Hey!

I'm officially in college, so I have two chapters to post! I snuck in some time to write and was able to write a lot!

So here we go!

Chapter 4: The Portrait and the Cake

One year ago, midterms at Cherryton Boarding School

"Legosi?"

Jack closed the door to room 701 behind him quietly and tiptoed to his bed - the lights were off, and Legosi's lanky form was visible on his bed in the bluish hue of the semi-dark room, the sun reflecting the color through the blue curtains.

"It's hardly six in the evening, dude," he giggled lightly and half to himself, politely climbing the plain ladder to his own bed above Legosi's. That math test was a chore, even for me, he remembered. He's probably tired.

Still, it struck the golden labrador as odd - Collot and Voss were usually the ones who napped after tests, and Legosi had taken plenty of hard tests before. In fact, there were multiple tests that had already passed this week, and he hadn't passed out like this after the fact. Jack briefly considered that he was resting for his next test, but - no, that couldn't be it. He loved his anthropology class and would likely pass with flying colors without even sleeping tonight.

"...You okay, dude?" he asked, bending over the side of the bed and peering at Legosi, eyes widening a little when he saw Legosi's eyes were half open. "Hey - Legosi."

The gray wolf didn't respond at first, his blank stare not seeming to register the animal before him. He suddenly blinked, pupils rounding marginally and breath exhaling as if it were a sigh. "Oh… hey, Jack," he replied, pulling himself up and rubbing his head, mattress creaking quietly. "What time is it…?"

"Just past six," Jack answered promptly, his ears giving themselves to gravity and dropping out of their normal position on his head. "Why are you sleeping? Or, whatever you were doing."

Legosi's brow furrowed, and he leaned his elbows on his knees, fingers interlocking. "Dunno," he mumbled, eyes beginning to grow misty. "Guess I'm tired from math…"

Jack frowned, flipping himself back from his dangling position and climbing down from his bed. "You're a horrible liar, you know."

"What?"

"C'mon, man, we've known each other for how long? You always say when there's something wrong with me that I frown. Well, when there's something wrong with you, your ears droop and you start slurring your words." Jack stood in front of Legosi now, arms folded on his chest and his weight leaning on one foot. "What's the matter?"

Legosi blinked slowly, putting his hand to his head to test Jack's theory. He frowned deeper when he confirmed for himself what Jack told him.

"Well? There's no one here except us, by the way," he added when Legosi scanned the room.

Legosi took a long breath, slowly releasing it over a long sigh. For a moment he sat there unresponsively. Jack had learned by now that he wasn't ignoring the question, and this usually meant he needed time to construct his response.

"...Him."

"...What?" Jack inquiried, head tilting to the side curiously as his hands went down from his stance. "Who…?"

"Him. My f-f-" Legosi's eyes shut, fingers gripping each other more tightly. "F-fa…" He swallowed thickly, hanging his head below his clasped fingers. "You know. My mom's…" He stopped himself when his voice cracked, clearing his throat awkwardly. "You know."

Jack narrowed his eyes, head tilting the other way. "'Fa?' Fa, fa… family?" he guessed, shifting his weight to his other leg. "Your mom's famil- oh," he realized epiphanically, looking up and blinking. He looked back to Legosi's hunched over form, heart squeezing in his chest empathetically. Maybe I shouldn't have been so aggressive about it, he reprimanded himself curtly. I thought it was about that rabbit girl. "Why are you thinking about him?" he asked gently, kneeling down on the ground with one knee, sitting on his foot, and looking up to his friend. His facial features scrunched in concern, eyes rounding some.

Another moment passed, Legosi unmoving, the only sound being the box fan Voss had insisted on buying humming in the background. He put his chin on his hands. "I'll think about him from time to time," he finally said, eyes opening and revealing a different-than-typical-Legosi introspect that spiked alarm within Jack. "And my mom, and Gosha, and that whole situation. How… he finally put his hand through the hole my mom made in the door of the other room and screamed when he found her body hanging." His eyes closed again, and Jack visibly saw him shudder. "How grandpa screamed."

Another moment of silence. Jack bit his lip, words eluding him. Somehow he knew that words wouldn't help, anyway, and Legosi likely needed uninterrupted thought.

"I never told you how he left, huh?"

Jack blinked, ears perking at the question. "U-uh, no, but, you don't have to tell me if you aren't comfortable-"

"No, it's okay," Legosi assured, making eye contact with Jack and smiling wistfully. "You deserve to know." His smile faded. "Unless-unless you don't… want to hear it, then-"

"Oh! - no, no, go on. I'm here," Jack amended quickly, shaking the surprise out of his head, ears flopping about and clapping against his skull. "I'm here."

Legosi laughed shortly through his nose, closing his eyes again. After another moment, he let out a deep breath, eyes opening as the wolf seemed to finally collect his thoughts.

"That week was chaos," he started, eyes misting over reminiscently. "Grandpa had to be the one to tell me what happened; he had locked himself in where he and my mom used to sleep before she went into the other room." He paused briefly, and he closed his eyes in what seemed to be effort. Movement above Legosi's head caught Jack's eye.

"Hey," he snapped lightly at Legosi, putting his hand on the wolf's knee. "Stop that. You can let your ears droop in front of me. Don't try to hide from me anymore. Please."

The gray wolf released a breath, his attempt at faking a neutral impression failing miserably as his ears flattened again. Something in Legosi's eyes flashed, and he slowly put his head in his hands. "I'm - give me a second…"

Jack remained silent, hanging his head down and closing his eyes. He and Legosi had had serious talks before: ever since they met in school, the two had always been side by side, naturally gaining a mutual bond to where they were comfortable discussing sensitive topics about themselves, or just about everything, really. But Jack had never seen Legosi have such a hard time explaining himself after the first one or two serious conversations they had.

The golden lab abruptly snapped out of his thoughts when he felt a disturbance in the ostinatto of the room's sound, eyes widening marginally when he heard suppressed wheeze-sobs from the wolf, getting off his knees when he saw his torso shiver.

"...Legosi?" he tried, looking around and setting himself next to Legosi, shifting his feet on the floor. He looked down awkwardly. "Hey, man - I - this is probably really hard to talk about, so I completely understand if you can't talk about it right now," he assured, looking at Legosi out of the corner of his eye. "I know I said that you shouldn't hide from me, but you don't have to force yourself to open up if you can't. That's not healthy, either."

Legosi let out another wheeze, squeezing his face with his hands and growling. "No, Jack, it's…" He released his hands from his face, looking up and closing his eyes. "I - he told me he didn't want me anymore." He shivered again, a single drop of liquid rolling from his eye. "After she died, he'd locked himself in his room for a week, and I thought he was going to disappear like Mom, and h-Gosha told me to not bother him yet, because he was grieving, and - I went to his door when Gosha had gone for an errand." He opened his eyes, another sob escaping his throat. "H-he told me to get lost, and to go away and never come back, because he was done raising me and he didn't want me, and that -" he paused to swallow his accumulated saliva - "It wasn't 'worth being there anymore if Leano wasn't there.' Then he pushed me back and slammed the door and told me to never talk to him." He drew in a heavy breath, letting it out as more tears poured from his black-colored eyes. "I told Gosha what he'd said, and I remember a lot of yelling. Then he left with his things one night, and I never saw him again." He hid his face from Jack with his large hand, sobs wracking his body.

Jack listened, turning his head more fully. As he spoke, his ears perked and his jaw went slack in horror, attempting to extend his hand towards his friend after he stopped speaking. "Legosi-"

"And I can't help but wonder," Legosi continued, obliviously deaf to Jack. "If I'd not talked to him, would he have... cooled down enough to stay? Or if I'd said something else other than asking if he was okay? What if I didn't spend enough time with him, so he didn't know how much I needed him? I tried, but he was doing his job a lot… maybe I shouldn't have told Gosha." He buried his head in his hands, letting out a slow breath. "This sounds really immature," he observed to himself. "And - what about my mother?" Legosi suddenly locked eyes with Jack for the first time; Jack's legs suddenly felt numbed at the anguish spilling from Legosi's eyes, the pitiful, primal desperation. "What if I'd talked to her more through that hole in the other room? Would she not have killed herself?" The gray wolf shuddered, staring down into nothingness and cradling his knees to his chest. He took a breath and let it out shakily. "The night she killed herself, she came to my bed and hugged me for a while. She thought I was asleep. I didn't want to say anything because I thought she'd get upset. But… if I had said… something…" He laid his head in between his knees, arms slack and at his sides. "Maybe I could have changed everything."

Jack's hand remained paralyzed in the air, blinking heavily as his neck fur rose. Oh, God, Legosi. He felt his heart wrench and tear inside of his chest. What do I say to that? This was a deeper, far more deeply rooted beast that Jack had never had experience with before; this was something that made any of Jack's confidence in his ability to help Legosi shrivel into a meaningless husk. What could Jack possibly do to try to fix this? It certainly didn't have a simple, on the nose answer to other topics such as trouble with that rabbit girl, or that time Legosi had asked him how he seemed to make friends so easily when he could barely keep a conversation with the other Room 701 students. This was different, intangible but present. It was something Jack couldn't see, but feel - the beast loomed over Legosi, slowly but steadily drawing the potential, sanity and life from him. This is terrifying, he thought disdainfully. How long had he held this in? He typically blurted out his insecurities whenever they had conversations like these, but never this long or breathtaking of a response. How much did he really know Legosi after all these years?

"Legosi?" he tried weakly, voice cracking. When he didn't respond, he cleared his throat and continued moving his hand, grabbing hold of Legosi's shoulder. "Legosi, look at me. Legosi." His head snapped up the third time, eyes wide and vulnerable, almost as if he was once again twelve and attending Leano's funeral. The pain in his eyes reminded him of when Legosi first told him about his reptilian heritage. Any words that ran through Jack's mind disappeared upon eye contact, and suddenly he found himself awkwardly wrapping his arms around Legosi's back and legs, which were still next to his chest. "Come here."

Legosi, bewildered, obeyed, putting his legs down and leaning into Jack's embrace, sniffling in confusion. "J-Jack?"

"Legosi, listen to me," Jack said, looking past Legosi's shoulder. Anything you say will go right through his heart right now, Jack. Choose your words wisely. "When your mother died, you were twelve. You were still trying to find your place at school, and you liked bugs. You were never one to talk much, but that didn't bother you, because you and the bugs were nice to each other. You were Legosi, the quiet, bug-loving wolf with a kind heart. That was your existence. There was nothing you could have done to influence your mother's death. That was completely her choice, not yours. In fact," he added gently, squeezing a little tighter when he felt Legosi's quiet sobs shake Jack's entire body. "She hugged you, didn't she? The night she took her life. If there was anything you could have possibly said back then, you had already said it by being Legosi, the quiet, bug-loving and kind wolf. There was nothing else to say - you'd said everything you could by being her son." He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes in an attempt to gather his thoughts. "In fact, being her son should have been enough reason to stay alive."

Jack felt Legosi's arms move from their stiffened position to touch Jack's back. It was a funny feeling - Legosi's arms were still stiff, even in this position. Sometimes Jack forgot Legosi likely hadn't had much physical contact beyond accidental bumps in the hallway since he left his grandfather's house. Legosi's touch was light, as if he was afraid he'd break Jack. The golden lab almost laughed at his over-polite demeanor - even while he was broken, he still managed to think about his wolfish strength and accommodate accordingly, even if he did so too often and too much. Jack felt warm tears flood their way to his eye sockets, but he shut the floodways quickly. He needs me right now. You can think about that later.

"As for your - h-him," he recovered, "There also... wasn't anything you could have done about that. His decisions are his, and his only. There wasn't any way ya coulda known he was gonna react like he did." Jack reached into nothingness for words, eyes darting back and forth. "Or leave. Even if you could have averted any of that, he'd already left and made that decision. Heck, he missed out more than you did, you're a great son. You are not at any fault here." Jack sighed heavily, resting his chin on top of Legosi's shoulder.

"And that's that."

Several silent moments passed, Jack acutely aware of the feeling of Legosi's heart thudding against his chest the wolf sobbed surpressently; he also noticed when the pulse of it slowed down when Legosi's breathing began to even out.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"...Am I overreacting about this? When there are so many others who have or had it worse than I do?"

Jack pulled himself back, snorting upon their separation. "If that was the case, I'd be the biggest drama king of them all," he joked, getting off the bed and clicking on the light. "Your feelings and emotions aren't invalid even if your situation might not be as bad as others. You've had all that junk holed up inside of you for probably a long time. If you were overreacting…" Jack tilted back his head after a moment, chuckling. "Well, I had something to put after that, but I lost it. Short answer: no." He opened the door of the dorm room. "Let's get something to eat, yeah? After you splash some water on your face, though - your eyes are still puffy."

Legosi stood up slowly, stretching his arms and heading towards the bathroom. "Uh - Jack?"

"Yes, Legosi?"

The light of the sun through the door caught Legosi's eyes. Jack blinked when he made eye contact - usually Legosi always kept a neutral, contented spirit around everyone wherever he went. But now, Jack sensed relief, as if the boulder he'd been carrying had been lightened - he knew too well that Legosi still had emotional baggage he hadn't addressed personally yet, and Jack knew that conversation didn't fix all his problems. But it seemed he'd alleviated at least some of the blame he'd placed on himself. I hope he's happy right now. He needs a break from being so depressed all the time. The wolf in front of him smiled - genuinely smiled. Such a great smile, Jack noticed. He'd be great with the ladies if he knew how to smile more often.

"Thank you."

Present, Gosha's household

"No, no, no - hey!" Gosha snapped, rushing over and pulling the teapot off of the gas stove and letting out a breath. "You almost over-boiled the tea."

Legosi growled irately, turning off the flame. "You said five minutes, though," he said, gesturing to the boxes of leaves set on the granite counter before him.

"For herbal tea, yes - but for black tea, it's four minutes," he corrected, pointing at two identical teabags. "That one on the left is leaves for black tea, and the other one is for herbal tea."

Legosi's mouth gaped slightly, blinking at the instructions. Is this what Haru did every day with her garden? How did she keep track of all those plants? "Uh… what's the difference, again?"

Gosha sighed, as if he'd said this countless times to a young animal. "Black tea smells more pungent than herbal tea, which has a more slight scent," he explained again. "You with your wolf nose should have figured out the difference by now, no?"

Legosi sighed and nodded, knowing that he was right. Tea leaves, for some reason, didn't register just right in Legosi's scent vault - perhaps it was because they were plants, and not animals. "Should I make another kettle, then?" Legosi offered, right ear twitching.

Gosha hummed, perching his finger on his lip. "...No, I don't think so - you'll learn tea fast enough. I say we start baking!"

"B-baking?"

Before Legosi could follow up, Gosha had already brought out several ingredients: eggs, flour, milk, sugar, bowls. "Since you're here, I want to make a cake with you."

Legosi's mouth moved silently for a moment, eventually clicking shut. "I-I suppose, I could learn…"

Gosha clapped his hand, clearly delighted. "Great!" he applauded. "So… the first thing you need to know about baking a cake…"

Gosha's words faded into the distance, Haru appearing in Legosi's mind. I wonder how she's doing. Did she ever know how to make tea? I bet she did - she took care of plants all day. His lips quirked upward a little and he blinked fondly. She'd probably be telling me how dumb I'm being right now, and then show me how to make tea and drill me until I knew it by memory.

"The first step is cracking the eggs," Gosha interrupted Legosi's thoughts cheerily, breaking open the carton to reveal shiny white eggs. "Your hands are much too big to try to crack them with two hands, so I'm going to just show you the one handed method." He delicately grabbed two eggs out of the box and cracked them on either side of the glass bowl in front of him, peeling apart the eggshells with his palms as he dropped the yolk and whites in the bowl. "It's more of a 'show you' skill than a 'tell you' one. You try," he encouraged, pulling out two more eggs and handing them to Legosi, who took them gently, staring at them wide-eyed. He turned to his own glass bowl in front of him and attempted to mimic his grandfather's motions, resulting in the egg completely splitting in half, the contents of each egg spilling on the sides of the bowl. "Uh…"

"Oh, that's quite alright - in fact, I should have taught you to break with two hands anyway, I forgot you have long fingers," Gosha assured, grabbing another egg and miming the movement over his bowl. "Just take your fingers and do it more lightly, then separate the shells and put the yolk in."

Legosi nodded, delicately taking another egg and copying the komodo dragon's movements again, this time cracking the egg and dropping the insides in perfectly. A smile began to grow on Legosi's face, but it dropped again when part of the shell fell out of his hand and into the bowl.

Gosha snorted, picking up the shell and throwing it out. "You got it," he chuckled lightheartedly, offering an assuring smile. "Now just do the other one."

After he'd finished with that, they moved on to the other steps: pouring the flour in, stirring it until well stirred, putting the sugar in. Legosi's mind was mainly focused on the eggs - his love for egg sandwich Wednesdays at Cherryton hadn't departed from his personality when he dropped school. I wonder how they make those sandwiches… and most importantly, whose eggs they were.

Eventually his mind wandered off to a different topic, one that Legosi wasn't sure he wanted to think about: him.

Or, not specifically him, but what he was supposed to be. Times like these with Gosha were really nice: sometimes they were still, quiet moments, and other times they were full of fun where Legosi actually began to enjoy himself for once, But… Legosi couldn't put his finger on it. He put a pinch of sugar in the bowl, choosing to mix more as he thought. It was almost as if… yes, that was it - it was a family picture in a frame, and Miyagi had been torn out. As much as he wanted to place him in Miyagi's place, Gosha was always a grandfather to Legosi. He couldn't just cut out Gosha from his spot of the family picture and put him where his own father was supposed to be. Legosi remembered vaguely trying to do that with the drama club coordinator at Cherryton, but again, he had been his teacher, and nothing else - the bird was always professional with every student he'd taught. He never really had a connection with any other males older than him, unless he counted Gouhin, but he decided not to go through that alleyway of thought. Miyagi had left a wide, gaping hole in the canvas of his life that Legosi had let become infected as the years drug on.

"...osi."

He was thankful Jack had been there that time at Cherryton to sanitize that wound, when he'd completely lost his mind about how he'd left and how Leano had killed herself. Frankly, I'm not sure where I'd be now if he hadn't come in the room. Would I have let it consume me…?

"Legosi."

The wolf didn't notice he'd stopped stirring, and when he came to his senses, he immediately bowed shortly. "Yurushite, grandpa," he apologized, mixing the cake together for a couple spins and bending himself in half to stick it in the oven. "I spaced out again, didn't I?"

Gosha didn't respond immediately, punching in the numbers on the oven and pressing the big START button. "You remind me a lot of your grandmother, you know," he stated, smiling wistfully.

Legosi froze, making eye contact with his grandfather. Gosha had never talked about his lover before - the only thing he knew from his mother was that his grandmother had passed before he was born. He was reminded of the portrait again, realizing that he wasn't entirely sure what a grandma was supposed to be, either. The word sounded foreign in his mind, as if he was learning another word he'd never use again outside of Cherryton. "Grand...ma?" he asked slowly, trying the word out loud.

Gosha nodded, taking his pink 'kiss the cook' apron off and sliding his mismatched potholder off his scaled hand. "She would always space out a lot like you," he elaborated, eyes misting over nostalgically. "The first date we went on, she spaced out for a solid minute, and I thought she'd eaten something she was allergic to. The first day we met, even. Or, hold on - she didn't 'space out' as much as she seemed a bit air-headed about the situation she had just escaped. Let's sit," he added quietly, gesturing to the round marble dining table Legosi remembered eating at many times when he was young. They sat down at opposite ends of the table, both animals lacing their fingers subconsciously. "I was walking the streets one night when I came along a thug trying to kill her for her pelt. After I… neutralized him, she seemed to be completely nonchalant about the whole thing." The older lizard laughed lightly, looking up at Legosi. "Much like how you talked about your own path of danger with a grain of salt."

Legosi frowned and looked away for a second - was that how he came across to other animals he cherished in his life? Maybe I should act like I care about my life a little more, he noted. No wonder Haru gets mad at me all the time. He quickly looked back up before Gosha noticed. "...What was grandma's name?" he asked gently, mindful to not interrupt Gosha's obvious memory-mood too abruptly. "I never knew her name."

Gosha squinted at Legosi, eyes still retrospective as he reached for his glasses, muttering about how he forgot he needed them as he placed them on.

"Your grandmother's name was Miryoku."

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

"Oh, looks like it's ready - Legosi, pull out the cake and I'll grab my frosting from the fridge," Gosha said after the several minutes of silence before the oven's announcement. Legosi stood and slipped the potholder on as he walked to the oven, grabbing both cakes individually.

"Do you remember which one's yours?" Gosha asked, seemingly recovered from his brief melancholy.

"The bottom one, you said I should put it there," Legosi reminded, taking the glove off. "Something about that I had more egg in mine…"

"Oh, that's right," Gosha remembered, taking the lid off a white jar and sticking a knife in it. "You got some egg in there when you tried to crack it the first time, I noticed, so yours'd need to be closer to the bottom so it heated faster." He spread the icing across both cakes professionally, muscle memory apparent as he swiftly finished the job. "Made it myself - and since I know you're immune to my poison, I added it to the mix for the flavor. I have a poison mix and a non-poison mix," he added, chuckling sheepishly. "Anyway-" he took another, longer knife and quickly cut two slices out of each cake, flipping them perfectly onto the plates he had set out before they started. "Let's try them!"

Legosi took one of the plates, wide-eyed at Gosha's expertise, briefly wondering just how long he'd been living alone. "I-I'll try yours, and you try mine?" he suggested.

Gosha agreed jovially, and they sat at the table, each biting into their respective slices.

A moment passed, both chewing in silence. Gosha cleared his throat after a moment. "Not bad for a first cake," he complimented, picking up the loaf and biting into it again. "It's a little on the chewy side, but I'd suspect it's because of the extra egg content."

Legosi swallowed, the marmalade-poison mixing well with the vanilla batter the pair had both used. "I like yours," he hummed, poking his finger in the frosting. "The frosting is a little sweet for my taste, but it's nice to have something sweet for once."

Gosha grinned, pushing his plate towards Legosi. "You try yours now," he told him, reaching and grabbing Legosi's plate. "I want to see how mine turned out."

Legosi blinked at the sudden interruption, but didn't complain, instead picking up his own cake and biting into it with his front teeth. Gosha was right: his cake was chewy, and tasted particularly of egg. Maybe he accidentally dropped more of the egg than he thought he did at first, when he tried the two-handed egg cracking technique.

Still, besides that - it was missing something. Legosi had followed Gosha's steps, and Gosha even came to approve what he was doing, yet something was… off. It wasn't exactly a complete cake, even though it was sitting right there in front of him. It had a quality to it that Gosha's didn't, though - which meant that his cake wasn't entirely complete, either.

Something was missing. Legosi thought again of the portrait of his life, and the holes that had been left in it even before he was born. Much like how something went wrong with this cake before it was made, Legosi couldn't help but think introspectively. There, decent, yet incomplete.

In the end, they both agreed Gosha's cake was better, due to the chewiness of Legosi's and the superior flavor of Gosha's, but they both traded one slice so they could have both cakes. They finished happily, Gosha rambling on about his work and day-to-day life, like a typical grandpa might.

And just for that part of the day, Legosi forgot the worries of the outside world and forgot about his wounds, of Haru and Jack and Miyagi, Melon and Yafya, what had happened at the mask party less than a week ago. Legosi felt burdenless, the positivity of his grandfather's presence stirring genuine happiness; it didn't really matter what the food tasted like, really. The day ended like a normal day might, which ironically was atypical for the gray wolf - Gosha showed him to his room and told him the rules of showering at his house, when they were going to wake up the next morning (he'd be helping his grandpa run errands), etcetera.

Legosi couldn't help but notice: for that day, it was almost as if both the portrait and the cake were complete.