Episode 2: For Whom He Still Burns

Warning: This is a body-swapping episode. All sense of logic should be tossed out the window for the time being. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. (Also, get ready for some shipping fuel.)

★

A week had passed after that whole ‘viral video’ incident involving Asuka and, to a lesser extent, Behami.

“A body-swapping spell?” said Mimori excitedly. “Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh! Why didn’t you tell me about this until now?!”

“Well, I guess we always kinda skipped the page,” Erica said while shrugging. “I mean, it’s sandwiched right in between two superpowers that we already have: telekinesis and telepathy. But if you want to try it out, be my guest.”

“Can I—?”

“Please don’t let her do this,” Kasumi interrupted. “It’s like giving a pyromaniac fire powers! It’s ridiculous.”

While Mimori deflated (metaphorically speaking) into her chair, Erica considered Kasumi’s premise. “Yeah, but these aren't fire powers. Plus, Mimori really wants to. Apparently, it’s the plot to two of her favorite anime series or something.”

Kasumi grimaced. “No. Please, no.”

Erica looked around the room at her other friends, reading their minds for some sort of answer. She learned that Suika was up to it, but she also had ulterior, dirtier plans. The other girls didn’t express much interest in the spell… until she landed on Naoko.

Sure enough, Naoko stepped up to the plate vocally.

“I would like to swap bodies with Nathan.”

Even Nathan, who was desperately trying to avoid the situation that was unfolding, forcefully nodded after hearing that statement.

Intensity was now in the air, and Erica could feel it brewing among the stone-cold silence.

Every girl in that clubroom at that moment wore a different facial depression: disgust, curiosity, amusement, whatever the heck Mimori’s face was, stoicness that was hiding excitement (obviously that was Suika).

Erica slammed her hand down on the club room table to reignite the conversation. “Then I guess it’s settled, then. Naoko and Nathan it is! Jopi, get the ingredients!”

Jopi made a cute salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

As the first year got the ingredients ready, Erica decided to read aloud the instructions to her fellow two guinea pigs.

“Okay, guys! So, according to this… while you drink the potion, you’re supposed to think of one another and how you want to swap bodies with them… sounds pretty self-explanatory. Huh! This says that the spell is not instantaneous, it works at nighttime and only lasts for twenty-four hours, meaning you’ll be back to normal the next day.”

Jopi called out from behind her. “Erica-senpai, I’m done!”

“Hold on a second. Side effects before the potion kicks in are ‘nausea’ and… ‘confusion about gender if the opposite sex?’ Whatever. Other side effects include starting to speak like the other person. Great.” Erica looked up at Naoko and Nathan, who were shifting awkwardly in their seats.

“You ready?” she asked, headed tiled in a SHAFT-like manner.

“As I’ll ever be,” Nathan said shakily. “I mean, the kid potion’s one thing, but this? Umm…”

“Don’t have second thoughts, baby. We’ll conquer this together as a team.” Naoko smiled creepily.

Erica, who was seriously having second thoughts (what a bad pun), handed two identical-looking mugs that Jopi conjured up to the teen couple.

Erica inhaled, then exhaled. “Now drink the whole and forever hold your peace,” she said in an overly epic tone.

The two nodded and began to drink the potion.

“I have no idea where that came from,” Erica tacked on a solid awkward minute later.

☘

The first thing Naoko heard when she woke up was an unfamiliar rock song blasting near her ears. Upon opening her eyes, the music was coming from an alarm clock that was a few inches away from an equally unfamiliar bed.

Ugh. It has officially happened.

Naoko sighed as she hit the stop button on the alarm clock. Since she was Nathan now, she was greeted with his deep, manly voice instead of her high, dainty, and nasal girl one.

She wasn’t sighing because she was Nathan—in fact, becoming him for a day was her choice. It was the fact that she had to go to a high school.

A ninth grader attending eleventh-grade classes for the day. What is this, an anime?!

As she was looking at Nathan’s bedsheets, which were just a boring blue checkered pattern, it all came back to her, blurry and muffled. Memories from presumably the day before were all really embarrassing—like her watching dumb Vine videos after dinner and her talking to her dad about baseball (for some reason). She decided that it was sort of like a hangover, but without the alcohol… meaning it was not really one at all. Could you get drunk off of a magic potion? Naoko decided that from the evidence of the afternoon and night before that it was indeed possible. Probably.

The girl got out of Nathan’s bed with ease and looked around his bedroom for some kind of note. She knew he liked Easter eggs in movies and video games.

“Ah ha,” she said aloud, but in a whisper. His brother was probably still sleeping next door.

Dearest Naoko,

I am on the brink of insanity. Every minute goes by and I’m thinking more like you! Anyway, you don’t have to go to school. Pretend to be sick. I’ve already been keeping up the act so I expect you to continue it. My parents leave a little after I go to school so you can do whatever when they’re not here. Also, I’ve laid out some clothes for you to wear. That was weird to write. Good luck being me!

-Nathan.

“How sweet,” she muttered. “But good luck? Now I feel bad for not writing him anything! No, wait. I did.” Naoko was a little amused at how Nathan’s voice was sounding with her typical flat yet feminine delivery.

However, she didn’t have any more time to continue experimenting with talking in his voice because Naoko heard footsteps, which meant that his mom was coming up the stairs. Dun dun DUN!

“Nathan? Nathan-kun? Jason, are you up yet?”

Naoko stared at Nathan’s bedsheets, hoping that they’d move on their own. Unfortunately, due to the fact that she wasn’t in her body at the moment, she could not use her telekinesis.

Tip-toeing quickly to the bed, Naoko flung herself under the sheets at breakneck speed, making sure to tuck herself in not half-assedly.

Not soon after she did that, the door opened and Nathan’s mom walked in, whom she vaguely recognized, probably because she attended her birthday earlier this year.

“How are you feeling today, honey? Are you still feeling sick?” she asked sweetly, coming to the edge of his bed and stroking Nathan’s hair.

Naoko, afraid to speak, nodded.

“Alright, then. I’ll call the school to tell them you won’t be coming in today. I’ll be leaving to go to work soon, too, so make sure to get some rest. I’ll make a note for you and put it in the kitchen.”

No sooner had she entered the room did she exit, making Naoko heave a heavy sigh of relief.

Turning over in the bed, the girl (in spirit) lamented how pointless it was to call your school and tell them you wouldn’t be there. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to not call at all?

Ah, well, she thought. This is a different school district, after all. Just because my middle school doesn’t do that doesn’t mean that other schools can’t.

After listening to Nathan’s mom’s footsteps grow quieter down the streets, she grabbed her boyfriend’s cell phone from the floor (where it was next to the charger) and turned it on, wondering how he was doing in her shoes (er, socks at this point?).

☐

Nathan had no idea what he was getting into. From the moment he woke up it was suddenly a frantic rush to try to see how fast Naoko’s mom could get her to school. He didn’t understand why. If she had woken her up even a half hour earlier she could have plenty of time to get ready, but nooo.

Nerves were already starting to fill Nathan’s body about how he was going to act like Naoko today. He thought about staying home as well, as he told his girlfriend to do the same so as to not embarrass him, but…

I feel like I can handle being her. I’m more mature than her, so it shouldn’t be that hard.

As he was having his breakfast, he texted Naoko, whom he had a feeling would be up at that time due to his alarm clock still being set, and sure enough, she was active on Facebook Messenger.

I’m thinking of going to school as you, he confessed.

Naoko responded almost instantaneously.

That’s fine. I get it. However, I’ve got some ground rules for you:

It took under two minutes for his girlfriend to type everything out for him. Nathan couldn’t begin to imagine how much damage her phone screen was taking because of Naoko’s thunderous texting (which he had yet to witness in real life).

Tips on how to be me:

1- Get dressed properly. A bra is pretty easy to put on. Don’t forget to brush my hair. It ain’t that hard to do.

2- Barely talk and keep a stone-cold face on at all times.

3- Act normally in front of the CDAC! Everyone’s going to know it’s you.

Also, my locker combination is 38-16-54.

Nathan chuckled out loud. Thanks for some of those tips. I would have never figured them out by myself. He sent a thumbs-up emoji in return and as he did, Naoko sent a new message.

How are you doing in my body?

Nathan shoved a spoonful of Reese’s Puffs into his mouth and then replied.

I’m pretty overwhelmed. You have it easy. You can practically be yourself the whole friggin’ day because you’ll be all by yourself!

That was your idea, Naoko replied. I agree tho. I would not be good at acting like you around other people. My stone- cold personality is too set in my psyche.

Nathan chuckled, and as he did, Naoko’s mother called out to him in a stern tone from behind him.

“Naoko-chan! What did I tell you about being on your phone in the morning? Finish up eating or we’ll be late!”

Nathan grumbled as he put the phone in Naoko’s backpack and finished up his bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice.

☐

Nathan was utterly relieved when he arrived at Naoko’s middle school at a decent time (if it wasn’t for her mom, they would have arrived there even earlier, but alas. She probably just liked to create these worrisome situations to aggravate her bad anxiety or something).

Within about ten minutes until the warning bell rang, he had plenty of time to get to his first class of the day, which Naoko helpfully detailed in an itinerary via text message.

All in all, the only negative part of the body swap was Naoko’s annoying mom. He didn’t even mind being a girl.

Okay, there was one other negative part. He had to find a way to sit through the boringness that was language arts—eighth-grade language arts, to be exact. The only memories of that class he had were that he had to read a book so bland that got stuck on the same page for three hours straight.

As Nathan walked into the class he was least looking forward to, he glanced around to see that most of the kids were in the classroom and, unsurprisingly enough, he knew absolutely no one.

Thank God she’s not super popular… otherwise, I’d have to talk to these little brats. (Yes ageism is very much alive and well.)

The final bell rang a few minutes later and everyone took their seats. Nathan, seated in the front row, watched as the teacher walked in—a strict-looking woman with a bun in her hair and a sharp pantsuit on.

“Good morning, class,” she said with a thin smile.

After the class did their usual “Stand, rise” thing, she announced what the class would be doing for the day’s warmup.

“Today we’re going to be writing about an event that happened to you in the past. You can choose anything you want, as long as it carries a strong emotion with you.”

Aw shit. I’m fucked.

☘

Once Nathan’s parents both left for work, Naoko knew that it was time for her to do anything she wanted to do in his house.

Now, there were many options. He had a ton of video games, he had a real cool-looking gaming computer. His parents even had a huge TV downstairs and a whole library of movies she could watch while eating some popcorn, which she had a feeling that they had.

But Naoko knew what she wanted to do the most—ride on Nathan’s motorcycle, which was just out in the garage, already ready for her.

She had seen it quite a few times whenever she went over to his house every so often (school and club activities take up a bit of her time, you know?), and she was just dying to ride it. Of course, Naoko could always just ask Nathan if they could ride it together, but for whatever reason, she was super nervous to.

What are you afraid you’re gonna fall off, her mind snarked. Chicken. Ding!

Naoko held a fist to her (or rather, Nathan’s) chest triumphantly. “Alright, after I eat breakfast, it’s gonna happen!” she announced to no one in particular.

Now time to psych herself with some good food.

☐

Nathan couldn’t believe his luck. Of all the times to have a warm-up writing assignment, I have to be Naoko? Really?!

“Maybe I can get some ideas from her past entries,” Nathan muttered to himself, flipping through the previous pages in her notebook. As he did, a thought occurred to him: He should’ve known what he was in for.

“How My Dad Was Wanted For a Murder”

“How I Became the Savior”

“Is There Life After Death?”

“The Imaginary Friend”

They were all to do with her favorite shows: Secrets & Lies, Once Upon a Time, Proof, and The Whispers.

Is she even trying to hide what she’s referencing here? Nathan thought, slightly amused.

She wasn’t. She was creatively bankrupt or something.

Nathan could’ve sworn he heard the students around him giggling at her. He would have done so as well, if he didn’t have to follow Naoko’s rules and if he wasn’t, you know, her.

As the class started writing, something dawned on the boy that he could write about. Something easy and vague enough that it would still sound like something that Naoko would write.

Movies.

Bingo! That's what I’m going to write about!

Taking a deep breath, Nathan waited for the teacher to start the warm-up exercise and once she did, he dated the top of her notebook page and began to write a short story entitled “My First Trip to the Movies.”

☘

Naoko knew that being overly excited for such a boring event as riding a motorcycle. She knew that the excitement should be justified, however, because this was her first time.

And boy, was she ever ready to get the thing revvin’ up.

“Have I slept? Check. Have I eaten something? Check. Have I gone to the bathroom…? Unfortunately, check.” Naoko was counting on her fingers the things that his mom wanted to make sure he did while she was gone. She raised her eyebrows at that last one. Then, she focused her eyes on the iPod and a pair of headphones that were sitting precariously on Nathan’s messy dresser. “Oh, and locate his iPod? Check. Cheeeeeck!” She added that last part herself and dragged out the last word again because it still amused her that was using his voice (which, by the way, was pretty hot in her opinion).

Anyway, after making it down from his bedroom and into the garage, she was ready to ride.

Damn, does he have some good riding playlists on here? She commented mentally as she was scrolling down the menu with the click wheel (yes, it was one of those old ones).

Suffice to say, her boyfriend definitely had a better music taste than her, as the music on her phone was basically just a bunch of grunge music and TV soundtracks—although that was just mostly from Once Upon a Time.

After opening up the garage door, Naoko wheeled out the motorcycle, put on the headphones, and then topped it off with the helmet on her head.

It was now time to start the playlist.

With a definitive click, Naoko got the playlist started.

“Reluctantly crouched at the starting line. Engines pumping and thumping in time.”

The first song on the list fit perfectly with the moment, and even the lyrics sort of fit the context, because she did feel like she was haunted by something she could not define. And Nathan was probably alone in a time of need. After all, she knew that he tended to get annoyed around her friends.

DURARARA!

After turning the volume up on the iPod to more than halfway, she was prepared to take the ride of her lifetime… with Nathan’s phone in her leather jacket pocket, of course. In case something bad happened.

☐

The tortuous day of eighth grade was over. Well, almost. Nathan still had to meet up with the Can Do Anything Club and stuff—which just happened to be the thing he was kinda dreading all day, because… well, of some internal reasons.

Right as he walked into the clubroom, he was greeted rather viciously.

“Nathan-chan! How are you? How was your day?! Aw, I just want to eat you up!”

He was instantly met with the girl Mari Suzuki, because… of course?

“Um… I’m not edible,” Nathan replied, scratching his cheek softly.

“It just makes me tingle inside that my best friend in the entire world has had her soul replaced by her boyfriend’s! Now if only I could do the same with Serj Tankian or Daron Malakian…” A smug-looking cat smile formed on her face.

As Mari backed away, giggling evilly about her strange-ass plan, Mimori cleared her throat from the opposite side of the table.

“So, guys… what are we gonna do with Nathan-ko here?” From the right side of the table, Behami cackled.

Nathan stared blankly at her for a second, and then realized the awful pun that Mimori just made.

“Hmmm, I honestly have no clue,” noted Erica. “Do any of you have any ideas?”

“Oooh! Oooh!” Jopi looked excited for some reason. “Why don’t we play some video games? Suika always brings her laptop with her, I’m sure she has some fun things to do there!”

Suika raised an eyebrow. “Um, excuse me?” she said in her usual flat voice. “I do have my laptop but Behami also has hers. All I have on mine is an otome game. She has her whole Steam library on there.” She gestured to her friend’s laptop bag, almost accusingly.

Asuka rolled her eyes. “Whatever you guys want to do, that’s fine. I’m going to study right now.”

Nathan, who always felt off in the clubroom, felt even more off being in Naoko’s body in the room with these girls. As he was sitting on the chair by the door, awkwardly scrolling down Instagram on his phone, he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder.

Nathan looked up, his heart beating a little too fast, but it calmed down when he realized who it was.

“Oh. Hey Tomo,” he said quietly.

“I know you feel really overwhelmed right now, but that’s to be expected, right?” She smiled a small smile.

“To be honest, yeah,” Nathan said. “Eighth grade is exhausting. I never thought I’d say that in my whole life.” He laughed.

“That’s true, it really is,” giggled Tomo. “And it must be even harder to deal with it when you’re pretending to be somebody else at the same time.”

Huh. I never thought about it that way.

After saying that, Tomo got up from her kneeling position and beckoned him to the laptop that was being set up.

“Let’s play whatever rad game Behami has!”

Nathan snorted. “Rad…” Why did that make me laugh?

☘

Perhaps riding that motorcycle almost the whole day was a big mistake. Honestly, Naoko didn’t know herself. Was she being too vain? Should she have just braved it and gone to Nathan’s school, pretending to be him? Would his Mom be a Super Sleuth and figure out that she was gone for an hour and a half that day?

Let’s hope that she doesn’t. Ding!

When Naoko parked Nathan’s motorcycle in the garage, she felt pretty exhausted. Checking the time on the iPod, she found out that it was almost the end of sixth hour.

“The CDAC is going to meet up soon,” she said, breath ragged. “Ah, I really hope that Nathan is fine without me there.”

And with that, she trudged upstairs to his bedroom and took a long, long nap.

☘

“Hey, hey self. It’s almost dinnertime. Are you listening? Wake up!”

The sound of Naoko’s voice, albeit a little too boyish-sounding, could be heard about a foot away from where she was sleeping.

Naoko yelped and shot straight up out of the bed.

“Huh?! What’s going on? Am I lucid dreaming? Please tell me I’m not.” She then pinched her neck. Nope, still Nathan.

“Nope. Still me.” Nathan chuckled (more like giggled) like he was reading her mind. “Hope you don’t mind me writing about your first trip to the movies—well, obviously not your ‘first’ but you know what I mean.”

Naoko’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. How was your acting like me around other students? I’m curious.”

“I think I did pretty good,” Nathan smirked, and it looked very wrong on Naoko’s face. “All I had to do was look dead inside, and that’s a pretty easy thing to do.”

Naoko sighed, thankful that her boyfriend didn’t do anything embarrassing with her body during school.

“Good. By the way, what was the ‘first movie’ I saw?”

Nathan snorted. “I chose Ratatouille. I mean, why not?”

“Ah, thanks. I actually still like that movie.” She smiled warmly.

After a brief moment of silence, the two were about to embrace a hug when Nathan moved back on his bed, cringing.

“D—do you feel funny? Because I feel funny…”

Naoko nodded. She was starting to feel pretty odd too. A tingling sensation was growing in her brain, which isn’t something she thought she’d ever think about.

The potion is wearing off, then…

“Umm… I’m gonna leave now. Text you later, then?” Nathan said as he was quickly moving for the door.

“Sounds like a deal.” Naoko nodded and went back to bed.

☐

Nathan was very glad to be finally done with the “Freaky Friday” thing. In an ironic sense, it wasn’t a Freaky Friday, but rather a Freaky Wednesday, but that didn’t carry the same catchiness to it.

It had been a long day for him. A day filled with trying to remember terms that he hadn’t thought of in three years, trying to figure out the maze of the school (one that he never attended before this, mind you), hanging out with Naoko’s friends (who were somehow even weirder without the actual Naoko there), having an awkward dinner with her family, and on top of that, pretending to be a fourteen-year-old girl, he was thoroughly exhausted and ready to sleep.

“Let’s see… I changed into pajamas, brushed my teeth, and now it’s time to text, um…” Nathan was struggling to think of what he was going to do next.

Who am I going to text again?

Suddenly, his phone (or rather, his girlfriend’s) buzzed, playing a little bit of “Bittersweet Symphony,” which he hadn’t actually heard in years.

Nathan slid the lock button and saw that Naoko texted him with just a simple greeting.

Ah, right. That’s who I was going to text.

Hey.

Hey, he echoed back.

Are you ready to be yourself again?

More than ready. Yup.

Shall we meet before school tomorrow to talk about what we did today?

Sounds good! Then, before Naoko could respond with anything else he added, Do you think I could get my own powers at some point?

Naoko had responded with an OK right as Nathan finished typing out the last word and then, a minute or so later, she responded again.

:) Perhaps. Any you’re wanting?

He grinned. Maybe super strength, or the power to change the weather.

Now you’re just playing God. We’ll see. Good night!

Goodnight. :D

After that last exchange, Nathan smiled yet again and turned off the phone.

“I have such a strange girlfriend,” he said to himself as he got situated in bed. “And what a day it was being her.”

★

The meeting was about a half hour before school started for both of them. Tomo called the two of them at midnight (one at a time, of course) to make sure that they had switched back, and told them that she could teleport Nathan to the clubroom before class. Since they had already discussed this via text, both of them actually told her that they already thought of that idea. Naoko could picture a bespeckled friend pouting through the phone.

And so, the time had come. Only a few students were inside the actual building, which was good as they likely wouldn’t see Naoko and Nathan inside the clubroom, with Tomo being just outside the door, listening to an old radio recording on her Walkman.

“So… how was it being me?” Nathan asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“I enjoyed it, to a certain extent.” Some blush formed on Naoko’s face as her mouth formed a timid smile.

“Um, yeah… I definitely get you there.”

Naoko couldn’t help. She began to chuckle at the awkwardness and ridiculousness of the situation. Nathan chuckled as well.

Nathan coughed a bit as he recovered from the laughing fit. “Hey, that was pretty cute. You should do that more often—laughing, I mean.”

Naoko’s smile reverted back to its usual stoic, vegetative state. “Anyway.” She paused like she was gathering her thoughts. “I rode on your motorcycle for the first time, and that was pretty fun.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? And how about that hack job you did putting it back where it belonged?”

Naoko’s eyes widened slightly. “Ah, I apologize. That was the first time I parked a motorcycle, too.”

“That’s fine.” He smirked. “I understand.”

“Oh. Speaking of understanding things, I saw that you didn’t put my school uniform in the dirty clothes basket last night. I found them on the ground this morning and Mom didn’t have enough time to wash them, so I’m wearing them dirty today. ”

“Hey, hey! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were so anal about your clothes!”

Tomo peeked in the window and saw the boyfriend and girlfriend bickering. She started to giggle.

“Oh, if I only had a boyfriend like that,” a voice said next to her. It was Mari, who was also taking a look through the window.

Tomo jumped. “Mari! When did you get here?”

“Eh, just a few minutes ago.” She shrugged. “So do you think I can switch bodies with Serj soon?”

Suddenly, the door opened and the two girls jumped.

“Don’t pretend we didn’t hear you,” Naoko said flatly. “Because I saw everything. Tomo, say no.”

“Alright, alright. Sorry, Mari-chan. That’s a no.”

Nathan and Naoko looked at each other at the same time and both sighed. That was one event avoided.