/TW: mentions of suicide, of rape, and of child abuse (including SA)\
I promise there is a plot somewhere in this fic, but it's still 80% character study, be warned haha
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It's been not even five minutes since Agata has come back to his room.
He had been busy with Dope on patrol duty, and it has been long and exhausting. They were both on edge – if the Madaragumi dared to go after their boss five nights ago, they might very well have something else up their damn kimono sleeves. The afternoon had soon bled into the evening and the new moon has watched over them as they parked the car behind the mansion.
So, yeah. He barely has had the time to get his shoes off that his ears picked the sound of footsteps outside – too light to be those of his fellow lions, and definitely making a beeline for his room. His tail flicks nervously behind him as he turns to face the door-
Said-door flies open, banging loudly against the wall.
"Did you know?!"
Agata takes a step back on instinct, raising his hands as a derisory separation between Melon and him.
"Know what?" he says, his voice rising out of nervousness – even though he has a pretty good idea what this is about.
Gouhin's voice echoes in his ears. "And… There is something else I need to warn you about. They... Okay, I'm not going to sugar-coat it: I'm pretty sure he was raped too. But maybe he had passed out already… maybe he doesn't remember."
And of course, Melon seems to have the ability to read thoughts or something – that, or he did remember, and deducted- well, anyway. He knows that Agata knows. And clearly, he doesn't like that one tiny bit. He snarls, showing his fangs. There is a manic glint in his eyes.
"Did you know?"
He is not shouting anymore, but it's worse; his voice has gone high-pitched again, the last word grating to the ears, distorted by the creepy, joyless smile that only reveals more carnivore teeth. Agata wants to lie, but he's afraid of what will happen if he does.
"Yes…"
There is some tension that bleeds out of the hybrid's frame, his shoulders slightly dropping. But his face doesn't lose that hint of unhinged that promises pain to the animal unfortunate enough to commit a single misstep.
"How?" he presses on.
"I wasn't sure, I hope th-"
"How?" he says, again, and it's a warning – make me repeat myself one more time, and that will be the last thing you do in your entire, miserable life.
"I-" Is he ready to risk putting Gouhin-san's life in danger…? Would Melon go after him even after he saved his life? Yes, his mind provides grimly. But also, he decides, he values his own life. "The doctor…"
"What did he say?"
The hybrid takes one more step forward and Agata one more step back, and suddenly he's sick of it. Sick of backing away, of staying low, silent, of making himself smaller than he is. Rightful anger burns up his chest, making him lose his composure for a brief second:
"That your attackers also raped you! There, happy?"
The following silence is deafening.
Agata breathes out and then, realizes what he has just said. At that very moment, he would give everything to get back in time to before those words left his tongue. What did he just think, about valuing his own life?! If talking back, raising the Back-Alley Market etiquette, got him a fork through his hand… he's going to get freaking murdered for that one!
He gathers the guts, somehow, to look up at his boss. Melon is frozen in place, lips parted, eyes so wide the sharp black pupils are lost in ghostly white.
"You-"
His mouth forms some other words, but there aren't any more sounds that manage to escape his throat – except for the slight whistle of his rapidly-quickening breathing.
One of his hands wanders up in what's reminiscent of a protective motion in front of his abdomen, then his fingers grip the edge of his opened shirt, squeeze so hard his knuckles pale as he seems to finally take note of his exposed torso – bandages and scars, lean muscles and prominent ribs, and a field of melon leaves. His other hand clenches in a fist and relaxes again, almost spasmodically, and Agata can't help but think that with the broken forearm, it must hurt like hell.
Without warning, Melon turns tail and practically flees from the room. Agata stays still for one or two seconds, with a growing feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Then, he would be damned if he could explain why, but he goes after him-
-and practically trips over the body slumped over in the hallway, not two steps away from the young lion's room door. The hybrid has his back to the wall, one leg folded awkwardly under his weight, staring at the drywall in front of him without seeing anything, eyes glassy and unfocused. He's trembling all over. Agata hasn't the faintest clue what to do.
He should, though. After those times. Years ago, but branded with white-hot iron deep into his memory nonetheless.
He knows this blank look, he knows the sound of these shallow breaths, the sight of shaking shoulders and nails digging into skin until they draw blood. Panic attack. He recognized it at the hospital too, even if he had trouble fitting the words to the image he had of his boss – that said-boss himself has painted in the Shishigumi's minds with months of cruelty and bullying. Trouble fitting that image of the manic, ruthless monster with the sweet, innocent face, spotted cheeks stained with tears, that taught him the meaning of powerlessness. Daido. His best – and only – friend, back in their first years of high school. A Congo lion, like him. Their classmates have pushed themselves together, and that's maybe the sole good thing they have ever done.
He wished they had taken pictures together, during these months – it hadn't even been an entire year. That way, maybe, each time he thought of him, it wouldn't be his funeral portrait that would come to his mind.
He was killed in the Black Market. From what the police managed to gather, after some agonizing weeks of uncertainty, he was trying to stop a bunch of carnivores from killing and eating a young female impala they had kidnapped. They were arrested, he was crowned a hero. "One worthy to bear the title of 'King of the Beasts'", that man said at the ceremony. It didn't matter that one of the predation offenders said that, once the antelope had fled without asking for the rest, Daido leaped at him despite the knife in his hand, deliberately impaling himself on it.
It was ruled as a lie, one told only in the hope of getting a reduced sentence by the convict. Agata knew better.
Daido has talked about suicide before, but when Agata voiced his concern for him, he always dismissed it with a wave of his hand, telling with a sad smile that he didn't have to worry, he wouldn't dare inflict this kind of shame on his family name. In hindsight, his death was predictable; he was only waiting for a reason to leave with honor – for someone else to do what he couldn't do himself.
Another voice rings in the young lion's ears – "You can kill me now, if you want. Come on, this is the perfect time. I won't fight back." – and a chilling doubt creeps into his mind. He feels light-headed all of a sudden. Melon… Is that what you were doing? Taunting us, angering us, pushing us to our limits… so that we…?
The smell of blood fills the air, shocking him out of his stupor. Mixed blood – sweet aroma of herbivore, stark scent of carnivore. Agata stops thinking. No, not again, no. The words swirl around his mind like a mantra. He grits his teeth. He won't let anyone else die.
Melon doesn't react as the young lion sits next to him, scoots closer, until their legs are touching, and gently but firmly pulls his hands away from the scratch marks already flushed with blood. The hybrid feebly tries to resist, motions to straighten up, to get to his feet even, but his injured leg betrays him and he falls back with a small cry. He gives in to Agata's touch, too drained to fight back anymore. His entire body shakes as he sobs, choked, wet sounds tearing painfully from his throat.
"Hey, it's okay…"
Agata doesn't quite know what to say, but he tries nonetheless, whispering quiet reassurances and meaningless phrases – but this is how you do it, right? Comforting someone. After a while, he just circles back on the same words, over and over again, but he can sense the body against his slowly relax until the crying quiets down. He couldn't exactly pinpoint how and when, but Melon has ended up half on his lap, curled on himself, with the lion's arms hugging his thin frame. Their breathings have synced up together, little by little.
"Don't let go..."
The words sound so little, his voice hoarse from the sobbing, but the mansion is so quiet that Agata could not have misheard – even if a part of him isn't fully convinced he can trust his ears on this. Even though, he shifts and brings the hybrid's body closer to him, earning a small sound of appreciation.
He would be unable to tell how much time has passed since he sat there, on the hallway wooden floors – how much time has passed with Melon pressed against him, with his heartbeats echoing through both their chests – until he realizes the other has fallen asleep. He doesn't want to disturb him, but his legs are starting to fall asleep from the dead weight on them. Slowly, cautiously, he gets in position to lift them both of the ground. It's the second time in barely a week that he has held Melon in his arms like this – if someone had told him that before, he would have laughed in their face. And yet.
He hesitates for a second – Melon's room is on a different floor, and he really doesn't want to run into any of his fellow lions on the way down there. He would have to discuss with them everything that happened in the last few days, of course, but he would rather have it takes place when he is not bridal-carrying the very animal he wants to talk about.
Well, it's a risk he will have to take though, even if it feels more than a little weird. Once he has settled the still-asleep hybrid on his bed, he sits back on a nearby armchair, just so his mind has the time to fully process what happened in the last hour. He remembers being genuinely afraid for his life not long ago; he had expected to get hurt in some way, not for Melon to… basically, completely break down. His heart clenches at the thought.
"Just who are you, hum?"
It's barely more than a whisper, more for himself than for anyone else. He wasn't expecting an answer; but it came, nonetheless:
"A mistake."
"What?"
A feline eye opens, gazing at him through long eyelashes, then closes again.
"My parents weren't meant to be together," he slowly says – and Agata has to lean over to make out the words. "But they were young and they believed anything to be possible. My mama, she… she was living in a fairytale of her own. What didn't fit in her fantasy, she ignored it. Be it her predator instincts, or the calling of his herbivore blood – and the only thing that could result from this." He quiets down, and the young lion is left to decipher what that could mean. Is he still talking about himself, or…? "A child that didn't fit anywhere," Melon does add, "and that she decided to name after food. I vividly remember her words when I asked her about it. 'Melons are not fruits, nor vegetables. But they still taste good…'"
His voice has taken a weird tone, not quite the usual, sarcastic one, but high-pitched nonetheless. It's not until he takes in a shaky inhale that Agata realizes it could be fear.
"My mama loved my father so much that she ate him."
The words seem to echo in the quiet of the moonlit room. Agata's heart skips a beat.
Their eyes meet, and the tranquil acceptance he can read in the hybrid's expression scares him. He tells that as if… as if it was normal. As if it couldn't be helped – and that's what he said, that their interspecies couple was doomed to fail, no matter how much they loved each other. Or maybe, precisely because of that.
As if love always ends in blood.
"I believe she loved me too," Melon continues before the young lion has the time to wrap his head around it all. "That it was the only thing still real in the fantasy she has crafted, in that secluded apartment. Her tone, her words, her touches – it was… genuine, if nothing else. She was still enamored with my father and, by extension, she loved the gazelle in me. She saw it more than she saw me, as her son."
"Wait, what d-"
"She didn't try to resist when I killed her. I can only guess she feared it all repeating, and being alone afterward."
Agata opens his mouth, closes it again, looking very much like a fish out of water. He has no clue where to begin with. He might have first-hand experience in what it means to have a mother that doesn't quite fill the role – a volatile, easily-angered mother, downright abusing even – but…
"My mother used to hit me," he says before he can overthink this. "But that was the only touches that weren't… meant to be, I guess." – and somehow, the blows were a hundred times better than the kind of twisted caresses Melon is hinting at.
At least she has always looked at him like her son – one she would rather not have had, but her son nonetheless. Not his father, not a toy, and certainly not a prey.
"Maybe my mom could have pushed me down a flight of stairs or something like that, but it would have been an accident… and I- I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to kill your own mother because you're afraid that… afraid for your life." The hybrid hums, a vague sound that only tells him he's listening. "Your- Your mother was fucking crazy," Agata finally breathes out, because the thought is too big, too troubling to be kept silent.
Melon laughs – that broken glass kind of laugh that sounds so damn wrong.
"Yeah, I know. I take after her."
A cloud has drifted in front of the moon, and the room is now basked in darkness. Even with his carnivore sight, Agata can barely make out the outlines of the slender figure on the bed – however, he's acutely aware of his presence, of how the air he's breathing is the same air he exhaled.
"… Melon, why are you telling me this?"
"Because you asked."
There is something new in his voice, or rather… There is no sarcasm, no anger, no pain, and no fear. Agata wonders if that's how the hybrid sounds when he is just being himself.
"You're the first."
