When Shion woke up in the morning, Nezumi was already gone. It was always like this, even though they went to bed together, the mornings were always lonely.
He put on his clothes, exchanged a few kind words with the mice, and left their home to go to work to Inukashi's. The dogs were as friendly and playful as always, so when his employer didn't look, Shion played with the puppies. He chased them around, then the dogs chased him, and they ended up tired and panting. When Inukashi noticed the commotion, he snarled at Shion and scolded him, but when the white haired boy went back to wash the dogs, he smiled a bit, because it was nice to see his dogs having fun with that airhead Nezumi brought with himself.
It was a large blond dog's turn, but it was still hyped about the game that ended only seconds ago, it started jumping in the water, splashing Shion, making all of his clothes wet.
'Ahh, what a waste!' Sighed Shion, and heard Inukashi laughing at him. 'It's not funny, I don't have many clothes here, and Nezumi will scold me.'
'You brought it on yourself, Shion. But you're lucky, the sun is still warm, it'll dry your clothes soon. Hurry, lay out your shirt and pants. Though I don't want people to see you naked in my yard, so I'll lend you a pair of pants until yours dry.'
'Okay, thank you.' Shion started undressing.
'But you have to work twice as hard now.' The long haired boy knit his eyebrows and Shion nodded.
He changed into the borrowed pants, but his mood was slightly ruined by this accident.
He was afraid of what Nezumi will think if he hears about what happened – and he will hear it, thanks to his boss. Maybe Nezumi was right, and he was just an airhead. He didn't think having fun occasionally is a wrong thing, but wasting time and money because of it in his situation is in fact, stupid.
Shion sulked a bit more until it was the end of work for the day. Then he changed back to his own pants, and he was about to put on his shirt, when a little mouse ran up on his leg and Nezumi's voice had a quite negative sound behind him.
'Why are you shirtless?'
'Hey, Nezumi!' Shion turned and waved with the shirt in his hand. 'You won't believe what happened, one of the dogs…'
'Put on your shirt!' The other commanded him cutting in.
'Yeah, sure…' Shion did as he was told.
'Hurry up with the buttoning. Then come quickly, we're leaving.'
'Huh?' Shion blinked blankly and didn't understand why Nezumi was so impatient today.
'Hello, you damn rat!' Inukashi appeared in the entrance. 'I see you worry about your little partner stripping in my backyard.' He laughed and Nezumi looked at him like he wanted to snap his neck.
'We're leaving.' He grabbed Shion's hand and pulled him after himself.
'Hey, Nezumi!' Shion tried to pull his hand back, but couldn't. 'Sorry, Inukashi, see you tomorrow!' He waved with a huge smile at the tanned boy who smiled back at him. 'What's going on, Nezumi?' They were almost at their house, and Nezumi still didn't speak to him and was still pulling him.
'Who told you to strip?' Nezumi kicked the door in and pushed Shion inside.
'All my clothes got wet because of a dog, so I had to take them off.'
'You took off all your clothes?' Nezumi's eyes widened.
'Yes, and Inukashi gave me a pair of pants to change into.'
'So you were working shirtless almost all day?'
'Yes, but it wasn't cold, so it's okay.'
Nezumi hid his face in his hands and felt like yelling at that stupid airhead. Why does he have to be this clueless? Why is he still so naïve?
'Shion. You can't take off any piece of cloth outside of here, okay?'
'Wha…? Why?'
'For example, because of this.' Nezumi grabbed Shion's hand and pulled him closer, touching the scar on his face with his thumb.
'Oh!' Shion felt ashamed and pulled away. 'I see. I understand now, I'm sorry, it won't happen again.' Nezumi felt his heart breaking, and it made him so angry. Stupid Shion with his stupid effect on him. How can one person have such a huge impact on him?! And it's an airhead like that stupid Shion!
'Damn it! It's okay. But you still shouldn't do it. Also, I just don't want others to see you naked.'
'Why?' Shion tilted his head and looked at Nezumi innocently. Something broke in Nezumi.
'Because I said so. I want to be the only one to see you naked. Airhead.' Now he felt embarrassed and left Shion standing in front of the door while he disappeared between the bookshelves. He took a rather thick book and hit himself in the head a few times but it didn't help.
He was just done. He was so done with Shion, for a second he thought about not caring about anything at all anymore and like just sleep forever.
'Nezumi?' Shion's head popped out of behind a pail of books. 'Are you okay? I'm sorry. I think I understand. You felt territorial, right? When I think about how I love you and if I'd learn that someone else saw you naked, I'd be upset too.'
'How can you be so obvious?! Don't you hear yourself talking?'
'But… I was just honest.'
'You never learn. You'll be eaten alive here.' Nezumi massaged his bridge with two fingers. He felt a mild headache coming soon.
Shion hung his head. He ran out of ideas of how he could please Nezumi. He didn't understand why was it so bad of him to tell Nezumi how he felt. Whenever he told him, Nezumi seemed disappointed and he never told it back. Maybe Nezumi was right, and he was just a huge disappointment, never able to learn to survive. He turned around and Nezumi only heard the front door opening and closing.
