I, trying-to-have-a-private-phone-conversation-in-public Sakuragi Toji, had really been hoping for a normal day.
“I’m sorry, you need my bathroom specifically?”
“Yeah,” Fujimura says. “Sorry, it’s kinda complicated. Are you still at school?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Also at school!”
“No, you’re not. You didn’t come to school today.”
“Aww did somebody miss me?” she says, and I swear I can hear her stupid smug grin right through the phone.
“I… noticed your absence.”
“You missed me,” she says. “Again, kind of a long story. Just meet me at the back gate, okay? I’ll explain in person.”
“Wait, but—”
“See you soon!”
Click.
…
Heavy fucking sigh.
I slip my phone back into my pocket and step back towards Mizuno-kun and Hina-chan, who have clearly just been gawking this whole time.
“Well, that sounded fun,” Mizuno-kun beams. “You get summoned somewhere?”
I shoot him a glare.
Hina-chan, at least, is more sympathetic. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I just… need to go meet someone.”
“Summoned,” Mizuno-kun stage-whispers.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I snap.
“Nope. Sounds like you do, though.”
Oh, Jesus Christ.
“Can I have a moment alone with my girlfriend, please?”
“Alright,” Mizuno-kun shrugs. “I can take a hint.”
“You really can’t,” I mumble, which earns a glower from Hina-chan.
Finally, Mizuno-kun gives one last laugh as he backs away.
“Have fun with your definitely-normal not-weird mystery meeting!”
“It’s not a mystery meeting!” I call after him, but he’s already disappeared around the corner.
Once he’s gone, Hina-chan turns to me.
“Fujimura again?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Well, you know how I was at the hospital with his family?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there were kind of… complications? And now sometimes he needs my help.”
Her brow furrows. “What kind of complications?”
“I… don’t think he would want me telling you.”
“Hmm, so probably something embarrassing, then. Just sounds a little weird since you’re not a doctor or anything.”
I snort. “‘Weird’ does not begin to describe it.”
“…Okay, well that sounds ominous.”
“Sorry, he’s okay. I just probably shouldn’t say much more without checking with him.”
“And he needs your help with this ‘embarrassing complication’ right now? That’s what the call was about?”
I almost tell her that it’s not like that, but I don’t technically know if the changes are ‘like that’? And I’m definitely notgonna think about it.
“Apparently. He’s probably waiting for me already, actually.”
“And I don’t suppose he’d let me come with you?”
I blink. “…What?”
“For emotional support,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Which… it’s really not.
“I’ll be fine,” I say as nonchanlantly as I can. “He probably wouldn’t want you to see.”
“Hmm, okay, fine. Go to your non-mystery meeting,” she grins, and from her it earns a laugh. “We’re still on for later, though, right?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” She shoots me a smile before kissing my cheek and heading towards the main gate.
The back gate is the most isolated place on campus.
Smokers and stragglers aside, its official purpose is as a thoroughfare connecting the main bike rack inside the gates to the greater world outside.
Apart from a few daily rush hours, though, the gate exists as I find it now.
Empty.
Quiet.
Nothing but the ambient noise from the nearby gym and school field drifting over the fence.
Fujimura is already there, leaning against the fence while her eyes scan the path. She’s wearing the same pants and oversized hoodie as yesterday, which… doesn’t bode well.
But she’s here. She’s alive.
“There you are,” she says, pushing herself off the fence.
“Here I am,” I respond like a super genius. “You said on the phone you want to… use my bathroom?”
“I did! I think I might have figured out a solution to my whole…”
She gestures at herself.
That gets my attention.
“You figured out a way to change back?”
“Nope! But there is a way for me to go back to my daily life, at least! And that is…”
She makes fake drum-roll noises for a few seconds, with arm movements to match.
“…A makeover!”
I blink.
Drag a hand down my face.
That is… significantly less attention-grabbing.
“A…makeover?”
“Exactly! If no one finds out that my body has changed, then nothing has to change! Genius, right?”
Well, ‘genius’ is a bit much, but…
…she’s not… wrong.
My stomach sinks a bit.
I can see where this is going.
“Okay… and this involves my bathroom how? Why don’t you just go to a… professional… makeover place?”
“...A salon?” she grins.
“Sure.”
“Right.” She rolls her eyes. “Let me just walk into a salon in a town where everyone knows my mom and sister, pay for an appointment with money I don’t have, and ask the hair stylist—in front of all the other patrons—to make me look like this one very specific boy.”
“…Okay, fair.”
Fujimura 1. Sakuragi 0.
I can almost hear Mizuno-kun in my head.
From the look of Fujimura’s smirk, she can too.
“Yeah, salon is probably out,” she confirms.
“So… you want… me to do it?” I say.
And Fujimura bursts out laughing.
Like, doubling-over, tears-in-her-eyes, might-fall-over-and-hit-her-head-on-the-concrete laughter.
Which is… kinda rude.
“Sorry! Sorry! I don’t mean to laugh,” she says. “No, I’m not asking you to do it. I have a friend who’s, let’s say, a bit more experienced with makeover stuff than you are.”
“…A friend?”
“Yep! So we just have to cut my hair and then dye it and—”
“I thought you didn’t have any friends.”
“Hm?”
“On Sunday. We were brainstorming people who could take you in for the night and you said you had nowhere to go.”
“I said I didn’t have any friends from school,” she says. “This friend isn’t from school.”
“No…” I say, trying to keep the rising anger from my voice. “The topic was ‘places for you to sleep at night’. If it was a place you could sleep, then it should have been on the table.”
“I didn’t think he was on the table yet!”
“Why not? Does he, like, live far away or something?”
“…No.”
She doesn’t meet my eyes, and—
Wait.
Don’t tell me…
“Fujimura?”
“…Yeah?”
“Where did you sleep last night?”
“Uhhhh…”
“Was it at this friend’s house, by any chance?”
“… … … Maybe.”
“Fucking hell, Fujimura.”
A passerby looks our way, and she starts leading me by the arm further into campus. I have a half a mind to smack her hand away, but she’s not wrong: this conversation needs privacy.
Once we’re far enough in, apparently, she turns back to me.
“You’re right!” she stage-whispers. “I’m sorry, you’re right, I see your point, and I should have brought him up. He’s my kouhai from middle school—different school, different schedule. I wasn’t going to drag him into this unless I had to.”
“You didn’t have that problem with me.”
“That’s not the same! You’re in my class. You’re… relevant.”
“Flattered.”
“It’s true!”
“Uh-huh. And now you want this ‘irrelevant friend’ to disguise you as… you?”
“Um… yes?”
She gives her best attempt at a convincing smile.
“At my apartment?”
“Yep.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I say. “Why not at your friend’s place?”
“Big family. Doubt they want me monopolizing their bathroom for a couple hours.”
“I’m sorry, did you say ‘hours’?”
“That’s how long it takes!”
“Ugh. And that length of time rules out using a public bathroom, too.”
“Exactly,” she says.
I keep trying to think of somewhere else they could possibly do this, but her face darkens before I can think of anything.
“Why are you so opposed to me coming over?” she asks. “It’s like yesterday all over again.”
“Yeah, it kind of is like yesterday. You asking to come to my apartment again?”
“Yeah, but to use your bathroom! Just in and out. No bedrooms involved.”
“In and hours and out.”
“Exactly! Luckily I happen to know for a fact that your mom has baseball practice late tonight. So we have hours—it’s perfect!”
It is perfect, unfortunately.
“Let’s say for the sake of argument that I do agree.”
Fujimura brightens.
“We still have to talk about Hina-chan.”
Aaaand back to dark.
“She can’t know,” Fujimura says.
“Why not?”
“…Why not what?”
“Why can’t she know?”
“No one can know!”
“Your friend knows.”
“Yes, but again: he goes to a different school. Sasaki-san goes to our school.”
“I don’t see why that matters.”
“It matters because people know me here, which makes it easier for rumors to spread.”
“Does it?”
“Think about it, Sakuragi! Who do people gossip more about: people they know or total strangers?”
“When the gossip in question is ‘they magically turned into a girl’, I really don’t think it makes that much of a difference.”
“Which is why I wasn’t gonna tell anyone!”
“But you told your friend.”
“I trust my friend!”
“And I trustHina-chan!”
The two of us fall silent for a moment.
The dim sound of students cheering can be heard in the background.
“…I don’t know her,” Fujimura says finally.
“Well, I do. And it’s my bathroom, so.”
She exhales a heavy sigh through her nose.
“…Fine,” she spits. “We can come up with some kind of cover story for you. How much does she already know?”
“Weeeell…”
“Sakuragi.”
“Nothing crazy!” I say. “Just that after the hospital there were… complications. And that sometimes you need my help.”
“…You told her about the hospital?”
“Yeah, I texted her from the waiting room.”
“She knows you were at the hospital?!”
Fujimura wipes both hands over her face.
“Whyyyyy, Sakuragi, whyyyyy.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t plan ahead for all the forcefem super-spy bullshit!”
A tired smile breaks through her panic for a sec.
“‘Forcefem’?” she chuckles. “Where’d you even hear a phrase like that?”
“Shut up, that’s where.”
She chuckles again.
My cheeks feel hot.
“Okay, look, we’re getting off track,” I say. “The point is, I have a date with her later, and she already knows something is up. I’m not saying I want to tell her everything, but there’s only so much I can keep her in the dark, especially if I keep getting weird phone calls and vanishing.”
Fujimura’s face turns serious again, and she thinks for a couple seconds.
“…Fine,” she says eventually. “I guess you can say that much. That I need your help.”
“…That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“That sounds suspicious as hell.”
“Everythingaboutthis is suspicious as hell.”
I laugh, and she laughs too, and I am… so fucking tired.
We fall silent again, but it’s a quieter silence this time—the kind where you hear the wind in the trees, not the blood in your ears.
I rub my temples.
“You realize how much I hate this.”
“I know.”
“And yet… you came to me anyway.”
“…I did.”
“…Even after yesterday?”
“…Yeah.”
Ugghhh fuck.
“…Fine,” I mutter finally.
Her head snaps up. “‘Fine’?”
“Fine!” I yell. “You can use my bathroom. But.” I count them off on my fingers. “You clean everything afterwards.I’m talking spotless.You don’t touch anything else. And don’t make me late for my date.”
I emphasize the last one with a sharp point, but Fujimura doesn’t care. She’s already throwing her arms around me and hugging me.
“Yay! Yay! Yay! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.”
“Last condition: don’t make me regret this,” I grunt out as I pry her off me.
She remains unfazed.
“I won’t!” she beams, bouncing on her heels like she’s trying to get as dizzy as I am.
I really need coffee.
“…Yeah,” I say. “Do you need to, like, call your friend?”
“Oh! Yes! AKIRA-KUN!!!!”
She cups her hands around her mouth and fucking screams it, which—besides deafening me—makes me freeze in a flinch pose.
A second passes, during which she looks.
Then she remembers and turns us back towards the gate.
There’s a boy walking towards us at a leisurely pace. I recognize his uniform as being that of the local middle school, but he honestly doesn’t look much younger than Fujimura or me. In his hand, he holds a bag full to the brim of brightly-colored boxes and bottles.
He walks up.
I stare at him.
He stares at me.
I stare at the bag.
Then at Fujimura.
Then back at him.
Then…
“Wait…has he been here the whole time?!”