"Wow, human clothes are itchy. How do you stand it?" Kida grimaced as he tugged at his collar again, looking over at the smaller boy who was making his bed.

"You'll be fine. I'm the one who's going to be banned from ever leaving the house when my parents find out I'm hiding a wolf in my bedroom." Mikado sighed and plopped down on his crisp sheets, lips curved into a small frown that looked like something straight out of a cartoon.

Kida waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry! I'll astonish your parents with my charming wit and marvellous smile! See?" The wolf beamed comically widely, extra-long canines sparkling quite marvellously, as promised.

Kida's ears drooped when he noticed Mikado's dejected face, and he calmed down enough to slink towards him and rest his chin on Mikado's knees. He looked up into the sad boy's face, those perfect lips curled downward in a way that made the wolf's heart hurt, and leaned upwards to plant a small lick on the boy's cheek.

"W-what! Kida-kun!" Masaomi jumped back at the sudden intrusion of his personal bubble, hand pressed to his damp cheek while Kida smiled sweetly up at him.

"Don't worry, Mikado. Everything will be fine," Kida murmured, then smiled brightly and gave a human-style peck to his nose.

"I have big news during supper! I can see your reaction now," Kida sighed happily, as the pink clouds invaded his vision and showed him his fantasies come to life: him getting down on one knee and proposing, only to have Mikado say something along the lines of 'oh, Kida-chan, how did you know?' then swoon as Kida planted a big smooch on his lips and swept him off his feet.

"Eh…sure, Kida-kun," Mikado replied, face incredulous but smiling.

Just then, Shinra's voice called up the stairs, "Mikado! Supper time!" The boy's smile fell as he audibly gulped.

"Why are you so nervous?" Kida helped Mikado stand, and sharp eyes caught the trembling of his knees and hands.

Mikado looked down at his feet. "My parents don't know…anything."

Kida tilted his head. "They seemed pretty smart to me. I mean, smart enough to raise you. They probably know how to do long division and everything!"

"No," Mikado stopped him, too frightened to laugh. "They don't know I'm…" He gestured between the two of them.

"Ohhhh, I get it!" Kida grinned stupidly. "Bestiality isn't a big deal, Mikado-chan! I mean, I still look pretty human, and I know for a fact that lots of girls in your school are super attracted to this one wolf, Aoba –"

"No! Theydon'tknowI'mgay!" Mikado said quickly, then gave a gusty sigh and smacked a hand against his face.

"Oh…" Kida didn't know how to comfort the human teen. Back in the forest gender didn't mean much of anything, let alone something to be ashamed of.

The two stood in silence for a moment, the atmosphere only broken by Shinra repeating his earlier call up the stairs. This woke Kida from his helplessness, and he moved to take Mikado's hand gently in his and tip his chin up to look at him.

"Don't worry, Mikado. I'll be beside you the whole way." Mikado blushed at Kida's open adoration, and nodded in reply.

Together they walked down the stairs, Kida a bit behind Mikado, and entered the kitchen. Mikado let go of the wolf's hand a moment before they stepped in, which made Kida blink a little in disappointment.

Only to be furthered when he noticed a new guest present.

"A-Anri-chan!" Sitting at the table next to Shinra and Celty was the girl in question, politely waiting with a slight smile and shy aura.

"Mikado-kun, hello. Your parents invited me over for dinner." She turned her attention to the wolf beside him with a tilt of the head. "Who is this?"

"Ah! Kida Masaomi, at your service. Don't worry about the ears and tail, I don't bite! I'm a docile wolf, trained in the arts of wooing young boys and being the life of the party~!" Kida grinned at her, gesturing as he spoke and ending with a peace sign thrust towards her and a full show of teeth.

"Hello, Kida-kun. My name is Sonohara Anri," she replied, and Kida had to blink the cutesy bubbles and flowers she exuded from his vision for a moment.

"Hello, Kida-san. I am Celty, Mikado's mother," Celty wrote.

"And I'm Shinra, Mikado's father and Celty's loving husband!" Shinra looped his arm around Celty's shoulders, only to be rebuffed instantly and left to nurse his injured hand while Kida and Mikado took their seats.

Celty helped hand out food to everyone and they quickly filled their plates, eager to move on to conversation. Kida was more inclined to the meat stew, eating the chunks of meat and trying to swallow the diced vegetables, if only to look good in front of Mikado's parents. No one wanted a wolf who only ate the good parts and left all the veggies to rot.

Now all he had to do was propose, and then he could carry Mikado off towards the sunset to live together forever!

Except that his plans didn't account for a petit girl with glasses hogging all of Mikado's attention!

"I missed you, Anri-chan! You were gone at that academy for so long…"

"Yes, I missed you too. We are permitted to visit home every few months, so I took the opportunity to see you." Mikado blushed at the kind words, and Kida found his eyes narrowing and ears pulling forwards.

"Thank you, Anri-chan! How much longer are you here for?"

"Two weeks." Kida's tail twitched. "Since the orphanage is a little busy right now, I'll probably be seeing you most of the time."

"That's great!" Mikado replied with an adorable smile. "Er, not the orphanage being full, but spending time with you."

There was clear awe and adoration in everything Mikado did when it came to this girl: in his voice, in the way his eyes widened and smile grew, in how he leaned forward and forgot his food in favour of listening to her stories of visiting her old room at the orphanage and learning things at her academy that Kida had never heard of. The wolf found himself watching them with sharp eyes, cursing the girl in his mind. Didn't she smell his scent on him? Did he have to say it out loud? Mikado belonged to him! He had ever since Kida first laid eyes on him, even if the boy didn't know it at the time! You can't fight fate!

"Unfortunately, Mikado will be spending most of his time with me!" Kida proclaimed loudly and suddenly, interrupting whatever Anri and his mate were talking about. "Doing things that we should do. You know, having picnics, feeding each other strawberries, rolling around behind the shed k–"

"Kida-kun!" Mikado glanced at his parents quickly, who were murmuring together and giving off the impression that they weren't really listening, though he noticed Shinra's eyes darting to them every few seconds.

"I don't mind," Anri smiled. "Perhaps we can all spend time together and get to know each other?"

"That sounds –" Mikado started.

"Terrible." Kida interjected coldly. "Unless you want to be sitting there awkwardly while I –"

"Kida-kun!"

"– shower Mikado with love and affection and –"

"Kida!"

"– have him begging for more while I –"

"Masaomi!"

"– enforce that I am his –"

"Kida-kun is my boyfriend!" Mikado shouted. Conversation halted. Kida sat back in shock. Shinra and Anri stared. Celty would have stared if she had a head.

The silence was practically stifling. Mikado was making the face one does when they are mortified to the point of wishing for death. The birds stopped chirping. Clouds halted movement. The Earth ceased rotating on its axis.

"I figured," Anri replied.

Mikado jumped at the broken silence. "Wait…what?"

"You two didn't exactly hide it," she replied.

"I..but I!...I don't….wha?" Mikado spluttered.

"Everyone's known you were gay since we were little. The whole town's been taking bets on how long you would take before admitting it," Anri said simply, reaching over to finish off the rest of her melon bun.

Mikado looked like he was about to faint.

"Well, now that that is settled, shall we clean up here?" Shinra said lightly. "We have to let everyone know down at Town Hall that you've finally fessed up. I think Nami owes me ¥4050."

Anri, Shinra, and Celty promptly began to clean up the table, piling dishes and wetting rags as Mikado stayed frozen in awe and Kida watched him with a raised brow. Celty gave Mikado a fond pat on the head as she passed to place the leftovers in the cellar.

Kida toyed with the thought of proposing right then as he fingered the ring in his pocket, then shrugged off the thought. He already made his point earlier, so this could wait for a better time when he needed to stake his claim again or display his love.

Plus, it looked like Mikado's brain broke.

"So you and Mikado grew up together?"

Anri smiled at the wolf as the three of them sat on the hill overlooking the valley town, the soft sun warming the earth and encouraging a light breeze to nudge the tall grass in gentle waves. "Yes, we met at the orphanage and played together. When Mikado-kun got adopted by Shinra-san and Celty-san we still saw each other every day."

"Then Anri got a scholarship to Gakuen Academy. It's a giant school for advanced students all the way in the North." Mikado gave Anri a friendly nudge. "She's the top student there."

"Ah, it's not that big of a deal," Anri said, waving off Mikado's praise with a soft blush. "I'm just good at studying."

"That's pretty impressive! I can't read or write. Instead, I rely on my overflowing charisma and infectious magnetism to get what I want~!" Kida bragged, squeezing Mikado's hand in his. "That's how I got Mikado-chan, after all!"

"Actually," Anri started curiously, "how did you two meet?"

The wolf and the boy looked at each other for a moment, exchanging glances: Kida's enthusiastic, Mikado's horrified.

"Well! Ever since Mikado-chan was a young lad, I, the courageous wolf Kida Masaomi, vowed to protect him from harm in the form of perverts and pedophiles! One day, he was walking through the forest where I gallantly dazzled him! I proposed that we race to his uncle's cabin, knowing that I, wolf extraordinaire, could never lose. But he was just so cute when he came in through the door after me that I couldn't help myself! I instantly began to –"

"– start a conversation!" Mikado butted in. "We got along and that was that!"

Kida pouted and leaned towards the boy, waking his fingers playfully up his chest. "Aw, Mikado-chan, you interrupted my story! And I was just getting to the good part!"

"So, do Kida-kun's parents live in the woods?" Anri asked politely.

The banter stopped instantly as Kida's smile fell and he grimaced a little, then turned to inspect suddenly-mesmerizing cloud formations. "…Sure, you could say that."

Mikado watched his boyfriend curiously, unsure of the meaning behind his ambiguous response, and made a note to ask later when Anri was gone (she was staying at the orphanage during her stay, despite his parents' protests, as she wanted to spend time with the caretakers and children there).

"Anyways, don't you think Mikado and I make the cutest couple? Someday people will travel from far and wide just to behold our magnificence, yes?" Trust it to Kida to change to subject using his own arrogance.

The trio of new friends conversed late into the day, laughing and smiling like something out of a cheesy teen novel, and waved goodbye as they split up at the base of the hill.

On the way back to Mikado's house walking through the streets, people Mikado had known for his whole life would come up to him and pat him on the back or congratulate him on finally coming out. Some even, embarrassingly enough, slipped him explicit tips or 'protection'.

"See, Mikado-chan? The whole town wants us to go through with it! Look at this! 'Ribbed for Extra Pleasure'!" Kida joked as they reached the edge of the woods near Mikado's house. He slept in turns between Mikado's room and the woods, though with Mikado he was only ever allowed on the floor near the bed.

"Kida-kun?" Mikado's earnest yet serious voice caught Kida's attention. "What happened to your parents?"

Kida's lips curled downwards. "Ah, Mikado-chan, you don't want to hear about that. It's just a boring, depressing story."

"I would like to know about you, Kida-kun. I care about you deeply." Kida jolted in surprise at the pure honesty and hope within the boy's voice. He knew the moment he stared into those deep blues he would crack and let everything spill out, but…he couldn't help it.

It was while staring into those eyes that Kida finally admitted what he hadn't even to himself.

"They left."

Mikado reached to take Kida's hand.

"Where?"

Kida looked away, then back again. There was courage in those blue eyes. "I don't know. My earliest memories are as a pup, learning to hunt from one of the other lone wolves in the area. I didn't really figure out that wolves even had packs until I was five."

"Did you ever go looking for them?"

A squeeze through the fingertips.

"There was no use. I couldn't know how long they'd been gone. Heck, I might've not even been born here! They might've just dropped me here of me and run off!" He stared at his feet with a grimace.

Fingers loosening.

"…Kida …"

Kida sighed the tired sigh of those who've seen too much. "Don't worry about it, Mikado. I'll never see know my parents. There must've been a reason they abandoned me in the first place."

The two stood in silence as the sun peeked between the trees.

"If…if it helps…I never knew my parents either." Mikado smiled sadly when Kida blinked up at him. "They both were very sick and passed a little while after I was born. I was raised by the orphanage caretakers and got adopted by Celty and Shinra-san when I was three."

The silence descended again.

The sun was lowering. Wind was whistling between the grass. Kida couldn't hear past his heartbeat.

Mikado weaved their fingers tighter.

"I just want you to know that you're not alone." Mikado leaned his forehead against Kida's as the wolf squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a pressure against his lips for a moment, a gently embrace between palms, and then the blue-eyed boy was gone.

And even hours later as Kida lay in the grass, staring up at Venus' steady light and the spider web of constellations slide across the domed sky, he could still feel the warmth of it.

AN: This chapter wasn't as humorous as I would've liked :/ But I guess it was time to make it a bit more serious.

I'm so sorry for not updating in such a long time AGAIN! I broke my toe on the last day of school (also my birthday, coincidentally), then my computer plug broke so I had to wait for the company to check my warranty and send me a new one! But here it is now, so I hope you liked it! OTL

Do you guys have any plot point you'd like to see here? Or what you hope the length to be, because at this point I have really no idea what to do or where to end it ^.^; I can really carry this story on for as long as you'd like me to, but since I originally planned this to be a oneshot I have no real further plans or way to end it after this.

I'm considering sending Kida and Mikado off to join Anri at Gakuen Academy (yes, I know what it translates to) somehow. Maybe. But then it would turn into sort of a school fic, and I don't know if I want that :S

Enjoying the story? Drop a review! Reviews are food for the fanfic writer's soul!