WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH, miyuki kazuya

one

chapter one

❛be the catapult to storm the gates❜

━━━━━━

You should've known your day would be shitty after you got hit in the face by the drone.

The guy had lost his shit and started screaming at you for ruining his expensive drone. You kept it going because hello, you were the one hit in the face with it! Right on your temple! You could've died!

Okay, maybe not that last part.

Since... everything happened, you're fairly durable.

Hard to kill. Like... a cockroach.

So it couldn't have killed you. But it gave you a nasty cut, the area probably red and swollen, too, aching when you move your head too fast.

Then you realized you had lunch with your friends in fifteen minutes and you were all the way in Minato when you needed to be in Shinjuku. You could've made it with time to spare but then you had to save a dog who ran in the way of a truck that didn't have the time to brake. And then a little old lady waved you down to help with her groceries and how could you say no to that?

You aren't complaining — you're happy to help these people. Really. But you still ended up getting to Waseda, specifically the Humanities building where you hide your stuff, with only two minutes left to spare; two minutes to change into your normal clothes, hide your suit on the roof, and attempt to fix your appearance so that you didn't look like you were just sweating in your suit for two straight hours as you swung across Tokyo.

More than that, with everything that has happened in the past six months, it is... imperative that you try to be on time.

Tardiness has, sadly, become your best friend. Late for class, late for games, late for hang outs. Your excuses aren't that great, either. Your friends are patient with you for the most part but you can tell it is starting to raise some red flags. You cannot afford for them to look too closely at it. It would raise too many questions — questions you cannot afford to answer.

So, naturally, in your haste to be on time, you completely forget about your run-in with the drone. You're only reminded of it when you meet your friends at Unicafe 125, at your usual table by the large windows next to the maple tree, red leaves glowing under the sunlight, and then —

"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!"

It perhaps speaks to how bad the cut looks that neither Kuramochi, Wakana, or Kazuya scold Eijun for his volume.

"Gross," Kuramochi says.

"Oh, my god," Wakana gasps at the same time.

Kazuya just raises an eyebrow and tugs at your wrist, pulling you closer.

"It's nothing," you pant, a little out of breath. The only time you ever are is times like these, when you're swinging yourself back to campus as fast as you can, then scrambling to change when you arrive, and practically sprinting to wherever you need to go.

"That doesn't look like nothing," Wakana says, looking like she wants to climb over the table to you. Eijun is already halfway on it. Kuramochi tugs half-heartedly on his arm.

"It's fine," you say, dropping into your seat beside Kazuya with Kuramochi on your left. "It's from earlier. Banged my head on the counter in the kitchen."

One of your more convincing lies, as, since moving into the shared house you all rent two years ago, all of you have dropped something on the floor in the kitchen and banged your head on the edge of the counter coming up. Eijun the most out of all of you.