SPOILER ALERT: Takes place after the ending, Chapter 45.

They call the lion the king of the jungle, though he is not so brave, nor does he live in jungles. He steals from other carnivores, murders cubs for his own gain and forces the weak into exile or death. Gou knows this because he is deeply familiar with the cowardice of those who pride themselves as heroes. He doesn't blame the lions for being who they are—the African wild is brutal, cruel, and will take from anyone who cannot fight for what they have—but he finds it ironic that they are idolized when others, more deserving, are demonized.

Take the hyena, for example. He is fiercely loyal to his clan, a skilled hunter and tenacious survivor. Yet he is considered sneaky, wily, a thief who steals from lions because he is too weak to fight himself. And does he not look the part? Lean, hunched, small and suspicious, compared to the beautiful lion. Who would believe that the lions were notorious for taking the hyena's kill and starting wars they were not willing to finish?

Gou was a lion. He would not lie to himself. He liked to think he was not so self-serving as the pride who had taken him in, but he was a lion nonetheless, ruthless and mean. The perfect soldier. It was what they molded him into and he was too old to change now. Everyone was a carnivore, until they became the prey. The hyenas had long since been run off the plains.

And yet—to think there was still one left yet, struggling to live against the backdrop of fallen man, kingdom of the wilds. Maeda was no lion. He was a hyena. Pitiful to behold, nervous and weak and seemingly inept—which, Gou soon realized, he was anything but. The lions stole his freedom, but he clung to life, refusing to relinquish his spirit. He came to them small and frightened and turned them into his clan, Gou and Yamanoi lost to them and Yoshioka lost to himself. He came to them small and frightened and stood bold against his fear, protecting them, following them.

Coming back for him.

Allowing himself to become a monster—no, superhuman—in his anguish, all because he thought Gou had died. And while Hanabata took his son to the north, and Yoshioka set his sights on the city, Maeda remained with him, patiently waiting for his wounds to heal so that they could begin their next adventure, wherever it might lead them.

Was he cured? Would he become a bokor, a child of light? Gou no longer cared. They were comrades, friends—and when Maeda turned those guileless eyes to him, his mouth quirking upwards in a shy smile, Gou thought they could be more. Perhaps he even wanted them to be more.

And if Maeda became bokor after all this, evolved into a biological unholy, then Gou would, too. Maeda came back for him, fought for him, never left him alone, and so Gou wouldn't abandon him, either. He would follow him for all his days, for even if his mind dwindled and his body rotted, he would always have Maeda. That he would never forget.

His love would evolve with him.