And yet, despite our Mom being purely human, me and Nishiki weren’t. Not anymore.
“Nero.”
“Huh?” I said. “What?”
“You were in one of your little dazes,” Nishiki said, waving a hand. “What were you thinking about this time? How much you miss your adult entertainment websites?”
“Ew! Gross, dude,” I blurted out. “And shut up, I do not.”
“Youweretalking about missing the internet…”
“Whatever,” I muttered. “I’m just saying, it would’ve been useful to look up stuff like, hey, why can I suddenly turn into a fucking shark?”
“Yes, that would be convenient. Though I doubt you would find anything serious.”
“Yeah. I’d probably run into a Wikihow page about ‘how to act like a shark.’”
Nishiki glanced down at his lower half. I wasn’t the only one blessed-slash-cursed with the sudden terrifying ability to turn into a fish. My brother could change into a koi. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve thought we were having a mass hallucination or something.
“Perhaps we should’ve asked more questions with those wolf-people when we had the chance,” Nishiki murmured.
Months ago, I had an unfortunate run-in with a mountain lion. It turned out he was actually a man—a shifter, I think the term was—who thought I was trying to harm another man. An omega. Hell, a lot of the terms still confused me. It wasn’t like I’d grown up with this stuff. I was a normal person untilthishappened to me.
But those people weren’t bad. They were kind and even helped reunite me and Nishiki with Mom. They were just… weird animal people who lived in the wilderness. Nothing wrong with that.
It wasn’t like I was much better at this point. After being reunited with Mom, I lived in a damn canyon. No TV, no Wi-Fi, no hot showers or pizza delivery. Oh, and sometimes I was a shark. It was definitely some peoples’ idea of a nightmare.
Nishiki’s comment made me think. Those wolf-people—shifters—had lived this way their entire lives. If anyone could help us adjust to this new lifestyle and answer my burning questions, it was them.
“The trip to the canyon didn’t take that long,” I mused out loud. “It shouldn’t be hard to find them again. Especially since my sense of smell is amazing now.”
“You’re lucky you have a useful ability,” Nishiki mumbled. “What can a koi do except be beautiful?”
I fake gasped. “Wait, you have other qualities?”
Nishiki flipped his long hair over his shoulder and glared at me. “Ha ha. If only you had room in that brain of yours for intelligent humor.”
“Nope, the bar’s pretty low in here,” I said, tapping my head.
A familiar voice cried out: “Boys! Dinner is ready!”
Nishiki and I grimaced at each other. With Mom calling us to eat, that could only mean one thing: another night where we went hungry. Her ideas about what constituted a meal were… unpleasant, to put it nicely.
Nishiki hauled himself out of the water and sighed. He made no attempt to rush as he wrung the water out of his hair. “If she tries to make me eat one more canyon lizard, I’m going to kill myself.”
“They’re not that bad,” I said. “Those weird canyon carrots are worse. They’re brown and hairy. I don’t think carrots are supposed to be brown and hairy.”
“Indeed not.” Nishiki wore a despairing frown as he slowly descended the steps leading into Mom’s cavern. “I miss the organic food store.”
I snorted. “Everything we eat out here isorganic, genius.”
“You know what I meant.”
“No, you miss the air-conditioned shopping experience because you’re a pampered prince.”
“And you miss microwaveable TV dinners because you’re a brutish caveman,” Nishiki shot back, glaring.
I sighed. “Yeah, I do.”
