Masozi is eating FOOD. An entire normal sized meal as judged by Nie Huaisang! The cafeteria line selection was not great, today, and the tray he managed to gather was initially judged inadequate, but Nie Huaisang donated one of his vending machine snacks, a bun of some kind in a plastic wrapper. The expiration date is well past but it's not moldy or anything and non-moldy bread is probably fine? 

He sits down next to Wei Wuxian and opens his Mandarin notebook and promptly forgets to actually keep eating while he practices various syllables under his breath. 

Marian approaches the table from the other end and waits to be acknowledged. 

"It's not enough to get the food, you also have to eat it."

"Marian-laoshi, what do you need?"

"I've got something for Masozi? At least, I'm pretty sure the uniform Sophie made is for him, that's what New York was saying, right...?" She holds out the bundle. 

Masozi is not paying any attention to this! Without even looking up from his notes, he manages to tear open the plastic wrapping for his bun and bite into it. It...unexpectedly has filling? Weird tasting filling, too. Eh, it's better than the burnt crispy bits from the edges of the casserole tray. 

"Thank you. We'll return it if it's not his."

"Should I, uh, be checking with New York in case there's weird politics stuff?" Marian wrinkles her nose, making it very clear what her opinion is of weird politics stuff. 

"I think Lan Xichen can handle it."

"Okay, just as long as he knows he's got to. Anyway. Masozi?" She's preeeetty sure that's him, mostly hiding behind the Shanghai kid again. "Do you want to come try on your new school uniform? You can change in the infirmary if you want." 

Masozi, mouth full of weird-filling-stuffed roll, glances at Lan Xichen as though for permission. 

After a quick explanation from Wen Qing in Mandarin, Lan Xichen looks at Masozi and says, "Go ahead."

Then he will go with Marian, hastily chewing the rest of the bun. (He doesn't think he especially liked the bun. The filling has a weird unpleasant sour aftertaste.) 

Marian will let him use her bedroom to change in, for privacy! ...She should trade food packets for curtains. Curtains would be great. Curtains would have made the dead body situation so much less awkward. Although maybe they'd be a hiding place for mals... It seems complicated. 

Masozi is pretty baffled at the concept that he shouldn't want to undress in front of someone! Maybe it bothers Marian, though? He can go in her bedroom and take off Song Lan's clothes that he's wearing and put on the uniform that Sophie made for him. 

The uniform fits him. It's not tailored so he'll outgrow it; it's made to be let out as he grows. The fabric is soft, and it stretches a bit - more insurance against the weedlike growth of a teenage boy with a steady food supply. He'll have a few years with it, even though Sophie won't be there to let it out for him.

The pants are black, and relatively simple; the shirt is white. Not the crisp, starchy white that you'd expect from a school uniform, but a more gentle color, almost dove-grey. It has embroidery on it, mostly the sleeves, in a brighter white that might be silk thread and jet-black that seems upon inspection to be human hair. Sophie's hair. The patterns are subtle but lovely, not drawing the eye but keeping it where it lands.

There's magic in the cloth, in the seams, in the patterns. The phrase dripping with magic would imply waste, which is incorrect; none of it is wasted. It's brimming with magic. Gentle magic, clean magic, the magic that comes from making something that knows exactly what it wants to be. It wants to be Masozi's. It knows him, loves him, as Sophie wanted to know him and love him. It wants everyone to know.

Here is Masozi. He loves the world that has been cruel to him. He told a girl to be dangerous, because she was not, and he wanted her to live. He is clever, and he is good, and he will not back down.
 

Masozi starts crying. 

There's so much of Sophie in it and he's never going to forget her and he wants her to not be dead it's not okay it won't ever be okay and he doesn't even know who killed her... 

(And it would be simpler, it would be easier to bear, if he could want to find the person who killed Sophie and kill them too. But he can't. He doesn't have a mental direction for wanting someone to be dead, no matter what they've done, and so he just has hurt and confusion.) 

Shit aaaaah what's happening in there. Is the kid getting attacked by one of the psychic mals?

Marian knocks on the door. "Masozi! Are you all right?" 

Mumblesomething. 

"I - sorry - I'm going to check on you, sorry..." She opens the door. 

Scrawny completely naked black kid standing with an embroidered shirt in his hands, sobbing! 

.....This is incredibly awkward. (Also, wow, this kid needs to be FED. He doesn't look as bad as the pictures she's seen of kids seriously affected by famines - his arms and shoulders are ropy muscle rather than just skin and bone - but his shoulder blades and hipbones stick out like wings, and she can count all of his ribs.  ....And she needs to stop staring at the naked kid, seriously, ack.

"Are you hurt?" she says stupidly, eyes fixed a yard to his right. 

"No." He gulps. "I just - Sophie..." 

She would offer the poor kid a hug but he's NAKED. 

"You miss her?" she says, gently. "I - I think she cared about you a lot. She - wanted to say sorry - for, she thought she'd gotten you in trouble..." 

Masozi had JUST started to calm down, and now he bursts into tears again.