Growth

It takes a while to get used to combat school.

Not the combat part, mind you. Ren is familiar with that one. He's done his best over the years to avoid any Grimm confrontation, but sadly not all monsters wear bone armor. Ren may not have the raw power Nora packs, but that doesn't mean he hasn't learned how to give street thugs a run for their money.

It's not the combat part that gives him troubles. It's everything else ; being able to sleep in a real bed. Not having to worry about a roof when rain shows up. Having actual, regular, warm food. Not having to steal or beg or stay on edge constantly.

Not having to stick by Nora all the time.

It's weird. Learning to exist by himself- it's itchy and uncomfortable and he's not so sure he likes it.

It's- difficult, to pick a direction without Nora kicking him in gear. It's difficult, to talk and interact with people who can't read him with a glance and necessitate him to speak more than two sentences in a row. He knows there was a time before Nora where he could interact with others without flinching, but years of wandering around with hunger and cold as closest companions do wonders for one's paranoia.

He knows Nora has troubles with the sudden freedom too. Her excitement is nothing faked, but at the end of the day she keeps running back to him with a smile too tight and hands too eager to hold onto him.

He can hardly blame her. He's still learning to rein in the panic when she's not in his immediate line of sight.

Still, he tries, to learn to be his own person, as unpleasant as it is. He picks up dancing, cooking. She grows to enjoy fighting, as in genuinely have fun, rather than just trying to survive. They live. They grow. They don't have anxiety attacks when they're not sharing a bed anymore.

They share one nonetheless.

"You should try to bond with your other classmates too," his teachers say. "This- codependency, isn't healthy."

Perhaps it isn't, but neither is letting orphans wander around for years, Ren thinks bitterly.

He hates that. He hates how people make assumptions about the two of them. Ren doesn't speak much, but he has ears; they say she's clingy and he's cold and they're bad for each other. They say she's too much and he's not enough and neither belong here.

They don't get it. Ren wants Nora. Ren needs Nora. Ren can lose everything, anything, his sight and voice and limbs, but not Nora. Anything but Nora. He would fight until his legs were broken and his knuckles bloody f it meant staying by her side for one day more.

Broken, they call him. Sick.

Perhaps he is. But if Nora is a poison, then there are no other way Ren would rather die.

Broken, maybe. But broken and happy.