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Gahiji lay stretched out in the shade underneath a large boulder, panting quietly in the heat and occationally muttering curses under his breath. He was too hungry to sleep like he usually did when the sun got this hot, and he couldn't hunt until nightfall without running the risk of overheating due to his black pelt.

He had caught prey, just before sunrise, but had barely managed to eat anything before a gaggle of hyenas had shown up out of nowhere and chased him off, and he hadn't been able to catch anything else before the sun got too hot to go on.

The black cheetah lazily swatted at some flies with his tail and grumbled something about hyenas thinking they own the whole damn savannah, trying to ignore his belly's empty groans.

What a crappy day this was turning out to be.

Jii, lost in his own grumbling musings as he was, had no time to notice his assailant before it was right on top of him. He felt paws, and an impact that pressed him down against the ground, and realised that he could only do one out of two things right now. One was to try to turn and fight, but since he was already weakened by hunger, tired and way too hot, and since he had had no chance to gauge the size and strength of his opponent, he decided upon the second alternative:

"Waugh! Don't eat me! I'm not worth the effort!"

He grovelled.

"I've lived on nothing but water for a whole week, I have no taste, and I'm only skin and bones!"

Jii froze in utter dread as he heard the light, friendly voice, and realised that the pouncer had actually been a female. A playful female. A playful female who hadn't meant him any harm at all. He stiffly rolled onto his side and stared at her. Damn! A pretty, playful female who hadn't meant him any harm. He wished the earth could just open up and swallow him whole - there went every chance he ever had of impressing this girl in any way.

Trying to hide his embarrassment, he quickly fixed a scowl onto his face but failed somewhat as he stuttered and sputtered for a while before he managed to get any sort of coherent speech out:

"S-slimmer than what's healthy? It's called 'lean', and most girls actually finds it attractive! It makes me a fast and more effective hunter, thankyouverymuch!"

As if to challenge this statement, his belly suddenly gave a very loud and unmistakeable gurgle. Jii closed his eyes and cursed under his breath.

"...So I haven't eaten today, so what? I couldn't help it, my food got stolen! It's not like I can take seven hyenas all by myself."

Jii's ears perked up at the slight purr in her voice and the interested smile on her face, and he quickly glanced the female up and down, and up again. She really was a pretty thing, all covered with soft, dusky hues and perfect, rounded little spots, and her eyes... they were almost the exact same colour that his father's had been.

With those evening-coloured eyes eagerly resting on him, how could he possibly resist the temptation? He sat up and puffed his chest out, trying to look as dashing as he could.

"I'm Jii. That's short for Gahiji. What's yours?" he asked, almost off-handedly, before nonchalantly wrapping his thick tail around his paws. "As for those hyenas, well, I fought them, of course!"

She probably knew that he was lying, and he didn't have much hope of erasing the pitiful first impression that he had made on her, and she was probably right about the fact that he looked more pathetically underfed than handsomely lean right now, but all that didn't really matter. This was part of the game.

"Wounded two of them before the rest finally managed to drive me off. I knew they were going to do that eventually, of course, but they needed to learn that you don't steal from Gahiji without getting into trouble!" He turned his head to the side, presenting her with what he hoped was his most heroic and cooly suave profile.

Jii was slightly taken aback by how accepting the pretty girl was of his story: It almost seemed like she believed it, and that somehow made him feel a bit self-conscious. And she'd sat down so close to him, too... what was going on, here? Was he suddenly the one being flirted with?

She reached up to touch his scars, and he almost instinctively shied away - he suppressed the impulse at the last minute, though, and only the sudden turn of his ears betrayed his surprise. Jii wasn't all that used to being touched in a non-threatening manner: Most girls that he flirted with seemed to get insulted by his tall tales and sometimes straightforward ways, and at best they found him amusing for a while, but so far no one had regarded him with such... admiration... before. At least not since...

He let out a brief laugh and was embarrassed over how nervous it sounded. "Right, Tahnia... you said that before, right. I guess your way of saying 'hello' distracted me..." He cut himself off and quickly gathered up his wits again, in an attempt to regain control over himself and this whole, unexpected situation.

"Hrrrm, what, these? Yeah, they're battle scars all right. Got'em while fighting a lion that tried to steal my kill." It wasn't a complete lie... just not the whole truth. Jii straightened up a bit more as he started to get back into his groove again. "You know how it is: When you're one of the best hunters out there, you're always stalked by scavengers who'd rather steal someone else's hard-earned meal than hunt for themselves. Like those stupid hyenas. I tell ya, Tahnia, if there hadn't been so many of them, I'd invite you to dine on impala right now."

Jii really didn't know what to say to this girl. She must be flirting with him, but was she really so innocent that she was still buying into his stories? Surely she must know that a cheetah didn't stand much chance against a full-grown lion, no matter how awesome the smaller cat might think himself.... So... was she being sarcastic? His tail twitched indecisively and one of his eyebrows slowly crept down in confusion as she walked a little further away from him.

Her pretty smile and seductive little wink almost drove all such thoughts out of his head, however, and he had to look away from her for a moment to hide his sudden blush. It wasn't often that he found himself as the flirtee, and suddenly he felt very self-conscious. He sent a quick glance over at her, under the guise of clearing his throat. Why would such a pretty girl bother herself over a scar-faced, homeless braggart like him?

Waitaminute... she was coming on to him, asking him to show her how to hunt...

An old memory suddenly bubbled up to the surface of his mind, and his shy glance hardened a little bit with suspicion. Women... you had to be real careful with'em, 'cause they could turn your head into fluff before you even knew it, and then...

Hiding his apprehension, he stuck one of his usual, lopsided grins onto his face and gave the twilight-coloured female an apologetic shrug. He needed a little more time to figure out what was up with this lady before he showed her what part he had NOT been bragging about, and what better way to buy some than with the truth?

"Oh, I'd love to show you as well, Tahnia, but I'm afraid I can't. Not right now, anyway. If I could, I wouldn't exactly be lyin' about with a growling belly, now, would I?" He rose up and shook himself lightly to show off all of his black coat. "See, in this black fur of mine, there's no way that I could run down a prey beast before I overheated and fainted dead away, as long as the sun is out. But..." He gave her a slightly more suave smile, "...If you stick around 'til sunset I'll gladly show you the work of a real hunting pro."

"Awwwh!" Gahiji groaned in mock exasperation and shook his head, but was unable to hide his lopsided grin. "I have to be honest? But I'm so much more interesting when I get to elaborate!" He sighed and plopped down into sitting, reaching up with a hind paw to scratch himself thoughtfully behind an ear.

"But okay, if you'll be honest with me as well, I suppose I can play by those rules." He sighed and dropped the paw back onto the earth, trying to give the pretty girl a rueful glare. "Just don't start complaining when you find out what a bore I really am. You're the one who asked for the truth."

The black cheetah thoughtfully studied his paws as his scarred brow creased in thought. "The truth... the truth... Hmm... there's not a whole lot to tell, really... Well, I guess I can start by admitting that I didn't fight with that pack of hyenas from before." he glanced at her. "But I suppose you already knew that, so... I dunno, what do you want to know?"

'Tall-dark-and-handsome', she'd called him. But also 'scar'. And the way that she looked at him... He had a few questions of his own, but it was only fair to let her go first. Besides, he might be able to figure her out a little bit by the questions she asked - and, of course, by her reaction to his answers.

She was a real beauty, this one, but he knew very well how weak he was: He'd been played by pretty eyes before. This time he would be more careful. Much more careful.

Jii made a face somewhere between sheepish and incredulous at Tahnia's admission of never having seen a hyena. Oh, well, that explained that, then. She really had believed him. Now he almost kinda regretted having actually told her the truth, but it did help him figure her out a little bit, so he supposed it was a good thing all in all.

He was just about to answer her first batch of questions when the second - and much more personal - one completely threw him off.

"I-I-I... what?" he stuttered, blinking rapidly as his ears flattened out sideways. "Distrust, well, I... It's... I'm always distrustful." When he said he was going to tell her the truth, he hadn't quite meant to do it so blatantly. Jii hurried to cover his statement as smoothly as possible. "I-I mean..." He took a deep breath, gathered himself up and glanced the pretty cheetahgirl up and down. "Yeah, of course I am attracted to you. You'd have to be both blind and stupid not be - and I'm neither. But... I don't know you. Not enough to just trust you. Don't take it personally or anything - it's just that I've found that you tend to live longer with a healthy dose of suspicion in your life." His face lit up again with a roguish smirk that looked quite natural on his black face. "...And I know pretty girls like you can turn a guy's head until he can't see what's right in front of him, if you just put your mind to it."