We continued to eat lunch after that. The atmosphere being a bit awkward at first, but things quickly went back to normal. Or rather, this was kinda the normal for us, if my arachne memories served.

As we continued to talk while eating, each of us finished one after the next. Botan first, then Ren, then Michiko. I was still finishing my juiced katsudon when everyone else started to put away their trays. Despite being able to talk coherently while my mouth was full, the fact that I had to predigest my food meant that no matter what I was a slow eater. My venom could only dissolve my food so quickly.

I opted to stay behind to finish eating before putting my tray away when I noticed that Michiko had left one of her energy drinks on the table. As my own drink had long since been finished, I reached over and grabbed the large can.

(I wonder what it tastes like.)

I enjoyed my fair share of energy drinks as a human, but it made me curious as to if they tasted any different here. I didn't have any memories of drinking any as an arachne for some reason.

Sucking in the empty silk pouch as I finally finished my lunch, I tried giving the contents of the an a sniff.

It had that sweet citricy scent that appeared in most energy drinks.

Some how it smelled really sweet for that matter. Whether it was because this one was sweeter than the ones I used to drink, or my tastes were just different and I was more sensitive to the sweet smell, I had no way to know, but it did pique my curiosity even further.

I put the can to my lips and slowly raised it, anticipating that nostalgic kick of sweet and sourness.

But all of the sudden something hot and hard clamped down on my head, squeezing it painfully.

"And what do you think you're doing there, little miss?"

Unable to turn my head to get a proper look, all I could see was a blurry pair of bare legs completely covered in muscles.

"Let's see, looks like I was right. Care to explain what you were doing with this?"

The figure grabbed Michiko's drink right out of my hands, and after looking at it for a moment, she forcibly turned my head towards her.

"!!!"

Barely stifling a scream, I found myself face to face with the physical education teacher. An ogre that towered twice as high as me, I realized that the thing which covered my head like a helmet was her hand, and it was squeezing my skull like a vice grip.

"I, I, I just wanted to get a taste!"

"Wrong answer."

"Kyaaa!"

Unhappy with my response, she squeezed harder, painfully making my skull creak. At least, I was pretty sure the creaking wasn't my imagination. I grabbed at her fingers in an attempt to relieve even a bit of the pressure. The fact that I couldn't get my hands all the way around her fingers was a bit terrifying.

"Confiscated. I won't have one of our students take narcotics, especially on school property."

"Narcotics?! What are you...?!"

"You're an arachne, and this thing has caffeine in it. Legally this is controlled substance when it comes to your kind. If you want to ruin your life with it, at least wait until you're old enough to legally do it."

Being told it straight to the face, I was able to remember why I couldn't remember drinking an energy drink in this life. Caffeine to us arachne was even more potent of a drug than alcohol, and was treated as the same thing for our kind, both socially and legally.

Of course, it was far too late for me to remember that, and complaining about how unfair it was in my head didn't really do anything.

The teacher dragged my off to the side by the head while I complained about the pain. We ended up going past the other three.

"Ah, my precious..."

I didn't fail to catch Michiko's voice of disappointment as the teacher threw away the remains of her drink in the trash.

(Seriously, you're more worried about your leftover drink than me?!)

Though then again, it wasn't like they could do anything in the first place. I had gotten myself in trouble, even if it was for something pretty unfair.

The moment I was released from the torture of that vice grip, the teacher started a long winded lecture, right there in the cafeteria. As I held my head in my hands due to the lingering pain, I was forced to nod periodically in case she thought I wasn't paying attention. Tears welled up in my eyes, partially due to the physical pain and partially due to the mental pain of being lectured in public.

In the end, the lecture only ended when the lunch chime went off. The teacher didn't forget to tell me that she was letting me go with just a warning this time, but frankly, it felt like it was a lot more than just a warning.

After all that, the rest of the day slogged on.

Finally, school was done for the day and we headed home.

Since I climbed out of the window again, Mitsuki was standing on my shoulders while Botan carried Ren through the hallways.

As we waited for the other pair to come out of the front entrance, I glanced up at the owl mage perched on me.

Her body was tilted at a dangerous angle and she was slowly nodding at a regular interval. The bony bits of her pressing against the back of my head was annoying, but frankly, she was doing her best to even stand mostly on her own already, so I let it pass.

(Or rather, she was definitely sleeping the last two classes.)

I had no idea how she managed to keep her grades so good. Frankly, I was jealous, but the last time I let that slip she taunted me with it for a good week. Then for another week when we got our next test scored back.

That all said, her grip was pretty damn good despite her being on the verge of falling asleep.

If I remembered right, owls were capable of sleeping while perched on a branch.

But then again, videos of owls sleeping in weird positions like cats was also pretty popular, so it was hard to say what was normal for them. Even more so for a monster girl like Michiko.

It wasn't long before Ren and Botan showed up.

"Finally walking on your own?"

I greeted the two as they got close.

"Yea. Lunch did it."

All I could give in response was a wry grin. This was the usual for her anyways. She was such a slow starter, though unlike Michiko, her grades matched up with her lifestyle quite closely.

Though seeing a giant flower waddling around on her roots was a surreal sight, she did manage to do it at a reasonable clip.

Maybe it was to be expected, but in the end Ren and Michiko really did have completely opposed sleeping patterns.

Now that all of us were together, we headed home.

First, we headed towards Michiko and Botan's homes. They lived nearby, but in the opposite direction of Ren and me. We usually went this way after school so we could talk for a bit longer with all four of us.

That, and Michiko preferred to perch on my shoulders than Botan's when possible.

No, that was only the *current* Michiko. She didn't have such a habit before. She couldn't have, being human.

The three of us talked as we walked down the street, with the nodding off owl mage occasionally quipping something when she deigned was important enough for her to add.

Before long, we reached her home.

"Ah, let me get the key."

We all knew where it was, but Botan went to grab the spare from its hiding place as she usually so helpfully did. With the key in hand, we went in through the front door. I had to duck down to avoid hitting Michiko's head on the ceiling as she stopped responding at some point in the last minute or two.

I had a feeling she was faking it, but confirming if she was or was really asleep would be difficult. Once she got going, it was hard to wake her up again.

The entrance had a real lack of typical hospitality.

No shoe racks, no slippers...

(Wait, Botan's the only one of us who could even use slippers.)

When I thought about it, we didn't have slippers or shoe racks at our place either. Not since yesterday at least.

Even still, there wasn't that much traces of the entrance being used often.

When we climbed the stairs to the second floor, I remembered why.

There was a large window that was most of the height of the floor at the end of the hallway. There was a key hole on one side and a sturdy bar, or rather a perch, built just outside the window, large enough that it was easily visible from where we were.

(Ah, right. They have that.)

Satisfied with the knowledge I had recovered, we headed over and entered Michiko's room. We've carried her all the way more than enough times to know exactly where it was.

Even then, we were careful to be as quiet as possible. Michiko's parents would be asleep as well, so it wouldn't be good to wake them up.

The inside of her room was as different from my own as possible. There were a bunch of large wooden logs all around, either suspended from the ceiling or raised off of the floor on legs. There was even one in front of her desk.

Aside from that one desk though, there wasn't anything which could be considered normal furniture. At least normal according to the previous world.

Then again, it was the same with my room. No normal room would be covered in spider silk being used in place of almost all furniture.

But unlike my room, Michiko's didn't have a bed. I at least had a silk hammock, but there wasn't any place to lay down in Michiko's room.

(Oh right.)

When I thought about it, I remembered a quirk about Owl Mages. They prided in the fact that they slept while perched, so they didn't use beds. Beds were only for young children who couldn't sleep while perched yet.

So from Michiko's perspective, not having a bed in her room was proof she wasn't a little child anymore.

"Alright, get off now. You can sleep on your perch."

But despite my words, the owl mage didn't respond at all.

"Hey, get off! You're heavy!"

I grabbed her ankles and tried to force her off, but her talons only gripped me harder.

"I know you're awake! Get off! Owowowowow!"

Raising my voice, I tried to pull her off even harder, only for her to start squeezing my shoulders with enough strength that I was forced to let go from the pain.

"Michiko..."

Behind me, Botan called her out with some warmth in her voice.

"You know, maybe if you...she'll get off once she's satisfied?"

Ren on the other hand licked her fingers then wiggled them above her head while giving her suggestion with a sultry voice.

"Satisfied?"

I tilted my head as I urged the alaune to explain, only for my cheeks to flare up as my imagination caught up with her words.

My eyes raced to the floor, but then flicked up after a moment before falling down again as I looked at my hands.

(Will that...work? Or rather, is that okay?)

Michiko was my friend. A dear friend.

On the other hand, she did do things like push her panties into my face this morning.

(Maybe it's payback time.)

I licked my fingers then, while looking up at the wall of feathers directly above my head, I pushed my hand through, seeking what was hidden beyond.

My hand trembled as it slowly rose up, my cheeks felt like they'd light on fire at any moment. Even still, I had already gathered my courage and continued to press on.

It felt like minutes passed by, hours, yet no contact with anything but feathers.

All of the sudden, my balance crumbled as Michiko's body shifted. With the sound of flapping wings, she kicked off of my shoulders and hopped over to the largest of the logs in her room.

"I'm going to bed."

Without turning to face us, the owl mage settled down on her perch and stopped moving.

"Awww. And we were so close."

"Close to...!"

Michiko turned and yelled at Ren, but when she noticed I was still looking directly at her, she turned away and forced her puffed out feathers to condense.

I couldn't help but notice that her face was as red as my own felt.

"Fufufu...I think we should go. Michiko's tired anyways."

"...Yea. Let's go."

I agreed with Botan here. Things were getting way too awkward for my tastes. Though why she was pressing her palms against her cheeks...I was a little worried about what she was imagining.

"Fine. Maybe we can go all the way tomorrow."

(Seriously?!)

I couldn't believe Ren.

No, I could. She was always like that and I often ended up being the butt of her jokes.

But without any further words, we left Michiko's house and walked Botan to her place before turning back to our own place.

Ren and I talked like usual and we eventually made it back to our apartment. Going home was certainly much easier than going to school, now that I didn't have to carry this alaune on my back, though the stuff with Michiko might have flipped the balance a bit.

"This again?"

"What?"

I looked back at Ren when we reached our apartment.

"No, nothing."

Giving up at whatever complaint she was thinking about, my childhood friend climbed up on my back again and held my torso tightly.

I, on the other hand, grabbed the thread I let out in the morning when we did our little jump off the side of the building. Holding the thread tightly in the claws at the end of my spider legs, I climbed up the wall almost as fast as I walked horizontally.

My rearmost legs gathered the loose thread as we went up. Mom would kill me if I didn't clean up after myself.

There were other threads swaying in the afternoon wind along the wall, indicating the other arachne who lived here.

The others once asked how I could tell which thread was mine, but the fact that the others couldn't tell was weirder to me. Each one was distinct to the point that you could even tell what type of arachne the thread belonged to. And even if I wasn't sure, I could just touch the threads with my pedipalps and find the one with my own scent on it.

Or rather, thinking about it, I was definitely the weird one. There was no way a human could tell the subtle differences between different spider silks, nor could one smell different scents on the silk just by pressing a part of their body against it.

It was weird how my perceptions had become distorted, yet also could recognize that distortion with my human sensibilities.

By the time I realized it, we had reached our floor and I was already in the middle of stuffing the wrapped up threads into my lower mouth, recycling it to be made into new threads sometime in the future.

Saying goodbye to Ren, we both entered our own homes. I kinda wanted to hang out, but we had a lot of homework to do, so it wasn't exactly possible.

But when I locked the door behind me with the flick of a leg, mom was standing there with her arms crossed in the living room. The urge to go back and try to convince Ren to hang out somewhere grew quite strong, but I had sealed my escape route without realizing that I was in danger.

"Yuki."

Mom's tone doubly convinced me that I shouldn't have locked the door, but refusing her at this point wasn't an option.

"I'm back, mom."

"Welcome back dear. Now..."

Mom lifted up something from behind her with one of her legs.

"Care to explain what this is?"

It was a crushed can, one of the ones which I had hidden in my room, that I had drunk the night before and ended up making that drunken wish.

I could only gulp, as I knew what was about to be wrought upon me.

"...Finally..."

I staggered to my room, exhausted from the extended lecture mom gave me.

Apparently after the incident at school, the teacher phoned home and mom found out I tried to take a sip of caffeine. Suspicious about it, she checked my room and found the cans of beer there.

*Grrr*

My stomach growled, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. The sun had already set and I was sent to my room without dinner.

I felt weak, but needed to get my homework done, so I went directly to my desk and plopped down on the webbing I had strewn in front of it.

That night, once I had finally finished my homework and dragged my body into my bed made of hanging silk, my mind drifted back to the other world.

It was certainly odd. Everyone around me was so similar, yet at the same time so different now.

Let alone gender and race, there were a ton of little peculiarities that were different despite their overall personality and aura being the same. Relationships as well. The same people hung about the same ways.

Just like the four of us.

Though at the same time, we didn't split up like this just to take slightly different routes before meeting up again in a few minutes.

Ren was as sleepy and made sexual jokes like usual, yet she didn't make any of her jokes physical before either. Botan's always been timid, but she felt like more of a romanticist now. And Michiko while she was as difficult to deal with as ever, I've never seen her blush in embarrassment before. Somehow, she felt far more vulnerable in some ways in this world than what I remembered.

It just made me wonder how much of the old world was gone, and how much was new.

I felt lonely, knowing that I was the only person in the whole world that remembered the old world.

Yet at the same time, when I thought about reversing my wish and going back, I couldn't say that I would do it. I already felt attached to this new world. I didn't want to throw it away. I already knew that if I went back, presuming I found a way to do so, I'd end up missing this world.

(Maybe it's better things stay this way.)

Despite all the things I lost, including parts of my own anatomy, there were tons of things I had gained, including parts of my own anatomy.

In the end, I fell asleep, sure that even if I had the chance, I wouldn't try to go back, despite all the things I missed from the old world, this one was so interesting.