Baby Steps

...Floating...

Nothing but a blurred and dark blue hued, infinite horizon of nothingness.

No feelings.

E

m p

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  Y

"You broke down again, hm?"

A familiar figure starts to appear. It's me. But...

( https://i.quotev.com/qka4b7nn4ihq.jpg )

"You know deep down that you can't look like this, right? No matter how hard you wish, you'll always be... You."

The blue surrounding us gets even darker, mixing between its current state, to black, and then back again in a neverending cycle.

The "normal" version of myself I see standing before me has a blank expression as always. However, it's like she can see right through me without even having to blink.

Well, it'd make sense.

We are technically the same after all.

I always end up back here.

I think I'm doing better, and then-

"When will you learn...? Don't you remember what Luci would always tell you?"

As she spoke, my surroundings kept flashing from a dull yellow, to a fiery orange-red, and purple. My emotions were quickly flaring up and bubbling near the surface.

...

Taiga woke up, drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

After realizing it was just another dream she breathed out a sigh of relief and looked down. Smiling slightly after seeing Spark was asleep and still by her side.

Taiga's smile slowly disappeared after a bit, recalling the version of herself that keeps appearing in her dreams. Softly shaking her head, trying not to think any more of what "could be." Especially after hearing one of her old best friend's names again.

Taiga gently steadied herself and got up, taking ahold of Spark in her arms. She carefully set him down on the bed and lulled him back to sleep after he was awoken by her moving.

After Spark fell back asleep, Taiga stopped petting him for the moment and stood up straight. Looking back in the mirror, she slightly cringed. After last night she certainly needed to wash her face. Taiga went into her bathroom and thoroughly washed away the dried gunk and makeup off of her skin. She stared at herself in the mirror for a bit afterwards, lightly touching her left cheek and sighing.

"One day at a time... One day at a time..." Taiga brushed her teeth and downed some mouthwash; accidentally almost choking on it. After recovering from that and finishing getting fully freshened up, Taiga put on her favorite fluffy light purple and pink robe with matching slippers. As she thought, pushing herself to do this did help her feel better, even if not fully. It was something.

"You're allowed to be proud of yourself, Taiga... For once."

Leaving her hair fully down; no ties, bands, or bobby pins, her hair basically reached her ankles at this point. She also let her tail free to move around, since no one was there to try and impress once again.

Taiga sat in one of her chairs across from the bed by one of her bookshelves. She got lost in thought after spotting her nata in the corner, leaning against the side of the bookshelf closest to her right. Carefully picking it up, she studied it another countless time, her eyes softening after landing on the ribbon tied to it.

A twinge of guilt hit her again, untying the ribbon she looked over the carving on the handle that displayed her real first name: Mika

After softly caressing the nata and re-tying the ribbon to the bottom of its handle, she set it back down where it was, slightly blocked from view unless you're sitting in the chair in the first place.

'I shouldn't have lied on the application...'

Taiga puts on a very dramatic fake pout and poses innocently with her hands clasped together, making puppy-dog eyes and staring up at the ceiling, as if to make fun of herself. If this were a work of fiction, she'd probably hear the angelic choir going off above her by now.

'"Aki Taira, but I usually go by Taiga!"' Taiga immediately stops and rolls her eyes; scoffing and crossing her arms and legs while leaning back more in the chair.

'But I just can't stand to even hear that name anymore... At least not from anyone else.'

Taiga took a glance up at Spark, and then she stared off into space, remembering Luci again.

---

Mika walked with Markus and the both of them caught up to the rest of the group. She was ecstatic she made an actual friend already. He seemed really nice to her so far as well.

Mika tried to remember what her mother told her and be very careful with her movements. Her tail wasn't visible from under her dress but whenever she got too happy or excited, it would swish around a lot in tune with her emotions. No matter what, she absolutely wasn't supposed to show her tail or extra pair of ears to anyone. Time and time again she was told she'd be in trouble and would get her dear parents in trouble as well. It was easier for her to keep her ears under control, and hidden underneath her hair since they weren't very big, and her hair seemed to grow much faster than her newer appendages.

Mika was still greatly confused on why they would cause trouble, but she didn't want to start any regardless. She loves her parents a lot and doesn't want to hurt anyone else either. Now that she had a friend, Mika was looking even more forward to her school days, and maybe even other days if they would be able to play! If he wanted to, of course.

'I should ask him if he wants to later.'

Since their teacher was starting the activities, Mika decided to think about it more later, trying to focus and pay attention to what was happening.

They started to play simple yet fun games for said preschoolers; like I Spy, Simon Says, and tossing a ball to each other until it successfully went around to everyone in the circle. Well, Mika tried, and successfully passed it on, but ended up flopping onto her face since she jumped up to try and reach it. A couple kids laughed, but their attention was quickly drawn back to the ball.

Markus helped her up and was relieved to see Mika was ok, even though she had grass and dirt on herself now. They both laughed themselves afterwards. Mika wasn't too bothered, she was currently having so much fun. Never before had she played games like this, and there was such a big smile on her face. After cleaning up as much as she could, Mika was happy when she heard that everyone was allowed to go on their own to the playground and do as they please.

For a while she followed Markus, and he was super excited to try out the slides. Mika was too, until she got to the top and looked down. Her eyes widened and she started shaking after  imagining herself going down the slide and all of the things that could go wrong. Markus noticed and gently took ahold of her hand.

"It's ok to be scared, but we can go down together if you want! I was scared at first too, but it's always fine. It's really fun, and gets better each time you slide down, trust me!"

Mika calmed down a bit by his warm words and presence in itself, and thought about it.

"O-Okay."

"Here."

He sat down at the edge and let Mika sit behind him so she could hold onto his shoulders.

"When I relax and lean back a bit while sliding down, it's even better! But you can do whatever you want!"

Markus smiled wide, looking excited.

"Alright... I'm ready!"

Markus helps to get them started after making sure Mika is ok and they easily slide down while he cheers and Mika squeaks, but then she starts laughing after realizing what he said is true.

"W-Whoa..."

"See??? It's awesome, right!?"

Mika giggles and nods a lot.

After he stands and helps her up since she's still a bit shaky, they both agree to keep going down the slides. After a bit, Mika stops shaking and becomes brave enough to go down the one beside Markus by herself again and again, having a blast.

Markus gives her a high five and a well-deserved congratulations for conquering her fears. Especially doing it on her own near the end!

Mika couldn't stop smiling and suddenly hugged him tight.

"Thank you~!"

Markus was surprised but smiled again and hugged back.

"No problem, Mika! I'll always help you!"

"You're so nice!"

"What are friends for?" He smiled so much that some of his missing teeth were now showing.

After a bit, Mika got a little tired of the slides, but Markus wanted to keep going, so she started to wonder around the rest of the playground by herself. She came up to the jungle gym and felt a bit intimidated, but looked back at Markus from across the playground. Mika wanted to keep conquering her fears, especially since she felt so confident at the moment. She wasn't scared of heights, but more of being helpless, and what could go wrong in these kinds of situations. She wanted to at least try and see if she could do this...

After very slow and careful movements, Mika gasped softly to herself after noticing she made it to the top. She was holding on tightly, but started to relax after seeing she was stable and looked around at everything.

"Wow... I did it~!"

Suddenly she saw that a group of girls were running over and giggling amongst themselves. Mika noticed they were the same group from her class.

They took notice of her from up above when they saw movements from her shadow. They looked uninterested until the shortest girl's eyes widened and she pointed up at Mika, showing the others. Mika was confused at why she was pointing to her until she noticed that each of them caught sight of her tail, especially when the wind was blowing. Mika's eyes widened too and she quickly tried to get down, crying out when she slipped and fell onto her back. Thankfully she didn't fall from too high up, but it still scared her and hurt a bit.

Once she could get up, Mika quickly made sure her tail was hidden again, but was obviously still nervous from what just happened and stayed on her knees on the ground, looking up at the group of girls. "I-I-"

"What the heck is that??? You have a tail!?" One of the five girls bursted out in shock.

The tallest one smirked a bit and stepped closer, suddenly trying to grab it.

"A-Ah! Wh-What are you doing...?"

"This is so weird! How do you have a tail?"

"Sh-Shh! Please, I'm not supposed to let people know! Please don't tell...! Um, can you stop pulling on me-?"

The girl just ignored her and kept messing with her tail despite Mika's protests.

She started to get very anxious and uncomfortable, but no one seemed close enough to help, yet she also didn't want to draw more attention to this. Mika felt trapped and scared. So, she suddenly listened to what her body's first instinct was telling her to do... She shoved the girl back as hard as she could and got up, grunting from the exertion. Mika's eyes widened again when she saw she knocked the girl onto her back, backing away from them all.

Obviously, they got angry at her.

The 2nd smallest who pushed her before spoke up:

"I guess we were right thinking something was extra weird about you..."

The tallest girl started to get back up and clenched her fist.

"You freak! You pushed me!"

"I-I didn't mean to, I got scared...! I'm sorry, I just-"

"Shut up!" She fully stood up and charged at me.

Mika closed her eyes and flinched. Tensing up fully and bracing for impact.

She's used to taking hits at home from her mother, but she thought she could at least escape it here. A tear came from her tightly shut eyes, what her mother explained becoming more clear.

However, no hit came, and instead she heard a clang from something hitting metal.

"Agh!"

A cry of pain from the girl throwing the punch. She held her fist after hitting a broom handle that was quickly thrust in the way.

A different girl she saw before in class near the front was standing at the other end of the broom, holding its handle tightly. She pointed it at the girl who backed off, like it was a sword.

"Leave her alone!" She had a very assertive and commanding tone.

The others seemed less brave, but the same girl tried attacking the one with the broom this time, only to get whacked even quicker with the broom.

"Back off, and go away, you bullies!" This girl seemed to not be new with defending herself, and others. She could move that broom impressively fast.

After a couple more bruises were added to the tallest, stubborn girl's collection, her friends were getting more anxious and afraid. They were able to pull her away throughout all of her insults she threw back at Mika and the one who stood up for her.

Once it was relatively quiet again, Mika cried more.

"Hey, it's ok... I'm sorry you had to deal with those jerks."

Mika sniffled and spoke through sobs.

"Th-Thank you... I'm sorry too..."

"For what?"

"I got you involved because I messed up-"

"You did nothing wrong... They did. You don't deserve that, ever."

Mika just now started to fully take in the girl's appearance after being able to see through her tears.

She had long, wavy dirty blonde hair that went down a bit past her waist, curling at the very end; a cute pink butterfly clip attached to the top left side of the parted strands.

A little bit taller than Mika, she had white sneakers on with pink stripes and butterflies on them.

The rest of her outfit consisted of a matching white t-shirt, bell bottom blue jeans, and a pretty filled silver charm bracelet.

Mika tried to dry her tears sloppily, still shaking.

"Wh-Who are you? I'm sorry, I can't remember well..."

"Before that, hang on a sec!"

The girl smiled and quickly put away the broom back to where she found it by the school building's back walls, getting a tissue and handed it over to Mika.

"I'm Luciána, but you can call me Luci!"

Mika gratefully took the tissue and cleaned her face after blowing her nose.

"Thank you... Again."

"You deserve to treated well, even if you look different!"

Mika almost dropped the tissue from shock, the volume of her voice getting very low and fear setting in again.

"You... saw...?"

"Yeah, but it's not weird at all to me! I think it's awesome~!

Plus... You seem super nice, that's what matters! Not how you look! Different or not, you still deserve love! That's what my mom always tells me!"

Luci smiled a lot and softly patted my head, flicking dirt off of me.

Mika felt a pang in her chest, but not a painful one. She was so thankful and relieved, she couldn't express, and started crying again. Luci seemed to understand though and hugged her until she didn't cry anymore. After seeing she was alright, she threw away the tissue for her and invited Mika over to the swings, interlocking their arms together.

"I'll never let anyone treat you bad on my watch!"

---

'Different or not, I still deserve love... That includes love from myself.'

Taiga pulled her legs up onto the chair and was resting her chin on her knees while thinking back on those times. Then she suddenly hugged herself tightly after pausing for a second.

"You've got this, Taiga... You truly haven't failed anything. You're doing good, and still trying." She whispered to herself. "And I sure won't stop for good anytime soon, even if I forget what's true sometimes... It'll be ok."

Taiga repeated that last sentence to herself a bit more before peacefully dozing off in her chair.

(Artwork was made by: https://aeliondraws.wixsite.com/commissions )