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“Go back to sleep.”
Everything hurts and he’s so tired. Sleeping sounds like a wonderful idea, but he knows he shouldn’t. He should stay awake, he needs to stay awake—
When Ken’yuu wakes up, it isn’t a gentle rise into consciousness. His eyes snap wide open, his hand clenches the blanket draped over him, and his entire body tenses. He doesn’t make a sound, though, even when he realizes that one arm is in a sling and that the bedding is way too nice to be his.
There are alarms going off in his head—where is he what happened why is he hurt—but he can’t find the strength to even sit up. His glasses are gone and everything’s fuzzy. He can’t hear anything aside from his panicked breathing and the only thing he can smell is his own sweat. A small voice inside his head whispers that he has to get a hold of himself. He can find a way out of this if he just calms down and gets a hold of himself—
When Ken’yuu wakes up (again? For the first time?), there’s a man-shaped blur of color sitting beside him.
“Hello!” the blur says cheerfully. It moves a bit closer, but not enough for it to come into focus.
Ken’yuu squints at it instead of responding.
“You’re in my house,” the blur continues. “I found you in the forest.”
Ken’yuu tenses up at that. He tells himself that there’s nothing to worry about. If he hadn’t been in his human skin when the blur found him, he would probably be somewhere much less comfortable than a bed.
But what if, what if—
Ken’yuu takes a deep breath, though he tries not to be obvious about it. The blur is still talking and if he wants to stay safe, he needs to listen.
“—hurt? I tried to bandage it up properly, but I’m not the best at this sort of thing.”
He has to play along. He’s injured, he can’t see, and the only sense that seems to be working is his sense of smell. He relies on it now, tries to figure out something about the blur beside him.
Clean is the word that comes to mind. The blur smells clean, like it just finished bathing. Other than that, Ken’yuu can’t sense anything else from it. It’s probably—hopefully—safe to trust it. For now.
“It … aches.” The sound of his human voice is unfamiliar to Ken’yuu’s ears, coming out of a dry throat and mouth.
“Oh, no.” The blur sounds dismayed. “Just a moment …”
Before Ken’yuu can protest, something is being poured into his mouth. A hand gently but firmly tilts his chin up and he’s forced to swallow so he won’t choke. He falls asleep (again?) to the sound of the blur’s happy humming.
“What a lovely sheen.”
There’s pain—a slow, sharp, pulling pain—somewhere in his arm. His skin feels heated and swollen. The pain builds and builds and builds until something comes free.
“I just need one more …”
The pain starts again.
Over the course of the next few days, Ken’yuu learns about where he is.
The blur introduces itself as Koumyou when it finally gives back Ken’yuu’s glasses. He lives in the same forest that Ken’yuu does, except his cottage is much farther east, nearer to the river.
Ken’yuu has lived in the forest for years, has flown over all of it, is familiar with it and the beings who inhabit it. He makes it a point to know his neighbors because he needs to know which ones are dangerous, which ones he can use, and which ones he can safely ignore.
It bothers him that he’s never seen any sign of Koumyou’s cottage before. And yet from what he can see, the building is old. Everything is clean but worn, the furniture scuffed. When Ken’yuu sits up on the bed, he can see faded marks on the floor from something heavy being moved around.
Koumyou leaves him alone most of the time, only staying with him when he brings Ken’yuu his next meal. He sits on a chair beside the bed and talks about everything and nothing, gives nothing away about himself, and doesn’t ask Ken’yuu any personal questions.
Ken’yuu keeps his responses short when he needs to talk, opts to nod or shake his head if he feels like he can get away with it.
“I was on my way to the river when I found you,” Koumyou says. “You were all alone.”
Ken’yuu tries to move his right arm. Koumyou says that it’s broken, and there’s a twinge of pain when Ken’yuu lifts it too high or moves it too fast. It’s unbearably itchy underneath the bandages, but Koumyou had chided him the last time he tried to scratch it.
“Did I have anything with me?” he asks.
Koumyou shakes his head. “It was just you.”
Ken’yuu can’t tell if Koumyou’s lying or not, his scent projecting clean and nothing else. His aura isn’t any help either; it’s strangely blank, devoid of any emotions or intent. Even beings with the ability to mask still project a simplified sense of calm or unease, fabricated or not.
But Koumyou’s aura is like standing in the middle of an empty clearing after heavy snowfall; just a vast nothingness and quiet stillness, heavy enough that it almost feels tangible.
Normally he would be needling Koumyou, attempting to figure out what makes him tick by finding all the weak spots he can and poking at them until the older man makes a mistake. But there’s something about Koumyou’s nothingness that bothers Ken’yuu, unsettles him in a way that none of his past interactions have ever done.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you any more information,” Koumyou says, slight frown on his face. He looks genuine but Ken’yuu knows not to trust outward appearances.
Everything about Ken’yuu’s current situation is a mystery; how he got hurt, why he was near the river, how long it’ll take him to heal. Aside from his broken arm, his entire body is a mass of bruises. But the not knowing, the fact that someone else has the upper hand … it’s much worse than the aches that accompany his every move.
“It’s fine,” he lies. “I’m glad you found me.”
There’s someone else in the room the next time Ken’yuu wakes up.
Ken’yuu registers the scent of milk before he opens his eyes and is unsurprised to see a toddler standing on his tiptoes beside the bed. The toddler is holding onto the bed for balance, large violet eyes focused on Ken’yuu, expression unusually serious for someone so young.
They stare at each other for a moment or so. Ken’yuu hasn’t seen or heard anything that hinted at Koumyou having a child, but he also hasn’t seen anything outside of the room he woke up in, aside from the connecting bathroom.
“What’s your name?” Ken’yuu asks.
The toddler blinks at him.
Like Koumyou, the toddler’s aura is blank. Impossible for him to do by himself at his age, which means that it’s some sort of shielding put in place by someone else. If Ken’yuu can just touch—
“Kouryuu.”
Koumyou is somehow suddenly there, scooping up the toddler into his arms. There’s no whisper of air or rustle of cloth to signal his appearance. Across the room, the door remains firmly shut.
The weight of nothing presses down hard on Ken’yuu’s chest, hard enough that he struggles to breathe. Koumyou’s aura has changed from a neutral blankness to pointed static.
“I’ve told you not to disturb our guest,” Koumyou says. He sounds fond instead of angry, but Ken’yuu’s senses are screaming at him to stay focused, to pay attention to the danger in the room despite the black spots that are creeping along the edges of his sight.
The toddler nods at Koumyou. He still hasn’t made a sound, but it’s obvious he understands what Koumyou’s saying. He seems completely unbothered by Koumyou’s aura, by the fact that Ken’yuu’s started gasping for breath.
He stays quiet as Koumyou carries him out of the room, waving at Ken’yuu where he writhes on the bed, instincts kicking in and trying to free him from whatever it is that’s stopping him from breathing.
As he slips into unconsciousness, Ken’yuu focuses on one thing.
Koumyou has a weak spot.
“Kouryuu’s pretty quiet for his age, isn’t he?”
Ken’yuu watches Kouryuu with his true eyes, but the man doesn’t seem bothered in any way. He makes his way across the room at his normal pace, looking as relaxed and unbothered as ever. “Oh, yes! He’s such a well-behaved boy.”
He places a tray with food on Ken’yuu’s lap before sitting down at his usual spot.
“I didn’t realize you had any children,” Ken’yuu continues. He’s forced to switch his gaze to his breakfast, but the rest of his senses stay focused on Koumyou, trying to pick up any sign of nervousness, anger, hesitation.
Koumyou’s aura is still frustratingly blank. Now that Ken’yuu knows that it can change, has experienced firsthand the static that had buzzed in his head like an angry swarm of bees, the blankness feels more artificial than ever.
Koumyou laughs. “Wouldn’t it be strange if I didn’t have any at my age?”
“I guess some people would find it strange,” Ken’yuu says. “Where’s his mother?”
“I don’t know.” Koumyou’s smile takes on a slightly different tilt, like he’s thinking of an inside joke. “I just picked him up from the river.”
Ken’yuu squints at him. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”
“That’s what makes it interesting!”
Ken’yuu silently agrees; this roundabout conversation is interesting. He hasn’t felt this curious—this challenged—since the first time he’d put on his human skin. Back then, he’d picked apart the process in his mind until he understood it from every possible angle, kept at it until the change was as easy and natural as blinking.
He feels that same urge now, trying to figure out what lies beneath the carefully constructed wall that Koumyou has somehow put up around himself. The urge to inspect, disassemble, understand has overshadowed his wariness.
If what Koumyou’s saying is true, Kouryuu isn’t his by blood. Between Kouryuu and Ken’yuu, Koumyou seems to have a penchant for finding and taking care of things he’s found near the river.
“Are you feeling better?” Koumyou asks. He looks different, all of a sudden. It takes a moment for Ken’yuu to realize why.
Koumyou’s eyes are fully open. It’s significantly different from his usual expression, eyes so heavy lidded they seem like they’re closed. They’re intensely focused on Ken’yuu right now, at odds with Koumyou’s relaxed posture and small smile.
Danger, his mind whispers. Ken’yuu is keenly aware of his heartbeat, the way that the blood pulses close to the surface at his wrists and throat.
“I’m still feeling a bit sore,” Ken’yuu says. “But other than that and my arm, I’m feeling a bit more like myself.” He shifts his hold on his chopsticks carefully, clumsy as he picks up some rice. He’s fairly confident he can still do some damage with his left hand and the chopsticks if needed, despite his current lack of fine motor skills.
“That’s good,” Koumyou says. “Kouryuu’s been worried.”
Ken’yuu snorts at that. “I don’t think he’s that attached to me.”
“You’d be surprised.” The strange tilt to his smile is back. “He’s very fond of you.”
“And what about you?” Ken’yuu shoots him a sidelong look, talking through his mouthful of food. “Not yet tired of nursing me back to health?”
Koumyou gathers up the tray as soon as Ken’yuu places his cup back on it, standing up to his full height before responding. “I suppose I’ve grown fond of you too,” he admits, still smiling that secretive smile.
Danger.
Ken’yuu grins back at him.
“You’re more interesting than I thought you’d be.”
For the first time in this place, he feels cold. The squeezingstiflingheavy pressure at his throat eases up, grows lighter as it moves down his chest, travels along his injured arm.
He shivers—from the cold, from the touch that’s now tracing along his thigh, from the realization that it’s following the hidden pathway of veins and arteries beneath his skin. He doesn’t know if he wants to turn away from or towards the touch.
“I think I’ll keep you for a bit longer.”
Ken’yuu wakes up in the middle of the night, blinking at the ceiling in confusion. His blankets are tangled around his ankles and his arms are covered in goosebumps where they’re not covered in bandages or his sleeping shirt.
Half-asleep, he almost misses the dull thud that comes from the other side of the door. It repeats, a bit louder, quickly followed by a soft whine. There’s a low moan and then silence.
He’s not sure how long he lays there in the dark, straining to hear with his true ears, spreading out his senses to try and figure out what’s happening beyond his room.
Then he smells blood. Shifter blood.
Without really thinking, he moves to stand up, ignoring his squalling instincts that are demanding him to put on his feathers and hide. Going out there is dangerous, but so is staying here. If he’s quiet, if he controls his aura, then whoever’s on the other side of the door won’t sense him. He can gather more information, plan his escape.
He puts on his glasses, takes a few careful steps towards the door. The closer he gets, the stronger the smell of blood is. Ken’yuu’s body thrums with adrenaline and fear, so much that he doesn’t immediately notice that the pounding in his head isn’t from fighting his instincts but from a ward traced around the perimeter of the room.
“What are you doing?”
Ken’yuu freezes. Koumyou’s voice is coming from the other side of the door, but Ken’yuu’s senses are heightened by fight-or-flight, and he can hear the amusement and mild frustration clearly.
There’s the shifting of fabric, a laugh. “How can you still be hungry?”
Ken’yuu can hear Koumyou approaching the door and he tries to step back, return to the bed and make it look like he never got out of it. The pounding in his head is steadily increasing and his vision has started to blur; the room starts to unfocus, like he’s not wearing his glasses.
When Komyou opens the door, Kouryuu carried on one arm, Ken’yuu’s still standing halfway between the door and the bed. Ken’yuu carefully—carefully—looks down and sees an unconscious figure on the floor behind Koumyou. It looks like it’s been chewed on, bite marks littering what Ken’yuu can see of the arms and torso, red streaks of blood covering the exposed skin, flowing from open gashes. It’s vaguely human-shaped and Ken’yuu can’t tell what kind of shifter they’d been.
Koumyou pauses, glances down and behind himself. “Oops, I wasn’t expecting you to be up and about.” He carefully wipes away a smear of red on Kouryuu’s cheek, gently chiding him. “And you are such a messy eater.”
Kouryuu captures Koumyou’s thumb in his mouth and sucks for a few seconds, releasing it when it’s clean. Komyou looks completely unconcerned about the fact that he’d let one of his fingers get into the mouth of something that had reduced a full-grown shifter into a lump of mangled flesh. Instead, he laughs at the small burp Kouryuu lets out.
Ken’yuu’s mind is racing as he tries to piece together what’s happening, what Koumyou wants with him, from him. Why he’s been kept alive when Koumyou obviously doesn’t mind if Kouryuu kills his food.
“My arm isn’t broken,” Ken’yuu says.
“Nope.”
“Was it broken when you found me?” He sways a bit, after asking. The ward—
There’s a weight on his chest, solid and a bit uncomfortable, but not heavy enough to make breathing impossible.
Ken’yuu opens his eyes and sees Kouryuu sitting on his torso. He’s got his tiny fist in his mouth, sucking on it idly as he looks at Ken’yuu with half-closed eyes.
A sharp sting from his injured arm draws Ken’yuu’s attention to his side. His glasses dig uncomfortably into the side of his face, but he doesn’t try to remove them, wants to see what exactly happened to his arm.
Koumyou hums as he unwraps it, dropping the used bandages carelessly to the floor. He doesn’t react to Ken’yuu moving, but it’s likelier that it’s because he just doesn’t care rather than him not noticing.
Ken’yuu is horrified at the sight of his arm. It doesn’t look too bad—aside from one long cut across his bicep, the skin is red, irritated, tender to the touch, and covered in small scars and bumps—especially compared to the state of the dead shifter, but the implications of it swirl around his mind.
He’s not damaged enough to die from the injuries, but that just means Koumyou doesn’t (didn’t?) have any intention of letting him go.
Koumyou picks up a knife from the bedside table and uses it to trace along the cut on his bicep, reopening the wound. His grip on Ken’yuu’s arm is surprisingly firm, unwavering even as Ken’yuu automatically tries to jerk away because of the pain. Koumyou places the knife back on the table and uses a cup to catch the blood flowing out of the wound.
Kouryuu starts bouncing on his perch on Ken’yuu’s chest. He’s looking at the cup with obvious hunger on his round face and he ends up smacking one hand against Ken’yuu’s cheek in his excitement. For a brief moment, he looks like any other energetic toddler.
“Patience is a virtue, Kouryuu,” Koumyou says as he presses his thumb hard against the meat of Ken’yuu’s arm, squeezing out more blood.
It doesn’t take much to fill the cup but Ken’yuu feels lightheaded all the same. Koumyou isn’t concealing his aura as much as he used to, and even this limited amount is enough to disorient him. Ken’yuu can’t pinpoint a specific emotion, everything overwhelmingly too much even to the senses of his human skin.
Koumyou hands the cup over to Kouryuu. “Here’s lunch!” he sing-songs. “Be a good boy and drink slowly, okay?”
Kouryuu nods and carefully starts sipping the blood.
“What—” A pained grunt escapes Ken’yuu as Koumyou stretches out his arm. “What is he?”
“I think he’s around two.” Koumyou laughs at the pained look Ken’yuu manages to give him. “Look with your true eyes and tell me what you see. I’ll even weaken my barrier for you.”
Because Ken’yuu’s curious—still curious despite the part of him that’s terrified of what he’ll see—and because Koumyou sounds like he’s challenging him, Ken’yuu looks.
He looks and he sees hunger and limitless dark energy barely contained in the shape of a human child. There’s a pulsing redpurplehungry aura at the forefront of his senses, impossible to ignore, endlessly repulsive and fascinating at the same time.
“Amazing, isn’t he?”
Ken’yuu has closed his true eyes, but he can still see a redpurple tendril reach out to wrap around the fingers of the hand that Koumyou uses to pat Kouryuu’s head.
“To be honest, I was trying to summon something much larger,” Koumyou says. “But I guess that’s what happens when you accidentally use dried mushrooms instead of dried herbs.”
“You said you picked him up from the river.”
“I did. That’s where the void opened up.” Koumyou shifts his grip on Ken’yuu’s wrist and squeezes. “Now it’s my turn. Be a good boy and change for me, will you?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t be difficult.” Another squeeze, this one more threatening. Ken’yuu can feel the bones in his wrist grind together. “I just need you to change your arm. The faster you change, the faster I’ll be done.”
Ken’yuu can feel his arm shifting against his will, can feel Koumyou’s aura twining around his own, making Ken’yuu’s feathers push up against his skin, making his bones rearrange but not shrink the way they normally would.
“That’s it,” Koumyou murmurs. He’s leaning over Ken’yuu, eyes fully open once more, breath ghosting across Ken’yuu’s sweaty skin. “Just a little more. You’re doing wonderfully.”
The forced change is agony, Ken’yuu’s limb torn between human and bird. There’s too much sensation against his frayed nerves, Koumyou running his fingers through his feathers.
It gets worse when Koumyou starts pulling them out.
“Stop—” Ken’yuu tries to pull away but Koumyou’s hold is too strong, both his hand and his aura not letting up.
“Don’t fight it, Ken’yuu. Don’t worry, I won’t take too much.”
Kouryuu plops down onto Ken’yuu’s chest, yawning. The cup is empty by now and Kouryuu mouths sleepily at Ken’yuu’s shirt, his redpurple aura muted.
“Normally I’d erase your memories of this,” Koumyou says conversationally. “But now that the secret’s out, it’s like, why bother, you know?”
He’s careful as he plucks Ken’yuu’s feathers, pulling them out one by one, making sure to hold them by the quill and not ruffle the vanes. In his partial shift, it feels like his limb is being covered in small cuts. He shakes with the need to complete the shift—in either direction, bird or human—but Koumyou mercilessly holds him in the liminal space between.
By the time Koumyou’s done, Ken’yuu’s drenched in sweat and Kouryuu has fallen asleep on him. He carefully takes Ken’yuu’s glasses off and places them on the bedside table, leans over Ken’yuu’s face and rubs his thumb against his cheek. His eyes are greedy as he looks at Ken’yuu and Kouryuu.
“You and I are going to have a lot of fun.”