The door doesn’t open gently—it slams, metal shrieking as it gives way just long enough for a body to be thrown inside. He hits the ground hard and skids across the floor before coming to a stop a few feet from you. The door seals immediately behind him with a heavy clang, cutting off the light and leaving the cell dim and cold again.

There’s a sharp, broken inhale as he scrambles back on instinct, movements clumsy in a way they shouldn’t be. Like something built for speed and balance that’s suddenly lost both. He drags himself away from you until his back hits the far wall, and only then does he stop.

Freeze.

That’s when you really see him.

Hizashi Yamada is not human. Not quite. There’s something unmistakably avian in the shape of him—the beak, the sharpness of his eyes, the structure of his limbs—but whatever he’s supposed to look like, this isn’t it.

He’s been plucked.

Not cleanly. Not naturally. Feathers torn out in uneven patches, leaving raw skin exposed where there should be soft plumage. His wings—if they can still be called that—are half-bare and tucked in tight against his body, like he’s trying to hide the damage and failing. Without them, he looks wrong. Smaller. Vulnerable in a way that feels almost invasive to witness.

And cold. He’s shaking, not just from fear but from exposure, his body trying to compensate for something that’s no longer there.

Then his eyes lock onto you.

Everything in him tightens at once.

Human. Deathworlder.

You can see the exact moment that realization hits. His gaze flicks over you rapidly—your size, your posture, your hands, your distance—before snapping back to your face. Your mouth. Your teeth.

He jerks back again even though there’s nowhere left to go, pressing himself harder into the wall as if he could disappear into it. His breathing goes shallow, controlled only by sheer force, like he’s trying not to trigger something.

You.

He says something quickly, the words sharp and unfamiliar, cracking halfway through. The language means nothing to you, but the tone doesn’t need translation—fear, edged with a warning. Don’t come closer.

You don’t respond. You can’t.

That silence stretches, and it makes everything worse.

His eyes widen just slightly, something more frantic creeping in at the edges. He tries again, slower this time, like changing the sounds might somehow make them understandable. It doesn’t. It never does.

His throat bobs as he swallows, and for a moment he glances down—just briefly—at himself, at the bare patches, the damage, before snapping his gaze back up to you like he regrets giving anything away at all. His arms—his wings—pull in tighter, an instinctive, futile attempt to cover himself. There’s nothing left to hide behind.

A small, strained sound slips out of him before he can stop it, frustration and humiliation tangled tightly with the fear.

He angles his body slightly, not turning his back but making himself smaller, less direct, caught somewhere between trying not to look like a threat and trying not to look like prey. One hand lifts a fraction, hovering uncertainly in the space between surrender and defense.

And still, his eyes keep flicking to your mouth.

To your teeth.

He thinks you’re going to eat him.

The realization sits heavy in the space between you.

His eyes squeeze shut for half a second, and when they open again there’s something else there beneath the panic—thin, fragile, but stubborn.

His mate. Shouta is coming. He has to.

You can see it in the way he forces his breathing to slow, in the tight set of his jaw despite the trembling that won’t stop. Whatever’s holding him together right now, it isn’t the cell, and it isn’t you.

He doesn’t move any closer. Doesn’t risk it.

He just watches you—every shift, every breath—waiting to see what you decide he is.

Prey.

Or food.