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Chapter Text

The world was a smear of neon and rust, a blur of sound and speed that Reki drank in like air. Down here, in the guts of the abandoned mine they called ‘S’, the only sky was a ceiling of jagged rock and weeping pipes that sweated condensation onto the track below, each drip a tiny, echoing metronome counting down to chaos. The air was a thick, palpable thing, a cocktail of damp earth, the electric crackle of ozone from faulty wiring, and the sharp, almost bitter tang of hot metal from overworked skateboard bearings, all underscored by the cloying sweetness of cheap energy drinks and sweat. It was a lawless, breathless place, a no-holds-barred downhill race where skaters settled their “beefs” under the indifferent gaze of the moon, a place where gravity was both the enemy and the greatest thrill. For Reki, it was the only place he felt he could almost fly.

Not with his wings. Never with those.

They were a dead weight strapped to his back, a constant, aching reminder of everything he wasn’t. Scarlet Macaw wings, the books said. Big, brilliant, and built for the sun-drenched canopies of a world he’d never seen. They were a riot of colour—a dominant, shocking scarlet that bled into a band of brilliant yellow across the upper wing coverts, before finally deepening into a rich, metallic blue at the flight feathers and tail. They were beautiful. Everyone said so. To Reki, they felt like open wounds, a loud, garish advertisement for a promise he couldn’t keep.

He kept them folded tight, the muscles in his back perpetually knotted with the effort of holding them in, a constant, burning ache that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. It was a physical manifestation of his self-suppression, a chronic pain he endured as a defiant choice to reject the part of himself he’d deemed a liability. Even now, hurtling down the treacherous, winding track, they were a liability. Their impressive three-foot wingspan was just more surface area to catch the turbulent air, more weight to throw off his balance, a constant threat of betrayal. So he relied on the board. His board. The one he’d built with his own hands, the grain of the maple a familiar comfort under his worn trainers, the urethane wheels a screaming extension of his will. This was his flight: a horizontal rush, a desperate, exhilarating plummet that kept him chained to the solid, predictable certainty of the ground. This was where he had control. This was where he made the rules.

“You’re way too calm, you know that?” Reki bounced on the balls of his feet, the board rocking gently under him like a nervous tic. The pre-race energy of ‘S’ was a tangible thing, a low thrum that vibrated up from the asphalt and into the soles of his feet, a disorienting symphony of noise that Langa seemed utterly immune to. The cacophony of dozens of other skaters’ wheels echoed off the cavern walls, a constant, high-pitched shriek that blended with the distorted bass of music from unseen speakers, thumping like a mechanical heartbeat against Reki’s ribs. The low, indistinct murmur of the crowd lining the track swelled and fell, a living, breathing wall of sound that felt claustrophobic and overwhelming. Yet Langa stood there, a pocket of serenity in the chaos, his posture relaxed, his breathing even.

He looks so relaxed, Reki thought, a familiar, twisting mix of admiration and raw anxiety tightening his chest. Like he was born for this. I feel like my heart’s going to explode. Gotta act cool, though. Can’t let him see I’m nervous. It was a performance, and he was the only one who knew the script. He had to project an image of the person he wished he were—carefree, confident, and on equal footing with Langa.

He forced a wide, toothy grin, hoping it looked more like a confident challenge than the grimace it felt like. “Nervous you’re finally gonna have to eat my dust?”

Langa turned, and the corner of his mouth quirked into a small, fond smile that did ridiculous, fluttering things to Reki’s insides, a quiet counterpoint to the roaring chaos around them. “We’ll see,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying a calm confidence that Reki both envied and adored. He held out a gloved fist.

Reki’s hand trembled, just for a second, a barely perceptible tremor he hoped Langa didn’t notice as he bumped it with his own. The brief contact was a grounding spark, a moment of solid reality in the swirling vortex of his own head. Okay. Just have fun, he told himself, repeating the mantra that had become his lifeline. It’s just for fun.

But another, quieter voice, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his own deepest fear, whispered back, Don’t lose. Don’t get left behind. The fear was older than skating, deeper than this race. A fleeting, subconscious image flashed through his mind—not of his brother, not yet—but of a sun-drenched playground, the shouts of other children fading as he struggled to keep up, his small legs pumping, always a few steps behind, always watching someone else disappear around a corner, leaving him alone.

The countdown lights flashed amber, casting long, dancing shadows against the cavern walls. The strobing, artificial neon lights threw the unlit corners of the mine into deep, absolute darkness, and the indistinct silhouettes of the crowd lining the track seemed to morph into grotesque, judgmental figures, their faces lost in the gloom. A low, guttural cheer rose from them as the final light began to blink, a menacing and anonymous wall of sound that seemed to press in on him. Reki took a deep breath, held it a second too long, his heart hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs, a wild bird trapped in a cage of his own making.

Green light.

The world exploded into motion. Reki kicked off hard, his movements aggressive and hungry, a desperate fight for every inch of momentum against the pull of gravity. His wheels didn’t just roll; they screamed against the asphalt, a violent, tearing sound as he tried to devour the track, to claw for purchase on the ground that was his only domain. The roar of his wheels joined the cacophony echoing through the mine, his own small contribution to the chaos.  

Langa, in contrast, seemed to simply glide forward, his push-offs economical and unnervingly serene. A flash of pale grey and white shot past him on the left. Langa.

Langa didn’t skate so much as he flowed. His wings, those of an Arctic Tern, were the opposite of Reki’s—slender, angular, and built for impossible endurance. They were instruments of quiet efficiency, not passive stabilisers but active tools, making minute, instinctive adjustments to his balance as he carved a perfect line through a sweeping corner. He looked like he was riding a current of wind rather than a plank of wood, a creature in perfect harmony with his element. As they passed under a weeping pipe that dripped a steady stream of condensation, Langa subtly angled one of his slender wings, catching the draft from the ventilation shaft beside it. It gave him a small, effortless burst of speed—a natural, avian act that Reki, with his tightly bound macaw wings, could never hope to replicate. For Langa, flight was an instinct. For Reki, it was a constant, exhausting struggle.  

It was beautiful, and it was a knife in Reki’s chest.  

Tonight was different, though. It was their first beef since… everything. Since Adam. Since the fractures and the fear had started to knit back together into something resembling normal. And tonight, for a few glorious, heart-stopping moments, Reki was keeping up. They plunged into the first tunnel, the neon lights giving way to strobing emergency lamps that made their movements look jerky and unreal, like frames from a broken film. They navigated a treacherous chicane, their boards centimetres apart, a dance of unspoken trust and fierce competition. Reki could feel the draft from Langa’s board, a slipstream of displaced air he tucked into, gaining a precious burst of speed.  

Neck and neck, they tore through the darkness. For a full, transcendent paragraph of time, the world slowed. The chaotic sounds of ‘S’—the distant shouts, the thumping music, the echo of other skaters—all fell away, replaced by the unified roar of their two sets of wheels merging into a single, defiant symphony. The blur of graffiti on the mine walls dissolved into pure streaks of colour, and the only fixed point in the universe became Langa’s steady, cool presence beside him.  

For a second, Reki forgot the burning weight on his back. He forgot the sky he couldn’t conquer. He felt Langa’s presence beside him, not as a competitor, but as a flock-mate, two birds in a singular, breathtaking motion. It was more than just skating; it was a feeling of profound, resonant belonging, an equality that silenced the voice that whispered he would always be left behind.  

This is it! This is what it’s all about! Reki thought, a wild, genuine grin plastered on his face. The wind whipped tears from his eyes, but he didn’t care. Langa was right there. Just like this. If we can just stay like this, everything will be okay. The thought was a desperate prayer hidden beneath the thrill. His joy peaked not when he was ahead, but when they were here, together, existing as equals. Don’t fall behind. Don’t you dare fall behind.  

And that was the mistake.

Drunk on the feeling, desperate to prove he could stay there, that he wasn’t going to be left behind again, he pushed too hard into the next corner. It was a nasty, off-camber bend known for chewing up boards and spitting out skaters, the asphalt rough and littered with loose gravel that skittered under his wheels like insects. He leaned in, trying to force the turn, his teeth gritted, pushing to maintain the connection, not to pull ahead. For a split second, it felt like he had it. Then, a single piece of loose stone caught his back wheel.  

The board wobbled.

It wasn’t a gentle shake; it was a violent, sickening lurch that shot up through his ankles and into his spine. A flicker of panic, cold and sharp, shot through him.  

Instinct, traitorous and absolute, took over.  

He didn’t choose it. He didn’t even think it. His body, in a desperate, primal bid for balance that had nothing to do with skating, betrayed him completely. He felt a spasm in his back, an uncontrollable surge of muscle memory he had spent years trying to suppress.

His wings flared. Not a controlled extension for balance, but a panicked, involuntary explosion of scarlet and gold, a desperate, useless attempt to catch the air he was already losing. It was a devastating psychological blow. His own body, his own avian nature, had sabotaged his human-built solution—the skateboard. The sudden increase in surface area caught the churning air like a sail in a gale, wrenching his centre of gravity sideways with brutal force.  

The world tilted violently. The board shot out from under him, a sudden, shocking emptiness where solid maple had been moments before.  

Time seemed to stretch and warp. The fall wasn’t a single event but a series of excruciating, slow-motion snapshots. He saw the rough-hewn wall of the mine rushing towards him, the graffiti a meaningless smear of colour. He saw the brief, terrifying moment of weightlessness, his body suspended between control and consequence. He heard the sharp, sickening crack of his custom deck snapping against the rock, a sound that felt like one of his own bones breaking. The dull, final thud of his body hitting the ground came a moment later, a brutal, non-negotiable impact that knocked the air from his lungs in a silent gasp.  

But the sound that would haunt him, the sound that echoed louder than anything else in the sudden, ringing silence, was the grating, tearing scrape of his primary flight feathers against the coarse asphalt. It wasn’t just a scrape; it was a shredding, a sound like thick canvas being ripped apart, amplified by the mine’s echoing acoustics. It was the sound of something beautiful and functional being violently ground into dirt.  

It was a sound of violation. The sound of failure, amplified for everyone to hear.

The silence was a physical blow. It slammed into him, deafening and absolute, pressing the air from his lungs and replacing it with a thick, ringing void. The world, which seconds before had been a roaring symphony of speed and adrenaline, was now dead. All he could hear was a high-pitched whine in his ears, the sound of his own frayed nerves screaming in protest, and the frantic, useless thumping of his own blood, a panicked drumbeat in a soundless cavern. The smell of hot, rubbery asphalt filled his nose, mingled with something sharp and acrid, like burnt hair—the smell of his own feathers being destroyed. Grit dug into his cheek, each tiny, sharp stone a tactile reminder of his brutal, undignified connection to the ground.  

Then, a voice, tearing through the fog like a flare in the dark. “Reki!”

Langa’s. It wasn’t just a call; it was a raw, ragged sound of pure terror, a sound Reki had never heard from him before, stripped of all his usual calm. It was the sound of someone witnessing the unthinkable. It was followed by the harsh, violent scrape of urethane wheels digging into pavement, a desperate power slide that screamed through the dead air. The noise was too close. Reki squeezed his eyes shut, a pathetic attempt to block out the world.  

Don’t look at me. Please, don’t look at me. Not you. Anyone but you.  

But he could feel the eyes. Hundreds of them. A crushing, physical weight of silent observation from the crowd down the track. He was a spectacle. A failure on display. The hot tide of shame was so intense it felt like a physical fever, burning from the inside out, making his skin prickle and his stomach clench. He could almost hear their thoughts in the suffocating quiet:  

The loud-mouthed macaw. The one who couldn’t fly. Look at him now. He tried to push himself up, to salvage a single shred of dignity, to pretend it was nothing more than a stumble.

But a grinding, sickening pain shot from his shoulder through his entire right wing, and he collapsed back with a choked gasp. It wasn’t a clean break, but something worse—a deep, tearing agony that felt like the joint was being ripped from its socket, a sickening grate of ligaments stretched past their limit. He could feel the internal damage, the feeling of things being pulled and twisted in a way they were never meant to move, and the pain was so sharp, so absolute, it stole his breath and left him trembling on the asphalt, utterly and completely defeated.

Two figures detached from the crowd, their movements a study in contrasts. The first was a mountain of muscle and furious concern, moving with the direct, unstoppable force of a predator closing in. Kojiro. A Bald Eagle’s presence was an oppressive force, a predator’s aura that made the air feel thin and sharp in Reki’s lungs, triggering a primal instinct to freeze, to make himself smaller. His vast, seven-foot wingspan seemed to block out the harsh neon light as he approached, casting Reki in a sudden, intimidating shadow. A low, guttural curse rumbled from his chest, a sound of pure, undiluted frustration that vibrated through the asphalt. “You reckless kid...”  

He’s furious. I knew it. I’m just a liability. The thought was sharp and immediate, a well-worn groove in his mind, carved by years of being too much, too loud, too clumsy. Reki flinched away from the sound, curling in on himself in a pathetic, self-protective ball, not hearing the rest of the sentence, the raw, terrified fear that laced it: “...what were you thinking? Are you hurt?”  

The other figure was Kaoru, moving with the infuriating, deliberate grace of a calligrapher selecting a brush. His Lilac-breasted Roller wings, a perfect, breathtaking cascade of turquoise and lilac, were immaculate, not a single feather out of place—a stark, almost insulting contrast to Reki’s own shredded, dirt-caked scarlet plumage. He stopped a few feet away, his gaze sharp, analytical, and utterly devastating as it swept over the scene—the angle of the broken board, the unnatural bend of Reki’s wing, the skid marks on the asphalt. He wasn’t looking at a person; he was assessing a problem. “Your entry angle was reckless.”  

He’s dissecting my failure. Calling me an idiot. The words echoed Reki’s own screaming thoughts, a clinical confirmation of his own stupidity. He didn’t hear the quiet, urgent continuation of Kaoru’s assessment, the part where his analytical gaze was calculating risk, not assigning blame: “...you’re lucky you didn’t hit the wall head-on.”  

He tried to get up again, a desperate, animal scramble to escape their gazes, to erase the last thirty seconds from existence. But his wing dragged, a dead, heavy limb that refused to cooperate, scraping against the asphalt again with a gritty, grating sound that made his stomach clench with a fresh wave of self-loathing. He stumbled, his knee hitting the ground hard, the sharp impact sending a jolt up his leg. He stayed there, head bowed, defeated, the world narrowing to the patch of dirty ground in front of him.  

The world became a series of painful, fragmented snapshots, each one a new twist of the knife. Langa, kneeling beside him, his slender tern wings trembling with shock, his face a mask of wide-eyed, confused pity that felt a thousand times worse than disgust. He reached out a hand, then pulled it back, utterly lost, his physical hesitation a more powerful condemnation than any words could be. Miya, a small, sharp silhouette perched on a rusted gantry above, watching with the unblinking, predatory stillness of a Peregrine Falcon, his form rigid with a tension Reki couldn’t decipher. A faint mumble drifted down, the only word Reki could make out was a sharp, cutting “...stupid...” When Reki stumbled, Miya flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement that betrayed the terror beneath his arrogant facade.  

Even he sees it. The prodigy judging the wannabe. He didn’t hear the terrified whisper that followed it, the real root of Miya’s anger: “...he could have broken it for good.”  

The jagged crack in his board, a clean, violent break right through the intricate sun decal he’d spent a week designing and painting, a symbol of his own bright, foolish hope now splintered and ruined. And the pain in his shoulder, no longer a sharp spike but a brutal, rhythmic throb that was starting to make him feel sick, each pulse a grim, metronomic reminder of his failure.

Then there were cold hands and colder eyes. A paramedic from the ‘S’ support crew knelt beside him, his face a mask of bored indifference that was somehow more insulting than disgust. He moved with the practiced economy of someone who had seen this exact brand of youthful stupidity a thousand times, each gesture efficient and devoid of empathy. Reki was not a person in pain; he was a checklist of potential injuries, a routine interruption in the night’s proceedings. Before Reki could form a protest, before he could even flinch away, the man produced a pair of trauma shears. The shears were cold against his skin, a metallic prelude to the violation. With a series of efficient, metallic snips that sounded brutally final in the quiet, he cut through the back of Reki’s favourite hoodie, laying the fabric open. The sound of his favorite hoodie being bisected was a small, final death in a night of larger ones. The cool night air hit the raw, scraped skin of his back and shoulder like a thousand tiny needles, and Reki hissed, a sharp, involuntary sound, trying to curl away from the sudden, humiliating exposure.  

The paramedic ignored him. He grabbed Reki’s wing, not with care, but with a firm, clinical grip—the calloused, impersonal hold of someone handling an object, not a person. It was the grip one used on a tool, a thing to be manipulated and assessed. A fresh wave of white-hot agony shot from the joint as he extended it fully, a tearing, grinding sensation that felt like the wing was being ripped from his body. A sound, half-sob, half-gasp, tore itself from his throat before he could stop it, and the shame of that sound was almost as sharp as the pain itself. The man’s fingers, encased in latex, probed the swollen, tender area where wing met shoulder, his touch impersonal and rough, pressing into the bruised flesh with no regard for the agony he was causing. Reki’s skin crawled, a feeling of being contaminated by the touch, of being reduced to a collection of symptoms. This was a part of him, a living, breathing part of his body, and this stranger was handling it like a piece of broken equipment.  

Under the harsh, unblinking glare of the medic’s headlamp, the damage was sickeningly clear, a spotlight on his failure. His wing was no longer a part of him but a gruesome specimen. The skin beneath the upper wing coverts was a mess of raw, weeping abrasions, oozing a clear, sticky plasma that matted the brilliant scarlet feathers with blood and studded them with black grit from the asphalt. Several of the long, primary flight feathers were bent at unnatural angles, their rigid shafts snapped. The clean, white of the rachis, the feather’s spine, was exposed where the vibrant scarlet barbules had been scraped away, leaving a raw, ugly line like a scar on a masterpiece. He could feel the grating of broken keratin as the medic ran a gloved hand down the length of the wing, a sickening vibration that seemed to travel up his spine and settle in the base of his skull.  

“You’re lucky,” the man said, his voice flat as he delivered the diagnosis, a string of sterile syllables that meant nothing. “No fracture in the humerus. Looks like a severe ligament sprain and some deep dermal abrasions. A few feather shafts are compromised, but nothing that won’t moult out. You’ll be sore for a week.” Then the wing was dropped. Not placed, not lowered. Dropped. A dead weight thudding against his back, a final, contemptuous punctuation mark.  

Lucky. The word hung in the air, a monument to misunderstanding. It was a slap. It was a dismissal of the fire in his shoulder, of the grating sound of his own feathers being destroyed, of the soul-deep humiliation that was choking him. Lucky that he hadn’t broken a bone? Maybe. But the medic couldn’t see the fracture that had just split him down the middle, the one that wasn’t made of calcium and marrow but of shame and inadequacy. He didn’t feel lucky. He felt like he was plummeting all over again, not through the dark air of the mine, but through the endless, echoing void of his own memory, the same sickening drop he’d felt when he watched Tomo fall, the two moments becoming one continuous, inescapable loop of failure. He felt the hot shame of public failure, the cold, confused pity in his friends’ eyes, and the crushing, absolute certainty of his own inadequacy. The medic saw torn feathers and a sprained joint, a checklist of treatable wounds. He didn’t see the real injury. He didn’t see the part of Reki that had just been ground into the dirt, shattered beyond repair.

The drive back from the mine was a blur of muted streetlights and suffocating silence. Kojiro’s car, usually filled with boisterous arguments or loud music that vibrated through the floorboards, felt like a tomb on wheels. The silence was a physical presence, thick and heavy, absorbing every sound until only the monotonous hum of the engine and the rhythmic thump-thump of the tires over uneven pavement remained. It was a silence filled with everything that couldn’t be said: Kojiro’s simmering, protective fury; Kaoru’s sharp, analytical worry; Miya’s childish, unprocessed terror; and Reki’s own drowning shame. He drove with a grim focus, his large hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white mountains on a landscape of tan skin. He wasn’t just driving; he was containing a storm of emotion that had nowhere to go. Beside him, Kaoru sat in the passenger seat, staring out at the passing city, but his stillness was tense, coiled, like a spring wound too tight.  

In the back, Reki was pressed against the cold glass of the window, trying to make himself as small as possible, as if he could shrink into nothingness and disappear. His injured wing was tucked awkwardly against the hard plastic of the door, and every bump in the road, every sharp turn, sent a fresh, sickening jolt of pain from his shoulder through the damaged feathers. He bit down on his lip to keep from making a sound, the coppery taste of blood a small, sharp distraction from the larger agony. His mind was a chaotic highlight reel of his own failure: the sound of his feathers shredding against the asphalt, the snap of his board, the bored indifference in the paramedic’s eyes, and worst of all, the look on Langa’s face—that wide-eyed, horrified pity that had felt like a physical blow.  

“We’ll make sure Langa gets home,” Kaoru had said back at ‘S’, his voice leaving no room for argument. Langa had looked like he was about to protest, his face pale with worry, his eyes never leaving Reki. He had been hovering uselessly, a ghost of motion and fear, completely unsure of what to do. “Shadow will take him and his scooter,” Kaoru had continued, his gaze softening slightly as he looked at the terrified tern. “He needs to rest. You all do.” Langa had finally nodded, a single, jerky motion, before letting Shadow guide him away.  

Now, the silence in the car stretched on, broken only by the soft hum of the engine and the rhythmic thump-thump of the tires over uneven pavement. It was a silence filled with everything that couldn’t be said: Kojiro’s simmering, protective fury; Kaoru’s sharp, analytical worry; Miya’s childish, unprocessed terror; and Reki’s own drowning shame. “We’re getting close to your neighbourhood, Reki,” Kojiro said, and his voice was the most terrifying thing Reki had heard all night. It was carefully neutral, scrubbed of all emotion in a way that was more unsettling than his usual booming anger. It was the voice of a tightly leashed storm, a disappointment so profound it didn’t even need to be spoken. He glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes finding Reki’s for a fraction of a second, and in that brief contact, Reki felt pinned, examined, and found wanting. “Which turn?”  

A knot of ice formed in Reki’s stomach, cold and sharp. He stared out the window at the familiar street signs flashing past under the jaundiced glow of the streetlights. Each one was a milestone on a path he couldn’t bear to walk. Sakura Street. Elm Avenue. Each name was a step closer to a place that had long stopped feeling like home. Not tonight. Not like this. Broken board, broken wing, broken spirit. He couldn’t walk through that door. He couldn’t face the way his father would look at him, a glance that would sweep over the scrapes and the damaged wing not with concern, but with a familiar, weary contempt. The unspoken accusation: You did this to yourself. Again. He couldn’t bear the way his mother would sigh, a small, tired sound, before turning away, a silent dismissal that was somehow worse than yelling. The unspoken questions would hang in the air like poison: How much will this cost? How much more trouble can you possibly be?  

“Uh,” he started, his voice rough and cracked from disuse, the sound scraping against his dry throat. He cleared it, trying to force a casual tone that sounded laughably fake even to his own ears. “Actually, could you just... drop me at the next corner? It’s fine.” The lie felt clumsy and obvious on his tongue. “My parents are probably asleep anyway. Don’t wanna wake them.” He tried for a smile, but it felt like broken glass in his mouth, a painful contortion of his lips that fooled no one. The muscles in his cheeks pulled tight, a mask cracking under the strain, and he was sure they could all see the raw panic underneath.  

In the rearview mirror, Reki saw Kojiro’s eyes meet Kaoru’s. It was a fleeting, silent exchange, but it was packed with a heavy, shared understanding—a whole conversation taking place in a single glance. Kojiro’s eyes were a question, a plea almost: What do we do? And Kaoru’s slight turn, the almost imperceptible nod, was the answer. He’s lying. He’s scared. He can’t go home. Reki’s breath caught, a sharp, painful hitch in his chest. They knew. They knew he was lying. The knowledge didn’t bring relief; it brought a fresh, hot wave of shame. He was so transparent, so pathetic, that his flimsy excuse hadn’t even held up for a second.  

Kaoru turned in his seat, his movements slow and deliberate. His expression was unreadable in the dim, shifting light of the car. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and his voice was sharp, not with anger, but with the clean, cold precision of a scalpel, cutting through Reki’s flimsy excuse and laying the truth bare. It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t an offer. It was a command born of absolute certainty, a declaration that removed the burden of choice from Reki’s shoulders. “You’re staying with us tonight.”

The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. The click of the lock behind them sounded like a final, damning judgment, sealing Reki inside a world where he didn’t belong. The air was warm and still, a stark contrast to the sharp, cold night he’d just left. It smelled of Kojiro’s garlic bread, a rich, savory scent that spoke of comfort and sustenance, and the faint, clean perfume of cherry blossoms that always clung to Kaoru, a fragrance of impossible elegance. It was a home. A real one. And every second Reki spent inside it felt like a trespass. He sat stiffly on the edge of the plush sofa, a ghost at a feast, a stray animal tracking the mud and failure of ‘S’ into a pristine house. The soft, expensive fabric of the couch felt alien against his torn, gritty clothes, and he perched on the very edge of the cushion, terrified of leaving a mark, of sinking in and claiming a space that wasn’t his.  

He was getting too comfortable here. He’d been staying over more and more, escaping the hollow silence of his own house, the looming presence of him. He was starting to think of this place, with its warmth and its easy laughter, as a sanctuary. A place he might, if he were a different kind of person, belong. But Reki’s only talent was ruining things. He was a contamination. He could still smell the asphalt on his skin, the acrid scent of his own burnt feathers, a foul perfume of failure that felt like it was seeping into the clean air of the room. It was only a matter of time before they got sick of him, too.  

From the kitchen came a barrage of noise that felt like an assault on the fragile quiet. Kojiro was cooking, but it wasn’t the easy, confident rhythm of a chef in his element. It was a frantic, almost violent attempt to force normalcy back into the air. The sharp, percussive thump-thump-thump of a knife hitting a cutting board was too fast, too aggressive. A cupboard door slammed shut with a loud crack that made Reki flinch. A spoon clattered to the tile floor, followed by a hissed curse. The sizzle of garlic hitting hot olive oil was a sudden, angry sound that made Reki jump, his already frayed nerves screaming. The rich, heavy scent of simmering tomatoes and basil filled the apartment, a smell that should have been comforting but instead felt thick and cloying, threatening to choke him with a kindness he hadn’t earned.  

Kojiro appeared in the doorway, holding a steaming bowl. His usual easy grin was gone, replaced by a tight, worried expression that carved new lines around his eyes. He didn’t try to force the bowl into Reki’s hands, didn’t insist or command. Instead, he placed it carefully on the coffee table, a non-threatening offering. “Just a small bowl, kid. Don’t have to finish it. Just... try.” His voice, usually a booming, confident baritone, was uncharacteristically gentle, a low, protective rumble. But the kindness felt like a physical pressure, making Reki’s skin crawl. That gentle tone from a large, powerful man reminded him too much of its opposite: the harsh, punishing bark of his father’s voice, the sound that always preceded a blow or a bitter, cutting remark. Kojiro was a better man in every conceivable way, but the comparison was a wound Reki couldn’t stop prodding. Kindness from a man like that felt like a trick, a prelude to a punishment he was sure he deserved.  

He stared down at the bowl of pasta. It was perfect. The steam rose in a fragrant cloud, the tomato sauce was a vibrant, perfect red, and a single, fresh basil leaf sat on top like a tiny green flag of truce. It was an act of care, meticulously prepared. And it made a wave of nausea roll through him. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of it. To take even a single bite would be to accept a kindness he had no right to, to acknowledge a debt he could never, ever repay.

Kaoru was more direct. He returned from the bathroom not with a simple box, but with a full first-aid kit, the kind a surgeon might use, and laid it open on the coffee table with a quiet, decisive click. The contents were immaculate: rolls of gauze, antiseptic wipes, sterile tweezers, all arranged with a terrifying precision. His movements were efficient, precise, and utterly devoid of wasted motion. “Miya, fetch a bowl of warm water and a clean cloth,” he ordered, his voice calm but carrying an authority that brooked no argument. The young falcon, who had been hovering silently in the doorway like a small, sharp-eyed ghost, darted off without a word. Kaoru knelt in front of Reki, his expression unreadable in the soft lamplight. “Alright, let’s see the damage properly.”  

He reached for the hem of Reki’s ruined hoodie, his long, elegant fingers poised. Reki flinched back instinctively, a full-body recoil that was pure, animal panic. He couldn’t bear another touch, another assessment, another pair of eyes cataloguing his failure. Kaoru paused, his hands hovering in the air, a breath of space between them. “It needs to be cleaned, Reki. We can’t leave it like this.”  

He’s disgusted. He wants to clean up the mess I made. He can’t stand to look at it. The thought was a venomous certainty in Reki’s mind.  

Kaoru’s voice softened then, losing its clinical edge and taking on a low, murmuring quality that was somehow more unnerving. “Hold still now. This grit needs to come out, or it will fester.” He began to work, and his touch was so surprisingly gentle it was a shock against Reki’s tense skin. His long, elegant fingers, usually tapping on a screen or holding a calligraphy brush, moved with a meticulous care that was almost unnerving. He was like a mother bird tending to a battered fledgling, his focus absolute and unwavering. He picked out a larger piece of gravel with a pair of fine-tipped tweezers, his own breath hissing softly through his teeth in a sound of pure, involuntary sympathy as he extracted it. “Look at this mess,” he murmured, more to himself than to Reki, his voice a low hum of distress. “Such beautiful feathers... all torn and filthy. We have to be careful not to damage the follicles.”  

He’s cataloguing the damage. Every feather he touches is another mark against me. He’s counting every flaw, every mistake. They’re all seeing how badly I failed. Reki squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the quiet, methodical sounds of his own repair.  

Miya returned with the water, his face pale and drawn. He placed the bowl down with trembling hands and watched, silent and sharp-eyed, as Kaoru dipped the cloth and began to carefully wipe away the blood and grime from around the worst of the abrasions. The sting was a clean, white-hot fire that made Reki’s breath hitch, a sharp, ragged gasp he couldn’t suppress. He hated the way his eyes watered, the hot, traitorous tears blurring the edges of the room. He hated that they were seeing this, seeing him weak and hurt and so utterly pathetic. Kaoru’s grip on his shoulder was firm, steadying him against the waves of pain, but to Reki, it felt like being held in place for a punishment, a clinical restraint that kept him from escaping the humiliation of being so thoroughly broken and cared for.

“I should go home,” Reki mumbled again, the words tasting like ash.

Kaoru didn’t look up from dabbing at a particularly nasty scrape on Reki’s shoulder. His movements remained meticulous, his focus absolute, but the air around him grew still. His voice, when it came, was dangerously quiet, a low, controlled sound that cut through the room far more effectively than a shout ever could. “And what good would that do?”  

Reki’s head snapped up, a jerky, puppet-like motion that sent a fresh spike of pain through his neck. He’d expected a command, an argument, something he could push back against. He had braced himself for a fight. But the question was worse. So much worse. It wasn’t a challenge; it was a dismissal. It didn’t just forbid him from leaving; it rendered the very idea of him leaving a useless, pointless act. The question implied that his presence at home was as meaningless as his presence here, that he was a null value in any equation. It implied he was useless and pointless. The words echoed in the ringing silence of his mind, not as an insult, but as a calm, rational assessment of his worth. It was a verdict, delivered with the quiet finality of a judge’s gavel.  

Kaoru finally paused his work, setting the cloth aside with deliberate care. He met Reki’s gaze, and his eyes were sharp, unyielding, and filled with a fierce, analytical light that Reki could only interpret as judgment. It was a gaze that saw everything—the dirt, the wounds, the trembling in Reki’s hands, the pathetic lie he’d tried to tell in the car—and found it all wanting. “You’re a liability to yourself right now,” Kaoru stated, his voice still low, but now laced with an unbreakable steel. “You’re staying where we can see you.”  

It wasn’t a comfort. In Reki’s mind, it was a sentence. The word ‘liability’ landed like a physical blow, a clinical, detached term that confirmed every terrible thing he believed about himself. He wasn’t a friend in need of help; he was a risk to be managed. He wasn’t a guest; he was a prisoner under observation, a problem contained within the four walls of this apartment until he was deemed safe enough to be released. The kindness, the food, the first aid—it wasn’t care. It was damage control.  

And yet, beneath the crushing weight of that humiliation, a pathetic, treacherous part of him was still relieved. The relief was a physical sensation, a quiet loosening in his chest that he hadn’t realized was so tight, a breath he could finally take. For a single, shameful second, the thought of not having to face his father’s cold glare or his mother’s weary sigh was a comfort so profound it almost made him dizzy. He was so, so tired of fighting, and Kaoru’s words, as harsh as they were, had taken the fight away from him. He didn’t have to pretend anymore. He didn’t have to find the strength to walk through his own front door. He just had to sit here and be a burden.  

The relief was immediately followed by a hot, suffocating wave of shame that threatened to choke him. He was grateful to be a prisoner. He was relieved to be a liability. How pathetic was that? He was a burden they felt obligated to watch over, a stray they couldn’t in good conscience kick back out into the storm, and a weak, broken part of him was clinging to their reluctant charity like a lifeline. The shame was a bitter, metallic taste in the back of his throat, the taste of his own weakness. He was staying, not because he was wanted, but because he was too broken to be allowed to leave. And he was glad.

Later, alone in the guest room, the silence was a different kind of loud. It was a ringing, cavernous quiet that amplified the frantic thrumming of his own blood in his ears and the relentless, looping replay of his failure. The room was clean, minimalist, with a single, elegant calligraphy scroll on the wall that was undoubtedly Kaoru’s—a stroke of black ink on white paper that spoke of balance and control, everything Reki lacked. It was a peaceful space, and Reki felt like a wound festering within it, a chaotic splash of dirt and pain in a world of serene order. He sat on the edge of the bed, the soft, cool silk of the duvet a mockery of the sharp, grinding pain in his shoulder. He could feel every tiny piece of grit lodged deep within the barbules of his feathers, an irritating, constant scrape against his skin and clothes. It wasn’t a static feeling; with every shallow breath, every shift of his weight, he could feel the tiny stones grinding against the delicate keratin, a low-level torture designed to keep the memory of the fall fresh and raw. The snapped shafts of his primaries caught on the fabric of the borrowed t-shirt Kojiro had given him—a shirt that was too big, smelling faintly of Kojiro’s laundry soap, a scent of home that felt like an accusation—and each tiny snag was a fresh, sharp reminder of his failure.  

A deep, primal instinct screamed at him to fix it. Preening wasn’t just a habit; it was a biological imperative, as necessary as breathing, a neurological command he was actively, painfully defying. His fingers twitched with the urge to smooth the ruffled vanes, to pick out the debris, to realign the delicate, interlocking structures that were supposed to grant him freedom. An almost unbearable itch bloomed deep in his shoulder blades where the damaged feathers were rooted and the skin was inflamed, a phantom sensation that was both a physical torment and a psychological one. He could almost feel the satisfying scrape of a fingernail against the grime, the relief of a feather finally clicking back into place. He should clean them. He should tend to the injury.  

He didn’t move. He curled his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms until the sharp sting of it was a welcome distraction, a different pain he could control. He refused to touch them. He refused to let anyone else near them. The paramedic’s cursory check had been violation enough, a reduction of a part of his soul to a mere collection of symptoms. But this was deeper. To preen them would be to care for them, and he couldn’t bring himself to care for the very things that had betrayed him. To smooth their edges would be to forgive them. To forgive himself. And he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t.  

Let them stay dirty. Let them be a physical manifestation of the mess he was inside. It was easier, somehow, to be a bird that couldn’t fly—due to a damaged, unkempt wing—than to be one that would not fly. The former was a fixed state of being, a diagnosis; the latter was a continuous, painful choice that implied the possibility of a different outcome. By refusing to preen, he was attempting to eliminate that choice, to cement his own brokenness into a permanent state. The brilliant scarlet plumage, now soiled and scraped, felt more honest than their usual, vibrant beauty ever could be. Those bright, hopeful colours were a lie, a costume he had been wearing to pretend he was something he wasn’t. This—this gritty, broken, painful state—was the truth of him. It was what he deserved. This was his penance for ever daring to hope he could keep up.

Sleep was a shallow, restless sea, and Reki was drowning in it. Every time he drifted towards the dark, quiet depths of unconsciousness, the throbbing pain in his shoulder would sharpen into a vicious, rhythmic pulse, a brutal anchor yanking him back to the turbulent surface of awareness. He tossed and turned in the unfamiliar bed, the soft sheets tangling around his legs like seaweed, trapping him. He was trying to find a position, any position, that didn’t send a fresh spike of agony through his sprained wing joint, a grinding of bone and ligament that made his teeth ache. The borrowed t-shirt, a soft, worn cotton, felt like sandpaper against the raw scrapes on his back, its fabric catching on the jagged edges of his broken feathers, sending tiny, sharp jolts of pain through his back with every movement. The damaged feathers themselves felt alien and wrong, a constant, gritty irritation, a foreign object fused to his body that he couldn’t escape. He drifted into a feverish, half-conscious state where reality blurred with memory, the quiet hum of the apartment’s refrigerator twisting into a low, mocking laugh in the dark.  

Sleep, when it finally came, was not a refuge but a different kind of torment. It was a fitful, shallow thing that offered no respite, no escape from the throbbing concert of pain that had taken up residence in his body. His shoulder ached with a deep, insistent pulse, a grim metronome counting out the seconds since his failure on the unforgiving concrete of the S track. His ribs burned with every shallow breath he dared to take. But the physical pain was a dull background hum compared to the cacophony in his mind.  

He dreamt in flashes of vivid, hyper-real colour and sensation. The dream started beautifully, a cruel trick of his exhausted mind. He was on his board, the wind was a clean, sharp roar in his ears, and Langa was a flash of white and grey beside him, a perfect, silent echo of his own movements. They were flying, perfectly in sync, their wheels singing the same song against the asphalt, and the joy was so pure, so intense, it ached in his chest like a held breath. It was a fragile, perfect bubble of belonging, a moment where the whispers of not good enough were finally, blessedly silent. Then came the corner. The world tilted, the beautiful harmony shattered into a discordant shriek, and the feeling of losing control was absolute and terrifying. He was falling.  

The dream-fall wasn’t quick; it was an endless, sickening plummet through a darkness that felt thick and suffocating, the sound of his own feathers scraping against concrete echoing around him like a death rattle. The screech of wheels on asphalt, the collective gasp of the crowd, the sickening lurch in his stomach as his board flew out from under him—it all played out in excruciating slow motion. He saw Langa, not as he was, but as a distorted, angelic figure, wings of impossible blue and white spread wide, soaring effortlessly through the air, bathed in a cold, celestial light. In the dream, Reki reached for him, a desperate, silent plea, but his own wings – a vibrant, messy explosion of scarlet macaw feathers that usually felt like a part of his very soul – were heavy, useless things, made of wet concrete and tangled wire, dragging him down, anchoring him to the cold, hard ground. He was flightless. Pathetic.  

The sound morphed, twisted, the scrape of his own feathers blending into the scrape of a different board, the sickening crack of his deck becoming the sound of a different fall. Suddenly, the neon-streaked walls of ‘S’ dissolved, bleeding into the bright, unforgiving sunlight of a summer afternoon years ago. He wasn’t a teenager on a mine track anymore. He was a child, small and helpless, standing on the edge of a skate ramp, the world too big and too loud around him. He was watching his brother Tomo, a flash of motion against the blue sky, plummet from a great height. The two moments, years apart, merged into one horrifying, continuous nightmare of failure and loss, a Mobius strip of trauma where every fall was the same fall, and he was always the one left on the ground, watching.

He woke with a choked gasp, the dream-fall sending a jolt of phantom momentum through his battered body that made him seize up on the mattress. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird trying to beat its way out of his chest. The room was dark, silent, and suffocatingly still. For a moment, he was disoriented, the unfamiliar ceiling swimming above him in the gloom, the scent of cherry blossoms and garlic a confusing, alien perfume. Then it all came rushing back in a brutal, crushing wave – the screech of his wheels, the roar of the crowd, the perfect, fleeting moment of synchronicity, the sickening crack of his board, the shredding sound of his own feathers, the suffocating worry in Kojiro and Kaoru’s eyes. Langa’s eyes.  

Useless. The word wasn’t a whisper; it was a venomous, echoing pronouncement in the quiet of his mind, the final, irrefutable verdict on the failure that was Reki Kyan. He was so utterly, hopelessly useless. He had challenged Langa, puffed up his chest with a fragile, foolish pride, and for what? To be reminded of the ever-widening chasm between them, a canyon he could never hope to cross. Langa was a prodigy, a natural. He had taken to skating, to flying, with an ease that felt like a personal insult to Reki’s years of hard work, of scraped knees and bruised ego and countless hours spent in the garage, sanding down boards until his fingers were raw, all in pursuit of a grace that Langa seemed to possess in his very bones. Reki had taught him everything he knew, had poured his own passion and knowledge into this quiet, beautiful boy, and in the space of a few months, the student had so thoroughly eclipsed the master it was laughable.  

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images kept coming, burned onto the backs of his eyelids. The way Langa’s wings, those magnificent arctic tern sails, caught the air with an instinctive, perfect tilt. The sheer, unadulterated joy on his face as he soared, a look of pure, uncomplicated belonging that Reki had only ever been able to fake. Langa was born for the sky. It was his natural element, an extension of his very being. And Reki? Reki was born to watch from the ground, his neck craned upwards in a permanent state of longing. A flightless bird, just like the stupid song. A ridiculous, grounded thing with bright, flashy feathers that promised a skill he just didn’t possess. They were a lie. A cruel joke. A biological error that had painted him in the vibrant, hopeful colors of a creature of the sky, only to chain him to the dirt.

He probably pities me, Reki thought, and the realisation was a fresh wave of humiliation that washed over him, hot and suffocating. That’s what that look in his eyes was. Not worry. Not fear. Pity. He could see it now, replaying the moment in his mind with horrifying clarity: Langa’s wide, blue eyes, stripped of their usual calm admiration, filled instead with a kind of gentle, horrified sorrow. It was the same look you’d give a stray dog with a broken leg, a look that was all compassion and no respect, a look that instantly and irrevocably shifted the dynamic between them. They were no longer equals, no longer flock-mates racing side-by-side. In that single, devastating glance, Reki had been demoted to a broken thing, a pathetic creature to be looked after.  

And the others… their reactions were just different dialects of the same pitying language. Kaoru’s sharp words, his clinical assessment of Reki’s “reckless” angle, had been a scalpel dissecting his stupidity for all to see. Kojiro’s forced gentleness, the careful way he’d offered the food and spoken in a low, placating rumble, was worse than his usual booming anger would have been; it was the voice you used on a frightened child, not an equal. And Miya’s… whatever that was. That sharp-eyed, predatory stillness from above, the single, cutting word, “stupid,” was the verdict of a prodigy judging a wannabe who had finally, spectacularly, proven he didn’t belong. They were all just humouring him. He was the charity case. The boy who tried so hard but just wasn’t good enough. Never would be.  

He shifted, and a sharp, white-hot pain shot through his shoulder, making him hiss through his teeth. Even his own body was betraying him, a constant, nagging accomplice to his humiliation. Every twinge, every ache, was a souvenir from his own stupidity, a physical receipt for his failure. He had crashed and burned, spectacularly, in front of everyone. He had wanted to prove something, to show Langa that he was still there, that he was still his equal. Instead, he had only proven what he secretly feared all along: he wasn’t. He was just Reki. The sidekick. The mechanic. The one who built the beautiful, functional tools for the real heroes to use. His purpose was to patch up the hero’s board after a glorious victory, to stand on the sidelines and cheer, never to share the spotlight.  

A bitter, self-deprecating laugh threatened to bubble up from his chest, but he choked it back, the movement sending another spike of pain through his ribs. Crying was not an option. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him break completely. He wouldn’t be that pathetic. He was already the boy with the useless wings; he didn’t need to be the crying boy, too. He was just… tired. A deep, soul-crushing exhaustion that had nothing to do with the late hour or his injuries. It was the weariness of always trying, always pushing, always running a race he knew, deep down, he was destined to lose. It was the exhaustion of performing confidence, of pasting on a grin when his insides were churning with anxiety, of pretending he belonged in a sky that had never once felt like home. The fall hadn’t just been a physical impact; it had been the finish line of that exhausting performance. Now the mask was shattered, and he was too tired to even try to piece it back together.  

He turned his head on the pillow, the silk of the case cool against his feverish skin. He stared at the sliver of moonlight, a stark, lonely line in the oppressive darkness of the room. It looked like a crack in the world, a glimpse into a vast, empty sky that felt more like a prison than a promise. A hollowing emptiness carved itself into his chest, a cold, physical ache that was worse than any of his injuries. He had never felt so alone, not even in the echoing silence of his own empty house. Here, surrounded by people who were supposedly his flock, the loneliness was sharper, more profound. It was the loneliness of being fundamentally unseen, of being a creature so broken that even the kindness of others felt like a cage.

In the stillness of three in the morning, a plan began to form, born not of panic, but of a grim, exhausted logic. The math was simple, really. He was a problem. A disruption. A foreign body introduced into the calm, stable ecosystem of this home, and his presence was causing an immune response. He had brought the chaos of ‘S’—the noise, the failure, the pain—into this quiet, orderly sanctuary. He had seen the worry in Kojiro’s eyes, a deep, furrowed concern that looked too much like the exhaustion his own father wore. He had seen the frustration tightening the corners of Kaoru’s mouth, the subtle clenching of his jaw as he tended to Reki’s wounds, a sign of a patience being tested.  

And Miya… Miya needed this place. He was a fledgling who had found a safe nest, and Reki’s chaotic energy, his storm of self-loathing, was a threat to that. Reki’s presence was a variable they hadn’t accounted for, a complication that would inevitably lead to more pain, more worry, more disruption. The only logical solution, the only truly selfless act he could perform, was to remove himself from the equation.  

He would slip out before dawn, a ghost fading with the night. He’d leave a note—something short, apologetic, full of lies about feeling better and not wanting to be a bother. He would erase himself from their lives to protect them from the damage he was sure he would eventually cause. It was better this way. Cleaner.  

He slid off the bed, his movements slow and careful, but a hiss of pain still escaped his lips as a fresh spike of fire shot through his wing. He pulled on his hoodie, the soft fabric catching unpleasantly on his damaged feathers, each tiny snag a fresh reminder of his humiliation. Every muscle screamed in protest as he tiptoed to the door, his bare feet silent on the cool wood floor. The apartment was so quiet he could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen, a sound that only amplified the silence. He turned the handle with agonising slowness, his breath held tight in his chest. The click of the latch, though barely audible, sounded like a gunshot in the silent apartment, a thunderclap in the cathedral quiet. He froze, listening, his heart hammering against his ribs, but no sound came from the other rooms. He eased the door open just enough to slip through, a sliver of dim hallway light cutting into the darkness of the room.  

And froze.

There was a shape on the floor, a small, dark lump right against the doorframe that didn’t belong. For a second, his sleep-addled mind couldn’t process it. Then, his eyes adjusted. Curled up on the floor, right against the doorframe, was Miya. He was fast asleep, his small body wrapped in a thin blanket he must have grabbed from the living room sofa. His peregrine wings, sleek and dark, were tucked tightly against his back like a shield, and his face, usually a mask of sharp-witted arrogance, was soft and vulnerable in sleep. He had been guarding the door. A silent, sleeping sentinel. Not a barricade of force, but one of fierce, stubborn loyalty.

The sight was so unexpected, so utterly disarming, that it stopped Reki’s self-destructive spiral in its tracks. His breath caught in his throat, a sharp, painful hitch. All the carefully constructed logic about being a burden, about needing to leave, crumbled into dust. He had built a fortress of self-loathing around himself, brick by painful brick, and this small, sleeping boy had just dismantled it without a single word. Miya hadn’t seen him as a failure to be avoided, or a problem to be managed, but as someone who needed protecting. Someone worth guarding. This quiet, stubborn act of loyalty was more powerful than any words of reassurance could ever be, because it was an action, pure and simple. It couldn’t be misinterpreted. It wasn’t pity or charity; it was a statement, written in the silent language of the flock: You are one of us. You are not leaving.  

He couldn’t leave. Not now. The thought of stepping over Miya’s sleeping form felt like a sacrilege, a violation of something sacred and unspoken. Waking him would be cruel, and leaving while he slept would be a betrayal the younger boy wouldn’t understand, an abandonment that would only prove Reki was the monster he already believed himself to be. The overwhelming, frantic urge to flee, to erase himself from this equation, was suddenly and completely replaced by a much older, more powerful instinct: to protect. The problem was no longer How do I escape my own failure? but How do I care for this child?  

His own pain, his own shame, became secondary, a distant hum in the back of his mind. The throbbing in his shoulder was still there, but it was no longer the loudest thing in the room. The immediate, pressing issue was the cold floor, the thin blanket, and the vulnerable curve of Miya’s spine. He crept back into the room, his movements now imbued with a purpose that had been absent for hours. He grabbed the spare pillows and the thick, soft duvet from the bed, his motions slow and deliberate, terrified of making a sound that might disturb the sentinel. Returning to the hallway, he knelt on the floor, the cool wood a shock against his knees. He gently, carefully, arranged the pillows around the sleeping boy, creating a soft, makeshift nest. He tucked the duvet around Miya’s small frame, his hands, which had felt so clumsy and useless all night, now moving with a surprising gentleness. Miya murmured in his sleep, a soft, incoherent sound, and curled tighter, instinctively seeking the warmth Reki had provided. The small, unconscious movement was a validation so profound it almost made Reki’s chest ache, a quiet confirmation that this act of care was needed, and accepted.

Reki hesitated for only a moment, but in that single, suspended heartbeat, a war was waged and won inside him. The part of him that was still screaming to run, to disappear before he could cause any more trouble, fought against this new, powerful instinct. The self-loathing whispered that he was a contamination, that his touch was a poison, and that even this act of care was a selfish attempt to feel useful. It told him he had no right to offer comfort when he himself was so thoroughly broken. But the sight of Miya, so small and so fiercely loyal, was a shield against those whispers. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the need of someone else was greater than the noise of his own failure.  

He settled on the floor beside him, the movement slow and agonisingly deliberate, his back against the cool, solid wall. He took a slow, steadying breath, the air catching in his throat, and prepared himself for the pain he knew was coming. He unfurled his injured scarlet wing. It was not a smooth, fluid motion. It was a gritty, stuttering act of will, each inch of extension sending a fresh wave of fire through his shoulder. The sprained ligaments screamed in protest, a sharp, tearing sensation that made his vision swim with black spots. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood, using the sharp, clean pain as an anchor against the deeper, grinding agony in his joint. He ignored it. He had to.  

Carefully, deliberately, he draped the wing over Miya’s small form. The primary feathers, scraped and broken, brushed gently against the thin blanket, creating a warm, protective canopy. The wing that had failed him, that had been the instrument of his humiliation, now had a new purpose. It was not for flight. It was for shelter. The brilliant red and yellow feathers, which hours ago had been a beacon of his shame, now shielded his found brother from the cold of the night, their vibrant colors absorbing the dim hallway light and creating a small, safe pocket of darkness. In this new context, the colors weren’t a boastful lie; they were a promise of warmth, a vibrant declaration of protection.  

He closed his eyes, and a strange sense of peace settled over him, a quiet, steady warmth that started in his chest and slowly spread through his aching limbs. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t healing. It was just… quiet. The screaming internal monologue of useless, pathetic, failure had finally, blessedly, fallen silent, replaced by the soft, rhythmic sound of Miya’s breathing. If Kojiro and Kaoru were angry when they found them in the morning, so be it. He could face their anger, their disappointment, their frustration. He could face anything, as long as this small, fierce boy was safe and warm beside him. At least Miya was safe. At least, for tonight, he hadn’t been left behind.  

He was a flightless bird, grounded and broken. That much was still true. The fall had happened. The pain was real. The shame was still a heavy cloak around his shoulders. But maybe, just maybe, there were things a wing could do that had nothing to do with the sky. Maybe its purpose wasn’t just to catch the wind, but to block it. Maybe its strength wasn’t measured in altitude, but in the steadfast way it could shield a smaller, more vulnerable member of its flock. For the first time, the thought of being grounded didn’t feel like a death sentence. It just felt… different. A different way to be a bird. A different way to be Reki. And in the quiet, shared darkness of the hallway, that felt like enough.

Chapter Text

The first hint of morning was a watercolour wash of grey against the window, a pre-dawn stillness that held the city’s breath. The distant, sleepless glow of Okinawa was beginning to fade, the vibrant neon’s softening into a bruised, exhausted purple at the edges of the sky. In the quiet of the apartment, the only sounds were the low, electric hum of the refrigerator, a constant, mechanical heartbeat in the otherwise dead air, and the soft, digital click of the clock on the cooker as it ticked over to 5:17 AM.

Each click was a sharp, precise pinprick in the heavy blanket of silence, marking time in a home that felt suspended, caught in a state of anxious waiting. Kojiro was awake. It was a habit forged in the heat of a kitchen, a lifetime of rising before the sun to meet deliveries and prep for the day, his internal clock set to the rhythms of yeast and steam. But this morning, it was not habit that had pulled him from a shallow, restless sleep. It was a restless, coiling anxiety, a paternal disquiet that had settled deep in his bones and refused to let him rest.

The silence in the guest room had been a living, breathing thing for two weeks, a suffocating void where a teenager’s chaotic energy should have been.

There was no muffled thud of a dropped skateboard, no quiet, rhythmic scratching of a pencil in a sketchbook, no restless rustle of large, vibrant feathers against the sheets. There was only the silence of a wound refusing to heal, a silence that felt like a judgment, and it had frayed Kojiro’s nerves raw.

He swung his legs out of bed, the movement slow and heavy, his large frame feeling every ounce of its weariness. The cool wood of the floor was a familiar shock against his bare feet, a grounding sensation in the disorienting quiet. He glanced back at the other side of the bed, his movements instinctively gentle. He was careful not to wake Kaoru, whose own sleep had been lighter, more troubled, since Reki’s fall. Even in the dim light, Kojiro could see the tension in his partner’s form, the way his elegant Rose faded Lilac-breasted Roller wings, usually relaxed in sleep, were held just a little too tightly, twitching with a nervous energy that rarely settled.

The worry was a shared weight, a silent conversation they had been having for fourteen days. Kojiro moved through the flat with the surprising silence of a large man who knew the geography of his home in the dark, his steps sure and soundless, his bare feet finding their path around the sharp corner of the coffee table and the elegant, spidery legs of Kaoru’s calligraphy stand.

This was his territory, his nest, and he was a predator on patrol, every sense on high alert for any disturbance.

The air was cool and still, layered with the faint, savoury ghost of last night’s dinner—a rich tomato and basil pasta he’d made specifically for Reki, which had been returned to the kitchen barely touched, the rejection a quiet, painful thud in his chest—and the clean, floral scent of cherry blossoms that always clung to Kaoru’s skin and clothes. That scent was usually a comfort, a fragrant anchor in the quiet of their shared life, but tonight it felt like a fragile perfume in a sickroom, too delicate to mask the underlying tension of unspoken pain.

He had intended to go straight to the kitchen, to start the coffee, to ground himself in the familiar, methodical ritual of breakfast. It was a way to impose order on a situation that felt utterly chaotic, a way to feel useful when he felt anything but.

But something made him pause at the entrance to the hallway.

A sense of displacement.

A shape that did not belong.

He blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the deeper shadows where the city’s ambient light didn’t reach, a long, dark corridor that felt colder than the rest of the apartment. It was a lump. A pile of something by the guest room door.

His first, sleep-fogged thought was laundry, a forgotten pile of towels. But it was too small, too compact, too deliberate in its placement. His heart gave a single, hard thud against his ribs, a primal Bald Eagle’s instinct kicking in, sensing a disruption in his territory. His mind, suddenly sharp and brutally awake, raced through worse possibilities. Had Reki tried to leave? Had he fallen in the hallway, hurt and silent?

The dread was a cold, physical thing, a knot of ice in his gut. He took a silent step forward, his own powerful wings shifting on his back, a subconscious preparation for a threat. The shape was still indistinct, a mound of shadow against shadow. He could make out the pale edge of a blanket, but the form beneath it was too still. He held his breath, listening for the soft sound of breathing, and heard nothing but the frantic, useless thumping of his own blood in his ears. And then he saw them.

The sight hit him with the force of a physical blow, stealing the air from his lungs in a silent, ragged gasp that burned in the cold hallway. For a long, suspended moment, the world narrowed to this single, impossible image, and the low hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock, the very concept of a world existing outside this corridor, all ceased to be. His first coherent thought was a sharp, protective pang directed at the small, dark shape huddled against the guest room door.

Curled up on the floor, pressed against the unyielding wood as if to physically bar any escape or entry, was Miya.

He was a small, tight ball of fierce loyalty, wrapped in a thin, grey throw blanket he must have taken from the sofa. His sleek, dark peregrine wings, usually so sharp and expressive, a constant, arrogant commentary on the world around him, were tucked in so tightly they seemed to disappear into the shadows of his small frame, a defensive shield against a world that had already taught him too much about abandonment. His face, usually a mask of arrogant disdain or sharp-witted calculation, was slack in sleep, vulnerable and childish, the tension smoothed away to reveal the boy beneath the prodigy.

He was a sentinel, a tiny, sleeping guardian posted at the door of his charge, a miniature predator dedicating his formidable instincts not to the hunt, but to a silent, stubborn vigil.

Kojiro’s heart ached with a sudden, fierce tenderness for the boy. He took a half-step forward, his own paternal instincts screaming at him to scoop the child up from the cold floor and return him to the warmth of his bed. But his gaze shifted, drawn by a splash of defiant colour in the gloom, and the full tableau slammed into him with a second, more profound shock.

On the other side of the hallway, slumped against the wall in a mirror of Miya’s protective stance, was Reki. He was a chaotic sprawl of limbs and exhaustion that spoke of a body that had simply given out, his long legs tangled, one arm thrown out as if in a dream of reaching for something. And one of his magnificent scarlet macaw wings—the injured one—was draped over Miya’s sleeping form.

It was not a perfect covering; it was battered, a tragic echo of its former glory. Some of the primary feathers were bent at unnatural angles, their rigid shafts snapped and showing the pale, raw keratin beneath the colour. Their vibrant red was matted with dirt and the faint, rusty traces of dried blood that Kojiro knew Kaoru had tried so painstakingly to clean, an act of gentle care that Reki had clearly undone in his restless grief. It was clear the extension caused him pain even in sleep; a faint, tense line was etched between his eyebrows, and his free hand was clenched into a tight fist against the floor, his knuckles white even in the dim light. But it was a canopy. A brilliant, broken, steadfast shelter.

Kojiro stood frozen, a silent witness to this tableau of instinct and care. All the frustration from the past two weeks—the simmering anger at Reki’s recklessness, the helpless worry that had been eating at him as he watched the boy fade behind a closed door, the exhaustion of trying to reach a child who refused to be reached—it all evaporated in an instant. It didn’t just fade; it was burned away by the sheer, unadulterated power of what he was seeing. In its place rose a wave of fierce, almost painful protectiveness that tightened his chest and made his eyes burn.

It was a primal, avian feeling, the instinct of a Bald Eagle seeing a threat to the nest, but the threat wasn't external.

The threat was the crushing weight of the world on these two small fledglings, and his instinct was to shelter them both under his own vast wingspan. He was not looking at two teenagers who had fallen asleep in a strange place. He was looking at two lost birds who, in the face of fear and pain, had instinctively sought to shield one another.

They had created their own flock, their own nest, on the cold, unforgiving floor of a hallway, bound by a shared, unspoken need that transcended species and circumstance.

He saw Reki, a boy drowning in his own self-loathing, a boy who believed himself to be a worthless burden, a chaotic mess of a creature who ruined everything he touched, still finding it within himself to offer shelter to someone smaller, more vulnerable.

The sheer, paradoxical goodness of the act was staggering.

This was a boy who wouldn't eat the food Kojiro cooked for him because he felt he didn't deserve it, who flinched away from Kaoru’s gentle first aid because he couldn't bear the kindness. Yet here he was, in the dead of night, enduring physical pain to provide a comfort he would never accept for himself. That wing, which Reki saw as a mark of his failure, a useless, broken appendage that had betrayed him and sealed his place on the ground, had become an instrument of profound comfort. Its purpose, in this sacred, silent moment, was not defined by its inability to conquer the sky, but by its simple, noble ability to block the cold.

It was a shield.

A promise.

A silent declaration that even in his brokenness, he would not let another fledgling suffer alone. Kojiro understood then, with a clarity that felt like a revelation, that Reki’s recklessness wasn't a flaw; it was a symptom of a heart that was simply too big and too brave for a world that had been so cruel to it. He wasn't just a flightless bird; he was a guardian, one who had chosen to build his nest on the ground to protect those who couldn't, or wouldn't, fly.

Just like him.

Quietly, deliberately, Kojiro retrieved his phone from his pocket. His large, calloused hands, usually so sure and steady with a chef’s knife or a heavy pan, moved with a surprising, almost reverent delicacy as he slid the cool, smooth device from his pocket.

The soft glow of the screen as it came to life felt like a sacrilege in the dim, sacred light of the hallway, a shard of cold, modern technology intruding on a scene that felt ancient and primal. He shielded the light with his body, angling it away from the two sleeping forms, terrified that the sudden illumination would shatter the fragile peace. He framed the shot, his thumb hovering over the capture button.

The phone’s autofocus struggled in the low light, a small green box hunting uncertainly across the screen, unable to decide on a focal point in the gloom. With a soft tap, Kojiro manually focused on the most important detail: the place where Reki’s brilliant, broken wing lay draped over Miya’s small, dark form. The camera finally found its purchase there, on that nexus of pain and protection. He captured the image of the two boys, a study in contrasts—the dark, compact falcon, a creature of speed and precision, curled into a tight, defensive ball; and the sprawling, vibrant macaw, a being of colour and chaos, laid out in a posture of utter exhaustion and selfless care.

They were bound together by a shared, unspoken need that was so palpable Kojiro could feel it in the air, a silent, desperate plea for safety in a world that had offered them so little of it.

The soft click of the shutter was the only sound. In the profound stillness of the pre-dawn apartment, it sounded like a stone striking glass, impossibly loud and sharp. Kojiro froze, his breath held tight in his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs as he waited for a stir, a sleepy murmur, any sign that he had disturbed them. But they remained still, lost in a sleep so deep it was clear their small bodies had simply given out.

It was not a sentimental whim, this photograph. It was an act of preservation. It was proof.

He stared at the image on the small screen, a perfect, heartbreaking composition of light and shadow, and a fierce, possessive feeling swelled in his chest. This was not a picture to be shared on social media, not a casual snapshot of a cute moment. This was evidence. This was a historical document. It was proof of this fragile peace, of this bond forged in the crucible of their shared pain. For children whose pasts were littered with broken promises and absent parents, a single, captured moment of safety was a revolutionary act. It was a defiant middle finger to the world that had tried to break them. Kojiro was not just taking a picture; he was laying the first stone in the foundation of a new family history, an archive that began not with a formal document like a foster care agreement or an adoption certificate, but with a silent vigil in a hallway.

This image, this single, quiet moment, was the true birth certificate of their flock. It was proof for himself, for the moments when he would inevitably doubt if he and Kaoru were doing enough. It was proof for Kaoru, whose analytical mind sometimes needed to see the data of their success. And maybe, one day, it would be proof for the boys themselves—a tangible reminder that even in their darkest, most broken moments, they were capable of this profound, instinctual care for one another.

Putting the phone away, he moved forward, his own large Bald Eagle wings shifting slightly on his back, a subconscious echo of the protective gesture he had just witnessed.

He knelt, his large frame seeming to fill the narrow space, his knees cracking softly on the cold wood. He reached for Reki first, his movements slow and deliberate. He gently slid his arms under the boy’s back and knees, and the first thing that struck him was the weight. Or rather, the lack of it.

The boy was lighter than he should be, a collection of sharp angles and hollows beneath the borrowed shirt, a bird with a frame built for power that was instead whittled down by neglect and self-loathing. He could feel the sharp ridge of Reki’s spine, the jut of his hip bones, and a fresh, hot spike of anger—not at Reki, but at the adults who were supposed to have cared for him—shot through Kojiro’s gut. As he lifted him, Reki murmured something incoherent in his sleep, a faint, pained sound as his injured wing was disturbed, its own dead weight pulling awkwardly at the strained joint. Kojiro’s heart clenched. He paused, adjusting his grip to better support the damaged limb, his touch infinitely gentle. He carried him into the guest room, the boy’s head lolling against his shoulder, a messy shock of red hair brushing against his chin. He laid him carefully on the bed, taking a moment to arrange the injured wing on a pillow, ensuring it was supported and not bearing any weight.

He returned for Miya. The smaller boy was a different kind of weight, dense and compact, a tightly coiled spring of muscle and potential energy. As Kojiro scooped him up, Miya, who was so deeply asleep he was completely boneless, simply curled into Kojiro’s hold with a soft sigh of absolute trust that felt like a brand on Kojiro’s soul. It was the complete, thoughtless surrender of a fledgling in its nest, a trust so pure and unconditional it was both a gift and a heavy, sacred burden.

Kojiro held him for a moment longer than necessary, imprinting the feeling of it on his memory. He placed the smaller boy on the bed beside Reki, arranging the duvet over them both. He didn’t separate them. He made sure their shoulders were still touching, that Miya was tucked into the curve of Reki’s body, preserving the protective circle they had formed on the cold floor. They were a flock of two, and Kojiro would be damned if he was the one to break their formation.

He closed the door with a quiet click that felt like sealing a tomb, or perhaps, a sanctuary. He finally made his way to the kitchen, the adrenaline of the moment leaving him feeling hollowed out and bone-weary.

As the first, pale rays of dawn began to filter through the window, catching the dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, silent stars, he started the coffee machine. The familiar, grounding scent of dark roast coffee began to fill the quiet space, a small, ordinary ritual in the wake of an extraordinary moment. He moved automatically, his body on autopilot, pulling ingredients from the fridge—eggs, milk, butter.

Food. Nourishment. The most basic, primal way he knew how to show care. But his mind was still back in the hallway, replaying the image of the two boys, the photograph now burned onto the back of his eyelids. The memory of Reki’s scarlet wings, so brilliant even when damaged and dirty, was seared into his mind. The sheer, defiant beauty of them, even in their broken state, was a testament to the boy’s own spirit. And it pulled him back, back to a different time, a different place, and the very first time he had seen that specific, unforgettable shade of red.

It had been a little over a year ago, on a sweltering summer afternoon that had driven half of Okinawa indoors, the air thick and heavy as a wet blanket. The air in Sia la Luce was thick with the comfortable, golden-hour haze of a successful lunch service winding down. The frantic, percussive symphony of the kitchen—the clang of pans, the sharp hiss of the grill, the rhythmic chop of knives—had softened into a gentle, melodic hum. Sunlight, heavy and warm, slanted through the large front windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, lazy fireflies. The restaurant was breathing, a slow, satisfied exhalation after the chaos. Kojiro felt it in his bones, a deep, resonant satisfaction that came from a room full of happy, well-fed people. He polished the dark, polished wood of the counter, the familiar scent of lemon oil and old wine a grounding presence. The low murmur of the few remaining customers was a pleasant, unobtrusive soundtrack, punctuated by the soft clink of a wine glass or a low, satisfied laugh. It was a good day. A simple, profitable, peaceful day.

He was in his element, the heat of the kitchen a familiar embrace, the satisfaction of a busy service a quiet hum in his bones. He had personally overseen the plating of the last dish to leave the kitchen—a simple but elegant spaghetti aglio e olio. It was a dish he loved, one that left no room for error. The pasta had been cooked to a perfect al dente, retaining a subtle, satisfying bite. The oil, a high-quality, cold-pressed olive oil, had been gently infused with paper-thin slices of garlic until they were fragrant and just beginning to turn a pale, translucent gold, their pungent bite mellowing into a sweet, nutty warmth. He’d tossed the pasta with a practiced flick of his wrist, emulsifying the oil with a splash of the starchy pasta water to create a light, clinging sauce. A final flourish of fresh, hand-chopped parsley and a whisper of red chilli flakes for a clean, bright heat that would warm the palate without overwhelming it.

It was a dish that required precision, a testament to the beauty of simplicity. He felt a quiet pride in his work, in the space he had built. That was when the bell over the door chimed, and the peaceful atmosphere shattered.

A family of six had taken a table by the window, the bright afternoon sun illuminating them in a harsh, unforgiving light. The father was a large, loud man whose voice seemed to take up all the oxygen in the room, a booming, self-important sound that made the water glasses tremble with every laugh. His wings, a pair of bright, cheerful cockatiel wings, seemed absurdly small and jaunty on his large frame, a stark, almost comical contrast to his overbearing presence. The mother was a thin, anxious-looking woman who seemed to shrink every time her husband spoke, her own wings—a pair of muted, dusty-brown sparrow wings—held so tightly they looked brittle, as if she were afraid they might take up too much space. The two youngest girls, twins with the same cockatiel wings as their father, were chattering happily, their parents doting on their every word, their laughter a sharp, bright counterpoint to the oppressive atmosphere. And then there was the boy.

He was older, maybe fifteen, with a shock of red hair that was impossible to miss. But it was his wings that had caught and held Kojiro’s attention, a sudden, breathtaking splash of colour in the muted tones of the restaurant.

They were Scarlet Macaw wings.

A riot of colour so vibrant they seemed to hum with latent energy, a breathtaking spectacle of nature’s artistry. But they were held with an unnatural tension, folded so tightly against his back it looked painful, as if he were actively trying to crush them out of existence, to hide their brilliance.

He flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, when his father’s voice boomed across the table with a laugh that held no real humour. Kojiro watched, his own Bald Eagle instincts screaming in silent protest, as the man casually pushed the boy’s plate of barely-touched pasta aside to make more room for his own, all while the mother stared blankly out of the window, offering no protest, no defence.

It was the aglio e olio, the very dish Kojiro had just taken pride in. Seeing it dismissed, not because it was disliked, but because the boy eating it was deemed insignificant, was a personal, painful sting. Kojiro saw the boy’s quiet resilience, but he also saw the deep, soul-crushing sadness in his eyes, a look of someone who had long ago accepted his place at the bottom of the pecking order, a fledgling starving in a nest full of food.

The sight was a physical affront, a violation of the natural order that made the feathers on Kojiro’s own neck prickle with a cold, protective fury. He felt a primal, almost uncontrollable urge to stride over there, to place himself between the father and the boy, to spread his own considerable wingspan and issue a challenge.

But he was a business owner.

A chef.

And the family were customers.

So he stayed behind the counter, his hands gripping the damp cloth so tightly his knuckles were white, a silent, helpless witness to a quiet, everyday tragedy. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that he would probably never see this boy again, that this was a fleeting glimpse into a life he could not touch or change, and the powerlessness of it was a bitter, metallic taste in the back of his throat.

Later that night, as he and Kaoru lay in bed, the city lights painting shifting patterns on their ceiling, Kojiro found he couldn’t settle. The usual post-service exhaustion that would normally pull him into a deep, dreamless sleep was absent, replaced by a restless, simmering energy that felt like a low-grade fever. He stared up at the play of light and shadow, but all he could see was a flash of scarlet and a pair of eyes that were far too old for a teenager’s face. The image was a burr under his skin, an itch he couldn’t scratch. He had replayed the scene a hundred times while cleaning the kitchen, the memory a bitter, metallic taste in the back of his throat. He had tried to dismiss it as just another sad story in a city full of them, but his instincts, the deep, primal wiring of a Bald Eagle, refused to let it go. It felt like a violation, a fundamental wrongness in the world that had been allowed to fester right in his own territory, under his own roof.

He shifted, the mattress dipping under his weight, and the words finally tumbled out of him in a low, angry rumble that was more vibration than sound in the quiet room. “There was a family in the restaurant today,” he began, the words feeling clumsy and inadequate. “A father, loud and full of himself. A mother who looked like a ghost. And this kid.” He paused, trying to find the right words to paint the picture that was burned onto the back of his eyelids.

“He had these… incredible wings. Scarlet Macaw. The kind of red that hurts to look at, it’s so bright. But he held them like they were a deformity, like he was trying to crush them into his own back.” He couldn’t shake the image of the boy’s wings, so full of life, held as if they were a source of shame. He had expected sympathy from Kaoru, perhaps a shared sense of outrage, a quiet agreement that the world was often a cruel place. He had not expected the sudden, sharp intake of breath from the other side of the bed, a sound that was more telling than any words. He had not expected the jolt of recognition in Kaoru’s eyes when he turned to look at him.

“Red hair? Macaw wings held like they were a deformity?” Kaoru had murmured, his voice stripped of its usual sharp, analytical edge, leaving behind something softer, more vulnerable. His own Lilac-breasted Roller wings shifted restlessly against the sheets, a cascade of colour even in the dim light, the movement a subconscious betrayal of his carefully maintained composure. “I think I’ve seen him. At the park near the university. I was… struck by the dissonance.” Kaoru’s voice was quiet, but it held a note of haunted recognition that mirrored the unease in Kojiro’s own chest.

He sat up, the silk sheet pooling around his waist, his gaze distant as he summoned the memory. “I was sketching, trying to capture the way the light filtered through the ginkgo trees. And he was just… there. Sitting on a bench, alone. He was trying to be invisible, but it was impossible. Not with that plumage. It was like seeing a bonfire trying to hide in the shadows. Such beautiful plumage, but he carried himself like a caged animal, always looking at the ground.”

The realisation that they had both been haunted by the same image, that they had both independently felt that same, fierce, inexplicable urge to protect this stranger’s child, settled between them in the quiet of their bedroom.

It was more than just a coincidence; it felt like a shared responsibility, a silent, invisible thread that had connected them to this unknown boy, and now, to each other in a new, deeper way. For two men as fiercely independent as they were, this shared, unspoken vulnerability was a rare and profound thing. It became a quiet, shared secret, a foundational bond forged in a moment of mutual, unspoken concern. In the months that followed, the “macaw boy” became a quiet ghost in their conversations, a shorthand for a specific kind of sadness they both now recognised in the world.

A quiet evening might be punctuated by Kojiro murmuring, “Wonder if he’s eating properly,” or Kaoru looking up from a schematic to say, “I hope he found a reason to stretch his wings.” They never saw the boy again after that, and the memory might have faded, had it not been for the arrival of another lost bird.

They had found Miya, a prodigy cast aside by his flock for being too good, too sharp, too much. Fostering him had been a whirlwind of paperwork and social workers and learning the specific dietary needs of a growing Peregrine Falcon—a process that had filled their quiet, orderly home with a new, chaotic energy they hadn’t realised they were missing.

Their minimalist apartment was suddenly cluttered with gaming consoles and discarded hoodies, and their grocery bills now included an alarming amount of high-protein snacks.

Miya was a challenge, all sharp edges and arrogant pronouncements, but beneath the prickly exterior was a child who was desperately hungry for a place to land. They were just finding their rhythm as a new, strange little family when their world collided with ‘S’. And there he was. The boy from the restaurant.

Reki.

He was no longer quiet or sad; he was a loud, vibrant, reckless skater, hurtling through the dangerous, underground world with a passion that was both breathtaking and terrifying. The sight of him, so full of life and fire, was a relief and a terror all at once. Kojiro felt a jolt of recognition so strong it was like being struck by lightning. The sad, haunted eyes were still there, but they were hidden behind a blinding, brilliant grin.

The magnificent scarlet wings were still held too tightly, but now they were a counterbalance to the wild, joyful chaos of his movements on a board. The boy they had wanted to wrap in a blanket and protect was now a force of nature, willingly throwing himself into danger with a laugh. They decided to watch from a distance, to take it slow, terrified that a direct approach would scare away a boy who had clearly learned to be wary of adults offering help.

Their passive observation was shattered into an active plan by Miya. Now living with them, the young falcon had quickly latched onto Reki, drawn to his warmth and chaotic energy like a moth to a flame. When he saw a dark, ugly bruise on Reki’s arm—a simple skating injury, they would later learn, but one that looked sinister to a child already primed to see the worst—he jumped to the most obvious conclusion. In his black-and-white world, the culprit had to be the new, quiet boy who was always at Reki’s side. He challenged Langa to a beef, an act of misguided, ferocious protection that was so earnest it broke their hearts.

After the dust had settled, Miya had sat them both down in the living room, his expression deadly serious, his small frame radiating an unshakeable conviction. “If I’m going to have a brother,” he had declared, his voice filled with the absolute certainty only a child can possess, “it has to be Reki. I won’t accept anyone else.” It was not a joke. It was a demand. For a boy who had been rejected, the power to choose his own family was the ultimate act of agency. And his declaration galvanised them. Their vague desire to ‘help’ Reki crystallised into a firm, unspoken vow. They were going to steal Reki. It wasn’t a legal thought, not then. It was a primal, avian instinct. A rival flock was neglecting a fledgling, and they were going to take him for their own.

They were going to bring him into their nest and make him happy.

Their plans, however, were derailed by the chaotic whirlwind that was Adam and the ensuing tournament. They were forced into a more reactive role, their focus shifting from the long-term strategy of rescuing Reki to the immediate, desperate need to keep all the children in their orbit from being seriously hurt by a madman. Their parental instincts were hijacked by one crisis after another, a constant state of high alert that left no room for quiet, careful planning. But their goal never wavered. Through all the danger and the drama, the quiet vow remained, a steady, burning ember in the back of their minds: Reki belonged with them.

Two weeks after the fall at ‘S’, the guest room had become a fortress, and Reki was its sole, haunted prisoner. He was a ghost in the apartment, a physical presence who was emotionally a thousand miles away, his energy a collapsed star that absorbed all light and warmth and gave nothing back. He had built walls of silence and avoidance, and the room was his keep. He only emerged for the bathroom, moving with a quiet, furtive speed, his eyes fixed on the floor, terrified of making contact.

He had the geography of the apartment mapped out in his mind, not by sight, but by sound—the specific creak of the third floorboard in the hallway, the soft sigh of the refrigerator door closing, the distant, muffled cadence of the television.

He moved between these sounds, a phantom navigating a soundscape of a life he was no longer a part of. Kojiro had stopped trying to coax him out for meals. The first few days had been a gentle siege, his deep voice a low, worried rumble through the wood of the door. Now, he simply left a plate outside, a silent offering that was usually returned half-eaten, if at all.

The food was always something comforting, something that smelled like home—or what a home was supposed to smell like. One night it was a rich, fragrant curry, the next a perfectly crafted bowl of tonkotsu ramen, the broth so opaque and flavourful it could only have been simmered for hours. But the rich aroma of pasta or the gentle steam from a bowl of soup felt like an accusation, a kindness he hadn’t earned, and the food would turn to ash in his mouth.

Inside, Reki was trapped in a relentless, looping monologue of shame. The room itself was a quiet torment. It was clean, minimalist, and orderly in a way that was so distinctly Kaoru’s. A single, elegant calligraphy scroll hung on the wall, its black ink a study in perfect, controlled balance—everything Reki felt he was not. He felt like a splash of mud in a pristine gallery, a chaotic wound festering in a place of serene order. He spent hours staring at that scroll, at the single, perfect character for ‘wind’ (風), its strokes both powerful and delicate, a captured moment of impossible grace. It was a mockery. It was a judgment. Every creak of the floorboards outside his door was proof that he was an inconvenience. Every muffled laugh from the living room was a joke at his expense. He was a burden, a mess, a problem they were saddled with. The certainty of it was a physical weight, pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe.

He would lie in the dark and listen, his hearing sharpened by the silence, and he would translate every sound through the distorted filter of his own self-loathing. The sound of Kojiro’s heavy footsteps pacing in the living room wasn’t worry; it was frustration. The sharp, quick tapping of Kaoru’s keyboard from his study wasn’t work; it was an escape from the oppressive atmosphere Reki had created. Even the soft, playful chirps from Miya’s video games felt like a pointed reminder of a joy Reki could no longer access, a life that was continuing on without him, right outside his door.

His wings were a constant, agonising reminder of his failure. The damaged feathers itched and pulled, catching on the fabric of his hoodie with a tiny, grating snag that sent a shiver of self-loathing down his spine.

A deep, primal instinct screamed at him to preen them, to clean the grit from their vanes, to soothe the irritated skin where the shafts were bent and broken. His fingers twitched with the urge, his body crying out for the simple, necessary act of maintenance. He could almost feel the satisfying scrape of a fingernail against the grime, the relief of a feather finally clicking back into place. He ignored it. The neglect was a form of penance. The physical discomfort was a fitting punishment for his stupidity, a constant, nagging echo of the shredding sound his feathers had made against the asphalt. He didn’t deserve to have clean, beautiful wings. He deserved this gritty, broken state. It felt more honest.

The brilliant scarlet plumage, now soiled and scraped, was a truer reflection of who he was inside than their usual vibrant beauty ever could be. He would lie on his side, the injured wing a dead, heavy weight, and he could feel the individual pieces of gravel still embedded deep within the feathers, tiny, sharp stones that pressed into his back like a bed of nails, a constant, low-level torture that kept the memory of the fall fresh and raw. He deserved the pain. He deserved the discomfort. It was a physical manifestation of the ugliness he felt inside, a way to make the outside match the inside. To clean them would be to lie, to put on a costume of health and wholeness that he had no right to wear.

So he let them fester, a walking, breathing monument to his own failure.

One evening, driven by a gnawing hunger he could no longer ignore, he crept to the door. It wasn't a simple craving; it was a deep, hollow ache in his stomach that had become a physical, undeniable presence, a traitorous part of his own body that was demanding sustenance he felt he had no right to claim. For two days, he had subsisted on nothing but tap water from the en-suite bathroom, a grim, self-imposed fast that felt like a fitting punishment. But his body, stubborn and alive, was refusing to cooperate with his self-destruction. The hunger was a rebellion, a primal, humiliating reminder that he was still a living, breathing inconvenience. He moved with the practiced silence of a thief in his own life, his bare feet making no sound on the cool wood floor. Every step was a calculated risk, a careful negotiation with the creaks and groans of the old building. The doorknob was cold and solid in his trembling hand, a stark, metallic reality against his feverish skin. He was about to reach for the handle, his heart a frantic, panicked drum against his ribs, when he heard their voices from the kitchen. They were tense.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Kaoru said, and his voice, usually so controlled and melodic, was sharp with a frustration that cut through the quiet of the apartment and straight into Reki’s heart. It was a clean, precise cut, like the edge of a razor, and it severed the last, fragile thread of hope Reki hadn't even realised he was clinging to.

Reki froze, his hand hovering over the doorknob, his entire body going rigid. His heart, which had been hammering a frantic rhythm, seemed to stop altogether for a single, sickening beat before plummeting, a dead weight in the hollow cavity of his chest. There it is. The confirmation. It wasn't a surprise, not really. It was the sound of a verdict he had already passed on himself, now being read aloud by the jury. Kaoru was sick of him. He was tired of having a broken, flightless teenager cluttering up his perfect, orderly home, a chaotic splash of failure in his serene, minimalist world. The shame was so intense, so absolute, it felt like a physical fever, a hot, prickling wave that washed over his skin and made the back of his neck burn.

Then Kojiro’s voice, lower, but just as tense, a rumbling counterpoint to Kaoru’s sharp, icy tone. “And you think he did?”

A defence. Kojiro was defending him, trying to placate Kaoru. But Reki didn't hear care in the words; he heard weariness. He heard the exhausted sigh of a man forced to mediate a conflict Reki himself had created. The shame was so intense it made Reki feel sick. He was a point of contention, a source of conflict between them. He was a wedge being driven into the solid, comfortable foundation of their lives. He backed away from the door, the gnawing hunger in his stomach forgotten, replaced by a nauseating, coiling guilt.

He didn't hear the subsequent clatter as Kaoru angrily scraped the scorched remnants of shio ramen broth from the bottom of a brand-new, very expensive pot. He didn’t hear Kojiro’s teasing laughter as he lamented the pot’s tragic demise. Through the distorted filter of his own self-loathing, Reki had heard a conversation about himself. And it was devastating. He retreated to the bed, the misunderstanding cementing itself as irrefutable truth. He curled into a tight, self-protective ball, the soft duvet feeling like a lead blanket, pressing him down, suffocating him with a kindness he now knew was just a performance, a reluctant obligation. The two sentences echoed in the ringing silence of his mind, a relentless, looping soundtrack to his own worthlessness. Kaoru’s sharp, cutting frustration and Kojiro’s tired, obligatory defence. They were the two sides of the same coin, and on both sides, Reki was the burden.

From his own room, Miya felt the silence from Reki’s room like a physical pressure. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet; it was a dead, suffocating void, an absence that screamed louder than any argument could have.

In the first few days, there had been sounds—the soft, rhythmic scratch of a pencil in a sketchbook, the restless rustle of large feathers against sheets, the muffled thud of a dropped phone. Now, there was nothing. It was the silence of a held breath, of a world paused in a state of anxious waiting, and it was a sound Miya recognised with a cold, sickening lurch in his gut.

It was the same silence that had filled his own room for weeks after his former friends had cast him aside, the silence of being too much, too good, too sharp, and therefore, utterly alone. He saw Reki retreating into the same suffocating darkness that had almost consumed him before Kojiro and Kaoru had pulled him out, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He was a prodigy, a problem-solver, a creature of speed and precision. He saw a challenge and he conquered it. But Reki’s grief was a problem with no clear solution, a fortress with no visible weakness, and the helplessness was an infuriating, terrifying feeling that made his own peregrine wings twitch with a useless, frustrated energy.

“What’s he even doing in there?” he snapped one evening, the words sharp and brittle in the quiet of the living room. He wasn’t angry at Reki. He was terrified. He directed the question at Kojiro, who was pretending to read a cookbook but whose eyes hadn’t moved from the same page in ten minutes. The large man just sighed, a deep, weary sound that seemed to come from the very centre of his being. “He’s healing, Miya. It takes time.” But Miya knew better. This wasn’t healing. This was festering. This was a slow, quiet surrender, and every silent hour that passed felt like another battle lost.

And so a strange, silent ritual was born. That night, Miya couldn’t sleep. The silence from down the hall was a living, breathing monster in the dark, and his own comfortable bed felt like a betrayal. With a sharp, decisive movement, as if he were starting a new, critical mission in a video game, he got up. He grabbed the soft, grey throw blanket from the armchair in his room—the one Reki had used the first night he’d stayed over—and crept into the hallway. He didn’t hesitate. He curled up on the floor, right against the unyielding wood of Reki’s closed door, a stubborn, silent guardian. He was a sentinel. A predator using his formidable instincts not to hunt, but to protect the nest. He was guarding the door not to keep Reki in, but to keep the suffocating silence out.

Inside, Reki heard the soft rustle of fabric, the quiet sigh of a body settling. He froze, his heart a frantic, panicked drum against his ribs. He crept to the door, his bare feet making no sound on the cool wood floor, and pressed his ear against it. He could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of someone sleeping. It was Miya. His first, self-loathing thought was a hot spike of shame: They’ve set him to watch me. He’s a guard, making sure the problem doesn’t escape. But as he stood there, listening, the steady, peaceful sound of the younger boy’s breathing began to work on him like a slow-acting antidote. It wasn’t the tense, alert breathing of a guard; it was the deep, surrendered breathing of a child who felt safe enough to sleep. And he was sleeping here. This small, sharp, arrogant boy, who valued his own comfort and privacy above all else, had chosen the hard, cold floor of a hallway over his own warm bed. Not as a guard, Reki slowly, painfully began to understand, but as a vigil. A companionable presence in the lonely dark.

He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t lie in the soft, comfortable bed, wrapped in a warm duvet, while Miya was on the floor. It felt like a profound injustice, a violation of this unspoken, fragile truce. So, long after he was sure Miya was deeply asleep, Reki slipped out of the bed. He didn’t take the pillows or the blanket; that would be an admission of need, a confession of his own discomfort that he wasn’t ready to make. Instead, he simply lay down on the cold floor on his side of the door, his back pressed against the wood.

The floor was hard and unforgiving against his bruised ribs and the sharp, aching joint of his injured wing. But the physical discomfort was a welcome distraction, a tangible reality to anchor him in the swirling vortex of his own shame. He could feel the faint, rhythmic vibration of Miya’s breathing through the thin wooden door, a steady, persistent heartbeat in the overwhelming silence. Separated by a few inches of wood, they kept a lonely, shared vigil, two boys who desperately needed each other but were utterly incapable of saying so.

The breaking of the ritual was the breaking of Reki. One night, he waited, already in his position on the cold floor, his back pressed against the unyielding wood of the guest room door. The house had settled into its familiar nocturnal rhythm, a quiet symphony of sounds he had come to memorise. He listened to the distant, mournful rumble of a late-night train, a low, guttural vibration that he could feel more than hear, a reminder of a world that was still moving, even as his own had ground to a halt. He heard the soft, almost imperceptible click of the thermostat in the hallway, a tiny, metallic punctuation mark in the stillness. He heard the gentle sigh of the old building settling, a groan of aging wood that sounded like a weary exhalation.

These were the background noises, the ambient sounds of a home at rest. But he was waiting for the foreground, for the specific, sacred sounds that had become his lifeline in the dark. He waited for the soft, almost inaudible creak of Miya’s bedroom door, a sound he could now distinguish from every other creak in the apartment. He waited for the whisper-light patter of small, bare feet on the wooden floor, a sound so faint it was more a disturbance in the air than a noise. He waited for the soft rustle of Miya’s blanket, the familiar grey throw, as the younger boy settled in for his watch. He waited for the quiet, final sigh, a sound of absolute, childish surrender to sleep.

These sounds had become a secret, nightly liturgy, a wordless conversation that assured him he was not, in fact, alone in his self-imposed prison.

But the sounds never came. The clock in the kitchen ticked past midnight, then one, then two. Each digital click was a sharp, precise pinprick in the heavy blanket of silence, a tiny, merciless hammer striking the anvil of his anxiety. The hallway remained empty. Silent. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was a void, an absence that screamed louder than any argument could have. It was a hollow, ringing silence, the kind that follows a loud explosion, and in that void, Reki’s worst fears began to echo, amplified and distorted.

It was the sound of a door being closed on him, not just physically, but emotionally.

It was the sound of being forgotten.

The conclusion was instant and catastrophic. It wasn't a slow, creeping suspicion; it was a sudden, brutal certainty that slammed into him with the force of a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs in a silent, ragged gasp. He’s finally given up on me. Just like everyone else. The thought wasn’t just a whisper of his usual anxiety; it was a venomous, echoing certainty that settled in his gut like a block of ice. The cold of it spread through his veins, a chilling, numbing poison that made his limbs feel heavy and useless.

Miya, his last, silent bastion of support, had abandoned his post.

For weeks, the younger boy had been a stubborn, unwavering presence, a tiny, fierce anchor in the swirling vortex of Reki’s self-loathing. His nightly vigil had been a silent, powerful counter-argument to the voice in Reki’s head that screamed he was a burden. But now, that counter-argument was gone. The silence in the hallway was the final, irrefutable piece of evidence. He was a lost cause. A problem so exhausting, so fundamentally broken, that even the fierce, stubborn loyalty of a child had finally been worn down to nothing. He was a burden so heavy that Miya had finally, wisely, decided to set him down.

The only logical, selfless thing to do was to remove himself from the equation before he could cause any more damage, before he could disappoint anyone else. He would not wait for Kojiro’s kindness to curdle into weary obligation, or for Kaoru’s sharp patience to finally snap. He would not be the reason for the worry that carved new lines around their eyes. He would perform the only act of care he had left in him: he would disappear.

He didn’t see Miya in his own room, pacing back and forth, his peregrine wings twitching nervously, a restless energy thrumming through his small frame. The room was a strange mix of two worlds: the high-tech, neon-lit fortress of a pro gamer, with its multiple monitors and ergonomic chair, and the soft, comfortable nest of a child who was finally, tentatively, safe. But tonight, the comfort was absent. The glow from the screens cast long, dancing shadows on the walls, making the room feel vast and empty. Miya paced the length of the rug, a tight, three-step pattern he repeated with the obsessive precision of a caged predator. His wings, usually held with a sharp, arrogant stillness, were a mess of nervous energy, the primary feathers twitching and flaring with every turn, a physical manifestation of the chaotic storm in his mind.

The younger boy was giving himself a fierce pep talk, his internal monologue a frantic battle between his pride and his fear. Just go in there, you idiot. Just knock. What are you, scared? Slimes aren’t scared. He was framing it like a video game, the only language he had for a problem this complex, this terrifyingly emotional. Reki’s room was the boss level. The silence was the final boss. And Miya, the hero, was stuck in the loading screen, paralysed by a debuff he couldn’t identify.

Standing guard wasn’t enough anymore. The nightly ritual, which had started as a stubborn, silent act of loyalty, had begun to feel like a passive failure. It wasn’t solving the problem. It wasn’t making Reki better.

It was just… waiting.

And Miya was not built for waiting. He was a creature of action, of speed, of decisive, lightning-fast strikes. He had decided, with all the gravity a thirteen-year-old could muster, that tonight he would go inside. Tonight, he would talk to Reki. He had a script prepared, a series of blunt, perfectly crafted insults designed to provoke a reaction, any reaction, to prove that the real Reki was still in there somewhere.

“Your moping is so loud it’s affecting my game performance.” “If you’re going to be a useless slime, at least be a quiet one.” They were his clumsy, sharp-edged versions of “I miss you.” “I’m worried about you.” “Please come back.”

His delay in the hallway, the reason for his absence at his usual post, was not an act of abandonment, but one of fortification. He was gathering his courage, equipping his best armour, preparing for a battle that terrified him more than any beef at ‘S’ ever could.

By the time Miya finally crept into the hallway, his heart pounding with a nervous resolve that felt foreign and uncomfortable, it was too late. He took a deep, steadying breath, his small hand clenched into a fist, ready to knock, ready to deploy his carefully rehearsed lines.

But he stopped.

The guest room door was ajar, a dark slash in the dim hallway. It wasn’t closed. It was never left open. The ritual was broken. A cold, sharp spike of dread, colder and sharper than any fear he had felt before, pierced through his carefully constructed bravado. He pushed the door open, the movement slow and tentative, a terrible, screaming premonition coiling in his gut. The bed was empty. The duvet was thrown back in a way that spoke of haste, not rest, a chaotic tangle of fabric that looked like a struggle. The silence in the room was different now. It was no longer the heavy, oppressive silence of a person in pain. It was the thin, hollow silence of a room that was truly, completely empty.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized him. His usual sharp arrogance, the carefully constructed fortress he had built around his own fragile heart, dissolved into raw, childish terror. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, the familiar hallway stretching into an impossible, terrifying tunnel.

The prodigy, the falcon, the sharp-witted gamer—they all vanished in an instant, burned away by a pure, primal fear. All that was left was a scared thirteen-year-old boy who had found a brother and was now, in this single, horrifying moment, convinced he had lost him.

A choked sound escaped his throat, a small, animal noise of pure terror that he would have been humiliated to make if he were conscious of it. He scrambled to Kojiro and Kaoru’s room, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated, his bare feet slapping against the cold wood floor. He didn’t knock. He didn’t think. He burst in, a small, dark whirlwind of panic, and launched himself at the large, sleeping form in the bed, shaking Kojiro awake with frantic, trembling hands that had none of their usual precision. “He’s gone!” The words were a raw, ragged sob, torn from his throat, stripped of all their usual sharp edges. “Reki’s gone!”

The frantic search was a blur of adrenaline and fear, a chaotic, desperate whirlwind contained within the four walls of the apartment. The moment Miya’s raw, terrified cry of “He’s gone!” had shattered the pre-dawn stillness, the world had narrowed to a single, horrifying objective. Kojiro was out of bed in an instant, a blur of motion that was less about his usual strength and more about a raw, paternal panic. Kaoru was right behind him, his usual fluid grace replaced by a sharp, urgent efficiency, his mind already calculating possibilities, each one more terrifying than the last. They checked the bathroom first, a desperate, foolish hope that he had simply gotten up for a glass of water, that this was all a terrible misunderstanding. Kojiro threw the door open, his heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs, only to be met with the cold, sterile silence of an empty room. The kitchen was next. The plate of half-eaten pasta from the night before still sat on the counter, a grim, silent testament to Reki’s state of mind, a kindness offered and rejected.

They moved to the workshop, Reki’s sanctuary, the one place in the apartment he had truly made his own. Kaoru’s hands were trembling slightly as he pushed the door open, a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor that betrayed the icy control he was trying to maintain. The sight that met them was another stab of fear. Reki’s tools were all there, neatly arranged. His sketchbook lay open on the workbench, a half-finished design for a new set of wheels staring up at them like a ghost of a future that might never happen. And his skateboard, his beautiful, custom-built board, was still propped against the wall, its deck snapped in two, a clean, violent break that felt like a physical manifestation of Reki’s own shattered spirit. He hadn’t left to skate. He hadn’t left to do the one thing that brought him joy. So where had he gone?

Their minds, now frantic and untethered from logic, jumped to the worst possible conclusions. Had he run back home to a place they knew was unsafe? Kojiro’s blood ran cold at the thought, the memory of the loud, dismissive father in his restaurant a fresh, hot spike of fury in his gut. Had he gone to ‘S’, drawn back to the scene of his failure like a moth to a flame, seeking some kind of self-destructive penance? Kaoru’s mind, always analytical, was a frantic catalogue of horrors. He was injured. He was emotionally unstable. He was a flightless bird in a city full of predators. Had he— a darker thought, one none of them dared to voice, flickered in the back of their minds.

It was a shared, unspoken terror that hung in the air between them, thick and suffocating. It was the thought of a high balcony, of a fast-moving train, of a quiet, lonely bridge over the dark, churning water. It was the thought that Reki had not just run away, but had sought a more permanent, irreversible escape from a pain that had become too much to bear.

They found him in the living room. They had already swept through it twice, their eyes scanning for an open window, a missing jacket, any sign of his departure. But they had been looking for an absence, not a presence.

It was Miya who saw him first. The younger boy, who had been a frantic, sobbing shadow at their heels, darted back into the room for a third time, his sharp falcon eyes scanning every shadow, every corner, refusing to accept the emptiness. He stopped dead, a small, sharp intake of breath the only sound he made. Kojiro and Kaoru froze, turning to follow his gaze. And there he was. He had made it as far as the sofa before his emotional and physical exhaustion had finally, mercifully, claimed him. He was curled into a tight ball on the cushions, a splash of vibrant, tragic red in the cool, grey light of the pre-dawn city. He was so still, so small, that for a single, heart-stopping moment, Kojiro was terrified he wasn’t breathing.

They approached the sofa slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a wild, wounded animal, terrified that any sudden movement, any loud sound, would shatter this fragile, uncertain peace. He was fast asleep, his face pale and tear-streaked in the dim light filtering in from the street. The tracks of his tears were visible even in the gloom, faint, salty lines that cut through the grime on his cheeks, a testament to the silent, lonely battle he had been fighting in the dark. His eyelashes were clumped together, wet and spiky, and the faint, tense line between his eyebrows was still there, a small, stubborn knot of pain that even sleep could not smooth away. He was not at peace; he was just unconscious, his body having finally forced a shutdown his mind so desperately needed. His magnificent scarlet wings were pulled in so tightly they looked painful, a desperate, instinctual attempt to make himself smaller, to take up less space even in sleep. The beautiful, vibrant feathers were crumpled and bent, a tragic, muted echo of their usual brilliant glory.

It was a physical manifestation of his own self-loathing, a subconscious attempt to shrink, to disappear, to become the nothing he so clearly believed himself to be.

The collective sigh of relief from Kojiro, Kaoru, and Miya was a physical, tangible thing, a great, shuddering exhalation that seemed to drain the frantic, terrified energy from the apartment in a single, unified rush. The adrenaline that had been a frantic, high-pitched whine in their veins for the last ten minutes crashed, leaving a profound, bone-deep weariness in its wake. It was replaced by a wave of overwhelming, unspoken love, a feeling so vast and powerful it was almost painful, a fierce, protective instinct that settled over the quiet living room like a warm, heavy blanket.

Miya’s shoulders, which had been held in a tight, rigid line of terror, slumped, the tension leaving his small frame in a rush that almost made him stumble. The raw, childish fear that had stripped him of his usual arrogance was replaced by a fierce, possessive relief that was just as potent. He’s here. He’s safe. He’s ours. Kojiro ran a hand over his face, the rough scrape of his stubble a grounding, tactile sensation in the sudden, disorienting calm. He could feel his own heart finally slowing its frantic, panicked rhythm, each beat a heavy, deliberate thud against his ribs, a slow, steady drumbeat of he’s-okay, he’s-okay, he’s-okay. Kaoru simply stood in the doorway, his carefully constructed composure not just softened, but shattered. His gaze was fixed on Reki’s sleeping form, and his expression was softer and more vulnerable than anyone ever saw, the sharp, analytical lines of his face smoothed away by a raw, unguarded tenderness.

No one suggested moving him. No one suggested going back to bed. The thought was a silent, shared absurdity. To leave him now, to return to the sterile order of their own rooms, felt like a profound betrayal, an abandonment that was unthinkable after the terror of the last few minutes. A silent consensus was reached in the quiet of the living room, a wordless agreement that passed between them in a single, shared glance.

Kojiro looked at Kaoru, his eyes asking a thousand questions—What now? What do we do? How do we fix this?—and Kaoru, his gaze still fixed on Reki, gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. It was an answer. We don’t leave him. Miya, oblivious to the adult conversation, had already made his own decision. He moved to the large armchair opposite the sofa, a stubborn, silent declaration that he was not going anywhere. His action solidified the unspoken plan.

Kaoru disappeared down the hallway, his movements now imbued with a quiet, deliberate purpose. He returned a moment later not with a spare blanket, but with the pillows and the heavy, silk-lined duvet from his and Kojiro’s bed. It was a symbolic act, a deliberate dismantling of their own sanctuary to rebuild it here, around the boy who needed it more. He approached the sofa with a grace that was almost reverent. He gently, carefully, tucked the duvet around Reki’s small, curled form. He didn’t just cover him; he swaddled him, his long, elegant fingers tucking the edges under Reki’s body with a meticulous care, ensuring he was completely enveloped in warmth and softness, a fledgling being returned to the safety of the nest. He then placed the pillows on the floor, not for himself, but as an offering, a part of the new, makeshift camp they were building.

Kojiro settled down on the rug, his back against the sofa, a silent, immovable mountain of protection. He was a Bald Eagle, a creature of the sky, choosing the ground. He didn’t just sit; he took up a guard post, his large frame a solid, living wall, physically shielding Reki from the rest of the room, from the world. He was a fortress, and Reki was the treasure he was guarding. Miya, without a word, curled up in the large armchair, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his own peregrine wings around himself, a self-contained ball of vigilance. He was a falcon in an overwatch position, a tiny, fierce gargoyle watching over the nest, his sharp eyes fixed on Reki even as they drooped with a sleep he was fighting with every ounce of his stubborn will.

They created a protective circle around him, a makeshift camp in the heart of their home. The living room, usually a space of elegant minimalism and quiet order, was transformed into a raw, instinctual nest. The expensive leather sofa was no longer a piece of furniture; it was a sickbed, a sanctuary. The armchair was a watchtower. The floor was a guard post.

It was a wordless declaration, more powerful than any promise, forged in the crucible of shared terror and profound relief. Wherever you go, we will follow. You will not be alone. They had abandoned their own comfortable beds, their private spaces, to dismantle the formal structure of their home, rebuilding it around the needs of its most wounded member. In that moment, Reki was no longer a guest in their space, a temporary problem to be managed; he was the centre around which their space now revolved. He was the fledgling, and they were the flock, and the flock always, always protects its own.

The silence that settled over them was a different kind of quiet from the one that had haunted the apartment for weeks. It was not the thin, hollow silence of absence, but a thick, companionable quiet, filled with the soft, rhythmic sound of Reki’s breathing. Each small, sleeping exhalation was a reassurance, a confirmation that he was still there, still with them. Kojiro sat on the floor, his back a solid, immovable wall against the sofa, his own powerful Bald Eagle wings held at rest but still creating a formidable, protective barrier. He watched the steady, almost imperceptible rise and fall of the duvet, a tangible sign of life that soothed the raw, frantic panic that had seized him only minutes before. He felt a profound, aching tenderness that was almost painful, a feeling so vast it seemed to fill his entire chest. This was what it felt like, he realised, to be a parent. Not the paperwork, not the logistics, but this. This raw, terrifying, all-consuming need to shield a child from a world that was too sharp, too cold, too cruel.

Kaoru, having arranged the nest with the meticulous care of a master architect, settled on the pillows he had brought, a silent, graceful presence in the dim light. His usual sharp, analytical mind was quiet, the constant stream of data and logic replaced by a single, overwhelming emotional truth. He had seen the raw, unfiltered pain in Reki’s (want of) flight, the self-loathing that was so profound the boy had tried to erase himself from their lives to spare them the burden of his presence.

And in that moment, Kaoru felt a surge of cold, protective fury, not at Reki, but at the world that had taught a child that his own existence was an inconvenience. He watched the boy’s sleeping face, the tear tracks still visible on his pale cheeks, and made a silent, unbreakable vow. He would build a world for this child, a fortress of logic and care and unwavering support, where the irrational, cruel voices of the past could no longer reach him.

And in the armchair, Miya kept his vigil. The raw, childish terror had receded, replaced by a fierce, possessive vigilance that was just as potent. He was a falcon, a predator, but all his formidable instincts were now focused on a single, unwavering purpose: protection. He watched Reki’s every breath, his sharp eyes tracking the slightest twitch of a finger, the smallest murmur in his sleep. He felt a confusing, chaotic mix of emotions: a sharp, stinging guilt for not having broken through Reki’s walls sooner, and a fierce, possessive pride that this broken, beautiful, stupidly selfless boy was his brother, and that they, this strange, makeshift flock, were the ones protecting him. He wrapped his own peregrine wings tighter around himself, a self-contained ball of loyalty, a tiny, fierce gargoyle watching over the nest, his sharp eyes fixed on Reki even as they drooped with a sleep he was fighting with every ounce of his stubborn will.

Reki, asleep and vulnerable, surrounded by the fierce, quiet love of his flock. Some creatures have two wings and are destined for the sky. Kojiro, the eagle, and Kaoru, the roller, were creatures of the air, their very nature defined by their mastery of the wind. Miya, the falcon, was the fastest thing in the sky, a living arrow built for speed and precision. But tonight, they had all chosen the ground. They had folded their magnificent wings and huddled together in the dark, a silent, powerful testament to a different kind of strength. But others, perhaps, find their purpose huddled together on the ground, weathering the storm, their wings not for flight, but for shelter. And in the quiet, shared darkness of the living room, that was more than enough.