Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

-New Message from the Queer Volleyball Alliance:-

-Bokuto: Hey Kuroo, do you remember how it all began?-

-Bokuto: Like, before this group chat was made and everything-

-Bokuto: When it was just a bunch of idiots who liked to hang out at this one bar in particular-

-Kuroo: I mean, I remember where it began for you and I-

-Kuroo: But we weren’t there from the actual beginning-

-Suga: Yeah, if you want to talk about the beginning, you have to talk to us-

-Noya: Me too!-

-Suga: You are a part of “us”, Noya-

-Suga: “Us” as in Karasuno-

-Tendou: We were there pretty early on, too-

-Suga: Not as early as Karasuno >:( -

-Suga: Karasuno is the OG bar squad-

-Suga: Or rather, restaurant squad, since when we first started going to the Den after practices and games we were too young to sit at the bar-

-Suga: But you know what I mean-

-Suga: Why are you thinking about it now?-

-Bokuto: Sometimes I just like to Think you know-

-Bokuto: Like, how would all of our lives have turned out if we hadn’t met each other-

-Kuroo: Don’t think too hard. You’ll blow out your only braincell-

-Bokuto: I will have you know, Kuroo, that I have more than one braincell-

-Kuroo: Yes, you have two. One for volleyball and one for Akaashi-

-Bokuto: EXACTLY-

-Bokuto: But really. Isn’t it crazy to think about?-

-Bokuto: Sometimes I wish I could witness those moments again. But as, like, a passive observer-

-Suga: Well, if you want a retelling, you should ask the one person who was there for all of it-

-Kuroo: Except that Annette dropped her phone in the dishwashing sink yesterday and bricked it-

-Kuroo: #RIPAnnette-

-Kuroo: And Lionelle is camping in the middle of buttfuck nowhere with her crazy junior high schoolers AND without cell signal-

-Bokuto: I guess it’s up to us, then-

-Bokuto: I’m sure between the ten of us with cell signal and unbricked phones, we can remember everything that happened over the last few years-

-Suga: I guess that’s our cue, then-

-Suga: Noya? Asahi? Daichi?-

-Suga: Let’s tell this story from the top-

-Suga: It all began in September of our 3rd year at Karasuno High School…-

Chapter Text

High schoolers were allowed in the Den, they just couldn’t sit at the bar, and had to leave by 8pm. They couldn’t order alcoholic drinks until they were graduated AND 18, and no disguise or fake ID could help them either; Annette’s True Sight allowed her to sense their dishonest intentions. They tried to trick her; oh yes, they tried to trick her all the time. But she’d always see through it, and laugh, and give them a calm reprimand. They’d leave empty-handed, or sometimes with a virgin version of their desired drink once they realized that it was better to just go with the flow rather than fight it.

And that - a reprimand that was sturdy, but did not sting, that did not mock, that did not put down, followed by a suggestion, a redirection, and an encouragement to just wait a few more years - was often enough to earn their respect, even if grudging.

For this reason and others, the Den had plenty of high school regulars. They’d stop by after classes got out, or once extracurriculars were done, to buy food and drink and spend time together. The seating areas beyond the bar had tables and booths - small ones and sizable ones, suitable for all sorts of gatherings, from dates to post-game celebrations to study groups who needed a noisy environment to focus. That was another reason she had so many regulars.

Speaking of her regulars, there went a few of them - one of the local sports teams, led in by a shorter boy whose lightning-element aura kept his brown hair permanently spiked up. The group waved to Annette before sitting down at one of the large tables, menus already in hand.

“Did you win today?” she called, filling a glass from one of her taps. The cacophony of cheering and smiling that followed her question gave her all the answers she needed.

“Well done, then.” She handed the glass off to the older man who’d ordered it; he muttered a quiet ‘thanks’ and went back to watching the overhead TV.

The boys usually gathered their orders and then sent one person to the bar to submit them. They’d always debate their choices with both words and elbows, despite their captain’s attempts to get them to be just slightly more civil. He always gave up eventually, and his vice captain would put a solemn, but reassuring hand on his shoulder. Sometimes, when the energy was high, the group particularly rowdy, and the captain seeming all the more defeated by it, his counterpart would plant a light kiss on his cheek too, just for the extra bit of reassurance. Tonight seemed to be one of those nights.

“Annette, we know what we want!” the lightning-haired kid ran up to the bar, waving one of the Den’s menus. “Are you ready?”

“Of course,” the woman replied, stepping over to the register. “What’ll it be-”

In the corner of her eye, she spotted two unfamiliar men leering at the rest of the team’s table, and a bristling feeling crawled up her spine. As she watched, they rose, and stalked towards the table. The kid at the register with her noticed her silence and turned. His brown eyes narrowed when he saw the men; while he didn’t have the instincts of a were-creature, he was good at picking out trouble.

“They’re fans of the other team, Annette,” he said, voice low. “College alumni, I think. They were being really rowdy during the game.” Wrinkling his nose, he stepped away from the counter. “I’m not gonna let them touch my friends!”

He was good at picking out trouble, but it seemed the full motivation of the trouble was beyond him; but it wasn’t beyond Annette, not with her True Sight. Her hand on the lightning-haired kid’s shoulder, reaching past the register to get to him, stopped his exit. “Let me,” she said quietly. Even in the face of his protective anger, her voice was calm, and that calmness earned her his respect. He stilled, and wisely stepped to the side as she planted both hands on the top of the bar.

The voices from the table were too far away to hear over the constant babble of the bar, but Annette didn’t need to hear them to understand what they were trying to say. The captain had stood up, and moved between the men and the rest of the table. But even though he was a third year, he was still just one kid. One of the men reached for the lapels of his jacket, sneer on his face and dark eyes burning.

Annette’s hands pushed down against the counter, and her feet against the floor, and in one, fluid motion, she leapt over the bar. When her feet hit the ground on the other side, her steps were still quiet, but strides longer, stronger now, and the people around her seemed just a bit smaller. And when her hand caught the aggressive man’s wrist, stopping it just short of grabbing the teenager by the jacket, it was covered in thick, grey fur, and tipped by hard, black claws.

“Assaulting other patrons is not allowed in my bar.” her voice was different now, too. Deeper. More resonant, echoing past sharp teeth. “You’ll be showing yourself out…before I do it for you.”

The aggressive man’s head sharply turned to her face, and she watched the blood drain from his cheeks as he realized what he was facing. In the last hundred years of peacetime, were-creatures had no need to take up their forms for battle, but the tales of their strength were still taught in schools and stories, from the ancient banishment of the Shadow Spirits to last century’s Second Region War.

And the werewolf, wreathed in thick, grey fur (with a bit of rusty red between the ears and on the back of her neck, in Annette’s case; it matched the color of her hair when she was in her human form, and the hair tie she’d had on to hold her ponytail was still holding a bunch of her hackles together), was the one everyone knew the best.

“U-unhand me, you bitch!” the man managed to squeak out. Annette let him yank his arm free from her grip; he did it with such force that he stumbled back, pushing into his equally-frightened companion.

“Get out of my bar,” the werewolf growled. The room around them was dead quiet now. “And don’t try to come back.”

The two assailants didn’t need to be told twice. With another spat curse or two, they scrambled past each other to get to the door. When it slammed shut in their wake, the bar took a collective breath, and then the patrons started clapping.

“All walks of life are welcome in the Den.” her voice resonated over the applause, a speech she had made all too many times. “If you have no tolerance for them, then you can go drink somewhere else.”

And that was the greatest reason why she had so many young regulars. They knew she’d protect them. Even if she hadn’t realized they believed that about her yet.

“A year, a whole year we’ve been coming here, and I just knew you were some kind of were-creature, but I couldn't figure out what!” the lightning-haired kid bounced right up to her side, instantly recovered from the tension of the situation, now that the angry men were gone. “You’re so cool, Annette!”

The werewolf breathed out a small sigh and straightened up. “Well, it’s not often I need to kick someone out like that. But when it does happen, I like to leave a strong impression.” She lifted her hands, claws and fur shrinking back into her skin as she did. The transformation was always a bit unsettling to see for the first time, judging by the mixed awe and horror on some of the kids’ faces. It left her outfit a little baggy, too, until she re-did all of the hidden clasps and snap-buttons that her transformation had popped open.

“Are you kids okay?” she asked, snapping the buttons along the edges of her denim jacket’s sleeves back together.

“Yes, Ms. Annette,” the captain responded, always respectful. “Thank you for helping us.”

“Of course,” the woman replied, smiling. “You can rely on me.” She put her hands on her hips. “Though, when you said you’ve been coming here for a year, it made me realize I know none of your names.” She gestured towards the group. “That’s no proper way for a host to treat her regulars. So, if you wouldn’t be bothered by it, tell me what you’d like me to call you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Annette added the finishing touches to the whisky sour before she passed it across the bar. “How’s the new class shaping up, Lionelle?”

“Ah, geez,” the other woman rumbled, passing one hand through her thick, blonde hair. “They’re on the rough side, this year. An extra-bad crop of delinquents and flunkies.” She accepted the drink and took a sip of it before continuing. “But Koro’s refusing to give up on them, so I’ve just got to keep doing my best.”

“I know between the lot of you teachers, you’ll be able to shape them up and get them into some half-decent high schools,” Annette replied encouragingly. “You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again.”

Lionelle grunted into another sip of her drink. A few seats down the bar, another patron signaled for Annette; she stepped away to get him another drink, leaving her friend with her thoughts.

It was close to 11pm, which meant the traffic in the bar was dying off. After a busy evening, the gradual cessation of chatter always seemed to calm Annette down. And when it wasn’t busy, she was able to spend more time catching up with her friends who came to visit.

“We’ve gotten a few complaints already, you know,” Lionelle said, swirling her glass to make the ice cubes clink together.

“Oh?” Annette asked. “The typical?”

The blonde woman nodded. “The ‘oh I’m just a worried parent, and I’m worried about a big, scary werelion teaching my kids.’ As always.” Her tone was casual, reflecting her true feelings - Annette knew Lionelle got these complaints every year, with every new class. There was always at least one parent who had just enough of something against were-creatures to protest their kid being taught by one.

“It’ll die down. And then they’ll start complaining about what we’re teaching them, instead. Like they always do.” Lionelle took another sip of her drink, and her tone shifted. “I know it won’t change Koro’s plans, but something tells me things are going to get harder.”

“Yea? Why do you say that?” Annette asked, tilting her head curiously. Lionelle was not easily rattled and didn’t have True Sight - the ability was rare, even amongst were-creatures - so if she was concerned, she must have noticed something beyond just an instinct.

The werelion shrugged. “Perhaps I’m just watching the news too closely. But I’m sure you have been, too.” She swirled her glass again - the ice cubes went clink, clink, clink - “I heard you had an altercation in here recently. Had to throw some guys out.”

Annette stilled, hands on the bar counter. “I did, yes. How did you hear about it?”

Lionelle smirked, mood lightening. “My younger brother is the coach for one of the high school sports teams. Volleyball, I think. He told me that during practice a few weeks ago, one of the kids wouldn’t shut up about how a werewolf threw two angry dudes out of the Den.”

Annette felt a little embarrassed to know her most recent display of force was getting toted around in such a victorious way, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. And, reflecting on it now, those kids did seem to be more enamored with her since the incident.

What are their names again? Right, there’s the captain, Daichi, and the vice-captain, Suga. The captain didn’t seem to have any aura, but his counterpart gave off a faint aura of ice magic, just a scattering of light blue, refractile flecks that hung around the tips of his silver hair; either his powers were relatively weak or he was really good at hiding them. By comparison, he had a teammate who was shockingly bad at hiding his magic aura, with lightning always jumping through his perpetually-static-y hair. The lightning-haired kid asked me to call him Noya, and the tall guy who wears his hair in a bun is Asahi. The latter was definitely a were-creature of some sort. Annette didn’t need True Sight to know that, as all were-creatures could instinctively recognize each other, and they tended to have visual characteristics that even normal humans could learn to identify - unique hair and eye colors, a more athletic-leaning build, and subtle facial features, such as faint markings or slightly-sharp teeth. And then there’s…argh, the kid with the really short hair, that blond kid with the headphones and his friend, the other two first years, and three other second-years…I need to remember their names.

“I still think you’d be a good teacher,” Lionelle said, breaking Annette out of her thinking. “But I know, I know, you’ve got a bar to run.”

“Damn right,” Annette agreed, nodding. “This place is my baby. Plus, being a teacher sounds like too much responsibility.”

“And running a business isn’t?”

“Different kind of responsibility.”

Lionelle drained the last of her drink from her glass and set it down, expression becoming serious. “You put yourself out there to protect those kids. We need more people like you out there in the world.”

“I was just trying to enforce my rules,” Annette protested, taking the empty glass. “No assaulting other patrons inside my bar.”

Lionelle shook her head. “Ah, I know you too well, Annette. You wouldn’t have gone wolf on them that quickly if it was a bunch of adults squaring up with each other.”

Annette faltered, glass halfway to the wash-basin behind the bar. Lionelle did know her too well. “They had bad intentions,” she said quietly. She’d seen it all with her True Sight.

“Anyone who’s trying to hurt a kid has bad intentions,” Lionelle deflected. “You know that. You saw it. And you did something about it, something risky. Those men could’ve called the police on you. Said you’d gone berserk.”

Annette felt a bit of a chill down her spine. She set the glass down in the wash-basin. “That didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to let them put a hand on those kids. Plus, everyone in the bar would’ve vouched for me if the police did show up.”

“Bingo!” Lionelle said with an enthusiastic point of her finger. “And that’s why you’d make a good teacher.” She then held her hands up placatingly. “But I know, I know, you’ve got a bar to run. But think about it.” She dropped her hands, a glint coming up in her golden eyes. “There’s more than one way to be someone the kids can rely on.”

Annette crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head with a faint smile on her face. “You’re enthusiastic as always, Lionelle.”

“I’m gonna need this good energy to get through this school year,” the werelion complained. She glanced around, and then stood up from her stool and stretched her arms over her head. “Well, I should probably get going, Annette. But I’ll swing by again soon.”

Annette nodded and turned on the faucet for the wash-basin. “See you later, Lionelle.”

Chapter Text

“Annette!” the exclamation was from Hinata, the first-year with bright orange hair and an equally spirited personality. “Our coach said that his sister likes to come here to get drinks! Can we meet her sometime?”

Annette started taking the glasses off her serving tray and passing them to the table. “Oh, Lionelle? I’m sure you’ll run into her sometime, since you’ve started coming here almost every week. She’s also a regular.”

“Is she also a werelion?” Hinata asked.

Annette nodded, trying to recall what she knew about Lionelle’s family. The brother’s name was Keishin, if her memory was accurate, and he was about two years younger than Lionelle. If he was also a werelion, then it made it more likely that both parents were also were-creatures of some sort, but she couldn’t remember if one or both of them were. Mixed marriages were relatively uncommon, even though they had been protected by law for decades now. “Yes, she is.”

“Hey Hinata, you’ve met Coach Ukai’s grandpa, right?” the first-year with the freckles, Yamaguchi, asked. “Is he also a werelion?”

Hinata frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t ask him…but he does have that ‘grrrooaaaaar’ -” Annette was not sure how that particular sound effect had anything to do with werelions, but Yamaguchi seemed to understand - “sort of energy, you know?”

Annette set down the last of the drinks and bid the table farewell so she could scoot back to the bar and to the assistance of her junior bartenders. Once she’d cleared up a few things, she pulled out her phone and texted Lionelle.

-Annette: The kids are asking about you. Guess they found out their coach has a sister who frequents this place-

-Lionelle: AYE DO I HAVE FANS NOW?-

-Annette: They want to meet you sometime-

-Lionelle: Of course!! Hey, ask them when their next visit is going to be, and I’ll see if I’m available to drop by the bar-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh, there they are,” Annette observed, nodding over Lionelle’s shoulder towards the Den’s entryway. Through the door, the Karasuno kids were spilling, chattering excitedly as Daichi tried in vain to get them to walk into the bar with even a remote sense of organization.

“Oh, great energy,” Lionelle observed, withholding a snort.

“Hi, Ms. Annette!” Suga called, waving.

“Hey, kids,” Annette replied, returning the gesture as the gaggle of high schoolers jostled their way over to the bar where she and Lionelle were sitting. “You’re in luck today.” She gestured towards her friend. “This is Lionelle, Coach Ukai’s sister, who you were hoping to meet.”

“HI!!!” Hinata shoved his way between Kageyama and Tsukishima, huge grin on his face. “I’m-”

“Stupid Hinata!” Kageyama yelled as he staggered to the side from the force of the shove.

“HINATA,” Daichi thundered.

“-Hinata,” the jovial kid finished, slinking backwards a little, grin now sheepish.

“Good to meet you all,” Lionelle said, clearly withholding her amusement for the sake of trying to be a good role model. “I trust you’ve been good to my kid brother?”

“Yes!!” the team chorused - very much a mixture of truth and lies.

“He is an excellent coach,” Daichi summed it up with another sideways glare at Hinata and Kageyama. “We’re lucky to be able to learn from him.”

“You look a lot like him, Ms. Lionelle,” Suga observed. “I can see the family resemblance.”

Annette blinked, looking between Lionelle and the kids. Lionelle did look a lot like her brother, with golden eyes and similar-length blonde hair, though hers was far more unruly, and she tended to just let it wreathe wildly around her head rather than trying to tame it with hair bands or styling. And their similarities were even more pronounced when she was in her werelion form. There had been a time in their childhoods where that hadn’t been the case, before the unexpected had made itself apparent.

“We do look a lot alike, but I’m the better looking one,” Lionelle deflected with a humorous grin, framing her face with one hand.

Tanaka glanced at Noya and spoke in undertone, “She definitely goes to the gym more than he does…I mean, look at her arms…”

“What do you do for a job, Ms. Lionelle?” Asahi asked.

“I’m a junior high teacher,” the werelion replied. “I teach at Kunugigaoka Junior High.”

The group let out a collective gasp.

“Isn’t that place, like, super prestigious?” Yamaguchi asked, eyes wide.

“Yes,” Lionelle agreed. “But don’t get your hopes up; I teach the flunkie class.”

The group let out a collective mutter of disappointment. “So much for insider knowledge of how smart kids study,” Hinata grumbled, scuffing the floor with his shoe.

“Hey, you love your flunkie class,” Annette reminded her friend.

“I do love my flunkie class,” Lionelle agreed, smiling. “I wouldn’t give them up for the opportunity to teach anywhere else, even if it paid better.”

Being a teacher for the academically-disadvantaged did not pay well at all, something Lionelle would periodically complain about. But the werelion was telling the truth - she wouldn’t leave that job, not unless she was forced to. She’d found somewhere she had purpose, where she felt like she was making a difference - and somewhere that had coworkers who accepted her, as a were-creature and a person who didn’t conform to gender norms.

There were new patrons at the register, ready to order, so Annette elected to leave Lionelle with the kids and return to doing her job. They seemed to be getting along great so far, full of questions for the blonde woman. None of them found it weird that the two of them looked alike, or that they were the same height, or that Lionelle was probably the stronger of the two…she was their coach’s sister, and that was all they cared about.

She smiled to herself, content. They seemed like really good kids.

Chapter Text

“Thank you, Ms. Annette,” Shimizu took the number placard from the werewolf along with her change.

“No problem.” The rusty-haired woman sent off the girls’ order to the kitchen. “Good luck working on those poster designs. I’m sure you’ll come up with something good.”

Shimizu gave her a small smile. “Yachi is an excellent artist and designer. I’m just here so she doesn’t get too bogged down in the details.”

The 3rd-year manager took the number placard back to her booth, where the 1st-year manager was seated, already pawing over her stack of design ideas with a frazzled look. Bits of images were visible - designs of crows, ideas for poster titles, and a few action-shot photographs of some of the team, often featuring Hinata mid-jump, when the orange-haired kid was ridiculously high off the ground, right arm wound back and ready to spike.

“Annette?” another patron, one of her regulars, grabbed her attention, and she walked to the other end of the bar to get the guy another round.

“How’re we doing tonight, Gerald?” the werewolf asked, passing the older man another beer.

“Oh, you know,” Gerald grunted with a vague wave of his hand. “Same old, same old.” His eyes flicked back to the bar’s TV; it was set to one of the local news stations. “You been keeping up with the news lately?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Annette admitted. She glanced away, back towards the rest of the Den, and felt a familiar, bristling feeling rise up her spine. There: two men, probably college seniors or recent graduates, were standing in front of the booth Shimizu and Yachi were sitting in, leaning against the wooden backings and blocking the entrance.

“Sorry, Gerald,” she excused herself. “I have to go take care of something.”

“Hmmm?” the older man spotted what the woman’s amber eyes were set on. “Oh, bother. You go give them a stern talking-to, Annette.” He took a drink of his beer and turned back to the TV. “Gods know someone needs to teach these young fools some respect…”

Annette, face set into a facade of neutrality, swiftly made her way out from behind the bar and over to the booth currently under siege. The two men were still leaning over the entrance, hands gesturing calmly and talking with smiles like there was nothing wrong, nothing at all. Inside the booth, Yachi had her head down and gaze fixed on the table, hands fidgeting in her lap. Shimizu was sitting up straighter, eyes on the two men and a small, polite smile on her face. Her hands, also in her lap, were curled into tight fists.

“Let us buy you some drinks,” one of the men said, never dropping that painfully fake smile of his. “Tell us more about this art project of yours.”

“Hey, gentlemen,” Annette said, interrupting the conversation. “Can I get by you? I need to retrieve the number placard from these ladies.”

Both men turned, and Annette registered a faint flash of recognition in their eyes; so they had identified her as the Den’s owner. Maybe that bit of authority it gave her would be enough to get them to back down…

“Of course.” The guy who’d spoken had a green polo shirt on - now dubbed Green Polo in Annette’s mind - and still hadn’t dropped his fake smile. It made the werewolf’s skin crawl.

“Thanks.” She moved between the two, very, very aware of how close they were, and picked the number placard off the table. As she did, she made eye contact with Shimizu, and the girl’s determined intentions hit her awareness like a truck. There were two things she wanted: she’d like nothing more than for the two men to go away and leave her and Yachi to their work, but she’d also be damned before she backed down and let them get to the younger girl.

The werewolf turned around so it was now her between the table and the two men. She saw Green Polo’s eyes narrow, just a little. “I’m also going to have to ask you two to move on,” she stated. “Making other patrons uncomfortable is not allowed in my bar.”

“We’re just having a friendly chat,” Green Polo replied. Gods, he still had that creepy smile on his face, but his eyes were harder now. He and his pal were only slightly taller than Annette; she’d probably meet or surpass them if she transformed into her wolf form. Good to have that as a backup plan, but hopefully she wouldn’t have to go that far.

She dropped her neutral expression, frowning. “These ladies are trying to work on an important project,” she said, keeping her voice steady and just slightly louder than normal. “They do not want to chat with you.”

“And who’re you to judge that?” Green Polo’s friend, Brown Khakis, asked, expression twisting into a sneer. It seemed he was not as good at the ‘fake friendly’ act.

The bristling feeling in Annette’s spine was getting worse. Gods, first it had been those two college creeps last month who’d gone after Daichi and Suga, and now this. It was like these people were getting bolder or something. She rarely had to escalate these sorts of confrontations - usually, the creeps would flee the moment they noticed she was onto them, not stand their ground.

“Please leave them alone,” she reiterated, keeping her voice calm and polite, but not taking out its strong edge. Just like Shimizu behind her, she’d be damned if she let these guys get to the other girls.

“We don’t have to go anywhere,” Brown Khakis disdained. “This bar is a public space!”

“And I, as the owner of this bar, reserve the right to kick out people who break the rules,” Annette replied, voice and eyes getting harder. “Making other patrons uncomfortable is against those rules. Now, please, leave. I will not tell you again.”

The tension that filled the next few heartbeats was stiff enough to cut with a knife. Gods, she did not want to have to transform to get these two to back off. Two times in two months was too much; if it became a habit, she was going to get in trouble for it.

Green Polo sighed and tapped his friend on the arm. “Let’s go. We’re clearly not wanted here.” He spoke with a tragic tone like a puppy kicked - it made Annette’s skin crawl just as much as his fake smile had.

“Hmph,” Brown Khakis muttered, turning away from Annette with one, final glare. The two men skulked off - and out the door, thankfully, removing their unwanted presence from the Den, and hopefully for good.

Annette let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding, shoulders slouching. “Good gods.” She turned around, regaining her composure. “Are you girls okay?”

Shimizu nodded. “Yes, Ms. Annette.” She, too, let out a breath, fists unclenching. “Thank you for intervening.”

“Oh, I think I’m going to have a heart attack,” Yachi said faintly, slouched against the back of the booth with her face directed at the ceiling. “We were literally minding our own business, and they showed up out of nowhere…”

“Sorry about that,” Annette apologized. What else could she say?

Shimizu shook her head. “Please, it’s not your fault.” She turned back to the table and put her hand on the wood, next to the scattered array of poster designs. “Yachi?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” the blonde girl said, sounding very much not fine. Though, from what Annette had seen of this kid, that was her default mode.

Her gaze shifted back to Shimizu. One teenage girl…she’d been just as afraid as Yachi, but was going to stand up to those two men anyways. The werewolf counted herself impressed.

“Do you want to take a break for tonight?” Shimizu asked her junior.

“No, no, no, we can keep going.” Yachi straightened up and looked back down at the posters. She balled her fists up and wrinkled her nose. “I’m not going to let two creeps stifle my creative inspiration!”

Shimizu smiled and Annette saw her shoulders release the residual tension they had still been holding. “Okay, we can keep working, then.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Annette elected. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

Chapter Text

Annette handed two drinks to the college couple across the bar, who accepted them with quiet words of thanks and headed back to the table where a few of their friends were already seated, shuffling a deck of UNO cards. It was relatively busy for this early on a December Saturday night; it wasn’t even 8pm yet, and a lot of adults were already here, mixing in with the teenage crowd.

“Hey, Annette!” the familiar voice caught her attention, and she smiled as Lionelle took a seat at the bar, leaning onto the countertop with one elbow.

“The usual?” Annette asked.

“Sure,” Lionelle agreed. “It’s busy tonight, yeah?” She glanced around. “No volleyball team, though, I see.”

“I don’t think they had a game this week,” Annette replied, already working on Lionelle’s whiskey sour.

Lionelle snorted and grinned. “I found out the other day that one of my mentees plays volleyball. They’re going to school a few cities away from here, in Los Edokyo, but apparently they’ve played practice matches with Karasuno. Small world, huh?”

“Indeed,” Annette agreed. As she was working on the drink, she glanced up at the rest of the Den. The noise level in the place had bubbled up over the last half-hour, reflecting the influx of people and larger-than-normal crowd. The young adults she’d recently served were now deep into their game of UNO; the handful of stereotypical old, beer-loving men were chatting around the TV at one end of the bar; and there was a gaggle of high school students crowding one of the longer tables, stacked high with food and books relating to whatever subject and final exam they were trying to (unsuccessfully) study for. Their level of focus seemed to be rather low; in fact, two of them had broken away from the group, occupied a nearby booth, and were now very invested in, ah, each other instead.

Annette frowned a little, handing the whisky sour to Lionelle. It wasn’t unusual to find teenagers making out in her bar, but it didn’t happen all that often, either. People were generally slightly more…sensible, especially this early in the evening.

“Hey Annette.” One of the old men had wandered over with his empty beer glass. The werewolf shifted her attention to her customer and nodded, indicating he had her attention. Over his shoulder, the kids were still going at it, rather oblivious of how crowded the bar around them was.

“I’ll take another IPA,” the man asked quietly, handing his used glass back to Annette. She transferred it to the bar’s wash-basin and picked up a new glass to fill. In the booth beyond, the two teenagers were still heavily invested in each other; she found herself frowning again.

Lionelle took a sip of her drink, gaze following Annette’s. “Bothering you?”

Annette lifted the glass to the beer tap. “I mean, other than the concept of PDA being disruptive to other people?” She snorted lightly, though her gaze on the tap was out-of-focus. “I just worry that they might be overdoing it sometimes. You and I both know many parts of this world aren’t safe to be out in.”

Lionelle swirled her glass, making the ice cubes clink together. “Have you ever thought, that this place may be the only place where they can be out like this?”

Annette paused, hand on the bar tap. A second passed, then another, and then she pulled the tap, resuming her fulfillment of the other patron’s order. The beer flowed out smoothly, the werewolf cutting off the tap just as the foam reached the glass rim. “You know, I don’t think I have.”

Lionelle took a long sip of her drink before replying. “I think you should. It might make you change your mindset a little.”

Annette snorted good-naturedly. “I think I already am.” She passed the now-full beer mug to the other man at the counter, who thanked her quietly and went back to minding his own business.
“Though,” the werewolf continued, narrowing her eyes at the couple, “I think I am still going to go over there and stop them. What they need right now is a hotel room, not my fucking bar.”

Lionelle snorted, narrowly avoiding sending her whisky sour up her nose. “Poor word choice, Annette.”

The werewolf withheld the partially-exasperated, partially-comedic urge to throw one of her dish towels at her friend. “Oh, shut up, you gutter-brained feline.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Here by yourself?” Annette asked curiously, typing Suga’s order into the register’s computer. To see the silver-haired kid by himself was unusual enough, since the team always came to the Den together. And the werewolf’s True Sight was picking up on an undercurrent of stress coming from him, so something was clearly up. “It’s not game night, either.”

“Yeah.” Suga gave a meek chuckle. “Nothing gets by you, Ms. Annette.” He passed her the bills needed to pay for his food order, eyes averted. “I was…I was hoping I could stay here for a while. I know it’s 8pm soon, but…”

“Let me get your food to you, and then we can talk,” the werewolf elected, voice calm and soft. “Don’t worry about the time.”

Suga gave her a grateful smile - that gesture felt more like the brightness she was used to seeing from him, free from this quiet melancholy he’d been giving off before - and moved to one of the small tables along the wall of the Den. Satisfied that he’d be okay for the time it took to put together his food order, Annette went about completing a few orders for the bar before tapping in one of her junior bartenders to hold down the fort while she went to investigate the silver-haired kid’s predicament.

“Here you are.” She set Suga’s food - he’d ordered mapo tofu and told her to make it as spicy as possible - down on the table before sitting down opposite of him. “Eat some, and then tell me what’s troubling you.”

Suga obliged - the werewolf was glad to see that whatever was bothering him wasn’t enough to ruin his appetite - and after a few bites (with zero acknowledgement of the spice level whatsoever), he started talking. “So my older sister came home for winter break earlier this week. She’s going to a school in the city, at Zelkova Polytechnical.” He shoved another piece of tofu into his mouth. “My mom was watching the news, and they started fighting about whatever political business was happening on the TV.”

“This sounds like it isn’t all that unusual for your household,” Annette estimated from the relatively casual tone of Suga’s voice.

The silver-haired kid nodded. “Ever since she hit high school and started getting more involved in the community, they would fight from time to time. My sister is…strong-willed, and my mother is very set in her ways.” He stirred his tofu a few times before picking up another piece, this time of the beef. “They’ve fought about politics before. About social policies, and who does or doesn’t deserve “rights”. It’s…” he frowned, nose wrinkling. The piece of beef he’d picked up remained dangling from his chopsticks.

“It’s uncomfortable,” Annette correctly identified the feeling.

Suga nodded, looking down at the floor to the side of the table and setting his chopsticks down. “Usually, I can just go to my room or leave the house to walk around for a bit. But tonight, my mom was watching some news story on the latest municipal court challenge against universal marriage law, and she was going on about ‘how marriage is supposed to be a union between a human man and a human woman, not a human and a were-creature, or man and a man, or a woman and a woman’...and that set my sister off, and things got really blown out of proportion after that.”

Annette felt the pang in his voice - some mixture of fear, guilt, and frustration - and nodded understandingly. “I’m guessing she doesn’t know about you and Daichi.”

“Good gods, no,” Suga muttered, shrinking into the collar of his jacket. “She wouldn’t take that well, I don’t think.” After a long moment, he sighed and straightened back up in his seat. “I couldn’t stay in the house and listen to them any more.”

“I get that,” Annette agreed, resting her elbow on the table and her fist against her cheek. “But why come here? Why not go to one of your teammates’ houses? Or Daichi’s?”

Suga smiled weakly. “None of my teammates, not even Daichi, know my mom has these opinions. I just…” his nose wrinkled up again, eyebrows drawing together. “I can’t bring myself to think of her as a bad person. Just…misguided, maybe. And the idea of saying something about her that’s negative, or that will give other people a negative opinion of her, hurts me.”

The feeling was evident in his voice; Annette’s chest tightened in sympathy and the werewolf leaned back from the table, inclining her head. “I’m honored you trust me enough to tell me about this, then. And I promise I won’t hold some big, negative opinion against your mother, if that will make you more comfortable talking about this.”

Suga’s smile brightened, hopefully a sign of his mood trending upwards. “I really appreciate that, Ms. Annette.” He looked away, at one of the pictures on the wall, and then chuckled and grinned self-consciously. “You know, Daichi questions every so often why I haven’t introduced him to my family yet. I’ve met his family, and they’re very accepting and supportive, so I don’t think it’s really crossed his mind that my family - or at least part of my family - might not be. But it’s the same problem. I can’t bring myself to explain it to him, because then he might see my mom as a bad person.”

“Mhm.” Annette nodded, curled fingers against her cheek. “I get that.” She certainly had an opinion about how to address that situation, but if Suga actually wanted her advice on it or not, she wasn't sure. “Do you think they’re done arguing by now?”

Suga shrugged. “It’s probably best to give them another hour or so. Even if they’re done fighting, they stay snappy and grumpy for a bit afterwards.” He picked up his chopsticks once more. “I hope I’m not intruding too much! I know it’s after 8pm now.”

“This is a fine exception to the rule,” Annette replied, waving one hand dismissively. “You can stay here as long as you need.”

Suga grinned hugely at her. “Thank you so much, Ms. Annette!”

The table fell silent for a bit. Then, after another few bites of his dinner (still without any acknowledgement of the spice level - damn, what was this kid made of?), Suga glanced back up at the werewolf. “You think I should probably talk to Daichi about this, right?”

Annette jumped a little. The kid’s perception was sharp. “Well, yes, but I wasn’t going to foist my unsolicited advice on you.”

“I’m soliciting,” Suga replied with a mildly aggressive jab of his chopsticks.

Annette snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fair enough, then. I do think you should talk to him about why you haven’t introduced him to your family. Even if he’s naive to the possibility of your mom disapproving of your relationship, I think he will appreciate you explaining it to him.” She inclined her head. “You may have to take the fall in admitting something about your mom that is less than savory. But if you explain to him the distress that makes you feel, like you explained it to me, I think he will understand.”

Suga blinked a few times, processing her words. “You don’t think he’ll be mad about me keeping this secret for so long?”

“Suga, the day Daichi actually gets mad at you about keeping a secret is the day we find out you’re actually a mob boss or something,” the werewolf replied flatly. “He has the personality of a golden retriever when he’s interacting with you.”

Suga’s ears turned a little pink and he grinned self-consciously. “I guess I can’t argue with that…”

Annette nodded. “I think he’ll be far more happy knowing now than being mad about not knowing in the past.”

Suga shoved more tofu into his mouth - taking the ‘drown your feelings in food’ route, Annette could see now - and took a while before replying. “I’ll talk to him, then.”

The werewolf grinned. “Good. I think you’ll be glad you did.”

Suga stuck around for another half hour or so, finishing his tofu. By the time he headed out, his typical smile was back on his face, and the wave he gave Annette as he walked out the door was jovial. She waved back from behind the bar, feeling a small, warm feeling in her chest. Out of all the places the silver-haired kid could’ve gone, he’d chosen to come to the Den and talk to her. Annette couldn’t help but feel honored.

Chapter Text

True Sight was a powerful ability. But reflective of its name, it only worked on what Annette could sense - see, hear, smell - so the approach of an impending problem wouldn’t become apparent until the problem was directly on the Den’s doorstep.

And once the problem stepped through that doorway, Annette didn’t even need True Sight to know that this was bad.

“The police?” Lionelle whispered in undertone, head kept forward but her golden gaze fixed on the group of four uniformed men out of the corner of her eye. “Annette..?”

“They’ve got no reason to be here,” the werewolf replied, body equally as still and voice equally as low. That much was true, at least from a ‘breaking-the-law’ standpoint, but it didn’t stop her spine from crawling. She’d worked with the police before, the few times she had issues with violent patrons or drunkards setting off the bathroom fire alarms. Those officers had been kind, understanding, and helpful; these officers, unfamiliar faces to her, expressions hard and eyes scrutinizing, were not.

The intent of these four men was painfully clear to her. They did have a reason to be here. One that made her want to snarl.

But she couldn’t. She gave her two junior bartenders a comforting smile and a small wave, indicating that they should stay behind the bar. Then, she moved around the cash register and to the center of the room, so she could greet the police properly.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely. The entire bar had gone dead silent, including the familiar gaggle of Karasuno high schoolers behind her. She could feel their eyes burning into her back.

The lead officer’s eyes roamed slowly across the room, and he took his time before responding. “We’ve received some reports of…suspicious individuals in this establishment,” he said. “We need to search the place.”

Annette didn’t budge. “Do you have a warrant?”

The man’s stare was unblinking. “This bar is a public space. We don’t need one.”

Annette felt a cold trickle down her spine. She knew some basic law, what was important for running a business and all that, but not enough to try and argue her way out of this. There was nothing illegal here for the police to find, so in that sense, having them search the bar wouldn’t hurt her.

But that wasn’t why they were here, wasn’t it?

“Go around, then,” she said, making a small, slow gesture with one hand. Her skin was crawling, hackles itching to come out and rise. But if she even showed a hint that she might transform…

The police separated from her, circulating the bar with slow, even steps. Retracted batons, stun guns, pistols, jingling on their belts. Were they loaded with rubber or real bullets? Finding out could be fatal.

Suspicious individuals. They were looking for suspicious individuals. Annette’s True Sight wasn’t enough to tell her if a person had actually reported something to the police tonight, or if they were here simply because they knew what kind of place the Den was, and had decided to have a problem with it. But it didn’t matter.

Suspicious individuals. Annette could see them still, all over the room. The two girls in the corner who had been holding hands, who were now scooted apart and looking anywhere but at each other. Lionelle, staring fixedly at her drink after running her hands through her hair, hopelessly trying to tame the wild, blonde mess that mimicked the mane she wore when she transformed. The woman with the pale blue-and-pink bracelet who had moved her hands to her lap and covered her wrist. Daichi and Suga, who were subtly watching the police roam around the bar, afraid but also refusing to let them out of their sights, lest they move closer to the rest of the team. And Noya, who was tightly holding onto Asahi’s sleeve under the table.

The bar stayed silent, patrons keeping their heads down and bodies still. The only sounds were those even footsteps and the jingle of weaponized metal.

Annette saw one of the officers turn his head to the table with the high schoolers. Nothing in his gaze changed. There was no softness, no leniency in it, not even for children. It was the gaze of a school bully, pasted onto an adult that they were supposed to be able to trust.

“You there,” he barked, pointing at Asahi. “Stand up.”

Annette felt her heart plummet into her gut. Instinct was screaming at her to move, but her limbs were frozen. If she spoke, moved, did anything, it would make the situation worse.

Asahi had turned white as a sheet, as was only fair. Noya’s grip on his sleeve was iron-tight now.
“Stand up,” the officer repeated with a growl.

“He’s done nothing wrong!” Noya yelled, tiny sparks crackling in his hair. Leaning forward, like he was going to be the one to stand - until no less than three pairs of hands grabbed him from adjacent and across the table, his teammates holding him into his seat, faces still as porcelain dolls. The faintest of sneers flitted across the cop’s face.

Annette’s blood was now boiling, but it wasn’t enough to unfreeze her limbs.

Asahi quickly stood up and stepped away from the table, gaze fixed on the ground. The other three officers had converged, returning to the call of their compatriot. “Search him,” the head cop ordered.

The bar stayed silent. Annette could sense Noya’s seething, even from across the room, but even he knew better than to try anything, with the reminder of all his teammates holding onto him. Asahi didn’t budge, other than the faint tremor in his hands, his fear palpable even though he was taller than three of the cops, and on par with the fourth. They didn’t find anything on him, of course, but they took their damn time searching. As if they were waiting for someone to get overwhelmed by the tension in the room, and break.

They said nothing when they were done. They simply stepped away, walked past Annette like she was a rock in the middle of a river, and out the door, letting it slam shut behind them.

The entire bar waited. One heartbeat, another, another…

Asahi collapsed back into his seat and clapped his hands over his face, shaking. And with that, the tension broke, and the bar erupted into a low roll of sound.

“Asahi!” Noya wiggled away from his teammates and scrambled over to his friend, both hands grabbing onto his arm. “Good gods, Asahi! Are you okay?”

“No,” Asahi wailed from behind his hands. “That was so scary…”

Now that the cops were gone, Annette’s skin wasn’t crawling quite so much anymore, but there was still a boiling pit in her stomach, flipping itself over and over again. She crossed over to the table of high schoolers in a few short strides, expression set. “I’m so sorry about that,” she apologized. What else was there to say?

Noya wheeled around, lightning crackling through his hair once again as he surged to his feet, squaring up to the werewolf. “Why didn’t you DO anything?” he yelled. His lightning aura was coming entirely uncontrolled, and tiny, yellow-white bolts were flashing through his irises. “Why didn’t you go wolf and kick them out, like you did with those other guys at the beginning of the fall?”

The boiling pit in Annette’s stomach got icy, but thankfully Daichi spoke for her, preventing her from letting her true feelings show. “You can’t start fights with the police, Noya,” he said, as sternly as he could, given how shaken he looked as well.

“But..! They had no right..!”

“There are laws, Noya.” Asahi’s voice broke through the din. He still had his hands over his cheeks, but had moved them enough to the side that he could look at and speak to Noya. “Special laws that govern when were-creatures are allowed to transform, and when they are not.”

Something in his voice - the directness, the sudden, frightening calm to it - snapped the shorter kid to silence. The tiny lightning bolts in his eyes and hair petered out, and he stared at Asahi with a wide gaze.

Annette hesitated, but then put her hand on Noya’s shoulder. He jumped a little, but didn’t shake her off; instead, that wide gaze was on her now, full of uncertainties and questions. “Transforming can be considered an act of aggression,” the werewolf said quietly. “In this situation, it most certainly would have been seen that way.”

Noya continued to stare at her for a bit longer, then blinked, then looked back at Asahi. “Is this why you almost never transform?” he asked his teammate quietly.

Asahi glanced off to the side, averting his gaze, but after only a few heartbeats, he nodded. “Once I started getting tall, my parents talked about it with me. They told me I had to be careful.”

Something in Annette’s chest was hurting. She could hear her own mother’s words, a mingling of many conversations into one string of command that had governed much of her young life.

Don’t get emotional. Don’t speak too loud. Don’t be too large. If you frighten people, they will retaliate against you. And if you get pulled over, or singled out, or anything similar with law enforcement, keep your hands where they can see them. Don’t make any sudden movements. And never transform, even if you’re afraid. If you transform, you may as well have punched one of them in the face.

“But you’d never hurt anyone!” Noya protested. His hands were on Asahi’s sleeve again. “I know people are intimidated by you because you’re tall and have a beard and all…but…”

Asahi smiled sheepishly at him and put his free hand over the shorter kid’s hands on his sleeve. “They don’t know me like you do,” he said, his tone filled with a simple, dull sort of sadness. “The only thing they see is my height and my facial hair. They see the bear, and not me.” The dullness in his tone - that was the sound of the kind of acceptance that came from defeat. “That’s probably why the police singled me out.”

Noya, of course, did not look defeated in the slightest. Annette felt his shoulder jitter angrily under her hand, and a small wave of lightning jumped up his hair again. But he didn’t say anything - instead, he plowed with great determination into Asahi’s chest, hiding his face and wrapping his arms around his teammate’s shoulders. The werebear wheezed in surprise, but he was quick to return the hug and rest his chin on the top of Noya’s head (once his hair had stopped sparking again, that was).

“Stupid laws,” Noya muttered, muffled by Asahi’s jacket. “Stupid cops.” His fingers were tightly wrapped up in the black fabric. “I had no idea you were-guys had to be careful like that. I’m sorry.”

Asahi looked plenty embarrassed about the very public display of affection, but he gently circled one hand over Noya’s back regardless. “It’s okay. It’s just how it is.”

Noya - still very much not defeated by the situation - emitted a defiant snort into the werebear’s jacket. “But it shouldn’t be like this! I know you said it’s because people ‘see the bear and not you’, but the bear isn’t a bad thing, either! Your bear form is fluffy, and soft, and has cute little ears and a really boopable nose-”

“Okay, thaaaaaaat’s enough,” Asahi, face now turning red, managed to get his hands under Noya’s armpits and pried the lightning-haired kid off himself. “You’re going back to your own seat now.”

“You’ve seen Asahi’s bear form??” Hinata exclaimed. “I want to see Asahi’s bear form!! With the cute ears and boopable nose!”

“Not now, idiot,” Kageyama, forever Hinata’s emotional counteraction, reprimanded.

“Of course not now,” Hinata huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Stupidyama!”

Asahi pulled his jacket collar up and zipped it over his burning face. “Yeah, maybe later,” he said faintly.

The mood was getting lighter. Annette felt like she could finally breathe easy again.

“Alright, I’m headed back to check on my bartenders,” she said. “Asahi, your food is on the house. It’s the least I can do to apologize.” Given how helpless she’d been in the face of the police, it wasn’t just the least - it was probably the only thing she could do.

She got a meek thumbs-up from the werebear, who was still hiding inside his jacket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Annette squinted up at the rooftop. Sure, weird things happened all the time, especially in a city as large and populated as San Zelkova. But to find some teenager with the brightest shock of red hair, spiked towards the heavens, pacing on the roof of her bar, periodically waving small licks of fire off his hands into the evening sky? That had to take the cake for things she’d personally experienced in her time as a business owner.

A small crowd had gathered by now, all watching this kid pacing on her roof. Every time another burst of fire trailed off his fingertips, they muttered uneasily. Annette couldn’t blame them; it was making her stomach tight too, seeing those small flames so close to the Den. But the more she watched the kid, the more she could perceive…

The bits clicked together, and she straightened up a little, realization hitting.

Fiery red hair. Fire magic. Pacing and talking to himself. He’s having a vision.

Annette glanced around. She imagined that at least one person in this crowd had called the police by now, and even if they didn’t…well, she didn’t really want the police to show up anyways, not after what had happened last month with Asahi. And now, knowing that the kid wasn’t actually high on drugs or anything, she desired the police’s involvement even less.

But how was she to get the kid off her rooftop before the police showed up?

Above, the kid gave a rather deranged cackle, waving both hands into the air. A ring of fire flared from his splayed fingertips, drifted upwards, and faded into smoke. Annette bristled a little; drugs or no drugs, the kid was probably still a fire hazard right now. She’d need to think of a way to deal with that, too.

“Excuse me.” The deep voice broke through the murmur of the crowd right behind her; she’d been so focused on the kid on the roof that she hadn’t heard someone else walk up behind her, and she jumped unintentionally before quickly turning around. There was a second high schooler standing behind her - though without her True Sight, she might’ve thought he was a college student, with how tall he was and how broad his shoulders were. He gave off a strong earth-element aura, though his magic was otherwise well-controlled, as there was no visible evidence of it, despite the sense of power Annette got from him.

“He’s my friend,” the new kid continued; he must’ve been referring to the fire-shooting troublemaker on Annette’s roof. “Allow me to retrieve him.”

It was worded as a statement, not a question, but the politeness in his tone made it seem like a request, and Annette had a feeling that was how it had been meant. She nodded. “Sure, if you think you can get him down without lighting my bar or yourself on fire. The fire escape ladder is on the back of the building and goes to the roof.”

The kid nodded curtly. “Thank you.”

Annette glanced around as the kid walked away; she didn’t see any police officers, not yet at least. Hopefully the kid would be off her roof and a few blocks away before they showed up.

More fire rippled off the roof of the Den, and the crowd collectively winced. The kid cackled again, wiggled his long fingers, and said something, though he was too far away for Annette to make out the words. Admittedly, she was curious to know what he had to say; Foresight was a rare ability amongst those with fire-element magic. Historically, those few individuals with the ability had been treasured by monarchs and generals…although, in the modern day, it was widely known that their visions were not all that accurate, and the wandering and uncontrollable pyrotechnics that came with said visions were generally considered less than desirable.

The fiery-haired kid lifted both hands, as if reaching for the sun, and then, somehow silent as a ninja despite his large size, the other kid was behind him. He very calmly karate-chopped his friend in the back of the neck, caught him with his other arm when he slumped over, and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The small crowd below the Den started applauding. Annette had to admit that she was impressed, though also slightly concerned.

After a few heartbeats, her thoughts came back to her. “Alright everyone, clear out!” she ordered the crowd, waving her hands. “Show’s over.”

As the others dispersed, the earth-magic kid made his way back to her, with his unconscious friend still over his shoulder. “Please accept my apologies,” he said, tone formal. “I will ensure it does not happen again.”

Annette held her hands up and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. He has Foresight, yes?”

There was a small flicker of something akin to surprise in the tall kid’s otherwise unreadable brown eyes. After a moment, he nodded. “Yes, he does. How could you tell?”

Annette tapped her temple and smiled. “I have True Sight. I could tell he was having a vision.”

The kid nodded. “You were correct.” His eyes glanced sideways, watching his friend. “He has been having more visions lately. I think it is because we are graduating soon.”

The fiery-haired stirred and muttered something. After another few heartbeats, he lifted his head and slowly looked left and right through squinted eyes. “Uh oh. I did it again, didn’t I, Ushiwaka?”

Something in how he pronounced the name keyed Annette into the familiarity that existed between the two high schoolers. ‘Ushiwaka’ - she had a feeling that was a nickname - made no move to put the redhead down. “You climbed onto the roof of a bar,” he clarified “it” shortly.

“You two should probably get out of here,” Annette advised. “I don’t know if anyone’s called the police, but if they have, it’ll probably work out in your favor to not be here when they arrive.”

“Ooooh, running from law enforcement now, are we?” the redhead pushed himself up on his friend’s shoulder so he could see Annette over the top of his head. “How scandalous. We can’t have you getting a criminal record right before graduation, Ushiwaka.”

“You can’t have a criminal record either, Tendou,” ‘Ushiwaka’ replied calmly as he turned away from Annette. “Apologize to the owner of this establishment, and then we can leave.”

“Sorry for the intrusion, ma’am,” Tendou replied with a cheery wave. He was far too chipper for someone who had been shooting fire off the roof of a downtown business less than ten minutes ago, but Annette felt that he was being genuine enough - although just barely.

“You can call me Annette,” she replied, smiling. “Stop by the bar sometime and buy some food, and I’ll consider you forgiven.”

“The wolf really does stand at the forefront,” Tendou said rather mystically, one long finger on his cheek. “Consider it a deal!”

Chapter Text

“You want me to come with you to help chaperone a bunch of high schoolers on a weekend-long camping trip to celebrate their graduation?” Annette asked dubiously, leaning against the bar counter.

“Not just any high schoolers,” Lionelle repeated, grinning like a kid at a carnival. “Karasuno’s volleyball team! Your favorite kids!”

“Do you really need a fourth chaperone?” Annette questioned. Did a camping trip sound fun? Yes. But she had a bar to run! What would a responsible adult choose? Remaining dedicated to her small business or taking a weekend off to prevent a bunch of high schoolers from committing minor crimes in the woods? Pfft, obviously the first. “Won’t it be enough with you, your brother, and the head coach?”

“No, we need one more,” Lionelle pushed, hands flat on the bar counter. “Two other high schools are joining the trip, and they’re only bringing two chaperones a piece. The adults have agreed they want at least two additional people to act as floaters during the day.”

Good gods, Lionelle was not going to give this up easily. Annette groaned internally, trying to come up with some other logical, responsible argument for why she wouldn’t be able to take the trip. Fridays and Saturdays were the busiest days for the Den, days that she should probably be on staff to help keep the place rolling, even though her juniors were perfectly competent and had run the bar between the three of them before, and the kitchen chefs were equally as reliable-

“You can leave the bar with your juniors for the weekend. I know they’ve covered for you on shorter notice when you’ve been sick. They’re competent!”

Annette glared openly at her friend, the argument taken right out of her mouth and neatly countered before she even had a chance to speak it.

“Fine,” she conceded. “If it’s okay with my juniors, AND if all of them are available to cover the busy times on Friday and Saturday night, I will be your fourth chaperone.”

“YES!” Lionelle cheered, throwing her hands up in the air. “This is gonna be so fun!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was getting dark by the time the bus pulled into the campground’s parking lot. Annette had to resist the urge to open the window and stick her head through it to get some of the fresh evening air; after almost four hours on the bus, not including the half-hour dinner stop, she was starting to get antsy to walk around again. She really did prefer trains to road travel, but unfortunately the trains didn’t go out to this part of the country.

“The teams from Shiratorizawa Academy and Aoba Johsai High School will be joining us. Date Tech apologizes, but they had a scheduling conflict and won’t be joining us,” Ukai called from the front of the bus, half-turned in his seat. “We have three separate campsites, but you’ll be able to spend time with them during the day.”

Takeda put the bus into park and turned the ignition off. “I know you have formed strong rivalries with these teams over the course of the year! But I hope this trip will give you the opportunity to spend time with these people on neutral and friendly ground.” He turned around and smiled brightly at the kids lining the bus seats. “Emotions may run strong during a match, but at the end of the day, these are people who share your passion for the sport. You are united by more things than you are divided.”

“Keep in mind that there are other people staying in this camp as well,” Daichi called from the middle of the bus. “Please do not cause trouble for them.”

“And so I was sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies,” Tanaka was saying to Noya in the back of the bus.

“ESPECIALLY YOU TWO.”

Tanaka and Noya jumped. “Yes, Daichi!”

The kids disembarked the bus after their coaches, herded by Daichi and Suga. Lionelle and Annette stepped out last, the werewolf very grateful to finally get the chance to stretch her legs.

“Ugh,” she grumbled, reaching her arms above her head to uncramp her spine. “We weren’t even sitting for that long…”

“The ol’ arthritis acting up, Grandma?” Lionelle asked, snickering.

Annette slapped her friend on the arm. “Oh, shut up. You’re older than me!”

The parking lot was abuzz with chatter; the other two teams had pulled into the lot around the same time as Karasuno had, three buses parked adjacent, and the groups of high schoolers were now starting to intermingle. Most of them had their club jackets or other items with them, making it easy to pick out who belonged where; black for Karasuno, a plum sort of purple for Shiratorizawa, and turquoise blue for Aoba Johsai. She’d just started taking in the sprawl of people when she made accidental eye contact with a familiar, lanky individual with instantly-recognizable, bright red hair.

“Hey,” she said automatically, “I know you.”

“Uh oh,” Tendou replied, half-turning away like his gut reaction was to scram. He, however, did not actually act on that instinct.

“Hello, Annette.” Tendou’s friend, the tall one with the powerful earth magic aura, was with him; he raised a hand in polite greeting. “I hope you have been well.”

The werewolf stepped away from the Karasuno bus to get to a more appropriate conversational distance with the two kids; they were both wearing purple-and-white jackets, identifying them as being from Shiratorizawa. “I have been well, thank you.” She put her hands on her hips. “But you two never stopped by the Den after we met!”

“Apologies.” The tall kid inclined his head. “We intended to visit, but became very busy with end-of-the-year activities.” He put out one hand. “I never introduced myself. Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

Annette was not sure the last time, if ever, she’d had a high schooler introduce themselves with a handshake, but the motion was well-intended, so she rolled with it. “You can call me Annette. It’s good to meet you.”

Tendou put up one hand in a little wave. “I’m Tendou. But I think you already knew that.”

Annette nodded, letting go of Ushijima’s hand. The last time she’d felt a handshake like that, firm but clearly only hinting at a small portion of the person’s strength, it had been with a were-rhinocerus; what was Shiratorizawa feeding this kid? “It’s good to meet you too. And do please know I’m not mad at you for climbing onto the roof of my bar.”

“You absolutely, one-hundred percent sure?” Tendou asked, squinting suspiciously.

Annette nodded, a small, humored smile on her face. “Yes,I’m sure. Trust me, the Den’s seen worse.”

Tendou’s face split into a grin that was just ever so slightly maniacal. “Oh, I’m glad to hear it, Ms. Wolf. I was a little worried, you know.”

“He was,” Ushijima agreed, speaking in what was probably his version of ‘supportive’. It would have been easy to miss, because there was no hint of the familiarity or attentiveness in his voice or expression, but it was there, in his intent, as only Annette could sense it. It was the same sense she got from the first time she had met these kids - and a person had to have a strong sense of responsibility to consider doing something as bold as climbing onto a rooftop to retrieve their other half.

“It’s in the past,” the werewolf elected, waving one hand dismissively. “So, are you two graduating?”

“Yes!” Tendou said with a grin. “Moving out into the big, wide world…college and all…”

“I have been recruited to play volleyball at Zelkova Polytechnical,” Ushijima mentioned.

Annette’s attention caught the name of the familiar university. “Oh, so you’ll be staying in the city, then? Zelkova Polytechnical is an excellent school.” More volleyball, too. What was it with her strange luck? Out of the few hundreds of thousands of high schoolers in San Zelkova, she somehow kept running into the same subpopulation of them, the volleyball fanatics.

“How come you’re here, Ms. Wolf?” Tendou asked. “I assume you’re one of our chaperones.”

Annette nodded. “I am. Coach Ukai’s sister convinced me to be the last chaperone they needed.”

“Karasuno!” Annette heard Daichi’s voice yelling from somewhere else in the parking lot, interrupting their conversation. “Let’s get moving before it gets too dark!”

“I should go,” she said to Ushijima and Tendou with an apologetic nod. “But it was good to run into you two, and I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I am also sure of that,” Ushijima stated.

“Good night, Ms. Wolf!” Tendou called, giving her a cheerful wave as she departed.

In true wilderness camp fashion (and probably because it was cheaper), Karasuno would be staying in a campsite that was exclusively platform tents. The large, yellow-canvas structures were elevated a modest distance from the forest floor, which only somewhat discouraged the creepy-crawlies (but to be fair, the creepiest of crawlies in this neck of the woods was no worse than a large spider). Each one contained four bunks, one per corner of the tent, which were outfitted with a basic mattress, linens, and a very important mesh structure called “bug-netting” - vital to every camper who didn’t want the creepy-crawlies intruding into their personal space in the middle of the night.

“Do I really have to share a tent with them?” Tsukishima complained, gesturing to Hinata and Kageyama, who were busy arguing about the most effective method for rigging the aforementioned bug-netting. In the time they’d spent arguing, Yamaguchi had already gotten his netting set up.

“Tents fit up to four people a piece and are separated by grade,” Daichi repeated firmly. “Since there are only four first-years, you have to share one tent.”

Tsukishima looked like he very much wanted to argue, but knew it would be pointless.

“But Ennoshita’s in your tent!” Hinata chose that moment to snappily change the object of his attention; chances are, that meant he’d lost the argument with Kageyama. “And he’s a second year. Er, well, was a second year?” Question marks began to swim in his eyes. “When exactly do we change year?”

“Dumbass,” Kageyama called. “We haven’t graduated yet, so they’re still second years.”

“There are five second-years and three third-years, so it makes sense to have one second year fill in the space rather than get their own tent,” Daichi said, ignoring his juniors. “It’s more efficient that way. And because Ennoshita is going to be your captain next year, he gets the honors.”

“Lucky bastard,” Narita muttered. “Sharing the third-year’s tent means he also gets the third-year’s portable air conditioner.”

Hinata frowned. “Portable air conditioner?”

Narita gestured in the direction of the third-year’s tent, where Suga was talking with Asahi. “Suga can cool down the air around him. He might even be able to dehumidify it, too.”

Hinata’s eyes got as huge and round as dinner plates. “THAT’S SO COOL!! LITERALLY!!”

Suga glanced over his shoulder and flashed dual peace signs at them, grinning as he made the tiny fragments of pale blue magic, the faint manifestation of his ice aura, sparkled around the ends of his silver hair.

The managers and chaperones also got their own tents, meaning that Shimizu and Yachi, Ukai and Takeda, and Annette and Lionelle had their own tents, each one at approximately one corner of the campsite, forming a triangle. Like a containment field, perhaps?

“This makes me feel like a kid again.” Lionelle closed the front-facing tent flap, plunging the tent into darkness. “Oh, that got dark real fast. You have decent night-vision, right?”

“Not as good as yours, but better than a human’s,” Annette replied, moving her bug-netting aside so she could sit on top of her bunk. “You did some kind of scouts as a kid, right?”

“For some time,” Lionelle recalled. The tap of her feet against the wooden platform traveled from the entryway to her own bunk, and she also sat down. “I stopped at the end of junior high. Puberty was making things complicated, and I thought it’d be a good idea to get out of gendered activities like that.”

“Ah, I don’t blame you,” Annette agreed lightly. Her eyes were starting to adjust, so she could better see her friend sitting on her bunk. Lionelle was still mostly a silhouette in the darkness, and without the details of her face, the wild splay of her thick hair really did resemble the mane she proudly bore in her lion form.

“Hey, I heard Shiratorizawa has a campsite with actual cabins,” the werelion mentioned.

Annette snorted mightily. “Of course they do, they’re one of the fanciest schools in San Zelkova. And what about Aoba Johsai?”

“The team unanimously voted for platform tents. Said they wanted Oikawa to suffer.”

Annette wheezed, hand over her stomach. “Do they really hate their setter that much?”

Lionelle shrugged. “Who knows? We’d probably have to see a game to understand their dynamic better. And since graduation is right around the corner, that’s probably not going to happen.”

From the 2nd years’ tent, there was a muttering and then a chorus of cackling; about what, Annette hadn’t a clue.

And then, booming across the campsite like the voice of an angry god, was Daichi:

“NOYA AND TANAKA! SHUT UP AND GO TO BED!”

Lionelle had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep herself from becoming the next to join the cackling, thereby losing her status as a ‘responsible adult’.

“Guess that’s a call for us to go to bed, too,” Annette estimated, eyeing the direction of the 3rd-year’s tent with a bit of caution. “Don’t want to be the next on Dadchi’s shit list.”

“Dadchi,” Lionelle wheezed, doubled over on her bunk. “Y’all really do call him that…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember the large spiders? Well, someone must’ve found one at about 1am, because that’s when the screaming started. Who was screaming? That will forever remain a mystery.

(It was Tanaka. Noya then proceeded to crisp the poor arachnid with a bolt of lightning, and the following thunderclap woke up everyone on their side of the lake. Daichi’s shouting then woke up everyone else.)

Chapter Text

Per the rules set by Takeda, the entire team had to be awake and mobile before they could go to breakfast; that way, they could walk to the dining hall together. The wake-up call was also supposedly going to be around 7am, but someone must’ve been feeling generous, because Shimizu didn’t stop by Annette and Lionelle’s tent until 7:30, and that meant most of the boys weren’t up until 8am.

“Hey! No getting distracted!” Ukai yelled, marching after Hinata and Kageyama, who were scrambling towards the other side of the campsite with a volleyball. “Breakfast closes by 9am! If we’re late, we go hungry!”

“How are they so full of pep,” Annette grumbled, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. “It’s so early…”

“Early?” Noya stopped next to the werewolf. “What time do you usually get up, Annette?”

“Well, since I’m easily up until 2 or 3am on Fridays and Saturdays, usually not before 10 or 11am,” the werewolf replied, rubbing her amber eyes. “But the bar doesn’t open until 5pm, so it’s fine.” She dropped her hands and eyed the shorter kid. “I sense a morning person.”

“You bet!” Noya replied with a broad grin, hopping a few times.

“Don’t let him trick you,” Asahi called. “He’s also a night owl. Basically, he never shuts off.”

“HEY! It’s called having the ‘spice for life’!”

“...You just made that up, didn’t you…”

“KAGEYAMA! HINATA! GET BACK HERE OR WE’RE GOING TO BREAKFAST WITHOUT YOU!”

Noya frowned and leaned back a little so he could see past Annette’s back and in the direction of the yelling; Daichi was standing at the bottom of the wooded hill that the campsite abutted, arms crossed over his chest. The rusty-haired werewolf snorted, watching as the aforementioned boys sheepishly crept back down the hill they’d been racing up.

Narita stopped next to Noya and Annette, also watching the hill. “Ugh, it was unseasonably hot and humid last night,” he complained. “How do they have so much energy?”

“Hot and humid?” Ennoshita interjected innocently from next to the 3rd-years’ tent. “It was lovely last night.”

Narita turned around and shot a glare at his teammate. “That’s because you got to sleep in the air-conditioned tent, future captain.”

Ennoshita shrugged and shook his head, a whole display of false apology. “That’s just the privileges you get from the position, my friend.”

“I’m glad that you’ve accepted that you deserve the responsibility,” Kinoshita called, “but maybe you should go back to being humble.” Narita snickered at the dig, putting a hand over his mouth.

“Narita’s right,” Tanaka grumbled, stopping in the middle of the 2nd years. “Last night was awful. Tonight, I’m sleeping in the nude.”

“NO YOU WILL NOT,” Narita and Kinoshita chorused.

“Suit yourself,” Noya declared, hands on his hips. “After breakfast, I’m jumping in the lake.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noya trotted by, leaving a linear puddle of lake water behind himself. “But Daichi, you told me to jump in the lake,” he protested.

Daichi trailed after the lightning-haired kid, scowling. “No, I said, ‘No, Noya, don’t jump in the lake’. And what did you do? You yelled ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Dadchi’. And then you jumped in the lake.”

Noya bounced up onto the balls of his feet, grinning. “Hey Asahi!” he yelled, dashing towards his taller teammate with his arms flung open. “Gimme a hug!”

Asahi very wisely began running in the other direction. “Nonono you’re all cold and wet and water conducts electricity -” the rest of his sentence was cut off by an undignified shriek as Noya caught up to him and flung his indeed very cold and wet arms around his waist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, Daichi,” Hinata asked, finally pausing to actually chew his goddamn sandwich. “How did you know you like, like liked Suga?”

“That’s too many uses of the word ‘like’,” Tsukishima observed dryly.

Daichi paused with his veggie wrap halfway between the plate and his mouth. “What on Earth suddenly sparked this question?”

“I’m trying to become more worldly,” Hinata replied mysteriously.

Daichi gave Annette a helpless look, like a parent who’d just been asked by their child how babies were made. Which, depending on the nature of the ‘like’ in question, he kind of had (however, Annette, out of a sense of politeness and respect for Daichi and Suga, was not going to assume, question, or pry).

The werewolf, though, was equally as helpless in this situation; she shrugged back at Karasuno’s captain. “Don’t ask me. I’ve never had a crush on anyone.”

Suga, grinning most evilly and taking the opportunity to enter full chaos mode, clapped both hands to his cheeks in a show of mock astonishment. “Ooooh, Daichi, you have a crush on me? How embarrassing…”

“Koushi, we have been dating for almost 2 years,” Daichi replied, clearly withholding a sigh of exasperation. He set his chopsticks down and picked up his cup of water. “You’re the embarrassing one.”

“ASAHI IS LEAVING ME TO FURTHER HIS EDUCATION,” Noya yelled, putting both hands flat on the wooden table. “CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??”

“Noya, I’m going to Pacifica City College,” Asahi reminded his partner, “that’s literally in the middle of San Zelkova and like, forty minutes to an hour away from your house by public transit.”

“Woe is me,” Noya lamented, rocking back in his seat and almost falling off the bench; Asahi steadied him with a hand on his back and the lightning-haired kid grinned, very content to lean against the touch.

“Do you have a partner, Annette?” Hinata asked. “You said you’ve never had a crush on anyone.”

The werewolf shook her head. “No. I’ve never been interested in dating people, nor am I attracted to people for dating-related reasons.”

“Oh?” Yamaguchi asked. “Are you ace?”

Annette’s ears pricked up a little at the word; the freckled kid had accurately recognized what she had described, which for some reason made her feel…happy? “Yes, I’m asexual, and aromantic, too.”

“What’s that mean?” Kageyama asked, pausing between bites of his sandwich.

The werewolf briefly considered her options for an appropriate explanation, given the mixed crowd of people she was facing. “I guess one way to put it is that I feel connected to people for platonic reasons, and that’s about it. I’m not motivated to seek out other kinds of relationships.”

“So you’re immune to seduction?” Noya asked, slapping both palms against the tabletop again.

Immune to what? Annette had not expected that to be the response, so it took her a moment to reply. “Well, I suppose so. But not so much immune as…unaware?” She shrugged. “If someone tried to seduce me, I probably wouldn’t even notice.”

“But wouldn’t your True Sight pick up on it?” Yamaguchi guessed.

The werewolf blinked; she hadn’t thought about that. “Good point. It probably would.”

“That’s so cool,” Hinata commented, leaning back in his seat. “Annette is immune to seduction.”

“What kind of life skill is that?” Kageyama questioned. “If vampires were actually real, maybe it would be helpful. But vampires aren’t real.”

“Not that you know of,” Hinata replied in a mysterious whisper, eyes wide.

“You know, if one of us was actually a vampire, I’d guess it was you,” Tsukishima said, jabbing his finger at Kageyama.

“ME????”

“Yeah, you know. Black hair. Pasty. Weird manners of expression-”

“You two, stop that,” Daichi ordered, glaring at his juniors. “You’re disrupting lunch.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After lunch, Annette found Lionelle crouched in some bushes on the ridgeline, watching the lakeshore through binoculars. “Aren’t you supposed to be chaperoning right now?”

The werelion jumped about three meters into the air and nearly dropped her binoculars. “Annette! Gods above, you scared me!”

The werewolf put her hands on her hips. “What on earth are you doing up here, anyways? And why the binoculars?”

Lionelle lifted said binoculars back to her golden eyes. “I’ve been trying to figure out if my brother has a thing for the head coach.”

Annette frowned and peered down at the lakeshore. Sure enough, coaches Ukai and Takeda were on the docks, watching the Karasuno kids who were out kayaking on the lake. They were standing an average distance apart, like average people, doing a very average activity of watching the high schoolers on the water to make sure Tsukishima didn’t try to drown Hinata, or vice versa.

“Why do you think he has a thing for Takeda?” the werewolf asked dubiously.

“Sister instinct,” Lionelle grunted, adjusting the focus on her binoculars. “Everyone in the family is always after Keishin about how he doesn’t have a wife yet. I know he’s bothered by it.”

Annette’s frown deepened. “And so your solution is to spy on him like a creep?”

“It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone,” Lionelle argued. “I just want to have the tea on my kid brother so I can hold it over his head.”

“What are you, twelve?!”

Lionelle hissed in protest. “Okay, okay, maybe I am being a little creepy. But blame Koro. He spies on our students all the time during field trips.”

Annette put her hands on her hips. “Your coworkers are very weird, Lionelle. Sometimes I wonder why you continue to work at that school.”

The werelion snorted. “The ex-military guy, the shady Russian lady, and Koro, who I can’t hope to put into words? Weird is right, but we get along well enough. And they’ve accepted me for who I am. That’s what’s important here.”

Annette sighed in defeat, dropping her hands. “Lionelle, I am sorry to tell you, but I have yet to sense any kind of affinity between your brother and Takeda.”

The werelion lowered her binoculars and looked at the werewolf with wide, sad eyes. “Nothing at all? Maybe you just haven’t been around them enough yet.”

Annette shrugged helplessly and shook her head.

“Nooooo…” Lionelle bemoaned, putting a hand over her face. “My emotional blackmail…”

The werewolf frowned. For some reason, she was feeling a bit emboldened by her earlier conversation with the Karasuno kids. “Maybe he’s ace, Lionelle.”

“Ugh.” Lionelle dragged her fingers down her face. “He could be…but I don’t get that kind of vibe from him, you know? And it’s hard to emotionally blackmail an asexual about their feelings for other people. They’re invulnerable to that sort of thing by definition.”

“Maybe…you should also just mind your own business,” Annette suggested wisely, in both the intelligent sense and the sarcastic sense.

“UGH.”

“I’m taking these binoculars,” Annette made the decision, reaching for the dastardly item in her friend’s hands, “and you’re going to go keep an eye on Aoba Johsai instead of continuing to be a creep. Please make sure they don’t find a volcano to throw Oikawa into.”

“Fine,” Lionelle grumbled, handing off the binoculars. “Party pooper.”

Chapter Text

“Tendou sensed that he was going to have a vision.” The speaker was Goshiki, who was, from what Annette had heard, one of Shiratorizawa’s 1st-years, and one of rumored great, and perhaps a tad bit overeager, potential. The black-haired kid continued speaking, pointing towards the center of the lake, “So we stuck him in a kayak and put him where he can’t set anything on fire.”

Indeed, Annette could see Tendou’s blazing red hair from where they were standing on the docks. The gangly kid was sitting in an orange kayak, periodically gesturing towards the sky and speaking to no-one in particular. Maybe ten or so meters away was Ushijima in a green kayak, slowly circling Tendou’s position like a friendly shark with strong protective instincts.

“What if he capsizes?” Annette asked, eyes cautiously tracing the bloom of fire that extended from Tendou’s waving fingertips. “From what I understand, he’s not very present when he’s having a vision.”

Goshiki lowered his binoculars. “The shock of the cold water will snap him out of his vision. And Ushijima won’t let him get hurt.” A bit of a frown crossed his face. “And I’m here too, so I can help…though Ushijima told me to stay on the docks instead of also going out on the water.”

Annette did not miss the bit of perturbation in the 1st-year’s tone. She shook her head, warning against the feeling. “Don’t read too much into it. It’s not that he doesn’t trust your capabilities.”

Goshiki jumped a little, eyes fixing on the werewolf. “Who said I thought he didn’t trust me?!”

Annette lifted her chin and smiled, watching the kid out of the side of her eye, though she kept her gaze on the water. “Nobody said it. But I know it’s true.”

Goshiki frowned a bit intensely at her, but he didn’t offer any more argument; instead, he turned back to the lake with a bit of a pout and put his binoculars back to his eyes. Annette could sense his acute discomfort; True Sight did make some people feel like they were made of glass, especially those who kept a lot of thoughts to themselves.

“Why is it, then?”

“Hmm?” Annette looked over at the 1st year again. His eyes were still on the water, but his binoculars were down. “Why did he tell me to stay here, then?” he repeated.

The werewolf hummed quietly and looked back to the water, clasping her hands behind her back. “Well, I wasn’t there to witness the conversation, so I can’t say I know exactly what his intentions are,” she cautioned. “But I think he considers taking care of Tendou to be his responsibility.”

Goshiki’s eyes were back on her now, eyebrows lifted. He stared at her for a long moment before looking back at the lake. A long, thin ribbon of fire snaked through the sky, one end connected to Tendou’s fingertips. Ushijima’s calm orbit had continued the entire time, green kayak sliding silently through the water.

“I suppose I just have to accept that,” Goshiki finally grumbled. “Even if I don’t entirely understand it.”

Annette nodded firmly. “That’s the spirit, kid.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tendou paddled his kayak back to the docks once his vision was over, Ushijima trailing after him. The sun was getting low in the horizon, indicating that it was time to head to the dining hall for dinner. The four people stowed the kayaks and paddles and locked up the lake shed before heading for the long building.

“Come eat with us,” Ushijima said to Annette as they walked up the hill. It was stated more like an order than a request, but Annette could tell the latter was more indicated than the former. The werewolf smiled and nodded accordingly. “Sure thing.”

One, large building served as the source of food for the entire campground, and as a result, there were way more people than just the three high schools inside the dining hall. Navigating the place was no issue, though - people scooted quickly out of Ushijima’s way, a reaction Annette doubted the tall kid even noticed. Or rather, he noticed but didn’t think anything of it. But to Annette, their reactions were obvious and intent clear; they were intimidated by him, be it from his height, his stone-like resting expression, or, for those who could sense it, his aura of earth magic - of power - that followed him everywhere.

His team, however, had no such feelings - they all stood by and faced him in different ways, from easy familiarity to awe. And Tendou, he followed him like a shadow, or rather, in his shadow - from what Annette could tell, he felt safe there.

“So how long have you two known each other?” the werewolf asked as they sat down after acquiring their trays of food - tonight was a beef-and-vegetable curry, probably cooked in a pot the size of a bathtub to get the volume necessary to feed all these kids. “I sense that it has been for longer than high school, certainly.”

“Accurate guessing, Ms. Wolf,” Tendou commended, jabbing his chopsticks in her direction. “Since elementary school.”

“I was his only friend,” Ushijima added. At face value, such a statement was probably mildly insulting, but from him it was probably just a practical truth.

“The other kiddies in elementary school weren’t too savvy about me,” Tendou spoke between large bites of his dinner. “They thought I was going to light their hair on fire.”

Despite his generally unbothered airs, there was a slight waver to the redhead’s voice, and from that, Annette was able to construct an idea of his past pretty clearly.

“He’s weird,” they whispered. “He’s strange. I’m scared of him.”

The little redheaded kid continued to stand by the wall, hands curled up in the hem of his shirt, not really understanding why they said all those things. And that made it hurt more.

“I don’t want to do a group project with him. I don’t want him on our team.”

His fingers were starting to hurt because of how tight he was clenching them. Why did everyone feel this way about him?

“His hair’s so red. And that look in his eyes creeps me out.”

He couldn’t help what he looked like! Why couldn’t they understand that?

…

If they thought he was creepy, then maybe he was. Maybe that was all he’d ever be.

“Did you ever?” the werewolf asked, unable to help herself.

“No, but I was sorely tempted a few times,” Tendou replied, snickering. “Mostly other classmates, but there was also this one teacher who had a real stick up her butt about how anyone with an elemental affinity needed to tightly control their aura, to the point where it was entirely invisible. And, as you probably know, no amount of training can suppress Foresight.” He shoved another scoop of curry into his mouth. “She hated my guts.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair,” Annette said dubiously.

“I did not understand it,” Ushijima agreed. “While Tendou was capable of lighting things on fire, he never did. At least not on purpose. But our peers treated him like possessing the capacity for the act was as criminal as committing the act itself.”

“That teacher told me I was a liability that nobody’d want to take on,” Tendou continued. His face split into a wide grin. “Oh, how I’d love to see her witchy little face now, if she knew I was a regular for one of the best high school volleyball teams in the region. But alas,” he sighed windily, “she’d get the last laugh. I wasn’t even close to getting recruited to a college team; none of them wanted a player, no matter how skilled, who might suddenly be unable to play a match, or have to leave partway through to perform unavoidable pyrotechnics.” He waved his chopsticks in the air, making a circle with their tips. “So with this impending graduation and my exodus from high school, that’ll be it for me.”

Despite his deviousness and dramatic retelling, Annette could sense the redhead’s genuine sadness under his words, and her frown reflected her sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Eh, it is what it is,” Tendou waved a hand dismissively. “I’m going to the same college as Ushiwaka, so I can cheer him on and continue to burden him with my problems.”

“It’s not a burden,” Ushijima interjected calmly, stacking up his empty dishes (there were quite a few of them). “Not when it’s you.”

Based on the glittery look in the redhead’s eyes, Annette reckoned Tendou would’ve started crying right then and there if it wasn’t for his sheer determination to keep up his ‘maniacal cryptid aura’ at all times.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Alright everyone, we’re going to be doing something special tonight,” Takeda said, smiling in the golden light of the setting sun that filtered through their campsite. “The three schools have agreed to put on a test of valor! Of the friendly and low-risk sort, of course.”

“Test of valor?” Tanaka asked dubiously.

“OOOH!” Noya yelled, bouncing up and down. “ARE WE GONNA TRY TO PRANK THE OTHER TEAMS??”

“In a way,” Takeda continued. “Each school will take turns sending their players through a predetermined course. Along that course, the players from the other two schools will be lurking, ready to try and frighten them away.”

“This sounds like a horrible idea,” Tsukishima said flatly. “Count me out.”

“Nooo, Tsukki, don’t be like that,” Yamaguchi pleaded, sounding a mixture of humored and genuine.

“Participation is optional,” Tadeka agreed, entirely unphased by the 1st year’s lack of enthusiasm. “Nobody will be forced to participate.”

“And if you make fun of your teammates for not participating, you will learn what diving drill hell is like,” Ukai interjected, arms crossed over his chest.

“I WANT TO SCARE PEOPLE!!” Hinata yelled, hands clenched.

“You’re about as scary as a guinea pig with indigestion,” Kageyama replied. Hinata jumped up and smacked him over the head, drawing an angry shout from the taller kid.

“There are a number of ground rules we need to review,” Takeda continued as Ukai glared Hinata and Kageyama back to silence. “The people acting as scare-ers are not allowed to touch anyone going through the course. We have also decided that no were-forms or elemental powers can be used by the scare-ers.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Asahi said faintly. “I don’t want to scare anyone with my bear form…”

“Please also try to refrain from using were-forms or elemental powers in self-defense,” Ukai added. “That means you, Nishinoya.”

“If someone gets struck by lightning,” Noya said, hands spread, “then they should consider it an indicator of a job well done!”

“NISHINOYA.”

“Yes, Daichi! No striking people with lightning!”

“I really hope that flaming-haired cryptid from Shiratorizawa doesn’t light the forest on fire,” Tsukishima muttered, arms crossed.

Takeda smiled, still unfazed. “Annette and Lionelle will be patrolling the route to make sure nothing gets out of hand. If you are walking the route and decide you don’t want to continue, you can flag one of them down. They’ll be wearing neon orange shirts.”

Annette, indeed, already had the shirt on. It was painfully bright, but at least it complemented her rusty hair.

“It will be dark in about one hour, which is when we will draw straws to see which school is walking the route first,” Takeda finished. “So for the rest of our time, I encourage you to form a scheme for how you will do your best to frighten the other teams!”

“This is a map of the route,” Ukai said, unrolling a piece of paper onto the table in the middle of the group. “One school will be walking, the second will be hidden along the first half of the route, and the third along the second. Each school will play each position once.”

“OOoooh, this is going to be so fun,” Tanaka said with evil delight, fingers tented together.

“Ushijima’s probably going to make someone pee their pants,” Hinata estimated with great seriousness, peering at the map.

“I hope it’s Oikawa,” Kageyama muttered darkly.

“What about that Mad Dog guy from Aoba Johsai?” Suga asked. “He’s probably going to be very scary to run into in the middle of a dark forest.”

“Not scarier than Ushijima,” Hinata said, very seriously.

Since Annette was assigned to the first half of the route, she got to bear witness to the fright-focused antics of each team, and also their, ah, fight-or-flight-based choices. Be it good or bad luck, Karasuno got to walk the route first, and Shiratorizawa was established along the first half of the route.

Karasuno’s managers, Yachi and Shimizu, declined to participate - Yachi was very firm that doing so would be bad for her health, and Shimizu stayed behind with her so she wouldn’t feel awkward about being the only person to back out. However, their solo act was short-lived; Yamaguchi joined them after not too long, having chickened out at the start of the course. They patted his shoulders reassuringly, and the three of them sat by the well-lit campfire with Ukai and Takeda, listening to the rest of their team lose their marbles out in the woods.

Daichi and Suga went through the course first. Daichi spent a lot of time talking about how it wasn’t actually that scary (which was definitely a front), while Suga was deathly quiet, keeping a tight grip on his captain’s hand. His silence, and Daichi’s faking, held out until Tendou, branches stuck into his fiery hair to make him look like some kind of deer cryptid, popped out of the bushes at them; there was a lot of screaming, then a lot of cursing, and Annette swore she saw Suga flip Tendou off before he and Daichi scurried onwards.

Asahi and Noya were easy to keep track of because of Asahi’s screeching and Noya’s laughing every time they got jumpscared. The shorter kid would snarl and yell back at the scare-ers as if he was trying to intimidate them in turn - but at his height and accompanied by an eternally-cringing werebear, it definitely wasn’t working.

The rest of the second-years went through together in one, big, pretending-not-to-be-frightened group. That persisted until Goshiki, howling like some kind of crazy lemur, dropped out of a tree and landed in front of them - which Tanaka responded to by sucker-punching the 1st year in the stomach. He got banned from the course after that.

“Boo,” Annette heard Ushijima’s flat voice in the distance. It was followed by a whole lot of shrieking from the remaining second-years.

Tsukishima managed to extract himself from Hinata and Kageyama by some means, and walked through the course by himself. He never once batted an eye, and when one of the Shiratorizawa 2nd-years (it might have been Shirabu, but Annette didn’t get a good look) jumped out at him, he glared at the kid so hard that the would be scare-er gave it a second thought and backed off. Annette counted herself impressed.

“I’m not scared,” Kageyama called scoffingly. “Hinata, dumbass, get back here!”

A blaze of orange hair was all Annette saw as Hinata took the ‘track star’ strategy to get through the route unscathed. Kageyama booked it after him, yelling; with the speed both of them moved at, nobody was able to get close enough to try and scare them.

Karasuno had successfully survived the fright; and with that, the schools rotated, and they became the scare-ers of the first half of the route, with Aoba Johsai walking.

Oikawa absolutely got targeted. By the gods he got targeted. By both Karasuno and Shiratorizawa. Annette had never witnessed such vicious and merciless determination before. Or heard such raucous screaming.

The last to go was Shiratorizawa, with Aoba Johsai staffing the first part of the route. Goshiki, since recovered from getting punched by Tanaka, also took the ‘track star’ strategy; all Annette saw of him was the purple-and-white blur of his jacket. She didn’t know the names of most of the other Shiratorizawa kids, but one of the other 3rd years (what was his name…Reon? Yeah, that sounded right) would get mildly scared by each encounter, and then start laughing like the scare-er had told a particularly funny joke. The 1st and 2nd years trailed after him like a bunch of ducklings, and at one point, they all started holding hands.

“Try it and die,” Semi’s voice drifted out of the darkness.

“Okay, okay, geez,” Kindaichi muttered, slinking back into the trees. “Have a nice night…”

The last to wander through were Tendou and Ushijima, with the former reminiscent of Noya, laughing and cackling at each failed jumpscare. His cryptid status made him invulnerable, and trying to scare Ushijima was like trying to scare a brick wall.

“You know what, never mind,” Iwaizumi grumbled, walking away from the route as Tendou and Ushijima came towards their hiding place. “You can try to scare him by yourself, Oikawa.”

“YOU’RE NO FUN,” Oikawa complained. He had yet to emotionally recover from being overwhelmingly targeted during the last round.

“We can hear you talking,” Ushijima called. “That ruins your element of surprise.”

“TEN THOUSAND TIMES FUCK YOU, USHIWAKA!”

“No thank you.”

Oikawa’s screams of pure, unfiltered rage were audible from the next town over.

Chapter Text

Sunday, of course, would be their last day at the camp. After lunch, they’d be headed back to civilization…not that this particular campground had been by any means remote.

“Suga! Suga!” Hinata hissed, running up to the silver-haired vice-captain. The Karasuno kids, plus Annette and Lionelle to make sure nobody got lost, had hiked around to the far side of the lake (which was not actually that far, because the lake was not all that big) and had just emerged out of the woods onto the edge of a small cove, where a portion of the lake threaded through two, tall banks of stone and trees.

“What is it?” Suga asked, turning towards his orange-haired teammate. The kid was bouncing up and down, fists balled up.

“You can freeze water, right?” he asked.

“I can,” Suga confirmed, sounding a tad cautious.

Hinata, still bouncing, pointed one finger at the small cove. “How much water can you freeze??? Could you freeze all of that water?? Or is that too much?”

Suga’s brown eyes followed the excitable kid’s finger to the blue-grey surface of the lake. “Well…I don’t know…” Annette did not miss how his eyes briefly flicked to her and Lionelle before going back to the water. “Using magic without an actual need for it is kind of frowned upon…”

“Hey, I’m not going to rat on you for using your magic out here,” Annette responded to the unspoken concern, holding both hands up placatingly. She got two intentions from him: the first, the part of him that wanted to be responsible, and the second, the part of him that was also now curious to know how much water he could freeze at once. Chances were, he’d never actually tested his limit before, since, as he had said, using magic without a defensible reason for it was generally discouraged nowadays.

“As long as you don’t try to freeze all of it,” Lionelle interjected. “Lots of new spring life is forming in the mud right now, and if you freeze the lakebed, you’ll kill all of it.”

Hinata looked back and forth between the two adults and Suga with round eyes. “Well, if you don’t want to, I understand…”

“Oh, no,” Suga muttered dryly. “Now that you’ve put the idea in my head, I do want to.”

“DO IT,” Noya called, tiny lightning bolts jumping through his spiked-up hair.

“SUCCUMB TO ANARCHY,” Tanaka agreed, hands on the hem of his t-shirt.

“Please keep your shirt on,” Ennoshita grumbled at his teammate. “We are in the company of respectable women.”

Yachi blinked and looked up at Shimizu. “Did he just call us respectable?” she stage-whispered. “I’m respectable???”

“What are we doing?” Daichi called, turning around from where he’d been inspecting a particularly large glacial boulder. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you up to..?”

Suga, during the chattering chaos, had knelt down on the muddy bank and was inspecting the surface of the water with a critical gaze. He took a deep breath, and the pale-blue fragments of magic that floated around the ends of his hair, usually so faint they were barely in sight, flared to life, refracting their blue glow like crystals. He breathed out, the usually-quiet sound now loud like a gust of wind, and the crystals shot forward, becoming like a little blizzard blown over the surface of the water. Where they touched down, the surface immediately froze, ice crackling and expanding over the liquid.

“WHOA,” Hinata breathed, eyes huge. “That’s so cool! Literally!”

The area of frozen water was about three or four meters long and maybe half a meter wide. Suga looked rather pleased with himself; as he stood back up, Annette caught a glimpse of a pale blue, fractal-like pattern spread across his brown irises, the light color slowly fading around the edges like melting snowflakes.

“Why,” Daichi stated with great disappointment, staring at the frozen water with a frown.

“ANARCHY,” Tanaka declared, ripping his shirt off.

“You stop that,” Ennoshita instructed crossly, pointing one finger at his teammate.

Suga grinned cheekily. “Sorry, Dadchi. I got peer pressured.” He was absolutely not sorry.

Daichi sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and walked up to stand next to his vice captain. “How long is this going to take to melt..?”

Suga swayed and playfully nudged Daichi with his hip. “Dadchi, it’s going to be fine. Annette and Lionelle promised not to tell the other adults.”

Daichi, very unconvinced (and unswayed), put his hands on his hips. “Just because you can get away with it doesn’t make it right.” His dad senses must’ve gone off, because he sharply turned his head halfway through the thought. “No, Hinata, don’t try to walk on the ice, it’s not thick enough-”

“Aw, man,” Hinata complained, now ankle-deep in the mud, as his foot had broken through Suga’s ice layer. From the top of the glacial boulder, someone (i.e. Tsukishima) started snickering.

Daichi sighed again, louder and more exasperated this time.

“Hey, Annette!” Noya bounded up to the werewolf, grinning brightly. “Is your wolf form able to howl like a real wolf?”

The question caught the woman a bit off-guard, but she supposed it was only fair, since the group’s attention was currently wrapped up in mild acts of delinquency. “Yes, I can,” she admitted, though something in the act made her feel a tad uncomfortable.

“You can howl?” Kageyama asked curiously. “That must be good for long-distance communication.”

“Can you howl for us????” Hinata asked from the banks, now missing one shoe, which had been swallowed up by the mud.

“Yes!!!” Noya exclaimed, another wave of lightning sparking through his hair. “I want to hear!”

Annette found her gut felt surprisingly dense now, like she’d swallowed a ball of iron. All of the kids were staring at her now, waiting expectantly.

“Annette, Annette,” her mother said softly, catching the eight-year-old by the arm. “You can’t be howling anymore. You’re getting too old for it.”

The little werewolf, currently in fur, looked up at her mother with huge, amber eyes. “But…I had lost Freddie and Margaret in the crowd, and I was just trying to figure out where they’d gone…”

“I know,” her mother shushed her. “But it doesn’t matter. If you lose your siblings again, you have to find them without howling. It’s noisy and disruptive to other people.” She patted her daughter’s shoulders. “Now, please, shift back, you’re causing a scene.”

The iron ball in her stomach felt hot now, in a self-conscious sort of way. She fixed her gaze on the ground and shook her head. “I don’t think I can, sorry...out of practice, you know?” It was a lie, and it felt absolutely horrible coming out of her mouth.

“Awww,” Noya muttered, slouching.

“Hey, don’t pressure her,” Asahi said faintly, drifting over to stand next to his shorter teammate; there was a cautious look in his eye that hinted to Annette that he understood where her unease was coming from.

“I can roar!” Lionelle butted in, redirecting the attention from Annette to herself. “Watch this!”

The werelion shifted rapidly, snap-buttons and hidden clasps on her windbreaker jacket coming undone as her body got larger. Her wild hair darkened to brown and spread around her neck, forming her mane, spilling out around the edges of her jacket’s collar. The roar built from a deep growl in her throat and pinged around the cove, echoing off the rocks; it was impressive, but Annette could tell that her friend, even for all her bold facade, was holding back.

“NICE!!!” Noya cheered, mood revived.

“Hey, you have a mane!” Hinata exclaimed, bouncing up and down. “That’s so cool!”

“I know, right?” Lionelle agreed, grinning as she ran her fingers through the sides of the thick, tan locks of fur.

“I thought only male lions had manes,” Kageyama stated; his dark blue eyes were on Lionelle, but his hands were out to his left side to keep Hinata, and all of the mud stuck to Hinata’s leg, from bouncing into him.

“Don’t ask insensitive questions, Stupidyama,” Hinata scolded, neatly getting around the guard to smack his friend over the head.

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended,” Lionelle replied, one hand out to placate the kids. “It’s alright to be curious, as long as you’re being respectful, and not trying to be judgemental or rude.”

Yamaguchi stepped in for Kageyama and Hinata, who were now too busy squabbling to continue their conversation with the werelion. “Is it okay to ask you why you have a mane, Ms. Lionelle?”

“Of course,” the werelion replied with a wink. “Nice job putting the lesson into practice, Yamaguchi.” The freckled kid smiled a bit sheepishly; Tsukishima, still on top of the glacial boulder, rolled his eyes to the heavens.

“Yes, I’m curious too, Ms. Lionelle!” Hinata called from within the headlock Kageyama had managed to get him into.

“Okay, gather round, kids,” the werelion said eagerly, gesturing for them to come closer. “I’m about to tell you about some stuff that the government doesn’t want you to know.” The phrasing worked really well to grab everyone’s attention, even if it was a bit of an exaggeration, in Annette’s opinion.

“I was born a baby,” Lionelle continued, holding up one finger like being born a baby was a rather mystical thing, “and the doctors looked at me and said, ‘it’s a girl’. And my parents were like, cool, it’s a girl. And I was like, cool, I’m a girl. And I grew up from there.” The werelion turned her head, casting her golden gaze over the now-enraptured group of high schoolers. “Everything was right in the world. And then, I hit this disaster called puberty.”

Lionelle was good at making that time in her life sound comedic. But Annette knew better.

“My parents are freaking out,” the fourteen-year-old werelion hissed to her, hands pushing against her shoulders and shaking her a little. “They want me to take these medications. And they want to trim my mane!”

Most were-creatures were naturally athletic, more so than normal humans. Annette was getting stronger as she grew, outpacing the other girls in her class. But Lionelle?

She was running even faster, jumping even higher, lifting even more, on par with the boys in her class. The muscles in her arms, her shoulders, were becoming more apparent. And when she shifted, thick, tan fur was starting to grow around her head and neck.

The werewolf wasn’t really sure what to tell her friend. Lionelle had explained it - that the doctor said something must’ve gone wrong with her development before she was born, and her now-pubertal body was producing the ‘wrong’ hormones as a result - but Annette wasn’t sure if she actually understood the full extent of the situation.

“What,” she finally managed to say, “what do you want to do?”

“Nothing!” Lionelle replied explosively, hitting her open hands against her chest. The other girls were slowly starting to grow their curves; the only thing she was growing was pectorals, but she wasn’t the slightest bit concerned, from what Annette could tell. “I don’t care if I developed ‘incorrectly’! I don’t care that this isn’t what I was ‘supposed’ to grow up into! It’s happening to me anyways.” She dropped her hands, golden eyes drifting to the floor. “Somehow, I think I always knew I was different. I’d accepted that years ago. And now, everyone wants me to…un-accept it.”

Annette still wasn’t sure that she understood. But everything Lionelle was saying was genuine, directly from her heart. She, with all her might, did not want to change herself to fit into some ‘box’ that others thought would be appropriate for her.

The werewolf put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m with you,” she said.

“Due to an error in my development, the baby version of me looked like a girl on the outside, but my inside bits had a different idea,” the werelion summarized. “During puberty, I developed more like a boy, including growing a mane. Even though it was unusual, I felt like it was just another part of who I was. I didn’t want to change myself to be something I wasn’t.”

“Whoa,” Hinata breathed, eyes round. “I should have paid more attention in biology…”

“You have no idea what she’s talking about, do you?” Tsukishima criticised dryly.

“You’re really brave, Ms. Lionelle!” Yamaguchi declared, fingers balled up. “I know a lot of people out there aren’t very keen on the idea of people like you…”

“Aw, thanks.” Lionelle grinned bashfully, running one of her hands through the back of her mane. “I’m glad you kids aren’t like those people.”

“NEVER,” Hinata declared, bouncing up with both fists thrust into the air.

“HINATA,” Daichi bellowed, “GO GET YOUR SHOE OUT OF THE MUD.”

“Yes, Dadchi,” Hinata muttered, sinking away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on, guys, we need to take a group selfie,” Oikawa was saying, phone in one hand as he herded the rest of his team to the end of the docks. “This is our last chance to take a fun group picture before graduation!”

Annette observed the chaos; it was very much like watching a single, increasingly neurotic border collie try to herd a group of scheming sheep who were under the influence of a Devious and Maniacal Behavioral Consensus. It was times like these that the werewolf regretted having True Sight; because she could tell exactly what the kids intended to do, there would be no comedic surprise for her.

“Stop glaring at the camera, Kyotani. No, Kunimi, where are you going, get back here! Kindaichi, scoot to the right, your hair’s in the way. Alright, everyone, say cheese!”

The picture was finally taken with success. Oikawa looked very pleased.

“See?” he said. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“I’ll take that from you,” Hanamaki said, plucking Oikawa’s phone out of his hand. “Iwaizumi?”

“What?” Oikawa asked, distracted by his teammate who’d just stolen his phone. Moments later, Iwaizumi, silent as a ninja and full of vengeful spirit, plowed into his captain with enough force that both of them were launched off the end of the dock and into the lake. Oikawa’s surprised and vastly entertaining screech ended in a loud splash.

“What the-?!” Ukai exclaimed from the boathouse at the other end of the docks. The eternity of the Karasuno team peered around the stack of kayaks, spotting the violent ripples in the water.

Suga put one hand solemnly over his heart. “He’ll be greatly missed.”

“Both of them?” Hinata asked.

“No, just Iwaizumi.”

“I mean,” Lionelle said, hands on her hips, “they couldn’t find a volcano to throw him into yesterday, so they chose the next best thing.”

Oikawa broke the surface of the water, spluttering mightily. “I HATE ALL OF YOU!!!”

Iwaizumi surfaced next to him and gave Hanamaki a very serious nod and thumbs-up. Mission accomplished.

Chapter Text

Now that the 3rd years were high schoolers no more, but college freshmen, Annette got used to them coming to the Den separately, and no longer in their big group. Well, not entirely separately; Daichi and Suga had gone to the same nearby college, the large public school, University of Zelkova, and they were making an effort to meet at the Den semi-regularly; whenever they visited Annette, they were together. All the others (those who did visit) would drop by separately, exercising their new privilege - sitting at the bar and ordering alcoholic drinks now that they were 18 and older AND high school graduates.

A new year meant new college freshmen as well, fresh graduates from high schools outside San Zelkova who had migrated to the sprawling urban environment for all sorts of reasons, which meant for Annette…entirely new patrons. It was something she always looked forward to, with a healthy mixture of excitement and dread. New patrons meant a chance to continue sustaining her business, but it also meant a chance for the atmosphere of the place to change. Whether it would be for the better or the worse was hard to predict, even with True Sight.

And tonight, it seemed, she was sensing the spirit of something rather…devious in her bar.

The kid who sat down across from her was one of these newfound college freshmen, if her guessing was accurate (which, as always, it was). He was pretty tall, easily taller than her, and with messy, jet-black hair that was slanted over one side of his face. The thickness of it was a lot like fur; between that and the directness of his gaze, Annette could tell he was a were-creature of some sort, and probably one of the ‘Carnivora’ order.

“ID, please,” the werewolf asked. The kid grinned, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his wallet. The ID he handed her was a VERY well-put-together fake, but unfortunately for him, her True Sight could read his trickery from kilometers away.

“Your real ID, please,” she emphasized, flicking her amber eyes up to make eye contact. “I can tell you’re over 18, too, so why even bother with the fake?”

The kid let out a short, cackle of a laugh. “I heard you had True Sight,” he said, taking the fake ID back from the werewolf. “I wanted to see if the rumors were true.”

Annette stilled a little, frowning. “Who’d you hear about me from?”

“It’s a bit of a roundabout, but I swear it’s not because I’m a creep,” the kid promised, fishing his real ID out of his wallet. He handed Annette the card and she read the name on it - ‘Kuroo Tetsurou’.

“Funny enough, I think I know who you are, too,” she said, looking at the name. “I know some kids who’ve mentioned you before.” Here she was going, again - thousands of college freshmen in the city, and the volleyball-obsessed ones were all coming her way.

“Oho…” Kuroo laughed again, taking his ID back. “I probably know who you’re talking about.” He grinned, and Annette observed that his canines were subtly pointed, quite similar to her own - between that and his particular laugh, she was pretty sure she knew what kind of were-creature he was.

“My partner is in an online support group for gender-non-conforming teenagers, and their mentor is a regular of this place,” Kuroo continued. “I started college locally, at the University of Zelkova, and they wanted me to come check this place out.”

“I see.” Annette recalled Lionelle’s volunteer position as a mentor in that same social support group; it was a roundabout connection, as Kuroo had admitted, but it made sense.

“The Karasuno kids have also mentioned this place before,” the dark-haired kid continued. “They seem to be big fans of it.”

“I’m honored,” Annette admitted. “Hopefully it lives up to the expectations they’ve set.”

“So far, so good,” Kuroo said smoothly, resting one elbow on the bar. “But I don’t know if I could bring my partner here, at least not during busy times. They’re not one for big crowds, and plus, they’re busy. They’ve just started their senior year at our old high school.”

So it was another pair of people in the Asahi-Noya situation. Though, from what Annette could recall, Asahi was going to college locally, so he wasn’t far away from his energetic other half. Kuroo’s situation sounded different. “You’re not local, then, I take it?” the werewolf asked.

Kuroo shook his head. “No, but home’s not terribly far - Los Edokyo. A few hours by train.”

Probably far enough away to be considered ‘long-distance’, though. And in a relationship with a nonbinary person. AND a were-creature.

Annette could feel the obnoxious thought forming in the back of her mind.

‘New child…’

Damnit, spiritually adopting high schoolers was one thing; she couldn’t go around spiritually adopting college students too!

But if said college students were friends of her high schoolers…and had only just been in high school themselves…

“Admittedly, I haven’t been here for long,” Kuroo was saying, “but this city…there’s a lot going on here.” He turned his gaze back to Annette, smirking a little. “Good and bad.”

Annette didn’t necessarily need True Sight to catch onto his hint. “I’m guessing you saw the news about the protest last week, then?”

“You bet,” Kuroo said breezily. “Though, I can’t act like what’s happening here is special. There’s been unrest back home, too. Also,” he changed the subject, “I will indeed order something from you. I’m not so rude as to monopolize your time and then not spend any money.”

Annette snorted, feeling a bit of a smirk of her own on her lips. Yes, this college freshman was definitely getting spiritually adopted. “What’ll you be having, then?”

“Whatever you think will convince me to come back here again,” Kuroo replied FAR too smoothly. Annette glared daggers at him and he snorted, hand over his mouth. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

The werewolf made a few calculated decisions on drink type. As much as Kuroo talked like he was a big flirt, she could tell the kid was 100% harmless AND joking. In other words, he was a little shit.

“Give this a try,” she said once she was done with the cocktail. “Assuming you’ve been moral all your life and HAVEN’T participated in any underage drinking, this drink is good for people who haven’t developed strong alcohol preferences yet.”

“Oh, you already know me so well,” Kuroo joked, accepting the drink. “A venerable angel.”

Annette put her hands on her hips. “From one were-creature to another, kid, I do hope to see you around. And even if this place isn’t your partner’s speed, I’m sure you’ll make friends at college. Bring them by.”

By gods, new customers were great, but by even more unimaginable gods, she really wanted to see what kind of absolutely batshit friends this kid was going to make.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“HEY HEY HEY!! This definitely is the place Hinata was talking about!”

Annette felt much akin to a palm tree in a hurricane in that moment, but it was thankfully short-lived. She ran one hand over her rusty hair to make sure none of it had actually been blown out of place before smiling. “Evening, Kuroo. You’ve made a friend, I see.”

“Hello, Annette,” the dark-haired kid returned her greeting with a grin, sitting down at the bar. “This is my roommate, Bokuto. Bokuto, this is Annette, the owner of this place.”

“A pleasure!” Bokuto declared, also sitting down at the bar. His appearance screamed ‘were-creature’ from a kilometer away, in his boldly yellow eyes and spiked-up hair, which was a layered mixture of very dark brown and white. The texture wasn’t all the same too, and rather astutely, Annette realized some of the ‘hair’ was actually closer to ‘feathers’, which were barred with the same colors as his hair.

“Good to meet you,” Annette returned. “ID, please?”

She swore she heard Kuroo snort. Bokuto, grinning, handed her a card.

Annette’s amber eyes flicked over the card, and then up to Kuroo, who was very pointedly looking at the ceiling. “You put him up to this?”

“No, absolutely not,” the dark-haired kid replied with great airs of false innocence.

The fake ID had a picture of Bokuto on it that was probably from, like the 4th grade or something. And the name read ‘SwagMaster Weed’.

“I hope you didn’t spend a ton of money on this,” Annette said dryly, handing the very fake ID back to Bokuto, who without any sense of regret swapped it for his real ID.

“It has been worth every penny,” Bokuto replied sagely.

Annette handed him back his real ID. “I don’t get many were-avians coming through here,” she ventured. “We just don’t seem to have many of them living in San Zelkova.”

“Oh really?” Bokuto seemed to find that curious. “There’s a whole community of them in Los Edokyo. Eagles, crows, owls, you name it.” He thrust a proud thumb at himself. “I’m one of the latter.”

“Yes, it’s very surprising,” Kuroo said with great seriousness, “that he’s a were-owl, with how loud he is.”

“HEY!”

“I have to listen to this shit day and night,” Kuroo continued, one hand up in the air in front of Bokuto’s face as if to silence him. It didn’t work.

“You know you love me, bro,” Bokuto called from the other side of the hand.

“Did you two know each other before college?” Annette asked. They were about four months into the school year at this point, not counting the summer break in August, and the two of them already seemed like old friends.

“Sort of,” Kuroo replied. “We’re from different high schools, but we played a lot of games against each other, being from the same city and all.”

Ah, so it was volleyball once again that all these kids knew each other through. What was with that?

“We both decided to go to the University of Zelkova. I got recruited to play volleyball and Kuroo got a really good scholarship,” Bokuto completed the story. “We decided to room together since we already knew each other somewhat.”

Kuroo leaned over the bar and put an open hand next to his mouth, stage-whispering to Annette. “I have never regretted a decision more in my life.”

“HEY!!”

“Kidding,” Kuroo snorted, punching Bokuto in the shoulder.

“You’re a were-creature too, right?” Bokuto asked Annette. “Wait! Let me guess.” He tented his fingers together in front of his face, narrowing his yellow eyes. “Hmm…”

“Don’t think too hard,” Kuroo called. “You’ll break something.”

“Fox!” Bokuto exclaimed, putting his hands flat on the bar counter.

Annette chuckled, grinning. “Close. Wolf.”

“Aw, man!” Bokuto rocked back a little on his barstool. “Your hair threw me off!”

“He thought I was a werecat when we first met,” Kuroo snorted. He lifted his eyebrows at Annette. “Most people can’t actually tell what I am. Though, I’m guessing you might have a better clue.”

The werewolf crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve got a guess, though I’m not entirely confident about it.”

Kuroo grinned leniently, showing his subtly-sharp teeth again. “Shoot.”

“Hyena.”

The messy-haired kid leaned back from the bar, eyes widening. “Damn, you really are perceptive. How could you tell?”

Annette dropped her arms, triumphant. “It’s your laugh. It’s too distinctive.”

“Damn.” Kuroo ran one of his hands through his black hair. “My hair color usually throws people off.”

“Wow, no wonder you two get along,” Bokuto huffed, arms crossed over his chest. “With your hair color and canid trickery!”

“Hyenas are technically felids,” Kuroo corrected, pointing a finger at his roommate. “We’ve definitely been over this before. Their similarity is just because of convergent evolution-”

The two college kids ordered drinks after that, and gave Annette a few minutes to catch up on some orders from other customers. After she had settled those, she returned to the kids to check in.

“I’m gonna get some food, too,” Bokuto said, scanning the menu. “I’m hungry.”

“How’re you two liking this area?” Annette asked, writing down his order.

“It’s not bad,” Kuroo replied, resting his chin on his palm. “It’s more built-up here than I thought it would be. Los Edokyo is just so huge, I thought everywhere else was going to feel small.”

“I like it,” Bokuto agreed. “Though, I miss my team. They feel so far away now…”

“You have a new, better team now.”

Bokuto rolled his eyes to the heavens. “By gods, they are NOT a better team!” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, pouting. “I miss my setter…”

“Saaaame.”

“Bro…”

The conversation devolved again after that, giving Annette another opportunity to check in on the other patrons. She was glad the bar wasn’t too busy; these college kids were entertaining to talk to.

“Annette! Did you know, within three days of moving here, someone asked me if I laid eggs,” Bokuto said, eyes wide and tone very serious.

“Seriously??” Annette questioned, picking up a dishrag to start drying some of her clean glasses. She pointed at Kuroo. “It wasn’t by him, was it?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Bokuto replied. Kuroo snorted into his drink.

“In hindsight, the were-owl continued, “it is kind of funny, but also kind of sad.” He put his hands on his hips. “Like, seriously! Who asks someone to their face if they lay eggs?”

Kuroo shifted his hand to the side of his head, elbow still on the table. “Annette’s so old, she probably remembers when it was common thought that were-creatures went through these ‘heat cycles’ that made them really aggressive and irritable.”

The werewolf paused mid-swipe of the dishrag, eyebrows lifting. “Old? Kid, I’ve barely got ten years on you.” She resumed drying the glass. “And be glad that mode of thought got tossed out in the last century. It wasn’t all that long ago that misconceptions like that were used to justify against hiring were-creatures for many jobs.”

Bokuto stopped mid-drunken-french-fry-consumption. “Wait, you don’t do that?” he asked Kuroo, yellow eyes round.

“No, you idiot!” The werehyena punched his roommate in the arm again. “We’ve been sharing a room for like four months! If I got inconsolably horny every month, you would have noticed by now!”

Bokuto brandished one of his french fries at Kuroo, defending himself. “I was joking!”

“Do you see what I’ve been having to deal with?” Kuroo complained to Annette, batting away the french fry.

“I don’t know, you did agree to be his roommate, even after having interacted with him before,” the werewolf replied with a shrug. “I think you knew what you were signing up for.”

“HEY, I’ve been seeing news about protests happening in this city every so often,” Bokuto interjected, changing the subject. “Have you gone to any of them, Annette?”

The werewolf shook her head, setting down the dried glass and picking up another. “No, I’ve been busy with the bar.” It would be a lie to say she hadn’t been thinking about going to one or two, though. A year ago, Lionelle had murmured some uncertainties about the future, and since then, changes had been creeping through the city’s sociopolitical landscape like thorny tendrils. A shift in the power balance here, a challenge to a protective law there; the increased frequency of hostile encounters Annette had with patrons at the Den were just a reflection of the changes up top. There were rumors too, rumors of arrests, people, usually were-creatures, vanishing. None of those rumors seemed substantiated, but regardless, the locals were getting suspicious and irritated. Some days, Annette counted herself included in that category. Other days, it seemed like too complicated a situation to get worked up about.

“I want to go to a protest!” Bokuto exclaimed, speaking the werewolf’s interests for her, both hands flat on the bar counter.

“Do you even know what you’d be protesting for?” Kuroo asked dubiously.

“Well, I for one would like it to be taught in schools that were-avians do not, in fact, lay eggs,” Bokuto said sagely, “because I am tired of people asking me that. And, while they’re at it,” he forged onwards before his roommate could say something sassy, one finger held up dramatically, “they can also teach those kiddos about gender identity and sexual orientations. I’m sure that will please your liberal agenda, Kuroo.”

The werehyena tented his fingers together and pointed them at the were-owl. “MY liberal agenda? I’m pretty sure that’s YOUR liberal agenda too, Bokuto.”

“Which one of us nearly unloaded on a classmate because they said nonbinary people weren’t real? Hmmm?”

“Oho, and which one of us spent six months having a mental breakdown because they were trying to figure out if they, and subsequently their setter, were straight or not? Hmmmmm?”

“Okay, we get it!” Annette exclaimed, waving a hand between the two kids’ faces to break up the argument. "You’re queer, me too, welcome to the club, now stop fighting about it.”

The two college kids broke apart, attentions snapping back to the werewolf with a bit of surprise. Then, Kuroo snorted and grinned broadly. “I knew from the beginning that we were gonna get along just fine,” he said triumphantly.

“Yeah, Annette, you’re a real hoot,” Bokuto agreed with an equally-as-shit-eating grin. “You get it? A hoot?”

Kuroo sighed and put a hand over his face, shaking his head.

Annette flipped her dishcloth over her shoulder, frowning. “I’ve never met a more poignant user of the spoken language, Bokuto.”

The were-owl started laughing, and it really did sound like hooting. His humor eventually trickled down to snickering, and he wiped his eyes. Whether he was laughing at his own humor or Annette’s, the werewolf honestly couldn’t tell, even with True Sight.

It was odd; she hadn’t clicked with people like this in a long time. Lionelle, way back in high school, had probably been the last.

She mentally added Bokuto to the list of spiritually-adopted children and with a small smile, put her dishcloth away.

Chapter Text

Annette always hoped for a peaceful end to a Saturday shift. She hoped for a peaceful end to every shift, but especially Saturdays, because when things went sideways on a Saturday night, they REALLY went sideways.

At least, this time, the “Closed” sign was already up in the door, and the cleanup was done. So after this impending disaster that she was not yet aware of, there would be nothing left to do but flop into bed, exhausted.

Her phone started ringing, vibrating in her pocket. She picked it up, frowning. Who could be calling at this hour? According to the screen, it was Lionelle.

She answered the call and put the phone to her ear. “What’s up, Lionelle?”

“You know how I thought my brother had a thing for the Karasuno head coach?”

Annette withheld a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Lionelle, why are you calling me at 2 am about this?”

“Well, I have confirmation that they’re a thing. But it’s not just that!” Lionelle hurried forward before Annette could reply, and the concern in her voice made the werewolf go still and silent. “Annette, we need your help. They left the gay bar and were walking down the alley, and these guys, thugs or something, have cornered them. I’m chasing them down now, but it’s still three against two!”

Annette’s phone beeped - Lionelle had shared her location.

“Against two?” the werewolf asked, already grabbing her keys - that’s all she’d need. “I’m guessing Takeda isn’t much in a fight. But can’t Ukai take three people by himself if he shifts? Only a group of fools would try to mug a werelion.”

“The thugs are also were-creatures!” Lionelle yelled. Her voice was getting deeper, indicating that she was shifting. “I’ve got to go, Annette! Please come help us!”

The line went dead. Annette was already at the door to the Den, eyes on the blue dot that indicated Lionelle’s location.

The air outside was cold, appropriate for the beginning of November. Annette hadn’t bothered to grab a jacket, but seeing how all she’d be doing outside was running and fighting, she probably wouldn’t need one.

Lionelle’s location wasn’t far away, and ‘the gay bar’ could only refer to one place - the Roost, a well-known bar that was four or five times as old as the Den, and perhaps something of a friendly rival to Annette’s business. The werewolf knew how to get there, even without the phone’s guidance.

Her sneakers hit steadily against the concrete of the sidewalk, and as she ran, her strides got longer. Grey-and-rusty fur raced up the back of her neck and down her arms, accompanied by the quiet sounds of the hidden buttons in her clothing loosening to allow her body to change shape. By the time she skidded into the mouth of the alley, her shadow, formed by the yellowish glow of the streetlights behind her, was topped by pointed, triangular ears.

There was a knot of people at roughly the midpoint of the alley. Easiest to spot was Takeda, who was flat against the brick wall, keeping out of the way of the fight and trying his best to turn invisible. He probably could have run, but Annette could sense his frightened determination not to leave Ukai and Lionelle alone, even from yards away.

The werelion siblings were in the midst of the fight, a living wall between Takeda and the three thugs. In lion form, they really did look almost identical, save for Ukai’s hairband, which held his bangs out of his face when he was a human and served the same purpose for his mane. He snarled with uncontained fury, what faint light that managed to make it to the midst of the alley glinting off his fangs. Beside him, Lionelle echoed the emotion, golden eyes glowing with uncowed determination despite the nasty-looking bruise growing on her cheek, showing even through her tan fur.

Their opponents were also shifted - a weresheep with thick, curled horns around his head, a weredeer without antlers, and a wererabbit who - as Annette watched - slammed a kick into Ukai’s crossed arms with enough force to send the werelion staggering backwards.

The weredeer, sensing an opportunity, turned to follow up on the staggered werelion, but Annette got to her first, body-checking her with the full force of her charge, which sent the lighter were-creature sprawling to the ground.

“Hey!” she may have been lighter, but the weredeer was not short on agility; she was back on her feet in an instant, brown eyes gleaming. “They’ve got reinforcements!”

“Who do you think you are, butting into our business?” there wererabbit asked, pointed at Annette with a white-furred finger. “It’d serve you better to stay out of this, unless you’re also willing to give up your belongings!”

Annette didn’t reply; her heart was pounding too loudly in her ears. The wererabbit must’ve seen something in her expression, in teeth bared and amber eyes wide and unblinking, because he took a slight step back, bushy eyebrows lowering.

There was a loud grunt to her left; the weresheep had charged at Ukai, head down, and the werelion had met him, grabbing him by both of his thick horns. They were wrestling furiously, neither side willing to yield. Next to him, Lionelle swung a punch at the weredeer, who dodged lightly and struck back, fist bouncing off the guard the werelion put around her head.

The wererabbit jumped up, feet kicking towards Annette. The werewolf snarled and blocked, cursing internally at the bone-rattling force with which the wererabbit was able to kick with. Her counter went wide, but it did good to get her opponent to back up, caution in his dark eyes.

With great effort and a small roar, Ukai twisted his arms and threw the weresheep to the side and into the weredeer. The two thugs crashed into each other, shouting, though they managed to keep their feet with a skitter of shoes against pavement. Ukai was less lucky, despite being the apparent winner of that wrestling match; it had taken so much force on his part to throw the weresheep that he’d overbalanced and stumbled to one knee, panting past bared teeth.

Annette couldn’t pause to help him because the wererabbit was after her again. She blocked another kick - her arms were going to be covered in bruises tomorrow - and swiped at her opponent, trying to grab him. Her claws passed by the front of his jacket with centimeters to spare.

The weredeer and weresheep had reorganized, facing Lionelle, who was standing between them and her brother, arms still up, guarding her head. With a grunt, the two thugs charged, seeming to think they’d have an advantage, two-on-one.

Suddenly more like a snake than a lion, Lionelle sidestepped, ducked the weresheep’s reaching hands, putting him between her and the weredeer, and rammed her knee into his stomach. The thug crumpled, wheezing, and Lionelle grabbed him by the back of his jacket and belt and threw him into the weredeer again. This time, they both went down, squawling.

“Gods,” the werelion panted, flexing her clawed fingers, “I’m so out of practice. Karasuma and Irina’d be ashamed if they saw how much of a struggle this was…”

Out on the street, Annette heard the first wail of a police siren.

“Shit!” the wererabbit cursed, backing up as his long ears also locked onto the sound. “Their wallets aren’t worth our time anymore. Let’s scram!” The weredeer and weresheep, wheezing, managed to pick themselves up off the pavement and fled after him.

“Keishin!” Lionelle yelled, running over to where her brother was still kneeling on the ground. “Damnit, why’d you have to drink so much before getting into a fight!”

“Like I knew we were going to get mugged!” Ukai shot back, staggering to his feet. He whipped around, golden eyes searching, searching. “Ittetsu!”

“I’m here.” The shorter man had peeled himself off the wall now that the fight was over, and without any hesitation, walked right up to the werelion and put his hands on his chest. His voice was steady, but Annette could see the shakiness in his shoulders. “I’m alright.”

Ukai uttered something akin to the mew of a very scared kitten and wrapped his arms around Takeda, one, clawed hand burying in his dark hair. Takeda pressed himself closer, hiding his face against the werelion’s collarbone, shakiness entirely evident now.

“Hey, we need to get out of here,” Lionelle called. She’d already shifted back to her human form and was re-doing the snap-buttons on the side of her t-shirt. “The police are coming, and you know they won’t care who started the fight, only that they can finish it.”

“The Den is nearby,” Annette called, rusty-and-grey fur retreating back into her skin. “Let’s go there.”

The four scurried back to the safety of the dark bar, sticking to the shadows and ducking away from any trace of red or blue lights. They made it undiscovered, and Annette locked the door behind them once they were all inside.

“Upstairs,” she shepherded them up the private stairwell that led to her apartment over the bar. Once there, Lionelle promptly collapsed onto the old armchair, groaning with her hand over the bruise on her cheek. “Gods, why did I have to get punched in the face? The kids are going to be all over my shit on Monday…”

“You,” Ukai said pointedly to his sister as he sat down on Annette’s couch, “are a creepy stalker.”

“I’m just looking out for my little brother’s best interests!”

“No,” Annette said in agreement, hands on her hips, “you are a creepy stalker.”

“Though,” Ukai admitted begrudgingly, “thank you for saving our asses.” He nodded tiredly at the werewolf. “You too, Annette.”

“Were those thugs after you two for a reason?” Lionelle asked. Her voice had a dangerous edge to it that put Annette’s hair on end.

“What, other than try to steal the like $5 I have?” Ukai shot back, frayed nerves and irritation clear in his tone and the grit of his teeth.

“No, I think they were just opportunists,” Takeda, sitting down on the couch as well, gently cut across the werelion’s snarl with his voice and one arm held in front of Ukai’s chest. He turned his head to Annette and adjusted his glasses; the werewolf had to admit, she was impressed with how quickly he’d recomposed himself. “You have True Sight, correct? Did you sense any motive from them?”

Annette shrugged and shook her head. “By the time I got there, the only motive they seemed to have was to win the fight and flee with any valuables. I can’t say why they targeted you two in the first place, but being somewhat drunk in a dark alley at 2 am is good enough for most thugs.”

“See, Lionelle?” Ukai grumbled at his sister. “You can calm down. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And what if I hadn’t been there?!” Lionelle exclaimed. “You would not have won a fight against three were-creatures by yourself!”

“You don’t know that!” Ukai shot back, legs tensing like he was going to stand up and face down his sister. “You don’t know what I’m capable of!”

The inference in his words was abrasively clear in Annette’s mind; the battle had been fought with fists and feet, but if pushed, Ukai would have turned to claw and fang to protect Takeda. The werewolf felt cold dread creep down her spine.

You can’t use your claws or teeth to defend yourself. If you do, you’ll be in more trouble than it’s worth.

“Keishin, please.” Takeda grabbed onto Ukai’s sleeve, keeping him from standing up. “Lionelle is upset about what happened because you’re her brother, and she cares about you.” His voice was soft, calm, and it did well to negate Ukai’s rage; the werelion exhaled and flopped back onto the couch stormily, sinking into the worn cushions.

“We should be glad it didn’t come to that,” Annette said quietly. “If you had been forced to resort to claw and fang…”

“Oh, don’t you get started,” Lionelle snarled, cutting off the werewolf with surprise.

“Lionelle?” Annette questioned, feeling that cold drip down her spine again. The werelion’s anger was still palpable, and now her blazing, golden eyes were set on her.

“You hold back too much.” Lionelle thrust a finger at her friend, an angry grimace on her face. “Despite how supportive you talk and act, despite how much you’ve cultivated a good environment in this bar under our feet, when push comes to shove, even if your or someone else’s life was on the line, you’d still roll over like a fucking coward.”

“Lionelle, you fucking know the consequences of mauling someone!” Annette exclaimed, feeling a blaze of anger cut through the frigid feeling along her spine. She’d risked injury defending her friend, Ukai, and Takeda against those thugs, and this was how Lionelle was going to repay her?

“I know, and I don’t care!” the werelion roared, swiping her hand through the air. “Any random human is capable of using physical force to protect their loved ones. And do you know what they call that? Self-defense!” She balled up her fists at her sides, teeth clenched. “But if a were-creature uses their form, their teeth, their claws, to defend someone or themselves? They’re a monster who needs to be locked up!”

The word cut through the small room like the crack of a whip, and Lionelle was not done yet. “We have to live every step of our lives treading on eggshells, lest someone decide we’re ‘too scary’ for their tastes,” she snarled, stepping towards Annette. “We can’t fight, we can’t protest, we can’t stand up for ourselves without being deemed ‘problematic’. And I am so FUCKING TIRED of it!”

“Lionelle! Annette!” The werelion’s enraged voice had cracked like a whip; Takeda’s slight lift in volume, by comparison, was like a godsent thunderbolt cutting through the room. Both were-creatures froze, looking at the man who’d stepped between them, one hand stretched towards each of them, at sternum level but not touching.

“We’re all tired and frightened after what happened tonight,” Takeda continued, voice softer now. “Feelings are high right now. If you continue like this, you will speak the truth that’s in your heart, but you may say it in a way that you will come to regret.”

Annette blinked blankly, staring at the man. Reprimanded so clearly and calmly like that - wow, it was like one of the techniques she used with unruly high schoolers turned against her. And hell, something about it was really effective. It was having a similar effect on Lionelle, too; the werelion’s golden eyes relaxed, becoming something akin to guilty, clearly losing the urge to continue the fight with this very-unthreatening man standing in the way.

“We should be thankful that none of these worse ‘what-if’ scenarios came to light, not fighting about what we would have done if they did.” Takeda lowered his hands. “Can we agree on that?”

Lionelle huffed and looked down at the floor to her side, fingers balled up. “Yes…”

Annette felt a similar crawl of irritation in her stomach, what was left over after the anger had drained out of her. “You’re right,” she forced herself to admit, though she couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with Lionelle.

Takeda inched closer to the couch and nudged Ukai’s ankle with his foot. “I think that was enough excitement for one night…we should probably go home and get some sleep.”

Ukai, who had somehow fallen half-asleep despite the arguing, jumped and un-slouched himself from the couch. “Yes, we’ve overstayed your hospitality, Annette. We can get going.”

“No,” the werewolf said with the leftover traces of her irritation. “The three of you are staying the night right here. I have an extra futon.”

Was she still pissed at Lionelle? Yes. But was she going to let that stop her from keeping her friends safe? No.

“We’ll be fine getting home-” Lionelle made an attempt, but was swiftly cut off.

“No,” Annette replied firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Lionelle, you have a giant bruise on your face, and if anyone sees you like that in the middle of the night, they’re going to call the police. Ukai, you’re already half-asleep and still drunk. And Takeda, you’d probably be fine walking home by yourself, but let’s not push our luck, yeah?”

The firmness in her voice settled that, though she could still sense Lionelle seething behind her. The emotions that had broken to the forefront of the werelion’s mind, the anger, the fear, the exhaustion, would not go away with rest.

The werewolf sighed quietly, slouching. They were going to have to talk about it sometime, weren’t they? The thing she was always telling the kids to do when they had problems with each other? Ugh, what a bother.

“Thank you, Annette,” Takeda said, inclining his head. “Keishin, let’s - ah, he’s asleep for real this time.”

“Y’all can take the couch,” Annette muttered, waving her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The remainder of the night passed without incident; the streets outside, bar below, and apartment itself were quiet until well into the following morning.

Annette was the first up; she examined her arms, which were indeed covered in bruises from the wererabbit’s ferocious kicks, and grumbled with faint animosity. She’d wear long sleeves to work for the next few days, and everything would probably be fine.

She crept down the short hallway that connected her bedroom and bathroom to the small living room and kitchen, sensing that everyone else in her apartment was probably still asleep. And she was right; Lionelle was still passed out on the spare futon in the center of the floor, and Ukai and Takeda were still on the couch, snuggled together under one of Annette’s random college-themed blankets. This one, black and gold with the logo of a jackal on it, was from the University of Zelkova, the college Daichi and Suga had gone to. It was kind of ironic to see their former high school coaches wrapped up in it.

Lionelle had refused to sleep in Annette’s room, hence the three of them stuffed into the living room, where the futon took up most of the open floor. The werewolf felt another pang of irritation, looking at her friend, but she pushed it down.

She couldn’t make breakfast without waking up the rest of her apartment, but she could make tea quietly, at least. And she’d make sure to heat up enough water for everyone.

She was sitting at the round table in her kitchen when a shadow fell over her. She looked up; Lionelle was looming in front of the ceiling light, her thick, blonde hair a wild mess around her head and golden eyes still bleary. Wordlessly, Annette slid a second mug of black tea to the other side of the table. The werelion grunted, picked it up, and took a drink.

It was quiet for a while.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you last night,” Lionelle muttered, staring into her tea.

“Mhm.” Annette nodded slowly, taking a breath to quell her irritation. It was normal to feel defensive after an argument like that, but she knew too well that Lionelle’s anger wasn’t actually at her. It was almost annoying, really - her True Sight made it impossible for her to logically justify her irritation, even with how it made her want to snub the werelion.

“I know it’s not me you’re actually mad at,” she admitted after another long moment.

Now it was Lionelle’s turn to mutter. The werelion wrapped her fingers around her mug, glaring into the dark surface of the tea.

“Sit down,” Annette half-offered, half-ordered, gesturing to the chair across the table from her. “I want to hear what you have to say, now that everyone is safe and your mind is clearer.”

Lionelle obliged, though she didn’t say anything else for a while, drinking her tea instead. After that while had passed, she set the mug down and rested her elbows on the table. “You know, Annette, how I’ve always been after you for this and that about how good you’d be as a teacher? Or any kind of person who works with kids a lot.”

“Yes…” Annette replied cautiously. How did this tie into Lionelle’s rage from last night?

“I realized at some point, during the graduation camp, I think, that those high schoolers still looked up to you a lot, even though you weren’t actually a formal mentor to them,” she said quietly. “And after I heard Kenma’s partner and his dumbass roommate were regulars at the bar, it kind of reinforced that notion. That you’d still found a way to be a positive influence on the kids in this city.” She idly spun her mug around, facing the handle the opposite direction. “You’re a person they can turn to for advice, and someone they feel safe around. Even those kids who are different, or have some other reason to be ostracized by society. The Den is a safe place for them to be themselves.”

Annette leaned back a little, gaze zoning out - Lionelle’s words brought back vivid memories. Of kicking two adult men out of the Den after they’d tried to start a fight with a bunch of high schoolers over insulted feelings and a kiss. Of being impressed with Shimizu’s bravery, as the lone girl stepped between her junior and two creepy men. Of Suga asking to stay at the bar late so he could avoid a toxic environment inside his house. Of watching Asahi getting targeted by the police who’d raided the bar, and feeling angry and helpless as they fed off his fear like vampires. Of helping Ushijima get Tendou off the roof and away before the police showed up, and seeing them again a few weeks later at the graduation camp. It had only been their second time meeting, yet at that point, Tendou had trusted her enough to tell her about his struggles as a person with Foresight. It had been like he knew she’d be supportive of him.

And, at the end of camp, they’d gathered around her, a teeming mass of faces and voices, and asked for her to howl for them.

And she hadn’t. Even in the middle of the woods, far away from the places typically generating noise complaints, she hadn’t.

“But you think I can do more,” the werewolf said quietly, watching the steam curl off the surface of her tea.

“Hmm?” Lionelle’s head popped up. “I mean, well, yes…but what I’m trying to say is, maybe it’s been wrong of me to be harping after you about that,” she stumbled, “when it’s clear now, that’s you’re already doing so much. Just not in ways I had thought about before.”

Annette continued to stare at her tea. “But you’re right,” she continued. “I could be doing more.” She lifted her head, not to Lionelle, but past her shoulder, to the living room, where Ukai and Takeda were still asleep on the couch. The werelion had his arm around the smaller man, holding him gently against his chest so his head was tucked under his chin. They fit together so well - and that was Annette observing not from a visible level, but from her True Sight as well. How she’d missed it before, she had no idea.

“Those thugs last night really were just opportunists,” she said, “but when I think about all the people out in the world who aren’t - who would inflict harm upon people like your brother and Takeda, or like the kids, for daring to be different - it makes me angry. Deeply angry.”

“But you’re afraid, too,” Lionelle rightfully observed. “You know what could happen if things really got bad. To you, to the kids, to the Den.”

Annette sucked in a breath, chest tight, and nodded. “I have the bar to worry about,” she agreed. “If I cause trouble, I could lose my license. I could get shut down. But…”

“But you’d never lose customers,” Lionelle wryly finished the werewolf’s sentence. “Even if you only do some good, and not all the good, they’re still going to be loyal to you.”

Annette muttered a series of curses and buried her fingers into her rusty hair. “It’s all so damn complicated.”

“Mhm.” Lionelle took a sip of her tea. “You can say that again, sister.”

Small shadows flitted by the kitchen window; a flock of pigeons, skirting by the edge of the roof. Annette watched their shadows for a bit, tracing how they flew by and left behind a feather or two.

“I’m going to keep doing what I can,” she promised quietly. “And, maybe, what bravery I can give to these kids will be reflected on me in turn.”

Lionelle drummed her fingers along the side of her mug, nails clicking against the ceramic. “I’ll be doing the same,” she vowed quietly. “Because I’m afraid too, you know?”

Annette regarded her friend quietly, seeing the slump of her shoulders and the dimness in her golden eyes. Annette had the Den to lose, the source of her lifestyle and her career, what she had wanted for a very long time - Lionelle had that too, in her teaching position at the junior high school. She already got trouble every new school year, from parents who were concerned about a werelion teaching their kids, or about what the werelion was teaching their kids. It wouldn’t take much for the administration to decide she was too much trouble, and let her go, even if the improvement in academic performance and entry into prestigious high schools proved how much of a positive impact she had on her classroom of delinquents.

Because the delinquents, too, were a discardable entity, if they became too much trouble to maintain.

“I think we can agree that there are boundaries we cannot and should not cross,” Annette ventured. “But that won’t stop us from continuing to provide a safe space for these kids.”

Lionelle was quiet for a moment, but then she nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good way to put it.”

Annette took another sip of her tea; the mug was almost empty, and on the couch, Takeda stirred and pushed himself up a little so he could reach for his glasses on the nearby end-table.

“Let’s keep doing our best,” the werewolf determined. “That’s going to look different every day, but it’s all we can do.” She curled up her free hand, fist against the tabletop. “I won’t give up on the kids and I won’t give up on us.”

Lionelle grinned hugely, showing off canines that were just slightly too pointed to be a normal human’s. “That’s the spirit.”

~