Beastars: The Discover Check

Chapter 137: Dead Man Walking

“Listen to that echo,” Juno said.

“It’s just the fourier,” Louis retorted. “It’s supposed to be like that. No other room is this…echoey.”

The mansion was finished. The rebuild had taken a few years, but now Louis could finally move back home. Home. That word was strange to use. The land was the same, but the house had been rebuilt. It looked exactly as it had before before it was burned down. The decals were the same, the wood was the same. The shell was the same. There was new furniture that Louis had bought and moved in. And no massive portrait of Ogma and a young Louis in the front room. The wall looked bare now, but Louis liked to look at it as a fresh start. Clean slate. His father’s era was over, burned to the ground. Now was the dawning of a new one.

“Should I instruct the movers to bring boxes to certain rooms sir?” Yuta asked.

“Yes,” the deer said. “Please do. We’ll unpack later. You know where everything goes?”

The sheep nodded before turning to the trucks pulled up outside carrying the boxes he had had locked away in storage for the few years the building had been being built.

“Mind showing me around?” Juno asked, playfully presenting her arm.

Louis smiled and took it. He brought her on a tour of the entire building. Starting from the basement up. He showed her the staff’s quarters, which had been redrawn to give Yuta a more defined and much larger room for himself as they had the space, given new staff would be minimal, once Louis got around to hiring them. As the tour went on, there was a heavier and heavier sense of nostalgia. Ghosts haunting the new structures. Spirits that seeped their way up from the foundations. There had been a mass murder here as well. It all culminated when they reached the office. 

The desk, along with the rest of the furniture, was different than before. Still, he expected to see his father sitting at the desk, sorting through endless piles as he had done before. When he wasn’t there, Louis looked to the fireplace, further saddened when he wasn’t there either. The room was empty and dead. Like the rest of the house. He and Yuta were all that remained from that previous house. He forgot about Juno then, walking up to the desk and running his fingers along the unfamiliar perforations as he sat down in the chair.

“Louis,” Yuta said, knocking on the door frame. “You already have a visitor.”

The deer looked up. Yuta stood in the doorway behind Juno. And behind him was a larger figure. He looked more like Juno’s shadow than anything.

“He says it’s urgent,” the butler added.

Louis stood and motioned for him to let Legoshi in. The wolf was visibly upset, worried and fidgeting his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie.

“What is it?” Louis asked.

The wolf made to speak, but shut his mouth before he got out the first syllable. He looked at Juno and Yuta. 

“They are on the list of confidants,” Louis reassured. “You can trust them.”

The wolf looked at Louis with a seriousness Louis had not seen before. His entire demeanor changed and he stared at Juno and Yuta.

“Leave us,” he said.

Yuta nodded and left. Juno hesitated a moment, but eventually saw the seriousness in both their faces and turned to leave. She looked a little hurt as she left, that Louis didn’t seem to trust her enough with some aspects of his life. This wasn’t the case, but it was the sheer panic in Legoshi’s eyes that made the deer think it best to not let it affect that many of them.

“What?” Louis snapped after closing the door.

“You’re in danger,” the wolf said.

Louis stood there.