Beastars: The Discover Check

Chapter 152: Rooftop

Louis sat in the dressing room. His legs propped up on the table. He was still, and silent like the grave. He just sat there, staring at his reflection in the mirror that was framed by lightbulbs that heated up the room a good ten degrees. He saw everything that had ever happened reflected in his one good eye. His whole life playing out like a mini movie. His breath was the only sound in the empty room that offered company. Adler had been silent ever since Shoji shot him. All of his scars singed with phantom pain at the thought of the bullet tearing through their abdomen. The bullet wound seared like fire. A deep breath helped him relax and not focus on that. He felt like he was at the end of the world, just waiting for all of creation to come crashing down, dragging him with it.

The silence was killed when his door was knocked upon, causing him to jump a little.

A note was slid under his door that read: "I'm waiting...whenever you're ready". That was his cue. He stood, pushing back from the table and landing his prosthetic on the linoleum. He left the door and shut off the lights, turning down the hall towards the staircase that would take him to the meeting place. It was time to end this once and for all.

~~~~~

As he ascended the last flight, he heard music from the other side of the door. He couldn't really make out the tune, but it sounded familiar. He opened the hinged steel out to the roof and didn't even squint as he was blinded by the midday sun blazing down from above. He strode forward in his temporary blindness until he saw the wild dog sitting on the ledge. The music was coming from his phone as he tapped his foot. To the beat. Despite this, he looked bored.

"Well," he droned out. "Here we are at last. You and me Louis."

Louis could finally see him after the blindness died down, in his Razor getup with the mask at his side. He was waiting for a part in the song. When it came up he sang it out loud with the phone.

"Just surviving," he said with the music. "It's so..."

He turned off the music and tossed the phone off the rooftop.

"It's just," he gestured wildly to the point Louis thought he would fall over and finish this for him. "Do the bare minimum to do what you need to...survive. All my life I've looked for ways to not just survive. To do more than just survive. Shoon was a good method, until you tore his heart out and ate it. Then you. But now I don't even have you. Because you've become some moody, predictable vigilante. There's no fun any more. Now I have to go back to just surviving along with the ordinary people."

The canine buried his face in his hands, scratching the claws down his face. Louis just stood in silence, patiently watching.

"Oh well," Shoji said, standing and approaching the herbivore. Louis didn't move and the two stood toe to toe. Shoji was a little shorter than the deer and had to look up only a negligible amount to make eye contact.

"Did you even start to wonder if I was real?" he asked, starting to circle as Louis just continued to stare at the place he used to be.

"Gamo Souil?" Louis asked.

"I was making a joke," Shoji said, continuing to circle.

"You really thought an anagram of my name and my father's was going to trick me?" he asked.

"Just trying to have some fun," Shoji answered over his shoulder. "Besides, in this modern age no one thinks any more. What they see they automatically assume to be fact. It was more of an easter egg."

Louis just stood as the breeze wafted past them. The world was completely oblivious to their meeting.

"What I still don't understand is how you emptied my accounts," the deer finally said.