Chapter Text
The orphanage’s playroom was loud and lively but Wemmbu had learned to tune most of it out by now, the shouting, the crashing toys, the caretakers tired voices from trying to look out for all the kids at once.Wemmbu, however always sat in the corner near the window with knees pulled to his chest, tail curled tight around his ankles like he was trying to make himself smaller than he already was.
Across the room, a group of kids were building something out of blocks, he watched them for a while without meaning to. He’d asked to join once a few weeks ago. and someone said that last time he “helped,” he ended up breaking half of it and nobody wanted that to happen again. And Wemmbu didn’t ask since.
He tried in the beginning. He really did. He tried changing how loud he laughed, how hard he played, how much he talked. Sometimes he was too loud. Sometimes too quiet. Sometimes too competitive, too rough. Eventually he got tired of trying to fit in the places he never meant to fit in, so he stopped. It was easier to just not try.
Through the window, the yard stretched out under a bright late afternoon sun. Wemmbu watched a bird hop along the fence line, pecking at something in the dirt before flying off. He kept his eyes on it longer than he needed to. Birds didn’t care if you were an End variant. Birds didn’t care about anything he did, honestly. That was sort of nice, in a small, quiet way.
He didn’t hear the footsteps approaching.
“You’re doing that thing with your tail again,” an unknown voice said.
Wemmbu was startled, nearly banging his head on the window. He hadn’t heard anyone approach, which, for a demon with senses sharper than most, said a lot about how deep he’d been in his own head.
A kid stood a few feet away. His arms were full of sunflowers, almost too many for him to carry, stems poking out at odd angles. His hair was a bright, sunbaked yellow, messy in the way hair gets when nobody’s bothered to brush it in a while. He was smiling. Like he wasn’t sizing Wemmbu up for anything.
Wemmbu didn’t answer right away. He glanced down at his own tail, curled defensively around his ankle, then back up at the kid.
“What thing?” Wemmbu grumbled, tail flicking defensively, which probably proved the kid’s point.
“That. The wrapping around thing.” The kid tilted his head toward Wemmbu’s tail before shifting his armful of flowers to one side and lowering himself down across from him slow, careful not to crush the sunflowers, but not asking permission either. He just sat, like it was something he did all the time. “I’m Rejoice.”
Wemmbu watched him for a second before answering. “…Wemmbu.”
“I know,” Rejoice said, easily, like it wasn’t even a real answer. “Everyone kinda knows you, y’know. The tail. And the claws.”
Wemmbu’s shoulders went tight. He waited for what usually came next , the comment about keeping his claws to himself, about being careful, about being too much. He’d heard it enough times to know how it goes before it even arrived.
But Rejoice just reached for one of the sunflowers in his lap and started peeling a petal off, slow, like he had nowhere else to be.
“I think it’s cool,” he said instead. “Wish I had a tail.”
Wemmbu blinked. It took him a second to realize he heard that right. “You wish you had a tail?”
“Yeah,” Rejoice said it so plainly, like it wasn’t even a strange thing to want. “Tails are cool. You can balance with ’em. Swish ‘em around when you’re happy. I saw a cat do that once, by the fence.”
“I’m not a cat,” Wemmbu said softly.
“I know that, silly.” Rejoice grinned ,and went back to the sunflower, plucking another petal. He didn’t seem nervous doing it, just occupied, like it was something his hands liked to do while the rest of him talked. “But you got the tail swishing thing in common. That’s cool enough for me.”
Wemmbu didn’t know what to say to that. He sat with it for a moment, thinking about the words. Usually when people noticed his tail, it came with a warning attached keep it still, keep it away, keep it to yourself. Nobody had ever just called it cool and left it at that. He almost waited for the follow up, the joke he was sure was coming.
It didn’t come. Rejoice just kept picking petals, humming something under his breath that didn’t quite have a tune.
“Why do you have so many flowers,” Wemmbu asked eventually, mostly to have something else to focus on.
“Found ’em by the fence. Whole patch of ’em, past the gravel bit.” Rejoice held one up so the late sun caught it, the petals glowing gold at the edges for a second. “I like giving ’em to people. Makes ‘em happy, I think. Or at least it doesn’t make ’em sad.”
“That’s dumb,” Wemmbu said, though there wasn’t much harm meant in it.
“Maybe.” Rejoice didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He picked through his armful until he found one that hadn’t been touched yet, and held it out toward Wemmbu, stem first, careful of the small thorns near the base. “Do you want one?”
Wemmbu stared at the flower like it might bite him.
Nobody gave him things without wanting something back. That was one of the first rules he learned here, quick and hard, the same way you learn not to touch a stove after the first burn. He looked up at Rejoice’s face, searching for the catch, the moment where this would turn into something else.
There wasn’t one. Rejoice just kept holding it out, patiently, sunflower drooping slightly with the weight of waiting.
The silence stretched a little longer than it probably needed to. Somewhere behind them, the block tower shifted, one of the kids arguing over whose turn it was.
Wemmbu reached out slowly, then stopped, hand hovering in the air between them. He looked up at Rejoice, then back down at the flower. Rejoice just waited, patient, sunflower still held out. Wemmbu’s hand closed the last bit of distance and took it.
His claws moved carefully around the stem more carefully than he usually bothered being with anything.
“See? Not so bad,” Rejoice said, satisfied, already turning back to pull apart another flower for himself. He glanced sideways at Wemmbu after a moment. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
“…No.” Wemmbu replied.
“That’s fine.” Rejoice shrugged, unbothered, and shifted a little closer not touching, but close enough that Wemmbu noticed. “I talk enough for two people. That’s what my old caretaker used to say. You can just listen. I don’t mind.”
Wemmbu didn’t move away.
He sat there a while longer, tail loosening slightly around his ankle, the sunflower resting carefully in his lap. For the first time since he arrived at the orphanage, he didn’t feel like he had to be anything other than what he already was. Quiet. His tail rested beside him now swishing side to side slowly instead of around him, and he held the sunflower he’d called dumb as though letting go would be a mistake.
The block tower toppled over eventually, and the other kids laughed at the mess.
Wemmbu didn’t look over this time.
He didn’t need to.