Thank.
Fuck.
For.
Coffee.
I don't know who we heard go into the bathroom, but that person was gone by the time I checked the coast was clear. Now Fujimura has led me to a nearby family restaurant that just opened.
Translation: neither of us has been here before.
Translation: neutral ground.
I see what you did there, Fujimura.
People chatter. Dishes clink.
And I—slurrrrp—drink my coffee.
Is it good coffee? No.
Is it good to have coffee? God yes.
The family restaurant is just the perfect amount of busy: quiet enough we can hear each other, loud enough that others can’t.
This will, I’m sure, become very relevant when we say more than two words to each other.
Fujimura sits across from me in an oversized white t-shirt she apparently had on under the hoodie that now sits neatly folded on the booth next to her.
Fujimura herself is silently studying the menu.
No, not skimming.
Like, actuallyreading it.
Like this is a completely normal decision that requires actual thought and not, say, the continuation of the world’s weirdest fever dream.
Not that Fujimura would show up in my dreams.
Obviously.
I take another sip. It’s hot and grounding and refreshingly ordinary.
It also burns my tongue a little bit, which firmly rules out the “fever dream” hypothesis.
Damn it.
Fujimura turns a page of the menu.
Then another.
Then places the menu down entirely.
Takes a sip of her own coffee.
She doesn’t look over at me once, despite not having the menu as cover anymore.
Well, at least I’m not the only one who finds this awkward as fuck.
My eyes drift down to my own menu, more out of obligation than interest. ‘New place’ technically means ‘new menu’, but there’s really only so much variety these places offer, especially when it comes to breakfast options.
I quickly find a kind of omelet that will suit my needs and put my menu down.
Fujimura’s menu is back up.
She pauses for half a second.
Then flips back a page.
Sigh.
Fujimura lowers the menu slightly, eyes still scanning the page.
“Have you decided?” she asks.
“Hmm, I dunno. What’s good here?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve never bee—”
She catches on.
“Oh, ha ha,” she deadpans.
I smirk. “Serves you right for that ‘I’m going back to bed’ stunt back at the house.”
“Okay, that’s fair.” She giggles again—which is still fucking weird—and the look on her face appears… genuinely happy.
Then she remembers something and her face goes awkward again.
What “something”?
Who knows. Too many possibilities to bother guessing.
The server comes by a minute later.
Fujimura orders first.
Omurice. Toast, golden-brown.
Some things never change.
I order my omelet and another coffee.
Which reminds Fujimura that shewould also like another coffee, please and thank you.
Well, look at us, just two peas in a caffeinated pod. Oh, the joys of youth.
Ugh.
The waitress disappears with our menus.
Annnd now things are quiet and awkward and we can’t leave without being thieves.
Awesome.
I look at Fujimura.
She looks back at me.
…
Again with the staring contests.
Sigh.
…
So…
…
Is she not gonna…
Like…
Say anything?
…or…?
…
Hmm…
…
Maybe I should say something?
…
What couldI say, though?
…
Uhhh…
…
Finally, a thought crosses my mind and I chuckle despite myself.
“What?” she asks.
“I was just thinking of how you were all kinds of chatty this morning and now we’re just sitting here.”
She gives a forced laugh and blushes slightly. “Oh. Yeah.”
I give my own little awkward chuckle. “Still not as bad as yesterday, I guess?”
She furrows her brows. “Yesterday?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You were all, like, quiet and withdrawn yesterday.”
“…You mean when I was sedated?”
“Uhhhhh…”
“Yeah.” Her voice is stern but she softens after a second or two.
I give a nervous chuckle.
Right. Of course that’s all it was.
“How are you feeling now?” I ask.
“Well, I’m not sedated, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her tone is more playful this time.
“No! I mean, like… do you feel… different at all?”
“Hmm, ‘different’?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, ‘different’ how?”
“Um, like…”
I try to think for a second but then give up and stare down at my coffee.
“I… I don’t know what I’m trying to ask.”
I don’t hear Fujimura speak right away, and I think maybe the conversation has ended again until I hear the ceramic clink of plates being set onto the table in front of us.
I look up.
Fujimura is saying a polite thank-you to the waitress as she walks away. I missed my chance to do the same, apparently.
Fujimura picks up a piece of toast.
“You mean the whole ‘turning into a girl’ thing?” Bite. Crunch crunch crunch.
“Ugh. Can you not talk with your mouth full, please?”
She chuckles through her half-chewed toast. “What’s wrong? Not ladylike enough?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
I say it without thinking.
She laughs for the second she thinks I’m joking, then sobers up and sets her toast down.
“Look. Sakuragi-kun. My body looks different, yeah, and it really feels weird, but, like,… I’m still me, you know?”
“You but… a girl.”
“Seems so.”
“You seem to be taking this awfully well.”
“I… guess? What kind of reaction should I be having?”
“I don’t know! But you just woke up in a completely different body—doesn’t that bother you?”
She seems to give this serious consideration, actually. “Hmm. It definitely will bother me if it gets in the way of baseball stuff. And I do kind of wish I had a better idea of what’s going on so I can plan better. But besides that… not really? Like I said, I’m still me, you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You… don’t think I’m me? Or you don’t think you’re you? I’m so confused…”
“I’m so confused! I have no idea what any of this means, and you’re just, like, eating breakfast.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know what it means, either. Feels right, though.” Crunch crunch crunch.
I grit my teeth.
I don’t really know what ‘feels right’ means either, but this conversation seems to be going nowhere.
Fujimura has finished off her toast by now and is cutting her first piece of omurice.
“So… is this just it now? You’re gonna live your life as a girl?”
She looks up at me. “Oh god no. Like I said before, no one can know. Honestly, I’m still kind of hoping that this is all temporary and the spell wears off eventually.”
I snort. “‘Spell’? What, like magic?” I wiggle my fingers in the spookiest way I can think of.
She shoots me another deadpan look. “Whatever all this is, it’s not exactly screaming ‘natural occurrence’ to me. So yeah, ‘spell’ is as good a word as any, right?” She shovels the forkful of omurice into her mouth.
“Yeah…”
I take a sip of coffee as I think.
“And… if you don’t change back?”
“Then we’ll figure it out when we get there.”
I snort again. “Right. ‘We’.”
“Mhmmmm. ‘We’.” She sounds entirely too pleased to be saying it.
I finally take a bite of my omelet.
It tastes fine. I’m just… not that hungry right now.