Chapter 20 - Hitomi & Akiko (cont.)

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Akiko lingered on the landing when we came to the top floor. She eyed the gray door warily. I led her to the purple door instead and knocked once.

I expected loud footsteps.

I heard a sigh instead and, “Who is it?” asked in a soft, curious tone by Katsumi. That was to be expected. She didn’t know it was me yet.

I cleared my throat and said through the door, “Kelly and Akiko.”

Some rustling followed. Katsumi, speaking with the same tone, asked, “What is it?”

I looked to Akiko, but she only stared back at me with the same half-frightened, half-curious gaze. So, I just asked Katsumi, “Can we come inside?”

I caught the far-off, buzzing cry of a cicada.

“Okay. It’s not locked.”

As I opened the door, Akiko snuck behind me.  

[Expressions of Katsumi]

Inside, Katsumi was curled up on her bed with a notebook in her lap. She was dressed in light lavender pajamas. Her hair looked wet and dark. She had a towel over the pillow. She brushed back a few locks of her hair, which looked like it did on the balcony last night.

She scratched a pen against the notebook page. “I’m done with the bath.” She stretched her legs out and flexed her ankles. The looseness of her pajamas gave her something suggestive of a girlish figure. I wondered if she used her “herbal” soap again.

I nodded and said, “That’s good. Mami will probably be up in a little while. And Nana…”

“Again with ‘Nana’…” She looked up at me with a glare, which crumbled quickly into a yawn.

I meant to say Hitomi. Akiko leaned over to sniff one of the figurines.

I bowed and said, “Well… umm… Hitomi. I mean.”

Katsumi stifled another yawn and answered, “I know. Keiko and Hitomi passed by. Hitomi wanted something.”

I thought of Hitomi lingering in Tara’s room. “What did she want?”

Katsumi glanced at the chair. “You can sit down, if you like.”

I moved the chair closer to Katsumi’s bed so it would be easier to talk. Akiko touched the surface of the chair and clung to the back. I pursed my lips.

Katsumi poked her bed with a foot. “She can sit here if she likes… and if she promises not to turn into a dark and deadly monster.”

Akiko watched Katsumi and glanced back at me.

Katsumi shrugged.

I guided Akiko to the bed. It easily had enough room for both of them. Katsumi scooted to the far end.

Despite our suggestive gestures, Akiko wouldn’t sit next to Katsumi. Eventually, I got her to sit on the floor. She fidgeted in place and looked all over.

I thought back on everything she’d done so far…

I asked Katsumi for a small blanket. She pointed me to the dresser set a finger’s length from the far wall. I took out a little pink one and gave it to Akiko, who immediately burrowed into it.

Katsumi glanced from Akiko and back to me. She sighed and shrugged as I sat down on the chair. “You asked what she wanted… she wanted to put a paper charm in my room. I reminded her that Nina took care of all that yesterday.”

“Paper charm?” I leaned back on the chair.

Katsumi brushed at the back of her hair with a hand. A few droplets settled on the bed. “That’s what she called it. I vetoed it. So, she asked me about where she could find Nina, specifically tomorrow morning.”

It sounded like Katsumi was making a circle on her notebook. Akiko lifted the blanket off her head, took a deep breath, and set the blanket on her head again.

I had to ask, “What did you tell her?”

Katsumi huffed. “How am I supposed to know where Nina’s going to be and when? I told her to quit bugging me. Then she and Keiko left and went into her room, from what I could hear.”

That meshed with what Hitomi said. But why did Hitomi want to place paper charms? And what did she want with Nina?

Akiko let the blanket fall from her face, then snatched it up before it plunged all the way down.

I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you want to talk about… what happened earlier?”

Katsumi glanced at Akiko, made a few small marks on her notebook, and asked, “Is there any more to say about it?”

“That depends on if you want to listen.”

Katsumi looked at me and let her pen rest.

“Go ahead…”

I cleared my throat and unraveled whatever else I had.

The figurines. Katsumi glanced at her own collection of them. Hitomi’s own words. Theories about Hitomi’s influence in the world. A summation of my encounter with the dark being.

When I ran out of things to tell her, I just bowed my head.

She fingered her notebook a little. Akiko clenched the blanket around her head like a hood and nibbled on the edge of it.

Katsumi’s first response was, “I wish I had a sister.”    

“Really?”

Katsumi laid her notebook on her stomach. “Very much. A strong and beautiful elder sister. I find the idea quite comforting.”

Last night, I conjured up the memory of a sister. As I visualized her then, she felt like an amalgam of the three girls on this floor. As I thought of her now, a rainbow of all the girls of Mecchen House spiraled into her. Small traits bloomed out from each. But her appearance shifted to that of Hitomi.

I jabbed my forehead with two fingers. More tricks by Hitomi, I figured.

Katsumi tore off the top page from her notebook, set it upside-down on her leg, and went back to sketching on a new page.

I could understand why Katsumi would seek out a sibling, with what she’d told me of her family. Although, for Jamie, more people in a bad situation didn’t bring him any comfort.

I held onto this thought instead of speaking and asked, “Is there anything else?”

She traced a long loop on the page. “You’re hard to draw.”

“What?”

Katsumi grinned. “I’m making a sequence of you and your changes from when you showed up till now. The chest winds up looking irregular.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

Katsumi drew a pair of smaller loops. “Well, I tried to do a female version of you when you first arrived. It was easier with you and the others made up like girls.”

I gave a little shudder at the memory of glue-on falsies, only to be reminded I had the real type now.

Katsumi made a few slow dashes. “I considered your friends as subjects for a little while. Kimi has potent reactions, and Keiko is cute and demure. But you have particular qualities which inspired me to choose you.”

I lowered my head and frowned. “So, are you saying your interest in my turning into a girl is just for some… art project?”

Katsumi shook her head and waved the pen around as though she were drawing on the air. “No. It’s for you.”

“For me?”

She smiled. “Yup. As a precise reminder of what happened to you every time you look at them. I’ll have nine in the sequence, counting the dress-up one. I’m drawing you in a kimono for the finale.”

Her current mood was a welcome and unexpected relief. I leaned back and relaxed my frown. “Can I see?”

She pulled the notebook close. “Soon. It’s not done yet, and I want to scan all the pages so I have an extra copy.”

Akiko hung the blanket over her shoulders and slid it around her face like the end of a snake.

I had to present the obvious question, “What’s the deal with you? Not too long ago you were yelling at me for stating what I knew and… up until tonight, you’ve treated me and my friends like dirt. Is it because of what I have between my legs now?”

It felt almost as hard to say that as the admission downstairs. Good thing I was sitting.

She made a round mark on the page and noted, “Have you considered that I’m just trying to lull you into a false sense of security while I plot the biggest feminine thing to drop on you and your friends?”

I put my arms on my knees. Akiko looked us over.

“Wouldn’t it defeat the purpose to tell me about it?”

“Probably…”

She drew a long, gentle line and added, “I make no apology for the things I’ve done and said. And it would be a dishonor to you if I tried to take them back. What I have said, I meant.”

Her jade eyes watched the motion of her pen like a captivating dance across the paper. “So far as the deal with this evening… Mami really ticked me off at lunch by adding more items when I couldn’t afford it. I'll have to take bentos the rest of the week.”

The pen twirled in place. “It was shaping up to be a lousy day. All my classes just pounded on my head like hot hail.”

Katsumi looked up from the notebook. “So, I just want to say thanks for putting on those kimonos, to you and to Kimi. That with the… qualities of tea ceremony which I enjoy, made this a pretty decent day.”

Not for me.

And never mind that she all but forced us to wear the kimonos before we could talk to Nina. Her explanation made sense with what I’d figured, but it didn’t offer much reason for her moods in the preceding days.   

I gave a quick nod. Akiko dropped her head like me and sent the blanket into her lap. She scrambled to put it back but took a tumble. She righted herself and the blanket after a moment.

Katsumi lifted the towel off her pillow and put it on her head too. Akiko watched, captivated. Katsumi smiled at Akiko and rubbed her hair in a few places.

She looked to me, but her smile faded a little.

Katsumi explained, “I’m almost done. It’ll be a rough drawing. I’ll probably clean it up on Ms. Ishida’s computer or the one downstairs.”

It felt late. As much as it was nice to be around a Katsumi who didn’t want to bring an army of estrogen to crush the last fragments of manhood left in me, I wanted to wrap this up. “I have a question for you.”

“Feel free to ask…” Her pen froze in place and her legs curled inward.

“Are there any specific dreams you remember?”

Her legs settled back.

“Odd question…”

“I’ve asked it of everyone else. I’m just testing a theory.”

Akiko approached the bed cautiously with her blanket-wrapped hands clinging to the edge and her eyes peering over the top. Katsumi turned her head and beckoned Akiko to sit beside her. Akiko crept onto the cover and curled on her side with her legs and arms near to her body.

Katsumi set the notebook down, waved to Akiko, and mimicked her position.

Akiko looked curious and bewildered at what Katsumi was doing.

If having a young girl around Mecchen House changed Katsumi from a tiger to a kitten, then I’d have to take Akiko around with me all the time.

Katsumi set the towel back on the pillow, crinkled a few of her locks, and said, “I often have quite a few dreams. Some of them nightmares, some pretty weird, and the rest range from mundane to pleasant.”

“Any dreams of boys turning into girls?”

Katsumi gave a familiar snort. Akiko sniffed back. “I wish. The closest I ever had was this worldwide gender-change dream. But no one remembered they’d changed in the dream, so that defeated the whole point of it.”

I somehow expected more than that from her subconscious. ”And the other dreams you’ve had?”

Katsumi flexed a few fingers. “I don’t keep a log.”

“Just what you can recall.”

She picked up the notebook and tapped at a few places on the paper. Akiko mimed her with a finger on her hand.

“I can recall three particular types of dreams I’ve experienced,“ said Katsumi. “The first I call ‘Hunter’ dreams. In them, I’m stalking something.”

I figured those would fall under the boys-turned-into-girls type.

Katsumi shook her head. “It’s not to make girls. I’m just pursuing something, and I either don’t get it and I wake up, or I quickly tire of the chase. They aren’t too bad.”

I couldn’t make too much of that. “What about the other two sorts?”

Katsumi drew her legs a little closer again.

I figured these were more of the nightmare-type dreams to which she alluded.

Katsumi poked her cheek. “Well… second are the ‘loneliness’ dreams. In them, either everyone has gone away or vanished. For a little while, I enjoy the serenity, but soon I get afraid and hopeful at every little sound I hear. I don’t like those dreams. I’m antsy afterwards.”

That one intrigued me. It reminded me a little of the dream I had last night and of what Nana told me about her fears of being alone.

Katsumi stamped her feet. Akiko flailed hers in a quiet imitation.

After she’d made a bit of noise on her bed, Katsumi continued, “The last relates to ‘loneliness’. But it’s a dream of something which actually happened to me. It’s about Ami.”

I pulled the chair a little closer. Katsumi clenched and released her pen like her hand was a throbbing heart. Akiko didn’t mime this time. Instead, she took a few interested sniffs of the air around Katsumi.

Katsumi took a few breaths. “I don’t like dwelling on it. But it happened…”

She shifted the pen to her other hand.

“See… Ami was the first real ‘resident’. Hitomi just showed up one day. You may have heard the story.”

I gave her a nod. “From Ms. Ishida. Sort of…” Only with Nana instead.

“Yeah. Well, setting aside whatever claims of who came first between Miki and me, I caused the first major fight at Mecchen House. Nothing like what you saw… umm… earlier. It was terrible.”

Katsumi looked down, through the wall to her left and said, “I caused it. I railed with the most potent version of my desires. Ami countered with all of her belief in her brother and men in total. I was so angry at her. I hated her. I wanted her gone!”

She trembled in place, a quick hiss of her fury spilling with her last words.

“Not long after, I got it. She just vanished, along with everyone else. I ran all over the house. I dashed from street to street. I looked everywhere they usually went. I found only unfamiliar faces.”

Katsumi picked up the towel and rubbed it vigorously on her still-damp hair.

“When I returned to Mecchen House, everyone was back. It was as if nothing had happened. Everyone gave an explanation for why they were gone. I felt immense relief.”

She plopped the towel down again. “That was my memory. Sometimes it gets muddled with the dreams I’ve had. In them, I never get anyone back and I’m left alone and scared… umm… as I said, I don’t like dwelling on it.” She sent the echo of a glare at me, like a warning not to pursue.

I had only one question and I hoped it wouldn’t offend too much. I qualified it with, “If you don’t mind me asking…” and posed, “When, roughly, did this happen?”

Katsumi clenched her jaw at first, but ultimately resolved, “Around last fall…”

Another “I try not to dwell on it” seemed implied.

I had what I needed. Fall was within the nine-month window which troubled us at first.

The chronology of Mecchen House felt like a brackish bog where I could only glimpse pale shadows of the past. I suspected Hitomi had at least something to do with that.

It wasn’t a proof I could use yet though.