Episode 5: What About Our Promises?

Mari may not look like it, but she’s a great voice actress, exceptional even. In fact, people often said that it was almost like magic that she was as good as she was.

And they were right.

Unlike her other friends, Mari Suzuki didn’t hide her superpowers but rather used them in public for fun. She was actually shocked that they didn’t get taken away yet, but yet again she never once used them for personal gain.

It was an early December day and Mari was doing what she always did on Sundays—reading some articles on one of her favorite websites, Cracked. It was a favorite of hers because it was funny and informative at the same time. Her favorite favorite aspect of it, however, were the psychology articles, something she was admittedly fascinated with.

“Let’s see… What's going on there today? Video games, superheroes, movies… ah ha! Here we go! Top 5 Things Your Mind Does When It’s Sleeping. Well, I’ve heard enough about it but it’s bound to be interesting!”

Why was she so obsessed with the brain? Well, it’s a long story. In short, it all started in sixth grade when her class was learning about the functions of the body. Since her class had to do a project, Mari chose the central nervous system to research at random. What first started out as a simple project that she was going to breeze through turned into one of genuine intellectual curiosity.

It wasn’t just the brain she became fascinated with at that time, either. Upon going through multiple Wikipedia articles, she ended up on one about the voice and vocal cords. That got her grade school brain to think things like Why don’t we all sound the same? And What sets each voice apart?

After the discovery of these specific organs in the human body she began to try to imitate other people and failed miserably. However, she still found it fun so she continued to do it, much to her friends’ chagrin. Deep down inside though, Mari wished she could do a thousand voices, like Mike Patton or something.

Like a miracle (not actually), Mari ended up with the power to change her voice three years later, which did not come as a surprise to her fellow clubmates.

With that power, Mari felt like she could do anything she wanted, hence the new(ish) title of the club. She could sound like a boy, an old person, a young person, her favorite singers… virtually anyone, even people she came across just once. If she thought up the name of the person in her head, she could sound like them. She even tried to imitate various animals once and it worked. Mari used her powers so often that sometimes, more often than not, she’d forget what her own voice sounded like. (Hint: It’s bland and boring-sounding, in her opinion.)

Once a poor imitator, now a versatile expert… in a cheatish kinda way.

★

One of the many places she liked to do impersonations was the store. It was amusing to do it there because there were plenty of people there to catch off-guard, and also, unlike in school, she’d never have to see them again. While her mom was off in the produce section, Mari decided to wander around in the frozen food section, looking to try a new type of ice cream. While she was looking, she put on her favorite voice: the posh lady, which admittedly sounded like a My Little Pony character that Mimori really liked.

“Hmm… what flavor shall I choose?” she murmured, making a display of playing with her hair while she said that.

A voice then cut through the frigid air and made her jump a bit.

“You have a really nice voice!”

Mari’s head turned to where she heard it, which was to the left of her.

“A-ah! Oh, hi!” she replied, slipping back into her regular voice. “Do I know you?” She knew the answer was no, but she decided to say it anyway.

The owner of the voice, a pretty blond woman in her mid-twenties wearing a ponytail, chuckled lightly. “Actually, I work for a professional voice-acting company, so no you don’t know me.”

Mari’s mouth fell open. “Really?” Man, what a fuckin coincidence.

The woman nodded. “My name’s Claire. Would you like my business card? You can just think about it, of course. I’m not forcing you or anything.”

Out of the corner of Mari’s eyes, she saw her mom walking up to her. In a tizzy, Mari nodded.

“Ah, yes please!”

Claire smiled and handed her the godforsaken card.

“Um, Mari. What’s going on?” Mari’s mom was understandably concerned at a stranger giving her daughter something.

Mari’s face flushed a bit. “Oh, you know! This nice lady here overheard me doing a random impersonation and gave me this business card to a voice-acting agency!” Hand wobbling, Mari showed the aforementioned card to her.

The mom’s eyebrow raised. “Really? Huh. Yeah, Mari-chan here. Sure is quite the actress. She used to be pretty bad at doing impersonations, but one day she just magically got super good!”

Claire smirked. “Think you could do another one off the bat?”

Mari’s mouth went dry. I have no problem with doing any off the bat but in front of a woman from an agency? Who, WHO?!

It then came to her: Peter.

“Uh, so yeah. Right now I’m impersonating one of my friend’s crushes. I won’t tell you which one, though.”

To say the least, Claire was shocked, while Mari’s mom was already familiar with her using that specific voice.

“Wow…” Claire whispered. “That’s… amazing. How can you even do that?”

Mari giggled and grinned. “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret!”

★

“You ran into a woman that works for a voice-acting company?!” Mimori cried. “That’s frickin amazing!”

Mari nodded, grinning. “Yup. That’s exactly what happened. And guess what? I’m going to the agency tomorrow!”

Naoko raised an eyebrow. “TGIF,” she said through pursed lips.

Mari started to pace back and forth in the clubroom. “Is it bad to feel nervous?” she said, playing with the ends of her hair.

Tomo started to nod, a serious look on her face. “I feel proud of you but you have to remember not to be vain when you use your powers. Please keep the phrase ‘personal gain’ in her mind tomorrow.”

Erica, who had been listening—albeit a bit too intently—spoke up. “To be fair though, we’ve all been using our powers for pretty dumb, vain reasons. The only time one of us has ever lost our powers was—well, you know. The Kasumi Fanservice Incident.”

Kasumi’s face went up in flames—metaphorically speaking, of course. It also made her curl up in her chair and begin to rock back and forth.

“‘This is how you remind me of what I really am,’” she sang to herself quietly.

Behami chuckled and rolled her eyes, then returned her attention to the topic at hand. “Dude, I’d say go for it! This is your dream come true, right?”

Finally taking a seat, Mari stretched. “Yeah, that’s true. So I’m gonna do it! I won’t let my dreams be dreams!”

Asuka pushed her glasses up her nose. “Wow. A little late to the party on that meme, huh?”

Mari blinked. “Huh? You know what meme I was referencing? Damn. And I didn’t know that memes have expiration dates.”

“They do,” said Naoko firmly. “Anyway, changing the subject indefinitely.”

“Alright! So. Me and Peter,” Kasumi started. “Are going out.”

“Wow,” Tomo said excitedly, clapping her hands together. “Good for you, girl!”

“I know, right?” Mimori screeched. “Her and Not Drew! Dating!”

“Not Who?” asked Jopi innocently.

Suddenly, Suika got up from her chair and got into the poor girl’s face. “One must know The Pretty,” she said in a creepy tone. “Or else.”

To say the least, it was quite jarring to see Suika emote any emotion that wasn’t stoic. Mari assumed that this Drew/The Pretty character Mimori and Suika were mentioning was a thing that had developed rather recently, as she hadn’t heard much about it.

Wait, wasn’t he that “Chris” character from Charmed that Mimori has been watching recently? Ah, probably.

As Mimori and Suika rambled on and on about this apparently “super cute boy,” Mari bathed in the glory of the derailed conversation. But of course, in the back of her head there lay a worry that was knocking on her consciousness, wanting to be let in.

So to get rid of it, Mari announced her departure to the clubroom, as it was already close to the final bell dismissing the clubs anyway.

“Guys, I’m gonna go home a little earlier tonight, okay?”

Naoko jolted and eyed her friend. Mari knew that from that gesture there was something she wanted to discuss with her.

“Me too,” she added. The wavy-haired girl put the book that she had been reading in her bag and headed out the door with Mari in tow.

★

There was an audible awkward silence as the two best friends walked home together. For the first half of the way, that is. The second half was when things started to pick up between the two.

It wasn’t usually like this, so Mari knew that something was up.

“Hey, Mari,” Naoko said loudly. Well, in the loudest voice she could manage.

Mari, who had an earbud in her ear as they walked home (as she always tended to do), took the remaining one out, and thus the remnants of her musical barrier shattered into pieces.

“Yeah, wassup? Ya finally gonna talk?”

Naoko lowered her head as if to say she was. She then took a deep breath and let it out slowly, stopping in her tracks.

“I don’t think you should voice act for that company.”

Even though Mari had an inkling that Naoko wasn’t a big fan of the whole acting thing, she was still surprised at the confirmation of her thoughts… the reveal. Or was it the kind-of-veal? God, now she was thinking about meat.

“Uh…” was all that could come out of Mari’s mouth at that moment. She stopped in her tracks as well.

“What about our promises?!” Naoko screeched.

Mari’s face turned stone-cold. Wait. What?

“What… promises?” she said softly.

Naoko’s face, which showed a milimeter’s amount of sorrow, turned into a face bearing a slight amount of an emotion that could only be described as, “I got you.”

“You know, as a club. No exposing ourselves? Well, except that one time.”

Brightness came back into Mari’s eyes as she heaved a heavy sigh. She began walking again, and so did her friend. “Yeah, Naoko. I’m aware of that occurrence. But this is my dream! My passion! I’m just gonna play a role or two, that’s all. I’m not breaking that much of the club’s secret code, right?”

Naoko nodded as if finally understanding. “I get that. It’s just… I’m fearing that something really, really bad will happen, like with Kasumi.”

“Nah.” Mari smirked. “Now please,” she said as she put her earbud back in, resuming the music. “Let me live my life as a woman of a gazillion voices, even if for just a little bit.”

Naoko gave Mari her usual stoic look, but she knew that deep down inside, her friend was hurting.

Mari didn’t know what to do about it.

★

Mari thought about the conversation between her and Naoko for the rest of the afternoon. However, it didn’t bring her mood down because her mom had set up an appointment at the voice-acting agency for the day after, which was way sooner than she thought but the sooner the better, right?

It was now the next day. Saturday, to be exact.

“Mari-chan?~” her mom’s voice drilled through her head like, well, a drill.

Mari jerked up from what she was doing, which was tapping her thighs to a familiar rhythm, whilst humming. In her mind, she was playing an intense rhythm game to cure her boredom on the drive there.

Ah, right. We’re on our way to the studio right now. Why was I spacing out?

“What, mom?” she droned, dragging her mind back to reality. “Are we there yet?”

“Um, yeah. We’re actually here right now.”

Mari’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “Wow! Really, are you serious!?”

The girl peered out of the window and found out that her mom was correct.

From the outside, the building looked rather small, but she bet the inside had a bunch of cool recording equipment in it.

As Mari and her mother walked in, they were greeted by a middle-aged balding man with a blue button-up and dark slacks on.

“Hi, I’m Jouta Kakei,” he said formally. “Take a seat, please. Someone will be with you shortly.”

Suddenly feeling like she was going to faint, Mari did what the man suggested and took a seat.

It wasn’t too long after when another man came out of what looked like a recording studio and introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you, Mari Suzuki-san,” the man said, smiling wide, and Mari’s heart skipped a beat because she thought he was rather attractive. “I’m Bunri Busujima, a producer here. Today I’m going to be showing you the ropes, okay? Then soon you’ll get to voice-act in your first show.”

Mari couldn’t help but burst into a smile when she heard him say that.

My dream is finally coming true!

“Is it okay if I come in too?”

“If you wish,” Bunri replied, holding the door open for her. Her mom walked in, with Mari bouncing excitedly behind her.

“Welcome to the voice-acting world!” he said theatrically as the two entered the booth.

Oh, am I ready, Mari thought excitedly, her hands balled into fists.

★

“And then he told me to practice doing some voices and then I got to speak into a microphone and it was such a blast!”

The first thing that Mari did when she got home was to talk to Naoko, of course. Naoko sounded really happy, too (or as happy as a monotone-sounding person could get).

“Yay, good for you,” she cheered dryly. “I still don't think this is a good idea, though. You know how many sin points this is worth?”

“How many?” Mari chided.

“Ten.”

“Ten?!” Mari did a barrel roll on her bed. “Why so many sin points?”

Mari knew about her friend’s strange obsession with “sinning” things that she didn’t like or agree with every day. She assumed that she just picked it up from her dad because he made those Cinema Sins videos. Mari, of course, loved watching them every Thursday and Friday. Admittedly, she thought that Naoko's quirk was cute, albeit sometimes annoying… like in this instance.

“Yes. Ten. And if you’re dying to know why, think about the conversation we had yesterday.”

Mari didn’t want to. She memorized every bit of the conversation by heart, even writing it down in case it eventually slipped her mind.

I get what she’s saying, but… I wanna have more fun with my powers, too! Why can’t she let me have fun?!

Mari sighed. “I know, I know, Naoki. I know it’s an awful idea, but can I please have at least one role in a show?!” That role was being a background character because that’s where just about everyone started.

Naoko sighed, too, sounding even more exasperated than Mari’s brain felt. “You don’t get it, Mari-chan. Even if you have that one role, people can still find out about your impersonation power and you can still lose it. If you wanna see if I’m right or not I can have Tomo teleport Suika over to your house and you can find out for yourself.”

Mari bit her lip. Damn, I never did think about using Suika to show my future before. Does this mean I’m what they call “disappointingly dim?” Fuck.

The auburn-haired girl rolled around in her bed, frustrated, almost dropping her cell phone on the floor in the process.

“You go do that,” she said softly. Her face darkened, which was very unlike her. “‘Because if the world’s still spinning, and I’m still in it…’”

There was a brief silence on each end.

“ … You gonna finish that statement?” Naoko questioned.

“Nope.” Mari then half-giggled. “I just quoted a song, that’s all.” The song in question was one that Mimori shared with her because she thought it was good. It wasn’t metal, but she did like it for reasons that she couldn’t explain.

“Oh. Well, I’m just waiting for you to hang up so I can call Tomo-senpai.”

“What is she, a public transportation system?” Mari chortled and then started cracking up. “Actually, that’d be pretty funny!”

“I suppose,” Naoko said, with not even a drop of humor in her voice. “See ya soon.”

Mari’s face wilted a bit, sad that her friend didn’t find her joke to be as hilarious as she thought it was. “Bye,” she said softly.

Then, in the night’s dead silence, Mari recited another song lyric.

“‘Don’t tell me that’s it over…’”

★

It didn’t take that long for Tomo and Suika to arrive, especially considering how responsive she knew the former was.

That’s why she didn’t bat an eye when Suika and her teleported into the room about two minutes after Mari ended the conversation with Tomo.

“Pardon the intrusion!” Tomo said sweetly, bowing. “Call me when you’re done, okay?” she turned to Suika, gesturing an outdated phone sign.

Suika nodded, although it was just barely noticeable.

“Okay, groovy!” And with that, Tomo was gone, leaving Mari and the creepy, quiet girl by themselves. Well, she wasn’t that creepy, considering that she had light pink hair and that she was in general a nice person, but still… sometimes her stoic face was unnerving in a way that was unlike Naoko’s stone-cold demeanor. Perhaps it was because she could break out into her crazy fangirl mode at any moment?

“So you want to see your future?” Suika said flatly.

“Yes I do,” responded Mari with narrowed eyes, crossing her fingers that Naoko’s hunch was totally inaccurate.

She saw Suika close her eyes for a brief moment. Then, her eyes opened again, this time glowing white. All around her was an eerie pale magenta light.

Luckily this didn’t last very long, only about a minute. Soon after, Suika turned back to normal.

“As I figured,” she said softly. “Your future in voice-acting is pretty bleak. After only one role in an anime, your secret gets revealed to the world and you end up being dissected, as well as the rest of us. In other words, all hell breaks loose.”

Mari’s eyes felt like they widened beyond their capacity, and she felt faint. “Holy crap! That’s scary! Our superpowers get revealed and we get dissected? Holy shit!”

“Yes. It seems that way.” Suika’s face was still unchanging even after what she saw.

That was it. Mari felt like she was going to die, right then and there. She could already feel her organs shutting down.

No more acting. Not even with that one roll. Her voice-acting career was already over and it hadn’t even begun.

“No worries. We can just summon Mimori to fix all of this.” Suika said simply. “You know, with time travel and all that jazz?”

Mari stopped her panicking.

Okay, hearing Suika say “All that jazz” is fucking hilarious, even though the time was pretty poor.

Mari took a deep breath. “Alright then. Let’s do this. Suika, summon Tomo again so we can get this show on the road!”

(Admittedly, Mari would do so but she figured that Suika already had Tomo on speed dial so her doing it wasn’t needed.)

★

It once again did not take that long at all for the teleporting to happen, and Mimori was replaced with Suika in only a matter of a few minutes. But alas, Tomo had to stay because Mimori didn’t have a phone—simply because she didn’t want one—so once they were done with changing history and stuff, Mimori would have to go back home with her.

Alas, poor scrappy?

“You ready to do this, girls?” Mimori quipped, holding both Mari’s and Tomo’s hands.

Mari took a deep breath and let it out. “As I’ll ever be.”

❤

And there they were, back in that stupid grocery store again, a few days ago.

“You ready to pick out some ice cream?” whispered Tomo in Mari’s ear.

“Yeah,” groaned Mari. She looked down to see that she was wearing the same outfit that she wore just two days prior. She assumed that that was also the case for her friends.

As casually as she could, she picked out the same ice cream flavor as she did last time, s’mores.

“Good choice,” remarked Mimori coolly, standing up against the door next to her. Who is she trying to fool?

“Now let’s look for mom,” Mari said determinedly, walking in the opposite direction as Claire was, her friends trailing behind her.

With the stealth of a ninja, Mari snuck up behind her mom and dropped the ice cream carton into her mom’s shopping cart.

Running back up to her friends, who were crouching behind a giant box full of potatoes, Tomo breathed a sigh of relief and turned to her friends.

“Now what?” Tomo wondered.

“Well, I bet you guys don’t wanna relive these last two days over again. I know I don’t.” Mimori smirked but it seemed pained for some reason.

“Then we should go back to the present day,” instructed Tomo.

Mari’s face went blank. “ … Why on earth did we even just make this a discussion when the solution was obvious in the first place?”

As the girls walked into a one-stall bathroom, which was thankfully empty, they held hands once again. Mari noted to herself to wash her hands once they got back for obvious reasons.

❤

Yay! Present day! Mari thought excitedly as her friends disappeared to go back to their own hopefully-not-messed-up-due-to-time-travel-lives.

And what was Mari going to do? Listen to the Toxicity album for the fiftieth time? Nah. Play some Call of Duty on her WiiU? Meh. Call (speaking of that word) Naoko? Yes. And it would be the call, too. None of that prissy crap.

Ring, ring!

Mari’s heart tightened as Naoko answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” she said in her usual drone.

“‘LEMME TELL YOU THE STORY ABOUT THE CALL THAT CHANGED MAH DESTINY!’”

“... Mari? Are you alright?”

Whew. “Yeah.”

“You just quoted the Backstreet Boys. You know that, right? Ding.”

Yes, another song that Mimori shared with her, and another one that she liked for some reason and quoted.

Teasing Naoki’s fun. A smile formed across Mari’s face as the two girls continued to gab for about an hour.

★

Mari felt more than relieved when she went to school on Monday. First off, Naoko and her friends (sans the two she changed history with) had no clue about that voice-acting incident.

And it sucked, you know? But that was the price she had to make for not getting discovered by scientists and getting cut up or whatever. Mari felt tears form in her eyes and rubbed them off on her shirt sleeve.

“So!” Erica announced. “Did anything interesting happen over the weekend?”

Silence.

“You always say that,” Behami complained.

“Same goes for you, always saying that,” Jopi responded, not missing a beat.

Erica pointed at Mari. “What about you, Mari? You seem to be thinking some pretty interesting stuff in that strange brain of yours.”

Mari jerked up. “Ah, NOTHING! It’s nothing!”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Ah, whatever. You’re always crazy. Anyway, I’m going to be traveling back to America for Christmas break, speaking of interesting stuff.”

The girls all gasped.

“What? What about the Christmas party?” cried Asuka. “I’ve been secretly planning it for weeks now!”

“Girls, chill,” said Erica, trying to calm her friends. “I’m leaving when school gets out on the nineteenth. No big deal. We can still have it. Heck, I can even help you guys set it up days in advance!”

Kasumi, who was casually floating in midair, grimaced. “God, I hate getting ready for parties.”

All of the girls giggled, including Mari.

This is the kind of stuff I would miss. Hey, look at me, being selfless! I just saved all these girls’ asses and they don’t even know it!

And so, the Christmas Party episode was on… a day or two earlier than planned.