Fledging:

Much madness is the divinest sense

-Emily Dickenson

It was a well known secret between the many renters around the Daruyama area that the Okami was notorious for nursing lost cats on the street. Every few months Kyouko could expect to see some withered, manged and dirtied little animal intimately embraced to the woman's arm, but never had she seen her bring in such a creature. While withered, worn and dirtied he was definitely human.

Placing her keys on the bar counter she made every step as tiptoe quite as possible. Surprised to find a whole body laying prone against the bar top. Approaching the long figure his posture slumped and broken, she laid her head against the cold counter top ear squishing between the pressure blotting out the sounds of the ticking clock.

Unknowingly her shoulders dropped, un-stiffening from the settled position of surprise, seeing the rudimentary stumble of his breathe filtering from his nose and out into to tiny whispers she knew he was at least breathing. A finger came into her lopsided view. It took quite a few milliseconds of orientation to realize it was her own short, dainty finger. Without thought her fingers approached the folded man, seemingly cutting through an impermeable bubble gathered around his figure.

She realized as her eyes quivered, the long full corners of the mans cheek bones only slightly dusted with the glazed soot, the warm sunrise colored lashes crinkling and unfurling to the summit of corn-green eyes, that this was the same man as before.

He unfurled himself. Much like a cat, and although he was only sitting he seemed so much taller than the day she had been chasing him. For just a small moment the soot covered man looked regal, as if he were a prince disguised a pauper. His formal attributes natural to his bones and hard to hide, but like a light switch flickering on his torso morphed and twisted down, his shoulders circled in an uncomfortable manner settling high as his neck shrunk into the abscess of his hunched back.

Chewing on his lips the man's eyes glowered forward in that familiar way as before, predatory and distrustful. When those eyes found hers, like harvest moons baying through the greenest of fields, she flinched. In turn a sigh wilted through his form long and sallow, as if it were materializing from the very depths of his soul.

Crinkles around his eyes, lines cut into his young features made the tall giant look so incredibly old. Broken, weary and ragged the transient reminded her of a rose left all summer in the sun. While the intention was for the flower were to bloom, the over exposure, of heat and the arid windless season caused the rose only new to life to die prematurely.

Looking down she processed the sound trying to find the culprit. Her keys had clattered. The giant brown? Blonde? Possibly, fawn... She couldn't tell with so much filth coloring his hair, knocking them over the surface as he stretched out his arms to push himself out of the tiny stool.

Like a puzzle piece snapping into place, all the little curled, and convexed corners of his body popped, the large, lanky man looking even taller than before as he gathered himself to his feet. She "eeped" a sound between a squeak and a hiccup as her ear hit the bar table.

"Ow! Ow...owie." Sitting upright, she grabbed her sore appendage, pawing at it to soothe the irritability. "Wait...Wait!" Her fingers curled once again into the lapels of his shirt. Just realizing for the first time it was the same shirt he had worn just two days prior.

His tug wasn't as comical as the time before, maybe because he had some dignity left, or simply because his form was just too tired and malnourished to put up a fight. His lashes flickered down to her only catching the sight of her long, jet black hair. Vibrations stormed up his ribcage, her fingers holding his shirt captive trembled against his cold skin, as the rest of her form shook. "Please...wait."

"Yes child, it's best to wait here." Kyouko startled, peering up at the undistinguished staircase far behind the most unassuming corner of the restaurant. As if she were made from sunbeams the chubby, elderly, Okami spoke. Short gait, steps languid the Okami gave the young man ample time to leave the room if he truly wished to. It wasn't the first time she had plucked up a creature who did not wish to be caught. And, while her expertise was stray cats, she felt she could approach the same skills to this feline-like man.

Running her left hand around her bandaged right she squared up to the visitor.

She didn't touch him as she fell into his shadow. Unperturbed by his height,"Your wounds need to be dressed, and your stomach needs feeding." Instead she shushed him back to sit, misdirecting every mumble and moan of dissent. "Kyouko dear." She called. The young worker who had stood frozen in the center of the diner finally thawed turning to the owner's wife.

"Yes M'am?" she acknowledged. Pivoting herself from the view of the door to the view of a squirming six foot plus giant.

Pacing through the kitchen the Okami pulled her free flowing hair into an elegant bun, hands quick from years of practice as she tied on her smock with ease. "Please prepare something for our young gentleman here." She replied, stooping down below the many counters in search of the restaurants regulated safety kit. Slipping through the swinging back doors she looked at the stranger inconspicuously, now noting the signs of welts and bruises coloring his neck and hands.

"Darn it... were is that blasted thing." The elderly muttered, "last time I let the man rearrange anything in this kitchen." Dipping her head from beneath the last counter she rose her rosemary smock unfurling from her knelt position. "Kyouko dear." Her voice sounded only slightly more flustered than usual most probably from all the moving around in such a short amount of time. "Have you seen the First aid Kit, my dear husband has gone and rearranged the whole kitchen...again."

Holding her knife in place Kyouko pasued, "No, Ma'm. I haven't been able to find anything since the Taisho cleaned the kitchen last week, but I think I do have an emergency first aid kit in my bag." Cleaning her knife off first, she placed it on the cutting board. Moseying her way into the dining space she grabbed her bag.

For her it may have been a comical sight to watch the man's eyes widen with each item she pulled out of the bag. For the life of him he couldn't at all figure out how a purse measuring only a foot in length, six inches in height and eight inches in diameter could possibly hold, twelve reference books, five unfinished baubles of half made scarves, three water bottles, two Tupperware bowls of microwave safe miso soup, a shoe box of origami crafts, a notebook and another smaller purse.

Finally after all of the items were carefully stacked up to take up the space of the whole entire bar did she find the first aid kit. He didn't know if he should have even been surprised anymore for, she didn't pull out the customary red or white matchbox sized first aid kit. Instead sitting on top of the counter was an industrial safety kit the same span of a defibrillator he mistook it for, bedazzled in fake sapphires and emeralds with stickers of princesses covering its entire surface.

"Will this one be okay Okami-san? It's the smallest one I have, so I don't know if it has everything you will need?"

Her eyebrows didn't raise for this wasn't a surprise to the Okami. She cracked a smile petting the girl in affectionate manner unperturbed by Kyouko's silly nuances.

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