Raised by Lions

Chapter 41: Hybrid Annoyance

With the rumours of Legosi living with komodo dragons spreading like wildfire, he's been getting a lot of unwanted attention from the students and teachers around him.

Some of the other males have been checking him out through the corner of their eyes in the locker room, whispering to each other about trying to see if he had any venom burns on him. It didn't help that he was friends with Toby and he, Louis and Haru would sit outside to eat meals with him so he could take the mask off without anyone making rude comments at him.

The guys in the locker room weren't as discreet about it as they thought they were and Legosi could hear them talking most of the time anyway, but they didn't seem to realise that and just kept talking.

Louis often jokes about it while they're doing homework together in one of their dorm rooms, to which Legosi would either laugh, be disgusted or get oddly flustered about it. He'd laugh when Louis mentions the herbivores might be checking him out and most of the time it disgusts him when Louis would joke about Bill or any of the other carnivores. The exception happened to be Aoba and some of the females, which would fluster Legosi, who then makes it a point to point out how the girls always ogle at Louis, which would then fluster Louis and they end up laughing it off and cuddling.

Sheila has especially been avoiding him and Louis lately, but they didn't pay it much attention. They assumed it might be because she recognizes them and decided that if she was smart and valued her life, she'd keep the truth to herself. She seems to have been doing the latter anyway, so she wasn't a problem unless she chooses to become one.

Kai was a whole nother thing entirely. They've barely spoken or interacted, but Legosi has overheard the mongoose defend him several times since the rumours started and he's been trying to get closer to Legosi in recent days. The wolf in question wasn't sure how to react to this. He's never had a lot of friends and preferred to avoid others if he could. Even in the club he often avoided anyone that wasn't Louis, or Tao but only because he and Tao worked together on lights. Toby was also a recent development.

The teachers were an odd thing to work around. They seemed to be scrutinizing his every move and word and it caused him to become even quieter in classes, even ones where he did well and knew the answers. He would take routes he doesn't usually take around the school just to disappear amongst the crowd of students and avoid teachers asking him questions about his home life, something they had no rhyme or reason to know anything about.

After the casting was done and Kai was a little peeved about not getting a role, Louis had called Tao and Kai in to his office, where they discussed switching the two. He wanted to put Tao in as a background character and wanted to move Kai to the stage crew. The mongoose hadn't been too happy about it, but when promised that he'd be working with Legosi, his tune changed to be a little happier. Tao was all for the change, secretly happy he didn't have to be around Toby in such close approximation.

Kai had almost immediately climbed up the ladder to the platform where Legosi and Toby were working when he came out of the office. The two had been talking quietly to each other, but that died down when Kai came into hearing range. Kai didn't take it badly though, knowing by now that Legosi was quiet around most animals.

After a while though, Toby heads to the backroom to gather some materials that Dom had asked him to get so they could start deciding about what to use for the character costumes. This left Kai and Legosi alone for a bit.

"Say, why do you get defensive about the rumours?" Legosi asks out of the blue. Kai startles a bit, but shakes it off quickly, "Well, they really shouldn't be saying those things. And I kinda get it, you know. I was raised by hyenas my whole life, so it makes me feel a kind of kinship with you. You know, carnivores raised by carnivores, but a different species of carnivore."