But then his expression tightened.
“If only those days could last forever,” he said, letting out a soft sigh. “When Miina turned thirteen, she gradually began drifting away from me. Started dyeing her beautiful black coat all kinds of awful colors, decking herself out in weird accessories, putting holes in those perfect ears her mother gave her. She fell in with the wrong crowd. Some nights, she wouldn’t come home until morning. I’d try to talk to her, but she’d just shut me out. I can’t even count how many times I almost lost it at her. But…”
He trailed off, then looked at Sophie with his golden eyes.
“Is this your first time seeing a demi-human, miss?”
“It is,” Sophie replied. “I’ve been a bit of a shut-in. Please excuse my unworldliness.”
Well, barring Annie, if she even counted. She kept that thought to herself.
“Then you should know—your kind fears us,” Kuro said. “Maybe it’s something buried deep in your nature to revile and fear the blood of demons. We’re stronger than you in more ways than one, look different in all the ways that count, and yet—we speak your tongue, live in your towns, and walk beside you like equals. I suppose it makes sense we’d unsettle you.
“You don’t see much of it these days, but when I was young, there were these signs outside shops. A claw mark with a big red cross through it. You know what that meant? ‘No cats.’ ‘Demi-humans not welcome.’ Whenever we came into a new town, we already knew how it’d go. No inns would take us. No restaurants would serve us. We slept in the streets. Because that was the only place left for us.”
Through freezing winters and sweltering summers, Kuro and his Rovers endured the cold, unyielding ground, the insects that tried to eat them alive as they slept. Filthy beasts, passersby would mutter, but they had no choice—they bit down, swallowed the words, and endured the cold. Endured their own emotions.
“I’d be lying if I said I felt no resentment toward your kind,” Kuro went on. “But I also know that just like there are good humans, there are bad demi-humans. Even so, I can’t shake this vague, burning feeling that rises up in me when I see a human. Maybe it’s one of those things that won’t be healed in my lifetime—something that takes generations to fade.”
He massaged the bald spot again. Then, let out a long, tired breath as if he was trying to push the heat of his feelings out with it.
“If there’s one thing demi-humans can’t afford, it’s anger. The second we give in to it, our claws are out. And in that moment, someone’s dead. A human torn apart in a flash of rage. So we don’t get to be angry—at least, not if we want to live among humans.”
The daily life of a gatekeeper was dull beyond words. Same hours, same spot, every single day. If anything suspicious came up, he just gave a signal to the human officials nearby, and they’d take care of it—questioning, detainment, the works. That wasn’t Kuro’s job. He was the last resort. The muscle. The silent warning not to cause trouble. So he stood there. Every day.
“Another uneventful day, huh, partner?” Kuro would mutter to the small statue of a knight posted by the gate. He’d taken to calling it that because the elements had worn down its helmet, leaving two little nubs on top that looked vaguely like the ears of a feline demi-human.
It was one of his two companions. The other was a grand old tree, already ancient by the time Kuro arrived. He’d named her “Mrs. Rustle” for the way her heavy boughs rustled in the wind. In his mind, he and Mrs. Rustle made a perfect duet. When the boredom got especially thick, he’d imagine her rustling as a rhythm and hum along with it in his head.
“Heavens, a demi-human!” an old woman gasped as she came close, clutching her pearls before scurrying off. They never noticed until they were right in front of him—the steel armor and helmet hid everything too well. Some days, it was just a man shooting him a look of quiet disgust. Other days, it was spit.
But Kuro never got angry.
Whenever he felt the heat rise in his chest, he’d rub that one spot over his armor.
Miina, he’d whisper in his head. Your daddy’s trying his best today.
So you have to try too, okay?
Wait for me. Be patient.
Be good. Don’t cry.
“Not once on the job have I opened my mouth, let alone smiled,” Kuro said. “These fangs—they’re made for scaring people off. And after years of telling myself not to be angry, day after day, month after month…I think I just forgot how to be.”
It happened one morning—just another morning—when his daughter came stumbling through the door.
Kuro had approached her with the same intent he’d carried many times before: to scold her. But this time, his sensitive nose noticed something.
A sweet and artificial scent wafted from her body. A sickly and wrong scent.
“Daddy? Is that you? What’re you doing here?” she said.
Her words were slurred, as if her tongue was too big for her mouth. Drool slid from the corner of her lips. And every so often, she giggled—an eerie, involuntary sound. Her mouth pulled into a loose, unnatural smile as if her face no longer obeyed her.
At that moment, a single thought consumed Kuro’s mind.
Who are you?
Where’s Miina?
Who is this, and what have you done with my little girl? The one my wife died bringing into this world? The one who used to fall asleep nursing in my arms?
Miina giggled again, shrill and grating. Then, in a mocking voice, said, “Don’t you have a gate to keep, Mr. Gatekeeper? Should you really be here right now? The bad people are gonna get in—oooo!”
The blood rushed to his head. What the hell was so funny? he thought.
In one instant, he raised a thick, muscular arm, heavy as she was. In the next, he swung it.
Her body hit the wall with a dull thud and crumpled to the floor.
He’d hit her.
His adorable little girl—the one he’d spent his life doting on. The sweet, beautiful child who was the spitting image of his late wife…
He’d hit her—for the first time in his life.
That, he knew now, would go down as the greatest mistake he’d ever make.
He squatted down next to her, pulled her head back, grabbed a jug of water, and forced it to her lips. She drank, sputtered, choked—until the whole thing was gone.
That sickening, artificial scent clung to everything now. It was in her clothes, her hair, and the walls.
“You’re high, aren’t you, Miina?!” he roared.
When she finally stopped coughing, a flicker of focus returned to her eyes—only for it to vanish in an instant, replaced by raw, unfiltered fear.
Her father’s claws.
She had never seen them before.
“Who put you up to this?” Kuro growled. “That no-good son of the butcher? Those freaks you hang around? Still squatting on the corner smoking, dyed all sorts of colors, and covered in holes? I’m going to have a word with them. Show them there are lines you don’t cross—even if you’re trash.”
His voice dropped.
“First them. Then you. Stay right here.”
He turned to storm out, but something caught his leg.
Miina.
She was clinging to it with all the strength she had left.
“Get off me,” Kuro said.
“I’m sorry!” Miina cried.
“I said, get off me.”
“Please, don’t go!”
He shook his leg. Hard. She slipped off and crashed into the nearest wall. He didn’t look back. Just kept walking, every step heavier than the last.
“Daddy!”
Her voice cracked.
“Please, Daddy—don’t go! I don’t care what happens to me, just—don’t become a killer because of me!”
Kuro froze.
“Don’t leave me again. I can’t take it. When you’re not here, it’s like I can’t breathe. I hate it, I hate it—please, please, don’t go!”
Then came a sound he knew too well.
Sobbing.
Miina’s sobbing.
And with that pitiful, all-too-familiar sound, the fury drained out of him like a punctured lung.
Don’t cry, Miina, don’t cry. That familiar refrain echoed in his mind.
How could he have forgotten?
His daughter—his sweet, sensitive little girl—had always gotten lonely so easily.
Every day after work, he’d find her out front on the neighbor’s steps, scribbling in that beat-up sketchpad. Always out front, just so she could spot him a little sooner. The moment he came into view, she’d light up, drop her pencil, and sprint into his arms. She’d beg for shoulder rides, spin in circles, and fill the air with stories she could barely get out fast enough. All just to be near him.
When did that stop?
When did her voice go quiet?
When did she decide it was safer not to show him how she really felt?
In his younger days, he’d burned too hot, pushed too far. Then, with age settling into his bones, the long hours in armor beneath the scorching sun had become more akin to punishment than duty. Once, seeing his daughter after a long day lit him up, but the exhaustion wore that feeling down, dulling it until it barely registered. At dinner, he spoke less and less until silence became the norm. He grew distant. Became absent. And he never stopped to think how it must have looked through her eyes.
He was her whole world.
And when he started fading from it, of course, she tried to fill the void.
She never stopped needing someone. Never stopped needing him.
So she dyed her fur. Fell in with other kids who felt just as alone. Started acting out—not to hurt him, but maybe, just maybe, to make him see her again. To make him look at her the way he used to.
Slowly, Kuro retracted his claws.
Closed the door.
He scooped up his daughter from the floor and into his arms. She immediately clung to him.
“Sorry. I hurt you,” he said softly.
“No.” She shook her head. “I won’t do it again. I won’t ever, ever do it again, I swear. You got mad at me; I was waiting for you to get mad at me. Honestly, I was really scared of those guys.”
Miina kept apologizing, over and over, until her words gave way to sobs. And then she cried—loudly, openly—in her father’s arms.