[Birthright Universe] Grow
[Title] Grow
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG-13
[Warnings] None
[Notes] After Kazuya is unsealed, Book 1
[Summary] Kazuya has a new body. Clover helps him cope.
Sei had been standing outside of Kazuya’s door for nearly an hour. The charm has been lifted for a full day, but Nip still wasn’t letting anyone in. Sable tried everything he could think of, but it hadn’t helped one bit. His only solution was to sit on a chair outside the door and wait. Sei was too upset to even sit; he just kept talking to Kazuya through the solid wood of the door. His hand fluttered on the doorknob every so often, but it remained locked. It was the first time any of them could recall him actually using the lock at all.
Clover was sick of it, frankly.
She didn’t even bother to knock; it was obvious he wasn’t going to willingly let anyone in. She just said clearly through the door, “It’s me. I’m coming in,” before using her skeleton key on the lock. Sei tried to grab her arm, presumably to stop her, but her arms got a lot more work than his ever did, and she pulled free easily. She shut the door behind her immediately; just because she invited herself in didn’t mean everyone else got to come too, no matter how worried they were.
“Nip?” she called out softly. The room was pitch dark; the curtains still drawn. Had he really been like this the whole time?
The bedding stirred; the duvet is pulled up high enough to cover most of his head. It was funny, but also unsettling seeing a significantly larger body in the bed.
A noise of protest rose from the lump; she recognized it as his version of ‘I don’t want this.’ Nip had all kinds of vocal inflections, adapted from his complete lack of speech, and by now everyone in the house spoke ‘Nip’ fluently. He clearly would have preferred she not come in the room, just as much as he didn’t want anyone else in. Hence the lock, she supposed.
“Tough,” she informed him in response to his protest, before marching over and giving the blankets a firm yank. Nip was still weak as a kitten from the spell being lifted, that much was clear; he’d gained somewhere around five years in a matter of hours once the seal on his aging was removed. His muscles were still wobbly and stretched. Clover sat on the side of the bed, holding the blankets down so he couldn’t hide again.
“Look at me,” she ordered him, not unkindly. He knew better that to ignore the underlying tone in her voice. She would wait there as long as she had to, so he’d best just do as she told. When he faced her, she controlled her expression carefully.
He looked older, definitely. He was around sixteen, by everyone’s rough estimates, give or take a year. But even so, he was small. He looked severely underfed again thanks to the rapid aging, something she took as a personal slight. She’d spent a lot of time feeding this boy until he didn’t look so near to starvation, and now her hard work was practically undone. His hair had also grown out to roughly shoulder-length, with a slight curly wave to it that made it incredibly fluffy looking. His face was pale and drawn, with deep dark circles under his eyes. He also looked like he’d been through hell
Well, she supposed he had, in a sense.
“Why are you hiding?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question; all questions that didn’t end in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ were rhetorical with Nip, being that he didn’t talk. Sable said trauma does strange things to people. The boy had certainly been in enough trauma to count. Instead, he used a myriad of expressions and gestures to get his point across.
“Because I don’t want them to see me,” he answered her. She couldn’t withhold the surprise on her face; he’d never spoken to her before. Not once. They’d spent mornings together in the kitchen, him painstakingly using his newfound reading skills to find recipes that sounded interesting. She fed him whatever she picked out, any time of day or night. If he was in the kitchen, she was giving him food and watching him until he consumed it. When he picked things out, they’d cook it for breakfast; sometimes with mixed success. While Sei would consume anything and everything with equal fervor, Nip had things he much preferred not to eat.
But he’d never used words with her. The sound of his voice speaking words was so utterly alien, she didn’t immediately know how to respond. Kazuya only said one word up until now: Sei. His world revolved around Sei still, so it made some sense that his language did too. She knew how that word sounded, coming from him. But everything else was a mystery. She suspected that even ‘Sei’ would sound different now. His voice wasn’t much lower, but it certainly wasn’t a child’s at this point.
“You’re talking,” she said, still somewhat dumbfounded by the idea. He made a face; she recognized it. He was still Nip, just… bigger. Older. But still recognizably Nip.
“Should I stop?” he squeaked, covering his face with his hands.
“Only if you’re just planning on saying stupid things. Things like ‘I don’t want anyone to see me.’ Newsflash, child: you cannot hide in this room for the rest of your life, like some sort of leper,” she scolded him.
“I feel like a leper,” he replied, voice cracking It was an awkward sound, and she noticed a strange tension in his shoulders that came and went.
“...It’s not done yet, is it?” she asked, realization dawning over her.
“I don’t think so,” he croaked. His speech wasn’t smooth yet; there was a jerking, stilted quality to it. It had been months since the last time he actually spoke. His mouth was out of practice, and his words had a slight stiffness in the consonants. He over-pronounced nearly everything, but it clearly wasn’t an accent-he just needed time.
“My bones keep moving,” he informed her. That sounded unpleasant to Clover. She could understand not being up for company if your body hadn’t finished an abrupt rearrangement of parts.
“Sit up,” she instructed him. Miracle of miracles, he obeyed, albeit in a rough manner. He didn’t appear to have good control over his limbs yet; his movements were almost drunken. The blankets pooled in his lap; he was bony, pale, and his face was twisted in pain. His scars stretched oddly around his shoulders. She knew most of the damage was painted across his back, but there were marks on his front as well.
“Child,” she informed him, “You need to eat. And drink. And move around. Maybe everything will settle if you stretch a little here and there. I’m sure Sable can recommend-“
“No,” he interrupted. He pulled his knees to his chest in a slow, careful movement, wrapped his arms around them, and buried his face. “No one can see me.”
“Not that again,” she said. “Why on Earth would you refuse to see anyone? To see Sei-“
“Especially not Sei,” he said into his kneecaps. That was unexpected; Clover couldn’t recall a time when Nip did not want to be around Sei. Hell, even when Sei had the flu a few months ago, they practically had to tie him down to keep him away. In the end, he’d sat on a chair in the hallway, going in whenever Sable did. But the strong resolution in his tone bothered her. There was something wrong about it, and she didn’t quite know why.
“Kazuya,” she said, and her tone again saying what her words did not. He looked up at her; he was crying. Silent tears were running down his pale, pained face. He looked as crushed by the world as she’d ever seen.
“Look at me,” he said softly. “Look at what I turned into. It’s awful. I’m awful.”
Ah. Finally, the heart of the matter was revealed. Clover tilted her head at him before reaching out (slowly; always move slowly with Kazuya) and ruffled his hair with her hand. She made it as messy as possible, making sure to fluff it up around the top.
“I hate to be the one to break this to you,” she informed him, “but everyone looks awful when they’re a teenager. Congratulations, welcome to the most awkward period of your life.”
“I look really awful,” he answered. “I looked in the mirror yesterday. I’m all...” Unable to even complete the sentence, he buried his face in his knees again. “I’m too-I’m not like I was before.”
“Well, aging does that,” she said matter of factly.
“It’s not that,” he said, despair in every note. “I don’t know who it is. I looked into it and I had no idea who that person was. That wasn’t me. This isn’t me. It’s not my face, or my hands, or my-anything. I don’t look anything like this person.”
“You really aren’t that different,” she told him. “You need a haircut and a sandwich-maybe a few dozen sandwiches.” She looked him up and down, crooking her mouth in a wry smile. “I’m sure I could talk Sable out of some brandy, if you’d like. It’s got a pretty good kick to it. It’d get you moving.”
“I don’t see how a haircut can fix me,” he says miserably. “It’s not just-it’s more than just this… body.”
“What, the part where you’re still-“
“That’s it, that’s just it,” he said. His hands came up to pull at his hair, shaking in what seemed to be a mix of emotion and physical exhaustion. “My head is different too. I keep-I keep thinking things, remember things. I didn’t think like this before. It’s like-like this mind was there, the whole time, watching and keeping up with time, only I didn’t know it. All I had was… me. The kid. And now I’m not him. I don’t know who I am now, just… not him.”
Clover tried to digest it, but quickly discovered that, unlike Sable, she didn’t like spending unnecessary time thinking about things. Whatever was going on with the kid was something much better hashed out with anyone but her. For her, this was pretty straightforward.
“Right now, you’re not used to yourself, right?” she clarified. “I’m going to guess that what you need most is just some time.”
“I don’t know how time will help being the wrong person,” he said.
“Sometimes you just have to wait it out,” she told him. She remembered the first time she had to add material to the bottom of her underskirts. She must have been about twelve; she learned to dart less than a year later, to accommodate for a bust that would never really suit her frame. “At some point, you’ll start to feel more in control of what you look like. But I’m thinking that’ll take a few more years.”
“’Years’ sounds too long,” he said.
Lord, he was already an overly emotional kid-an overly emotional teenager was going to be trying on her. In for a penny, she thought with a sigh. Then with no preamble whatsoever, she whipped the blankets off him fully, turning her back politely as she did so.
The astonished cry he made was simultaneously satisfying and troubling. She kind of enjoyed it, in the same way that she enjoyed when Arlo got kicked in his man-bits by the ornery mule. No real damage done, but such a good sound. Unfortunately, it immediately set Sei on the door, pounding and demanding to know what was going on.
“Nothing,” Clover shouts back. “We’re talking. Leave.” It is only after the words leave her mouth that she realized there was anything unusual in it. There was a gaping silence as the weight of that statement settled in.
“Wrap the sheet around your waist, but don’t sit down,” she instructed him. “I want a good look at you so we can find you some clothes that fit.” She wished they’d considered this aspect a little more before starting the change; it hadn’t immediately occurred to anyone that they had no idea what size he’d suddenly be. With her back to him, she heard the shuffling of sheets and an occasional sound of frustration.
“I’m-you can look,” Nip said when he was ready. Clover turned and tried to take it all in. This was Kazuya-the real Kazuya. No spells, no bruises, no bandages, nothing but him. He was still so small; it was a bit surprising. Sei could only ever be described as petite, but Nip had been a child next to him. Now grown, he really didn’t seem that much bigger. His limbs were longer, and there was a different sense of scale to him. She could tell he had a bit more growing left to do, but it seemed to be of the natural kind.
“Well, the good news is I’m pretty sure you’re taller than Sei,” she said.
“How is that good news?” Nip said, looking like he was about to curl up and hide again. “I don’t want to be taller than him. I like-I liked being smaller.”
“Being the shortest of short men in a world of not-as-short-men can be trying. Or that’s what he tells us.” Clover was pretty sure there was something more to that; did he like being smaller, or did he like being smaller than Sei in particular?
“You’re still taller than me,” he pointed out. She shrugged.
“I’m also taller than Sable, in flat boots.” It was a fact of her life, and had been her own teenage curse. Just in case a dry sense of humor and a strong jaw wasn’t enough to make people-boys-shy of talking to her, she shot up like a weed and towered over nearly everyone her age. It had gotten her far more attention in the army than she had ever wanted; Arlo was the first man to ever look her in the eye with a smile, instead of a judgment.
“Speaking of boots, I wonder how big your feet are now,” she said, looking at his toes. It was hard to judge those kinds of things at a glance. “For the time being, you can wear Sei’s shirts and Sable’s pants. If his are considerably too big in the waist, we’ll try some of mine. I’m smaller around; we’d just have to hem them up.”
“I don’t want to wear girl pants,” he protested sadly. “I’m still working on being...” He trailed off, apparently unsure of what to really call himself.
“You won’t be,” she informed him briskly. “I wear men’s pants.” She had some dresses; she even wore them sometimes. She liked them. But if she wore them next to anyone but good ole’ Arlo, it made her feel comical. Next to Sei was an utter joke. “I’m tall, remember? Now come over here to the bathroom. We’re cutting that mess on your head.”
Ever obedient, Nip followed her, dragging the sheet with him. Or at least, he tried. He immediately lost his balance and hit the floor. Instinctively she went to help him up.
“Stop,” he said urgently. She stepped back, holding her hands up. She’d forgotten for a moment; the fact that he spoke now made her forget that speech was the least of his problems. She watched him carefully plant one hand and then the other on the floor. His shoulder tensed and he grimaced. Carefully, he levered himself onto his knees.
“I’ll just- you go ahead. I’ll meet you there,” he said, sounding exhausted already.
“You can’t move yet?” she asked. Was there something wrong with him? Had the spell affected his joints in some way?
“I still can’t figure out where my legs end,” he said. “I couldn’t stand earlier, either. My feet are in the wrong place.”
“How’d you get to the mirror before?” she asked, frowning.
“I crawled,” he explained. “Really, really slowly. But the sheet isn’t going to stay if I do that.”
“Then I will wait in there until you’re decent,” she said, turning towards the bathroom. “Holler if you-if you need a hand.”
Waiting the ten minutes it took for him to crawl seven feet was extremely difficult. She kept herself busy by finding the shears, getting out a towel to drape around his shoulders, and organizing her thoughts. It was clear that Kazuya was sitting on the edge of another long recovery-at least this was more like a rehabilitation. He didn’t need bandages; he needed to relearn to walk.
Kazuya finally made it to the bathroom, and adjusted the sheet to cover himself properly. Dignity intact, she turned on him. Clover was no stylist, but she kept Arlo’s hair in line and helped Sable when he got distracted with a scissors in his hand and looked like he’d gotten in a fight with a straight razor and lost. She wet Nip’s hair and combed, carefully. He winced; she lifted her hands.
“Problem?” He shook his head.
“My neck... moved,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I think my spine isn’t done yet.”
“Well, no major shifting while I’m cutting, or this will be a disaster,” she ordered, only half-joking. It took almost twenty minutes to cut, but when she finished, it was cropped short around his ears in more or less the same style he had before. Pleased with her work, she stepped back so he could look in the mirror properly.
“See?” she said. “And with clothes that fit, you’ll be fine.” Pausing for a moment, she added, “And Sei will see it too.”
He looked up at her, his expression a mix of relief and lingering pain, and said two words she never really expected to hear from him, especially not directed at her. She was a lot of things, but she was not Sei, and it was pretty obvious where the boy’s loyalty laid.
“You’re welcome,” she answered, smiling.
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG-13
[Warnings] None
[Notes] After Kazuya is unsealed, Book 1
[Summary] Kazuya has a new body. Clover helps him cope.
Sei had been standing outside of Kazuya’s door for nearly an hour. The charm has been lifted for a full day, but Nip still wasn’t letting anyone in. Sable tried everything he could think of, but it hadn’t helped one bit. His only solution was to sit on a chair outside the door and wait. Sei was too upset to even sit; he just kept talking to Kazuya through the solid wood of the door. His hand fluttered on the doorknob every so often, but it remained locked. It was the first time any of them could recall him actually using the lock at all.
Clover was sick of it, frankly.
She didn’t even bother to knock; it was obvious he wasn’t going to willingly let anyone in. She just said clearly through the door, “It’s me. I’m coming in,” before using her skeleton key on the lock. Sei tried to grab her arm, presumably to stop her, but her arms got a lot more work than his ever did, and she pulled free easily. She shut the door behind her immediately; just because she invited herself in didn’t mean everyone else got to come too, no matter how worried they were.
“Nip?” she called out softly. The room was pitch dark; the curtains still drawn. Had he really been like this the whole time?
The bedding stirred; the duvet is pulled up high enough to cover most of his head. It was funny, but also unsettling seeing a significantly larger body in the bed.
A noise of protest rose from the lump; she recognized it as his version of ‘I don’t want this.’ Nip had all kinds of vocal inflections, adapted from his complete lack of speech, and by now everyone in the house spoke ‘Nip’ fluently. He clearly would have preferred she not come in the room, just as much as he didn’t want anyone else in. Hence the lock, she supposed.
“Tough,” she informed him in response to his protest, before marching over and giving the blankets a firm yank. Nip was still weak as a kitten from the spell being lifted, that much was clear; he’d gained somewhere around five years in a matter of hours once the seal on his aging was removed. His muscles were still wobbly and stretched. Clover sat on the side of the bed, holding the blankets down so he couldn’t hide again.
“Look at me,” she ordered him, not unkindly. He knew better that to ignore the underlying tone in her voice. She would wait there as long as she had to, so he’d best just do as she told. When he faced her, she controlled her expression carefully.
He looked older, definitely. He was around sixteen, by everyone’s rough estimates, give or take a year. But even so, he was small. He looked severely underfed again thanks to the rapid aging, something she took as a personal slight. She’d spent a lot of time feeding this boy until he didn’t look so near to starvation, and now her hard work was practically undone. His hair had also grown out to roughly shoulder-length, with a slight curly wave to it that made it incredibly fluffy looking. His face was pale and drawn, with deep dark circles under his eyes. He also looked like he’d been through hell
Well, she supposed he had, in a sense.
“Why are you hiding?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question; all questions that didn’t end in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ were rhetorical with Nip, being that he didn’t talk. Sable said trauma does strange things to people. The boy had certainly been in enough trauma to count. Instead, he used a myriad of expressions and gestures to get his point across.
“Because I don’t want them to see me,” he answered her. She couldn’t withhold the surprise on her face; he’d never spoken to her before. Not once. They’d spent mornings together in the kitchen, him painstakingly using his newfound reading skills to find recipes that sounded interesting. She fed him whatever she picked out, any time of day or night. If he was in the kitchen, she was giving him food and watching him until he consumed it. When he picked things out, they’d cook it for breakfast; sometimes with mixed success. While Sei would consume anything and everything with equal fervor, Nip had things he much preferred not to eat.
But he’d never used words with her. The sound of his voice speaking words was so utterly alien, she didn’t immediately know how to respond. Kazuya only said one word up until now: Sei. His world revolved around Sei still, so it made some sense that his language did too. She knew how that word sounded, coming from him. But everything else was a mystery. She suspected that even ‘Sei’ would sound different now. His voice wasn’t much lower, but it certainly wasn’t a child’s at this point.
“You’re talking,” she said, still somewhat dumbfounded by the idea. He made a face; she recognized it. He was still Nip, just… bigger. Older. But still recognizably Nip.
“Should I stop?” he squeaked, covering his face with his hands.
“Only if you’re just planning on saying stupid things. Things like ‘I don’t want anyone to see me.’ Newsflash, child: you cannot hide in this room for the rest of your life, like some sort of leper,” she scolded him.
“I feel like a leper,” he replied, voice cracking It was an awkward sound, and she noticed a strange tension in his shoulders that came and went.
“...It’s not done yet, is it?” she asked, realization dawning over her.
“I don’t think so,” he croaked. His speech wasn’t smooth yet; there was a jerking, stilted quality to it. It had been months since the last time he actually spoke. His mouth was out of practice, and his words had a slight stiffness in the consonants. He over-pronounced nearly everything, but it clearly wasn’t an accent-he just needed time.
“My bones keep moving,” he informed her. That sounded unpleasant to Clover. She could understand not being up for company if your body hadn’t finished an abrupt rearrangement of parts.
“Sit up,” she instructed him. Miracle of miracles, he obeyed, albeit in a rough manner. He didn’t appear to have good control over his limbs yet; his movements were almost drunken. The blankets pooled in his lap; he was bony, pale, and his face was twisted in pain. His scars stretched oddly around his shoulders. She knew most of the damage was painted across his back, but there were marks on his front as well.
“Child,” she informed him, “You need to eat. And drink. And move around. Maybe everything will settle if you stretch a little here and there. I’m sure Sable can recommend-“
“No,” he interrupted. He pulled his knees to his chest in a slow, careful movement, wrapped his arms around them, and buried his face. “No one can see me.”
“Not that again,” she said. “Why on Earth would you refuse to see anyone? To see Sei-“
“Especially not Sei,” he said into his kneecaps. That was unexpected; Clover couldn’t recall a time when Nip did not want to be around Sei. Hell, even when Sei had the flu a few months ago, they practically had to tie him down to keep him away. In the end, he’d sat on a chair in the hallway, going in whenever Sable did. But the strong resolution in his tone bothered her. There was something wrong about it, and she didn’t quite know why.
“Kazuya,” she said, and her tone again saying what her words did not. He looked up at her; he was crying. Silent tears were running down his pale, pained face. He looked as crushed by the world as she’d ever seen.
“Look at me,” he said softly. “Look at what I turned into. It’s awful. I’m awful.”
Ah. Finally, the heart of the matter was revealed. Clover tilted her head at him before reaching out (slowly; always move slowly with Kazuya) and ruffled his hair with her hand. She made it as messy as possible, making sure to fluff it up around the top.
“I hate to be the one to break this to you,” she informed him, “but everyone looks awful when they’re a teenager. Congratulations, welcome to the most awkward period of your life.”
“I look really awful,” he answered. “I looked in the mirror yesterday. I’m all...” Unable to even complete the sentence, he buried his face in his knees again. “I’m too-I’m not like I was before.”
“Well, aging does that,” she said matter of factly.
“It’s not that,” he said, despair in every note. “I don’t know who it is. I looked into it and I had no idea who that person was. That wasn’t me. This isn’t me. It’s not my face, or my hands, or my-anything. I don’t look anything like this person.”
“You really aren’t that different,” she told him. “You need a haircut and a sandwich-maybe a few dozen sandwiches.” She looked him up and down, crooking her mouth in a wry smile. “I’m sure I could talk Sable out of some brandy, if you’d like. It’s got a pretty good kick to it. It’d get you moving.”
“I don’t see how a haircut can fix me,” he says miserably. “It’s not just-it’s more than just this… body.”
“What, the part where you’re still-“
“That’s it, that’s just it,” he said. His hands came up to pull at his hair, shaking in what seemed to be a mix of emotion and physical exhaustion. “My head is different too. I keep-I keep thinking things, remember things. I didn’t think like this before. It’s like-like this mind was there, the whole time, watching and keeping up with time, only I didn’t know it. All I had was… me. The kid. And now I’m not him. I don’t know who I am now, just… not him.”
Clover tried to digest it, but quickly discovered that, unlike Sable, she didn’t like spending unnecessary time thinking about things. Whatever was going on with the kid was something much better hashed out with anyone but her. For her, this was pretty straightforward.
“Right now, you’re not used to yourself, right?” she clarified. “I’m going to guess that what you need most is just some time.”
“I don’t know how time will help being the wrong person,” he said.
“Sometimes you just have to wait it out,” she told him. She remembered the first time she had to add material to the bottom of her underskirts. She must have been about twelve; she learned to dart less than a year later, to accommodate for a bust that would never really suit her frame. “At some point, you’ll start to feel more in control of what you look like. But I’m thinking that’ll take a few more years.”
“’Years’ sounds too long,” he said.
Lord, he was already an overly emotional kid-an overly emotional teenager was going to be trying on her. In for a penny, she thought with a sigh. Then with no preamble whatsoever, she whipped the blankets off him fully, turning her back politely as she did so.
The astonished cry he made was simultaneously satisfying and troubling. She kind of enjoyed it, in the same way that she enjoyed when Arlo got kicked in his man-bits by the ornery mule. No real damage done, but such a good sound. Unfortunately, it immediately set Sei on the door, pounding and demanding to know what was going on.
“Nothing,” Clover shouts back. “We’re talking. Leave.” It is only after the words leave her mouth that she realized there was anything unusual in it. There was a gaping silence as the weight of that statement settled in.
“Wrap the sheet around your waist, but don’t sit down,” she instructed him. “I want a good look at you so we can find you some clothes that fit.” She wished they’d considered this aspect a little more before starting the change; it hadn’t immediately occurred to anyone that they had no idea what size he’d suddenly be. With her back to him, she heard the shuffling of sheets and an occasional sound of frustration.
“I’m-you can look,” Nip said when he was ready. Clover turned and tried to take it all in. This was Kazuya-the real Kazuya. No spells, no bruises, no bandages, nothing but him. He was still so small; it was a bit surprising. Sei could only ever be described as petite, but Nip had been a child next to him. Now grown, he really didn’t seem that much bigger. His limbs were longer, and there was a different sense of scale to him. She could tell he had a bit more growing left to do, but it seemed to be of the natural kind.
“Well, the good news is I’m pretty sure you’re taller than Sei,” she said.
“How is that good news?” Nip said, looking like he was about to curl up and hide again. “I don’t want to be taller than him. I like-I liked being smaller.”
“Being the shortest of short men in a world of not-as-short-men can be trying. Or that’s what he tells us.” Clover was pretty sure there was something more to that; did he like being smaller, or did he like being smaller than Sei in particular?
“You’re still taller than me,” he pointed out. She shrugged.
“I’m also taller than Sable, in flat boots.” It was a fact of her life, and had been her own teenage curse. Just in case a dry sense of humor and a strong jaw wasn’t enough to make people-boys-shy of talking to her, she shot up like a weed and towered over nearly everyone her age. It had gotten her far more attention in the army than she had ever wanted; Arlo was the first man to ever look her in the eye with a smile, instead of a judgment.
“Speaking of boots, I wonder how big your feet are now,” she said, looking at his toes. It was hard to judge those kinds of things at a glance. “For the time being, you can wear Sei’s shirts and Sable’s pants. If his are considerably too big in the waist, we’ll try some of mine. I’m smaller around; we’d just have to hem them up.”
“I don’t want to wear girl pants,” he protested sadly. “I’m still working on being...” He trailed off, apparently unsure of what to really call himself.
“You won’t be,” she informed him briskly. “I wear men’s pants.” She had some dresses; she even wore them sometimes. She liked them. But if she wore them next to anyone but good ole’ Arlo, it made her feel comical. Next to Sei was an utter joke. “I’m tall, remember? Now come over here to the bathroom. We’re cutting that mess on your head.”
Ever obedient, Nip followed her, dragging the sheet with him. Or at least, he tried. He immediately lost his balance and hit the floor. Instinctively she went to help him up.
“Stop,” he said urgently. She stepped back, holding her hands up. She’d forgotten for a moment; the fact that he spoke now made her forget that speech was the least of his problems. She watched him carefully plant one hand and then the other on the floor. His shoulder tensed and he grimaced. Carefully, he levered himself onto his knees.
“I’ll just- you go ahead. I’ll meet you there,” he said, sounding exhausted already.
“You can’t move yet?” she asked. Was there something wrong with him? Had the spell affected his joints in some way?
“I still can’t figure out where my legs end,” he said. “I couldn’t stand earlier, either. My feet are in the wrong place.”
“How’d you get to the mirror before?” she asked, frowning.
“I crawled,” he explained. “Really, really slowly. But the sheet isn’t going to stay if I do that.”
“Then I will wait in there until you’re decent,” she said, turning towards the bathroom. “Holler if you-if you need a hand.”
Waiting the ten minutes it took for him to crawl seven feet was extremely difficult. She kept herself busy by finding the shears, getting out a towel to drape around his shoulders, and organizing her thoughts. It was clear that Kazuya was sitting on the edge of another long recovery-at least this was more like a rehabilitation. He didn’t need bandages; he needed to relearn to walk.
Kazuya finally made it to the bathroom, and adjusted the sheet to cover himself properly. Dignity intact, she turned on him. Clover was no stylist, but she kept Arlo’s hair in line and helped Sable when he got distracted with a scissors in his hand and looked like he’d gotten in a fight with a straight razor and lost. She wet Nip’s hair and combed, carefully. He winced; she lifted her hands.
“Problem?” He shook his head.
“My neck... moved,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I think my spine isn’t done yet.”
“Well, no major shifting while I’m cutting, or this will be a disaster,” she ordered, only half-joking. It took almost twenty minutes to cut, but when she finished, it was cropped short around his ears in more or less the same style he had before. Pleased with her work, she stepped back so he could look in the mirror properly.
“See?” she said. “And with clothes that fit, you’ll be fine.” Pausing for a moment, she added, “And Sei will see it too.”
He looked up at her, his expression a mix of relief and lingering pain, and said two words she never really expected to hear from him, especially not directed at her. She was a lot of things, but she was not Sei, and it was pretty obvious where the boy’s loyalty laid.
“You’re welcome,” she answered, smiling.