Haikyuu Creature Collection

Regrets (Shohei Fukunaga)

 Wizzy: Here's a little story from a different point of view... one of the Collectors. You've probably gotten a pretty bad impression of them, right? So let me give you a better look...
Just a few little words that I feel like I should define:
Collectors: The name given to an illegal organization that sells a number of things, including various humans and creatures. Often the creatures and humans are obtained through kidnapping or abduction.
Luckless: The ones that are kept by the Collectors instead of being sold. Money is made by selling time alone with them to whoever pays the Collectors' price. Luckless are called such because of their bad luck to have been collected.
Cells: Refers to the rooms where the Luckless are kept. These are just windowless, single-person rooms, but are called cells because they feel more like prison cells than rooms.  

People see us as worthless criminals. Most of them think we all just need to die. All we're doing is trying to survive, but many disagree with what we do. They don't understand that this is all that we are good for and that we were already outcasted by them long ago.

"Hey, that little werecat," I started, laying back on my bunk, and glanced over at Shiro, my fellow Collector. We'd just brought in another load of creatures earlier that day and one question remained on my mind."Why didn't we sell him?"

Shiro snorted in amusement. "'cause he's a rare type."

"Exactly, so why would we keep him?" I was still pretty new here, so the logic behind why someone was sold or kept was something I had yet to really understand. Of course, a major factor in that was money, which all of us knew.

"Sell his body like one of the other Luckless and he'll bring in even more money."

A majority of our income came from the Luckless, the creatures that we kept in the compound. We'd charge a certain fee for spending an hour in privacy with them. The one who paid could then do anything they wished with the Luckless they had paid for, except kill them. The fee varied on the Luckless and their creature type, so some could be quite pricey.

"Okay, so say someone wanted to buy him, what would it cost?" I asked, innocently curious. He was kind of cute, but I didn't really have that much of an interest in him.

Shiro just laughed at me again. "More than you could ever afford."

Even though we were paid to keep the Luckless in line, that didn't mean we could have private time with any of them for free. No, we had to pay the fee. And with the little werecat being a rare type, he wasn't cheap.

But saving up my pay, I managed to buy an hour with him every once in a while. While some of the others might have spent such time with more intimate sorts of actions, I chose to talk with him. It took time, but eventually I was able to get him to speak and even learned a lot about him,

His name was Shohei Fukunaga and he was fifteen. He liked to play volleyball and he liked jokes. Fukunaga was quite funny and sometimes he'd even make a joke for me. Overall though, he was a very quiet sort of guy. But not even once did I ever touch him.

As time went on, I began to feel sorry for the little werecat. He was too kind and gentle to deserve a fate like this. And after some time, I came up with a plan to set him free.

I'd snatched the key from one of the guards and quickly unlocked his cell. Time was very limited right now and if I got caught, I would either die or suffer the fate of one of the Luckless. Of the two, death was probably the more desirable outcome.

Once he was freed, I guided him out of the compound. Giving him a light push, I told him to run. Run and never ever look back. It would be the only chance he had and I was risking everything to give it to him.

As he ran away, I wished that I could have gone with him, but that wasn't possible. Because I was one of the Collectors, I was considered a criminal. I could never return to normal society. If I dared to even try, I'd more than likely find myself being thrown in prison.

A broken smile formed for merely a second before I turned to go back to my bunk in the barracks. I didn't even get to take two steps before I was thrown against the wall. Three sets of eyes glared down at me and I already knew what was going to happen.

"You're going to regret doing that."