"We haven't gone hunting in a while." I lower the magazine from my face as I cast a quick glance in Masato's direction. While I was flipping through to see what might the latest fashion be, Masato was busy practicing his calligraphy and Ranmaru was dragged out by Reiji no less than five minutes ago. Usually our days off in our room passed by quietly, with the times that we speak only being when we mention work issues. Despite our rivalry becoming more like our old friendship, and the fact that we're pack members, we still kept our distance from each other.

I look back toward my magazine. "Do you really miss it that much?" We haven't been on a hunt in months, not since our curse was lifted from us. We spent little time as wolves now, except on nights when none of us worked the next morning. In fact, every time we found it to be just the members of STARISH, we spent that time together as wolves, playing games or simply laying around in the sun.

Without looking up from his work, he replies, "I'm not saying I do. I'm just… Making an observation."

I chuckle. "It's okay if you miss it. I miss it a bit too."

He pauses before looking up. "When we first started hunting, we all agreed it was because of the wolf…"

"But eventually we all agreed that it was because we enjoyed hunting, that we liked hunting in a pack…"

"Which is why I was wondering why we hadn't done it in a while?" Masato turns back to his paper, placing another dark stroke along the maize colored paper. "It just came to mind is all…"

Closing the magazine, I place it on the clear table in front of me. "We've been busy you know. Ever since the Utapri award, we've been getting more job offers."

"And yet we still find time to spend together as wolves. Yet we don't spend it hunting."

I cast a glare in his direction. He ignored me, and continued with his practice, without pause or hesitation. "You don't seem like the person to bring something up and not want to do something about it. I'll admit it; hunting seems like a good thing for us to do, but what do you think the others would say?"

"There's more than one reason for why I brought this up. At my last interview, while I was waiting in the dressing room with Otoya and Cecil, they brought it up to me. They both said they've been having dreams of them hunting, and they're starting to miss it."

I hum softly in response as I look out the window. Fall was just around the corner and with cold weather comes a lack of prey. Through my times as a wolf, I learned all too quickly that animals either travel away in herds or hide away in their dens as cold weather sets in. Either way, there's no telling how well a hunt would go for us. Without looking away from the window, I make the comment towards Masato, "Fall is just around the corner…"

"I am aware of that. I'm also aware that prey may be scarce this time around."

"We might not run into another deer. We might not run into anything at all." I cast a glance in his direction.

"Does it matter? So long as we're together as a pack." He glances in my direction as well.

Chuckling, I respond, "You have a point Masato. I'll let the others know and we'll schedule the best night for it." He doesn't say anything in response, but instead looks away, the smallest smile gracing his features.

Smiling, I look up toward the moonlit sky and the stars that dotted it. My inner wolf was gone, I knew that, but I never failed to feel the need to howl every time I saw that pearly orb high above me. Even as a wolf, I could never quite figure out why being outside at night felt not only calming but also appealing in its own sense. Good thing we're meeting at the tree in the field and not in the woods. I'd never be able to see the sky under all those branches.

"I feel the same. The night sky looks beautiful..." Masato flashes a small smile in my direction. It was the first word either of us has said to each other since we've started walking toward our destination.

I scowl slightly at his response. "Have I ever told you I find it slightly bothersome when you know what I'm thinking about?"

He scoffs. "I've known you since we we're children; it's no surprise I can read you like a book. And the fact that we've become members of a pack has only made me able to read you better."

Growling at his response, I tell him, "I still think our werewolf telepathy thing we all share is weird."

"It comes with being a pack. It makes hunting easier too."

I smirk at him. "You certainly seem excited. And so I ask again; do you really miss it that much?"

"About as much as you do…" He replies.

I give a soft 'hmph' before focusing on my own steady pace. Just like that, we fell into a quiet world, not a sound but the own chirping of crickets and the wind through the leaves. Though we we're both silent, I'm sure both of us could feel the anticipation the other had. Didn't think I could ever be this excited over killing an animal.

"Hey, guys!" Stopping, we look up to see the others gathered around the base of the tree, Otoya waving his hands excitedly. I grin as I walk over to them, Masato in tow. "We're all here and ready to go hunting."

Cecil walks up behind him, putting his hand on his shoulder, "Well, most of us are." He cast a glance over at Tokiya, who was standing off to the side, head in his hand.

Smirking, I ask, "Oh come on, what's wrong Ichi?"

Tokiya sighs as he rubs the bridge of his nose. "I thought we stopped this when the curse was lifted."

"Nothing wrong with bringing it up again." I reply.

Otoya grins at him. "Come on, Tokiya. How many times have we gone hunting together?"

"I wouldn't know, I've lost track after the first fifteen hunts."

"Which means one more won't make a difference." Syo shrugs. Tokiya stares at him with little interest. "Just one more time."

Tokiya raises a brow at the shorter idol. "We've said that every time we went on a hunt." Otoya pouts at the older idol for only a moment before Tokiya suddenly growls. "Fine…" Otoya blinds Tokiya with his smile, while Tokiya glares in return.

"Well, Ichi," I step forward. "Since you seem to think this a waste of time, why don't you lead the hunt tonight?"

"Me?" I nod. "What for?"

"Tokiya," Natsuki places a hand on his shoulder. "We're a pack; we've been through a lot together. And if I'm not mistaken, you once said you like hunting too."

"I do like hunting," Tokiya turns to him. "Really I do. I just expected us to stop when we we're given back our humanity." The night turns eerily quiet at his words, as we let them sink in a bit. Humanity, huh? Slowly, I take a step back from him. We all do. Tokiya sighs as he leans against the tree, "I don't mean it like that. We're not… Not monsters. I just don't like that the thought of killing a deer makes my mouth water."

"Yeah, no we get that. We do…" I run a hand through my hair, letting out a heavy sigh as well.

None of us seemed too eager to talk about it, and we all showed some expression of sadness or guilt. Tokiya sighs again before turning to us. "How do you think Haruka would feel if we told her about our hunting?"

Syo glares at him. "We made a promise not to."

"I know, but what if? How do you think she would react?"

"Obviously, not well," Masato crosses his arms. "She'd be frightened of us. She wouldn't be able to even look in our direction."

"Because she would view it as something monstrous, right?" Tokiya tilts his head to the side.

I start to say, "It was our wolves-"

"But now it's us." A few moments of silence drift by as each one of us contemplate those words. We're not… It's just in good sport, right? So what if a deer or two die, that's just nature. We're not… We're doing nothing wrong. No one's getting hurt.

I cough to break the silence. "Listen, Ichi, if you don't want to go hunting that's fine. We don't have to at all, really."

"No, no. Uh, ignore me. I'm just thinking too much about it. I said I'd go hunting and I will." He sighs as he unzips his hoody, revealing a white shirt underneath before taking that off as well. "Are you coming or not?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I remove my own clothes as well, as do the rest of them. By the time our clothes we're tucked away under the roots of the tree, we we're already off searching for our prey of the night, the past conversations lost the chirping crickets.

At first, there was nothing, as expected. It was still very early in the fall season but, without a doubt, most of the prey in the area has moved on. We came across the occasional squirrel and rabbit, but our rumbling stomachs told us they wouldn't satisfy. Strange, we all ate our fill of dinner, so why are we so hungry all of a sudden?

Tokiya seemed uneasy, at first, but he quickly fell back in the routine of hunting for a meal. I knew it wasn't his first time leading a hunt, but he made quite the leader. After we started, he spent more time wandering rather than searching, but the second he came across the smell of a deer he completely changed his behavior.

"Female deer. She passed by about ten minutes ago. The scent's still fairly strong." He told us. He pushed his snout to the earth for a moment or two before lifting it and smelling the air. "This way." He runs forward through the thicket, jumping over a few fallen logs and elevated roots. We soon slow down into a clearing, nothing but bare earth and dead leaves. Stopping, he motions for me to come closer. "What do you think?"

"You're asking me?"

"You have the better nose out of all of us. I can't smell too well past the decaying leaves and mushrooms. The earth's too fresh."

I scoff. "Excuses, excuses." Ignoring the annoyed glare, I point my nose toward some of the turned over leaves on the ground. The scent was fresh, and even I could barely smell past the wet leaves and soft earth, but luckily I caught just a whiff of where the scent was going. "Up ahead," My ears catch the sound of rushing water. "Just past a stream I believe."

Tokiya nods to me before barking for the others. We run past thick brush and stray twigs for mere moments before we come across said stream. Tokiya pauses as he takes another sniff of the air, unsure of where to go to next. With a soft bark, Syo flicks his ears toward a stray bush, just near the water's edge. Hanging off one of the branches was a tuft of fur, presumably the deer's. Every one of us stops to inhale the scent, as a clear path towards our prey appears to us.

Otoya nudges Tokiya's shoulder. "There's a small clearing up ahead. She probably ran over there. It's a popular grazing spot from what I can tell."

"I know the one," Cecil steps forward. "Back when we took down our first buck. He fought us in that clearing, remember?"

"Care to lead the way then?" Tokiya nods to him in encouragement. Cecil nods in return and walks through the shallow rushing water.

"Hold on," Masato stops us. He leans down towards the water before stepping his paw in it carefully. "We can use the water to mask our scents. She won't know we're coming."

"Smart thinking, Masato." Tokiya praises. Without hesitation, we carefully jump into the shallow water, making sure to be properly covered before bounding off into the forest again.

It didn't take us long before we came across the very clearing Cecil mentioned, with the deer grazing in the center. When we're in clear shot of it, Tokiya immediately tells us to lay low. Slowly, we creep forward, careful to not let the wind catch our scent. The deer makes no notice of us and continues to graze along the fresh grass.

Casually, I ask, "It's a bit late for her to have a midnight snack, don't you think?" Tokiya shushes me before turning his attention back to the deer.

"We're downwind, so stay on this side of the clearing. Don't move to attack until I give the signal," Tokiya flicks his ears forward and slightly sways his tail, signifying what he meant by signal. "Otoya, you and Syo are the fastest so you'll be the first to attack. Natsuki and Ren, I want you to keep her from running out of the clearing. Masato and I will help with the attack after Otoya and Syo have weakened her. Cecil, if push comes to shove, I won't you to aim for her throat, and if not, you'll help Masato and I. Everyone understand?" We all nod in recognition. "Good, stay in sight of me."

Quickly, and carefully, we spread out on the designated side of the clearing. We've been through this several times, though the lineup changes every once in a while. Otoya and Syo we're the fastest out of all of us, and with Natsuki's size and my strength we usually got stuck with keeping the prey in the area. Sometimes, depending on who was in charge of the hunt, it would be switched around, but we usually kept to what we we're good at.

The deer takes no notice of our activity. We spread out from each other, all of us making sure we had a clear view for Tokiya's signal. The deer stops grazing for a moment, as she lifts her head from the earth. We freeze in our spots; none of us move a muscle. The deer sniffs the air a few times, but smelling no threats, returns to her grazing. Tokiya makes his signal and the game begins.

In the blink of an eye, Syo and Otoya are just mere meters away from the deer, fangs bared and ready to strike. The deer has almost no time to react before two sets of jaws are lodged into her flank and hind legs. She bucks as hard as she can, barely missing Otoya and Syo's faces. Natsuki and I take that as the perfect moment to run in.

She aims to move away from the others, and almost makes it to the edge of the clearing, but we jump directly in front of her, nipping and snapping at her front legs. She cries out in surprise before attempting to run back, but Otoya and Syo are on her heels yet again. She cries out again, this time in pain, when Otoya makes a sharp bite along her hind leg. She turns around, back towards us and her front hooves facing the other two. With as much force as she can muster she flails her front legs toward the two wolves, missing them entirely.

Tokiya makes yet another signal, as both he Masato and Cecil rush forward to attack her. Masato attempts to aim for her chest, but she swings her hooves toward him again, effectively keeping him from attacking her. However, she fails to notice Tokiya sneaking off to her side, and in a surprise attack, lands on the deer's back. This frightens the deer and in an unexpected manner, bucks him off of her. He lands with a thud and a yelp, just mere meters away.

While she took that single moment to throw off the wolf, she fails to notice the black and brown one aimed straight for her throat. Within seconds, Cecil had his jaws locked tightly around the deer's throat. She bucks for a second or two before falling over, all life drained away.

We all seem to beam proudly over our victory, though Otoya stops to run over to Tokiya. Tokiya assures him he's fine, and that he simply had the wind knocked out of him. "Nothing to worry over. I shouldn't have tried for something so risky anyway."

"On the bright side, we caught a deer Tokiya!" Otoya yips excitedly. He rushes over to look her over before running back to the darker wolf. "She's a big one too. She'll make for a filling meal!"

"Good to hear."

"And, as per our usual customs," I stride closer to him. "Leader of the hunt gets first bite."

Tokiya nods to me as the rest of us move away from the carcass. He sniffs the fur along the deer's body before opening his mouth and tearing off a piece of the fur covered flesh. Slowly, we walk over as well, each of us taking our fair share of bites from the deer.

I never actually realized how hungry I was until I noticed that half the deer was already gone. And soon more than half was gone and then barely any meat was left on the bones. We never talked when we ate, not as wolves at least. We spent the whole time filling our stomachs; the talking came after the meal. And the meal ended the same like every other hunt; with us unknowingly shifting back into our human forms as we continue eating the last remains of the deer.

That's how it always ends up, despite the fact that the curse was lifted; we still fell back into the same torturing scene each time. I'd suddenly look down to see my own two hands digging between the bones and organs of some random animal. I'd look up to see that the others haven't noticed in the slightest. Six other people sat around me, and all of them we're stuffing their faces as if this was the last meal they'd ever get. Even now, I could still see some remnants of the wolf in their eyes.

And then, we'd spend the next hour or so sitting around not even attempting to look each other in the eye. How can we? Every time I look the others in the face, all I'll see is my own monstrous reflection looking back.

But for now, we kept eating. We ignored the blood under our nails, and the warm raw meat sliding down our throats as we chewed on the bones of the remaining deer. Without a moment's hesitation, I reach my hand forward into the animal carcass, and pull out another strip of meat before stuffing it into my mouth, the warm salty liquid falling pass my lips and into my own hands. Ignoring it, I reach forward again and repeat the process. Again, and again, until all that remained were the blood dyed bones.

"Why do we keep doing this?" I ask. No one looks at me, but I know they heard me. "You… You all know what this does to us. We can't just keep pretending like it's nothing, because it's not!" I run my hands across my face, blood smears across it into an obscene mark..

We sat in the same pattern, with all of us just meters away from each other surrounding the dead body of the prey we just caught and ate. And of course, we all sat around for a good twenty minutes before I finally broke the silence.

"I'd rather not talk about it right now…" Tokiya raises his hand to stop me, a dull and distant look in his eyes.

"We should! You all know we have to stop this at some point! We have to stop this!"

"What do you have to be so frantic over?" Masato asks. "You saw what we all saw, yet you kept eating like the rest of us."

"I know! And I hate myself for that!" Sighing, I run my hand through my hair. "Look… Doesn't it bother you guys at all? Does any of this bother you?"

"We'd be lying if we said we didn't…" Natsuki replies.

"Then why do we keep doing it? If we hate it so much, why do we keep doing it?"

Cecil comments, "An addiction maybe..."

An awkward silence falls over us as a couple flies buzz over to the carcass. Groaning, I place my face in my hands before wiping away some of the blood. "What would the Little Lamb do if she saw us like this?"

"Don't say that…" Otoya stops me this time. "I don't even want to imagine her reaction if she saw us."

"Listen, Ren," Syo leans forward slightly. "I know what you mean. It wasn't a good idea to go along with this."

"Yes it… No, I mean, maybe, but none of you have answered my question; why do we keep doing this?" Mustering up my best glare, I stare each of them down long and hard. They were obviously uncomfortable under my gaze, judging by the way they shifted and looked away.

Masato sighs before answering, "It's only right if we're wolves. As humans… It's wrong."

Natsuki pulls his legs up to his chest. "So are we wolves or humans?"

"Some ungodly cross between the two most likely... " Tokiya comments.

I glance between the others, all of them once again lost in their own thoughts. Leaning back, I tell them, "It used to be fun. Back then."

"Maybe because we had the wolf to blame back then." Otoya shrugs as he rest his head in his hand. Instead of saying anything, I choose to cover my own face with my hands, hunched over a decaying carcass. Otoya must have noticed and he coughs lightly, causing me to look up again. "Remember that pact we made a while ago? What happens in the forest stays in the forest. We'll end up going home and forgetting the whole thing, like we always do."

"But how long before we decided to go hunting again?" I ask.

They all shrug at the question. Cecil turns to me and says, "It would depend on us wouldn't it?"

On us, huh? No doubt we'll do this again. And no doubt we'll be plagued with the very same thoughts as we are now. It'd be a good thing to stop, right? We're human, but we're also wolves. I shake my head of the thoughts. This is too much to think about right now.

"So what now?" Syo asks.

Sighing, I run my hand through my hair again as blood chips off onto the earth in front of me. Shaking my head, I respond, "I'm going to wash the blood off in that stream back there. And then I'm going to find a place to sleep for the night. You all can do what you want."

"You're not going back to the room?" Masato ask.

"No. I have too much on my mind to suddenly forget about." Changing into a wolf, I drag myself off through the woods, the others slowly but surely following. I can't forget. Not now. Not ever. For everything I've done, I deserve to remember it.