early on in the pizza place mingle

[happyhalloween]

My shoes don't fit anymore! I can't get them on my feet! They were so tight and then I tried to put them on and they don't go on!

And it's the same with my other clothes! They're all tight! Who's been shrinking my clothes? I'm gonna play a trick on you!

[She doesn't bother to filter the baby out of the message, oops.]

Comments

[tobegood]

[He nods back, hesitantly, then swallows hard.] Does... does this mean you're actually twenty-three?

[happyhalloween]

Uu. I dunno. Probably not? I'm supposed to be that old, but time in the Golden Land--that's where we went when we were dead--was kind of funny and everything sort of blended together? Except for the games Beato played with Battler, but even then a lot of stuff repeated. So I didn't even really grow up inside and of course I wasn't gonna grow up outside. I kind of just stayed nine-and-a-half. Inside and out.

And then Ange--she's my little cousin--came to see us after she jumped off the building--don't worry, she didn't stay--and she was eighteen instead of six like she'd been when I last saw her and that's when I really understood that time had been passing while we were in the Golden Land, even if it didn't feel like it so much to us.

So... I'm ten now... but I guess I should be twenty-two. But I don't think I am unless it'll get Naoki to let me have drinks at the parties.

[tobegood]

[This is all extraordinarily strange, and Imri's really not sure what to do with it. However, he manages to latch on to the last bit - something he can understand, and a part that's actually important to him.]

So you're... you're still really my age, then?

[happyhalloween]

[She nods.]

That's how old I am inside. And outside. I've just been... a person for twenty-two years. And for twelve of those I was nine and dead.