Tillo Lando February 20th,20XX

Although it was dark, I’d thought we’d gotten a sense of how luxurious the estate was, but whatever impression I had quickly gotten overwritten by the hulking mansion that they called a house.

Aside from the sheer size of the house, there were other cues to show how expensive the place was. From the brightly painted shingles to the impeccable lawn, it showed a level of maintenance that no working-class family would ever have been able to upkeep.

“Now before I let you in, I need you to promise that you’ll be fine with the autographs and go back home. I understand how easy it is to give in to star worship, but you two are too young to be doing time in juvenile detention on trespassing and stalking charges.”

Once we were out of the dark shed and into the rich light of the porch lamps, the previously threatening voice now sounded warm and caring. It was still cold outside, so he’d walked fast and had even given Kaja his scarf and me his gloves and hat.

I nodded quickly since I wasn’t a stalker fan and more so didn’t know who I was supposedly stalking, but it took an elbow to Kaja’s side to make her nod in agreement. I knew for a fact she didn’t know who we were about to meet either, so she was just being difficult.

He rang the doorbell twice before punching in a code and opening the heavy wood door that sealed the cold outdoors from the warm and cozy inside of the house.

“Take your shoes off and put these on.”

The gruff voice contrasted heavily with his friendly words and threw us off, but we still followed his instructions, unclear of what exactly was going on. We took off our ragged shoes and put on the fluffy slippers at the door.

The guard showed us through the long hallways into a living room, and we met a handsome older guy that looked more than vaguely familiar.

“Sir Aaron, I found another two by the shed.”

The guy pulled his head out of the book he was reading and showed us his face for the first time. His dark eyes were cold and his mouth was set into a slightly annoyed grimace to show his displeasure at being interrupted.

For a moment I worried that he would yell at us, or that he would get mad at the guard, but his dark eyes only roved over us and his face quickly melted into a worried expression. His hard-set lips tilted up into a soft smile to comfort us, and he started talking in an even softer voice.

“Gosh, how hard was the trip over here? Gordon, does Joyce have any of Cherry’s clothes over here? Take them to her room and have them pick out what they want, I’ll make it up to her later.”

He got up with an extremely light jump and cautiously looked us over to see if we weren’t hurt. The excessive worry on his face and the warmth of the room made Kaja relax and drop her guard. I couldn’t even get mad at her, since I wasn’t doing any better than her. I tried my best to smile and look as unthreatening as possible.

It had been less than a day, but I’d already met two adults that were kinder than any others I’d ever met. Even Kaja, as tough as she liked to make herself out to be, was star-struck as she stared at the older man.

Wait… star struck?

All the clues swam together into a single fact, and I realized what was going on.

“Y-you’re you’re Aaron Cyrus!”

My voice came out in a high-pitched scream that I wasn’t proud of, but that wasn’t what made Mr. Cyrus’s eyebrows crease.

Kaja, having finally gotten her temporary tantrum over with, went back to being my reliable older sister and thought fast.

She smacked me on the upper arm and hissed at me in a nervous and excited voice.

“Stop playing around Harper! Pretending not to know who he is won’t make him remember us any more than this!”

I forced an embarrassed expression onto my face and looked down at my feet. I retorted through gritted teeth and tried to sound angry and embarrassed. Kaja had always been a better actress than I was, though.

“You didn’t have to say it like that, Megan.”

We switched to the made-up names we used to get out of trouble and pretend to have a spat in front of the celebrity. The guard, Gordan, had long left on Aaron’s orders to find clothes for us to wear.

I cautiously looked back at Aaron and exhaled in relief when I saw that he wasn’t angry or suspicious of us. Rather, he looked incredibly amused and held back a laugh by holding a hand to his mouth and looking up at the ceiling.

He looked relaxed, happy and completely not on guard.

Kaja asked what was on both our minds. She pushed her hair, which had at some point gone from being by her ears to the middle of her neck, out of her face and shifted on her feet.

“But ….Mr. Cyrus... Why are you at Joyce Knightly’s house?”

“Well, she is my girlfriend. Is it so strange?”

Although he responded light-heartedly, the amused smile on his face had slightly faded and he looked more cautious of us than he had before. I wasn’t sure what exactly had changed his mind about us, but I hoped it wasn’t enough to make him kick us out.

“But-“

“You guys should probably go take a shower and get dressed. I’ll order something to eat. And you guys don’t have to pretend to be my fans if you don’t want to. Don’t be mad at Gordon, he isn’t the best at picking up cues but he’s a good guy.”

He pointed us up the stairs with a smile, but it was a firm smile that made it hard to go against him.

I wondered why he suddenly said that, but stopped to take a critical look at both myself and my twin sister and realized how bad we looked. It had been a while since we had run away from ‘home’ so we hadn’t taken a shower in days and probably reeked to the high heavens.

He noticed our hesitation and gave out a calming laugh.

“Don’t worry, I won’t steal your stuff! And I’m not a weird guy either. I don’t enjoy seeing kids so down on their luck.”

More casually than we could defend against, he helped me put my bag on the table and ushered the two of us into separate bathrooms. I saw a dress, frilly and bright yellow, and a pair of matching slippers laid out in a cabinet.

Aaron stopped at the door frame like an awkward father with a teenage daughter and quickly pointed out all the facilities I might need, then ran out like his back was on fire.

I put things together and realized he’d thought I was a girl. It wasn’t like it made me mad, but I was a bit embarrassed.

The bright yellow cloud of a dress taunted me from its perch as I took a shower, but I tried not to pay it any mind.

There was the option to call down and ask for a change of clothes, but him thinking I was a girl would only make it more difficult to track us down later.

I made my hair a few centimetres longer but decided against changing my body since it was annoying. It was also difficult to remember what another gender’s ‘down there’ looked like, and unlike Kaja, I wasn’t a fan of looking on the internet for ‘reference’ pictures.

Kaja had always been more comfortable changing genders than I was and constantly teased me over it, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I was so attached to being a guy, but I enjoyed keeping as many things on my body in their original state as I could.

The thing about being able to change your entire physical identity with less than thought was convenient at times but it was easy to lose one’s self. The flaws and graces that helped one solidify their self-identities were no longer a given to us and that made it easy to get carried away.

And while I wasn’t worried about getting carried away, Kaja was always reluctant to go back to her default form… sometimes she didn’t even remember what she originally looked like. As long as we still had these powers, I would keep my original form, and if she wanted to, she could use me as a lighthouse to get back to where we started.