With the kind of person Dmitri Ford was, Vaughn Alekseyev had always imagined the former's room—well, not that he had the time to sit and wonder about the interior décor of everyone's room, or at least everyone he'd come across, no—to be filled with posters of famous sportsmen; walls characterized by the loud colours of red, blue and white splashed across; hockey stick leaning against the mini-fridge filled with soda; socks littered all over the floor and under the couch; basketball in the corner, completed with the noisiest collection of music blasting over a lavish sound system.

Alas. He was wrong.

"Sit wherever you like," Dmitri gestured vaguely to his room that was void of personality and warmth, sauntering over to his abnormally large refrigerator. "I'll get you something to drink."

Vaughn paused, unable to process the instructions given. 'Sit wherever you like.' He frowned in thought, deciphering the never-before-heard code, intrigued by his first venture into the foreign space of rooms. It did not help that he virgin experience had been skies apart from what rationalized and came up with.

Dmitri's place was far from what he'd anticipated it to be: plain.

The room was characterized by a safe mix of neutral colours and basic shapes, oddly kept and well-maintained by its owner. Nothing seemed to stand out particularly, save the unusual snow globe placed in the middle of the coffee table before the couch. It felt so out of place that Vaughn had assumed it belonged to someone else, more so than the ornament being completely uncharacteristic of a personality like Dmitri Ford.

Vaughn continued to scan the rest of the foreign space, evaluating the 'seatability' of each individual aspect—the couch, the chair, the corner, the counter, he even considered the table! And then, there was the floor.

The choice was obvious.

"Why are you sitting on the floor?" Dmitri had gawked the moment he returned with six cans of beer, three stacked atop one another in both hands.

Vaughn had stared. "I figured it was the least offensive act."

"Sorry to disappoint man but I'm offended," Dmitri snorted, setting the cans of beer in front of his guest—another surprising element as the falcon had never come across as a drinker to Vaughn—before sinking to the floor. "Fine. We'll have it your way."

"I wasn't aware you invited me to drink with you, Ford. Clearly, we're underaged. Where did you get all this?"

Dmitri dismissed his concerns with a wave, cracking open a can. The sound was disproportionately loud in the empty room, and so was the fizzle of gas that followed suit. "Legal drinking age on the island is eighteen, Vaughnny-poo. Drink that shit up unless, uh, you don't know how to drink."

This would not be the vulture's first time tasting the bitter malt. He knew exactly what beer tasted like, but his fondness for it could very well be said to be in the negatives. Without a doubt, he expressed this to Dmitri.

Yet, upon observing the tired nod and slackened shoulders that the latter had given in response, Vaughn could not fathom his abrupt change in heart that made him reach for the nearest can of beer and open it with a skilful tug of the tab. The first sip he'd intended to take turned into a gulp that was unbelievably huge. Even Dmitri had to pause and stare.

"Woah. Slow down." He received a shocking middle finger in return, completely uncharacteristic of the vulture's poised and collected demeanour. Yet, oddly characteristic as well.

It seemed to the pair that neither was being who they thought they were in that instance; and while such circumstances would have brewed discomfort or uncertainty, a fear of the unknown, it instead brought comfort to the creatures in their cages. A show of vulnerability and raw, unfiltered Self—so hardly seen in a world so obsessed with appearances.

"Spill it," spat the vulture after finishing his can in a matter of seconds, dropping the empty aluminium onto the floor. Not a drop escaped from its opening.

"Spill what?"

"The tea you moron," Vaughn smiled wryly, leaning against the wall without a care for his posture. Dmitri could not help but see his resemblance to the Cheshire cat all of a sudden, feeling as though he was Alice in a dream that was more likely to be unreal. "Don't waste my fucking time."

The falcon readied himself by taking the longest, largest gulp of beer in a single breath, feeling the confusion and frustration of the day stack upon his shoulders and crushing the creature underneath it all. Was it his fault? That he didn't see this coming? That he couldn't understand where Jeremiah was coming from? That he was so insensitive as to put the kite and Lucienne together and not notice the horrible tension and anger that each harboured against—

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Vaughn laughed so hard, he felt something wet well up on the corners of his eyes, leaving him slightly stunned, numb with emotion just by observing another release their own. "That's what you meant by hearing your shit? I'm better off at a farm, Dmitri."

*

The initial six cans of alcohol had somewhere along the way propagated to twelve, masking a good patch of the floor that was once spick and span and now appeared rugged and disorderly with the addition of emerald-green beer cans. Dmitri had taken up the challenge of stacking them into a pyramid, mumbling something about the way of the world.

"You have the energy pyramid. The ocean pyramid. The ecological pyramid. The food chain that looks like a fucking pyramid and even a fucking food pyramid that tells you what you have to eat to be a healthy shit-ass human," slurred the falcon in a burst of angst, slamming a can on the floor before gently placing it over the gap between two other beer cans. "Why. Does. The. World. Work. Like. This.

"If someone, Lord Falrir forbid, created it to be this way—wait, did the dragon create the world? Or... fuck that," he hiccupped. "If someone, Lord Falrir forbid, created the world to be this way then fuck that guy. Who the fuck. Why the fuck. Just because I'm at the... the higher parts of the pyramid doesn't mean I chose to be either.

"None of us chose to be part of the pyramid. Did we choose to be part of this world? Huh? Or we got no rights to choose whether or not anyway. Yeah, fuck that."

Vaughn, now sprawled over Dmitri's couch with his limbs hanging over the sides and an arm under his chin, hurled an empty beer can aimed at the falcon's face. It missed by more than a foot. "I don't understand whatever the fuck it is you're going on about."

Dmitri sighed. "I just don't get why Jerry-o... Jerry... Jeremiah dude. Why can't he just find someone else? He's so... popular. Not like, you know, you and me." He paused. "No offense Vaughn."

The vulture rolled his eyes.

"Yeah but if he's so, I don't know, sought-after, then why can't he just pick another predator? Faustes already said so, didn't he. That we could get people from, like, other classes. Doesn't have to be a Heart. That dude has so many friends. For sure, he's got loads to pick from."

Vaughn was privately trying to deal with the awful migraine he was having from all that human interaction that most importantly involved emotions. Greetings? Sure. Distant, small talk? Definitely. Anything related to the weather? Perfect—but emotions?

nO.

This conclusion, he'd come to acknowledge having spoken to the master of it all Iolani Tori and experienced the very same repercussions. He admitted, however, that although the symptoms remained largely the same, the matter at hand was completely different. Vaughn's migraines from talking to Io primarily stemmed from his infinite, unbelievable curiosity, wisdom, and obsession with knowledge while those from listening to Dmitri's stemmed from an infinite pool of unbelievable stupidity. Just how dense could this boy be about human beings and relationships? Even worse them himself, the one he thought unbeatable at establishing doomed friendships!

It was then that he realized just how poor the falcon was at crisis management, mirroring his own inner state of confusion and inaction. They were surprisingly alike, him and Dmitri were.

"That's not what Reyes is worried about, you idiot," Vaughn clicked his tongue, feeling a sudden urge to destroy the tower of beer cans that Dmitri had meticulously stacked. "He's—he wants to—ugh. Don't you see how most of his admirers are prey, and not predators? Just how dense can you—never mind. Predators are competitive. They aren't his friend because they actually like him, they..."

The moment the words left his lips, Vaughn had felt a bitter sting in his eyes and the darkness of his cage fall further into an abyss.

"They just..." He couldn't finish it.

Dmitri stared, waiting for the words to come but they never did. The vulture found that he had, for all intents and purposes, never gotten over the crevice that was his first friendship. There was no removing, no forgetting it; no leaving it behind, no.

"Hey, uh." Dmitri straightened up from his awful posture, attempting to stand but failing to do so and instead stumbling into his self-made pyramid of beer cans. He paused, as though deciding whether or not to feel upset about it, before altogether throwing the thought aside and crawling towards the couch where Vaughn was. "I didn't mean to make you cry, man."

The more he attempted to comfort the vulture, the worse it seemed to get.

In the most shocking instant of Dmitri's life, he witnessed Evaughn Alekseyev slap his hand aside and sob like a child, tears streaming down is face and eyes closed shut as though trying to close an overflowing well.

The falcon was stunned.

"Alright," he grabbed a box of tissues beside the lamp and gently shoved it into the other's arms. "Alright okay, I'm the densest human being around, you're completely correct, I have no arguments, you—you can say whatever you want, that I don't know no shit, so. Holyshitpleasestopcrying."

It was only after more cans of beer, a scavenging of Dmitri's empty cabinets and settling with what Vaughn had mockingly termed 'the worst instant ramen brand ever' before drunk-cooking the single packet of supper that the night simmered into a quiet bubbling of leftover thoughts and emotions—exhausted but gratefully so.

The unexpected comfort of each other's company seemed to have brewed a new-born strength within the two as much as it created a bond between them both. It had been a while since Dmitri had an unfiltered, un-happy, un-Dmitri-like conversation with anyone at all and while it had been taxing on both his mind and his heart, the payoff was more than what he'd expected it to be.

"So... have you found a partner yet?"

The vulture shook his head, straightforward in his response. "Reyes is over there thinking how he's gonna be the odd one out when I, over here, knew how it was going to be me all along."

"Aw, don't say that," Dmitri gave the other's back a clap. "Didn't you pair up with Sullivan?"

Vaughn turned to him with an incredulous look, completely forgetting to complain about how painful his back was since the burn from Jing had never really recovered completely.

"Why's everyone saying that?"

"Be...cause it's obvious...?" The falcon's gaze shifted left and right, sheepish. And drunk. "I dunno."

Vaughn had not the energy to push the question further, returning to his portion of instant ramen while Dmitri continued to ramble.

"You know, come to think of it. I've known you for three years," he marvelled as though it never occurred to him. "And, well. I've always thought you were... cold. Emotionless. Victory-is-all kinda dick, you get?" He received another middle finger in response. "How did we—how did we get to... here? Like, this point, in a matter of weeks? Three months, at least. Like. What the hell happened?"

It was a question he knew the answer to, and Vaughn very well did, too. Yet, neither seemed to want to admit or utter the phenomenon of 'Iolani Tori' aloud, as though it was some taboo word that by its very utterance would shake the island and crack open the skies.

They returned to slurping ramen and leaving the question unanswered, everything left hanging out in the open, up in the air. The day was coming to an end.

And from what Vaughn had observed throughout his time spent with the other and found most surprising was, in the end, not the lack of personality in Dmitri's room or the uncharacteristic cleanliness of it all—as though dictated by an ultimate order—but the falcon's liking for chopsticks.

He'd expected the American boy, however stereotypical he would be for falling for such assumptions, to fumble and gawk at the pair of sticks that were particularly hard to master, even for Vaughn who'd been raised partly Asian.

Yet, Dmitri wielded his very own pair of chopsticks like a master, slurping up his ramen in an instant and picking every individual strand that remained in his bowl as though they weren't thin and slippery little things.

"Hey," the falcon said out of nowhere, taking a gulp of water from the nearest glass. It had been Vaughn's. "Did you ever use that journal I got you for Christmas?"

Vaughn was torn between thinking about the unconscious, unintentional act of intimacy that left a gaping hole in his mind and recalling the long-ago memory of Secret Santa, which he had to cross the gaping hole to actually access. It was a tough choice.

"Not yet, no."

He had settled for the latter after a leap of faith, thankfully landing safely on the other side without having to pay the hole too much of his attention. The image of a dusty pink, matte, hardcover journal with the words 'This is a Good Book' splayed across the front surfaced in the back of his mind.

Dmitri laughed. Not the loud, careless sort but a tired, half-hearted one that sounded as drunk as himself. "Don't like writing your own story?"

Vaughn could not resist averting his gaze.

"I'm not a very good writer of stories," was all that he said. Let alone my own.

_________________________

Without a doubt, the vulture had written off the start of his very next day as the worst morning of his lifetime—framing the world in a shade so pink it felt to him, green. Every step was a challenge, as though it was not land he was walking on or air that he was flying through but an entire ocean that he must battle, vision thoroughly distorted under emerald waters. Worst of all, there was an equally dead fish sprawled on the floor that he did not quite recognize. A closer look allowed him to identify it was Dmitri Ford.

He kicked the unmoving body, as though expecting it to start writhing for air as soon as its eyes snapped open.

"Dmitri... wake up."

The oceanic creature stirred, flipping onto its belly before mumbling several incoherent words. Staring at it triggered a wave of nausea that hit the vulture in the head, making it spin for a brief moment before every single second of the night before filtered in without warning.

For some reason that remained oddly in the dark, however, Vaughn was not wearing his dress shirt.

Absolutely nothing he did could resurface an imaginary scene of him willingly taking it off or at least putting it up neatly somewhere else, where he could retain its pressed and—just when did he lose his shirt?

Vaughn did not remember taking off his shirt. He did no such thing. It certainly did not happen, at least according to his memories, it didn't. But to what extent were his memories lost and to what extent, altered?

Clearly, he had been clouded with alcohol back then and at present, the odd rosy tint of a world supposedly cruel and dark. The truth was ambiguous.

"Dmitri." He kicked, again, the aquatic creature on the floor. When the latter did not respond, Vaughn scanned his surroundings for his dress shirt. "Where's my shirt?"

"Over at the counter, by the sink. On the chair," croaked a response out of nowhere, forcing the vulture to turn his attention back to the dead fish on the floor.

"You were pretending to be asleep!" The vulture called him out indignantly, lacking the energy to be furious. "Get up. And pray admit what you did to my shirt."

"I washed it, remember?" Dmitri crawled towards the couch and clambered onto the other side. "You somehow got red wine all over it. Or, well, I kinda did."

At once, Vaughn was appalled. "Good god," he breathed. "What was I thinking last night? I must have been insane, accepting your invitation to drink and then, to drink more! I shouldn't have stepped past those very doors in the first place!"

"Well, you did," the falcon's laugh was one of mischief. "Too late, honeybun."

Blood drained from his face, Vaughn had to sit down again, completely forgetting about the shirt he was missing.

"Honeybun?" The look on his face was priceless. "Dmitri, you—good god. I just called you by your name."

Aside, Dmitri nodded approvingly. "You sure did."

While he could practically see the gears turning in the vulture's head and the semblance of a flower, red and shy in the curve of its petals bloom in the eyes of a Vaughn in panic, there was a knock on the door of his dormitory before a plain, average-looking blonde boy came through the entrance with a parcel in his arms.

"Morning Mr. Dmitri. Your delivery came through the post today so I decided I'd drop by to collect it for you and bring it up since you—"

Kipa froze at the sight of a shirtless vulture in his predator's room, and what with Dmitri leaning over with a cushion under his chin and Vaughn looking quite abashed by the previous incident that had nothing to do with him being shirtless, the poor canary dropped everything before starting in the very direction he came from, knocking into the coat hanger in his frenzy of apologies and creating the most awkward commotion.

"Kipa! Hey, come back," Dmitri called (or muttered, in reality), his energy failing him as he watched his prey scurry out of the room and close the door behind him, shouting something about the front door not being locked amidst repeated apologies. "See? I suggest you do something about your rotten reputation, Vaughn. Prey run at the mere sight of you."

*

The next hour of Vaughn's was spent sorting himself out before leaving to retrieve a new shirt (and telling a half-asleep falcon who was brushing his teeth that he was). Perhaps due to his rash and irrational act of excessive drinking, Vaughn was experiencing for the first time a renewed hunger for real food and had made the uncharacteristic decision to head down to the dining hall for breakfast after ironing and changing into a new dress shirt.

Naturally, he ran into Iolani Tori. For narrative purposes.

The sparrow had a skip in his steps, as though he was feeling lighter than usual despite it being eight in the morning and a terrible time for joy and happiness. Either way, Vaughn had bumped into him near the grounds of the west wing, which was, indeed, rare for prey to be seen.

"Vaughn!" Io waved him over, despite being the one who noticed the vulture's presence later than the latter did. "Breakfast? How rare!"

"I don't need omments rom you about my breakfast habits," said Vaughn rather stiffly, joining the tiny ball of destruction nevertheless. "I suppose you've moved into the predator's hall? I'd thought it was to be re-arranged."

Io blinked. "I haven't moved into the predator's hall, Vaughn. I came from the library! Just returned that heavy book you saw me carrying yesterday. Oh, and paying Lucienne and Jeremiah a visit but Jeremiah wasn't in his room so I only got to talk to Lucienne. Maybe that's why you thought I was coming from the predator's hall. But you're not entirely wrong about it either, I mean. I slept over at Luka's yesterday. Well. I sleep over at Luka's pretty often, so. W-wait. Does that mean I've technically already moved into the predator's hall? Um, that aside—you don't look too good. Did something happen last night?"

No, no. Nothing happened. There was no last night; no happen; no something. There was nothing at all.

"Hm. That's a lot of things accomplished for eight o'clock in the morning, Iolani," distracted Vaughn with a compliment. This, however, backfired entirely.

"What! Vaughn, did I hear that correctly?" Io's eyes went huge and rounded. "You never compliment me! So something did happen last night."

"Absolutely not," snapped the vulture attempting to calm his frantic self, unable to admit friendly terms with anyone other than the geometric spider ornament at the entrance of his hallway. "Don't make me think about it! I mean, think about 'nothing', which was what happened last night. Nothing. Do you not understand what that means? Perhaps you can tell me the whereabouts of this... this Luka that you speak of. Where is he?"

Io was trying hard not to laugh. "Luka's already waiting for me in the dining hall. Today's mashed potato day, and even though we haven't been eating there for weeks, he never misses mashed potato day.

"Also, I'm not sure whether you care but Jeremiah and Lucienne are apparently getting grounded for a week of the holidays," added the sparrow with a sigh. "Do you think they celebrate Christmas? Should we get them something Chrismassy so that they don't feel like they're missing out?"

"Of course not. It's merely a week, Iolani. No one's going to die from loneliness and boredom for a week at home," says the vulture categorized as social creature by the animal kingdom, unable to function without so much as speaking (or rather, arguing or mocking or false-gentling) to anyone else.

______________________

"What's everyone doing here?" Dmitri did not know how to react to the empty breakfast table that he'd arrived at, late. Yet, everyone had remained seated and still. "You guys weren't thinking about giving me a warm welcome, right?"

"That's very clever of you, Dmitri. You're right for once," Shri laid out without so much as a bat of an eyelash. "Jeremiah went to get his partner. We're waiting for him for an introduction."

At once, the falcon had turned to Vaughn at the other end of the table. The latter refused to meet his gaze.

"Woah. Uh. That's... well. Okay. Sudden, but okay. Am I the only one who's surprised?"

Abigail laughed. "The real surprise? Honey, you only heard the first part. Jeremiah said his partner's a prey."

Now this got Dmitri looking at Vaughn again with the most unfiltered expression of confusion and shock that everyone else, too, witnessed. Naturally, several minds were starting to think this rather odd.

"It's a prey?"

"Mmhm. But honestly, why are y'all acting like this would never have happened? Anyone's ever bothered to count how many prey the guy's got?" Abigail snorted. "Can't even fit them all on two hands. Of course he'd go for prey. Get himself some brownie points meanwhile."

Dmitri's shoulders fell. "That's not very nice Abby. I mean, not very nice to the prey. Maybe Jerry really trusts them." Ah, he could practically taste the lie on his tongue. Bitter and awfully sour. "They shouldn't be too bad."

The bald eagle had the most incredulous look upon her face, as though she could not believe what got Dmitri into having a heart.

"Guys, this is Umbra," came a voice from behind the table, and everyone either raised the gaze or turned around to look. "My partner."

Before them, apart from Jeremiah with a fair, gentle smile on the corners of his lips, was a boy with dark hair and dark eyes—so terribly plain and lacking of distinction that he would be determined part of the crowd in a single glance; very much so like Iolani Tori.

But the very first  of impressions struck Vaughn ever so slightly. It was an odd thing to notice, it was. That the very first person Umbra had rested his gaze on was not Jeremiah, but Luka Sullivan.