tears of the wolf (original version)
chapter 7
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Chapter 6: Truth –
Things have a way of circling back and connecting on you.
“It’s a Small World After All” isn’t just a cheerfully annoying tune after all.
Okami always had the nagging suspicion that
pried. Toura always steered away from discussing his
past, which bothered Okami to no end. All he knew
about his new friend was that he was very, very
old and that he had been hurt very badly by someone when he had been human.
But, nothing lasts forever.
Okami had never seen
morning, wearing only a pair of jeans. His first though was that
“’hayo,” Toura
murmured drowsily. Toura was not a morning person. He
was not grumpy like most people, his brain just failed to engage until 11:30.
Then, Toura turned to open their bedroom door and
The worst were five long, jagged scars scraped across his
back from his right shoulder, trailing down into his jeans.
large, furious claws…
lightly ran his finger against one of the deep scars. Toura
shivered and turned to look at him.
“Wha-,” Okami
slammed him against the wall.
“You knew... you knew who it was!” Toura
growled at him and shoved him away. Okami hit the
wall hard and slid down to the floor in a heap.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Okami stared at
him in shock. Toura sunk to the floor, wrapping his
arms around his bare upper body.
“Just… don’t touch me…,” the wolf trembled.
“Toura?”
Okami reached out to him, but Toura
didn’t respond.
As Okami walked past him,
wall, his arms around himself and his forehead rested against his knees, his
silken locks fell around him like a snowy waterfall.
A soft, light weight settled on Toura’s
head.
“Here,” Okami murmured.
on the shirt.
“T… thank you.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to
explode like that.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Toura
murmured, “besides, a few weeks ago, you would have done worse.”
“Tell me?” Toura tried to smile,
but failed miserably.
“Alright, but I have two conditions,” Okami
nodded, willing to agree to anything to get this story out of
Suddenly, Okami realized
something. Needing to hear the truth had ceased to be about his need for
revenge and had become his need to know what had caused his only friend, his
best friend, so much pain.
“Make some yakiniku[1] and meet me
out by the hill out back.”
Okami watched Toura
on top of the hill, staring off into the distance.
“What do you see?” Toura smiled,
eyes still fixed on the slowly darkening horizon.
“All of the things I could have done differently.”
“Here.” Toura sniffed at it and
grinned.
“Teriyaki! You know me well!”
chicken with gusto. Okami smirked watching him eat.
“Try not to choke.” Toura stuck
his tongue out at him, then kept on eating.
age so often that times like these where Toura acted
how he looked were really precious. Finally, Toura
was done. With a defeated sigh, he put down the tray and chopsticks.
“It was good,” he murmured.
“Thanks,” Toura hugged his knees
to his chest. It struck Okami hard, watching him,
just how beautiful Toura was. That beauty made the
posture all that more devastating.
“His name is Sen. He’s older than me, how old, I’m not
sure, but I met him while I was still human.” Okami
took a deep breath. So, the murderer’s name was Sen. Okami
knew he should have felt anger, but he actually felt oddly numb.
“Sen, he’s the
one who… changed you?”
“Yeah,” Toura sighed, “it was… a
very long time ago, but I’ll never forget it.”
“Just… how does one become a werewolf?”
“Lycanthrope is passed kind of like rabies. Except, a
scratch isn’t enough, it has to be a bite.” Toura
moved his hair away from his shoulder. Okami hissed
in sympathy as he saw the wound. It looked like someone had slammed twin
railroad spikes into his shoulder. The punctures themselves looked horribly
flesh and capable of bleeding at any moment. The skin around the wound of about
3-4 inches was dark and shocking against his pale skin,
the flesh looked decayed and thickly scarred, as though he had tried to slice off
the wound with a razor and failed miserably.
“Shit! Doesn’t that hurt?!” Toura
nodded.
“Like hell. But the worst of it isn’t the bite itself, it’s
the disease.” Toura moved his hair back over his
shoulder.
“It feels like liquid fire-razors running under your skin.
Everything burns.” Toura found himself being wrapped
in Okami’s arms. Toura
leaned against his chest, soothed by the human’s heartbeat. Okami’s
hands seemed to move on their own, stroking Toura’s
hair gently.
“Why did they scar? Your burns and gunshot wounds didn’t…”
“Mating scars… never quite go away.” Okami
looked down, startled. Toura’s pale cheeks were wet
with silent tears.
“What? He… you…. he was your…”
‘No! That murdering bastard couldn’t possibly have been
“No,” Toura clutched at
involved Sen.” Okami’s grip on him tightened.
“Toura… god,
no.”
“Yes,” he murmured, heartbroken.
“And you’ve had to live with that for all this time?!”
hard and fast in his chest. He didn’t want to believe it, but he could.
Somehow, it fit that that monster that had brutally murdered his parents and
sister would stoop so low.
“He was looking for a suitable mate. He found me. He
slammed me against a wall and sank his fangs into my shoulder, then his hands
were over and,” Toura trembled, lost in memory.
“Stop it!” Okami cried at him.
“He raped me, over and over, until my body was in so much
pain, I couldn’t tell when the pain stopped and when it began. And I couldn’t
do anything, I couldn’t even scream!” He laughed bitterly.
“And that morning… he was sleeping so soundly. I managed to
escape. I should’ve bled to death… there was so much blood… I didn’t think I
had that much blood! But… I didn’t know… I couldn’t
die because… I wasn’t human anymore!
And he followed me! That bastard followed me, has been following me for all
these years! I can feel him, even now, stalking me! I can feel him in the back
of my mind… he never leaves me alone!” Okmai buried
his nose in Toura’s hair, holding him tight until the
sobs finally died away.
End Chapter Six
Wow, that was way more
intense to write than I thought it would be. I’m actually kind of scared to
write the rape scene.