Chapter 3: Growing Pains

“…So I said, ‘no way you got attacked by a giant pine tree.’ And QP said, ‘I totally did!’ So we went back the next day, and sure enough, there was just wood everywhere…”

Jaune smiled as he listened to Aru talk, and dabbed the corners of his mouth experimentally with a napkin. Table manners weren’t the kind of thing that came easily to him. He’d grown up with siblings, so dinner had always been an ‘eat fast or eat nothing’ kind of affair, especially since his older sister was a pretty decent cook. The army hadn’t been that much different. He knew a little bit, but if you presented him with more than one fork, his gut instinct was just to use the bigger one for any and all courses.

But, while he wasn’t exactly trying to impress Aru – not exactly – he did value her opinion of him. She was kind, gentle, occasionally bought him lunch, and had a very soft and alluring pair of ears that he would very much like the opportunity to stroke before he died. She was worth at least attempting to keep his elbows off the table for, which was more or less the best compliment he could give anybody.

“So, what have you been up to?” she asked, pointing at him with her fork. There was a shred of pastry on it. Usually when they met up in cafes, she went for a salad, but today she’d gone for an oversized pecan plait that she was trying to eat as if it were a genuine meal. Mostly it seemed like an excuse for her to have a very large cup of coffee. She seemed to be one of those people who loved coffee, but couldn’t make a good cup to save her life; most of the barista knew her orders off by heart.

“Well…” he began, and paused. That was the tricky part of these conversations: finding something he’d done in the last week or so that wasn’t quasi-legal or incredibly dangerous. Working for Waruda was interesting, and compared to certain paramilitary groups he’d run into in service their idea of world conquest was positively benign, but it wasn’t a day job he was particularly proud of. “I tried making pudding.”

Aru’s nose wrinkled. “‘Tried’?”

“It went real bad. I burned the caramel.” He’d accidentally let it bubble over, and it had smoked and spat and… it just hadn’t been a great time for anybody in possession of a finely tuned nose. Just the thought of it made him want to reach for a cigarette. Although the primary purpose of his occasionally smoking habit was to calm his nerves (and make him poor), it also blunted his senses of smell and taste for a while – a very useful side benefit for choking down field rations and ignoring the scent of spent cartridges.

“Uuu... I could just go for some pudding right now. I get so hungry in Autumn, you know? Everything’s so good to eat, and it’s cheaper because it’s in season,” Aru said dreamily. “Have you ever had miso-glazed eggplant before?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s, uh… a thing that exists?”

“You haven’t lived,” she sad, eyelids half-closed in blissful contemplation. “This is why I always put on weight this time of year.”

He shifted a little uncomfortably. Weight was one of those topics he had learned to steer clear of. It never ended well. One wrong move and people were quite happy to demonstrate how much or little they weighed, often by sitting on your chest. There were worse things that could happen to him than having Aru sit on his chest, but it was a public restaurant. There was a certain level of decorum he needed to uphold.

“Don’t worry,” she said, catching his eye. Her tone was a little more wry. “I don’t worry about how much I weigh. I burn it all off in the winter anyway. It just means I’m a bit more… you know, round at the moment.

He had noticed that, if he was honest. He honestly didn’t think it was a bad look for her; in a platonic, friendly way he thought that her face looked a little cuter when it wasn’t as thin; in a non-platonic way, Aru very occasionally wore tops that showed off her belly, which was a dangerous weapon most of the year and absolutely to die for at the moment. He hadn’t had a good chance to see what the extra pounds had done to her thighs, but his imagination was very positive on the topic.

“Supple is the word I’d use,” he replied.

“Supple. I like that,” she giggled. “Oh, but speaking of pudding, I heard you made friends with QP.”

‘Made friends’. Well, that was definitely one way of putting it. QP, defender of Ebimanyou Town, part-time college student and full-time pudding evangelist, had taken it upon herself to teach him the true joy of her favourite cuisine. True enough, he had discovered that a well-made pudding was a little taste of heaven. He had also discovered that if you take a wolf and a dog of opposite genders, mix in some pheromones and a dash of natural chemistry, and then bake in an enclosed space for an hour or two, you had a recipe for a real taste of heaven.

At the time, it had been something beautiful and spontaneous and extremely pleasurable, and he felt his tail starting to wag of its own accord just from the memory of it. It wasn’t purely a physical thing, either; after holding her in his arms, he found she’d occupied a newly created spot in his own personal cosmology. There was a pull to her, an attraction, and he felt like he might enjoy nothing more than to let himself drift into QP’s orbit.

Then, after about twenty-four hours, the terror set in.

Yes, it had felt great. Yes, she had gouged out a little spot in his heart and was happily living in it rent-free. But he had had sex with a girl who could be very charitably called ‘volatile’, who had a vague and slightly terrifying amount of raw power, and who happened to be his employer’s biggest enemy. He hadn’t quite figured out what he was going to do about it, besides experiencing a vague dread about the near future.

“She was talking about you the other day,” Aru carried on, pleasantly unaware that she had dumped her conversation partner into an existential quandary he had been trying not to think about too hard. “I think she’s really taken a shine to you. I know she can be a bit, y’know, full on, but she’s a good person. One of the best.”

“Y-yeah. Definitely top five. Maybe even top three,” Jaune murmured, mostly to himself. “Very full on. Absolutely.”

“She was asking if I could get your number for her, since I mentioned we were friends, and I realised I don’t even have your number myself. Why don’t we sort that out?”

He frowned. “I don’t have a phone anymore. My old one got shot. Twice.”

Aru blinked. “Twice?”

“It didn’t stop ringing the first time.”

Aru blinked, tilted her head, and decided to erase the last few seconds from her memory. She did not, particularly, want to consign her new friend to the ‘crazy guy who shot his own phone’ bin just yet. He had so much potential to be an actual, well-rounded person, unlike all of her current friends who were entirely dominated by their own obsessions or quirky character traits. Him not having a usable phone was a problem though – and like all problems, it could pretty easily be solved by throwing money at it.

“Well, why don’t we go out shopping for a phone tomorrow, then? I can’t leave the store alone for the whole day today, but I should be able to clear my schedule,” she suggested.

“I don’t exactly have that kind of cash.”

“I’ll lend you some. I can’t just leave you running around without a phone. What if you need to call somebody for help?”

He grinned wryly, his lips tight and thin. “Would you call me cynical if I asked where the catch was?”

“No catch,” she said. “Just pay me back when you can. It doesn’t even have to be money. The Bank of Aru accepts food, clothes, good deeds, back rubs–”

His ears perked up. “Back rubs?”

“Well, sure. I end up lifting a lot, and my circulation isn’t that great, so I could always use a massage.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I’d ask QP, but she always puts too much force into it. Sometimes, there’s a fine line between giving a massage and being a chiropractor.”

Jaune nodded sagely. Extended physical contact with QP seemed to be a dangerous game, no matter what the context.

For a few minutes they talked over the details of the trip – where they would meet, what time, and how many massages it would cost. Aru was of the opinion that it was two massages to the dollar; Jaune was of the opinion that the massage industry wouldn’t exist if the going rate wasn’t a bit more than that. The conversation screeched to a halt when a familiar face sidled into the cafe, and started making plaintiff eyes – or eye, singular, as the case may be – at the menu.

Despite her being one of his fellow Waruda, Jaune did not know Krila particularly well, mainly because she barely ever showed up. Her official role was to infiltrate QP’s group and make sure they didn’t have any anti-Waruda plots brewing, but QP wasn’t really the planning type. If she did make a plan, it usually only had two steps: show up, spew bullets. In effect, Krila did nothing, and that was the way everybody seemed to like it. Her only other claim to fame was being the nuttiest member of an organisation where ‘mad scientist’ was an existing job role.

He was very careful not to look directly at her. Although almost everything that came out of Krila’s mouth was meaningless arcane bullshit, he didn’t necessarily want her to start a conversation and use the remaining 5% of her vocabulary to implicate him in a criminal organisation in front of Aru. Mostly she seemed content to stare at the sandwiches, most of which couldn’t stare back.

“Oh, Krila!” Aru called, and, to Jaune’s great concern, began to wave. “How are you today?”

Oh, he thought to himself glumly. Of course. Krila is QP’s friend, and QP is Aru’s friend. Everybody in the whole damn town knew each other, because they were all quirky lunatics with their own bizarre social web of rivalry, intrigues, and arguments about food.

“I bid thee greetings,” Krila intoned. She advanced upon them in a way she probably thought was dramatic and menacing, but was just a little bit too fast, and sped up as time went on until it was a kind of barely restrained scuttle. “It is rare to witness such a convening of superluminal beasts.”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Jaune said, as kindly as he could.

Krila sniffed a great and mighty sniff. “It’s to do with the moon.”

“I mean… that’s not completely wrong, but…”

“Just let her have it,” Aru whispered gently. “It sounds cool, and that’s all that matters to her. Besides, I like it. We could start a band with a name like that.”

“I, Krilalaris, am currently in a pit of untold misery. I have been forced by nefarious circumstance to renounce my allegiance to the Dark Gods, and instead must pledge my loyalty to the spirits of Balanced Nutrition and serve them as a Diet Warrior, or I shall take upon the countenance of Abbadon, the gaping and glutinous maw that swallows the souls of…”

If Krila had a talent, it was monologuing. Jaune privately thought she should have been in theatre, because not only did the whole world seemed to draw to a halt the second she opened her mouth, it stayed that way for long, torturous seconds – sometimes minutes – until she had ejaculated a full portion of nonsense from her frontal cortex. He took a glance across the table, and although Aru maintained a benefic smile, he could see her eyes beginning to glaze over.

“...such that I entreat ye, with your slender legs, to advise me upon the best selection of food with which to maintain a physique bereft of corpulence,” Krila finished.

It took a moment for Aru’s brain to recall all the words and translate them into something that made sense; as always, her shopkeeper’s instinct was to repeat the order back to her. “So, what you’re saying is that you’ve been putting on weight recently, and you want to know what to eat to lose weight?”

“Don’t say salad. Salad is an instrument of calamity. Spinach is especially insidious.”

“We-ellll… I don’t really know, to be honest. I don’t pay that much attention to my diet, so I end up putting on weight from time to time as well,” Aru replied. “Have you tried–”

“Falsehood! Treachery! Do not besmirch the pride of a Diet Warrior with your patronising! My dark eye can detect no flab on your belly, no bulge to your waist!”

Aru’s ears drooped slightly as she realised it was going to be one of those conversations, the ones that inevitably preceded a close-fought aerial bullet duel. She didn’t want to have a bullet duel. She wanted another danish pastry. “Ahaha… Trust me, I do gain weight. It just goes to my thighs.”

Jaune had stayed quiet up to that point, mostly because he had it on good authority that Aru could handle herself. He did think, however, that he would like to see these thighs, to ascertain their meatiness. For adjudication purposes, of course.

“That’s even worse! You dare to speak to me as an equal, but you do not even comprehend the pain of those for whom weight gain becomes an increase in… in…”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aru said encouragingly.

“...gluteal dimensions!” Krila spat. “Where is your muffin top? Where are the belly rolls, the flabby arms?! You are a scoundrel!”

Aru’s smile remained gentle, but there was now something behind it – an aura of sternness, maybe even menace. “Krila, have you been drinking caffeine? You know you’re not meant to drink caffeine.”

“Caffeine is a slimming aid! It boosts metabolism!!!”

“It makes you weird. And don’t use more than one exclamation point with me, Krila. You know how it’ll end.”

“You are a demon! I curse you! May you one day know the horror of having your body grow, with nothing you can do about it!” Krila howled, before turning on her heel and barrelling out of the shop. There was an awed silence in the cafe before the hum of conversation rushed in to fill the void, like the tide rushing back to meet the shore.

“…what just happened?” Jaune asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aru said, and sighed. “It’s one of those things you get used to when you live in this town long enough. She’ll go home, cry a bit, say sorry the next day, and it’ll all be fine. I was going to tell her to exercise anyway, so if she keeps that pace all the way back, she might get somewhere. Would you like a scone?”

* * *

For once, he dressed up. It wasn’t that he was normally a slovenly guy. He just found that combat fatigues were efficient, stylish, and meant he didn’t have to figure out what bits of his wardrobe complimented each other.

But he understood that, when you went out with a woman for shopping-related purposes, they liked you to look like you were happy to be there. If you looked bedraggled and scruffy, it reflected badly on them. At worst it made them look like your carer, which was not an endearing situation, romantically speaking.

Besides, there was a certain image about army fatigues in public life. People looked at you and they thought, ‘this is a guy who’s never been in the army, but who owns a collection of guns and drives out on weekends to shoot things and may or may not collect non-perishable food items en masse so as to wait out the nuclear apocalypse in a bunker where, in the event of said nuclear apocalypse, they will definitely commit suicide sometime in week 2 of their post-nuclear death world experience’. Jaune was under no illusions as to his survival chances in that scenario; the best option was absolutely to die and then hope you reincarnated as a scorpion or something else suitably radiation-proof. Maybe being a scorpion was an excellent life. You didn’t know until you’d tried.

In the meantime, however, he had scraped together the remains of his civilian wardrobe and put together an ensemble consisting of one pale blue shirt (ironed, no burns), a pair of jeans (slightly creased, offensive to connoisseurs of the garment), a belt that he had been taught how to strangle a man with, and a suit jacket that was probably tan but might have been taupe and could, if it tried very hard and applied itself, been sandstone. He’d kept his combat boots, however, because there was only so far you could push a man before he broke and formal shoes were definitely on the wrong side of that line.

He was not, on the whole, pushing the boundaries of sartorial elegance, but it was a visible effort, which was the most important thing for an effort to be. He reached the meeting place ten minutes early, leaned himself up against a lamppost, and lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. There really was nothing quite like a cigarette to remind your body that the biggest danger to it was the idiot in control.

Five minutes before they had agreed to meet, he spotted Aru’s ears bobbing along above the heads of the crowd and couldn’t help but smile at the sight. It was one of those oddly satisfying things, like brown paper packages and skipping stones across a lake. People sometimes said they felt the same way about seeing his tail wag, but he couldn’t really comment either way on account of not having eyes on his ass.

She’d gone for a more causal style than he had, with a plaid button-down shirt and black pants. She’d rolled the sleeves up to the elbow, which definitely gave her a kind of lovable, country-gal aura. He could imagine her hoeing a carrot patch, or being part of an angry torch-and-pitchfork mob – somewhere in the back, hopefully, where she’d be nice and safe.

“Wow, you’re looking snappy today,” she said, extricating herself from the herd with very polite and deliberate use of elbows. “I feel bad. I wish I could have worn something cuter.”

“Clothes aren’t cute. People are, he said, and then more quietly, “Besides, you look cute enough to me.”

“Ahhh… I’m glad. You know, I had an outfit all picked out, but I just couldn’t fit into it, so I had to borrow some clothes from a friend. I swear I wore that outfit only last week, too… The weight really creeps up on you,” she moaned. “Oh well. You’re sure I don’t look too bad?”

“You look great,” he said, because it was objectively correct. “I especially like the he- oh.”

He blinked as he looked down at her feet. He had a sister. She had educated him in the importance of looking at footwear. You can tell a lot about a man and/or woman by what kind of socks they wore, she said. He didn’t necessarily buy it, but he did know that if a girl spent seventy dollars on a pair of shoes, she damn well wanted you to look at them from time to time.

“Sorry,” he said, and shook his head. “I thought you were wearing heels. You looked taller than usual. I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Must have been too excited.”

“You know, I can’t really imagine you excited,” she said, and gave him a friendly elbow. “I bet you were like a little puppy.”

“No comment.”

“Haha. But no, I can’t really wear heels. I’m a little… well, you know. Rabbits tend to have pretty big feet. I know it’s silly, but I’m a little sensitive about it. Besides, this town’s full of cobblestones, right? It’s uncomfortable enough to walk around, even in sneakers.”

“I’m glad I wear boots all the time. I don’t even feel them,” he replied. “Well, look on the bright side. Your feet might ache, but at least you’ve got a few free massages if you want them. I still have calluses from basic training, so it’s not like I’m going to find them embarrassing.”

She smiled, although a little ruefully. “I’ll… um, I’ll think about it. Honestly, I woke up with my whole body aching. I can’t wait to get home for a nice, hot bath.”

This, for Jaune, was too many things to think about at once. For one, he had to internally debate offering her a full-body massage; for two, he had to entertain and subsequently archive the mental image of Aru covered in bubbles and very little else; third, he had to deal with the instinctive neurotic panic that came from a girl admitting she absolutely wanted to get their little shopping trip done as soon as possible. He heard himself saying something, hopefully pleasant, but otherwise focused on reloading his mental cache for the next assault.

“Anyway, sorry to be such a downer. Let’s go and pick you out a new phone! I’ll be the first person with your new number, so I’ll give it to QP when I see her next,” she said, starting to walk.

As they fell into step together, he couldn’t help noticing that he was… well, he wasn’t having necessarily having trouble keeping up. He’d been through basic, and he knew how to march, without even factoring in the easy lope that came as part and parcel of the wolf genetic package. But he was definitely having adjust himself to match her longer strides, and he didn’t recall having to do it when he’d met Aru before. She was taller than him, but not that much taller. It did give him a lovely vantage point of her back, which was currently highly fascinating. Whoever had lent her the shirt was not, apparently, that much bigger than she was, because it was riding up a little bit and exposing just a tiny bit of pale flesh above the belt, as well as letting her fluffy little cotton tail peek out. He never usually got to see her tail. It was like he’d been granted a special opportunity, and he tried to enjoy it while he could.

But, even if he had to hurry a little, it felt… natural to stand beside Aru. There was no friction, no resistance; it was just a place he could be quite happily. Maybe even that he was meant to be. He felt like she treated him as an equal. That he had value. He could fall for a girl like that. He might have already.

He trailed along in her wake as she deftly strung her way through nameless backstreets and alleys, having apparently decided she had accrued enough wear and tear on her elbows to justify avoiding more crowds. Even so, the few people they ran into had smiles for her, even the occasional greeting. Sometimes shopkeepers would shout a hello as they went past, out of some kind of retail work camaraderie. Being around her made the town feel smaller, friendlier – less of a town and more of a very rotund village. Having grown up in a village himself, it was something he could appreciate.

“Here we are,” Aru said, screeching to a halt in front of what seemed like a fairly nondescript shop. “The owner here owes me a favour or two, so we should be able to get a great discount.”

He nodded sagely. “I see. So that’s why you were so eager to buy a phone for me. Cashing in on a favour before the expiry date.”

“Haha… well, you know. The longer it goes outstanding, the harder it is to collect on. Shall we?”

Her ears brushed against the doorframe as she entered the shop, and she flicked them back irritably. It was a little dim inside, but there were an array of phones – some more outdated than others – displayed behind glass cases, with dummy phones mounted on stands. The owner, a small, wiry man with old-fashioned spectacles, nodded silently as they entered.

“So, Jaune. What kind of phone do you want?”

“Something that won’t break when I shoo– uh, drop it.”

“Um… hah. Is there anything else you’re looking for?”

“Long battery life. Oh, and some memory so I can save photos.”

With those somewhat vague specifications, they set about wandering around the shop. Every so often Aru would call him over to show him a particularly promising model, and they’d stand shoulder to shoulder reading the specs and handling the dummy a little.

“Wow. This one’s pretty cheap, but it’s still super small and lightweight. They really make phones tiny nowadays,” Aru commented.

Jaune furrowed his eyebrows. The phone she was holding did look pretty small in her hands. But he’d already picked it up earlier, and it hadn’t felt that small. Come to think of it, last time he checked, Aru had fairly petite, feminine hands and his were rough, large, and soldierly. So thinking about it, shouldn’t the phone look bigger when she held it?

He was about to say something when he heard a very small ‘crack’, and he looked around just quickly enough to see a shirt button rebounding off the glass case in front of Aru. The reflection in the case was clear enough for him to make out some newly exposed cleavage, and see that Aru’s eyes had gone extremely wide.

“A-are you alright?” he asked, and wondered if he should have.

Aru said nothing, but he could see her mouth moving as if she was muttering to herself. And then, at least, she turned and her heel and looked at him, suddenly furious, her deep red eyes piercing him to the bone.

“Oh. My. God. This freaking town!” she said, in a voice that was too shrill to be a shout but lacked none of the volume. “I swear, when I catch up to her, she’s going to regret it for months–”

“Slow down, what’s going–” he began as she strode toward him, but then he caught a better look at the front of her shirt and the words died in his throat. Not only had the button popped off, but he could just make out a loosely hanging bra strap underneath, snapped by some irresistible force. Wisely, he shut his mouth, because the bit of his brain currently active was not the one that should be on talking duty.

“It’s Krila! I should have known. I should have known! I thought things were weird today – that I couldn’t fit into my clothes, that my whole body ached, that my feet were killing me,” she said, speaking quickly and irritably. “What did she say to me yesterday? ‘May you one day know the horror of having your body grow’. What’s her main act at that circus? Making her plush lion grow into a giant monster! She was trying to curse me as a joke, but she did it for real! I’m sorry, but I need to get back to the R-Bit Room, right now. I’ll come out and get you a phone some other time, okay?”

“Aru, wait. You’re… um. Bouncing. A bit,” he said, making vague motions in front of his own chest. “Here, take my jacket.”

“Thanks… But are you sure? You might not get this back,” she warned as he took off his coat. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I get the feeling this is going to get a lot less gradual the longer it goes on.”

“All the more reason to get back to the R-Bit Room,” he said, and grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’ll come with you.”

She nodded grimly, and started to walk in long, angry strides – long enough that he felt himself having to jog to keep up.

She had to duck just to not hit her head on the doorway as they left.

* * *

The sounds of Aru’s feet got noticeably heavier as they hurtled towards the R-Bit Room.

They moved quickly. Just as Aru had predicted, the rate of growth seemed to be accelerating as time went on. What started as a jog for Jaune very quickly became a run, and then a sprint, broken only by the occasional stop as Aru, hissing, adjusted clothes she was very rapidly outgrowing. About halfway to the shop, she pulled him into an alleyway, yanked off her shoes and threw them into his hands; he could see where the sneaker fabric had begun to stretch and deform in a futile attempt to accommodate her swiftly-growing feet.

“Do you want my boots?” he asked. “You can…”

She shook her head, her chin now level with the top of his ears, her ponytail whipping around like a flail. “I’ll fly. It’s easier this way. Can you keep up?”

“I’ll try.”

“Ugh, wait a minute,” she said, and irritably jerked the belt out of her pants, tossing it aside like a live snake. “I could hardly breathe with that thing on.”

He felt the ground shudder a little as she lifted off. He’d been around QP, and Yuki; he knew what it was like to chase after a flying girl. But Aru seemed to have so much more… momentum than they had. A motorbike at 100 miles per hour was impressive; a train at 100 miles per hour was a force of nature. That was how the difference felt.

The chase continued, and little by little, he began to fall behind. Even though she was only flying a few feet above him, Aru was much faster having been freed from gravity. He caught up whenever they had to turn; she could no longer bring herself to a dead stop like he’d seen QP do, and had to slowly bank and adjust her momentum. When he was close, he heard the ominous sound of strained fabric; every now and then, he would catch a glimpse of falling buttons out of the corner of his eye. His jacket, which had been just about big enough to cover her when he gave it to her, looked more like an undersized waistcoat on her now; the arms of the jacket were stretched tight against her skin.

Just as the fatigue of the run truly began to hit him, the R-Bit Room swam into view. Aru barrelled forward, the air audibly being forced aside by her bulk, and as she drew to an ungainly halt and began to touch down, he reached the door and opened it with such force that he felt the old hinges protest. She took one giant step, and–

There was the sound of clothes undergoing sudden and catastrophic failure. Aru’s pants, which had only survived so long due to a partially elasticated waistband, finally gave up under the strain. The button popped, the legs burst, and what was left slide down and tangled itself around her ankles. He saw, very briefly, the forlorn shreds of what had, presumably, once been her panties and were now barely even fit to be confetti. He saw the shock on her face, the blush that quickly followed it, and although she very quickly moved her hand to cover herself, it wasn’t fast enough to stop him from seeing a patch of well-kept blue pubic hair. With her hands occupied, it became clear that the button on his jacket had long since disappeared, and it swung open to reveal huge, round breasts that swayed with each gasping breath, with pert pink nipples the size of coffee cups. There was a dead silence as they looked at each other in the empty street, broken only by laboured breathing.

“Inside, now!” he said, clapping his free hand over his eyes and holding the door open with the other.

She barrelled past him, barely able to squeeze into the door; he felt what he thought, but could not tell and would not ask, was her bare ass pressing against him as she clumsily squashed herself into the space. He felt the heat of her body, like a radiator in the crisp autumn air, and heard the boom of her feet rushing across the wooden floorboards.

“Jaune, close the door!” she shouted. Her voice was deeper now, more sonorous; it reverberated in his bones, and he had no choice but to obey. As he turned, he saw her huddling behind a counter that had previously come up to her chest and now struggled even to cover up her genitals as she stood behind it. She had thrown aside his jacket, ripped beyond repair, and was holding one arm up to shield her breasts.

“There’s a Closed For Business sign in that corner there. Put it up,” she commanded, gesturing with one huge hand. “I’m going into the warehouse. Don’t follow me, and don’t let anybody else in. Not Krila, not QP, not anybody. I’m counting on you, okay?”

She turned, opened a door with perhaps thirteen different ‘Employees Only’ signs plastered around it, and disappeared. He heard the sound of great feet thudding down a flight of stairs. Then, silence.

Quietly, he drew the curtains across the window, put up the sign, and sat down on the visitor’s couch to catch his breath. He didn’t know why Aru had a visitor’s couch when she only had one regular customer, but it was soft and puffy and reminded him of the couch in QP’s house, on which he had enjoyed pudding and then other, equally delectable treats. His mind fell backwards in time, skipping between moments – QP kissing him and nuzzling against his chest in the afterglow, the hard tips of her nipples scraping against his chest, the sheer animal smell of her that drove him wild. She’d had such perky breasts. Aru’s were different. Bigger, more voluptuous. They had looked as if his whole hand would sink into the flesh. Like they were the softest thing in the world.

QP wanted his number. Aru wanted his number. He groaned. This was how life got complicated. This was how he made mistakes. But his imagination refused to be tamed. His nose, more finely tuned than a human’s, had begun to recall QP’s scent, the invitation that reached down into his heart and gently yanked it out of his body for her to play with for an hour or two. It was so… intense. QP was intense. The time they’d spent together had been mind-blowing, even perfect, but he didn’t know if he could withstand it day after day, as a regular romance, and he didn’t know if he could bear to see that intensity flicker and die. Aru… he wondered how Aru would smell if she got aroused as she was right now. With that huge body. Normally Aru’s smell was comforting to him. Pastoral, that was the word… but right now, he got the feeling it would be very different.

He sighed, and began to rummage around in the tatters of his jacket for his lighter and a cigarette. He usually tried not to have more than one a day, but it had been an exciting day. When he found them, they were still warm from the heat of Aru’s body. He sat. He breathed. He smoked. His mind wandered, and eventually, his body came back under his control. Every so often, he heard movement from underneath him – shuffling, rearranging. Boxes being dragged around, pallets being moved. He tried not to think about it too hard.

“Jaune?”

Aru’s voice came from deep down in the depths. It boomed. It shook the timbers of her shop.

“Take down the curtains and throw them into the warehouse,” she commanded. “Don’t come down. And don’t look.”

His knees ached when he stood up. It took him a few minutes to unrig the curtains – interior decorating had never really been his thing – and when he was done, he bundled then up into a massive ball of red linen, closed his eyes, and tossed it blindly into the warehouse door.

“I threw them,” he shouted.

There was the sound of something very large shifting about under the floor. He tried not to move in case the ground shifted underneath him. There was silence for a little while, and then, a low, but very loud, grunt of frustration.

“…Hah. I… think I’m going to need some help. Can you come down? I’m… well, I’m about as decent as I can get right now.”

He stubbed out his cigarette in a cut-glass ashtray on the counter, and considered his options. It occurred to him, very distantly, that he could just walk out of the front door right now. He didn’t have to deal with giant rabbits in gloomy basements. But he was absolutely going to, and he was going to do it for a reason he didn’t quite understand but that was clad in iron. No matter how big Aru got, she was Aru. He’d never been afraid of Aru before. He didn’t see a reason to start now.

Very quietly, he began to descend the stairs. He almost felt like he should have had a torch. He definitely felt like an adventurer trespassing in an underground temple, and possibly about to meet a dragon. Time would very much tell.

The first thing to hit him was a wave of heat. Not like an oven, but almost like a sauna. He closed his eyes as it washed over him, and they were still closed when the smell hit – the warm, tangy scent of skin, mixed in with an undertone of quiet panic, the raw edges of spent adrenaline and nervousness. The scent of a living thing. It woke him up where the heat tried to lure him to sleep.

Opening his eyes, he spotted Aru. Not, necessarily, that he could have missed her. She was… well, gigantic, leaning against the back wall of the warehouse, legs bent in front of her, with the shop’s curtains draped over her groin and her arm still held across her chest to hide her breasts. Nothing, he thought idly, could have hidden those breasts. He felt his tail begin to wag happily, and he had to consciously command it to remain still.

“JAUNE? I THINK THE GROWTH HAS STOPPED.”

Her voice seemed to come from inside his own chest, inside his own body. His bones sang with it. For a moment, he couldn’t move. His knees felt wobbly from the vibrations.

“MY CLOTHES – WHAT’S LEFT OF THEM – ARE IN THAT CORNER. CAN YOU FIND MY PHONE AND CALL KRILA FOR ME?”

He felt her great, red eyes peering at him as he moved. He tried very hard not to look at her legs. God, even with her legs bent like they were, her knees were higher than his head. She could probably pick him up the palm of her hand. She could take him and play with him, as if he were her toy. He knew she wouldn’t because she was Aru, but she could. A shiver – not entirely out of nervousness – ran down his spine; his tail gave one happy wag before he could stop it. He felt sweat beading on his forehead as he picked over the tattered rags of her clothes, trying out of a sense of gentlemanly obligation not to dwell too hard on the scraps of pink, lacy material that had once been her underwear.

“Found it,” he called, extracting a little black oblong from the ruins. The screen was a little cracked, but came to life as he operated the touchscreen. Aru gave him whispered instructions that felt like shouts, and soon he had Krila’s number dialed.

“Greetings, unwary caller. I, the great Krilalaris, have heard your entreaties and deigned to communicate with you. Have you called to draw upon my dark powers for augury, or–”

“It’s Jaune,” he said flatly, switching her to speakerphone. “And I’m in a hurry. I have a question. Work-related.”

“Hmph. You could have let me finish, you know. How will I practice the dark intonations? But I, as a noble Diet Warrior, will hear your questions. Speak!”

“You turn Leo into a giant monster for your circus trick, right? Is there any way to undo it when you cast a spell like that?”

“Fool! My curses are a gift from the beast gods, and their power is unparalleled. They are impossible to break, and persist without a moment’s relief!…for about eight hours. It’s quite troublesome, for the subject is impossible to fit through puny human doorways, and yet I cannot forsake my ferocious plush minions, so I must remain for the duration.”

“Eight hours. Right. Well, thanks. I guess,” he said, and hung up. He turned to Aru. “Looks like we just have to wait it out.”

“GREAT,” she said, pressing her free hand to her forehead and rubbing her temple. “THIS TOWN, I SWEAR. I’VE NEVER BEEN SO EMBARRASSED…”

He walked towards her, automatically opening his palms as if he was trying to negotiate his way out of a firefight. Calm, the gesture said. “I don’t see why.”

She looked at him; even with her eyes narrowed, they were still massive. He could pick out all the little swirls of colour in her irises, the tiny details he never got to see. “JAUNE, I’M HUGE, AND I’M NAKED. WHAT’S NOT EMBARRASSING ABOUT THAT?”

To him, it didn’t seem like a bad combination at all, but he tried to be at least a little bit more diplomatic. “Oh, I don’t know. Speaking, you know, as a guy, I don’t think you’ve got anything to be embarrassed about.”

“VERY SMOOTH.”

“Although,” he continued, leaning against her ankle, “I suppose you were right, in a sense. Your feet are pretty big.”

She snorted, and the billow of warm air almost blew him over. “HAR-HAR-HAR. VERY FUNNY.” She was quiet for a moment, almost pensive, and then said, “YOU DON’T HAVE TO STAY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO.”

“Why?” he asked. “It isn’t like I’m going to find something more interesting than this at home. Besides,” he continued, “I was thinking that your feet must ache from the run, and I do owe you a massage or two.”

She leaned forward; there was the sound of a great mass shifting as she did, an almost palpable feeling of gravity as her body loomed. Her face took up his entire world; the scent of her, still pastoral under everything, dominated his mind. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?” she rumbled. “BUT I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO BUY YOU A PHONE.”

“Consider it a deposit,” he said. “Besides, it might be a good workout. Like wrestling, but without the body slams.”

For a long moment, she was silent. But then, at last, she began to laugh, deep belly chuckles that went through her whole body. The ground shook as her chuckles reverberated through the building; her breasts, huge and unrestrained, bounced so much that he caught glimpses of her great nipples peeking out from behind her arm.

“HAHAHA! FINE. I SUPPOSE I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE FOR A FEW HOURS, SO I MIGHT AS WELL GET A FOOT MASSAGE WHILE I’M A GIANT,” she said, laughing between the words. “THIS IS SO ABSURD. I CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH.”

“Welcome to my life,” he replied, grinning. “It’s a little like Alice In Wonderland, huh?”

“HAH! YOU’RE RIGHT. THERE’S A GIANT GIRL STUCK IN A HOUSE, AND THERE’S DEFINITELY A WHITE RABBIT.”

“There you go then,” he said. “Now just relax and enjoy your massage. You’ll be back to normal again before you know it. Oh… But do you mind if I take my shirt off?”

To his great surprise, she turned her head away a little. Privately, he felt a little pity for her; it was hard to miss the blush when her cheeks were quite that big.

“I… DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S A GOOD IDEA.”

“Why not? You’re not wearing yours.”

“I HAVE AN EXCUSE.”

“So do I. It’s really warm in here. Not in a bad way – just like being in a bath, kind of.”

“SORRY…THAT’S PROBABLY MY BODY HEAT. I’M BIGGER THAN USUAL, SO I GUESS I’M HOTTER THAN USUAL AS WELL.”

“You’re pretty hot normally, too,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows jokingly.

“OH, STOP IT WITH THAT KIND OF TALK,” she said, almost breaking out into giggles again. “ALTHOUGH IT’S NOT LIKE WE COULD DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. T...THAT KIND OF THING WORKS WHEN THE GUY IS HUGE AND NAKED. NOT SO MUCH WHEN IT’S THE GIRL.”

“You’d be surprised at just how huge I can get.”

“PFFT. OH, I BET.”

He smiled. She was beginning to relax, soothed by the nonsense chatter and the flirting that was only halfway towards being a joke. He did away with his shirt (and was granted a very quiet ‘nice abs’ for his trouble – and set to work on one of her huge feet. He couldn’t turn her back to normal. But he could keep try and keep her as calm and relaxed as he was able, and make sure she didn’t feel as though her giant body made her a freak. That was the most important thing. He kept his hands moving, pushing firmly because he knew he couldn’t hurt her even if he tried.

“AH. THAT’S A NICE SPOT. MAYBE TO THE LEFT A BIT?” Aru rumbled. She had begun to lean back against the warehouse wall, although very carefully since she wasn’t sure how much weight it could take. Her long hair spread out in waves underneath her; the heat had begun to make it curl.

He, too, had worked up a sweat. He wasn’t in amazing shape – not bodybuilder or weightlifter tier, for example – but his time in the forces had taught him to respect his body, and it showed. He could feel her looking at him – at his chest, his arms, his stomach. Given the current situation, he almost felt bashful; Aru could give him a lot of attention if she wanted to.

“I guess that’s the advantage of doing it at this size – I can really get to all the tricky spots like this,” he said conversationally. “I wish we had some oil or lotion, though. I could give you the full massage experience that way. Maybe a bucket of water would do?”

“NO WAY,” she said, turning her head shyly again. “IT SOUNDS DUMB, BUT… IT’D FEEL TOO MUCH AS THOUGH YOU WERE WASHING A CAR.”

“Sounds fine to me. I’d love to get your motor purring.”

“OH, STOP,” she said again, although she still wore quite literally the widest smile he’d ever seen on a woman. “IF I DIDN’T KNOW BETTER, JAUNE, I’D SWEAR YOU WERE REALLY COMING ON TO ME.”

He paused. He waited for long enough to allow Aru a slow, thoughtful blink. “And if I was? What would you do?”

The moment stretched out a long time. Long enough that he wondered if he should just go back to massaging her feet. He was about to, when Aru wiggled her toes, which was as firm a signal to halt as any he’d seen.

“YOU CAN STOP NOW,” she said, thoughtfully. “YOU’RE RIGHT. IT… REALLY WOULD BE BETTER IF WE HAD SOME LOTION.”

He grinned wolfishly at her. “Oh?”

“YOU’RE A PERVERT,” she said softly, but not unhappily. In fact, she was smiling. Even blushing. “WITH A LITTLE BIT OF LOTION, I COULD GIVE YOU AN IRONIC PUNISHMENT.”

His mind explicitly told him not to say anything, but his body didn’t quite pick up on the message. “Like what?”

She didn’t say anything, but the way that she gently pushed up her breasts with her arm and traced one finger delicately down the line of her cleavage left little room for interpretation. He gulped. A lot of blood that had been in his arm muscles very quickly began to redistribute to another area of increasing high priority, and it wasn’t his brain.

“And I thought you were such an innocent bunny, too,” he teased.

“HOW DO I PUT IT… US INNOCENT BUNNIES HAVE A REPUTATION, YOU KNOW? FOR… UM. BREEDING. IT’S NOT… LIKE I HAVE NO INTEREST IN THAT KIND OF THING.”

It was difficult for her to avoid meeting his gaze with such large eyes, but she made a good attempt. One finger idly traced circles on the floor, and left a ripple in the titles where it did.

“Well… It’s not like I have no interest in that kind of thing, either,” he said, quietly. “Especially with you.”

The happy little wriggle she did when she heard that might have been less noticeable if it hadn’t registered on the Richter scale.

“We can talk about it some other time, if you like. Maybe over coffee. You’ll have my number,” he said.

“…IF WE DO, IT’S A DO-OVER. I’M NOT COUNTING THIS AS OUR FIRST DATE.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “As first dates go, I’ve had a lot worse. I’ve had excitement, thrills, seen things I didn’t think I’d ever get to see, and spent a lot of time with a beautiful woman who, at the time, was very big. I’m pretty happy right now.”

“OH, I CAN TELL.”

Automatically, he covered his crotch with his hands. “Ah, sorry. Was it that obvious?”

“I WAS TALKING ABOUT YOUR TAIL.”

True enough, it was wagging happily behind him, the traitorous bastard. He laughed it off, and took a great, luxurious stretch.

“To be honest, I’m pretty tired. It’s so warm in here. I could honestly just go for a nap. I don’t suppose you’ve got a camp bed or anything…?”

He looked around the warehouse, but mostly it was boxes, cages, pallets. Well, he’d slept better with worse. He could always break down a few of the boxes and sleep on the cardboard. It’d at least keep his back off the floor.

He turned around and was about to get started when he felt a great warmth circle itself around him. Gravity stopped having meaning. Aru had, with almost excruciating delicacy, picked him up with one hand, cupping the other under to support him. She brought him closer to her body; he saw her long, long legs stretching out in front of him.

“Here. Let me see if I can find a comfy spot for you,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “...Thank you for staying with me, Jaune. It’s really sweet of you.”

With infinite care and tenderness, she pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. He felt his tail wagging again, but this time he didn’t bother to try and stop it. Sometimes, he just had to enjoy the moment.

“Sorry about this, but I need my hands,” Aru said. She lifted him up a little higher, and the comforting hand underneath him disappeared. If she dropped him, it would have been a long fall. He was still thinking that when he realised that her cleavage was getting closer and closer. For a moment, he didn’t believe what was happening. But then he found himself being tucked gently into a warm, soft crevice. “No wriggling.”

To be honest, he had no real intention of moving; almost his entire body had gone rigid. Leaning back on her now-free hands, Aru began to move her legs until she was sitting, cross-legged, with her back against the wall. Her hand drew closer again, and she extracted him from her breasts, lowering him into the space her legs walled off before a very careful, but insistent finger pressed him backwards towards his final destination: the wall of fabric draped over her crotch.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered.

She pressed him into the fabric, one great fingertip on his chest. His senses very quickly filled up with things he’d never even imagined. The curtains were old, and soft; they’d been washed recently. But he could still smell the potent scent of arousal underneath.

“I… don’t know if this is a good idea,” he managed to say, while his brain quietly put the chairs on the tables and started to turn out the lights. “What if I toss and turn in the night?”

“Don’t,” she replied simply. “Besides, it doesn’t matter whether you think it’s a good idea right now. After all… I’m just a teensy bit bigger than you.”

“Just a teensy bit,” he breathed.

“Jaune?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll see you in the morning – and hopefully, we’ll both be the same size.”

He nodded, and began to settle back against the fabric. There were places where – oh god. There were places where he could lean back and feel the fabric stretch taut over the opening underneath. One thing was for certain.

He didn’t think he was going to get much sleep.

* * *

“Hi, Jaune. Sorry I can’t stick around today. I’m helping Krila with her weight-loss program,” Aru said. The coffee shop burbled with low-level conversation.

“By chasing her around with a stick?” Jaune asked.

“I wish! But no, after what happened last time, I guess I did learn the horror of having my body grow, so I felt pretty bad for her,” she said, and then her voice became very quiet: “Although, it was kind of fun, in the end.”

He rubbed his nose. There were a lot of things about Aru’s ‘little growth spurt’, as she called it, that he’d had fun with. But perhaps one of the best things was waking up to find her wearing nothing but his shirt. It had been a bit too short to cover up the more, ahem, delicate bits, but Aru didn’t seem to mind all that much beyond a bit of blushing and a small stammer. After all, she said, he’d gotten pretty well acquainted with her body the night before.

“You’re kinder than I would be. So, what did you need?” he asked.

“Oh, I just wanted to drop this off,” she said, and put down a gift bag on the table. Inside was a shiny smartphone, already taken out of the box, with the charger and cord wrapped up neatly beside it. “I hope you don’t mind, but after what happened last time, I thought it’d be better if I just picked you one out.”

“Fair,” he said. “I trust your judgement, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I tried it out a little bit yesterday, so I know it works. I put my number in, and QP’s as well, so you’ve got both of us on speed-dial,” she said, and smiled. “Well! Again, I’m super sorry about not staying, but duty calls.”

“Have fun. If she curses you again, give me a call.”

She glanced around, and then quickly leaned towards him, catching him by the shirt collar. Their lips brushed once, twice; the second time she lingered, as if considering whether to kiss deeper, before deciding it was too public a setting. Her cheeks were glowing as she withdrew. “Well. Um. I’ll see you later.”

She stood quickly and scurried from the shop. Quietly baffled, he waved at her as she left, and took another sip of fortifying coffee before getting to grips with his new toy. His old phone had been, well, old. Pre-touchscreen. It took him a moment to set up a new lock password and learn where all the menus were, but it was the kind of thing he could have fun doing. New tech was always fun to mess around with.

He was about to put the phone down when it buzzed with a new text message. Aru’s name flashed up in white letters on the preview screen.

“Hope you are enjoying your new phone! I’m busy this week, but next week I’ll grab you for one of those full-body massages you owe me. Bring some lotion this time! - Aru

p.s. check your pics”

He smiled. Well, she was a businesswoman, after all. He rooted through the menus until he found where the saved pictures were kept, and opened the gallery. He took another sip of coffee. His cheeks began to flush.

On the screen was a picture of Aru, taken from a high angle with his phone’s camera. She was smiling mischievously, and had pulled down the neck of her top with her free hand to show off one breast, complete with a soft, pink nipple.

He sighed happily, and wagged his tail. It seemed like there were a lot of things he was going to have to get used to about his new phone, and about his relationships.

But first, he wanted to figure out how to set a picture as a background.