On Monday I went to school, just like I usually did. The only differences were that I had the magical girl pendant around my neck with the dragon, and both Yami and Hikari insisted on coming with me. They rode on my shoulders, just as they had when I went to breakfast the day before, and nothing I said could make either of them go away. Once that became evident, I started worrying that someone at school might be able to see them. I wasn't sure what I could say if someone asked me about the two little people sitting on my shoulders.
Hikari took seeing Steve for the first time much better than Yami had. He didn't seem surprised by Steve, who was wearing tight black vinyl pants and a ruffled white shirt that day. He actually seemed to like him, though he didn't look happy to see Yami scowling when Steve walked up to greet me that morning.
No one seemed to notice Yami and Hikari as I walked through the hall, which made me feel a lot more comfortable about having them there. Despite feeling a little less worried, I kept expecting someone to stop me in the hall and ask my why I had dolls on my shoulders. Or, if not that, I expected to get a lot of weird looks. But I didn't; everyone acted just like the normally did. I felt different, but I couldn't tell if it was just because I was so self-conscious at the time, or because I actually was different.
I really was not in the mood for school that day. Despite getting a very full night's sleep, in addition to the huge amount of sleep from the day before, I was still more or less exhausted. By that time, I was hoping that near exhaustion wouldn't be an everyday feeling now that I was a magical girl. Hikari assured me that it wouldn't, but I wasn't quite sure that I believed him. Anyway, he didn't know about my plan to turn into a girl and confess my attraction to Scott.
That would be the other reason that I didn't want to be at school that day. I was too excited about my plan. I couldn't wait for the day to end, because I knew that Scott would be at school late that day. He had the dress rehearsal for the fall play, in which he had the male lead, so he would be there until five o'clock that day. That would give me the chance to change into girl form, even though it would make me tired, put some normal clothing instead of a fuku on, and slip into the auditorium to watch them practice. Then, if someone asked me what I was doing there, I could say truthfully that I was watching Scott. But first I had to make it through the day.
I honestly do not remember most of that school day. I'm sure I learned things, and I'm sure I performed up to expectations in my classes, but the only things I can remember are the constant stream of "Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott..." going through my head at every single point and Hikari's frequent questions about something I was doing. He was trained as a helper for a magical girl, and thus had been expecting Japanese schools, not American ones, so I had an almost constant stream of questions directed at me throughout the day, and I had to try to answer them without catching the attention of the rest of the people in the room when I answered them. I eventually resorted to writing down the answers in Japanese. That way no one around me would be able to read my responses, and hopefully they would all assume I was just taking notes in a language that I was more familiar with.
I don't even remember what most of the questions he asked me were. I figured out several of them later by looking at my "notes," but a few of the things Hikari learned from me that day were just completely lost to me. Actually, I don't really remember much of anything until after school that day. But, the moment the final bell signaling the end of eighth hour rings in my memories everything becomes clear.
I got out of the school building as fast as I possibly could when I heard the bell. Instead of waiting for my advanced biology teacher to trail off in the middle of the sentence, shrug, and wave for us to go like he always did, I raced out of the room without a second thought. This earned me a shout from Steve, who wasn't about to skip out on the tail end of the class, even though he knew that the teacher wasn't going to cover anything else, but no one actually stopped me. Instead, I managed to rush to my locker and then out of the building without a single person getting in my way, and even without having to rudely push anyone aside. I even managed to lose Yami and Hikari in my rush, which helped my desire to go through with my plan without involving them.
Then, once I was safely away from the building, I looked around for the nearest convenient place to transform. I had grabbed an extra set of clothes, something that wouldn't look too out of place on a girl, just before leaving the house that morning. It had earned me some strange looks from Yami and Hikari, but I had ignored them. I already knew that the clothing I was wearing would turn into the fuku, or maybe just disappear, when I transformed, so I had something that wasn't a fuku with me as well. Then I transformed.
The transformation was no less disorienting the second time than it had been the first time I went through it. Actually, it was a little worse, and that made me wonder, for the first time, how other magical girls managed to fight right away after transforming in real life. The only thing I could come up with to explain it was that it got better with practice, or that I was just weird. Still, it left me dizzy, and very, very tired.
I had been tired before I transformed. Turning into a girl again left me feeling like I was about to collapse. I had to brace myself against the wall I was hiding behind, just to keep from falling over and flashing anyone who might happen to walk by. For the first time, but certainly not for the last, I cursed the short skirt of the fuku that came with my magical girl form. I could feel a draft, and left me terrified that I would end up giving half the world panty shots, like you could see in several animes.
Now that I was in girl form, I hurried toward the nearest place that had a bathroom. I had transformed in a back alley where no one was around to see me, but I wasn't about to strip off the fuku and put on some slightly more normal clothing in the middle of a public place, no matter how deserted it looked. Thus, I ended up in a fast food restaurant, almost going into the men's bathroom, despite my quite not-male state. Luckily, I caught myself in time.
Five minutes later, I emerged from the women's bathroom in that restaurant, fuku in my backpack and oddly fitting guy's clothes on my strange female body. There had been problems, but nothing I could remedy without a shopping trip. The fuku seemed to have a built in bra, but nothing that I could separate from the top of the uniform. It didn't bother me at first, but after I put the t-shirt on and thought about it a little it made me feel extremely self-conscious, letting the breasts that I still had a hard time accepting were mine hang loose under the shirt. In addition, the zipper on the skirt just didn't want to come loose, and the jeans I had grabbed from my room were just a little tight around my changed hips.
I forced myself to ignore the self-conscious little voice that was telling me that I was going to make a fool of myself by going back to school and talking to Scott. That same voice was convinced that I looked awful in my normal clothing and new body, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to see my reflection to ascertain whether that was true or not. I was afraid that I would agree with the voice if I did. Instead, I just started walking back toward school and tried not to think about how nervous I was.
I stuck to the plan when I got back to school and made my way into the theater to watch the rehearsal. I found when I got there that I wasn't the only one watching them rehearse. There were quite a few people, siblings, friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends of the other cast members there, though only one or two of them looked even slightly interested in what was going on up on the stage. It made me wonder why they didn't just go somewhere else until the end of rehearsal if they didn't want to watch it. I suspected that they were being forced to watch.
As I sat there and watched the rehearsal, I started to feel two completely opposite ways about what I was doing there. Part of me was glad I came, since no one had gotten suspicious of me, even though I had the feeling that every single person who saw me would somehow realize who I was. Also, as I watched more of the rehearsal, I got to see just how good of an actor Scott was.
But, at the same time, I was starting to feel more and more nervous. After all, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was going to recognize me. As glad as I was that I had come, I was also tempted to bolt from the theater before the rehearsal ended. That feeling only grew when they reached the climax of the play, and then the teary reunion of the lovers, including a tender kiss that I could clearly see they weren't faking. It didn't help that Amanda, Scott's character's love, was beautiful, and I was still terrified that I looked horrid in my not-quite right clothing.
I almost ran, but by the time the terrified half of my brain could convince me that I wanted to, the rehearsal was over and the actors had started heading back to the dressing rooms to change into normal clothing. I would have bolted then, because all of the courage I thought I had earlier had disappeared with the knowledge that I was going to have to act soon, but before I could get up I found myself being dragged into things as one of the other members of the audience, Amanda's younger sister, I think, approached me.
"Hi!" she said brightly as she sat down in the seat next to me. "I've never seen you around here before."
"I..." I stammered, not quite sure what to say to her. "I...I don't go to this school."
"Oh," she said. "So, are you actually interested in the play, or are you just here to goggle at one of the cute guys?" I felt my face get warm, and she laughed. "Guy it is. I won't bother to ask which one, since that would be pretty rude of me, considering we just met."
That caused a wave of relief to wash over me. I had been terrified that she would ask that question, since she didn't seem like a bad person, if a little nosy. I would have felt bad if I had refused to answer her question, but at the same time I would have been too embarrassed to answer it. If I had tried, I would have ended up just spouting gibberish, if anything.
Then she smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. When she pulled it away, she was grinning in a slightly apologetic manner. "I can't believe I forgot to introduce myself!" she exclaimed, sounding sheepish. "I'm Jessie. My big sister, Amanda, plays the main female slut...I mean, character. What's your name?"
I almost panicked, again, right then and there, when I realized that with all of my planning for this, I had completely forgotten to decide what to call my female self. I certainly couldn't tell Jessie my name was Sol, even though technically that was my name when I was transformed. And while I could use either Rei or Dana without it being completely inappropriate for my gender while transformed, I didn't want to remind anyone of my male self any more than a red haired person with a Japanese accent already did, so they were both out. And that left me with no ideas, so I used the first thing that came to mind.
Unfortunately, the first thing that came to mind was another Japanese speaking red haired female, one from an anime. Of course, besides the common hair color and language (and gender while I was transformed), we had nothing in common, but Asuka was still the first person to come to mind. Yes, Sohryu Asuka Langley from Neon Genesis Evangelion... As it was the first female name that wasn't Rei or Dana to come to mind, I grabbed the name, and it was out of my mouth before I could realize that I really didn't want to compare myself to that Asuka.
"Asuka," I said.
"It's nice to meet you, Asuka," she said. "Anyway, now that that's done with... on to the reason I came over here in the first place. I was wondering...is that your natural hair color?"
I know more than a few people who would have taken mortal offense at that question. Of course, most of them have hair that is most definitely not their natural hair color, which is probably why it bothers them so much when people figure it out. The question didn't bother me, though, except that it was definitely not what I was expecting to hear. I was still convinced that someone was going to recognize me as Dana, despite the two lumps of flesh that came with my female form, and I had been sure that she was about to ask me if I was Dana Kanata in drag from the word "reason" on.
Because of that, it took me a good half a minute to actually respond to her question. I just blinked at her, in shock, until then. Then... "Oh, yes!" I said. "It's my natural hair color. Why do you ask?"
"Damn..." she muttered, then she smiled at me again when I gave her a look of complete confusion. "Oh, I was just hoping that it was a dye job. You see, I absolutely adore the color of your hair. There's a guy at this school with the exact same hair color, and I was kinda hoping that you both dye it, so that I might be able to find the dye that you use and try to get the same color for my hair."
I almost panicked, because I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that the guy she was talking about was me. But, then I realized that she hadn't thought I was him, so I was "safe." Instead, I smiled back at her. "I'm sorry I couldn't help."
"Nah, it's fine," she said. "I just had my hopes up, that's all." Then she glanced over at the auditorium doors, where some of the actors were starting to enter, having finished changing into their normal clothing. I saw Amanda heading over towards us. The look on her face said that she wanted nothing more than to get far away from the school as fast as possible.
"There's my sister," Jessie said quickly. "I gotta go if I don't want to be stranded here. It was nice meeting you, 'bye!"
"Goodbye."
Just about then is when I saw Scott pass the open doors to the auditorium. He didn't come inside, which made me pretty sure that no one there was actually waiting for him. But, that also meant that he was probably leaving, so if I didn't hurry I wouldn't get a chance to talk to him, and make the confession I was supposed to be making. Basically, it was my last chance to back out, and all I would have to do was sit there a little longer and let him leave. Instead, I stood up hurriedly and ran out to follow him.
I didn't call out to him as I ran after him (and found out one rather important reason for the wearing of a bra, as having my breasts bounce up and down as I ran was quite painful), but he still turned back to see who was following him. When I saw this, I slowed down, panting and out of breath, but only a little. He stared at me for a moment as I caught my breath, and frowned, but not in an angry way. It was more of a thoughtful frown, which made that still terrified part of my brain even more nervous than it had been earlier.
"Do I know you?" he asked me.
I shook my head frantically, but that only caused him to frown a little more. "No!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly. Then, I swallowed quickly and forced myself to lower my voice. "I...eto... I...I've been watching you for a while, and...ah..." I trailed off for a moment, and then took a deep breath and blurted it out before that scared voice in my brain could make me run away in panic. "Ireallylikeyou!"
Silence fell over the hallway where we stood for a few moments. Even the girl who had just turned into the hallway froze in place and got quiet. I felt my face growing warm, which made me sure that it was a brighter shade of red than it had ever been before. Scott didn't say anything; he just stared at me. Then, when I was about to give in to the terrified part of me (again), he started laughing.
I started to run, but I didn't even get more than a few steps away from him before he called to me, "Wait!" When I didn't even turn around to look at him again, he sprinted forward and grabbed me by the wrist. This had the rather embarrassing effect of not only stopping me from running any farther, but causing me to lose my balance and fall forward. For a few moments, the only thing keeping me from falling flat on my face was his hold on my wrist, until he reached around my waist with his other arm and helped me stand up again.
As soon as he had let go of me, I whirled around to face him. To be completely honest, I would never have done what I did next normally. I think my transformed state had some effect on my actions, making me act a little more like a normal girl, because otherwise I probably would have either run away again, or punched him out. Instead, I started yelling at him.
"You laughed at me!" I snarled. My face felt like it was burning up, and I swore I could feel a bit of wetness in my eyes, like I was just on the edge of crying. "Do you now expect me to wait and listen while you embarrass me again?"
"It's not like that," he said, sounding a little embarrassed himself. "I wasn't laughing at you."
"Who were you laughing at, then?" I asked.
"Nobody. I was laughing at the situation. See, I thought I'd experienced every single kind of confession there could possibly be... But this is the first time I've had a girl who I just saw for the first time in my life declare her love for me. You just surprised me, and I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings."
He looked serious, and I wanted to believe him, so I did. I took a deep breath, swallowed, nervously, and tried to smile at him. I don't think my attempt to look like I hadn't been bothered was very convincing, but at least he took it as what it was supposed to be, a sign that I had forgiven him for laughing at me. He smiled back.
"Now, since I have absolutely no idea who you are, why don't you humor me and pretend that you have absolutely no idea who I am," he said. "That way we can introduce ourselves, and I won't feel quite so left out. I'll even start." He stuck out his hand in greeting. "Hi, my name is Scott. What's your name?"
"Asuka," I said, grateful that I actually remembered the name I had given myself. I took his hand and shook it briefly, and my face grew red again as I felt how warm his hand was. Right about then, I noticed that my hand seemed quite a bit smaller in my transformed state than it usually was. Either that, or I had just never realized how big Scott's hands were.
"It's nice to meet you Asuka," he said, still smiling. "Now, I make it a habit never to tell someone I like them until I know more than just their name, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. But, since you haven't tried to kill me yet, I'm not going to flat out refuse you either. What do you say we get to know each other a little bit before I make up my mind about you?"
The terrified voice in my head more or less died right then. I couldn't tell if it was still there, because the triumphant crowing of my lust drowned out pretty much every other thought in my head. Of course, I realized that he hadn't given me any kind of a positive answer, but at least he was willing to give me a try and get to know me. He hadn't completely ruled out the possibility of romance between us, and that was much more of a chance than I had expected until just recently.
"I'd like that," I said.
"Well then, I have a performance in...about an hour now," he said. "I was just on my way to get some dinner before that. Wanna join me while I eat and talk, so I can find something out about you and not feel left out?"
I nodded vigorously, and the ecstatic crowing in my head just continued. He then started leading me down the hallway, toward the exit and the parking lot, where his car waited for us. I followed him automatically, my brain in a sort of happy fog and not really noticing anything, even the girl who had frozen in place when I first made my confession and had finally decided it was safe to move again.
I almost didn't notice Yami when he finally spotted me. I was too happy, and noticing Yami heading towards me would ruin it all, considering that he looked more than angry. Unfortunately for my happiness, I did notice him, just before he collided with me hard enough that he sent me staggering back a step or two. Then, before I could mutter at him to go away and leave me alone, he started yelling.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted at me as he positioned himself level with my eyes. "You can't parade around transformed like this for no reason! Do you know how dangerous it is? Not to mention the fact that you're a big shining beacon of magical energy to anyone with even a little bit of magical ability! You might as well just hang a sign on your back saying "I'm an untrained magical girl; come and get me!" Are you stupid or something?"
I had to do with just glaring at him, since I couldn't answer him without making Scott think I was weird. It was bad enough that he was already giving me a concerned look after my stagger. Talking to someone who he couldn't see, especially about the things I wanted to say to Yami, would look very bad. Yami glared back at me, but he had a smug look on his face.
"Are you okay?" Scott asked me.
"I'm fine," I said, as I made the decision to just ignore Yami as best I could and try to enjoy letting Scott get to know the female me. "I just tripped."
Yami glared at me some more, but I refused to look at him and just started walking again. Then, he growled. "Oh no you don't!" he exclaimed, and he grabbed the end of my braid and pulled.
He was surprisingly strong for a tiny flying person who should have absolutely no purchase whatsoever because he was in the middle of the air. It hurt when he pulled my braid, enough that I had to stifle a yelp. It also made me stop in my tracks, and earned me another strange look from Scott.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked me.
"I ah..." I said, rubbing the back of my head, where it felt like I had lost more than a few hairs. "I'm...not feeling very good. I have to go... I'm really, really sorry about this!" Then I grabbed Yami by a wing, not caring if I damaged something or not, and made a mad dash for the door.
I'm not quite sure how I did it, but I managed to get out the doors and so far away from him that he lost track of where I was, even though he ran to follow me. I'm not sure why he followed me, though; maybe he thought I was actually sick and shouldn't be going home alone. Or maybe he just thought I was crazy. Whatever his reason, I hid from him well enough that he gave up looking for me after a few moments.
As soon as he was gone I looked for the nearest place where I could hide better, somewhere where I could yell at Yami without letting everybody within a few kilometers of me know that I was there. Since I couldn't find a place like that, I settled for the next best thing, a deserted guy's bathroom inside the school. I made sure no one was looking and then went in and shut myself in a stall. Then I transformed back to my regular, male, self. And then I let Yami go and attempted to focus my "best" glare on him. We both started yelling at the exact same time.
"Why did you do that?" I exclaimed.
"What in the world do you think you were doing?" he screamed.
We both paused then, as each of us expected the other to answer us before we answered. "You answer me first," I said, glaring at him some more for good measure.
He glared, but then he started talking, sounding just as angry as before, but not quite as loud. "What do you mean, why?" he asked. "You were being a colossal idiot. I was just trying to make it so you live to see your next birthday. Do you think this is all a game or something?"
"Of course I don't!"
"Then stop acting like it is one! You can't just transform whenever you want to. You may not have an enemy right now, but that doesn't mean you never will. And if you keep doing things like what I just caught you doing, you're going to be too damned tired to fight if an enemy does show up. Hikari says you chose to be a magical girl, so why don't you grow up a little and start acting like one!"
"If you hadn't noticed, I'm not your average magical girl," I said through clenched teeth.
He snorted and muttered something that sounded vaguely like "That's pretty obvious." I just glared at him, cleared my throat, and then continued.
"As I said, I'm not your average magical girl. I'm a bit older than most magical girls, and I'm also a bit more mature."
"You're not acting like it."
"I have reasons for what I'm doing," I said. "Reasons which mean a lot more to me than some enemy that isn't around and may never show up. What I was doing before you so rudely interrupted us was the whole reason I agreed to do this in the first place, so why don't you just keep your tiny little nose out of things that are none of your business?"
He looked like he was about to shout something back at me the instant I finished speaking, but I didn't give him the chance. I just started stalking away furiously. I started running the moment I cleared the bathroom door, and I didn't stop running until I got home. I'm not sure how I managed to do it, maybe my anger leant me some speed, but I managed to beat both Yami and Hikari, who I accidentally knocked out of the air on my way out of the school, home.
I then locked myself in my room and refused to let anyone, even my parents, in for the rest of the night. It worried my parents, but I didn't want to chance opening the door to let either Yami or Hikari in. I realized at the time that I was being more than a little immature, just as Yami had accused me of being, but I didn't really care.