“Usagi! Usagi! You’re never going to believe what happened!”
The leader of the Senshi turned to see her erstwhile best friend rapidly walking towards her. It had been a while since she’d had the chance to have a decent conversation with Naru, mostly because there was so much in her life that she couldn’t discuss with the redhead. Truthfully, she’d actually been mildly surprised when Naru had accepted the invitation to her birthday party, so far apart had their relationship drifted in recent months. Still, she wasn’t about to turn Naru away now—there was still plenty of time before class started, and seeing as how Mamoru’s mysterious illness and dealings with the Dead Moon Circus were occupying most of her brainspace, any break from the usual unusualness would be a welcome respite, an oasis of normality in the desert of weirdness that her life had become. “Hey, Naru. What’s up?”
“It’s about Umino,” the redhead replied, shifting the weight of her unusually bulky backpack onto her other shoulder—Usagi figured that she must have had some sort of science project or something in there (which was a little disturbing only because she herself had no recollection of any upcoming assignments of that sort), so she dropped that line of conversation before it even began, and continued with what Naru wanted to talk about—her boyfriend, naturally.
“Really? Does it have something to do with why he isn’t here today?”
“I think so—his eyes got better.”
“Huh? What do you mean, Naru?”
“Apparently, he was walking along, minding his business, when suddenly his vision got really foggy. You’d think something like that would mean it was getting worse, but it turned out to be because his glasses were overcorrecting his vision. It’s almost 20/20 now—maybe even better than that.” This was an understatement, of course, since Umino’s vision was now so good that it bordered on superpower status, but Naru couldn’t very well proclaim that from the rooftops just yet.
“But… how could something like that happen?” Usagi asked, her confusion evident on her face.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Naru said truthfully—she really didn’t know how genies were able to do what they did. “Actually, Umino’s at the eye doctor right now to find out.”
Of course, Umino had known that it was going to take quite a bit of convincing to get his parents to let him stay home from school to see an eye doctor because his eyesight had improved, especially on such short notice. Fortunately for him, his mother had rented Phenomenon for that night, and by the time he’d gotten around to mentioning his amazingly-improved vision, John Travolta had done all the convincing for him. Thus it was that the very next morning, he found himself staring through that weird, oversized mask-thing with the lenses that rotated though it.
“One, or two?”
“One.”
“Alright. Three, or four?”
“One’s better than both of them.”
“I didn’t ask you if one was better. I asked if three or four was better.”
“Fine, three.”
“Alright, now, better one? Or better two? Here’s one. Here’s—”
“I already told you, one.”
“Alright. Now, one, or two?”
“They’re exactly the same.”
“Here’s one, here’s two.”
“I said, they’re exactly the same. You haven’t changed anything.”
“So, you can’t tell the difference?”
“There is no difference.”
“Try again. One, or two?”
“That’s the same lens strength. You’re just flipping those wheels to make it seem like you’ve changed it. And you could still make it better, by the way.”
“All right, try reading the bottom line.”
“‘Copyright 1997 by Tanaka Optometric Equipment, a subsidiary of Osaka Seafood Concern. “Knife goes in, guts come out, that’s what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about.”’ Huh, I never knew they had a medical division. Conglomerates—go figure.”
This was a bit much, even for Umino’s normally reserved optometrist, who immediately walked up to the eye chart to inspect it for himself. After a few seconds, he came to his own conclusion. “I don’t believe it.”
“Yeah, that’s what everybody says. Look, can you convince my mom that I don’t have some sort of vision-improving cancer, or mutant astigmatism, or something like that? She’s been acting weird since I told her about this last night.”
“You seem to have accepted it rather quickly.”
“Well, I don’t exactly see why I should panic. I mean, sure, it’s weird, and if my classmates find out just how good my eyesight’s gotten, they might call me a freak, but it’s not like I won’t be able to hide it, right? I mean, the only difference is going to be that I won’t need glasses anymore, and my girlfriend says I look really good without them.”
“Right. Well, I’m going to run a few more tests anyway—at the very least, we might be able to determine the extent of your recovery.”
“Sounds fine by me.”
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(Posted Mon, 12 May 2008 04:54)
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