Episode 9: All That Shimmers In This World

It was Valentine's Day. Again.

Behami, however, couldn’t care less.

About the moment, she was watching some commentary videos by this one dude that she thought was hilarious. Also, he was British, so his accent made the video 100% better.

Was it lame that she wasn’t into the corporate holiday that involved giving someone you like chocolates? Not really, she figured. After all, not every teen girl alive had to have a crush on a boy—or another girl, for that matter.

“Whatcha’ watchin’, Beha-chan?” Mimori asked. Behami could that she was behind her because she could literally see the girl’s reflection—

Oh, wait. It’s just Mari doing Mimori’s voice for some reason. Ah, the troublemaker.

Heh-heh. I do the same thing thooough!

Behami looked up at her friend and shook her head, grinning.

“What do you think, Mari-chi?” That was a nickname for her friend that she’d been calling her for a while now.

Mari laughed as obnoxiously as possible (Behami figured). “Yeah, I love that dude’s channel. Especially when he recaps what goes on each month! It keeps me updated!”

Mimori piped up in the background. “AHHH!! WillNE?! I love that guy’s videos, innit!”

Kasumi, who was sitting next to Mimori as always, facepalmed. “Yes, Mimori. We know how much you love British dudes doing commentaries.”

“Giiirls!” Tomo clapped her hands together in her usual way, and the girls quieted down immediately.

I wonder what would happen if we didn’t obey her…? Behami shuddered at the thought of it. While Tomo was the least-threatening person she could think of, she also heard horror stories of what would happen to you if you said anything bad about her precious boy bands.

Behami didn’t even want to go there.

“I want to talk to you guys about Valentine's Day,” she said crisply, hands folded on the table. “Are any of you planning on doing anything like going on dates, are we going to have a party? What’s up?”

“Nooo,” Mimori moaned, pouting. “It’s just Singles Awareness Day again… although, wait a second. Me and Kasumi are going to hang out on that day and watch some My Little Pony again.”

“Sorry, Tomo but I’m not exactly in the mood for any parties.” Asuka readjusted her glasses as she said that. “I’m kind of partied out.”

Tomo nodded, a small smile on her face. “I understand what you’re getting at. We can’t have them all the time, after all.” She paused. “So are the rest of you doing anything?”

Kasumi chortled. “Don’t mean to sound like an asshat but why are you asking us the day before Valentine's Day?”

Tomo looked slightly taken aback but then smiled and made the “I’m stupid” gesture. “Silly me! I kinda forgot to ask you guys a few days ago and it just popped into my head today! The days are flying by way too fast!”

The girls murmured in agreement.

As this was all happening, Behami’s face began to flush.

She raised her hand steadily. “Umm… I kind of have something going on tomorrow.”

Now that I think about it, none of us are dating anyone right now…

“Oooh, you do?!” Erica said excitedly. “Pray tell!”

Behami’s face heated up even more. “Umm… one of my gaming friends, Ichiro, invited me out to hang out tomorrow as a sort of Singles Awareness Day kind of thing. I-it’s not a date or anything like that!”

God, I sounded really tsundere right there.

Kasumi pursed her lips together while her eyes narrowed smugly. “Huh. What an auspicious event!”

“Wooow, that was a big word!” Mimori said, eyes wide.

“You didn’t even use it right,” Asuka groaned.

Mari cleared her throat. “Hm. Truly auspicious indeed, yeees?” she then said in her most haughty middle-aged British woman voice.

Behami giggled a little and then continued to speak. “Like I said, we’re both just friends. We don’t have feelings for each other or anything.”

“Mm-hmm…” Erica said this while raising her eyebrows.

Tomo clapped her hands together and tilted her head to the side. “It sounds pretty romantic to me, though!”

Behami smirked while still blushing and went on her phone to confirm the “date” with Ichiro.

I don’t have any feelings for him at all. He’s just a friend.

She didn’t even find him attractive. In fact, he was not the kind of guy she would have as a boyfriend.

They were just going to be two dudes hanging out… just one of them female (so dudette).

Ichiro responded rather quickly. Yup. Still on. Mom’s picking you up.

They decided to meet up at Honsho Street near her hometown, which was filled with a bunch of fancy restaurants and some cool stores. The stores that they were planning on going to in particular were ones for, of course, nerds.

… And yes, Ichiro’s mom was indeed picking them up.

I hope his mom isn’t super embarrassing or anything.

The girl responded with a thumbs up and turned her phone screen off, putting it back in the pocket of her backpack.

And then, it hit her.

Oh, God. I gotta shapeshift into my disguise too.

That was the one thing she was actually worried about. Everything else seemed like child’s play.

Shapeshifting into another girl (that didn’t actually exist) sounded like a good idea at first glance, but now she was living a partial lie… something she didn’t like.

Why did I do this to myself? Why couldn’t I have just thought like any sane being does?

That was her problem—she simply didn’t think about anything.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered to herself as she played with the ends of her braided hair. “I should tell him.”

Behami hoped Ichiro wasn’t too underwhelmed by her actual appearance.

★

Breathe in, then out. In, then out.

“Fwooo…”

Behami was calming herself by steadying her breathing as she was waiting in her driveway for her friend to come. Lucky for her all her parents saw her in a nice and formal outfit—a black dress with a white ribbon around the waist.

“Lucky” in a sense that recently, she discovered that she could limit her shapeshifting to a select number of people if she wanted to—and right now, she did want to, for her parents especially. The dress was the only thing that they saw on her that was from her shapeshifting. (Her shoes were, dorkily enough, still a pair of black and white Adidas. Hey, at least they sort of matched)

To her eye, and everyone else’s eyes, however…

She was still in her gyaru form, even for this event.

… Well, for the majority of it, anyway. The whole reason why Behami was trying to control her breathing was because she was going to her true form at the end of the “date.”

And I’m so fucking nervous, oh my God…

Ichiro’s mom’s car finally pulled up into the driveway, and Behami’s heart rate quickened.

Oh lordy, here we go…

The car window rolled down to reveal the mother, who looked the girl up and down at an insane rate and then smiled broadly.

“Hello, there! Nice to meet you, Behami! You can get in the back, that’s where Ichiro is!”

Behami nodded and went into the back to find her seat. The car was luckily fairly clean and there wasn’t any trash on the floor (unlike her parents’ cars) so she didn’t have to worry about stepping on anything. She looked down at her fake form and sighed in relief.

Good. She didn’t say anything about my massive honkers… at least out loud.

The mother pulled out of the driveway and they were off to Honsho Street, which according to the GPS she had up on her phone was a thirty-two-minute drive, give or take some traffic.

After a couple of minutes, the mother spoke again.

“Hey, do you guys want any music? I’m not opposed to anything, any station is fine!”

This mom is totally chill. I really fuckin like her!

“I do, I do!” Ichiro shouted. Behami jolted a bit. “101.1 please!”

“Alright, 101.1 it is! Unless you have any objections, Behami-chan?”

Behami shook her head, which the mom saw through the rearview mirror.

“Okay! Let’s do this, then!”

With an overdramatic press of a preset button, the station was turned on, and the first song they were greeted with was one by a band called Royal Blood.

★

The drive went perfectly well, and Behami wished to herself that the rest of the day would continue to go this way, too.

Now here comes the fun part!

The day would go as such: Behami and Ichiro are dropped off at Honsho Street while his mom goes clothes shopping at a mall a few miles away (apparently she took forever to go shopping too, so that was even more perfect). The two would then go out to eat and then do some shopping themselves.

And then… at the end of the “date” and before his mom picks us off and drops me off, I reveal to him my identity…

Easy as pie. Surely nothing would go wrong, right?

My life isn’t that much of a drama show.

Once the two teens were out of the car, Ichiro cleared his throat and faced Behami, smirking.

“So glad Mom didn’t say anything about your, umm… chest.” The boy bobbed his head to it, making Behami blush a little.

“Uh, yeah. Me too.” She giggled nervously. That would’ve been awkward. “Is your mom usually chill like that?”

Ichiro chortled. “Yeah. All the frickin’ time. And she’s usually pretty perverted too, but looks like this time she showed restraint because you’re my own female friend.”

“Ah, yeah. Okay, okay. I get it now.” Behami changed her posture a little and looked around at that street.

The street itself, which she remembered her parents driving down before but never really paid much attention because she was on her phone, was rather packed and adequately sized. Unlike the malls that she’s been to before, they actually had more stores to offer that didn’t just sell clothes.

Awesome. A street made for us.

There were stores for music, video games, figures, manga, and even a toy store that Behami was tempted to go into to get some Pokémon cards.

But what should we eat…?

Before Behami could say that phrase, Ichiro beat her to it.

“So where should we go to eat? There’s a lot of places around here.” He paused. “Also, just because it’s Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean we have to go anywhere fancy.”

Behami focused her attention on the restaurants that surrounded her, and the first one she laid eyes on was…

A pizza place.

Welp. I already know where I want to go.

The girl pointed at the building, a dumb grin on her face. “Pizza!”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I was thinking about that place too.” He chuckled and scratched his hair.

It was then that Behami realized that he didn’t even put any effort into dressing up. His outfit was simply a black t-shirt with some baseball team on it and jeans. His hair was messy, implying that he didn’t even brush or style his hair before he went out.

Typical boy stuff. Ah, well. At least I look nice.

Well, Behami was originally going to show up all casual too, but she figured her fake form wouldn’t dress like that so she had to get into the spirit of her character… That was 95% her anyway.

With a coordinated fist pump (unintentionally, funnily enough), the two teens went into the restaurant to go chow down on some pizza.

★

The pizza restaurant was almost filled to capacity, but fortunately for Behami and Ichiro, they still had room for two more people to sit at a high-rise table—one of her favorite furniture pieces besides those really cool bubble chairs that apparently used to be pretty popular in the early 2000s (according to Mimori who showed her one before).

The waitress brought glasses of water along with a Sprite for Behami and a Coke for Ichiro. After she was gone, the friends were left to chat about what they were going to get.

“Hmm…” Behami looked at the menu, mouth screwed up to the side like a certain someone (Cone, that is). “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. Do you like pepperoni?”

“Yeah, I don’t see a problem with that.” Behami drew a deep breath in and drew it out slowly. “I’d say pepperoni and ham. Sound good?”

“Two pork products, huh?” Ichiro smirked, shaking his head. “Sounds good, I like it.”

The waitress came back and Ichiro put in the order for the pizza. They decided on no appetizers because the pizza they ordered was eight slices and, as the pigs they were, were going to split it.

After all, I have a stomach like a fuckin black hole.

There was one question left to ask, however…

“Who’s going to pay for this? Are we splitting halfsies?”

“Umm… Yeah, that sounds about fair to me. I mean, we probably both have a decent amount of money on us, right?”

Behami nodded. She had a little over a hundred dollars on her from some chores that she’d do around the house and odd jobs that her next-door neighbors gave her, like letting their dogs out and mowing their lawn in the summertime (they are infamously lazy but nice people).

I’d have more but I spent it on a video game last week, ha ha…

Behami wished she could get a debit card, but her mom wouldn’t let her get one until she was eighteen for some reason.

Fuck the slow process of aging. I wanna be eighteen right now… sorta!

Now the two were left at their table in silence. Behami looked as Ichiro went on his phone and started browsing reddit.

Hmm… I gotta break the silence somehow…

“So, um!” Behami tried initiating a conversation at random. “How’s school been for you lately?”

Ichiro looked up from his phone (a win!) and blew air through his nose. Behami assumed that was his attempt at a laugh.

“It’s been alright. The club I’m in after school is a lot of fun, though.”

“Oooh!” Behami was enticed. “What’s it about?”

“Video games,” he said casually. “I mean, what else would it be about?”

“Right, right. What else?” The girl stuck her tongue out and blurted the next line out. “I’m in a club, too! It’s called the Can Do Anything Club!”

Ichiro raised an eyebrow at that statement. “The… Can Do Anything Club?”

Oh, shit. What did I just do? Not think, that’s what I just did!

“Um, u-uh…” Behami stuttered and stumbled until she could reach an answer that would fit the current situation. “It’s just a club where my friends and I do whatever we want, hence the name.”

“Ah, okay. So like a chill club, got it. Mine’s kinda the same way.”

Phew. Behami breathed a sigh of relief and decided to switch the conversation to something that wouldn’t have the boy ask her more questions.

“So what stores should we go to after this?”

★

The pizza was pretty delicious, Behami had to admit. It had just the right amount of sauce on it, and there was so much cheese that she had to handle the yummy, gooey pieces every time she took a bite. (As in, she had to hold the cheese so that it didn’t come off her pizza. It also stretched pretty far).

After that amazingly filling dinner, it was finally time for the teens to shop until they dropped (probably because of how much they ate, too).

The store that they decided to go to first was actually a manga shop, as Ichiro wanted to try out the first three volumes of Attack on Titan as he said to Behami, “I wanna see what the hype is all about.” She didn’t have a problem with this at all.

Actually, I should probably get into some manga too. I’ll see what they have!

The store, in Behami’s eyes, was stacked to the brim with all sorts of books. And luckily, the sections for each genre were handily labeled, pictures and all.

“Now what should I get…?” She murmured to herself.

“I’ll be looking in the shonen section,” Ichiro called out, gesturing toward the section in question. Behami nodded and watched him head in there, touching the spines of the books with a single finger.

Weirdo. Why does he gotta touch them all? Does he have OCD or something?

Smiling and sighing, Behami headed to the Best Sellers section to see if she could get any ideas for what series she wanted to get into.

“Hmm-hmm-hmm…” She hummed to herself as she looked at the ten series that were sitting in front of her.

I know that Mimori likes cute shit and Suika likes yaoi but I don’t think I’d be into any of these…

Right as she found a series that remotely interested her (it was called God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World!, what a mouthful), someone tapped on her shoulder.

“Ichiro?” she said as she turned around. The person she saw, however, was not Ichiro in any way, shape, or form.

The boy standing in front of her wasn’t even a boy—it was a grown-ass man.

A man who, in her eyes, was the epitome of geekdom: Tall and lanky, with greasy hair. The look on his face gave Behami the impression that he was checking her out.

“You’re into that series too?” the man said, voice trembling.

“Ah no. I’m actually going to buy the first two volumes today and see if I like it.”

“Nice!” the man gave her a thumbs-up and walked off.

Oh God, that was so close to turning into something horrific. I actually can’t wait to get out of this form…

… Even though I like having big breasts—but not in public though.

After that incident, Behami saw Ichiro coming up from a different shelf of manga, labeled seinen, with a look of concern on his face.

“What was that?” he asked, ultimately curious.

“Just a dude checking me out,” Behami remarked unenthusiastically.

★

The rest of the “date” went perfectly fine. Nothing extremely interesting happened at all (aside from that one dude who totally wanted to say more things to her than just if she was into that manga or not), although Behami betted that more than a few guys with their girlfriends or wives out on dates were giving her the eye.

She just wished that she didn’t choose such an attractive form to prance around in.

… It was too late now, though.

And it all ends right now.

Behami did not in fact expose her identity to Ichiro in public—that was an awful idea, and if she had learned anything from that day it was to not only think before she spoke but also before she acted.

And so, she revealed her true identity to Ichiro in her bedroom at her house, after his mom dropped her off there.

The excuse given? “I want Ichiro to borrow this game that I really like.”

That was how she ended up in her current situation.

“Ichiro, there’s something I wanna tell you about myself…” Behami’s voice trailed off as her face became all red again.

“Um, okay?” Ichiro cocked his head to the side innocently. “Are you like, gay or something? What’s up?”

“W-w-what?!” Behami’s face grew even redder. “No, no I’m not! Just because I’m a self-proclaimed tomboy doesn’t mean that I’m gay! No, I’m straight!”

“Ah. Okay.” A small smirk formed on Ichiro’s face.

“No, it’s just that I’m well, um… Just observe.”

With a closing of her eyes, Behami thought of morphing back into her original form, t-shirt and jeans and all (the shoes she already took off).

When she opened her eyes, Ichiro’s mouth dropped.

“Damn! What the fuck?!”

“A-are you freaked out or something?!” The nerves that were already in her body continued to spread.

“No! Well, um, yeah! But… is that really you? O-or was the other girl…?”

“This is the real me,” Behami said, pointing to her small chest (unintentionally, actually). “I’m sorry if it’s a little disappointing. I used the other form because I just wanted to have fun being someone else for a change, but I kinda got carried away with it!” She raised her arm up and scratched her hair nervously.

“Oh. Um. Well, you’re still pretty, even if you don’t have those giant tits anymore. Gyarus aren’t really my thing anyway.”

Behami giggled awkwardly. “W-well, good! Regular me’s just tan because I like to spend a lot of time outside playing my handheld games and stuff. I’m not actually a gyaru or anything. Like I said, I just wanted to try being one.”

Ichiro blinked. “Well, that’s cool and all but… how the fuck did you transform like that?!” He said that last bit in a hushed voice.

Behami let a deep breath out and drew a new one in. “The Can Do Anything Club. Please, please don’t tell any of your friends this but… all the girls in the club, including me, have superpowers. The name came from my fellow member and friend Mari and it sums up our club pretty accurately.” The girl was proud of the fact that she said all of that in a single breath.

Ichiro was silent for a moment, eyes still wide. “Well. Okay. Basically you just told me that fuckin’ magic is real.”

Behami giggled again. “Well, it is! We got all of our powers from the science club at our school—don’t ask about that—and voila! Superpowered girls.”

There was a brief pause.

“That’s fuckin sick,” Ichiro said. He then looked out her window to his mom still in her car in the driveway. “Well, I gotta go. Next time I see you though, you should try shapeshifting into some video game characters. That would be sick!”

Behami nodded and then remembered the excuse she gave Ichiro’s mom. Thinking fast like she usually did, she grabbed a copy of Dark Souls III from her pile of games and handed it to him.

“Here. Here’s a game, just take it for now. I don’t wanna be a total liar to your mom now, right?”

Ichiro chortled and took the game. “Yeah, sure. I’ll return it to you next time we meet. Hope you don’t miss it!”

“I won’t, don’t worry!”

Behami showed Ichiro out the door and after she did that, she saw the first two volumes of Konosuba (the series’ nickname) still on the steps.

“Ah, right. I gotta take care of those.”

The girl smiled and went back up into her room.