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major_kerinaNew chapter up. 8,170 words. Longest of the chapters thus far. A lot of interesting stuff going on. Good stuff with the boys. Hope you like. This one took a while to really come together but I like it. ^_^
Chapter 8 – Messages Away from Mecchen House
Of course, the next question was “when were they checked out?”. The lender’s information said three days ago. The books had been checked out only this one time. They’d been first stocked by the library early last August. Three of the publishing dates were thirty-years ago. The other two were brand-new, just published when they were stocked. No publisher given. Edited by Chosha Ikamono. This guy sure wrote a lot. His name was on all five of the books.
As the librarian moved back to close the window on the screen, I asked her about the author. She looked at me with those lime eyes of hers as though I’d asked her for the color of the sky. When my confusion remained, she told me, “It’s a pseudonym. It means ‘fake author’. That could mean they’re all by the same person. Or it could be a group of people who don’t want to be known for writing those books.”
Nathan put a hand to the side of his face. “I don’t get it. What does this mean?”
Jamie shook his head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Remember, Nana just said she doesn’t have the books. She could’ve just been obtuse about meaning Ms. Ishida rented them for her or something.”
That was surprisingly sensible for Jamie. I posed another possibility. “Or Ms. Ishida rented the books, used them somehow, and could’ve been the one to will us here.”
The librarian gave me a look. Jamie waved his hand. “She would’ve brought it up…and remember what Nana said about accidents? No. It was a deliberate act. Besides, see, it’s just been loaned out this once.”
He sure had a lot of faith in Ms. Ishida. But then so did I. I reminded him, “You know you can read a book without checking it out of a library. Also, there are likely other libraries, bookstores, etc.”
Jamie curled his lip line up in irritation. “So, in conclusion, this means absolutely nothing. All it means is we have to look somewhere else. Is there another library nearby?” He turned to the librarian.
She already had her book open again but was paying more attention to us. With a quick cough, she said, “Two on the other side of the river. It’s around a thirty-minute trip by train…”
Jamie nodded. “Good, then we have a destination.”
But the librarian continued, “I wouldn’t bother going though. Neither of them have those books. They’re smaller and less diverse. I wouldn’t bother with bookstores either. Half of the books are out of print.”
Lines curled above Jamie’s head. “How exactly do you know all this?”
“I’m a very dedicated librarian…I pride myself on our acquisitions.” Her voice level and quiet, yet seemed to waver as she spoke.
That gave me an idea. “Did you happen to read these particular works?”
She turned the page. “Not yet, I’m sorry to say. At least I don’t remember them.”
So it seemed we were left with only one direction, back to Mecchen House. Jamie wasn’t willing to concede that yet. “We’d just be moving backwards. Besides, we’re not entirely sure why the…changes are occurring. What if it was because of the time we spent in there?”
I shrugged. “And what if it was the result of leaving?”
Jamie chewed on that then tossed up his hands. “Whatever. We could go on like this all day. Personally, I still think Nana is responsible. So long as we put as much distance between her and us, we’ll be fine.”
Nathan steeled his face, “Please ease off Nana. As she said, she just wants to help us. I don’t feel she’d do anything to hurt us.”
Jamie glanced through the doors at the front. “She’s too suspicious. How am I supposed to know that her version of ‘helping’ will actually be beneficial to me? Besides, if we let Nana off the hook then who is the prime suspect for bringing us to this world?”
The librarian’s eyes opened wider. Nathan rubbed his neck. “It could be me. I mean I saw that place before we wound up here. Maybe something unconscious…happened. I don’t know.”
It sounded possible. I’d never heard of an anime store in our area and I’d be the one to know first. But then I wasn’t one to amble along strange paths. Why did it show up for Nathan? Why did he specifically get a preview of this world?
Jamie scoffed, “You? You suspect you brought us here from another universe? I mean for a little while I was concerned about you but, seriously, I don’t buy that.” The librarian seemed to have lost all attention to her reading. She watched us with great interest.
Nathan dipped his head. “It doesn’t matter who did it. I’m ultimately responsible for all of this. I told you all about the place. I coerced the two of you to go. I didn’t turn back when something weird was happening. If I didn’t actually do it, then I was at least the one who allowed it to happen.”
I had to step in. “Excuse me Nathan, but you’re wrong. We came on our own…”
Jamie gave me a look. I added, “Or least we didn’t fight it like we should’ve. I don’t know why we’re in this world. Admittedly, I’m not the most excited to get home. Although I don’t want…certain things to happen to us which might happen if we stay. I just…it feels captivating here. Like a day after a long shower clears the air. I want to breathe it in.”
The librarian was slowly nodding to herself and looking at something just beyond us. I dismissed the gesture from my thoughts and continued, “The point is we’re here now. We’re in an anime world. It’s a decent world…” The librarian jumped up, her hands clutching the piles of books around her, and asked, “What was that word?”
I repeated it for her, and asked, “Do you know it?”
She looked down but not at any book before her. She shook her head. “Nah. It’s nothing.” And then she hit herself and sat back down behind a few columns of literature, and lectured herself with, “No outbursts in the library, shishoko…” Since she asked me about the word ‘anime’, I asked her about the word she ended on just then. Was it her name?
She shook her head. “No…not really. It’s my profession mashed together with my name. Something I made up. Librarian girl. Ichikami Shioriko is my name though. Most people just call me Shiori. I guess it suits me, no matter how lame it sounds.” She paused then added, because of our confused faces, “Shiori means purple cloth….or purple-clothed beauty, in the case of my name. But it also means bookmark. Bookmark beauty. I mean I love books but…eh, never mind. Sorry. Did you need anything else?”
We shook our heads and she buried hers in another book, although with less resolve than before. I tried to pick up on the thought I’d been working on. “It could be a lot worse, you know. And if it gets that way, then we’ll deal with then and there. We could yell at the sky and…bash the ground but we’d only wind up hurting ourselves. For now, it looks like there’s a path of breadcrumbs before us and it leads back to Mecchen House.”
Jamie fumbled with what he wanted to say next until he finally admitted, “Alright…I really have no plan beyond ‘keep moving’. At least it’s something though. I dearly want to get home, despite the fact I don’t have much waiting for me when we return. But we have even less here. No jobs. We have barely-valid IDs and a limited amount of cash. This is not a day at Disneyworld for me. This is ‘we’re lost’ and ‘what are you going to do to survive?’.”
Nathan fumbled a bit himself. “I know and I will do anything I can to get us back home. I just don’t know what…wait. I just had an idea.” Seeing as Nathan’s last idea had led us this far, I listened carefully to what he said next. Jamie even paused a moment.
He gestured to the phone bank over by the restrooms. “We know from TV that this world isn’t lots different from our own. We can live and breathe in it. It has some changes but enough that it’s like one of those anime we’ve seen.”
He went on, “We have stuff that’s going on with us in this world which we can’t fully explain. We turned into this style of different being but we seem to be changing even more. Into girls maybe. And I was just thinking…”
Shiori plopped out her chair with a sudden noise. I looked at Nathan, nudged him, and whispered, “Maybe keep that a little quiet…”
He blushed, and said a quiet, “Sorry…” Well, what was done was done. Shiori vaulted over the info desk partition, which impressed me. She panted and looked between each of us, “You three are changing into girls?”
It was tough to really say it, especially to a girl. It made me feel like I was intruding, oddly enough. I did offer, “Well, we’re not sure but something odd is happening to us. We’re getting softer and such. In many places. Too much to just be considered changing into ‘pretty boys’. We’re not sure what to make of it.”
She put her finger to her chin. “I see. Then it’s not the same way I turned into a girl.”
As if I could imagine anything more shocking than seeing Ms. Ishida’s name on that screen. I couldn’t move till Jamie coughed and said, “What?” Shiori, her arms held in front of her glittering gray top, said, “It’s tough to explain. I don’t talk about it much. Come on back to the desk so we can talk.”
We followed her and sat inside the desk area. Her purse, a series of bulging, lavender brush streaks, sat to one side. She pulled out folding chairs for each of us. We set our bags nearby. I whispered to Nathan about his idea. He shook his head and whispered back, “Later is probably better. Besides, she might have just invalidated it.” That sure made me wonder.
She undid her ponytail and let her hair fall like quivering brush strokes dipping all around. She shut her eyes. “Okay. It’s like this. I can remember being a boy. I can’t remember when exactly. I just know one day I went to sleep as a boy and the next I woke up as I am now. My memories of the whole thing are rather fuzzy. I can’t exactly tell you when it happened. I think it could’ve been a couple of months ago. But it could’ve been years. I remember being a girl all my life and yet there’s this bubble of experience all jumbled up and preserved about being a guy. I can feel everything from it. I can’t remember what my name was then and I can’t prove it isn’t just something in my head. I just have this sense that tells me it.” She paused a moment. The moment seemed to invite questions and it sure got them.
Jamie asked first. “You’re a boy?!?” His mouth lingered open a bit.
She glared at him. “Not anymore, I assure you. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe someone tricked me. Maybe something happened to me like what happened to you three? Maybe I fell into this world and it changed me?” She looked at Nathan. “You said you had a theory about what might’ve happened. I know this is presumptuous of me but could you tell me too? It might help me figure this all out. I’m usually too afraid to talk to anyone about all this. No one has mentioned this kind of stuff before. I always figured it was just me.”
Nathan made himself a little smaller in his seat. “It’s really not worth bringing up. But I was just thinking since we left Brookville…”
She stopped him. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
My eyes perked up a little. Did she know that name? Was it possible we weren’t the only ones displaced from our world? Did something happen? But if a lot of people were brought here from our world, then why did this person seem to feel experiences from a long time back and turn into a girl instantly?
We explained the meaning to her. Something flashed in her eyes which I inquired about. She rapped her fingers on her little brushmark of a nose but said nothing for several long moments. Eventually, she sighed and said, “Not familiar but I just may not be remembering right. Please go on though.”
Nathan nodded and picked up with, “Since we left there, I’ve been thinking about how this area isn’t like where we lived and yet it kinda feels like it at times. Like if our town got moved to an anime place. A tinted sort of Japan.”
That name was familiar to Shiori. She nodded twice. Nathan lifted his hands. “Okay. So isn’t it possible that there exists a Brookville back where we would live at on this world? I mean space is time and location and such. If there’s some error in traveling along it then it would make sense we didn’t show up at the same time. But also it could be we wound up at a different place too. And it could even be instantaneous. Seamless. One moment in a pathway. Then next in the same pathway but in a whole different world. And…and…because it looked a lot like it and but was in a different continent, it could draw us there. Like a random crossing-over.”
It was a striking theory. A little jumbled but not bad. Of course, it ignored a lot of whys, hows, and coincidences but I couldn’t help but smile while listening to it. Nathan still looked a little embarrassed though.
Jamie looked lost. He said, “Where are you getting at with all this?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. My point was we don’t know anything about Brookville back in our area, if it exists here. I’m just supposing maybe…we already exist in this world. Back home. What if there’s an ‘us’ at our apartment on Rock Lane there? Now if there’s an ‘us’ there and they’re boys then maybe this universe can’t allow us to be their duplicates. Maybe it’s changing us to fit in? Making us into girls. So, maybe we could try calling our home numbers and see…if we get ourselves on the line.”
It had to admit it was a stretch but why not try calling home, at least? Even if it was a number which is (I supposed) only valid in another dimension. Shiori mused on what Nathan said, “It’s not impossible but I remember living around here. I just woke up as a girl. I don’t know. Maybe we came here different ways or I’m just a crazy book-loving girl who thinks she used to be a boy for some weird psychological reason. I mean for all the books I plow through, I kinda hope one of them will tell me something which will make sense of all this. It’s been forever since I’ve really thought about it though. I’m truly sorry I hadn’t read those books you three were looking for. Maybe it could’ve helped us both.”
I smiled at Shiori. “It’s cool. Besides, we know exactly where they are.”
Nathan chimed in. “May I ask you a few quick questions, Ms. Ichikami?”
She gripped her chin with her hand. “Much too formal, but go ahead.”
“What does it feel like to be a girl compared with being a boy?”
I didn’t ask her any questions but they were floating in my head. She leaned back in her chair, which really emphasized her chest. So far, the ‘effects’ we noticed in Mecchen House were not wearing off outside of it.
After a bit of reflection, she said, "There's a lot more stuff I need to do now. It comes easy because of how I was affected. It just feels like I've always done it. But I am really not a girly girl. Never was, never will be. I don't care a lot about if my outfit matches or if I have perfect hair. Besides, I look okay anyways. I've seen too many girls go overboard and I do not want to do that. When it comes to physical…details I kinda long to feel…secure. For comfort's sake. I like darker shirts that make me feel snug. But some days I want to take my hair off by my hands and kill it. That's a new feeling. I’ve tried cutting it short but it grows back so fast. Today is a good day though, all in all. I have had some body issues. I had a time back towards the end of last year when I would just sit on the bed, legs and arms curled close, and just press on things till it hurt. Then hold things close and rigid till my body became a little numb. I'd just sit there and fill in what I thought was supposed to be there. And I'd kinda fall asleep like that. Despite that, in my dreams, I’d always be a girl. Still, doing that really helped with getting to sleep. It's not so much I was hurting to be a boy again. It was just like my security blanket. You know what I mean?"
Only Nathan nodded but he did it enough for the three of us. Both Jamie and I were perplexed but polite about it. Shiori chuckled and said, “Sorry. Happens when I think back. I want to find out what happened to me but I feel a lot more settled now. Were there any other questions?”
I jumped in with my own quick question. “Do you know a Katsumi?”
That sure was a long-shot. She looked closer to our age than Katsumi’s age.
Shiori paused on the question with a line-furrowed brow. “Huh? I’m afraid I don’t know any Katsumis personally. There’s a performer but that’s it.”
Good to know.
I shrugged. “No worries. Sorry about that. I had to ask.”
She said that was ‘fine’ but added, “Who exactly is Katsumi?”
I explained it as succinctly as possible, leaving in a brief note about the ‘dress-up’ last night. Shiori lingered on that though and eventually got the whole story out of me. She took it without too many giggles and offered this, “Sounds like she’s transferring some of her issues onto you….I just finished reading a massive psychology series.”
Made sense.
The next question came from Nathan again. He asked, “Did you become shorter? How does that feel?”
She smirked. “Yeah. If I recall right. I was like one-eighty-three centimeters. Now I’m a mere one-sixty-three centimeters. I also lost a lot of meat to my frame. Sometimes it feels like I got younger. Other times it’s like someone is pressing on my head, holding me down. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. It just feels like I’m a fraction of what I used to be. Like I’m a popsicle someone half-melted.”
That affected Nathan quite a bit. He squirmed in his seat and looked particularly bothered. Shiori made a sweat-drop motion but Nathan assured her it was fine. He explained, “I’ve gotten a bit shorter and I wonder if what you experienced might be in my future. It’s just something I never considered. It’s like falling.”
She raised her brown, thin eyebrows like oars dripping swinging along her face. A large cloud passed outside. “Wow. Have any of you changed much? You all still clearly look like guys.” That was an unintentional bit of comfort on her part. We explained the least embarrassing of the effects thus far. She nodded politely with each and then responded, “Sure slow going. Makes me a little glad for the way it happened to me. It’s gotta be like a bandage stuck tight. I can’t imagine what it feels like for it to progress so long. You have my sympathy though.”
Jamie folded his arms. “Thanks. But I’d really much rather it go slow. Not at all would be even better but so long as it takes it time then we have a chance to reverse the progress.”
She gave Jamie a kind look. “I know that feeling. I just hope you have better luck. If it’s meant to be.”
He made a circle out of his mouth line. “Well. You know, it’s not too late for you either. We could still save you. If we find an answer, maybe it’ll work for you as well.”
Shiori wrote something on a piece of paper on the table and switched off the light. “I appreciate the thought. Really I do. But if this is how things are for me, from now on, then I can deal with that I guess. But did you have any other questions? I ask because my lunch break is soon. Also, is there a place where I can contact you about anything else?”
We looked to one another. I finally answered, “Yeah. I guess we’ll be at 3287 Rock Lane. For a little while, at least.”
She paused with her fingers clutching a nicely-shaded, gray pen above a yellow square of paper. She made a quick mark and offered a quicker smile.
-----
We parted with handshakes and smiles. When she was gone, we edged over to the phones. Jamie tensed his lips. “That girl wasn’t really a girl.”
I rolled my eyes a bit. “Yeah, just like you’re gonna ‘not really’ be one as well.”
He whirled around. Despite his emotions, he kept his voice in check. “Same with you! How can you be so calm about this? A boy turned into a girl. It happened. Can you believe that? I mean if you trust her and all that. But assuming we do. That means…at the ultimate end…”
I finished for him with, “We’re going to be same as those girls that live in Mecchen House.”
He quivered and let his voice rise. “And you’re so calm about this!”
I rubbed my temple. “We went over this. There’s not much we can do about it. Don’t you agree?”
“I did. But that was before I met someone it actually happened to. One who says they were bigger and more boyish than me. And now she’s just a girlish cutie. And that could be me come tomorrow. And what if that’s permanent… Even if I get home, I’ll be just like my sister. Forever. Doesn’t that bother you? I know it make my bladder quake just thinking about it. I don’t want to be girl. I’ll do anything to stop it. I don’t want to be a girl like the rest of them.” Jamie’s voice crumpled near the end so that it sounded just like a girl was saying his words. Nathan, who was looking at the phone, turned and wrapped his arms around Jamie.
This did stop Jamie quivering, only now he was frozen. Nathan gave him a rub on the back, “I-I-I’m sorry about this but I had to do something. I just want you to know I’m with you. And I want to help.”
When Nathan disengaged from him, Jamie didn’t say anything for several moments. At last he said, “You’re no Tara. Don’t hug me again. You’ve done stuff like it before. But if you do it again, I’ll hit you. I swear I will. I don’t care if I’m still weaker than you now. I’ll find a way.”
Nathan bowed his head. “I’m deeply sorry if I offended you.”
Jamie held his hands up. “You know what? I don’t care…you can apologize all you like but it won’t make it right. Nothing can make this right. Nothing can fix this. It’s too darn helpless. We go back to Mecchen House, we get the same deal. We get all dolled up by the closet-lesbian-wannabe. We go somewhere else and we just run out of money eventually. We go back to the path, we risk accelerating things or whatever. Or we get even more lost. Maybe the next world doesn’t even have people on it, or air. So…what…it’s…*sighs*” His resolve to speak seemed to drip away. I could sense his color moving a shade darker.
I gave him a sock on the shoulder. “What kind of talk is that? Come on, man. You’ve got the fire. What happened to going out with determination to get back home?”
He rubbed his shoulder with still eyes. “You know me. I crumple like nothing. It’s why I’m here. If I’d given more grief to Nathan, I would’ve been camped out on the couch all day with toons on TV instead of all over the world. I’m utterly hopeless. I could’ve been a businessman in charge of a small corporation but no…I didn’t have the resolve to tell my dad off. I just took it and passively-sabotaged the whole thing. Then mom. I didn’t even bother to visit her. Don’t even want to start about my sister. Too tough. I always take the safe way. Why? *growl* It’s not like it even hurts. I don’t feel strain from it. I don’t feel bad from it. I don’t feel from it. I’m just a pitiful…whatever. I can’t even finish this….but don’t you dare hug me again.” He got back a bit of his strength at the end of that but the whole thing felt like an old battery losing the last of its energy. Nathan nodded solemnly. Jamie leaned back against the wall. “It doesn’t matter. Go on and make your calls. It’s really the last chance we have left anyway.” His head drooped. The shadows traced dark boundaries around his features.
In another situation, I would’ve figured Jamie was playing for sympathy but I felt pretty sure he really was defeated by all this. And I certainly knew his stamina was pretty well non-existent. Fortunately, Nathan presented strength in response. His calm and quiet shyness evaporated. “Well. I still am sorry for how you feel. But I will forge ahead. We’re going to make sense of all this. Even if I have to carry the two of you back home…”
Jamie’s head rolled up. “Oh yeah? And just how are you going to carry us when you’re a girl? What if you’re dainty and soft? What then?”
Nathan looked like he was fighting the urge to feel alarm at such a notion. He calmly responded. “I’m not there yet. I can still carry you and help.”
“And what about when it does change? What happens when you become a little girl like this place or something or someone wants of us?”
Nathan didn’t have a quick answer for that. He just slowly bowed his head and said, “We’ll deal with it when it happens, like Kelly said. That’s all we can do. And we still don’t know for sure if that’s what’s going to happen. Come on, there’s a chance with this phone idea. Let’s try it.”
Jamie huffed quietly. “Fine. But don’t call Collect. If ‘I’ answer then that’ll really tick me off.”
Nathan turned to me. “Actually, I was wondering if Kelly could cover the costs for me.”
With that, Jamie’s previous fire returned. His face cast off the shadows for the glow of sunlight filtering through. “Wait! This had better not count as his turn to pay. Train tickets and phone calls don’t compare. Even if it is an international call. That’s not a fair turn!”
I pointed out my finances were smaller than his. He growled at that ‘excuse’ and rested his head again.
I bought a phone card and gave it to Nathan. We set our bags down for a little bit. It took him a while to negotiate the system. But he finally entered the number for our area. I told him, if this didn’t work, we could try whatever international version of ‘information’ worked here. I could hear the number ringing. After about seven rings, someone picked up and said, “Hello.” I could tell the voice was female. Girls were living in our apartment here?
Nathan opened his mouth to speak but he seemed to find nothing to say. Finally, he passed the phone to me with an embarrassed look.
I cleared my throat and asked, “Excuse me. Is this area code seven-one-one, number seven-hundred-forty-and-seventeen-eighty-five?”
The girl just said, “Yes.” Her voice was somehow familiar. Of course, if she was essentially my twin, then that would make sense. But it also complicated things with which language we were speaking. Unless this girl just happened to know Japanese.
Then came the next question, “I’m calling for three guys. Do you know a Kelly Forester, Nathan Gravina, or Jamie Harrigan? Do they live at this number?”
Her answer took a long time. It was the question I was worried she would ask. “Who is calling for them?”
I covered the mouthpiece and asked Nathan and Jamie for help. Jamie said, “Lie.” Nathan offered, “Be vague?”
I went with, “It’s someone who knows them quite well. A college friend. I just need to talk with them.”
“What is your name?” The voice gained a metallic rasp. It still sounded like someone I knew. I just couldn’t place it.
I figured I could fake it a little with, “Kel*cough*.”
The line buzzed. “Really…but that’s not your name. Is it?”
That was hardly the response I expected. How did she know if that was my name or not? I offered a polite, “Excuse me?”
“Raspberry and blueberry. Sea and grass. Wheat and dirt….” Then the call cut off with a single, high tone. I dropped the gray receiver, which swung back and forth like an irregular pendulum, and rubbed my ear. It took a few long breaths to restore my composure. I didn’t know if the voice was loud enough for Nathan and Jamie to hear everything but they also seemed a little shaken up. At least Jamie wasn’t idle against the wall. It seemed he’d heard enough. He pounded his fist a few times. “Well that settles it. Someone is toying with us.”
Nathan carefully replaced the receiver and asked, “Who do you think would do that?”
Here was where Jamie’s fire started to wane. But he quickly came back with, “That doesn’t matter right now! We know someone is toying with us. It could very well be the same someone who wanted us here for who-knows-what-reason beyond changing us into cartoon girls.”
I took one more breath. The sound at the end was still reverberating in my ears. I asked Jamie, “So what happened to suspecting Nana?”
He began pacing a little and said, “Well, she’s clearly not off the hook because that was a girl’s voice I heard. Granted I didn’t listen to it close-up like both of you did. Did it sound anything like her?”
Nathan took a moment but I said, without hesitation, “It was not her voice. The sound of it was eerily familiar, like listening to a sister. But other than that, not much I can say about it.” Nathan agreed after a moment.
Jamie arched both of his blond eyebrow marks. “I thought you didn’t have a sister.” I nodded. I was an only sibling. I knew Nathan just had elder brothers. He was the last one.
It took Jamie to figure out what I meant. “Oh you mean supposing we had…I mean supposing you had a sister. Makes sense. So where does that leave us? A sibling of yours who was never born in our universe brought you here along with the rest of us? That’s more of a stretch. So, that means we call her back, right? Tell her we want to go home?”
I felt something like an ice cube travel down my back. I shook my head. “I’m not calling that number again. You didn’t hear all that I heard. I feel like she’s still here.” I turned around quickly. I almost felt eyes looking at me from somewhere again but they evaded my every attempt to find them.
Jamie gave me a sock on the shoulder this time. “It’s just a phone.” He grumbled through the routing and I recharged the phone card. We did agree that I’d be square on my turn to pay after this. Nathan leaned close when the phone started ringing. He gestured for Nathan to come closer. They shared the phone and waited. I kept a safe distance and partly-covered my ears. Above anything else, sounds really got to me sometimes.
Sure enough, after almost a dozen rings; the high-pitched sound came again. No one answered this time before the sound ended and the other end hung up. The sound touched something deep in me, even though I was a fair distance from the receiver. Jamie and Nathan were both rubbing their ears.
Jamie was somewhat skeptical. “Could it be this phone is just really lousy? Maybe if we tried another one?” I made sure he knew I wouldn’t be paying for another call and he didn’t try to call again.
He looked around and posed, “Maybe we could do some more research? I mean if we ask different questions, maybe we’ll find something? Also, we still haven’t looked into the changes that are happening. Gender-bending texts.”
Unfortunately, as I noted to him, our research help just went to lunch. He grumbled and said, “Well, I’m sure not ready to go back to that estrogen-covered place. Besides, Ms. Ishida is probably out and about at this hour. Or cleaning. Or otherwise preoccupied. It wouldn’t be right to go back now.”
I tried to give Jamie a skeptical look but it was hindered by an arc of light that traced an artful pattern of color across the image of my glasses. It took a poke by Jamie to bring me back. But I found myself staring at the shadowed-tracings of his artistic form. It looked like he had a subtle tan with the low-light. A small, rose petal shade of white glinted off his soft cheek. His eyebrows showed through his front bangs. His full, brown eyes gave off a gentle, uneven ‘U’ of reflection. The dime-like shadow of his small hill of a nose…
I had to pause a moment there. I went back to his eyes. They were as brown as could be. Jamie brought the dark pinnacle of his eyes down, looked at me, then back at Nathan. He said, cautiously, “What is it?”
Nathan noticed immediately as well. I told Jamie first. “You might want to go take a look in the bathroom mirror again.”
His hands immediately went to his chest and groin. Neither alarmed him. I told him to use the mirror and to ‘look higher’. He rushed to the restroom and I thought I saw an indistinct fluttering when the door shut behind him, like some part of Jamie was reaching out. Then we waited.
We didn’t have to wait long till a high, distressed voice called out through the wall. I wasn’t sure to go look or wait. Nathan was equally frozen and perplexed. There came a pattering of feet. The door swung open. Jamie’s hair was much longer.
Before, it was mostly on the top, framed like a feathered-duster snow cone. Now, it looked like a golden bird reaching her wings down, almost completely encircling his face. Bands of hair had replaced plumes across his forehead. A particular bang ended in a tooth-like point that touched his nose. In the back and on the sides, the hair reached his shoulders like arched-fingers. His eyes were the same color of brown I’d seen a moment ago. They looked terrified.
He whimpered lightly and looked to both of us. I looked back as sympathetically as I could without betraying how pretty I thought that hair looked on him. Nathan seemed wholly-spellbound. Jamie came forward, his shadowed-pink mouth open, and said, “This can’t be happening. Why is this happening now? It wasn’t as bad before.”
He reached for his shoulders and his hands darted back when they made contact with hair. His head moved lightly left-and-right as he said, “This just isn’t possible. This is a girl’s hair. And my eyes. I can’t have brown eyes.”
I knew it was entirely possible. All the changes thus far had happened like a sudden edit between one moment and next. They’d been subtle so far. Small changes here and there. This sure seemed like an acceleration. Jamie’s question was valid. Why now? Was it the phone call? Was it being in this world too long?
Jamie soon came to his own conclusion. “When we were in Mecchen House…nothing much happened. Nothing this big. I hate to say it but maybe that place really is some sort of sanctuary. Remember Ms. Ishida said it used to be a place for men. Maybe it keeps you from being weirded out by this place?”
It wasn’t really the most reasonable theory but none of what happened lately was reasonable, so I figured it was our best shot. Nathan checked behind his head. His hair was still the same. I thought I saw disappointment on his face.
Jamie was back to being antsy. “You agree, right? We gotta get back there.”
It was still our best lead so I quite agreed. I didn’t prod Jamie for changing his mind so quickly and I didn’t ask him what we should do if things stayed accelerated even back at Mecchen House. He already looked to be at the verge of cracking. I put an arm around him. I could feel his hair caress my arm. It really felt like putting my arm around a girl. Jamie must’ve felt something similar because he shrugged my arm off a moment later with an “umm, sorry”. At least he didn’t threaten to hit me.
Nathan offered a few words of comfort but that didn’t help either.
Jamie looked at the ground and grit his teeth. “People who look at me are gonna think I’m a girl…”
I reminded him of all the ‘pretty boys’ in this world with long hair. That calmed him a little, or at least gave him the resolve to say, after a few moments, “My stomach feels like it’s trying to leave me but I think I’ll be okay. Thanks.”
-----
When we were outside, Jamie’s hand mimed reaching out for my cuff. With a quiet gulp, I asked if he needed to hold my arm. He didn’t look up. He just said, “That’s something a girl would do. I ought not to do that. I’ll be okay. The ill feeling is fading. I just feel a little shaky.”
Nathan moved closer. “If you need any sort of support. I’m here for you. I know a support-carry that’s considered pretty manly, if that helps. It’s one which firefighters use.”
Jamie gave a small note of appreciation but said, “I can make it on my own. I’m just unsettled. I want to run and run and keep running and just hide from the sensations. Close them off and make them go away. I know they’ll just go away. I hope.”
I couldn’t help thinking of Shiori’s memories. Jamie tugged at his collar. “Although, I’d probably crap-out while running and give in. On the plus side, my chest has finally stopped itching. Heh. That’s something, I guess.”
We didn’t say anything more till we were back at the train station. The shadows were small and sharp. The sun shown almost-directly overhead. At least our train passes were still good. The train we wanted was at the other end of the station from where we arrived. The schedule said we had ten minutes before it arrived.
Jamie sat at one end of the bench with me and Nathan at the other. We understood he wanted his space. Nathan stretched his legs and asked me, “You feeling alright?”
I cracked my knuckles with a kaleidoscope of light and dark as they caught a band of sunshine in the shade. “I should feel worse. But I don’t feel that bad. There’s just too much to see. It keeps me from thinking about it all too much.”
Nathan nodded. “Understood. Sorry, I haven’t said much lately. I kinda feel the same way. It’s hard to take it all in. It’s like…being adrift on the sea. I’m just glad I’m not alone. I’m glad I have both of you with me.”
I gave Nathan a slight smile and nodded. Jamie tugged at his pants and said, “I swear these things feel looser than before. That can’t be good.” He fidgeted and rubbed roughly at his cheeks. I watched carefully. Something sparkled like a tiny diamond from the side. I leaned over Nathan and asked Jamie, “You okay, buddy?”
He pressed roughly on his cheeks and turned away. “Nothing.” I leaned back and said, “Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
His hair flipped a bit when his head darted to look at me. He hastily brushed it away and said, “I don’t want to talk. Talking never helps anything. It doesn’t get me any closer to fixing things. It only hurts all involved. I’m used to dealing with things in my own way.”
After that, it was pretty quiet between us until a girl with short, dark hair like mine walked over and smiled at Jamie. Her massive eyes were like polished crystals of sky. She brushed a long lock over her ear and bowed to Jamie. She wore a light, white blouse with oversized sleeves. A brown, checkerboard purse cling to her shoulder. She fidgeted a bit to keep it from falling. She wiggled till it finally stayed put.
She wore a sort of gray, long sundress which fanned out around her legs like a slender bell. It matched her long socks. She spoke to Jamie, “Excuse me, ma’am. Is the seat beside you open?”
I had a whole series of ways to respond I could imagine. Jamie picked none of them. He looked up at her and said, “It’s open but I’d prefer if you sat somewhere else. Sorry. Also, I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.”
She turned her head a little, waited a moment, then bowed. “Understood. My apologies. You look really nice, by the way. Have a nice day.” Then she walked off. She found a seat further down. I watched Jamie to see his reaction. He looked calm. I moved around Nathan and scooted closer to Jamie. He looked to me and moistened his lips before saying, “Looks like that Shiori girl is in the minority when it comes to seeing us as boys. Or maybe I’d pass her definition of a girl now too.”
I moved my hands a little and said, “I wouldn’t worry about that too much. You still look plenty like a guy.” Jamie looked me in the eyes. Wow, with that androgynous face, those gentle shoulders, that long hair and trimmer limbs, he could really pass for a Katsumi-type girl.
He pulled out his shirt a little then let it pop back. “At least I’m still flat as a board. And, last I checked, everything was still okay down lower. But I’ll go use the restroom, and check, just in case.”
I nodded and asked, “You feel alright though?”
He blinked and said, “I feel like I need to go pee.” And he left for the restroom near where the girl with my kind of hair sat. She was rummaging through her purse. I scooted back near to Nathan and said, “Hey…”
He returned the word and asked, “You think Jamie will be okay?”
I didn’t know and I said as much to Nathan. He rubbed his hands lightly. “I wish I could do more for him. When he came here, he tried to jump in front of a bus. I can’t help but feel responsible for what almost happened to him.”
I tried to remind Nathan that Jamie was doing that because he thought, and so did I, that this was all some sort of dream. And when you think you have a dream you try to break the reality of it. I remembered that Jamie’s extensive DVD collection included Vanilla Sky. It’d been a while since I’d seen that. I thought the film was pretentious but musing about it unsettled me. I let a single breath flow into and out of my lungs.
Nathan looked concerned. I assured him, “I’m just thinking something over.” I knew Nathan had seen the original film which Vanilla Sky was based on, so I used that.
He said, with a frown, “I thought we pretty much figured out this place isn’t a dream.” I assured him it wasn’t that and said, “It isn’t this place that makes me wonder. It’s our lives back in what we’d consider ‘the real world’. It kinda hit me with a few things but remember what Shioriko said…she remembered being a boy but certain details were better and some worse. What if that’s our future? How will we know we were anything but girls if this continues?”
He had to chew on the question but, after a few minutes, he said, “But if that’s truth, what’s real then?”
I could only shrug and say, “I don’t know, buddy. I wish I did. It’s not something I try to think too much on. Like we both said, we can only take this one moment at a time. But remember, you can’t bear all this by yourself. You’re not responsible for it. Don’t wear the blame. Focus on what you can do to help yourself. Okay, buddy?”
Nathan held his chin and slowly nodded. Jamie emerged from the restroom with his hands held out. They looked slick. The girl with hair like mine stood and took something from her lime-green purse. She offered it to Jamie. It was a bit of paper which shimmered bright in the noontime light. A gray, feather-like bow wrapped around it. He accepted it carefully, opened it, and used the paper the dry his hands.
The girl put her lime-green purse over her shoulder and smiled. I watched her. She seemed quite pleasant but something about her kept me looking. Something just over her shoulder which I couldn’t see.
The train pulled into the station. Jamie came over and steered clear of the noon-day crowds exiting the train as he stuffed the leftover paper in his bag. Nathan offered to carry our bags. Jamie said it was the manly thing to keep it with him. I wanted my personal items in easy reach. I slung mine over my shoulder. I’d nearly forgotten I had it.
We had plenty of room to stretch out this time. I placed myself between Nathan and Jamie. I looked out the window. The girl with the lime-green purse gave me a pleasant look. Only when she was out of sight did something click for me and I had to ask, despite how sullen Jamie seemed, “Was her purse always that color?”
Jamie hadn’t noticed. Neither had Nathan but I was sure I’d seen a checkerboard design before. Did she have more than one purse? If so, she was good with slight of hand. I asked Jamie for the paper she’d given him. I looked it over. I’d heard of people on the street in Japan who handed out paper with their company info on it for free advertising because of the poor amenities of most restrooms. I looked over the wrapping. The ribbon had a lovely style. The company information was missing. I frowned at Jamie, but he was already taking a nap with his arms wrapped around him. I decided it was best to let him nap.
I felt something like a soft breath blowing at me. I looked around. The light through the windows of the train seemed to be tinted differently. I found that odd since it was a long time from sunset. I looked further up. My bangs were all over my forehead now and they were bright red.
Looking in reflection of the window, I could tell my hair had grown several inches. It wasn’t as much as what Jamie faced but it was significant. I had long, red locks that extended from the top of my head to my shoulder. Whereas Jamie’s hair looked like a long, blond curtain, mine seemed more like an ironed-down clown’s wig. It looked too smooth and even. It was unnatural yet it existed on my head.
It took me several more moments before I realized what else had changed.
My eyes were dark blue.
Copyright 2006 - Sarah Jody Lathorp
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 11:55 am (UTC)I would like to go to the world that Mecchen House exists in.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 10:56 am (UTC)I dun wanna have to wait for nine, but alas, it is so. -_-;
Huzzah! :3
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Date: 2006-10-26 05:56 pm (UTC)Again, a most beautiful story.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-28 11:42 am (UTC)