"What time is it?"

"No idea. Close your eyes."

He does so as Agata turns the water back on, the warm stream cascading over their bodies. For once, he's glad the mansion has ridiculously large shower stalls because they both fit just right into this one. It's usually their routine on mornings where neither of them has anything to do – except this day, Melon certainly has a to-do list, beginning with dealing with a delivery guy that tried to cheat them, but the night has been long and filled with very little sleep, so he decided to indulge anyway.

He lets Agata's hands run over his arms, down his back, thumbs pressing just a little more over his tense muscles. He has always used water to try and wash away the ghosts, never considered before meeting the lion to drown them instead with more touch. It works better than he would ever have dared to hope.

He takes over to finish rinsing the soap out from his legs. (There are scratches around his ankles, he barely even noticed digging his nails into his skin until it started bleeding. Sometimes, touch still isn't enough for him to feel alive.) Then, he makes Agata kneel and helps him wash his mane. The hybrid runs his fingers through the soft hair, humming to himself an off-key melody. He feels the lion purring more than he hears him. The sounds of splashing water fill the steamy air, loud and calming.

"I thought you had somewhere to be," Agata speaks out after long minutes.

"Hmm… Yeah, you're right. Let's get out."

He doesn't like stepping out of the shower. The cold outside hits him like a slap, making him curl slightly onto himself, and he already misses Agata's proximity. Also, now that the steam has a whole room to diffuse into, it doesn't do quite as good as a job hiding his body from sight. And he still doesn't like to look at it.

(The scars are still here, the visible ones, and the ones only his mind project over his flesh. His right wrist clicks funny now too, even after three years. He might have toyed with it a little too much for it to heal properly.)

For the first time in forever, yet, his bones don't stick out from under his skin anymore. Agata keeps nagging him about eating regularly, at normal hours and all, and he relents to not see him worry. He doesn't tell him that he often gives his lunch to a homeless raccoon on his way to work, half to feel better about himself. Doesn't tell him either that he regularly finds himself hunched over the toilet bowl, throwing up from flashbacks-induced nausea, or from his own two fingers down his throat, nails scratching at the back of it.

(He knows Agata notices when he hurts himself, sees the bruises and the scratches and the occasional cuts. But that – Melon makes sure he doesn't suspect it.)

There are new spots that have appeared over his body too. He covered the first ones – except not with leaves this time, rather with melon flowers. (Red, though, not yellow. It felt fitting.) And the other ones… he is trying to come to terms with them. It's been a few months, and he isn't totally past giving up one day and heading straight to the tattoo shop – but for now, the little black rosettes can stay.

There are other changes in his body too. He tries to avoid mirrors; however, he couldn't help but notice, because some of his shirts don't quite fit anymore. His muscles are developing, shoulders squaring up. More leopard, less gazelle. His voice is also morphing, alternating between deeper than it already was and a weird squeaky high-pitch. It feels like going through puberty for the second time and it fucking sucks. He hopes it will stop soon because he doesn't know how much he can pretend to be okay with.

(When he first realized that his tail was starting to look like his mother's, it was late in the evening. He didn't tell Agata anything. Only took sleeping pills and went to bed, intending to forget about it. And maybe, maybe to never wake up too. He did wake up, though, more than twelve hours later, and spent the rest of the day vomiting in the bathroom. He never told the lion about any of it. And if Agata noticed, he never asked.)

He steps out of the bathroom, damp feet leaving prints on the wooden floorboards, and into the bedroom. Drops his towel, puts his pants on, and he's looking through his shirts in the closet when he senses Agata behind him, an instant before he hugs him from behind.

"Hey, kitty, I'm still running late," he says – but makes no effort to get out of the embrace.

"I'm sure the guy won't dare to say anything. He's already on thin enough ice as it is."

Melon hums. He doesn't have the heart to inform Agata that the delivery guy already has an appointment with the Reaper, even if he doesn't know it yet, and that he would hate for him to be late for it. It's not the right time. Blood doesn't have to permeate every single aspect of their lives. (And no matter what the lion says, he still fears that one time it will be one murder too many and Agata will realize that he's in love with a monster.)

Agata lets him go and he steps away to finish getting dressed up without accidentally elbowing the lion in the face. He can feel his gaze on him – and that, the way Agata looks at him, that's the only mirror he can face. It makes living in his chimera body a little easier.

He's about to go out, securing with one hand the holster at his side, when he pauses, turns around, and grabs the lion's arm, pulling him closer. Standing on tip-toes, he kisses him on the lips. Agata sputters, ears already turning bright pink – the rest of his face too, probably, under the chocolate fur. Usually he's the one to initiate intimate moments, so the rare times Melon does, he blushes furiously, just like a high school boy with a crush. The hybrid loves it.

"Do you want to go to the movies this afternoon?" he asks. "There is that one you wanted to see… with the very blue poster… I'm not sure of the title, but it's on at five pm."

"Oh, you remembered?"

"Kitty, you told me two days ago… I'd like to think my memory span goes at least a little beyond that."

"No, I know, I… Well, I'd very much like to go, yeah. Thanks."

"Good. Let's meet in front of the theater, okay? I'm not sure when I'll be back."

The lion nods. Waves a little goodbye as Melon turns the door handle. On a whim, he catches Agata's hand – it's the one with the scars – and kisses it.

"I love you, kitty," he breathes out, almost too quiet to be heard – but he was, he knows it by the way Agata's eyes widen. He lets his hand go. "Well, see you later!"

The sound of footsteps echoing through the corridor, just outside the office room, makes Agata look up. He is supposed to be reading, while Melon is going through student papers, red pen in hand and a focused look on his face – except Agata might be taking advantage of the hybrid's concentration to watch him instead. When he's looking down like this, only hints of gold are visible through his lashes. He's breathing through his mouth, his tongue lolling out, occasionally licking at the fake fang on the left side – the original one lost in his fight with Grace.

He left his broken horn as it is. Some kinds of prosthetics do exist, nonetheless; the line of demarcation stays visible but it "balances the silhouette", as they read on a website when he zoozled it. Melon scoffed. He never said why he chose not to do it, though, and Agata didn't ask. Maybe it was a way to reinforce the "harmless gazelle" act. (Maybe it's something else entirely, the lion can't help but think when the hybrid sits or lays on his right, letting his head rest on his shoulder.) The rest of his scars have started to fade, and the dark circles under his eyes too. The first few months after this whole mess, Agata regularly found scratch marks or bruises all over his arms, but this is almost gone too, pushed back into the past. He's happy to see that his partner has started to put on some weight too.

The door is suddenly opened with such enthusiasm that it bangs against the wall.

"Hey, look at that!"

Agata has barely the time to turn around that he finds himself catching entirely out of instinct a phone launched in their general direction. He fumbles with it, realizes it's upside-down, turns it around. The screen miraculously still displays a local news website. The lion looks up at Hayami, searching for further explanation. The hybrid girl gestures impatiently towards the phone.

"Come on, read."

She is radiating excitement, jubilation even, but there is something else in her demeanor – something else in the way her round canine ears are angled, her tail not wagging as quickly as it should. Agata turns his attention back to the website.

"A world without interspecies hate; is it but a chimera?"

His brow furrows, but by then his eyes have already caught the subtitle – and himself catches on.

"Anyway, the rare products of their love are being hunted."

He is not surprised to find a portrait of Grace when he scrolls down, though he can't help but stare at her face for a few good seconds. He thought he would never see it again. The spotless white coat, the respectable features, eyes obscured below her thick brow bone and behind her sunglasses – however, he can recall how they looked just fine; blood red, and so, so cold. Unlike the pictures the other articles used, two years ago, this one looks almost like a mugshot.

Melon shifts next to him, finally giving up on his work to see what caused Hayami to barge in unannounced. The lion feels him tense up when, presumably, he catches sight of the picture.

"They have publicly disclosed the existence of the Chimera Hunters," the hybrid girl explains, too impatient to wait for them to go through the entire article. "The families of their victims will be compensated, and there is going to be an open memorial ceremony."

"That will probably stir up some shit," Melon interjects. "I will be surprised if it lasts for more than half an hour.

"But half an hour, that would already be incredible! Even if it all goes south, it will be talked about! No… no one was talking about us before."

"And they have also made some arrests," Agata adds as he scrolls further down the website, catching some highlighted words here and there. "Based on… ah, anonymously given evidence. Do you think it was what we sent?"

Melon takes the phone from him, scanning through the article. He stays composed, though the lion can glimpse various emotions flashing through his eyes. He tries to read too, looking over the hybrid's shoulder, but he goes too quickly for him, scrolling down before he has the time to finish. He gives up, looks back at Hayami.

Unusual beauty. That's what she confided her name meant, one evening she had too much to drink and ended up telling them half of her entire life story in between sobs. Agata remembers trying to comfort her as she talked about her giraffe mom – how she had a one-night stand with a hyena and decided to keep the baby against all odds, and how the hyena broke her neck in a fit of anger when she showed him their hybrid child – all while from the corner of his eye, he spotted Melon leaving the room, uncomfortable with the conversation. He had half a mind to go after him, but Hayami was now crying on his shoulder and he couldn't just leave her there.

Unusual, sure, he remembers thinking. Beautiful… eh. Even Agata would hesitate to call her that. The girl took more after her father – "sperm donor" would yet be a more adequate term –, she has the large limbs, the wide chest, and the muzzle of a hyena, but with herbivore incisive peeking out from blueish lips, too big for her mouth, and a long thin neck, spurting awkwardly from the hyena neckline, giving her almost a hunchback appearance. Her fur is mesmerizing though, various shades of earthy brown and golden blonde mixing into a multitude of patterns, ever-changing under the light – and anyway, what she might lack in appearance, she more than makes up for it with her sunny personality. She's fiercely protective too, having already taken under her wing the two youngest hybrid members of the Shishigumi.

There are four of them, now, not counting Melon. The first one turned up at their door soon after Grace's death, a middle-aged lion-tiger hybrid, wondering if they will accept him despite his stripes. The second one was Hayami, then another herbi-carni, Hanzō, and the last one, a young hairy rhino. He's the sole herbivore of their gang, but his sheer size and his horn would discourage most attackers, no matter how belligerent. (This has led to quite a lot of grumbling from Melon, who wasn't thrilled to find himself to be still the physically weakest even with mixed blood now in their ranks. Maybe, with the way his body is slowly morphing, this will change – but Agata doesn't dare bring up the matter.)

There had been quite a bit of grumbling from the lions too. None of them would condemn hybrids' existence – they had been affected enough by species-based prejudices to not perpetuate the cycle – but it had been another thing to welcome them into the Shishigumis. ("It literally spells 'group of lions'!" Free had protested. "Tora, fine, he is half like us, but that girl?") They caved in under Agata's arguments and Melon's silent threat – during all that debate, he hadn't said a word, quietly playing with the knife in his hand. They had all turned to him when he stabbed it into the table, blade a few inches deep, handle still vibrating from the impact.

"You accepted me as your boss, didn't you?"

Silence stretches out. Maybe there was a hint of regret, words floating in the air, – "maybe we should not have"–, unsaid. It helps a bit that there was meat in front of each lion, though. (The twice-a-month rule has thankfully been lifted weeks before.)

"I'm nothing like a lion. And you even had a damn deer as a boss. Tell me, were the Shishigumis doing better before that?"

"… Fine. We can see how it goes."

(It went well. And for Agata, it's also worth it to see the look on Melon's face as he watches over the younger hybrids, when he thinks no one is paying attention.)

"Give me my phone." She flexes her clawed fingers into a grabbing motion. "I'm gonna show this to Hanzō!"

Melon tosses her phone back at her and watches as she turns tail, leaving the room in a rush. They can hear her footsteps as she climbs the stairs two steps at a time, then the thumping comes from over their heads.

"How wonderful to be young," Agata jokes – glad to hear the hybrid chuckle.

"You're not even thirty yet…"

"But, seriously-" He shifts, trying to get a better look at Melon's face. "This is great news, no? Things are starting to change. You said back then that you wouldn't be surprised if they buried the whole thing, and, well, they didn't. Took them three years, but they finally did what's right."

"'Right'…?" His voice dies off, a weird edge to it. Something flat, dull. He chuckles again – and Agata feels his heart clench. It's been months since he has last heard the broken glass laugh, he hoped it would never come back. "Tell me, kitty, how exactly will this make things right? Will it resuscitate Hayami's mother? Make Hanzō able to use his arm again? Bring back all the hybrids the Chimera Hunters lynched? Will it erase their- our broken childhoods, our scars and our traumas?"

He is staring at the empty air, seemingly barely aware of the lion's presence anymore. Agata feels powerless, and his mind flashes back to his high school friend – Daido, his depression, and, ultimately, his suicide. He hates this feeling.

"It won't erase anything," he tries, slowly, carefully. "But maybe, with time, it will ensure that there is nothing to erase any more."

"I don't care about that!" Melon has gotten up, now facing Agata – but his gaze goes straight through him, fixed on something his mind is playing out for him only. His whole body is shaking. Breath hissing through his bared fangs. "I don't care about them, I- I-"

He chokes on his words. Too quick for Agata to react, he grabs a nearby glass, sends it shattering not that far away from the lion's head. Cristal shards rains on the floor, the sound shrill and painful. Melon hits the wall – newfound predator strength making a dent into the plaster.

Their eyes meet, and Agata feels his stomach drop.

In the next heartbeat, he realizes it's from dread. He has gotten to know the hybrid quite well, he likes to think, over the past three years – knows how to read him, to guess his emotions, what is going through his head. When his instincts threaten to take over. Fear – fear, and anger – bloodlust. And right now, he knows with clear certitude that Melon isn't afraid.

He backs away. His hands coming up, a ridicule barrier.

Melon sees it – and it looks like something break inside him, like too-tight strings snapping, letting the puppet they were controlling drop. He stumbles backward, catches himself on the desk. Stares at the ground.

"… I'm sorry."

Agata struggles to hide the strain in his voice: "You didn't do anything."

"I wanted to."

"I know."

The hybrid opens his mouth, and Agata can almost guess what he will say – asking why he loves him, why he stays, and what if one day he does do something? – but eventually, he stays quiet. The lion gets up, walks to him. Takes his hand. Brings him back to the couch.

Outside, they can hear Hayami's voice again, mixed with lions' and Tora's. Inside, there are only their breathings, slowly syncing up together.

Agata hasn't let go of Melon's hand, his thumb tracing circles on the back of it. (Like that day, on another couch, three years ago. The first time the hybrid kissed him of his own will.)

"Maybe", he says after a while, "maybe you will be able to teach under your real identity one day?"

"Kitty… No. Do you think there are a lot of gazelle-leopard hybrids around there? Too many people know who the Shishigumis' boss is now. I'm not complaining, I… I dug myself into that hole. From the day I killed my classmates. I chose to not beg them for a place in this world, I chose to find it myself, upon a pile of their corpses. This is who I am. Everything else is just playing pretend."

Agata stares at him for a good few seconds, then can't stand to anymore – his eyes dart away.

"I…" He starts, has to stop to gulp down the lump in his throat. "I think I can relate to that. I decided to become a criminal because I caved under societal pressure. And, I like to believe I found my happiness here. The other lions… You. That doesn't mean I don't want another life for the next generations. Lions or hybrids or anyone else. It's too late for us, we'll have to deal with our past, but don't you think we can be happy for them?"

There is a long silence. Melon shifts, curling up against his body. His head on Agata's shoulder, careful of his horns as always. The lion can feel his chest expanding with each inhale.

"Hmm. I guess you're right."

Again, I want to say thank you to everyone who followed that story! This is my longest fanfic to date, and I loved writing it, and I loved even more sharing it with you. And I hope you enjoyed the ending :D