"Michiru..." Shirou put his new collar back inside its box and set it aside, squatting down beside her and placing a gloved hand on her arm to still its motions.
Startled, she stopped and shot a look at his hand on her arm before looking him in the eyes. He looked back at her with an unreadable expression, jerking his hand away.
"Why are you up so late tonight? I wasn't sure I would find you awake but something told me you were troubled." His strange eyes followed hers as she lowered her gaze to the floor and scooted away from him, leaning her back against the seat of the sofa. She didn't meet his gaze but, instead, turned on her phone and clicked through a few windows as he watched her, sitting on the floor.
"Look." She brought her phone close to his face, leaning near him. She showed him a picture of what looked like her parents and her huddled together in a cozy embrace, posing with frozen smiles against a wintry background. All of them seemingly human.
"I saw my parents when I visited with Nazuna. It was nice..." her thoughts hung in the air, unspoken. Shirou continued to observe the hesitant tanuki, as she struggled to clarify her intent. She sighed, shaking her head with a small smile.
"There's just no two ways about it. Life is so different now. Much more so than I could've ever imagined. I guess sometimes I need to take time and sort it out. I need to remind myself that this change doesn't have to be hard..." she tucked away her phone before her gaze flicked to the wolf beastman disguised as a human and gave him a smile, "... and remind myself of how lucky I am to be where I am, by the grace of others."
His sharp but wary gaze met hers and something sparked between them at that moment that sent tingles radiating from the tips of their extremities towards their erratically beating hearts.
Shirou took an uneven breath, silencing a gasp. What was wrong with him? He felt nervous and confused by impulses to... embrace the tanuki girl. To soothe her and ease her loneliness, as well as his own.
He felt slightly constricted around his torso and neck. Dazedly staring into Michiru's eyes, he suddenly saw himself reflected in her teal pools, his wolf beastman form blinking back at him.
Embarrassed, Shirou's expression blackened and he began to take off his coat, trying to distract from his sudden change in appearance. He had no idea what had come over him and was already avoiding Michiru's stare while hanging his coat on the door.
He usually didn't care what people thought of him but Michiru wasn't like everyone else. There was no one like her in the world, he was absolutely sure.
Michiru, however was on a completely different wavelength at the moment of Shirou's change. Dazzled by the sudden appearance of his large wolf beastman figure, she remembered his howl: the howl that saved Anima City.
Warmth sprang from her chest and her eyes felt a little sharp with emotion as memories of Shirou's Ginrou form flashed in her mind while she looked at him; a real-life superman. There was no one else like him in the entire world, she was certain.
She blinked and looked away, happy that Shirou didn't seem to notice her awkward behavior, and settled in place as he stiffly hung his coat and returned to play another round of checkers.
"Would you like to go first this time?" Shirou asked gruffly, settling on the floor, across from the tanuki.
"No. You won. You get to go first," Michiru grudgingly replied.
"You go ahead. Since I won, I say who goes first. You go first," he sent her a challenging look.
She glared back at him, "That's not how it works..." but relented when he crossed his arms, muscles flexing threateningly, and rolled her large eyes at him.
"Fine," She huffed, and went for a piece after a moment of contemplation.
Shirou watched her make a move before deciding to speak.
"My decision to protect beastmen for eternity was similarly a fate I could've never imagined for myself prior to my rebirth," he paused, a gentle expression softening the points of his fangs and the hard angles of his masculine, primal features, "but the loneliness of a thousand years can be harrowing without the help and support of others." His eyes were looking into the past, ripping through dimensions and exposing grief and trauma within their now-icy depths.
Michiru could only gape at the brooding wolf. He hardly shared anything from his past, he barely admitted his feelings, and suddenly he was doing both?!