A Meeting With Grace

The scent of fresh bread caused Ryuji to stir. It was welcoming and warm, tickling his senses as he groggily rose from his bed, eyeing a strangely familiar ceiling. He threw off his covers and stared at the room around him. His instincts knew that something was off.

The room was normal enough – crime drama posters on the walls, wooden practice weaponry hanging on racks, photos and snippets of high school life. It was exactly how he remembered his teenage years, his home before he committed to a life of crime. Yet, it had been over a decade since then.

He stormed out of his room and cautiously crept down the stairs, the odor that lingered around him the cause of it. He once lived above a family-owned bakery, but it should have long gone under.

After Ryuji had become the Yama Ryu, there were those that tried to take advantage of his connections, so that forced his folks to pack up and leave town. He hadn’t heard from them in years. It was better for them to not have anything to do with the underworld. Ryuji’s family was now the Tenjou Clan.

The very scent of that which should no longer exist made him pause at every step. He had no right to waltz back into such nostalgia. He had sworn it away when the saké hit his lips. But as he stepped into the kitchen, fists raised for anything to happen, a flash of pink locks and a swirl of an apron met his gaze. The bubbly expression of a girl lost in her craft made him drop his guard.

Tossing dough in the air, bouncing with joyous steps, the strange girl hummed as she toiled away at the counter. The burst of radiance before him caused Ryuji to step backward, something that not even fear could do.

The flow of her long, pink hair moving in rhythm instantly made him forget everything as he watched her nimbly shuffle with flour-coated hands to partition the dough. A beep from the oven, signaling a finished project, broke her trance. She raced over and pulled open the door, letting out a burst of scents that made Ryuji salivate. With a spin, she yanked the hot tray with a gloved hand before noticing that she had an observer.

“Oh! So you’re finally awake! I hope you don’t mind me using the space. I heard that aromatherapy does wonders on a person’s subconscious!”

The jubilant girl was all smiles, plopping the tray on the nearest counter before hopping over to Ryuji, as if he was an old friend.

“W-Who, who are you?”

She was certainly no one that he recognized. Pink hair was unnatural enough on its own, but he couldn’t recall any girl from his past that would approach him so readily. He had an intimidating aura around him as the Yama Ryu, and just about every girl in Kakushicho understood that there was a wall around him.

“The name’s Grace, I’m in charge of taking care of you!”

“Taking care of me? For what?”

“You’re comatose right now. And it’s my duty as a dream fairy to nurse your subconscious!”

Ryuji was at a loss for words as she whipped back around to the fridge, pulling out a mixing bowl and setting it on the counter. She filled a piping bag with the contents before returning to the tray, where she plucked out a round pastry and made a hole in it. Combining pastry and piping bag together, Grace held out the completed cream puff to Ryuji, who merely gawked at the whole process.

Too many thoughts ran through his head – from the expectation of being poisoned by the seemingly innocent girl to how all of this was a dream. He was surprised when she suddenly disappeared from his sight, and the taste of cream hit his tongue.

If sweetness was a poison, Ryuji would have already died from it. He instinctively swallowed the morsel that was shoved into his mouth, forgetting that he had sworn off from such things to keep up his image. A mere taste made him cave into his long-restrained urges.

“Can I have another?”

“With pleasure!”

Blame it on having grown up in a bakery, but Ryuji had a hard time denying sweets that were placed in front of him. And given what he could recall before he woke up, Grace could have very well been a grim reaper serving him a final meal.

He sighed at the thought of cream puffs being what his heart desired at his life’s end.

“Even though this is a dream, you shouldn’t indulge yourself too much. As a nurse, I have to keep your desires grounded to reality.”

Ryuji looked down at his hands to find them covered in cream. He had kept eating as Grace handed him more and more. The tray was already half empty, with his face smeared in white like a child gobbling treats messily.

Grace came forward with some napkins, wiping his cheeks like he was some snot-nosed brat. His fists clenched instinctively, but he backed away from her right after.

“Stop, I can do that myself,” Ryuji objected, wiping the rest with his bare arm. He suddenly realized that he didn’t have a shirt on, forgetting to check as he hurried downstairs.

That realization made him self-conscious of his bare back, but as he tried to turn around, he found Grace poking at his tattoo.

“This is so pretty, like some kind of tapestry on the wall! How lucky it is to have such nice art on you!”

Ryuji hopped back, his guard suddenly tightening towards this girl.

Who the hell is she? Has she not seen a yakuza’s tattoo before?

Grace tilted her head in confusion, making her seem oblivious to everything.

“Don’t you know who I am?! Are you really that stupid?!”

“Your name is Ryuji Yamaoka, a patient at the Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital. 184 centimeters tall, weighed at 88 kilograms. Checked in at 6:12 pm, two days ago, with a bullet wound in the stomach. Surgery was performed between 7:20 pm and 8:40pm, where your condition stabilized but in a comatose state.”

Grace read off his statistics with a finger on her chin, like she was going off a clipboard.

“I-I didn’t mean that, but you are making this dream feel awfully like reality, you know? That it’s not my head just messing around with me?”

“We get that a lot with our patients. But allow me to introduce myself. My name is Grace. I’m the resident nurse that helps rehabilitate patients that fall into a coma or are otherwise bedridden for extended periods of time. As a dream fairy, my task is to maximize your brain activity, accelerating the body’s natural healing to bring you back to full consciousness.”

As Grace bowed, the very surroundings morphed around her. Like magic, her clothing shifted from a baker’s uniform to a nurse outfit. A pair of butterfly-like wings emerged from her back, like some creature from a fantasy. If he hadn’t already been told he was in a dream, he would certainly realize he was in one now because there was no way he could imagine something like that on his own.

“Do dream nurses have wings where you come from?” Ryuji said, staring at the anomalies on her back.

“They are a helpful reminder for those whose dreams are a bit too realistic.”

“And this is my dream we are in, correct?”

Grace beamed him a smile and a nod in response.

“That means I can take command of it, now that I’m aware, right? That whole lucid dream concept.”

With his bearings now in place, Ryuji subconsciously went right for the controls, a habit stemming from over a decade of juggling flimsy positions of power. He stepped forward, gripping Grace by the shoulders, an aura of intimidation oozing from his eyes. Just as he realized how bad such a move would be seen by the girl before him, Grace let out a gasp of understanding.

“Oh! Given your background information, I take it that you want to get physical with me.”

Ryuji froze at those words, his intimidation sucked back in from surprise. He hadn’t meant to come off like that at all, dream or not. But before he could back away, Grace perked up.

“That’s fine by me. I need more practice with that kind of service anyway!”

“J-Ju-Just you wait-”

Ryuji’s eyes bugged out as he shoved Grace away, her clothing melting away magically to show off more skin. Yet another time, this girl disrupted his rhythm enough to force him back.

“HIYAAA!!!”

A shrill cry brought him back to his senses as a fist came flying toward his face. In a flash, Ryuji’s battle instincts took over as he sidestepped and swung back. The flutter of pink hair in his vision caused his fist to brake, hovering awkwardly right before the surprised face of Grace, who was now wearing a sports top and mini shorts. Her hair was tied back, and pads covered her elbows and knees, a clear sign that she was ready for some action.

However, Grace missed the reason for that hesitation in Ryuji’s eyes, instead pulling back her other hand to punch a completely wide-open Ryuji in the cheek. His head barely jostled from the impact, a sense of confusion overriding all other feelings.

Grace stepped back and got into a boxing stance, trying out a few more practice jabs while Ryuji’s eyes slowly lost its glaze.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asked.

“You’re one of those muscley thugs that finds sport in tests of manliness, aren’t you? That chiseled physique is enough to inspire me to go a few rounds with you.”

“I don’t hit women.”

“Oh, pish. I’m not one of those fragile damsels-in-distress that you play save the princess with. Not having a real body has its advantages when it comes to this occupation.”

“I still don’t hit women.”

“Then…, do you prefer to be hit by women?”

“NO! I’m not Ozaki for god’s sake!”

“Who’s Ozaki?”

“My kouhai, or minion, or whatever you want to call him.”

“Ehh, must be tough to be a senpai in that case.”

“Regardless, I’ll only fight men!”

“Ah, I see. That’s how you swing then.”

Ryuji’s retort was left stuck in his throat as Grace pulled out her transformation magic once again. Except, it was not her clothing that changed this time. Her height grew, certain places flattened out, and others rippled with muscle now. In a flash, Grace had become a beefcake in far-too-tight clothing.

The surprise of that transformation left Ryuji reeling. And before he could recover, a pair of thick arms grabbed his torso from behind. His feet left the ground as he was hurled into the air. The ceiling flew past his vision before an incredible shock slammed against his head that made his teeth chatter. Grace had put him in a German suplex, and as he stared upside down at her getting up, it felt less like he was in pain than it was an adrenaline rush coursing through his body.

A meaty hand extended toward Ryuji, which he reached out and allowed himself to be pulled up. He had no idea what to make of being ‘fired up’ for revenge after such a strange action. Certainly, the supposed dream nurse before him was unlike any experience he had ever encountered.

But then, darkness crept around the edges of his vision, causing him to stumble.

“Ah, it looks like that last one brought you back to your senses. Don’t worry, that’s a good sign. I’ll see you again soon, if you don’t check out early,” Grace said, giving him a cutesy wave that was a gross disconnect with that sinewy body.

Ryuji’s mind clocked out and went dark as he stumbled into a pair of burly arms. A sigh of satisfaction escaped Grace as she watched the world around them slowly grow dim.