I wrote this... months ago. I didn't care for it at the time. I still don't consider it up to par, but I figured anything I'm allowed to finish I might as well post.

He was meant to be alone. He had always known this, had always been alone and would always be alone, because that was how it was meant to be. Even when someone was physically close to him, intimate even… he was meant to be alone, and so he was.

He preferred being alone. People annoyed and aggravated him at the best of times. He couldn't bear to consider himself the same as them, he couldn't think of himself and everyone else as merely human. There were herbivores, the annoyances that were so weak as to require each other just to survive, and there was the lone carnivore, Hibari Kyouya, unreachable, so suited to his namesake as he soared above the crowds of herbivores that could only dream of flight. This was how it was meant to be. This was how he existed. He didn't have to be happy, merely content, and so his life would continue.

There were times, occasional moments of curiosity, that he would take to a lower altitude, and allow others brief glimpses of him, moments or maybe even hours of time they were allowed to spend in the same area as himself. He didn't enjoy these times, but didn't always hate them either. He tolerated them, usually more for his own amusement than anything else. Even as he allowed the others to spend time in his company, he was alone. When he had no reason to bite, he could be content.

That was how a bronco made its way into his life.

It had started with a fight. 'Training' it had been called, but a carnivore had no need to be taught, especially not by a herbivore with a whip. He had expected it to end quickly in his favor, but the bronco—Cavallone Dino, though his name hardly mattered—wasn't so overconfident as Hibari had originally believed. Though the bronco couldn't fly, he could more than keep up from the ground.

He seemed so herbivorous at first glance, cheerful and unintelligent and fully relying on other herbivores in one of the most blatant ways possible—he literally needed to have them there just to fight, or he would wrap himself up in his own whip. It was ridiculous, almost disgusting. But when the fight did start, it didn't matter anymore that it was only by the presence of his men that the bronco was capable of anything. There were small moments of herbivorous tendencies, which Hibari was all too willing to take advantage of, but for the most part… he almost fought like a carnivore.

He was relentless, both in battle and in his cheerful nature. The first was somewhat endearing, the latter just obnoxious. At first he seemed to dislike Hibari almost as much as Hibari disliked him, and it was obvious the task of 'training' him seemed a chore in spite of his demeanor. But in that first fight both of them had been undeniably intrigued in their own ways, and the fights had continued. The skylark started flying a little closer to the ground, just for a while. Just to see what this bronco would amount to.

He hadn't meant to stay so close to the ground for so long.

The bronco had worked away at Hibari until he had come to be altogether tolerated. He had made his way into Hibari's school, Hibari's house, even Hibari's bed. He would scramble to do everything Hibari claimed to want, though most of the time he would only say he wanted it for the sake of watching the bronco try so hard. The bronco used words entirely unfamiliar to the skylark, words of togetherness, and though Hibari made his protests known, eventually he stopped trying, and the bronco would only ever see that as a supposed admittance of their truth. No matter how many words were used, the skylark was still alone. Just as he was meant to be.

He caught himself, one day, almost believing it wasn't true, almost considering the bronco as some exception to the rule. Not consciously of course, but still it was there. He found that a short smile would tug at his lips when the bronco would bear that ridiculous grin, and suddenly he knew that something was wrong. He was trying to touch the ground when he knew he never could. He was trying to leave the feeling of being alone behind when he knew it would always be with him.

And just like that, the skylark flew away again.

He had informed the bronco in an offhand way, as if it didn't matter, because to him it didn't. "I'm bored of you," he had told him, and that was also true, though hardly the heart of the matter. "I'm done with you." The bronco had taken it surprisingly well, though in his cruelty Hibari had continued to torment him for a time, watching for the truth in his eyes or his tone, the skylark's curiosity insatiable. If the bronco had known the real reason, would he have been happier? Or would he have just been more miserable, knowing that all those positive emotions he had poured into his 'relationship' with Hibari were wasted? Either way, Hibari didn't feel any pity for him. He had claimed to know the skylark better than anyone. He of all people should have known there was no togetherness to be returned.

He was meant to be alone. And so he was.