• A.K.A Wolf act V- Stubborn.




    {The next morning, end of Zero’s Point of View}

    As I awoke from my, hopeful, deep sleep, Zero was frantically trying to get everybody up and running again. I mumbled drowsily, “Shut it, Zero. Can’t we start when the sun is up?” Zero ignored me and kept ushering Hotaka and Sparks to get moving.

    “Did you hear me Zero?” I asked more annoyed this time.

    “Let’s go! Come on! We have to go now!” Zero ordered as he picked me off of my side. I instinctively changed into my wolf form and glared at Zero with daggers.

    “I’ll explain later but for right now, we have to get moving!” Zero shouted as he began to run north. As the alpha of the pack, Zero had a right to boss around all the time, but damn it was getting annoying.

    Something was wrong, Zero refused bathroom, eating, and resting breaks almost every time one of us asked. And his pace of running never slowed down, not once. His breath was also shaky and troubled…it worried me, greatly.

    /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    The night, everyone was so incredibly exhausted, that we didn’t even bother to set up shelter. You slept wherever the ground was softest. But, for some weird reason, I didn’t go right to sleep, and Zero seemed as though he had no intention of sleeping anytime soon. The silence was too awkward and scary I spoke up.

    “Is everything alright, Zero?” I said quietly. He turned his head towards me but didn’t look directly at me.

    “I don’t have a problem,” he murmured.

    I couldn’t help but scoff, I knew he was lying. I’ve known him too well and I knew when something was bugging him. And, I just felt the need to know what was wrong.

    “Yes, you do,” I said confidently.

    “No…I don’t!” Zero snipped. I grabbed his hand, almost by accident, and looked in the face; he didn’t return the favor.

    “Tell me what’s wrong Zero!” I ordered. In a flash, Zero turned around, grabbed both of my writs, one in each hand, and pinned me o the ground with him leaning over me.

    “I just can’t bear the fact that I couldn’t protect you,” he said with no emotion. He was always a bad liar. I stared at him with an unbelieving face.

    “That’s nice, now tell me what’s really the matter,” I said bluntly. Zero let go of my wrists and let me up. He sat down, his back sadly turned away from me.

    “He’s coming for us,” Zero mumbled quietly.

    “Who?” I asked as I sat next to him. Zero seemed to be in pain as he muttered his next words, “Surt-Lim. He-he’s chasing after us.”

    Shock and terror overthrew, rage closely following it. He didn’t even tell us! How could he!? After all of the promises we made each other when we were little! That…jerk! I stood up, raised my hand, and landed a good smack on Zero’s left cheek. He was just as shocked as I was that I actually followed through with the hit. It felt so good though. After a few moments, post-hit, my terror came back. The wolf who killed all of my family was chasing us, no doubt gong to do the same, if not worse, to us. It was almost painful to keep the tears away, so I fell to my knees and fell into a deep hug with Zero. Sobs fell from my mouth, tears never showed though. I could feel his body stiffen up under mine, it was so weird how he became so nervous every time I hugged him.

    “I’m sorry, Yukiru,” Zero whispered, “Everything is going to be ok though, I promise.”

    I lifted my head up to see Zero folding out his pinky; I twirled my pinky around his. Our promises that we never broke were always made when we twisted our tails together as pups…I like fingers better.

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    “I need to practice,” I said as the scared emotions passed.

    “Huh?” Zero returned.

    “My aim, I need to be able to shoot if I have any hopes of defeating Surt-Lim, right?” I hinted with a cocky smile, Zero nodded vaguely. I stood up, took my beautiful gun out of Zero’s pack with the box of bullets and walked back over to Zero.

    “Teach me,” I said holding out my killing equipment. Zero let out a quiet laugh, “You don’t need a gun to make people’s head explode, you just have to look at them.” He immediately started laughing…so I clunked him on the head with the heel of my gun.

    “Ok, ok, I’ll show you how to use the stupid gun,” Zero said as he snatched the gun out of my hand and walked down into deeper parts of the woods that encased us. I didn’t follow him immediately and apparently, it was annoying Zero enough to yell at me to hurry up and follow him…jerk.

    When Zero finally stopped, he faced a large, enormous tree with branches that look like they could snatch you up and rip your arms and legs off…sweet. Zero threw me my gun and I caught it like it was a newborn, walked behind one of the low branches and pulled it back like some demented sling shot.

    “What are we doing with that?” I asked with one raised eyebrow.

    “Training,” Zero said with a crooked smile, “See, what I do is; pull the branch back and you have to shoot it before it hits you in the gut.”

    “Nice, sounds fun,” I said in a sarcastic tone as I tried to put the bullets inside of my gun. Which was done in a pathetic fashion, dropping as many as 5 bullets at a time. Zero gave an annoyed scoff, “Wrong, all wrong.” Zero walked behind me and placed his hands on the gun, over mine. My face grew strangely warm and my heartbeat transformed into a beat that Zero could probably hear. His hands were rugged, covered in calices and bruises, but looked so smooth. His head was next to mine as he peered closer to the gun we were holding. His breath made my hair sway and my stomach feel fluttery. His arms were on either side of mine, practically an embrace, but he was just fixing the gun…right? I didn’t want him to stop. Why?


    “There, all fixed,” he said in a satisfying way. I snapped out of my Zero-induced trance and thanked him shakily. So that I wouldn’t shoot him, Zero made a simple rig so that when ever he would pull a certain vine, the branch would snap forward for me to strike with one bullet. That is not what happened. I shot at everything but the stupid branch! The tree looked like some decaying piece of Swiss cheese after about an hour. I could tell Zero was growing impatient.

    “All right, Yukiru, If you don’t get this last one, We’re goin’ back, the others will be up soon,” Zero said folding his arms.

    “But…fine,” I said with my figurative tail between my legs. As Zero stretched back the branch one last time and let it loose with one tug, I shot too soon. And instead of dodging the branch like I have been, it hit me directly in the diaphragm, knocking all of my lungs air out of me. I tumbled back and Zero caught me just in time, he helped me up and accidentally forced me to look him in his beautiful eyes…wait, beautiful? My face grew warmer than it did before because Zero would let his hands fall from my waist.

    He let out a small chuckle, “You shot too soon, KiKi,” he said with a smile I hadn’t seen for so long, I melted. “Yeah…sorry,” I said breathlessly. Zero grew a little pink in the cheeks as we stared at each other.

    Zero finally broke the silence, “Yukiru? I, uhm, I love-“

    “HEY! ZERO! YUKIRU! LET’S GET GOING!” Hotaka called from the top of the hill where we “slept”.

    “Be right there!” Zero hollered back, then he sighed and looked back at me with some slight sadness in his eyes, “C’mon KiKi, we better get going,” he said softly walking up the hill. I quickly followed in silence. Was Zero about to confess to me?! He was! Oh, God, I don’t feel the same about him though…I think.

    End of Act V