Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh
Update schedule: Every other day (no update on June 2nd)
Chapter Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Animal Cruelty/Death
So! Last chapter I mentioned that there might be disturbing content in this chapter. There is. I don't want anyone to be surprised by this so here we go: Animal Cruelty/Death. Yugi finds out what was hiding under the dumpster. It's a DOG. Yami is HUNTING A DOG. Why? Because, as Yugi points out, Yami is STARVING. And Yugi JUSTIFIES this as the scene happens. The reason is this: Wolves and coyotes and foxes WILL eat small prey when they are hungry and have to navigate an area heavily populated by people. Foxes will eat cats, coyotes will go for small dogs and cats, and wolves will eat dogs when they are forced to. If their natural prey is unavailable to them (for Yami it's the serows, the deer, the boar and the rabbits) or they cannot catch them without wasting too much energy, they WILL do it.
It's a natural survival mechanism. The dog IS the weakest and easiest piece of prey close to him. He's starving. He hunts and eats it. That's your warning. It's not graphic, and Yugi only encounters the dog for a few minutes. The meal happens off-screen. But, yeah, I didn't want anyone to be shocked or alarmed by the event happening in the chapter. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a VERY IMPORTANT scene (which you'll see why in the scene immediately after Yami gets the dog).
But, PLEASE be aware, Yugi sympathizes with Yami and so justifies the entire thing, which is potentially upsetting for readers. I'm sorry, but it is a VERY IMPORTANT scene, because it makes something pivotal happen for the two of them.
Chapter XIII: Hunger
Work Log Entry XIII: August, 1996
August 11
We have reason to believe that both the she-wolf and her single pup will die within a week's time.
We are scouring for more wolves to take her place should our efforts go to waste.
August 18
The wolf cub has survived the week but his mother has not. She passed two nights before but no one has been able to remove her body from her cage as of yet. The cub is starving even as we work to perfect a formula to keep him alive.
"What are you doing up?"
Yugi glanced over his shoulder around the piece of toast he had been munching on, the only thing in the house that had gathered his attention long enough to bother with consumption. In the doorway, she was rubbing tiredly at one eye, looking as if he she had stumbled from her bed with no true intention of coming into the kitchen until she'd seen the light on. He wondered if she had thought he'd left it on by accident or if she was simply coming to check on who was awake and what might be going on. For the first time in what felt like years, he noticed her eyes, the dark ringlets that made up a natural shadow beneath her gaze.
He felt almost pathetic at this realization, wondering for a long moment how he could be so selfish as not to notice his own mother growing tired before his very eyes. He swallowed, for a moment sickened by the thought, and bit into his piece of toast to give him a moment to think of something to say.
"I thought I would get an early start on the day," he mumbled around another bite, the toast scraping against his throat as he swallowed and felt almost sickened once more. "I couldn't sleep so I figured I would take a walk and then head to school."
Yugi only realized after his words the fact that she could take the statement and wonder if he was suffering his usual night terrors once more. He remembered too late that she would worry more, that not only was he forcing her to lose sleep with his reluctance to help in the clinic but now he added to her burden with his own inabilities. He wanted, for a moment, to cover his face with his palm in shame and disgust for his own choice of words.
He had to be one of the most selfish and disgusting teenagers in existence at this rate.
He looked at her when the silence became overbearing, feeling sick to his stomach with nerves now. Kasumi was watching him with a somewhat cool expression, bordering frustration and frostiness, and he felt sick as he blinked at her stupidly in response. He didn't want him to leave the house. She didn't want him to put himself in danger with the curfew still in place…
"I'll be careful," he promised, giving her a small, weak smile and glancing away after a moment. And he would, because he had no intention of becoming a statistic of death rates in Domino. And he didn't know if the wolves would be up and about at the moment but he was hoping not and, even if they were, perhaps he could outsmart them somehow. He had never been stupid or completely, unrealistically optimistic, and he understood the odds were most likely against him, but he had to find out what was going on at that dumpster.
He had been unable to stop himself from fleeing that night, appearing at the house shaking and trembling and exhausted, and it had taken him an hour to calm down. But his level-headedness had returned a few minutes before he'd truly relaxed again. And with it had come a determination, late that night, to find out what it was that was at the dumpster.
"I'll have my phone on me at all times. And I still know how to hit people really hard with my backpack."
It was a lame attempt at a joke and she did not offer him a smile at the weakness he portrayed it with. Rather, she watched him, eyes still bordering that frostiness that made him feel small and weak, and then murmured, "If anything seems even slightly out of place, you come back, all right?"
Yugi blinked at her, almost startled by how easily she had given up, and then nodded immediately. "Of course," he promised, taking the last bite of his toast and shoving it almost painfully in his mouth. He did not want to say anything stupid that would make her change her mind and even the idea of opening his mouth was scary to him for a brief second. What might she say if he told her what he had planned to do?
But he could see that frost in her eyes as clear as day. She didn't approve, she was annoyed with him, but she also would not stop him. She would let him do it, if only because she worried about his own restlessness and most likely suspicious due to how early he had come home from his date with Anzu. If nothing else that was one reason she might narrow her eyes and watch him closely, grow irritable with his lies or anything of that nature.
"I'll head off to school right afterwards," he promised when she merely nodded at him and looked as if she might turn around and walk off to her room again. She paused, glancing at him over her shoulder, and her gaze was almost turbulent with frustration as she watched him for a moment. Yugi had the urge to tell her he was sorry for his reluctance to reveal to her everything, that he regretted their relationship had never quite been the strongest, but instead swallowed it away.
Kasumi was gone when he blinked and looked down at his plate with a crestfallen expression. He had always hoped at some point that perhaps they might find a more common ground, that they would eventually be better at this disjointed relationship they'd always had. But he found himself lacking the comprehension of how he might change it and had become fearful that even if he could find that knowledge, she might just as well shun it. He had always been aware that her pregnancy had never been a planned event and he had, without a doubt, pushed on her abilities and time and restrained her from what she'd had the potential to do. A young mother was not as well off as one without responsibilities such as that, and he'd threatened her career more than once.
He shook his head as he got to his feet, banishing the thoughts and squeezing his eyes shut tightly for a moment. There were many reasons he had found himself distanced from her, and his grandfather was not simply a minor obstacle between them. If anything, he was a full-fledged roadblock that tended to stunt any chance they had at such bonding. Reluctantly Yugi shook his head again before making his way to the sink to dump his plate and head into his room.
His backpack was seated in his desk chair, as he had placed it there that night when he'd come to the decision that he had to do this. It was somehow disgusting to the point of being near shameful that he had considered doing such a thing, and the reality of it made him feel sick for a brief moment. But he had to know, because nothing else could have ever made the red-eyed lycanthrope falter in his sense of elusiveness.
When he went downstairs, he hesitated for several minutes, swallowing hard and closing his eyes. The silence was foreboding and weighted, pushing at his skin violently, and he bit his lip to keep from feeling sick to his stomach any further than he already was. Yugi crept into the backroom, the area of the clinic where he knew the medication was stored. If whatever it was that was bleeding was still there, it would probably be long dead, but in case it wasn't, he needed to be prepared.
The wolf had to have been hunting something or other, had to have pushed him into being so unaware of his surroundings. Yugi shook his head and frowned again as he bit his lip before looking for the syringes and needles. He had drawn blood from animals many times and several of them he'd drawn from the throat rather than the legs. If the animal was still alive and aggressive, it would be easy for him to inject into the jugular with the pentobarbital.
He pulled the needle from its sleeve, looking it over, and then closed his eyes again. This was hardly going to be a fun trip to Burger World.
It took him thirty minutes to fully make his way to the dumpster. Several times he had turned back around to start home or maybe to trot to the school and wait for them to open the gates. He felt weaker than ever before, head spinning and eyes aching as he swallowed thickly and followed the familiar path he had made that night to the dumpsters once more. It was disturbing to have to wonder about it all and consider the fact that he would be putting something to sleep.
And, what if it turned out this was a wolf, wounded and sick, and unable to move? Could he really put them to sleep when it meant that it was a person who was slipping away instead of a common pet? He nearly groaned even as he turned the corner, and froze in place in surprise at the sight to greet him there.
Yugi had never seen the wolf at its full height like this. The realization of its size made him gape, heart leaping into his throat, and his hands shook where they were tucked in his uniform jacket. He opened and closed his mouth pathetically, almost as useless as a fish out of water, head spinning with the raw strength he knew that massive body possessed. He almost fell, his knees nearly buckling beneath him, and sucked in a breath between his teeth.
The black canine stood taller than him on its power hind legs. At its fullest height he thought it could easily lean over the dumpster almost as if partially human like the beasts in Hollywood with the hunched backs and massive upper bodies. But the animal before him was nothing but a canine, slightly irregular in size and with an aura too strange to challenge, with such power it made him shiver.
Its nose was wrinkled as it sniffed deeply several times, tilting its head so that its left ear was angled towards the bags in the metal bin. It dug through again a moment later, drawing in massive gulps of the rotting smell that made Yugi's eyes water even as he crept closer. He reached up and covered his nose, shaking his head violently once, and cringed several times as he took several small steps back. As he had done yesterday, the wolf did not acknowledge him until a full minute had passed and then finally the canine's head turned to stare at him.
The muzzle was massive, almost double the size of Yugi's fists, with eyes that glittered with a deep and terrible sharpness. It stood taller than he had initially assumed in the woods, so large at the shoulders that it was several inches taller than that of a Great Dane's stance. Even the jaws were wider, lengthier, and the fur shuddered along its spine and over its powerful muscles as it shifted forward faintly and lowered its head.
The paws were about the same size as his hand when fully splayed, the toes about twice the width of his fingers. The skull was several inches larger than he had even gauged Valon's. There was a smooth, almost unnoticeable dip between the ears, the fur so smoothly splayed that it was nearly impossible to see it.
With its head raised as it regarded him, tipped to the side, it stood at the same height of the very middle of his ribcage. The ears were beautifully and softly rounded, with tufts of fur that tugged gently at its cheeks. His fur was so smooth and elegant that the cheeks were puffed outwards and almost looked as if the usual downward fall of it sloped upwards around the ears as if to form the base of them. And, as he had before, Yugi wondered if perhaps he could ball his hand into a fist and measure the width of one with it.
For a moment they stared at each other, Yugi frozen in place by his shock, and then the seconds passed. The wolf opened his mouth faintly and a long, slender pink tongue slipped out to run over the massive jowls. He blinked, startled and feeling almost tiny and unusually forlorn as it regarded him with those deep red eyes. When it breathed out roughly, the wide barrel shape of its chest seemed to fold inwards as if collapsing, and then expand slowly but efficiently
"Were you here…all night?"
The canine flicked an ear and then pushed away from the metal dumpster. There was a harsh grating noise where the wheels moved but pressed into the other bin which was bolted into the cement. He realized that the wolf possessed the strength to push the dumpster on its wheels but the second was impossible to move. Perhaps throughout the night the wolf had been attempting more to get this obstacle solved, to be able to get at whatever it was that had captured his attention.
He realized that this meant as well that it was not inside of the dumpster, but rather beneath it. The wolf must have been attempting to use its weight to scare its prey by pushing against the metal to make it rattle loudly. When he could not make it move he must have tried harder at this intimidation by throwing himself against it forcefully. Whatever it was had failed to come out, however.
He watched the wolf as he approached the narrow strip of shadows between the metal and concrete. It was stunning how fully the metallic scent hit him, nearly making his legs buckle, and he swallowed roughly to keep his hands from shaking. In the corner of his eye the wolf had backed away several steps and was staring at him, head tilted and tail lowered.
He looked perturbed and somehow cautiously upset as well, as if the very idea that he might steal his meal was stunning to him. As Yugi knelt down, he saw the black canine pull his lips back at the edges into something acutely like a human grimace before turning away and moving past him.
When it leaped, Yugi threw himself backwards. The dumpster rolled heavily, vibrating loudly, and he wanted to groan at the blast of noise which reverberated in his ears. He turned his head, startled to find the wolf watching him with a hungry but somehow dismissive expression all at once. The red eyes bore into his skin for a moment before the canine turned away and leaped from the lid over the chain link fence as it had the night before.
He frowned to himself, surprised, and wondered at the idea of being able to hear its body weight as it touched the ground again. The lycanthrope had sounded much lighter on his feet the night before, as if he had not possessed nearly as much weight.
Yugi tilted his head at the thought but the scent of blood made him turn away to face the small gap beneath the dumpster once more. He bit his lip, moving to balance himself on his knees again, and felt a fearful tremor creep through his spine. He desperately hoped that it would be a rabbit or maybe a serow or a deer calf, even a piglet. They were all natural prey for a wolf, though he was not sure they actually ate the latter. He shook his head and pressed his palms into the cold concrete, swallowing hard, as he tipped his head to the side and looked beneath the metal bin.
His heart froze in his chest and his mouth fell in horrified disgust.
It was a small black and white dog. There was a blood all around it, though he realized that it was more from awkward inflictions than a true death wolf. The wolf had not managed to hit the jugular, though there was blood smeared across the pale fur of it. He could see that tufts of fur had been stripped from its pale skin, the puncture wounds deep but not fatal. Several small lines of deep red were scrapes were the incisors had snapped together too soon for the mortality to be dealt.
"Oh gods…"
The snarl that greeted him was so weak that he almost could not take it for more than a gurgle of noise. The way the blood bubbled from its throat with the sound was horrifying, but he realized most likely something had caused it to be able to escape without as much harm as the wolf had meant to deal. That could have meant a car crash or fall, anything really. And its saving grace could easily have caused a hideous and apparent internal wound somehow.
Yugi watched the small dog for a moment, took in the long and narrow shape of its muzzle, and bit his lip. He would have to try reaching using the scruff of the neck and distract with the other arm. He hardly needed to explain dog bites and blood soaking his uniform jacket. The teen hesitated for a moment, then rolled up both sleeves and watched the canine for a second.
It blinked dreary, half-blind eyes at him, as if exhausted, and he shook his head faintly. It had to have been half-dead. It had been there all night, he knew, stuck because the wolf refused to leave it to a peaceful passing.
He frowned to himself, rolling his sleeves further up his arms until they were nearly caught on his biceps, and spread his legs enough to keep only his knees and toes of his sneakers on the concrete. His eyes narrowed, his mouth grew a little drier, and he swallowed hard as he reached forward. The boy blinked and snapped its jaw at one hand, barely missing his wrist, just as he caught the blood-soaked scruff with the other.
The dog wailed, the sound making him flinch, but he did not release the sticky, loose grip he had on the wound. The canine attempted to press its weight down and sink the nails into the concrete but failed. Yugi took a moment to breathe in deeply and then swiftly pulled the dog forward.
His free hand dug into his pocket as his other held the dog's scruff forcefully towards the ground. The canine squirmed weakly but with just enough strength to nearly make him release. He gripped harder, tightening his fingers on the loosened skin, feeling sick to his stomach at the sensation, and pulled the cap off of the needle in his hand with his teeth.
He didn't spit it away, unsure of what more to do with himself at the moment, and then quickly scanned the dog's throat for a moment. It would have been easier if the fur had not been stripped in such rough patches, but he recognized the smaller dog's anatomy just enough.
He spread his index and middle fingers, pulling the loose skin somewhat out of place once more, and then smeared some of the blood away. For a moment he struggled to fully comprehend what he was doing, but the dog's desperation would only cause it to suffer if he didn't.
Yugi shook his head then aligned and pressed the needle into the skin. The dose he had grabbed was for larger dogs, and the speed that it allowed the animals to slip from between an owner's fingers was within five seconds of injection. Considering how weak this stray was, how bloodied and winded it already seemed, he doubted even five seconds would pass.
When he released it, the skin shuddered and the fur shifted as he stroked it once, unable to do anything more as it let out a harsh breath and then coughed out and went still.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered weakly, struggling to keep his voice from cracking. He was still stroking its fur long after it had passed, shaken and unable to do anything more as he waited, knowing it would not take long.
"Were you hunting him?" the smaller teen breathed.
The lycanthrope did not answer, as he had known would happen. But, as he raised his head and looked at him, the dark eyes drifted to Yugi's face slowly. Those estranged irises were empty but for a burning and incapacitating hunger that made his knees feel weak as the intensity and hollow flare of his famine proved itself powerful enough to make him tremble pathetically. And gods, if that sensation, that concentrated projection of hunger, did not make his stomach twist and his heart hurt more than it already did.
Yugi did not know which he ached for more, however, the dog or the wolf. The wolf was starving to have come this far and wait so long throughout the night to get at this dog. But the dog had done nothing wrong, had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had been a simple stray that had come across a predator too powerful for it to hold back and had, thus, been killed for its inabilities. But it could just as easily have been someone's pet, a loving and happy white and black canine with bright brown eyes and a wagging tail and lolling tongue.
"You have woods," he spat, unable to contain his rage as he stood up and glared at the other boy. He was trembling faintly, muscles pulled so tightly together that he could not suppress the tremors racking his frame. "You have rabbits, squirrels…serows, boar. There are even deer. And fucking rivers, with fish!"
But wild boars were dangerous and the deer had all begun to move along. And serows may have been easy to pursue in the woods but they also lived farther up on the mountain range than the wolf ever could. The steep slopes of rock and hardened earth were not suitable for any kind of canine. And the water had become so cold that it was a mere matter of days before the rivers began to freeze and the fish that swam in them had moved again.
Yugi was somehow almost proud that he might find a way to justify the lycanthrope, even if it was only to himself, to ease his own burden of knowledge. But the frustration was far more abundant, making his skin burn and his body weak. His mind had broken into a sprint and his knees felt like weathered boards as the other male's head slowly tilted to the side.
For a brief moment he looked as if he might open his mouth and then it passed just as abruptly, the idea of conversation or the possibility of it gone immediately. But as Yugi looked at him, he realized that the red eyes did not care for his lecture or even the slightest idea of it. He was starving and his eyes were hollow with the pain of his empty stomach and with that ache came a rather blatant disregard. In his famished state, he did not care to fight Yugi or anyone else, but he also did not possess the instinct to attempt avoiding the possibility of injury.
Yet, despite knowing these things, Yugi could not shake the disgust. "But you went after and decided to hunt a dog. You cannot be serious," Yugi spat loudly, with such anger that the borders of the words came out in an animalistic tone. He was startled by his own voice, the way it echoed so harshly in his ears, but it was far more jarring to see the other werewolf's reaction.
Yugi had visibly jolted him to attention and so his eyes had grown wide and startled just before his shoulders rose. His lips were twitching faintly, threatening to curl upwards, and his breath came out in a sharp, rough noise that bordered a deep snarl. His red eyes had grown harsh and vicious, with a murderous glint that told him to step back and rethink his aggression.
"He could have wound up as someone's pet and you just did this. You just fucking killed it."
Yugi swallowed the next mouthful of words, horrified by the way the stare ground so heavily into his nerves. He had the overwhelming urge to vomit to back away and flee. His stomach churned and ached. His heart pounded weakly in his chest.
But the taller teen did not move. His lips did not curl. His eyes did not narrow. He did not tilt his head or even move closer. He simply stood there and stared. He watched and studied him. Yugi's spine tightened painfully under the scrutiny. The gleam in his eyes was growing more vibrant. The murderous intent could not become any clearer. His hunger would push him into slaughtering him if Yugi was not careful.
For the smallest of seconds the smaller teen craved that reaction. He wished the red-eyed boy would lunge at him. He wanted to provoke him. He wanted this wolf to sink his teeth into Yugi's skin. It was disturbing to realize just how overwhelmingly desirable that suddenly was to him. There was some sick sense of excitement and wondrous curiosity that made him crave it.
But he did not welcome death. He did not want to be killed. Yugi felt as if a switch had been flipped somewhere in his brain. That sick excitement still pushed on his thoughts, desperate for attention, but common sense made him bite his tongue. The taller boy before him was still tense, ready to lash out, and he swallowed hard to keep from saying anything for a long moment.
His eyes shot away, staring at the metal of the dumpster for a moment. There was a coat of rust and a dark streak of brown and red that covered the side near the bottom. He swallowed again.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I just started…snarling at you. You were just doing what you need so you don't go hungry." Yugi hesitated, then glanced at him from the corner of his long lashes, drawing in a deep breath. "Wolves eat so much and you're a werewolf and…you probably eat a lot more than any wolf. I've already started eating a lot more and I haven't been one nearly as long as you must have…"
There was an ache in his arms from the weight of the small canine, pushing down on his muscles and making him feel queasy for a brief moment. When he shifted his small body more solely into his left arm, he was stunned. Yugi had not even thought to do it, yet his hand had reached out. The other wolf was frozen in place, startled by the action. His cheek was a comfortable warmth against his fingertips. The skin was smooth and soft.
Yugi blinked stupidly, unsure of what to do or why he had done this. What purpose had there been for him to reach out like this? It was somehow shocking to him that he would do something so impulsive. The fact that the wolf had wanted to kill him only seconds ago and was now in front of him barely drew at his attention. It was not even the idea that it was a male whose cheek he was touching.
It was that fact that he had even done it. He had somehow assumed that perhaps impulses would be more easily cast aside and guarded away now that he was infected. Humans were impulsive animals, but he had not thought wolves to be. But where had that excitement come from? And why would he have done this if not for that?
His mind jumped, trying to rationalize what he had thought to be unnatural. He thought of hallucinations, of wolves being social, of wanting to connect with someone in the same boat as him. Yet, somehow, none of it seemed to make sense.
He pulled his hand away, just centimeters of cold air between them. But his fingers were still warm. The air was sated by a gentle heat. The pads of his fingers ached and burned. Yugi fought off the urge to tremble.
They stared at one another, the red gaze boring into his and making him both self-conscious and yet somehow agonizingly empowered as well.
"I'm sorry. That was really stupid. I…and you're starving, aren't you? I shouldn't make you…I…"
He laughed dryly once at the irony of the statement that lay on the tip of his tongue and then shook his head slowly. For a long moment Yugi wanted nothing more than to scold himself. He knew the other wolf's reluctance to take him up on the offer of the restaurant food. He himself had grown unable to eat it more than necessary. The tastes were never the same anymore. And the smell was bad enough to make his stomach heave.
Yet here he stood, pathetically offering a boy who seemed far more wolf than human a cheeseburger.
"Here."
The lycanthrope did not move even after Yugi pulled his hand back completely. He sorely missed the soft, addictive touch of heat that had stroked his fingers at the close proximity. His skin was tingling now where the cold air coated them and he swallowed hard as he shifted the canine once more. He felt sick to his stomach with the blood that he realized covered his arm, his fingers, when he attempted to balance the animal's weight more comfortably.
He could feel the blood rushing from his face, leaving his skin cold and pale. Yugi had helped out on surgeries, knew how to remove blood from his skin and clothes properly. But he had never gotten himself soaked like this. Every pore on his right arm seemed to be coated in bright red up to his elbow. He trembled briefly then jerked his head away.
But his eyes fell on the other wolf again. And his eyes just as vibrant as the red he had been trying to escape.
Yugi shivered and held the canine out a little more insistently. He was desperate for him to take it from him. He needed it away from him so that he could run home, wash the blood away, and somehow make his way to school. But the seconds kept passing and the wolf merely watched him. Those red eyes were burning into his as if unable to understand what he was doing.
And the idea came to him that perhaps it was not his confusion, but rather the fact that he had touched it at all. Had he taken to the same idea as Valon somehow? Could he tell he was unnatural as the other boy had claimed? Did this red-eyed lycanthrope in front of him think of him as some kind of symbol of death too?
Did he think his touch was a death wish? That it was an omen, a curse, that he had done so?
Yugi was trembling harder than ever at the thought. Why would he have saved his life he shared the same thoughts? Why would he have tried so hard to keep him alive? Why would he have started to follow him home like that before?
He felt as if his head might spin into a nonexistent mess of blood and brain matter. He felt dizzy, legs weak and nearly buckling beneath him. He felt a groan crawling up the back of his throat. His arms were wobbly. His pulse was beginning to stutter.
He expected the red eyes to dilate. He thought they would burn. Then his mouth would open. His long, sharp canines would gleam. He would tremble again. And the wolf would be upon him.
Instead the lycanthrope lowered his eyes, lashes cutting into the brilliant red of them. They looked almost toxic in their color, with the jagged strips of black shadows like tiger stripes falling across them. Yugi immediately dropped it into his arms when he moved to accept it. His body was still quaking and his breath was coming in rattled gasps there was an impulse in the back of his mind to curl up into a ball and rock back and forth.
He had been on the verge of begging him to show mercy and take it.
It took him several long minutes to gather some kind of strength back into his limbs. Yugi's heart was still hammering even as he looked at the other boy, who was staring at the bundle in his arms. His bare arms, too, had become soaked, smears of bright red against golden-bronze skin. He had not recognized he had forgone his jacket and was instead wearing what looked to be a black tank top.
Yugi focused on that for a moment, breathing in deeply and watching the other boy's chest expand in such a soothing movement. It had such an achingly smooth rhythm, never once hitching, that it made his heart slow and his breath come easier. His lungs loosened and his fingers lost some of the ache they had harbored before. He shivered but now it was from the cold rather than the immensity of the judgment passed before.
"I…I could understand why you would want that more than a hamburger," Yugi muttered, swallowing hard to keep from choking on his words. His eyes lowered for a moment towards the concrete and then flickered back immediately. His jaw felt loose, almost disconnected, and it was only then that he realized he must have been clenching it before. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, breathing out again, and watched the other teen once more for what felt like hours. "I'm really sorry for…all of that. I mean…making you…starve longer than necessary. I don't really…know what's…going on with me. R-right now…"
The statement made his insides feel queasy. What did he know anymore? It seemed impossible that he could gather up any kind of knowledge about anything anymore. What Yugi had once thought he knew had been uprooted and tossed away, with such strength that it made his mind tremble. The most he could do now was sit and wait and hope and experiment with things he had no true understanding of. And what kind of life was that?
The other boy raised his eyes slowly, their gazes locking and boring into each other once more, the burning of bright fire and sad chill of cooled water, and he saw it immediately.
Disgust.
Hatred.
Shame.
Guilt.
Yugi swallowed hard and let out a stuttering breath before turning on his heel and fleeing from his own reflection.
"What were you doing at the park last night?"
Yugi blinked stupidly at the question, drawn out of his own halting thoughts and turning his head in confusion. He frowned at him, tilting his head, and furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?" he muttered, unsure of what more he could say.
"I mean, you were in the park last night," Jonouchi replied, giving him a small, quizzical smile that made him feel lightheaded for a brief second. He'd been out late at night, but the park had not been the spot. "A few hours after curfew, I saw you at the park. You looked like you were either going to vomit or you were digging or something. It was fucking weird. What the hell were you doing?"
"The park?" he whispered slowly, blinking and struggling as his mind scrambled for answers. The confusion was clear on his face as he fought for control of his thoughts and which direction they might take, but for a long moment he still could not come up with anything. "I…"
Wasn't at the park.
He hesitated for a moment, cutting his own voice off. His lips pulled into a tight, grim line. His eyes grew a little dull with realization. Jonouchi had run across the lycanthrope. The wolf must have gone that way after he had scared him away from his meal the first time. He must have wandered into the park for whatever reason, though digging implied he'd found another meal, possibly a rodent. He must not have realized there was someone else there. Or maybe he had but he'd been too hungry to care, just as he had at the dumpster.
"You…?" Jonouchi pressed slowly, trying to coax an answer out of him that he did not have. The thought occurred to the smaller teen, staring at his best friend, that he should tell the truth, that it wasn't him. The response sat on the tip of his tongue, ready to spring out at any moment, but there it also died.
He would have to explain the other boy's existence. And what happened if Jonouchi went to talk to him for whatever reason? Sometimes the blond was not so tactical when it came to speaking to people. He might go up to him attempting to make a joke that he looked like his friend and the lycanthrope might turn around and attack him, worse yet, he could end up killing him. Or, in the best case scenario, he would simply turn tail. But the blond might follow. And what would happen if he got lost in the woods? What about the various other wolves lurking in the dark, waiting to sink their teeth into fresh meat?
Besides that, he stilled owed the canine, didn't he? He could not simply throw him under the bus after he had saved his life—twice. Turning his back on him by telling his best friend things he had no right to was nothing he could ever fully consider.
"I went for a walk and I dropped my phone. It was kind of dead so I couldn't find it without feeling around for it," he lied after a moment, opting for simple over detailed. Whether or not they all believed him was another matter, but at least the lie wouldn't be spun too far out of control from its simplicity.
Jonouchi was quiet for a long moment. "Then why did you run off like that?"
Yugi frowned, wondering for a moment if that lycanthrope had a single violent bone in his body. Why not attack someone if they came running at you? Why not attack them if they threatened your meal? He had seemed ready to attack him in the alleyway but he had not wanted to if Yugi hadn't first.
"Curfew," he muttered, shrugging, a little surprised to hear an edge to his own voice. "I snuck out and I needed to get home before my mom realized I was gone."
It was not hard to recognize the disbelief that lingered on the blond's face. Nor was it hard to see the way Honda quirked an eyebrow faintly in question. And he knew that Anzu was nibbling her bottom lip without looking at her. They all knew he was lying, but they couldn't tell why. And rather than question him, they would simply let the subject die like that.
He turned away as they began to chat idly, muttering lazily about whatever it was that was on their minds. The conversation drifted in entirely different directions for the hour that their lunch lasted, and he knew they noticed his lack of participation but did not comment. They were watching him with something of wariness in their eyes, as if they saw something in him that they couldn't explain, and it made him feel sick to his stomach.
Yugi did not bother to speak, however, or to pay too much attention to it all. Rather, he looked away and ignored the way the food made him feel queasy. His head was aching and his stomach burned as he closed his eyes and looked at the boards in front of the room. The teacher had left them all to eat and socialize, the average lunch for a mediocre day.
Yet, all his mind could come up with was that they too might turn on him. Would they suddenly spin around one day and accuse him of the same Valon had? Or would they hesitate like the wolf had in the alley, as if his very touch were poisonous? He wanted to swallow his tongue or cry out at the thought, but squelched the impulse. Surely the wolf would not have saved him if that was the case, right? Or had he not known then and something about their interactions recently had told him such a thing? Was that possible? Or was he just scaring himself without reason?
He looked towards the board again and swallowed roughly. The wolf had saved him for whatever reason. And he'd gone as far as to give him something of a cautionary glare when he'd found his meal. A hungry predator in the wild would snarl and give warning and then going for the jugular if they were not wise enough to leave them. And he might have hesitated, but it seemed it might have only come from the fact that Yugi was actually handing him his food. And that must have been unusual and confusing for him, right?
Yugi cringed faintly, watching the others closely in his peripheral to make sure they didn't see him. None of them responded to the movement and he relaxed some of the growing pain in his spine by biting his tongue.
The wolf had only killed the dog because he was hungry. There had not been another readily available food source for it to go to at the time. The dog had been there and he had been hunger enough to chase it down. Wolves did not kill for the thrill of it, and that lycanthrope was more animal than he was human, wasn't he? In that sense he had to be more conscious of the fact that he was hunting solely for his hunger and not for the adrenaline rush he knew wolves got when they gave chase.
And wolves did not have the right to be picky when it came to meals. Their lives were too harsh and strained, survival such an ingrained instinct that it dictated everything as it did with each animal. He remembered reading that in places like Alaska wolves were supposedly known for leading dogs astray through pretending to play and stealing food away at night time. It was what made them such formidable and adaptive predators.
Unlike others, they had the ability to use their intelligence to make their lives easier for themselves and generations afterwards. They had learned throughout the Ice Age to hunt both large and small. That alone proved their capabilities as well as the natural instinct and drive for survival that guided them. The harshness of the wilderness demanded adaptation and so the canines had gone about doing just that.
And the lycanthrope had the human body at its disposal as well. Though, he realized, perhaps it was better that they stuck to the canine diet instead of the human one. The food caught in the wild was more or less untouched as far as chemicals that might make an animal sick.
He swallowed hard. No wonder he himself was having difficulty even considering eating fast food any longer. It was hardly something that a wolf would choose before its own diet. And if he was half wolf, didn't that mean that it weighed just as heavily towards his sense of hunger?
He shuddered and shook his head at himself before looking at his meal and feeling his mouth tug downwards into a slight grimace. There was an ache in his stomach, though he was unsure what it was from, and he was not amused by the hollowness accompanying it. But his thoughts were already circulating back to what Jonouchi had said before.
The wolf had been in the park. And maybe if he staked it out, Yugi might find the wolf again. Though what he might do when he found him was another question altogether. There didn't seem to be much he could talk about, considering the other didn't speak. And there wasn't a reason for him to corner him or anything.
He tried to convince himself otherwise, but hours later, mere minutes from curfew, he found himself at the park. He'd gone with the others to the arcade, playing mindlessly despite the way his head rattled, though nothing like his sensory overload had come about again, and then gone to the park when they had each chosen their separate ways home. He had awkwardly waited until each of them were out of range after ducking around the corners as if he was walking home and then bolted in order to make it there before cufew.
He was panting faintly, unused to the sprint he'd broken into in order to make it there, and the time on his phone said it had only taken him a few minutes. But the park was wholly deserted, without a single person be seen anywhere, and his stomach clenched as he looked around himself several times.
He drew in a deep breath, tasting the air, but found nothing to even allude to the lycanthrope's presence there. For what felt like hours he remained scenting the air, trying to sort out even the faintest hint, and found nothing fresh. There was the staler smell of autumn leaves from the night before, but nothing to pronounce his presence any more current than that.
Another waste of time, he thought, breathing out harshly in frustration and watching the way the puff of white sparkled faintly once more. He distractedly breathed out again, watching it with something akin childish fascination. It'd been so long since he'd paid full attention to it before and now he was finding it fun to witness the way it drifted into the air like coiling smoke.
But it was not enough to dampen the hollowness that came over him at the aspect of the wolf failing to be there. It was not as if they had planned it by any means, just that he had been hopeful and it had not paid off. The reality of it was frustrating, though he was somewhat ashamed of himself for even thinking it a possibility. He should have known that it would not happen in such a way. The wolf was elusive and obviously keen if it was not easily found by others.
He shook his head at himself and turned on his heel to make his way home. A police car passed by him, with an officer who did not take even a moment to roll down the window and reprimand him for the late hour, and Yugi frowned. They didn't pull over to make sure that he wasn't the murderer himself, as if he were too small and docile to do such a thing.
He nearly laughed at the thought.
If only they knew about the disease he was carrying now.
They would never give him a mindless declaration of being too small to do anything.
No one would think he was too innocent to even lie.
But thankfully none of them did. And he had no reason to point it out. No one would believe him anyways, unless he suddenly shed his skin for a fur coat. And he had no idea how he would do it and doubted he would ever desire it. This whole thing seemed such a burden as to weigh on his shoulders with enough power to make his back break.
He shook his head, scattering the thoughts, and then froze in place. Someone was seated on the walkway in front of his door. Yugi blinked, straining his eyes, wondering if it was a cadaver just placed there in that position, if perhaps it was just another example of Ushio. But there was no blood to be found anywhere and the sight of just gray cement made him feel almost weak to his knees.
He wondered for a moment if maybe it was Jonouchi waiting for him. His dad sometimes got drunk and, though he wasn't physical in his abuse, the emotional aspect of it really tended to wear on the tall blond. On those days Yugi would let him spend the night while his mom and grandpa simply went to bed and didn't worry beyond the occasional thought that they might play video games all night. It was an unconscious but completely noticeable aspect between the four of them; when those nights occurred, they all pretended that wasn't why he showed up. They all pretended that it was simply because Jonouchi wanted to and Yugi had offered without asking.
Another small spark of hope lit up inside him, that perhaps that was the explanation. But then it was dashed again. This person in front of him was not tall enough, though their legs appeared thin and long. And the way they hunched over in the darkness said that there was an uncomfortable tension in them that he had never seen in his friend. Yugi couldn't see much of their head from the position, legs drawn up and face possibly pressed against them. But he could see their wrist, which looked as if it had been burned into a mess of black charcoal.
Yugi hesitated, for a moment thinking to call the police, but then paused. The air was too still to be able to scent them, so he was at a loss as to what to do. Yet, somehow, despite himself, his feet had begun to move again. There was a small but burning intensity in his stomach, a threat that he felt his body might be able to make into truth. He moved slowly but surely, with some kind of confidence he knew he didn't normally possess. He came to the end of his yard, breathing in deeply, and then started across the grass.
The crackling noise made the other person sit up straighter. Abruptly the head snapped up and their limbs grew a little straighter, though somehow more relaxed. Against the shadows, Yugi could not make out their features despite straining his eyes multiple times, and he felt a small bit of read pool in his stomach. What if this person was planning to kill him? But then why should they wait on his doorstep like this? He swallowed thickly, biting his lip, and, as he got within several steps of the other he froze in place again.
There was a thick, noticeably slapping noise in gentle droplets of sound. Yugi blinked and his eyes shot from where they had been trying to take in the details of the other's face to the concrete. There was a splotch of black, like oil, in a splatter on the ground mere inches from his hip. He blinked, his eyes straining to grow more accustomed to the dark, and then turned his head in surprise when their leg moved to stretch out lazily in front of him.
He opened and shut his mouth twice, unable to do anything more as he gaped at the other person seated before him.