As the video chat with Chrissy and Londyn ended, Dayton stretched until her shoulders relaxed, then crossed the room like she was switching tasks on a checklist.
The habitat sat in its cube on the shelf unit, warm lit and perfectly setup. Ezra was inside, standing near the clear wall as if he’d been waiting there the whole time. That annoyed him about himself. The part that wanted to be ready. The part that still responded to her presence like it mattered.
Dayton opened the top panel and lowered her hand into the enclosure, palm down, steady.
“Do you want out?” she asked.
Ezra hesitated for half a second, then stepped onto her hand.
Even that had become a skill. He placed his feet carefully, testing her skin the way you tested ice. He didn’t want to slip. He didn’t want to look helpless. He didn’t want to give her anything that felt like proof that he wasnt capable.
Dayton watched him tread lightly, then lifted him out and set him down on the floor beside her bed. The carpet gave under his shoes in a way that was almost insulting. Soft enough to forgive him.
Ezra’s jaw tightened at the word ball even though she said it like a tool, not a taunt.
Dayton crouched just long enough to flick her eyes to his collar. Two charms hung there. One was a flat little tag stamped with a soccer ball pattern. The other was simpler, just a small metal shape that caught the light.
Ezra looked at the charms the way a man might look at a verdict.
“You apologized,” he said, voice even. Too even. “That’s… better than most. Not what I would have expected.”
Dayton’s eyebrows lifted slightly, like she hadn’t expected that much honesty.
“But,” Ezra continued, and the word came out like the edge of a knife “I need you to understand something. An apology doesn’t rewind time. It doesn’t unhear the laughter. It doesn’t unfeel the panic.”
Dayton’s mouth tightened. “I know.”
“You know it intellectually,” Ezra said. “That’s not the same as knowing it in your bones.”
He made himself meet her eyes, because looking away would feel like surrender, and he was running out of places to keep his spine.
“When you say ‘hamster ball,’ you’re saying it like… a phase. Like a childhood experiment. Something you outgrew.” His gaze flicked, involuntarily, to the clear plastic sphere sitting in the corner of the room, half shadowed by furniture. “For the person inside it, it’s not a phase. It’s a memory that gets stored in the same place as… drowning.”
Dayton swallowed. “I didn’t mean it like a taunt today.”
“I know you probably didn’t,” Ezra said. Then, quieter, “That’s what makes it worse.”
He let that hang for a minute, not dramatic, just honest. A moment to reflect like he would with his lectures.
“Jordy probably accepted your apology,” he went on. “He probably meant it. People do that. They accept apologies because they want the world to be livable.” Ezra’s mouth pulled tight at one corner but inched towards the slightest almost smile. “Acceptance isn’t the same thing as erasure.”
Dayton’s gaze drifted again to his collar, to the charms. Ownership turned into jewelry. A life turned into icons.
Ezra followed her eyes and spoke again, careful, precise. Measured.
“So learn,” he said. “That part is real. But don’t confuse ‘I apologized’ with ‘it’s okay now.’ Sometimes the best you get is… ‘I won’t do that again.’ Sometimes the best you get is a person who can stand to be in the same room with you.”
Dayton’s voice came out smaller than she probably wanted. “Is that what this is for you.”
Ezra didn’t answer right away. He breathed, and the charms on his collar gave the faintest, traitorous tick when his throat moved.
“I’m here,” he said. “That’s the only measure that doesn’t lie.”
His eyes dropped to the charms on his collar. For a second, his face went blank in that teacher way, like he was choosing the exact sentence he wanted to leave behind.
“It’s amazing,” he said quietly, “how fast people learn to decorate what scares them.”
“This is why I got the charms,” Dayton added quickly, like she was heading off an argument before it started. “Not a bell. Not a… cat collar situation. Just… if you move and end up behind me, there’s at least a tiny sound. I don’t want you getting stepped on.”
Ezra took one careful step.
The charms didn’t ring. They didn’t jingle like a pet store fantasy. They just made the thinnest tick when metal brushed metal, like punctuation.
A soccer ball.
Her life. Her normal. Hanging from the same collar that had erased his.
He swallowed, and the collar shifted against his throat.
Dayton straightened, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t going to bolt for the door he couldn’t cross anyway. Then she turned and walked back to her desk, digging into her backpack and pulling out a couple of packets and folders like she was unloading groceries. She logged into the school site, clicked through tabs of her class pages and didn’t look at him again for a minute too long.
In her mind, it was still surreal to have Ezra walking around her room. She could feel that. The forced casualness. The deliberate choice not to stare at him like he was a new app she couldn’t stop checking.
She wanted him to have space.
Ezra hated that part of her. He hated that it wasn’t fake.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Dayton said without turning around, already typing.
Ezra didn’t answer. He stood there on the carpet and tried to convince himself he didn’t care that she’d offered the floor like it was generosity.
Dayton clicked into the group Discord, her laptop camera angled up just enough to catch her face and the top of her bed behind her.
A chorus of noise rushed in instantly.
“Where have you been?” Hayden said. “Nicole’s been on for like ever.”
Hannah was visible she was drawing on stream like it was a sacred ritual. Lines, shading, her pencil moving with quiet confidence while the rest of them talked over it.
Dayton rolled her eyes in a way that meant she was smiling. “Chrissy called, so I was talking with her and Londyn for a bit. Then I’m texting Sara while talking to you guys now and doing homework. I was supposed to call her but it’s been so chaotic today.”
“You say ‘chaotic’ like you didn’t literally get assigned a Little in a full on school raid,” Hayden said.
Dayton’s mouth twitched. “It wasn’t assigned. I filed.”
“Same energy,” Hayden said. “I thought you’d be setting up everything for your new Little.”
“I did some of that when I got home,” Dayton said, fingers flying over the keyboard. “I got the security stuff set up so he can’t go outside the house without me or leave my bedroom without me.”
Ezra froze.
Even hearing it said casually out loud, to friends, made it land in a new place. Like it was not just policy. It was identity. This is how we live now.
Dayton kept going, like she was reading off what she’d done in a game tutorial. “The bedroom one is mostly for Mom’s sake, because she’s super weird about him wandering freely. It’s not like your parents with Kinsley where she can go where she wants.”
Kinsley’s voice cut in, dry and sharper than Hayden’s jokes. “Because they don’t think I’m a rodent.”
Nicole’s voice followed immediately, softer but firm in the way sisters got when they were covering each other. “Kin.”
“What?” Kinsley said, but the edge stayed. “It’s true. People get weird the second you’re small enough to fit in someone’s hand.”
Ezra couldn’t see them, but he could hear the shift. Kinsley wasn’t being funny. Not really. She was saying it like someone who’d learned the rules the hard way.
Dayton exhaled through her nose, the closest she got to admitting fault without bleeding. “My mom doesn’t… yeah. That’s fair. I wish she was more open minded. They can be more…”
There was a pause in the call, like the group collectively decided whether to poke that bruise.
Hayden, of course, poked it anyway, but gently. “Your mom loves you, Day. She’s just… a ‘no tiny feet on my counters’ kind of person.”
“She’s a ‘no tiny anything on my counters’ person,” Dayton muttered. “Which is why the rules exist.”
Ezra moved again, slow. Another step across the carpet. Another faint tick from the charms.
Dayton didn’t look back. But her shoulders eased by a fraction, like the sound had done what it was designed to do.
Ezra stared at the vastness of her room, at the bed like a platform, the desk like a cliff, the posters and trophies and framed certificates that still belonged to a life moving forward.
His life didn’t move forward. It got managed.
He breathed in, tasting the soft laundry detergent, the faint sweetness of her lotion, the sterile perfection of a room that wasn’t built for him and didn’t care that it held him anyway.
On Discord, their voices rose and tangled. Kinsley stepped away to get more comfortable. Homework. Plans. Gossip. A normal world that could still include him, provided he stayed small, quiet, and useful.
Ezra turned toward the far side of the room and started walking, counting distance in careful steps, the charms answering each shift with that thin metallic tick.
Not a degradation, he told himself. Not a leash.
Just the sound of being findable.
actually pretty solid and open conversation between them in the grand scheme of things. I also think he nailed the meaning behind Jordans acceptance of her apolgy, which is cool cause he hasn’t met him yet. kinda tells you Ezra’s a pretty mature dude once you cut through everything. Explaining the difference between accepting an apology and that things are good now was important too. He probably genuinely appreciated the apology, but wants to make sure, in his own way, that Dayton knows he’s still not okay with things right now. And that probably means he’s aware of the opposite. there’s probably a smoother path to growth, appreciation, and acceptance for both of them than initially expected just based on the short talk. they just need to keep doing it.
Also agree with Kinsley. People seem to generally be looking at littles like rodents, even if Nicole’s not comfortable with acknowledging it, it’s how Kinsley feels she’s looked at, and it’s totally valid to feel that way
I feel like we’re missing the start of the conversation, like there was meant to be a chapter in between this chapter and the previous.
The story follows Dayton so you hear what she was present for however Nicole Hayden and Hannah weren’t sitting in silence waiting for Dayton.
The intent was to make it feel like you are coming into a group chat that is Alive
And happening. And not just waiting for Dayton to come in for things to exist.
I was referring to the conversation between Dayton and Ezra at the start of the capter, not the discord chat.
Oh, no that’s all there is to that conversation it’s just based on the hamster ball usage
So we aren’t shown Dayton telling Ezra about the hamsterball (and by extension her last interaction with Jordy), just Ezra’s reaction to it?
Did dayton. Not talk about this when she came home from school. I’ll have to check after work as now I’m not sure based on your comments. Did I cut the scene with him in the hamster ball. As when Dayton comes home from
School after the fridge part she puts
Him in the hamster ball and mentions Jordy was in there before and didn’t like it. But if he roaming downstairs he will need to be in the ball for her moms sake.
As this bit is the follow up to this part. If I removed that part then this section I agree wouldn’t make as much sense. It’s entirely possible I removed it and then forgot removing it.
Using this website’s search feature, I checked, and this is the only Dayton:JGC chapter to mention the hamster ball.
Also, this is the conversation I’ve been waiting for, the one where her sins with Jordan get brought up, so I’d remember if it had happened. (which is also why it immediately frustrated me that it feels like it got skipped in a minor time jump.)
oh, i thought this was about a comment made at school during lunch by Hayden and Dayton not dismissing it.
yeah I don’t recall ezra being in a hamsterball at all
I think lethal means like when did she tell him about jordy? And the hamster ball…
Well he knows of jordan from Sara’s streams as he is a fan. So he has some level of idea of the kind of person Jordan is as unlike Sara Jordan doesn’t have a streamer personality. It’s just Jordan.
Being a little he can imagine what Jordan felt is trying to genuinely help Dayton in his own way. It could be read as a peace offering or olive
Branch or just the reality that the best needs to be made in the situation.
Kinsley is on point.
1) “He didn’t want to slip. He didn’t want to look helpless. He didn’t want to give her anything that felt like proof that he wasnt capable.” Fair enough
2) “Two charms hung there. One was a flat little tag stamped with a soccer ball pattern. The other was simpler, just a small metal shape that caught the light.” DIdn’t he have three? A Ballet slipper, a D, and a Soccer ball?
3) “You apologised, that’s… better than most. Not what I would have expected.” But did she mean it?
4) “But, I need you to understand something. An apology doesn’t rewind time. It doesn’t unhear the laughter. It doesn’t unfeel the panic.” Not do they erase consequences
5.1) “When you say ‘hamster ball,’ you’re saying it like… a phase. Like a childhood experiment. Something you outgrew.” Is there a chapter missing? When did she say hamsterball? Did she tell him about what she did to Jordan? because that’s the conversation I’ve been waiting for, and it looks like it got skipped to the aftermath
5,2) ““For the person inside it, it’s not a phase. It’s a memory that gets stored in the same place as… drowning.” I do like that he’s pointing out how bad that was
6) ““I didn’t mean it like a taunt today.” – “I know you probably didn’t. That’s what makes it worse.” Intent matters, but so do results.
7.1) “Jordy probably accepted your apology,” The apology Dayton immediately took back once Sara turned her back? I doubt that.
7.2) “He probably meant it. People do that. They accept apologies because they want the world to be livable.” Ezra’s mouth pulled tight at one corner but inched towards the slightest almost smile. “Acceptance isn’t the same thing as erasure.” He “accepted” it to end the conversation
8) “But don’t confuse ‘I apologized’ with ‘it’s okay now.’ Sometimes the best you get is… ‘I won’t do that again.’ Sometimes the best you get is a person who can stand to be in the same room with you.” I do love that he’s explaining to Dayton that things aren’t as smooth as she believes.
9) “This is why I got the charms, not a bell. Not a… cat collar situation. Just… if you move and end up behind me, there’s at least a tiny sound. I don’t want you getting stepped on.” But you got charms that interest you, not charms that interest him.
10) “She wanted him to have space. Ezra hated that part of her. He hated that it wasn’t fake.” Wanted to give him space, but on her terms
11) “Ezra didn’t answer. He stood there on the carpet and tried to convince himself he didn’t care that she’d offered the floor like it was generosity” That’s more generous than I was expecting from Dayton
12) “You say ‘chaotic’ like you didn’t literally get assigned a Little in a full on school raid,” She says Chaotic like she wasn’t the catylist
14) “Even hearing it said casually out loud, to friends, made it land in a new place. Like it was not just policy. It was identity. This is how we live now.” Hearing I’d mentioned so casually would feel off.
15) “The bedroom one is mostly for Mom’s sake, because she’s super weird about him wandering freely. It’s not like your parents with Kinsley where she can go where she wants.” That’s because Billy-Bob and his wife love Kinsley more than Mrs Harris hates Ezra
16) “People get weird the second you’re small enough to fit in someone’s hand.” That could be the tagline of this whole franchise.
17) “Dayton exhaled through her nose, the closest she got to admitting fault without bleeding” it would take a lot for her to say she did the wrong thing.
18) “Your mom loves you, Day. She’s just… a ‘no tiny feet on my counters’ kind of person.” “She’s a ‘no tiny anything on my counters’ person,” Counters? She doesn’t want Tinies in her house.
19) “Dayton didn’t look back. But her shoulders eased by a fraction, like the sound had done what it was designed to do.” Charms carm Dayton down while being stressful for Ezra
20) “A normal world that could still include him, provided he stayed small, quiet, and useful.” he’d be welcomed if he changed just about everything about himself.
5.1) yeah, like I said above I thought it was about a comment from lunch, but if this had happened to him it explains the frustration he was feeling in the chapters earlier with daytons mom. Doesn’t excuse him starting or trying to rip into Dayton to me, cause I don’t think anyone should mouth off to a person’s mom, but it adds context to why he was so close off and mad. Plus if she did tell him about Jordan, Dayton probably never gave much thought to the idea that Jordan apologized only to get away from her back then. Which her doing so now is important imo
Good talk between Dayton and Ezra on apologizing.