Chapter 2 - Meeting the Girls of Mecchen House (cont.)

I blinked a bit and responded, “What is it, Jamie?”

He gestured to the side. “You. Me. Talk. Now.”

Tara brightened. “Yay! Kellie-chan! So cute! And Jamie-chan too. Pretty girls!”

I hurried over to talk with Jamie. Tara still peeked, but Ms. Ishida pulled her back and told her to put some stuff away. I saw another girl walk in out of the corner of my eye but focused my attention on Jamie. There was a look of concern in his eyes.

“What is it, buddy?” I asked, folding my arms.

“This is really tough to talk about, but I gotta say it. I’m feeling really weird and it’s not just all these toons. I went to pee and I swear the mast has lost a little height. And that girl. She leapt on me. Chest and all, right on me. Pressing into me like I was her teddy bear, and I felt nothing. The crew is asleep at the wheel.” His voice never rose higher than a light whisper. I hoped we were far enough away that we didn’t embarrass Ms. Ishida. I figured the euphemism overuse was his way of covering for that possibility.

I bowed my head and got a hasty, low-whispered, “Don’t LOOK at it!” I was bright red. “I wasn’t. I was just thinking it over, honest. Truly.” He didn’t seem to buy it, but it was all I could offer.

“Well, I felt something similar. I figured it could just be Tara. She seems so childlike.”

Jamie gave a light snort. “But that chest! Come on. This isn’t like me at all. Sure, it could just be I’m not into toons, but, as you said, you weren’t affected either. I tried the sexiest thought I could imagine in there and, if anything, I felt smaller. Something weird is going on. I want to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. This place is creeping me out. I do not want to be here. I want to go home.” The end of Jamie’s pleading was highlighted by him clutching his hands in front of him in what seemed like prayer.

I nodded. “But what do we do? It’s not getting any earlier. If we have no money, then…”

“DRAT!” came a voice behind us. We both whirled around. Standing before us, and I suspected directly behind us, just a moment ago, was another girl. She made me think of Reiko at first, but warm. Her hair was a flaming, glowing orange, feathered like Reiko’s, but balanced. It flowed on both sides of her face in adorable, even locks. It was also tied into a ponytail, but with gentle precision and cute calculation. Her eyes were a complimentary, light brown as was the rest of her casual outfit. She wore a blousy top with soft, earthen tones and a flowing skirt. She was actually a little bit taller than some of the other House girls, but there was a cute aura about her, complimented by the neat frame of her body. I would hesitate to call it an hourglass, but it reminded me of one.

Her chest was small but still had more to it than Katsumi’s. But she had a triangle form around her shoulders with a narrow middle, flowing out to her broad hips. She was clearly a growing woman, but her face and demeanor spoke of child-like things.

Then, she opened her mouth. Her voice was terse and sharp, which only made it cuter. “I was so hoping to arrange a deal for keeping your… Limp secret. But I only deal in cash. Unless you have something valuable to me.” She raised her eyebrows and rubbed her palms together.

Jamie folded his arms too and walked back towards the kitchen. “That is something to consider, but then I’m highly cheap about paying anything.”

She cracked her knuckles. “I’m a dealmaker. What do you have?”

It occurred to me: Did I actually have any money with me? Keeping my eye on this new girl, I carefully peeked at my wallet. I remembered having a little over eighty bucks in there. The dollars were gone, and painted money was in its place. I recognized them as thousand yen bills. There were eight of them. I saw one five-hundred yen coin. It had golden leaves on the back. Four of the hundred yen coins. Flowers for that one. And a couple of fifty yen coins. That one had a hole in it. Then a bunch of ones, fives, and tens. They looked like little Olympic medals.

“I have around ten-thousand yen.” I didn’t say it very loud, but it was enough to put the new girl’s eyes and teeth a-glinting.

Well, that settled one thing. We were going to be using Japanese money here, and it seemed like everything was affected by whatever changed us into “toons,” as Jamie called it.

Speaking of Jamie, he was even more careful with his wallet. I didn’t even know he brought it with him. A full bloom of cash appeared and vanished as he held it close. The new girl was reduced to a twitching, drooling heap.

“Soooo much. Soo, soo much.”

She lay on the floor, grinning widely like some mad super-villain from a spy movie. I figured this couldn’t bode well.

Jamie coughed. “I have enough. I have well… Yeah, I have enough.” He leaned in and expelled the words down my ear, “One-hundred thirty-thousand.” Then he looked downward and added, “Of this weird money, at least.”

I did a quick mental calculation in my head. That meant Jamie was hoarding at least eleven-hundred dollars from the rest of us. In his wallet, no less. And I’d let him slide on his share of the rent so many times and Nathan had anted up for him.

I should’ve socked him right there, but the new girl slithered up around and grinned as she placed herself between us. “We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Miura Mami. As I said, I’m gonna need an advance on that hush-hush deal upfront of one-thousand yen. From both of you. That’s a very good deal for my silence. You should take it.”

I wasn’t about to pay off anyone. And neither was Jamie. This Mami girl nodded, cleared her throat, and burst into loud song. She helicoptered her arms as she sang.

“Come listen, girls, I’m mission sent. These two boys are impotent! Flaccid, flat, and super soft. They can’t hold a thing aloft. Without a bit of stamina, the weakest thing you ever saw. You can try and hug them tight, but they’ll never get it right. Not a bit of pleasure here. Oh my, dear!” Then she repeated it even louder. And completely off-key.

After four repetitions, she took a bow, Tara peeking around behind her. “Gentlemen, I do hope we can do business later. Ta, for now. I have two more floors to give my performance to.” She blew a kiss and scampered off.  

“Well,” I told Jamie. “We know not to do that again, at least.”

He dropped his quiet tone, “She can do whatever she likes. It’s not as if we’re going to be staying here for very long anyway.”

Tara bounced out from her peeking-spot with tears in her eyes. Ms. Ishida followed in her wake. Tara clung tightly to Jamie. “Please stay! Stay and play with us. We’ve only met. Please, please don’t go!”

Jamie stood rigid, looking down at Tara, his face ebbing and flowing between reactions. He stammered a bit and looked to Ms. Ishida, seemingly, for guidance. But she was concerned with a different matter altogether. “I want to apologize deeply for Mami. That’s her usual state. But if you hold out against her several times, then she eventually leaves you alone. She seeks out easier rewards. Also, as some small comfort, she has morals, in her own way. She never steals. She may blackmail and extort but she never takes. She makes you give it up. And she never goes back on a deal once made. But she will accept better offers. And she always gives a fair price. At first. ‘She’s Mami,’ is all I can say. Once you get to know her quirks, she’s actually quite a sweet girl.”

I smiled at Ms. Ishida and thanked her. She really didn’t need to apologize like that, but she seemed, at least in some small part, to take responsibility for the actions of all the girls under her roof. I found that admirable, if a bit of a large chunk to chew on, considering the personalities I’d seen thus far. At least Ms. Ishida seemed up to the task. Again, I found her to be nothing like Jamie.

I heard a meow from behind me. I looked. With a kitten clinging effortlessly to her right shoulder, the last girl, so far as counting to nine was concerned, made an appearance.

She wore weathered jeans and a gray, cotton tank top. Both seemed small on her. Her hair was a close-cut brown style that looked more like mine than a girl’s. Her bangs teased across her forehead like chocolate-paint streaks. Her eyes were a soft, glassy brown. She regarded the still-hugging Tara and flashed us both a look.

“Well, well. It looks like the fun started without me. I can’t have that.” She, somehow, drew a feather from behind her and swirled it in the air like a conductor’s baton. The kitten on her shoulder stared anxiously up at it. It seemed tempted to reach up and tease at it. It was a calico with the left half of its face black and brown. The kitten’s features were nicely detailed, like everything else. It also responded like you’d expect a kitten to respond. It seemed a little nervous about us though.

[Reiko, left with Sumi, right]

Ms. Ishida clasped her hands and announced, “This is Takahashi Sumi. I believe you’ve met everyone now.”

Sumi tickled her lips with the feather and listened intently as Aneko summed up the situation thus far. Tara clung to Jamie.

Sumi interrupted halfway through, gesturing to Tara and Jamie. “By the way, that would be even more adorable if you two were both girls.”

Jamie looked like he’d suddenly broken out in hives. “Can you let me go now?”

Tara frowned a deep, exaggerated frown but disengaged slowly from Jamie. He nodded with a thank you and rubbed his arms carefully. I walked over to his side. He smelled of girl, imbedded on him from Tara’s contact.

Sumi stuck the feather behind her left ear and said, “Well. So, as it stands, you somehow wound up here. From somewhere else. By walking down the path between the anime shop and here.”

Nathan’s supposed anime store? How did Sumi know about it? Was it real here?

My rudimentary science understanding, gained mostly from old sci-fi television episodes, pointed towards the possibility of a wormhole. But I didn’t remember falling into a glowing, blue pool of light.   

Setting that aside a moment, Sumi had a look about her that made me wonder if she was going to start stroking the cat in her arms with a sinister grin. But then, maybe I was just reading too much into these girls’ demeanors. The calico dropped quietly to the floor and rubbed Sumi’s right foot.

So far, except for a few, they’d all been really great to us.

“Did you buy any hentai games?” That took me by surprise. A little. I explained we never made it to the store. She looked disappointed. The cat deftly worked its way back to her shoulder.  

“There are some really good ones there and some great shoujo-ai doujinshi. I got ten for eight-thousand yen. Do you collect any figures?”

Now she was talking my language. I refrained from mentioning what manga I possessed, for now, but I launched into detailed relations of the figures I decorated my bookshelves with. Sumi halted me with a quick and to-the-point question that made me blush bright. “How many of them have removable clothing?”

Tara’s eyes got wider, and Ms. Ishida looked carefully at the floor. I could feel myself gulp. I’d seen enough anime shows to know that I needed to be exceedingly-careful about my response, unless I wanted to go crashing through the wall due to some girl’s “Kyaaa!” followed by a Superman-strength punch. At this point, I figured that would come from an eavesdropping Katsumi.

“Some have multiple costumes.” Technically true, but no bras and just a pair of panties to occasionally flash. Also, they were cast without nipples. It was manga-style nudity. Nothing serious. But there was no limit to the amount of teasing Jamie gave me for that. Nathan was a little indignant at first. He’d fold his arms across his chest. But, after time, he found it really wasn’t meant to be dirty.

Still, I found myself blushing when talking about them. After all, here were living, breathing versions of those static little figures. I coughed a bit. Sumi wore a bored look and yawned.

“I have some very intimate figurines. Touching, bending, and caressing. Your figures sound so tame. Hmmm. If only you two were girls… Alright. I have a new game to break in. So, if you need me, I’ll be in my bunk.”

Cat-like, Katsumi appeared behind Sumi. “Oh no, you aren’t! We have a vote to do and you were the last, plodding voter we needed.”

Sumi glinted. “You again? Listen, I’m super busy right now, hun. Hana Matsuri is in five days. So gotta run.”

Katsumi blocked her path, but something about what Sumi quickly said at the end made me turn and ask Ms. Ishida, “What day is today?”

Ms. Ishida stared at me a moment with a perplexed look before telling me, “Why it’s April 3rd, of course.” She told me the year too. It was one later than I was expecting.

I turned to look at Jamie. He’d heard too.

Softly, he asked, “What the heck is going on?”

Assuming our world measured time the same way this one did, it had been nine months since we took our walk.