Chapter Text
The notification on Keiji’s phone taunted him. It was a simple text. Nothing worth the deep rooted anger it garnered from him, not even worth his attention, really, but yet, the temptation to look was so bad it itched. His fingers twitched at the thought.
“So what do you think, ‘Ji?” Tetsurou asked. He hefted the box in his arms up when it began to slip. “Is it anything like you remember?”
Considering this, Keiji glanced around the cabin. Most of the dust had been wiped down with the help of his brother, revealing the rustic furniture beneath. It had a homey feel to it, sunlight streaming in from the vast windows and warming the wooden planks beneath chilly toes. In all honesty, Keiji didn’t feel an ounce of familiarity.
“Not really,” he told Tetsurou. He took the box from his brother before placing it down with the rest. “There isn’t much to remember.”
Their family’s vacation home had been long abandoned since they’d moved down to a small Southern island when Keiji was young. The brothers were likely the first people to visit in over a decade. Keiji’s memories of summers spent here were sparse and fleeting: a glimpse of a river here or hiking with his dad there. Despite this, there was something comforting in this little wooden home, unfamiliar or not.
Tetsurou made a move to reach for his cheek, likely to pinch it. Keiji backed away from the hand with a glare as his brother chuckled,“Aw, that’d break Dad’s heart if he heard you say that. You used to love coming up here, Keiji. It was so cute, you’d get all excited to swim.” Keiji scowled. He hated when Tetsurou teased him.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Keiji huffed as he began to unpack. “It’s perfect, honestly. Small enough to clean, cheap bills, and…” he trailed off.
And as far away from Kyushu as possible.
A discomfort settled in the air. His brother’s face tightened in concern. He clearly knew where Keiji’s thoughts were heading.
“And I can get some solitude, maybe get some work done,” Keiji finished, blandly. It wasn’t untrue. Keiji had spent the last several months drowning in work. He’d fallen behind in his editing, a little preoccupied with… other things.
He thought back to the text waiting for him.
Clearing his throat, Tetsurou agreed, “I think it’ll be good for you, y’know. You’ve had a rough year, ‘Ji.”
The silence they lapsed into felt out of place as they continued moving Keiji in. It was a sore spot for Keiji, of course, but his brother as well. Both of them felt betrayed.
When the last box was packed away, Tetsurou announced his departure. Keiji followed him outside, pulling up his hood when it began to rain.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay a few days? I have the whole weekend off,” Tetsurou offered. His suggestion was nonchalant, posed as an idea rather than a favor. But Keiji noticed the way he eyed his little brother’s nervous pacing. Keiji shook his head, smiling softly.
“No, I’m okay, Tetsu. Thank you for helping me.” Keiji was lucky to have him. Tetsurou grinned back.
“Okay, kid. I’m gonna head out then before the storm catches up. Call me if you need me?” Keiji confirmed with a nod. “Love you, ‘Ji.”
His cell phone burned a hole in his pocket as he watched his brother’s truck shrink in the distance. He’d gone this long without checking, maybe he deserved a reward. What harm could one glimpse do?
Keiji slid the phone out of his hoodie, stealing a peek at the screen. He wished he hadn’t.
RECEIVED: Yuu (2:22 PM)
Did you make it there okay?
Seen 6:12 PM
He turned his phone off with trembling fingers.
The howling wind shook through his drenched pelt, a shiver dancing its way down his spine. Koutarou’s mouth hung open, panting in a futile attempt to catch his breath. His temperature tended to run on the hotter side, but even then, he wondered if it would be enough.
Several inconveniences had fallen in line to create this perfect storm: the fight, the little girl, the literal storm. It was as if he were cursed.
It was the first of the month. Hunting day, of course. Unfortunately for him, game had been sparse in his woods as of late. There’d be an accident in the nearby human settlement, resulting in a disastrous oil spill that contaminated the lake in the neighboring forest and forced prey to migrate. Luckily enough, Koutarou’s home hadn’t been damaged, but he found himself dealing with a little more… competition than he was used to.
He’d grumbled his way home, following the path along the river. To make matters worse, the steady drizzle from earlier had turned into downpour.
Stupid fucking bear, he thought. His stomach growled harshly in agreement.
His bout of self pity was interrupted when he heard giggles across the stream. He ‘woofed’ in confusion at the scent of a human.
“Puppy!” Golden eyes widened at the sight of the little girl reaching chubby fingers out to him from across the river. Sopping brown hair was tied back in braids, revealing cold pink cheeks and glittering eyes. A little red raincoat swallowed her, hanging down to her knees and making her look even smaller. She couldn’t be much older than a toddler. Where were her parents?
The mud surrounding was sticky and thick; it was the perfect trap. The little girl took another step forward, and Koutarou’s heart sank at the sight.
No! Don’t--
It was too late. Her matching red boot slid out from underneath her, falling into the river and taking her along with it. She screamed.
Koutarou’s response was immediate; the wolf plunged his way into the roaring water. The force of his body disturbed the bed of sand at the bottom and he found himself nearly blinded by the particles. Despite this, he began to kick his legs even faster.
Gotta get her. Where is she? Where is she?
His eyes strained to stay open through the pain. Koutarou was still weak, starving from his failure this morning. The only thing that kept him going was the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
With no sight of the child, panic began to set in. The river was tumultuous on a good day, the storm only exacerbated this. Worse yet, the natural chill of the water felt like ice with the dropping temperatures in the woods. Weren’t humans sensitive to that kind of thing?
A flash of red in the corner of his eye caught his attention. His stomach flooded with relief. He kicked his legs back rapidly, paddling toward her.
She thrashed around desperately, little sobs escaping her quivering body. The scrunchies holding her hair back had been pulled out and lost to the current, leaving her hair a tangled mess around her eyes and blinding her. Koutarou pressed his body against her and prayed she would latch on.
Clumsy fingers balled into fists in his fur. She tried to heft herself up, but the gushing water pulled her back down. Koutarou needed to get them out of there.
He fought his way against the tide toward the closest ledge. His front paws scrambled against the mud, slipping back down into the coursing river. The little girl shrieked in fear and clenched her fingers tighter.
I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
When he was finally able to heft them up, he whimpered in relief, but his optimism was short lived. The rain from before was now a full-fledged thunderstorm. The trees around them shook with the force of the wind and the pelting rain seemed to taunt them. He clenched his eyes shut, needing a minute to catch his breath. Her soft cries on his back reminded him of his previous urgency.
Gotta get her out of here. Gotta keep her safe.
With the last of his energy, Koutarou began to run. The village nearby was too far. There was no way this little girl had just wandered out here from home; she had to have been camping with family. He scented the air, but to his dismay, caught nothing. All he could smell was the wet earth.
What do I do? He was getting desperate. She had begun to quiet down on his back, and if it weren’t for the thundering heartbeat against his spine and the soft whispers of ‘ puppy?’ he might’ve thought she’d already died. It was cold, bitterly cold , even for a wolf. He couldn’t imagine how the chilling air felt on a soaked child.
To make matters worse, Koutarou couldn’t even rely on his knowledge of the forest to get her to the village. His senses were so overwhelmed with the storm he could hardly think straight.
His body began to fail him, vision blurring. He was just so tired. The only thing that kept him going was her.
Rain drenched him to his core, weighing him down further as he ran and slowing him down. His movements became sloppier and he began to stumble.
Before the first trickle of doubt could reach him, he caught sight of a faint light in the distance. Koutarou squinted, frantically trying to see through the surrounding bubble of downpour. A fire lit in his heart.
A cabin.
Energy renewed, the wolf sprinted toward the light. In the darkness and cold, it was the only thing guiding him.
When he was within several meters of the cabin, his back leg caught on a stump. He jolted, stumbling to the dirt floor along with the little girl. The motion threw her a foot or so away. She cried in pain and reached for him, pulling herself toward his warm body. Koutarou noticed the awkward bend of her ankle.
Please, he begged the forest around him. Please get her inside.
A howl emanated from the deepest part of his chest, the loudest sound he could make. He continued making a ruckus and hoped with everything in him those in the cabin could hear. The exhaustion of an empty stomach combined with his injuries left him immobile. No amount of determination could get Koutarou up at this point; he was done for-- but there was hope for her.
The girl began to scream as well. Whether it was out of fear or realization of what Koutarou was doing, he couldn’t tell. Either way, he was grateful.
Just as his eyes began to slide shut, he heard a distant voice.
“ What is… oh my god…”
He sighed, flopping his body down entirely. It was okay, she was going to be okay; help was here.
He spent the next several minutes phasing in and out of consciousness, life flashing before his eyes. Koutarou would’ve never thought he’d have died this young, or like this. He’d always thought he’d go out with a bang-- maybe in an epic fight with another wolf, or maybe some other predator. Maybe even chasing down those awful poachers.
When he thought of that sweet little smile beneath rosy cheeks, he figured this was okay too.
“Oh my god,” Keiji whispered for the hundredth time. Big brown eyes welled with tears as she stared up at him. He’d immediately gotten the child into the smallest set of clothes he owned, but she was still swallowed by them. After wrapping her hair in a towel, he’d draped as many blankets as he could finger around trembling shoulders. She was still shivering; this was a good sign.
He began to check her for injuries, heart breaking at the sight of her ankle. He wished he could call town for help, but the power lines had all been knocked over. The little cabin was lit with candles-- definitely not how he’d planned on spending his first night in his new home.
“Oh honey,” he said, softly, gently tracing the skin above the swollen limb. “What were you doing out there?”
She shook her head, little hiccups erupting from her as she tried to catch her breath.
She ignored his question. “You-- you need to go get my friend,” she insisted. He frowned.
“What? I didn’t see--” he paused.
Her friend...
The wolf? The thought nearly made him hysterical. She wanted him to go get… the giant fucking wolf?
He’d assumed the animal was just another victim of the storm, maybe it’d gotten injured nearby and the girl had clung to its dying body for warmth. This was still the most likely explanation.
“Honey, I don’t think…” he chuckled, uncomfortably. She shook her head again, little brows furrowing in frustration. A little piece of chestnut hair slipped out of the towel with her frantic motion. He moved to brush it aside as she continued.
“ Please, Mister. He carried me here. He saved me. Please don’t let him die.”
Keiji blanched a little. He must’ve misunderstood-- there was no way a wolf, a wild animal, had carried her here. Maybe that was just an abnormally large dog outside. He hesitated. Even without the dead weight, could he lift that thing?
He debated on it for a few seconds, before meeting sad brown eyes again. Her bottom lip quivered.
I can’t leave a dog out there in this weather, he finally decided with a sigh. He fixed the blanket slipping off her shoulder and stood up.
“I’ll go, but you need to stay here. Okay?” He lowered his head to make eye contact, firm but reassuring. She popped her lips and nodded nervously.
“Okay, Mister.”
Nothing could’ve prepared Keiji for the raging storm outside. In the last few minutes, it had seemingly gone from bad to worse. The wind whipped his curls around, blinding him even more in the already low visibility the rain bestowed. The trees surrounding him shuddered down to their roots; they looked ready to take flight. He flinched at the crack of lightning a few hundred meters away.
With his hood pulled up, Keiji squinted against the downpour. He scanned his yard for the animal, eventually noticing the large mass toward the edge. Swallowing, he ventured into the danger.
Once he’d gotten close enough to inspect the damage, his heart sank. The animal was propped on its side, chest heaving underneath its dripping coat. Its eyes fluttered open as it whimpered softly.
Keiji slid to his knees carefully so as not to disturb it. He found himself brushing a soothing hand down its spine, noticing the slight jut of ribs against his fingers. Even with all that fur, it was freezing.
“Poor baby,” he whispered, sadly. Slitted eyes slid over to him, as if noticing him for the first time. There was an unexpected intelligence there. A flutter of anxiety ran through him at the confirmation of his original theory.
This is not a dog.
Wolf or not, Keiji had made his decision and considered the best way to do this. With shivering arms, he began to lift underneath the wolf’s stomach, attempting to pull him over his shoulders.
Keiji was a tall man, and a relatively fit one at that-- but his legs began to tremble with strain, chest tightening. Once the animal was secured over his shoulders, he glanced around, looking for the light of his home to guide them back in the mist of the storm. He wheezed in a breath before sealing his fate.
Within a few days of the weather clearing, Keiji was finally able to make contact with someone from emergency services. He explained his predicament on the phone over breakfast, brushing bangs back from cocoa-brown eyes and smiling sweetly at the little girl across from him. She rewarded him with a toothy grin.
“Yes, she says her name is Sorawo. I don’t think she even knows her last name, she’s barely five,” he told the woman. “She says she was camping with her parents and they got separated, have you by chance heard from them?”
Thankfully, they had. Her father had been frantic, searching high and low and calling daily apparently. When he came to retrieve his daughter, she squealed in delight and began to limp toward him. Although Keiji had splinted it to the best of his abilities, he was certain she needed more medical attention. Her father lifted her gently and began to sob, quietly. He looked at Keiji with watery eyes.
“I can’t-- I can’t possibly thank you enough.” He gasped a shuddering breath, stroking a few strands of hair away from her rosy cheeks. “It was, it was like she was there one second and then just…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “ Gone.”
Keiji’s heart ached at the sight of the pair, but he dismissed it quickly. Pointless longing would do no good.
“I’m just happy she’s safe now.”
Her father, Ito-san, insisted he find some way to repay Keiji: money, gifts, anything. Keiji politely refused. After denying their invitation to dinner, the father and daughter left the little cabin with promises of future visits. As sweet as they were, Keiji couldn’t help but feel relieved. He had bigger issues to deal with-- or, issue, that is.
With supplies in hand, Keiji went to check on said ‘issue’.
He cracked the door to the backroom slightly, noticing the near-motionless heap of fur on the floor still hadn’t moved. His shoulders dropped, relieved, and he pushed the door the rest of the way.
For the last several days, Keiji had been nurturing-- or at least, attempting to nurture-- the wolf back to health. He had no good explanation for this. It was a feral animal, and a huge one at that. Keiji was more than aware that at any moment, the wolf could awaken and decide to attack him, a battle easily won. He had yet to come up with a solid contingency plan for this but still-- Keiji knew he couldn’t abandon the animal, and he wasn’t sure any small town vet would be willing to care for it.
Yuuma always said you were too reckless, he thought as he began his daily routine, a bittersweet smile crossing his face.
Taking care of the wolf was an interesting task. There were no physical injuries-- at least, none visible to Keiji’s naked eye, but the wolf had yet to awaken once or show any indication of doing so. Its breathing had improved gradually over its time in Keiji’s care, but that was it. This left Keiji to theorize.
As much as he doubted Sorawo’s story, he figured there must have been some truth to it. How else would a child have been able to walk through that wind, much less with a broken ankle? More so, the way its skin clung tight to its bones left Keiji wondering how Sorawo avoided getting eaten. He shivered at the thought.
So far, the best he could come up with was that it was malnourished and in some sort of comatose state while its body recovered. The weakness of hunger in combination with the grueling weather must’ve left the animal weakened.
He spooned some blended meat-water mixture into a syringe. As disgusting as it was, Keiji didn’t understand much about wolves other than they were carnivorous, and it wasn’t like he’d had any internet to investigate. He checked the animal’s pulse daily beneath grey fur, soft with the effort he’d put into cleaning it. The poor thing had been filthy, matted with dirt. There was no way it was comfortable.
After finishing its first feeding of the day, Keiji couldn’t help himself. With tentative fingers, he pulled back the edge of the wolf’s lip, revealing a set of razor-sharp incisors. Nervously, he slid back and stood to his feet, closing the door behind him as he left.
He gathered all his devices, scanning through for missed messages. After days of no connection, he was unsurprised to find dozens. Much of the northern parts of the country had suffered from outages and floods, making headlines across Japan. Frustrated, he scrubbed at the bags underneath his eyes before sorting out the ones from Tetsurou to respond to. He left the rest unread.
When he sat down to work for the first time since his arrival, he found himself too distracted to even start. Why was he doing this? What benefit did he gain from this?
The nauseating curl of loneliness in his gut was enough of an answer.
A blanket of warmth surrounded Keiji, waking him up. He smiled drowsily and kept his eyes shut, sinking further back into his pillow. The smell of fresh linen around him threatened to pull him back under before the blanket shifted again. He let out a quiet groan.
“Yuu, baby, go back to bed,” he murmured, the words slurred with sleep. ‘Yuu’ panted in response. Keiji froze.
Wait.
Keiji’s eyes snapped open, any and all traces of sleep gone. His throat closed up at the sight before him.
Towering over him and encompassing his entire line of sight was his one and only household guest. The wolf’s mouth hung open, tongue lolling to the side. Keiji winced as drool slid down its tongue to pool in the space behind his neck. A shriek caught in his throat.
Holy shit. He thought back to the morning his brother left. I didn’t even tell Tetsurou ‘I love you too’.
The animal cocked its head at Keiji’s desperate sound. Before then, the overgrowth of fur shadowing its eyes had prevented Keiji from getting a decent look at them. Now that he had, he wished he hadn’t.
It was perhaps the weirdest fucking expression he’d ever seen on any animal. Owlish, golden eyes stared at him, blinks far too few between for comfort. Keiji’s body began to wrack with small sobs as he tried his best not to move.
I can’t believe I’m going to die alone. In my underwear.
The sound of his tears seemingly startled the wolf. It began to jerk its head around, sniffing at different parts of him above his comforter. Keiji cried even harder. Was it going to play with its food? Where would it start? Why the fuck was it so big? At a flash of sharp teeth, Keiji squeezed his eyes shut.
The movement above him halted for a minute. Keiji held his breath.
A wet snout nosed at his cheek before the rough feeling of a tongue swiped across the same spot, wiping up the tears.
“ Boof.”
He jumped at the sound so close to his face, nearly in his ear. More licks followed the first. Keiji thrashed his head back and forth, frantically.
“ No,” he whispered quietly. He refused to open his eyes, even at the feeling of the animal above him shuffling, settling into a resting position atop his prone body. The wolf whined, before nuzzling its chin against his chest.
After a few minutes of silence, Keiji’s curiosity got the best of him. He blinked an eye open.
The wolf lay with its front paws on his chest, chin resting atop of them. It was still staring at Keiji, eyes wide as ever. It was such an unnatural expression that Keiji nearly laughed.
At the sight of an open eye, the wolf began panting more. It boofed again, quieter this time, and began wiggling its butt in excitement. Keiji’s other eye slid open cautiously. Somehow, golden eyes got even wider.
The two stared at each other for a few seconds. This must’ve excited the animal; it barked, louder like the first ones. Keiji couldn’t help but flinch. It whimpered again, before wiggling its way up his chest slowly.
It wasn’t holding his arms down, more so resting on his middle. If Keiji didn’t know any better, he might’ve thought it was… cuddling?
He kept his eyes open as the wolf wormed its way toward his face. It opened its mouth slightly, giving a barely there lick against his cheek and tickling the spot. He couldn’t contain his giggle.
It was like a switch clicked into place. The wolf immediately continued its earlier licking, uncontrollably and all over his face like an overgrown puppy; it barely left a spot dry. Keiji shrieked, but this time, not out of fear.
“No! No dog breat-- wolf? Wolf breath? No wolf breath!” he said in between bouts of laughter. Without thinking, he tried to push its snout away but it just began to lick there as well, butting its head against his hand. His laughter eventually died down, but his smile stayed. The wolf panted back at him, as if it understood what he was thinking.
Maybe you’re not so bad .