So baeowulf has an excellent "Ibuki survives Free's bullet and leaves the Shishigumi to become an author" AU in the Beastars RPC, so I had to play around with how Cosmo learned he wasn't really dead, and got back into contact with him.

This technically is separate from the rest of my Cosmo/Ibuki pieces and the implication is here, they don't hook up until after Ibuki leaves the Shishigumi, but I suppose you could still read it in line with the others.

The title is about cats and their nine lives:
1. Childhood with his family
2. Time in the hyperdrug industry
3. With the old Shishigumi
4. Serving Louis
5. ?

The Shishigumi hadn't been by in a while. Cosmo hadn't realized quite how used to their presence—and her manager's ration of shit for her attracting gangsters—she had grown until she was faced with their absence. Ibuki and Free were the driving forces behind much of their visiting, she knew, but the others occasionally ambled by on their own. Most of them were passingly familiar with Cosmo by then, and knew what a good show she put on. So the realization that she hadn't seen any of them in nearly three weeks put a slight furrow in her brow.

Because it was the Black Market, there were rumors. There had been a coup in the Shishigumi, they said. The lions had eaten their boss, they said. The Shishigumi had won a turf war and then turned their guns on each other, they said. Half of the lions were dead or maimed, they said, the gang was probably done for. Parsing the truth from the bullshit was a talent necessary to get by in that part of town, especially for an herbivore, but it didn't take long for it to become clear that something seismic had gone on amongst the Shishigumi. For one, the low profile the lions were keeping in their own territory. And something else rang true from the mire of tall tales and breathless rumor:

Louis-sama was gone.

That story persisted through all the rest, and already animals Cosmo knew Louis had put under his boot were getting impertinent again, which they would never have done if there was a chance the Prince of the Black Market was still around to show his displeasure. Laying low had never been Louis' style—even if he had been injured, or betrayed, Cosmo felt sure he would be making himself seen in his territory to prove nothing real had changed. So there was only one explanation for the current state of affairs: he really was gone.

That made Cosmo nervous.

Ibuki was Louis' right-hand man. If Louis was gone, either Ibuki had had a hand in it (which confounded everything she knew of Ibuki's attitude towards his boss), or he was running the risk of being taken out along with the boss as one of the old guard.

Their second boss dead in less than a year…it was a tumultuous time to be a lion in the Denko's underbelly.

It was Free who showed up at last, and the relief that rushed through Cosmo died a quick death at the fidgeting of Free's fingers. Still, she kept poised as she sauntered up to his table, the low, red-tinted lighting keeping her out of his notice until she was right in front of him.

"Look what the scrubs dragged in," she remarked, folding her arms, cocking a hip to the side. "Been a while since I've seen you around, kitty-cat." Free grunted.

"Busy with work," he said, but his smirk didn't overtake the weariness in his eyes. Seeing Free looking tired set off alarm bells Cosmo rarely heard inside her head.

"Too busy for your favorite okapi?" she asked with a pout, swishing her tail. "I'm hurt, Free-kun." Free let out a rush of breath in a sigh, and grabbed her hips, turning her and pulling her onto his lap, despite her many reminders (often while letting him do things just such as that) that the rules of the club forbade him from touching her. It wasn't like Ricky was going to throw out a Shishigumi.

"Hey, I'm here now, ain't that enough?" Free rubbed a hand along her thigh, but there was a distractedness to it. Plenty of animals used the dancers of The Red Chamber as a distraction, but Free usually wasn't one of those—Free liked action, he didn't want to be distracted. By the time he swaggered through the club doors, he was done with whatever needed doing (or putting it off until he felt more inclined to take care of it), and just looking for a good time. "And I've got lost time to make up for."

Cosmo twisted around to look at him with a properly sneering look.

"Or maybe I've found others who tip better while you've been gone."

"Ha! I doubt that, but just in case…" Free took a bill from his coat pocket and tucked it down the front of Cosmo's dress. "Buy yourself another pair of shoes."

"I will." She made a show of adjusting her cleavage to accommodate the cash, and took the chance to study Free's expression. Herbivores spoke often of a sense of being watched. A preternatural feeling of danger approaching. Cosmo felt it then, her heart starting to pick up, like she was venturing down a deserted alleyway at late, and hearing Isabella's warnings about doing such things echoing in the back of her head. "So…what've you been up to, then? I've heard some whack stories about you cats lately."

"Nothing interesting," Free grunted.

"Oh, yeah? Because I heard—" Something low, an almost-growl, sounded deep in Free's throat, and he wrapped his arms around Cosmo's middle, pulling her in to press his face into the back of her shoulder.

"Hey, what time you off, baby girl?" he asked. "And how much I gotta slip Ricky to get you out of here now?"

"Tsk! I'm off at four, and you're not getting anything earlier."

"You sure? I can tip mighty good," he said, and she could hear that toothy grin behind her. "Make it worth his while."

"I heard Louis' dead." At once, the arms around her stiffened, then released, and Free slouched back in his seat.

"Goddammit." The expletive left him through gritted teeth, and Cosmo turned on his lap to side sideways, leaning into speak close to his ear.

"What happened? Is it true? None of the Shishigumi have been around here in almost a month. Where's Ibuki?" The repetition of the growling noise might once have been enough to dissuade her from further questions, but she had spent enough time around carnivores, and around lions—and this lion—to shrug it off.

"Can't talk about this stuff, babe, you know that," he said, trying to put her off as he usually did whenever she asked something too detailed about work business.

"I don't need all the details," she said, lifting a hand to his shoulder to feign they were just necking. "But you have to tell me something. You don't hear all this stuff everyone is saying."

"People are spreading rumors about the Shishigumi, huh?"

Cosmo huffed and drew back to look into Free's yellow-brown eyes.

"Free. Come on, it's been for-fucking-ever since you've been here and I haven't seen Ibuki either. Just tell me everything's—"

"He's dead."

"What?"

"I shot him."

Cosmo's effort to keep their conversation under wraps was rapidly unraveling: she stared at him in shock, ears angled back, clearly waiting for some more detail on that confession.

"…why?"

"Didn't have a choice," he grunted, bouncing one knee and looking off towards the bar. "He didn't leave me any. Had to do it for the boss' safety."

"Free—!"

"That's all there is, okay?" he snarled, turning back to her with fangs bared, so that even Cosmo jumped back, nearly sliding off his lap. "That's it. That's what you get. Now, I need a drink." He pushed her off him and went for the bar.

"Cosmo!" The familiar and wearisome sound of Ricky calling Cosmo off the floor to scold her for something took her from Free's table. "We have talked about you letting the guests get touchy—" After Ricky's lecture was through, she caught sight of Free exiting with a puma on his arm, and a scowl pulled at her lips.

That was it? Okay, so maybe it was a stretch to call them friends, but they had spent time together, and Free knew that she spent time with Ibuki—outside of the club—and he just went and dropped that in her lap, and left?

Fucking asshole, she thought. The reality of it wasn't something she could even think about until after work, so it was on her walk home from the bus stop that she really turned it over in her mind. Hearing that the Shishigumi were experience a change in management had worryingly tugged at the edges of her mind for this exact reason: If the Shishigumi had decided that it was time for Louis to go, Ibuki was simply too devoted to him to be allowed to live. If Louis went, Ibuki had to go too. She hadn't even had a chance to hear about what happened to Louis, and why. From all appearances, things had been going swimmingly for the deer and his lion pride. But gilt-edged coffins still hid rotting corpses.

That was it, then. Maybe none of the rest of it mattered. Ibuki was dead, and that was the question she'd really been asking. That thought brought memories of him bubbling to the surface: the gleam of late afternoon sun turning his mane golden, the low rumble of his voice, the anticipatory tightness in her belly when he approached.

Well, life in the Market was ephemeral, she told herself. Ibuki had dodged the reaper's scythe at least twice before; it was about time death finally punched his card. Free was right: that's all there was.

So why couldn't she accept that?

Ibuki persisted in her mind, and at the oddest times: brushing her teeth, painting her nails, trying to pick out the ripest mango at the store. Events that seemed wholly detached from anything that might trigger a memory of the lion who had stalked her footsteps far more often than was advisable (for her, anyway: for him, it was likely to end in a nice meal). She would stand in front of a storefront, studying a dress in the window, and realize, having been there for many minutes, that she had no recollection of what the dress looked like, because she had spent the entire time absorbed in recollections of how her hands had felt, enveloped in Ibuki's, as he showed her how to hold the pistol he carried. She had laughed off the idea of her packing heat, which Ibuki had not approved of—he considered it irresponsible of her not to—and yet she was here, and he was gone.

I win that argument, then, she thought with a bitter snort.

It was more than just the memories though—Free's story didn't sit right, too jagged and angular, with too many missing pieces. It kept coming back to nag at her, like some voice in her head was trying to show her something. That Free began avoiding her—avoiding The Red Chamber— immediately after his close-lipped story about what had happened to one of his oldest friends only lent credence to Cosmo's suspicions. So when she caught sight of that familiar pompadour bobbing down the sidewalk at ass o'clock on a Thursday morning, she had to chase him down, company be damned.

"Free!" Suddenly being turned on by three fully-grown male lions was enough to make even Cosmo stop where she was, but not nearly enough to deter her. "Been a while since I've seen you at the club," she said, a needling accusation in her voice. Brushing past it–there was no time for pettiness–she pressed on: "I need to talk to you."

"Rex's scaled asscheeks," he swore, the wrinkle on the bridge of his nose and the tight twitching of his tail speaking to his displeasure. Normally, Free was a reasonably amiable sort, as far as mobsters went. He and Cosmo had always gotten along, in part thanks to their shared recklessness, but he clearly had not gotten over her pushiness back at the club. Well, if he would tear her face off now for asking again, then she could just ask Ibuki herself.

She held Free's gaze, until he ground his teeth and muttered further profanity under his breath, then swung his head over to the other two lions, whose names Cosmo couldn't place—not the young one, Agata, or the one who styled his mane like a mohawk, Sabu.

"I have to take care of this," he grunted. "Go ahead without me. Should be quick."

"With you? I'm sure it will be," said the pretty one with a quick huff of amusement, flicking an eye over Cosmo as if appraising a product.

"Hardy-har-har," Free replied. "Come on, let's get this over with." He swept past Cosmo, hands stuffed into his pockets, shoulders hunched, without offering any real comeback to his pride-mate's comment on his stamina. It was unlike Free, not to take the chance to make sex jokes. She let him lead her into a ramen bar, which was empty at that early hour of the day, and quelled her impatient shifting as he ordered a beer and lit up a cigarette.

"What is it you want?" he asked, wearing the same defensive posture as out on the street.

"You know," she replied, twisting her stool to face him. "The truth."

"I gave it to you," he said.

"That can't be all of it," she said. "What happened to Louis?"

"Why do you care?"

"Why do you care why I care?" There was that hard look in Free's good eye, and Cosmo chewed the inside of her cheek, sensing she was losing this fight. She had to show Free she had skin in the game, or he was just going to brush her off. As much as she hated to make herself vulnerable, some of it was required to get what she wanted. So she made her eyes plead, and leaned in. "No one else can help me," she said softly, her voice cracking as she went on, as it was prone to do due to an okapi's weak vocal chords, which served excellently to illicit sympathy now. "Please, Free."

The lion shook his massive head, and looked away from her, reaching for his beer. The smoke from his cigarette wafted around his mane and up towards the cheap lantern lights. The kitchen was quiet with the absence of customers, and the street had not yet accumulated the traffic that would populate it by midday. It felt like they were in a dream, where other animals existed, but only in the periphery, as if to assure them the world was not totally empty.

He was going to leave. He was going to stub out his cigarette, knock back the beer, and leave her with nothing, because he was a gangster, and gangsters didn't talk gang business with nosy strippers. Cosmo slid off her stool and leaned an arm against his shoulder, putting her mouth by his face.

"I'll trade you," she murmured. "Tell me what I want to know, and you can have a turn for free." Free snorted and shrugged her off as he turned to her with more of the spirit she was used to seeing from.

"Now how the shit's that supposed to make me feel, huh?" Cosmo blinked at him. "Willing to give it up no charge just for that? Now I know which of us is your favorite." She exhaled through her nose and shook her head.

"I would've said that if you asked, Free."

"Ye-owch, you're merciless, Cosmo-chan." Free curled a fist under his chin and worked his jaw from side-to-side. "You really want to know, huh?" He cast a side-eyed glance at her. "Don't tell me you're carrying a torch, huh?" He grinned, and Cosmo fought the urge to cross her arms, instead settling for angling her ears back and giving an agitated sweep of her tail.

"Come on, Free. Stop jerking me around." He let out another sigh, his tail swishing irregularly.

"He's not dead," he mumbled at last, around the mouth of the beer bottle.

"Alive!" As soon as the exclamation left her mouth, Free hissed at her.

"On the down-low! Look." He gave a quick huff and turned to face her fully. "What I told you before is, as far as anyone is concerned, the truth. It has to be, okay? You're a smart animal, you know why." She wanted to berate him for lying to her before, but there were other things she needed from him now.

"Where?" she asked, feigning interest in the menu, and taking her seat again.

"Not in our neighborhood," Free replied.

"No? Why?"

"Long story."

"Can you tell me where?"

"Jeepers fucking creepers, you don't give up, do you? Ugh. Stop looking at me like that. You herbivores, with those big fucking sad eyes. What difference does it make, you gonna go pay a visit? Fuck, don't answer that. What is this, one of those stupid romance novels he picks up from the corner cart? Fine, fine! Gimme your phone." Cosmo handed it over, and Free punched something in, and slid it back to her. "This is the neighborhood. And for the record, the old bastard's number is still the same." Then he knocked back the rest of his drink and rose to his feet. "You really have no sense of self-preservation, do you?" Cosmo shrugged.

"So I've heard," she said.

She had what she needed: an address and a phone number. Why then, did her progress stop in its tracks? For days she sat on the information Free had given her, and did nothing with it. Maybe, she thought, all she needed was the confirmation that Ibuki was alive. Maybe she could move on, knowing that he was not dead, and that he'd gotten out of the Black Market. That didn't feel right, though.

Maybe, she felt guilty about—no. She couldn't even entertain that thought to its conclusion: she didn't feel anything about how she'd gotten this from Free. Animals did what they had to in the Market.

Maybe it was what Free had said about the phone. The old bastard's number is still the same. So was hers—so why hadn't he sent her a message? Something, anything? Just a casual "Hey I know the story going around the Market right now but I'm not actually dead", or something? Was she not worth that, to him? And if she wasn't, why should she bother contacting him now? Maybe this was his chance to sever relationships with everyone in the Market.

Animals rarely left the Market, and when they did, they often came crawling back in worse straits than when they left. There was no straddling the Market, but for a select few: you were either in, or you were out. If Ibuki had left—and was successful in leaving—it was only a matter of time before he cast off every remaining Black Market association he had. It was only reasonable.

For a few days, she considered the silence in and of itself was a message. Then, she told herself she was getting a bit old for those kinds of groundless assumptions, wasn't she? Ibuki had been shot, it was entirely probable that contacting his favorite local stripper was not at the top of his to-do list. If she could get in touch with him, it would be easy for her to figure out whether or not he was interested in prolonging their relationship. One had to learn to read people in her line of work.

At last, she sent a text.

[text to: Ibuki] You alive?

And waited.

It was twelve hours before the response came in:

[text to: Cosmo] Yes.

Well there it was. Her work was done. There was some relief, as if she had not totally believed Free, and needed to hear from Ibuki himself before she accepted he was alive, and at once she chided herself for that. Animals came and went in the Market: there was no sense getting attached to anyone.

(But was it so wrong, that she should be glad he wasn't dead?)

At least three dozen times over the next several days she went back to the conversation, as if to verify that he had not said anything else. Lying on her bed in her apartment, she stared down the one word, which she had somehow convinced herself was all she needed, up until she had it, at which point she realized how woefully inadequate it was.

Yes. Was it to be the last thing she ever heard from him? How badly had he been hurt by Free's bullet? Enough they could pass him off for dead, but fabricating stories was part of being a mobster, wasn't it?

Did he have nothing else to say to her?

Was she not worth anything else?

Was he too injured to write anything more?

Did he not know what to say?

Cosmo made a displeased sound in the back of her throat, the closest an okapi could get to growling. She was acting like a moron, and she detested this kind of anxious, mealy-mouthed behavior from herself. It wasn't her.

[text to: Ibuki] Coffee?

Unpresumptuous. Getting coffee was one of the things they had done before—it had been his idea, to get together outside her workplace, for purely civilian pleasures. It had been surprisingly enjoyable, and for all that Ibuki had the voice that was nice to listen to, he was content to let Cosmo talk endlessly, about the most trivial things. Moreover, he was excellent at being—or at least feigning he was—interested, no matter how little he knew about the subject at hand.

And she'd have an immediate answer about whether Ibuki had meant to shut the door on her. She should have, anyway: it took almost twenty-four hours to get a response, at which point she was starting to think he was not going to reply at all, and that was going to be her answer. Getting off work to find he still had not responded was more disappointing than she wanted to admit, standing there in the dressing room, in her glittery costume, with no new message in the text thread. Later that night (or possibly early the next morning, depending on how one wanted to classify; Cosmo's schedule was far from diurnal), she finally got something.

[text to: Cosmo] Yes. Where?

A smile threatened to spread across her face, and she bit down on her lower lip in an effort to stop it. She didn't have to let go of this one just yet.