Author's Notes: Volume 1 of Wild Adapter. Kubota picks up a stray cat.

Disclaimer: While I do own a copy of Wild Adapter (1-6 actually, all that's been released in the U.S. so far), I do not own the story itself, or the characters. I made no money off of the production of this fic.

Warnings: Underage smoking. Homeless runaways.

Stray

Nobuo's gone now; he's like the dead cat we buried. Rotting, empty, not even a scrap of love left in him. He'd be so proud that his mother finally cleaned up, stopped doing drugs. The fact that it took his death to make her is what disappoints me.

How primitive, how human; I can't help but to find my own species lacking.

I can only think now of going home, of pouring myself a glass of orange juice, of tearing open a fresh pack of cigarettes. I can only think of how it feels to be alive, to be in this moment, pavement under my feet, the support of my legs, the way my jeans feel against my hands as I stuff them into my pockets, the way the cold air bites at the exposed skin of my face and neck. My ears hurt, but the hurt is forgettable, I have felt greater pains than this in my life.

I can only think of how it will feel to crumple the thin plastic from my cigarette pack between my fingers, the sound it will make when I stuff it into the trash, the scent of tobacco when it takes over the apartment. I wonder how everyone can do these supposedly everyday things, these actions, these sensations, and ignore them. The world is too intrusive to me, and I cannot shut it completely out, though I am not really a part of it. I am material, but I am nothing more than animal. There has never been a link to society, to the way it moves or thinks or acts, and my constant misunderstanding subjects me to focus on smaller things, forces me to appreciate what I do share with the common man.

Cigarettes, jeans, pavement, supper, warmth and cold, the scents of the world, the sight of a dead person in the alley…

I stop short, and take a step back, peer around the corner to be sure that I had seen what I thought I saw. There, sprawled over some crates, plain as day, was a teenager, not much more than a boy. But he wasn't dead. His breath was shallow and labored, as if he had collapsed after running a great distance, and there were chunks of ice in his hair, as if he had been doused with water and forced to stay outside. But his clothes were new, and not badly damaged; perhaps stolen.

I made to walk on when I recognized something in him, resembling the countless unwanted animals I had taken in or buried. In my lifetime, I had cared for enough cats to know one. It wasn't until after I moved around the crate to lift him over my shoulder did I see his hand. Like the others, like the beasts from the pictures in Kasai's lent forensic reports, but he was still alive. I held back for a moment, tensely aware than he could tear me apart, as someone had torn Nobuo apart. I did not fancy such a violent death, not today. I had been thinking of curry for supper.

But he didn't move. He was shivering, but he wasn't aware of anything else. When I finally bent to lift him, he moved eagerly into my arms, seeking the heat like an animal. I barely struggled to lift his slight weight, he was bone and sinew beneath his clothes. I felt myself recoil slightly at the touch of claws on my neck, but he was only wrapping arms over my shoulders to steady himself as I carried him. After a moment of standing there, he drifted back into whatever tides of unconsciousness that grasped him, and I turned to the entrance of the alley, continued my way home.

Things felt different now; the pavement seemed sturdier, and my jacket was slowly becoming soaked with the water that dripped from this boy's garments. I doubted I would eat tonight; I might be too busy.

Fin Stray

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