Korū had exactly half an hour of sleep. One would think with how tired he was, he'd finally be able to sleep, but no life is cruel.
"Morning." Cayne told him after he woke up again.
"Mh." He rolled over, burying his face in the pillow.
"I don't know what we're doing next." Alina muttered to Linda in another room.
"It's too early to think." She said back. "What do you think the others are doing?"
Well, Hikari had invaded Shōhei's room because Ichika was getting on her nerves, and Shōhei ended up on the couch because he's a noble person.
Shōhei gave up and left Hikari alone in the room, going to Korū's room instead of the couch. He flopped onto the foot of Korū's bed and nearly got kicked off when Korū rolled over to glance at him.
"Korū and Cayne are probably chilling in their rooms. Shōhei probably got kicked out by Hikari." Alina predicted accurately, yawning.
Cayne just lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about how Korū dumped Tsukiyama out of the window.
"Oi, whatcha thinking about?" Korū asked, sensing the tension rolling off his mate. Shōhei was asleep again.
"Just now."
"What about just now?"
Cayne turned his head to look at him and faked a grin. To hide his discomfort, "Throwing a dead body out of the window is pretty memorable."
"Really?" Korū stared up at the ceiling and smirked. To hide the pain. "I've done that too many damn times."
Cayne looked back at the ceiling, his smile fading. "I guess I don't know what to think."
"With that pack I grew up with, you can't expect my hands to be clean." Korū blinked slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on the ceiling. "We're literally taught to kill the moment we muster self-defense. Every Eta has had to kill someone at least once in their lives."
"You guys are pretty secluded from everyone else, huh?" Cayne said. "Sounds like a kind of mafia or something, where it's normal for killings to go unreported."
"They were reported. To other packs," he responded. "Those idiots keep trying to take our territory."
Cayne tried to shake his head, but it ended up more like rubbing the back of his head against the bed, so he stopped, "Well, I mean more like to authorities like the local government or the Council."
"We try to turn a blind eye to such incidents. Not because they are right, but because they are basically habits which are really hard to change. We don't generally come after people with a pitchfork because there're incidents out there with a larger impact on a larger community. Like I'm pretty sure I said before, the Council is pretty new, and they're not just trying to look after a country, but an entire world and some more. It's impossible to go after everyone, as much as we would like to."
A disdainful scoff sounded from the speaker, punctuating her own words.
"Anyway, no matter how wrong, most cases of assault are understandable due to the generally more aggressive nature of us shifters. The other supernaturals aren't angels exactly either, so we're in a pretty awkward position with more cases than we can handle. Our crime rate is actually really fucking high. It has been an ongoing debate as to whether to set up individual groups of supernaturals to govern smaller sections of the inner world and those living on Earth, but corruption is obviously still a problem we are trying to settle."
Alina said from the door, leaning against its frame with her arms crossed, her legs also overlapping at the ankle. She had an unreadable expression on her face as she stared at nothing in particular, before meeting Korū's gaze as she finished, with steely eyes of her own.
Korū didn't register anything Alina said, considering how tired he was, and he just flung one of the spare pillows at her for trying to make him see sense in the world. Alina rolled her eyes as she caught the pillow, hugging it to herself.
Korū prodded Shōhei, who just mumbled something and turned over sleepily.
"So what are you doing now?" Linda appeared at the door, a cup in hand.
"Getting more coffee." Korū answered in a slightly clipped manner and dragged himself off the bed, stuffing a pillow under Shōhei's head. He wasn't in the mood for anything else. Alina watched him with a clenched jaw.
She and Linda, who had been standing outside, made their way into the room as Korū passed them by and sat themselves down on the floor. "Where's Hikari?" Linda asked, giving the rest of the room a swift glance.
Only Shōhei knew but he, too, was exhausted.
"Let's just assume she's alive." Cayne muttered. "What are you doing here?" He asked Shōhei curiously.
"Eh." Cayne grunted when he received light snores in reply.
"Hikari is in Shōhei's room," Korū said, entering with four cups of coffee that he somehow managed not to spill.
"So Hikari is still sleeping, then?" Linda said.
"Yeah." He placed the coffee on the bedside table, taking one cup for himself.
"Are you drinking all those?" Alina asked, eyeing the cups on the table.
"I will if no one wants to." He was going to get more, so it didn't really matter.
"I'll just steal one then."
"Mh."
"Has anyone else died?" Rihito asked, sticking his head round the wall of the doorway. His eyes lingered a little on Alina, who looked back at him coolly.
"Why the fuck is everyone in this place?" Korū demanded.
"Because the majority of you are in here." Rihito replied.
"Then why are you two here?" Korū asked Alina and Linda.
"Because the majority of you are in here." Linda said.
"...No shit."
Hikari wandered into the room. "Hey."
"Yo." Alina said, waving her coffee free hand in an attempt to loosen herself up.
Hikari sat down on the bed beside Korū and stole some of his coffee. "So, what're we gonna do now?"
"No idea." Alina muttered. "Let me finish the coffee first before I think."
Shōhei woke up, eyed Hikari somewhat accusingly, as if asking her why the heck she would, seemingly unwittingly, kick him out of his room, before taking one of the two remaining cups of coffee.