EE Chapter 22

# Chapter Twenty-two - "Goooood Morning, Kazue!"

    It was barely half past eight when a fist loudly impacted against Kazue's door. Not just once or twice like you would expect of a polite wakeup call, or even in some sort of rhythm like one would playfully use to summon their friend from within the room, but a cacophony of impacts from many hands all at once. Kazue had hardly woken up - in fact, it isn't inaccurate to say that the thought of waking up hadn't even registered in her mind just yet, as Saturday was her morning to sleep in after pretending to study late into the previous night - and she stumbled to the door half awake, half asleep, but entirely out of the sort of mood to deal with this kind of interruption so early.

    "Hiya, Kazue! Gooood morning! Are you ready to go?!"

    Waiting behind the door in the hallway were the girls Kazue had met the night before and then some. Too many to count with only one eye ready to function - though later scrutiny would reveal it to be nine girls in total. The one to speak for the rest was Rinko, the most chipper of all of them, who was the one who had the night prior suggested they stop by to introduce themselves and say hello when all Kazue had really wanted to do was eat her egg sandwich and play with her pets. She hadn't agreed to go anywhere with the girls - in fact she had hoped they would forget all about her come morning - but she couldn't help but wonder if there had been some miscommunication. Kazue, you see, had plans for the day. Namely, her pets.

    Inside Kazue's room in the I MY ME building, she has set up a full half-dozen aquariums of various sizes, though instead of the usual fish they're full of insects of myriad varieties. Even a few arachnids, if we're being technical, though this being Tokyo her pets largely consist of specimens of Periplaneta Japonica - the common Japanese Cockroach. Most people consider them a pest, but not Kazue Ono. Kazue considers them a wonder of nature. The way you can clearly tell a male from a female specimen by the length of its wings. How it, nearly unique among its relatives, can survive and walk on icy surfaces. The way that they huddle up not for warmth but because they simply enjoy the sensation of touching and being touched. Kazue relates to her pets on an intimate level.

    Not the wing thing.

    Kazue's wings, much like both the typical male and female of her species - which is to say humans - are non-existent, and her considerable height is such that it can be difficult to tell her apart from some males of her kind purely by that measurement.

    A side effect of this is that Kazue has never paid much mind to that distinction at all, at least not insomuch as it applies to her own kind, happily wearing her older brother Kazuhiko's hand-me-down clothing her entire life, continuing the comfortable style of dress even after being able to afford clothing of her own choosing. This is one reason why she bristled at the idea of becoming an idol. She dismissed it when her father suggested it so many times in the past, and again when he brought it up as a way for her to make more friends her age and species - and perhaps learn an ounce of ladylike bearing in the process. She ignored it when he got her a room in the I MY ME building in the hopes that being around so many girls her age would make her more outgoing or "normal". She especially rejected it when a trio of strange girls knocked on her door after lights out claiming she was some sort of apparition haunting the dorm and invited her to join their performing ensemble.

    Though not an idol, Kazue is, despite lacking wings, both very resistant to the cold and highly thigmotactic, and loves few things as much as the feeling of tiny insect legs scurrying across her skin. So in her own ways she isn't too different from the pets she adores above all else. Even if her number of legs is entirely inadequate.

    "You're the girl from last night…" Kazue forced the words out with a yawn.

    "Yup! And this is the rest of Interlunium! Well, except for my roommate Junko. She's got a modeling gig today, but you can meet her later since we live right across the hall! But everyone else is here! Are you ready for our super awesome special outing so you can discover how much you love us and want to join our group?"

    Kazue was not even close to ready for any single part of that.

    "I thought we were just going to introduce ourselves?"

    "That's what we're doing! How else will you get to know everyone if we don't go somewhere large enough?"

    The girls in the hallway - all nine of them - echoed variations on Rinko's words, excitedly trying to introduce themselves to Kazue all at once. Kazue didn't particularly want to go anywhere. She wanted to get back to bed and watch television with her pets. They're nearly a whole season behind on *Psychic Detective Kawasaki*. But the girls seemed unlikely to allow that unless she were rude or forceful, and Kazue likes to think that she's not particularly good at being either of those things.

    "Okay then…" Kazue said, still groggy.

    "Great! Uh… Don't you want to change first?"

    Kazue looked down at her long tee shirt and gym shorts and was reminded that she wasn't dressed for whatever these girls were likely to make her do. "Oh. Right…"

    Three minutes later, Kazue reemerged from her sanctuary fully dressed, having swapped her sleep shorts for a pair of faded denim blue jeans and the oversized tee shirt for a plain cream button up of the style her brother was always partial to. Despite being well aware of her proclivities toward fashion due to the rumors Kazue had inadvertently started, most of the girls waiting in the hallway let out a small gasp or other token of appreciation once she exited her abode. Kazue had long come to terms with her appearance. By feminine standards she was very used to being deemed unusual, but by other girls she was very often seen as a thing of perplexing beauty. If this was the sort of thing Kazue cared about she would probably be deeply disappointed, but instead she found it rather amusing. Her heart had never experienced the deep, exciting throbs of passion so many of her peers talked about excitedly, and she thought it interesting that the same features she had often been teased about in her adolescence were the same ones that caused the very same girls to hurl accusations at her now that they were older as though she were playing a trick on them, trying to draw their attraction deliberately. Why would she do that, though?

    All Kazue wants is to be left alone with her pets.

    "Kazue, you're so handsome! I hope you'll reconsider joining." The redheaded girl from the night before exclaimed.

    "I love your look. I could never pull that off!" A girl Kazue had never met before with hair done up in a single black bun complimented her as well. Kazue was already slightly uncomfortable, and the feeling only grew worse as more girls chimed in. Inevitably the words Kazue had grown used to were used. "Handsome." "Unique." "Androgynously beautiful." Which is admittedly not a phrase people tend to use frequently but which, when uttered by the girl in the floral kimono, had the same implied meaning as the rest. Only one girl out of nine paid Kazue a compliment in a way that your average teenage girl would tend to appreciate - "Mademoiselle Kazue, you are très beautiful! And so tall, like a Parisian model! Magnifique!" - which made it hard to accept.

    *What do these girls really want with me?* She couldn't help but wonder.

    "What are we doing today?" Kazue asked the group's leader, growing increasingly nervous.

    "That's a surprise! But you're gonna love it! I made sure to pick something that will let you get to know your new group members."

    "I haven't agreed to join your group though." Kazue had actually very explicitly expressed a lack of interest in becoming an idol, though that didn't seem to be dissuading Rinko at all.

    "Not yet! But once you get to know all of us I'm positive that you'll be begging us to join. Which you won't have to do! Because we already want you! You're the perfect idol to make us the perfect group! We neeeed you!"

    The brown-haired girl grabbed Kazue by the arm, followed quickly by the redheaded one, and they led her down the hallway and all the way out of the building. If there was one silver lining, Kazue considered, it was that the blonde from the night before had seemed to lose interest in her the moment she realized her gender, since unlike her pets Kazue has only the two arms, and having more girls fighting over her would be awkward and more than a little embarrassing. Kazue isn't much for fighting of any kind, preferring to emulate her roaches and act when she's not being observed, and this much attention was already a bit much for her. Despite her desire to stay quiet and simply ride out this adventure to its conclusion, Kazue found herself under interrogation for the entire train ride.

    "Your voice is really pretty. I bet you sing very nicely too." The small, green haired girl spoke up for the first time.

    "I don't know about that. My dad taught me when I was younger, but now I don't see him as much to get pointers. I mostly just bring him dinner when I can."

    "You're really tall! I wish I were that tall. Your legs must look great in tights!"

    Kazue responded somewhat hesitantly to the black-haired girl with the bun. "Thanks? I wouldn't really know…"

    Questions continued in much the same vein for the entire train ride, the girls asking a great many things but rarely giving Kazue the opportunity to do the same, until they disembarked on the other side of the city, just outside a shopping mall. Kazue was slightly disappointed, but not entirely surprised. The girls she was with all seemed to her to be much more like typical teenage girls than she is, and spending a day at the mall was exactly the sort of thing that typical teenage girls do with such frequency that it's practically a cliche. Trying on clothes, testing different makeups and perfumes, sniffing those scented candles that drive her pets crazy… What else could it possibly have been? Kazue wondered why she had gone along with this if that was the fate which was going to befall her.

    She was, as it turns out, very wrong in her prediction.

    "Alllright! We're here, everyone! Our first almost-complete-group-outing can officially begin!" The brunette in charge smiled from ear to ear. Kazue had never expected this was their destination, and from the excited chatter of the other girls neither had they. A few were instantly quite excited. Others, much less so. Some were predictably confused, having never been to a place like this and not knowing what to expect. Kazue was a little bit of all of those, being familiar with places like this but never having come since they don't seem very fun all on your own. She had no idea if she would even enjoy it, let alone be any good at it, but she didn't find herself dreading this activity nearly as much as the ones she had imagined on the train.

    "I want to be on Kazue's team!"

    "Moi too!"

    "Me three!"

    "I have to be, I'm the leader!"

    Before they had even entered the storefront, Kazue found herself surrounded by four girls eager to be on her team. This was the first time anything of the sort had ever happened to Kazue. In school, through all her years, Kazue was never chosen first in gym class. Not since they played basketball in her first year and all the other girls learned that despite her height, Kazue had no great skill at the sport, having become distracted by a cicada molting its shell in the dirt at the side of the court. The idols had surrounded her in this order:

    First was the redhead. Of all the girls, Kazue noticed that this one was one of the least confusing. At the minimum her tracksuit wasn't entirely foreign to Kazue, and if nothing else it made her feel better that she wasn't the only girl who had embarked on their trip in functional clothing. Second was the girl in the frilly dress who spoke in an unusual accent despite being clearly Japanese. Though Kazue couldn't place why, this girl amused her and had been the most kind to her so far, so being on her team wasn't in any way objectionable. Third was the girl who had, on the ride over, been interacting most closely with the other two: a girl with long black hair who was as short and demure as Kazue is tall. Last, of course, was the brunette whose idea launched this entire trip in the first place.

    "It's me and the new girls versus all of the old members! Losers have to sleep in Lina's office for a week!"

    The proclamation by Rinko was met with unanimous vetoes from the crowd of girls.

    "Ok, well, then, uhh… Losers have to buy snacks for the winners?"

    This was deemed acceptable, and the girls purchased their tickets to the arena - naturally paying for Kazue, as it wasn't her idea to be there in the first place. It wouldn't be their turn for almost another fifteen minutes, so the girls broke up into two groups by their teams. One group - those who had been slower to claim Kazue as their own and were left to group up together - went to one side of the waiting room and chatted amongst themselves. None of them seemed to have much urgency, though perhaps that's because most of them had never played laser tag before and didn't understand what was awaiting them. On the other side of the waiting room, things were very different.

    "Ok, so as soon as we start we need to make a break for it. We're going to want to split up so they can't gang up on us. Me and Yume are the fastest, so we'll try to circle around the outside and get behind them. Anette, you'll advance up the center. Draw their fire and keep them focused on you. Rinko and Kazue, you spread out but hang back, and keep your heads down. Once anyone approaches Anette you swarm them and take 'em out! Got it?"

    Akira traced her finger through the carpet, drawing out a game plan for us in the grain. It seemed likely that she had done this before, and even Rinko - who had been in charge up until now - deferred to her, as did their other two friends. Kazue agreed as well, because she knew next to nothing about how to win at laser tag and because Akira was incredibly convincing. You don't just go and run your finger through a strange carpet if you aren't exceedingly confident in why you're doing it.

    Once their turn came and they were in position inside the arena, Kazue couldn't help but notice that they all looked absolutely ridiculous. It was rare for her to feel this way, but Kazue briefly considered that of all ten girls she was perhaps the one who looked the most normal. That being a very relative concept, as nobody looks entirely normal wearing a harness made up of sensors and straps, under a black light, surrounded by angled ramps and piles of foam debris painted to look like some kind of anime war zone.

    A flash of the lights on the ceiling and a sharp buzzer signaled the start of the match. Before Kazue could even lift her gun she found herself alone, as all four of her teammates took off to enact Akira's plan. Well, more or less. Rinko was supposed to stay back too…

\_\_\_\_

# Chapter Navigation

* Next Chapter
* Previous Chapter
* Back to Contents