Ilulu had been managing the random growth spurts for weeks.
They never came on a schedule. Sometimes it was just a little pressure, a little extra weight, enough to make her grumble and disappear for a few minutes until it passed. Other times it was worse — a hot swelling ache deep in her flame sacs that meant she needed to sit down, breathe, and hope nobody noticed how much fuller she looked when she came back.
Today, of course, it happened at work.
She was behind the counter sorting candy into jars, trying to focus on something simple, when the first pulse hit. It made her pause mid-motion, fingers still buried in the sweets as she looked down at herself. A familiar heaviness was already building under her shirt.
“No, no, not now...” she muttered.
She tried to ignore it. Kept working. Kept her head down. Maybe if she didn’t think about it, it would stay small.
But the heat in her chest only got stronger.
Her flame sacs began to swell again, slowly at first, stretching the front of her shirt and making her shift awkwardly behind the counter. She could already feel the extra weight settling against her torso, fuller with every breath. The worst part was knowing exactly what came next — once the swelling started, it never stopped at a “reasonable” size.
By the time she looked up again, she was blushing.
The pressure had become impossible to hide. Her shirt was riding tighter and tighter, her posture changing as the weight pushed outward, and she could feel each new surge making them grow heavier, rounder, more obvious. She was supposed to be helping customers, not standing there praying nobody walked in at the exact wrong moment.
Then the next spurt hit hard.
Her flame sacs swelled dramatically, ballooning outward until they dominated the entire space in front of her. The counter was suddenly the only thing keeping her steady. She let out a soft, frustrated breath, but there was no real panic in it — only embarrassment, and that familiar helpless acceptance. This had happened enough times that she knew struggling wouldn’t stop it.
All she could do was endure it.
By the end, she was left standing behind the candy counter with an awkward little smile, face warm, chest massive and impossible to miss, the workday effectively over whether she liked it or not.
Random growth spurts were bad enough.
Having one in the middle of a shift?
That was definitely the worst possible time.