Chapter 51: One Good Eye
Alto blinked repeatedly to make sure he wasn’t seeing things— but he was. He could see her bare back and naked form in full. What shocked him even more was that she wasn’t the only one unclothed— everyone was. For some reason, he could see the light hitting their intangible clothes, which appeared to be invisible. He looked down at his own form to find that he too was naked.
"What the hell is going on here? Have I gone mad from reading too much? Did those books really rot my brain?" Alto was beginning to question his sanity when he noticed the Professor stopping and glaring at him. It was clear she was annoyed by his slothfulness whereas he had another thing on his mind.
Alto found it hard to focus with everything happening around him. As he ran to meet her not wanting to anger her any further, he bumped into people at random moments, catching glimpses of their naked forms and things he was not prepared for— images that burned into his memory. By the time he reached the Professor’s side, he looked bewildered, his heart racing. The Professor took this to mean something entirely different.
"I never took you to be the type who feared public spaces, I always saw you as the clown figure" she said as she entered the mall, not giving him a moment to respond. Alto followed, though not with full attention— his brain felt split into pieces. One part focused on avoiding glancing at the woman he considered a mentor, another struggled not to be distracted by the features of others, and the last tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with him. He wasn’t a pervert, so why was this happening? Clearly, no one else saw what he did which meant that he was indeed the problem.
Alto tried to adapt so he would not seem awkward, but with thousands of people in every direction, it was impossible to concentrate. Before he knew it, they were in a gaming center. The Professor stood before a tabletop with a game display on it.
"Here’s why we’re here," she said enthusiastically. "Right here is the Flash Web game. It was one of my favorites back in the day."
Alberta was slightly annoyed that he didn’t show the same enthusiasm that she had pictured in her mind. She also noticed he’d been distracted for a while now. She stepped in front of him and waved her hand in his face.
Alto was trying to think of a reason— or solution— for his condition when the Professor suddenly moved into view, causing him to see her upper naked half again. He jumped back in shock and stumbled into a young woman who had just returned from outside the gaming centre with a bundle of tickets in hand. He tried to apologize— but did so poorly because of the earnest distraction she offered. The young woman noticed his eyes drift to her chest, which prompted her to lash out and slap him across the face.
Alto swallowed the pain and said nothing as she stormed off. The incident drew only a few curious glances, and those quickly returned to their games.