SUCCUMB
CHAPTER X - SCOTT
As the Jeep sped through humps and bumps, following the trail that lead all the way to the look-out point where so many crucial turning points happened, Scott looked out the foggy window and watched the raindrops race its way down, trying to forget the shouting that came from Derek from the argument with Peter back when he was still at the loft, locking himself up inside a room as he almost died from losing blood.
"I'm telling you, Derek, something's not right with your little golden boy," Peter argued, unusually calm but his tone still held this underlying intention that seemed to crawl under Scott's skin, made him uncomfortable whenever he'd hear Peter hiss. "Just let me take care of our little, young beta, eh?" with a shaky breath of air, Scott knew that he didn't trust Peter with whatever he wanted to happen or to do to him.
Scott remembered leaning against the wooden door and listening to the argument all the while trying to tell the scent of Derek's chemo-signal apart from the whiff of his blood that heavily hung in the air around him. Placing his ear against the wooden surface, Scott closed his eyes and breathed in deep, already seeing how his former alpha was trying his best not to burst and explode. "I'm not letting you experiment with Scott! Not when he's obviously sick and needs hel—" there was another hiss from Peter, promptly cutting Derek off.
Scott could see Peter rapidly pointing towards the ceiling or the staircase. "Not so loud now, nephew!" Scott remembered staring at his hands caked with blood, raising them in front of his face. "Your blinded by your sense of responsibility, your righteousness and while it's always been a redeeming quality of yours, I suggest you listen to good Uncle Peter when I tell you that he can hear!" Scott closed his eyes and an image of Peter raising a finger to Derek's lips invaded his mind.
Suddenly, the Jeep rocked when Stiles had hit a small bump in the trail, probably a stone or a piece of wood.
Scott was jarred back to reality, remembering the living room inside the loft and how there was blood pooling around the spot where Derek found him. Twisting around, Scott winced in pain and mentally scolded himself for moving around so often and lifted his shirt to check on his wounds. He sighed in relief, however, when he's found that he's healing quite fast although he wonders why there were still claw marks that refused to heal.
Scott only noticed then and there that the Jeep had stopped moving and that he and Stiles had reached the look-out point where they once hid Jackson and met up with Deucalion and almost battled Peter back then. "Whoa," Scott turned to his side only to see Stiles staring at his wounds, his best friend's mouth hung open in what seemed like shock. "Where'd you get those? And why aren't they healing?" Scott shook his head and lowered his shirt.
"I don't know. Last time I had wounds like these that wouldn't heal fast was way back then when we were still dealing with Deucalion." Stiles' eyes narrowed at the red and inflamed area of his wounds.
Beside him, Stiles looked like he was about to say something really important or that he was about to tell him off for being way too lax when a loud and ear-piercing sneeze reverberated through the walls of the Jeep. "Acho-o-o!" Scott closed his eyes shut and his hands immediately flew towards his ears, trying to block out the sound but it was too late and his best friend was far too near. "Sorry," Stiles muttered, his voice sounding different probably because his nose was clogged.
With ringing and his blood pounding in his ear, Scott blinked twice before looking at his best friend and fished a piece of tissue from his jacket, handing it over to Stiles. "Allergies?" he asked, just handing the whole pack of tissue when Stiles shook his head furiously and pointed to the glove compartment. Raising a brow, Scott pulled on the knob and the first thing he noticed was the orange bottle of pills that sat alongside a white one.
Grabbing one, Scott attempted to breathe in the scent of the pills but his head just hurt in the end, placing it back inside the glove compartment where he found the bottles in.
"What are those for?" Stiles turned around to face him completely and showed the arm sling and the heavy bandages that covered him.
Scott's eyes narrowed at his best friend's injury and wondered how it came to that. "Apparently, the wound was infected with, uhm, foreign contaminants, yeah that's what they called it and it supposedly made me sick with a fever," Stiles looked over his shoulder and pointed at a wallet in the back seat that looked oddly familiar, and while it should to Scott considering it was his best friend's, it struck him in an odd way that he couldn't quite explain the feeling.
Suddenly, Scott had this thought rush through his head of 2x2 pictures of his best friend and with the scent of Adderall mixed with Red Bull and duct tape, not knowing why it happened. He just shook his head at the thought and dismissed it, choosing to forget about it.
Jarring himself back to reality, Scott saw Stiles looking at him weirdly. "Yeah, uhm, nevermind, I'll just get it myself," Stiles struggled with the arm sling. Blinking rapidly, Scott shook his head and his arm extended way back to reach for the wallet. "Uhm, thanks buddy," Stiles grinned slowly, reaching out for the wallet when Scott spotted something on his best friend's palm. It was like this faded black powder.
"Hey," Scott took a closer look at the strange powder residue on his best friend's palm. "What's this? Where'd you get this?" Stiles' eyes followed his gaze and soon, they were both staring at what seemed like faded dust.
"I don't know," Stiles rubbed his thumb against the palm of his hand, trying to clear his skin before looking at it, satisfied to see that it was gone. "It looked insect-y. Maybe a moth, maybe?" Scott didn't know why but he shook his head and stared blankly ahead, remembering a dark room and dim, flickering lights that eventually faded away. He wanted to remember where it was, or why he kept having these recollections of places he didn't know his hand collided against the cold glass of the Jeep's window.
Suddenly, a memory of him staring outside a window that looked like the hospital's cafeteria resurfaced in his mind. The sight of stars twinkling in the distance and seeing through a somewhat smudged glass reminded him of a memory he didn't knew he had. His head just hurt badly and he didn't understand why he suddenly felt pain or why he knew his best friend was wrong.
"It's from a firefly, Stiles. I think you killed a firefly."
Scott corrected his best friend almost automatically, staring straight outside the window, his mind filled with the image or a vision of fireflies seeping through the cracks of the Nemeton's tree stump. Beside him, though, Stiles scoffed and looked skeptical. "Firefly?" Stiles echoed his words and Scott could easily read his best friend's chemo-signal, reliving the terror when Jennifer and the Alpha pack were still around. "Does that mean anything? I mean, did you see it glow or something—"
A small chuckle escaped Scott's lips when he saw his best friend over nothing. "Dude, calm down." Stiles gave him this wary look before stopping, blinking rapidly. "Maybe a firefly is just a firefly and not a sign that we have a homicidal psychopath who's out to murder us." Stiles shot him a skeptical look but he just shrugged because it didn't feel like it. It was hard to explain but he had this gut feeling that whatever it was bugging him constantly or that kept pulling at his stomach wasn't some psychopath whose convoluted plan for revenge included killing parents and virgins and teachers.
Stiles' eyes were still narrowed down at him as he continued to look out the window, watching his breathing fog up the glass. "There is no 'just fireflies' with us, Scott! I'm telling you, something's wrong!" his best friend tried to argue but they both knew that it was a losing case and soon, Stiles just gave up and shut up.
After a detailed conversation about the Game of Throne's Khaleesi's awesomeness, trading a series of cheats for BioShock Infinite, and about a dozen sneezing from Stiles, Scott's phone finally vibrated and rang this catchy but subtle ringtone that told him it was from Allison (each of his pack members have a distinct ringtone to save time and confusion).
Fishing his phone out of his pocket, Scott tapped on the screen and typed his password, the dim lights growing brighter into a more brilliant shade of frozen white pixels, showing the message bubble from Allison. "It's from Allison," Scott ignored the snort from his best friend that probably translated to something along the lines of "duh" or "obviously". Squinting his eyes, Scott immediately looked outside the window before pressing his ear against the glass, trying to catch the familiar purr of his bike's engine in the distance.
A smile reached his face when he heard the sound of off-road wheels rolling against the dirt and the smooth maneuvering through the trail and some slopes. It wasn't long until there were yellow beams of light streaming through the forest.
Fumbling to get the seat belt off, Scott managed to open the car door and get out of the Jeep without actually damaging the vehicle—"Man, be careful with the Jeep!" Scott ignored his best friend's whining—or injuring himself in the process, Stiles following suit only to appear standing by his side, his breathing much more noticeable because of the sniffles his clogged nose gave off.
After what seemed like an eternity, Scott's bike appeared from the forest, the familiar two-tone paint job giving him this feeling that maybe, just maybe, everything will turn out fine and he won't have to deal with anything supernatural or world-threatening or both anytime tonight.
Allison swerved the motorcycle, doing this kick-ass drift that sent dirt flying in the air, hitting Stiles' Jeep in the process. Scott suppressed the urge to laugh at his best friend's reaction as different sizes of dirt varying from little spots to what seemed like the entire content of a 1 liter ice cream tub splattered on the baby blue metal frame of the car. "Geez, Allison," Stiles started when Allison took the helmet she had on. "Couldn't you just, I don't know, stop it without trashing my Jeep? I mean, seriously!" Stiles pointed at his beloved Jeep sharply. "My Jeep's been through so much already—regular alphas," Stiles looked at him pointedly. "Psychotic alphas, homicidal aunts, deranged grandfathers, aquaphobic photographer-slash-stalkers, a lizard with issues, a werewolf who's desperately in need of a mani-pedi, the list goes on!"
Allison ignored Stiles' protests and gave him a firm and steady look, her gaze landing on his best friend's face. "Hello to you, too, Rudolph," Scott could tell that, from the chemo-signal he picked up, that Stiles was hardly amused by Allison's dry remark as she reached out for her backpack and produced a helmet, tossing it in his way. Catching his helmet without a problem, Scott embraced his best friend tightly, suddenly feeling a bit woozy.
"In my defense," Scott's noticed Stiles' chest vibrate as his best friend started, defending himself with a nasally voice that almost resembled an extremely racist French accent, "I am not a floating, 400 pound reindeer with the magical ability to circle the entire planet to deliver gifts because I am, hard as it is to admit, am simply a human in our wonderful werewolf-slash-supernatural dominated pack."
Snorting, Allison threw his best friend a look when he pulled away from his best friend's embrace, suddenly feeling the cold wind of the preserve cool him again. "Oh, are you really?" Stiles ignored Allison and just scoffed, going back to his Jeep and starting up the engine, letting the sound reverb through his ears when Scott realized that he was tugging on the end of his sleeve and pulled him towards the motorcycle. "You ready?"
Allison tossed him a look and he nodded in response, riding in the back despite his earlier protests of actually driving himself to his dinner date with Kira and her parents but both his ex-girlfriend and best friend were pretty adamant and firm on their decision that he shouldn't drive himself. Scott knew that they meant well but he couldn't help but think that it's too damn much.
But he didn't say a word after the decision was settled. Scott didn't complain and he just followed what they suggested he do—to be chauffeured to his date to a girl he wants to get to know by his ex-girlfriend.
Scott shook his head as he slipped the helmet on. 'The things I do if only for the people I love.' He thought to himself, letting Allison get on the bike first before jumping on the back seat, clinging to one of the side handles hidden beneath the cushion.
Exhaling, Scott caught the scent of Allison's lemon-scented shampoo and it was compelling, it made him feel safe and comfortable. In a way, it reminded him of his best friend, how catching his scent made every feeling of worry and trouble that weighed heavy on him vanish. When the engine purred to life again, the bike surged forward and the wind had hit his skin, giving him the familiar sensation of riding when he realized that the scent of the people he vowed to protect reminded him of home.
Listening to Allison's steady and calm heartbeat, Scott made a mental promise to himself, swearing it on his life that he'll protect his home, that he won't let anyone try to take it away from him.
Tightening his grip on the side-handles that kept him from tumbling off the bike, Scott watched the scene change from thick trees and forests to houses and beautiful lights that illuminated the streets of the higher end residential area of Beacon Hills, the motorcycle eventually stopping in front a modern chic house that looked newly built. Slowly, Allison dismounted off the bike while Scott took off his helmet, remaining on his bike as breathing in the familiar scent that came from the house.
Without a doubt, he knew that it was Kira.
Suddenly, despite the great start between them just earlier when Allison picked him up back when he was with Stiles in the preserve, Scott felt this thick tension in the air that was far too prominent to ignore or to set aside and pretend like it's nothing. "So," Allison began awkwardly, drawing out the word as she avoided his gaze and the house they stood in front of. "Here we are, I guess." She finished lamely, obviously avoiding an equally awkward conversation.
Her chemo-signals started to get more prominent and obvious and Scott mentally scolded himself for not catching on earlier. He knows what it was like, for the person he loves to fall for another person, and even though he promised himself that he'd never hurt her in any way, he knew she's hurting by bringing him over to have a dinner with the Yukimura family.
Setting the motorcycle helmet aside, Scott gave her a lopsided smile before giving her a warm and solid embrace, taking her into his arms. Allison released a small breath of air, something that resembled a gasp of surprise, like she didn't expect for him to taker her into his arms. "Thank you," Scott breathed out, taking Allison's hands into his, warming up his palm as their skin made contact. "Thank you for helping me get here, helping me stay in control—thank you, for everything."
Even with his openness, Allison still refused to meet his gaze. Scott withdrew his hands and when he was about to give up, when he exhaled all of a sudden and his foot began to inch towards the door, he heard her heart jump. Scott knew that she was about to do something or say something.
"Allison?" Scott asked, his voice a hopeful tone.
Allison, at first, didn't say anything and she still avoided his gaze but slowly looked at him in soft(?) and somewhat sad wonder that made his heart beat in a way he didn't quite. There was a short moment where she just looked at him before she smiled and nodded. Allison placed her free hand on his shoulder and looked at him, in the eye, and nodded before pointing at the door across the lawn. "It's okay," she muttered to herself, and while Scott knew that he had super-hearing, he thought that if she whispered that any lower, he may not have picked it up.
Tilting his head to a side, Scott knew that he had confusion written all over his face. "What is?"
"This." Allison looked at the door and Scott's smarts caught up to him. "But I want you to know that I'm okay with it." She had this look that told him she approved of whatever he was planning to start with Kira, that she was okay with him moving on.
The sudden realization that she was now letting him go took the oxygen, the very air from his lungs. It was something he'd been expecting, with all the hinting she gave and all the encouragement she's been pushing in his way for him to be around other girls, but when he's connected the dots between her giving him his mother's watch and her driving him all the way to Kira's house. . . it weighed heavy like an iron anvil that's been dropped on his chest.
"Allison," he couldn't say anything else other than her name that he breathed out, his expression probably said a whole lot more and a part of him wished that she's a werewolf so that she can know what his chemo-signal was like. So, without a word, Scott took her into his arms for one more time, taking his time before letting her go.
But then, Allison shooed him away, not with malice, but with a smile on her face and pushed him towards the door. "Go, Scott. Have fun. By the time you finish this, your Mom's shift is over so you just give her a call and she'll pick you up." Scott raised a brow at this and realized that Allison's gone through so much since this morning just to plan the whole dinner date. And to think that she went to school after visiting him in the morning to deal with his crisis!
So he went to the door, although somewhat reluctant, Scott kept looking behind his shoulder and every time he did, Allison would shoot him a smile and raised her thumbs up, whispering small words of encouragement before she slipped on the helmet and rode away, leaving him alone in front of the door.
Focusing on what's to come ahead, Scott raised his hand and knocked on the wide, wooden door, hearing shuffling feet and ceramic plates being set on a table. A few moments later, Mr. Yukimura opened the door and smiled at him widely. "Scott!" his History teacher ushered him inside. "I'm glad you could make it!" the middle-aged man said, leading him to the dining room where the table was set and where Kira and an older woman was.
"Hey, Kira." Scott smiled at Kira though she responded differently, in a way he'd never expect her to react: Kira narrowed her eyes at him before turning away from him completely. "Okay." He finished lamely, just turning to smile at the older woman sitting across Kira who was probably her Mom.
"Ah, Scott! I'm so pleased that you could make it to dinner! My name's Noshiko. Noshiko Yukimura." Scott realized that, at the moment, there was this complete parallelism to his dinners with Allison's family with this current dinner date with the Yukimuras. The one hostile with him, usually—with his Argent family dinners—are Allison's relatives and here, it was different because Kira was the one estranged and cold towards him. "Now, Scott, have you ever had sushi before? Because my husband, Ken, is a superb chef."
Then, he caught a scent of something scaly and soon, beside him, Kira groaned, whined even. "Guys, come on. We were supposed to have lasagna tonight." Mr. Yukimura just smiled when he set this big plate in the middle of the table, on it was a whole collection of sushi.
"Kira, shouldn't we try to impress the young man who saved you from being a coyote's dinner? The least we could do is give him a more unique meal for tonight?" Mr. Yukimura gave his daughter a knowing look before throwing another smile at him. By this point, Scott felt uneasy because he had no idea what was prepared for dinner. "Okay, so we have hamachi, uni, ikura, hirame, and—" Scott cut his History teacher off, the last sushi looking familiar to him.
"Tamago." Scott answered simply, leaving Mr. Yukimura and his wife silent, probably a bit shocked by the fact that he knew. "And that smell. . .is that gyūdon?" Scott picked up a scent he's never smelled before and yet it was so familiar to him, and it's not familiar in the way like he passed through a Japanese restaurant, but familiar in the sense that he's had that for a long time.
Across the table, the older woman smiled, her chemo-signal showing off that she was impressed but it also hid something that Scott couldn't quite pin-point. "Scott, I see that you're familiar with a bit of Japanese cuisine. As a native Californian, I'm sure you've eaten at pretty impressive Japanese sushi restaurants."
Scott shook his head, smiling sheepishly before remembering Stiles and his best friend's addiction to anime and video games. "No, actually. I haven't eaten sushi before and ah," he reached out for the back of his neck and awkwardly tried to scratch away an imaginary itch. "The reason why I know some sushi is because of, well, video games and anime." Mrs. Yukimura raised a brow at his answer as if it was full of flaws and lacking.
"And what game is it, exactly?"
Remembering the color pink and white, Scott tilted his head to a side and pointed to the kitchen. "Cooking Mama, actually," he laughed awkwardly before Kira's mom cleared her throat, her gaze looking quite intimidating when Mr. Yukimura smiled at him, gesturing for him to take one of the sushi rolls.
Grabbing the chop sticks by his side, Scott carefully took the tamago from the plate to his mouth, tasting the scrambled egg on top of the rice. "So," Scott started again, awkwardly, trying to spark a conversation with Kira who remained uninterested in him, or distant. "I heard that you guys moved here from New York."
Noshiko took a sip from her wine glass. "I have family ties here in Beacon Hills. Several generations, as a matter of fact." Scott nodded, imagining a Japanese family here after World War II when he turned to his side and slowly studied Mr. Yukimura and realized that he didn't quite fit the bill.
"Yukimura's Japanese, right?" Scott asked, realizing all of a sudden that Mr. Yukimura looked quite different
Mr. Yukimura chuckled, a good-natured smile spreading across his History teacher's face when he looked lovingly at his wife and held her hand, weaving their fingers together. "Yes, it is Japanese and yes, I am actually Korean. When my wife, Noshiko, and I married, I took her name as she was the only surviving member of her family." Mr. Yukimura explained it like it was a lesson, sporting the same enthusiastic look he had whenever he would talk about the subject.
Scott's hand inched towards the chopsticks' base and he held it both together, using them to get himself another tamago. "What about taking both names? Hyphening or double-barreling?" he suggested after chewing and swallowing the sushi.
Mr. Yukimura opened his mouth to answer when his wife cut him off, giving her husband's hand a gentle squeeze. "Soy sauce for your sushi, Scott?" Noshiko offered when he took the hamachi from the center plate. Raising his gaze to meet Mrs. Yukimura's, he nodded politely and smiled before she went off to the kitchen just behind her and poured some soy sauce into a small plate, the powerful scent of seasoning filling the air.
Standing up, Scott met Mrs. Yukimura in the middle and offered to take the dish, taking the small black bowl-thing into his hands, the over-powering scent almost tackling him.
When all of them sat down around the table, Scott drizzled a bit of soy sauce on the fish before swallowing it whole, the taste of vinegar, rice, fish, and soy sauce mixing together with another binding ingredient that he couldn't quite determine. "Quite knowledgeable about sushi are you, Scott?" Noshiko raised a brow before mirroring what he just did and Scott wondered to himself how on Earth he knew that soy sauce was only meant for the fish and not for the entire sushi itself.
"Cooking Mama?" Scott answered sheepishly, completely unsure of what exactly he said until Noshiko cleared her throat with a cough and shifted in her position, straightening her back.
"To answer your question, Scott, my husband and I were married in Japan where the law says that the couple must say the same name, to belong in the same koseki. The lineage of the name is actually quite unique—" Mrs. Yukimura was cut off when another groan was heard from his side. Scott turned around to see Kira burying her face in her hands, embarrassment reeking off her.
"Guys," Kira gave an exasperated look, directing it at her parents. "This is a dinner, a supposedly normal-lasagna-night dinner. Let's try to not turn it into a History lesson," across Scott, Noshiko gave Kira a somewhat sharp look and he could hear the older woman's heart pound oddly.
Still well-composed, Noshiko narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "Kira. You should be proud of your heritage." Scott noticed that Ken, who sat beside his wife, acting somewhat like a passive audience as the mother and daughter exchanged looks, nodded and looked at him as he took a spoonful of the gyūdon in front of him, his stomach suddenly feeling queasy all of a sudden.
Everything seemed to slow down, like an out-of-place slow-motion sequence in the movies. "You mother's right, Kira. It was a profound honor to join your mother's family." Ken said, his words drawing out slowly as Scott attempted a smile and tried to nod back but there was this sudden overwhelming sense of pain that clouded his mind and blurred his vision, his throat constricting, his hands growing clammy and his forehead probably decorated with beads of sweat.
"Scott?" Kira's voice sound distorted and her words were drawn out long, his vision blurred as his senses slowly numbed down, how he couldn't feel her hands shaking him awake as his head slowly and dangerously swayed towards the table. Across him, though, Ken and Noshiko watched him calmly and his throat itched and his chest tightened, his brows furrowing as sweat trickled down his face. A gut feeling told Scott that they had something to do with this.
"What did you do?" Scott asked, the somewhat recognizable faces of Kira's parents were now blurred and smudged in his vision before he blacked out entirely, the last coherent word he heard was from Kira, asking what the hell was going on.
Scott heard the faucet running and water dripping from the sink. Soon, his heavy eyelids opened as his back ached in discomfort. He wondered how he slept because even in his worst nights of sleeping, he'd never actually had a back this sore when he remembered he never did come back home from his dinner with the Kira and her parents.
Opening his eyes completely, Scott was momentarily blinded by the bright light that hung above the dining table and soon realized why his back ached like it's been through hell and back. "What happened?" he asked, shaking his head as he tried to stand up. Key word being tried seeing as he swayed, still dizzy and his head aching like a train had passed through him. Then, Scott felt hands aiding his shoulder, helping him up and taking him to a sofa he had no recollection of passing through or even seeing because he was in and out of consciousness.
After a few moments, his clammy hands was met with something cool to the touch. Forcing his eyes open, Scott looked down and saw Ken helping him drink from a glass, the water so cold that the cup was condensation. "Here, Scott, drink up. It'll help wash the wolfsbane and the poison away and ease the headache." Just wanting to lose the headache, Scott brought the cold glass to his dry and cracked lips, relishing on the cool and smooth sensation as the water washed down his throat.
"Poison?" Scott sputtered after he finished drinking the cold water.
Surely enough, his vision cleared and his headache, as promised, eased up when he remembered something that his History teacher, Ken, say.
"Letharia vulpina."
Jumping on his seat, all of a sudden alert, Scott realized that his hands were tied shut with numerous zip ties and he doesn't have the strength to just rip it apart, to free himself from what seemed like something so weak, from something that should be weak compared to his strength. "What did you do to me? How do you know that I'm a werewolf?" Scott asked, mustering his strength and energy into trying to break free from the 20 or so zip ties.
Ken rose from the ground as Scott took in his surroundings. He wasn't locked up inside some sort of reinforced basement that he imagined every hunter family to have. In fact, he was in a living room still inside Kira's house because he saw the same street lamp where Allison had dropped him off, remembering still the light that bounced off of his motorcycle, the beam of yellow light that highlighted the green paint accents on his bike.
"Easy now, Scott. We aren't here to hurt you." Noshiko's voice sounded and Scott's head turned towards the source. Looking around, he saw Mrs. Yukimura with her daughter, Kira's face stricken with worry and another thing he couldn't quite read. "We just wanted to know if you're a friend or a foe." Scott's brows furrowed and he started sputtering, much like Stiles.
"Enemy? Can't you just ask someone without drugging them with wolfsbane and whatever it was you used that could potentially kill them?" hearing a swish of air and a rise of pulse, Scott turned to another side, his History teacher suddenly in his area of vision.
"Scott, my wife and I are truly sorry that we had to do this but," Ken looked around nervously and gave a sincere and sympathetically apologetic look that almost would have won Scott over. Almost. "You have to understand that we had to make sure." Scott's eyes furrowed in confusion as he took the words from his History teacher and glanced at Kira and Noshiko, wondering what the hell they had to make sure of.
"What? Make sure of what?" Scott asked, his sweat-soaked back starting to cool down and dry up.
Noshiko cleared her throat. "That you're not the enemy, that you're not the nogitsune." Scott's eyes involuntarily widened at the term, and while he didn't know why, his insides churned at the word, at the very thought. With the lack of an available answer, Scott passed it off as a feeling of not wanting to make another enemy to hunt him down until kingdom comes.
Opening his mouth to ask a question, the look of worry on Kira's face disappeared and quickly morphed into something that resembled anger or confusion. He wasn't quite sure on what it was but all he knew was that she was upset and he didn't know why. Scott watched as Kira stormed off, ignoring her parents attempts to call her back and apologize or something but in the end, Ken and Noshiko gave up and focused on him instead.
"What's a nogitsune?" Noshiko stiffened at the mention of the word. Scott could practically hear her blood pressure rise, her hair stand up, and her skin erupt in goosebumps. "And why would you think that I'm one?" Scott connected the dots that the nogitsune wasn't a person, it was a type of supernatural being much like a werewolf or something like it. He tried to tell himself that logic was the reason why he sorted it out, why he knew the nogitsune wasn't a person and not the curling of his insides.
Not the voices that whispered in his ear.
For a while, Scott would think that Noshiko didn't hear him because her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, probably where Kira was standing at right now. "Scott, do you know what a kitsune is?" Scott actually never heard of it before but somehow, it rang familiar in his ear and he knew that if he nodded, he couldn't pin the blame on Cooking Mama so he shrugged, shaking his head even though he knew looked at the ceiling as well, staring at the light and how it illuminated the room.
Elemental, Scott thought to himself before removing his gaze from the drop light fixed on the ceiling and turned to face Noshiko as she had this firm look on her face.
"Kitsunes are elemental supernatural beings. Our kind," Scott didn't even flinch at the word Noshiko so blatantly stated, "we take our powers from the elements of nature, of our surroundings and as a result, our powers reflect on the element we specialize in." Scott didn't miss the moment when the drop-light flickered and somehow, a hunch told him, that Kira was involved and that her powers were linked to either light or the electricity.
Looking around, Scott realized that the house had so much nature accents that he mentally chided himself for not picking it up earlier when Noshiko pointed to an old Japanese scroll fixed on the wall, something that looked like it was there for aesthetic purposes but then he realized that it was there for a deeper and more complicated reason.
Scott knew that Ken and Noshiko noticed his gaze on the scroll, on how he was fixed on the piece of paper yellowed with age so Mr. Yukimura walked over to where he was staring and stood beside the Japanese scroll painting. "Scott, do you know what animal this scroll is featuring?" he shook his head, not really sure if he should tell Kira's parents what he thinks the red, black, and white strokes of paint would represent.
"I don't know. A red panda, maybe?" that was the first thing that rang in Scott's mind when he saw the red paint but there was this gut feeling that told him he was wrong. Besides, he thought to himself as he watched Mr. Yukimura's lips purse and form a thin line, red pandas are found in China.
"No, Scott. This," Mr. Yukimura pointed at the collection of strokes as if it was his lecture at school, "is a fox." Scott stared at the painting as if something was about to happen, like maybe the drawing would mysteriously and magically come to life. "In my country, Korea, we call these creatures as gumihos, or in Naruto, the nine-tailed fox." Scott stared at Noshiko, half-expecting her to reveal her nine tails when he realized that the supernatural world isn't as black-and-white as Hollywood portrays it to be.
It was so much more complicated than that and Scott fixed his gaze at the scroll again, this time noticing the black dowel at the bottom of the hanging scroll, realizing that it wasn't at all metal, wood, or plastic. Squinting his eyes at the bottom part of the scroll, he realized that it was something else, something more supernatural in nature.
"Very good, Scott, you caught along fast." Noshiko's voice sounded inside the room. "That dowel on there happens to be the 5th of my 9 tails," Scott now ignored the calligraphy scrawled in the middle of the scroll and focused on Noshiko's explanation. "If I happen to snap one—break it in half—it will release a shadow warrior, a protector of the heavens and of the Earth—an oni." Scott shuddered discreetly, not knowing why he felt uneasy around that word or the image of a shadow warrior.
"What does it do?" Scott asked though a part of himself protested the question as if saying there was no need because he already knew.
"Kitsunes are made from pure elements. My kind are meant to be the stewards of nature, the protectors of men and animals alike yet our close, er, cousins do not share the same responsibility nor the same duty." Noshiko then moved towards the scroll and Scott felt like the black ink grew darker and began to move, to swirl as if it was alive. "A nogitsune needs to feed on fear, pain, strife, and confusion in order to become more powerful."
Taking a look at his hand, Scott's mind went back to the yesterday's event inside the preserve when he took Stiles' pain before blacking out. He wondered if he's the nogitsune when he remembered that he was already poisoned with the wolfsbane and whatever it was that Mr. Yukimura and his wife used on him.
"The saying 'You are what you eat.' never rang more true. Nogitsunes live off negativity and, in turn, become living embodiment of those negative attributes. With the presence of a nogitsune, the world could crumble into pure chaos and disarray." Noshiko's face looked grave. "So, the gods of the heavens decided to intervene and help by creating shadows that would ward off evil spirits and bad luck—hence, the onis."
So far, Scott understood the whole Japanese mythology but he still didn't know why he was still tied with zip ties. "But why did you poison me?" it was a simple question, in his defense, but something he really needed to have answers to.
"To find out whether or not you're the nogitsune. After all, what better way to distinguish a fox than to expose it to its own weakness?" In the corner near the scroll, Ken sighed. "Scott, I take it that you're not a born werewolf?" he raised his eyebrow at his History teacher before nodding cautiously. "Scott, a few decades ago, just after the Pear Harbor attack, there's a camp set up here in California. A military internment camp for the Japanese was destroyed because of a nogitsune attack." Ken looked at his wife and Scott noticed that there was a look that was passed between them.
There was this look of familiarity, of a spark gone too dim that would have only been blurred out by time and things too horrific to only hear about.
Scott's eyes narrowed at Kira's parents and specifically, Kira's mom. "You. You were there, weren't you?" Scott wanted to ask why she was still alive, considering that World War II was a few decades ago and she shouldn't be so young-looking even with advancements in medicine or with good genes because as far as he was concerned, humanity has yet to discover the fountain of youth.
Noshiko nodded. "Yes. I was there and there was a nogitsune attack." The look on her face told Scott that she was reminiscing a memory and a gut feeling told him that it was related to her time inside the internment camps. "I managed to defeat the nogitsune and trap its spirit, using the form of the firefly, inside a jar." There was a hanging tone in Noshiko that didn't quite answer his question.
"But?" he pressed further.
Noshiko breathed in deep and looked closely at the scroll painting, tracing the calligraphy with her finger, the sound of flesh sliding against paper ringing in his ear as the skin behind it ached. "To trap the spirit of a thousand year-old demon is no easy task and certainly not one to leave to something so easily broken with pressure and age like a jar." Noshiko walked towards a table near the scroll where a bonsai tree was placed. "In order to trap something that powerful, you'll need a source to back it up." Scott narrowed his eyes at the bonsai and realized what she meant.
"The Nemeton. You used the Nemeton to trap the nogitsune and when we—" Scott's breath hitched and got stuck in his throat.
Noshiko's head quickly turned to his direction, her eyes narrowed down suspiciously. "What? What did you do?" Scott was conflicted. He didn't know if he should tell them or not but when the thought of something hurting his friends, his family, the people he loves and he's left helpless and powerless to help them because he doesn't know what exactly he's facing, he knew that he had to tell Noshiko and Ken about what happened at the Nemeton.
"I, er, my friends and I needed to draw power from the Nemeton because we needed to find it and the only way was to give power back in the form of a sacrifice." There was a look of shock and horror on Noshiko's face. "Anyways, my pack's druid told us that we had basically recharged the Nemeton. That we made it some sort of active beacon again, I guess."
Walking towards him, Noshiko had a cutter in hand and for a moment, Scott forgot about being a werewolf and was downright worried that she might cut him open for doing something. "Do you know what you've done?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper when she finally stood in front of him. "You've recharged a supernatural beacon that's been long powerless. You've freed the nogitsune when you came back from your sacrifice." There was a look of pity on Noshiko's face that was mixed with confusion. "You shouldn't be alive, considering you have brought back darkness with you and yet you are, you."
A part of Scott knew that her saying that he shouldn't be alive meant that he had to die but he couldn't understand why there was this confusion that was written all over her face.
"Why are you yourself? Why are you marked by the onis?" Noshiko reached behind his left ear and her fingers collided with a scar that hurt and stung a but but he hid the hurt well enough for her not to suspect anything. "It wouldn't make sense considering—" she suddenly stopped her eyes narrowing down at him. "We. You said we. How many of you died to recharge the Nemeton?"
Scott cautiously held up three fingers and he immediately thought of his best friend, Stiles, and his ex-girlfriend, Allison.
Helping him up, Noshiko gave him a firm look in the eye. "Listen, Scott, you have opened a door to another world and something came out with you and your friends." Ken stepped forward and in his History teacher's hands was his backpack. "Remember Scott, that a nogitsune is a spirit. It needs a host and a way to find out the host is to find a sickly human because the way a nogitsune treats its body is abusive. It wears its host down to their very core." Scott nodded when his mind went back to an earlier memory of his best friend.
Stiles was sick. And injured, and he was one of the surrogate sacrifices for their parents.
Soon, they came to an agreement that whenever one would find out something new crucial to their hunt for the nogitsune, they would have to tell the other. After that, Noshiko gave him some pills that she swore on her soul that was wolfsbane and mountain ash free and would help him regain his strength by morning. "We're really sorry for this, Scott." Ken apologized to him as he walked him down the steps leading to the door.
"No. I understand. You had to do what you had to do." Scott nodded before offering his hand waiting for the older man to accept. His History teacher eventually smiled and accepted his hand, shaking it. "I'll tell you something when I learn more about the nogitsune." Scott muttered under his breath before walking out the door and headed straight for the street lamps where Allison dropped him off and checked his bag for his phone.
Scott cursed under his breath when he realized that he's been in dinner for far too long because of the amount of messages and missed calls from his mother, Derek, Stiles, and Allison. He quickly sent his Mom a text to tell her that the dinner was finished.
"Scott?"
A voice piped behind him and he realized that it was Kira. "Hey," he waved his hand weakly before typing a quick text to all of the people finding him. "How are you?"
"After learning that my mother is almost 900 years old? I like to think that I'm coping well enough." Scott chuckled but stopped when he realized that Kira wasn't laughing with him. Hiding his phone away, Scott went to Kira and tried to breathe in her chemo-signal, figure out what was wrong with her but found out soon enough that he couldn't quite pin point what was wrong with her.
"Hey, what's wrong?" suddenly, there was this lost and confused look on her face that made Scott remember the time he was just coming out of denial that he was actually a werewolf. It was like Kira was mourning her innocence and it mirrored how he mourned the life he could never have again when Peter bit him. Subconsciously, he leaned in towards Kira and for a moment she leaned in, too, until she stepped away, clearing her throat and turning away from him.
"Kira, wait," Scott chased her again, looking at her straight in the eyes and holding her hand in his. "I just want to get to know you. I really want to get to know you." Kira furrowed her brows and looked at him in disbelief as if what he had just said was something hardly possible. Remotely possible, even.
"And kissing someone on the lips is a great way get to know one another? Wouldn't asking questions be a better way?" Scott was prepared to say something back when he realized she was right and that he shouldn't have tried to kiss her. But he really did want to get to know her so he gave her this look, this puppy-dog look that apparently made everybody trust him. At first, Kira bent a bit, caved in but her resolve remained and she shook her head. "Scott, how am I supposed to trust you when I don't even know what you are?"
Scott had to admit that, while her reason was every bit justifiable, he was hurt. Why couldn't she trust him because of who he is and not what he is.
Because she doesn't know you and you don't know her. A voice in his mind piped up, an eerie voice that sounded scratchy and sketchy but also creeped him out. Get to know her, Scott.
While Scott wanted to ignore the creepy voice, he couldn't really life to himself. He really did want to get to know Kira. So, Scott shrugged and smiled his somewhat mischievous, somewhat dashing and purely crooked smile that made his Mom mirror the grin he would have. He was prepared to say something that was probably incredibly cheesy and downright very him in nature, very Scott but she cut him off. "No." Scott's face morphed into confusion and to disappointment.
"I just want to get to know you." Kira shook her head and pointed at him.
"How could I let you when I don't even know if I can trust you." Then an idea sparked in his mind, a small smile resting on his lips all of a sudden.
"Then, ask me stuff." Kira eyed him suspiciously. "Or not. I'll just tell you things you may or may not want to know." Lifting his hand, Scott cupped his chin and mocked pondering, thinking of whatever the hell he could say to Kira to get her to trust him. "I'm Scott McCall, native Californian, and I'm 17. I study at Beacon Hills High School where your Dad teaches History. I've got a set of dorky and stupid friends but I love them and I'd protect them with my life if I have to." Kira narrowed her eyes at him before he sighed, giving in. "And I'm a werewolf." He finished.
But Kira looked unconvinced, like telling her his most important secret isn't enough. "Prove it." She challenged him and while he wanted to, his chest deflated visibly because he knew that at the moment, he really couldn't. Soon enough, though, she noticed it. "Why? What's wrong?" she asked, her genuine concern lifting his spirits up.
"I can't shift. I can't control it these past few weeks actually," since the Nemeton, he wanted to add but Kira looked content with the explanation but there was still a need for an answer in her eyes when Scott remembered something about Kira and eyes. Studying her, Scott spotted the lace and soon saw the camera buried beneath her jacket. "Take a picture of me and leave the flash on." Kira looked a but shocked but followed anyway, taking the small silver camera and turning it on.
Soon flashes illuminated the road and when Kira took a look at the pictures she took of him, she gasped, doing a double take, staring at both him and at the camera's screen. "Your eyes," she trailed off, showing the camera to him where there was this blur that covered his eyes. "You are telling the truth." Scott shrugged, a small smile tugging at the ends of his lips.
"So, you think you can trust me now? I mean, now that you know who I am and what I am, you think you can—" he was cut off by a small smile growing on Kira's face when she handed him the camera, the settings were fixed on a flash and on the camera mode.
"Take a picture of me and leave the flash on." Kira echoed his words and Scott found himself looking through the camera screen and focused on her, clearing the image every so blurry before taking the picture, making sure to take three shots. After being momentarily blinded by the not-so sudden flashes of light, Scott took a look at the picture and realized that Kira's eyes glowed in a red-orange hue, a fox like aura surrounded her much like a guardian.
Scott could only stare at the photo before he wordlessly give the camera back to Kira. "Mom says that it's foxfire." Scott nodded, looking at Kira intently as if the moment he'd take his eyes away from her, she'd cease to be with him like Allison. "This started a few months ago and it's the reason why I don't take pictures of myself anymore. . .or anyone for that matter." Scott shrugged.
"It's okay. Allison and I never really took much of them, anyways." Scott said wistfully, as if he regretted not taking more of them when Kira looked at him oddly.
"You really loved Allison, don't you?" Scott nodded, remembering an old saying of how the first love was kind of like the best one you'll ever have, the one you'll never actually forget about. It's your fairy tale romance and it's the hardest to let go, the biggest heartbreak.
"The real question there is how could I not?" Scott chuckled, remembering how he would have given anything to be with her as his fingers traced the two bands near his shoulder. "She's Allison Argent, this amazing woman who had this amazing capacity to love despite everything she's been through, who cares even when others had stopped. Allison would keep fighting even when she knows she'll lose." Kira looked at him before pressing a kiss on his cheeks.
Turning to face Kira, suddenly, he didn't to return it or follow it up with a kiss on her lips and she sighed. "It's actually quite hard not to like and fall in love with you."
Scott looked shock, feeling his cheeks burn and color crimson red. "Me?"
Kira nodded. "If you could see your face," she suppressed a smiled as if her eyes were teary. "Of course, you." But then Kira wiped the tear before it even began to fall, and now that Scott began to think about it, it was way too symbolic for him to ignore. She wiped her tears before she could actually cry for what would inevitably be a broken relationship. "Scott, listen, I like you but it's obvious that you love Allison and you'd be that way for a long time, so, I break up with you." Scott raised a brow at Kira and tilted his head to a side.
"But we've never been together." Scott pointed out but Kira just shrugged, her eyes still glistening as if to say not to ruin her moment.
"So? I don't need to be with you to tell you what you have to do, who you have to pursue, who you have to love, to continue loving." Kira's words hit him heavily and a part of him snapped as he just took a look at his watch. "You love her, Scott. She's your epic love and that kind of love doesn't just fade away." Scott wanted to tell her otherwise, that love may not fade away but it can change. He wanted her to see logic that he could learn to love someone else when he's realized that his love for Allison did change, it magnified, and not in a different way, but in the exact same form he thought he's let go of for months.
He loves her.
"I do. I do love her."
Kira smiled at him, her eyes seemed to be more piercing than ever. "Now, I don't have to go summon-my-ancestors to tell you what to do next, do I?" Scott visibly gulped and he just nodded. "Good. So, need help winning Allison back?"
Scott could only laugh with Kira until the moment his Mom came by to pick him up.