It was true. Part of it made Kyousuke Kasuga want to laugh. Madoka was as handsome as a bishounen as she was beautiful as a bishoujo.
“What am I going to do, Kasuga-kun?” the girl-turned-into-a-boy moaned, and the grief in the throaty voice sent the pity welling up in Kyousuke's heart. “I can’t go back home looking like this!”
“Don’t worry, Ayukawa,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to turn you back into your old self.”
“Yeah,” came a voice behind him, and he turned to see Ukyou Kuonji standing beside and slightly behind him, holding a kettle of hot water in her hand. “Don’t fall to pieces now, Ayukawa-san.” She stepped up to the transmogrified girl and poured the water over her head.
“Itai! Ouch!” Madoka shouted. Kyousuke suddenly saw him turn back into a girl again, soaking wet and thankful.
“That’s great, Kuonji-san! Thank you!” Kyousuke bowed many times to the girl with the coal-black eyes.
Ukyou raised her free hand. “Don’t thank me yet, Kasuga-kun. This is only temporary. She’ll turn back into a guy whenever she gets splashed by cold water again.”
“What?” exclaimed Manami, who was standing behind Ukyou. She was trying to listen to her brother’s classmate, while at the same time trying to fend off Komatsu’s surreptitious attempts at putting his arm around her shoulders. “That’s terrible!”
“I’ll say,” twin Kurumi agreed. “Why, how can you take cold showers on a hot day now, Ayukawa-sempai?”
Kyousuke imagined Madoka under the falling water, turning from a naked female to a naked male. He grimaced. “No! I’m sure we’ll find a way to return her to normal!”
“That’s the spirit, Kasuga-kun,” said Ukyou, pounding him on the shoulder. Kyousuke looked at her. The kettle, he noted with much mystification, was nowhere to be seen. “Although I have to warn you, other people here have a similar curse to your girlfriend’s, and they haven’t had much luck in turning themselves back into normal.” She looked down at the unconscious Kodachi still sprawled in the middle of the street. “Normal being a relative term, that is. Come on. I want to thank you for saving me, and I don’t think Ayukawa-san will want to go to school today with a Jusenkyo curse on her.”
Kyousuke had blushed at the spatula girl’s comment about Ayukawa being his ‘girlfriend.’ Hikaru, meanwhile, had heard the same and clung tightly to his arm, looking suspiciously at her Darling, trying to read his eyes. “Er... she’s not my girlfriend, Kuonji-san,” he explained, wishing he could somehow vanish from the entire mortifying scene. He could feel the daggers being stabbed into his back by Madoka.
“Hai!” the perky blond Hikaru Hiyama agreed, nodding her head vigorously. “I’m his girlfriend!”
“Oh?” Ukyou looked at Kyousuke, then Hikaru, then Madoka. She noted the flat expression on the latter’s face, and the beads of sweat popping out on Kyousuke’s forehead. “Oh... kay. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Please, follow me.” She turned and began to walk up the road.
“Where are we going?” asked Kurumi.
Kyousuke turned to look at his sister. “I don’t think Kuonji-san meant for you to come along.”
“No, it’s okay,” said the owner of Okonomiyaki Ucchan’s as she paused, realizing they weren’t following her. “You can all come along. I’ll treat all of you.” She smiled at Kyousuke.
“Yaay!” Kurumi and Manami shouted in unison.
Kyousuke chuckled. “You don’t know my sisters, Kuonji-san. They’ll eat you out of house and home.”
“Onii-chan!” the twins protested.
“That’s okay. I’m used to feeding people like Ranma and his father. I think I can handle your sisters as well.” Secretly, Ukyou began to mentally account for her stocks of ingredients in the restaurant larder... “Oh, and please, call me Ukyou.”
They all began to walk. Kyousuke noticed Ayukawa coming closer to his side, her arms crossed over her chest. She had a self-contained expression on her face, and he observed that her blue-green eyes were directed inwards. She shivered a little.
Without a word he stripped off the jacket of his school uniform placed it around her shoulders. She looked at him.
“Thank you, Kasuga-kun,” she said softly, and Kyousuke’s heart skipped a beat as he saw her smile at him. He loved to see that smile, and fervently wished some day to be able to kiss those lips that formed it. But even as he gazed upon her face, he still felt Hikaru’s grip on his arm, and it was as if the sukeban’s eyes and ditzy girl’s touch were pulling him apart, ripping his heart asunder. He loved Madoka—that much he could admit to himself—but he didn’t want to hurt Hikaru by making that fact known to the world at large. Everyone thought Hikaru’s claim on him was rock-solid; only Manami, Master and evil Sayuri back at Koryou knew the truth.
“Waah,” said Hikaru in admiration. “Darling is sooo thoughtful.” Kyousuke turned away from Madoka to smile at the blond girl clinging to his arm, but when he looked in her direction again she was walking apart from him once more. Ayukawa...
“Neh, Darling,” Hikaru was saying. “I hope you’re coming to the Tanabata party at ABCB.”
“Of course I’ll come. Why wouldn’t I?”
“You might have... something else to do at the time.” Kyousuke saw her glance quickly at Madoka, then fight off her suspicion, looking up at him and smiling.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Hikaru-chan... do you know how I feel right now? I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, Hikaru. I don’t want to lose either of you... The thought made him risk Madoka’s renewed ire by removing Hikaru’s arms from him so he could put an arm around her waist. But I know this can’t go on... He squeezed her more tightly against his side, and watched the doubt evaporate from the blond-haired girl’s face. She favored him with another innocent smile, and seeing it made Kyousuke feel lower than the lowest life-form on Earth just then.
We just can’t go on like this, Hikaru-chan...
------oOo------
“What?” the Master of ABCB exclaimed, nearly dropping the glass he’d been polishing against the counter. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, Master, I’m not,” said Madoka. “If you’d like, I could show you.”
She was sitting at ABCB’s counter, along with Kyousuke, Hikaru, and Yuusaku. Kurumi and Manami had departed earlier on Hatta and Komatsu’s arms, respectively, saying that they were going to study for tomorrow. Manami had quietly reassured her brother that she wouldn’t let the hentais do anything untoward. Kyousuke had agreed and let them go, knowing he could trust the elder twin, but still worried that she might yield against the constant efforts being made by Komatsu at winning her affection. Ah, well, he thought. They’re probably old enough to take care of themselves.
“Oi, oi, Ayukawa,” Kyousuke protested. “You can’t change into a guy here.”
“Why not?”
“Because... because there’s so many people around!”
“Silly. I was planning to use the back room.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you ashamed to see me as a guy, Kasuga-kun?”
Kyousuke waved his hands. “No, no, it’s nothing like that!”
“Then what is it?”
“Uh... because... you might catch cold if you get wet again!”
“That’s right, Madoka-san!” concurred Hikaru. “Besides, you’ll get Kuonji-sempai’s clothes all damp.” Madoka was dressed in the loose jeans and white t-shirt that the restaurant owner had lent her.
“I’m going to wash them anyway,” said Madoka. “And I’m not as sickly as some people here,” she added with a glance at Kyousuke. Without further ado she picked up a pitcher of water from behind the counter, stood up, and went to ABCB’s changing room, which was located behind the bar. Kyousuke heard the click of the door as she shut it.
Master looked at his young customers with concerned eyes. “She’s serious, isn’t she?”
Kyousuke nodded, while Yuusaku said, “She’s telling the truth, Master. Better heat up some water while we wait.”
The brown-haired proprietor of the kissaten gestured to his coffee-brewing machine on the counter. “Already got it here.”
After around seven seconds, a soft “Master” came from the direction of the back room.
Everyone went and stood outside the partially opened door. Master’s face imitated Kyousuke’s earlier, when he had first seen Ayukawa as a boy.
“Incredible!”
Kyousuke could have said the same thing as he looked at Ayukawa-shounen once more. Her rounded face had become more angled, the jaw becoming a bit more squarish and manly; her hair had grown a bit shorter, and she was taller now than Kyousuke remembered; and her fingers were long, sleek, mobile appendages on the end of her hands. Her mouth had grown wider and the lips thinner, but had strangely lost none of its sensuality. The only thing that remained the same were her eyes: they were the same changeable, catlike orbs that Kyousuke had grown to know and be fascinated by, and now they were a dark, dark blue.
“Do you doubt me now, Master?” asked his part-time helper, in the low voice again.
Master pushed past the strange person standing just inside his changing room door and looked around. He found nothing and sighed.
“Okay, I believe you now. Come to think of it, I can really call you Ayukawa-kun when you’re like this,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Well, you’d better change back and dry off. Kyousuke, could you please hand this young man the coffee-machine pot?”
Madoka blinked. He had been expecting more of an extreme reaction from him, and was grateful to have been proven wrong about the matter.
“No, wait,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll go home as a boy tonight.”
“Huh?” Hikaru raised her eyebrows. “Why, Madoka-san?”
“It’ll help prevent problems with guys,” he replied cryptically. “Plus I guess I’ve got to get used to this somehow. Remember what Kuonji-san said about obtaining a cure to this. I can’t go all the way to China now.”
“Why not ask your parents for some money?” suggested Kyousuke.
“And what do I tell them when they ask why I want to go to China?”
“Tell them the truth,” Yuusaku said.
“Oh, sure. How do you think they’ll react when I tell them I’ve got a curse that turns me into a guy whenever I get hit by cold water?” He sighed. “They’d never believe me.”
Kyousuke looked at Madoka's downcast face, and knew why she was despondent. She wasn’t telling them what she had admitted to him some days earlier, that relations between her and her parents--never smooth most of the time--were quite rocky at the moment. It was doubtful that they’d be inclined to help their strong-willed youngest child just then for such an unbelievable reason.
“Yeah,” chirped Hikaru. “Besides, the Spring of Drowned Girl water won’t remove the curse. It’ll just make you a girl, the same one Saotome-sempai is.” Ranma Saotome had dropped by Ukyou’s okonomiyaki-ya while the gang from Koryou was talking with her, and had joined in the conversation. Madoka, on seeing Ranma again, had almost started a fight with him because of what he’d done to her—even though it was an accident—but Ranma asked her for her forgiveness and showed that he, too, was the victim of a similar curse, one that turned him into the red-headed pig-tailed girl she and Kyousuke had seen on their first day at Furinkan. He was becoming desperate enough about getting rid of it to resort to stealing the Spring of Drowned Man water that he had learned was being kept hidden by Shampoo in her Nekohanten restaurant.
“Alright then, Ayukawa-kun. I guess I’ll let you off work for tonight. But take care of yourself, okay?” He gave her a kindly, concerned expression.
Madoka bowed deeply to his technically-illicit employer. “Thank you for the reassurance, Master. You don’t know how much that means to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just change my clothes.” He had a spare set of clothing in the ABCB locker, above where she hung her apron.
“Okay.” Master exited the back room and closed the door.
------oOo------
Later that night, Kyousuke and Madoka were walking along, after seeing Hikaru and Yuusaku off and riding the Orange Road bus to the station near the Ayukawa mansion. Aboard the vehicle, they had been silent most of the way. Kyousuke was still disturbed by the presence of the beautiful guy seated beside him, while Madoka was still getting used to the new sensations she was experiencing being a male. They had only shared one exchange, one that started with Madoka saying, “Kasuga-kun? Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the real reason you don’t want me to change into a boy?”
“Eh?”
“I know you, Kasuga-kun. I know you lied to me back at ABCB.”
Kyousuke had laughed shamefacedly at being found out. “Ahahah... The truth is, Ayukawa, I’m just not used to your new body yet.” He wasn’t going to tell her he didn’t like the thought of himself desiring after a guy. He just didn’t swing that way.
“Are you telling me that the only important thing to you about a girl is her body?” His male companion looked out the bus window. “I thought better of you, Kasuga-kun.”
“That’s not true! I don’t go after girls because of their body only!” he spluttered. Actually, I don’t go after girls at all, except for you, Ayukawa... “It’s so mean of you to say that.”
Madoka looked repentant. “Sorry, Kasuga-kun. It’s probably the testosterone. I feel especially... combative tonight.” She shook her swordside head. “Ooh, when I get home the first thing I’m going to do is take a nice hot shower.”
Hot shower... Kyousuke began to fantasize about Ayukawa under the running water again, as he had many, many times before, and how he’d walk in and take a shower with her, an action which, of course, led to other, better things... only this time, the hot water ran out and he found himself standing naked next to another guy. Then he looked into those beautiful eyes and heard himself say, “Ah, what the heck,” and started to reach out...
“Kasuga-kun!” The quiet call startled him out of his fantasy-cum-nightmare, and he discovered Madoka looking at him with a critical male eye. They were at the front door of her house. “Are you alright?”
“Yes, sorry.” He frowned. “What will your sister say when she sees you like this?”
Shaking his head, annoyed, the bishounen replied, “I don’t know why I even bother speaking to you sometimes. I already told you my sister’s not here. Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot.”
Unlocking the door, Madoka ushered him into the living room. “Kasuga-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Could you wait for me for a while? I... I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Sure, Ayukawa.” Alone with her at last... there is a God, after all.
“Thank you. Please help yourself to the fridge. I won’t be long.”
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(Posted Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:25)
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