Dreams of Tanabata

Kokomi is still on Akechi's futon, in Akechi's body when she wakes up.

Is she just going to be stuck like this forever?

Oh well, at least this way she won't have to worry about anyone finding out that she murdered her brother.

Sure, she's lost the reputation that she spent years of careful work building and maintaining, and from the looks of things this is a real downgrade in terms of financial status as well but hey, at least she's not going to have to worry about anyone figuring out that she did it!

She doesn't have to worry about her idol auditions tonight either. Even if Akechi by some miracle manages to do well enough in the audition to launch her career, as long as they remain stuck in each other's bodies, the burdens of the idol life are his to uphold not hers.

In short, all of her worries are blown away like dust in the wind and all it took was leaving behind her entire life and becoming a completely different person.

Kokomi can't help but laugh at the absurdity of her situation. Hearing Akechi's thin, breathy cackle emerge instead of her own, clear bell-like laughter makes her laugh even harder until her cheeks are wet with tears and her laughs sound more like sobs.

"What's wrong Touma?"

Kokomi looks up to see Akechi's mother standing in the doorway, an expression of bleary-eyed concern on her face.

"Yeah, I just had a weird dream. That's all."

"My dreams have been pretty weird since we moved here too," Touma's mother nods. "I must still be adjusting to sleeping somewhere new, I guess. Think some breakfast would help you work through your emotions about it?"

"I think it would. Yes," Kokomi says, trying to pull herself together.

*

Touma spends hours typing up an impassioned defense of himself and his actions only stopping when he notices that Miss Teruhashi isn't reading his texts.

It's strange. Touma usually doesn't care about what other people think of him but the prospect of Miss Teruhashi hating him is strangely painful. Even if he's increasingly certain that she killed her brother, it poses no obstacle to him considering her an exceptionally wonderful person and he had begun to hope that some fond feelings were developing between them.

In retrospect though it had been a bit silly to think that just because she was nice to him. Miss Teruhashi is nice to everybody. That's why it's so tiring to pretend to be her.

Once the sky begins to lighten he gives up on trying to sleep and instead readies himself for school.

Unfortunately, during Touma's futile attempts to return to slumber, Miss Teruhashi's royal blue tresses have somehow congealed into a single massive tangle that resists Touma's best attempts to unravel it. Eventually he settles for the partial victory of dividing the tangle into numerous smaller and less visible tangles and heads downstairs to breakfast upon the remaining tofu from last night's dinner before making his way to school.

He walks through the mostly empty halls of the school to his classroom and takes a seat at his desk and, upon realizing his mistake, goes to take a seat at Miss Teruhashi's desk instead. There, he does his level best to scrape together enough energy for another long day of pretending to be Miss Teruhashi.

This prospect is made all the more insurmountable by the fact that Miss Teruhashi has an audition after school today which will prevent him from returning to Miss Teruhashi's house to pass out at 4:00 PM like he had yesterday.

It's not like he has any intention of reneging on his promise to Miss Teruhashi, no matter how angry she is at him, but had he known just how much effort keeping this promise would entail he would never have made it.

He presses Miss Teruhashi's forehead against her desk in frustration and allows a high, keening noise to escape her lips.

The voice that should be his emanates from above him, "Are you okay?"

"My apologies, Miss Teruhashi, I do not think that I will be able to attend your audition tonight," Touma grumbles into the desk not looking up because he's not in the mood to have to see someone else wearing the face that should be his.

Miss Teruhashi nods, "We'll talk about that later, but first, could you please let me fix your hair again? You should have a hairbrush in my bag that I can use."

"I would deeply appreciate it if you were to assist me in that area," Touma says, perking up as he rummages through Miss Teruhashi's bag for the rumored hairbrush. "I do not know how I managed to get your hair in such a state but whatever it was seems beyond my ability to remedy."

He manages to extract the hairbrush from Miss Teruhashi's bag and offers it to her as he continues, "and I was unsure if I could turn to you for assistance since I presumed that you were still mad at me for my prior conduct in our relationship."

"I am but not mad enough to let my body go to school with its hair in a rat's nest like that. You went to bed with it wet didn't you?" Miss Teruhashi asks as she begins to brush.

"I presume from your question that this was a misstep?"

"It was." Miss Teruhashi replies, "Please don't do that again."

Touma sits in silence for a moment, trying not to wince whenever Miss Teruhashi pulls hard enough to hurt as she works the tangles out of her hair, which is a common occurrence.

Eventually he says, "Please believe me when I say that I really am quite sorry for making you feel unsafe."

Miss Teruhashi sighs and responds, "And I'm sorry that I bit your head off about it. Please just stop trying to pry into my personal life, okay?"

"Certainly. Although, I think that I should inform you that even if you did kill your brother, I will refrain from telling anyone as I feel that such a course of action was justified given the circumstances. I believe that I told you that I didn't think you would be so cold as to inflict an unfortunate fate on your own flesh and blood without good reason and last night's discoveries only serve to vindicate that assessment."

Miss Teruhashi stops brushing.

"Wait, when did you tell me this?" she asks, slightly rattled.

Touma searches his memory for when he had said that. Let's see, he'd been at a festival and had just witnessed Miss Teruhashi blast her brother's brains out with a cork gun.

"My apologies," he replies, "upon further reflection it seems that I only dreamt that I told you that. I've been having such vivid dreams lately that it has been remarkably easy to conflate them with reality."

"No that's fine. I just also remember having a dream where you told me that," Miss Teruhashi says thoughtfully.

"This dream wouldn't happen to have been the night before last, would it?" Touma asks.

"Are you saying that we shared a dream the night before we swapped bodies?"

"I did ask you yesterday if you thought our curious dreams had anything to do with our current predicament, but you refused to discuss them and then changed the topic," Touma says.

"You saw what I was dreaming about," Miss Teruhashi says. "I'm sure you can guess why I didn't want to talk about it."

Touma supposes that he can come up with a few viable hypotheses.

"Can we discuss how to approach the issue of your audition tonight? I suggest that you contact the parties responsible for your audition and tell them that you have been stricken by a bout of serious illness and that you will have to reschedule."

"Are you sure? What if we still haven't swapped back by whatever time it's rescheduled to?"

That sounds a bit too much like "what if we never swap back" for Touma's liking but he restrains himself from commenting on this. Instead, he replies, "I suppose that we should, as is the aphorism, prepare for the worst even as we hope for the best. Do you have an alternate proposal in mind?"

"Just go ahead and get it over with. If you cancel it, my parents would probably try to pressure you into attending another one later but if you try your best and still fail they'll have lost too much face to ever bring it up again."

"I have some objections regarding your proposed course of action."

"I understand," Miss Teruhashi says. "I wouldn't be able to humiliate myself like that either."

"I have no concerns about humiliating myself. It's simply that while you may have given up on returning to your body, I remain hopeful of the prospect and as such refuse to ruin what was doubtless a hard-won opportunity on your part."

"It's fine. Actually," Miss Teruhashi sighs, squares his shoulders and continues as if sharing a shameful secret, "I don't want to be an idol."

"In that case I will assist you gladly!" Touma replies.

They take a bit more time to hash out the exact details of the arrangement. Touma explains that in order to have the energy to attend an audition tonight, even one that he's planning to fail, he will need to conserve energy at school today and as such will not be able to put as much effort into his impersonation of Miss Teruhashi. She agrees to this on the condition that he still refrain from doing "anything weird" in the presence of her classmates.

Touma withdraws into himself, only speaking when called upon in class and only forcing his face into pleasant smiles when he notices his classmates looking at him with concern.

The day at school passes uneventfully enough like this.

*

Touma huddles on a bench, picking at the bento that he'd bought himself for dinner as he waits for the train that will take him to Miss Teruhashi's audition. Nothing tastes right in Miss Teruhashi's body, rendering what would normally be a delicious meal almost inedible.

He does not like the way the men at the station are looking at him. They are all very polite and helpful to him but something about the way that their hungry gazes linger on Miss Teruhashi's body make him feel like he is in the presence of a large number of dogs, some part of him afraid that at any moment the supposedly tame beasts surrounding him will shrug off the chains of domestication to hunt him down and devour him.

It's no wonder that Miss Teruhashi responded so badly to him tailing her home if men have been looking at her like this for who knows how long.

*

Akechi's mother insists on making dinner tonight. She is at best a decent cook, but Kokomi graciously eats the slightly burnt, oily stir fry she is given. "You've been so quiet these last few days, is everything going okay for at school?" Akechi's mother asks.

"Yeah, school's going just fine." Kokomi replies.

"That's good," Akechi's mother says, nodding. She taps her chin thoughtfully and continues, "What's got you so withdrawn then? Could it be that you've got a crush, then? Maybe that Teruhashi girl that you've been talking about lately?"

"Wait, what!" Kokomi blurts, her cheeks burning, though she supposes that this possibility is not all that surprising. Most of the boys at school have crushes on her after all. Why should Akechi be any different?

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me," Akechi's mother says blithely unaware that she's already leaked it to the affected party. "That said, don't rush into things. If that good for nothing father of yours managed to teach you anything, let it be that it's better to stay single forever than to get hitched to someone who cares more about frittering away their sparse earnings on mahjong games and shady pachinko parlors than supporting you and your child."

"Thank you for the advice dear mother of mine," Kokomi says, struggling to navigate the twists and turn that the conversation has taken in the last few minutes, "I'll make sure to stay away from people like that."

Akechi's mother leans across the table and reaches out to tousle her son's hair, "Of course you will. Even if you can be a bit of a handful sometimes, you're a smart, responsible kid and I really am grateful that you've been so cooperative through this whole thing."

"Ah, you're very welcome!" Kokomi replies, uncomfortably aware that it really should be Touma hearing this, not her.

*

Touma finds the audition a surprisingly enjoyable experience. Approaching the situation with an objective of comprehensively bombing it gives him the opportunity to indulge one of his favorite vices.

While it is usually true that any discomfort or frustration that Touma's behavior happens to cause is purely accidental, part of him does take a certain spiteful pleasure in utilizing his apparently prodigious talents for strange and vexing behavior to instill shock and dismay in those around him. It's funny just how easy it is. Trying to win over others is as difficult as pulling out his own teeth and usually just as enjoyable but he takes to bothering them like a duck to water.

Anyway, the audition is quite fun. The look on the faces of those industry suits had been priceless when he had come out in front of them playing up the cute girl persona only to deliver the most comically bad performance that he can manage. After warbling his way through an off-key acapella performance of Bump of Chicken's Tomodachi no Uta they look at him with disbelieving eyes that say, "surely you can't be serious" he simply smiles at them with his best impression of innocence and asks them, "Did you like it?"

Although Touma cannot sing at the best of times, much less when he's using someone else's voice, he still has the not inconsiderable benefit of Miss Teruhashi's appearance, so they awkwardly give him a noncommittal nonanswer and politely ask him to leave.

It almost feels like the universe is trying to make it up to him for the long and difficult day he's had especially when who should he see sitting across from him on his train ride home but Saiki Kuusuke.

This, Touma realizes, could be an excellent opportunity to secure a standout subject for his interview assignment.

Touma sidles up to where Saiki sits scribbling something in a notebook and warmly greets him, "What a stroke of luck it is to meet you here Saiki Kuusuke!"

Saiki looks up at him with an expression of shocked recognition that he quickly conceals beneath a pleasant smile. Does he recognize Miss Teruhashi?

"I'm sorry, have we met?" Saiki asks, a strangely furtive undertone to his words.

"I don't believe that we have. However, I'm quite the fan of your work."

Saiki visibly relaxes upon hearing this. He arches an eyebrow and asks, "Really? Can you tell me what work of mine you're a fan of exactly?"

"Well I'm quite found of the fact that humanity now has access to clean energy in great quantities thanks to the nuclear fusion technology that you invented," Touma replies, "Additionally, while I personally think that I would prefer to stay on earth myself, I am excited by the prospect of humanity one day being able to travel the stars thanks to your advancements in the field of aerospace engineering."

"It sounds like you do have at least cursory knowledge of my scientific achievements. Well done."

Touma suddenly realizes that he is being condescended to. Not liking this he goes on the attack, "Did you think that just because I'm a girl I only liked you for your conventionally attractive appearance? How disappointing. I thought that a mind of your caliber would be more open."

"You'd think the same thing if you'd had as many girls feign interest your scientific achievements just because they want to get into my pants as I have." Saiki says with disgust, "If it's any consolation I'm glad that your interest is genuine at least."

"If you want to show your gratitude for my genuine interest you can allow my friend to interview you for a school project of his next week."

Saiki huffs, "So long as they keep it brief. I'm a busy man."

"Excellent!" Touma beams, "In that case may I please have your contact information?"

*

That night Kokomi, as always, dreams of a festival. This time she's lying on her back in the grass of the festival grounds staring at the sky full of distant paper lantern stars when she becomes aware of someone standing beside her.

She springs upright, her heart pounding, and sees a pink haired girl, about her age, dressed in a yukata with a red spider lily pattern, a red paper fan in one hand.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, she says and reaches out and hand to Kokomi. I'm here to take you back.

"Take me back where?" Kokomi asks.

To your body, the girl says. You want to go right?

"Of course," Kokomi says taking the girl's hand.

As they walk Kokomi notices something.

"You're wearing your yukata wrong," Kokomi says.

I'm not, the girl says.

"Yes you are. It's supposed to be folded left over right. Wearing it right over left makes you look like a corpse awaiting burial."

It has such an ominous pattern too. Seriously, why would anyone make a summer kimono patterned with red spider lilies, a fall flower with associations more suited to a funeral than a summer festival?

So? the girl says, her fingers suddenly cold and boney beneath Kokomi's grip.

Kokomi turns to the girl to see her face rotting away, the skull beneath peeking through.

"Oh. You're a ghost," Kokomi says, distantly aware that she should be frightened.

Something like that, I suppose, the ghost girl says, her bones once again covered in soft, uncorrupted flesh and smooth, unblemished skin. Does it bother you?

"No. You're much nicer than the other ghosts I've met."

Your brother isn't a ghost, the ghost girl says. He's still alive.

"He's not. I'd know. I killed him myself," Kokomi says, her voice hitching. She's been trying so hard to convince everyone else that she hadn't that she'd almost been able to convince herself, but saying it aloud makes it feel real in a way that it hasn't in a long time. She slumps down onto the grass clutching her knees to her chest, "Oh god, I really killed him. I'm a murderer."

You're literally not. It's fine. Besides, what happened to your brother isn't your fault, the ghost girl says, crouching down beside Kokomi. It's mine.

"Your fault?" Kokomi says, puzzled. "You weren't even there when it happened."

I shouldn't tell you more. I shouldn't even have told you this much, but I was tired of watching you blame yourself.

Having said this the ghost girl stands up and says, Oh look, it's your classmate. Go touch him and you two should wake up in your own bodies.

Kokomi gets to her feet and looks where the ghost girl is pointing. Akechi is indeed nearby, enthusiastically feasting on a candied apple.

"Are you sure?" Kokomi asks, "We weren't touching when we first swapped."

Yes. And you're lucky that that's all that happened, the ghost girl says ominously.

Kokomi approaches Akechi.

"Greetings, miss Teruhashi," Akechi says, beaming. "What good fortune to see you here on this fine evening!"

"It's good to see you too," Kokomi says reaching out to him, "Here, take my hand."

Akechi takes it.

*

Kokomi wakes up in her own bed, in her own body which she quickly realizes is ravenously hungry. Akechi clearly hadn't been eating right during his time in her body.

And that's how she finds herself in her kitchen making curry at three in the morning. She never thought she'd be so grateful for the chance to.

It's good to be back.