Ethan had been friends with Alice for a year. She’d arrived late—well into sixth grade—and even now, he could still picture her first day with uncomfortable clarity.

She had walked into the room naked, without hesitation, without even the suggestion of modesty. Bare feet against the wooden floor, each step a soft, rhythmic slap that seemed louder than it should have been. Her backpack hung loosely from her shoulders like everyone else’s—except there was nothing beneath it. Nothing to hide.

His eyes had drifted. He hadn’t meant them to.

But there hadn’t been anywhere else to look.

She stood at the front of the room, completely at ease, as if nothing about this was unusual.

“I’m Alice,” she said, smiling sweetly at a class that didn’t quite know where to settle their gaze. “I live at the Processing Centre in town.”

She lifted her wrist, turning it so they could all see. The watch glowed blue.

“Alice is a Blue Orphan,” the teacher explained, stepping in behind her and resting her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

Ethan noticed the way her thumbs moved.

Slow. Absent. Familiar.

Not asking. Not checking.

Just… there.

Alice didn’t react. Not even a shift in posture. Not a glance back.

She just stood there, smiling.

Ethan looked around the room, trying to see where she might be sitting.

The desks had been pushed together in pairs, close enough that two students would have to share the space without thinking about it. The school encouraged it—wanted them used to proximity, to the quiet press of someone else always being there.

The seat beside him was empty.

In fact, it was the only one.

Alice finished her introduction, and the teacher turned, pointing toward Ethan.

“There’s a seat beside Ethan. Why don’t you join him?”

The girl obeyed without a word.

As she moved through the row of desks, Ethan noticed the hands.

They reached out casually, almost absent-mindedly, brushing against her bare skin as she passed. Fingers trailing. Testing.

She flinched once—then again—when a touch lingered too long. When it became a grab. A brief, unwelcome twist that broke the rhythm of everything else.

No one said anything.

For some reason, Ethan’s fists clenched.

That wasn’t respectful at all.

Alice eventually reached the seat and dropped into it beside him.

Ethan felt her warmth immediately.

He’d had other students sit next to him before—close enough that their shoulders brushed, their arms pressed together without much thought—but this felt different.

There was nothing between them. No fabric, no space to soften the contact. Just skin, and the steady heat of it.

It made the closeness harder to ignore.

He shifted slightly in his seat, unsure why it suddenly felt so much more noticeable.

“Ethan, right?”

Her voice pulled him back to the moment.

She was smiling—easy, relaxed—her eyes bright with curiosity.

“You’re blushing.”

Ethan’s eyes widened.

“It’s just hot in here,” he said quickly. “Not because—”

“I’m messing with you,” she cut in, letting out a small laugh. “Relax.”

She leaned back slightly in her seat, completely at ease.

“You don’t have to explain everything.”

Ethan smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve never met an Animal in school before.”

“I’m not an Animal.”

There was no edge to the correction. No embarrassment. Just fact.

“Blue Orphans are children raised by the System.”

Ethan blinked, trying to recalibrate.

“Then… why no clothes?”

She tilted her head slightly, as if the question itself didn’t quite make sense.

“Because we live in Habitation.”

“With Animals?” he asked. “Weird.”

She shrugged, a small lift of her shoulders that seemed to say it wasn’t—just didn’t feel the need to argue it.

The lesson resumed. Worksheets were passed along the rows, sliding from desk to desk.

Alice handed one to him.

When he reached for it, his fingers brushed hers—brief, accidental.

It was enough.

Heat rose to his face before he could stop it.

By the time he looked up, she had already moved on, passing the next sheet along as if nothing had happened.

It was a strange way to start a friendship. Even he wondered, sometimes, how he’d ever gotten past that first awkward fascination.

It hadn’t really been about her—not in the way he’d first thought. Just the novelty of it. The difference.

The way she stood out without seeming to notice it herself.

He learned quickly that whatever assumptions he’d made at the start didn’t hold.

Alice had boundaries.

There was an allowance for touch—something unspoken, something most of the class seemed to understand—but it wasn’t without limits.

One boy found that out the hard way.

He tried to push it further than he should have—past the point where it stopped being casual, stopped being accepted.

Alice kneed him so hard he nearly dropped where he stood, folding in on himself with a sharp gasp.

No one laughed.

No one stepped in.

It was just… understood.

That was when Ethan saw it clearly.

Not something different.

Not something defined by the System.

Just a girl.

Now she came home with him once a week.

At first, his mother had been wary—unsure how to interact with a girl who didn’t seem to view things like modesty or clothing in quite the same way.

Alice moved through their home with an easy confidence, crossing lines Ethan hadn’t even realized were there until she stepped over them.

Not deliberately. Not defiantly.

Just… as if they didn’t matter.

One afternoon, he had been changing out of his uniform when she walked in without knocking.

She caught him in his underwear.

Ethan had reacted instantly, turning away, grabbing for something to cover himself.

Alice barely even looked at him.

She crossed the room without hesitation and sat down on his bed as if nothing about the moment was unusual.

“Homework?” she asked, completely unfazed.

Then, over time, she became something closer to a fixture.

Once a week turned into every other night, and eventually no one really kept track anymore.

The guest room became her room. Not officially—nothing was ever said outright—but her things began to appear there, little by little, until the space felt occupied even when she wasn’t.

His mother stopped treating her like a guest.

It wasn’t sudden. Just a gradual shift in tone, in expectation.

Alice did chores without being asked, moved through the house as if she understood its rhythms. She stayed for weekends, joined them on outings, sat at the table as if she had always belonged there.

And, at some point, no one questioned it.

But Ethan eventually realised something. He had welcomed her into his world—into his home, his routines—but she had never once invited him into hers.

It wasn’t something he noticed all at once. More a quiet absence, a question that kept returning without ever being asked.

He did ask, eventually.

It was over dinner, casual enough that he didn’t think twice about it.

“Can I come sleep over at your place?”

Both Alice and his mother stopped eating. The shift was immediate, subtle but absolute.

Alice set her fork down carefully before answering, as if the question required more precision than he had intended.

“My ‘place’ isn’t really a home, Ethan,” she said, her tone flat, not unkind—just direct. “It’s where Animals are held. We just live in the spaces they leave.”

“And where staff live,” his mother added, not looking up from her plate. “And Butchers. You don’t want to wander into their areas.”

Ethan felt warmth rise in his cheeks, the kind that came too quickly to hide. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could find the words, his mom let out a short, amused snort into her drink.

“He’s a teenage boy,” she said, lowering the glass with a faint shake of her head. “He’ll probably think it’s a novelty at first.”

There was no real judgment in it—just a kind of knowing, the sort of comment that made Ethan’s embarrassment deepen rather than fade.

“Mom!”

She didn’t even look at him, already halfway through another sip before setting her glass down with a small, dismissive shake of her head.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” she retorted. “Just don’t tell me what happens, and for the love of God, don’t get anyone pregnant.”

“MOM!”

It was decided they would go on Friday and spend the weekend there. He wasn’t allowed to bring anything with him—no phone, no games, nothing at all. Just the clothes on his back, and even those would be taken once he arrived.

For a while, he considered just arriving naked. It wasn’t as strange an idea as it should have been. He’d been through Transition Week; public nudity had already been stripped of most of its meaning for him, reduced to something procedural rather than personal.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. One less step. One less moment to hesitate.

So he did it.

After school, instead of changing, he simply removed his uniform and set his phone down on his desk, leaving everything else behind with it.

When he went downstairs, he found Alice sitting with his mom, the two of them already waiting.

Alice didn’t react to his nudity. She just looked up at him, expression unchanged.

“Ready to go, then?”

He hugged his mom goodbye, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek before stepping back. As he turned to leave, he felt the familiar, playful pat on his butt—a gesture that had always been there, casual and unremarkable.

It felt different now.

Not inappropriate, just… more noticeable without the barrier of clothes, the contact lingering in a way it normally wouldn’t have.

They walked to the Centre together. It wasn’t far from where he lived, just far enough that the streets began to thin out as they approached it. The late afternoon sun still held its warmth, stretching long shadows across the pavement as the day edged toward evening.

Somewhere along the way, Alice’s fingers slipped around his. She didn’t ask, didn’t look at him—just took his hand and held it, firm and steady, as if it had always been that way.

He wasn’t sure when it had become a habit.

He only knew that it had.

And that he liked it.

They arrived at the Centre just as the day was beginning to soften into evening. Fridays weren’t particularly busy for Intake; most Animals preferred to spend their last night elsewhere before reporting in over the weekend. Even so, there was still a steady presence in the registration area, enough movement to remind him that this place never really stopped functioning.

The receptionists greeted each arrival with practiced smiles, their expressions warm in a way that felt rehearsed rather than personal. Like the Animals, they were naked, but the yellow glow of their watches set them apart immediately, marking them as something different despite the lack of any other visible distinction.

It took Ethan a moment to remember what that difference meant here.

The ID tags.

They weren’t worn. They were fixed in place—pierced through the nipple like jewelry, small and precise, impossible to ignore once you noticed them.

He found himself staring longer than he meant to, a quiet discomfort settling in as he tried not to think about the process behind it. The idea of having something like that applied—regularly, without question—made his chest tighten in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

Alice caught him staring.

Not at the receptionists themselves, but at the tags—at the way they sat there, fixed and unavoidable.

“You know you’ll need to do that, right?” she said, her voice low and matter-of-fact.

The words landed heavier than he expected.

Ethan felt himself tense, the thought taking shape too quickly in his mind now that it had been spoken aloud. She wasn’t joking. There was no teasing in her tone, no attempt to soften it. Just another rule, stated plainly.

Alice watched him for a moment, her expression unreadable, as if gauging whether this was where he might hesitate.

“You can still go home,” she added.

He considered it. The thought lingered longer than he wanted it to, pressing in now that it had been made real—something unavoidable rather than abstract.

But a small measure of pride, stubborn and immediate, kept him steady. He wasn’t about to back out now. Not after everything he’d said, not with her watching him like that.

Ethan exhaled, forcing a shrug he didn’t entirely feel.

“Nah,” he said, a little too quickly. “I bet it won’t even hurt.”

Eventually, the line of Animals thinned until there was no one left between them and the desk.

The receptionist looked up as they stepped forward, her gaze moving between them before settling briefly on their watches, the difference between them registering in an instant.

“Oh, hey—did you bring a boyfriend, Blue Girl?” she asked, her tone easy, amused in a way that suggested this wasn’t an unusual sight.

It was Alice’s turn to blush.

The reaction came quick and unguarded, a flash of something Ethan had almost never seen from her.

“No!” she shot back, louder than she meant to. “He’s just a friend—who happens to be a boy.”

The receptionist grinned, clearly entertained.

“So… boyfriend,” she said, drawing the word out slightly before letting it go with a soft chuckle.

Her attention shifted to Ethan, the humor fading just enough to make space for something more procedural.

“You visiting Habitation?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And you’re aware how we fix IDs to bodies here?”

The question landed with a little more weight this time. Ethan hesitated, just for a second, before nodding again.

“Brave,” she said, glancing back at Alice with a small, approving tilt of her head. “Nice pick.”

“Come around the desk and I’ll do it for you,” she said, not offering so much as instructing. “It’ll hurt—but not for long.”

Ethan stepped forward without arguing, moving around the desk as directed. The casual way she said it made it feel routine, like this was just another part of the process everyone went through.

She reached into a small box and pulled out a safety pin, handling it with practiced ease before producing a laminated visitor’s pass and sliding it carefully onto the needle.

Ethan watched the motion more closely than he meant to, his attention narrowing as she brought it up between them.

Then she lined it up with his nipple, pressing just enough to make it peak under her touch, steadying her hand as if aligning something delicate rather than something about to go through flesh.

“On three,” she told him. “One—”

She pushed the needle through.

Ethan flinched as it went through, the reaction sharp and immediate, but he didn’t make a sound. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles tightening as he forced himself to stay still.

A thin line of blood welled up and ran down his chest before the receptionist wiped it away with a practiced motion, already reaching for a cotton bud as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

She followed it with a disinfectant swab, pressing it briefly against the puncture before cleaning around the pin with careful, efficient movements.

“The needle is clean,” she said, her tone calm and reassuring in a way that felt routine rather than personal. “Now we just sanitize the puncture wound.”

“There,” she said, pulling her hands away at last.

Ethan was shivering slightly now, the reaction delayed but impossible to hide, so she rested a hand on his shoulder, steady and reassuring.

“You did great,” she added. “Most kids cry.”

Ethan nodded, keeping his head down, not trusting himself to speak.

The words sat just behind his teeth, fragile in a way that felt dangerously close to breaking. If he opened his mouth, he was sure it would all come out at once.

“You can enter Habitation through the Intake corridor,” she told him, her tone shifting back into that practiced, procedural calm. “The visitor pass will stop anyone from mistaking you for an Animal at a glance.”

She paused briefly, just long enough for the reassurance to settle before continuing.

“But if someone does try to take you through Intake,” she added, her eyes meeting his now, more deliberate than before, “it’s important that you obey.”

“But if they see the tag, they won’t, right?” Ethan asked, his voice quieter now, the confidence from earlier slipping just enough to reveal the question underneath it.

His hand hovered near the pin without quite touching it, as if the presence of it alone should be enough to guarantee what he was asking.

Alice took his hand again and led him toward a set of doors that opened into a white-tiled waiting room. The space beyond was quieter than the reception area, stripped down and clinical, with rows of chairs spaced deliberately apart. Animals sat waiting, still and patient, their attention fixed on nothing in particular as they waited to be called through the next corridor.

They didn’t stop.

The tannoy crackled overhead, a name called out in a flat, disembodied voice, and as one of the seated figures rose to answer it, Alice guided Ethan straight past them, through the room and toward the next set of doors without hesitation.

He barely had time to take it in before everything shifted.