«The Language Of Flowers» (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Beast Beneath The Moonlight Part I «Nakajima Atsushi»

Disclaimer: Credit goes to Asagiri-sensei for the BSD manga and credit goes to the respective artists for the art used in this fanfiction. I own NOTHING except for the plot I made up.

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Rain pelted harshly on the cemented grounds of Yokohama.

The streets were empty due to it being in the middle of the night, save for the heavy footfalls of my now wet shoes that stepped on the puddles mercilessly. The moon hung high in the night sky amidst the rain, it was full and luminous like a light guiding me in the dark. Normally, the darkening of clouds and the low rumble of thunder were clear signs of a heavy rain but no such signs were present on this heavy weather hence why I ran in the rain without an umbrella to protect me.

The news promised clear night skies but I should've known the weatherman was never reliable.

*Trip*

Unaware of my surroundings, my foot collided with something soft, a loud yelp escaping my throat when I skidded onto the wet pavement at the impact. Muddy water soaked through my once pristine yet wet blazer, my hair now also covered in dirty water from the ground.

Today was so not my day.

With a grunt, I rose to my feet, mustering the most menacing glare I could manage and turned to the suspect of my now dirty appearance. All profanities caught itself in my throat, only to be replaced with a look of complete and utter shock at the sight before me.

A huge full-grown tiger was sprawled before me, its thick mass of white fur soaked in rainwater and what appeared to be blood. The shallow breathing indicated it was still alive but with the rain and its wounded state-

Wait- why am I even thinking through about this?!

This is clearly a preposterous sight. How on earth could a wild animal even be running around free in a subdivision like this? Maybe I'm just hallucinating it? Yes, it might be the case given my alread frazzled appearance.

Nodding at the thought, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Counting from one to twenty to calm myself, I then opened my eyes and saw a different sight. Rather than a white tiger, a young man of slim built with choppy light-grey hair and dressed in a tattered blood-covered outfit greeted me. His skin was pale and covered in scratches, eyes closed as if in pain.

How odd... For a minute why did I mistake him for a tiger?

"No, never mind that! The man needs help!" I scolded myself, my soaked form forgotten to tend to the unconscious man. By the looks of things, he didn't look like he was mugged. I didn't know what caused his wounds but they needed to be tended to ASAP.

The hospital where I worked as a nurse was too far from here, one of my many complaints when I started working there and calling on the phone proved futile since it was now broken due to it being soaked in rainwater. One bad luck after another and now I have a dying man before me.

He doesn't also appear to be from around here. His clothes told me as much. This young man was an orphan. I've seen this style of clothing on childrens that inhabited the orphanages our hospital catered to for charity. I would have recalled him seeing as I've explored almost all of the orphanages of Yokohama.

His hair would have stood out as well as... His age. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. How long did he stay in that orphanage, thinking a kind family would take him in? Also, certain orphanages usually kicked out children who reached adulthood, letting them fend for themselves. He looked to be by that age too... So did it mean-