“We should go shopping,” Lion said as he and Inn walked down the main steps of the school. Lion had been talking nonstop since the final bell had rung to signal the end of the day. Inn half wondered why the other boy’s throat didn’t go hoarse?

“I mean you need a phone, and you can’t keep wearing my dad’s clothes, but I need to think about the budget for this month and…oh no.”

Inn glanced up, curious to see what had finally shut the talkative boy up. Lion had frozen on the concrete path and was looking across a milling sea of students to a group of boys waiting by the gate.

“Oh god, I forgot,” Lion cringed, slapping his palms against his face. “We can’t leave this way, let’s go round the back.”

Before Inn could protest, Lion had grabbed hold of his shirt sleeve and was tugging him round the side of the building.

“Is there a problem?” Inn frowned. He still hadn’t quite acclimatised to the strange social customs of this new world.

“No! No problem,” Lion smiled tightly as they came up to a section of school wall overlooked by a large mango tree. The smaller boy began to scale the tree, his shoes slipping on the peeling bark. “Don’t worry – I’ve done this before,” he called back to a bemused Inn.

“Is there a reason why we are leaving in such a peculiar way?” Inn asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“Um, well,” Lion panted, having reached the first branch that could support his weight. He leaned against the trunk for support and peered down at Inn, “I just remembered that the shops we need to go to are in this direction, so I figured we’d take a short cut.”

“Right,” Inn replied, thoroughly unconvinced. Lion’s face was flushed red, surely not just from the exertion of climbing the tree. The other boy was a terrible liar, another reason why he would never survive in Longka.

“Just a bit further,” Lion said as he stretched across to try and reach the top of the wall. Inn rolled his eyes as he realised what was about to happen. He uncrossed his arms and moved forwards just in time to catch Lion’s plummeting body before the smaller boy hit the ground.

“Shit!” Lion cried, scrabbling at Inn’s chest. Lion’s own chest was heaving with panicked breaths.

As Inn had predicted, the other boy was very light and easily fit in Inn’s large arms.

“Ah, you can put me down now,” Lion winced awkwardly. Inn huffed and deposited Lion on the grass before he heard a series of sprinting footsteps behind them.

“Thought you’d run away did you little Lion?” a boy wearing a shining diamante earring and a shit eating grin was standing a few feet away from them, flanked by about four friends.

“Boon,” Lion muttered darkly, “can’t you just leave me alone? Don’t you have better things to be doing? Or is your life really that boring?”

“Watch your smart mouth,” Boon snapped, taking a step forward. His eyes flicked to Inn in momentary surprise, looking his tall form up and down. “Who’s this? Did you hire a bodyguard?”

“My name is Inn,” Inn replied emotionlessly. He was somewhat curious as to what business this boy had with Lion. They obviously were not on friendly terms, but Inn found it hard to believe someone as pitiable as Lion could be capable of making an enemy.

“He’s a family friend and we have somewhere to go. So can’t you just leave it for today?” Lion sighed, but something about his usually animated expression looked strangely resigned.

“Still wearing your hot pants?” one of the other boys retorted, causing a chorus of nasty chuckles to go round the assembled group.

Inn raised an eyebrow at Lion who flushed angrily and looked away, biting his lip. Inn couldn’t say he hadn’t noticed that Lion’s shorts were somewhat more revealing than his, but he figured perhaps this was some human fashion he had not yet learned about.

Besides, the slender tan legs of the human boy hadn’t exactly been difficult on the eyes.

“You know if you’re that poor you could just cut some spare fabric from your giant friend’s shorts here and fashion yourself a new pair,” the boy snorted.

“Enough,” Boon ordered, though he didn’t look displeased at his friend’s remarks. “It’s payback time. You got me all sticky yesterday Lion and not in the way I would have wanted.” Boon took a step forwards before letting out a winded ‘oof!’ sound.

Boon looked down in shock at the large hand splayed across his chest, preventing him from moving any closer.

“What the hell are you doing?” Boon growled at Inn.

“Inn,” Lion murmured, “it’s okay, honestly. Don’t get involved in something like this. Besides there are five of them.”

Inn felt like laughing, was Lion seriously concerned for his safety right now? Inn had battled entire armies of blood thirsty demons whilst on his own and emerged the other side victorious. A few human schoolboys was, quite frankly, a little boring.

“You wanna be his guard dog?” Boon sneered. “So be it!” he reared forwards with a punch, that, whilst surprisingly quick for a human, Inn was still able to easily deflect.

Whilst fighting, Inn realised that he was not as strong as he was in his demon form. He also sustained injuries that he might not have previously. However, it was still easy enough for him have all five boys on the ground within five minutes or so. Perhaps the shock of someone standing up to them had been in Inn's favour but he wasn't exactly going to complain about having an advantage.

“Holy shit!” Lion whooped excitedly, taking a step forwards before his face paled in horror. “Oh my god Inn, your lip is bleeding.”

Inn frowned, as he wiped at his mouth and the backs of his fingers were coated in a sticky bright red. That was also new, Inn had never bled like this before. Regardless, he brushed it off as a minor injury as Lion began to fuss.

“We need to get out of here before –“ Lion began but was cut short by a shrill whistle. Inn looked up to see two security guards approaching them, a couple of teachers hot on their heels.