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A day or two of bed rest will do the trick. That’s what his dad Alibert had said that morning. That’s what Yugo told himself as he lay in his bed sniffling back a runny nose. His room was dark save for the warm lights emitting from under his door, and silent other than his friends’ laughter echoing up the stairs.
The brotherhood was supposed to spend a week together in Emelka, the first week together in a very long time, but it seems luck wasn’t on Yugo’s side. He came down with a terrible cold the night his friends had arrived. They had tried to assure him that they would have plenty of fun when he recovered, but Yugo felt like he had ruined everything.
Stuck in bed, there wasn’t much to do but think. Yugo wished he couldn’t. All he could think about was all the fun his friends must be having without him. It all made him feel even sicker. A bout of laughter rang out from downstairs, making Yugo’s heart sink. He must be missing so much right now. He sleepily sat up, but as he was about to get out of bed he locked eyes with the mirror. He didn’t know why he bothered to get up at all. He would probably bring things down anyways by being so sick.
It’s not like Yugo wasn’t used to feeling othered anyways. A simple look at him and his powers could set him apart from everyone else in the world of twelve.
His hat was the worst part. The way the pockets on the top wiggled up and down with his emotions, that it was the only one he’d ever seen like it, and that it was the only thing covering what he hid on top of his head.
He could simply not use his powers, but his wings were different. They could fold down a little bit, but they were hard to hide without his hat. It made Yugo’s stomach lurch just imagining what it would be like if he ever lost it. He reached his hand up and placed it onto his forehead. Half of his palm met skin burning with fever, the other felt a soft fabric hem. He wondered how his friends would react if they ever saw him like that.
Yugo felt his throat close as a multitude of scenarios flashed through his mind. None of them ended favorably. He tried his best to breathe as he backed himself against his bedroom wall, taking in the coldness of the wood to steady himself.
Inhale five seconds… hold five seconds… exhale 5 seconds…
Yugo’s heart rate steadied, but he didn’t feel much better. He felt hollowed out. Glancing back up at the mirror, he met his own gaze again. He was a sorry sight. Yugo’s entire face was flushed and burning hot with strands of hair glued to his face with sweat, his nose was running down his face, and his eyes were slightly puffy and glassy with tears.
Bed rest. Right. Yugo gently let himself fall down onto his soft bedding and pulled his blankets over his clammy body. He would feel better in the morning. Yugo let his eyes droop closed and felt himself drift away.
…
Eight years ago, a new friend visited the Inn. A boy around the age of six, Yugo’s age at the time, was passing through Emelka with his father, who had just sustained an injury and needed to rest.
It was not often that children of Yugo's age stayed at the inn. It was usually adventurers who stumbled across the tiny town by accident, then decided to stay for a night or two. Of course he had his friends to play with, but this was different. This new boy was braver, cooler, and cleverer than anyone Yugo had ever seen. Yugo watched as he climbed even the highest trees in the village without an ounce of fear, and managed to ride a gobball by wrangling its horns.
Yugo wanted to be just like him. He followed him around through adventures, and the boy taught him how to do all sorts of daring things. By the end of the first day Yugo was exhausted, but felt like a whole new person. Alibert didn’t even need to read him a bedtime story that night because he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
The next day, Yugo and the boy climbed the biggest rock they could find, and etched their names into the moss. The day after that, the two boys took turns skipping rocks as many times as they could, but Yugo could never beat his record.
On the third day, they went swimming in a nearby pond. Yugo refused to take off his hat to get in the water, and didn’t want to go past knee height to avoid getting it wet. The other boy called him a sissy, and splashed him with water. Yugo dunked himself under anyways, and shivered for the rest of the day as the cold, heavy fabric weighed him down. The boy called him weird for refusing to take it off when he left puddles all over the Inn floor. Yugo held his ground. The boy didn’t talk to him for the rest of the day. Yugo couldn’t fall asleep out of worry he had upset him, no matter how many stories his dad told.
After that, the fun came back. A week flew by in what felt like a second, and while they were playing a board game the boy announced that his father was healed, and that he was going to be leaving tomorrow morning. Yugo begged him not to go, but the boy didn’t have a choice. He had other friends back home he needed to see.
Yugo decided to share a secret with him, the coolest person he had ever met in all six years of his life. He told the boy to cover his eyes, and that he had a surprise for him, a parting gift that nobody else had ever seen before. The boy obliged, but when Yugo had taken off his hat and enthusiastically told him he could peek now, he just stared.
And began laughing. It was just a suppressed chuckle at first, but after a moment the boy was roaring with laughter at Yugo’s bewilderment. He didn’t understand, what was so funny? The boy held in his giggles to wipe his watering eyes, and told Yugo that he looked pretty funny with those big ‘things’ on his head. The other boy reached forward and started poking at them, giggling and hiccuping when his sensitive wings wiggled a little from the touches. The boy called them stupid, like something a goofy, garish creature would have. Like something belonging to a freak of nature.
Embarrassingly, Yugo started to cry. The boy held in another roar of laughter and called him a sissy again. It wasn’t HIS fault that Yugo looked so stupid. When the boy lunged to grab at his wings again Yugo pushed him away and threw his hat on, sobbing while he ran into his room and barricaded the door. Alibert tried to comfort him, but Yugo wouldn’t let him in. The next morning, Yugo did not see the boy off.
…
Yugo drearily rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glanced at his alarm clock. It had only been an hour since he had fallen asleep, and he could still hear his friends downstairs. At least the pressure in his sinuses lessened slightly. His body felt too heavy to get up. Why bother?
He shut his eyes tightly, trying to will his mind to send him back to sleep. He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. As long as he ignored it, he wouldn’t think about painful things.
Another laugh from his friends tore him from his mind. Inhale five seconds. Hold five seconds. Exhale 5 seconds.
To his surprise, the tingling feeling in his arms and the heavy feeling on his chest didn’t dissipate. Yugo tried again. Inhale five— A clang from the kitchen rang out, and he flinched hard.
Screw bed rest. He stood up and began pacing back and forth across his bedroom, hugging his arms close to his body.
His whole room felt too intense. The only thing he could do was curl up into the space between his dresser and the wall and hold onto himself for dear life.
Yugo didn’t want to cry, he’s not a child. Only children cry about nightmares. Unfortunately, tears just kept falling down his face and soaking his shirt.
Would his friends react the same way that the other boy had? Would they tell him he looked funny? That he was a freak of nature?
After two agonizing minutes his breathing returned to a normal pace, however he didn’t stop crying. He managed to coax himself out of the space he had shoved himself into, and he let himself fall flat against the floor.
With a shaky hand, Yugo reached up to the hem of his hat and gently pulled it off.
He looked back over to the mirror, gosh was he a sorry sight. Yugo’s eyes were puffy and red, matching his entire flushed face from both his sickness and crying. His hair was a mess, and the tears on his cheeks glistened from the now exposed wings atop his head.
Yugo ran a hand between the two glowing wings, feeling the slight warmth radiating from them. Strangely enough, looking at them calmed him. He watched the gentle pulse of the pure wakfu from them, and traced his gaze over the slight crookedness in the left wing’s base from his last attempt to get rid of them.
He took one last deep breath and pulled his shirt up to wipe his face off. Alibert was probably right, he needed bed rest. Must’ve gotten upset because he was tired.
Yugo tenderly curled himself back up under his blankets, and let his sore eyes fall shut again. As he drifted back off, he wondered why he didn’t sleep hatless more often.
There was a noise from behind his door, but Yugo paid no attention to it. Sleep was the most important thing right now. He could see what the rest of the brotherhood was doing the next day.
Then, the door creaked open, and a voice rang out, “Yugo, Alibert has some dinner for you if you’re feeling—“
Yugo sat up drowsily and wiped the sleep out of his face only to lock eyes with Evangeline, standing wordlessly in the doorway. Her mouth was agape and her eyes wide with… shock? terror? … Disgust?
Yugo panickedly scrambled to pull his blanket over his head, sliding off the bed and onto the floor with a thud. Holding onto the fabric covering his head for dear life, Yugo felt hot tears start to fall again.
Evangeline was silent. every second that passed was like he was being torn apart from the inside. This can’t be happening. It’s not real. Just another nightmare.
“Yu….go?” Evangeline called out, quiet enough to be almost a whisper. “Are you okay…?”
A choked sob was the only response Yugo could give. He pulled the blanket tighter around him. He could hear her gingerly stepping closer and tried to blindly back into a corner, but he found his back pressed against the wall. Nowhere to run.
“I shouldn’t have come in without knocking.” Eva knelt down next to him. She reached a hand up to his head, but Yugo reeled away from her touch.
“Don’t touch me!” He exclaimed. Eva obliged, and Yugo heard her sit down next to him.
“Yugo, is everything alright?”
He tightened his grip on the blanket.
“Is this because I saw you without your hat?”
He didn’t respond. Eva scanned the room and located the large blue hat, which had been discarded unceremoniously on the floor. She picked it up, and brought it back over to Yugo, still cowering under a wad of blankets.
“I’ve got your hat for you, it’s right here.” She said, gently placing it down where he could feel it. Maybe that would coax him out?
Yugo sniffled “…do you hate me?”
Evangeline was taken aback. “Of course not! You’re my friend, Yugo! I could never hate you!”
“LIAR! Did you even see me properly?!” he growled, voice trembling.
She let her mouth hang open, unable to muster up what to say. Admittedly, she hadn’t had a good look at what was under his hat. All Eva knew was that it was two glowing blue shapes that lined up with the little ear shapes on his hat. She didn’t understand why he was reacting that way.
Eva sighed. “Yugo, why do you think that whatever you’re hiding is going to change my opinion of you? I’ve known you for years, haven’t I? Don’t you trust me?”
“I… I don’t know.” Yugo curled his body up under the blanket. “I wanted more time! This was never meant to happen! I don’t want you all to think I'm strange… that I'm… a freak.”
Evangeline rested her hand on his trembling form underneath the blankets. This time he didn’t shy away. Yugo leaned into her palm, letting out a small whimper. “from what I saw, you were very pretty.”
Yugo breathed in deeply. Slowly, he dragged his body upwards until he was sitting upright, with his blanket still shielding the top of his head. Evangeline smiled down at him warmly, and kept a comforting hand on his back.
“I’m going to trust you, okay?” He stuttered out. “Nobody else will know about this if I show you, right?”
Evangeline pulled him into a gentle hug. “I give you my Cra promise that whatever happens will stay in this room.”
Yugo inhaled sharply, and his stomach lurched one last time before he released his tight grip on the blanket hem and let it fall off the top of his head. He saw the reflection of his wings’ glow appear in her eye, and studied her expression anxiously. To his relief, he couldn’t see any discontent on her face.
“How beautiful,” Evangeline exhaled, reaching a slow hand out towards his wings. Yugo leaned away.
“No touching please, they’re made out of pure wakfu and very sensitive.”
She jerked her hand back. “Right! Sorry!”
“Um, do you think I'm weird?” Yugo played with his hands in his lap. “Do they look stupid…?”
Evangeline shook her head. “No, not at all! They’re gorgeous, I’m sure the rest of the brotherhood would love to see them, even!”
Yugo’s eyes went wide, and he hugged his hat close to his chest.
“Alright, baby steps then,” she breathed. “You don’t have to show them until you’re actually ready.”
Yugo threw himself into her arms and squeezed tight. “Thank you, Eva.”
She wrapped his arms around him, and squeezed. “Anytime, friend.”
The two of them jolted to attention when they heard Amalia noisily calling Evangeline from downstairs. Yugo quickly slid his hat back onto his head, and Evangeline called back that she was coming.
“Alibert’s got food for you downstairs, if you’re feeling better.” She looked back at him before she opened the door.
“Tell my dad I'll be down in a minute.” Yugo muttered as he wiped tears from his cheeks.
She smiled at him one last time, then shut the door behind her.
“What took you so long? Dinner’s getting cold!” He could hear Amalia through his door. “And is everything okay? I heard some clanking around!”
“Ah, well…” Eva began. Yugo held his breath. Would she really keep his secret? “I caught Yugo by surprise, that’s all. We were talking a little to help him wake up.”
He breathed a deep sigh of relief, and slid his back down the door.
Yugo took one last look in the mirror to adjust his hat, and made his way downstairs to the cheering chorus of his happy friends.