Wolf Children

Chapter 1

Yuki's POV

People might laugh and say it's just a fairy tale. That these mysterious things couldn't really happen. But this is the story of my mother. The man that Mother loved... was a wolf man.

Mother was a student at a university just outside of Tokyo. Her turition was paid for with scholarships and she worked a part-time job to cover living expenses. One day in early summer, Mother saw Father for the first time at the university. Wearing a shirt with a stretched-out collar unsung no textbook Mother said he was completely different from the other students as she watched him from behind earnestly taking notes.

She found out that transforming during the full moon and attacking people was just a legend. "The world is full of things I don't know," Mother thought. Father was a descendant of the Honshuu wolf, which had become extinct about a hundred years ago. With both wolf and human blood, he was the last of his kind. When father was a child, his parents told him about the history of his extinct ancestors. They told him not to reveal the truth to anyone, and then died.

After that, he was taken in by relatives who knew nothing of this and had a hard time as he grew into an adult. After getting his driver's license, he went to the city to look for work. Unknown and unheeded by men, Father said that he had lived in hiding until now.

Mother gave birth to me in that small apartment. It was snowing. Not at the hospital, without even a midwife, my parents delivered me by themselves. Mother was worried that if I had been born as a wolf, the doctors would have been surprised.

My little brother and sister was born in the spring of the next year. It was raining that day. Suddenly, Father was nowhere to be seen. I don't know what Father was thinking that day. Maybe he instinctively went to hunt for food for his new babies. Maybe he wanted something nutritious for Mother, who was recovering from birth.

"I'm leaving the kids to you," Mother thought she could hear his say.

"Leave them to me. I'll make sure to raise them properly." Mother said as she looked at the photo on Fathers license.

Mother had a lot of trouble with us after that, but I don't remember anything about it.

"Num nums." I said.

"Wait a minute, Yuki. I'm making it now." Mother replied.

"Num nums!" I yelled.

"I said, it's almost done." She said.

"Num nums!!" I demanded as I transformed.

"Yuki!" She warned.

When I was angry or upset, my fur would bristle, and I would turn into a wolf.

"Oh all right, you can have a biscuit first." Mother said giving up.

Apparently, I was alway hungry, crying for food from morning until night. Completely different from my sickly brother and sister, Ame and Emiko, who ate little. Mother had to quit school and leave her part- time job in order to take care of us.

"That was close..." She said as she caught a glass bottle.

We lived on the small savings Father had left behind. According to Mother, my brother, sister and I seemed like we weren't sure if we were supposed to be humans or wolves. Since she couldn't ask those around her for advice, she had no choice but to study on her own. Breastfeeding ever two hours, day and night. When Ame or Emiko would suck on their own, she learned to feed them with cotton pads dipped in breast milk. But when they wouldn't drink any milk or stop crying, she didn't know what to do except pat them on the back and comfort them the whole night.

As a result, Mother was quickly becoming exhausted. Thanks to this, even if it was just for a short time, she could fall asleep at a moment's notice. What really caused problems was when we got sick. The pediatrician or the veterinarian, she didn't know which one to take us too. She regretted not asking Father about how he was raised as a child. But that wasn't the only problem.

One day when we were playing in the park, Ame and I playing tag and Emiko asleep on Mothers lap. As we played Mother called Ame and I over.

"Come here!" She cried out.

"What is it, Mommy?" I asked.

"What do you want to do from now on? Do you want to be human, or wolf?" She asked.

"Huh?" Ame and I said, confused.

"I'm thinking of moving. So that you can choose whichever one you want." She said as Emiko woke up. She looked at Mother, then at us. After that we all started to watch the sun go down.