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Nox was roused from his slumber by the sensation of a finger petting his hair. It must be Chase, but why so early? Nox grumbled and swatted the finger away.
Chase giggled and scooped up the limp form of the little black and gray key. Nox squawked in indignation. “Chase! Put me down!”
“Buddy,” Chase said softly, “the jar is full.”
Jar? What jar? It was too early for this. Nox bolted upright in Chase’s hands. “It’s full? But when–”
Chase beamed at the little figure in his palm. “Me and Silver couldn’t sleep last night, so we did a couple books together.”
Nox’s heart clenched. “You didn’t have to do that, Chase. I told you I could wait.”
Chase stood and brought them over to the attic’s ladder. “You’ve waited longer than I think is fair. All the other keys are ready when you are.”
Nox looked up the ladder’s steps. It was finally happening; he was going to be a human again. Nox couldn’t tell how he felt about that. Nervous? Excited? Either way, he’d never be the same again.
He could almost imagine the way his heart would be pounding, the way his breath would be heaving, the way his chest would be able to rise and fall. He swore some days he could still feel those things, but then he’d look down and be met with a solid, unmoving body of zirconium. Sure, he could move, but only with direct intent. If he didn’t purposefully tell the metal to shift, it remained as stiff as it was in key form.
He’d tried talking to Violet about it, once. She didn’t understand why that was such a bad thing. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? she had said, You tell your body to move and it does.
None of them understood.
Nox took a deep breath. Er—told his body to mimic the motions of taking a deep breath. That had been the worst part of the transition. No matter how hard he tried, Nox couldn’t feel the air. Not around nor in him. His subconscious never stopped trying to breathe, though. Did he even have lungs? Did he have any organs at all in his miniscule frame? Some days he felt like he was drowning; gasping and convulsing, his mind screaming at him, trying to decide if he was alive or not. Chase had taught him some grounding exercises to help with those days.
Nox didn’t have the heart to tell him that they didn’t—couldn’t— work. You can’t focus on things you can smell if you no longer have that sense. He could barely feel things through his metal skin, and the only taste his tongue could register was that of chocolate. His moonstone eyes let in too much light, and half the time he felt like he was going blind. Chase had thought that Nox preferred dark places for edgy, goth reasons. Nox had decided to let him believe that.
“...Buddy?” Chase gave Nox a gentle nudge. “Are you okay?”
Nox shook his head. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Up in the attic, Nox saw the other keys gathered around the jar on the floor. Chase set him down, and Violet left the group to walk over to him.
Before Nox could say anything, she pulled him into a hug. “You’re like a brother to me, Nox. That won’t change. We all wish you happiness.”
Nox returned the hug. “Thanks, Vi. You’ll get your real brother back soon,” he whispered.
Violet pulled back and squeezed his shoulders before taking his hand and pulling him toward the others. The twelve of them formed a circle around the jar and clasped each other's hands, closing the circuit.
The narratonin began to glow. Silver looked to the side to see Chase kneeling next to them. “It’s ready! Make your wish.”
Chase clasped his hands together and grinned. “Alright, here we go! I wish that Buddy, also known as Nox, will return to his normal human state and– wait, I just thought of something, are you gonna have clothes when you transform back? Um, can we throw in some comfy clothes as part of the wish? Uh, and also we want the original villain key to be restored to normal. Did I get everything?”
Regardless of if he had thought of everything, the narratonin flashed so brightly everyone in the room yelped and covered their eyes.
When Chase’s vision returned, he saw the keys propping up a black and gray key. For a moment, he thought the wish somehow hadn’t worked, but when the key turned to face him, it wasn’t Buddy’s face he saw. The key looked very similar to Buddy, but he looked older, his hair was too short, his face was too narrow, and his eyes, while made of the same gemstone, felt so alarmingly different than Buddy’s did.
On the floor next to him, flat on his back, staring wide eyed into the ceiling, was Buddy. Or, someone Buddy-adjacent? The boy looked slightly younger than Buddy. His jet black hair was shoulder length, and splayed around his head like some sort of shampoo commercial. And those eyes. They were unmistakably brown. A deep, rich brown that drew you in like a warm drink on a cold day, the type that left your tongue scalded but begging for more.
Chase hesitated. “Buddy?” He asked.
The boy didn’t answer. Buddy, or Nox, or whoever he was just lay there. When was the last time I felt like this? he thought. He could feel his eyes drying out from not blinking. He could feel the air tickle his skin as the attic’s air conditioner whirred away. He felt his tongue in his mouth, just as slimy and weird as he remembered from when he was young.
The boy sat up. He wiggled his toes. As part of the wish, it seemed Chase had given him a pair of pajamas. Just a simple T-shirt and fuzzy pants, with matching socks. The shirt hugged his skin comfortably, but the texture on the pants felt horrendous. The boy grinned. That meant he could feel cloth textures again.
The boy held up his hands to examine them. They were just about as pale as they had looked in the stories, but something felt off. His body was different. It felt odd to him, somehow. Were his fingers shorter? The boy tried to think back to how he had been before all this, and found himself drawing a blank. He could remember being a young boy, at home with his family, and then… and then he was Nox. But that wasn’t right. Not anymore. This body wasn’t Nox. This body wasn’t even Buddy. Is this what that young boy would have become?
He reached up and felt his hair. He wasn’t used to it being so long. Did he like it that way? Is that what it was like before… before he was Nox?
The boy took a deep breath. There. He liked that. Breathing was nice. The attic smelled of dust and old wood. It was both familiar and foreign to him. The boy focused on the way his chest rose and fell, and the way it shifted the fitted black shirt. He focused on the sensation of his lungs expanding and contracting. He focused on his heartbeat, and the way his blood coursed through his veins.
The boy looked at his hands again. His fingernails were made of keratin again. Both stiff and pliable at the same time. His skin felt soft. It was so squishy everywhere. He poked, prodded, and pinched at the skin of his arm. He tested the way his skin stretched and rolled over his knuckles. They were separate now. He couldn’t feel that before. There had been no distinction between skin, meat, or bone.
Someone was saying something. Chase was talking to him. “Buddy? Are you doing okay? Buddy?”
The boy looked over at Chase. His guiding light. His north star. What did Chase think of all this? He wasn’t Buddy anymore. He wasn’t Nox. Would Chase still like him? They had planned to wait until Nox was human again to start dating, but Nox was gone now. It was just the boy left. The boy loved Chase, same as the others had, but what if that wasn’t enough?
Chase’s brows furrowed. He probably didn’t like the boy. Why would he? Chase didn’t know him.
Chase sat closer to the boy and cupped his face. It was then that the boy noticed the tears pooling in his eyes.
“It’s alright,” Chase murmured, “I’ve got you. Are you here with me? Can you say something?”
The boy let out a choked sob. “Chase–” The boy’s voice was wrought with emotion, but it was his voice. Same as it had been Nox’s and Buddy’s. It was nice. It was familiar.
Chase pulled him into a hug. The boy clung to Chase and let his tears fall as he felt Chase’s hands brush through his hair. It felt nice. How did Chase know he would like that? Nox and Buddy had liked it, but they were gone. They weren’t him. Not anymore. Didn’t Chase see that?
Chase pulled back and wiped the tears from the boy’s face. With a quick kiss to the forehead, he grabbed the boy’s hands and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get you some water, yeah? Can’t have your first day back as a human be spent all dehydrated, now can we?”
The boy nodded. “Okay.” His voice still wavered. Chase ushered him down the ladder and led him down the hallway, still holding the boy’s hand.
As they walked, the boy caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror through an open door. He stopped dead in the hallway.
Without a word, he broke away from Chase and stepped in front of the mirror, staring into the face of a person that felt so right and so wrong at the same time.
Chase stepped in after him. “Buds, you good?”
“Brown,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My eyes. They’re brown. I… I forgot.”
Chase took the boy’s hand in one of his own, and tilted his head away from the mirror with the other. “They are brown, and they’re gorgeous. You’re gorgeous, Buddy.”
The boy’s heart clenched. “That’s not my name.”
Chase smiled and playfully rolled his eyes. “Alright, Nox.”
The boy squeezed Chase’s hand in an effort to keep it from trembling. “That’s not my name,” he whispered.
Chase tilted his head in confusion. “Alright. What is your name?”
“I– I don’t know who I used to be.”
Chase considered that for a moment. “That’s okay. You’re not who you used to be. You’re who you are now.”
“But I don’t know who I am now.”
Chase pulled the boy into another hug. “That’s okay. Can I help you figure it out?”