I Am the Strongest Femboy, So Stop Protecting Me!-Chapter 42: Xiaolan.

It wasn’t long before the day arrived where he had to go visit the kids.

Thankfully, Lyra had agreed to go with him, alleviating some of his worries about how awkward it was going to be.

It was a comfortable Sunday, the last day before he could start going on dungeon clearings again with Gareth’s cohort. Which was something he was looking forward.

Aris was dressed in comfortable clothing, a pair of white cotton pants and a floaty t shirt that he found was quite nice to wear in the hot days. Lyra had also ditched her officewear for something more casual, a plain black shirt with with a jacket on top of it, and a pair of some really cool looking jeans.

Regulus had been left alone at home.

They didn’t discuss it.

Regulus had simply watched them prepare to leave from the kitchen doorway with the expression of someone who had assessed the situation and determined that inserting himself would be unwelcome, which was either good social reading or the result of Lyra’s particular brand of preemptive communication.

Aris suspected both.

The crown district on a Sunday had a different quality than it did on weekdays. Quieter in some ways, fuller in others. The residents actually present rather than filtered through the evidence of their lives, cars in driveways, windows open, the particular relaxed noise of a neighborhood that had given itself permission to not be productive for a day.

He had three houses to visit.

Lyra had the addresses on her tablet and had arranged them in order of proximity with the efficiency of someone for whom even casual visits were logistical problems to be solved.

He let her lead and kept pace beside her, hands in his pockets, enjoying the Sunday quality of the air.

The first house was two streets over.

The door opened relatively quickly after they knocked.

The woman who opened it was in her late thirties, with the kind of face that was pretty in a tired way, the prettiness of someone who had been more rested once and would be again eventually. She had flour on her left wrist that she hadn’t noticed and was looking at Aris with an expression that moved through several things quickly—recognition, relief, something that was almost embarrassment.

"Lord Ashborne!" she said pleasantly. "Thank you for coming. Please, come in."

"Just Aris is fine," he said as he stepped in, putting on an appropriately polite smile.

Well, he said it every time and it rarely worked but he said it anyway.

It didn’t work.

The house inside was warm and smelled like something baking, the comfortable chaos of a space that was lived in by people who didn’t perform tidiness. There were shoes by the door, a jacket on the wrong chair, a drawing on the kitchen table on the far end that hadn’t been moved. The drawing was of a dungeon gate from what he could see, rendered in crayon with the particular confident wrongness of a child’s spatial reasoning.

The colors were good though, he noted.

"Xiaolan!" the woman called, toward the stairs. "He’s here."

A pause.

Then soft footsteps, the specific rhythm of a child trying to come down stairs quickly while also trying to look like they weren’t coming quickly.

The boy who appeared at the bottom looked older than Aris had last seen him. He had his mother’s tired-pretty quality translated into something that was just earnest on a child’s face, dark eyes that went immediately to Aris and stayed there with the focused attention of someone who had been thinking about this visit for several days.

He had a bandage on his left knee that looked recent and unrelated to the incident.

"This is Lan Ming," his mother said. "He hasn’t stopped asking about you since last week."

Xiaolan, Aris decided to keep the cute name, looked at him with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual and achieving approximately thirty percent of that goal.

"Hi," Lan Ming said after hesitating for a long moment, lingering behind his mother.

"Hello Lan, Can i call you Xiaolan too?" Aris’s voice took on the particular soft quality that he maintained when he talked with someone who didn’t pretenses.

Something in Xiaolan’s face unknotted by a small amount, and he gave him a shy nod.

His mother gestured toward the sitting room, and the four of them arranged themselves into the particular configuration of a visit that had an actual purpose beneath the social form of it. Lyra accepted tea with the grace of someone who accepted tea in professional settings regularly.

Aris sat where he was directed and waited.

"He saw the arm first, that day." Lan’s mother said, keeping her voice even in the way parents kept their voices even when they were telling you something that hadn’t been even for them.

"He won’t talk about it to us, and he hasn’t been sleeping properly and his teacher says he’s been distracted."

Xiaolan was sitting beside her with the studied innocence of a child who understood he was being discussed and had opinions about it.

Aris looked at him directly, leaning forward so they were making proper eye contact.

"Your worried about what was happening?"

Xiaolan looked a little taken aback, this was probably the first time since the incident that anyone has ever asked his opinion about it.

Which, Aris rightfully guessed, was the source of this entire problem. Adults had a way of unknowingly excluding children from the important stuff, which ended up doing more damage than good because of how curious and worrisome children were in general.

"Is the person okay?"

His voice was shaking a little. The quality of a child trying to stay strong apparent in it.

"He’s recovering." Slowly, still looking at him.

"His arm..." Xiaolan was quieter now.

"It’s being repaired, we got a really good doctor for it" Aris said. "He’ll be functional. He’s already arguing with people, which is a good sign."

Something in Xiaolan’s expression shifted, not quite a smile, the relief underneath one.

"Was it scary," Xiaolan asked. "Going in."

Aris considered this with the genuine consideration he gave to questions that deserved it.

"I mean, not really."

"Why not?"

"Because there was someone inside who needed to come out. That’s a simpler thing than being scared." He paused. "Plus i knew that you guys were rooting for me."

Xiaolan thought about this with the focused seriousness of a child processing something real.

His mother was looking at Aris with an expression he didn’t examine too closely.

They stayed for a whole hour, more than what they had initially planned for.

The child had warmed up to him exceptionally quickly, Aris usually had that effect on kids. He didn’t really understand why, maybe it was his laid back appearance that helped. He had eventually ended up getting dragged around by the house by Xiaolan, who was really enthusiastic to show off everything to his new friend.

Which was not an exaggeration, the kid was already calling him by his name, which even the mother was refusing to do.

Xiaolan showed him the crayon drawing, which was, he was informed, specifically the gate from that evening and not a generic gate, a distinction that mattered. Aris told him it was accurate, which it was, mostly. He was given a piece of whatever had been baking by the child, which turned out to be something dense and sweet that he ate the entirety of because it was good and Lyra was giving him the look that asked a particular question.

you skipped breakfast?

Then he had been dragged to the playroom, where he had spent the rest of his hour conversing and playing with the child until Lyra was finally kind enough to rescue him.

When they left, Xiaolan stood in the doorway and watched them go.

"Aris!" He had called when they stepped onto the footpath, making him turn around.

"Come again another time!"

Aris smiled, and gave him a wave, only turning around when the child finally ran back inside.

The playful giggles were still lingering on his ears when he followed Lyra to the next house.