Emotional Cover-up (Branch x Shy!Reader)

Chapter 8: From Sad and Colorless to Glad and Colorful

Narrator's POV

Later everyone was dropped in the pot with the rest of the troll village.

"Poppy!" King Peppy ran to Poppy hugging her, as she hugged back. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, dad." she said.

Everyone was panicking as Clover looked around for (Y/n), but couldn't find her.

"(Y/n)? (Y/n)?!" Clover called out as she walked over to her friends. "Aliki, Janell, have you seen (Y/n)?"

"No." Aliki said.

"We haven't seen her." Janell said.

Soon the chattering was slowly dying down when different conversations were heard.

"Hey...Is that (Y/n)?"

"Is she okay?"

"What happened to her?"

"Where are her colors?"

"Did she...always have horns?"

"Why does she look so sad?"

It soon fell silent as everyone formed a circle around a now gray (Y/n). She was sitting down, hugging her knees, her head hanged low, her wings were shut, and her tail was curled up around her body.

She was holding her hat in her hand as her hood was off, showing her horns. Despite her new appearance, that was the least of their problem. She was sad and no one knew why.

Poppy then walked up to her.

"(Y/n)?" Poppy asked. "...Are you okay?"

(Y/n) picked her head, wiped the tears from her now gray eyes and stood up, putting her hat in her pocket.

"... No, Poppy. I'm not okay." She answered sadly. "I was...never okay. I was supposed to leave and come back with my friends and my sister, protect you, and I can't even do that! ...Like I couldn't save my parents..."

"But..." Clover spoke walking up beside Poppy, "...it wasn't your fault."

"Wait, wait..." Poppy cut in. "You...Were never okay?"

"Not since I was 4, when we lost our parents..." (Y/n) said.

Poppy just stared in disbelief.

"But you had your colors." DJ Suki said.

"I was faking my colors..."

This shocked everyone else.

"But...but why?" Satin asked.

"Because she didn't want anyone to think there was something wrong with her." Aliki said.

"Or call her a Branch." Janell added.

"You mean...you two knew?" Biggie asked.

"Clover?" Chenille looked over at her.

Clover didn't speak, she just looked at her sister. Of course she knew, they were sisters after all, so she knew this long before her two best friends found out. Poppy then noticed (Y/n)'s horns and saw that one of them had a scar on it.

"(Y/n), what happened...to that horn?" She asked as she pointed to it.

"....Back then a lot of kids picked on me about them..." She started, hesitating at first. "So I tried to cut them off but then Clover stopped me."

Everyone was shocked to hear this, and immediately felt sorry for her.

"But when does it matter? I hid my horns and pretended to be happy for my sister since our parents died, but it was all a failure in the end..."