Page 71 of Bearly Out Loud

“The correct response is ‘thank you for the scarf, Nari, I’m sorry I destroyed my clothes by turning into a bear.’”

“Thank you for the scarf, Nari. I’m sorry I destroyed my clothes by turning into a bear.” Straight. No irony. Looking at her with those open eyes while wearing her silk scarf and her denim jacket and nothing else. “I’m also sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

The apology landed differently than the rest. Heavier. She held it for a moment. Turned it over.

She waved him off. “I knew, well, didn’t really understand what being a bear meant.” He looked around. “This parking garage reveal was very efficient. Dramatic, destructive, and impossible to deny.” She looked at the crumpled Honda. The caved hood of the other car. The unconscious operative on the pavement. “Also expensive. How much does a Honda Civic run these days?”

“I’ll cover it.”

“You’ll cover the Honda. The other car. The structural assessment for the parking garage. The therapy I’m going to need.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “And three Hermès scarves. One for me, one for Suki, and one for Emi because Takumi will insist the cat deserves reparations.”

His phone—miraculously intact in the shredded remains of his trousers—buzzed from the ground. She picked it up. Cracked screen. Reo’s name.

She answered it.

“Reo. It’s Nari. My boyfriend shifted in a garage and crumpled a Honda. He’s wearing my jacket and a scarf. He’s been shot, but he keeps calling it a graze. I need you here with clothes, a first-aid kit.”

Silence on the line. Two seconds.

Reo: “ETA eight minutes. Clothes and med kit confirmed. You called him your boyfriend.”

“He shifted into a Kodiak to protect me from armed men. I think we’re past the ‘defining the relationship’ stage.”

“Copy.”

She hung up. Handed the phone back. Dojin was looking at her with an expression she was going to need a new word for—past fondness, past attraction, past the careful distance they’d been maintaining. It was naked and specific, and it said:You answered my phone. You called me your boyfriend. You’re kneeling in broken glass, holding your jacket to my shoulder and you haven’t run.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m the first person who’s ever stayed.”

His jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it.

She moved closer. The glass crunched under her knees. She put her hand on his chest—flat, palm over his heart, the touch she’d been craving for weeks. His skin was fever-warm. Under her palm: the heartbeat, rapid and strong, and beneath it, rising like a tide, the vibration. His bear’s sound. The one he’d been denying from her for two months.

“I hear it.” Her voice was quiet. The quietest she’d been since the shift. “Your bear. This isn’t a response. It’s a language.”

The sound deepened under her hand. Steadied. She’d been hearing it in fragments—in the studio, in the izakaya, in the hallway of her loft—now complete and unfiltered. Low, rolling, warm. A bear’s declaration carried through bone and held in the chest of the person it was meant for.

“Yes.” One word. Rough at the edges. His hand covered hers on his chest. Pressed it harder against his heartbeat. “It’s been saying your name since the first session.”

She breathed. In, out. His heart was beating under her palm, and his bear was humming her name.

Well. That’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me in a parking garage. The bar was low, but still.

“We’re going to talk about this.” She squeezed his hand on her chest. “All of it. The bear. The sleuth. The mating rituals. The fact that you’ve apparently been vibrating at me in bear Morse code for months.”

“It’s not Morse?—”

“Bear Morse. I’m coining it. It’s mine now.” She stood. Pulled him up. He towered over her—barefoot on cold concrete, blood drying on his shoulder, wearing her denim jacket and a silk scarf and nothing else. She reached up and fixed the collar where it sat absurdly small across his shoulders. The same jacket he’d draped over her in the recording booth. Returned to her. Now on him after he’d shifted into a bear to keep her safe.

The symmetry hit her hard enough to sting.

Her phone buzzed. Takumi.

Takumi:Reo called. BEAR DADDY CONFIRMED. Are you okay? Is he okay? Are the CARS okay? I’m getting in a cab. ETA ten minutes. Emi is LIVID he wasn’t there.