Chapter Text
Curtain was having, for the most part, a relaxing day.
He was making notes in his journal—his plans were coming closer and closer to fruition, and soon everything would be ready—and the weather was nice, so he was sitting under a tree.
The encounter with Reynard was admittedly—strange, and more than a little irritating, but he now had bookmarks (???) and anyway, apparently the kid was invested, which was good news for his plans.
Even if he also endlessly talked about inane and obscure bullshit Curtain could not care less about. It was—fine. Whatever.
It was a nice day. He could stop thinking about weird kids and focus on his journaling and what a nice day it was.
He looked up, wondering if it was going to get cloudy, and that was when he spotted it.
Movement at the corner of his eye, directly above him.
Idly wondering if there was a squirrel—hopefully not one that would drop something directly into his lap again, as was a hazard when sitting under trees—he looked up all the way.
There was.
There was a whole child in the tree.
He stared.
She stared back, eyes wide, looking down at him with her expression screaming oh-shit-I’m-in-trouble. After a moment, she waved.
Curtain genuinely had no idea how to respond to this.
He waved back.
No sooner had he done it than he was regretting it—waving back? Seriously? And he was almost guiltily shoving his hand back onto his journal, like he could take back the wave.
She blinks down at him. He vaguely remembers the girl—she was the one with the green hat, who’d given such an interesting answer in Mr. Oshiro’s class. But he hadn’t thought about her much since then, as her grades had hardly been exceptional and she’d made no obvious dramas to exploit. She likely wasn’t Messenger material, so he hadn’t bothered looking into her much more. What was her name again? Kit? Cait?
Frankly, he has no idea what to do with his second Weird Child Encounter of the day.
“…May I ask what you are doing sitting in a tree, Cait?” he said.
“It’s Kate,” she said.
“Yes, that’s what I said,” said Curtain, annoyed, “But—”
“No, Kate with a K. Like, K-A-T-E,” she said. “Not Cait with a C, C-A-I-T.”
…How the fuck would she even know he was spelling it with a C?
“Okay, Kate,” he said, and she nodded decisively as if she could even hear the difference, “What are you doing sitting in a tree?”
“Well,” she said. “I like them.”
He waited for her to elaborate. She did not.
“Like what?” he asked finally.
“Trees,” she said. “They’re pretty neat.”
Sure. This might as well happen.
“And why are you sitting in this tree?” Curtain asked, exhaling sharply but forcing himself to keep his tone pleasant and his face smiling, even if his eyes were probably screaming.
“I like to feel tall,” she blurted out. “And, you know, I was in the circus—”
“—you were what.”
“—and this tree was fun to climb. Is all.”
He stared at her blankly.
You know what? Plausible. Twelve-year-olds were weird. This was probably normal twelve-year-old behavior. He remembered doing weird things as a twelve-year-old. This is fine.
“Honestly, I was already sitting up here when you sat down and I didn’t know what to do so I just sort of stayed here,” she said all in one breath.
Curtain stared blankly. That made a little more sense. But at the same time. What the fuck.
“Sorry,” she said, wincing.
“I’ve been here for three hours.”
“I brought snacks,” she said helpfully.
“…Why.”
Curtain wasn’t sure why he was even engaging anymore. He should just leave. Leave and enjoy this nice day somewhere else without bizarre children interrupting his nice plotting.
“I’m always prepared,” said Kate. “And I always have snacks.”
Okay, that was fair. Curtain had a snack in his pocket right now.
After a moment of hesitation, she said, “Want one?”
Curtain just. didn’t even know what to say.
“…Sure?” he said without thinking, and it came out more unsure than anything he’d said in literally years.
She gave him a thumbs up and dug around in something she was holding—was that a bucket?—and then tossed something green and shiny. It landed with a smack on his journal.
He picked it up.
“A… fruit-roll-up?” he read from the package.
“They’re sweet,” Kate added helpfully. “And sometimes they stain your tongue.” As if to prove this, she stuck her tongue out at him. Sure enough, it was blue.
“I’ll just… save this for later,” he said, slipping it into his pocket next to the granola bar.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Hey, now that you know I’m here, can I get down?”
“…Of course,” he said. His neck was beginning to get a crick from looking up at her anyway.
“Cool,” she said, and then with no preamble, jumped from the tree.
He would deny to his dying day making a startled yelp as she a) nearly broke all of her bones jumping from a tall tree what is wrong with her, b) landed smack in front of him and knocked all of his markers onto the ground.
“…Oops,” she said. He sighed, torn between mild rage and begrudgingly being impressed. Then again, she had said she was in the circus, hadn’t she—that could be a wild lie, children were prone to them, but he’d heard stranger things.
He picked up his markers, waving her off with an irritated look when she awkwardly bent to help, and watched as she—gave him a jaunty salute and then ran off in the direction of a small girl in pink who looked like she was either going to burst out laughing or attack someone like a small angry dog.
As he leaned back in his chair, alone again, he wondered if he should just go back to his office at this point. Or maybe in one of the off-limits areas. He’d had enough of kids today.