Adopted by Phan

Chapter 13

Phil's P.O.V.

By the time I got up it was just past 10 and I got up immediately. I knew Jay would probably already be up and I quickly peeked around her now open door proved my theory correct.

I headed to Dan's room and shook him awake, laughing a little bit when he glared at me and moved back underneath the covers.

"Come on Dan, Jay's already up." I heard a groan and ever so slowly his head appeared, squinting as I opened his curtains. His hair was back in it's natural curls, even more curly than he normally showed on camera because it was basically an untameable mess.

I knew he was quite happy to show his natural curls on camera and he was slowly building his self confidence back up after years of being down. In his sleepy state the glaring mess of my friend stared me down, but reluctantly got up after a few seconds.

I left him, knowing that I should have been to check on Jay a little while ago at least. The curtains in the living room were wide open, natural light streaming into every corner.

The house was significantly larger than our flat, with an open plan living room, a kitchen just around the corner, a laundry room and a garage but we didn't own a car so it was just full of junk. There were the two guest rooms upstairs, plus Dan's room, my room and an office. Also downstairs there was a random room we hadn't quite figured out a use for so it just had a couch and two beanbags in the corner, showing the view of the smallish sized backyard.

Jay wasn't in the kitchen either so I headed to the random room, I'd given it the name of dining room just because I couldn't think of anything else. She was in there, seated on one of the beanbags facing towards the door. The sketch book was back in her hand and she was still wearing Dan's t-shirt but it was more like a dress, reaching almost to her knees.

Her head turned when I walked in and she lifted her hand in a small wave when she saw me.

"Do you want something to eat?" She nodded and I motioned for her to follow me into the kitchen when I heard Dan stomping down the stairs. It was almost a routine now, I'd wake him up, he'd pretend to be mad at me and then he'd come stomping down the stairs as loud as possible for breakfast.

Jay looked a little surprised at the Dan's stomping I snorted, Dan walking into the room at that exact second.

"It was just Dan, he does that every morning." She still looked slightly shocked, and almost scared so I gave a warning glance at Dan to warn him.

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By noon Jay was dressed back in her original clothes and we were heading out to go shopping. We had planned to get her some new clothes and just stuff in general like a toothbrush and a hairbrush. She had used Dan's comb to brush her hair that morning but it still looked pretty messy.

It was to far to walk so we called a cab to get there. Jay curled up in the back seat, clearly not up for talking even though she had been all morning. We had introduced her to anime, something she'd never seen before and even though she wasn't the biggest fan of it got her asking questions.

Her asking about it actually triggered something for me, I had never really grasped how weird it was but with her asking I understood how it seemed to someone on the outside.

'Why are they flying?' 'Why is there a giant squid?' 'Why is it all based in Japan?' 'What the f***'

And along those lines. That was the first time I'd heard her swear and Dan burst out laughing when she said it, her accent almost tripling in obviousness.

"You've clearly still got your country in your blood." She nodded, and grinned and I knew because Dan had actually been to New Zealand when he was younger and probably recognised the stronger accent.

The taxi took us to the shopping mall, a smallish one, but one with decent stores. H&M's was in there too, and I'd heard their clothing was pretty good quality and there was a lot of choice.

Jay was intrigued when we pulled up, she mentioned she'd never been inside a shopping mall before so this was going to be interesting. I was a little worried about meeting fans, especially when Jay didn't know exactly how often we would bump into one of them so just before we got out of the taxi I told her,

"Jay, we might bump into one of our fans while we're out so if we do can you pretend to be a fan as well? I don't think it's the best idea to out you to the crowd just yet, especially since it'll create all sorts of rumors." She nodded.

"It's okay, I'm good at playing something I'm not."

I looked at Dan, acting wasn't exactly a skill I'd picked her to have but we both rolled with it, knowing it was better not to ask about it.

The shops weren't busy, it was the middle of a school day so I wasn't surprised to see very minimal shoppers around, just a few older couples who would have almost no chance of recognising us.

H&M's was the first stop and Jay was utterly enthralled, eyes wide and taking in everything. We headed to the sections with smaller clothing sizes because Jay was honestly about the size of a 12 year old, probably barely over 5 foot. She definitely wasn't out of the children's sizes yet.

We went around for a little while picking up clothing we thought she might like but she didn't have much input, just nodding when we pointed something out and she liked it.

After about half an hour we both had a massive armful of clothing and Jay was going to try them on while we waited outside. I had picked up that she was a little bit nervous and I knew it was something to do with the fact that we were spending so much money on her, something I knew she'd never had before.

By the time we had finished she had about 15 new outfits, something she'd need for school when we signed her up for one in the near future. We'd discussed it with Officer Briny who'd said she would need some time to adjust before we started throwing her into everything, a couple of months at least.

She had picked out mostly jeans and t-shirts, a couple of hoodies, track pants and some sneakers but she had stayed away from anything to do with dresses or skirts, basically anything dressy.

I didn't know whether it was from personal preference or simply practicality but Jay had just shaken her head whenever we had pointed out something remotely fancy.

The taxi ride home was quiet, Dan was absorbed in his phone and Jay was watching the world pass by out of the window, looking at the school students as they walked home because school had just finished so they were covering the streets.

I knew we had a long way to go before Jay would trust us fully, but I knew we'd make it eventually.