The Carnival

[Belle Hibiki]

Shopping for clothes took longer than Kaden would have liked. Belle seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to pick out even the simplest of things, and every time Kaden broached the possibility of hurrying, the boy-turned-girl got extremely upset. Kaden had never thought of Belle as a diva, so he assumed that the reaction had less to do with himself, and more so to do with the bizarre transformation. Belle seemed to be on the razor's edge of a mental breakdown, and Kaden felt as if he were obligated, given their past history, not to abandon him/her.

His patience was tested, however, when Belle finally went get dressed. The door to the changing room had not fully closed before Belle burst out, babbling like a madman (woman?) about 'not anything being there.' Or something along those lines; it was honestly hard to parse out the tumbling mass of words spilling from her lips.

"You're going to have to help get me dressed," 'Bella' suddenly declared, grabbing his wrist and starting to drag him toward the changing room.

"Wait, what?" Kaden stiffened. Despite the physical change, Bella seemed just as strong her her male counterpart, and her grip, though soft, was like iron. "Why do I have to - ?"

"Because I can't see when I'm in there!"

Kaden blinked. "Is the light out?"

"Of course not!" Bella snapped. "There's a mirror in there, so I have to close my eyes."

Kaden considered pointing out the fact that Belle didn't need to be scared considering it was her body, but experience with the hybrid suggested to him that insinuating anything feminine belonged to Bella would be a bad idea. He attempted to slow his travel by digging the heels of his sneakers into the ground, but was only able to halt them for a half a second before Belle yanked him forward. "If you feel that way, we can get one of the store keeper's to help," he suggested.

Belle shot a look in the direction of the cashier's desk; a woman stood behind it. "No way," she growled.

"We could find a guy - "

"I don't want some random fucking stranger looking at me when I'm naked!"

Using her free hand, Belle yanked open the door and shoved Kaden inside, stepped in, and closed the screen behind them.

What followed was probably the most awkward ten minutes of Kaden's entire life. Bella apparently refused to even touch herself beyond the barest of minimums, avoiding anything that might even remotely remind her of what had happened to her body. Kaden felt as if he were dressing a child - an extremely fidgety child that violently protested at even the barest of touches. Add super-powered strength on top of that, and Kaden counted himself lucky that a flailing elbow didn't knock him through a wall.

What Bella had eventually chosen was, as Kaden had suspected, something unisex - a variation on a Chinese tunic, loose without the potential for obscenity that the demi-saiyan's tank top had had. The pants were almost identical to the girl's previous one's, though smaller. The chest issue was something that caused a bit of a fuss: unsurprisingly, Bella point blank refused to wear a bra, but it was clear that she needed some kind of support. Kaden eventually managed to procure some binding tape from the storekeeper, and that seemed to satisfy the girl, though it looked uncomfortable to Kaden.

~+~+~+~+~

Belle managed the final tie of her shirt by herself, but her fingers trembled so bad that nearly took her a minute to get the knot right. When she was done, she felt as if she had accomplished something significant.

She looked to Kaden, who was very intently staring at a point on the ceiling. She supposed she should thank him. "Thank you," she said, trying to lower her voice to sound manly, as if Kaden wouldn't understand who it was coming from normally, or might doubt the truth of her words if they sounded feminine..

"No problem," Kaden answered, giving another vague sort of smile as he looked down. He didn't comment on the clothes - perhaps he remembered the punch that Belle had given him after the suggestion of the dress.

"This is so... stupid! Why would he do this?!" Belle demanded of no one in particular.

"Who, Gamer?"

"Duh. Who else would I be talking about?" Belle glowered. "Who else could do something like this?"

"I don't know," Kaden shrugged. He paused, lips parted, but shook his head. "I guess he just wants to see you squirm."

"I'm going to kill him," Belle growled. "I'm going to kill that little fucker."

"Well, at least you sound like yourself," Kaden sighed, pushing open the door. He stood aside to let Belle out - ladies first and all that - but at a look from the saiyan he seemed to change his mind and exited before her.

The initial panic had passed, leaving in its wake a cold, gnawing dread. She didn't think the change was permanent - this was all just a dream in a machine, after all - but logic wasn't high on her list of priorities. "What about you?" she asked, trying to keep her thoughts from straying too far down that road.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been acting weird."

Kaden looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"I mean apart from what we were doing in there," Belle elaborated, irritated at the vaguely smuglike look in the courier's eyes. "You seem quieter than you usually are."

"How do you know how I usually am?" Kaden asked. "We haven't exactly spent a lot of time together."

"I've seen you fighting - that's usually enough for me to pick up on shit like that," she said. "It's like a kind of ... intuition."

"Women's intuition?"

Belle bristled. "Kaden--" she warned.

He raised a hand to stop her. "Sorry; just joking." He looked off across the racks of clothes, and Belle followed his gaze. There were so many garments, some tame, others wild, a few exotic, and quite a number of the mundane.

They were ways of expressing things, or so people claimed. To Belle, so many of them were nothing but costumes designed to hide the reality of the person behind them.

Kaden took a deep breath, let it out, and explained what had happened between him and Sophia, though Belle got the feeling that he was leaving something important out.

"Well, I can't say I don't see where she gets that idea," Belle admitted.

Kaden grimaced. "Oh?"

Belle shrugged. "You just... You act like you want to take charge at times, right? Like when we were fightin' in Central City; you always seemed like you had some kind of plan, or at least acted like you did, but you gave off this vibe like you really didn't care whether you succeeded or not - like you were just along for the ride. And then there was the fight we had a bit ago..." She ran her fingers through her hair, bangs flicking against her brow.

Kaden waited. "Yes?" he prompted again.

"I don't know," Belle sighed. "I mean, I wasn't in your game, so I don't know about what happened that round. Knowing you, you probably did the right thing, but you're always so..." She searched for the word. "Detached, I guess. I don't think I've ever seen you scream, or get really angry, or cry, or do anything like that. You say you care about her, but I think girls need something more than just words, you know?"

"Ah," Kaden trailed off, looking pensive, then asked: "Personal experience?"

Belle shrugged again. "Sayana's that way. Makes sense, too; words are just words. What have you done for Sophia that would make her think you care more about her than anyone else here?"

The courier frowned slightly. Belle sighed. "Sorry," she muttered. "I'm not really good at this whole 'giving advice' thing."

"It's fine," Kaden assured her.

"Do you want to go look for her?"

Kaden nodded and turned to go, and Belle fell into step beside him. Together, they made their way out of the shop and into the carnival's many lanes.