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Ibuki’s not sure what comes over him.
He’s an up and coming Shishigumi lion and part of maintaining that upwards momentum is establishing himself as a ‘tough guy’.
But something about it all…
Ibuki answers the door.
“Gouhin, right?” He grunts.
“Yeah.” The panda declares, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“What’s this about?”
“Broke up a livestock ring, that’s Gumi business, right?”
“What about it?” Ibuki folds his arms, slouching into the doorway.
There’s something macho about making Gouhin talk in the rain.
At least he pretends so.
“There’s a leftover.” Gouhin explains. “Fucking idiots had a Mimic in amongst the kids and they didn’t even realize.”
“Oh yeah?” Ibuki blinks, too young to hide his genuine curiosity.
“Kid’s feral. I can’t just give him to some adoption agency. It’ll be a cluster fuck.”
“So what’re you going to do?”
“Anyone here who’d be willing to take him in?”
Gouhin asks in such a straightforward way, so sincere, that it kind of upends all Ibuki’s most sarcastic knee jerk reactions. Of course, no one would be willing to take the kid in! They’re gangsters! Besides, lions are universally superstitious, and Mimics are nothing but bad voodoo! But, again, Gouhin asks the question so frankly it’s like…
It’s like he assumes they’re better people than Ibuki does.
It’s like Gouhin thinks better of him than Ibuki does himself.
He fumbles.
“How old is he…?” He finds himself asking.
It’s stupid.
What does it matter?
“Five.” Gouhin answers. “But he’s small because they’ve only been feeding him herbivore shit. Well… Until a little while ago.”
“Oh?” Ibuki frowns, catching something implied in that statement.
“Kid got lucky,” Gouhin shrugs, “day I busted the ring I crashed in downstairs to find him glutting himself on the on-duty guard. All that hunger, lack of proper nutrition for his body, probably made him snap. That said if the rest of the ring had caught him, he’d be dead now.”
Ibuki digests that for a moment.
Ibuki was sold into the hyper-drug trade at twelve years old.
He was kept in a cage, starved and beaten for months before he escaped. He knows, basically, what it’s like for livestock and, honestly? He would’ve been too terrified to turn on his captors. This little kid, half the age he was then, full on massacred a guard and ate his guts?
That’s ballsy.
“So, anyone you think might take him?” Gouhin prods.
“Uh well…” Ibuki fumbles, looking at his feet.
So much for the tough gangster he was a second ago…
“I—I’d be willing to take him in,” Ibuki grunts, trying to pull himself together.
Gouhin looks him up and down.
“You sure about that?”
“I fucking said so, didn’t I?” Ibuki challenges.
“You ever looked after a kid?” Gouhin replies levelly.
Ibuki was barely a kid himself.
“I used to have little sisters.” Ibuki grunts, dredging up the memory. “They were babies and toddlers. I looked after them all the time.”
Yeah, before his Mum sold him for more drugs.
“Why don’t you come meet him first?” Gouhin suggests, pulling out a card. “This is my address. If you’re serious come by soon and we can talk about it properly.”
Ibuki takes the card.
He tells himself he’s going to throw it away but…
The kid is small.
And he looks, painfully, just like a red deer fawn.
“Don’t let it fool you,” Gouhin warns as they stare each other down. “Kid’s got fangs just as developed as any apex predator.”
Ibuki watches him.
The kid has a little stuffed toy he’s clinging too. Gouhin must’ve given it to him and, in the time the panda’s had him, the doctor’s obviously cleaned him up and gotten him some proper clothes.
“I, uh…” Ibuki tries to organize his thoughts. “He got a name?”
“Louis.” Gouhin answers.
“Louis?” Ibuki frowns.
He honestly wasn’t expecting an answer.
Livestock kids never have names.
“Was in a book I was reading,” Gouhin shrugs. “He’s got a real kingly disposition when you get to know him.”
“What do kings have to do with it?” Ibuki supposes dumbly.
“Lots of French kings were names Louis.” Gouhin answers, matter of factly, never once making a jab at Ibuki for not knowing something they probably teach regular kids at school.
Ibuki glances back over the kid.
The kid’s eyes are unwavering.
Golden but sharp and cold.
Herbivores don’t do that.
Herbivores don’t look you in the eye.
It occurs to Ibuki that—
“I don’t know a lot about Mimics,” he admits.
“No one really does,” Gouhin assures, “but as far as I understand it; he’s exactly as carnivorous as you are.”
“Really? That little thing?”
“He looks cute because he’s meant to.” Gouhin tuts. “He’s an ambush predator.”
“Huh…” Ibuki digests.
“Diet should be just like yours; vegetables and fibre, sure, but a big emphasis on carbs, fat and protein.”
Ibuki hates to admit it, but he doesn’t eat very well himself.
He goes out with the boys most nights and then the rest of the day is just liquor or energy drinks and cigarettes. How would he feed a kid? He’s got some money now. Has a place of his own. But he’d need to buy groceries and shit. He’d need to look after this kid.
That rattles him a little.
“Just be careful,” Gouhin warns. “Unlike you, he’s interested in hunting carnivores as well.”
“That’s kind of metal,” Ibuki laughs weakly.
Gouhin snorts. “It is kind of hardcore, I’ll give you that.”
“So, what, I just take him?”
“I think you should introduce yourself first,” Gouhin counters.
Ibuki glances back.
How would he talk to his little sisters?
Well, for starters, they’d find a big animal really fucking intimidating.
Crouching in his suit Ibuki gets down on the kid’s level.
Did he just catch Gouhin smiling? Is that a good sign?
“Hey,” he grunts at the kid, “I’m Ibuki.”
He offers his hand, more shows it than anything.
A herbivore would probably run away but Louis comes close enough to sniff his fingers. He takes in the musk and stands, cautiously, a little closer.
“Who’s your friend?” Ibuki supposes.
He reaches for the stuffed toy, just to tap it with his fingers, but—
Louis pulls back his lips from his fangs and hisses.
Just like a kitten.
He hisses.
Ibuki freezes.
There’s something fucking terrifying about seeing teeth that sharp on a herbivore face.
He laughs, overwhelmed, and withdraws his hand gently. “Sorry Kiddo.”
Ibuki tilts his head towards Gouhin but is smart enough not to look away from the tiny predator.
“I don’t think he likes me.”
“Really?” Gouhin remarks. “Cause you seem to be doing pretty good from where I’m standing.”
Ibuki laughs weakly.
Gouhin obviously knows Ibuki isn’t prepared for this. He gives him a whole bag full of clothes, blankets, little, tiny shoes… all sorts of essentials. Hell, he even gives Ibuki a bag of non-perishable grocery items.
“You don’t have to do all this,” Ibuki mumbles, “I can’t exactly pay you back or whatever…”
“You don’t need to pay me back.” Gouhin grunts. “Just take care of the kid and I’ll call us square. Sound fair?”
“Yeah, sounds fair,” Ibuki decides.
“Give me a call, if you get stuck,” Gouhin offers. “I can’t always answer my phone, but I’ll call you back and I’m happy to help.”
“Thank you,” Ibuki murmurs.
When was the last time he said ‘thank you’ to anyone?
At any rate, Ibuki takes Louis home to his shitty one bedroom apartment and realizes the place is a fucking mess. There’s liquor bottles everywhere and the kid looks so tiny amongst it all. Ibuki never claimed to be perfect but with a child sitting in his apartment he feels fucking ashamed of himself all of a sudden…
The first few nights are rough.
Hell, the first night alone is rough.
Ibuki catches Louis trying to climb out of the window at three am and has to grab him to wrestle him down. It’s awkward to restrain a child who’s instinct is to bite you hard.
“Wait, wait—” Ibuki tries desperately.
Louis goes still, waiting.
Ibuki sits him on the edge of the bed and throws off his shirt.
Kneeling beside the mattress Ibuki shows Louis his arm, his chest…
All the tattoos.
“Do you know what this is?” Ibuki tries to explain.
Louis frowns, very still.
“They ever talk about the hyper drug warehouses?” Ibuki supposes.
Louis’s eyes flash up to him with recognition.
“I was there,” Ibuki whispers, “they were gonna cut me up. Just like you.”
He lets the weight of that hit them both for a second.
Delicately, hands tiny, Louis reaches to tug his arm closer.
Ibuki lets him.
Louis traces the lines of his tattoo.
Ibuki feels…
It’s the strangest thing, it’s like…
Ibuki swallows.
“I’m not gonna let anyone cut us up,” Ibuki promises. “Ya hear? We’re safe together. You and me.”
Louis meets his gaze again, unwavering, and Ibuki tries to smile.
Louis just glances back down at the big arm in his lap and gently traces his tattoo.
But Louis falls asleep after that.
And despite all the tantrums and arguments they have after that day Louis never tries to run away again.
Ibuki doesn’t like talking about his pain, about what happened… But some part of it seems to resonate with Louis enough to make him feel understood, feel safe.
Ibuki kind of likes that.
Louis is a strange experience. Some of his mannerism are very feline like, actually, but then some are totally foreign. Ibuki quickly learns that Louis stomps his foot when he’s angry because it’s a stag dominance thing. And the phrase “don’t you stomp at me!” becomes common in the apartment from then on.
Their schedules are kind of messed up from the start.
Ibuki has to do a lot of grunt work for the Shishigumi which means long nights so Louis is, in large part, pretty nocturnal for the first few months until Ibuki can even consider sending him to a school. They share Ibuki’s futon together, Ibuki has to help shower Louis and they eat together every day. Often times Ibuki does all of this hung over and smelling of cigarettes.
Louis doesn’t talk much at first. It’s a slow process. For a while Ibuki doesn’t know if he can speak any words but then he comes home early one day to find Louis cussing at the television. Turns out? Yeah the kid was listening to him alright.
Ibuki learns a lot of things very quickly. How to cook, how to launder a tiny school uniform, how to condition fur that is very different to his…
He spends a lot of time reading on his phone and, more than once the guys catch him looking at strange articles. It starts as a secret, something Ibuki swears Dolph and Sabu to keep to themselves, but before he knows it seven or eight of his clan brothers know and he’s basically out to the whole gang at that point.
Dolph does not apologize, at first, for thinking the whole thing is weird. He obviously shares the lion superstition that Mimics are bad luck, but Ibuki endures it and, slowly, Dolph stops groaning at Ibuki’s photos and actually starts to ask for them.
“He’s such a smart fucking kid,” Dolph appraises one day.
“Yeah, he is,” Ibuki grins.
Over time Ibuki introduces Louis to all of the guys he trusts, especially as they rise in the ranks of the Shishigumi. Ibuki is determined that more money is a good thing if only because he can better care for Louis. So he’s also determined to become an important part of the clan and he finds he tends to pull people up with him once his attitude becomes more positive.
He can’t lose a fight; he has to go home to Louis.
He can’t pass out drunk, he has to go home to Louis.
He can’t fuck up this job, he needs to make money to feed Louis.
And, slowly…?
The guys start to help.
Free shows up, with a bag, and thrust it at Ibuki saying; “they were selling canned food for cheap. I got you some, ya know, for Louis. He’s growing, right?”
Miguel patches him up one night and walks him home, just saying; “the kid will worry if you don’t come home, right?”
And, slowly, slowly…
Ibuki has friends.
Maybe even family…?
By the time Louis is thirteen they’ve fallen into a routine.
This evening Ibuki comes home, close to four am, dragging his butt through the door like a sack of potatoes on legs.
He doesn’t want to wake Louis up. He knows the kid has school tomorrow, but he has to turn the light on in the bathroom to grope for the first aid kit. It’s fairly well stocked but—
“Ugh….” Louis grumbles, pulling himself up on the futon and rubbing at his eyes. “You look like shit.”
“Tell me about it.” Ibuki chuckles breathlessly.
Louis sniffs the air.
“Did you get hurt?” He demands, kicking back the blankets violently.
“Just a scratch kiddo,” Ibuki promises.
“Bullshit!” Louis huffs. “Go sit on the couch! Go!”
“I’m fine—”
“Go!” Louis stamps his foot.
Ibuki groans and hauls himself back to his feet.
Louis gets the first aid kit and once Ibuki has his shirt pulled up the teen starts dabbing at his almost-stab wound with the antiseptic. He’s practiced with this. Ibuki has had to teach Louis to stitch him up basically out of necessity. Sabu even gave Louis a few pointers.
“You get your homework done?” Ibuki murmurs conversationally.
“Agata helped when he came over to check on me for dinner.” Louis reveals.
When did raising Louis turn into a group operation…?
Ibuki can’t recall the exact day things changed but, he knows, those dumb lions love Louis just as much as he does at this point.
Louis leans down, pressing more antiseptic into the wound, and—
“Ouch!” Ibuki grunts.
Louis jerks his head back and—
“Shit!” Ibuki swears.
“Sorry, fuck,” Louis grumbles.
His first set of antlers have come in this year and he’s still very unaccustomed to them clunking on his head. He tends to bonk Ibuki without meaning too every day. Ibuki is used to it at this point, but he’s allowed to sulk a little.
Once Ibuki is bandaged his head is starting to clear a little.
“You should go lie down,” Louis orders.
“Oh yeah little Boss?” Ibuki sighs, watching the darkness shift through the window knowing it’ll be dawn soon.
“Yeah loser,” Louis teases.
“You okay?” Ibuki checks manhandling him into a hug.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Louis complains, squirming out of his arms. “Go lie down!”
Gangster or not Louis is still embarrassed by him sometimes.
Ibuki collapses on the futon, and they get a little bit longer before Louis has to get up for school. Ibuki is half awake, dozing, when Louis climbs up and washes himself in the bathroom. Louis is a very independent child.
By the time Louis is out Ibuki can hear Free letting himself into the apartment.
Louis and Free have breakfast together and then Free will walk Louis to school. It’s dangerous for him to walk out of the Market district alone so the guys take turns helping him get there and get home. Louis knows exactly where to wait for them and what to do if they don’t turn up. He’s a champion like that.
“Fucking delicious, little buddy!” Free assures as they eat in the next room.
A few years ago Louis got so sick of Ibuki’s cooking he sort of took over himself. Ibuki hates making Louis do more but the kid genuinely seems to enjoy it and he is an absolute natural at the whole thing. Ibuki has been cooking twice as long as Louis has been alive and the kid is already a way better cook than any of them.
“Got your bag, Boss?” Free checks, putting the dishes in the sink.
“One sec!” Louis scampers through the apartment.
Skittering into the bedroom Louis comes to crouch over the futon and, hunching over him, gives Ibuki a kiss to his cheekbone.
“Don’t die while I’m gone, okay?” He orders.
“I won’t,” Ibuki promises, “have a good day Kiddo.”
“Love you,” Louis slips up.
“Love you too,” Ibuki promises, rolling over stiffly to sleep off his ache.
The worst things come on suddenly.
Don’t they always…?
They’re drinking at the hideout when it starts. All nine of them and the Chief. Ibuki is making sure to keep the Chief well lubricated with drinks. He’s already beaten a hooker black and blue and while he’s too stuffed up with gout to really take on one of them in a fight he’s their boss and they have to respect him. He might not kill them with his bare hands anymore, but he’d give the order and all the soldiers would rise up under him.
Right…?
“How’s that kid you grabbed?” The Chief asks suddenly.
“Sorry Boss?” Ibuki hesitates.
“The Mimic.” He grunts.
“Louis!” Free supplies helpfully.
“Whatever.” The Chief snaps.
“He’s good Boss,” Ibuki answers.
He doesn’t want to linger on Louis.
Please don’t linger on Louis.
“How big is he now?” The Chief sips his drink.
“Thirteen Boss.”
“Seems I can’t take a piss without catching one of you fuckers talking about that kid,” the Chief grumbles. “He must be something. Think I saw fucking Dolph crooning over a school photo.”
“He’s a good kid, Boss,” Ibuki murmurs, “gonna be a killer one day.”
“Hmm…” The Chief tuts.
Ibuki keeps his mouth shut and, diligently, the other lions refuse to make eye contact.
“What’s all this then?” The Chief calls them on it. “You’re all so fucking dramatic. What are we? A day care? Kid’s practically an adult at that age. Doubt a Black Market baby needs you idiots coddling him.”
“Heh, yeah right Boss,” Ibuki chuckles weakly. “More whiskey? I know that first girl was a bitch, but we could probably pick up more hookers. Right Jinma?”
“Oh yeah!” Jinma nods quickly. “I can just call—”
“I want to meet him.” The Chief announces.
The lions freeze.
A split-second shiver hits the room like a pulse of electricity.
Dolph meets Ibuki’s gaze.
“I said,” the Chief hits his cane against the rugs, “I want to meet him.”
“Uh, of course Boss,” Ibuki concedes.
He can’t argue.
This is the Boss of the Shishigumi.
What can he do…?
Stall, part of him hisses, buy time.
If they can distract him the Chief will forget soon enough, probably by the time he’s hung over tomorrow. Ibuki doesn’t know what his plan is but it can’t be good. He doesn’t want Louis trapped in this world. He wants better for Louis.
He thinks, deep down, they all want better for Louis.
“I’ll pick him up Friday!” Free declares. “Ya know, cause, kid’s got to be asleep by now, right? It’s like a Tuesday or something. School nights—”
“You think I fucking care about school nights?” The Chief snaps.
They all fall very, very, quiet.
“Ibuki,” the Chief turns on him, “get the kid. Now.”
Ibuki hesitates, just a second too long, and—
The Chief cracks him across the face with his cane, sending his glasses sailing off his nose. Ibuki reels back, clutching his cheek, and takes a deep breath.
“Yeah Boss,” he stutters weakly.
“Dolph,” the Chief grunts, “Make sure Ibuki doesn’t get lost.”
Ibuki shuffles to his feet, shaking despite himself, and Agata scrambles, almost silently, to hand him his glasses. Ibuki pops them back on, one lens cracked, and hobbles towards the door stiffly. Dolph grunts, otherwise silent, and follows him out of the sanctum.
Dolph doesn’t say a word until they’re in the car.
Dolph isn’t a man of many words at the best of times.
“You need to go.” Dolph tells him softly, urgently. “You need to take Louis and leave town. Tonight. I can buy you an hour to disappear but—”
“Dolph if I do that, he’ll fucking kill you.” Ibuki hisses.
“If you don’t…” Dolph wavers.
Ibuki chews his lip.
There’s no clean way out.
He should’ve run when he had the chance.
Why was he stupid enough to think he could make this work?
“Fuck!” Ibuki hisses, hitting his forehead against the steering wheel of the still car.
Dolph stews beside him.
Ibuki takes a deep breath.
“I can’t let him hurt Louis,” he whispers fervently. “I can’t do it Dolph.”
Ibuki has done a lot of bad things, but this bad thing?
This is where he draws the line.
That kid loves him.
He just can’t--
“He won’t hurt Louis.” Dolph murmurs.
Ibuki glances.
“Get Louis.” Dolph decides levelly. “He won’t hurt him.”
“You don’t know that.” Ibuki hisses.
“I do,” Dolph swears; “because I won’t let him.”
Ibuki hesitates.
In that room, those lions…
He likes to think those guys are his friends. He’s thought of them more as his family these past few years than ever before. He likes to think they have his back. But they’re hard men and this is a brutal world. They want to survive. They’re out for themselves.
Faced with a choice like that, who would they choose?
The Chief?
Or Louis…?
Ibuki swallows but, slowly, sits up and twists they key in the ignition.
Louis looks so small in the Mansion. He’s confused. Who wouldn’t be? It’s almost two am and his old man just woke him up from a dead sleep to drag him into the deepest recesses of the Market. He’s in a pair of ratty jeans and a t-shirt, a pair of shoes slipped on his feet hastily without any socks.
He looks so small.
Is he afraid?
Ibuki can’t ask.
And Louis hasn’t asked what’s going on yet.
Does he think Ibuki has sold him out?
Ibuki fights the flashbacks hitting his mind. His own stinking Mum dumping him at that hyper drug clinic all those years ago, Louis’s Mum selling him, every day thinking someone was going to cut him up, all those day Louis thought someone was going to eat him…
They’re the same, Ibuki and Louis, and Ibuki knows, without a doubt, that he’ll die for Louis if he has too. But will it help? Will Louis die either way? Scared and bloody? He doesn’t deserve this. He’s so much better than this. He’s so smart, so fucking smart…
Ibuki pushes him into the sanctum, one hand steadying his shoulder.
“Well, well, well! There we go!” The Chief laughs drunkenly. “Our guest of honour at long last!”
He’s so belligerent when he’s drunk.
Is he really such a narcissistic asshole he can’t let them have one good thing? One small thing? Is he really so petty he’s jealous of the attention they pay a fucking child?
Ibuki feels the panic, the fear, all coalesce against the bitter rage inside him.
“Louis, right?” The Chief grunts, hitting his cane against the rug again.
Louis nods once, curtly.
“You don’t got any words kid?” The Chief slurs sharply.
“Yes Sir.” Louis grits out carefully.
“Comere kiddo,” the Chief pats beside him warmly, impatiently.
Louis glances, out of the corner of his eye, up to Ibuki.
“Fucking come here!” The Chief booms.
Louis moves, carefully, out from under Ibuki’s limp hand and cross the rug.
He stands, pointedly still, before the Chief.
He might be a Mimic but compared to an adult lion? Louis is so painfully small.
“You know—” The Chief grabs Louis’s antlers, yanking his head one way to get a better look at him. “—all these idiots like to make a big fuss over you.”
Louis takes a sharp breath but doesn’t yelp.
He just locks eyes with the Chief and doesn’t move.
Ibuki swallows.
The other lions, all around them, are tense.
They keep pretending to drink, to look at the walls, but they’re all watching intently and none of them have the guts to pretend at conversation.
Is he going to make an example of Louis…?
Remind them who’s Boss?
‘The Lord Giveth, and the Lord Taketh Away’
“That’s right,” the Chief appraises, taking note of how Louis never breaks eye contact. “You’re a Mimic, aren’t ya kid? Most herbivores hate looking other animals in the eye. But you’re not a herbivore.”
Louis is very still.
Watching.
Ibuki can’t see his eyes, but he can read the tension in the sternness of Louis’s baby shoulders.
“You know I’ve always wondered what Mimic tastes like,” the Chief rumbles, looking him dead in the eye. “What do you think you taste like, kid? Has it ever occurred to you?”
Ibuki can hear every beat of his heart in his chest.
The beats pound like a countdown in his ear.
“Cause, you know,” the Chief snickers, “I think taking a bite out of you would remind these fucking idiots exactly what kind of operation I’m running here!”
Ibuki can’t help it.
He moves, jerking forward---
Several things happen in that exact second.
The Chief looks up, ready to chastise Ibuki, but in that motion he breaks eye contact with Louis.
That’s a mistake.
Because Louis, rather than yank back and away like a scared herbivore, lunges in for the kill like the ambush predator he is.
Ibuki’s words hiccup in his throat, breaking, as Louis digs his fangs into the Chief’s jugular. The Chief panics, wheezing for the last second he can breathe, and shoving tries to force Louis off him.
He’s big enough that he does succeed in shoving Louis back onto the floor. But Louis doesn’t let go. His jaw stays lodged so tightly that all the shove does is ensure Louis falls back ripping the Chief’s jugular out with him.
The Chief garbles, grasping his gushing throat, and tries vainly to stop the blood.
He’s trying to talk still, eyes wild.
He fumbles, he gestures—
Ibuki takes three big steps forward, cocks his gun and fires.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He just blows the fucker’s brains out over the back of the couch.
Awful silence follows.
No one moves.
Ibuki wonders, for a painful second, what comes next?
He lowers his gun by his side and turns to the faces of lions he’s long since considered friends.
“If you want to shoot me next—” He starts, big speech all swelling up in his mouth—
“Don’t be fucking stupid.” Free snaps.
Ibuki freezes.
“Asshole had it coming.” Sabu growls lowly.
Ibuki pivots, suddenly, at abrupt movement but finds only Agata on his knees.
“Are you okay Louis?” the youngest lion asks, offering his handkerchief.
“He’s a fucking badass is what he is,” Dolph declares, hands finding his hips.
Ibuki sags, overwhelmed.
No one’s hurting Louis tonight.
No one’s hurting him tonight.
For the record; Louis spits the skin flap out.
Apparently the old bastard didn’t even have the decency to taste good.
They make a decision in that room, Ibuki hugging Louis desperately, that they’re just going to run with it. Ibuki is the new Boss, from now on, and anyone who doesn’t like it can answer to the nine of them respectively.
No one does mind, actually.
Chief wasn’t all that popular.
Turns out a lot more people like and respect Ibuki than ever felt any sort of intangible loyalty to the Chief. Some of the guys, upon hearing the news, just shrug and nod as if that sounds perfectly mundane. Like it was bound to happen eventually. The rest of the guys genuinely want to celebrate their new boss and, too shaken to argue, Ibuki directs them to get drunk downstairs if only so he can have some privacy.
“I’m sorry,” Ibuki tells Louis, holding him irritatingly close. “You must’ve been so fucking scared…”
“Nah,” Louis declares.
Ibuki meets his gaze, baffled.
“I knew you’d never let anything bad happen to me.” Louis replies, with such confidence, such certainty that—
“Hey!” Louis barks at him. “Don’t cry you big idiot!”
Ibuki just gathers him closer.