Chuuya Nakahara didn’t become a vet for the money, or for the image, or because it was a "soft" career. No—he became a vet because there was something about the quiet trust in an animal’s eyes that no human had ever given him. Not once. Animals didn’t lie. They didn’t manipulate. They didn’t expect him to be anything other than what he was: sharp-tongued, tireless, fiercely protective, and a little too intense for most people to handle. But animals? They got him. And he got them.

The clinic bore his name, Nakahara Pet Center, but he hated the title "boss." He hated the way it sounded like he sat in an office all day barking orders. In reality, Chuuya was always the first to show up and the last to leave. He’d mop the floors if the assistants didn’t beat him to it, and when a new litter was born or an old dog needed help breathing through the night, it was Chuuya who stayed, bleary-eyed but stubbornly present. There was no such thing as “just another day” when lives—no matter how small—were involved.

The sun had nearly set, casting long shadows across the clinic’s front windows, and most of the staff had already packed up for the night. Chuuya had just finished scrubbing down a kennel when the front bell jingled with a frantic ring. He frowned. They were five minutes from closing. He glanced toward the waiting room, fully expecting a panicked owner with a pet suffering from something non-urgent and dramatic.

Instead, he found a man—tall, tan coat hanging open, hair a tousled mess of brown curls, his whole aura far too casual for the tension in his eyes. In his arms was a dog.

No leash. No carrier. Just a bleeding, unconscious German Shepherd and a man who clearly didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

“She’s not mine,” the stranger said, breathless. “I found her by the highway.”

Chuuya didn’t stop to ask anything else.

Now, back in the treatment room, the Shepherd was lying on a heated blanket, her breathing shallow but steady. Chuuya had stitched up two wounds already, removed shards of glass from her leg, and was working on getting a small IV line into her front paw. Her coat, despite the blood and grime, was an inky, beautiful black. Her ears were soft, one twitching occasionally as she fought off unconsciousness.

He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know if she had an owner. But none of that mattered right now.

“You’re a strong girl,” Chuuya murmured, adjusting the blanket. “You’ll be okay, Daisy.”

He said it on impulse. The name just fit. She didn’t look delicate like the flower, but she had the same quiet resilience, the same understated beauty.

Chuuya let his fingers gently brush her head. Daisy. Yeah, that was it.

In the waiting room, the man—Dazai, he’d called himself—was probably sprawled across the couch like he owned the place. Something about him rubbed Chuuya the wrong way. Maybe it was the dramatic timing, maybe it was the fact he looked like he hadn’t thought anything through. Or maybe it was how his eyes, beneath all that mischief, had flared with genuine panic when he handed Daisy over.

Chuuya didn’t trust people easily. And he definitely didn’t trust strangers who walked in right before closing hours with half-dead dogs and no good explanation. But Daisy? Daisy he could trust.

And if Daisy had trusted that man enough to let him carry her here, bleeding and broken, then maybe—just maybe—Chuuya could start with that.