"I'm human." The statement took so much, even though it was very simple. Slan's hands stilled, moving to rest against the other boy's shoulders. He was afraid the neko would run and tell someone, terrified that his life would end ... But in a way he'd made the first friend he'd ever had. "It's what I am, and that's why I need to hide. I can't bring the hunters down on you and your family ..." He didn't want to bring danger the neko's way.

He shifted the grey haired youth away, placing him gently on the ground. "It was nice meeting you. Stay away from water next time." With a wave, Slan turned and began to walk away, determined to leave his little hole behind to find someplace safe in the wilderness.

The neko's ears twitched at the mention of a human. He could not remember what that meant, only that humans were basically thought to be legend. He stood up and went to chase after the boy but hesitated. He didn't want him to leave. He didn't know why, but he really wanted the kid to take him up on his offer. "I'll make you some cookies! And a cake! I'm good at baking," he called, feeling his heart beat faster. "Please don't go, I don't even know your name."

The mention of cookies and cake had Slan's pace slowing to a stop. He turned with a raised eyebrow and crossed his arms as he sent a hard glare the neko's way. "You're willing to put your life on the line, and your relatives, for a near stranger?" Slan wanted to make sure that his possible friend was quite sure of everything hiding him would entail. The neko boy needed to believe it, not just as some nebulous thing that would never happen.

"My name's Slan." Strange, so strange. It had been a while since he'd even spoken his name aloud. The name sounded rusty and ill used to his ears. Hopefully that wouldn't shine through.

The neko grinned when he saw that he had convinced the boy to come back. He tilted his head at the sound of the human's name. It wasn't a name he had heard before and sounded strange to his ears. He continued to grin, however and approached Slan with his hand extended. "I am Rai," he introduced himself, happy to know that Slan was going to be safe and happy living with him.

"And I think you are blowing things out of proportion. I know that if you harbour a refugee from another nation you can get in big trouble too. This hut is basically off our land, so my family will be able to claim that they didn't know you were living in there."

"Fine, just lead the way already." The young man didn't even bother shaking the neko's hand. "I still don't trust you." He would run given the slightest provocation. Slan was used to running, always and forever it seemed. Though things were certainly going to be interesting. He remembered how Rai had reacted at having his ears scratched, and smiled a little. Perhaps he would try that again sometime, just to see if he would get the same reaction or not.

Rai's arm fell limply to his side and he frowned, his ears drooping slightly like a rejected puppy. He turned on his heel and slowly walked back towards his farm, making sure to avoid the bush trails that hunters used. He reached the outskirts of the forest and moved along side it until he sighted the old shed he had mentioned to the human.

"There it is," he pointed. The wooden shed was slightly rotten, but still waterproof. Long grass grew around it and in the distance, they could see Rai's home. He rushed up to it, realising the grass was long enough to hide them as they moved through the open field. He opened the door and peered inside, seeing nothing but dust, insects and cobwebs. "Here, Slan. I can go back and sneak some blankets and soft materials so you can make a bed," he said, turning to the boy.

Slan followed Rai easily. He took care to note their route, and memorize every detail. There was no telling when he would need to run away to his old hideaway again. Slan didn't miss the way Rai's ears drooped. The sight only made him shake his head. The cat had to understand how dangerous the situation really was ... It seemed like that would be a hard task, a near impossible one.

Crouching a little in the grass, he slipped closer to the neko when Rai opened the door. The place was a palace compared to his little cave, though he'd been comfortable there. "You're planning on spoiling me, aren't you Rai?" Without thinking about it too much, Slan lifted his hand to pet the other man's head again.

Rai leaned against the touch, purring loudly again. He didn't know why, but something about the way Slan petted him made him almost revert to a cat-like state. He smiled as he looked over at the boy, nodded slightly. "You are my friend! Of course I'll spoil you!" He moved away from the warm hand reluctantly, and made his way towards his home. Luckily his Aunt and Uncle were out in the rice feilds on the other side of the house. He had no idea how he would explain taking blankets and a mattress out of the house.

He crept slowly into the house, going to the linen cupboard and finding his old blankets. He also took a bag full of bread, eggs, fruit and cookies and a small foam mattress. He rushed back towards the shed, stumbling with his armful and nearly tripping over multiple times. He hoped that Slan was still there, afraid that the human might have run away. He rounded the corner and dumped the stuff near the shed. "I got your stuff!" he called.

Well, that was a certainly unexpected reaction. Slan shrugged and moved into the abandoned shed. He set about dusting away the cobwebs and clearing up some of the debris. Planks and pieces of broken pottery piled up in front of the tiny little structure. Once the mound was high enough, the dark haired man carted the trash away and hid it in the forest where no one would come across it. He was that cautious.

Slan smiled mischievously when he heard Rai's voice. Slowly, the young man crept up behind the neko. He pounced on the other man, expecting some kind of resistance and already compensating for it. Though if there wasn't any, well he would probably just fall down and make a fool of himself. It didn't cross Slan's mind to look at the supplies Rai had brought. He was rather used to being completely self sufficient after all.

Rai cried out in fright and fell over forwards, smashing the eggs he had in the paper bag and squashing the bread. He struggled away from Slan and stared at him with large shiny green eyes that looked close to tears. The human had attacked him and he couldn't understand why. Had he done something wrong or hurt Slan in anyway? He rubbed his knee and glanced over at the pile of supplies he had fallen on. He saw how the eggs were smashed and the bread squashed. He started to cry, covering his face and wailing like a child that had scraped his knee. He had destroyed the food he had brought for his friend. Surely Slan would hate him now and run away.

Slan was shocked. He couldn't wrap his mind around this sudden change in Rai. Worse, he didn't know how to get the neko to calm down. Panic began to well up, like a never halting fountain that would soon overflow. If Rai didn't stop soon, he was sure they would be found out. And ... Slan did feel bad for having been the cause of the other boy's outburst.

Hesitantly, the human moved forward and wrapped an arm around Rai's shoulders. It was so awkward, and strange, to be holding someone in such a way. The bag of supplies finally caught Slan's eyes. Glancing at Rai, he snatched a piece of bread with his free hand and began to nibble a little on the delicacy. The young man smiled, savoring the fresh fluffy texture of it. "Thanks Rai. I .... I didn't mean to startle you like that." That's what had caused the outburst. It probably wasn't so simple as that, but Slan could think of nothing else that might have brought such a reaction on.

Sniffling slightly and rubbing the fluids from his face, Rai glanced up at Slan and flinched slightly when the human hugged him roughly. Soon he forgot about being upset and leaned against Slan, enjoying the warmth of the embrace. He was purring again and feeling happy in a few minutes. "I'm sorry... I thought you were attacking me," he finally admitted, standing up on shaking legs and looking over at the smashed eggs. "I ruined your food... I'm sorry... Please don't go..."

He had no idea why, but he was terrified that his friend would leave. He wanted Slan to stay and be his friend for a long time. He hadn't had a friend before and he found the boy so... interesting. Something about the way he acted and smelt brought back strange, blurry memories that Rai couldn't understand at all.

Slan relaxed the moment Rai began purring. The sound had such a calming effect on him, and doubly so because he knew that he was somehow the cause. He wanted to find out why. Slan glanced up at the neko when the other youth stood. "I was just playing around." At the mention of the food, he laughed. Such a small accident had upset Rai so much, it was kind of sweet to be honest. Slan wasn't used to people caring so much about his opinion of them.

"I'm not leaving, don't worry. Gosh stop being such an idiot! The food's fine, I wouldn't have been able to eat raw eggs anyway." That last bit might have been a little harsh, but Slan wasn't going to censure his words too much. Rai wanted to be his friend, well then the neko would just have to learn to take his somewhat harsh comments and difficult nature. With a shrug, the tall man stood and began to pick up the wrecked food, though in his opinion everything was fine save the eggs.

Rai gasped in surprise, staring at Slan as he picked up the food from the long grass. "You can't eat eggs?" he questioned, trying not to sound too shocked. Eggs were one of his favourite foods and he could eat them raw or cooked. "Why not?"

He moved towards Slan and continued to watch him in interest. "Do you eat chicken? It's my all time favourite food. Sometimes I get carried away and kill the hens my Aunt and Uncle have to lay eggs. I get in trouble so much," he spoke, his ears drooping slightly at the mention of punishment. "You and I have a lot in common, did you know?" he said suddenly and brightly. "I'm the only neko I know. I'm boarderline allowed to live in this nation of shapeshifters and werewolves. When I was born, my parents had to give up their freedom to allow me to live here..." He went quiet, looking away when he mentioned his parents.

He knew hardly anything about them. All he knew was that his father was a werecat and that they had died protecting him from the nation's army. He had then been permitted to live with his Aunt and Uncle, both who were werecats themselves. The strange thing was that Rai never seemed to be a werecat. He was an entirely separate breed, more cat-like than human and basically impossible to transform.

Slan snorted a little at the neko's enthusiasm. "Raw eggs would make me sick. As for chickens, yeah ... I'd eat them if I knew I wouldn't get caught for stealing them." At the mention of Rai's parents, he frowned. He did know what tha was like. The young man could relate all too well to the sentiment of loss seeing your parents sacrifice themselves for you brought. It was what his mother and father had done. He didn't know if they were alive or not, or even what had happened to them minutes after they'd hidden him to lead the hunters away.

Shaking his head, the dark haired boy tried to change the subject. "So, what makes a neko different from a werecat?" Slan was tempted to pet Rai again. He didn't know why the action appealed to him so much. All he needed to do was reach out to scratch behind his friend's ears and he knew what kind of reaction he was going to get. It was so adorable and .. and cat-like. A flicker of a smile crossed Slan's features. He'd always wondered what it would be like ot have a cat.

Rai shrugged and glanced back at his human friend, seeing how he was staring at his ears. He flicked them and frowned. "I don't know exactly, just I am much more cat-like and I have ears and a tail. Werecats can transform into cats. I can't transform at all." He swished his tail, ignoring the urge to chase it. Sometimes when he saw something moving, he'd chase it and try to catch it. He often mistook his tail for something he could catch and would run around in circles for hours until he was too dizzy.

"Werecats act different to nekos..." he thought about explaining this, but decided against it. He couldn't think of specific examples of how he was different to his Aunt and Uncle, other than he acted like a kitten all the time. "What do humans do?" he asked Slan.

The young man narrowed his eyes at that. He wanted to know more then just these vague details, this wavering kind of sureness. Slan decided he would just have to figure it out on his own. That was how he'd learned everything before this, and he would continue doing so. "Humans are inventive, generally. We can't shape shift, don't have the best range of senses ... If it weren't for that inventiveness I mentioned, we'd probably already have all been exterminated by now." He didn't know if there was anyone else; Slan hoped there were other people like him, but he couldn't be sure.

"So what do you do on the farm? Other then killing chickens and getting blamed for stealing stuff?" Did Rai go to school? Slan envied him that, the opportunity to learn about the world in such a way. The neko could ask questions and have them answered, instead of having to steal whatever books he could find. Slan hadn't been able to do that in a while, and his books had been destroyed in the rain a little while back. He missed reading.

Rai sat on the grass, lying back and rubbing his nose against the earthy smell. It made him ticklish to do so and soon he was rolling about and purring loudly. "I go to school, though I wish I didn't have to. The werewolves like beating me up and the other kids find it funny to pull tricks on me," he said, sneezing slightly and glancing over at Slan. "It's my Aunt and Uncle's farm, I just live with them. They grow rice mainly and the animals are there for the family. I have two cousins, though one is married and living in the city. The other is younger than me."

He flicked his ears at the sound of something moving in the grass. His heartbeat quickened as he sat up on his hunches and peered through the long grass, searching for the source of the sound. He saw movement and pounced, a loud squealing pierced short as he killed his prize with his sharp teeth. He picked up the small furball and took it to Slan, dropping it nearby to show him what it was. The mouse was dead for sure, but this didn't worry Rai at all. He tossed it up in the air and caught it, pushing it around the grass.

Slan watched Rai with interest. The neko really did act quite a bit like a cat. At the mention of the bullying going on, the human frowned and let out an angry sound. Though he'd just met Rai, he felt protective of him for some reason. "Sounds like you need to learn how to defend yourself." Silence fell as Slan went back to watching the cat boy with a puzzled frown.

He let out a startled gasp when Rai pounced on the mouse and killed it quickly, with his teeth of all things. "Do you always play with mice like that?" He was tempted to snatch the mouse away, just to see how Rai would react. O well... Glancing up at the sky, Slan shook his head. He reached out to poke Rai's shoulder lightly. "It's getting late. Won't your Aunt and Uncle worry?"

"I can't help it. I do the same to birds and rats... and lizards... and insects..." he sneezed again, tucking the mouse away in the grass to rot in piece. He made sure that it wouldn't be too close for Slan to smell it. Besides, he might be hungry later on and come to get it. At the mention of how late it was getting, Rai shrugged and laid back in the grass. "They don't really care, they're used to me wandering," he explained, curling up and watching Slan some more. "I usually go exploring, especially at night time. They don't mind, as long as I am home for dinner and for school."

He smiled at the human, sniffing the air and glancing at his house. The chimney had smoke coming from it, signalling that his caregivers were home from the fields. "I'll go for dinner and come back. Maybe I can catch something for you to eat?" he offered, unsure how Slan would react to the suggestion as he seemed pretty disgusted at how he had caught the mouse.

That was quite the surprising list. Then again .. Slan supposed he shouldn't have been too surprised. Rai was part cat after all, apparently half-cat at that. "So you do pretty much what you want." And he had someplace to go, people who cared for him. It seemed like Rai had the best of both worlds. He smiled a little when he saw the cat boy all curled up, and reached out to tug at one of Rai's ears gently.

"A rabbit would be nice ... I try trapping them, but they always escape." That would be a treat. Shrugging, the young man glanced at the house, and then at his new abode. What a strange situation he'd gotten himself into.

At the soft tug of his ear, Rai squeaked a bit, sounding like a startled frog. He shook his head and clasped his ear tightly, staring up at Slan as if expecting the human to do something else to him. "I don't like my ears being pulled," he said with a slight growl, but relaxed after he remembered that Slan was a friend. He lowered his hands just in time to here his Aunt calling for him. He started and got to his feet.

"Night time is easiest to catch rabbits. I'll go have dinner and be right back, ok Slan?" he questioned with a smile. He looked at his friend one more time before dashing off towards his house.

Startled, Slan fell back a bit. He hadn't expected such a growl to come from Rai. There was quite a bit he didn't know about the neko, of that he was certain. Such an adventure, he'd never embarked on one quite like this before. This was different from struggling to survive, finding a place to stay safe... No, this was entirely about finding out more about a near stranger, that he wanted to be friends with.

"I'll still be here, or nearby." The reassurance slipped out quickly before Rai ran off. Shaking his head, the young recluse began rearranging the hut. The mattress went into the far corner, the food onto the weak looking shelves. For a moment Slan stared at the pillows, but then he threw them against the wall. Speculatively, the young man placed his head on them and curled up with the blankets covering him. He shifted around, making another nest of cloth, before falling into a slight doze with his shoulder length hair fanned out about his head.

Rai ate quickly, much to his caregiver's annoyance. "You're going to choke if you don't chew your food properly," his Aunt growled, narrowing her yellow eyes in distaste at her nephew. "Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?"

Rai shrugged and slowed down slightly, finishing his meal in record time. He went to scrape his plate and grabbed a bit of the beef stew, putting it into a container and rushing back outside with it. His Aunt shook her head, while his Uncle chuckled. They were used to Rai's behaviour, especially his hyperactiveness around night time.

He kept running until he came to Slan's shack, slowing down and peering around him in the diminishing light. The sun had began to set and soon it would be pitch black. He wondered if the human could see well in the dark like him. "Slan? I brought some stew with me," he called, rounding the corner and knocking slightly on the door.

The young man jerked away with a soft cry. Shaking his head, Slan stumbled over to the door with a yawn. Before he knew it, his foot was catching onto something and he was falling. Slan didn't fall to the ground; no, instead he tumbled onto Rai. Limbs flying in the air, he tried to steady himself, but to no avail.

Slan might have been slight, and small for his age, but most of his weight was muscle. He'd done well for himself hunting and gathering in the forest, and was used to climbing everywhere. The boy could only hope he hadn't hurt his friend. "Sorry, was half asleep ... And I can't see all that well in the dark." He shifted so that his weight rested upon his elbows, instead of on Rai. "You alright?" He had heard something about stew, but his hunger was rather far from his thoughts at the moment.