chapter i ~ blue autumn and white bicycle, black hair with red guitar.

Loneliness
I've long been accustomed to
I don't really feel sorrow
These tears are only a pretense
Like a fool, take a deep breath and spit out with ears plugged

white summer and green bicycle, red hair with black guitar
the pillows

“Help me become a real girl.”

“Why in the heck would you want to be a real girl?”

“Simple, really, I dream of it.”

“Dude, that’s vague, and dreams like that won’t come true.”

“I know! But don’t you think it’d be a waste not to try at least once?”

Snow White and I conversed while drifting in menial work limbo.

Click, and crack…and he stopped twirling on a pen, his surprise invoking no soupcon of doubt, duly recognizing what was hurled for him: his friend asking assistance knowing he won’t supply him cheap empathy, not rule a subjugation out due to the absence of realism, but allude genuinely to breaking its impossible romance. His luminous ultramarine eyes glistening at the first hit of sun rays─tears about to fall from his latent drowsiness.

“I can’t help you with something I don’t know how to do. Mrgh…” He let out a soundless yawn split second after hammering our desk down. Scissors and box cutters scattered down the classroom floor. All trickling down its smooth surface, I worried about them leaving dents. Following his yawn was a pitiful look. “...What’s wrong with your head?”

“Hn, it’s like going into haunted places in search of ghosts?” I addressed his concern, swerved a look somewhere and hid an even wearier yawn. “Anyway…Didja pull an all-nighter again?”

“Mm, you haven’t logged in so I’ve been candle running alone…Cut the crap,” he deadpanned. “We have been together for three years and you never told me. It’s so sad, I’m losing more energy. You want me to, theoretically, turn you into a real girl, is that it?”

“Well, at least you’re the only person who knows,” I mocked, heartily sneering at him.

“Yeah, I know.” And he countered as a matter of fact, “I’m the only friend you have, after all. Not that I’d help you, but what do you want me to do?”

Curling lips to fit a smug, the unruly troublemaker exhausted his dissatisfaction into a sigh.

Huffing all that, he picked all our scattered implements while I continued with the menial task our chief editor forced unto us.

I peered into the window, caught a refreshing glimpse of the orange skies for a while.

“Let’s make a time machine.”

“You pickin’ a fight?”

Hn?

I don’t have the faintest idea where he got the audacity to be triggered.

“You want to change the past so you’ll be a girl once you’re born, is that it?!” Shiro imposed, taking the words straight out of my mind.

“Mm-hmm, hexactly!”

“Ha ha! Puh-lease, go dig yourself a hole to crawl into. I’d like nothing to do with you from here on out, so I’m gifting you a gravestone before we part ways…That doesn’t sound right. Maybe I’ll go make your time machine and leave you to rot in a Kamakura battlefield.”

He’s the person best to share my ridiculous daydream, and I’m treated like an asshole.

Skipping grades all willy-nilly, I was hoping he could build a time machine and make me a girl once and for all…But of course, I couldn’t say it straight. Ugh, to be honest, I hate asking for favors─and the thought was worse than hunting ghosts.

“I don’t know how you still have the idea that time machines do that. Haven’t you watched Endgame?”

“I have.”

“Theoretically, if we go back in time and change something, it wouldn’t carry over to the present…Dude, you just made me speak Hulkish.”

Hmm, I would have agreed. But basing a scientifically unproven thing on a blockbuster from half a decade ago is a load of bull. El Psy Kongroo?

“The heck does that mean?!”

…How unfortunate.

He didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Come on, Shiroron! You can easily build a collider.”

I kept on pestering him nonetheless.

“Nuh-uh, you are talking about whipping up a million-dollar machine like it’s normal. Who’s basing a scientifically unproven thing on a blockbuster now?!” Shiro spat, fuming in indignation. “Hello, I’m not the Kingpin!”

“No…What I’m saying is you’re the engineer! You also live in a penthouse so I don’t see the problem when it comes to money.”

“Grah! Don’t talk to me.”

Okay.

I suppose when someone has ridiculous aspirations, people become repulsive as a natural response.

However, the hypocrisy reeked so bad from his perspective, I swear he’s screaming inside regarding his influence on the subject. I seriously meant it when I mentioned he’s the best person to have this conversation with. Him being my only friend had no legal influence in the matter whatsoever. I have a little sister who I can openly talk to about it, too.

“Why didn’t you talk to Mari about it, then?”

This prick…I looked him in the eyes, and he raised an eyebrow.

Flashing his aqueous irises, unabashed charisma oozed so effortlessly I would have fallen head over heels if I was uninformed. As the ceiling fan looped, his overgrown blue hair swayed, like flowing water. Alas, the sight of the red ribbon upfront on his nonexistent chest─was as unhealthy as the sailor uniform he adorned last month until last Saturday.

A boy in a girl’s clothing.

You read that right.

If I hadn’t used his pronoun, I would have effectively laid out a guessing game for you─and be surprised with the result. I don’t dig this kind of betrayal so I took measures to let you know early on. So there, unfortunately enough, Shirayukihime Otogibanashi, contrary to his name─the snow white princess─wasn’t a princess at all.

Truth is, there’s a myriad of surprises in him that I lingered for a while on how I’d justify his introduction.

Alongside his confusingly feminine name, he wasn’t a normal teenage boy.

But those are for later…For now, he’s a cross-dressing scumbag─who has no human heart.

“Man, out with it, and just say you want to try cross-dressing too,” Shiro digressed, outright mocking everything I told him. “You don’t need to make a story about meeting your imaginary muse in order to try it out.”

I would try it out─but it wasn’t what I said.

“Like I told you, it was like a divine light descending from heaven.”

“You’re lovestruck, that’s all,” he deadpanned, and brandished more of his mocking attitude. “Dude, it’s not something you do because you saw a divine light descend from heaven.”

Okay, him having parroted the same words sent a damningly distraught kind of cringe into my spine.

“Go cringe about why you’d like to become a real girl!”

“Stop reading my mind,” I spat, but not that he’d do so. I’d felt my eyebrows furrow, and the spite took over. “How’d you become a cross-dressing pervert in the first place?”

Yeah, I toned down at the last second.

“Glad you asked after all these years!” As colorful as he is physically, his effervescent maniac slammed our desk. Excitement skyrocketed, I got the hoo-has. But trust me, this is his comic act where he drops the energy for a depressing anticlimax. “...I’d have reacted genuinely but, there was once an ulterior motive to it.”

Wryly so, I can’t stress enough how hard it is to emulate Shiro on paper.

“Sly,” I murmured, a little awestruck. “So, what kinda motive?”

“Boo! I was expecting you’d get it,” and suddenly, he expected me to read his mind. “You’re dull, but you were always quick to catch on once someone told you.”

“Okay…like to get someone’s attention.”

I’ve no use playing along with this atrocious baiting so I tuned on exactly what he said. My bad, I wasn’t as swift to catch on this time─I was busy imagining an eyeball gouged straight out the skull socket. Whose eyes, those bright blue eyes.

“Bingo…” Exasperated all of a sudden, Shiro closed his eyes and stuck out his small tongue. “Bleh, can’t get them now.”

Never have I ever had the sensibilities of an assassin.

“Okay, back to business, tell me who’s the one I’m talking about.”

Blud’s not even embarrassed, nor trying to hide it─he actually welcomed the reveal. Well, we were alone in the room so there’s no need to be pretentious. “Narumi-sensei,” I inferred, henceforth triggering her nonexistent motherly pride.

“Hat’s off to you,” he said, pointing his scissors towards my chest. “She’s the only reason for this whole cross-dressing charade, understand?”

For one, I like how honest he is.

“I see…” I nodded, hitting the ball back to his side. “But you know, it doesn’t mean that I have a lame reason because the motivation is unbelievable to you.”

“Who’d even believe you like that?” Shiro returned the volley, even stronger than before. “All I heard was a rendition of a certain romcom light novel encounter. Go pursue your youth, and raise a boring girlfriend, why won’t you?”

How admonishingly wry, talking ill of someone when they haven’t met yet.

“You know what, I’d have attacked you right away if I didn’t understand what subtle reference you were making.”

“Go on!” Outright bothered, Shiro furrowed his eyebrows, smiled askew as he flashed his dainty eyes to me once more. “I’ve been itching to punch you in the gut this whole time.”

Once he had cast a dark spell, his boots were bulled.

Shirayukihime Otogibanashi─without regard to his beauteous appearance─stood, knuckles cracking in succession.

“Dude, you sure are on fire about this…”

“I sure do!” Shiro huffed a bated breath, then sat on his own volition. I suppose he’d rather not trade jabs and hooks, after all. I don’t understand him sometimes. “First of all, I bet you didn’t let the chance slip by and learned who she is. You are secretly hoping for a rom-com, and hope it’s not wrong as you expected.”

“Dude, you sure are on fire about that!” I joked, catching a rather tsunderic tease as he didn’t even bat an eye.

“So, what happened after she collapsed?”

After all this time, he’s finally interested.

I’ve been discouraged in a flurry, I wasn’t sure if the enthusiasm was still lit from within.

“I caught her, and called an ambulance.” Telling him what happened was out of obligation at this point, but I opted to satisfy his clockwork mind. “Well, you’re not wrong, I did take measures to learn her name.”

“Nailed it!” Celebrating a nonexistent win, he pumped his arm into the air. Irritatingly smug, he asked, “Who is she?”

Meanwhile, the vibrant twilight drew near─my lips curling upwards, embarrassingly tuned to a light giggle. Hand slapped on reddened cheeks, cultivating an immovable grin. What my muse has sent aflutter in my stomach were the notorious butterflies. “Oops…” Fortunately, Shiro’s glare was strong enough, I let myself out of the delusion…Man, I couldn’t help but smile!

“Out with it!”

“Mkay, but mind if I calm down first?”

“Go on.”

“She is from our school. Her name is…” Gazing at his savant eyes, I slowly tugged on the heartstrings pulled by the selfsame muse. “Eli Otonose.”

For years, I wouldn’t understand why tears fell off his eyes.