Author's Notes:In retrospection I have no idea where I was actually going with this. I wrote this month ago, in German, in a moment where I was about to explode and implode in my own head. That moment I stopped thinking and wrote about Daidouji. In a way I 'WTF' at this, but then again I still like it and it points out some aspects of Daidouji that I think often about.

Maybe he should have started running much sooner. Maybe that would have been the best solution. Maybe everything had turned out different then. Who could tell? Daidouji wasn't able to.

His feet barely seemed to touch the snowy road anymore and cold winter air burned in his lungs like millions of paper cuts. But even that didn't make any difference at all.

With every step he moved further away from an artificially heated world without any real warmth.

His thin body became one with the wind; one with the falling snow, which mercilessly buried more and more of the landscape.
Starting to run had been amazingly easy. One moment he was in the hallway and then…

-

Another cactus. Cacti seemed to slowly overtake the entire house. This one was an exceptionally big version and it was placed directly in the hall in front of Daidouji's room. Perhaps it had been supposed to be some fort of present, but who could know for sure. Daidouji could never tell what his mother was thinking. It was different with his father. His father was a machine. Understanding him was easy.

Daidouji moved toward the cactus and titled his head. Cacti were the closest to a pet he'd ever possessed. Living creatures, belonging just to him. But he knew, that this was different from owning a puppy and it didn't have anything in common with kittens or hamsters either.
Cacti didn't give love, just as heatings couldn't give any true heat either. But Daidouji didn't care. You couldn't buy anything with love and warmth, it was almost too clear to him. And because of that he didn't know what he was expected as he extended his hand toward the cactus; what he ever had expected.
He only came back to his senses as sharp thorns, precise as injection needles, pierced the skin of his fingers. Blood ran over his hand in warm drops and this heat was real. Live. His own warmth.

Daidouji stared down on it and took a deep breath.

The first step was shaky. Not a real step, just a forward motion of the foot. The second was more forceful and the third made him move a good bit already. The fourth and fifth followed close to one another and before he knew it he was running down the hall, past the domestics, past everything, until he finally felt the snow beneath his feet. The 'snow' actually didn't deserve it's name, it was muddy and shaded in brown. As it fell from the sky it may have been white once, white as the snowflakes that were still falling down from the clouds on their descent to hell. It reminded Daidouji of humanity.

He laughed silently; the air getting caught up in his body and its icy cold cutting like metal blades. But Daidouji didn't pay attention.

-

His steps only became slower as he left the city and ran a good bit into the forest. His glasses were crooked on his nose and his hair was one big mess. He didn't know where he got the strength to go such a long way, but the only thing that mattered was that he had it.,

Daidouji stopped in his tracks and supported his hands on his knees while he caught his breath. Then he thought of something better and let himself fall over backwards into the snow, which was still white and innocent here.

The glasses slipped of his face and he grinned twistedly.

It was another mystery when exactly he'd started screaming. As he noticed he was already shouting his soul out, louder and louder, up to the cloudy night sky.

It didn't sound human.

Daidouji was a wolf, he knew now more than he'd ever known. In a world of cacti and dirty snow he could surive, because he was strong. His grin widened and he didn't even think of standing back up.

Tommorow… Tommorrow was a new day. Tomorrow he's be a perfect heir again. Nobody would know that something had changed. Nobody would ever notice. But Daidouji was a wolf.

Maybe he should have ran sooner. But what did it matter anymore?