Another one.

Chuuya could smell the incense before he even heard the footsteps — that sickly-sweet stench of smoke and blind devotion, clinging to skin like guilt. They’d left another sacrifice at the altar.

He didn't bother rushing. They never lasted long anyway.

The humans always screamed.

Always cried, always begged for their gods, even as their gods tossed them into his forest like scraps to a rabid dog. Centuries of the same. Chuuya had stopped bothering to speak to them long ago. What was the point? They never saw him. Only the monster their stories painted him to be.

But this one... he was quiet.

When Chuuya stepped out from the trees, expecting terror or trembling or at least some show of fear, he was met with none of it. Just a boy—no, a young man—with messy dark hair and eyes that glittered with something dangerously close to amusement. His wrists were bound, but he looked relaxed, draped across the altar like he was sunbathing.

Chuuya narrowed his eyes.

“Not screaming?” he asked flatly.

The boy blinked up at him. “Would you prefer I did?”

Chuuya frowned. He hated this. The unpredictability. The break in routine. He just wanted the human to run so he could scare him off, like the last three. Maybe throw a root or two at his heels for dramatic effect. But this one wasn’t moving. Wasn’t even afraid.

“What do you want from me?” Chuuya asked, more tired than curious.

“Nothing,” the boy said with a shrug. “They want me dead. I figured I’d die in good company.”

Chuuya scowled and turned away, pacing back into the woods—but he didn’t vanish.

He waited, expecting footsteps behind him. A scream. The usual. But the human didn’t run. Didn’t cry. He followed at a slow, deliberate pace, like he belonged there. Like he’d been invited.

Chuuya hated it. Hated that this one wasn’t like the others. Hated the way his heart thudded with a dull ache it hadn’t felt in years. He didn’t want company. He didn’t want questions. And he certainly didn’t want a sarcastic, sun-warmed boy who looked at him like he wasn’t a monster.

But the forest was watching.

And Chuuya—no matter how hard he tried to ignore it—was listening.