A Pound of Flesh

Sora

"Are you growing sideburns?"

Tai's innocent question makes Sora pauses, halfway through tucking her hair behind her ear. "...what?"

Tai, being Tai, more actions and feelings than words and exposition, is already laying across the table to drag his hand across her jaw. His fingers get caught in something hard but bendable like tree branches. The resulting tickle gets a giggle out of her throat.

"You are." He comments, with something that is half admiration and half pout. "I can't believe you're gonna get metal facial hair before I do."

She kicks him under the table and smirks. "We both know I'll rock the stubble more than you ever will." she teases with a laugh.

Except it's a month later after Tai notices it and the sideburns grow, and Sora isn't quite sure how to deal with that. She's trying, tentatively, to get more in touch with her feminine side; to try out the things she'd barred from herself a few years back out of anger and resentment (the nail polish definitively isn't her thing, but the skirts and comfortable enough.) But the sideburns explode in brown floof and she's thrown off-balance again, struggling against the whims of puberty and strange bodies and social expectations and figuring herself out.

She tries to get rid of it, with wax and razors, but it hurts and frankly? Not worth it. Sora has had enough hurt (and hunger and cold and sleeping outside on wet grass) to last her a lifetime or two already.

Mimi send her a bunch of pictures from America, of impossible haircuts and bright colors and "just go full butch, you'd look amazing." Matt takes her shopping on weekends, makeup in hands and fashion opinions on his tongue and "please, I'm a rock singer, the more androgynous I look the wilder the crowd gets." Tai shows up in a skirt every once in a while, all smile and twirls and "I may look masculine but I still look good in it, duh. Also I'm too hot to wear pants." (he really is; his hands are fire, but it's his words that warm her the most.)

Slowly, she learns to regain her footing.

Then, three months later, Sora washes her face and a feather stay stuck to her hand.

Her mind goes blank.

She doesn't realize she'd stopped breathing until her mother calls her name. "Honey? You're gonna be late to school!"

She startles and slips the feather (her feather) in her pocket. "I'm coming!" What is happening to her?? How?? Why??

Izzy. She needs to call Izzy.

Her friends helped her all the way through their growth. No reasons they can't help her now too.