Chapter Text
Samatoki wakes up to his phone pinging off nonstop.
It’s vibrating with messages and calls to hell and back, and it’s only–
“Ten AM? Who the fuck…” He blindly searches for his phone stuffed under his pillow, staving off a coming headache. He doesn’t remember drinking that much to warrant a hangover. Maybe these messages will shed some light on–
“What the fuck.”
Nope. Whatever hopes he has are dashed out the window. His phone is filled with honest to god literal gibberish. Yesterday night around eleven PM are the last series of coherent messages in the MTC groupchat, and it’s from Samatoki himself. If you could call it that:
Samatoki Aohitsugi:
[11:05PM] yo drinkin party at my place tonite, i scored the good shit. even jyuto cant turn up his prissy ass nose
[11:16PM] ok bitches guess ill drink this myself
[11:58PM] fuck i aint even drunk come ON yall come thru
[12:18PM] u guys r so meen to me
[12:19PM] </3
And right now, it’s all…
Busujima Mason Riou:
[6:45AM] ewjhatsa oius hgdsopopirenjewrfsd. Rewewrqwuyiiewsstrinfhg asdasdiuoasdasdtasdnmcxewr/.
[7:30AM] .-. . --.- ..- . ... - .. -. --. / .- ... ... .. ... - .- -. -.-. .
[8:19AM] .--. .-.. . .- ... . / .... . .-.. .--.
[9:10AM] .... . .-.. .--.
[8:21AM] ... --- ...
Jyuto Iruma:
[10:05AM] frihstihto poiofd asdllkjl; gfduivcxxlk uytokiiuyu asdmasdteroijki
[10:11AM] fsduyivcxhjb yuoiuoiuuyu
[10:16AM] fsdssfduyicvxljk
[10:20AM] hjgewrljlkop
His headache builds. He is not awake enough to interpret this shit. And that’s not even looking at the other shit Riou sent. Are those a bunch of dots and dashes? Why is he typing so many dots and dashes? And why does it say Riou is typing… for a whole fucking hour?
Samatoki sends off a message: “are yall drunk?” Then in a fit of jealousy follows it up with “WITHOUT ME?” and throws his phone across the other side of the room. He flops onto his bed and plans Jyuto’s demise because it was probably his plan in the beginning and also Riou can do no wrong.
But first, he needs a nap.
______
When Riou awakes, it is at his usual time – but not in his usual body.
Riou immediately knows this. He knows he has awoken from inside his tent, and so he does not panic when his eyes open and there is still pitch black darkness. His arms feel… indisposed, so he noses his way out of the fabric and towards sunlight.
He is not expecting the cloth he comes out of to be his sleeping bag. And he does not expect the inside of his tent to be twenty times the size of him.
"Interesting," he says. Or tries to say – but all that comes out of his mouth is a cheep.
Riou looks down. At his tiny bird body. At his tiny bird feet. He flaps his tiny bird wings and takes a tiny bird hop forward. He loses his balance and tips over, landing on his tiny bird face.
Riou hops back up with a huff. He can't remember the last time he tripped on his own two feet! Something is seriously wrong with this situation. Spotting his phone, he steels himself and marches to it.
Putting one stick-like foot in front of the other is harder than he thought it'd be, but at least he's not falling anymore. Until he reaches his phone and pulls up his home screen.
…
He should have never accepted Samatoki's insistent gift of a smartphone with touch screen technology. Its surface is more slippery than the icy slopes of Greenland he and his troop had to survive in for extreme climate training.
There is no passcode he set – smartphones have pitifully weak security systems, he had scoffed, and he doesn't store sensitive information on it anyway – so it opens easily at his feather-light touch. Even selecting an app can be done, though it's hard to aim his claws on the admittedly large icons.
He reaches his contacts and luckily does not have to scroll at all, since Samatoki and Jyuto are his two only contacts. With a final resounding tap, Riou waits for it to ring.
Ah, right, Riou realizes. By the fourth redial he thinks of two things: one, it is almost seven AM and Samatoki is most definitely not awake. And two, even if he does pick up – how is he going to explain this whole animal transformation issue? He cannot produce words.
Well, if he cannot produce words with his bird tongue, Riou decides, flexing his strange feet, then he'll have to produce them with his claws. Hanging up the call, Riou goes back to the home screen and taps on the Messaging app. He types out his message to the MTC groupchat: something has happened. Requesting assistance.
It comes out incomprehensible. Currently, his feet are less like the ones able to clear the tire drill in basic training in the fastest recorded time, and more like the feet which stumbled over his dance partner’s in middle school square dancing. He ends up in a split, fluffy bird booty landing on the cold surface of the phone.
With a chirpy huff, Riou pulls himself up and reassesses the situation. Intelligent beady eyes scan the keyboard, coming across two certain symbols. Aha!
It takes him even longer to craft this message, but once it's done he's sure of it: his teammates will know exactly what he is trying to convey. After all, who doesn't know morse code?
Riou uses his beak to peck his way through endless combinations of dots and dashes, and nearly an hour later he is heaving huge bird breaths of success. Samatoki and Jyuto will be instantly informed of the situation. All he has to do is wait.
…
…
…
Hm. Samatoki he can understand, but Jyuto should have responded by now. He will send another message: please help.
Negative. Help, he shortens.
Also negative. SOS, he tries.
…
…
…
…This is taking too long. Perhaps he needs to take matters into his own hands. He is fully prepared to march his three inch self to Yokohama.
He hops out of his tent and is immediately gusted by a buffeting wind on his round sparrow body. He instinctively spreads his wings and–
Ah. This he understands.
With the confidence of a human who has unflinchingly jumped out of a plane thirty thousand feet in the air, Riou the bird takes flight and makes his way to Yokohama.
______
Jyuto's phone is ringing.
Jyuto's phone is ringing and there's not a thing he can do to reach it. Why?
Because when Jyuto woke up his body was replaced with that of a bunny. And isn't that just the greatest reason to tell your boss why you can't come to work today.
If only he could reach the damn thing. The bedside table isn't far, but again, he is a fucking bunny and doesn't want to place his trust in his absurdly powerful springboard legs. The bed is currently his safe haven, and he has tossed his pillows and comforter onto the floor just in case he has to venture his way down. Still, it's hard to feel comfortable when the distance between the floor and the bed is suddenly as daunting as jumping off a mountaintop.
But he has to try, or else it’ll be his boss who’ll have something incriminating over Jyuto’s head and Jyuto would rather die than be paraded around as the precinct’s pet bunny.
He does a few experimental jumps while on the safety of his soft bed and, when he feels like he’s estimated the correct amount of power, leaps.
Jyuto is elated when all four of his paws make contact with the bedside table – and then, as with all things that happens when he is nearly successful, at the last second one of his fuzzy feet slips. A frenzied squeak escapes his bunny mouth, and his inner hind leg bumps hard into the wooden edge. It elicits another pained squeak from him, but he powers through and gets all four feet on the table. Phew. His heart is racing, well, faster than a rabbit’s. He gives himself a moment to calm down before tackling the next obstacle.
The phone is easier than expected to manipulate, with the touchscreen being surprisingly responsive to his warm paws. It’d be easier if his nails didn’t clack against the screen… Right. Calling out for work.
His paw hovers over the call button. He attempts to speak. An adorably cute sound comes out of his mouth. Okay then. No calling. As much as it pains him to do so, he needs to ask for help. The only one he can think of who wouldn’t ask questions is Riou. Bless the immovable man. So he goes into the MTC groupchat and attempts to type out a message. But first he needs to say fuck you to Samatoki’s earlier messages.
…Well that didn’t work out very well. It turns out paws are bigger than human fingers, and coordinating to hit one key presses several at the same time.
Letting out a peep of frustration (Jyuto’s traitorous heart squeezes in the sheer cuteness of how it sounds) he continues to curse Samatoki out because this must be his fault for some reason. He’s sure that the sight of him, a gray bunny with ears that flop in front of his face like two ponytails using all of his bunny might to attack his phone with furious squeaks and meeps, is one he is sorely missing out on and fuck him he’s imagining how cute it is and how he wishes he could film himself and by god that’s getting him even madder he is having a crisis–
"Jyutooooo," a familiar voice echoes from his apartment's entrance.
______
So much for that nap. Those cryptic-ass messages from his teammates keep Samatoki's mind occupied. Five minutes of tossing and turning is all he lasts, and he quickly jumps out of bed and out the door to Jyuto's.
Maybe he's sick . He bites down on his freshly-lit cigarette. Maybe he knocked his head good on a door handle and is all loopy. He snorts to himself, but the worried thoughts continue to pile up despite his efforts. Maybe he's being held hostage and–
No, he chides himself. No fuckin' way. There's no way a person as strong and capable as Jyuto would be caught off-guard like that. His traitorous heart skips a beat. His feelings for Jyuto don't matter. He's just checking up on a friend who's acting like a weirdo.
Samatoki decides not to think too hard about it until he unlocks Jyuto's door with the spare key he was given (seriously, the trust that Jyuto places in him despite all his mean words has his heart being pulled in so many directions) and he bellows out a greeting: “hey bitch.”
Said bitch gives no response. Samatoki expects that. Usually he barges inside and spots Jyuto doing one of his weird hobbies, like scrolling through ArtTok, or yoga. There’s prime material to make fun of Jyuto when he’s off doing his pretentious shit on his phone, but Samatoki prefers looking at the yoga and all the stretching his surprisingly lithe body can do, sneaking in a peek of skin that has Samatoki drooling over what more he could see, if only he let him–
He shakes himself out of the daydream. That’ll never happen, not when Samatoki’s sure Jyuto can barely stand his annoying ass. He’ll just have to contain himself to sneakin’ around and poking at Jyuto’s vulnerable sides when he’s doing the Tree Pose or whatever. Plan and smirk set, Samatoki saunters inside–
“Is that a bunny wearin’ glasses?”
And is promptly sidelined when he comes across what could potentially be Jyuto’s deepest, darkest secret.
“Jyuto’s gonna flip when I tell him I found his pet bunny,” he cackles, whipping out his phone to take a million pictures.
The bunny doesn’t move. It stares back at him like a deer in headlights. Only when Samatoki starts to take a closer look does the bunny flinch. Its paw slips on the surface of the phone, squealing in pain.
“Shit,” he reacts before he can think, holding out hands to stabilize the bunny. “Is somethin’ wrong with ya, buddy?”
Realizing his large size might scare him, Samatoki kneels down to bring his head level to the bed, hands in full view as he slowly approaches to touch the animal. The gray fur is soft like a plush pelt, and while the yakuza doesn’t dare assume he has knowledge of animal behavior, the bunny seems to relax in his presence and warm hands. He chances for a gentle scratch on the bunny’s forehead and is rewarded with a cute as fuck nose nudge, as if it’s saying don’t stop petting.
“That’s the good shit yeah?” he murmurs. He’s suddenly very aware of the sweet atmosphere cultivated by this bunny’s fast acceptance of him. He even feels free to be cheeky, nipping cheekily with his fingers around the bunny’s face and ears, nearly giggling at the bashful sight.
“Damn. I got so caught up in ya that I almost forgot I’m lookin’ for your owner.” He lets his fingers drop, sighing. Even the bunny looks disappointed – before it shakes his head and long floppy ears and goes to tug Jyuto’s phone by its teeth to Samatoki.
“Hey little man don’t play with that.” Samatoki grimaces at the potential teeth marks and picks up the phone out of the bunny’s reach – and that’s when the bunny starts acting strange. “Little guy– whoa!”
Samatoki is very glad it’s just him alone in Jyuto’s apartment, otherwise someone might have the rare pleasure of seeing the yakuza lieutenant swaying back against the suddenly aggressive bunny climbing all over Samatoki’s chest, stretching up like it’s begging for a treat. Only the treat in this case is the phone Samatoki is holding aloft his head, trying to talk down the pushy bunny.
“Phones ain’t for bunnies!” He punctuates this with a tap on the nose. The bunny flinches but does not back down, responding with a furious meep. With a narrowing of its eyes, it shuffles its fluffy butt backwards in preparation for a running start.
Samatoki tries to hold in a laugh, he really does.
Three things happen simultaneously when he howls with laughter: one, a jarring litany of sharp taps on Jyuto’s window pierce the relative quiet. Two, the bunny, taking offense to Samatoki’s loud noises, unleashes all of its might to charge forward and shove the whole irritating human off the bed.
“OOF–”
Three, because of these two events happening at the same time Samatoki is too startled and becomes overpowered, landing on the floor with an uncomfortable sounding thud.
“Argh, my fucking head… You.”
The spasms pulsating his head are not enough for Samatoki to not glare up at the bunny looking down at him as if it's reenacting the Lion King.
“Rude ass bun– OW?”
To add insult to injury the bunny hops down and lands heavily on Samatoki’s chest. The incessant tapping starts up again.
Samatoki takes a moment to close his eyes, waits for the dizziness to go away, and none too gently chucks the bunny off his chest, ignoring the indignant squeak it gets him. “Where’s that fuckin’ tapping coming from,” he prioritizes, because starting a fight with a fluffy bunny is low even for him.
"The fuck.”
Having a staring contest with a sparrow is also a new low for him.
Samatoki blinks. The sparrow taps against the window with its beak. Samatoki is not one to ascribe human characteristics onto animals, but the message it’s sending is clear in its dark, insistent eyes: let me in.
The gall a fucking puny ass bird has… Samatoki has to respect it though. And he’s superstitious enough to take this as an omen and opens the window so that whenever karma hits him, it’ll remember this act of good will. The bird hops in like it owns the place, flying down to perch on Jyuto’s bedside table.
Well fuck. Now he’s a veritable Disney princess in an apartment that isn’t his own and he’s no closer to finding his teammates. “Fuck,” he says, with feeling this time, closing his eyes and falling back onto Jyuto’s bed, the weight of the situation finally dawning on him. He takes a deep breath; the sheets fill him with the same warmth he gets when he’s on the receiving end of Jyuto’s smarmy smile.
A warm lump clambers onto his chest, paws unsteady as curious whiskers tickle his face. He can feel rapid puffs of air wash his skin, and he can picture the rabbit’s little pouty mouth letting out concerned chitters.
“Heya rude ass bun,” Samatoki mumbles, a wistful smile tinging his lips. He brings up a hand to pet the loafed bunny on him. “Have you seen any other rude ass buns around ya? Gives the illusion of bein’ tall, wears glasses and red gloves all the damn time, is a huge fuckin’ nerd. Loves cheese. I know I know, I lost ya on that one didn’t I? You prolly like the green shit.”
Is it just him or is the bunny shaking its head no? “And there’s this powerhouse of a guy, you might know him, since he lives in the forest ‘n all. His name’s Riou, strongest man I know. Absolute unit, cooks so good you can't taste anythin’ wrong with his dishes, and a smile that’ll melt through anyone’s stubborn heart, hands down.”
The sparrow flies down from his perch. It secures its talons on Samatoki’s thin shirt but he’s too busy being sullen to care. “They haven’t even called me. Snubbed me, then went off to have their own lil’ party without me. All I got are y’all two… Not like y’all aren’t great guys. Er, animals.” He sighs. “I just miss those two.”
The two animals share a look between them. The bunny’s nose twitches a mile a minute before stopping outright, and the sparrow opens its beak once to let out a short but definitive chirp. Then the bunny hops off and starts thumping.
Samatoki raises an eyebrow, but waits patiently for it to stop. “You done throwin’ a fit?” he asks when he thinks it’s done – only for it to start up again.
“Are you seriously giving me the stinkeye,” Samatoki scoffs, about to turn his attention away, when the sparrow starts to chip in with tweets and cheeps of its own.
He sits up. “What’s gotten into y’all??”
This isn't how he imagined his morning would go. Hell, by all accounts he should still be asleep, not part of a bewildering animal duo–
"Hold up." The bunny's thumping is too rhythmic to be random. And the bird's tweeting, it almost sounds like it's a melody.
"'The devil has stolen our halo'…" Murmurs of their song slip past Samatoki's lips. "'This vacation is sure a blast, kind of our Scarface paradise, yeah.'"
It's an instinct; it's embedded into them, their song Scarface. And these two random animals have seen straight inside him to pluck out his soul's anthem.
Samatoki looks at them in a new light, eyes wide with realization. "No way. No fuckin' way. Jyuto?" He looks at the bunny. Then the bird. "Riou??? Are you…" He gulps. "Is that seriously you guys in there?"
The pair nods. How could he not have noticed the intelligence behind their beady eyes?
"No way," Samatoki shakes his head. His vision swims. He starts pacing to get the weight of the animals' stares off his mind. "No way. Un-fucking-believable, no way this can happen."
What the fuck. This can’t be possible. His teammates, inside animal bodies? In a world of hypnosis microphones this is almost too much bullshit to swallow. He can feel himself getting worked up – so, he does the first thing he sees to feel normal.
He turns on the TV.
There's a soap opera playing on screen. It's actually one of his favorite soap operas, one of those extremely fantastical Chinese dramas that he wouldn't be caught dead watching except for the fact that Nemu got him hooked on the genre and fuck him it he can't stay away.
(His estranged sister was the one to introduce him, and now he can't let go of the paper-thin relationship this hobby brings him. Kicking the embarrassing habit would be like severing his connection with Nemu for good. So he endures.)
The splash screen for this episode – a rerun, Samatoki's seen this one before – is a picture of the main male lead stretching up to reach a tiger's maw, which represents the motif of the second male romantic lead.
He looks from the screen, to his animal-teammates. Back to the screen, then back at them again. Holds their gaze. Then, he strides up to the sparrow and scoops it up, pursing his lips and pressing a kiss to its short beak.
The sparrow coos. Before Samatoki can take back his stupid fucking romance-fueled decision a light eminates from the sparrow. It grows brighter, and brighter, and brighter until it's blinding and Samatoki has to look away.
And when the light fades, Samatoki is not alone.
From his kneeling position, Riou stands on his own two human legs and smiles. "Hello Samatoki. Thank you for freeing me."
“Wh… Riou, the… You… the bird…?”
He nods. “Yes. I was the bird. Through unforeseen circumstances I woke up transformed into an animal. And I’m glad I made the choice to come to you, Samatoki. I knew you’d be able to help. Though I must ask…”
Riou steps closer. His legs wobble a bit but his smile turns warm, worn with affection. “How did you manage to figure out a kiss was in order to release us from this spell?”
The tone Riou takes is teasing, too teasing for Samatoki to suddenly handle. Before he can answer that however, an irritated squeak interrupts the two.
“So this really is Jyuto…” Samatoki approaches the bunny and picks it up. With only a minor blush, he gives it a kiss as well. He feels a wet nose tickle his own before that same light overtakes him – and when it fades:
“Took you long enough to figure out, dumbass,” groans a familiar voice. Jyuto sits back on his bed, clothes and forehead thoroughly rumpled.
Samatoki can’t help it. He laughs. “Well I’ll be damned. A true love’s kiss really will fix anythin’.”
“Yes. True love indeed.” Here Jyuto smiles, one of his real genuine ones. It never fails to make Samatoki’s heart go fucky.
“And for the record we did not snub you, as you so put it.”
“A-ah. You heard all that.”
“Of course. My big rabbit ears weren’t just for show,” Jyuto flips his hair.
“Though I for one did not enjoy being small. That was a strange feeling…”
“Well I’d protect ya,” says Samatoki without hesitation. “With my life.”
The three go silent at that. Samatoki hates it. So, he opens his arms and hugs them both, dragging them down to Jyuto’s eventful bed.
His whining gets drowned out by the laughter of his teammates, so light and kind for all their ruthlessness. “Both of you get your asses in here,” he snuggles into them, humming as twin kisses are returned on his hair, ruffled with love.
“Ah Jyuto,” Riou speaks up after basking in their reunion, “you seem to have dropped a few peppercorns on your sheets.”
“Hah? Those ain’t peppercorns Riou, those’re coco puffs. And here I thought you were too much of a prude to eat cereal in bed Jyuto.”
“If you plan on disposing of these I do not mind taking them,” Riou reaches a hand out to collect them, “I’m sure to find a use for–”
“NO.”
The shriek comes from Jyuto. He huddles over the ‘peppercorns.’ “Th-they’re mine! I mean nope, it’s nothing!”
Samatoki cocks his head in confusion. So does Riou. Until it hits him, and he exclaims with that damned cute innocence:
“Oh! It’s rabbit dung. I’ve never tried it in my cooking but I would love to experiment–”
The rest of his sentence gets drowned out by Jyuto’s traumatized yelp and Samatoki laughing his ass off so hard he falls off the bed.