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Packing was exhausting. Making sure accounts were closed and zeroed out everywhere was exhausting. Figuring out what he wanted to pack and what could be sold or thrown away was exhausting. Figuring out how to get what he'd be taking with him to the other end of the country was exhausting. The flight was exhausting.

Will was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

He arrived at his aunt's house with two suitcases and his carry-on at half past midnight. Finding food sounded exhausting. He left the suitcases in the middle of the foyer as he kicked his shoes off, letting them stay where they fell. Kitchen. Fridge. A Tupperware of something that might have been leftover japchae. It was good enough. Will grabbed it and took it back to his old bedroom, snatching up a fork from the dish rack as he walked past.

He didn't remember eating it. He barely registered the room itself. But when he woke the next morning in a room he didn't recognise, the empty bowl on the bedside table next to his glasses and watch was evidence that he had indeed eaten whatever it had been. The room was his. The bed was where he remembered. There was a desk somewhere, buried under a stack of cardboard boxes filled with eight years worth of yard sale accumulation. But nothing else in the room was his. The room hadn't been his in years, yes there was still something strangely uncomfortable about space that had been his for so long now being storage. Like something had been taken from him.

Will tried to shake the feeling off as he picked up his glasses and put them on. His thick fur felt crusty under his shirt as he moved, like it was sticking to the fabric. As he pulled his shirt off, he was almost surprised that he didn't crinkle and crunch as his fur was pulled in the wrong direction. It was only then he remembered he hadn't actually brought his suitcases in with him. He swore tiredly to himself and opened the door to go find his clean clothes, but someone had taken up the task already. Both his cases were already in the hall, sitting against the wall near his door. Will brought them both in, heaved them onto the bed, and pulled out whatever his fingers touched that would be suitable for a day of doing as little as possible. For a brief moment he thought maybe a t-shirt and PJs might not go over well, but he was a grown man. If he wanted to be lazy after a 3000 mile move, that was his right.

He found the bathroom exactly where he'd expected it to be. That much hadn't changed, at least. At first, Will started to run a shower, but he quickly changed his mind and shoved the plug into the drain instead. A long soak and deep scrub would probably be better for him and his fur. He finished undressing, and before the bath was even full stepped into the water. Will leaned back, taking a long moment to just enjoy the heat as it slowly rose around him. As he flicked his tail in the water, something in his fur pulled in a way that wasn't normal. Will looked up, and felt a small part of his soul just die. He was, apparently, even more crusty and disgusting than he'd realised. Some revolting creature's chewing gum had wound up buried deep in his fur and smeared everywhere near the end of his tail. If his first day back on the West Coast was going to be spent shaving his tail...

"Fuck," he growled to himself as he pulled the curtain closed about halfway. Then he sat forward and wrenched the taps closed. "Mi-suk!" he shouted.

As he quickly turned his bath into a salty stew of sadness, he could hear his aunt rushing down the hall. "What's wrong?" she asked, throwing the bathroom door open.

"How do you get gum out of your fur?" Will asked.

"Gum?" Mi-suk asked, frowning at him.

"Gum. In my tail." What world had he woken up in that this was his reality? He didn't like it, whatever it was.

"Oh." She nodded and immediately disappeared, leaving the door wide open. But she wasn't gone for long. When she came back moments later, it was with an enormous bottle of olive oil in her paw.

"Thanks," Will said, reaching out and taking it, trying not to drip too much onto the floor. He wasn't so sure about the idea of bathing with olive oil, but he knew some people used it to make their fur extra shiny. It couldn't possibly be worse than having gum stuck all over him.

"Do you want breakfast when you're done?" Mi-suk asked.

"Please," Will said, realising suddenly that he was starving. A relaxing bath had suddenly turned into a minor dilemma, so he unscrewed the cap on the olive oil, keen to speed things up.

"You take your time," Mi-suk said, backing out of the bathroom, this time closing the door behind her.

With her gone, Will turned the water back on. He wasn't sure how the olive oil worked, but he assumed the first step was pouring it on the gum. So that's what he did, using his claws to work it underneath the mess as much as possible. The gum didn't instantly seem to want to just pop right on out of his fur, so he slid down into the water and shifted his leg over so he could let his tail hang off the side of the bath. A long soak was still on his to-do list, but now it was only going to last as long as he could ignore his stomach.

He only turned off the water once it seemed dangerously close to overflowing. There were about twenty different types of shampoo on the rack, but all Will cared about was which ones were meant for hair, and which were meant for fur. He found one marked for the former and poured entirely too much into his paw. He couldn't remember the last time it had felt so good to scrub his scalp. Even in First Class, he'd picked up an entire airport's worth of grit and grime. For a while he thought he might never feel clean again, but already he seemed to be off to a good start.

Once he rinsed his hair, he grabbed one of the bottles for his fur. Those bottles were enormous - almost three times as big as the others, and most of them were nearly empty. With a house full of tanukis, it wasn't exactly surprising that they'd go through so much. They were each about 80% fur, and now with him there were four of them in the house. He had actually forgotten what hell had been like with twice that number using up everything in sight.

Will didn't pay much attention to what he grabbed each time he needed more. He was going to come out of his bath smelling like melons and cucumbers and summer rain and mangoes, all together at a Christmas party. He was either going to be fabulous, or an olfactory nightmare. But he didn't care. He was getting airport ick off of him, and that was all that mattered. He saved his tail for last, and was surprised when for the most part, the gum slid right out of his fur. There were still a few areas that were a bit sticky yet, but more oil and a bit of scrubbing managed to win in the end. Soon, he was completely gum-free. By that point, the bath water was swirled mélange of oil and soap and ick, so he kicked the plug out of the drain and leaned back as the water poured away. Once enough had drained that it wasn't likely to overflow, he got up and pulled the curtain shut. Hoping he'd left enough hot water for himself, he turned on the shower and scrubbed himself all over again, trying to get every last soap bubble out from under his fur. He still didn't quite feel like he'd got it all when the hot water started to fade, but he didn't exactly want to ruin his relaxing bath with an icy shower immediately after so he turned off the water and shook as much water from his fur as he could without risking slipping and breaking his neck.

There was a stack of towels on the rack near the bath. Will grabbed a handful of them and spread them all out on the floor as he made his way over toward the sink, where the blow dryer lived permanently out on the counter. When Will turned it on, it made a sound like a jet engine. It blew like one too. It hardly took any effort at all to get himself dry enough to put his PJs on, at least. The shirt, he decided to wait on. He'd probably want to change in a few hours, but he was feeling lazy and didn't want to stand around in the bathroom for another half hour making himself deaf. He turned off the dryer, and as he wrapped the cord back up, someone knocked on the door. Will reached out and opened it, finding his cousin on the other side.

"Mom wants to know if you still don't eat bacon," Jason asked.

Will started opening cabinet doors, trying to focus both on finding a spare toothbrush and answering his cousin's question. When had he not eaten bacon?

"That was Walt," he said, realising suddenly. A moment later, he found a basket full of miniature hotel goodies under the sink. Amongst the soaps and lotions were about a dozen plastic-wrapped toothbrushes. Will snatched one up and closed the door.

"Oh, that's right," Jason said. "Breakfast is almost ready."

He left Will to his own tasks, presumably to go get some of what was probably lunch for him. Will didn't put the most effort into brushing his teeth, knowing he was just going to go immediately stuff his face, but he still felt better for doing it. Once he was done with that, he grabbed up the towels from the floor and hung them back on the rack to dry. His disgusting clothes, he threw into the hamper without much thought at all. Breakfast was ready, and that was all he cared about. As a kid, he wouldn't have dared go out to the table without a shirt, but he was simply too tired to even care. He wandered out to the dining room, cautiously checking behind himself to make sure he wasn't dripping all over the carpet. He didn't appear to be, so he took an empty seat at the table.

About two seconds after he sat down, Mi-suk shouted wordlessly at him. He wasn't sure why, but it was enough to make him sit up out of his chair. Mi-suk disappeared back toward the bathroom, and came right back out with a dry towel.

"You should wear some clothes," she scolded as she draped the towel over the back of Will's chair.

"I'm wearing pants," Will argued as he got comfortable again. "I start a very big and important job on Monday. Let me be lazy."

His uncle chuckled beside him. "She would never let me get away with something like that," he said quietly.

Mi-suk shook her head as she brought a frying pan full of eggs over to the table.

"I guess she just likes me better," Will said with a lazy shrug.

"You all do what you want. See if I care," Mi-suk said as she pushed some eggs onto Jason's plate. "Maybe I'll do what I want and take a vacation. Leave you all to take care of yourselves."

"You should," Will said. He wasn't sure if he was trying to stir the pot, or making a genuine suggestion. "When was the last time you did?"

"Oh, I don't have time for that." Mi-suk finished dishing out the eggs, and took the pan over to the sink. "Who would take care of these two? You? With your fancy important new job?" She shook her head and sat down at her seat. "You would all starve."

"You hear that?" Kyung-jae said across the table to Jason. "He's too important for us now."

Will swung his head around to his uncle, fighting the whiplash from suddenly having this turned on him. "Maybe I am," he said. "I'll cook for myself then. You go on your vacation, Auntie." He grabbed some bacon and toast from the plates in the middle of the table. Half of the bacon didn't even make it to his plate before he ate it.

"So you start Monday?" Kyung-jae asked, filling his plate as well. "Will your things all be here by then?"

Will shook his head. "No. But I've got my laptop and enough clothes to get me through until then. They should be giving me a phone and some other stuff when I start."

"Have you seen this one?" Kyung-jae shifted to reach into his pocket, and pulled out a small black and silver device that fit neatly in his paw. Will leaned over to look at what his uncle had to show him. It only had a few buttons on one side, and a big one on the front, at the bottom. The rest was all screen. Kyung-jae pressed the button to light up the screen, and then used his finger to slid a virtual switch across the screen. The display changed then, switching to a screen full of little colourful icons.

"Oh, that is slick," Will said, making a kind of sandwich out of his toast and eggs. "What's the camera like on that thing? It's supposed to be really good, isn't it?" He stuffed half the sandwich into his mouth.

"Yeah, look." He tapped on an icon of a flower, opening up a photo album. Even on the small screen, the photo quality was miles better than the tiny, blurry pictures Will's old phone took.

"I might have to ask for one of these," he said.

Kyung-jae laughed. "Your line of work, you might get it," he said. He pressed a button that turned off the display with a heavy <i>ka-chunk<i>, and put the phone back into his pocket. "It never hurts to ask."

"You're back home for good now, right?" Mi-suk asked. "Not going back?"

Will nodded. "Yeah. I'm not moving like that ever again." It hadn't been so hard when he went off to college, and barely had any possessions. Moving his entire life had been thoroughly awful.

Mi-suk seemed relieved. She reached across the table, not quite able to reach Will from where she sat. The intention was still clear as day. "You stay here as long as you need. You don't need to rush out and get your own place just because of your big fancy important job."

Will nodded again, not entirely sure how to react. "Thanks," he said.