What was hardest about living in the body of Akari was not the sartorial implication or the indistinct social codes, it was the disturbing fact that core, intimate masculine practices were no longer physically viable.
After a short and stiff lunch meeting, during which I had just managed to avoid Hiroto by pretending to have a sudden headache, I realized that I had to use a restroom urgently.
The male house had been continuously put across as an automatic, no questions asked place. My stomach now sank in the face of a door, adorned with an abstracted finery of a figure in a skirt.
I was a trespassing prisoner. All of the nerve endings appeared to complain, saying, "Wrong way! Intruder!"
I held the door open as I opened it with some apprehension. The female washroom presented itself as a sudden manifestation of vivid lighting, flower perfume and the surrounding sound. It was the opposite of the calm utilitarian ambience I was used to. The constant chattering, the whine of running water, and the swishing of garments were the elements of the scene, which gave the sense rather of a club than of an essential need.
I walked to a booth hoping to find the privacy the booth was promising. As I walked in I had the feeling that my name was called in the vanity area.
"Isn't that Akari Tanaka? The one with the hair?"
I heard that she separated with Kaito on grounds that he was not serious.
"Ah, Kaito? He is accused of cheating on her with one of her business majors last semester. Akari is far too good for him."
"Kaito? Breakup? Cheated?" On these things, my memory, as Akihiro, was completely silent. I realized that the girl in question, Akari, had a history, a fiction that was part of the gossip network of the university and, having moved into her body, I did not know anything about it. I was living a story that had already been partially written, and had to improvise the rest.
I got into the stall, closed the door, and leaned my head on the metal which was cool. This small tiled cubicle was the only campus area where I could feel totally unnoticed.
At the moment of utter silence, the door to the restroom swung again, and there was a voice I was now longing to hear.
"Oh, Akarichan! There you are. I was looking for you."
It was Yui.
My heart was jumping with such an excited feeling peculiar to a teenage boy, when the object of his admiration recognizes his presence. But it was platonic excitement I hoped. I needed her company, her peaceful toleration, and her nonjudgment.
I emerged from the stall. Yui was washing her hands, and her expression calm.
I thought you might have gotten away, I was acting strange just now, I replied, swiveling and facing me. She was not beautiful and at the same time threatening in this environment; she was ordinary, friendly. "You seemed troubled."
No, no, no; not you, I said, all in a run, perhaps, too thick and fast. "Just… the usual exhaustion."
Yui rubbed herself off, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. You hold yourself like a person who is always expecting to get hit. I observe it when you deal with other boys students.
Her experience was disturbing. "The guys?"
"Yes. It seems to me that you gracefully repel them, but it does not appear to be performative. It is as though they are really displeased with my notice, she thought, taking up her battered leather messenger bag.
I stopped wanting to believe her and speak out the unbelievable fact. However, the conservative side of Akihiro was dominant. Not now, I said, I am not interested in dating.
Yui nodded, and was content to have the explanation. "Good. Men in this case are generally tiring. It is a pretty face to them. They do not perceive the human being under. That is the reason I find it better talking to you.
She prefers speaking to me! The feeling that he was truly approved by Yui was enormous. It was one of the successes of the emerging Akari-self, the part that demanded genuine and authentic attachment rather than masculine dominance.
I do like talking to you, Yui, I said, it's so good to be able to do so in this new life, so pure, so honest.
Superb,she smiled, her silent and bright smile. Later I will be attending the opening of an art exhibition in the student center. It is so terribly boring, and coffee is good. Would you like to join me? As friends."
As friends. The expression was a breath of life. "I would be delighted."
It was the first thing that day my stomach did not feel as tense, so I was leaving the restroom. Yui was the embodiment of the real haven, the only person who ever realized the pain behind the "Golden Blossom and never tried to take advantage of it. I required her. I had to maintain this friendship.
However, when she jostled my shoulder with her own as we strolled, a faint and lingering flavour of her lavender perfume reached my senses, a male voice Akihiro, whispered a dangerously persistent thought: If she should know she might leave me to keep her hand.
I gritted my teeth, and repressed the temptation. This road to my new life was down towards Yui, but the trail was hazardous with the very likelihood of losing the only straight relationship I had should my male tendencies reappear.