Chapter 8-2: Messages Away from Mecchen House
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Chapter 8 - Messages Away from Mecchen House (cont.)

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 easily 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 anyway. 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 kill my hair. 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.

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 thought 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 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 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 go on for 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 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 at 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. “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 the 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 makes my bladder quake just thinking about it. I don’t want to be a 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… *Sigh*.” 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. Where’s 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. I 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 alarmed 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. 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’ applied. I could hear the number ringing. After about nine 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 Harrison? 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 it sound anything like her?”

Nathan took a moment but I said, without hesitation, “It was not her voice. The sound was eerily familiar, like listening to a sister. But other than that, not much I can say about it.” Nathan agreed.

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.

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…and library chick? 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.

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