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Kohaku knew from the very second his eyes flew open, that something was very wrong. Usually it took more than a few handfuls of minutes— when that gratingly high-pitched ‘kyahaha’ rang through his ears as a makeshift alarm clock— for Kohaku to know his day was going to be a disaster. But for once, everything was peaceful and quiet, undisturbed and at ease… well it was supposed to be.
Except it wasn’t morning, the world was dark, lightly illuminated by a sole lamppost outside his window. And it seemed the world was also playing tricks on his eyes, because the world through Kohaku’s sight was enlarged and fish-bowled around him. Shrouded in a thick layer of darkness, every piece of furniture scattered across the shared dorm looked 20 feet tall, towering above him like big city skyscrapers. In a dream-like panic, Kohaku’s eyes darted around the room, his now small body sat swimming in his thick quilt. His hands were small and dainty, even more-so than before. Everything was gigantic and he was so tiny. (Tinier than usual, as Rinne would say with an annoying laugh)
“Well. This is my life now..” He sighed out loud, his voice coming out as high-pitched as a child. Great.
Kohaku decided to stand up. 'How did this even happen?’ finally crossed his mind. Perhaps this was a dream, or the work of one of ES’s great magicians. It would be odd for one of them to place a spell upon him. He did not know them, nor did he expect to have crossed onto their bad sides. There was always the possibility of this being an elaborate prank? Rinne and the gang weren’t really that type though, for better or for worse.
With another huff, he was on his feet, small little barefoot feet. That put another question into his head. Where did his clothes go? His pajamas were missing and instead of his obnoxious bumblebee pjs, that he had won in a Christmas white elephant, he was adorned with a white and pink tutu. Double great. What was even happening? Tiny form, puffy tutu, what was he? A fairy?
A quick turn to the right and a vast stare across the dorm into the mirror hung against the wall answered that rhetorical question.
On the small of Kohaku’s back sprouted 2 sparkly white fairy wings.
“What the f***?!” Kohaku cursed into the mirror, except his expletive was censored by the jingle of a bell. How absolutely absurd, this must be a dream. But everything from the itchiness of the skirt, to the flex of his wings felt shockingly real. There was no way this was a dream. Kohaku had turned into a fairy.
The alarm clock situated on the nightstand table (which seemed to be as big as a couch now) read 3:27am in blinking red numbers. There seemed to be 2 plausible ways this new event in his life could transpire. Either 1; he was stuck like this for the rest of his life, which did not seem cool at all and he could feel the teasing laughter of his peers already. Or 2; there was a specific set of goals and tasks needed to be completed before he could revert back to his normal self and continue about his life as if this never happened. Kohaku was banking on option 2.
“If you were to wake up as a fairy, what would you need to do to turn back…?” Kohaku tried desperately hard to think of what fairies even did to begin with. Obviously they weren’t real, well- not usually. He wasn’t sure if this counted as real or not. Probably not. Then he attempted to think back on his childhood and all the fairytale books his sisters were obsessed with. All his mind could conjure up were tales of flying children, crocodiles and pirates. Not helpful.
A loud and reverberating snore shook the fairy boy from his thoughts. The sleeping body above him, Niki, reminded him of yesterday’s events.
Naturally with a unit called CrazyB, crazy shit happened to occur, but in that moment he remembered the insanity of events. It caused a scowl to sour his face as it played through his mind like a movie.
Rinne had begged them to go out on the town. Begrudgingly, they all agreed, they knew better that the longer and harder you complained the worse the begging would get. So CrazyB went out for some games. Harmless fun at the game corner, no pachinko parlor, no gambling dens, and no bars— surprisingly (their unit was on a little thinner ice than usual).
“Have ya ever played skee-ball before Kohaku-chan?” Rinne smiled, disgustingly happy for some reason.
“Nah, why would I have?” He sighed, almost bored in tone. Rinne was cooking something up as always it seemed.
"Really?!” He looked genuinely surprised. Then his sly smile returned, “Well then, let Daddy teach ya all the best techniques on how to win~”
Kohaku threw some balls, racking up a score and getting pretty high, actually getting into it and hoping to win big to beat the player next to them.
Truly just some good old family fun!
That was until a fight broke out in the middle of the arcade… Something about cheating at skee-ball? Rinne turned to the man next to them and started a dispute over their scores. Kohaku didn’t quite catch the whole inane squabble, only the tail end when the punches started to fly. It wasn’t long after the first 3 punches that the fighting pair were ushered outside, Rinne shouted somewhere half-out the door to; “come out and watch him beat a bitch up” to which none of the other bees were remotely interested in witnessing, and went right back to playing skee-ball. 200 tickets were on the line after all. Enough time passed afterwards that Kohaku and company assumed Rinne had taken the bitch beating instead, considering he never did walk back through that door with a victorious and gloating grin.
So at that point was it really their problem? The leader of the bees was a big boy, he could handle a beating brought on by his own stupidity and suffer the consequences therefore after.
But now it kinda felt like it was Kohaku’s problem. A quick glance to the right proved the thoughts beginning to tickle his mind. An empty Rinne-less bed meant the idiot was still out (or passed out) somewhere on the streets. Sighing, it felt like the small boy’s quest was to go retrieve the leader and safely guide him home. Like some guardian angel, or guardian fairy. Who really cared for specifics at this point.
Well with his quest acquired, Kohaku knew what he needed to do. It was time to put his shiny new wings to work. With a hop, skip and a jump (and some pixie dust) Kohaku threw himself off the bed and into the air and prayed. Thankfully in this nonsensical scenario he had awoken to, his new body worked without him having to do much thinking. As if he had done this before and the little fluttering wings were working simply on muscle memory.
So Kohaku began to soar around the dark room, quite enjoying the feeling of the stale air rushing through his hair and fluttering his dress. He zipped around the room buzzing like… well a bee. With a swift right turn Kohaku buzzed right for the air vent, slipping between the bars with ease.
It only took a few pitter patter of tiny footsteps down the vent for Kohaku to realize he didn’t know how to get to Rinne’s other dorm to check if he was there. Being CrazyB, a newer unit to the party, and still having two different dorms to reside in made things really confusing. Often Rinne would say ‘lets all meet at my dorm’ leaving the rest of the bees stranded wondering if he meant their shared unit dorm, or their new assigned dorm. Kohaku always prayed it would be their shared one, not that he had anything against Rinne’s roommates, the dorm itself just smelled like ass.
“Welp, might as well just see where this thing takes me…” Kohaku grumbled, beginning to pick up his pace into a trot down the vent shaft.
And surprisingly it didn’t take long for the fairy to reach some kind of destination. Hopefully Rinne’s!
It was not.
His deadend through the winding halls was an open vent. Strange. Why would this vent hatch just be open? Wings fluttered quietly as his small body dipped into the mysterious dorm room, darkness shrouded his senses but his nose told him this was in fact not Rinne’s room. There was a staleness to the air, not unlike the one in the shared unit dorm. But there was also an air of unease, as if eyes were following his every move, as if he were being stalked silently by a predator.
“Uuuuu-! An intruder has come for my treasure-!” A terrifying squeal came from the darkness. Kohaku had landed on some kind of dresser, catching his breath trying to survey the room for whatever- whoever was hunting him. The wailing shriek of the dorms inhabit sent a familiar shiver down his back.
All hairs stood on end as a pair of glowing teal eyes ascended from below the lip of the dresser, blasting the little fairy with its staring brightness.
“Uhuhuhuh~” it giggled, terrifyingly, as a mouth of razor sharp teeth came into view. “The tooth fairy has come for my treasure~ But I won’t let it have my prized possession~”
“Uwah?!” Kohaku stumbled back, fear in his eyes as the strange and ominous figure towered above him. The little fairy’s back slammed into something large behind him, turning around quickly his eyes grew even wider with what he saw.
A large glass jar filled to the brim with pearly white teeth.
“WHAT THE F***?!?!” He shrieked, that same jingle covering his expletive as it did before. No time to care about that, it was time to skedaddle. Mayoi’s grin grew wider as a small insect net raised above his head and slammed down on the wood of the dresser next to Kohaku. “I AIN’T HERE FOR THESE-!” He tried in vain, but it seemed his little voice did not carry to the perpetrators ears.
Kohaku, knowing his little fairy life was very much in danger, jumped into the air to attempt an escape, his little wings fluttering with all their might to get his body into the air. Like a sputtering car trying to start its engine, Kohaku had trouble getting into the air. The insect net flew all around him, cutting through the air with low precision, Mayoi trying his damnedest to protect his prized possession.
“Sh** sh** sh**!!” He cried, finally zooming through the air erratically. He jingled back and forth escaping the wrath of the comically small net until it collided with him mid-air. Thankfully instead of being wrapped up in netting, the force rocketed him through the air further and right into the open vent to safety.
He was dizzy, but safe. Thank god.
With all the fearing for his life, Kohaku didn’t even have time to think about how goddamn weird it was for Mayoi to have all those teeth. Were they his? His poor unit mates’? He didn’t really want to think about it more than he had to. With the returned safety of the dusty air vents, Kohaku could resume his quest to find Rinne.
This time he took to flying down the vent halls, going up and up further through the system. In an off chance memory, Kohaku vaguely remembered Rinne’s dorm being on the 3rd floor.
A very specific scent told Kohaku this was undoubtedly Rinne’s room. It was a kind of sweaty, fishy, and flowery mix of smells that the 3 inhabitants of the room had surely gone nose-blind to, yet to anyone else would be easily recognizable. After all, Rinne, Hiyori, and Kanata were the ones living there. Kohaku wrinkled his nose as he squeezed through the vent and fell down onto a shelf. From this lucky vantage point he could safely survey the room.
With a quick count, one and two, the fairy boy recognized two sleeping forms dozing soundly in bed. The last bed, messy and full of discarded clothes was Rinne’s. Though if that wasn’t enough proof, the princess bed was surly Hiyori’s, and Kanata slept upon a pile of different fish shaped plushies. Cool. So Rinne wasn’t here either.
Well maybe there were clues that he never actually came back to the dorms at all?
He stepped down and off the shelf, preparing to take flight to search around the room. But instead of feeling the wind comb his hair as he soared about, he felt the cold rush of water soak him to the bone.
He had fallen into Kanata’s fish tank.
chomp
Chomp? Suddenly a sharp pain shot through Kohaku’s leg. A large and angry looking fish had latched right onto him, swallowing his whole leg up to the thigh as if it were a shark. Well, it might as well have been, given Kohaku’s fairy size and its— well, shark size in comparison.
“GAAAAAH!!!!” Kohaku really couldn’t catch a break huh. With a gurgled, water-filled, scream Kohaku tried to swim up to the surface, thrashing as he went. The large fish gnawing on his leg wasn’t making things easier. Who the hell allowed Kanata to keep a live piranha in the dorms!!!
The boy thrashed harder, using his free foot to push the fish off him. It didn’t budge. Instead chomping down even harder and not giving up its prey. Kohaku was really about to blow a fuse. With a snarl, the boy used both his hands to grab at the fish’s jaw, pulling it open like a bag of chips, and yanking his foot free. Then he used the creature’s head as a stepping stool to launch himself out of the water and onto the lip of the tank.
Quickly he jumped back up and into the vent, not without flipping the damn fish off, who looked offended and probably would have flipped him off right back if it didn’t have fins.
Dripping wet and hurting, Kohaku was almost ready to call this shit quits and just go home. He’d stay a fairy forever; it meant no more bug nets and fish food. CrazyB would just have to be Crazy3 Bees and 1 fairy instead. His fans probably wouldn’t mind that. And Rinne could freeze to death in a ditch for all he cared, putting him through all this insane shit.
“Tch. And o' course there’s a d*** piranha tooth in my leg. Is this a souvenir of the event or a trophy fer winnin’?” He grumbled, plucking the large tooth from its place lodged in his thigh.
He sat on the cold metal flooring and formed a puddle of salty water around him. Ughhhh, his conscience was catching back up to him thinking about a bruised and beaten Rinne… black eyes and purple skin wasn’t really the best image for CrazyB, and they were still on pretty thin ice. Right! That was the only reason for his quest to continue, for the better of CrazyB as a whole! Not because Kohaku felt bad for Rinne. Not one bit, since he always did it to himself.
A delicate flutter of his wings dried the dripping water, causing them to perk back up and become almost usable again. Once somewhat satisfied, he continued down the hallway to look for the exit to the outside. With each step the puddles trailing behind him got smaller and smaller til his glossy wings were ready to fly. Finally back on track.
The flight into downtown was much faster than the fairy boy assumed it to be. With such a small size, one would think it’d take someone twice as long to arrive anywhere. But his wings were quick! He zoomed through the night and was back to the corner arcade in no time. The place was closed, obviously, its once neon red sign was vacant of life and all the invitingly open doors were locked up tight. There was no chance Rinne was holed up inside, so Kohaku zipped around the corner to the alleyways to look for the idiot.
And low and behold, there he was. Rinne Amagi was slumped over against a dingy brick wall. Kohaku flew up to his face, hovering in place to get a look at the damage. No black eyes purpling under marred skin and no initially stand-out head trauma, surprising. Though the fairy couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief over the fact Rinne wasn’t losing any more brain cells. He was piecing together the timeline of what had happened. Yet the trickle of dried rusty nose blood and busted swelling lip pretty much wrote the story on its own. Well at least nothing was broken.
Kohaku imagined it going as such: Rinne tried his best to talk civil to the cheater but he was having none of it (probably half in part of Rinne saying he was gonna bust the bitch up) The perpetrator threw the first real punch and surprised Rinne who wasn’t looking for a real fight and he went right down with his busted up face. There was no way he was going back into the arcade looking like that so he slumped right down like a chump and admitted defeat.
The fairy patted himself on the back, detective HiMERU would have been proud of his sleuthing skills.
Or… wait did Rinne throw any punches? Maybe he was putting a little too much faith into the man with his first deduction. It was best to check his fists for any signs of impact. With all the strength in his tiny fairy body, Kohaku tried to reposition Rinne’s hand laid across the asphalt to get a better look at any damages done. A push and a shove seemed futile, but prying open the redhead’s lax fingers was way easier. Perhaps there were slap marks…?
Instead of any marks or mars, there was something inside his enclosed fist.
A singular tooth.
Rinne Amagi had lost a tooth in a back alley brawl.
“Oh for f**** sake Rinne-han.” Kohaku sighed into his tiny hand. He had half a mind to kick that tooth down the alleyway. He had enough of teeth today!! Whatever, Rinne was safe and sound! What was stopping Kohaku from just flying right back home and telling the rest of the bees about where Rinne was and doing a damn rescue mission all together in the morning. Well, nothing was actually. Except a little nagging thing called his good conscience. He flew all the way out here after all, and it was his own self chosen quest to come get the damn guy. Could he really just turn tail and leave now and sleep peacefully? Probably, but why risk it. Right?
Kohaku shook his head, trying to dispel the thought of how Rinne tried earnestly to teach him that stupid arcade game…
"OKAY FINE” his little jingling voice rang.
He flew back in front of Rinne's face, as close as he could without his pink tutu tickling the redhead’s nose. He grabbed an eyelid and peeled it open to stare right into those annoyingly bright blue eyes.
“Wakey wake Rinne-han, ya better wake the h*** up before I start smackin’ ya around more than ya already have been ya d*** punchin’ bag.”
No response.
He kicked him square in the forehead with a tiny foot. Nothing.
Now would be a really good time to have a tank of ice cold salt water.
Plan B time.
Kohaku flew to the opposite wall of the alley and got a flying start, his little wings flapped with such strength and speed as he barreled right into Rinne’s middle, sucker punching him right in the stomach. His body lurched forward and from his throat rose a nasty “ugnphh” but not a single eye shot open.
The fairy stumbled out of Rinne’s lap, dizzy and disoriented. That may have hurt Kohaku more than it did Rinne. Time for a less stupid idea.
Plan C had Kohaku returning to the closeness of Rinne’s face, this time turning away from facing him. With his wings lined up to Rinne’s nose he began to flutter them open and close and open and close to tickle the man into waking up.
Twitch Twitch
“Haa… Haaa… ACHOO-“ Rinne sneezed, sending Kohaku flying through the air from the force. “Wha… huh..” Rinne’s sleepy eyes opened ever so slightly. It seemed he was only half awake stuck in a dreamlike stupor. Half lidded cerulean eyes half focused on the tiny Kohaku steading himself in front of the man.
“Rinne-han… it's time to go home. Let's go.” He grumbled, praying that his half conscious brain would not recall the fanatical events of this meeting.
“Kohaku…chan…?” He mumbled, raising himself into a wavering stand as Kohaku guided him up with a hold at the wrist.
He was sure Rinne couldn’t hear him, either because he was totally concussed or because like Mayoi, his voice was too tiny and high for such a larger being to fully hear. Instead he relied on leading the leader with his held wrist to stumble their way back home.
As they exited the alleyway, they began to pick up speed. Kohaku let go and instead used his pixie dust trail and fluttering form to relay to Rinne which way they were going. Kohaku looked back towards the spot in which Rinne laid and saw that sparkling tooth still just laying there.
Ughhh!!! Kohaku cursed to himself for what he was about to do. He couldn’t just leave Rinne’s tooth there. He wasn’t sure if it was the principle of the matter or some kind of ridiculous innate need he needed to fulfill. Rule of three or whatever they say. So he scooped the damn thing up and held it under one arm as he returned to be Rinne’s seeing eye fairy.
The trip back to the Ensemble Square dorms was much longer and more grueling than Kohaku’s trip leaving it. Between Rinne tripping over his own feet and Kohaku attempting to not let them get hit by cars, the fairy was scared they weren’t actually gonna make it in one piece. But thankfully after enough threats to fall into sewer drains, they made it back and through the front doors.
They turned corner after corner of the confusing dorm halls, letting both their bodies work on memory. Both Rinne and Kohaku were losing steam and even Kohaku could feel his own drooping eyelids filling his brain with the same exhaustion about to overcome Rinne. Quickly they found their room, marked and decorated by a crass bee drawing probably made by Niki.
He helped guide Rinne’s hand to the dorm door, punching in the code (lovingly chosen to be 8008 by Rinne himself) and using the half awake man’s remaining strength to turn the handle open. Once inside he finished the quest by guiding Rinne to his bed and letting the leader collapse into the unkempt pile of blankets. His eyes closed fully once again and passed out into a blissful, comfortable sleep.
Kohaku was done. He did it. He completed his self-imposed task and now he could return to bed and wake up in the morning pretending none of this happened. With the weight of the world falling on his exhausted little wings, he staggered through the air one final time and landed in the sea of his quilt to fall fast asleep. Kohaku nodded off quickly, hugging Rinne's tooth to his small body as he drifted off into some well earned rest.
---
“Gooooood Morning’ Kohaku-chan~!” Rinne sang loudly, snatching his covers off his body with a yank. What a wonderful wake up call. “Rise and shine my bees!” He continued to sing horribly in place of any normal alarm clock.
“Uuug… Rinne-kun… what time is it?” Niki mumbled sleepily. His bed head was particularly bad as his face dangled above from the top bunk.
“Too early.” HiMERU’s face emerged from his top bunk, his hair looking perfectly brushed and styled somehow. “Amagi what are you even doing waking us up so early on a weekend…”
“It’s important-! I swear, I gotta tell y’all about this insane dream I had. It involves ya, Kohaku-chan!” A dream? Oh great, everyone loves hearing about other people’s dreams.
Wait. “Ya had a weird dream too Rinne-han?”
“Last night? Wait a minute…” Niki began as he swung his legs off the edge, ready to jump down. “When did you even get here? You didn't come home with us last night.”
“That's the crazy part! I had a dream that Kohaku-chan went on a crazy adventure to come find me at the arcade to lead me back home to safety!” Rinne exclaimed, grabbing Kohaku and pulling him out of bed. At the exact same time Niki jumped off his bunk and almost landed on the little guy.
“So that’s where you were…” HiMERU groaned under his breath.
“Wait, maybe it wasn’t a dream. Kohaku-kun did you wake up last night and sneak out to go bring Rinne-kun home?” Niki said, “Uwaa what a good kid.”
The dream from last night was starting to feel a little too real.
“Ain’t no way,” Rinne said assuredly, “‘cause the Kohaku-chan that brought me back here was a little fairy! All complete with glittery wings and a pink tutu!”
Kohaku stomped on Rinne’s foot with a painful 'oomf’.
“Awe what? Just Kohaku-kun? What about us, were we there?” Niki asked, almost sad about his lack of appearance in Rinne’s dream.
“Nope, just Kohaku-chan here~” he cooed, ruffling the boys’ already messy bedhead. Kohaku took a stab at him trying to bite his hand, but Rinne pulled it away and smiled a wide toothy grin.
“Thank god.” HiMERU quipped.
Suddenly Niki gasped loudly, pulling everyone's attention right to him.
“Holy cow Rinne-kun!” He cried, pointing right at him. “You’re missing a tooth!”
“Hah?”
Niki’s hands entered Rinne’s mouth and poked around to find the gum missing a tooth. “Oh my god right there! That’s bad Rinne-kun, that’s really really bad. Where is it???” Niki seemed to be panicking.
“Why the hell should I know?” Rinne shrugged, not really understanding the gravity of a grown ass man losing a whole ass tooth.
“We told you not to run your mouth and get into any more fights, Amagi.” HiMERU hissed. “How do you think it makes us look?"
“Yeah, well the guy was a damn cheater. He was pretty much askin’ for it and I really showed him who’s boss. We don’t fuck with cheaters here”
“Oh my god Rinne-kun it was a family arcade!” Niki wailed, “CrazyB doesn't have the funds for trips to the dentist, let alone for a new tooth! And I'm pretty sure we don’t have dental insurance…”
“Well I don’t know where the fucker is- hey that means I can get a badass gold tooth instead right Niki?” The bee’s squabbling faded into the background as Kohaku’s mind was lost to swirling thoughts and memories overtaking all his senses.
Everything came rushing back to him. He woke up in the middle of the night as a fairy and indeed went to save Rinne’s ass from the alleyway after his scuffle. Tooth and all.
Slowly, Kohaku peeled his fisted hand open and there it was. One sparkling Rinne tooth.
“Ugh, guys?” Kohaku shouted over the trio’s infighting, “The tooth is right here.” Holding it out for all to see.
“WOAH” Rinne was the first to react. “W-Wait holy shit- that was in my dream too! Kohaku-chan was the tooth fairy and he came and took my tooth too-! Oh my god maybe it wasn’t a dream, maybe Kohaku-chan really was a fairy and came to take my tooth as punishment for getting into that fight- even though I won.”
“Really Amagi? You expect us to believe that? Oukawa magically turned into a fairy creature and took your tooth last night just because?”
Niki scowled at the ridiculousness of Rinne’s story, “Yeah seriously Rinne-kun, that’s kinda insane, just say you lost the fight no need to lie, our perception of you can’t possibly get any lower.”
Kohaku simply shook his head, choosing to agree with everyone else.
“Wha- Guys-?! Come on!” Rinne pleaded, arms stretched wide in a begging stance. The two bees chose to ignore him and start their morning routines to get ready for their days. “Kohaku ya said ya had a weird dream too right-? Maybe they weren’t dreams!”
Kohaku only stopped at his side, placing the tooth into one of the redhead’s open palms and said; “Maybe ya outta put yer tooth under yer pillow tonight and maybe I’ll stop by and leave ya something nice~” And with a chuckle, Kohaku joined Niki and HiMERU to prepare for a day of begging the higher-ups at Cospro for dental insurance.