They used to have a system. Even now, they made use of that system. As new people turned up, they signaled each other to indicate their preference for handshake, high five, fist bump or the closest approximate to a fist bump, or hug. The lowest-contact form won out.

There were two options that were even lower contact than the handshake. A greeting, predetermined, and a bow for those who didn’t even have the option of a greeting. ‘Brother’ or its equivalents was code that there would or could be no handshake, high five, fist bump, nor hug.

“Brother,” Whippersnap echoed, his smile reaching around both sides of his head, like the corners of his mouth could meet at the back of his head. “You remember Chantilly.”

Egg remembered Chantilly, yeah. Chantilly was lace, layers of skin that hung around her like a dress, riddled with cut-out sections. Millions of holes that were flower shaped, fleur-de-lises, spades, hearts, diamonds, and everything else, a veil instead of hair. She wore regular lace with the costume, a coat of layered lace textures that was almost indistinguishable from her skin, the tail of it trailing in the snow and ice behind her. Where a few holes lined up, raw red flesh was visible. Her eyes were black, with cut-outs in the surface that were only visible if the edges caught the light from the right angles. The holes in her right ear had jewelry hanging from them, a series of twelve earrings of varying lengths, eye-catching.

She had been the first Case Fifty-Three to make Egg think he would be open to dating a Case Fifty-Three. Doing other stuff with a Case Fifty-Three. And she was nice, sweet, brave, and she had actually attended a regular school for a while, enduring bullying and stuff. She hadn’t stayed, a lot of Case Fifty-Threes who tried didn’t, like himself, but he admired her for trying. Empathized, sympathized, swam in a lot of complicated emotions.

Chiefly, embarrassingly among them, deep and painful memories of his attempts at finding some… emotional relief jumped to his mind. Trying to do what the vast majority of teenage boys did alone in their rooms, only to end up with his dick inevitably shattered; yellow yolk and clear vitreous shamefully everywhere. He’d thought about her so often when trying and that link was hard to shake, now.

Those feelings of shame and deep frustration shook him and made him feel guilty, like he’d dirtied her with the depth and darkness of those emotions and moments.

She had adjusted the lace at the side of her head. The signal that she was open to a hug.

He wanted to hug her so badly. He knew he could even say something like, ‘gently’, or that she knew to be gentle. That she was soft, impossibly, mind-breakingly soft. So much of that lace was like skin to her, and she’d described it as sensitive to the touch, and—