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The moment Pa wrapped her arms around Pran, the room filled with smoke. Pat heard Pa hit the ground with a yelp and jolted up from the couch.
"What happened?" he asked, wandering over carefully, waving the smoke away as he did.
"I forgot," Pa whined, in pain. She had rolled herself over and was holding one of her knees—probably what she fell on.
Beside her, sitting in a pile of Pran's clothes, sat a small white rabbit with black, upright ears and a black nose, tail, and paws. It stared up at Pat and, though it wasn't emoting or really doing anything, seemed apologetic.
Pat ran a hand through his hair. "I kind of did too," he admitted.
"Must be nice," the rabbit said, though its mouth didn't move. That was the part Pat had never been able to wrap his head around. How the heck could they hear Pran when he wasn't actually talking?
He put his hands on his hips. "Hey. It's not like girls hug you very often," he reminded the rabbit, then knelt down next to it and ran his fingers through the fur. Smooth, silky, flyback fur that fell back into place as soon as his hand was gone. "Most of the time you're hugging me," Pat bragged.
Pran kicked him before hopping out of reach. Aww, he was embarrassed.
"Hey," Pa said. She released her leg with one hand to point toward Pran. "When did you get so colorful? You used to be all white."
She was right. Back when Pran saved Pa's life, he'd managed to get her to the shore, but not out of the water, before his hold on her activated his 'hugging curse' and he transformed into a rabbit. He'd been so tiny and bedraggled when Pat got him and Pa onto dry land that Pat had honestly thought he would die. And he had been pure white.
"It came in when I got older," Pran said matter-of-factly. He grabbed his pants in his mouth and started hopping clumsily toward the bedroom. "Help me before I change back."
Pat dutifully grabbed Pran's clothes—including the pants held in his mouth—and put them in the bedroom. On his way back out, he paused.
"Wait. Who hugged you when you got older?" he demanded petulantly, crossing his arms to look imperiously down at the tiny rabbit. Pran didn't seem any more affected by it now than he did as a human.
Pran thumped the ground. "It also happens if I get overly stressed out or sick. It was finals and I panicked," he revealed, and Pat knew if he'd been human he would be blushing.
Aww.
Unable to help himself, Pat bent down and picked up his boyfriend. He hadn't gotten to interact with Pran as a rabbit since they were little kids, and he was just so stinking cute. It was like holding a papillon or a small cat. Pran was easily twice as big as he had been when they were kids, and he still only weighed like five pounds.
"Ai'Pat!" Pran grumbled, his body jerking and squirming in Pat's arms. "This is not how you hold a rabbit!"
"I've never held one before!" Pat argued back.
"You have to hold my—" Pran cut off abruptly, even as he kept fighting Pat's hold.
"Hold your?" Pat asked.
Pran didn't answer, but Pa—who had regained her feet—gasped, looking like she had had an epiphany. Holding up her finger, she said, "His butt!"
Both siblings giggled and Pran growled. Pat adjusted his grip on Pran so that one of his hands held Pran's bottom and the other held his chest area and Pran immediately settled down, though his tiny body still panted. Still smiling, Pat brought Pran up to eye level.
"You know, I think I would win every competition with you like this," he teased. When Pran's nose twitched in displeasure, Pat mimicked it.
"I would still beat you in a race," he said.
If Pat remembered correctly from his childhood research, rabbits could run at like twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, so…yeah. Pran had him there. Shrugging, Pat let him have the win. And oh, that was another thing Pran won at even as a rabbit.
When they had been little, Pran had only told them that the transformation happened whenever someone of the opposite sex hugged him. Pat had helped him avoid girls throwing their arms around him all through junior high and high school—until Pran was taken away. There was a strict 'no girls' zone that had Pran rolling his eyes but never telling Pat to stop.
It had become so second nature to him that Pat didn't realize when it switched from 'protect the secret' to 'a crush he wanted to protect against possible rivals.'
In high school, when they could almost be defined as friends, on one of the nights when Pat had slipped across the roof and into Pran's room, Pran had explained the curse in more detail. His family had been cursed many generations ago, so far back that none of them really remembered the cause. But they transformed into the twelve animals of the zodiac when hugged by people of the opposite sex. He was the rabbit. His mom was the tiger. There was no known cure.
"How are you gonna get married, then?" Pat had asked. "How will you have a girlfriend?"
Joke's on him, it seemed.
All of a sudden, the room filled with smoke and Pat's arms were not full of Himalayan rabbit, but one hundred eighty-three centimeters of Pran. Very naked Pran. Which was, in Pat's eyes, a very good thing. Pa, however…
"Oh my god!" his sister shouted, covering her eyes and turning around. "Hia! Get him some clothes!"
Pran was already rushing for the bedroom, his face on fire. Now bereft of a naked boyfriend, Pat crossed his arms and pouted at his sister's back.
"You sure know how to ruin a good thing, don't you?"
He wasn't actually mad at her for being there or not wanting to see a naked man, but if she had left after Pran transformed the first time, then he and Pat could've been starting some pretty fun sex right now. So she was the problem by default.
"Do you want me to see your boyfriend's dick?" Pa asked, then shivered.
"You're the one who forgot and hugged him," Pat argued, as if it were the most logical rebuttal.
"Oh my god," Pa let out, like Pat was the biggest pain in her neck. And he was. Proudly. "I'm going to meet up with P'Ink before I need to bleach my eyes," she announced before heading for the door—keeping her back to their bedroom door the entire time.
Pat simply waved her goodbye with a shit-eating grin.
After the door snicked shut, Pran poked his head out of the bedroom. "Well that was embarrassing."
Beaming, Pat went to his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around Pran's shoulders. "Hello there, stranger. Have you seen my boyfriend? He has long ears and cute dark spots and," Pat ruffled Pran's hair, "really soft hair."
Even as Pran shoved Pat away, he was also grinning. "Stop being weird about it," he chastised.
For a moment, Pat just smiled at him. His boyfriend was so amazing and cute and sexy—
"You really don't mind?" Pran asked somberly, any hint of joy fading from his face. He motioned to himself, as if Pat wouldn't know he meant the transformation.
It was such a moot point, honestly. Pat had been head over heels for Pran, wrapped entirely around his finger, long before he realized it. Pran could be a brain eating zombie or hate sports and Pat would still love him.
He shrugged. "I really don't mind."
Pran's eyes grew wet with unshed tears, his lips pressing together. Then he grabbed Pat by the collar of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. Soon, Pran's clothes were on the floor again, but there wasn't a rabbit in sight.
…
…
fin