"Strongly? I thought you ment like close friend or like...I don't know...." he suddenly felt stupid for the way he behaved.

Shiro didn't seem to listen, too depressed. Rubbing his eyes some more and not really caring for the pain in his hands he sniffled softly.

He was getting a little frustrated "Shiro? Are you even listening?"

"I did. Just... need to digest it.. I thought.. it's not good enough that I care about you..", he said, looking at Alexen at last.

"it may not be exactly have been the words I hoped for, but I'd rather have that then not have you care at all." he said petting the now sleeping pup in his lap.

"Some people didn't fall in love so easy as other's", grumbled the elf and then looked at the sleeping pup. "Where did you find it?"

He didn't hear Shiro's first comment, "In the woods next to a dead wolf with an arrow in its side, it was a female, which means most likely the male died trying to protect them and let them get away, it was crying and I couldn't leave it there. This means humans are in this forest killing for sport. If I find whoever killed this pups parent I can not make you a promise that they won't end up seriously injured or dead, no one or anything should lose their parents when they are so young" he didn't realize that he was so angry was not because there were humans but that he too lost his parents.

"Well.. them being there is fine. There is a lot of traps in the forest to lead them out of here. There are also traps that I made. So the wolf needed to get hurt outside and run here to hide. There is no reason to be stressed.. but.. I need to ask. Why are so upset. You hunt yourself.. so why?", asked the elf, tilting his head.

"you might think it sounds stupid, but when I saw this pup and heard it's crying I felt like....I don't know I guess I saw the pain and it reminded how I cried when I was taken from my parents, how I lost the only people in the world who loved me, and so did he...." he said softly looking at the pup and a tear dropping to its fur. He never talked about that with people, it still hurt him to even think about it.

Shiro didn't say a thing when he heard all that. He simply stood up and wrapped his arms around the other male. It could be sappy reaction but he didn't care, acting just like he felt inside.