On My Own

6. Family

My POV

"Brother!?" shouted Mahiru so loud that everyone on the same floor heard him clearly. His friends, Reiji and Koyuki, immediately came over to see what riled up their friend so much.

"Sakuya!? What's wrong with Ma-I mean Hikaru!?" asked Reiji their subclass friend who was looking at his boss with blinking owlish eyes while leaving a 'haah~?' face.
Hearing his friend caring for him the green bean looked at Reiji.
"... Tsubaki-San... called M-that is.. Hikaru.. his brother of sorts now. According to him because Hikaru is now similar to the Servamp's but rather regarded as 'unofficial' one" Sakuya explains causing the two to make the same face he did.

Mahiru was quiet for a bit. "Well...
It would make it clearer what I am and that I'm not just a Mutant. Also call me Hikaru now. I don't want the others to recognize me. I am after all, as you said, very similar to you guys now. However, if I were to call myself an 'unofficial' Servamp or whatever. From what? Your 7 older siblings are the sins, your referred to with Melancholy. What should I call myself?" he asked the group who then blinked in return.

"Hmm..." Tsubaki said. He started thinking. 'What would be good for someone like him? It has to be good! I'm basically naming my younger sibling here! Ooh~! The options!' thought the fox actually excited for once. He got a strange feeling at the idea of having a younger sibling. What if he would go through the same stuff as him if not worse things because of their current situation? That would be neglecting his responsibility towards a younger sibling! He would never do what the others had done with him!

Seeing that Tsubaki was actually taking this seriously, the rest tried thinking of a title as well. Let's see.. Servamp's have names that usually mean something negative by human standards.. but that doesn't mean that that's their character..

"How about Servamp of Vanity?" suggested an elderly man with a monocle🧐. Most gave a '🤨😑?' face while others questioned what vanity means.

"It is synonymous to invalidity, nullity, voidness, emptiness, triviality, futility or idleness to put it strictly. Seeing that Hikaru here can control darkness, change forms, actually can get bothered by some things and isn't exactly a servamp, it both fits and is still different from him" explains the man feeling like a teacher or a dictionary joker.

"It would fit and it kinda explains his newest character changes. What do you think... younger brother?" asked Tsubaki, pleased that a human could come up with something so refined for his newest brother.

Mahiru raised and eyebrow letting it go through his head 'Vanity... Vanity? Hmm.. I guess..'. "I'm fine with it.. Tsubaki."

"Then it is decided! Welcome to the Servamp family!" exclaims Tsubaki actually hugging Mahiru. Mahiru was just.. well.. he..
<mahiru.exe> shut down.

"Tsubaki-san... Hikaru-kun doesn't like it if someone invades his personal space so... I suggest that you release your hold on him till he would be fine with you - or anyone else for that matter - hugging or touching him. And no, touching him when he's an animal doesn't count for him" Lisa said 😅 when she saw a frozen Hikaru.

Tsubaki who heard that frowned before getting an certain idea and changed into his 🦊form. It was like a switch was turned as Hikaru slowly started coming out of his statue-like reaction and behaved normally again. They talked for a bit more with Tsubaki sitting next to Hikaru in his fox form. During dinner it was kinda adorable seeing a fox and a hamster eating together, some had to admit that if they didn't know that the two were actually Servamp's in their animal forms, they would've feared for the small hamsters life.

After dinner, the Melancholy group got shown around the mall while Sakuya's friends explained to them where everything was.

The Pharmacy was now used like an Infirmary, the sports shops as training room and Stock for all things that can be used during a fight. The convenience stores are basically kitchen and living rooms with the mobile stores as a supply of spare parts or to charge Electricity (the radio had once stated that besides the official lines only the stores would continue to receive electricity) the large stores were used as bedrooms. The 2 biggest were separated by genders regardless of marriage or not, some others were used by students and kids while Hikaru was said to sleep everywhere he wants since he changes into an animal to sleep anyway. 🚽 stays 🚽obviously. They Audio use candles instead as they last longer and mostly have no other uses (Hikaru's dragon form helps light them).

After their tour, Tsubaki invited Mahiru into his group since he'd otherwise be troubled if they met any of the others (and so he could keep a eye on his brother through reasonable means). Seeing it as an advantage Mahiru agreed and decided to go to bed. This time he slept in his sunset tiger form in the malls intersection. Tsubaki's subclasses decided on a repair shop as their quarters.

Mahiru's POV

*Yawn* It was now 9 o'clock and I was chasing some kids to bed after picking them up from the book and game shops. Gotta respect that some want to take a break sometimes + the underage ones mostly play dance games to train since we don't let them go anywhere near the Zombies yet.

Teenagers, I would sometimes show the Zombies on my patrols but otherwise they never directly stood in front of one. Some were taking notes from medical books or trying to think of strategies for our situation. Thx to me we have some advantages compared to other groups that live in Skyscrapers or bunkers that they made with buses, cars, trains and a convenience store. In fact, some from our group were originally stuck in an office flat that would've sooner or later been swarmed by Zombies if they didn't leave beforehand cuz of food shortage. Needless to say I brought them here (against their will at first) but now they are thankful that I did.

After I was done and slowly drifting of to lalala-land I felt soft steps coming to me with some quiet ones. I wasn't exactly disturbed because I smelled Onions with tomato and chrysanthesiums (Spider lily) with a rusted scent. I felt something jump on my back while another leaned on my side and cover themselves with a blanket.

'...Wouldn't want them to catch a cold' I thought putting one of my wings over Sakuya's shoulders and layed it down on him and pushed him closer to me while I picked up the fox on my back and placed him on my paw and close to my head with my tail fur over him. With that, I completely snoozed off.

My Pov

While that happened, some people who watched (Tsubaki's group) or those who passed by on their way to the toilet took a pic of the adorable scene that they found. The two people that were lying near fur were thinking the same thing 'so warm... never wake me up again'.