10. Childish Dreams, Mortal Fears
I put my futon down in the corner next to the big desk in the office, while the girls are staying in the living room.
Apparently Chie does IT for the Demon-Hunter’s guild as a day job and from the size of her modest flat the pay must be decent.
After her and me had cashed in the demon’s heart at the local Guild office—good money, despite the five way split—Haruki decreed that after such a fight we ought to stay together, no splitting up allowed.
Her tone was so serious.
So this adventure ended as an impromptu sleepover at Chie’s place.
The amount of fresh spare futons has me thinking it isn’t the first one of its kind.
I flatten out everything and start crawling under the blanket.
Today felt like the real deal, not oversized bug hunting, more the thing the 'protagonist' was doing in the light novel. Okay maybe still a bit less dramatic, but we don’t have some broken overpowered heirloom… or plot armor for that matter. This could’ve ended in…
No, not going there.
Also ignoring everything that thing said. Or that feeling it gave me, or …
No. Best forgotten and buried.
Mayumi and Haruki looked really rough and even Chie got pummeled pretty badly, thankfully Hotaru was able to help them.
On our train home she explained that her healing magic could do little against a paper cut, or if I scraped my knee, but if the source of the injury was not mundane, even if indirect—like a demon hurling pots and pans at you—she could mend it.
Something about restoring balance by bolstering the body of another with her own mana in just the right places. Same as with her barriers, it looked incredibly intricate.
I hear the door and turn to face it.
Speaking of; Hotaru slinks into the room.
“Can I sit for a bit?”
I sit up and pull my knees to my chest.
Hotaru follows the implied invitation to join me.
She doesn’t say anything so I do.
“So uhm … Mayumi and Haruki are a couple?”
Leaning against the wall Hotaru grins.
“Yes.”
“But I saw Mayumi kissing Chie just now.”
“She is part of it too.”
“Hu?”
“Yes, she isn’t the big romantic type, needs her distance from time to time, but yes she is part of the relationship too. Does that shock you?”
“I mean… I guess I’m not used to it, and it had me confused. Uhm… are you… also…?”
She gives a big smile.
“No. Not my cup of tea.”
“So you’re into guys?”
“No, I’m not into anyone. I like people and I want to see them happy and I like to cuddle, but that’s it. I don’t care for sex or relationships. I don’t feel lonely or as if I’m missing out. You remember the old ladies and how they kept chatting about your future husband and probing for a boyfriend? People did that to me too all the time and when I told them I don’t want any of it, they got this sad look and tried to convince me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And our little group, Chie, Haruki and Mayumi, they don’t do that. They accept me as I am.”
I nod.
“I think I get it.”
Hotaru briefly pets the blanket covering my legs.
“I knew you would Katsumi. I knew you would… You did good today, helped a great deal. Thank you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I hope you now understand why we fight as a team. Nobody can do this alone. You need to lean on others and trust them. We keep each other safe. Otherwise, it ends as it far too often does.”
There's that grim thought again.
But I’m determined, as sobering of an experience as that demon was, I’m going to make it. I will see this through.
I will become A-rank.
And then I will turn myself into a girl and on my way there, I will help Hotaru and Mayumi and Haruki and Chie. I might not be much right now. But Hotaru is right; I helped. If I hadn’t been there keeping the demon occupied, my job would’ve fallen to Haruki and she had been in no condition to fight and without it, Chie wouldn’t have had the opening for the paint or her well placed shot.
Seeking contact again, Hotaru taps my foot.
“Hey Katsumi, why not come back and join us?”
I wrap my arms around my legs.
“No.”
We sit in silence for a moment.
Gnawing on my lower lip, I stare at the blanket.
I know Hotaru is looking at me, I can feel it.
I speak.
“I know what you girls are doing, I’m not stupid. You keep treating me as if I were one of you, a girl. I need you to stop. Please stop doing that.”
“Why?”
“I… it’s like… when you do it, treat me as if I were one of you, I kinda let go and then… and then I get reminded that I’m nothing like you, that I’m just a guy. It becomes so obvious and it feels like the floor drops away and I fall and it hurts.
Like on the train. I get treated differently because I’m not a girl and being forced to see that I’m not actually part of this hurts. So please stop treating me like a girl so it doesn’t hurt.”
I mumble into the fabric, “You can do it later… after I…”
I don’t finish my sentence.
There is a pause.
“Katsumi, if you already had the thing you’re chasing—It’s yours and you’ve used it and everything, would you then join us?”
Besides the light coming through the window and the small desk lamp I turned on, we sit in darkness.
I cradle myself.
“Yes! Yes of course I would. I want to.”
“Then come. Let’s go. I can promise you none of us will ‘remind’ you of anything or treat you differently and to be honest we don’t care about before or after.”
“But I care! Because compared to you, my body is so freaking male and this is just the moronic play pretend of a crossdresser with a wig. So no, I’m not coming out there to have four hot girls remind me of all the things I don’t have. You do get that I’m like, envious? You girls are everything I aspire to be, I want to be like you. I want to be a girl. I hate being a guy! It sucks!”
That feels great to say.
Strangely freeing, need to do that more often.
Gotta remember that.
I look at Hotaru. She seems to be lost in thought. I would have preferred if she left me alone, but I don’t say anything yet.
Finally I have her big eyes on me again.
She has this very serious look on her face.
“I’ll leave—if you promise me one thing Katsumi.”
“Okay?”
“Going forward, every time we do something together as a group you’ll join anyway and try—I’m not saying you can’t retreat when it gets too much, just that you try to stay. We are a team, you know?”
“Okay.”
“And if you keep doing the, what did you call it? Your girl-training, and if you keep taking the medicine, you’ll see that this difference that has you hurting, it will evaporate over time.”
“But none of that will make me a girl.”
“You know what? I agree, it won’t make you a girl, but you’ll grow and I think you don’t really grasp it yet, but your body’s going to change significantly. Just give it some time.”
“Okay.”
I receive one of Hotaru’s signature bright smiles.
She stands and before she is out the door she turns and says,
“Good night Katsu-chan.”
I groan and Hotaru giggles.
■ ■ ■
I stir.
Truthfully I never went to sleep.
The sounds of happy, sleeping girls surrounds me. My favorite sound in all existence.
Returning home had been… emotional. After I finally left that wretched place, I got my first good look at Mayumi and Haruki outside the darkness. I would have tackled them, had they not been covered in ugly bruises. Superficial, Hotaru assured me. She didn't fully heal them then, only enough to walk under their own power. Still, I nearly cried.
I don't cry easily. But seeing them like that… knowing I was that close to losing them was enough. It hit me all at once.
I practically begged them to stay, even called out of work. Luckily, everyone wanted to be together after that clusterfuck. I don't know how I'd be if they hadn't wanted to. Likely much worse. Just because I'm not good with my emotions, doesn't mean they aren't there. They tend to come out of me at the worst possible time. In an explosive manner.
I'm laying between them now. In the nest of blankets and pillows haphazardly constructed in my living room. Haruki is behind me, arm draped over me, and Mayumi to my front, Hotaru behind her.
I trace the outline of Haruki's forearm. A bruise was here, gone now. I nearly do the same to Mayumi's face. Trace the long-gone black eye, erased by Hotaru's magic.
I exhale the rising emotion. I got them back.
I eye Hotaru's rising back.
We got them back. Now, I don't want to ever leave.
But I can't get an idea out of my head.
I rise. Extract myself with delicate slowness from the pile of limbs. My computer is in the next room, my office.
Well, office and… lab?
I dismiss the thought. I'm to exhausted, mentally and spiritually, for semantics. I only have enough focus for one thought. The entire night this… feeling, has bothered me. And like every random idea that pops into my head, if I don't follow it—examine it—I won't sleep.
I sit down, grab my mana reader, and hook it into the nearest port. I pull up the mana level recording feature and export the raw data into a spreadsheet. While the thing is meant to track my mana, it also reads off those around me. Not well, and not as an intended feature. Its calibrated to me, can't accurately give me a percentage of someone's mana like it can for me, but…
It's enough to confirm or deny my nagging thoughts, at least.
I look at the numbers, now in easy to read graph form. (Love graphs, always have.) I have to double-check, then triple-check to be sure. The thing is finicky after all. Junk, Mayumi tells me constantly, but… the numbers never lie. And the story they tell me is…
I glance down at Katsumi, sleeping soundly on a spare futon in the corner of my office.
"Interesting," I murmur under my breath.
Interesting indeed.