Where the Wild Things Are

Sitting down underneath a tree, Junchi tried to think up a new game to play. He didn't want to hunt without his dads being there to keep him safe, but there was no one else to play with, just small critters scurrying around and birds flying over his head. For a few a minutes, he just sat underneath the tree silently, trying to meditate like his daddy Henghai and listen carefully to the sounds of the animals around him to develop his senses. But that was boring. There had to be other things more fun that he could do than just sitting around and listening to other animals have more fun than him.

He moved from his spot and decided to practice his powers. If he was going to do anything useful with petal manipulation, he had to practice. Hard. He couldn't do much with his abilities, just move petals around off of the flowers. He liked to throw the petals in the wind, then see if he could bring them back after they all got separated from being blown away. Another thing he enjoyed was having his petals tail animals as they flew and ran around, only stopping when the animals went too fast to follow or went too far away from him.

@Sōma

Junchi jumped back and shot petals at the creature's face by instinct. The petals were weak as he wasn't yet strong enough to harden them into what his dads said could be like bullets. Junchi wasn't sure what embarrassed him more: the fact that he was so easily startled, or how he thought throwing petals at the animal would scare it off.

He backed away, trying to keep a safe distance between him and the creature. He never saw anything like it before; most animals he saw were (other than deer and owl of course) were squirrels, birds, and rats. He was only allowed to hunt the smaller critters, not something as big as whatever it was in front of him.

Before Junchi could stand up for himself and prove how brave he was (though in reality, he wanted to scream and run for help), a boy came from within the woods, landing above on a tree. He was amazingly agile, jumping down from a branch with a flip, making it look easier than it was. There were many times Junchi ended up hurting himself trying to do flips like he saw superheroes do on TV.

A sign popped up beside Junchi, something he was certain was not there previously. He read it, and once finished, it disappeared. He stood there silent, not sure what to focus on first. There was still that animal from earlier, the strange boy who was most definitely older than him, and that weird sign that appeared from nowhere, then vanished.

"N-No," Junchi responded. When he realized he stuttered he repeated himself, this time more confident. "Are you? What's that thing?" he pointed at the animal, giving it a glare before going back to squinting his eyes, so they looked closed. An oricenta with their eyes fully open was taken as a sign they were uncomfortable; Junchi had to keep his squinted to show he was always brave.

The creature didn't even flinch. It just ignored Junchi, obviously not seeing him as a threat. Why did it always have to be the animals that didn't see him as a threat, but the ones that looked human that did? Junchi wondered if he should live amongst the animals. Stop hunting them and learn to be apart of their family. They didn't make fun of his teeth, they just ignored him and saw him as non-threatening, unlike the kids his age that screamed and cried when they saw his teeth and claws. Or maybe he could just go live where all the other oricenta were. Apparently, his teeth was a rare thing in his species, but there were enough people where not many feared him or made fun of him for it.

Junchi turned back towards the boy, trying to ignore the disappointment and embarrassment he felt about the situation. His cheeks were turning a light pink, but he couldn't tell if it was from anger, annoyance, or some other emotion. Whenever the boy pulled out a sign, it always startled Junchi. All these kids had cooler powers than him, and they could control them better too. The whole island was unfair.

"Tasmanian devil? Devils are bad, yeah?" he asked after the sign disappeared. He almost forgot to ask about the sign, amazed by the boy doing another flip. "Woah! Teach me how to do that! Oh! And the signs too," he insisted excitedly. "I'm Junchi Mei." CroMag's a weird name, he thought to himself but tried not to show it on his face.

"Australian marsupial?" Junchi mumbled, trying to figure out if he heard any of those words before. He knew what "Australian" was somewhat, but not enough to understand the second part of CroMag's sentence. No matter what the creature was, he was still creepy with the eating noise he was making. At least he wasn't getting close or snarling at Junchi anymore though.

Junchi was let down by how he couldn't learn how to make those random signs, but his happiness came back with the prospect of learning how to do flips himself. The signs only interested him because they reminded him of those TV shows his dads let him watch anthropomorphic animals had bodies that were elastic. It amazed him how they could never die despite how, by all means, they should have. He wondered if CroMag could do the same things. But even though Junchi wanted those signs, he didn't like to read and write and do all those other academic stuff. It wasn't that he was bad, just that he liked to train himself in physical stuff, like running and swimming.

"Yeah! Teach me! But, uh, why not talk? Can you talk?" He felt a bit awkward asking, wondering if it was inappropriate, but he wanted to know. He saw some kids who couldn't walk so they had to fly everywhere, which made him wonder if CroMag was one who couldn't talk and had to write everything down.