I had my eyes were closed. I tried to shut them so tight that there wasn’t any light entering them, which was about as useful as lighting a match next to the sun, because I turned the lights off before I got under the covers.
I could not get myself to sleep, which is really difficult because of how insanely tired I was. It was confusing, as one would think that when one is ridiculously tired, one would go to sleep instantly. Not. The Case.
I shifted underneath the covers, and a shudder went up my body as my exposed legs brushed against the comforter. Goosebumps began to form on them, and I was not so suddenly regretting my decision to not get changed into pajamas. It was quite foolish to attempt to sleep in a seifuku and it was really making itself prevalent. Aside from my very exposed legs, there was also the problem of my equally exposed panties and the requirement that I had to pull my skirt down every time I moved to keep them ever so slightly. -cue pulling my skirt down- Also, the uniform shirt I was wearing really got uncomfortable due to how coarse it was in comparison to normal clothing, and the pajama option got more and more attractive by the moment.
I raised an arm out of the sheets to gauge the temperature. It would be easier to fall asleep in pajamas, but getting out of the bed and standing up would wake me up a little bit. But maybe the extra exercise would help me sleep-
I came to the wonderful conclusion that of all things in this life I could be having mental arguments about, this was by far the stupidest option.
I slipped the skirt off (after a good thirty seconds of fumbling with the zipper) and tossed it onto the floor, plainly showing off my mothers incredibly need to keep tidy that she so graciously passed on to me. Then I removed my shirt and it too joined the skirt on the floor.
I was now clad in only a pair of panties and a bra, and I discovered the fault of wearing a bra while trying to sleep. I did not know if girls normally slept with their bras on, but if any did, it is far beyond me to imagine how they do. I considered taking off said bra and trying to go to sleep like that, but I doubt that my still male thoughts could bear the toplessness, as it was bad enough in the underwear.
While debating this over in my head, I made the horrible mistake of letting my thoughts drift off to other topics, case in point, I started thinking about my classmates. This is the worst thing you can possibly do while trying to go to sleep, but alas, my mind was on my classmates, and there was no way I could reject those thoughts from my mind.
Except maybe there was one way.
If I completely separated myself from them, from these fictional people, then I could wait it out until the world returned to normal. I refused to accept that this was reality, for I know in the real world I am not a girl, and that this place does not exist!
With that in my mind, I fell asleep, knowing that I was real, and they were not.
___________________________________________________________________
-Six Weeks Later-
Despite all of the complaints I have with this world, and mind you, I have a lot of them, there are not that many changes from the real world that are noticeably present. The sun rose from the east and set in the west. I was some in Japan, so logically everyone I met spoke Japanese. The sky was blue and the grass was green, and I was still horrible at school. All in all, not a lot of differences.
When a person is given a second chance, they are usually A) very grateful, or B) annoyed at whoever thought that they needed a second chance because those idiots were so wrong and yes I am doing just fine thank you very much. What doesn’t happen (Unless this second chance involves rehab, which almost never works if my mother’s alcoholism is any indication) is the person not only ignoring the gracious second chance, but actually getting worse. This was my path. Instead of taking advantage of the free time and lack of family debt I had, I did what I have always done, sleep in class, and stay up late. Except now I had no good reason for staying up late, and I would lay in bed awake for hours without accomplishing anything. In all fairness, there are a few good reasons for this. As a girl, the physical work that I had been accustomed to was not possible in the slightest, and I had taken a very brief glance at what girls typically had for jobs nowadays, and I was put off almost instantly.
There other reason… wasn’t so simple. In the real world, I had a nonexistent social life, and in this world, it was not much better. I had school friends. Akane and Aki are the best examples of this, but I didn’t truly become the friend that they had hoped for, as I could not bring myself to try to enjoy this life to much. Also, Minoru, though, like Aki and Akane, I never spoke to him outside of school. I had even become friends with Kenta! (sort of) Aside from my lack of productivity and a very different body that I did not like in the slightest, it was not that much different from my old life, and for some reason, that made me feel a slight bit empty. It is ridiculous I know, but I knew that I was missing out on something, like that feeling when you learn that the person passing out fliers on the street that told you how to make money instantly wasn’t a hoax and was actually real.
But there was this… laziness, that infected me ever since the first night I got here. It was a cross of the feeling of losing a horrible burden, combined with a loss of what to do. I just lay in my bed, unaware of what this world is truly capable of. Why? Because I wanted my old life back, I wanted to be a guy again, but over time, it became harder to want that. I slowly questioned my desire to return to reality. I mean, aside from being a girl, this life was actually better, but accepting that would make me lose my mother, my father, my sister, and most importantly, my manhood. It wasn’t worth it, was it?
Well all of that soon became pointless when I awoke from my slumber of what should have been the 43 day of this life. When I did wake up, I was not lying on a bed, for there was no bed, and more so, I was standing up! I was also naked, but that was undermined by what I saw.
Numbers. Nothing but white strings of numbers flying past my at rocket speed. At closer inspection, I noticed that there were letters in there as well, though nothing past F in the alphabet appeared. It was a mesmerizing sight, and I knew if something didn’t happen soon, I could be caught looking at them for forever. Thankfully, something did happen, or rather, someone happened. Unfortunately, it was the one person I did not want to see; Myself.
Strike that, it was Michiko (the bastardization of my name that this universe has adopted). But if she was there, then I was…
I glanced down at my body, and to my infinite pleasure, it was male again! I would have started cheering in happiness, if I was not wherever I currently was.
The fully seifuku clothed Michiko then started to speak, and I honed in on what she was saying in order to keep my focus on something other than the strings of numbers.
“I see you chose the path of rejection. Tsk tsk.” She admonished me. “You chose quite poorly, though I am happy you didn’t go all the way and choose the Suicide Path, as the Bad Ending is a horrible first impression for a newbie.”
I had not idea what she was talking about, but I got the bit about the Suicide Path, and that did not sound good. Of course, since I figured that of all times, now was a pretty good time to understand everything that some was telling me.
“What are you talking about?!” I asked/demanded of the pink haired schoolgirl. If she heard me, she did not react or respond. Instead, she carried on with little pause.
“I thought that a hard worker like you would take effort to explore your capacity here, but I suppose that everyone needs a break, and one such as yourself is quite unaccustomed to a pure pleasure mode.” She looked away for a moment before returning to her monologue. “What I would like to know is, why did you not capitalize on your situation?”
Since it was clear that she wanted me to respond now, I took it upon myself to ‘capitalize’ on some free venting time.
“Why?! Why am I here, in this world, in this life, in this body?! What did you expect someone plucked from their own world and thrown into another to do? It isn’t like I asked for this, I just touched a game and before I know it, I look like-” I cut myself off to gesture at Michiko. “You! So before you go asking me questions, tell me why the hell I’m here!”
Michiko looked contemplative for a few moments before answering.
“Why not?” I blinked a bit in confusion.
“That isn’t a answer, that is just the thing a child would say when he is caught doing something he shouldn’t.” I countered.
“Not all questions have answers, just like how causes don’t have reactions. But this is an answer. And this is a question, why shouldn’t you be here?” She cross-countered.
I was stumped. Not by the difficulty of her answer, but by how she acted while spouting such bullshit. My temper rose in correlation to my confusion. I was about to respond with something witty, but Michiko spoke before I could.
“This was a chance, Michio, and for some reason, you decided to completely ignore it. Maybe you should stop wondering about why things happen and just take things as they come. To quote quite a large number of people, ‘Go with the flow’, if you will.”
“But-” was all I could say preceding me forgetting the witty thing I was going to say. So I settle with something else. “How?” Michiko raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know how a vacuum cleaner works? Not truly, I bet. But you know how to use one, don’t you? It is the same for a lot of things in life. If you don’t know what it is, it might as well be magic for all you care. Just wave your hands and speak some incantations, or turn a few knobs and press a few buttons; what is the difference? In the end, you still don’t know how to take the vacuum cleaner apart and rebuild it from scratch. Yet you are fine with this. You don’t spend hours upon hours to find out how the vacuum cleaner works, or more complicatedly, how the universe itself works, but it doesn’t bother you in the slightest, living in blissful ignorance. Before you ask me anything else, answer me this: Why can’t you have your blissful ignorance now?”
Even if I could think of some clever comeback or words to throw back at her, I couldn’t- no, wouldn’t be able to use them against her. There was something in her speech that prevented me from saying anything, and before I could think of something, I felt salty water trickle down my cheeks. I lifted my left hand to double check. Yes, I was crying, but I couldn’t fathom why. Then it struck me, and I knew the true answer to her question. That answer brought more tears to my eyes, and soon I was sobbing. Oddly enough, Michiko did not stop me and demand an answer from me. She just patiently waited for me to finish. I didn’t stop crying, but it lessened enough that I could answer her.
“I don’t know.” And even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was smiling.
“And that is not a sin.” Michiko appeared in front of me and gave me a comforting hug. My sobs grew, and I was ashamed at my behavior. “I have an idea.”
“W-what is that?” I asked.
“Try again. Try as many times as you like. There is no penalty for failing, as long as you try, and try, and try again.” She told me with a soothing tone. I nodded and wiped the tears from my eyes.
“How do I try again?” I asked, hoping that she wasn’t lying. Michiko looked back at the numbers that kept speeding by at incredible speeds. And then they stopped. All of the moving strings of white numbers and letters just stopped moving. And then they picked up the way they left off, but backwards. No, they were getting pulled into Michiko. Millions- no, billions, of the white strings zoomed past me and back into her. Then the numbers were gone, and all that was here was me, Michiko, and a tiny white glow surrounding her, all in an infinitely black space.
With Michiko as the epicenter, there was a huge explosion of pure white. It filled my vision so I couldn’t see anything, not even her. And then as my consciousness left my body, I felt the world shift from the emptiness of black, to the completeness of white, to the actuality of a physical world.
________________________________________________________________________________
My eyes snapped open. There was no girl. There was no nothingness; as a ceiling definitely counts as something. I bolted out of bed, and automatically went to a mirror that I knew would be there. Standing there, in all of my glory, was myself, back in her body. Tears sprung to my eyes quicker than I’d like to admit, but still, I looked at my girlself, at myself, and at the infinite possibilities that this world had to offer. The face in my mirror grew a melancholic smile that seemed to reveal that it knew something the world didn’t.
No, thats not true. If this was a game, then by design there were limits. But if that is the case, then it was my duty as someone who let too many opportunities by to explore the possibilities of this life.
And now began my infinite explorations of a finite life.
Next Chapter
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