《Calypso: A Magical Girl/Superhero Story》 Moving to Kosele (1/3) As I walked up the hall I kept my eyes glued to the floor and the teacher''s old shoes, barely catching myself from crashing into him as I heard the distinctive click of a door handle being turned. Glancing forward my view of the classroom was obscured by his bulky brown shirt, but I could hear a rapidly quieting class. I wish I could have just slipped inside without any of this hassle, but that would mean being singled out at the start of class. Being a student starting one week into the term required at least some form of introduction, and there was no getting around it. "Hello students, today ¨C Umeko! In your seat! class is starting!" Dull thuds of a moving chair indicated some kind of reaction, but the teacher still blocked my view. Not that I was complaining. If I couldn''t see them, they couldn''t see me. "Now, as I am sure you are aware a new student will be joining class today." Dead silence. "Well, obviously nobody was listening to the after-class announcements for the past three days. Extra homework for everyone.¡± Not a peep. ¡°Well, a new student is attending Kosele High as of today." At that this he walked forward to his desk, and I trailed behind. "Hello, my name is Takaba Shijima but just call me Inet or Ingintzel. I am very..." My voice trails off as I look up, unconsciously judging their reaction, and overwhelmed by the number of faces looking at me. Calm down, calm down. I still can salvage my introduction and not seem completely moronic: "... Uh... eh...¡± What was I supposed to say? Everyone is staring! ¡°. . . I LIKE MEETING NEW PEOPLE!" A second too late I realized the impending crisis, but my mouth simply blabbed anyway. A snicker permeated from somewhere, and few barely restrained laughs abraded against me like sandpaper. I don¡¯t know what was worse, the laughing looks, or those that simply did not care. Very very quickly, I hung my head and made a beeline for the furthest empty seat I could, isolated with only a single neighbor. Why did I say that?!? Why? Now everyone will know I am not only socially inept but a liar. And who wants to be friends with a liar? In all honesty I probably meet more people at once in the last two minutes than in the last two years, and was hoping for a fresh start, somewhere I could make friends outside of necessity. Was I so awful that nobody would ever make friends with me? Probably. I wouldn¡¯t want to be friends with a liar. Luckily the teacher didn''t care about my woeful performance and jumped straight into explaining the difference between scientific laws and theory, forcing everyone to pay attention and take notes. Or at least a semblance of notes ¨C he did mention a quiz on this topic later this week. That also unfortunately included me, but at least it kept me distracted, as I fought to hold my pen. It wasn¡¯t too hard though, my writing was still a mess, to which my sister would say I should be thankful I can write and read at all. Flicking the tip, I watch as the ink spilled out across the page, thinner and tapered as the tip was raised into the air, but deep and dug in along the lowest portion of arc. The student in front of me shifted, and my eyes traced the same black and white uniform, my gaze slipped sideways past the teacher who no doubt was explaining something important. Roving, I searched for anything to latch onto until the end of class, before alighting on the clock. Tick, the black second-hand vibrated forwards, tick, again it rachets forward, tock, the minute hand turns trying to keep up but desperately failing, the longer rod running circles around it. With a hiss, the hour hand reluctantly paces forward, signaling first period drawing ever closer to its end. At this, a sense of a foreboding and unease slowly, oh so slowly dawns on me. Glancing at the teacher, something is different, his every word a little harsher, the room a little larger. The distance a hair smaller. Suddenly, Hoshino Sensei¡¯s tapping of the black-board, and the random pink eraser almost sliding off his table, are much more interesting than letting myself think. I refused to think about IT. Instead I picked up my pen, clumsy in my thick creaking motions, attempting to scrawl the teacher¡¯s words down for later, but find myself completely lost in the discussion of what Sir Francis Bacon actually achieved, forced to write about some random experiment, snow and hypothermia, but completely without context. Why would anyone think snow was a good insulator? Still, the ink flowed and I recorded the details about a person I never met and would never see, glancing up whenever my science teacher paused to catch his breath. The mocking sight of dozens of swiveling heads, many black, many brown, and a few paler, assaulting my eyes before I caught myself and returned to staring at my paper, my left index finger twitching. A small twinge of pain told me my hands were hurt, but, of course, that only meant when minuscule tears came to together, I would see blood. Not yet at least, there was still a ten percent chance nothing would come of it. Soon the bell rang and even as the teacher and every student darted outside, I dragged my feet, literally one before the other, the dull shrill of flat rubber on varnish wheedling its way into my ears as I kept my gaze low. Somehow, even though I had spotted the door on the way to my first class, being a single hallway across, I managed to be one of the last to arrive at English class. Each second before the teacher open the textbook and began reading the literature, an exercise in dread. I tensed every time she opened her back, irrational maybe, but I never was called. Shocked as I was, the teacher did open the textbook and start reading, causing me to look up for the first time and straighten my hunched over back and look around for the first time. My other neighbor was nowhere to be seen but not a single student was looking my way. I heard muffled grunts and groans as my teacher shifted up the glasses on her faces and read a basic sentence in English, glancing at the students, her gaze not avoiding nor resting on me. I was alone . . . and I was happy because of that? That I had been ignored and not force to introduce myself, yet it felt wrong, not being singled out after first period. Around me, it was like I didn¡¯t even exist, one student way to left ferried a note beneath her desk, and watching the silhouette of his jaw, I swore a boy a few seats in front of me, mousy dull brown hair and wiry frame, was chewing gum. Then there was a collective inhale, and the boy stopped chewing his gum: ¡°Takaba-san, can answer what those are?¡± Huh . . . what? Oh, I forget I was still in class . . . ¡°Sorry, Sugimoto Sensei can you repeat the question ¨C please? Hahaha. . . ,¡± a weak laugh tried to cover my complete previous inattention. An exasperated response and stifled embarrassment at not being able to answer the basic pronouns concluded the interaction. Returning to my musings, I finally noticed I was in the same cohort as the science ¡°Biology¡± class. There was Umeko, black hair and seemingly studious expression; the boy who had been chewing gum, who I now noticed simply was grinding his teeth, as well as being stockier than I initially thought; the dark-skinned girl that was tall enough to block my view of the blackboard; and the random cat aficionado who I now remembered almost bumping into in passing when she had leaned down to pick up her pet-shaped eraser. Every student I passed had also been in my previous class, explaining Sugimoto¡¯s lack of introduction. With every query and question the teacher fielded me through the lesson, ¡°Could you please count to ten?¡± ¡°What would be the word for book?¡± my confusion and anxiety actually dissapated. Upon Sugimoto and every other student opening their books, there was this instinctive hesitation at the failing to be called out, but now was replaced with a discombobulated wonder at why I was the only desk she called out. It might have had to do with the fact I was consistently failing each one: ¡°One, two three. . . haha?¡± That wasn¡¯t taught in the coursework until at least three weeks from now, how was I expected to know that. ¡°This is an English class not Japanese. Would you please count to ten?¡± ¡°Ahh. . . I don¡¯t . . . know.¡± Only after returning from the white-board the second time, actually guessing the correct answer by chance, did I realize I never opened my textbook after arriving, explaining the unusual focus on me. My query answered and the clock ticking, I felt a shiver travel up my leg and I suppressed the urge to start down the slippery slope of imagining next period. The pages flipped to match the other students, near the beginning but still a chapter in, though luckily, I only needed a little refresher. I read-along silently as she explained out the list of common objects the class had to memorize, almost but not quite regretting that Sugimoto no longer was singling me out. Soon the bell rang and a din emerged as each student started talking at once, while I slipped my textbook into my bag . . . I guess I will just have to tell my sister I ate alone. ¡° ¨C Hey? You¡¯re Shijima? En-net~ ?¡± I flinched back as a hand entered my vision before my head instinctively rotated upwards to look up at the student standing next to my table. I froze halfway through dropping my pen into the stationary bag. On the other side than the golden-halo investigator of course. ¡°Hello, I''m Jue! Do want to have lunch together?¡± Her light locks, dappled almost as if undecided to be auburn or blond, but still framing her olive-toned face in a sharp and unusual contrast amongst a sea of white skin and dark-haired students. My legs were no longer heavy, my slight frown a million times lighter ¨C even if the first person to talk to me was almost as abnormal as me. This might be a friend! ¡°Sure, I was heading to the cafeteria . . . now ¨C I would love to join you! ¡± I lied, or rather half-lied. I doubt I would have done anything but drag my feet to eat lunch. And even then, I would probably have eaten my lunch in the classroom after everyone left. Jue, flashing a smile I tried and failed to return, started forward her quick steps forcing me to break stride to keep up. I wasn¡¯t short, at least that was what I told myself, but looking at a girl the same age or a few months younger, who wasn¡¯t by no means tall within the class, really put in perspective how little I had grown since the incident. A twinge of something that I didn¡¯t recognize clenched in my stomach as I stared at her uniformed shoulders, jealousy? Still though, as we entered the cacophony that characterized large metal rooms, I guided us towards the back of the cafeteria, near the exit leading straight onto the campus oval, randomly selecting an empty table. There wasn¡¯t any particular reason why Jue wouldn¡¯t like this? Right? Glancing back, she seemed fairly neutral with her expression, was she disguising surprise? Disappointment? I would have no idea, but regardless she settled quickly onto the opposite small black stool-cross-bench seat from me, setting her backpack on the shiny grey table. Looking closer though, it was simply an illusion, crumbs from a previous occupant, probably at least a day, maybe two or three, scattered along it. Other portions almost looked sticky as the cheap plastic polish peeled away revealing the supposed metal to be simply a reflective coating on yet more plastic. Yet it was still better than eating on the chipboards of chairs. I had a companion. A slight smile tugged on my lips, but as quickly as it came, the fleeting sensation vanished. ¡°Hey . . . um can I call you Ent. That''s your nickname right?¡± ¡°Inet, you can call me Inet.¡± ¡°Okay-dokey, Inet it is!¡± ¡°And you? Just Jue?¡± ¡°Technically Jurietto,¡± she made a scrunched-up face saying the name with some accent I could not place before bursting out laughing. An inside joke? ¡°But Jue¡¯s great. Everyone calls me that, well except the teachers. Well you see,¡± another giggle, ¡°we don¡¯t often get transfers here, so where are you from?¡± My first instinct is to say Kosele, but that is not going to fly. The truth really probably is best. ¡°Osaka.¡± ¡°Like the Osaka?!? As in THE city of contact? What''s it like there!?! Are there really mermaids in the city canals? Is it true a civilian there encounters more breaches than most protector trainees? You''re pulling my leg, aren''t you!¡± I swiftly regret taking a bite out of my sandwich, each and every second Jue''s voice growing increasingly loud swiftly approaching yelling. If it were not for the general din of the cafeteria, I was certain someone would have heard. As it was several tables from the nearest student, I still almost choked forcing the tomato and bread down my throat. At least with this distraction Jue wouldn''t notice what I was eating, compared to the usual riceReading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°No, no, I am not. I really did live in Osaka." Pausing to dredge up what distant memories I still had of the place I carefully began, "It isn''t too different from here really. Just busier, more cramped, and urbanized. The skyscrapers are cool I guess, but due to magical distortions all the waterways have been covered. I couldn¡¯t say for certain but toxic sludge isn¡¯t exactly a fit environment for anything to live in. Restoration and beautification aren''t exactly a top priority there. The biggest difference though would the Skyling.¡± ¡°Skyling? Like some kind of dragon?¡± ¡°Why would it be a dragon? No, that''s what the residents call the dome that grid-ifies each block and where the dropping walls that cordons off each distortion." I suppress the urge to turn away, telling myself the cold was just from the window seals being leaky. "With the amount of containment protocols, you rarely see any besides in traffic detours." I was ad-libbing hard, having barely remembered the city except for the few days I was out of the hospital before Otou-San drove us here, and even then, I mostly stayed in my room. Maybe people really did encounter breaches a lot, or maybe my childhood was just traumatic. Still five times traffic routing forced my sister to change my father''s navigation on the way out of Osaka and that wasn''t even accounting for the closed sections already accounted for when the trip began. "Uh ... What about you? Have you always been in Kosele?" Jue picks up a chopstick and starts prodding her rice, before plopping some into her mouth, obviously much less enraptured at the change in conversation than me. ¡°No, not really. My parents moved here was when I was young, so I don¡¯t I remember much, but that¡¯s about it.¡± I finish my sandwich in an awkward kind of silence, neither of us wishing to continue the conversation. Me having no idea what to say, and Jue avidly dissecting her meal, though the way she did it gave the impression of actual interest in the food, rather than feigning distraction. Soon though we had to move, and she started to head towards the door, forcing too my lips the one question that had been plaguing me for some time. ¡°Why after everything, are you still being so kind to me?¡± An easy expression of surprise flits across her face, first confused then surprised, before she, giggling, simply said, ¡°Oh, you mean your introduction, don¡¯t you? No reason, though it was kinda endearing. It''s just you know ¨C us blondies just need to stick together!¡± She stumbled at the end, before making a dramatic flourish, a grin of satisfaction at my slight shock, though it was for a totally different reason. Blond? Me? I guess my hair was paler than most but it would still be halv-deqr not blond. But I guess if she said I was blond, I must be blond or at least dark blonde. Still, thinking about hair made me look at her twice, and I realized I hadn¡¯t even thought her blond up until now, even if her hair wasn¡¯t very dark in the slightest. Even past the tanned, maybe natural, mid-tone skin, curved facial features, and curly locks, she looked nothing like the ones I knew as blond, her strands only at the lightest a weak straw-color while clearly a deep ash at other extreme, all covered in warm tint. A bad thought entered my mind, a little voice whispering unfounded concerns: If she was blond did that mean she was like them? No, she was not blond, at least nor like them, maybe to Japanese, but not to me. Why did I have to justify to myself so hard her statement meant nothing. It was just a passing comment. ¡°Hey? Are you okay there? Earth to Enet?¡± I realized I had stopped, standing there, halfway to the cafeteria door, my hand bringing my straight hair, bleached a consistent stringy dark yellow, to my face as I stared at her back. ¡°Yeah, just got lost in thought.¡± Jue giggled again, and wow, she really did laugh frequently, before taking my hand along, beginning to guide me forward. Hesitantly, I slipped my hand out of her grip, the soft pressure more disconcerting than comforting, it was a stranger¡¯s touch after all. I still barely knew her, and everything was happening so fast, first the questions, then her indifference. I wasn¡¯t use to making friends, at least now this quickly, but I also knew if I kept pushing her away she might leave me, yet I couldn¡¯t help questioning her every motive. Jue turned back, a flicker of sadness touching her features for the first time since I met her, making me feel bad, and initiating damage control time: ¡°W-Well, I was just thinking, how do you know we are going to the same class?¡± ¡°Oh, you¡¯re right. I guess we part ways here.¡± A resigned look passed over her face, and my heart-rate rose. No! I didn¡¯t mean it like that! ¡°Wait, I just meant to compare classes! We could still be in the same one.¡± Was she going to leave me? Should I have ignored her hand? Why did I say anything? ¡°Well yeah, but after lunch on Monday¡¯s for our cohort is FUL. Remember?¡± ¡°What¡¯s FUL?¡± Now I was confused, not remembering anything like that on my schedule. So, I reached into my bag, and rifled around but my fingertips only brushed notebooks and stray pens. ¡°You know, a Foreign Universal Language?¡± ¡°Oh . . . ¡± I looked up feeling dumb, my attempt at looking at my itinerary obviously doomed to fail. Of course, it never mentioned FULs, that was like having algebra labelled as math. As each language was an individual subject, naturally the acronym would not be on the class schedule. I remembered my sister saying something about having to take at least three languages to graduate: English, Japanese, and a portal-based tongue ¨C a FUL. Of course, my cohort would be split on these ¡°FULs¡± based on which one they picked. ¡°Can you tell me where the classroom for No¡¯chiekiv is? I remember it was 5B, but I have no idea where that is.¡± However, Jue was gone, lost in the crowd, and so I sighed, starting my way in a random direction. Several times I asked for directions before finding myself in front of the brightly colored door, yellow with a white gradient on the outside, almost looking like a giant blurry sun with a white piece of paper reading 5B stuck to it. Were there two 5Bs? I stumbled as someone knocked me over, falling to one knee before I force my muscles to pull me back, and I look to see who it was, and in the process spotted a very particularly honey-colored head of locks walking towards the door. I half-weaved half-pushed myself through the rapidly emptying hallway until I hesitantly touch her shoulder before retracting my hand timidly. Flicking her head Jue raised her eyebrows upon seeing me, not all what I expected, a dark expression being a more apt description than simple perplexation. ¡°How did you find me? You shouldn¡¯t be here.¡± ¡°I . . . uh . . . didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re taking No¡¯chiekiv?¡± ¡°Yeah . . . ¡± Was there an appropriate thing to say in this situation? I felt so awkward and had no idea why, though I had an inkling the feeling stemmed from how Jue disappeared so suddenly. ¡°You got to be joking?¡± Jue started to giggle, and I laughed for good measure too, even though I had no idea what was so funny. ¡°You¡¯re taking No¡¯chiekiv too? You should have told me you¡¯re into languages,¡± she slapped her forehead comically, ¡°Come on though, we will be late for class.¡± I glance at the time and notice that between leaving Jue and finding the room, half-an-hour had passed placing us mere minutes away from starting class ¡°Is it that weird I chose it? I already knew some, so the class was the best suited for me,¡± I defensively probed, wanting instinctively to take a step back, until still at unease with this entire series of events. Instead I stilled myself to a complete frozen statue, not entering the room, as the flow of students parted around us, milling down the hallway to the other classes. ¡°No! I mean yes! It is, but not in a bad way. No¡¯cheikiv is great! Well, nobody actually is able to speak it natively, so some presume it¡¯s the easiest FUL, so I guess I understand why you picked it. Arrrghhh . . . I mean I also chose it as my FUL alongside PL-Tienbac and Sharaye, but I need to study No¡¯cheikiv this period since there is no split classes for it later.¡± Her animated gestures leading from one side to other relaxed me and made the whole situation make a little more sense from what I could piece together. Yes, regular people took No¡¯cheikiv but no it was unpopular, maybe because of the ¡°presume¡± bit, that stuck out as a red-flag for difficulty in my opinion. Still cautious I walked inside and chose a seat as close to Jue as possible and waited for the teacher to arrive. Within a few minutes a slightly battered woman power-walked to her desk, the clock displaying class should have started about two and a half minutes ago. ¡°Hello, since class is starting a little later than usual ¨C Open your textbooks to page 26 where we left off last time.¡± Gasping, she fumbled to put on a pair of glasses, ¡°But first a new student has transferred to our class as of today.¡± A surge of ice ran through my body and all the positivity I gained during lunch drowned out of me. Would anyone forget me if I embarrassed myself twice in a single day? What if I messed up again? Jue was a friend . . . what if . . . ? ¡°Her name is Takaba Shijima.¡± . . . ¡°Takaba would you please come forwards.¡± Shakily, I pushed my chair back, distinctly aware of the fake wood being the chair moving in the entire class. I forgot I wouldn¡¯t have all my classes with the same people. Even though I kept my eyes focused entirely on the teacher as I walked, I knew the bulkier figure to my left was from a different main group. Thick in my throat, my tongue refused to move as the teacher, Morioka-sensei if the triangle metal name prism on the desk was to go by, continued to speak, ¡°I am sure most of you have met her already, and heard this, but be nice to her, everyone was once new here, and I am sure she would greatly appreciate some general kindness. If you have any disagreements I will gladly show you to the principle right now. No? Well, Takaba-san would you introduce yourself.¡± ¡°Hello,¡± I mumble transfixed by the elongated wood grain of the desk, smooth to the touch even if rough in appearance, ¡°My name is Takaba Shijima and . . . I . . . am in your care. . .¡± I trail off glancing at the teacher. She is still waiting patiently, but I didn¡¯t continue. ¡°Well, I heard something about you already know some No¡¯cheikiv.¡± Wait, where did she hear that? ¡°Would you be as kind as to demonstrate for the class?¡± I could, definitely, but should I? For the first time, I actually observed the students, some are leaning closer, just enough to disguise their voices but not enough to be obviously talking at a glance. Others were alone, outside clich¨¦s and simply staring at me, the teacher, or the blackboard. Then my eyes alighted on Jue, near the window. A smile split her face and she held up a hand in a subtle or maybe not-so-subtle thumbs-up. I could talk, I could speak in No¡¯cheikiv, but how would Jue react? How would everyone react. Nobody liked a know-it-all, especially after my show of competence or rather lack of it, in English. The teacher would be happy though. Maybe. Or maybe she would just give me that concerned look everyone got when I acted differently from everyone else. Better to just be normal. So, I stayed silent. ¡°Ahhh . . . never mind. You can return to your seat.¡± Feeling like a ball of yarn had just unknotted in my chest, I carefully made my way back next to Jue. ¡°So . . . can you speak No¡¯cheikiv?¡± I looked up, remembering that I HAD told her that outside the classroom. ¡°Yeah . . . a little, but I got nervous.¡± It wasn¡¯t a lie but it wasn¡¯t the complete truth either. Though if it was a lie, I would have still said it, corroborating stories and all. Jue smiled brightly and then turned to the teacher who was watching us. Us. Instinctively, I looked down already guessing my mistake. Nooooppppeee. No textbook. I reached down my body twisting in a way that allowed me to see Jue was already engrossed staring at her textbook . . . or not. Her eyes weren¡¯t moving, at all. A small thunk resounded as I leveraged the book onto the table, and Jue jumped, while some other students looked up startled. I internally cringed at the accidental attention, opening up the book to the reading. At first it made literally no sense, talking about nasal sounds and practice exercises. I wanted desperately to open it at the start but the teacher was still watching for some reason. That or Morioka just happened to meet my gaze whenever I glanced up, like a vulture circling the classroom. Soldiering on, the messy sentences began to sort themselves out in my mind after a few minutes, and the instructions were beginning to make sense ¨C exercises for each ¡°phoneme¡± of the No¡¯chiviki language. The only problem was that ¡°phonemes¡± were a Japanese and English analysis, No¡¯chiviki was a portal-language which meant logic played by different rules. Or maybe Earth was messed up planet. . . . That really made me sound like an alien didn¡¯t it. Or a provocative jerk. Probably both. Still why was . . . check the cover . . . Bekutai arguing to assort the language this way? Trying to apply order to magic was pointless, right? Root phonemes . . . hmmm. My head bobs and feel tired, but I can¡¯t fall asleep in class . . . I can¡¯t . . . I really just can¡¯t . . . Moving to Kosele(2/3) I started as the sound of pans and bowls jolted me, forcing me to become aware of where I was and what I was doing. I had been a funk, daft memory, and now was inside the door with my shoes dangling by their laces in one hand, and the other pulling on the sandals Otou-san had gotten. It wasn¡¯t like I had been stupidly standing there, though I was now, I just simply wasn¡¯t aware of what I was doing or what I had been doing. Ever since being rescued or even during the incident, this wasn¡¯t common so I wasn¡¯t particularly concerned about what transpired in third and fourth periods, but I must have gone to them, considering the lighting inside. Hopefully the material wasn¡¯t anything too complicated. As per my custom whenever I regained consciousness, whether by literally or metaphorically, I recited the three Ts that I used to find my bearings: Threats ¨C None, and there should be none, Tenement ¨C Shoe area near front door of the family home, Time ¨C Before dinner, mostly likely still the eighth. Having assessed my immediate surroundings, the sounds in the kitchen that had startled me back into ¨C self-awareness? consciousness? ¨C finally registered once I listened and looked past the tiny hallway. I had been hoping to get the stuff out from under the bed and sneak it into the trash outside. But that would be impossible with Asahi, my sister, cooking in the kitchen, so I would have to wait. In the same vein of the ¡°trash,¡± my left shoulder had regained that uncomfortable feeling which I really didn''t like to think about. I should have a look at it before dinner, while Otousan was still at work, though he would be home in a soon ¨C probably. ¡°Is that you Ingintzel?¡± My finger twitched at the off pronunciation even though it was enunciated in the rough ballpark, but considering the state of Earth languages that was to be as expected. I was the outlier not her. ¡°Yes, just me,¡± I responded in a slightly strained voice, really hoping not to be pulled into the kitchen. ¡°I''m cooking onion and potato tonight! Okay?¡± Asahi replied with a yell, much to my relief as I slinked past the doorway to kitchen and upstairs. I padded as silently as I could, though not to much effect, as every time the plastic touched the varnish, a sharp squeak would resist my best efforts to remain silent. Finally, I reached the top of the stairs and gratefully stepped on the rug down the center of the hall. It was not much, simply a creamy beige and brown floral pattern of what had once been white and red, possibly even vibrant, but now so old. A few years and plastic had completely degraded, the frayed hairs sticking to the soles of the sandals. If I told Asahi should probably would convince Otosan easily to move it to the attic, still I liked the silence, despite the mess. Also, it reminded me of my childhood before the incident, cheap but homely, though I questioned how long it would take for Otou-san to notice the degredation. After all, this was going to be our main residence not childhood vacation spot. Asahi wasn¡¯t just about to leave me alone though, and in moments the thrumming from the stove hood relaxing into a faint distant hum, while at the base of the stairs the squeaky boards betrayed my sister¡¯s ascent. Turning, she stood at the end of the hall, her skin flushed red from a chronically under-ventilated kitchen. ¡°Let¡¯s get you cleaned up now, shouldn''t we?¡± She strode forward, her dark brown hair, although straight like mine, stood out against my halv-deqr strands, especially in when hers was in a ponytail against her pale pink shirt. Not to mention my stunted growth and rounded features. ¡°You really don¡¯t need to.¡± Her face twisted into a grimace as we walked towards the bathroom, probably oblivious to the patches of fiber each step of her green sneakers picked up. Otou-san would definitely a few words to say about proper house rules. ¡°My little sister is going to have to live without me starting to-morr-ow,¡± she punctuated her pronunciation by tousling my shoulder-length hair, ¡°I''m sure one more night won''t kill you.¡± She smiled, and I relented, knowing full well Asahi was much better at this than me. Opening the white painted door was always a sensation. Originally, it was the second bathroom when I was younger, much younger, but sometime after entering college, Asahi had converted it into a cosmetic laboratorium. After one, or maybe three, particularly hot springs while we were in Osaka, the whole place became entrenched with the smell of acetone and some other chemicals I had no idea what were. Otou-san once tried to kick Asahi out of there because of the smell, but that did nothing to help the situation, my father let her return to using it. A loss of one shower, sink, mirror, and toilet for Otou-san and a gain of one shelf, four plastic tubs, and two cabinets of make-up, for my sister, plus a bright electronic lamp Otou-san probably was unawares had been stolen from attic. While Asahi sifted through the cabinets for some ¡°remover,¡± muttering nonsense and increasingly dark threats as she failed to find it, I peeled my arms off. Technically, it was combination of slightly-translucent mesh-fabric and silicone gloves that emulated my lower arm, wrists, and hands, stuffed with deconstructed cotton balls. Underneath was . . . less pretty. Starting at the top of the gloves, thick scars covered my arm, with increasing densities of darker scar tissue the further down my gloves pulled off, dappling my dark suntan skin with navy and purple undertones. Still fighting the elastic nature of them, I surreptitiously glanced at my sister, still kneeling in front of the sink cabinet, trying to find the remover. With a pop, I pulled my hand out of the glove, the sleeve and fingers snapping into an completely inversed form in a quick motion. My hand only filled half the glove, all a dark purple color from a combination of contraction, depression, and swellings that progressively whittled away it away into a skeletal vestige. The only portion still normal being my fingernails, but even that was short, the bed half-the normal length and still sticking into mostly empty air. Turning them over, the palms were surprisingly less scarred at a glance, but that was a lie. The healing just occurred all at the same time, forming a less than appealing depression pulling skin taut along the edges and into darker subtly-irregular scarring. Fortunately, today it wasn¡¯t bleeding, so I simply pulled off the other glove and inspected it too in order to make sure. The other glove. Both my arms were the same, symmetrical in appearance if not in the individual scars, and both equally useful and useless in most regards. Asahi finally found the make-up remover, and I took off the sandals, pulling of my socks using my thumbs. The popping of old rubber running over a broken seal signaled Asahi had opened the shower door for me to step into. Inside the rectangular glass prism, like how I pushed off my socks, I pulled up my sleeves which had fallen over my hands. Asahi holding the showerhead in one hand, partially stepped inside for a brief moment to turn on the water, which hissed and spluttered for a few seconds before starting to spray across my bare feet, before becoming stained pink and white as she orientated towards my lower leg. ¡°People would die for a tan like yours, you know.¡± Despite leaning down so my arms and face would not drip when Asahi reached them, I tilted my head in her direction, but could not see her expression. ¡°Mmmh. . .¡± I noncommittally answered, unsure what she was getting. For a long moment she didn¡¯t say anything, but then: ¡°Make sure to face towards the tiling, I don¡¯t want it to run into your eyes.¡± Despite the chemical scent to the air, it was relatively peaceful, if not slightly nerve-racking as I toweled my face and limbs, so Asahi could apply her homemade make-up remover across them. I only really relaxed, standing in the shower, once Asahi left the room to attend to dinner for a few minutes while the remaining make-up dissolved. I still was not use to letting someone else do all the work for me, or anything for me, even though I probably would have soaked myself and stained my clothes if I tried myself. Cross that bridge tomorrow. Plus, although Asahi was always babbling about cosmetics to me, everything flew over my head for the most part. Just when I thought I understood some concept, Asahi would say something which completely confused me, enough that after less than a month I had truly given up. Actually, the only time she wasn¡¯t talking about something was in this cosmetic bathroom, applying my make-up, or removing it, both processes. The latter one I would end with a soapy shower after Asahi returned. After a few minutes, the sound of the stove hood flared up once more, and the minutes began to tick by, standing there. My sense of general time and date were terrible with the ¡°memory lapses,¡± which I strongly suspected for very personal reasons were not sleeping per se or forgetting just . . . autopilot. Regardless, I still could pretty accurately tell time for short durations, at least when I was calm, which I was, and not in a funk. By my estimate it had been at least tweleve minutes, slightly less than thirteen: plenty of time. So, I grabbed the cloth Asahi had gotten out of the cupboard for this purpose and gently rubbed off the gel-like liquid. Then, I closed the door, regretting there was nowhere to put a set clothes. Luckily, opening the upper cupboard, there was still a half-used bar of soap, and towel, probably from before this bathroom had become cosmetic-ified. But there were no shower caps or hair towels. Damn. Grabbing the soap, I stripped off my shirt, dress, and underwear before entering the shower, this time leaving the showerhead above me as I twisted the handle anticlockwise. Standing up, I could hear the water traveling through the pipes before explosively hitting my back, though not with any real significant force. Still it hurt, it really hurt. I almost cried out, pain tearing through my left shoulder, but simply rotated my upper body away from the water source as my legs instinctively locked into place.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I had forgotten about my back, and for the billionth time I regretted not devoting my entire memory to remembering my inhumanity. Yet, I was already shuffling the pain and experience to back of my mind, some box that would be left unopened, ignoring the flood of adrenaline through my body. The Flower wanted me to remember, and then it would take my attention and devote it to protecting it. Standing pressed up against the glass, or probably glass-like plastic, I debated turning off the shower but had no idea whether Asahi could hear it in the kitchen, and I really did not want her coming upstairs thinking I was finished. Deciding against it, I very carefully washed my body, avoiding my left shoulder blade, until my skin was a uniform bronzed copper, paler than if I was born to such a family but still fairly dark, littered with many tiny darker freckles, speckling my non-scarred portions of my arms and legs. Looking closer, there were even white freckles, which I guess were something else, IGH I think the doctor called them? Opening the shower door after I finished, I reached across the small room, grabbing the towel to dry myself off, failing to ignore the small thin black fragments of tissue dotting the white fluffy surface as I dried my back. There really was no avoiding it now was there? Staring in the mirror, I saw my face, no longer slightly tanned but heavily sunkissed, the makeup gone to reveal the thin scars and blemishes over the now significantly more briar-colored features. Shades darker than my relatives, yet arrested in its pigmentation only a smidge lighter their skin color, enough to stand out both there and here. Traveling down my body, a semicircle of paler skin existed, still tanned, but significantly pinker and paler than my arms, neck, and lower torso. It started as a demarcated line at the bottom of my neck, cutting off less abruptly in an elliptical gradient halfway down my upper arms and chest, separating my breasts from my stomach. A more rectangular but similarly less tanned portion existed across my thighs, ending just below where my gym shorts, which I had yet to use, stretched to. However, the scars got worse on these portions, and although my stomach was less affected, my chest was covered in raised ridges. On my right upper arm, a thin metal band encircled the limb, a recent addition to the various collars I had worn; however, I found my eyes drawn back to my scars. I tried to not to remember each one, but ultimately, I was stalling. Always stalling. I could not remember each one, and never would. I wanted to blame the Flower for my thoughts, but my stalling was probably entirely of my own making. For right now at least. Slowly without looking away from the mirror, I turned around and stared to the right, watching as the left-side of my back came into view. From the shoulder blade, tendrils of black roots, fading from a translucent grey at their tips, converging in the center from which a plateau of rough black flesh, burnt far too many times to ever recover was visible. Two mushrooms grew out of the region, peeling out of ridges. Mushrooms. Not the bright red and white kind people imagine in fairy-rings, or the small light brown ones eaten in soups or stir-fries. Definetly, not the bracket fungi colored in a radial gradient of honey-orange and white which might have complemented my skin. No, the protrusions were delicate, black feathery things, the larger one half-destroyed and fragmented. They stood on spindly slatey black stalks piercing through two cracks in my skin, parting visibly red flesh on either side, like vines growing out of a split boulder. Most of all, the color made them appear in a perpetual state of decomposition, the tissue even semi-translucent, shot with webs of pure black veins, yet still clearly growing. My punishment and lifeline; the cause of the unnaturally purple scar tissue, yet the reason why I could still move my hands despite the contractures; the mental inhibitor that took over when I broke down, but the same parasite which fragmented my life, forcing me to rely on it. The Flower wouldn¡¯t let its host die, but woah-be any person who attempts to remove it from their own body, the thought steeped in bitterness, and not the manipulative magical kind. I knew fundamentally I needed to cut the stalks, before they fully matured, but hesitated. I found myself stuck staring, wondering how I could destroy something so beautiful and delicate. Until the normal realization forcibly crushed the obviously biased thought, as no reasonable person would find these mushrooms even remotely pretty, unless their brains had been messed with by a certain PARASITE WHO HAD A VESTED INTREST IN KEEPING ME FROM DESTROYING THEM. I was panting, purposely increasing my heartrate, yet strangely, or rather predictably, fatigued. The Keeper, as I called it, had long since become acquainted with making me feel any emotion at random or strategic points, or strategically random moments. What I did have was control, though, even it wasn¡¯t complete. Over the years, first by others and later by myself, I had burnt the flesh on my back a few times each year ¨C just enough to stop the blooming, but not enough the Keeper would start blooming, parting the skin across my entire body, to create new flowers. That kind of mistake you only make once. Once and once only. But currently, there was no fire or heating element as well as no metal to heat. I could attempt to use Otou-san''s iron, but that would raise more questions than it answered. Burning burnt scarred flesh wasn''t exactly discrete, and if I ws honest was myself, I really didn''t want to to do it. Rifling through the cupboards, the top shelf revealed a pair of severely worn nail scissors stuck underneath a tub of manicure files and polishes. The blades were dull and rounded, certain to leave part of stalk above the skin due to the curve cut if I tried to use them normally. However, orientating myself in the mirror, despite the enlarged tips, the scissors were small enough to poke a tiny amount into the wounds, just enough to compensate for the curvature. Snap! A searing pain disproportionate to the tiny stem I cut off poured over me and I jerked back, the mushroom landing on the tiles by my feet. As quickly as the pain came, it vanished, and the fallen organism was soon joined by an equally unpleasent second mushroom. Taking my time, I slowly walked towards my room, hiding the two ¡°flowers¡± in one hand, while using the other to hold my towel around me. Once in my room, I was quick to shut the fake wood door, sliding down the wood. Normally, if nobody was watching I would just simply do nothing, merely listening to the sounds of the occasional car and the frequent footsteps within the house. But right now, I was naked and that would complicate matters when Asahi came to check on me soon or called for dinner, primarily because the parted ridges on my left shoulders looked angry enough she would rush me to the ER. Plus, Otou-san was due to arrive any minute, and I still had to at least put the mushrooms out of sight. Pushing myself up, I walked over to my bright sunshine yellow bed, the blankets oddly childish to me. The whole room was out of place, ripped-down Magical Girl posters having left only tatters of papers held on by tape and nails. Meanwhile the dustless circles on the mostly empty shelves, just right size for various figurine stands, betrayed far more than the small collection of books on shelf ever could ¨C and I hated it. I hated looking at the walls and remembering what I once idolized. That¡¯s why I gathered everything up in a plastic bag and threw it under the bed: posters, hand-drawn pictures, dolls, figurines, shirts, underwear, stationary, or pretty much anything I kept that reminded me of my childhood dreams. The blankets stayed though. Yellow suns and pink unicorns were fine. Very fine. Crouching down and ignoring the plastic bag that took up most of the space, I pulled out a carboard box, filled with dozens of black delicate mushrooms, some large, some small, but collectively taking up more than half the box. The other half was empty as of now, but as I dumped two more, what constituted place-able space was rapidly depleting. Moreover, there was too many now to use to use a date checker in the morning, though I guess my clock could also tell me that so it really wasn''t a concern. Opening the tiny moveable closet on the other side of room, next to a small desk and chair, I was assaulted by an array of bright clothing from when Asahi was my age. Poking through for the longest, least attention-grabbing one I settled for a black long-sleeve shirt with a ribbed turtle neck, possibly making it a pullover, the label didn''t day. Then I matched it alongside a pair of grey jeans, though jeans were normally meant to blue so I had no idea why there was a grey pair lying in my closest. Probably some weird fashion trend Asahi got hooked on, or maybe grey jeans were normal. Pulling on a pair of yellow and green socks patterned to portay many tiny dancing monkeys, I returned to bathroom. After replacing the towel in the cupboard, doubting anyone would use it, I picked up the random cotton balls off the floor and neatly threw them into the trash-bin in the corner. Returning the make-up cleaner to where I saw Asahi take the bottle out from, was easy, and so was congregating the various appliers and cloths she had gotten out this morning. I made sure to retain a clear distinction between the clean and dirty piles and carried out my gloves and clothes. The gloves I placed on a shelf in my room, above my three dictionaries, two Japanese and one English, leaving the uniform beside it and followed the trail of brown and white threads my sister had left behind on her descent.