Author's Note: Hello, lads and ladies
We have reached the last chapter of the normal story. The next chapter will be the epilogue and author's addendum. See you there, guys! Have a fun time reading, and I hope it's a fitting ending for season 2. Beastars Rewritten Season 3 is coming soon!
Many Thanks to all of my fans who have read this story so long and followed it for so long. We have finally reached the last part of season 2. Thanks to All of you. The epilogue is coming soon!
Edited by: SuperAverageFoxyboy, The Dude who likes tanks
Enjoy!
-Portal
Chapter 34: Better Days
Louis hadn't expected much for the funeral. A sensible event that let most animals arrive in their black suits to pay their respects and uphold appearances. Unsurprisingly he was always under the eye of the shareholders who glanced at him worried that he would change something in the company structure, even if they knew they outnumbered him nine to one.
He knew what to say and how to say it, letting the pesky herbivores in black light their cigars in relief and go on with their day once the eulogy and burial had come to a close.
Louis's segment in the eulogy was short, to the point, and innocuous. What was expected and nothing else. The words he truly wanted to say were in a letter in his coat pocket, but that one was between him and Oguma alone.
After all was said and done, Oguma was buried on the 25th of December, Rexmas day. Louis took one last look at the lonely grave with the enormous headstone on the well-kept funeral grounds. His hand felt for the letter in his pocket, and he simply felt melancholy over it all.
He couldn't help but feel guilty for Oguma's death. Had he simply told him differently, then his father would still have the chance to meet their grandchild. But in many ways, he thought Oguma knew that only through his death would Louis have the freedom to make his decisions, only that explaining the lack of discipline of his child.
"You just accepted that there was a price to pay… I will forever be grateful for that father." Louis finished the one-sided conversation with the black marble gravestone.
The lettering beneath his name and time of life was a few words that, in retrospect, seemed like they had been written years before he died.
'Loving Husband
Caring Father
Beloved Friend'
Now, here he was standing before the grave and knew that only one of the lines was true. You truly cared about me, father.
Louis thought about leaving the letter by the gravestone but decided that he wouldn't do so. This wasn't the right place nor the right time. He hadn't made peace with it yet.
Before uttering another word, Louis turned around and walked past the tombstones towards the entrance of the graveyard. Two large buildings resembling Victorian housings stood were either side of the main gate. The left building was the larger of the two, giving shelter to the place of reception, the morgue in the basement, and the offices of the morticians in the back. To the right was a small yet still up-kept management shack used for most of the grounds keeping. Louis imagined that multiple lawn mowers were waiting for the return of spring and summer.
He entered through the large doors on the side of the building, leading into the large room where Louis had given the eulogy. He walked past the many empty rows and knew that no one really shed a tear today, at least no one did that actually meant it. They more dreaded the paperwork than actually missing Oguma as the person that he was.
But as Louis walked past the stand before the platform on which the casket had laid for most of today he figured that it was the effect of the continued effort of Oguma to be nothing but the company animal.
He entered the back offices of the morticians and sat down, being greeted by the owner that still pretended that anyone cared about what just happened.
Louis silently endured the talk of false empathy and then finally got to sign the death certificate as the last member of the Company board. He accepted the papers in a neat folder and thanked them for their services, silently leaving afterward.
Without a thought in his head, the folder under his arm, and the feeling of the letter in his inner jacket pocket feeling heavy on his heart, he walked past the gate and looked out at the street. A limousine was parked exactly where Avon had parked previously with the simple difference that the color was of a different one.
Louis was unsure if he should approach the vehicle or simply call for Avon, but as the thoughts crossed his mind, a window retracted into the door.
A pristine white-suited cougar sat in the back seat and waved Louis over. He did not know how to react to Tokugawa's sudden appearance, but he did not know how to deal with most things that had occurred today.
"I think we both know each other already. Do you need an officer to accompany you, or do you trust me?" Tokugawa smiled with well-kept fangs, and Louis finally returned to his senses.
"Mister Tokugawa… of course." Louis stepped forward and opened the car, lowering himself into the limousine. He closed the door and appreciated the warm temperature in the car. He seated himself comfortably and shut the door, placing the folder with Oguma's certificate of death beside him, and looked at the cougar sitting next to him. He wore his usual charming smile while wrapped in a white coat with his own fur stitched onto the collar.
"Why visit me here?" Louis asked, and the cougar's laughter rumbled in his throat.
"I have a little gift for you that I wanted to show you personally." Tokugawa waved at the driver who nodded, and the vehicle started moving.
"I sent Avon home for the day. I hope you don't mind." Tokugawa laid his arms in his lap and looked onward. Louis found himself in the presence of a true emotional enigma.
"Even if I had something to say, it wouldn't matter." Louis sighed. Tokugawa looked onto the buck with eyes filled with wisdom.
"If you want to see it as me taking away your agency, then I'm deeply sorry Mr. Louis, but I must remind you that it was you that stormed that lion's den to save your mistress, madam Haru." Louis looked at Tokugawa in surprise who leaned forward and looked into Louis's eyes with that deadly focus.
"This right here is reaping the rewards of just that thing, which you will now think everything is taking away from you. Your agency." Tokugawa leaned back again, leaving Louis to regain his line of thought.
"Oguma is gone, and you know how much of your agency was taken from you in so many ways. I'm afraid feeling like you're losing your agency will be a constant nagging feeling. You only know what's missing when you experience it for the first time." The Cougar glanced outside the window. Louis didn't know how to respond to the endlessly wise carnivore.
"You've talked me into a corner here," Louis muttered. Tokugawa's focus once again laid on the deer.
"I'm awfully sorry for being so quick on my feet today. It's a force of habit. But I will tell you that I have a surprise for you that would be spoiled by me just outright telling you what it is. You just got to trust me, which you have already shown that you can." Tokugawa's focus was warm and fatherly in every way possible. It was both careful in delivery yet methodical and straight set in the wording.
Afterward, the car was silent for most of the drive. Although Tokugawa never lost his air of charm and serenity, there was still a heavy silence lingering about. It remained as the car left the serene neighborhoods of the sophisticated District.
They stayed silent for the rest of the ride, Louis seeing the buildings flash by the tinted glass while Tokugawa sat cross-legged to his right, periodically looking outside and then just straight ahead into the room, stuck in thought yet completely present.
"My condolences for your loss, mister Louis. I know that you are worked up about his death, it's easy to tell-"
"Perhaps it's also easy to tell that I don't want to talk about it." Louis snapped back. The cougar took a moment of introspection while Louis continued to look out of the window.
The car came to a stop in the midst of the place where Louis had started from. He had forgotten the faces of his friends here but never had he forgotten the tower.
"We don't have to talk. Your thoughts are yours to keep and work through. But I can show you something." Tokugawa left the car, and Louis thought for a moment if he wanted to do this. If he wanted to follow the mysterious cougar into the place that Oguma… my Father… had saved him from undoubtedly.
You want to know, don't you?…
Louis left the car and walked out from behind the vehicle, seeing the giant pillar of madness standing before him. An ugly stack of metal and concrete. He saw the cougar shining in his angelic white suit wave him closer to the steps up to the elevator.
Louis took a deep breath and thought back to number four one last time. A little fawn stuck in the darkness of its cell, six years old and couldn't speak a word. It sat there in fear and loneliness, not knowing what terrors the next day would bring. Louis saw himself take a key, his adult self standing before the cell in the endless void holding the bright shining key.
He placed the key in the lock and turned it, seeing number four flinch back in fear. He pulled the door open and stood aside. He wouldn't know what to say to the fawn nor what it would bring. In the end, it was just him imagining things. And yet he heard himself say
"Go."
Reluctantly the little fawn clutched its pillow and dropped off its bed to the floor, slowly inching its way forward until it stood in the door looking at Louis. The child had been so traumatized that it thought even the adult herbivore of its own kind was a trap. Who could blame us? We were always scared of Oguma. He looked at number four, and a tear ran down his eye as he felt something deep in his mind softly release and flutter away.
And then number four dropped the pillow… and ran far far away… never to be caged ever again.
Louis stepped forward towards Tokugawa, wiping away the tear from his eye. They walked up the steps to the elevator level, The cougar dressed in white needed to unlock the metallic shutters with a set of platinum keys.
Louis thought that such shiny keys had nothing to do in a place like this, but the best of things sometimes had the worst repercussions. And if a shiny key opened the door to a nightmare then a dirty key might open the door to paradise.
They stepped inside the old service elevator, Tokugawa pulling the metallic grid shutters closed. When he pushed the button and the Elevator Car started to descend he thought that it felt smoother than before. Who on earth would renovate a place like this?
His suspicions were answered when the elevator car came to a slow and easy stop at the bottom of the shaft, only the metal shutters between them and the basement floors where Louis had spent his terrible childhood. The walls behind the shutters were hardwood, and a warm lighting that emulated candles and fireplaces made it seem as if someone had reconstructed a missing part of the horn conglomerate's mansion in the darkness of the basement.
"Now, many things are still work in process, like the new stairwell in construction and the elevator getting replaced with a modern model, but this down here is almost completely done already." Tokugawa grabbed onto the shutters and pulled them hard to the side, leaving the Elevator car exit open. He held his hand out to his side, presenting the new basement of the pillar of insanity.
Louis stepped out of the elevator car to the sight of wooden floors, potted plants, candle lighting, and paper room dividers. It resembled most closely what seemed to be a mixture between a temple and spa area. Serenity and a quaint feel of a religious house.
"You know, Mister Louis, Oguma reminded me of my father a lot. Kuragari was also a brooding man that kept in line with his company's reputation." Tokugawa walked past the deer towards a door to the left, a wall now separating the main room from the cell block. He stood beside it and ordered himself.
"And he wasn't a good father, nor did he ever become one. But he taught me to rely on myself, and I am thankful for the moments he did give me. I know that even if both of you were in horrible arguments about you living your life and him needing an heir and things that I can only assume but never know, I do know that you have conflicting feelings about his death." Tokugawa looked away into space, the first time Louis ever saw the Cougar looked away in discomfort.
"I know that my father deemed it necessary to put his son through conditioning and actual operations on his cranium in order to make sure that his child would never act out in instinct…" The cougar sighed as he stared into the distance as the words sank in.
"After twelve consecutive surgeries, Kuragari said to himself that his boy was now the perfect version of himself that he could be. Nearly lobotomizing his son of course set him back by a few years, but no one cared really. I was just brought through it anyway, and at a certain point I understood that what happened then was him trying to help me via the company means… making my life easier…" Tokugawa's deathly focus went onto Louis who was unaffected by the haunting gaze.
"Louis I do not mean to say that Oguma was harmless or that what he did was in any way lesser than what Kuragari did to me. I am saying that even in terrible times it is only fair, only civilized to see some happiness and positives in sadness. I can see the gears turning in your head, and you are intelligent enough to know these things. But you can't keep yourself nailed down on guilt just because it would be the moral thing to do… Letting go is a necessity, and you aren't a bad person because you feel good that he is gone. Which I know a part of you does."
His words mesmerized Louis in how little he cared. He knew that his pain had been great, but to implore him to let go felt awfully forced.
"I know you only mean well, Mister Tokugawa, but let a man's suffering be his own. I deal with his passing how I need to, now show me what you came here to show me." Louis replied coldly, standing straight as a candle. Tokugawa's posture relaxed a bit, his hand going to his face to wipe away tears.
"I'm sorry for being selfish. It would've eaten me whole if I didn't say what I thought. You are right, of course. A person's suffering is his own. Should you require help, however, all you need is to ask."
"Very well, Mister Tokugawa, now please may we continue with what you wanted to show me," Louis replied again, and the cougar simply smiled and knocked against the door. Footsteps sounded from the other side, and a second later, the door opened with the bespeckled Lion walking forward, followed in a row by his subordinates. Ibuki moved in front of Louis. As the deer stood there in astonishment, the lion bowed.
"In gratitude of your bravery and deepest condolences for your loss." Ibuki finished his bow and walked towards the elevator. Then moved Free in front of the young deer buck.
"I respect your courage, even if you were a little crazy to do it." Free finished his bow and moved to the elevator after Ibuki. Slowly but surely, every member of the shishigumi bowed before the deer and then moved to the elevator car and closed the metal shutters, rising back up to the top levels. Louis looked at the door. Just a crack of it was open. Tokugawa stood straight and pushed his hand against the door, making it swing open.
"This is my present to your family."
Louis watched the door swing open and come to stop once it was wide open, revealing the dark room that used to be the cell row where number four resided. Yet a prison this was no more. In the middle of the room stood a bright silver bust of none other than Oguma.
Quiet and surprisingly with a neutral expression Louis stepped into the room. It smelled exclusively of candle wax and turpentine. Louis only silently walked in front of the metal clone of his father's face. The bust consisted of the shoulders and the head of his father, made from a reflective blueish metal which Louis suspected to be platinum. On the stand the bust was placed upon was also a little bowl of water, rose petals floating on the surface.
There was a plaque below it reading "In Memory of Oguma – A Empathetic Soul"
Louis found the words to be overtly bland as if they were the preset of the choices at the place where they were commissioned.
"I guess this is it then," said Louis, grabbing for the letter.
"So many things neither of us told each other. So many words that should have been said, but nothing that we can do." His other hand grabbed for the matchbox in his other pocket.
"Thank you for giving me a new life, thank you for teaching me wrong from right, thank you for loving me when it meant the most." Louis expertly grabbed a matchstick and lit it with a flick against his fingernail. He observed the small red flame between his fingertips.
"Goodbye." Louis lit the paper in his hand and watched as the flames slowly crawled over the white material, making ash rain upon the rose's petals. He held on until the fire had consumed the letter almost entirely, only leaving a small corner of paper. His fingers let go of the last corner and let It fall into the bowl of water. The paper floated among the flower petals with little spots of ash floating between them.
Louis left the room and closed the door behind him, his hand placed squarely on the wood of the door. He felt the surface for a second softly patting it like one would an old friend on the shoulder. His eye went over the Tokugawa who seemed still a bit guilty over pushing his own ideals onto the buck. Louis found that the only aspect Tokugawa couldn't handle with this otherworldly grace was Death.
"Your gift to my father is warmly appreciated, Mister Tokugawa." He shook his hand and the cougar smiled at him.
"It was the least I could do."
The two entered the old elevator Car and Louis watched Tokugawa push the metal shutters closed and press the ground floor button. A silence of centuries and monumental pressure pressed down onto both of them. Yet this time as it came with the prospect of death Tokugawa was the one to look nervous while Louis was completely calm and at ease.
"I'm sorry for being so obnoxiously pushy and melodramatic-"
"A man's suffering is his own, and yours is deep-seated empathy." Louis's words brought Tokugawa to stop and hold inventory of his mental state. On other occasions, Louis would feel powerful but this time all he felt was at peace with the world with the slightest hint of guilt. Tokugawa's grace was an effect of the operation, of the cigar-smoking rich guys in black suits to decide his mind would need to be altered before it could be let in charge.
Scars were inevitable, but his handling of death laid close to the fact that he still held love for his dead father as much as he hated him. As much Louis could guess, now being in a similar situation. But in the larger picture, there was still something that Tokugawa couldn't talk about. Perhaps it was regret, perhaps it was managing love and hatred, or perhaps something that Louis could not foresee. It wasn't his to deal with anyway.
"If you wish this building shall be demolished." Tokugawa soberly said
"No," Louis replied in dry sobriety to match the clear-headedness of the cougar who always seemed in control.
"This place should be safety for those who need it. Perhaps a hospital or hospice? There are definitely enough people that need a roof over their heads without risk of being either heckled or living in outright fear of leaving their home." Louis saw it before him, the pillar of insanity transformed into the place for housing that needed it and suddenly he had an idea.
He saw the Conglomerate Mansion full of people, all from different walks of life. Old or young, sick or healthy but all needing help in some way. A House for those who need it… give that place its soul back.
As the Elevator car stopped Louis turned and grabbed onto the cougar's shoulder.
"Thank you for all you have done Mister Tokugawa. I promise I will stay in touch." He spoke and looked at Tokugawa with the same lethal focus that Tokugawa himself held. Empty for words he watched the deer leave the car walking towards the door.
"Don't you need a ride back mister Louis?"
"I need to make a few calls. Thanks for offering. Goodbye mister Tokugawa." Louis waved at the Cougar and left the building into the white coldness of the outside. He walked past the car and felt like a black grain of rice amongst hundreds of white rice grains.
He walked out towards the main road and looked down at the many carnivores walking past him, all eyeing him suspiciously. Before he made his first call he looked down the street teeming with life. He felt powerful.
The agents of change to the new world… I'm growing cheesier every day.
Six months later
Legosi sipped on the straw sticking out of his milk carton, enjoying the cool sensation of the rich-tasting liquid. He was gazing into space while occasionally observing Juno energetically eating her cereal or drinking her orange juice. It was a calm morning, one that showed that normal life could resume even after what had happened.
He lost himself just gazing across the table, the marvelous she-wolf catching his entire attention. I don't think I could've been luckier.
"So when are we visiting your parents, again?" Legosi asked in a dreamy tone of bliss. He knew they would visit them next month, yet still, he asked. He wanted to see her eyes sparkle when she talked about her family. Her sisters would visit, and it would be a big family meeting.
"Are you asking me because you forgot or because you like it when I talk about them?" Juno looked at him with a cheeky teasing glance.
"You read me like a book," Legosi admitted and delicately took a bite of the breakfast bagel. Her smile brought his tail to wag strong enough to slightly move the chair below him. He awkwardly pressed himself against the chair to sit still, to which Juno giggled, watching him so helpless to his own instinctual antics. And as she giggled she looked off to the side to see a familiar group of animals.
"Someone excited to see me?" Jack approached the table joining in on teasing the wolf.
"I think it's more directed at his girlfriend," Collot replied, the sheepdog standing tall behind the labrador.
"You guys want to join us?" Juno's own tail began to wag as she greeted Legosi's friends. She had, after the events of winter, spent more and more time with him and his friends, the two now once again sleeping in their own rooms. She and her friends, whenever she could convince them, had become an integrated part of the 701 routines.
"Of course!" Jack beamed.
"Bagels for breakfast are always good," Miguno said behind them. Soon the entire 701 room was sitting at the table having breakfast with them. Legosi silently realized again how little time he had spent with them in reference to what happened last year.
"So Legosi, you said you'd take us to B-strike. When is that happening?" Jack ate his food, casually mentioning the planned B-strike visit. Legosi's eyes widened, panicking over the fact that he had completely forgotten.
"I'm sorry guys, I completely forgot… we need to do that," Legosi admitted.
"Yeah, the school's been really depressing ever since you guys took down Riz…" Jack immediately regretted his brash choice of words. "I didn't mean to awaken any memories."
But Legosi was already not listening. School had been surprisingly dull the last six months, with none of the students or teachers really showing any real motivation or confidence in the school day. They were scared, and they didn't hide that fact well. They needed a distraction. They needed something to concentrate on that didn't remind them of the terrible things that Riz had done.
"No, you're right… you're very right… we all need some B-strike." Legosi stood up, kissed Juno on the cheek, and left the table.
"Legosi, where are you going?" Jack shouted after his best friend.
"I'm gonna go prepare something. See you tonight! It's carnivore night, remember?" And without another word, the wolf left the table in once again stunned silence.
"He needs to stop doing that," Durham commented.
"The guy gets ideas. You gotta give him that," replied Miguno.
Juno herself simply looked after Legosi disappearing down the school hallways. It had happened often enough for her to find that she liked when he got one of his ideas, always immediately tending to some new sort of plan.
"He's a Beastar for a reason… whatever he's planning, I bet it's gonna be good." She commented, simply looking after where the wolf had gone to.
The rest of 701 murmured in agreement, continuing their breakfast without interruption. They had grown quite accustomed to Legosi leaving out of the blue.
"How long has it been since we've gone to carnivore night?" Legosi asked Bill, both walking up the stairs to the roof of the male ward.
"Too long. Feels like I haven't been up there for years," Bill replied, and both knew that he was right. A whole year had passed since they went to their last carnivore night. A whole lot of things had happened.
Bill moved up his metal arm, the stoic fingers pointing at Legosi.
"You brought the Ball?" Bill's question was answered with Legosi grabbing into his pants pocket and pulling out the neon green ball.
"You got your string toy?" Legosi asked right back, and Bill's arm wandered into his pocket to grab a similarly colored ball made out of yarn. His other arm picked out a small vial of concentrated cat mint oil.
"Well then, let's have some fun!" Legosi said and started sprinting ahead as they ascended the stairs faster and faster. Bill placed the objects back in his pocket and sprinted after the wolf, not taking longer for both to reach the top floor.
Legosi looked at Bill in a way that asked if he was ready, yet no words needed to be spoken. He nodded, and Legosi opened the door.
When the two walked through the door frame, eyes of all kinds hushed them. Both of them stood before the door, standing tall against the sea of many carnivore students before them. And a moment later, the entire roof broke out into cheers and wild clapping.
Legosi found that the world did need brave heroes when the reaction to them was this strong. Well, I guess we are heroes then. If adults won't do it, then we'll have to.
The clapping slowly died down, and the carnivores on the roof slowly came together in a crowd around the two, asking questions and generally being in amazement. Legosi and Bill exchanged glances, and both silently nodded in agreement. The plan for today had to start now.
"Guys, thank you for this reaction… really thank all of you," Legosi spoke with confidence that most animals that knew him would never expect from him.
"But I have another thing to show all of you… Aren't we always up here alone?" The question reached out to the many carnivores on the roof and a voice answered from behind.
"Yeah, but only to not disturb herbivores," Legosi answered the comment with a smile while his hand wandered into his pocket.
"Why not share the fun with them on such a pleasant summer night." Legosi's hand emerged from his pocket. The neon green ball caught the full attention of all Canines in the group before him. He smirked.
"Tonight everyone should have fun." Legosi launched the ball full force into the stairwell door behind him, the ball bouncing against the wall and falling down the staircase. A moment later, a stampede of canines including Legosi flowed through the door down the stairs, many of them just jumping the balustrade in the ball-hunting trance.
As the roof was vacated by the dog kind, the feline, avians, and reptiles remained standing in their crowd. Bill looked at the gathering with a familiar smile on his face.
"Why don't we join them in the fun?" The feline faces in the crowd looked annoyed and, to a degree, arrogant, looking down on the dog's mindless behavior. Bill faux frowned.
"Playing the nose in the air smart ass types, huh? How about this." Bill grabbed the yarn ball and waved it in the air, the eyes of feline fellow all around strictly glued to Bill's hand. He arched his arm and threw it down the same stairwell as the canines had gone down. In a blink of an eye, the felines had turned into the same excited stampede that the canines had before.
Now, the only groups remaining were the avians, reptiles, and the stragglers of weasel and bear genomes.
Aoba looked between his feather friends, seeing the same confused and indifferent gazes between them. They remained for a bit until their group started to disperse and an Alligator wandered to the edge of the roof overlooking the open space between the two dormitories.
"Woooooooow… guys, look!" The animals followed closer to the edge of the roof and soon enough all of them were observing the grounds filled with toy stations of all kinds. Suiting both carnivore and herbivore needs. There were machines set up in close proximity to each other with ample lighting everywhere. It felt as if the meteor festival came early.
Aoba scanned over the many stations and points of interest as his eyes caught an eagle dressed in a high viz vest holding a clipboard, somebody that he recognized.
"They have a flight instructor!" Aoba turned around and ran for the stairs, most of the birds turning around to join In on the opportunity to get flying experience early.
The rest looked between themselves one final time, and then, all followed the rest of their carnivore friends to the ground floor.
The hallways in the buildings were similarly decked out with game stations all around the place, even a few classrooms being opened for games that needed a bit more space. A few of the quieter fellows had already started to group up in their dorm rooms to play video games or watch movies in the community rooms. But the one thing that was so perplexing was that no one cared about policy anymore.
Herbivores were on the carnivore floors, carnivores were on the herbivore floors, Girls in the male dormitories, and boys in the female dormitories.
Legosi found his way to the school grounds after the beloved ball had finally been caught, passing by the many activities. To see them all together as a school made him happier than he could put into words.
What delighted him most was seeing his friends in between the crowds, being a part of the whole. Not hailed as heroes, but appreciated and accepted as students of this school.
He even saw Louis listening intently to someone explaining the rules of a game.
Legosi looked around and saw and felt the happiness on every face, the unity between them all, and felt proud. No one would have to feel alone anymore, no one would be cast out simply by the merit of being different from one another.
The wavy smell of roses entered his nose, and suddenly he felt a hand running over his back. He turned around to see his Juno, the prettiest wolfess he would ever see.
"I love you a lot, you know that?" Legosi grabbed her hand and delicately held it to his chest, kissing her hand. She smiled back, looking similarly like an idiot as he did whenever he looked at her.
"I think I would have to be blind to miss that," Juno replied in stride. Legosi's arms wrapped around her and lifted her off the ground in a hug, pressing her close, his tail becoming a propeller-like appendage on his rear.
Her legs hugged his midsection, and she leaned fully into the hug, enjoying every second of it.
After a short moment of continued hugging, the two released their bear hug and wandered into the evening hand in hand. They were surrounded by an abundance of laughter, joy, and enjoyment of life. Something both knew the school had lacked throughout Riz's reign of terror, if not for even longer.
"And they lived happily ever after, hahaha." Chelsea teased, chuckling as the couple moved past them in the crowds.
"Let them have their fun. They earned it," Jack said, watching his best friend move past. After everything that had happened in the year, he was the one who deserved a happy ending.
"Yeah, sure you silly sentimental Grandpa." Chelsea continued to tickle Jack who tried his best to defend himself through all the giggling.
"Stop it. That's not fair." Chelsea had a devious smile on her face.
"Never said it was." Chelsea's arms suddenly were around Jack, her muzzle going to his lips. The warmth of the kiss brought his own arms around her. They broke the kiss a few seconds later, Chelsea still holding eye contact with him.
"You're gonna be the death of me…" Jack smiled through the statement, still holding her tightly as his tail wildly wagged a thousand miles a minute. Her smile had now become much warmer.
"I know you love it." Chelsea almost purred. Jack's eyes looked deep into hers.
"Yeah." He said hopelessly in love, the two enjoying the moment together in the warm lighting.
~ Epilogue Coming Soon ~
