I never asked them how old they were.

...that's kind of a weird answer. But you didn't contract with them when they were twenty and then they modified themselves to look younger or anything like that? Are they using bodies that'd be about the right shape and stuff if they had never made their wishes?

As far as I know.

I see.

What the fuck.

Kyubey stayed with Ichinoya so they can talk aloud without it hearing at least. "I guess it mentioned we were on the older side but I thought maybe, like, sixteen year olds."

"Yeah, I mean, I—would not trust thirteen-year-old me with this." He barely trusts current him with it.

"I would trust thirteen year old me but I kind of wouldn't trust somebody who offered it to thirteen year old me and wasn't... uh, some other age of me."

"I guess people get wishes when they feel very strongly about them and have... magical potential? And maybe teenagers feel very strongly about things, in general?"

"Maybe. I wanted to ask what they wished for but it seemed like an awfully personal question."

"Yamanaka-san seemed to think that people were pretty different there. Or maybe she was being insensitive, I guess there could be etiquette issues there, but she asked me if I was the kind whose wish was super secret and personal or the other kind, which is what I jumped off of to tell her about the future."

"I don't really know how much of a - culture - there is, here, like, everyone knows Kyubey I guess but that's not really like having a normal mutual friend."

"Yeah."

"Maybe Yamanaka was splitting the difference between it being a normal small talk question and it being really heavy and just hasn't actually met enough other magicals to have a clear sense of which."

"Yeah.

"...I know what I'd have asked for at that age. I'm glad I didn't get to."

"Mm?"

"I'd have wished for my dad to love me," he says with an uncomfortable shrug. "Kinda cringe."

Haru squeezes his hand. "Not the word I'd reach for there."

"Painfully depressing? Pathetic?"

"...sad."

"Yeah, well. It wasn't going to happen without magical intervation and so I'm glad I didn't spend any on it. Really wish I were good enough at shutting up to be able to show you only my cool and confident and sexy sides."

"I think if you only had cool and confident and sexy sides that would be kind of uncanny and weird."

"Why? You do."

"- what? I don't - think that's - no I don't! I threw up at the smell of blood just yesterday, how is that any of those things. I keep dithering about whether to go after witches that are on somebody else's turf. I have barely any friends. I hope you haven't been dating me on the assumption that I'm some kind of unrealistic paragon of poise."

"Okay but like—it's not your fault you're affected by the smell of blood, and it's really difficult to figure out what to do about this whole 'turf' thing, and you're selective about people, those aren't—bad things—oh gods am I being a cliché, is that what they call rose-tinted glasses—"

"I think this is what they call rose-tinted glasses, yes!"