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The first time Yoojin laid his eyes on that small cub, still wet from amniotic fluid, he whispered a small vow in his heart.
Their dam named him Yoohyun and reared him in the pride alongside her most recent litter of cubs. Yoohyun had the makings of a stellar lion, exhibiting remarkable strength, agility, and wisdom much beyond his years.
Meanwhile, Yoojin was the smallest male club born to their pride the previous breeding season, the runt of his litter. Perhaps that was why the other males mostly left him alone, they simply didn’t view him as competition in the pride hierarchy.
The opposite could be said for Yoohyun, his little brother that was born the following summer. In just two years when his mane wasn’t even fully grown yet, Yoohyun shot up to a size that rivalled even their sire, the pride’s alpha male.
Then came the bouts of harassment. It started with unwarranted, painful bites that weren’t playful in nature, then bumping Yoohyun down the eating order for a fresh hunt, leaving him nothing but bits of flesh and bone scraps, even ganging up on him for no reason other than to raise his hackles.
Until one day the aggression culminated when all the adult lions and lionesses cornered Yoohyun after finishing a standard kill.
Yoohyun stood his ground and growled, “What is the meaning of this?”
“It’s time for you to find your place out there,” one of the male lions declared. The others backed the elderly male by baring their teeth at Yoohyun.
Yoojin watched as Yoohyun got effectively driven out of their natal pride. The same fate befell the other male cubs, except for a select few including him. It wasn’t necessarily cruel, it was nature’s calling. That Yoojin was exempted from being banished might have been due to his contribution in locating resources for the pride and the fact that he was so weak that he couldn’t possibly supplant the pride leader.
There was only one thing to do and it was a decision that Yoojin gladly took.
Yoojin trotted after the elongated shadow of his brother with the harsh sun stinging down his back.
Yoohyun stopped. “Why are you following me, hyung?”
“I can’t leave my cute dongsaeng alone, can I? You need someone to watch your back or else you’ll just die stupidly out there,” Yoojin merrily said. As if he was only talking about tagging along for a standard patrol and not leaving his pride for good.
They stood in paused silence for a long while before finally Yoohyun turned and continued his trek to the unknown stretch of the wild. “Suit yourself.”
It was spoken with a dismissive tone but Yoojin surely didn’t miss the waft of pleased pheromones that tickled his nose. Intimidated yet at the same time excited for their uncertain future without the protection of their pride, out there, Yoojin stretched a paw forward.
Don’t worry Yoohyun, I promise to protect you. We’ll be together forever.
All in all, life in the plains as two prideless lions was not bad. Yoojin quite liked how he didn’t have to tiptoe around other lions and lionesses to avoid lighting their short fuses. Yoohyun was indifferent to Yoojin’s lack thereof of submissive displays, despite knowing that he was the dominant in their little coalition.
From that point of separating from their old pride, all Yoohyun seemed to do was grow. His long mane covered his massive, muscular body, strapped with four powerful limbs that propelled him faster than any lion Yoojin had ever seen run and jaws that could rip apart prey and foe easily. While Yoojin remained on the smaller side for a male lion, weak as ever. Yoohyun didn’t seem to mind, it only reinforced his protective tendencies over his much frailer hyung.
They hunted, then slept. Always on the lookout for better hunting grounds and avoiding unnecessary confrontations with neighbouring prides.
The sun was high in the sky. They were dozing off under a tree’s shade as befitting of lazy cats they embodied when the chittering above woke Yoojin up.
“—bet the MKC pride will totally annihilate them.”
“Yeah, serve them right. The fewer lions roaming these plains the better, cocky bastards. Are we going to watch?”
“I have my acorns ready.”
Yoojin couldn’t sense anything amiss in their surroundings but what he just heard from those squirrels was enough to alarm him. MKC were known for being stealthy hunters, and the two of them apparently had become the targets.
Yoojin nudged the sleeping body of his brother lying next to him. “Yoohyun, wake up. Some lions are trying to ambush us.”
“Who?” Came the almost instant, alert answer. Was he even sleeping?
“MKC. We must leave now.”
Thank goodness that Yoohyun didn’t insist on grilling him further with questions and padded after him on almost soundless paws to get a higher ground. Several heads became visible in the distance, what were revealed to be MKC’s patrolling males. Only when Yoohyun stood to his full glory, roaring intimidatingly at the sneaky lions that they finally scuttled away, having failed their planned ambush.
Yoohyun rounded on him once the last lion disappeared out of sight. “How do you know, hyung?”
A massive yawn broke out of Yoojin’s mouth. “Instinct. Let’s relocate then resume our naps? I’m sleepy.”
Yoohyun seemed to pin him down with a prying stare that Yoojin ignored when finally Yoohyun gave up whatever he was trying to say and went to nuzzle him affectionately.
“Okay, let’s find somewhere where those MKC pests couldn’t possibly sniff us out.”
Yoojin discovered early on that he could barely stomach hunting.
To be precise, it was the prey animals’ frantic cries to spare their lives while their necks were being torn out that Yoojin couldn’t stand. That was quite a unique ability of his to understand the speech of a starkly different species than a lion. Lions, in general, could somewhat understand the speech of leopards, hyenas, and jackals. But the language of prey animals were like gibberish squeaks to them, except to Yoojin who could understand every word.
A lion that couldn’t hunt. How laughable. Most animals out there would happily ridicule Yoojin that he was a lion only by name.
During their harsh nomadic days, despite being the bigger male between the two of them, Yoohyun obediently followed Yoojin’s lead on how to best survive. Where the best hunting spots were, where to get water, how to steer clear of rival prides’ paths. Of course this was all thanks to the info he gathered by listening in on the chattering of various ungulates, birds, little mammals, and even insects. Oh cub, the longhorn beetles sure did love to gossip. Oblivious that a top predator could understand everything they were saying.
And that Yoojin could mimic their language.
It was useful in many ways, such as feigning a cub squealing for help to distract a prey’s attention, enough for Yoohyun to comfortably ambush them.
The deceptive nature of that hunting method wasn’t quite aligned with his morals but what else could Yoojin do? A lion had to eat. More precisely, Yoohyun had to eat. With his weak body, forget taking down a prey, even keeping pace and chasing them were vastly challenging tasks. This dirty trick was one of the limited ways he could help Yoohyun to successfully hunt down their meals.
The first time Yoohyun witnessed his ability, he was shocked, understandably. Afterwards, he seemed to have accepted it as one of his hyung’s many quirks. Yoojin didn’t quite know what other quirks he possessed that Yoohyun was referring to, so long as his brother accepted his ability favourably, Yoojin was satisfied.
As Yoojin was dozing off, he could feel his brother approaching by the vibrations from the earth, the cool grass under his paws. The warmth of his brother’s body slotted next to his accompanied by the gentle breeze ruffling his fur.
Ah, this was the life. That was Yoojin’s last thought before the repeated motions of Yoohyun’s spiked tongue grooming him soothed him to sleep.
Yoojin encountered a female cub during one of his solitary excursions where he could sneak out of Yoohyun’s watch. At times, Yoohyun’s weird cub-like clinginess became just a tad bit unbearable that Yoojin needed to get away, only for a while. This silly brother of his. Yoojin might as well be the lioness that birthed him who was hard at work to wean him off.
The poor female cub was banished out of the general pride’s circle and was left skulking at its periphery. She was so skinny that Yoojin was certain she would die in a few more days without food.
Seeing the other well fed cubs, Yoojin could just picture her situation in his mind. After her sire, the alpha male of the pride, was challenged and killed by another male lion, her position in the pride became perilous. It was only a matter of time before the new alpha male decided to snuff her out, to ensure the bloodline of the previously defeated reigning male didn’t get passed on.
It wasn’t hard to sneak his way close enough to talk to the cub.
“Come with me, cub,” Yoojin said, “You’ll die eventually if you stay with this pride.”
The cub eyed him suspiciously. A strange adult lion offering help with no evident benefit? It was unimaginable to the bitter cub.
“My brother is a strong lion that could protect you, and the head of our little coalition. We are quite proud of our hunting and survival abilities. You’ll be safe.”
Visible debate was brewing on the dirtied fur of the small cub’s face but she had to know Yoojin was right since she finally gave him a defeated nod.
Yoojin turned tail to leave with the cub obediently following his trail. She mumbled something too quiet to hear.
“Sorry?”
“It’s Yerim.”
Yoojin showed her a fanged smile. “Welcome to The Abyss Pride, Yerim.”
“Master! Master! The poachers are coming from that direction!” Yoon Yoon chattered from the high hanging branches that Yoojin was lounging under. The leaves rustled so noisily that Yoojin finally expended the effort to open an eye, a bit cranky from being abruptly woken up from his peaceful nap.
“How many?” Yoojin cracked his jaws to let out a huge yawn.
“Three of them. So scary!” the vervet monkey exclaimed.
Yoojin pushed his body up (why was it so heavy when he was so skinny?) and leered at the agitated monkey. “How about we take them down once and for all? They’ve been terrorising this part of the plains long enough. I know for a fact that the good humans dislike them as well.”
“What? Humans, especially poachers, walk around with these things they called ‘guns’ that could kill us instantly!”
Yoojin licked his paw lazily, “That’s why we play it smart, and pit them against each other.”
Yoojin liked humans. Well, the ones that carried bulky stones that they positioned in front of their faces that gave light flashes. He called them ‘watchers’. Those humans were good, not so good stalkers since they made so much noise that they might as well be hollering to announce their position. Yoojin was tempted to thwack it off their hands, just once, to show that the light was annoying but he figured it wouldn’t go well since the humans seemed to treasure those dark coloured stones.
“Come now, Yoon Yoon. Let’s lead those poachers to their doom.” Yoojin waited until Yoon Yoon plopped down on his back before steering his course towards the group of watchers that had been tailing their pride for a couple days now.
They looked surprised to see his arrival, skinny fingers pointing at him then at Yoon Yoon on his back, and some were busy pushing those bulky stones to their faces. The two humans wearing an outer layer with swirly mud-hued patterns were this area’s known human guides, a ‘ranger’ according to the tweeting of a violet-backed starling, and were both holding ‘guns’ that Yoon Yoon was scared of.
Yoojin knew the humans wouldn’t use those guns as long as he didn't attack.
Yoojin let out a series of friendly sounding chuffs and paced around in a circle, stopping once in a while to make sure he gained their attention. With how excited their hushed whispers sounded, Yoojin hedged that even a herd of rampaging buffalos wouldn’t distract them from paying him their utmost attention.
He then flicked his head towards the direction he wanted to go, trotting several steps forward then stopping to make sure they followed, rinse and repeat. Quick learners, those humans were.
Yoojin led them towards where Yoon Yoon reported to have last seen those poachers. When they were almost within a human’s hearing distance from those poachers, Yoojin instructed Yoon Yoon to fold all his fingers except the longest one, put it in front of his pursed lips and show it to the watchers.
The watchers’ eyes became so big that Yoojin wondered whether the eyeballs would roll out their sockets, but most importantly they fell completely silent. At last, only several tall blades of grass separated the band of lion, monkey and watchers with the poachers.
Yoojin didn’t stay to watch the clash unfolding. He was a big proponent of keeping his weak self out of harm’s way, thank you very much. Loud banging sounds could be heard in the distance alongside humans’ shrieking and Yoojin smiled toothily.
“Wow master, we did it!” Yoon Yoon chattered excitedly.
Up on a hill overlooking the dry savannah land, the three poachers were seen to be herded into a giant metal box that humans utilised to move around quicker than their two hind legs could.
Before Yoojin could celebrate with Yoon Yoon their success and ingenuity in getting rid of a troublesome enemy, a shadow fell over him as Yoon Yoon’s weight vacated his back with a panicked squeak.
Something, or rather someone pounced Yoojin to the ground and pinned him down. The strength packed in that one movement was staggering, and the whiff of dominating scent made it apparent just who it was.
“I saw everything. That was dangerous, hyung. Why would you get so close to and even interact with those humans like that?” growled Yoohyun darkly.
Yoojin whined. It wasn’t quite a submissive whine that pleaded for forgiveness, just one that Yoojin invented to appeal to Yoohyun’s side that was weak to him.
“Those poachers are encroaching on our hunting grounds. We won’t stand a chance against them without outside help and will be forced to give this territory up. Do you really want to lose this territory after all your hard work? The most important thing is that I succeeded, don’t you agree?”
There was no use struggling, Yoojin couldn’t dream to ever overpower Yoohyun in a hundred seasons so all he could do was to plop feebly on the ground, like an old dying lion, and whine, again.
“Forgive me just this once, hm?”
Yes, dear brother, you did possess a menacing set of teeth that could shred me into uncountable pieces, no need to show them off.
“You’re a menace,” growled Yoohyun. The overgrown, overpowered lion then gave him a light peevish nip before letting him go and sulkily went to lie down a distance away.
Yoojin snickered as he got up and gave his body a shake before ambling his way to the fluff of gloom, to rub his face repeatedly into Yoohyun’s thick mane. “I love you too, Yoohyun.”
Over the course of several moon cycles, their little pride grew.
Yerim was an efficient hunter. She could land a finishing neck-crushing bite to a racing prey’s neck effortlessly, and accurately avoided being squashed by its toppling weight.
Sunghan was a big lion that came by one day to challenge Yoohyun but got defeated easily. His brother’s strength was no joke that the fight ended with only one decisive pounce.
Stragglers that were abandoned by their respective prides, Myeongwoo, Simyeong and Hayan joined their pride almost simultaneously. They were both resourceful in their own right and were decent powerhouses that boosted their pride’s overall standing to rival the other two major prides, Jupiter and Breaker.
Yoohyun just muttered under his breath about his hyung’s hobby to take in strays. Yoojin didn’t agree with the bit about him having a bleeding heart for helpless lions though. Yoohyun was far from helpless and it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart that Yoojin decided to voluntarily leave his natal pride those seasons ago, it was merely Yoojin’s selfish desire to be with his beloved Yoohyun that now Yoohyun was saddled with a weak lion like his hyung.
His hyung that just sat prettily and said some pointers while the pride worked together to bring down a prey triple a lion’s weight.
“A herd of buffalos will arrive at that lake when the sun reaches its highest peak in the sky, you can lie in wait between those tall grasses before that. Target the one that has a chipped left horn, it’s exhausted from being chased down by a pack of hyenas this morning. Here, rub your back here, I’ve crushed some wild sage to help mask your scent.”
Myeongwoo and Yerim both dragged the dead prey with their mouths and presented it to the brothers. Yoojin averted his eyes from looking at the buffalo’s own lifeless ones and waited for Yoohyun to take his first pick of the meal.
“Go on,” said Yoohyun, his snout nudging into Yoojin’s neck.
Yoojin gave Yoohyun a confused look but all Yoohyun did was give an encouraging gesture towards the dead buffalo. “What are you waiting for, hyung? We’d also like to enjoy our share of fresh meat, preferably sometime today.”
Usually it’s the most dominant male in the pride that would eat a kill first. It’s a necessary display to solidify the alpha male’s position in the pride hierarchy as, well, the alpha. Yoojin, on the other hand, was without doubt the weakest lion in their pride, so Yoohyun’s prompt was unusual.
Yoojin gulped. All the lions’ and lionesses’ keen stares, just waiting patiently for him to make a move was making him feel nervous that he finally reluctantly approached the buffalo, limbs and paws all tense.
As he ripped open the buffalo’s stomach, a fresh waft of blood greeted Yoojin’s nose. He started to feed. Come to think of it, Yoohyun always prompted him to take the first pick of the hunt, even back when it was only the two of them.
Yoojin couldn’t pinpoint the reason why. Finally deciding to put aside the oddity of the pride’s behaviour, Yoojin just tried to enjoy it while it lasted. He did like livers the best.
In a pitch generally unheard to their kind, Yoojin sang. It was a steady chorus of hums that barely disturbed the nature’s peace. The insects were going round and round in a perfect circle on the ground covered with dead, dry leaves. With his belly pressed to the grass, Yoojin eyed them with focused interest.
“What are you doing, hyung?”
The insects scattered away.
“Nothing,” Yoojin mumbled, shifting his attention to Yoohyun. The royal frame of his brother, the alpha, was haloed by the setting sun, his full mane seemingly wreathed in sky fire.
“Come closer to the others, it’s safer,” Yoohyun said before walking away.
Yoojin rose and started a light trot, and went to playfully tackle his brother’s broad back that remained immovable, his languid steps didn’t falter in the slightest by the assault.
“Uh oh, it’s that big lion again,” Yoon Yoon said. The little vervet monkey was hanging out on Yoojin’s back while he was drinking his fill of the lake.
Yoojin retracted his snout from the water’s surface and resisted the urge to growl testily.
Hyunjae was standing a few paces away. The leader of Jupiter pride seemed to have too much time in his paws to afford to continuously annoy Yoojin like this.
“No means no,” growled Yoojin, “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not a lioness? I can’t bear you a cub.”
Hyunjae chuckled as he moved closer. “It’s not your cub-bearing ability that charms me, dear Yoojin.”
Yoojin backed up while showing the barest hint of teeth. “My brother is really going to kill you if you scent me again.”
Thankfully those furry triangles that Hyunjae called ears were working and he stopped his advance. “Nothing but a harmless greeting. There’s no need to be so tense.”
Harmless greeting… this perfect specimen of a lion apparently had a defective memory regarding the near bloodbath that happened when Yoohyun caught a hint of his scent on his hyung’s fur just a moon cycle ago.
Will you kindly fuck off already?
“Yoon Yoon, I need your help to distract Yoohyun so he won’t come here to pick a fight with Hyunjae,” Yoojin instructed.
“On it, master!” Yoon Yoon leaped up to the nearest branch and vanished in no time.
“Did you tell him to get your alpha?” asked Hyunjae.
Yoojin sneered and answered in an impatient tone, “Yes. Now scram.”
“What if I just forcibly drag you off to my territory, right now? You can’t outrun nor overpower me.”
That wasn’t just an empty threat. Yoohyun was a big lion, but Hyunjae was even bigger compared to him. He was something of a legend in these savannah plains and tales of him killing numerous pride leaders were whispered everywhere that Yoojin was sure not a single blade of grass could miss hearing it.
Regardless, Yoojin wasn’t scared. Why would he, when he had the entire savannah backing him up?
Yoojin stood straighter, tilted his head skyward and crooned.
Dots of black started to gather, becoming denser and denser, accompanied by a series of chirps that quickly rose in volume. The birds became crawling ants in the sky that flew in a crude, dark circle above them, shrieking incessantly in ear splitting chorus. Starlings, African green pigeons, bat hawks, and Martial eagles were among the random species spotted in the haphazard flying storm.
If those countless sharp beaks and talons were to rain down upon him, even a quintessential male lion such as Hyunjae wouldn’t escape unscathed.
“Aaah I really want to take you away, Yoojin. Leave that brother of yours and I’ll give you the best life a lion can ever hope to ask for,” Hyunjae said wistfully, his kind tone was a stark contrast to the greed in his eyes.
Yoojin didn’t answer.
After a staring contest that stretched almost unbearably too long, Hyunjae finally turned around to leave.
“I’ve passed on a message to all the patrolling lions in my pride to let you pass without harming a single hair on your body. I’ll be waiting.”
Only when Hyunjae was no longer seen did Yoojin cut off his steady croon. The birds dispersed.
Good riddance.
Yoojin found a whimpering female that had her hind leg trapped in a teeth-shaped contraption that humans made one day.
“Don’t move, I’ll free you soon.”
It was easy enough to do after the many times he’d spied the rangers freed animals trapped in those planted teeth. Must have been those dirty poachers that put them there.
Yoojin had thought he was looking at a lioness. But the face didn’t look like one, and there were faint stripe markings on her cream coloured coat. He did a quick peek to check. Correction, ‘she’ appeared to be a male.
The male (not) lion had a lighter, almost white coat with faint chocolate stripes all the way to its tail. He had a bigger head compared to a normal male lion’s, with no mane in sight. There was another one accompanying him, a larger one with a bright orange coat interspersed with black stripes.
“What are you?” questioned Yoojin.
The larger one who appeared to be a female, spoke in a lilting tone, “We are called Bengal tigers, sweetie. Just freshly broke out of that legless metal box that could run at high speed that humans put us in when this little one found himself caught in that nasty human trap.”
Her movements looked graceful as she slowly circled the male ‘Bengal tiger’ that was lying on the ground, licking his wounded foot. “I’m Riette, and this cub is my little brother, Faible.”
What cub. That looked like a full grown adult. Unless Bengal tigers could grow even bigger. Yoojin shuddered just imagining it.
“Nice to meet you two. I’m Yoojin, a lion. You aren’t from around here, are you?”
“Nope, for sure.” Riette made a show of looking around, pouting and shaking her head. “It was all Faible’s fault here.”
“How so?”
“On top of being ridiculously weak, he has such an eye-catching coat colour that makes it easy for humans to spot us. Slow Faible got caught, so I didn’t have any choice but to follow him to bust his ass out from being confined forever by humans. And now here we are, deserted on a foreign land.”
Faible seemed to have wilted from his sister’s scathing words, remorseful and ashamed at the same time. Riette didn’t stop with words and went to smack a paw at Faible’s jaw. There was loose fur being dislodged from the rough contact, flying and dispersing in the air.
Yoojin somehow doubted the show of violence was solely due to or limited to Faible’s so-called mistake.
“Does it hurt, Faible?” he asked, using the tone he used to coax Yerim into accepting his offer to join the pride, moving closer despite Riette’s warning snarl and sniffing at the wound on his hind leg. “I’ll make you some grass and herb mixture that speeds up healing, they’re back in my pride’s territory.”
From the way Faible was looking at him, stars glittering in his amber eyes, it was as though Yoojin was his saviour. “Y-Yes. Thank you, Yoojin. My name is actually not Faible, it’s Noah.”
“Noah. What a nice name.”
“How about mine?” Riette interjected, the slits in her eyes narrowing.
“In my honest opinion, it’ll sound nicer if you are nicer to your brother,” Yoojin tutted, ear flicking to expel a pesky fly.
Riette’s large frame towered over Yoojin. It really felt like he would permanently depart these plains with a single swipe of her claws.
“It’s called tough love, babe. Faible will turn even more useless if I don’t discipline him properly.”
Noah’s silence was indicative enough of what he truly felt of his sister’s matter-of-the-fact statement.
Yoojin observed the two starkly different tigers that were supposedly siblings. He thought of his relationship with Yoohyun and thanked the skies that Yoohyun was exceedingly lenient on his weak hyung.
“Let me get this straight. Riette, you find disciplining Noah a troublesome chore, and Noah you are basically scared of your sister. I have a better solution that doesn’t involve you two going at each other’s throat.”
Riette and Noah looked at each other, then at him.
“What’s your suggestion?”
Yoojin held his head high proudly. “Let me teach you the wonderful, magical cure to all unpleasant thoughts... cuddling!”
Silence stretched, before Riette blurted out, “What the fuck is ‘cuddling’?”
That was how Yoohyun found his always disappearing hyung, squished in between two huge cats with strange stripes in what effectively amounted to a cub cuddle pile. Yoojin was almost swallowed by their fluff, being half their size as he was.
“This is amazing, I like cuddling. All my anxiety disappears as if it’s washed away by the river,” commented Noah, tone filled with awe.
“I don’t feel the overwhelming urge to whip my brother into shape so he doesn’t turn into a wimpy ass tiger. Teach me more, darling~”
“Hyung, what did I tell you about taking in strays?”
Yoojin playfully bared his teeth at his brother.
Yoohyun was not amused. Then again, Yoohyun needed to live a little and stopped being such a pouty cat, it wasn’t good for the longevity of his majestic mane.
“They aren’t even the same species as us,” complained Yoohyun.
“How speciesist, honey. You the alpha of this little one’s pride?”
“Yes,” said Yoohyun flatly, “Now get away from him.”
Riette chuckled and rubbed her head against Yoojin’s, causing Yoohyun to bristle more. “Now, now, we’re all friends here. I figure me and my brother could use two spots in your pride.”
“Denied.” Was Yooyun’s immediate response.
It was Yoojin’s cue to shimmy his way out of his fluffy prison and approach Yoohyun. He rubbed his head repeatedly on the spot under Yoohyun’s lower jaw that he knew was Yoohyun’s favourite, nosing and licking his brother’s thick mane and whining cutely.
“Those eyes and that insufferable whine. You’ll be the death of me, hyung,” grumbled Yoohyun in a tone that indicated that Yoojin had successfully got his way, again.
“I know you love me,” Yoojin cooed.
“M-me too!” Noah piped in hurriedly which earned him an aggressive growl from Yoohyun.
Yoojin beamed. The Abyss pride was growing nicely and he couldn’t be more excited of what the future held for them.