Miyuki let out a long sigh and let his head drop down on his desk, letting the bang ring through him.
He had been working on this project for four hours now, and while writing the parts for the technical report is easy, the actual engineering project makes absolutely no sense. He's majoring in civil engineering for goodness sake. Why does he need to write computer code? This was the reason he didn't go into computer science.
What doesn't help is that he's 100% sure his Professor only gave the class this project because the man wanted to advertise this coding program he created. Miyuki completed many internships in the transportation subset of civil engineering before. And in none of them did anyone mention using this program to design roadways. They always used programs that i actually \i worked.
"Are you okay in there?" Miyuki hears his roommate, Nabe, ask from outside his bedroom door.
"No," Miyuki moans out, not even lifting his head up from the desk. "This makes absolutely no sense and this program doesn't even work."
"Oh," he hears Nabe say. "Well, being a bio major, I don't think I can't help you there."
"Yeah," Miyuki sits back up and turns to look at Nabe. "I guess it's good that it's not due tonight. Although no one else in this class knows what we're doing either."
Nabe smiles. "I'm sure you'll figure something out, you're smart after all," he says as he leaves Miyuki alone and walks down the hallway to his room.
Seeing his roommate leave, Miyuki sighs again and leans back in his desk chair, looking out his window above his computer screen.
He must have been working on this project a lot longer than he thought. The sun was already lighting the sky in a bright red glow, signaling it would get dark soon. With the February winters, Miyuki knows that it will in fact grow dark very soon, despite the early hours of the evening.
Miyuki could feel himself growing restless as he sat in his chair. He had to get out, go for a run or something.
Runs are always something he does on the weekend after a long day of homework. Now if a good time for a mental break anyway. He gets up to go get his shoes on. As he leaves his apartment, he calls back that hallway to Nabe's room saying he is going for a run then begins jogging to the forest neighboring his apartment complex.
When Miyuki got to the edge of the forest he went behind a tree and started taking off his clothes. The cold February air bit at his skin, but once he folded up his clothes and changes form, his tanuki die quickly warms him up.
He then starts to run. Small paws barely sinking into the deep snow covering the ground. Past the various trees and shrubs dotting the forest, along hiking paths and even through the small clearings popping up throughout the forest. He runs until the sun is almost completely gone and night comes upon him.
This is always something that is able to clear his mind. When he spends the entire day doing homework of some kind and his muscles grow antsy. He had found this forest during his first month studying at this university. And is lucky that they have one so big next to the bustling town. Anywhere smaller and he wouldn't be able to shift into his tanuki form. It would spell disaster if a non shifter would see him change. Something that was always drilled into him as a child.
It's as he is running, at a speed fast enough that the trees blur past him, he steps on something. It was something buried underneath the snow and leaves. After a loud snapping sound Miyuki suddenly feels a crashing pain slam into his body.
His body lets out a loud screech as it writhes in pain. He can feel something sharp like jaws biting down on his two right legs. He tries to fight it off only for it to grow tighter around his limbs, increasing the pain.
He eventually regains his bearings enough to see what is clamping around his body. Through the dark light, he cans see the reflection of dull metal wrapped around his legs. It's a trap!
He quickly recognizes what it is. A wildlife trap probably left by some hunters looking to score a catch. This is really bad. He had no idea these things were out here in thei forest. If he did, he definitely wouldn't have been running out here.
The pain starts leveling up and his throat starts releasing soft whimpers. It's his body's natural instinct to call for someone when hurt, but he knows nothing is going to come. Nothing that will help him at least. Any wild animal, if they already weren't repulsed by Miyuki's shifter scent, would have run far away at the sound of the trap going off.
The cold air around him is quickly sapping his energy. Miyuki really wishes he could just pass out at this point, but the pain is too much. For every twitch of his muscles he can feel the trap grow even tighter, sending wars of pain through his body which only cause him to shift in pain even more.
Eventually, Miyuki must have fallen asleep, for when he opens his eyes, he sees the bright Ray of the sun blinding him. He shakes his head, eyes adjusting to the light, and then looks down at his legs.
In the light of the day, he is able to pick out the details he was unable to in the dark. And to say the scene looks bad is an understatement. His fur is covered with his own blood and he can see the claws of the trap biting into his muscles. He's lucky that the trap only caught his legs. He doesn't know if he would still be alive if it had clamped down around his body.
The trap is also a large one, probably designed to catch animals a lot larger than his current tanuki body. He tries reaching his uninjured arm up and pushes at the trap, but it doesn't move. Even if he was in his human form, Miyuki doesn't think he'd be able to unclasp himself. Not with only one good arm anyway.
Miyuki suddenly hears the crack of branches indicating footsteps and his body tenses. Is that the person who laid this trap? He certainly hopes not. He hears a few more footsteps grow closer to him. Surrounded by trees, he can't exactly see who or what is approaching him, so he starts to let a warning growl come out of his throat.
Whoever is standing on the other side of the trees, must have now noticed him now. Miyuki doesn't know if that is a good thing or not. He sees the source of the sound grow closer, and from the shadow on the ground he can tell it's a human.
From around the tree pops out a young man with a head of brown hair and bright gold eyes. He stares down at Miyuki as if he doesn't know what he's looking at.
From the ground, Miyuki continues to growl at the man as he takes in more details. The man is dressed in running clothes as if he is working out. So he's probably not one of the people who laid this trap. That doesn't mean Miyuki is going to trust him.
"What happened to you here?"the man asks as he crouches down a few feet away from Miyuki. "You get trapped?"
Miyuki continues to growl at the stranger, causing him to flinch a little.
"Hey! Hey! Please calm down,"the stranger says in an almost pleading tone, putting his hands up as if to say he isn't a threat. "Your legs need looking at. You need your leg fixed right?"
Miyuki knows this man is right and he's the best shot right now at getting out of here. But this man is a stranger to him. And as far as this man knows Miyuki is a wild animal. So why shouldn't he keep growling? He's a little angry at the moment, but he thinks his anger is justified considering his circumstances.
Miyuki keeps growling at the guy before letting out a loud scream in frustration. "Okay! Okay! I won't hurt you okay?! I don't want to hurt you! Honest!" The man says as he puts his hands up in surrender. "Please stop growling!"
Miyuki doesn't know why, but that makes him stop. Taking that as his cue to approach, the man comes closer. He slowly and carefully puts a hand on Miyuki's front arm to look at it more closely. The action causes a wave of pain to hit Miyuki, making him let out a whimper.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," the man says as he rubs Miyuki's back in an attempt to calm him down. "Your legs look pretty bad here, but I'm gonna need to get this trap off you to help you first," the man explains.
The man then stands back up from his crouch and walks around to look at the other side of the trap. "Let's see… where is it?" He speaks to himself.
Miyuki tries to keep track of his actions with his eyes, but from his position on the ground, he finds it hard to do so.
"Ah gotcha!" The man yells after a couple minutes of messing around with the other side of the clamp.
The man then slowly raises the clamp off of Miyuki's injured legs, and the tanuki goes racing off.
Or as good as racing off a tanuki could do when one is severely injured in half its legs. Which Miyuki quickly figures out it's a lot more painful to try and run on his legs than it was when he was still in the trap.
Because of his injuries slowing him down, along with the trail of blood left behind him, the man quickly catches up to Miyuki and grabs him, picking Miyuki up into the air. "Where do you think you're going?!" The man asks. "You're still injured! I said I was going to treat your injuries!"
Miyuki tries writhing his limbs around to get out of this man's arms, but his two right limbs seem to be in too much pain to help him. The man eventually gets a hold good enough that Miyuki is unable to move out of it no matter how hard he tries.
"There we go," the man says, petting his back as if to calm Miyuki down. "Now we can just go back to my place and I'll get you all taken care of!"
Hearing that, Miyuki tries screaming out, sending noises through his throat in the hopes of somebody… anybody… coming across the two of them and getting this man away. Also, what kind of man is this guy to bring a wild tanuki into his house?!