Chapter 10 - New Voices at Mecchen House (cont.)

“Do you really think so? I mean, knowing this is a weird anime world, a lot of people have weird hair, so it’s probably not so unusual.” Nathan looked at the image. He made a soft noise and said haltingly, till I had almost melted, “Umm… It kinda looks like her. I guess. But how… could that be? I mean. She’s still a young girl. Umm… Is it her grandmother, maybe?”

When I had recovered from that dosage of cute, and Jamie had plugged his ears, I said, “Right. That would be the most logical answer.”

I had to admit it was a point that made a lot more sense, but a lot of things were not making sense. Maybe it was just me reading more into some old photos than I should.

I kept looking through the album. I came to an image of the construction crew for Mecchen House. There were a goodly number of men. It must’ve cost the Ishida family a fair price to build this house.

I glanced over it, focusing on the extended family at the forefront of the image. Eventually, my eyes were led to the builders. I traced them and found them all to be fairly generic in appearance. One was wearing glasses with darkish hair. A fair-haired guy with what could’ve been a bored (or angry) look stood next to him. And next to him was a tall and muscular guy with dusty, olive-skin. I moved past them, but something drew me back. Their faces were pretty hard to make out, but if you pulled out far enough, you got a general impression of them.

Eventually, it took Nathan directly pointing it out for me to put it together. In an excited, confused, and still-adorable voice, Nathan said, “Kelly! This guy is me! How can that be… a-a-and look! This guy looks just like you! And Jamie! This guy! H-h-how?”

Granted they didn’t look like we did now, it took me several moments to grasp the enormity of this discovery. Jamie seemed to chew on it for a while, his prior animosity fading by the second.

He started out with the tenuous argument that it wasn’t him in the image, it was just a trick or someone similar. “You never know how many body types there are in this world. I mean, from what I’ve seen in anime, they can tend to repeat body forms a lot.”

It was a valid argument, but this particular arrangement seemed downright uncanny. I had to show this to Ms. Ishida and Nana. Jamie put a hand on me. “Wait a minute here. Let’s think about this. If I’m hearing you right, then you’re proposing something like the Overlook Hotel. ‘You’ve always been the caretaker’ or something like that?”

It took me a moment to catch his movie reference. I really had little inkling of what he meant with that, but I did say, “Not sure. Something peculiar is afoot though.”

“Alright. Then maybe it’s a bad idea to go running to people who might be responsible for all this. How about we keep this under our hats? You guys keep an eye out for weird stuff and call me if you see anything suspicious, while I keep a safe distance from the action.”

He picked up the books which had been scattered about, looked to both of us, and turned to the door. I advanced on him. “So, that’s it? You’re still just gonna abandon us after all that?”

“All what? You beat me up, clocked me with a book, and showed me a weird set of photos. Yeah. That really changed my mind about getting the heck out of here.”

Nathan gripped Jamie’s arm. “Please stay. The only way we’ll get out of this is if we work together. Alone we may never see each other again.”

“You know what? That’s not really all that bothersome to me, especially considering I wouldn’t be here if you two weren’t my roommates. I wouldn’t be slowly turning into a girl. I’d probably be watching a crazy but fun movie instead of living something utterly insane. I’ve had quite enough. I’m gonna write my own rules.”

I shook my head. “Oh yeah, and how long before you cave on this too and try to find yet another answer for yourself?”

“Don’t know, but at least I won’t be in this place for the time being. I don’t have a single reason to stay here.”

There was a slow but steady patter of feet across the floor. A single head poked in with curious eyes. The eyes filled with a soft, gentle light.

It was Tara.

She flew like a thrown, yellow dart into Jamie’s arms and yelled, “Oh! You’ve got such pretty hair now! It’s just like mine!” They both tumbled over with Tara giggling.

She caressed Jamie’s hair and asked, “Did you have a nice day? I see Katsumi got to you again. I wish you had hair as long as mine, like last night. That was so fun! You wanna play some more? I have this great idea. Come on, I’ll explain it in my room.” She had a vice grip on Jamie and quickly led him out before he could put together a word of protest.

Ami came into view, looking past the door at Tara with a cautious smile. She turned to look at us and immediately her hands went to her head in exasperation.

“Oh gosh. That girl never quits. What did Katsumi use this time? I just hope it wasn’t something permanent, or she is so dead.“

We refined the overall explanation a little. I decided to include Shiori and Carolyn, despite what Jamie told me. Ami looked quite a bit perplexed throughout. So, I told Nathan to talk. She jumped back and raised her eyebrows. She looked between the two of us again and asked, “And Katsumi ISN’T responsible?”

I told her we didn’t know, but Katsumi’s reactions seemed to say otherwise. Ami mused over it as I handed the family album to her. It didn’t mean much to her, and our potential doppelgangers from long ago didn’t seem to bear a great resemblance, so far as she thought.

We turned over the information between the three of us, but what stuck out most for Ami was Nathan’s high and soft voice. She spoke back and forth with him and mused, “Wow! You sound just like my sister or something! How is this possible?”

I could only offer her a shrug, then told her about the books and the recipe we’d found. I told her the main points I could recall. She said she couldn’t make much sense of it so far as any actual recipe it could be, but then she figured Ms. Ishida was the better person to ask when it came to figuring out recipes.

“You’re sure that your friend is actually a boy now? Wow. That is so cool. Is he sexy?”

I gave it a little more thought than probably should’ve been necessary, but I told her that he seemed rather, “Cute”. She made a note about the barbershop’s location so she could say ‘hi’ sometime. They both seemed to have an interest in the same sorts of boy-boy interactions. She didn’t ask much about Shiori.

She was as perplexed by the changes and phone call as we were. She reached out to touch my hair. All she said was, “It’s thick.” She seemed alarmed by Nathan’s hair and especially his voice.

“I promise to do whatever I can to restore you guys to your true forms. No matter if it’s Katsumi or anyone else responsible. And if it is her, this is really crossing the line.”

I pointed out that it could’ve been unconscious and she used the same notion Ms. Ishida pointed out that there would be a lot more signs of it if Katsumi could do that herself.

I chewed on her offer and passed the books to her. This was what Jamie wanted. So long as they were here, then he was here. I didn’t want to help whatever was changing us, but I needed to do something. I passed them to Ami, knowing full well, given the state of her room, that I may never see them again.

I told her, “I need you to hang onto these for me. Put them somewhere that they’ll be safe. If you could do that for us, then that would really help.”

She accepted them and nodded. Nathan prodded me, “Kelly. What are you doing? Jamie will be upset.”

I turned to him and despite that lovely voice, I said, “I’m even more upset.” I didn’t have much else to offer in the way of explanation.

I was ticked at Jamie, and I wanted to keep him from leaving. Sure, it was childish, but he needed to know that these books weren’t ours to just take for our own purposes. Keeping them with Ami meant he couldn’t just scour Ms. Ishida’s room for them. I did keep one of the recipe papers with me though.

She took the books away. Fortunately, Tara and Jamie were still in Tara’s room. I heard scattered sounds from it. I could make out none of the words, but the sounds seemed pleasant. Ami returned with a nod. I had to ask her, “Can you find them again?”

It took her a moment, but she gave me a hesitant nod. “Pretty sure. I put them… in… umm.” She lowered her voice. “My closet, right there on the floor. It’s one of the clearest open spaces.”

Good to know. After that, we stood around until I remembered to ask Ami what was going on.

She shrugged. “I just got back. Ms. Ishida is kinda up and down. She was moving a lot of stuff out. I saw Nana getting out some pans for supper. She’s back. You saw Tara with me. She put my school bag away while I helped Ms. Ishida dust something off. Ms. Ishida prodded me about cleaning my room. Again. Heh. I noticed Katsumi over by the spare room. She was with that spirit-seeing friend she’s talked about. She seemed like she wanted someone to rescue her from Katsumi’s presence. Katsumi said something about taking a day off from her after-class clubs for a ‘purification’. I swear, again, if she’s the one doing all this, I’m gonna make sure she gets a scrap of my mind.”

She gave Nathan a sympathetic look. She explained Mami was still out and reiterated that Sumi may not be back till late. I asked her how class was. She seemed rather indifferent. “It went quickly.” I prodded her for more details. I mean this was anime-world high school. Entire shows were built around that. I had to know more.

On this topic she became the typical teenager; she shrugged several times, uttered single syllables, and looked vaguely-bored. Silence fell on the three of us again, which was quickly broken by karaoke-style crooning from Tara’s room. Music played behind it.

It was the sort of music you’d expect to be used for an anime show song. Tara seemed to be singing. Ami bowed her head. “That’s the opening theme to Pretty Yumeko Hime Galaxy. Third season. Excuse me. I have some homework to start.”

And yet she didn’t mention it when I asked about her classes. My eyes traced after her as she turned. I called to her, “Ami. Wait.”

She looked. I found myself watching her eyes. They were eyes like mine, only fainter. As I watched them, I couldn’t shake the notion that the color was slowly draining out of them, as through a leak. They looked hollow.

I made an effort to touch her shoulder but wound up only reaching a hand out. I asked her, “Is there anything we can do for you?”

She shook her head like an automatic reaction. “I’m just beat. I want to clear my thoughts of this busy day. I should probably listen to some music or something too before I dig into my work.”

I gestured to Tara’s room. She bowed her head. “I’m not too big on animated stuff. And it’s a kid’s show. Sorry. I should be asking what I can do for you. Cutting that hair doesn’t work? And you can’t make your voice go back to normal?”

We both shook our heads and she looked back. “Well. Hmm. Sorry I’m not more helpful. I’ll try to think… of something.”

She moved gracefully back to the door, but with less of a float to her than last night. Her whole countenance seemed to have been brought a little lower since then. I had to wonder if something more serious was afoot than merely a rough day of classes. But I didn’t want to pry. I very much doubted Ami could get angry at me like Katsumi had, but I didn’t want to try for it.

And I would have to deal with Katsumi eventually.

For now, the odd assortment of sounds from Tara’s room drew us closer. I gave the door a cautious rap, and it flew open like Tara had been beside it and over singing at the same time. She gave a floating twirl with a beckoning hand to draw us inside.

Jamie sat on the floor with his legs folded. The wand lay behind him. The bra once on it was gone. Mr. Snookums was there too. Despite that, the room looked even better organized than last I saw it.

What appeared to be a karaoke machine was placed below the TV, and the TV was turned at a perfect angle for viewing. I sat on her molten-rainbow bed with Nathan beside me. His face showed that he was thoroughly impressed by her room but still nervous.

Tara lifted her wand. “I did magic while you were gone! I made Jamie-chan’s voice CUTE and GIRLY!” I turned to look at Jamie. He didn’t say anything. He was watching the floor. His hair fell like a veil around his eyes.

I questioned him, “Did… your voice change too?”

A breath passed between his lips. I couldn’t tell any differences yet. I prodded him further and he clenched his mouth and asked rhetorically, as deeply as he could, “What do you think?”

Every note of his new voice smacked of irritation with rough, terse sounds and small ends to each word. It was an implacable voice. The smuggest characters tended to speak with it. It was a girl’s voice playing at being tougher and deeper than it could ever reach. The fan in me was captivated in the same way as listening to Nathan’s voice.

Tara tapped him with the wand. “Next, a full bra!”