Bad Wolf (boyxboy)

Chapter 8: Confession

"Do I scare you?"

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He raises a hand to knock on the door.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Who is it?" The voice can be heard through the wood. 

"Open up Jojo, it's Mani." Comes the reply. Mani can hear a comotion behind the door, like the moving of furniture, before the latch on the other side clicks and the door opens just a fraction to reveal a slither of a face peering through.  His hand reaches through the gap and grabs a hold onto Mani's sleeve, before he is being pulled inside, with the door being swiftly closed behind then.

"I know you got my messages, they ticked blue. Why didn't you reply, where have you been?" Jojo literally corners Mani against the wall. Mani wasn't sure if Jojo was going to hug him or hit him. 

"I'm sorry, I…" Mani can see in Jojo's eyes, the frustrations being replaced by the fear. He knew that Jojo had witnessed too much already and Mani could not think of a plausible excuse to explain. "I know about your roommate." 

"You know about Teddy being a wolf?" Jojo's voice raises with surprise. He was expecting to have to prove he was not losing the plot, to be told he was seeing things. Deep down he would have probably preferred that over the truth that he had been sharing a room with a dangerous beast. "Is that why you ran? Were you scared?" Jojo expects Mani to nod in response, but instead he looks defeated as he takes a sigh. 

Mani heads over to Teddy's bed, he sits down and grabs at the sheets, bunching them up in his fists before taking them to his nose, where he closes his eyes and inhales deeply. 

Jojo, who is still standing by the door, looks at the scene before him. "Mani, why are you smelling Teddy's sheets?"

"I can't help it Jojo." Mani opens his eyes to look at the guy by the door. "He's my mate." 

"Your mate? So he's your friend? How can you be friends with someone like that?" Jojo now sits on the edge of his own bed, watching as Mani continue to grasp the sheets in his hands. 

"I don't actually know him…" Mani begins, but he gets interrupted by Jojo once again. 

"Mani, stop!" He holds up his hands. "How can he be your friend if you don't know him? You're scared that's what it is. You have found him out and he's threatening you." 

"JOJO!" Mani raises his voice. It makes Jojo clam up as he sees Mani stand up and move over to sit next to Jojo on his bed. He faces him a little, still deliberating if he should say what he was about to say, but he had no other option. Mani would have to do things his way, or Jojo would ultimately be at the mercy of Teddy.  "Teddy is my mate, as in life partner. Whatever you want to call it." Mani stops to take a breath as he sees the cogs in Jojo's head trying to fathom what he had heard. "What do you know about wolf kind?" Mani asks, a little apprehensive with a nervousness in his voice. 

"Are we honestly having a conversation about werewolves right now? Up until Teddy nearly tore my face off, I had thought they were a myth!" Jojo says with disbelief. "They change when there is a full moon, they infect others with just one scratch. They are savage, vicious. They scare the shit out of me." 

"Do I scare you?" 

"Huh?"

Mani now looks at Jojo, putting a hand on his knee. "I said, do I scare you?" He now looks at Jojo more intently. 

"Why would you scare me Mani. You're not a werewolf." Jojo laughs, if only to mask his nervous confusion. 

"You're right. I'm not a werewolf." Mani says, half smiling…."I'm wolf kind." 

"What?" Jojo instantly pulls away from Mani's hand. 

"I said I'm wolf kind. Humankind and wolf. I'm both, as is Teddy. We're different from werewolves. Werewolves look different, they have human and canine attributes and are not born that way. You're right, they get infected, but they are not wolf kind...like us." It's now that Mani chooses to stop talking. The look on Jojo's face told him that the guy's head was going to explode. 

"So, you're a wolf and a guy? So you change too?" Jojo now stands up and backs away from Mani, just as he did Teddy. "I want you to leave...please." Jojo lifts a shaky hand to point at the door. 

Mani stands up and tries to approach Jojo. "Listen please…" 

"No. You need to go or….or I will tell!" Jojo says, his voice coming over all shrill, it hurts Mani's ears. 

Regardless of what Jojo thought of him, Mani now steps up closer to Jojo. "Do you know how hard it was for me to tell you this? I thought you'd understand. You said you were just like me."

"I am nothing like you. I'm not half wolf!" Jojo dares to shout back. 

"That's not what I mean. You know that." Mani matches the vocals. "I walked away from my pack.  I severed ties with my family and have chosen to live this human life, because I want to love who I choose." 

Jojo goes quiet. It was true that when he saw Mani in the canteen on that first morning, he knew that they had something in common. Maybe not the wolf part, but Jojo was also going against the grain of what his mother wanted, to find a nice young lady. But the different between them was that he had been too cowardly to tell his mother. "So...what is Teddy to you then? Is he your soulmate now?" 

"It's actually called a fate mate, but, yeah he is, but I don't want him to be. That's why I'm so far away from home. Because I want to find someone who likes me for me, not because it's destiny. I didn't know we would meet eachother here." 

"Well...maybe being a wolf kind is pretty awesome Mani." Jojo says with a half smile. 

"Are you sure? Because 5 seconds ago, you were telling me to leave." Mani chuckles. 

"Maybe we're not all that different." Jojo says with a sheepish grin, but the smile soon drops when Mani seeems to suddenly turn to the door. He gulps down hard as Jojo stands behind him, wondering what Mani is doing. 

"What is it?" He says as he holds tightly onto Mani's shoulders. 

"Hide Jojo...He's coming."