Chapter Text
“Are you sure you don’t want the bird porn? This wasn’t easy to get my hands on, y’know.”
Pina looked down at the bald eagle, his eyes focused on the baby chick he had cradled in his arms. The sheep wanted to be disappointed that his adult excursion was for naught, but seeing Aoba’s paternal side come out made up for it. The bird looked up, deadpan.
“Oh, sure. Lemme just abandon this helpless chick to pleasure myself, Pina.” He looked down at the chick, bobbing gently in the jar of warm water encompassed by Aoba’s strong arms. The chick was starting to grow its first set of feathers in spots. It still didn’t look like the textbook adorable baby bird, but it was getting there.
“How in the Hell did you get that, anyways?” Bill queried.
“Nunya.”
“Huh? What’s nunya?”
“Nunya business.” The sheep smirked to himself at his little pun, Bill giving him a friendly punch.
“Whatever, I’m gonna hook up Rezoodent Evil. You want in, Pina?”
“I’ll just watch for now.” The dall sheep had sat down next to Aoba, peering over at the chick once more. Its eyes were closed now, but whenever they were open it would look right at Aoba and get as close as possible. It was honestly pretty cute.
Pina had draped an arm around Aoba’s shoulder.“So, how does it feel to be a daddy?”
The birds brows furrowed.“Please don’t call me that. And it’s, uh... I just don’t want it to die. We brought it into this world, we can’t just give up on it.”
Bill piped up from the other side of Aoba. “Yeah, and it’s gonna get all fluffy in a few days. We can’t let it die before then!”
Aoba raised his eyebrows at the bengal tiger. “And afterwards?”
Pina knew they couldn’t keep the bird forever, regardless of its charm. “We should probably give it to the police at some point.”
Aoba looked down at the baby bird sleeping peacefully “Ah, but it’s so cute…”
“Well, it’ll grow up a lot better not being raised by three high school males.”
“Says who?” Bill puffed out his chest. “With my breathtaking masculinity, Aoba’s inherent parental skills, and Pina’s gentle, effeminate ways, we should easily be able to raise the perfect, triple threat of a chick!”
“Excuse me, my effeminate ways?”
Aoba spoke up. “He’s right bro, have you looked in the mirror? You’re the softest looking dude in Cherryton.” He took one of his feathered hands and gave Pinas flowing cheek-fur a ruffle, a little more slowly than Pina would’ve expected.
The sheep felt his face grow hot.“Well, that much is true…But what does that have to do with being effeminate!?”
He tried to keep his eyes on the TV screen, Bill’s tiger character slashing his way through a horde of zombies. His arm was still wrapped around Aoba. Bill was cozied up on the bald eagles left.
An hour later, they fell asleep like that.
----
Pina had always felt a little jealous of avians. He was sure he wasn’t alone on that - to be able to fly away in a world where that was on such a knife’s edge would be great for anyone. And yet, he often spent time watching the school’s students during flight practice. He found it interesting - the way that some avians could hardly keep off the ground, while others flew with ease. They were adorned in various headgear and helmets, aviator goggles or some odd windshield looking thing on their faces.
As he strolled up to the fence, he counted a dozen or so different birds. But which one was… ‘Ah, there he is!’ Running to gain speed, there was Aoba in a black tracksuit, contrasting with his pure white head feathers. With enough velocity, he spread his arms out and his body leaned forward. Pina watched as his shoes lifted off of the ground entirely in just a few steps, and then the bald eagle was five, ten, twenty feet in the air. ‘Amazing…’
Pina smiled.
The dall sheep hadn’t known Aoba too well before the chick incident. Sure, they were both in the drama club, but they were hardly in the same friend circles. After last week, that had all changed. Pina had previously thought of Aoba as a bit closed off. Not quiet, but not boisterous or even extroverted, really. He had always seen him hanging out with Bill, which he guess made sense - a yin to his yang, of sorts.
And why couldn’t he also be the yin to his yang?
After his chance encounters with Legosi, Pina had realized how sheltered he had been. Not long ago, he couldn’t list a single carnivore he would consider his friend. Now he felt like he had three, and he wanted to get to know them better!
Looking up, he watched as Aoba carved through the air. ‘So surreal, but so gracious…’ The avian was wearing a pair of brown aviator goggles, which Pina got a good look at as Aoba turned to wave at him. He smiled back.
After a few minutes, Aoba eventually lands to make way for another student to practice. Pina turns quickly, suddenly feeling embarrassed for watching the birds practice, but he’s not quick enough.
“Pina!” He’s half-jogging toward the sheep in his uniform which, frankly, was tighter than it had any right to be. “Hey! Me and Bill were gonna go out to eat tonight, you wanna come with? I’ll pay for ya.”
“What? Ah, sure! I’ll come, but you don’t gotta pay.” Pina could pay for himself - of course, if Aoba was dead set then he wouldn’t complain about free food.
“Eh, consider it payment for the magazine you gave me. Pretty quality stuff in there, hehe…” Right! He almost forgot about that. Aoba and Bill…They were nothing like Legosi, and they were nothing like him either. That’s what made them so interesting - it wasn’t long ago that Pina thought all carnivores were the same. But since his arrival to Cherryton, his preconceptions were being torn down left and right.
“Alright, what time?”