"Heeeeey~! G'morning!"
Rehan bounded over to the Princess and Wilhelm with a huge grin on his face, waving with both arms as he approached the two of them. Rehan and Noah's friendship had gotten to the stage where Noah had started introducing him to other people, and while some meetings had been... well, awkward, to say the least... Rehan had clicked instantly with Noah's relative-of-some-kind.
Cousin? No, was that the other guy? Man, there's too many people to remember in this place...
Their first meeting had gone wonderfully, either way, and they'd become fast friends as they ran around the gardens and made slingshots out of roots and vines.
As the small catboy approached, Noah responded with a beaming smile of her own, but Willy looked... hm. Suspicious? Nervous?
That was weird.
Did I... do something wrong? No, there's no way. What could I possibly have done wrong? But... why does he look so uneasy?
Rehan slowed down as he approached the two of them, his brow furrowing in confusion as he looked at Willy. They'd had a great time at the weekend, hadn't they? There was no way Willy would have forgotten who he was in the span of three days, surely.
As if suddenly realising the situation, Noah let out a soft gasp, quickly turning to Willy and murmuring something in his ear. The difference was instant - it was like a switch had been flicked. Willy started laughing, waving back.
"Noah's little catboy!" grinned the tall Tanuki, running over to grab Rehan in a firm hug - which involved picking him up and swinging him around in the process. "It's good to see you again!"
"Uh... good to see you too!" he breathed, squirming to escape Willy's firm grasp. With a few strategic wiggles, he hopped down onto the grass. "Is, uh... is everything good?"
"Hm? Yeah, everything's great!" said Willy. "Why?"
"Oh, uh... it's just... you didn't seem... happy to see me?"
Rehan pressed his lips together in what was almost a pout. In response, Willy shook his head vigorously, his eyes widening.
"No!" he said, a little louder than he probably intended to. He lowered his volume as he continued to speak. "No, it's not that! I got this, uh... this thing. Like, a face thing? I can't see people's faces. But she told me who you are, so we're all good!"
"Oh. Huh," frowned Rehan, bending down to shift and look up at Willy from a different angle. "So you just... can't recognise faces? At all?"
"Nope!" grinned a completely nonchalant Willy. "Can't tell the difference!"
"Huh. That must suck."
"It's not all bad. I have ways of dealin' with it," Willy hummed, reaching into his pocket to pull something out. A... what was that? A leaf? A weird-looking leaf, for sure. Rehan had never seen one like this before.
"I use these to recognise people! Here, you should probably have one, considering you're prolly gonna be around a bunch."
Willy reached out to hand the leaf to Rehan, and the catboy took it, tilting his head as he lifted it up. He took a big sniff of it - ooh, smells good! It's some kind of herb, I guess? - and just as Willy began to speak again...
"All you gotta do is--"
Chomp.
Rehan pushed the leaf into his mouth, chewing it thoughtfully. He nodded as he swallowed, eyebrows raised in approval.
"Mm. That's pretty good! A little bland on its own, would work better with other stuff... wait, why are you looking at me like that?"
Willy stared at Rehan, mouth open.
"You ate it!?"
"Well... yeah?" replied Rehan defensively, crossing his arms. "What else do you do with herbs?"
"It's not - it's a leaf! You're not supposed to eat it!" groaned Willy, scrunching his eyes shut as he raised both arms to his head. "It's like -"
Willy opened his eyes again, and his voice trailed off as he stared at the catboy, tilting his head.
Rehan tilted his head, too.
The Tanuki continued to stare, deep in thought, as the cogs whirred in his brain. Slowly, his expression changed from outrage, to confusion, to what could only be described as awe, as he gazed at Rehan with a spaced-out smile.
"Wait," he said slowly. "You got..."
Willy stepped closer to Rehan, leaning right into his face for a moment, before leaning back again and poking Rehan's left cheek with his finger.
"You got dots! On your face, under your eye. It's cute! Oh, shit, you got green eyes, too! Like the grass! I can see it!"
Rehan just smiled nervously, looking over at the Princess, who had been watching the entire exchange with an face perfectly aligned between confusion and worry until this moment. Now, her expression changed to astonishment.
"Yeah," continued Willy, talking to himself more than anyone else around him. "Yeah, this works way better, actually! This is so cool! And then it's all of you, instead of just the leaf part! Whoa!"
He spun around on the spot, pointing towards Noah, who flinched away instinctively at the sudden movement.
"You too! Eat your leaf!"
"Wh-what!?"
