this on roarter.”

“Yeah, but there's actually more fur than last year.”

“We're gonna sell this to the fur yarn store...”

“I wonder how much we'll get out of this...” Jack smiled.

The animals are getting ready for summer.

“Meteor Festival?”

“Yeah! It's a festival we celebrate every summer, I don't know about humans though.” Hajin scratched his chin idly, as if in thought. Shima took a large bite out of his plain bread, “Okay...”

There's not much festival at their small town, only a gathering of family members or relatives coming to visit every early summer. And usually his mother's bakery gets filled by costumers while he had to work restless just to go through the day. He shivered at the memory of two animals making out at the back alley of their bakery, devouring each other's faces while groping and touching every-

“The town's community is asking us to be in charge of the meteor festival's decoration again!” Sanou exclaimed, holding out a poster of the meteor festival. Shima didn't even realize that he was already at their club meeting, sitting beside his fellow stage crew members.

He looked at each and every one of his teammates, “Why do you guys look so down? Shouldn't we be happy?” The other teams celebrated happily while their team looked like idiots staring at nowhere, “Nah, it's just more work for us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Kai nodded, resting his hands behind his head.

“Guys,” Dom started with a small sigh. “We're having a conference today in the storehouse.”

“Okay...” They all replied.

~~~~Later~~~~

“Wow...” The human looked around the storehouse in awe. There were a few dinosaur sculptures lying around, especially the T-rex. Shima opened a crate and peered inside. “What's all of this?”

“Reusables,” Kai remarked as he also peered at the crate. “Things we made before.” Shima pulled out a fancy summer hat, “Did you guys make all these sculptures?” he pointed at the sculptures.

“Yeah, these are all the pieces we made last year, but I guess we can't reuse them, huh?” Dom rested his hands on his hips. “Good grief, we're going to be so busy,” He added, stressing over the work and time they have on their hands.

Legoshi stood awkwardly, gazing at the dinosaurs, reminiscing himself of the cold history, “We need to make new sculptures...” Mina, the girrafe, huffed. She crossed her arms on her chest and looked at Dom, expecting an answer from the peafowl.

“That's right.”

“I want to make a pteranodon!” Kibi squealed. Shima tilted his head in confusion, “What's a pteranodon?”

I just want to make a horseshoe crab... Legoshi thought as he watched Kibi stop his giggles and squeals before facing Shima with a more confused expression, “You don't know pteranodons?”

“I don't know about dinosaurs that much.”

The anteater started waving his arms in a flying manner, “Pteranodons are like eagles, but featherless!” he used his hands to copy the beak(?) of the dinosaur he's portraying, “They have weird beaks like this!”

“Really?” The human asked and the anteater nodded, “Then let's make a pteranodon!”

...I'll just search it later.

~~~~

“It's just an event for normies,” Kai grumbled, aggravated for unknown reasons as their group walked back to the dorms, “Where's Shima-san?” Legoshi looked around for the human yet failing abruptly.

“Shima? Oh! I remember he excused himself earlier...” Dom replied since he knew the others does not know anything about the human. He could vaguely remember how Shima rushed and fumbled in his words just to excuse himself. Dom internally giggled at that.

“Anyways I'm sure the actor team'll all probably be busy hanging out with their boyfriends and girlfriends.” Kai said as Kai knew things about this, and he's sure about what he just said. He'll even stand up on his word if you ask him to.

“Don't forget the dance team,” Kibi cut in.

“Well, that's not a problem they're all going to be relying on us to do a good job.”

What is it we're talking about again? Oh yeah the Meteor Festival. Legoshi pondered.

Meteor Festival, a festival held every summer to celebrate the existence of dinosaurs which happens to be the ancestors of the modern animals. The sole purpose of the meteor festival is to honor the spirits of the dinosaurs that went extinct. But nowadays, that's just a front, for the most part, What every animal is really expecting is the light ceremony on the final day.

An imitation of a meteor is placed in the center of the festival grounds, then couples are to go to the meteor, light a candle together and then place that candle by the meteor. Some say that if you did place a candle together, you and your partner's relationship will last forever...

Well, it's cliche.

“That's not my point...” Kai's voice snapped Legoshi out of his thoughts, stopping in his tracks as the others stopped too, “I'm saying that it's possible that they're relying on us because we all happen to have lots of free time on the day of the festival!”

Dom, choosing to listen on the mongoose's ramble, hung his beak open as sweat trickled down his feathers in dread for trouble. “Oh, my.” he gasped.

Pudge spoke up, “You really need to understand our struggle, when the stage crew gets pissed, there's one particular member who's gonna be especially dangerous.” Legoshi glanced at the red panda. He didn't even realize that the conversation had shifted on him.

He means me...

As pudge let out those words, Dom started sweating bullets. Mouth agape, they resumed their walk, but Dom walked beside Legoshi to asses everything and clear problems, “Oh, no! We're not worried about that anymore! How's your back?”

“It's getting better...”

“Okay, good! Let's all eat dinner in the cafeteria.”

Before Legoshi could reply, his gaze traveled to the far end pf the academy. It seemed time has stopped when the familiar figure of a small animal got caught in his gaze. The one animal he longed to meet, the small figure that always looked up at him, finally.

Wind blew past his fur, warming the back of his ears and snapping him out of his daze. He took quick steps to the direction of the figure, he raised a hand in apology of his sudden leave, “S-sorry, I have someplace I need to be, see you.”

“What?!” Dom exclaimed, caught off guard by the wolf's random moves. Having no choice, he bid his farewell by muttering, “See you...” with a shocked yet confused expression. None of them did any movements to stop the wolf from walking away, and if Dom will be honest, he's afraid that he and the others might have hurt Legoshi's feelings.

“He's such a weirdo.” Pudge stated as Dom huffed, he crossed his arms, turned to Pudge and sterned his tone to scolding, “It's your fault for making it awkward! At least try to act more friendly with him!”

Pudge stuck his toungue out, “Sure,” he mocked.

~~~~

“Oh, Haru!” Shima waved at the rabbit who looked up from the vase with flowers that she held. “Hey!”

As she was about to pass a corridor, a foot blocked her path, sending the vase into flying while her face smushed with the floor and it stained her pearl white fur. On the other hand, the vase kept flying until it eventually hit Shima in the head and soaked him with dirty water as it broke to pieces.

He swore he could see stars for a moment.

“Ahahaha! Lame!”

“Look how her little friend is drenched!”

“It suits them nicely!”

Three animals stepped out of the dark corridor, eventually revealing themselves. A female rabbit with her fur color split in half, one fully black and the other white as snow. Tailing behind her was two animals; a cat and a raccoon. They wore smirks on their faces as their loud laughs filled the once empty hallway.

Looking miserable, Haru propped herself from the floor with her hands, “Long time, no see, Haru-chan.” A hand gripped her ears tight enough to lift her body from the floor and face the grinning while kneeling girl who always picked on her, Mizuchi. “We need to talk,” She warned.

“I heard you made another move on my boyfriend?” Mizuchi has let go of Haru's ears when Haru came to give a reply, “Oh I get it...” 

Haru gave a wide smirk, “You couldn't get back with him?”

“Well that's too bad.” Haru stood while her hands are on her knees, silently staring at the floor, “W-what?” Mizuchi retreated, “I don't blame him, though. Well, why don't you complain about your romance troubles to your friends?”

Mizuchi boiled with anger the more she listened to this slut of a rabbit. She tempted to stomp on Haru's foot but the foot she stomped onto clearly was not Haru's. A hand collided with her face, “Oh my...” All of them gasped.

She moved her head to look at who slapped her, and her eyes bulged. Stood in front of her was none other than,—what she remembers—Shima, the famous human. “What?! Why are you trying to defend this slut?!”

She clenched her hands but she threw he anger out of the window and smirked, “I see... You want to have your way with her too don't you?” She chuckled. “Why don't you become my friend? Since we're both extinct species, why don't we help each other?”

My help aren't free though.

Thinking her tricks worked, she unclenched her hands, internally chuckling at her devised plan to use the human's fame to make herself the queen of the school, “Sorry, I won't be having any of it.”

She frowned, “What?! So you're siding with this slut?! Well, let me tell you something. It's because of worthless sluts like her that the harlequin species is getting closer to extinction.” She stabbed a hand to the human's way, “And you should know that fairly well as an extinct species. You are the scums of the earth! You just get in the way of animals' romance for kicks!”

“All right.” Haru side-stepped Shima, non verbally telling him that she got this, and Shima fairly understood that, “Since I feel so sorry for you. I'm gonna tell you something good.”

“You.” Haru clenched her fists. “You lost! How romance works as that you're more likely to lose the more desperate you are!”

Haru kept shooting back at the three, not caring about what's happening around her. She only wanted to get back at this “extinct” rabbit. Hell, she would be delighted if this Mizuchi just got wiped off the face of the earth.

Aside the commotion, Shima leaned against a wall, far away from the fight that had broke out. He dropped his bag before undressing his jacket and squeezing the water out of it, unbothered by whatevers happening back there.

“How long are you gonna keep up with your ridiculous game? I'll keep watching from afar so don't stop at all!”

“I'll keep watching 'till the day your species goes extinct from all your failed relationships! Oh I'll be glad when that happens!”

Shima looked up from his bag—that he was fumbling with—when a shadow cast itself on him for a brief moment. As soon as he looked up, he saw the three with fear-stricken expressions on their faces while they kept looking above Haru.

He immediately noticed and took note of the large figure looming over Haru's small body, while she haven't noticed it yet, the others surely have, “I have nothing to lose anymore! Because unlike you. I'm completely free!”

The three, speechless, slowly backed away, “Ah...” they took a small step backwards. “Ah...” Another step before they turned and ran away while screeching in fear, “Eeek!” They cried with their ears folded against their skulls. As the bullies ran away, Haru wore a prideful smirk on her face, “Heh, heh. Maybe I went too far. Well, they should know better who to mess with.”

“Go get eaten by yourself!”

“Huh? What?” She screamed back in question, though no reply came back. It took her five whole seconds to finally take notice of the shadow over her. She turned around, expecting to see another one of those large carnivores who can't get on their way, but she was met with none other than the carnivore she almost slept with.

“Oh... Hi.”

“Hm? Oh, it's you...”

A shuffling to the side both got their attentions and they looked at the human expectedly, “Oh I, Sorry- I'll just... Uh, leave...” he made small steps before fully running away like the other three earlier. His heart beated loudly against his chest, threathening to jump out of his chest.

Embarrassment flooded his cheeks as his running came to a halt before turning in a corner and resting his back against the wall. Water trickled from his hair and into his nose before dripping to the floor with a small splash. He panted, his breaths coming out as ragged and uneven, he slid down to the floor as his drenched clothes clung into his skin and he shivered.

With a thud, he dropped his wet, heavy and dripping bag to the floor as he rested his head against the wall.

What's with his life today? First they got picked for the meteor festival, witnessed a bullying and now soaked in water? Does fate really hate him so much to this point?

He groaned and stood again, taking his bag with him over his shoulders and walked back to their dorm. A few glances were thrown his way while he walked through the crowded halls. I should've taken another way... He thought as he shut his eyes for a moment.

Before he could re-open them again, he bumped into someone and sent the both of them to the floor. Once he opened his eyes, he was met by the same antlers of someone he knew all too well.

“Senpai!” he shot to his feet and helped Louis get up. Luckily no one is in the hall as if they all vanished into thin air. And if Louis would admitt, hearing senpai from the human's mouth was definitely adored by his mental self, but he would just hate himself for that.

Louis paused as he finally got to his feet, he stared at Shima for a brief moment, confused as the why he's drenched in dirty water. “You're wet..” he informed, kind of feeling bad for the human which he tried his best to hide.

“Sorry for bothering you.” the human gave a quick bow to him before trying to walk away, emphasis on the trying. Louis gripped Shima's wrist tightly as a sense of deja vu washed over him. How many times has this scenario had repeated? 2? 4 times? He cannot really remember...

“I'll help you.” he said, his worries and feelings getting the best out of him as his body and mouth got out of his control.

“No you don't have to-” Louis did not even let Shima finish his retort when he dragged the human forward with his hand still gripping Shima's tightly. Louis had not even realize how thin the human was, considering how his fingers are overlapped by the another around Shima's wrist.

He knew he never wanted to do this but somehow he felt delighted? He does not even want to be around this idiot anymore, he does not want to see those smiles that made his stomach churn and make him feel sick, those eyes that glimmered everytime they shared an eye contact, it felt so bad for him but his other self was clearly enjoying it.

Everywhere they went through were always empty and silent, Louis knew this school from top-to-bottom so he knew how to keep away from prying eyes and squeals everytime he wandered through this place. They passed through the doors of the Carnivore dorms and quickly took the stairs into the fourth floor. This idiot's dorm room is easy to acquire, so easy that Louis has all information about this idiot and that dumb wolf right in his hands.

“Louis, wait.” the idiot pried his hand from Louis' grip as they both stopped right at the tenth step of the stairwell, “You can't go here.”

“I can go wherever I want.” Louis tried to drag the human again but his shoulders were gripped tightly and he was, more or less, shaked lightly, “Listen, I can get myself to my dorm, if you want to take me there, please just cut it out. Just go to the drama club okay?”

Shima did not wait for a reply before he let go of Louis' shoulders and walked beside him. A frown graced on his face the more he walked away, just the thought of leaving Louis hurt him and with every move away from the deer seemed to take him into more misery.

Their bodies and minds longed for each other, but they couldn't be together, it's a forbidden love that's always forbidden.

~~~~

Sitting intently at the cafeteria, Shima picked his food, losing all the appetite to eat anymore.

“Hey look at that.”

His whole body perked at those words, he turned in his seat ever so slightly to get a better sound of the animal's gossip. He turned a few more inches again while straining his eyes to look at the animals. He found a small crocodile sitting with—what he thinks is—a lynx.

“Did he mistake her for food and bring her here?”

“Well, that prey's acting way relaxed.”

Shima tried to find the source of attention around the cafeteria, his eyes traveling across the whole building. It took him a few more minutes until he found the odd pair sitting about 13 tables away from him. Squinting, he got a better look of the large figure and it literally screamed Legoshi in every move.

He doesn't even know what's going on, but seeing Legoshi had managed give Shima a smile. If he had a canine tail, it would be wagging in a blur now.

He seemed to be eating with someone? Maybe one of his roommates? Or Jack?

And oh boy he was wrong.

As his gaze set on someone Legoshi's eating with, he frowned.

He didn't expect to see Haru with Legoshi, were they even going out? Question after question popped up in his head, and while he tried to shake all the questions and not think harshly with the two, there's just one question that he dreaded.

Are they... Together?

A pang of something he never felt before hit his chest and it just got worst the more he stared at the two. Every second felt like a huge timebomb of emotions, ready to explode at any moment.

Removing his gaze, he felt another one of those weird pangs, his heart ached, his chest constricted and a lump had formed in his throat as he kept thinking about the odds of happening between the two.

They aren't going out are they? Did Haru like him all along? Maybe that “situation” back at the rooftop sparked Legoshi? But isn't it weird? Well... Everything's weird, even my existence.

He sighed and leaned his head against the table, having no energy to even move a muscle or talk. Throwing one last glance at the two, he saw Legoshi lock eyes with Haru in a gaze full of love? Want? How he wished it wasn't any of the two.

He took the tray of food in his hands and rose from his seat. He walked to a group of animals before asking, “Do you guys want to have my food?”

He was lucky to get a Herbivore dish for tonight. 

“Sure! Thank you!”

Once a female gazelle took his food, he began walking to the exit with slow steps as every move felt like taking his strength and breath away. He wanted to spare another glance, and nothing stopped him so he did. He observed the two, they looked tense, though Legoshi's tail wagged in small moves.

Looks like a canine's tail really doesn't lie. He thought before resuming in his tracks. Tears threathened to spill but he didn't let himself cry, after all, how idiotic is he to assume Legoshi even loved him? He didn't have any right to cry.

He had enough, these feelings just give him pain. He swore to his self, he won't love again. A promise that he'll never break, if he ever does love again, then he's just some idiot and an idiot doesn't deserve to be a beastar. Yeah, a beastar, he should just focus on being a beastar.

They say love's wonderful but why's it hurt?

Chapter Text

This morning in Zebuth town, on Igni street, a Thomson's Gazelle by the name of Rinna was found murdured on the sidewalk. With the bite wounds found on her throat, it is suspected that she was killed by a group of carnivores.

Free time after school...

Shima stared at the school television, letting things sink in before he abruptly walked away from the piece of technology. He was already in a bad mood to begin with, and adding the news on top of that has really distressed him.

He briskly walked over the public tables scattered around the room. The familiar voice of the announcer rang in his ears before he spotted Jack and Legoshi a few ways before him. He walked the other way, not wanting to come near Legoshi or Louis or anyone beside his roommates.

Better just take random books at the library... He thought, turning to head down the path that leads to the library.

~~~~~

He plopped a pile of books on the librarian's counter, sighing simultanously, “I want to take the books...”

The female lynx eyed the books, fiddling with her glasses every now-and-then, “Make sure to bring them by next week.” The lynx glanced at him.

“Yes ma'am.” He took the borrower's card from the lynx's palm and piled the books in a neat manner before lifting it. He grunted as the massive weight on his arms weighed his body down, but it subsided as soon as he took his mind of the weight of it.

Once he was outside the library, he took a glance at the books in his arms. He had taken two volumes of different recipe books, two novel books, and a thick binding of a dictionary.

Why did I even take a dictionary?

He resumed walking but his mind wasn't on his sorroundings, it's back at the news earlier, “Zebuth city... How far was that again?” he mumbled as he turned in a corner effortless despite the blocking in his view.

“Rinna was the name who got devpured right? Or was it killed? Who killed her? Um... Is it canines? ... It think it's coyotes... Speaking of canines, what's Legoshi doing right now? Is he still with Ja-”

“The leader of the canine group is clearly a gray wolf! Check it out!”

“Scary isn't it?”

He stopped in his tracks, silently observing the situation.

Oh great... Bullying.

He didn't want to meddle with the group but clearly seeing as they're harassing someone...

What should I do...

“B-but I'm not like them...” A feminine voice replied to the bullies' insults. Shima steered his upper body to the left to get a better view.

A wolf... Raccoon, and a Eagle... Are they friends with each other? They sure don't look like it.

Before he could even move, a deep voice cut Shima's moments, “U-um, sorry...”

The raccoon turned to look, “Wha?”

“I-I'm her brother.. Do you need something?”

Shima was beyond surprised, no words could even describe the shock. He bet this one was one of the greatest shocks of his life.

Legoshi? Brother? Siblings?

He glimpsed at the female canine who's now on the floor, and his insides churned in uneasiness.

They don't even look the same! This is bad! Really bad!

“You-you're her brother?” The raccoon questioned.

Legoshi rubbed his nape, “Yeah...”

At that moment, the female wolf faced Legoshi. Shima saw a sweat trickle down Legoshi's face.

Now he's realized it.

“You're lying, She looks nothing like you!”

“Yeah, that's right!”

“I-I...”

“He...” Shima walked between the two with a stern expression. “Takes after their father.” He walked further past the two until he stood beside Legoshi. “And she.” he motioned to the female on the floor. “Takes after their mother.”

“Right Legoshi?” Shima nudged Legoshi with his elbow, throwing him a look that said, Do something!

Understanding what the other meant, Legoshi squatted before the female canine. “Are you okay? ...Sis?” And with tears on her eyes, the female gave a reply, “Yeah, thank you. Oni-chan...”

“Whatever.” The raccoon growled, walking away as the eagle followed. But noe before gving them a face of scowl.

When the two were finally gone, Legoshi released a sigh he didn't realize he has been holding all the time. “They're finally gone.” He breathed out as he faced the female. “Sorry for lying back there...”

Legoshi shifted to comfortably squat before the female. He clasped his hands together.

They still didn't believe me though.

“No, you still saved me so thank you.”

“I'm a gray wolf too, so I couldn't just ignore you... It happens a lot you know? You get bullied after a bad news report...”

“Are you a first year?” Shima chimed in. The female just gave him a quick nod in response.

“Uh.. You'll get kinda used to it once you enter your school year...” Legoshi took over again.

Shima's face contorted to those of confusion when he saw the female tearing up. more tears of before spilled from her eyes, it traveled down her cheeks, dampening her fur before it came in contact with the floor in a quiet splash.

“Do we have to get used to this?”

“This is way worse than middle school... This bullying is too horrible!” her hands balled up into fists as she bowed her head in cries. “It's so frustrating... I hate that I have to suffer like this...”

Legoshi grew more unnerved while they watched the girl cry. It is actually his first time seeing a girl cry in close-up so it makes him nervous unknowingly, “I...” He started, “I think it's important that you're frustrated about it,” he tried to relieve the girl's frustration. He just hoped it could work, “I got tired of being frustrated after a while, so I just pretend it doesn't bother me...”

“So, the fact that you're willing to feel frustrated makes you very strong.” Legoshi finished, but the female didn't reply, not that he expected one anyway.

“Oh can you get up?”

Shocked by the sudden voice, Legoshi nearly jumped at how close the voice sounded. It sounded just right next to him! He whipped his head and a shock graced on his face at the realization of him forgetting that the human being there the whole time.

Shima grasped his shoulders. “Legoshi, Hey. Legoshi..” the human shaked him with lesser needed force that barely had any effect. Legoshi replied with a, “I-I'm fine.” before all of them stood up. When Shima came to lift the heavy books again, Legoshi helped him and their hands landed against each other under the pile.

As Shima finally got the books in good hold, Legoshi didn't let go of his hand, instead he started caressing it, dragging his furred fingers across the warm and soft skin of the human's. He had forgotten how soft the human's skin were.

Shima yanked his arm away, losing his grip over the books but he luckily managed to get a good hold on the books. They both sighed. Legoshi doesn't know why but when Shima yanked his arm, a wave of sadness and hurt washed over him. Why does he feel sadness and hurt? It's weird... He wanted to hold his arm again.

Legoshi took a few books that's obscuring Shima's view and told him that he'll just help while Shima thanked him for that, but not in a so-nice way. He actually glared at him. He tailed as the human started walking away, partly forgetting the female canine behind him who's not saying anything. He thought back on his words, how weird had he sounded while talking earlier. It might have been kind of pretentious.

Tailing Shima, Legoshi looked back at the female, “Take care...” He bid his farewell with a small bow of his head then continued in his walking.

“You're Legoshi-senpai from the stage crew right?”

They stopped.

Now Legoshi didn't quite expect that, his name coming out of a freshman's mouth. Did she know him? How so?

“I'm actually a new member of the drama club. My name is Juno.” The girl, Juno, held the base of her tail behind her back, she didn't want her tail to wag in front of her senpai after all. “I've always known about you Legoshi-senpai.”

The other two deadpanned.

“What?!” They screamed, eyes widening at the same time.

“R-really?”Legoshi asked as Shima hurried back in his steps to stand beside Legoshi. “I'm sorry, I-” Legoshi glanced at Shima. “We don't really know all the new members that well.”

Juno shaked her hands dismissively, “Oh, well I'm in the actor's team so it's normal that you don't know me. Don't worry,” she proffesed, though for her, it's adorable how she knew many things about her senpai yet he knows nothing about her.

“When I joined the club, I heard from Sheila-senpai that there's a gray wolf just like me, a second year named Legoshi.” Juno looked everywhere but her senpai. But underneath her flushed exterior was a spark, a spark that ignited into something. Attraction.

“She told me you were a kind wolf, and I'm glad that she turned out to be right...” she blushed, internally fawning at how her senpai looked. She liked his eyes, his mouth that she wanted to kiss, his large body that she admired, and his strong arms that instantly throws out all of her reasoning out of the window everytime they flexed. In short, she liked him. Deeply.

While Juno's tail wagged behind her carnivore frame, Legoshi scratched his face with a calm, stoic, and unfazed expression as he replied, “Oh, I don't know...”

Shima felt like he was gradually becoming more dumb the more he watched the two, just one more thing and his brain cells might actually go extinct. Juno clearly had a crush on Legoshi yet Legoshi could not even feel it or pick up any flags of it from Juno.

He's... I just don't know what I should say.

“Um, we're the same species so please talk to me without restraint!” Juno's flustered voice brought him back to reality. He didn't even think twice when he gently laid the books and moved his body to snatch the other books from Legoshi's clutch.

“All right...” he heard Legoshi reply, but when Shima finally got the books, Legoshi's breath hitched in his throat and his words broke into “Ah-” as Shima forcefully ripped the books away from Legoshi's hand.

The wolf stared at Shima for a good minute until he brought his attention back to Juno. “So, are you coming to club today?”

Heavy books in hand, Shima did not to bother to stay any minute longer, he immediately broke into a speedwalk as his mind managed to cath the last bit of the conversation.

“No, only second-years are supposed to show up.”

He caught until the sound of his shoes' clacks against the floor tuned it out. Should he  even show up?

Maybe not.

~~~~~~

“... All right.”

Shima sighed, sitting beside the 2nd year club members despite being somehow a first year. He was not even sure why he went to this meeting. Maybe if Louis did not practically talk him into it he wouldn't be here, he didn't even have a second thought when Louis forced him, he just nodded while being his moody self in front of the deer.

“The second-year members I have said will go out after school to have a meeting with the planners for the meteor festival, got it?” Louis stated after calling a few carnivore members. Mainly, Legoshi, Bill, Tao, and Aoba.

Why did I agree to go here?

Out of their awareness, the three herbivore members scowled, or rather got irritated for not having been picked. Ellen and a herbivore girl raised their hands, “Why are only carnivore members going? We herbivore members want to go too.”

Glaring, Louis scrunched his eyebrows as he faced the two herbivore girls, “That won't work. Didn't you see the news? Herbivores have to stay on school grounds for all activities until they catch the group that killed that gazelle.”

Louis crumpled the paper in his hands. “Sheesh.” He sighed, standing up after having to sit on the floor. “You should all know how dangerous it is when carnivores lose their reasoning.” He faced the leader's room door. Unable to catch Legoshi's unnerved reacrion as well as Bill's irritated muttering when the tiger turned his head away.

Louis twisted the doorknob and jerked the door open, “Oh, and one more thing.” He looked back at the others. “Do not enter the Black Market.” He suddenly yanked the human into the room with him before slamming the door.

Louis moved across the room and sighed as he sat on the sofa chair with the human eyeing him curiously. “Why did you... Bring me here?” Shima asked. Louis moved his head to stare at the human.

“I want you to go with them after school.”

“Why? You could've said it back there.”

“You have to spy on them.”

“O-” Shima shook his head. “What? Spy?”

“Yes. Make sure to report their moves once in a while.”

“Ok.” the human turned in his heels to move but Louis grasped his wrist and pulled it back. As he pulled it back, Shima turned his head and their faces met, their breaths mingling with each other as they gazed and one another's eyes.

“Do not let them see you.” Louis breathed out. He gazed at Shima's eyes a bit longer than needed. He slowly leaned in, eyes closing in the spur of the moment. He expected to feel Shima's soft lips. But he did not feel any of it. There is only nothing.

Their lips failed to touch as the human started squirming in panic, Louis opened his eyes to see Shima's widened eyes. Louis could tell that he did not want it, but Louis might have wanted it. He was not even sure about his feelings. He trained his eyes at the pair of dark brown eyes. He was sure that his pupils was somehow dilated...

He let go of Shima's wrist as Shima stumbled in his footing. With burning cheeks and still dilated pupils, Shima scurried out of the room while he mumbled incoherent curses under his breath.

After Louis watched Shima scurry off, Louis leaned back in the chair and crossed his leg over the other as a tired expression climbed on his face. Louis sighed, “I need to make sure.”

~~~~~

Shima rubbed his temples, entering their dorm room after a long day. “Where's Tao?” He asked the twins with tiredness laced in his voice. 

Haiku answered, “He went out already,” the younger twin replied, not tearing his eyes from his bright phone. Where he is presumably hitting up on girls.

Shima turned away from Haiku sitting on one of the bunk beds, he looked at the older twin who had been burdening himself in excessive learning. Unlike Haiku, Hajin is more serious in his classes. Never skipping a single subject period nor day. And his relationships last more than Haiku's, probably why girls like him more than the younger.

Shima did not dare try to bother the older, instead he dropped his school bag and pulled out clothes before disappearing into their shared bathroom.

He closed the door before stripping of his clothes and stepping in the shower. He turned the water on as he let the warm water run down his head, going to his cheek to sliding down his chin and dropping to the floor. He stared at the bathroom floor with a frown.

He could still vaguely remember how Louis' breath felt against his. How Louis' golden eyes fluttered close as he leaned in. What would happen if he let Louis kiss him? Would he have him? Would he love him? Or would he leave him like nothing happened?

He turned the shower off, dried himself of the water, then changed into normal clothes. He got out of the bathroom, still drying his head. After he dried himself, he slipped on a oversized hoodie. He also got his wallet and phone just in case.

“Can you guys tell the dorm mother that I can't stay tonight?” He hid his wooden sword inside his hoodie, at the back exactly.

Haiku stared at him for a moment. “Why though? You know she always wants reasons.”

“... Tell her that I have to buy and give medicines to my mom.”

“You're bad at lying... Go.”

He exited the room in one swift motion, his face empty of any emotion but his eyes were dancing with nervousness, excitement, and maybe happiness.

~~~

With tired eyes, Shima got off the train he rode, seemingly swaying on his feet as his exhaustion for the day finally caught up to him. Maybe he was too late, he went to the place where the meeting was held but did not find the others there. He did try calling on the twins to ask if Tao was already there. Unfortunately, they said he was not there too. It is the same for the 701 boys. His last resort was at the city, the twins said Tao had a tendency to go out to the town, so he tried here. He hoped he could finally find them.

The blare of alarms waked his tired soul from it's slumber, waking him up as well. His gaze flew to the lines of animals, waiting for their turn to pay the toll and get out of the subway. The lines were held up, but he did not fail to spot the familiar pattern of Bill's stripes from afar. They semmed to be talking at someone on the lines.

Where's Legoshi?

The blaring stopped and soon the large frame of a tall animal—Legoshi presumably— emerged from the lines to join with Bill and the others. He hurried down the empty toll line as he kept his eye on the others, he slid his card with ease prior to the group walking away.

Sinlece loomed over Shima while he kept a fair distance from the group. The distance was not too near to over hear the conversation and get spotted, neither was it too far to lose sight of the group in just one blink. Just the right distance for him to keep an eye on them.

The underground subway ended when the stoney floor turned into steps of stairs that descend to the streets. In unison, they looked around once up at the streets. They admired the beauty of the city squares just as you would admire looking at a group of dancing fireflies.

Shima has not gone to the city before, to say that he was stunned might be a understatement. Maybe awestruck might be the right word for it. A car drove past him as the sound of it startled him, he tore his gaze from the tall buildings to look back at the group.

He oberved the group enter a restaurant to folllow suit. Orders of food were taken by the cashier at simultaneous times from the group and Shima, though while Shima had his order taken, he never looked away from the group. Maybe he looked away, but only to pick out what to eat.

They went all the way here to eat?

The cashier staff cleared his throat.

“You can already sit sir,” the crocodile said with a look that said, Get out of here before I hit you. If the group sat next to a wall, Shima on the table near the glass wall facing directly the wall, which Legoshi was leaning against, directly facing him.

Shima sat there silently, looking down on his food. When he looked at the group, he was met by Legoshi's gaze instead. It took him by surprise that he flushed when he ducked his head into his arms that had been resting on the table.

Looking back up, he released a breath when Legoshi's gaze was not on him anymore, yet he saw Bill's arm draped over the wolf's shoulders as Legoshi slurped on his drink in a loud and disturbing manner. Only then Shima noticed, they seemed happy and carefree, far from before where they are inches away from killing each other. 

Shima slurped his drink.

~~~~

Minutes passed as Legoshi and the others talked, minutes also passed as Shima grew tired of just watching them.

Six O' clock.

The clock exactly ticked six o' clock when the group had finally left the restaurant after all the talk. Shima hesitated on following them anymore, he does not know if he should follow them anymore.

They didn't even do anything shady.

That is where he was wrong.

He followed aimlessly for a while, he followed until he suspects that they have gone lost as Tao and Aoba started asking random animals while walking. He followed even if the glorious city turned into a dark, eerie alley. Reporting, he took his phone out and sent a text to Louis.

-They went into town. They also ate at a restaurant now were lost in a like dark alley-

He tucked his phone in time when the set of sidewalk pavement soon turned into dark colored stair that led to a strange arch. The group reached the arch and stopped walking; Shima stopped too. While the group was at the top of the stairs, Shima hid from their senses at the bottom of the stairs.

I take it back. This is shady.

From the human's view, the only thing that his eyes were able to catch is only the group. He could not see what is beyond the arch. These long stairs. He watched as Legoshi talked to an old goat with horns. He observed the others as they exchange confused and unnerved glances without Legoshi. He kept watching until all of them froze.

They could not move, even Shima. Their jaws hung open when the old goat suddenly showed his fingers, his fingers were not even complete. The old goat had lost three fingers on his left hand and one on the right. Shima had to squint just to see the thing that is dangling on the remaining fingers.

He could not believe his own eyes when he realized that the dangling things were price tags. Shima's hands convulsed when the old goat held Legoshi's snout to inspect the wolf's teeth. Legoshi did not do anything as well as Shima when the old goat grazed his remaining fingers on Legoshi's canines.

Shima moved a few steps closer and his sense of smell was instantly flooded with the horrid smell of flesh, the smell of blood. His stomach churned uncomfortably and he had to lean against the railing just to stop himself from throwing up then and there. His phone buzzed from a message and he pulled it out.

Louis.

-Get out of there!-

“It's the Black Alley Market!”

Chapter Text

“Dad!” the younger Shima exclaimed, running into his father's open arms. His father lifted him off the ground and playfully ruffled Shima's hair. Thus, making Shima giggle, “Dad? Who is that?” Shima to someone behind his father.

Chuckling, his father turned to where the kid was pointing, “He's my friend, son. His name is Gouhin.”

“Gouhin?” Shima tilted his head to the side, questioning what his father had just said, “Yes, Gouhin. Now, say hi to him.”

Shima raised his hand halfway in a small wave as a smile blossomed on his face, “Hi, Gouhin-san! My name is Shima.” He giggled at how silly he must have sounded. The panda smiled and ruffled his hair.

“Hello, Shima.”

And there it goes, the hand in his hair vanishing into thin air along with the sorroundings of his home. All that there was a dark alley, while he found himself ducking behind a small wall of some sort.

“Move Legoshi!” A voice boomed, bringing Shima more to reality. Gasping at the tone, he kept his eyes trained from the group of animals ahead of him. He can see Bill talk to an old goat on the far side of the broken cobblestone path. Then, the tiger stood up and faced the others.

Of unknown reasons, Bill started counting with his fingers. It took a few seconds before a hand swung and hit Bill square in the face, mumbling a few words to Legoshi, who slapped him. They conversed a little more before their fangs got involved and they eventually growled at each other as the others tried to hold and restrain them.

It was nothing Shima expected, them taking sides, it all looked surreal. He shut his eyes tight, closing off all his other senses to focus on the conversation. The words barely came out as a whisper, but he managed to catch on the words.

“What? You guys are gonna eat it?”

“Wha- didn't you see the animals walking in the main street?! They looked a whole lot happier than the animals at school. And it's peaceful here too,” Bill raised his voice a few octaves higher, “It's all because of this Black Market here! Don't you get it?”

A few thumping footsteps—supposedly walking closer—and then Bill's voice, again. “You need to grow up.”

How did Shima not realize it sooner? The carnivores that peacefully walked along the city's streets the reason behind their calm and composed faces... How could they do this?

“... Means to you?”

“What?”

“This is what growing up means to you?”

“Yeah, what-” Shima tuned out the conversation. He simply did not care if there is more to hear, he had heard enough. He peered at the group again with wary eyes, only to see Legoshi darting away from the rest of them.

Glaring, he rose from his hunched form, fixing the jacket's hood. he cornered the small wall, breaking out into a sprint up the stairs. When he passed Bill, he gave a glare that could almost kill the tiger if looks could kill.

The more deeper they ventured the market, the more the horrid scents of herbivore flesh he inhaled. Gazes bored into his back, yet he did not give a care about it. All he kept his attention on was Legoshi's back ahead of him.

A bump in his shoulder had him flying straight to the ground, an annoyed grumble following along, “Hey!” a fox yelled, only for Shima to ignore. When he raised himself from the floor with his forearms, his hand made contact with a piece of meat. It took him everything to not throw up right then and there. Stumbling in his footing, he bolted away, continuing to ignore the shouts of angered carnivores at the market.

He couldn't think straight, not that he can, but irrational thoughts plagued his mind, emitting worse scenarios on where this scene would lead up. Though, every single one of them made no sense, only one. It didn't look like it was a reality, it looked more of a dream.

He stood there, facing Legoshi with no clue to what was happening.

I'm sorry Shima-san.. 

What? What's happening? Legoshi?

You never cared about me.

Did I do something? ...Are you angry, Legoshi?

Legoshi did not give a reply. Instead, the wolf carresed Shima's cheek with his clawed thumb, Shima shooting him a confused look.

It would never work...

Then Legoshi kissed him. It was heavenly, no, Ethereal. The kiss was soft, tender, caring, and many more words Shima couldn't remember. But the kiss didn't linger, Legoshi's lips left his and all he could see was Legoshi, running away from him.

Legoshi! He tried to scream, yet no words came out of his mouth. He could only painfully watch.

Please come back to me...

I didn't do anything... I-...I'm sorry...

But after all that, he suddenly found himself with Legoshi's head in his lap, awkwardly placed as if it was raised and set there. It didn't look like Legoshi layed on it and more, Legoshi seemed to be knocked out. Shima was caressing the wolf's head fur, he couldn't recall what happened, all he could remember was that dream.

He kissed Legoshi, on top of the head. It could be pictured as a caring kiss but it did not feel like one, it contained sadness, grief, sorrow, melancholy and many other things Shima had no idea where it suddenly came from.

Heavy but silent footsteps echoed trough the dark cold air of the alley Shima and Legoshi was currently situated, alerting the human. In swift motions, he had his sword out, his body turned into a squat as his hand gripped the sword. His other hand uselessly blocking the way to Legoshi.

“Hey, kid,” a figure in the dark spoke in a low, dark voice.

Shima glared, his eyes morphing. He had not been able to realize it until red swam in his vision, prompting him to blink a few times, yet he did not remove the glare in his eyes. “What do you want?”

They stepped out of the dark, distant lights illuminating it's huge muscular figure, “You better move away from him.”

“I won't.”

The figure stepped closer again, puffing out a smoke from their cigarette. Another step and the figure cleared up, revealing a panda carrying several sharpened bamboo sticks, one in it's hand—that's hung on their shoulder in a lazy manner—and other's strapped to a bundle that also hung on their back with a strap going down-west-ward across their body.

“You might not wanna get hurt.”

Shima paused.

That fur pattern... Circles around the eyes... Scars..

His grip on the sword loosened, his body and vision wavering as the relief that washed over him provoked the mark to lose effect.

“Gouhin-san?”

All he could see then was how it all blurred; how everything tilted to the side until it blacked.

~~~~~

Pain.

Pain throbbed in his head as his eyes stung, still, he never peeled his eyes open. Groaning, Shima tried to sit up on whatever he has been laying on right now, achieving no movement from his limbs. He could still feel them but he cannot move it even if he persisted enough. Almost as if something had been pushing it down. He tried again, it still did not budge.

Okay. This is weird.

The rattle of chains had his mind perking up. He peered an eye open and he's staring at a ceiling? The smoke of cigarette littered the room, he hated it; it didn't smell nice. He cringed, prying both his eyes open with a small huff.

“Hey there. How are you feeling?” Someone asked. Shima looked at the foot of his bed, his gaze travelling at everything he could set his eyes on, until he spotted the same muscular panda standing a few feet away from the bed he's cuffed at.

Cuffed? He thought, struggling against the silver cuffs to test his conclusion, eventually giving up and slumping on the bed. Another rattle sounded, and he whipped his head to his side, where Legoshi had been chained up and muzzled.

“Legoshi?” Legoshi turned to him, whimpering a muffled help, unable to speak through the muzzle. Heavy footsteps had their attentions back to the panda.

“Sorry, but the only way to restrict a canine's movements is by placing a muzzle over their snouts.”

“What are you gonna do with him?”

“I won't do anything to your friend, kid. Not yet.”

Yet?

The panda, Gouhin dug out a stethoscope from his pocket, donned it on to lift the shirt of Legoshi and set the metal piece—attached to the stethoscope—on the canine's chest. Struggling, Legoshi panicked and let out panicked, yet muffled noises, “Don't move, don't move. I'm just checking your heart rate.”

The bed beside Gouhin creaked, still, Gouhin paid no mind into it. After then, a string of incoherent words and annoyed noises came from the kid cuffed in the bed. Gouhin stood up, removing the stethoscope before giving Shima a hard punch to the gut that had the kid gasping for air.

Gouhin eyed Legoshi, “I'll take off your muzzle. You better be good.” Shima's wheezing for air continued on as Gouhin unbuckled the muzzle locked on the snout of Legoshi and moved the metal away from the canine.

“I didn't do anything! What is this place?!”

In blinking speeds, his fist came colliding with Legoshi's face, effectively silencing both of Shima and Legoshi while giving the canine a throbbing bruise. “Let me tell you first that you cannot bare your fangs at me.”

“I thought you said you-” Shima paused for a gasp of air. “I thought you won't do anything to him?” Shima blurted out. The kid had shut his eyes tight and had been breathing in controlled, albeit relaxed rythms when he finished the statement.

Gouhin glanced at him, “I said not yet.” he answered. He looked back at Legoshi again, cracking his knuckles in unison, “Carnivores that suffer a panic attack attack and pass out in the black market are almost 100% likely to be preying on herbivores. And I can't let a potential criminal out in the streets.”

“If you two want to go back where you came from, then do as I say.” Turning, Gouhin spoke again, “You too,” he pointed to the human.

“I'm not a carnivore.”

“I'm not saying that you are one, kid.”

“I'm not a kid.”

“Whatever.”

~~~

Minutes later, a camera had been laid out before Legoshi, Gouhin sitting beside the it in a chair, extandable shutter button in hand. “I'm gonna ask you two... Three questions. What's your name?”

A bright flash illuminated the room, prompting Legoshi to throw his head sideways. The polaroid camera whirred, spitting out a processed paper film which wavered in the air as it fell from the elevated positioning of the camera. When it landed on the carpet, it has fully developed, Legoshi's face formulating on the glossy paper.

“L-Legoshi,” the wolf answered, vascillating on whether should he look back at the camera.

“Legoshi, when was the first you ate a herbivore?”

Another flash had Legoshi looking to the side.

“I never ate one...”

“So you tried to eat, one and stopped at the last second.” Gouhin huffed a cloud of smoke from his cigarette, Crossing his leg over the other. “In other words, you've maintained your masquerade.”

“But I plan on telling him the truth one day...”

“Him?!”

Shima groaned, albeit unconcious—asleep—from the punch to his gut, he seemed and resembled someone in a peaceful slumber. Gouhin toned down his voice, “Just who are you talking about, this kid?” Gouhin pointed to Shima on the bed, his voice laced shock and anger despite being barely a whisper.

“That's interesting. What do you feel when you communicate with him? Do you talk to him while imagining how he'd taste? Do you spend every day plotting to eat him at the right time?”

Gouhin sucked the nicotine out of his cigarette before blowing all the smoke out of his—presumably—damaged lungs, “Don't tell me you're also intimate with a herbivore.”

Legoshi did not reply, albeit the guilty look in his eyes that made Gouhin curse internally.

Bullshit!

Legoshi contriving to muster up all his courage from having his secrets spilled, glared at Gouhin through his lashes, “I hate this...”

“I bet you do. But if you take away your skin, you're no different from any other carnivore. They're a slave to their feral instincts.”

“That's why this place exists.”

Gouhin flicked his cigarette away to ascend from his seat and pick up a decent photgraph of Legoshi on the floor, “I'll show you something good.”

He reached over Legoshi's nape, hastily undoing the chains connected to the wolf's iron on the neck which had also been connected to the cuffs in Legoshi's wrists. “Follow me,” Gouhin murmured.

Legoshi, having free to walk now, followed Gouhin in reluctancy to the door. A constant nagging out at the back of his mind had him halting mid-way through the room; the chain connecting his cuffs, rattling as he did so. He turned to eye the unconcious Shima on the bed.

He wondered, how would Shima react to everything he said? His tail gave a swish before he hurried to catch up with the panda.

~~

“The meat in the black market comes from hospitals and funeral homes, in secret,” the panda enunciated, clicking a small button on a elevated counter beside him. “Though it ain't legal, it's better to get meat from those places than killing for meat.”

“This is what happens to those who kill for meat.” Standing near a metal door, Legoshi's breath hitched when the door slid open. “Look closely now.”

They stepped inside the room and Legoshi could not tear his eyes away from the walls of the confined room. Dozens or over hundreds of photographs hung on the walls, all of it depicting different carnivores with harming implications.

“These are my patients.”

Legoshi could only watch as the panda ran his claws over a picture on the wall. Legoshi saw how the panda's serious of a look contorted to one of sympathy as a wave of—what Legoshi suspects—nostalgia washed over the panda. “We've got someone who ate his arm off 'cause he couldn't get the flavor of a herbivore out of his mouth.”

“Someone who lost his fur from stress, and someone who inflicted injuries in himself due to self-hatred. Chances of rehabilitation are slim to none.”

“Also...” The panda turned to Legoshi, “There are sometimes cases when a carnivore loved someone so much that he ended up eating her alive.”

“What do you think?” the panda somehow humored. Though, Legoshi can feel his body ache just from the thought of eating Haru-chan or even the worst, Shima-san.

His bruise throbbed with as the panda spoke, “You're still young, but this world is filled with problems that you can't afford to ignore.” The panda took a pin to stick Legoshi's photograph on the wall, “Especially since you're slowly becoming one of them.”

He's right but...

“...Who are you?” Legoshi managed to speak out after he watched the panda hang his own photograph to the wall with the others, deeming as one of the conflicted others. The panda stared at him, took out a cigarette to light up before gazing out the only window at the room. Arms placed comfortably in the window sill.

“I stick photos of my patients on the wall to remind myself,” the panda began, Legoshi sauntering over to the window, “That I need to continue my work so I shouldn't have to add any more photos to my collection.”

They gazed out the window, staring at the red lights of this cursed market. “I'm the psycho-therapist of the market. Simply put, I'm a respectable doctor.” The panda eyed him again.

“Whether I'm your enemy or ally is up to you to decide.”

Chapter Text

“What, you're students from the Cherryton School? I couldn't tell from your plain clothes.”

Steam rose from the hot cup of tea Legoshi stares at. He caressed his upper arm as Gouhin handed him a pack of cigarettes.

“Well, leaving that aside, would you like a smoke?”

Legoshi did not respond nor move to take a cigarette.

“I suppose not,” Gouhin retreated.

Legoshi blinked, hunching his shoulders and giving Gouhin an I'm so miserable look.

Gouhin picked up on his deppressed aura, “What's with that 'I'm so miserable' look?”

Legoshi did not respond, again.

“You're such a pain in the ass.” Gouhin took an airful of nicotine in his cigarette, huffing out a cloud of smoke after. “All I did was give you a reality check.”

“I didn't show you a photo of one-armed puma just to traumatize you. I'm doing all of this to make you have a chance of not turning out like that. You should be grateful.”

“If I'd left you sinking in that bottom less swamp, that wouldn't make me a very good doctor, now would it?”

With Legoshi having tied in chains and punched in the face, he doesn't think Gouhin's a good doctor. At all.

Legoshi's cheek gave a dull throb as he moved his hand to touch the bruise on it. If he thought about it, Gouhin's punch had a lot of force, not even Bill's strength can compare.

Legoshi pondered, I remembered something back from last year's biology class... Order carnivora, Family ursidae... Their body and nature are no different from those of brown bears...

But the panda has one unique trait that seperates them from other bears.

“You told me that it was up to me to decide whether you're my ally or enemy right?” Legoshi noted. “How do you see yourself as a psychotherapist?”

“As a panda with a strong body? Or a panda who will never eat meat?”

Gouhin scoffed, “Heh, that's a pretty intelligent question. It's true that we eat nothing but bamboo. I've already abandoned the beast inside me.”

“I decided to become a doctor in the black market a few decades ago out of a sense of duty... I fought with many of my patients and almost got killed a few times.”

“A few years here and that kid's father joined me. Until then, only a small handful of carnivores were kind enough to help us. The only thing we could do was make sure we'd never get close to death.”

“So I trained my body and used my bamboo diet to get stronger and more durable,” Gouhin hinted, flexing his arm and showing off his large biceps that had Legoshi drop his ears with fear.

“In short, we're just a doctors with a strong and durable bodies,” Gouhin stated.

Taking a deep breath, Legoshi reached for the cup of tea.

He must be telling the truth about everything.

Legoshi took a sip and in an instant, a bitter-salty taste invaded his taste buds, prompting him to scrunch his nose at the horrible taste.

Gouhin laughed at his reaction, “How do you like my tea made with fresh bamboo leaves?”

Legoshi did not laugh at his sarcasm, it was not even funny to begin with. A question arose in his head, one that he had been wanting to ask since earlier.

“Um,” Legoshi mumbled, “What's your treatment for dangerous carnivores?”

“Treatment?” Gouhin moved forward in his seat, “That's simple. In fact...”

“It's what we're doing right now, the carrot and stick approach.”

No, Legoshi thought. He refused to believe it, he wasn't a patient... Was he?

“But... I'm not a patient,” He retorted.

“Oh, that's what they all say.”

“W-well at least I'm trying to do something about it!”

“That's only because you've developed a personal interest in a herbivore! That's extremely dangerous!”

Legoshi could feel the anger radiating off of the panda in waves. Yet, he did not let it waver him down.

“What do you know?! Just recently, we became friends and—”

“SHUT UP YOU LITTLE SHIT!” Gouhin bellowed as his foot made contact with the table and flipped it over, nearly crushing Legoshi in it.

In time, Legoshi scrambled to a corner in the room, until Gouhin approached him with thundering footsteps, fists clenched and gritted teeth. Gouhin roughly got ahold of Legoshi by the collar of his shirt, gripping it until his knuckle bone raised a bump in his skin.

“Quit acting like you know what's wrong with you when you're just barking like a goddamn chihuahua, listen to the words of a pro!”

“You listening?! Huh?!”

“What you've got inside you are predatory instincts disguised as romantic feelings. It's the worst of them all!”

“It's probably true that you want a good relationship with those two, but that's just what your reason is telling you.”

“It's camouflage for your urge to maul and maim until one of them is food.”

“You still have time! You have to sever your ties with them before it's too late!” Gouhin fumed, shoving Legoshi down to the floor.

Legoshi remained staring at the floor while in the floor. He was shocked to say the least, scared maybe, but those could not beat off the truth that Gouhin's words held. He couldn't retort back, after all, what would you say back when you have clearly lost?

“Damn it. I can't deal with kids these days,” Gouhin cursed as he walked away from Legoshi. “They say love makes you crazy, but for kids, it's just insane.” Gouhin added with a scratch to the bacm of his head.

“No, um...”

Legoshi stood up from the floor, “I don't really know myself. I'm 17, but I've never experienced romantic feelings before, so I can't say for sure.”

Gouhin raised a brow, “Never?”

Legoshi only nodded.

Hey, hey, this wolf is way too reserved! I was pretty wild when I was 17...

“Well, I'm thankful for all your services, can I go back now?”

Legoshi wasn't thankful actually.

“And leave me here?”

That voice made Legoshi bug out of his sense, stumbling over his own words. “Y-you're awake?!” He yelped in shock, training his eyes on Shima who sat on the bed with a questioning expression.

“What happened?” Shima asked.

“Nothing, kid. Come, Legoshi.” Gouhin motioned for Legoshi to follow him out of the room, and he followed. Leaving Shima alone at the room.

Gouhin leaned to a wall opposite to Legoshi, motioning for the wolf to talk again.

“Well, I'm sure whatever you're worried about won't happen... Because my feelings for her aren't romantic. That's what I believe.”

Legoshi turned to look at Gouhin when the panda seemed to move.

“Hm?” Legoshi muttered.

“It's a small animal porn mag. Use it to check yourself.”

What?! Is he crazy?!

“There's no way I'm—”

A pounding of fists came on the door, followed by Shima's voice, ”What's taking both of you so long?“

Legoshi snatched the magazine, shoving it in his bag as Gouhin added, ”If you get stimulated by this magazine, then you could just have a unique attraction to small animals. But if you don't get stimulated and stay fixated on a single herbivore, than you're in danger.“

They came back into the room to see Shima standing at the middle of the room, still with a questioning look.

“Hey kid, here's your stick.” Gouhin tossed the said stick to Shima, Shima struggling to catch it until eventually got ahold of it, “It's not a stick,” Shima protested.

“I think we'll be going now,” Legoshi stated.

~~~~~~

They were now back at the street, taking the route back to the main road which was somehow away from the black market.

“Hey, um... Shima-san...” Legoshi began.

“Yeah?” Shima answered.

“Can I ask, how did you get here?”

“Well, you see... I followed you guys.”

He followed us?!

“What?! That's dangerous!”

“Of course, but I'm still here so no worries!” Shima smiled.

Legoshi stared at Shima, his face filled with uncertainness as he turned around to walk a tad bit faster. How could he smile when they had been in such predicament?

All Legoshi did was huff.

“Check yourself.”

“You don't need to return it.”

Legoshi thought back to Gouhin's words. The more he replayed it, the more he grew annoyed, he thinks it is utterly stupid.

What kind of doctor is he?!

This is stupid!! I'm throwing this magazine away as soon as I find a trash can. I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit!

Legoshi clutched his fists tighter, speeding more and more. He wanted to forget everything he saw. He wants to pretend everything he saw today was not real.

“Wait up, Legoshi!” Shima's voice brought him back out of his stupor. He turned back to Shima, irritation now playing in his features. He had not realized that he had been sprinting all along.

Legoshi's features softened as Shima finally caught up, the human placed his hands on his knees and breathed in air as much as he could in ragged panting.

Shima looked up, “Oh look, there's the main street!”

“Hm?” Legoshi pulled his body to turn and look at what Shima had been looking, indeed he was right. “Now we can finally go back...”

They continued walking until they reached the main street.

“Legoshi...” Someone called out and they halted.

“A-aoba? What're you doing here?”

Aoba's eyes focused on Legoshi first before they landed on Shima.

“Shima? What are you doing here?!”

“Nevermind that. What happened?”

Aoba glanced again at Legoshi as he then dropped his gaze onto the pavement, “...I ran away.”

“I just couldn't bring myself to eat that finger... So I've been here, waiting for you... I guess.”

“I couldn't stop thinking about the head of the club, Louis-senpai... My herbivore friends...”

“It made me feel sick to my stomach.”

As Legoshi stared, he realized, Aoba was also desperate. His beak that was made to eat flesh, was sharp and pristine.

It brought Legoshi's tears to surface.

“What about the others though..” Shima cut in. “Did they eat too?”

“How did you know about the others?”

Shima scoffed, “I have connections.”

“No, but actually I've been watching all of you the whole time.”

Aoba took a glance to Legoshi, “Huh?! L-legoshi?! Why are you crying?!”

“What? You're crying?!”

I want to stand on my own two feet.

I want to stand on my two feet filled with sharp toenails together with Shima-san and Aoba in this world.

“Oh, I don't got any napkins...”

“I think I have some...”

“Hey, are you okay?”

All I want... Is to stand on my own two feet...

With Shima-san...

~~~~~~~

We're back at the school. Nothing happened.

Come meet me tomorrow.

Where?

...

Shima stared at his message with Louis. He had messaged him as soon as he and Legoshi with Aoba got back to the school. He haven't told the deer on what had happened back at the black market, at least, not yet.

“Shima? Shima!”

“Yeah?” Shima peeled his eyes from the screen of his phone, meeting the eyes of Haiku.

“Did you even hear us?” The younger twin questioned.

“Uh... No?”

“Told you he wasn't listening at all.”

“Ah, whatever.”

As Haiku dismissed the conversation, Shima glanced at his phone. He had nothing to do now, perhaps talk to Louis?

He doesn't even know where that deer is.

Sighing, he turned off the screen of his phone and stood up, he opted to look for Louis, for now.

Shima opened the door, “I'll just go, okay?” he inquired.

All three heads turned to him with bored eyes, “You always go out, where are you going anyways?” asked Hajin, as he always does.

“To..,” Shima paused, where was he going? Look for his Louis-senpai? Maybe. “Louis-senpai.”

The three sighed in unison, “Louis-senpai with his charms again..”

“Just go.” Hajin waved him off with a flick of his hand. Shima did not waste a second then, he walked out the door devoid of any thoughts except finding his senpai.

The club was his best option in findging the deer, or so he thought. After all, where else would Louis be? Maybe his own dorm, yes, but it is unlikely of the deer to stay on his dorm at a time like this.

He hurried in his steps, his loafers clacking against the floor with every contact the shoed made against it. The sound was calming, until the chatters of a loud hallway drowned it out, he looked up.

I have to hurry.

~~~~

“Eh? He's not here?”

Sanou shook his head, ”He isn't usually here at this time of the day, maybe wandering around?“

”What about the dorms?“

”He doesn't return to the dormitories until it's sunset.“

”Oh, I see then. I'll be going now.“ Shima exited the dorm building, he stared at the trees ahead of him, to the tall buildings that stood past the lush trees.

He continued on walking, past the trees and into the tall buildings. He doesn't know where to find that deer anymore, Louis was always hiding from the public whenever he's needed, in Shima's opinion.

He ascened the flight of stairs, they were nauseatingly long and symmetric, something that seemed to bother him at times he's thinking of something.

He stood before the metal door of the Gardening club, hesitation washing over him as he gribbed the metal knob. With a final gulp of air, he pushed the metal door inwards as it creaked with every movement it made.

Stepping foot at the garden washed his thoughts away, the warm breeze of frash air caressed his cheek and warmed his face up. The sight of flowers never seize to take his breath away, as if a Garden of Eden in a wretched world.

His eyes searched for Haru, he wasn't used to seeing the Garfen empty. He stared at the flowers until his gaze landed at the shed. The shed's glass doors were closed, even the curtains were drawn, it wasn't usually like this.

He sauntered to the shed, his hand reaching out to touch and move the glass doors. His curiosity peaked even more when noises of heavy shoes resonated from inside the shed. Haru isn't that heavy as the sounds suggested.

He stopped in front of the doors, his hand had been gripping the handle of it, one slide and it'll open and reveal whatever's inside it. The sound of muffled voices caught his attention again. But before he could even move the doors,

The curtain drew back.

”Louis?!“