Growing Pains

Chapter 3: Age 15, Mitsuki's Glo Up

The image the mirror reflected made him frown. Beyond familiar, his face frowned back at him. It was...too familiar— if that was even possible. As he studied his reflection, the memory of Konohamaru-sensei making a short quip about how nice it was that Mitsuki was still the same and not as hormonal as the others played in Mitsuki's mind.

While unintended, Sensei's remark pointed out something that had been on his mind more and more lately. When would he change? Or even... would he?

As much as he tried to rationalize the thoughts, tell himself it didn't matter and that he didn't mind, the whole thing kept popping up over and over again. Small things like Boruto teasing Iwabe-kun about the scraggly goatee he was working on, and the girls whispering and giggling among themselves whenever they thought the boys weren't looking. All of these tiny, everyday occurrences only highlighted his dilemma.

Boruto, mainly, had changed so much since they learned to know each other in the academy, and the picture of Boruto Mitsuki had by the bed looked nothing like him anymore.

And yet, setting aside a few more inches in height, and a few more muscles, Mitsuki looked almost exactly at fifteen as he had when he was, well—physically at least—eleven.

Looking at his face, the image didn't quite fit with who he was today, and he wondered when he would 'experience' the changes that everybody else was going through. His big brother looked a lot older, so he must have gone through it at some stage, unless their parent made him like that?

Well, it didn't matter anyhow. The focus was on the annoyance of seeing his friends move forward without him, and that needed to change!

Yes, he had made his decision.

Home to the lair it was then, to ask his parent what he was to expect. Once he had his goal set he asked for permission for an extended leave, explained his predicament to Lord Seventh, told his teammates that he would be gone for a while, and set off towards the lair.

.

.

.

Once home, he went straight to business.

"Orochimaru. I have a few questions."

His parent tilted their head to the side and a small smile spread across their face. "Ah, of course, Mitsuki. What do you have on your mind?"

"Well..." He trailed off, unsure of how to word his current dilemma. "I was wondering when—if," he corrected himself, "I can expect physical development?"

Orochimaru raised a brow at the abrupt introduction to the topic. "Oh? That is a rather specific question. What brought this on?"

"I-my team and everybody my age that I know in Konoha are experiencing development but me. Log must have matured at some stage before I was created? So why aren't I?"

"I see. Well, I guess the time has come then. Yes, it is true that Log has matured, but for you both, the process of producing the hormones required for this will not start naturally. I did not create you that way. Instead, I will artificially add the required hormones to start the process. Then we will wait. You should be going through puberty within a couple of months once the process is started. I assume, since you came all this way, you are willing to go through with it?"

Without hesitating, Mitsuki nodded. "Yes, I am."

Raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow, his parent let out a small chuckle and nodded for him to follow as he stood and left the room. Had Mitsuki not been so used to his parent's questionable...quirks, he would have shuddered. Now he just followed and sighed when he was led to the laboratory. Of course...