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Laios came home in a bit of a daze, his eyes unfocused, his cheeks flushed, his movements stiff and unnatural and entirely automatic. The apartment was still and quiet, and comfortingly familiar. As far as Laios could tell, Shuro hadn't come home from school yet, which was probably a good thing in this case. Laios needed time to collect his thoughts before he could talk to anybody. He locked the door behind him, took off his shoes, and quietly scuttled towards his bedroom, clutching his backpack close to his chest. As he stepped inside, he instinctively looked towards Kensuke’s terrarium to check if it hadn't escaped while he was gone, and was relieved to find it sitting on top of a rock. Obviously, even if Kensuke managed to get out, it was pretty unlikely that it would get very far – snails weren't exactly known for their speed, after all. He put a dandelion leaf that he'd picked up on his way home in front of Kensuke and waited for it to notice. Usually, he fed it leftover lettuce and spinach, and crushed eggshells as a source of calcium, but now that it was getting warmer, he would be able to pick stuff up right off the ground, which was pretty convenient. It had been about five months since he found Kensuke in the middle of the pavement, nearly stepped on it, and brought it home with him. At first he kept it in a jar, but eventually he managed to find a suitable terrarium, and he put a lot of effort into making it a nice place for Kensuke to live in, adding moss, and little twigs, and cool rocks for it to play with. It was hard to get into the mindset of a snail, but he wanted to believe that Kensuke was happy with this life.
Having checked on Kensuke, he closed his bedroom door, approached his bed, put the backpack down and reached inside to retrieve his notebook. He held it carefully, at an arm's length, the way one might handle a bomb, staring at it anxiously. Finally he opened it and began flipping through the pages. His hands shook slightly and his heart pounded in his chest as he looked for the note. Just when he was starting to believe that he'd hallucinated it, he found what he was looking for: a nine-digit number written on the margin, sandwiched between the doodles he made during class. Kabru’s phone number, written in Kabru’s own hand, bolded, underlined and framed, ensuring that he wouldn't miss it. Laios subconsciously traced the number with his index finger, mouthing each individual digit as he did so. Once he memorised the number, he put the notebook down on the bed, making sure that it would stay open on the page. He stood in the middle of the room with his eyes closed and his hands on his hips, trying to remember where he might have put his phone.
For the longest time, Laios didn't have his own phone, largely because he didn't need one. He and Falin had a landline for a while, but she was the one who made and received a majority of the calls that came through – mostly from Marcille. Whatever calls there were for him were usually ones he didn't want to pick up, so Falin usually handled those too. When Falin moved in with Marcille and Laios managed to convince Shuro to be his roommate, suddenly it made a lot more sense for him to have a personal phone, if for no other reason than to stay in touch with Falin. It could also come in handy if he needed anything from Shuro, who already had a cell phone, the fancy kind that had to be flipped open. Laios wanted the same kind, but he settled for a cheaper model. Since he wasn't going to get much use out of it anyway, it would feel like a waste of money to spend any more than he needed to. The phone did its job well enough, he thought, though using the keyboard was a little annoying, which was why his texts were usually as short as possible. Once he did some digging into the functions of his phone, he was amazed to find that there were games on it. Just three of them, and all of them except for the snake one were awkward to play, but that was better than nothing.
Laios walked around the room, murmuring under his breath as he looked for his phone. It felt quite like playing a one-person game of warmer-colder, which turned out to be pretty difficult to pull off when one didn't know the right answer. Finally he found it in his desk drawer, hidden under a bunch of papers. It barely had any battery left, but it should be enough to put Kabru's phone number in. He didn't feel like looking for the charger right now. With the phone in hand, he climbed into bed and sat cross-legged in front of the open notebook. He needed a moment to remember how to add a new contact – it had been about a year since the last time he had to do it – and once he found the right menu, he just stared at the screen, unable to proceed from there. He glanced at the number written on the page, and then back at the screen, and finally squeezed his eyes shut, breathing heavily, and put the phone down on top of the page. Without opening his eyes, he reached to his left and patted around until his fingers touched something fluffy. He picked it up and put it over his head.
Immediately, a wave of comfort washed over him and his body slowly relaxed. The fursuit head wasn't finished yet. For one, it didn't have eyeholes, which meant that he couldn't wear it outside of his bedroom without accidentally bumping into things. Right now, though, that didn't really matter, since he didn't want to see anything anyway. There was something comforting about the darkness that remained around him whether he opened or closed his eyes. The ventilation wasn't the best, either, meaning that he could only wear it for so long before he would start to suffocate. Those were only small details, though. Otherwise, he was really happy with the results. Besides, he still had about three weeks to finish it, which was plenty of time. And then, after he tested it out, he could move on to the next one, and then the next. He probably shouldn't get ahead of himself, though.
He had more ambitious plans from the start, wanting to bring to life his ultimate monster design in costume form. It was Falin that talked him down from it and convinced him to start small, to get the hang of things first before tackling his dream project. The suggestion, however reasonable, was a little disappointing. Still better than what he got from everyone else, though. Even after he explained his vision, they didn't really see it, and largely told him to drop it altogether. Since then, Laios had given up on telling people about his project, and only talked about it with Falin. The idea in his mind was to have a lot of different body parts that he could swap around as he saw fit. He created a bunch of designs and sifted through them with Falin to select the ones that seemed most likely to work. Additional stuff, like wings, was out of the question for now, but Falin promised that she would figure something out to make it work. As for the regular parts, the heads seemed like they would take the most effort, so Laios decided to focus on other things first, mostly the paws and tails, which could be worn even without a mask. Once he got the hang of the process, they became pretty easy to make. He only wished that he could find a way to make the tails move on their own, but that seemed like a pretty difficult thing to figure out. Maybe one day.
Whenever he completed a part of the suit, he would wear it around the house to test it out. He especially liked wearing the tail, which swayed behind him as he walked, and bounced between his legs when he ran. The only downside of the paws was that it was pretty hard to grab things with them, but on the other hand, they made walking on all fours really, really fun. One time, Shuro came into his bedroom to ask him something, and caught him in the act of chasing his own tail all over the floor. Laios frantically tried to explain what he was doing, but Shuro instantly shut the door and refused to come out of his own bedroom for a while. Laios never found out what he wanted. He couldn't help but feel a little bad about it afterwards, and made sure to never bring it up again.
It felt pretty lonely, not having anybody to share his passion with. Except for Falin, obviously, but Falin couldn't spend as much time with him anymore. Besides, she already knew all of this stuff. The point was to be able to tell someone else about it. Shuro was a really cool guy, and Laios admired him greatly, but there were a lot of things he couldn't really talk to him about. Besides, Shuro also had more important things to do, and Laios didn't want to bother him too much. That was also true of everyone else he knew, like Marcille and Chilchuck. They made their lack of interest in his 'weird furry stuff' loud and clear, in a way that probably would have been considered rude if he did it back to them. In any case, Laios had gotten used to being alone with his ideas. His only hope was finding like-minded people during the upcoming furry convention, but even that was kind of doubtful. Most people didn't see things the way he did, even other furries.
Well, now that he met Kabru, a new option had presented itself. Kabru was a really nice guy. He went out of his way to talk to Laios, and seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. He even complimented his drawings! It was almost suspicious how much he wanted to hang out with Laios, not only inviting to the cafe, but even going so far as to suggest that they grab a drink sometime. Those kinds of things rarely happened to Laios. He didn't exactly have friends, other than Shuro. Most people weren't really interested in talking to him once they realised what kind of person he was. Kabru, on the other hand, only seemed to get more interested the more they spoke. Laios didn't know what to make of that. It was possible that Kabru wanted something from him. That would make the most sense. But a part of him wanted to believe that Kabru liked him, at least a little bit. It was a bold thought, and it scared him a little that it appeared in his head.
Laios wasn't good with people. They seemed to speak in code and act in ways that didn't make sense, not to mention that he could never figure out what they were expecting out of him, and would usually end up doing or saying the exact opposite of what they wanted. It was difficult, and confusing, and it led him to believe that there was something wrong with him. He didn't feel around Kabru, though. Kabru was easy to talk to, and pretty straightforward with his expectations. Maybe that was why it was so easy to believe that he liked him. Just a little bit. Enough to keep talking to him, at least for now. There were still some things that Laios wasn't sure about, though. For example, how to tell if something counted as a date or not, or what a date even was to begin with. Usually, that kind of stuff didn't concern him at all, but now, for once, it seemed like an important thing to know. He wanted to ask someone about it, but if he did, he would probably have to explain a lot of things first, and he didn't really want to do that. He could always ask Kabru, who seemed to know a lot of things, but then he would have given away that he was thinking about it, which was the last thing he wanted. Besides, it would put Kabru in a pretty awkward position if he figured it out. No, no. It was better to shove the thought far, far down his brain and forget about it.
It was getting hard to breathe, so Laios removed the fursuit head and put it back in its place. It already served its purpose of helping him collect himself, anyway. Panting loudly, Laios wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. Ah, he would really have to do something about that. Without proper ventilation, he would keep overheating and having to take the head off.
He went to pick up his phone to make another attempt at typing in Kabru's contact information when he heard a noise in the hallway and instinctively perked up, turning towards the door. Shuro was home! Without thinking, he leapt out of his bed and rushed into the hallways, tripping over his own feet along the way. “Hey!” he exclaimed, waving his hand as he bounced on his feet. “Hey, hey, Shuro, hey! How was school? Or was it work? Are you going out again later?”
Shuro didn't answer, focused on taking off his shoes and coat. When he finally turned to Laios, his expression briefly changed into a concerned frown. “What's up with you? Your face...”
Laios tilted his head in confusion before he remembered that it had only been a minute since he took off the fursuit head. “Oh, it's fine! I just overheated a little. You know, it's starting to get a little warm outside. Bet I'm gonna get hay fever soon,” he rambled on, idly tugging on the collar of his shirt. “I was out earlier,” he confessed with a hint of pride, following Shuro into the kitchen. “I made a new friend at school and we went to a cafe together. It was pretty nice, actually.”
“That's great,” Shuro said automatically, with a hint of exasperation. It took a moment for Laios' words to sink in, but once they did, he sent Laios a suspicious glance over his shoulder “Wait. What do you mean, at school? Have you been sneaking onto campus again?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Laios, who had only just remembered that he did, in fact, promise Shuro that he would stay out of the campus. There was a point in time when he fully intended to keep that promise, however brief, but once he realised that there were no real consequences to what he was doing, he simply continued to do it without telling Shuro. It was pretty easy to do, since Shuro never really asked about his daily activities, and Laios never had a real reason to tell him about it until now. That was a pretty bad slip-up. Laios averted his gaze and twiddled his thumbs. “A little bit, yeah. It's fine, though, really. Sure, he figured out that I'm not supposed to be there, but he said that he's not going to tell anyone about it, so there's nothing to worry about.”
Shuro heaved a sigh. “Obviously, he had to say that. It doesn't really mean anything,” he explained in an exasperated tone, rubbing his temple. “Goddammit, Laios! I told you that you would be caught if you kept it up. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. You're not exactly inconspicuous.” He grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and turned to Laios as he walked past him in the doorway. “Remember, if anything happens to you, leave me out of it. I had nothing to do with this.”
“Of course, Shuro! I wouldn't want you to get in trouble because of me,” Laios said sheepishly, nodding his head. His face instantly lit up. “I really think it's gonna be fine, though! The guy is really nice. He said that he's gonna make sure that nothing bad happens to me, and I don't think he'd lie about that. I mean, if he wanted to get me in trouble, he would have already done that.”
“You're awfully optimistic...” Shuro remarked, heading towards his bedroom. Laios followed him.
“He actually invited me out for a drink this weekend,” he went on excitedly, bouncing beside Shuro. “I was thinking, you know, if you had the time, maybe you could come, too. He says that he'd want to meet you, so he probably wouldn't mind. You two would get along really well, I bet.”
“No, sorry. I'll be busy,” Shuro said curtly, and promptly disappeared inside his bedroom.
“I didn't even say when...” Laios murmured softly, watching the door close behind Shuro. He stood alone in the hallway for another few moments, clutching at his heart which felt really sore and heavy all of a sudden. Finally he took a deep breath, shook his head, and headed into his bedroom, where he immediately picked up the phone and typed in Kabru's number – from memory.