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Kris was nursing a glass of orange juice alone at a table in the Flower Café, watching Susie and Ralsei mess around with the other flowers, when they felt a tug on their mantle. “Uuu, Kris! Let’s play!”
They turned their head. Aqua had broken off from the crowd to approach them. Red ribbon in her hair, oversized kimono sleeves billowing past her tiny hands. Kris swallowed back another twinge of nostalgia, the feeling like they were flipping through one of the Dreemurrs’ photo albums Asriel had compiled.
Kris swivelled full-body in their chair to give Aqua their complete attention. “Play what?”
“Peekaboo!” Aqua announced, pressing her hands over her face. It wasn’t exactly necessary, when her long hime-cut bangs already covered her eyes even more than Kris’ fringe did their own. “Can you guess how many eyes I have right now?”
Kris quickly drained the rest of their orange juice and kneeled on the wooden floor in front of Aqua, placing themself at equal level with her. “Three,” they guessed.
“Correct!” Aqua lifted her bangs, and three red-irised eyes blinked back at Kris in sync, crinkled and glimmering with glee. “You know, Seth keeps telling me humans only have two eyes, but so does everyone else! It’s boring!”
“It is,” Kris agreed, unable to suppress a smile. Maybe if real humans had different amounts of eyes, more colors to them…maybe things would be easier. Maybe Kris wouldn’t have to hate themself every time they looked at their own face in a mirror and saw all the ways they differed from their fellow monsters. Saw their own blood-red eyes marking them as an outsider even among their own kind.
It wasn’t so bad to look at Aqua, though. Her red eyes clashed with her cyan complexion, sure; but in its own way, the contrast suited her. It made her stand out from the other flowers’ monochrome palettes, like a human wearing a horned headband.
Aqua lowered her bangs again, covering where her eyes would be with her hands. “Round two! Guess, guess!”
“One,” Kris said.
Aqua blew a raspberry at them. Her tongue was bright red, like her ribbon and zori. “No! It was two!” She raised her bangs, and now two red eyes laughed at Kris. “Uuu, tricked you!”
“Damn,” Kris grumbled, deadpan. “You got me. How will I ever cleanse this stain upon my honor?”
Aqua hid her eyes again. “You can have one more chance.”
“One,” Kris repeated.
“Boo!” Aqua exclaimed, flipping up her hands to reveal a monoeye. “Uuu, you got two out of three! Kris wins, Kris wins!” She twirled around on one foot, sending her sleeves swaying and short twintails bobbing, before she grabbed Kris’ hand in both of hers to shake it up and down. “Here—a reward!” Aqua grinned at them, revealing long, sharp fangs not too unlike those of a fox. Clearly, she’d been spending a lot of time with the local netskie.
“Nice.” Kris patted the back of Aqua’s head with their free hand, trying not to disturb her ribbon. Idly, they wondered if she’d tied it herself, or had someone else—maybe Green, or one of the mantises—tie it for her. “Very scary.”
Aqua giggled and waved her hands, before reaching up to place them on Kris’ cheeks. “Are you a human with fangs, too?”
Kris bared their teeth to her. Square, flat, blunt; the complete opposite of Aqua’s.
She pouted. “Uuu, that’s boring.”
“Yup. Boring,” Kris agreed. They mirrored Aqua’s gesture, carefully pinching her cheeks between their gauntleted fingers, and smiled wider when she giggled. “I wish I had fangs like you do.” I wish all humans were more like you, Kris didn’t say. Yet no matter how hard they wished for it, even in these dark worlds where impossible dreams were given life, all that changed was the color of their hair and skin.
Aqua gently set her hands atop Kris’, and Kris let her lower them from her face to grasp them more properly through her kimono sleeves. She leaned closer to their face, dropping her volume to quietly ask, “Wanna know a secret, Kris?”
Kris tilted their head interestedly. “Mm?”
“I think you’re a cool human, too,” Aqua murmured, bouncing on her tiptoes. “After all, you have blue skin like me, you wear ribbons, and you like knives!”
Kris’ face twisted, and they fought the overwhelming urge to crush Aqua against them in a hug. For once, they were looking into a mirror they didn’t want to shatter to pieces with their fist, uncaring if the shards cut them in the process.
Instead, Kris squeezed Aqua’s hands. “Same to you,” they replied, matching her volume, and her elated laughter lit up the dark places inside their chest.