“I think I’m from another reality.”

For a moment, she just looks at me a little confused, like she hadn’t quite heard me properly. But before I get a chance to clarify my words or walk them back, her phone vibrates loudly. She pulls it out and checks the screen.

“Oh, our food is ready. Be right back,” she says quickly, before leaving our booth.

I drop my head to the table. For a moment, I want to slam it down until I’m unconscious, but my sense of self preservation overrides my desire for self destruction. Although the fact that I'm having such intrusive thoughts probably doesn't reflect well on my current mental state. Why did I say anything? Intellectually, I know that telling anyone about my situation is more likely to cause problems than solve anything, but I suppose I have to admit that on an emotional level I'm floundering. I just hope this situation is recoverable. Maybe I can just play it off as a joke. Maybe she didn’t even hear me properly, and I can just pretend nothing happened.

God, why am I so stupid sometimes?

I’m interrupted from my personal pity party by a yelp from the booth behind me. I turn around to see the freshman looking kid I noticed on my way in, though he wasn't alone in his booth anymore; he's been joined by a pair of girls. Both of them have cat ears, one jet black, the other white, and the boy has a floppy pair of brown dog (maybe beagle?) ears on his head. They're all on the same side of their booth, and the girls are squeezing the boy between the two of them like they're trying to make a dog boy sandwich.

Maybe it’s because of all the practice I get drawing, but I’ve been told I have a talent for analyzing something at a glance. And other the last couple months, I’ve started turning those talents on other people. With everything that happened with Lilly, I started to feel a lot of anxiety in social situations, and I was always second guessing myself. But by trying to read other people, by analyzing their faces and body language, I felt like I could really take control of my social life. Sure, it didn’t work, but I still feel like those skills are useful.

And sizing these people up, I already have concerns. As soon as they notice me looking, both of the cats are glaring at me like I’m doing something wrong by turning around. But the boy is another story. His eyes are wide, his face is red, and there’s beads of sweat on his brow. His expression is easy enough to read. It’s an expression I’m not overly familiar with since, with the exception of movies and TV, it's not a face you'd expect to see in modern society often.

The poor boy is absolutely terrified.

The white haired cat is the first to speak. “The fuck are you looking at?” Both of them try their best to mean mug me, but they don't pull it off particularly well. The girls look like they’re also young enough to be freshmen, though they could also be sophomores. Either way, it’s hard for me to see them as anything other than a couple of kids. Three or four years makes a hell of a lot of difference, after all.

Regardless, I don’t respond to her. Instead, I look at the dog boy. “Hey man, are you okay?”

He sinks into his seat, too embarrassed to respond. The two girls detach from him slowly as the reality of the situation seems to sink in for them. They switch tactics, trying their best to look innocent, but end up just resembling children who’ve gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Both of them pull their hands out from under the table, and they start to blush with embarrassment as well.

The black haired cat breaks first. She gets up out of the booth in a hurry, grabbing a backpack off the ground as she does so. “I-I just remembered! I have to get home!” she stammers. “My dad… uh… it’s laundry day!”

And just like that, she shoots off out of the restaurant. I get up as well, and the boy quickly jumps out of the booth and slips behind me, using my larger frame as a physical barrier from his tormentor. He’s all shrunken in on himself, his posture hunched, like if he makes himself as small as possible then nobody will notice him.

The remaining cat narrows her eyes at me, which I just now notice have vertical slits for pupils, like an actual cat. For a moment, she opens her mouth as though she’s about to say something, but then simply gives a “Hmph!” and slips out of the booth, grabbing her backpack as well and taking off after the other girl. I watch her to make sure she's well and truly out of sight before I turn around to the kid.

I try my best to put on my reassuring older brother act. “You alright?” I ask, keeping my voice level and quiet. He's still red as a tomato, and the guy’s keeping his eyes studiously focused on the floor.

“Y-yeah. Thank you,” he responds, keeping his eyes thoroughly focused on the floor. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let it get that far…”

“Let what get so far?”

He squirms a little before answering, but eventually summons the courage to look up at me. “T-the girls. I should have expected they’d try something like that, after inviting me out on the first day of school.” He slumps, all the tension in him going slack. “My dad even warned me something like this might happen…”

I gently place my hand on his shoulder and give him what I hope is a reassuring smile. “Let’s just take a seat for now, okay?” He tries to give me a smile back, and I can feel a sense of brotherly camaraderie building between us.

That's good. I can work with that. Maybe it’s my protective instincts kicking in, but I really feel like someone needs to look after this guy. God knows he looks like he could use a friend.

We take our seats on opposite sides of the booth. “My name’s Jason,” I start off.

“K-Kenneth,” he starts. “But everyone calls me Kenny.”

I shake my head. “That won't do. You're starting high school, and a nickname like Kenny makes you sound like a kid." Of course, I make sure not to comment on the fact that, to me, he still looks like a little kid. Needling this guy's confidence won't do him any favors, after all. "You mind if I call you Ken?"

He brightens up a little at that, and nods his head. "Y-yeah, that's fine."

"Alright Ken, I know you’re a little shook, but can you tell me what happened back there?”

He shrinks in on himself a little and tucks his hands into his hoodie’s pocket, but after a moment of deliberation, begins to speak. “Well, uh, today was my first day of high school, and…”

“Oh, wait one sec,” I interrupt as I catch Freddie out of the corner of my eye making her way back to our table with a tray of food. 

“I should let you know, I’m not by myself.” I gesture to the towering sheep girl as she approaches us, a puzzled look on her face now that she sees her seat has been taken.

“Hey Freddie, this is Ken. He was all by himself, so I invited him to join us.” I try to signal him with my eyes, hoping my white lie would help him avoid some embarrassment, but he’s not even looking at me. Rather, he's openly gawking at the towering girl as he sinks further into his seat.

She looks between us, clearly deliberating saying something, but eventually just shrugs and joins me on my side of the booth. “Yeah, that’s fine by me.” She grabs her burger and immediately starts to tear into it, taking a massive first bite. She somehow still chokes out a muffled “Nice to meet you,” her cheeks full of burger.

“Did you eat already?” I ask him, and he finally stops staring wide eyed at our new arrival.

“Uh, yeah, I’m good.”

“Great, because I skipped lunch and I really don’t want to share these fries.”

And goddamn, are they some good fries. Proper thick wedge fries, not the usual thin little soggy strips you can get at any fast food place. And the burger is pretty damn nice, too. Greasy without dripping, big and beefy, it’s the best cheeseburger I’ve tasted outside of a proper animal-style one. Could use some avocado, though.

There’s not much talking as Freddie and I enjoy our meal, but about halfway through my burger Ken finally works up the courage to speak.

“So uh… how long have you two been dating?” he starts, looking between the two of us.

Freddie nearly chokes on her burger, so I have to take the reins and answer him. “We’re not. It was the first day of school for us too. We actually just met earlier today.”

He lets that sit for a moment. “Wait, you’re single?” he asks, failing to keep his surprise out of his voice.

“Yeah. Why, is that strange?” Based on Ashley’s reaction earlier, I already had an idea what his answer was going to be.

He thinks about it for a moment before responding. “I guess not,” he starts, actually surprising me. I got the impression from Ashley that, for whatever reason, a guy like me being single off the market was unusual or extraordinary in some way.

“But…" he continues,"I mean, you know how girls get about that stuff.”

“Actually, I really don’t.” The understatement of the century right there.

“Well, it's like with what happened earlier. When girls find out a guy is single, if you’re not… assertive enough…” He lets the thought die on the vine, so it takes me a second to catch up to his implication. So that’s what had happened back there. He was dealing with a couple of girls who couldn't take no for an answer. A couple more puzzle pieces fall into place in my mind, and I begin to see the bigger picture of the jigsaw that is intergender relations in this reality.

“Yeah, I think I see what you’re getting at.”

“So... you've never had to deal with girls like that?” he asks incredulously.

I can barely keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.”

At this point, Freddie stops destroying her fries and seems to dial in to the conversation. “Wha happun?” she barely gets out through a mouthful of potato. She swallows it down before clarifying. "Sorry, I must've missed something. What happened earlier?"

Ken slumps like before, but after a moment to collect himself, he sighs and begins the story, a look of resignation on his face. “So, there were a couple of girls from my class…”

 

---

 

The kid was plenty excited to start high school, same as most freshmen are before the boring reality of classwork takes over. His family had just moved out here, all the way from Winnipeg in fact. And unfortunately the youngest of his sisters had already graduated last year. Which meant he was entering a new school environment with no friends or family to have his back.

And apparently, in bizarro world, that’s a big fucking deal. I’m not quite understanding the specifics of it all yet, but it seems men being by themselves for any stretch of time is unusual. If a boy is old enough to have an interest in the opposite sex, they’re kind of expected to start dating immediately. And Ken, being a bit of a late bloomer, did not consider himself on the market.

Two of his classmates disagreed. At first, the girls were nice enough, and Ken himself had wanted to make new friends this year. So when they asked him to hang out with them after class, he was more than happy to oblige. Once they got here, though, they started getting progressively more aggressive with their flirting, up to and including physical contact. I don’t get the impression they did anything horrendous; nothing happened under his clothes, thank god for that. But it was more than enough to freak out Ken, unused as he was to such intimate attention, into spiraling into a bit of a panic attack.

He tries his best to downplay what they did, but personally, I don't buy it. Anyone with half a brain should've been able to tell Ken was uncomfortable, and the girls should've backed off far before they did. Apparently, Ken's sudden yelp that I overheard happened when one of the girls touched his thigh, an exploration below the belt that moved the encounter from heavy teasing into genuine sexual harassment.

"Well," I start after he finishes the story, “I guess it’s lucky I interrupted them when I did.” I don’t know how far they would’ve gone, but given the black haired catgirl’s reaction, they definitely knew what they were doing was inappropriate at best, and genuinely criminal at worst.

“Those bitches better hope I never see them,” Freddie seethes, grinding her fist into her palm, “or they're going to end up with their own teeth down their throats.”

Ken smiles a little at her promise of violence. “Please don’t hurt anyone,” he chastises her, but it's obvious from his smile he’s appreciative of the gesture. “I am gonna have to see them again in class, after all.”

Freddie leans back in the booth, calming down only slightly. “Fine then," she says, crossing her arms, "but if they ever try and get handsy again, let me know.”

All in all, the conversation is certainly eye opening. It's obvious that the way women treat men in this world is light years away from what I'm used to. That said, Freddie's reaction to the story gives me a fair amount of hope. I had concerns for a bit there that the girls at school would try to treat me the same way, and while I'm not nearly as shy as Ken, I wouldn't exactly look forward to being objectified that way. But if a girl who's a little rough around the edges like her is this upset about how Ken was treated, it says a lot for the morals of this new society I'm acclimating to.

It’s a lot of info for me personally to take in, but I file most of it away for later and I nod along with Freddie's offer of support. “Yeah, if you ever need us, I've got your back as well. Actually, give me your phone, I’ll add my contact info.”

He looks a little surprised at my offer, but unlocks and hands over his smartphone regardless. As I tap my number in, a thought occurs to me. “Freddie, can I get your phone too?”

She whips it out, her screen pretty badly cracked, and I punch my number in for her too. “There. If anybody messes with either of you, I'm just a text away.”

Ken laughs at that, and even I have to admit the thought of anyone willingly messing with Freddie is absurd. Considering her size and build, you might be better off picking a fight with a grizzly.

Freddie nods. "Same to both of you. Anybody who fucks with you, fucks with me."

Ken's face beams at the promise. "Thanks, guys. I really do appreciate it."

“No problem,” both of us answer him simultaneously.

All in all, today could have gone worse. I even made a couple of friends. For the first time since I walked into the academy this morning, it's starting to feel like things are looking up.