Dragon's Hoard

The least favourite little human

"Stop smiling."

"I'm not smiling." The child said with a huge grin on his face.

Was he bullshitting him?

What the hell was he so happy about?

No, seriously, what did he have to smile about?

It was since he had shown himself in his human form that he had started training Little Thing, and in those two weeks Small Disaster had not completed a single spell without something exploding, changing colour or starting to glow. In short, there was absolutely nothing to be happy about.

And yet, Little Thing did nothing but look at him as he flashed that big bright smile of his, and have that sparkle in his eyes.

Maybe that was the side effect of some spell he had gone wrong.

"Do you ever have nausea? Feel dizzy or lightheaded?"

The human looked perplexed and shook his head in denial.

"Are you sure? You're starting to worry me."

The brat, completely ignoring what he had just said, leaned towards him and his thumb and forefinger squeezed both his cheeks, flashing that same troubling smile.

That was another new bad habit of his. Whenever he took his human form in front of him, the child pinched his cheeks.

Irritated by Tiny's new annoying habit - could he stop making him regret showing him his human form?-, he took his chubby cheeks between two fingers and squeezed them until the kid's lips formed a tight, twisted O.

He let it go after a few more seconds and Little Thing rubbed his cheek, with a pout on his face,

"I didn't do it that hard."

"It wasn't that strong." It was. "You're just to frail."

"I'm not." Little Thing's pout grew bigger. "I'm strong. I have to be. I have to protect you."

He scoffed. A small smile crept to his lips. "First learn to protect yourself, then we'll talk about this again."

"Just wait, I'll protect you well one day." He said with a proud smile.

Kongpob couldn't help but smile, too, when he found himself staring after the cheeky human. As soon as he realised it, he hid it behind a scowl, and with a firm but surprisingly gentle hand, pushed his head down to hide his tender expression.

Being surrounded by all those humans was making him soft... or maybe it was just Little Thing's fault... yeah, it was all Little Thing's fault.

"Littl-"

The sound of Tiny's room door slamming against the wall interrupted him.

"Arthit!" Kong's least favourite among Tiny's friend exclaimed in an exaggeratedly indignant tone. "You told me to stop hitting on older guys, and then you're the one staying alone in your room with a boy! And not any boy,  with Praipalin's hot friend!" He crossed his arms indignantly. "If you like him, you could just have said it, you know."

"I... what? No! It's not like that!"

Little Thing vehemently denied it, blushing like crazy. He stopped in mid-sentence and looked back at him, frowning. "Praipailin's friend?"

"Yes, I saw them the day you went out with Namtarn. He was with Praipailin and another girl. Didn't you meet him there?"

Kongpob glared at the little busybody. Seriously, he was worse than Loudmouth, which was saying something.

"No, he's... Kong... my familiar." Little Thing said dazedly, blinking repeatedly as though to make sense of what was happening.

Busybody ignored the problem he had caused, and curled on himself mumbling incoherent words that sounded too much like idiocy. "Oh no, this is a nightmare. It's not possibly... the grumpy lizard..."