Concept from the song “Fukurou” by Kokia. Icon from Singyeo’s cover on YouTube. This uses a male OC.

———

Your legs burned with the effort of constant running and your eyes stung with hot tears that streamed down your cheeks. Your mind was devoid of all thoughts except to run.

If you ran fast enough, the shouting voices and cruel pain of your home wouldn’t catch you. If you ran fast enough, they couldn’t drag you back where not a hint of love awaited. If you ran fast enough, you could escape from it all.

And so you kept running until the trees of the forest became towering figures and the shadows began to block out the sun’s rays. Shrubs and flowers turned into glowing mushrooms and vines that seemed to have minds of their own. The rustles of leaves became cries and calls of animals you could not recognize.

By the time you finally collapsed against a large tree in exhaustion, you knew you were utterly lost, but did it truly matter? Lost in the forest, dead— it was all the same to you. Anything was better than being in your home with those people you despised.

You closed your eyes, hoping that death would just take you already instead of starving you slowly. You were so tired that you didn’t even hear the coos of a distant owl, soaring closer and closer to your location.

…

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Daichi grumbled as he flew through the air, finally landing in front of a collapsed human. They couldn’t have been much older than a teenager.

Shifting back into his human form, he scowled and poked the human with his staff. Were they already dead? Maybe if they were, he could just feed them to the beasts and be done with it—

Until his eyes caught on the sight of tears and scratched from running through the forest. For the love of Mother Nature— was this kid insane or just stupid? Daichi wanted to curse them all the same.

But his instinct knew better. Instead, he squatted down and looked at their closed eyes.

“What are you doing here, human? You don’t belong here.”