The following days passed in the same kind of chaos. Eventually, we got rid of the mountain of debris. Everyone had gloves, mismatched, of course. Some were too big, some too small. One person had gloves in one color, while the other had gloves of different colors. Some wore masks, some didn't.
Nothing about it was perfect.
We didn't look like any well-organized construction crew from some commercial. We weren't dressed the same. We didn't move with confidence.
We were as much of a mess as before. Everything stayed unclear, unplanned, and half-improvised. A little better than before, sure, but still chaotic.
And yet we were full of energy.
It pulled both of us in completely, swallowed us whole, leaving no time to dwell on anything else. No space for overthinking, for spiraling, for all that weight we had been carrying.
At one point, I was talking with someone about the paperwork we supposedly needed to get our first permit. I was mid-sentence, trying to remember what went where, when Kazuo suddenly appeared next to me and laughed.
"Oh, look at that," he said. "Turns out I've got a real business-minded friend here. Who would've thought?" He grinned at me. "And here I was thinking you were just—"
A lazy kid who hated responsibility?
He didn't finish it, but we both knew the joke. Responsibility had always been my problem.
I laughed and waved him off. "Oh, fuck off. Go do something useful. There's still a ton of crap over there that needs a couple of massive wolves to carry it."
"Hey," Kazuo shot back, puffing up a little, "these are premium, high-quality muscles."
I knew it was all meant as a joke, though it still pointed to something important.
Over that time, I came to understand that if I wanted to achieve anything, I had to stop avoiding difficulty. I had to stop running from responsibility. I had to put in the effort if I wanted to get anywhere.
And more than anything, I needed to stop hiding.
There was no point in it anymore.
I'd already lost my anonymity, the one thing I'd held on to for so long. So what was the point of pretending it hadn't happened? What was the point of reaching for another mask, putting it on, only to tear open the same wounds again?
No. Enough.
I chose to stop hiding completely.
Everyone had already seen the video. Anyone who showed up here had probably seen it too. Even knowing exactly who I was, even knowing someone like me could put them at risk, they still came and helped.
So what was I hiding for?
I stopped hiding my ears and my tail.
With them out in the open, I felt freer.
Yeah, it was uncomfortable at times. Those same onlookers showed up with their phones, trying to film us. But they seemed smaller somehow. Maybe there were fewer of them. Or maybe there were more of us now, so they no longer came across as overwhelming or threatening.
Either way, they didn't get to me the way they used to, and that was real progress.
Day by day, it grew colder. Breath turning into white steam became so normal that no one even commented on it anymore. To stay warm, we had to layer up and keep moving. Someone eventually brought in metal barrels to make improvised fire pits, so everyone had a place to warm their hands.
Today was no different.
A few barrels burned again. Some people stood close, stretched palms toward the flames. Someone joked that it was the perfect place to roast marshmallows. Someone else laughed and said it was ironic… fires on the site of a fire.
I was cold too, so I held my hands out toward the fire to warm them up.
As I stood there, I noticed a few guys carrying off what was left of my bar counter, dumping the pieces into a pile that was supposed to be hauled away the next day. It was burned, barely recognizable.
I watched it and suddenly remembered the first time I saw him asleep behind it. At the time, I'd thought it was a strange sight: perfection finding peace in our cheap, noisy bar.
Trying to fill my lungs, I took a deep breath, and the cold air rushed into my lungs.
I hadn't thought about Ed once in days.
Not the way I used to, when his absence felt unbearable, close to torture. Back then, I thought that pain would stay with me forever. That it would become part of me.
That wasn't even that long ago.
I thought I'd hit bottom. The lowest point possible, in every sense. I thought there was no way out.
And yet, here I was.
Still standing. Still breathing.
Surrounded by people. The same people who had always been there with us. People who cared. Who showed up, who wanted to bring this place back as much as I did.
I had survived a fire.
We had survived a fire.
The burns on my body were slowly healing. Fur would grow back over them. My ears were starting to look normal again. Even my tail was recovering, little by little.
With all that chaos and energy around us, Kazuo looked better, too. His mood was lifting, and that positivity of his no longer seemed forced.
Yeah, he continued to mumble under his breath sometimes. He kept freezing in place now and then. But slowly, he was pulling himself out of it.
Not long ago, it'd felt like everything had burned to the ground. Like everything was gone.
I couldn't even find a reason to get out of bed back then. And yeah, his absence still weighed on me. His sudden, inexplicable departure, that cold indifference hurt. It stayed somewhere deep inside me as a wound that hadn't closed.
Despite all that, I wasn't that broken hybrid anymore.
I wasn't alone and never had been.
We were going to get through this. Maybe not fast. Maybe not easily. There would be more problems, more things waiting to break us again.
But we were together.
And we weren't going to let this be the end of the story.
Not for us.
Not for The Little Night.