Episode 6: Time Goes By… So Slowly

“And so, the Christmas adventure of the Can Do Anything Club begins!” shouted Mari over the turbulence of the plane, much to the annoyance of the other people on said plane.

Yes, you heard me (the narrator) right.

The CDAC—the original group, too, including Naoko—were going with Erica to the United States for Christmas break. Asuka, Behami, Suika, Jopi, Ean, and Miharu were barred from going (in the most polite manner possible by Tomo) because Eric wanted it to be an “OG CDAC” trip. The girls understood, luckily.

Erica wasn’t trying to be rude. She just wanted to hang out with the original girls as a celebration of sorts—a celebration of their first six months in the club together, just the six of them.

Six on six, and I’m the sixth member. Heh.

It truly was fitting.

Anyway. This year, Erica’s parents actually had the decency to ask if she wanted to bring any of her friends over to the US (her parents were kinda rich, they had the funds), to which she immediately said “Yes” and started to contact the OG members of the CDAC.

And that was how Mimori, Kasumi, Tomo, Mari, and Naoko were invited on this grand trip to the US… even though it certainly wasn’t their first time going there.

Erica looked behind her after Mari shouted that slightly embarrassing line out loud and saw her parents a row behind her, smiling and grinning at what her friend said.

“Ugh! Mari-chan, please shut up,” Kasumi groaned from her seat by the aisle (across from Erica, no less). “That routine is kinda old now.”

Mari pouted (which was kinda unusual for her) from behind her seat. “I know, but I still feel like saying it every time we’re on a plane! It’s tradition!”

“Ding!” Naoko dinged from right next to her, although this ding! Was quieter than her usual ones. “You don’t have to say it every time.”

Erica’s mom asked a poignant question once the girls were somewhat quiet. “Um, may I ask what the Can Do Anything Club entails? I’ve heard about it from Erica a lot but I’m still not sure what it is.”

Mimori shot an “OH SHIT” look from her window seat next to Kasumi. Erica read her mind and sure enough, that’s what she was saying.

“Oh shit” indeed. What am I gonna say right now?

“Well,” Erica said as carefully as possible. “It’s a club where we go to different places after school and stuff—with all of our money pooled together and all that. And yes, we’ve been on planes before, but only twice and they were for places that weren’t too far away like a different country or something.”

As she was speaking, Erica felt her chest tingle. Glancing across from her she saw Kasumi staring daggers at her. Erica stared daggers back and covered her chest with her jacket that was bunched up to the side of her.

She really didn’t. She really, really didn’t. I get that it’s a joke about Pinnochio but with boobs instead of my nose, ha ha, but this is coming from the same girl who’s almost always adamant about us not showing her powers in public!

… Except for hers, although she hides when she changes her breast size.

“Hm. Sounds like fun,” Erica’s dad added. “What places have you been to?”

Oh god, fucking save me. Please, God of Gab, do your job!

Who she meant by God of Gab wasn’t Mari but actually Tomo, who could talk forever about certain topics (READ: 90s boy bands or anything old) if you prodded her to.

Erica prodded her but not to talk about old stuff.

“Ah, we’ve been to all sorts of places! Like water parks and…”

While Tomo was going on about all that, the sound of other people talking was luckily at a volume that didn’t drown them out nor make them super easy to hear. Erica checked on her breasts again and sure enough, there were about double-ds, definitely not her original size.

It was at that point that the girl wished her power of telepathy could operate back and forth and not just forth.

Wait… I can try.

Erica closed her eyes and focused pretty hard, praying that her message would reach Kasumi.

Kasumi. Can you hear me? If you can please, change me back.

Something that sounded like static echoed through her head while she was saying that and made her flinch a bit.

I mean, it’s my first time using it, after all.

The static quieted down after she said that, only resulting in an occasional pop or two like a VHS tape. That was when she heard Kasumi’s voice, coming in miraculously clear (well the distance they were at wasn’t very far at all either).

Uh… yeah? Erica-chan? Is this an extension of your power or something? Sweet!

Erica chortled and began to think-speak again. Yup, sure is. Let’s gooo! Anyway, anyway. Could you please turn my boobs back to normal? It was a funny joke but I wanna be normal now since we’re on like a plane and stuff. And also… I like my original size just fine! “Medium is premium,” as they say!

Okay, fine, fine. Kasumi sighed somehow in her mind. I’ll turn them back to normal. Kinda sorry ‘bout that, I sorta forgot about what I did tbh.

Wow. She really just said that out loud—er, not actually heh. Erica then realized that she was also transmitting those thoughts to her friend.

I really gotta work out on controlling this new power, whoops!

Kasumi looked at her and rolled her eyes. Yeah. Oops indeed. Anyway, here you go.

Erica felt her chest tingle again, and before she knew it, her breasts were back to regular size.

Nice. That power sure came in handy, especially since there’s no wifi on this plane.

The girl looked back over at Kasumi, seeing that she was now browsing the touch screen that was on the back of someone else’s seat.

“What’cha lookin’ for?” Mimori asked, obviously interested in what her friend was doing, as per usual.

“I’m looking for a movie to watch, duh.” Kasumi said in her snotty tone.

“WHAT MOVIE?!” Mimori screeched, suddenly alert after hearing the words “watch” and “movie.” A look then appeared on her face, showing that she just realized that she needed to be quiet on the plane.

Kasumi sighed as she continued scrolling. “I dunno, some rom-com or drama or something.”

Mimori grimaced, her face getting dark. “Just please don’t watch Mom’s Night Out, whatever you do!”

“Uuuh, I wasn’t planning on it?!”

With that, sentence, Erica went onto iTunes on her phone and put her music on shuffle, sighing and ultimately closing her eyes. She then briefly opened them.

Wait a sec… what has Tomo been doing this whole time?

Looking beside only with her eyeballs, she noticed that Tomo was absorbed in a book—more specifically, a Harry Potter one.

I’ll just leave her at it. She’s clearly enjoying herself right now.

Smiling, she went to sleep.

★

It took almost a whole day but the girls (and Erica’s parents) eventually got there. However, Erica somehow slept for about ten hours on that ride. This alerted her to the fact that she probably didn’t get as much REM sleep as she thought she did.

Also, it was now 10 o’clock in the morning on the day before Christmas Eve. (Her parents chose December 23rd as they knew that her friends would want to experience their own Christmas day too… they were likely going to get home kind of late on Christmas Eve, however.)

After finally getting out of the plane and onto the airport’s tile flooring (while stretching, of course). a smile grew on Erica’s face.

Ah, Michigan. The only other place besides Japan and Antarctica for the coldest weather ever. I’m sure it’ll be fuckin’ freezing outside.

The girl checked her briefly and saw (now that her phone was no longer in airplane mode) that the temperature for the day was a mere 20 degrees (Fahrenheit). Yikes.

Erica cleared her throat and faced her friends, waving her arms up and down for emphasis. “Everyone! Welcome to the land of beautiful weather!”

Her friends either giggled or smirked (Naoko did the latter) as they passed her, following her parents somewhere.

Ah, somewhere. Right, right! My family!

When she said “family” she didn’t mean just her mom and dad—he also meant her aunt and uncle and her cousins… All four of them.

“MOMMY! WHO ARE THEY? WHO ARE THEY WITH ERICUH?!”

That was the first thing she saw (and heard) was Xavier, her obnoxious yet still cute little cousin, age four.

The next thing she heard (and saw) was Mimori freaking out.

“Ohmigod, is that Deryck?!” the girl squealed.

Erica’s eyes followed her friend’s ecstatic face to her other younger cousin, Ben, to discover that he did indeed have spiky blond hair like the singer/guitarist did, but… that was the only similarity. After all, her dad’s side of the family was Puerto Rican and her mom’s side was Japanese (with her mom having been raised in America).

Oh, and as an aside, the girls were under Mari’s magic, so they could speak perfect English. It was a necessity.

“Who?” Ben asked, tilting his head to the side. Erica just wanted to facepalm, so she did a mini one.

Cue Mimori looking aghast. “What? How do you not know who Deryck Whibley is? You look just like him!” Mimori then looked at him more intently. “Um, kinda. Sorta. Uh, sorry.”

Kasumi, who was right next to her, did a double facepalm. “Ohmigod Mimori, can you not? We haven’t even been here for two minutes!”

Ben widened his eyes, probably also because both girls were speaking perfect English. “Oh! Now I know who you’re talking about! He’s the guy from that band Sum 41, right? The guys that do ‘Fat Lip’ and ‘In Too Deep?’”

One of the other cousins, Amy (who was older at age eighteen) chimed in, too. “Oh, I know them! I used to be obsessed with them when I was younger. I think I still have all of their albums.”

Mimori was about to screech but instead let out her classical tea kettle noise. “Ohmigod, really?! Do you have ‘Underclass Hero,’ by any chance?”

Erica decided to ignore them so she could focus on greeting her eight-year-old cousin, Charlotte… who may or may not know about her powers (okay, she totally did. She felt like she had to tell someone in her family).

Charlotte was the perfect one to tell as she was young enough that no one would believe what she said about magic being real.

“Hey, Charlotte!” she said cheerfully. “How’s life been?”

The little girl laughed and gave her a big toothy smile. “It’s fine. And guess what? Mom says that I’m getting a phone for my next birthday! A new one, too!”

Erica smiled as she sighed through her teeth. She looked at the iPhone 5S that she had in her hands, outdated iOS and all.

Geez, back when I was a kid we didn’t exactly get phones for our birthdays… and also, I need a new one soon. AUGH!

After Erica got done exchanging a few more words with her little cousin, she looked at her family and friends as a whole, chatting, and her mind went off into Daydream Land.

Daydreaming about what, you ask? Nothing in particular.

That was when she noticed the big group of people pointing to the exit sign and walking away.

“AH!” she said aloud, a little louder than she wanted to.

“Hey, it looks like you finally realized we’re walking away,” Mari said snidely as she ran up to Erica, bonking her on the head lightly.

“Eh heh heh… Uh, yeah, you’re right.” Erica was going to reply with something snide as well but decided not to.

★

The car ride was something else. Since there were so many people, the people had to split up, meaning that the girls had to be split up also. The place they were driving to first was a hotel to drop off their stuff, and then it was to Erica’s aunt’s house they went.

Before that, though… She had to listen to Mimori, who was next to her and Kasumi, ramble about Cone. As usual, she was insulting him and complimenting him at the same time.

“He’s such a terrible singer, but he’s so cute…! For a lactose-intolerant vegan! God, I hate vegans.”

“Wow,” Amy said from a seat in front of her. “You’re kind of being racist, aren’t you?”

Mimori’s eyes widened as she clasped her hands over her ears. “‘SOMEONE, LIKE YOU!’ Ha-ha, I can’t hear you!!”

Erica sighed as she looked out the window of the car and saw that they were finally pulling up to their driveway. The trip was only twenty minutes but it felt so much longer than that due to her friend’s incessant talking and needing to get into arguments with… herself. Kasumi wasn’t of much help either since she was even telling her friend to shut up for once.

Both girls are just gluttons for punishment, aren’t they? Not to mention masochists of the psychological kind.

“Guys, settle down back there. Everything’s fine, we’re here!” Erica’s dad reassured everyone in the passenger’s seat. Erica’s mom chortled.

Mimori, on the other hand, freaked out about the thing that her dad had just said because it was apparently similar to the first line in a recent blink-182 song that she was obsessed with. Go figure.

The timing of their arrival couldn’t have been any more perfect, however, since the sun was just beginning to set and also no one else was there yet. Upon getting out of the car and doing a quick survey of the block, Erica was correct.

“Do you know when Sherri is going to be coming here?” Erica’s aunt, Diane (who was hosting the party) asked her husband.

Robert looked at his phone and pulled up the Messenger app. “She said in a few minutes,” he clarified.

At that moment a car pulled up in the driveway—none other than Aunt Sherri and Uncle Mike’s.

“Oh, lookie here!” Aunt Dianne said, cackling. “Guess who’s here?”

Mimori inhaled and Kasumi covered her mouth. I wonder what reference she was going to pull out of her ass this time?

“We tried so hard to beat you!” Aunt Sherri cried as she raced up the driveway carefully to avoid the ice.

“Did you hit some traffic?” Erica’s dad asked her aunt (who was his sister) as he kissed his wife on the cheek. Ah, right. Mom was in the other car. It must have been quite a squeeze.

“We sure did,” Uncle Mike replied. “Sherri was experiencing an insane amount of road rage. I’m not joking.” The look on his face told no lies.

“Alright!” Aunt Diane cheered, clapping her hands together once everyone was out of the car. “Let’s go in. Fair warning, though: It’s gonna smell like cinnamon, pine trees, and ham! So if you don’t like that stuff, be warned!”

Charlotte turned to Erica, a stern look on her face. “You’re going to hate it inside. Trust me.”

Erica sighed. She wasn’t the biggest fan of multiple smells going on at once so it was indeed going to be fun.

I should’ve brought a mask with me. That would’ve helped a little bit.

★

Erica did in fact suffer quite a bit upon being in the elf and angel-infested house, but after about half an hour Aunt Diane turned the cinnamon air freshener off so the suffering lessened by one-third.

What a first half hour it was, tooo. She basically just sat there and observed her parents and friends mixing and mingling with one another.

Yes.

Everyone, it seemed like, wanted to hang out with one another—except Erica, that is. Sure, everyone once in a while one of her family members would come up and ask her how school was going on and stuff, to which she lied bald-faced: “Yeah, school is fine, and no, there isn’t anything interesting going on. Just school stuff as usual.”

All except Charlotte, but even she was being preoccupied with Mari teaching her how to make top-tier (also lies) jokes.

Erica was left bored.

In fact, she was so bored that while dinner was finishing being made she felt the desire to go on her phone and draw… and she hardly ever drew.

Erica’s telepathic mind began to wander, and before she knew it, a drawing app was downloaded, and thus the drawing of random things that popped into her head began.

Flowers, stars, dogs, and eventually, some Youtuber that she liked began to fill the scalable blank canvas that was in front of her.

Erica’s boredom was dissipating before she even knew it.

But also before she knew it… dinner was done.

Someone tapped on the shoulder, getting her attention.

“Hm?” Erica looked to her side. It was Charlotte who was standing there, an angelic look on her face.

“Erica, it’s dinner time! You can sit next to me if you want.”

The girl nodded, trying to swipe away the concentration that was left over from drawing in her brain. “Y-yeah, sure! Absolutely!”

Tentatively, she saved the mini project that she was currently working on and put her phone away in her mini backpack, preparing her stomach for the feast she was about to partake in.

★

Dinner was good as expected. It was nothing special—ham, potato salad, dinner rolls, and other various Americanized foods you eat at Christmas time. The girls (amusingly and predictably enough) were perplexed that they didn’t have any KFC, to which Erica told them the cold hard truth.

Thankfully, none of her friends acted particularly embarrassing at the table. Mimori didn’t fangirl about anything, Kasumi didn’t act like a tsundere, Tomo didn’t go on any tangents about old stuff, Mari didn’t impersonate anyone, and Naoko didn’t say ding! aloud (although it looked like she definitely wanted to, multiple times in fact).

It was a Christmas miracle.

Speaking of which, next was the present opening, which she wasn’t looking forward to at all.

In the past, her aunts and uncles always got her stuff that was too immature for her, like Barbie dolls or brightly colored t-shirts with cartoon puppies on them.

Will they learn this time? Erica thought as she gathered around the Christmas tree, bracing for certain death. Her CDAC followed her and sat around her as well.

“I hope you girls don’t mind but I got you a little something as well,” Aunt Sherri said sweetly to the girls. Out of a decently-sized snowflake bag, she took out five chocolate bars. “None of you are allergic to chocolate, right?”

The girls shook their heads as Erica’s aunt gave the five girls their gifts, a thank you coming from each of them. After that, Aunt Sherri got back in the center of the room and shouted excitedly.

“Alright! Present time! Ben, would you be a doll and sort out the presents for us, please?”

Groaning, Ben got up from his comfy seat on the couch and passed out the gifts to all of the family members. Once he was done, Aunt Sherri commenced the present opening in order of age, starting from the youngest.

Yay. I can hardly wait.

Xavier, however, was definitely the most excited, and Erica could get why. After all, he was the youngest in the family and wasn’t picky at all in terms of presents—anything related to toy cars or sports would excite him.

I wish I was that simple.

Her cousin took his good ol’ time opening up his present (which was from Erica’s parents), but it was very cute to watch. Sure enough, he ended up being absolutely riveted by the set of colorful cars he got.

Charlotte was up next, and she got a toy microphone that she was very stoked about. Erica was betting she’d use it immediately after the present opening ceremony was done.

Ben was after her, and he enthusiastically opened an envelope that was also addressed from her parents. Inside was a Roblox gift card, and Erica couldn’t help but roll her eyes at it. I just don’t get it!

It was then Erica’s turn.

Oh joy.

Erica chose the present from her Aunt Diane as the first gift, as she thought hers would be the least cringe, and what she ended up getting was an adult coloring book (its theme being flowers) and a 24-pack of colored pencils.

Huh. What a coincidence because I was just drawing before dinnertime.

Erica smiled and nodded in her Aunt Diane’s direction. “Thank you for this!” she said in an actually excited voice and watched as Amy opened her present.

This is gonna take a long time… as usual. But maybe the gifts won’t be so bad after all?

★

The rest of the present opening ceremony went as she thought it would. The kids got more toys and crafts, Ben kept getting more gift cards (but this time for different online stores!!), Amy got a shit ton of clothing items (of which she somehow actually liked), and when it got to the adults, they got various types of alcohol and cooking wear—oh, and her dad ended up getting a signed football for his favorite team, which was nice.

The other gifts that Erica got from Aunt Diane ended up being a small carrying case for her new colored pencils, and a coffee mug with a cute dog on it even though she wasn’t a coffee drinker.

I’ll still use the mug though. It’s pretty cute.

Meanwhile, Aunt Sherri’s presents were a gray fuzzy sweater, a pale yellow scarf, and a bracelet that caught Erica’s eye.

It was beautiful. Simple yet gorgeous.

It consisted of a bunch of ruby gems cut like spheres that were wrapped around a golden band.

Although she wasn’t exactly a jewelry wearer, it was the perfect gift for her. So perfect, in fact, that she started cracking up.

“What’s so funny?” asked Sherri, grinning at her niece’s laughter.

Erica tried to calm herself down but she still couldn’t help but chortle.

“Just the fact that it’s red,” she said after calming her laugh a bit more. “It’s… kind of my color, I suppose!”

“Oh! Well, lookie there! What a match!”

After that, it was dessert time, which was totally worth it. Her family brought all different kinds of pie over and she took a tiny slice of each one.

Chocolate, cherry, apple, pecan… She was in pie heaven.

Her friends enjoyed it too, and Erica even saw Mari go back for another slice of apple pie—when just about no one was looking, of course.

During all of that, Charlotte was in fact serenading everyone in the house with her truly horrible renditions of Taylor Swift’s entire discography, as well as everything Katy Perry from California Girls onward.

Luckily, they only had to hear that for a little less than an hour because, after that, it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for bed.

Everything has led up to this. This is where the real fun begins!

★

Unlike last time, Erica’s mom borrowed Aunt Diane’s car and drove the girls up there, as the adults were going to spend a little more time over there (no doubt chatting about their ever-so-exciting work and home lives) before they came back to crash at the hotel. With all the carpooling and stuff the girl just wished that they’d get Uber and do it that way (or even better, just use Tomo’s Teleportation Service) but alas, they had to do it the hard and old-fashioned way.

Or, if it was New York, they could just get a taxi. But nope, it’s definitely not New York over here in Michigan… No siree.

Her parents had only rented out one hotel room for the girls so that meant that they were all going to be crammed into one room, and she was okay with that. It wasn’t exactly that cramped. The room had plenty of space, after all.

It was just the beds that were a bit of a problem.

Luckily for the girls, they were queen size beds, which meant that two girls could sleep in each bed. There were also pull-out beds attached to them that didn’t look that bad, so none of them had to sleep on the floor or anything.

The problem arose in the fact that even though the spaces for each position were chosen in the most predictable way possible (Mimori and Kasumi on Bed 1, Tomo on Pull-out Bed 1; Mari and Naoko on Bed 2, Erica on Pull-out Bed 2), Mimori still wasn’t comfortable with sharing a bed with Kasumi.

“It’s just... I toss and turn a whole lot and you’d probably think it’s really annoying!”

However, that probably got solved rather quickly because Kasumi confessed that she rolls around a lot in her sleep as well. Erica was surprised that the girls didn’t know this about each other, but was also glad that they all slept in different beds in the past because this whole ordeal was giving her a headache.

Nonetheless, it was time for fun. Hopefully.

“Okay, girls!” Tomo clapped her hands together in her usual authoritative way. “It’s time for Girl Talk!”

Mimori groaned as she looked up from her phone, eyebrows furrowed. “Ugh, do we have to?” Erica could tell that had just started watching a YouTube video. She could heavily relate to that.

“Yes,” Tomo said in a slightly unusual motherly voice. “We must! We’ve barely talked to each other all day!”

“RIP. Ding!” Naoko said, finally letting out her first verbal ding of the day.

“Hey, it wasn’t all bad,” Kasumi said, shrugging as she lay in bed. “Amy was pretty nice to me. We even talked about music for a bit.”

“Yes,” Naoko responded, nodding. “She has decent taste in music… Although I’m sure you don’t actually listen to most of what she listed out to me.”

Kasumi pouted cutely. “Yeaaah, you’re right. I don’t listen to whoever Death Grips is, I just know them because Mimori knows them.”

“Thought so. They’re a good group. One sin point redacted.”

The girls continued to talk some more (although Erica didn’t understand why they had to be labeled “Girl Talk,” they weren’t talking about love or anything but whatever). Once the clock reached eleven thirty at night, Erica’s parents messaged her telling her that it was time for bed, so she turned the lights out, much to the protest of Tomo and Mari.

How they’re still alive right now is a mystery to me, all the other girls are drained of energy… including me, almost.

★

The key word was “almost.”

God, it’s so hard to fall asleep at a hotel, especially with other people around.

She wasn’t talking about just her friends, either. She could hear footsteps from the hallway, coming from whoever the hell was awake at fifteen minutes past midnight.

Maybe someone else who can’t sleep too…

As Erica rolled around in bed once more, she heard someone whispering.

“Hey, Erica-chan!”

Erica looked up at the bed to see that Mimori was up as well and that she was in fact whispering to her.

“Merry Christmas Eve!”

The girl couldn’t help it. She cracked a smile at her clearly happy friend.

“Merry Christmas Eve to you too, Mimori-chan. Now go to bed!”