Chapter 13 – The Dreams of Mecchen House

Perhaps I ran a little too fast. I could feel my pants slipping, despite the best efforts of the safety pin. I tried to stop even faster. I saw Miki with her arms behind her head. Then, everything started tilting to the right. I slid across the floor, and my pants stayed behind. Hitting the floor hurt a lot more without a Katsumi to break my fall.

My glasses were fuzzy and tipped to one side in front of me. I slipped them back on and tried to regain my composure. I saw two of the girls standing over me. Nathan was there too. Miki asked if I was okay. Nothing seemed to hurt. Miki and Nathan each offered a hand, and I was able to get to my feet. I was down to my underwear, but glad Katsumi wasn’t around to sneer about my pants falling off again.

I dusted myself off and looked at the pants on the floor. Nana picked them up and held them. She looked down. I covered my front with my hands. I turned to Ms. Ishida. She had her arms across her front and her hands balled up near her collar with a nervous little smile. I asked her, “Could I borrow a different pair of pants?” I figured rummaging through my bag wouldn’t cut it.

Tara looked down too. I felt confused. I looked down and saw a polished pair of legs shimmering back at me. They felt even silkier than before and had a nice odor, like cherry. They were thick in the thigh, curved at the knee, and dwindled into a pair of spindly ankles. My shoes by the side door would be far too big for my feet now.

Tara chirped out, “Your legs are really pretty, Keli-kun!”

I blushed and tried to cover them better. Ms. Ishida put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about it. Miki? Could you get the box from the front of the junk room over there?” Miki nodded and Nathan offered to help.  

Miki and Nathan brought around a box for me to pick through. I saw Mami seated with her hands on her head. I dug through the box. Plenty of skirts looked like they would fit me now. I passed them over. One thing looked like a kung fu training outfit. If Nathan got any smaller, that could fit him.

I found a pair of denim shorts that would cover about two inches of leg. I was better off in underwear than that. A pair of shorts with bell-shaped legs caught my attention. They might be good for something to wear overnight. I finally chanced upon a pair of cargo pants with a tight and clingy waist. They at least fit snugly. If there were any more changes in me, I was prepared. Unless I grew a huge butt.

I pulled at the waistband and took stock of my surroundings. Jamie watched me with his arms folded and a flat oval of his eyes exposed. Mami lightly slammed the card table and got to her feet. She let out a sigh and said, “Well. Good game, Miki. I gotta go now. Stuff to do…”

She slipped away on the side, but Miki was still able to sneak over in front of her with her arms out and a concerned look on her face. “I don’t want there to be any hard feelings over this. Let’s just say it was a friendly game with no consequences. I don’t like conflict any more than you do.”

Mami took a deep breath. “No, I lost fair. I put up the stakes. You won. Your debt is annulled. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t open a new account with me.” Miki chuckled. “That’s the spirit!” She gave Mami a pat on the side. Mami wobbled from the pat like a shuddering flame.

Her face resembled a grimace. She lowered her head. “Yeah. That’s just like me, huh? Don’t worry. I always bounce back with another scheme of some sort, don’t I?” Miki scratched the back of her head with a cough and a note of, “I’d say you’re resilient.”

She flicked back a lock of her flaming tresses and said, “And I’ll always have music.”

She trudged off with half a song on her lips. She left her camera behind though. Miki let out a deep breath and looked at me. “I still do not understand that girl some days. Anyways. What did Katsumi want? I saw her… friend leave not too long ago.” Ami stood up and touched me on the shoulder. “Did Katsumi cause what happened to your legs?”

At least I could answer both questions at once. “Katsumi and Nina just talked to me. They had some concerns. We didn’t talk a lot, but we talked it out.” I felt guilty for being vague, but I figured telling Ami she might have an evil spirit leeching off her would not be good for her recovery.

Jamie wasn’t satisfied with just that. He rose from his apparent stupor and pursued, “What did Katsumi say exactly?”

I could answer honestly, “Katsumi didn’t say much. You know how Katsumi is sometimes.” That seemed enough for most, but Jamie wasn’t letting go. “Tell me what she said and tell me what that weirdo girl told you too.”

I figured he wouldn’t accept the truth that Nina had told me just enough to creep me out. At least she seemed like a girl after Katsumi’s heart.

Beyond that, I was cautious not to read too much into her statement about what she knew. I didn’t want to be vague to Jamie but, considering Nana was his prime suspect, I figured he’d want me to stay cautious.

“Nina told me to be careful because she does sense something out of sorts. Other than that, I asked her about herself, and she gave me rather circular and bewildering answers. Katsumi just presented Nina’s concerns and said the kinds of things she usually does. She didn’t want me to change anymore until she got back from studying with Reiko.”

Reiko lingered on my mind as well. I was sure I’d heard weeping coming from her room. It was possible Sumi was still there. She hardly seemed the sort to cry. But then I would never suspect Reiko of the same either. Also, it could’ve been a TV program or a recording she was listening to. Or something a little more intimate…

“Keli-kun! Your face is sooo red! Did Katsumi do something to you? Naughty, naughty girl!”

That just made me blush even more. Ami looked especially concerned. I waved my hand and assured everyone that, “It was nothing. I was just thinking about something.”

Tara’s eyes widened. I tried to change the subject. “So, I guess Miki won the game, huh?” Miki chuckled. “Eh. It was a squeaker. Mami just missed by one. I thought it was fun. I’d have another go, but I need to do some reading and get to bed early for practice. I’ll still be up for a bit if any of you guys need anything.” She waved and went into her room across the way.

Nana held out the pants for me. I passed them off to Ms. Ishida, who put them in with the dirty clothes. Jamie orbited around me with slipping pants. Nathan’s pants seemed to be sliding off his body as well. Nana found a seat nearby with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes still watching me. Jamie probed me for more details about what Katsumi said, between hoisting up his pants. Eventually, I told him what Nina said when I asked her what she was sure of.

He ground his fist into his hand. “I knew there was something weird about her. And you just let her go after saying that? What if she’s the one responsible for all this? We let her go and we may never find her again!”

Apparently what Miki said to Jamie had done nothing to mollify his random moments of motivation. “She’s Katsumi’s friend and Katsumi isn’t going anywhere right now.”

“But we’re wasting time. I mean look at it. Alright. We came here. Nothing definite happened the first day. Then the real changes happened this morning. Hair, height, waist, and leg shape. That’s like one change every few hours. What do you think will happen while we’re sleeping? More changes will come. We need answers.”

I gestured an arm at the books and lingered on Nana. Nana blinked. “There are still some unanswered questions to deal with”, I said. I needed to ask Nana more about ‘Hitomi’. Tara watched my arm motion, and Ms. Ishida arranged a pile of laundry.

Jamie flipped a hand out. “I’m sick of reading books. You do that. I want to talk to Nina. Where are my shoes?” His head darted around. Nina sure did seem like a suspect with her behavior, but I didn’t know her well enough to tell if that wasn’t just normal behavior for her.

“So, you’re just gonna run after her?”

I could tell from a look at Jamie’s eyes that he didn’t have a plan for how to do this. He took a couple of breaths and sighed. “I suppose. When Katsumi is done… I could get her phone number and call her. But that still takes time! What are we supposed to do until then?”

Ami carefully stood up and said, “I’ve promised to do everything I can to help. I am at your service. I just need to get to my classwork as well soon.”

I thought of Nina’s advice. Nathan sat down to keep his pants from falling off and Nana’s attention turned to him. I asked Ami, “If it’s alright, I’d like to do what I can to fix your room, maybe while you’re working?”

Ami shook her head. “You really don’t have to do that tonight. It’s okay.”

I assured her I was fine with it. I didn’t want Ami to spend the night in a room with that dark thing so near. If cleaning could do something to keep it away, I was more than willing to do it.

It took a little more prodding but, eventually, she allowed me to start cleaning a little, so long as I kept to the non-clothing items. Tara offered her assistance. I wasn’t sure how helpful she’d be, but having such a glowing presence was sure to scare away any dark beings as a side-effect.

Jamie started to say he had no interest in helping, when his pants finally slipped down. He hopped back onto the couch, on the other side of Nana. Her eyes slipped over to look at him.

Ms. Ishida pushed the box over to them and grinned. “Miki isn’t the only strong one.” She rotated an arm. “There is a reason why I’m the second-best fighter in the house.” I still wondered who the best was.

Nathan and Jamie picked through the box. Nana was covered up as they dug. She didn’t seem to mind. She accepted clothes they passed over into her arms. Eventually, she was just a head under a thick blanket of clothing.

After a lot of groaning, Jamie finally found a snug pair of jeans. The only problem was they ended a few inches below his knee, so plenty of his soft, girlish legs showed. Nathan lingered on a particular skirt, which looked like leaves, before Jamie made a noise and he set it aside. He picked a nice pair of gray pants with a colorful pink, circular buckle. Jamie didn’t look pleased by the choice, but stood up and tested his pants and said, “It’ll do. Now what?”

Ms. Ishida offered to turn on the TV for Jamie. I could see him settling into what would be his typical position with his head back and his legs splayed across the couch, but the soft touch of his bare legs against the material made him dart up. He coughed and said, “Nah. I’ll pass. I’ll look around and see if I can figure out anything about what’s going on here by myself.”

I knew I’d have to seek out Jamie later to bring him up-to-date on my thoughts and questions. For now, I had to help Ami.

Nana put away the clothes she’d been covered in as we left and climbed the stairs. Ms. Ishida went into her room.

Tara was first inside. She dove into the task, stacking little piles of paper into small buildings. Nathan wanted to move a couple of the larger items but couldn’t get enough leverage to lift them. His head hung low, spreading his hair across his face. He moved on, with slow motions, to picking through an area with Tara. Ami offered comments about what was disposable and found a set of trash bags. She noted, “It’s best if the burnables and non-burnables are sorted together along with other items and recyclables.” It sounded about like what I expected from my readings of Japanese manga.

The room felt just like any other normal room without the foreboding darkness of last time. But I did keep a watchful eye out for potential changes, giant holes leading to dark kingdoms, wormholes, terrifying monsters, and the like.

After a while, I was able to rediscover the floor. It looked fairly beat up, but at least I found it. Ami gave an embarrassed clap. She pitched in every so often. As I turned a booklet over in my hands, I asked her, “So, have you ever heard of a girl named ‘Hitomi’?”

She had about a half-dozen people to talk about stretching from her childhood to her current class. I qualified it with, “Have any of them ever met Nana?”

“Not that I know of, but Nana keeps to herself most of the time. I don’t know a lot about her. But I have heard stories.”

“What do you mean ‘stories’?”

She folded her legs and bowed her head with one hand supporting it from underneath like an upside-down hanger. “Well, like you know… stories people tell about people which you don’t know how much is gossip and how much is real.” My eyes flicked over to Tara, wondering if she would chime in with anything, but she was preoccupied with Nathan and wobbling a piece of paper in her hands like the world’s skinniest skyscraper.

“Do tell…” I encouraged her.

“Well, keep in mind that a lot of this is gossip. But I heard from Naoko, who I’ve known for a while, that Nana watched her family’s murder when she was a kid. It was like a Yakuza strike or something because her father borrowed a lot of money from a Yakuza boss. She survived by hiding under the body of her mother. The smell and the blood broke something inside her. She was unable to express emotions… ever again. She became a killing machine, for a while. Naoko said she heard that the reason there are no Yakuza in Ogawa is because Nana sliced them all to pieces. And, supposedly, she’s even replaced parts of her body with cybernetic, parasitic organisms which she takes care of with her massive computers. Naoko said she had tons of computers where she used to live. Naoko never saw any other family in her house when she visited her for a school project.”

I wondered if Ms. Ishida had heard this story before. She was probably sure to get a giggle out of it. I was a little concerned about Tara listening to the morbid details until I reminded myself she was the same age as Ami.

I imagined Nana with the wind blowing at her gray hair and her unshifting, emotionless eyes peering forward, a samurai sword merged with her arm and pointing to the ground. Small fires erupt from a destroyed building, fueled by pools of dark fluid, layered with still, broken human dolls.  

I remembered seeing that anime once. I wasn’t much for blood-soaked samurai shows, and my mind kept returning to that stoic figure surrounded by a pile of clothes. But I did wonder on Nana’s statement of “Two voices speak with one heart” as well as her room filled with computers and her actions with the motherly figure during the game.

And then there were also Nana’s statements about wishing she could fix things and her aptitude with knives. But did that make ‘Hitomi’ more like a different personality than Nana’s imaginary friend? I had to wonder if there could be some truth in this bit of gossip. But, if I accepted it, then I would have to ignore the picture in Ms. Ishida’s photo album.

I asked Ami, “What do you think?”

She shrugged her shoulders and pushed a bit of paper to the side. “Nana doesn’t bug me. She’s never hurt me. It’s rare she even comes into my room. I really don’t know what to think about her. There could be more to her than what I see, or she could just be a really boring, shy girl who likes weird stuff. There was a rumor from Shina which intrigued me though.”

I got my salt ready for this one too. “Oh?”

“Yeah. It makes a lot more sense. Supposedly, Shina says, she was adopted by this family when she was a baby, and she’s never met her real family. But she has this secret benefactor who has taken care of her and paid her way to Mecchen House. And the secret benefactor is her biological mother, who is actually a member of the royal family from a far-off land. And supposedly her mother sent her here because she used to have a place here when she was a child.”

That one actually sounded suspiciously like what Tara had said about PYHG, though it did offer a rough explanation for the weird photo in the album, especially if Nana’s mother looked like her. But then, it ignored all the rest of the evidence. Maybe… if Nana needed all those computers to keep in contact with her mother from a distant land, it might make sense. I suspected a cell phone would be easier.

I noticed Tara’s area was already a good deal cleaner than the area I was working on. I supposed, with Nathan and Tara both working on it, things would go faster for them, but all I’d seen Tara do so far was play with the items she found on the floor. Still, she did have the most organized room of any I’d seen in Mecchen House.

I worried that my cleaning was an exercise in futility, like clipping the top off of a stalk of weeds. Despite those concerns, I continued to sort items with Ami watching nearby and flipping through a magazine she found on the floor.

I responded to her second rumor about Nana with, “So, she’s royalty?”

I imagined Nana with a diamond-studded crown around her head, her unshifting, emotionless eyes peering forward at her bowed, loyal subjects, as her hand waved to them fleetingly. She’s adorned in a gossamer white gown with golden trim lit on the sides by flaming torches and flanked by lovely handmaidens dressed like perfect dolls.

Ami flipped halfway through the magazine. It looked like the magazine had gained hundreds more pages with her motion. “It kinda makes sense of how aloof she is sometimes and weird. I don’t really subscribe to it or anything, but it makes the most sense out of all the ideas I’ve heard.” She shrugged.

On a whim, I asked, “What’s the most outlandish rumor you’ve heard about Nana?”

She lingered on a page. Tara made swooping sword sounds with a rolled-up piece of paper. Ami took a breath. She answered, “There was this one rumor. It’s not too outlandish, I suppose, but more so than the other two. Basically, they said, Nana is in cahoots with an alien force here to analyze our planet. That’s what all her technology is for. They communicate to her through a chip in her head.”

This time, I imagined Nana with an alien crew around her. She pulls off a human mask to reveal her unshifting, emotionless black eyes that peer forward at her loyal, alien brethren. Her hand gestures out orders in a soundless dialect. The light of glowing consoles surrounds her, and doll-like robots do her bidding.

I was beginning to feel bored.

“I see. Thanks…” was all I said back to Ami. She cautiously picked through a pile of month-old mail.

School gossip was hardly a path to the truth, but it was good to get more than just my own and Ms. Ishida’s perspectives on Nana. I turned my eyes to Tara, who had cleared a bit of floor underneath herself and Nathan. I was understandably impressed. I asked her, “Tara? Have you heard anything about Nana? You know, her family, her situation, that sort of thing.”

Tara rolled around to face me. She brushed her hair back and leaned forward. Then, she plopped down and pronounced, “Nana is a whisper.”